Ulrich Schnauss seems to have played with half the people in Shoegazerdom, from Mojave 3 to Asobi Seksu. Here’s “Clear Day” from one of his solo works, which sounds a bit like Malory.
Shoegazer Sunday: Ulrich Schnauss’ “Clear Day”
February 1st, 2015Library Additions: Two R. A. Lafferty-Related Works
January 26th, 2015Pick up two new R.A. Lafferty items in the last week:
Shoegazer Sunday: Creepoid’s “Yellow Wallpaper”
January 25th, 2015Creepoid hails from Philadelphia. I’m guessing this song is based on the Charlotte Perkins Gilman story of the same name.
It’s been a busy week, so that’s all the context you’re gonna get…
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” Covered Dixieland Style
January 24th, 2015It brought a smile to my face, which is enough to merit a quick and lazy Saturday link.
Junk Food Review: Salted Caramel Moon Pies
January 21st, 2015This is part of Things I Shouldn’t Be Eating: A Continuing Series.
I found this at an HEB:
A Salted Caramel Moon Pie.
Obviously I had to pick it up.
How does it taste?
I wouldn’t waste your money. It tastes like a Banana Moon Pie without the banana, so it still has that faint artificial petrochemical tang, a faint hint of caramel, and a tiny bit of salt.
That’s not good enough.
The Banana Moon Pie is a nostalgic taste from childhood I occasionally indulge in. By comparison, the Salted Caramel Moon Pie is just a disappointment.
When I want a subtle dessert, I’m not reaching for a Moon Pie. I want the the sweet junk food rush of caramel to hit my tongue like jackhammer. The Salted Caramel Moon Pie doesn’t deliver.
Product Endorsement: Working Hands
January 19th, 2015Because I walk my dog mornings and evenings, every winter my knuckles would crack and blister from the nylon leash loop chaffing them in the cold, even through gloves. I tried various over-the-counter lotions to alleviate this, but none helped much.
Until now.
O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Cream actually solves the problem entirely. I put a tiny dab on my knuckles before gloving-up for an outdoor walk, and I haven’t had any cracking or blistering since I started using it. It’s also pretty cheap, and is effective in such tiny amounts that the one container I bought should last me at least two or three winters easy.
If you have the same problem walking your dog or working outdoors in the Winter, I suggest giving it a try.
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s “Silver Screen”
January 18th, 2015Yes, it’s another song from Slowdive’s great lost album. You got a problem with that?
Expect a bit more blog activity this week…
Shoegazer Sunday: Jellybelly’s “Illusion Dreams”
January 11th, 2015Here’s another bite of Indonesian shoegaze band Jellybelly:
And is it just me, or do the intro chords to “Illusion Dreams” sound an awful lot like a down-tuned version of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”?
It’s a pleasant piece, though the female harmonies need a little work…
Reminder: Don’t Try Driving on Ice
January 9th, 2015Austin is going to hit lows in the 20s and low 30s this week, so here’s a timely reminder: Don’t try driving on ice if you don’t have tire chains and don’t know how. (Or maybe even if you do.)
And here are several video reminders from the last year of why that’s a bad idea:
Literary Forger Lee Israel Dies
January 8th, 2015Lee Israel has died. Who? She published a number of biographies, but that’s not what she’s best known for:
In the early 1990s, with her career at a standstill, she became a literary forger, composing and selling hundreds of letters that she said had been written by Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, Noël Coward, Lillian Hellman and others. That work, which ended with Ms. Israel’s guilty plea in federal court in 1993, was the subject of her fourth and last book, the memoir “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” published by Simon & Schuster in 2008.
The techniques of her illicit craft sound quite interesting:
In a rented storage locker on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the writer Lee Israel kept a cache of antique typewriters: Remingtons and Royals, Adlers and Olympias. Each was tenderly curated, hung with a tag whose carefully lettered names — Edna, Dorothy, Noël, Eugene O’Neill, Hellman, Bogart, Louise Brooks — hinted at the felonious intimacy for which the machines were used.
When dealers started to suspect her she switched tactics.
By dealing in typed letters, Ms. Israel was obliged to copy only the signatures. This she did by tracing over the originals, first covertly in libraries and later in her Upper West Side apartment, originals in hand. For over time, after whispers among dealers about the authenticity of her wares made composing new letters too risky, Ms. Israel had begun stealing actual letters from archives — including the New York Public Library and the libraries of Columbia, Yale, Harvard and Princeton Universities — and leaving duplicates in their place.
“She would go into these libraries and copy the letter in question, go back to her home and fake as best she could the stationery and fake the signature, and then she’d go back to the institution and make the switch,” David H. Lowenherz, a New York autograph dealer, said on Monday. “So she was actually not selling fakes: She was substituting the fakes and selling the originals.”
She was also a “feisty” alcoholic who couldn’t hold a day job.
Dead at 75.
(Hat tip: Elizabeth Hand’s Facebook page.)