The trigger trumps the gun

Eleanor Friedberger, Last Summer
Dave Eggers, Zeitoun
The Fiery Furnaces, Widow City
Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Beware
Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Elvis Perkins in Dearland

• You know what's great about computers? Nothing. I am considering replacing participation in all social media platforms, this one included, with digging holes and yelling into them. I commented on Facebook, I had a dream the other night about twitter and therefore vow to never dream again, which is not such a big loss -  look at what I'm dreaming about - but now I wonder what kind of wormhole I opened up talking shit about dreams about Twitter on Facebook. Did I just make clones of my psyche and force them to bumfight over the sandwich that is my identity? What happens if any of them win?
  
  
• Rhapsody is suddenly down or has been revamped to not work anymore or something so I'm left with the actual CD's on my desk, spinning them around and shining lights on them like a curious savage. Bonnie "Prince" Billy seems forcibly quaint enough and taxonomically well-suited for an afternoon slogging through personality crises. Only because I don't have a New York Dolls CD handy.
  
  
• Speaking of computers and their usefulness, the latest Record Crate is up on the 225 site with information not about computers. Billy Joe Shaver is playing cozy house show-type situations at the Red Dragon Friday and Saturday. Of him I said: The last time I saw Billy Joe Shaver in concert, he gave into an impulse to start flapping his arms like a giant bird on the stage and it made me think how terrifying an avenging angel might appear. Also Teddy's Juke Joint is not closing for good, just for the month of August.
  
  
• Zeitoun is about system failure and how, pretty much, with the right attitude, it won't phase you. I just returned a book at the library and got a coffee from the Wolfgang Puck coffee machine because I had 60¢ in my pocket. On the way there I had my phone in my breast pocket but when my leg brushed against the keys in my jeans, I felt the twinge of the ringer vibration, which, ironically, I don't really feel anymore when my phone actually "rings" in my pocket. The trigger trumps the gun, maybe.
  
  Right by the coffee machine, a group of students were doing a campus tour just as maintenance workers somewhere in the bowels of the place were operating a buzz saw or sander. The students were plugging their ears and the sander was going RRRRRRRRUHHHHHHrrrrooowwww, just like the riff to "Iron Man," killing the people he once saved. Wolfgang Puck just kept laughing! Everything amuses Wolfgang Puck! Wolfgang Puck is without a care in the world! Just like Zeitoun in flood-ravaged New Orleans, though I just got to the part of the book (right after the above "page") when a bunch of men with guns barge in.
  
  
• Walking away from the building out into the oppression of summer - did you know it's a common misconception that we are closer to the sun during summer? It's not about distance; it's about angle - I got a flood of thoughts: I know what the five bullet points thing on my blog is about! I see a parallel between evolution of names of dishes in fine dining and that of pornographic movies!  Elvis Perkins in Dearland resembles the new freecreditreport.com band! It all went downhill quick from there. A block further, I was thinking, It's so hot out. Why did I get coffee? What am I doing? Who am I? Where am I? Is that my phone? No, it's just the key.