cooling apparati

I wish my paintings then had the nuance my whiteboard erasures have now.

Benni Hemm Hemm, Kajak
Simon Joyner, The Lousy Dance
Jay Bolotin, The Hidden Boy, a song cycle - 1985 and Shadow of a Beast and Jay Bolotin
Various Artists, Kurt Weill: The Three-Penny Opera (Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording)

A day of sad sacks and horns forlorn, not simply because it is Monday or that I have been "left behind" with all the same people that were here before (None of you? Not a one...?) or there are deadlines or the receding of the will or anything bigger than the schism between a man alone and orchestra, surrounding him like eyes peering from a darkened wood as the fire gives way to smoke. Sinatra understood that. Peter Gabriel understood that. It's hard to know if the guy from Benni Hemm Hemm understands because he sings in Icelandic but it is said that he has 300+ musicians in his band. This is via the self-explantory Icelandic Bands that Are Not Sigur Rós, though, truthfully, most bands I've picked up on via have their similarities beyond singing in faerie language.

Speaking of Iceland, I was talking to a friend about a Vanity Fair article that painted a touching portrait of that pesky banking crisis foisted upon them by the English. It's been rolled up into a book about the recession. Sounds fun! Read it at the pool! My favorite part is that Iceland is powered by large geothermal vents and instead of hot water heaters, there are a series of cooling apparati the water goes through and every once in a while, during maintenance of the system, some poor Icelandic bastard gets scalded to death in his shower.

We have this shower curtain that is a world map, and eye level is Iceland and Mitteleuropa except in reverse, like from inside, as if I'm in the vents. I've noticed that Norway has a thin strip of land essentially locking Sweeden and Finland from the North Atlantic, reaching finger all the way around the icy wastes to touch tentacles with Mother Russia.


View Larger Map

I'm sure it's a holdover from the blubber cartels and is now the oil cartels and will be whatever they can find next.


Simon Joyner, "I Will Find You" from The Lousy Dance.

My old friend Joe turned me on to the rough-hewn schizoid Apocalypticana of Jay Bolotin, whose songcraft will tickle your Dylan and Waits fancies and then claw through your thin skin, past your flimsy ribs and stick a dirty finger in your heart holes. Good stuff.


Jay Bolotin, "It's All In That"

I'm still reading What is the What, reading this by Édouard Levé who wrote and then committed Suicide, and something else entirely I read yesterday made me want to listen to Three-Penny Opera so here I go. What white teeth you have, Monday!