orbis quintus

I haven’t heard this music since 1995, so it was quite a surprise to run across it again. The same friend who turned me onto Neutral Milk Hotel (along with Palace, the Mountain Goats, and Vic Chesnutt) also had a pair of tapes from Chocolate USA. I swore that i taped her tapes, but i never figured out what became of them. I have been infatuated with the title of the album All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today ever since, even though i coudl barely remember the music. Later on, this friend told me that Julian was recording with Jeff, and she was very excited about that. I wound up buying both of the Neutral Milk Hotel and collected every boot tape i could lay my hands on, all the while grousing about him being overrated. I’m quite irritated with myself for this now.

anyway, it feels like Chocolate USA gets left out of the Elephant 6 narrative too often, even though they were not a core part of that axis, and i think that they are an essential part of the story now that i’ve found them again.

Chocolate USA “All Jets Are Gonna Fall Today”

Chocolate USA “The Feelies Show”

Chocolate USA “Boy Who Stuck His Head in the Dryer”

Chocolate USA “My Cherry Bomb”

The Bush campaign is using mailings against the Kerry campaign in Pennslyvania that coopt the terrifying imagery of 9/11. In case the insane fuckers forgot, John Kerry was not president on 9/11. Neithe was Al Gore. 9/11 happened on George Bush’s watch. I don’t care to argue whether it was preventable or not. It still happened while George Bush was president, and his administration has still not apprehended the bogeyman that claimed is repsonsible, Osama bin Laden.

George Bush ran and hid in a bunker. He made no major decisions on that day. The president needs to remain safe in a crisis such as this, but he provided no leadership that day whatsoever. He crept away like a coward, and left others in charge, regardless of how they tried to rewrite the events. Fuck that worthless cur. He is a disgrace to this nation. Clinton could have gotten blowjobs at a podium in the Rose Garden, and it still would not been as shameful as this craven animal Bush blankly being shuttled about the nation hiding like the spineless jellyfish he is.

The sheer arrogance trying to use 9/11 as his trump card boggles my brain.

I only wish it was longer…

The possibility of hydrocarbon oceans and lakes is growing stronger. There are clouds near Titan’s south pole that were thought to be methane, but the particles are proving to be larger than methane, which may mean that the cloud is composed of more complex hydrocarbons.

… is Holly Golightly. I haven’t been a fan that long, only a year or two, and i have yet to buy one of her albums to be perfectly honest. A long time ago, it used to be PJ Harvey, but it felt that her insecurity got the best of her, cause while her music remained good, her personal life felt like a mess. I just couldn’t get into the mood or the lyrics. Hanging out with Vincent Gallo didn’t earn her any points of being a sane person. After awhile, the music began to make me feel like i was listening to some emotional pornography. Perhaps i shoudl apologize for my conservative bias, but i’d rather have more fun. I’ve had my fill of artfully damaged, tragic women bellyaching about their woes. I moved on. I don’t have some perverse need to identify with them, let alone rescue them. (Blame Lou!) I don’t dismiss Harvey’s talent, but it grates on my soul.

Holly Golightly, though… she’s cool. Most of her records sound pretty much the same, but so what? She’s consistently good, reliable, reeking an aura of detached cool. She’s independent, tough, and comfortable.

Holly Golightly “Virtually Happy” Even when she’s missing a lost love, she’s still blase about it.

Holly Golightly “Box Elder” Pavement cover!

Pavement “Box Elder” Yeah, we really do need to get the fuck out of this town….

It’s obnoxious enough that the Republican party is challenging voter eligibility all too frequently. They’ve been defending themselves with stories about crooked Democrats paying crackheads to come up with completed forms, and winding up with Dick Tracy and Mary Poppins and other fictional characters on the rolls. Yep, there are crooked Democrats. I’m from Louisiana. I’ve seen or heard tales of some ugly stuff. I learned the necessity of voting for the petty crooks to keep the Klansmen out of office.

The Republicans are boasting that they sent mail to these addresses, and because the mail was returned, the voters do not exist. The problem is that they are not bothering to send this mail to the obvious fictional characters. They are sending mail to real people, but sending it as registered mail, meaning that the addressee would have to go to the post office to sign for that mail if he didn’t happen to be home at the time of delivery. Would you go the post office to retrieve a piece of registered mail from the Republican party? I doubt even most Republicans would bother to do it, assuming that it’s just some piece of junk mail begging for money.

The judge tossed out the challenges, and there may be indictments being handed out for this tactic.

Back on October 13th, it was reported that James Baker was trying to collect on $27 billion debt from Iraq while as a special envoy for the U.S, he trying to get nations of the world forgive Iraqi debt. The Guardian has put up some documents that show his efforts to collect debts on the behalf of Carlyle. What a way to show good faith to our allies! Build that coalition of good faith, baby!

I’ve been reading An Unexpected Light by Jason Elliot. Apparently sales of this book skyrocketed after 9/11, which is encouraging. The book is quite literate and very honest. I’m not widely read the travel writing genre, but Elliot’s book falls somewhere between the work of William Dalrymple (whose From the Holy Mountain I highly recommend) and Robert D. Kaplan.

In 1985 Elliot, at nineteen, decided to go to Afghanistan to aid the mujahadeen against the Soviets. The book thus far is quite vague on exactly how he arrived at this decision (no recounting of talks with loved ones on the issue, etc.), but arrive he did. He went back ten years later and found himself at odds with the Taliban. He writes glowingly on the beauty of the country and on the hospitality of ordinary Afghans. It is fortunate that people turned to this book to get perspective on Afghanistan. It portrays Afghans as inheritors of a pround culture and (perhaps most importantly) as human.

Another book on the Afghan-Soviet war that I’m tempted to track down is Radek Sikorski’s Dust of the Saints. Sikorski wrote a fine article on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the US-led invasion for last month’s National Review. See the first bit of it here.

He cannot see the face on Cydonia, but he can see that the bulge under Bush’s jacket was no mere wrinkle. Dr. Robert M. Nelson is currently analyzing data from Titan. He’s been analyzing photos for 30 years. I didn’t expect this story to last so long.

Boing Boing has the same observation that i want to believe so badly. I wonder if the hair samples from Flores will match the ones sent to Cambridge from Bukittinggi?