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dc_girl
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Name: Margaret
State: Pennsylvania
Birthday: 3/12/1983
Interests: Books. Music. Coffee. Beer. Redemption.
Expertise: Collecting things with very good intentions of doing something cool and artsy with them later.
Spending money on music, books, and beverages.
Speaking up and regretting it immediately.
Not speaking up and regretting it later.
Occupation: Research
Industry: Health
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  siSauvee
Member Since:
4/28/2003
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| Best Shows of 2007 in no real order:
Josh Ritter -- Diesel -- Pittsburgh PA
Anathallo -- Calvin College -- Grand Rapids MI
Menomena -- Lawrenceville Moose -- Pittsburgh PA
Over the Rhine -- The Lime Spider -- Akron OH
Black Moth Super Rainbow -- Three Rivers Arts Festival -- Pittsburgh PA
Great Lake Swimmers -- Garfield Artworks -- Pittsburgh PA
Grizzly Bear -- Andy Warhol Museum -- Pittsburgh PA
Ben Harper -- Byham Theatre -- Pittsburgh PA
My Brightest Diamond -- Andy Warhol Museum -- Pittsburgh PA
The National -- The Rex -- Pittsburgh PA
Andrew Bird -- Carnegie Music Hall -- Pittsburgh PA
Best Albums of 2007 in a very intentional order:
There are glaring omissions in this list. (e.g. Josh Ritter, Panda Bear, etc.)
Feel free to call me a lame hipster. According to this list, that's exactly what I am.
10.  Low -- Drums and Guns
I don't know any other Low, so I can't speak to how this relates to the rest of their stuff. Actual fans aren't real impressed with this and are annoyed by how short most of the tracks are. But I just don't care. I like it and will definitely check out more of them.
Stand-out track: "Murderer"
9.  Andrew Bird -- Armchair Apocrypha
A darker follow-up to his 2005 release. Mentioning this guy around Malone people will result in double-takes, especially when saying how great he is. (Enunciate.)
Stand-out track: "Imitosis"
8.  New Pornographers -- Challengers
Canadian band featuring Neko Case's stunning vocals. I like this album better than their '05 Twin Cinema. It's more chill and a little... smoother. Tight harmonies.
Stand-out track: "Adventures in Solitude"
7.  Feist -- The Reminder
Leslie Feist is one of those Broken Social Scene members doing solo stuff on the side, and this is her second(?) effort. You may have seen it on a rack at Starbucks or on an iPod commercial. She apparently recorded much of this on a balcony in Paris. This album pleases everyone, including a van full of teenagers. I don't recommend driving to it unless you are very, very awake. And especially not right after lunch when driving a van full of teenagers, unless you want to drift off... onto the rumble strips.
Stand-out track: "I Feel It All"
6.  Modest Mouse -- We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Another generous offering. So solid. So smart. So dark.
Stand-out track: "Parting of the Sensory"
This is the part of the list where it gets hard for me. To some extent, the top five slots feel arbitrarily ordered.
5.  Of Montreal -- Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
The name is a lie; they're from Athens, Georgia. This is a synth-laden break-up record that demands attention and makes you dance your pain away. The slow build-up to the album's climax blows my mind. Yeah, I know what that sounds like.
Stand-out track: "We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling"
Stand-out lyric (from "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider"): Eva, I'm sorry/But you will never have me/To me you're just some faggy girl/And I need a lover with soul power/And you ain't got no soul power
4.  The Arcade Fire -- Neon Bible
I might technically enjoy the Of Montreal album more, but Arcade Fire gets this spot for being so much more thoughtful and relevant (though the cynicism gets a little old). This is a bigger sound than we're used to from these guys; some might attribute that to their touring with U2 in huge venues. Just compare "No Cars Go" from the 2003 EP to the nakedly ambitious version on this album. Then there's opening "Intervention" with a church organ, speaking of ambitious. And the implicit assertion that there's a difference between the Bible being "right" and the Bible being "true". And the out-of-nowhere closer, "My Body is a Cage", which features a wordless chorus and more organ. I could go on and on.
Stand-out track: "Intervention"
Stand-out lyric (from "The Well and the Lighthouse"): Resurrected living in a lighthouse/If you leave/Them ships are gonna wreck/Resurrected living in a lighthouse/The lions and the lambs ain't sleeping yet
3.  The National -- Boxer
More evidence of the musical superiority of Brooklyn, New York. Piano with two time signatures at once and deep, captivating vocals open this album. More mature and cohesive than the 2005 album Alligator. Drums are excellent throughout, there's a good dose of piano, and there's even judicious use of an accordian.
Stand-out track: "Brainy"
Stand-out lyric (from "Slow Show", and sung along to by lonely hipsters everywhere): You know I dreamed about you/For 29 years before I saw you
2.   Radiohead -- In Rainbows
There's so much to say about this, so to get myself under control, I'll use a list.
Three reasons why In Rainbows gets a top spot:
1. Truly good songs, plus after a four-year drought, it just seems especially good.
2. Revolutionary distribution method. (Though regular-type CD will be released on January 1.)
3. This is the fullest imaginable realization of what should logically be next from Radiohead. More straight-forward than anything since The Bends, but far more mature.
1.  Menomena -- Friend and Foe
I feel like I need to defend my position here, that Menomena in fact beats The Best Band on Earth for my favorite album of 2007. The album artwork is totally amazing. I don't know who to compare Menomena to. It feels so fresh every time I hear it. The bass sax is great. The production is impressive. The lyrics are thoughtful.
Stand-out track: "Wet and Rusting"
Stand-out lyric: The hope can be painful/I'll try to be faithful/It's hard to take risks/With a pessimist
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| Since the last time I wrote, I . . .
-- applied for, interviewed at, and got rejected from (yet another) graduate program (not med school this time).
-- observed that perhaps half of my meaningful interactions were with people who are not white.
-- went to a ridiculous number of great shows, including (but not limited to) Josh Ritter, Grizzly Bear, David Bazan, My Brightest Diamond, and the Polyphonic Spree.
-- smoked a couple cigarettes. Socially.
-- enjoyed a short-lived somewhat-unwise quasi-romantic relationship that ultimately caused me to pursue Christ more.
-- awoke at 4am to the sound of someone breaking into my apartment. And entering it.
-- began dreaming up a completely new career path for myself.
I'll be in Ohio--both the northwest and northeast corners--for at least a good solid week pretty soon... the 21st till possibly the 1st.
Coming soon: My Top Ten Albums of 2007!
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| Currently listening to:
(I can't/won't stop listening to this. You probably shouldn't either.)
So for the first time in years, I decided that I would regularly watch a tv show: The Office. I have been faithful.
Last night I saw Josh Ritter play on the Southside of Pittsburgh. I wasn't really a fan before, but it just may make it into my top five shows of the year (though there are so many left!). Oh, and I'm definitely a fan now.
I just finished Catcher in the Rye for the first time since high school. Old Holden Caulfield. That kid sure is self-absorbed, and he doesn't even know it. Because that's how that works.
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| This afternoon I was busy at work entering survey responses into a database. I rather welcome it because I can almost completely attend to whatever is coming through my headphones, though lately, I've often wanted to be doing something, well... a little more meaningful.
Coming through the headphones at a time when one of those thoughts was in the back of my mind was an episode of This American Life, and a particularly jarring little soundbyte:
Most of us are toiling away at daily work that doesn't seem as important to us as the ambitious dreams we have for ourselves. We're convinced that we're not living up to our potential, that there's a better part of ourselves that just hasn't expressed itself yet. Until our lives are over and what's left is that daily work -- whatever it is.
Annie Dillard agrees:
Yours is a holy work on earth right now, they say, whatever your work is, if
you tie your love and desire to God. You do not deny or flee the world,
but redeem it, all of it -- just as it is.
In other news, I have branched out from Xanga and created a blog that will discuss the many ways it sucks to be an adult whose parents get divorced. There aren't many resources for people in this situation, so I want to be one for people. I imagine it will seem like VentFest2007 for a while, which I support as most everything else I've found on the subject can be summed up like this: "It was hard, but Jesus healed us all!!!!!" Which, uh, is real great, and will hopefully be true for me sometime. But that time is not now, near as I can tell. Anyhow, my point is that if you are interested in reading up on the subject of what it is like to join the broken home club a little late, then let me know, and I'll send you the link when I'm ready to go public.
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| I just spoke to my grandma. She told me that -- summer be damned! -- when I see her on Friday, we are going to dip special Italian bread into homemade vegetable soup. Soup! The first thing she's been hungry for in months!
When did I need to leave? she wanted to know, her voice unfamiliar and approximating that of any other woman I might make plans with. "Well I'm gonna get coffee with a professor sometime that afternoon," I told her.
"You say you're gonna get comfy with a professor?" On the sidewalk holding my cell phone, I had to stop walking. Have we ever laughed together like that?
Six days ago, my grandma stood next to a hole and a pile of dirt, clutching a box containing the carbon atoms that had previously composed her husband.
What will she sound like when she finishes bringing all 53 years' worth of paint cans up out of the basement?
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