Jeans

I was shopping for jeans in Boston. This took me to a number of stores. It took me to such a large number that I decided to do as Daryl Zero and stop looking for any pair of jeans in particular. I looked at all jeans, in all stores. Because if, of all the jeans in the world, you're looking for one pair, your chances of finding it are very slim. If you are very slim, your chances further decrease. If, however, you're looking for any jeans at all, suddenly you find what you are looking for everywhere you turn.
My unbiased search led me into Neiman Marcus. Neiman Marcus is near the Back Bay Metro station, and it contains jeans, so it's a likely candidate for my completely non-weighted look at the world of jeans. After some poking around, I see a pair that catches my eye. Banishing any thoughts of "these are probably too expensive for you to pay for" until I took a closer look, I, um, take a closer look.
Now, these jeans are pretty nice, at first glance. Premium jeans. First-rate jeans. A good dark wash, straight legs. The kind of jeans that look like they fit, and haven't already been lived in for a couple of years. Which is what I was going for. Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that these jeans had these gigantic brass tetrahedronal rivets. Egyptian pyramid rivets. They played tricks of scale on your eyes, not being accustomed as our eyes are to seeing rivets of this magnitude on a pair of jeans. You don't even notice they're there, they're so big. A closer reading of the little booklet that accompanies the jeans says the following (paraphrased):

"Your new jeans have rivets that are the best thing to happen to rivethood since the metal shop. Your rivets must be treated with the utmost of rivet reverence and care. Do not wash these rivets as you would a pedestrian garment such as a three-piece suit. These rivets demand that a left-handed Elbonian sherpa rub them daily with a chamois. If not rubbed with the proper level of care and rivet respect, your rivets will disengage from your jeans and attach themselves to Michael Jackson.
In addition, your jeans are treated with a special dye that cannot be washed, because it will disappear, being magically treated to bond with all elements and turn into formaldehyde. Also, don't sit on any white couches, because the color of your jeans will dry-bleed onto your white furniture, and you'll be left with a rash.*"

So, let me get this right: these jeans cost $450, and I can't wash them or sit down in them? You would think that for $450 dollars, you'd get a bit more performance out of a pair of jeans. But that's just my completely unbiased opinion. I guess I'll just have to settle for looking worn and baggy. Worn and baggy is so hot right now.

*I made up the rash part.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Pre-Approved

I have been Pre-Approved an awful lot more in the last few weeks than I ever was up until now. Until I moved to Boston, I had never been Pre-Approved. Nobody was happy to tell me that I qualified for a low interest rate, and a high credit limit. They were content, it seems, to leave me alone before. But now I have been Pre-Approved.
This is fantastic. Approval is imminent. Think of the possibilities once I have gained Approval. Things that had previously been banished to the realm of pure possibility happen when you're Approved. And Pre-Approval is the first step toward sweet Approvability. This is exciting, for while being in a Pre-Approved state is motivating in the extreme, my cultural assimilation will not be complete until I reach complete and utter Approval. Then and only then can I stand in the ranks of the Approved, and in some cases the Twice-and-Thrice-Approved, and laugh deridingly at the unwashed, unApproved masses.


Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Kindred Souls

Have you ever met a kindred soul, and you just know it from the moment you meet that you have more than just "something in common." You've got that special connection, that philotic link that connects the two of you at the subconscious level. You're tuned in to the Ethereal Subconscious Vibe Network (ESVN), and they're sitting on the couch right next to you. The feeling you get, the knowledge that things are right in the world because there are people like this in it. I love that feeling.
Then they go into how you should accept Jesus the Saviour into your life, and sharp cheddar and wine are really bad for you, and public transportation is a waste of time, and Tom Waits is just a horrible beat poet with a bad band, and really there's nothing to say for fine art and dance, and they need to make the highways bigger, and the war's really a good thing, because the terrorists in Iraq and New Mexico need to be killed so that once and for all we can emerge as the nation you just don't fuck with, for God's sake, and fuck Johnny Cupcakes because the t-shirts at Urban Outfitters are way cooler. And you think, "How could somebody hate Tom Waits? I was so wrong."
So wrong.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

High Hopes and a Dash of Cumin

I had really big plans for today. i was going to have a physical therapy appointment, visit a museum, reunite with a long lost friend, do some yoga, and some more reuniting with (longer but less lost) friends. Instead, I had the appointment, bought some stuff, went for a run, bought some more stuff (which was a trip originally poorly disguised as a trip to the museum, which inevitably failed when I couldn't find the museum and decided to keep walking forward rather than retrace my steps), and made some really killer enchiladas. Which really ruin your momentum. All you can do after eating really killer enchiladas (RKEs) is coast for the rest of the day. Coast and ponder leftover enchiladas for a week and all that this entails.
I'm a bit concerned about the implications of my physical therapy appointment. They did some ultrasound on my head, which ostensibly relaxes your muscles. That's fine and good, and it did indeed relax the muscles in my head, with the requisite tingling sensation that I've come to expect from all visits to people who re-align my body/energy/aura. But isn't ultrasound the same procedure that they use on babies to make a picture for the pregnant mother, the orderly, and whoever else decides to lean their head into the room? This begs the question: what is that ultrasound doing to those babies? Does it make them feel relaxed? Does it increase their self-esteem? Does it make them more inclined to listen to Aphex Twin and enjoy it?
One of the things I bought today, a purchase of which I'm especially proud, is the CD by Alarm Will Sound called Acoustica, where they play the works of Aphex Twin. This is not to be confused with Apocalyptica, which is a string quartet that plays the works of Metallica. Or Bjorn Again, which is a tribute band to Abba based in Australia. But I digress: Acoustica is a really sweet album; it turns out that you only need 22 classical musicians, at the peak of their power and concentration, to be able to do a decent acoustic facsimile of an Aphex Twin track. "Why would I care about this when I could go and listen to Aphex Twin?" You say. And then you say "And I don't even listen to Aphex Twin." To which I say: you should try ultrasound. It'll loosen you up.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Girl Free 2006

I've decided that, notwithstanding some of my previous comments, I do have a New Year's resolution. I've decided that 2006 is going to be girl-free. I'm just not going to date any of 'em this year. I get more done when I'm single. I kind of like the power dynamic that it creates with strangers. I like to feel that control, the smile/smile-back. I need to be productive. You can't be as productive when you've got somebody else around all of the time. it's a fact. So I'm not going to play hard to get, I'm going to be impossible to get. That's the way it is this year. Girl-Free 2006.

Update: In retrospect, this seems to follow pretty naturally from my previous post.

Latiflearned.com - Go Listen

Poof!

I was writing today to a friend from whom I have not heard in months. To sum up what had happened in the meantime, I said, "I put my head down, and when I looked up again, months had passed." It seems strange that all of this time since I got to Boston would have gone by so quickly; as it was happening it seemed like it would go on forever. There have been some really long days and a lot of experiences that I'd rather not re-live. It passed all the same.
My ex-girlfriend Anna told me once that the thing that's nice about dating somebody is that you have some frame of reference for your experiences. You can say, "I did this!" and experience the validation of somebody else saying, "Yes! It's true! I was there. It truly was grand!" This is a profound insight, I think, into why people couple themselves off in the first place. Surely it's better to have a record. Memories, like photographs (or journal entries), create a better picture of the past if they exist in plentitude. Isn't it a fantastic thing about memory that if you don't take pains to cast a memory somehow, it'll simply disappear.
Well, just the things you did alone will disappear. If you've got friends and loved ones, they will share some of the burden of remembering things that you would otherwise forget. My sister and her boyfriend remember things about France that left my mind long ago. Maybe you don't really need a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe they just condense a process that occurs with every human with whom you come into contact.
if that's the case, you deserve some thanks. Thank you for coming here and reading, for caring enough to want to remember. It means a lot to me, though I say very little about it.

Pets

I think that we should give pets more human-like names. I mean, Fluffy or Zoltan are fine names and all, but I don't think that they accurately represent our pets' status in our lives. It would be like calling your boyfriend "Dopey." I propose that we give our pets the same names that we would give to humans: "This is my dog, Joe." "Say hello to our new kitten, Mary." If they're going to be family members, why not give them appropriate names? It helps to remove the cognitive dissonance.
For some reason I can't sleep tonight. Every time I get pretty close to falling asleep, I'm awoken by this panicked feeling, like I stopped breathing right at that moment where you go unconscious. I thought that I had my anxiety pretty well under control, but I guess I've still got a ways to go. If you're capable of sending calming vibes through ethernet cables (or wifi, if you're fancy), please direct your talents my way: I could use the help. I mean, it's 3:26AM and I've got to work today. But at least it's Friday, so no harm done. Heh.

The Edges of Things

"It was not hard for me to think of nothing, the way I felt at the moment. In order not to think of any one thing, all I had to do was think of many things, a little at a time: just think about something for a moment and fling it into space."
-Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

When I was littler, I used to get these hallucinations when I was trying to fall asleep. In that state before dreams, but after awake would feel like my head was in a vice, like everything about which I thought was infinitely expanding and contracting. It hurt my brain to think about it. I would think about the edges of things, edges so razor-sharp that there was an infinity in their frontier. I couldn't think about it for very long, because it would make me feel like I was going mad. It would make me feel a very real sort of pain and pressure. So I would think about other things. Garfield comics. Doing the dishes. Girls (later on). I was eventually able to make the hallucinations (or whatever they were) go away. But I never felt like I solved the problem. I just felt like I was ignoring it successfully. A minor victory, but I have to wonder if the battle wages on.
Murakami is a good writer; I feel as if the character in this book rationalizes things in a way that I find very comforting. Like, if there are humans out there who think this way, then I'm not alone. It's good to be reminded of that.

latiflearned.com - go and listen.

Latif Learned

I made a new album. You know, music? You like music, don't you? Get my album! You can get tracks and lyrics etc. over at latiflearned.com.
I hope that you enjoy it. If you ever forget that link, it's always over in my sidebar off of this blog.
Also, if you go to Seasac Records, you stand a good chance of being able to hear rare demos, b-sides, out-takes, Brazillian electro-remixes and other craziness. Also, you can hear the totally sweet bands Fujimo and Molocai and Ugly By Now, all for free. You're here because you're wasting time. Go and get some free music.

Toiling in the Fields

I've been thinking about the city. Life in the city, you have to admit, is pretty far-removed from what we're biologically constructed to be doing. Typically, people who live in cities spend the majority of their day immobile (sitting in chairs, which is actually a stress on the body), sheltered from the elements, etc. Fantastic. We've been through all of that before.
But if we're biologically constructed to be doing something more like running around in forests trying our best to kill rabbits and find berries or whatever, what is the analogue for a city-dweller? Is there anything that we can do to sort of simulate for our bodies the state of being healthy and normal?
So I think about my city friends who seem well-adjusted to life in the city. One common trait that they seem to share is that they're all really active. Always attending some event, or going to some party/event/benefit. Picnics. Bike rides. Shows. It seems like one way to be normal in a city is just to try to keep as busy as possible. Social hunting and gathering. Because food's easy to find, but it's just not right to sit around all day. A leisurely life in a city is potentially quite detrimental.
Or you could just join a gym, I guess.

listening to: Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus

Somebody Watching

Do you ever do things when you're alone as though somebody were there watching you? Or like, if somebody were to walk in at that precise moment, they'd be sure to see you in top form? When I got my first Beta Band CD way back in college, I thought to myself, "This is the kind of music I want playing when somebody stumbles into my dorm room. They would think I was maximum cool." I guess that since I had that thought, it just sort of bled to the rest of my life. Now I make sure that I'm looking sharp when I'm vacuuming, that the lighting is proper when I'm doing dishes, that I've only got my good side exposed when I'm lying on the couch. I mean, what if somebody were to walk in at that precise moment? What if they had TV cameras? You'd want to be prepared, right?

Blanket

I just watched The Producers (the re-make with Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom and Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock) the other day. It was pretty funny. There's a scene that keeps coming back up in my mind: Leo and Max are in Max's apartment, and Leo pulls this piece of blanket out of his pocket and starts rubbing it around his face. "It's not important, it just makes me feel comfortable," he says. But then Max takes the piece of blanket away and Leo freaks out. "MY BLANKET! YOU'VE GOT MY BLANKET! GIVE ME BACK MY BLANKET!" Up until that point he had maintained his composure, even though Max Bialystock clearly made him nervous. But when he lost his blanket, the thin facade of his composure wore through.
I like the idea, because everybody's got their blanket. Some thing or idea that, when rubbed the wrong way or put out of place, causes you to totally lose your cool. It could be something really small, like putting the tea bag in before the water, or stir-frying beef together with green peppers. It could be some past grudge that never faded, of which we do not speak.
Somebody told me once that our society is four skipped meals away from complete chaos. Best not to consider how thin that blanket that covers us all really is.
The Producers, though. Really funny movie, that.

I only think these things sometimes!

Blog posts and songs are snapshots. I would hate for anybody to get the impression that I constantly feel like I sound when I'm writing. That would be inaccurate. More accurate would be to say that I usually feel that way only for a couple of seconds, and in writing or performing the work in question I can revisit the feelings that it brought me. That way, I don't have to hold on to the more unpleasant things in life.
This could also explain why most of my songs are sad, and this blog isn't exactly the source of all things happy either. It's something I still need to work on, I suppose, letting go of the good things in addition to the bad...

Alchemistry

What is it that allows us to process ideas without thinking actively about them? I feel like much of the time I'm coming up with my ideas as I speak. How does that work? What kind of alchemistry allows us to not think not think not think and then eventually come to a conclusion about the way things were, the way things are? Is it a function of our memory, fading over the things we don't understand until we've only got a picture of the things that we comprehend? Or is it that our reality moves too fast, allowing us to only retroactively process that which, had we greater intelligence or perception, could have been immediately understood in the moment?
How is one to live in the moment when one can't understand the moment?
I've been feeling lately as though I'm sitting in the backseat of my life, watching it through a window. I keep thinking thoughts like, "wow, that was an interesting thing that you said," or "all right! you made it through another half an hour without forgetting to breathe!" Maybe this kind of meta-narrative happens often in other people's lives. If so, shout it out, because I'd hate to feel that I'm the only one.

Here's me and my brother playing tunes at Christmas. Stay tuned for links to Christmas photos.