I've got Yellow Fever

This Austin pair have a self-titled album out on Wild World. It's smart and pretty and, though it is ever so stripped down, it reminds me of Mary Timony's flair for melodic drama and mystery. Also, the singer brings up animals a lot. (Cats and rats.) And they rock out. 

Their album reminded Carrie Brownstein of Quix*O*Tic, which is another good comparison because the music is so spare and the vocals so clean. You can hear a track at Brownstein's blog Monitor Mix or listen to them live right here. Is there a hint of Western balladry in there, or am I being silly?

Murky Recess

Will rip your mind open. It's been in the blog roll for awhile but I thought it was important to point that out.


http://murkyrecess.blogspot.com/

These are fake.

Which one should be real?

BIPL Review of Magas

L Hath No Fury (A Tight-Pantsy Drew Mystery) by Leslie Ann Henkel is a "cozy murder mystery" set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I thought it was a zine when I ordered it from Etsy, but the slender volume informs me that it is a maga. Zines are old fashioned. Self-published DIY periodicals are now called magas. I have no way of knowing if this is meant as a joke, but it is certainly funny.

Joking aside, L Hath No Fury lampoons young and fashionable Brooklynites in the intimate sort of way that only someone of that tribe could achieve. If there is a flaw in it for me, it's that it is full of distractingly incomprehensible illustrations and slang ... um, much like Williamsburg itself. (Couldn't resist.) Maybe that's not a flaw at all. A lot of exposition takes the form of fictive Wikipedia posts and the like, which is pretty fun. Also, the actual mystery is compelling enough for me to want to get the second installment D.I.Y. or Die! in order to find out what happens.

It all has something to do with something called Dear Drunk Girl, a dead graffiti artist, and a mysterious North Face parka. Go here if this sort of thing amuses you: www.deardrunkgirl.etsy.com

Aaaand ...

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BadIdeaPotluck

Ceci made me do it.

One for the Bad Idea Potluck Quote Book

It took me a long time to finish reading Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. A friend gave it to me when I was in college and that was a presidency or two ago. It's a beautiful story, but the pacing mirrors the way time passes in the kind of depressed Southern town where the story takes place.

It all paid off for me toward the end as Mick Kelly, a bright young teenager with an intense inner life, sits in a cafe contemplating the shit job she has taken at Woolworth's to support her family. As she enjoys her ice cream and beer, she thinks:

"Next to music beer was best."

Um, it's possible that you have to read the whole thing for that sentence to have the proper impact. Fortunately, you can surely get a copy at your local independent book retailer. The edition I read is pictured above. It has the best illustration on the cover of all editions I have seen.

Vintage Spanking

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Re: Jay Reatard

This is actually one of my all-time favorite songs. Right up there with "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray. I think you know what I'm trying to say here. Good night everybody.

In Memory

Reposted from 7 Inch Atlanta: Jay Reatard covering Nirvana.

Now yr talkin

V Magazine preview

Bonus Snowman

I met this charming fellow somewhere along Metropolitan, near Bedford.

Stupid Beautiful

 

 

 

I know you don't want to hear about an ad campaign, but listen. They have brilliant people working on these things so they should probably get props when they manage to be entertaining (rather than typically irritating) invasions of public space. That said, I heart this campaign from Diesel. I ran across it in the subway last night (V train).

These writers have managed to articulate everything Bad Idea Potluck has been trying to say all these years. We just didn't quite know how. Hell, they're practically the voice of a generation. Hats off to you, smug-yet-faceless ad wizards of the world.

I especially like the one where they let a bear inside. I love bears.

Images stolen from Ask a Copy Writer.

Keegan Super Kitty

Keegan Super Kitty is January's beer of the month. It is a seasonal version of Keegan Ales's Hurricane Kitty. I've chosen it largely because the name sounds like a riot grrrl band to me and that is reason enough. Reason enough, at least, to try it at Barcade a few weeks ago. I was not disappointed by the flavor of this hoppy, complex and powerful beer. It's brewed from excess of the Hurricane Kitty recipe and, at 12 percent alcohol, it packs a wallop worthy of Bikini Kill. (Actually, Super Kitty and Hurricane Kitty are named for the brewmaster's grandmother, who must be awesome.) Name aside, it's the sort of hardcore beverage called for in a bitter month like this one.

Keegan Ales, is located in Kingston, NY. As a new (returned, whatever) resident of New York, I feel I should familiarize my self with local brews. Any suggestions? I'm starting here at Gotham-imbiber.com

Girl Style Revolution

So, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I'm really getting into fashion blogs, especially the ones where women doll themselves up and then post pictures of themselves. Part of it is pure escapism for me, and part of it is that some of them are really, really good and smart. They also provide me with relief from the images of women that I encounter in typical media, say, while I'm waiting for the train.

A lot of the early buzz I heard about the DIY fashion blogs was like, "Oh, god, those girls are so vain. Oh, god, this is so vacuous." But for me they present a reclaiming of style from the glossies. These are pictures of actual girls out there, all over the world, as opposed to pictures of models in Harper's Bazaar. Those latter pictures don't do much for me, being more or less entirely CGI at this point. Real girls going, "Check out my hotness (and my Etsy site)", on the other hand, might just turn me into a fashion junkie. I'm going to close my eyes now and pretend it's an all out revolution 

Fairydah is my new, new favorite, but I have one, like, once a week now. Please see: I Like Your Blog.

Now, instead of stealing content from one of the aforementioned blogs I love, I think I will satisfy the imperative to include art in a post like this by showing you pictures of things I like on the Giant Peach. I think of it as a goth-rock-meets-hip-hop-on-a-cold-day-in-Tokyo kinda thing. You can just pretend I over-accessorized and took a picture:

 

 

 

With socks like these, who needs shoes. I'll just stay in.

Corny Ambrosia

 

I was never that into Ritter Sport chocolate until I had the kind with cornflakes. Now I might develop a problem. The cornflakes impart an intoxicating honeyed flavor and a crunchiness unparalleled among the sweet snack foods. (Savory is another story.) This is so weird. I also don't generally care about crunchiness.

Dudecake with fresh fruit

 

I love it when dudes get all rowdy and homoerotic with their food. Insert bad pun here.

Virginia is for lovers. The Internet is for obsessives.

Vintage Betsey Johnson at:

Erstwhile Style

Lotus Vintage NY

Retro Depot

Lotus Vintage NY

You: throwing away an illegal handgun

I received a copy of I Saw You as a gift. It features short comics based on Craigslist "missed connections" ads and the concept of a missed connection in a broader sense. It features comics by everyone who is anyone in the world of indie comics and it is consistently entertaining. This is because it is edited by Julia Wertz, who does The Fart Party. More information HERE.

Just like I Saw You, the actual missed connections page on Craigslist is consistently entertaining and occasionally sweet/creepy. Most postings are more erotic than the one I found today:

Me: Radio, blue suit, screaming. You: throwing away an illegal handgun - m4m - 24 (Harlem / Morningside)

Our eyes met for a minute, and when I stopped to talk to you, you yelled "oh shit!", threw away your Hi-Point C9 and ran like a son of a bitch, vanishing somewhere into the housing projects. I stopped to recover the gun you dropped, and you left without giving me a chance to get your name, address, phone number, and depriving me of giving you the chance to plead to two years probation.

Anyway, just wanted you to know that I recovered your gun, and I'll be keeping an eye out for you. Hope we meet again soon!

Fever Hallucinations: a survey

I had the most amazing conversation. I was talking to this dude I know at a dinner party and he was like, "do you ever see some weird little object when you close your eyes that starts out really small and then gets really big and then small again? It happens when I'm sick. The background always looks like this one Photoshop effect."

I said, "yeah, I hate that." He thought I meant the Photoshop effect but I meant that particular vision when you're sick. I've seen little objects that expand and shrink behind my eyes every time I've been sick since I was little: spiky balls, Russian nesting dolls, you name it. But, as it turns out, so had everyone else at the table and none of us ever imagined that it was something that happened to nearly everyone. Most of us probably never mentioned it to anyone or thought about it much. It doesn't really affect anyone's daily life.

The guy who brought it up seemed to think it was kind of a cool experience to see these expanding, shrinking things. It usually just makes me even more queasy than I already am.

So does this happen to everyone? Why would so many people have such a similar experience when they come down with something? Do you know what I'm talking about? Someone get Oliver Sacks on the horn.

International Readers of Mystery

I'm fascinated by Google Analytics. It tells me things like how many people in Canada viewed this blog. And there are a few of them. People also peeped this in Sudan, Iran and Indonesia. Maybe they just looked at it for two seconds while careening around in Google image search. Or maybe they actually read a post! I'm really excited by this possibility, so if you are in another country and you are checking this out, say hi! Or aboot, or whatever.

I heard you like vampires ...

I highly recommend Vampyros Lesbos. It's no Let the Right One In, and it is basically a poorly done exploitation film from the 70s, but that somehow makes this retelling of Dracula even more captivating. Despite the serious, arty face the film puts on, it's really a clever burlesque of the original tale, plus lesbianism. All the players are there, but transformed. Dracula is replaced by his protege and sole heiress the countess Carody, Renfield's stand-in is the beautiful young Agra, driven mad by her love for the infernally magnetic vampiress, and Van Helsing is portrayed as a corrupt and supercilious psychologist.

The best of these subversions is the heroine Linda Westinghouse, a lawyer summoned to the countess's private island to assist in some ill-defined way with her inheritance. Once there, she is drawn into a dangerous shadow world of awkwardly edited undead-lesbian passion, effectively merging the roles of Jonathan Harker and Wilhelmina Murray from Bram Stoker's story. Westinghouse is both the object of the (ridiculously hot) vampire's lust and the one who must ultimately destroy the bloodsucking monster. I liked that part, but I was a little bummed out that even an obscenely wealthy and powerful vampire's sexual preference had to be explained by a rape she survived in childhood. (Dracula saved her.)

Also, I was rooting for predator and prey to wind up in an eternal unholy union and get married under the cherry trees in D.C., but I'll take this for now. (Maybe Quentin Tarantino will answer my remake prayers.)

Now that I've ruined the entire story for you, go Netflix that sucker. I'm going to get my hands on the soundtrack. It's really all about the soundtrack.

Dateline: Williamsburg

Hats like little dogs; dogs like little hats. Chance of snow.

Happy New Year

I turned 29 on the 29th of December. Last night a girl told me that meant this was my "golden year" and that this means fabulous things would happen this year. I'm skeptical and yet intrigued. Has anyone heard about this? Has anyone reading turned the same age as their birth date yet? Was that year, indeed, awesome? Thinking about it now, this whole golden year thing would be a real bum out to anyone born in, say, the first week of their birth month. Like: "Yeah, man, being four was the greatest. I stopped wetting the bed."