Full Nights at the Empty Bottle

Bat For Lashes, originally uploaded by Glastonbury on the BBC.

While all of the hipsters were geeking out to Dan Deacon, we saw Bat For Lashes with the Nerdsters. Their performance was like watching a History textbook come to life. In a really good – heart tingly kind of way.

Lewis and Clarke opened. They did a slow, creepy cover of Jackson C. Frank's "Carnival". I almost exploded.

It drizzled on our way home.

This is perfect!

And just in time for Critical Mass tomorrow. Almost Happy Friday!

Shanina!

shannonjanaina, originally uploaded by Juxtaposedface.

A little history lesson. Janina V. and I first met when we were fifteen years old. We were on a Study Abroad program in Australia. I was placed in Melbourne and she in Adelaide. On an official USAC safarri we traveled by bus and tent through the great continent of Australia with other kids in the program who were stationed in Tasmania as well. (That would be my twin's group including the great Robin and Jake-a-rooni.) Janina and I bonded over Tim-Tams and cried in the outback about the pains of adolescence as Dreamtime settled all around us. She and I only knew each other for two and a half weeks.

We kept in touch through the years via e-mail, letters and phone calls. She knew my deep dark secrets and I knew hers. We were a distant, objective ear.

Fast forward to 2004 and I am on another Study Abroad program in the Czech Republic. I took a side trip to Rotterdam, Holland to see Janaina. We had not seen each other since Australia. Much to our delight we got along better than well. We bonded over the pains of post-adolescence and Dutch cookies as our Mushroom induced dreaming settled all around us.

Janina is in America. So far we have seen Jeff Wall prints, had romantic strolls through the park, ridden our bikes drunkenly through the city, seen a petting zoo of rats with Robin at Happy Village, set up a video rental for both of us, fought trolls with umbrellas, disgusted and surprised each other with how sick we both are, ran through the rain and subsequently danced in our underwear to Kate Bush (ok it was just me - I like what God gave me- sue me), and we have eatten a lot of cupcakes.

And we are also heart-breakingly photogenic.

Yay for seeing the world!

I'm Kind of Excited.

BrightEyes_01.jpg, originally uploaded by Juxtaposedface.

I'm kind of excited, dudes. Bright Eyes is coming out with a new record - Cassadaga. Nevermind that Conor is a total dreamboat. He has eyes like a puppy and sounds like a goat. Sigh. Here is a sampling of his new lyrical genius.

Four Winds.

Your class, your cash, your country, sect, your name or your tribe
There's people always dying trying to keep them alive
His body's decomposing in containers tonight
In an abandoned building where

A squatter's made a mural of a Mexican girl
With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl
She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world
Four winds blowing through her hair

But when great Satan's gone, the whore of Babylon
She just can't sustain the pressure where it's placed
She caves

The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qu'ran's mute
If you learn them all together you get close to the truth still
They are pouring over sanskrit on the ivy league moons
While shadows lengthen the sun

Cast all the school and meditation built to soften the times
And hold us at the center while the spiral unwinds
It's knocking over fences, crossing property lines
Four winds, cry until it comes

And it's the song of man
Slouching towards Bethlehem
A heart just can't contain all of that empty space
It breaks, it breaks, it breaks

Well, I went back, I rent a Cadillac, a company jet
Like a newly orphaned refugee, retracing my steps
All the way to Casa David to commune with the dead
They said, "You'd better look alive"

And I was off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps
In the black hills, the bad lands, the calloused east
I buried my ballast, I made my peace
With four winds, levelling the pines

But when great Satan's gone, the whore of Babylon
She just can't compete with all that outer space
She caves, she caves, she caves, she caves

They have that song and one called "No One would Riot for Less" on the Bright Eyes website. I am seeing the Akron Family show at the Empty Bottle tonight. But, my sister is taking FOREVER to get ready.

So, I will just listen to these two songs over and over. Think about going to New Orleans for their show in May. Eyes like a puppy. I got Blood Brothers tickets today. Thrashing about is on the not to distant horizon.

And finally, I want elaborate comments at the bottom of my flower posts. Write a short story, a poem, or a manifesto. Things like Mein Kempf or Leaves of Grass, but in your own words.