Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

consume

Webbing the Log

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Good lord i accumulated a lot of links while i was doing homework last night. Old-me would hoard them like the squirrel that fell through Lindsay’s bedroom ceiling, but new-me just wants to get them out there so that i can find more! Cause i am a WEB LOGGER. I LOG the WEB.

(Sorry, i had to explain that to a stupified class of Communications majors yesterday. At least my professor actively mocked them.)

You can watch Walmart from almost any angle these days, but this economist article is great sum-up if you’re doing an academic project. Link from daily favorite Largehearted Boy.

How real is American Idol? An excellent report on The Motown Episode remarks on the (sometimes huge) difference in sound between seeing a live taping and watching the show on television. I wish there was a reliable source that provided this kind of analysis every week.

Hockey player takes out a hit on his [male] lover? Or, a study in failed anger management combined with mediafucker agent? Or, trying to kill mediafucker agent? You be the judge.

Why am i not still reading more miserable crap every day? Oh, wait, i am. Lisa, oh Lisa, when will our weekly lunches resume? Probably in July. By-the-by, When i add you to the sidebar again, you will be listed as Libertine Seahag.

I generally don’t know what the fuck is going on on my Primary Ballot after i get past the bit about Senators, which is why The Committee of Seventy is a good thing — a century-old Philadelphia political watchdog group that tracks and explains the ballot. This came to light as i found out that, apparently, a fellow high school thespian of mine is running to be the Representative for Center City, abetted by fellow fellow thespian Ariel. The man is Andrew Hohns, and i’m linking him because i think it’s sad that an article about how his opponent has the gayborhood locked up currently tops his domain in google rank.

Also in the political arena: Shocking no one thought of this before. God knows my blood boils…

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Not shockingly, i play Sims much like i play life: I’m out the door for work at the last possible minute, i eat just enough to subsist (which occasionally leads to some large meals to make up for the difference), i indulge in any practicing activity too much (guitar, sit ups, playing sims ect), i maintain my friendships only as much as i have to, and i never get enough sleep unless i miss the proverbial car pool.

Of course, my sim always turns out happy and successful, so, go figure.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2004/01/107413905406753733/

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When i was younger TGI Fridays was a fun restaurant to go to; it was a slice of Americana, with red and white striped server shirts and electric blue drinks. It was a restaurant nice enough to consider “eating out” but cheap enough to go to with high school friends.

Tonight we were looking for that sort of bargain eating, and so the bunch of us attractive twenty-somethings drove to a Fridays in the city. In a nod to the TGIF uniform of my youth i was in the red striped shirt i had coveted for months, and upon arrival i had a fishbowl sized Sunset Strip in hand. Feeling attractive and pleasantly tipsy, we were seated.

You need to understand something about me and restaurants: i can’t focus on anything written on the menu. It’s a sort of site-specific ADD … too many people, too much movement, too much smoke and clinking glasses. Though i may peruse, i either have a specific favorite in mind or i just flip through and choose the most verbose description.

Here i should mention that Fridays, inexplicably, has joined forces with 7-11 to become part of the low-carb Atkins revolution. The way Atkins re-entered the zeitgest has left me bewildered, especially as i watch people throwing away the buns to eat twice the hamburger.

Does anyone see where this is headed? In my quick perusal i chose the most colorful picture, a chicken dish, and when it was (finally) brought to the table the waitress bellowed “Atkins Diet Chicken!” I laughed, heartily, that she had mistakenly brought this diet dish to our table. When she proffered it to me i joked, “Do i look like i would order the diet dish? Look at me?” The description had made mention that i could “save five carbs by leaving off the peppers,” i calmly explained, but i did not opt in. I had opted out of the Diet Chicken

I was sober now, steely and serious, as if the drink had never existed. I wasn’t on a diet, i told her. This was the third annoyance of the night, i stated coolly, on top of the pineapple in the drink and the slow service. I’d really just like to mention it to the manager. I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that i’m not fat. I will explain it to your manager; i didn’t order a diet dish.

Or, well, maybe i did. I thought i had ordered the tasty looking chicken with cheese and broccoli. Instead, i inadvertently turned to the page, the one where we are all in on the hip trend, and we are all on the hip and trendy diet. It’s been around for years; South Beach was so mid-2003. I’m not really fat, it’s just these pants.

I delivered a brief but ultimately trite complaint to the manager, who offered to replace my broccoli with carb-rich mashed potatoes, and then silently choked down the food, ignoring my friends. I could hardly taste it, could not feel it in my mouth. Instead, i was feeling it sinking inside me, bloating my stomach, rising in my throat as soon as it left the back of my tongue. The room was suddenly contracted; too small, too loud, my side of broccoli shrub-like in it’s massiveness on the plate, my chicken the cardboard cover of a lean-cuisine box.

The conversation from the table across from me suddenly rose, punching through our table’s idle chatter. I heard the man speaking to the waitress (“Oh, make sure that i get the diet version of that beer. Make sure you take your time with it, i want you to bring it slow.”) and to the inexplicable pimply balloon-sculptor (“Can you make me a light balloon? It’s got to be thin. And can you give it red on the shirt? A really gay red.”)

From there it is a blur, screaming something over Lindsay’s head to the man across from me and his rambling reply floating back at me as i stood and pushed Ross out of the side of the booth, pausing only to throw down all of the large bills from my wallet. I was not gay. I wanted to leave. I was not fat. I wanted my non-descript flannel clothes back, and the underweight body from beneath them. I wanted my fingers flirting seductively with my epiglottis, head resting on the side of the bowl. I wanted to escape.

I walked around and around in the slowly drifting snow, 17th, Chestnut, Walnut, helping the small woman hail her cab, 16th, Chestnut, smiling at the strangers walking to and from the pricey bars, Market, calling Ross to ask him to get change for my big bills, lying easily, “No, no, the bus is only two blocks away,” 16th, 15th, Waiting to let the gorge slip solidly to the bottom of my stomach, the rage lie still.

I take my life for granted sometimes. I live, have lived for five years, in a calm bubble, where the only one judging me is myself. I have allowed my figure to fill out, supressed my irascible nature, embraced the wispy charm of my character, and just made sure to stay calm. Now i have a dozen dozen days of that left until my bubble is burst, one hundred and forty four days from here until i step off that stage into the real world. Everybody judges. Everybody hurts. Sometimes i need to open my mouth. I need to make myself happy a little more often.

I know that wasn’t especially interesting, but it’s what happened to me tonight. I’m always told not to apologize for my art, but it didn’t feel that artful. Thanks for reading. To cheer up, you should check out the bit about S&M in the last post.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2004/01/107440033006968402/

Resolving

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I am at once against resolutions and constantly making them. One explains the other; i don’t believe that you can form a habit or make a decision solely because of a little bit of resolve, so i eschew typical New Years’ fare. On the flipside, you do need resolve to get something done, and it has to start somewhere.

I compromise — i resolve to do things in my head: drink less, do more, waste less, walk more. The interior list spirals into infinity, with each day bringing a new resolution whose name i dare not ever speak, less i infer that i might actually take action in its direction.

I don’t dispute that a new year offers a unique chance to put the right foot forward in terms of new habit; after all, one of the hardest parts of starting something new is starting. And, not coincidentally, i have stored up a few initiatives whose scope dwarfs my daily resolutions that have been waiting to get started. Of course, to resolve to do them would be redundant, as i already have done so on some level and have obviously failed. Still, i want to get these things done — they will make me a better person if i do them correctly. So, without further ado, here are some things which i am not resolving to do this year:

1. Know What I’m Spending – I am historically lackadaisical at best about tracking my monetary expenditures; i have a great idea of what i can and can’t afford, but if i had to cut out $50 a month of spending i would hardly know where to start. For years i’ve resolved to get such a project underway, but never bothered to form a habit that would last me more than a few days. This time i think i’ve done it right — little notecards in my wallet, and a meticulously synced up Quicken account. The method is there; all that remains to be seen is if i can remember to track everything.

2. Be Aware of What I Eat – Whether i choose to thinly disguise it or not at any given time, i have some very persistent weight and body image issues. Yes, i am one of those seemingly thin people who whines about “how fat i am,” and how i “just want to lose a few pounds.” I’ve tried to check this problem with exercise, but it’s a hard habit to form and one that easily indulges excessive and abusive behavior on my part. As such, my alternative is to understand what i eat — not just calories and carbohydrates, but serving sizes and recurrences. So far i’m having luck with Fit Day, which tracks a lot of detail without assuming any sort of diet or fitness craze. At worst i’m creating yet another echo of my life as so much electronic detritus, but at best i have the chance to learn how my twenty-something metabolism really works.

3. Use Time Smarter – I like to do a lot of things. I like to play guitar. I like to blog. I like to spend time with Elise. I like to do well in school. I like all of these things, but i don’t do any of them as well as i should because i am diluting them with each other. Tonight i spent three hours using the internet to catch up on current events when i really should have been doing any of the four previous things, but i hate to deprive myself of knowledge given the time to acquire it. The problem, really, is that i am too capricious with my time … i am most likely to do the thing i most recently resolved to do, even if i resolved to do something else all day. This is why i still don’t have a new album, why i don’t post every day, why i always have something to do when i’d rather be with Elise, and why i am always flirting with anything other than A’s. I need keep my overarching priorities in mind and not allow my current impulses to eclipse them.

In retrospect, these three resolutions seem like a quarter-life redux of childhood anal retentiveness, but in effect they’re my attempt to make a better use of my life. I’ve spent almost five years as a college student, to varying degrees of enjoyment and fulfillment, and the entire time i’ve envied people who enjoyed themselves more or fulfilled themselves better. This June i’ll become a real, honest-to-goodness adult, and i don’t want to go there not enjoying myself and feeling unfulfilled; i want to start on the right foot. And, to do that, i need to find out which proverbial foot that will be.

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Tales of a Librarian: A Tori Amos Collection is neither a traditional greatest hits collection (it eschews the smash “Caught A Lite Sneeze,” among others) or a collection of fan favorites (as evidenced by a lack “Cooling”). Instead, it is a collection of twenty songs that Amos considers biographically important. The disc acts as a passable retrospective for newer listeners, but the allure for a longtime Tori fan is not solely the new cuts or the rerecorded songs, but the fact that sixteen old favorite have been remastered.

Aside from an across-the-board reduction on vocal reverb, Librarian‘s “remastering” is as unscientific as its song selection — background vocals are eliminated on some songs and isolated on others, and the balance (and even presence) of guitars is subject to change even within single tracks. Some songs clearly benefit from the remastering. “Cornflake Girl” is chief among these, exploding out of its quiet former context on Under The Pink. Foremost in its improvements is a more prominent piano and a fuller vocal. The vocal arrangement on the “Golden Gun” portion of the song is mixed in reverse, bringing out an additional vocal nearly unheard on the original. Even the theremin-like whistling that opens the track sounds bigger and better.

“Spark” is mixed in the opposite direction, but with equally excellent results. Away from the dense production of from the choirgirl hotel, its layers have been stripped away to reveal a tone much more in keeping with the disconnected feeling it portrays. The edge on the prickly keyboard tone has been eliminated; verses are now dominated not by swirling keyboards and guitars, but by snares and toms that keep the song tottering forward in compound time. Once-obscure background vocals now made clear, and the deft piano work on the bridge is unearthed.

Some songs stay the same not literally, but for lack of significant changes. The half of Little Earthquakes that is present is all louder and closer. Additionally, “Silent All These Years” and “Winter” amp up their orchestral arrangements, while “Crucify” is improved immensely without its overbearing reverb. The balance of the strings on “Baker Baker” is more equal to the piano, which is interesting though somewhat obtrusive. “Playboy Mommy” wisely plays up it’s slide guitar and subtle backing vocals for a better emotional impact, but isn’t distinctively different.

On other songs, the results are more mixed. All the elements of “Precious Things” sound more precise, but its originally menacing atmosphere is sacrificed. “God” suffers a similar fate, less dense and with its background vocals mixed too close to the forefront. Live favorite “Tear in Your Hand” sounds superbly loud and immediate except for a out-of-place voice-over vocal which hijacks its excellent coda for an entire line. “Bliss” is the one track where the reverb is missed; without its obscurity the arrangement is revealingly unimaginative. The slight “Way Down” is exponentially more interesting with a beefed up mix and an extra gospel refrain, while similar Boys for Pele lark “Mr. Zebra” is clearer but still exactly as kooky.

The four new recordings are solid, but not revelatory. “Sweet Dreams” is a weary update of an unexciting original, though “Mary” manages to retread old ground without losing any charm. “Snow Cherries From France,” ballyhooed for years by Neil Gaiman and Tori herself for, is an unassumingly simple tune that would have been more at home on the recent Scarlet’s Walk. “Angels,” though, is a much more congruous evolution — rendering oblique political philosophy alongside Tori obscurity, it fits right in.

Finally, as is typical of most Amos efforts, there is one massive misstep — the popular remix of “Professional Widow” is used in place of the original track, a strange concession to consumers given the fact that a similarly popular remix of “Jackie’s Strength” does not replace the original. The thumping bass and swirling electronics sound vastly out of place in an album of sweetened vocals and tweaked pianos; in short, it kills the mood.

With over a third of the remastered tracks comprised of remixed Earthquakes tunes, Tori could have easily self-produced a welcome reissue of the entirety of her debut. All of the other revisited tracks here are interesting, but far from essential. Some of Tori’s best sounds even better with age, technology, and some reconsideration; it’s not surprising. On the whole _Tales of a Librarian_ may have taken too many liberties with the balance of songs that Ears with Feet have been listening to obsessedly for years, and its newly produced songs are not even on par with the excellent web-only Bs from Scarlet’s Walk. Tales is a good back-catalogue substitute for new fans, and an unavoidable purchase for fanatics, but otherwise it’s just barely an adequate hits package.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/11/106927052810712628/