looking for Cosmos

I am seeing the world reflected in the more than the cover of Tom McCarthy's C, all its sinews and broken transmissions and mysteries of sparks flying through the air, but I think I'm saying "uncle" to this book. My year's reading has already been solidly about things falling apart and I'd like to see it put back together. I stuffed it in my backpack and instead searched for Carl Sagan's Cosmos on my phone and despite the billions upon billions of eBooksellers, it ain't there! That's what's wrong with us; not enough Sagan. If there is anything that needs to be read on out little devices/overlords, it is Carl Sagan. I'm not even going to look to see if Marshall McLuhan is available on the Kindle* or not because the irony might crush me like a runaway Geminid meteorite.

Lou Reed, Transformer
Titus Andronicus, The Monitor
The Soft Pack, The Soft Pack

At least twice this year I've thought I'd really like to skateboard around to the Titus Andronicus album, one of those times being just now, despite my never having successfully skated boards to anyone's lowest expectations - I'm clumsy and unbalanced on the whole and derive little pleasure from accenting those states - and yet I wanna do some awesome tricks with ridiculous childish names while I listen to The Monitor. It might end up being my album of the year for that very reason.


Titus Andronicus, "A More Perfect Union"

A friend posted that the Mac Mini in her kitchen was stuck playing Transformer over and over. You could have worse computer problems. I popped it on as I washed the dishes, my phone propped up on the sill sounding tinny and clattery like a transistor radio and Lou Reed circa 1972 becomes genius in that form; the music barely bleeds through and you get just him, precariously tightropewalking the razor wire separating naked sincerity and sneering contempt. People's noses come up a lot. A woman's feet become her nose in "Andy's Chest", another straps dentures to her nose in "Hangin' Around", a song I thought to be a weak Sha-Na-Na-esque throwback number on the record until last night. It's a keeper. It made me want to do a rousing acoustic version at a open mike nite, something else I'm ill-suited to execute, and lo! he did it for me.


Lou Reed, "Hangin' Round" (Acoustic version)

I've been meaning to hit up the Soft Pack for some time since ace rawk-riter Joe Bonomo has been all on them in his medias social and probably otherwise, and they pay off.


The Soft Pack, "Down on Lovin'"

* Ugh. Of course, I looked and, of course, it isn't. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man should come pre-installed on every Kindle.


Taken at the bus stop after giving up looking for Cosmos. We have a million wires strung up and nothing going across them.