Fewer than five dozen

It was a night of failed cookies. Probably didn't beat the eggs hard enough. Eggwhites are what peaks things, right? Like, airbubbles and what-have-you? Well, the cookies were too spread. Probably would have been okay for cookie-bars, but nobody really likes cookie-bars, probably.

It didn't really matter, anyways... she had gotten bored and wandered off before the completion of the next-to-final batch. Perhaps not just bored, though, as he had been kind of overbearing and tried to tell her how to dollop the spoonful of cookie-dough onto the sheet, and she had kind of said "well, why don't you just do it" and he acknowledged that he couldn't do any better of a job, that the eggwhite should have helped things peak (he thought) and that the mangled cookie-hunks that had been scraped from the first few batches were, generally, up to snuff in terms of taste, at least, if not so much aesthetics, which really was not his thing, anyways.

She also mentioned, after what seemed (to him anyways) like just a couple nibbles that she was tired of cookies, which kind of was like just telling a dude that your tired and whatnot, let it be done with, whatever.

But that wasn't it, just that, either. Also, why couldn't he at least smell the cookies? That had been his main source of inspiration behind this, anyways, to get the aparment all oven-warmed and cookie-smelling. He knew that baking cookies emitted a scent. He thought that he remembered candles (possibly available at the mall) that were cookie-scented. He knew he'd smell cookies (or whatever he was baking, for that matter) back when he lived with his parents. Did aparments have smell-acoustics? He considered that often he only recognized the smell of what had been cooked earlier in the apartment when entering from outdoors.

Maybe that was it. He hadn't left the house all day. She had, but he hadn't. She didn't smell the cookies, either, but she had allergies. He maybe should try to at least leave the house once a day. Even Sundays.

But that's just it, he hadn't left the house until about 5:00 the night before, and that had made him kind of anxious because it there were a lot of people in town, people he had seen flowing into town on the walk home from work on Friday, and they were all gonna be wasted and there was nothing like walking sober amongst the wasted.

Of coure, after he had left the house that one time the day before, and mingled with those he had so feared, he wound up no longer sober indeed, and much more non-sober than he really intended to get, but he wasn't really suprised, given the circumstances.

And he had felt all right the next morning, pretty good in fact. Especially knowing the clocks all fell back, and he had an extra hour, like someone who knew how to cheat at cards, let alone play them. Why the hell did he actually own a cribbage board, anyways? Every time he played he was too fucked to remember the rules for the next time. In fact, most games were like that. He was doing more reading than game-playing, though he thought that maybe his choice of authors and texts and such to be questionable in in-the-know cirles, probably. Some in fact picked as randomly as a dart thrown at a dart board from a list posted by someone (he didn't know at all) who denounced another list as being picked as randomly as darts thrown blindly. Which just so happened to be the only way he knew how to throw darts.

At any rate, he figured he might as well scrape the cookie-chunks and the few actual, genuine cookies that made it throught the ordeal into a tupperware box and cross his fingers that, when he got home from work the next day, the apartment might offer some comfort in some way.

This Heat - Sleep (mp3)

Gets all twitchy (and but for what)

I know you've been enjoying "QH blogs about the weather" about two-fold as much as I have been enjoying the weather itself, but I think you've gotten the "lowered temps = lowered expectations" parallel by now. The sleet-dirge played out last night and the excesses of consumption it may or may not have inspired do little to drive this point further home.

But fuck driving points home, how about staying home? Like sleeping on the floor all day listening to like Corrupted and goddam there is still something living in the walls, chewing and scraping. Walking around tapping on corners with a broomstick in your underwear does not a feeling of comfort inspire. Troubled/empty mind. Vague hiccup of the terrible.

Oh, wait. I'm listening to Corrupted right now too.

But all is not peach-rot and cream-curdle here. I was, indeed, lent a guitar in the sleet. Daily practice? Calloused physically for the hermit-winter? Mantras, ragas, and self-repair?

Dinty Moore beef stew?

Denim vests?

An extension of my beard-lease?

Trim'd or grim'd?

Wood filth

Got not-suckered into going someplace I kinda dislike for happy hour today. I will say that I welcome buck fifty pints of Guiness any way I can get them, and as long as it stays dead during those hours and some Mingus comes up on occassion then I'll be back. Next thing get some complimentary meatballs, if you wanna play the game.

I have been digging thru WFMU's vast archives this week for reasons that will soon be clear. I am about to delve into the Aircheck section, with its vast offerings of -- lord help me -- esoteric talk show samplings from years and decades past. Tony Rettman does indeed rep the dubstep on his 2am-6am slot, and even mentioned Green Bay way back in July! Green Bay... by gosh.

I am trying to contend with the omnipresent massive amounts of full italic+caps LOOM that exist in the current climate. These final months of the year oughta be hectic in a blunt, heavy way. Political upheave! A few more weeks of valid album releases before the holiday music ghetto! End of the year round-ups! GREs! Failure! Oversleeping! And of course, Scotch-Nog!

Yes, it is going to be one downhill trudge through the bitter wind.

Glory be.

Occluded fronting

A return to healthforms and I think I like that. We've got a purple chair that offers supreme crosslegged support. A little lamp. A turntable. I do jack shit for hours each day. WFMU and WSUM archives at work. Vinyl at home. Human tape. Scan // listen // eat a big fuckin' steak. The leaves are pretty much dead by now. I'm ready; batten means both to secure and to overeat. I am covering my bases. I rarely rock a belt.

Let us have the whipping snow.


I think that I hope that we get it big and deep this year. I have no reason to think that I won't regret my wishes should they come true. But I'm getting fed up with this frozen gravel bullshit.

Slay me down

I'm a spigot. No other descriptive means. Fuck me drainpipe, I was flingin' snot all 'bout swivel office chairs and what have you. I feed my illness with old heaviness. Skweetis. My Black Ass. Mouth Breather. Good god damn jams. Unflappable.

I let all my clothes get dirty and then ran 'em through an undersized washer/dryer. Only way to acheive a consistent spore-whiff. See if I can't maintain this through the winter.

And still, there is a phrase that I cannot forget, though I don't know where it came from:

Jeans slicked with chicken grease.

This seems pretty ultimate to me. Like, the high point of man fashions. I'm kinda working on it but I prefer chickens in rice dishes and whatnot, less often do I partake of the North American Rotiserrie, though that is not by design.

I have winter planettes, small moves that I'll make in the dimness. Gotta find a copy of the Striborg joint. And also Solar Anus. But not too worried about Bathtub Shitter, that one I'll leave for the true heads. Next month begins a dark phase, most unfortunately aligned with the rising calls of "hipster metal". Fuckin' Rearden metal, and don't you forget.

I am an object.

Black Boned Angel - Track 01 - Supereclipse

[C.K. pleeze don't hurt 'em]

Wreck loose // A seed is drowned

This time of the year I get "wracked" with things: illness, guilt, uppers, etc. But none of that gonna let me down, not this time, nuh-uh. 'Cause I've just discovered the powers of apple cider vinegar. Mix that shit up with soy sauce and some garlic wok oil and reduce and you start feeling pretty damn cookworthy. I get odded out by myself though 'cause I only like cooking while listening to that old jazz or even old timey-r crackledelic folk style. Mingus Ah Um or Goodbye Babylon (the box you need) and that is what gets me to do anything beyond chopping cilantro in ramen and calling it pad thai.

I further bummed my damn self by going to the ol' Barnes and Noble for some Sunday evening browsing and to compound that whole I am getting older I flipped through the Fader and kind of glared at an issue of Magnet and didn't see a copy of the Wire and then bought the fuckin' Economist. Tryin' ta better something. But yeah, I actually learned something already from the first two pages and it wasn't, like, that some people still mistakenly like Beck (what I learn from Wired) or that some people mistakenly every liked the Hold Steady (just about any other glossy). Anyways, I guess it's my problem 'cause I keep my eyes peeked at all this shit-media, but Arthur only comes out every other month and Blastitude is updated like once every 2 decades or something. I need more lest I ever have to start sacrificing breadth for depth.

Speaking of which, I still haven't seen any interspeak on the MF Grimm triple disc that I just found out got released sometime. If you review music and are reading this tell me what to think 'cause I liked The Downfall of Iblys quite a bit but haven't heard from that dude since he did the whole GM/beef with Doom/what have you thing.

Oh yeah, why is adult swim so closely affiliated with underground rap music now? Is this okay with people in general? I don't watch that shit, so I don't know. It always makes me think of my ol' fat manager back when I waited tables, always imitating that fucking meatball thing (I think). Sucked.

Also, if anyone has a spare copy of the Book of Am LP version please send it my way 'cause that shit is expensive and I need it "for review purposes".

I'm gonna make this winter the first in which I run crazy in the mountains.

Meatsinge

Illicit web access occured (shockingly and lasciviously!) today. I can't explain the tech side of it but it seems wobbly, with the net occasionaly realizing I oughtn't be here and popping me off. Fortunately my preternatural hacking skills are honed to the point that I regain my footing with no conscious effort. Like Han said to Chewie, "back door? Good idea." And before you get to thinking that network jacking is "wrong", somebody stole a bottle of our laundry detergent. It wasn't anything fancy, but it makes for good excuses to keep the chain alive.

As in everything I'm a good several+ years behind on whatever you might speak of. I just got a Netflix account and some tasty rhinovirus that added pressure points to sinus spots and made horizontal restpostures all kinds of infeasible. In defense of the maintained relevance of Four Star, I notice they have a superior selection of at least Jodorowsky and actually have a copy of The Harder They Come. Now they just need an underground shuttle system as well.

It is October and I am growing a beard and reading Suttree. This is the season of backwoods. I wasn't shitting about those duckboots, either.

Speaking of which, I noticed on the Pitchfork review of some Ann Arbor group called Canada (huh?) they were making Sufjan (won't mention him often, sorry) ties and used the descriptive phrase "Upper Peninsula layers of harmony, cello, Rhodes, harmonica, banjo, melodica, glockenspiel, zither, flugelhorn, sleigh bell, wineglass (crystal), pad (paper), etc. (etc.)". I admit that as a slightly younger-un I was a tad excited at this newfangled Sufjan guy putting a whole song called "Upper Peninsula" on his album. Most facetime my region had ever gotten by a critically acclaimed act, I'd say -- though Weird Al is getting a terrifying number of shoutouts 'cross the 'sphere, and I'm pretty sure he checked in on a county fair or three up there -- and that kinda warmed my lake-effect numbed heart. Of course, that song is about poor-ass K-Mart and Payless shoes shoppers, the kind of thing I tended to avoid after noticing that only clean edit tapes were stocked, but it still had some stuff I *erm* dug. Still, to have the entire region I grew up in now solely affiliated with fey multi-instrumental tweefolk stylee, well, cuts me deep. Especially when it's always done by fuckin' trolls. Of course the whole elliptical thing then happened to me when I realized that Sufjan is now considered NPR tunesmithery, NPR being what I was consistently subjected to during our hour long drives through the bleak snow up there (to get to Payless, natch).

It's enough to make one soil himself with visions of a new world order.

That said it is time for me to make some Tuna Helper. I know that's not as backwoods as the little juice-carton shaped box of "chili" that I have, but I need to save that for lunch tomorrow.