In Between Days

Wow. It's been a while. I should have kept this blog up. One of the problems I had was the lack of time. I will try to keep up. I do want to talk about some books, music, films, and art that has been on my mind the last year.

• Daft Punk's 2007 Alive was my favorite album of last year. And it beat out some good albums (GaGaGaGaGa, The Reminder, and Boxer to name a few).
  
• I became seriously obsessed with Sufjan Stevens since my last post. There are only two other bands that I felt that way about in my life -- The Cure and The Replacements. And like them, I don't get tired of his music.
  
• 4 of the best picture nominees were great films. I really thought Micheal Clayton was the best of them. But Atonement? Seriously? What a waste of acting talent. Everything seemed forced. I truly hated that film.
  
• My favorite movie of the summer is Ironman.
  
• The reissues of the first 4 Replacements cd's by Rhino are a gift from god. I'm reading The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History. I will not post a review of the book. I will post what I discovered while reading the book. But here is the teaser: I've learned more about me then I did the replacements.
  
• Still haven't bought Zen Arcade
  

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Now playing: Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
via FoxyTunes

Sticks to You

Ryan Adams's 29 has gotten under my skin only in the way that two other albums have -- The Cure's Disintergration and The Replacements All Shook Down. Like those two albums, it works as an album with repeated themes. Maybe, it is because I'm only nine months older than Ryan that I identify with it so. It could be the references to losing friends. It could be the references to friends having, and losing, babies while some act as if I am already dead. Maybe, it is all the water symbolism (death) and all the events that happened with Katrina. I'm at the point where I can't critically listen to it anymore. It is, like those two other albums, a part of me. "Elizabeth, You Were Born to Play that Part" and "Voices" gets me every time. I think of friends that I've been separated from after Katrina. I think of the kids I taught that I don't know if they are alive.