Late Night Cultural Percussions

Hey all,
MUSIC: Settling down to write, trying to listen to KDVS streaming over the internet, but no "Get Smarter" on tonight, though it's usually Jordan's time. What's going on? Last time I listened it was sort of long stretches of instrumental sludge metal (he gave me that term) which isn't really up my alley, but I soldier on, because Jordan is so musically well-versed I just stick with it. He has recommended some really good stuff lately; I just finally bought Autolux- Future Perfect (and it is great, it feels like a cool teenagery album to me sometimes, but then the swirling fuzzy guitars come in really strong, and it feels experienced and heartfelt), and also love The Constantines, who he introduced me to. The latter are absolute scratchy rock n' roll, the singer sounds like he has been singing for days but can't stop because the passion is just too strong.
I remember when I gave Jordan a list of essential albums he MUST own to have good taste in music, back when he started getting interested in following music. This was pretty late-blooming for him, I think around the time he was a senior in high school. The list included some pretty solid Kai (and the world) standards, Dolittle, Aeroplane over the Sea, and Crooked Rain Crooked Rain for example, but also some strange flavors of the month for me...like The Dismemberment Plan (which he still owns and likes I think!). We've turned the tables, I constantly rediscover bands from the last 30 years to get into (The Jesus and Mary Chain are SO GODDAMN GOOD it hurts me! Oh ouch. It hurts!), and he knows about bands so new they are still playing to their friends. Jordan says they will blow up and viola...they do. Case in point: Jordan gave me Franz Ferdinand about 3 years ago. And 2 years after that they are on the cover of Spin.

FASHION: Look at this punk muslim girl from Helsinki. Oh my goodness she is so cute!

I love culture clash styles. I love street fashion (the above picture is from Helsinki Street Fashion). Sometimes just walking around San Francisco is incredibly inspiring to the point which I wish i had a camera to document how alike and different and exceptionally good everyone looks. I've started dressing more how I want to: colorfully, with striped socks over tights always and lot's of skirts and crocheted things and clashing, but in a good artistic way. I always wear slips, to keep my skirt from sticking to my tights, this amuses Maria my coworker to no end. She describes me as "dainty"!! I also love old man men's wear, a la William Difede, and I wear my alpine hat and fedora, but there ain't too many good-fitting tweedy clothes like that for me at least. Tall and thin with hips. I do like the old-fashioned high waisted pants though, inspired by the otherwise awful BBC mini-series about Victorian-era lesbian show-business that we watched last night (it's called "Tipping the Velvet"). The girls in drag in that movie have fitted suits made for them. I'll just have to become my own kickass tailor.

LIT: The problem keeping a booklist and working 5 days a week at a bookstore is that you will find books every day that you want to read and never get around to reading that list. So my list remains long. Don't feel like I am accomplishing reading. So, what's best I think is to do as Rico does. Write the book down after you read it. He has done this for years. I'd be interested to see the lists!
Books I've picked up in the last 2 days only:
"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again"- David Foster Wallace
Ok it's a bout time that i read something by him. Some of my most favorite men in the world (Mykle, Orion, Sam, Rico...etc) love love love this stuff, and since I'm man-crazy in the absence of my love, I've decided to tackle the grand genius psycho, DFW! I started with his book of essays and short stories, wimpily enough. SO far, very pleasurable, and I don't feel like I've been up for two days on meth, which is how I felt last time I tried to read him.
"The Rules of Attraction"- Brett Easton Ellis
I am apparently only reading authors with three names. Hahaha! I started this last night, and promptly fell asleep. I have never read BEE before, his materialistic capitalist soulless vampire fiction doesn't sound like a barrell full of monkeys to me, but the man I love has read eveythingthing he's written so there must be some pleasure and redeeming factor in it. Then again, Mykle recommended this book once about London Nazi skins fucking and beating people up and thought I'd like it, so who knows about his taste! (kidding sweetie, I trust your totally vile taste in most things).
"The Alienist"- Caleb Carr
A historical mystery which was reccomended by the back of a book I loved called "The Fig Eater" by Jodi Shields. A good way to find books is to look on the back of books you love and see what a happy reviewer compared it to. (Unfortunately there is this long tradition of reviews comparing EVERY book on the planet to Catcher in the Rye. If I hear "the protagonist is a Holden Caulfield of the BLANK" one more time I'm gonna spit. A quick google search reveals that Holden is in fact everyone from James Dean to Walter Mitty to Huck Finn to Hamlet to Goethes Werther to characters in Pygmalion. That was on the first three pages.) I haven't started reading this yet.
"The Djinn in the Nightengale's Eye"- A.S. Byatt
I am anticipating lovely foggy days and rainy where I will need the tapestry-like comfort of Byatt's fairytales to make me descend into another world. Too bad it's like summer around here and I am constantly over-dressed. I think I already had my Fall during July and August. I haven't started this either...

what I am currently reading is:
"All Tomorrow's Parties"- William Gibson
I'm not sure I can sufficiently describe the pleasure I get from Gibson. It is a modern, illtelectual affection coupled with a poetic love. The man writes jumbled cultural futuristic sensory-chokers with a precise, cutting zen prose style that just makes me feel more present and aware when reading it. It is science fiction, cyberpunk, i guess, but the difference is that you realize while reading it, that it is REALITY. We are living in the FUTURE and all of this far-fetched stuff does exist, you just never thought about it that way. Takes my breath away silently. Even if the plot doesn't grab you (or more likely you can't understand it), Gibson is all about the small vignettes and individual flashes of pure image that group and weave together to form his books. This one is set in San Francisco, so that's cool.

All of my posts turn slyly into book reviews.

LONLINESS: Am I on the internet so much because I am lonely? I have a multitude of wonderful friends, scattered yes, but many living here in the city with me. I live with my closest friends right now. It's wonderful and I shouldn't feel alone, right?

finally:

ART: New Obsession.....pictures of the Tower of Babel. I have the Dore version right above my drawing table, and feel really drawn to this one too, by Bruegel the Elder: