i really haven’t bought much music in a very long time. partly a ‘poor student’ money thing but also it’s a lot of work to sit and discover good stuff… having a car is especially good because you can drive around listening to the radio and enjoying the spoils of some djs hard work.

hence two weeks ago…

i subscribed to rrr-fm again for the first time in year. i’m loving having a car!

one week ago…

i went to Polyester in the city (how convenient!) and bought the new Ratatat, two of Au Revoir Simone’s, and the Brunette’s new one.

Ratatat are awesome vintage synths in funky dancey irresistable pop not completely unlike Daft Punk. in a way the new album may be a bit of a rehash, less magical than the first two. These guys and The Notwist were the only things I bought in 2008…. sad i know. The Brunettes one is a bit weird, i’ll come back to it in a year when i have no expectations, i really just wanted songs rather than experiments in mono and stereo…. Au Revoir Simone play casios, so I should automatically love them except they’re a bit polished, both in look and sound. Three unnaturally tall, model-skinny girls all with long straight hair.

Actually this is a peeve of mine lately… how polished and ‘Styled’ bands seem to be, even the indie ones… you think you’ve found something really genuine and beautiful and then find out they’re signed to a major, major, major label and their song is used in a car ad…. it all just feels a bit cheap and nasty. i prefer the old days when bands had to pretend they hadn’t sold out in order to sell a record…. mmmm the nineties!

and today….

today I bought Lali Puna which is playing now and i LOVE it unreservedly, it’s all related to the German family of The Notwist along with Ms John Soda and a bunch of other artists. and the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs which i’ve only heard the single Zero but I love that it’s more electronic, I think they do that well, plus they use my beloved Microkorgs!

next it’s the adventures of last.fm

SO much going on! but my becoming more and more wary about privacy makes it harder to post. The fact that i cant go out anymore without someone snapping a horrible photo and putting it online and linking it to my ‘online profile’ without ever once consulting me, makes me wish i had gone down the path my best friend took of never uploading images of herself online or ever using her real name, or ever letting herself be photographed… a quick google of me will show you that indeed after 14 years of being highly active online i do indeed exist digitally and now what was once a joyous thing of a truly unique name, has become a curse.

but enough of that.

i have my left hand in a cast – from a simple fall. i am left handed. hence possibly poor sentence construction, typing and punctuation. the cast comes off queen’s b’day weekend, fortunate since that’s the week I head to Canberra to stalk a librarian and reacquaint with my birthplace, then flap my way up to Brisvegas to stay in gorgeous apartments (i wont link them in case you have horror stories to tell) and hang out with my bestest buddy and generally unwind.

and why would a girl like me need to unwind, you ask? well i’ve been doing two jobs since March – full time in my dream role of running a library website as well as liaising as Science Librarian. while doing my backup dream job of teaching at university. i must say it’s all a bit overwhelming with both jobs quite new, one arm and 16 assignments to mark!

but i’ve been taking the time to reflect just how i got here. from unemployed, hopeless, struggling with a direction, health threatening to pack in on me, to having a decent job that pays well and possibly even a career path. the answer is luck and parents who let me study in their house again. i feel i can no longer wear the title of ’slacker’. not that I ever did, i just felt deep down that I identified with the cynical generation x, and that that was where I would always belong in society. yet society has won. i fill a grown up role.

This isn’t really a problem for me, this has been a gradual change over the last 5 years. My only gripe is how time-poor I have become. plus the fractured wrist doesn’t help much with the creative endeavours… i have a lot more cash to spend on other’s creative endeavours though. and since I got a car last month (again the greenie within withers a little) i am able to listen to new music on the radio and learn that Ratatat and the YYYs both have new albums. And maybe even explore new stuff if i find time to get to Polyester and listen to Au Revoir Simone at length.

The car (second hand & fuel efficient) is amazing, i get a lot more done with the little time that is mine. I feel the conversion will be complete when my RRR-FM sticker arrives in the mail and gets slapped on my rear window proudly. I was able to fossick for shoes that are comfortable, jeans that fit, and discover after 15 long years the elusive long sleeve under shirt in a variety of colours, all due to my ability to travel from one shopping hive to another.

My newest obsession, is tied with my job: pop science books. I have now “The World Without Us” to read about how the earth would change if all humans disappeared today. In fact I have been lusting over about 15 of these books and borrowed another five that I have no time to read – hell i’m still stuck on page 30 of the latest Jasper Fforde (why is the cover so ugly?? and actally it seems he’s got a newer one out now “Shades of Grey”) i keep falling asleep after a couple of pages. This is what separation from public transport does to you.

These are some of the titles that caught my eye while fossicking the shopping hives:

 
[i've taken to taking photos of books with my cancermaker, so i can research later, since there are far too many to buy on the spot]

And before the next paragraph which many of you will resent me for and will give you that one final reason to quickly delete my feed, (at the very least for the overly long post!) I’ll tell you that I got a full legal copy of Adobe Master Collection CS3 thru work, extremely cheap, which makes my inner geek soar with delight – this blog is definitely due for a revamp this year! Don’t mention CS4 I’ll only snub you!

My final recent life revelation is that I have become a stricter vegetarian again after watching McLibel (by the way i’m not buying anything from amazon, just linking for convenience) and there was this section in which I watched cows and chickens being electrocuted, gassed, skinned, hung, burnt, and tossed away like so much garbage. It reminded me why I’m vegetarian, why i have been for 18 years – because I choose not to participate in such activities on a daily basis. While the rest of the world shuts their eyes and says “I don’t want to know”, they choose for this to continue to happen, they make it happen. And the next time I’m asked why I am vegetarian that will be my answer, not the palliatives I’ve been giving to make people feel comfortable around me, and comfortable with what they’re doing, yet they cannot bear to look at it, discuss it, or admit it.