It's not malice, I'm just a mess

[sovay]

The snowpocalypse has come to Boston. It was just a light dusting on the air when I went to the post office around one-thirty, but it's been steadily thickening ever since, and sticking, and now it's rattling icily against the windows. It looks especially impressive through the fan of the streetlight. The forecast tells me it will turn to rain later in the night, which is disappointing. asakiyume has been talking about microseasons. I guess this one is nano-Fimbulvetr.

Following a hair-raising couple of days of coughing so hard and so constantly that I stopped sleeping and pulled a muscle in my back, I am feeling cautiously optimistic about a future in which I can inhale without invoking metaphors of either gas-drill or plague; I slept something like nine hours last night. I got a review written even before then. We made twice-baked potatoes for dinner to accompany a beef bourguignon courteously donated by my father and I just finished watching A Passage to India (1984) on TCM. Last night was The Criminal Code (1931) and In the Heat of the Night (1967). I am still coughing, but not so epically. It's nice.

Please enjoy some songs that have been stuck in my head lately.

Chemtrails, "Aeons"

Three hundred years beneath the ice
They were the best time of your life

The Districts, "Nighttime Girls"

I go out in the nighttime
I take the trolley line

Psoy Korolenko, Sergei Erdenko, Sophie Milman, Isaac Rosenberg & Sasha Lurje, "Tsu Nayem Yor 1944 (Happy New Year 1944)"

Sholem, fridn af der velt
Dem daytshl af tselokhes
Hitlern varft in hits un kelt
Un er kan unz kushn in . . .

Peace, freedom in the world
To spite the little Germans
Hitler tosses in heat and cold
And he can kiss our . . .

Snapped Ankles, "Rechargeable"

As we walk through vivid ultraviolet streets
The looks of commuters calcify past missing teeth
And the stunning luxury of the converted factories

The Surfrajettes, "Toxic"

[An instrumental and it's brilliant. I've never heard a song written for Britney Spears sound more like a Bond theme.]

Weakened Friends, "Blue Again"

Blue, oh, it's just a feeling I get with you, oh
I want to go there again

P.S. In just about the last week, Autolycus has really started talking instead of his usual vocabulary of purrs and mrrps and other eloquent but close-mouthed noises. Like his sister, he has the authentic Siamese voice. At the moment he seems to be using it for purposes of guilt-trip, in combination with kneading and headbutts. And then he bounded across my keyboard, leaving the cryptic notation "98O." Oh, little codemaking cat. Excuse me while I leave off talking to the internet and attend to someone's very soft fur.

Comments

[asakiyume]

98O--I think only by attending to that very soft fur will you decipher the code.

(In Japan, through tomorrow we are in "Bush warblers start singing in the mountains" ... I think we will have to agree that the northeastern United States diverges from Japan pretty substantially microseasonally, right now.

Starting on Valentine's Day we'll be in the microseason "Fish emerge from the ice." In other words, we'll be back in sync.

[sovay]

98O--I think only by attending to that very soft fur will you decipher the code.

It seems to have something to do with petting the cat more. I can dig it.

(In Japan, through tomorrow we are in "Bush warblers start singing in the mountains" ... I think we will have to agree that the northeastern United States diverges from Japan pretty substantially microseasonally, right now.

Oh, dear. Yes, I think any bush warblers we have in Somerville are extremely disgruntled right now.

Starting on Valentine's Day we'll be in the microseason "Fish emerge from the ice." In other words, we'll be back in sync.

I like that!

[selkie]

I approve your various messages! And soon my Twitter will be freely accessible to the world! By which I mean you and the two other people that read it.

*puts away gas-rattle, plague-pointy-face-mask, and various pomanders*

Also, I managed to subdue Bad Rabbi by saying he should stop talking about tznius because the opposite of tznius, as he was angling the discussion, was slut-shaming; und ir kan mikh kushn in...., indeed.

[sovay]

I approve your various messages! And soon my Twitter will be freely accessible to the world! By which I mean you and the two other people that read it.

Hooray! I like your Twitter! I just also like the idea of people paying you what you're worth, so I look forward to that soon, too.

Also, I managed to subdue Bad Rabbi by saying he should stop talking about tznius because the opposite of tznius, as he was angling the discussion, was slut-shaming; und ir kan mikh kushn in...., indeed.

Good for you! That rabbi, man. I must have met him for a minute tops and somehow it feels like he never shut up.

[thistleingrey]

Thanks for these! I've downloaded about half. "Blue Again" makes a good outtake for the recent past, though not the current moment; I'm glad it exists, regardless.

[sovay]

Thanks for these!

You're welcome!

"Blue Again" makes a good outtake for the recent past, though not the current moment; I'm glad it exists, regardless.

I'm glad both that you like it and that it's not a currently appropriate soundtrack.

[thistleingrey]

I'm glad both that you like it and that it's not a currently appropriate soundtrack.

I've realized recently (like, uh, a bolt from the blue?) that there are so damnably many songs about taking someone [back] no matter the conditions, and ... like ... no. Clearly a theme of interest to many who write songs, and yet ... no. I'm not sure why I didn't see the commonality earlier. (This has nothing to do with my ex.)

[sovay]

Clearly a theme of interest to many who write songs, and yet ... no. I'm not sure why I didn't see the commonality earlier.

What other songs are you thinking of?

[thistleingrey]

Maybe song-rec algorithms have just been trolling me. This whole album comes to mind, lovely though it sounds. Information Society ("Peace & Love, Inc." long ago) have a new single, "World Enough," which has a different valence (...easy enough to chalk up to gendered voicing, ugh, but) yet is just as wistfully desperate.

[thisbluespirit]

I'm glad you seem to be feeling a little better! *crosses fingers for you*

Oh, little codemaking cat. Excuse me while I leave off talking to the internet and attend to someone's very soft fur.

It is the important thing!

[sovay]

I'm glad you seem to be feeling a little better!

Thank you! I am still coughing, but it's not the same kind of dry lung-wracking spasm; I'm more headachy, but I figure the antibiotics will help with that. It was just an awful few days.

It is the important thing!

I know my priorities!

[cmcmck]

Yiddish speaks to me even though I don't speak Yiddish.

I guess I know why that is.

[sovay]

Yiddish speaks to me even though I don't speak Yiddish.

I think if you want to learn it, you should. It's a connection.

[moon_custafer]

At the moment he seems to be using it for purposes of guilt-trip, in combination with kneading and headbutts.

Sounds to me like he’s worried about you, perhaps because of the cough.

[sovay]

Sounds to me like he’s worried about you, perhaps because of the cough.

He's been spending nights curled up against my back, not even leaving the bed when I cough. I find it very comforting.

[drwex]

The sendspace.com URLs are erroring for me. That might be due to work firewall shenanigans, though.

[sovay]

The sendspace.com URLs are erroring for me. That might be due to work firewall shenanigans, though.

The links are definitely live from my end, so I hope they work for you when you get home. Until then, try listening via Bandcamp?

[jesse_the_k]

THANK YOU FOR THOSE BC LINKS

(I really like them).

The Districts are making my head bob along as we have the post-Snowpacolyptic severe clear with sparkling everywhere. Thirty inches of snow in the last 30 days for us.

I'm glad that coughing is on the way out.

[sovay]

(I really like them).

You're welcome! I'm so glad.

The Districts are making my head bob along as we have the post-Snowpacolyptic severe clear with sparkling everywhere. Thirty inches of snow in the last 30 days for us.

That's a nice round ratio!

If you're enjoying the Districts, may I commend you to "Ordinary Day"? It was one of my favorite new songs of 2017 and still gets randomly stuck in my head to this day. Covered in gold and kicking through the bellyache . . .

I'm glad that coughing is on the way out.

Thank you!

[brigdh]

Thank you for the song links! They're all excellent, but I particularly enjoyed "Rechargeable", which really sounds like the theme song to a 80s cyberpunk movie that should exist but strangely doesn't.

[sovay]

Thank you for the song links!

Welcome!

They're all excellent, but I particularly enjoyed "Rechargeable", which really sounds like the theme song to a 80s cyberpunk movie that should exist but strangely doesn't.

Now that you've mentioned it, it really does. I want that movie.