If I were to live within sight of the interstate, I would like to have a bed as comfortable as this, sheets as white as these are, pillows piled high for me to rest my head upon, and a window with glass as wide and thick as that one is so that I could see the cars streaking by but not hear them.

This is where I live

May 15, 2009

This is the video for a new song by local band the Kingsbury Manx. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve seen all day. There are lots of babies in strollers and dogs on leashes in the video, and there are people walking around and watching live music outside. It’s really very lovely, and watching it reminds me how nice it is to live here.

I remember when I was half as tall as I am now the three of us took the train from San Diego to somewhere beyond Kansas City, my mother, my younger sister, and me.

I remember using the toilets on the train, bleary-eyed and knocked from side to side with the movement of the train cars on the tracks. When the toilet flushed I could see daylight, I could see the hot desert ground rushing beneath the train.

Did they really flush to the ground like that? It seems unallowable, but that is a truth that I remember.

My zine is done, and if you would like a copy, please send money via Paypal to rsdchen@gmail.com in the following amount as appropriate:

USA – $2.75
Canada/Mexico – $3.50
Everywhere else in the world – $4.00

It is 14 full pages of hand-drawn paper doll clothes based on my actual clothes, plus style interviews with some of my friends. I had a lot of fun making it.

I just watched the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, and I got goosebumps, and then I almost cried.

What an excellent choice of song for the trailer! They edited it for maximum goosebump inducing, I think.

That’s the end

March 31, 2009

Today is my last day at this job, and I realize now that I should have come up with something clever to say to my coworkers in response to the pleasant “What are you going to do next” queries I’ve been peppered with all day, something vaguely plausible but utterly ridiculous, something like, “I’m going to New Zealand to pick apples for the next six months.”

Instead I’ve been telling them how I’m hoping to collect unemployment for a bit until I can find a job, and I mention a few of the projects I’m going to tackle, like cleaning the grout in my shower, painting a wall in my living room, building a raised garden bed. The people close in age to me nod their head in understanding. I guess we’re all used to instability in our employment histories. The people more established in their jobs look slightly unsettled. I’m trying to treat this unemployment thing like it’s no big deal, like it’s something I can easily handle and work through because, like Audra used to say, “Fake it till you make it.”

michelle-tambourine

I am unemployed as of tomorrow at 6 pm, thus I will no longer have reliable Internet access, thus I will be listening to a lot more records at home rather than digital music at work, thus this is the last music mix for a long while. Unless I can find a good price on a used cassette deck.

Who Is the Girl Who Plays the Tambourine
Download via Sendspace
or stream on 8tracks

1. (My Girl’s Got) Miraculous Technique / Belle and Sebastian
2. Saving Up Her Wishes (For Another Christmas) / Celestial
3. Metal To Metal / Pelle Carlberg
4. Why Won’t He Answer / Strawberry Fair
5. Falling In Love / Sambassadeur
6. Here Comes That Feeling / El Perro del Mar
7. Ask Johnny Dee / the Chesterfields
8. Theme From Teenage Suicide / My Teenage Stride
9. My Favorite Dress / the Wedding Present
10. Susan’s In the Sky / Bubblegum Lemonade
11. French Navy / Camera Obscura

It’s pretty heavy on the Swedes in the beginning but gets somewhat flushed out with some Scots, Englishmen, and Americans.

I am about a week away from unemployment, and I have listed some CDs for sale on ebay, merchant name basilgildersleeve.

I also have a bunch of other CDs that aren’t worth listing on ebay, these are the kind of CDs you see in used bins all the time. If you need to fill in some spots in your back catalog of musical knowledge, you might like some of them.

Should you be interested in any of these, I would love to sell them to you for roughly the cost of shipping. Thus I would like to sell them for $2 for the first CD, plus $1 for each additional CD, shipping to the USA only. I will also ship to outside of the USA, but the price would be more due to the increased shipping rates. Please email me if you are interested at rsdchen at gmail dot com.

The list of CDs available for this low low price:

AC/DC / Highway To Hell / Atlantic
Tal Bachman / S/T / Columbia
The Beach Boys / Pet Sounds / Capitol
The Beautiful South / 0898 Beautiful South / Elektra

Chuck Berry / The Great Twenty-Eight comp / MCA Records
Bis / Social Dancing / Grand Royal/Capitol
Björk / Homogenic / Elektra
Blur / Special Collectors Edition / EMI Japan
Blur / Unlucky For Some / Some Australian bootleg? Released by ABS

Billy Bragg & Wilco / Mermaid Avenue / Elektra
Bernard Butler / People Move On / Creation/Columbia
Catatonia / International Velvet / Warner Bros/Vapor
Catatonia / Way Beyond Blue / Blanco y Negro
Churchbuilder / Patty Darling / Shelflife
The Clash / S/T / Epic
Coldplay / Parachutes / EMI
The Cranberries / No Need To Argue / Island
Creedence Clearwater Revival / Willy and the Poor Boys / Fantasy

The Crooner / Heaven Airlines / Shelflife
Derek and the Dominos / Layla / Polydor
Ani DiFranco / Living in Clip (live 2XCD) / Righteous Babe/BMI
DJ Shadow / Endtroducing… / Mo Wax
DJ Shadow / Preemptive Strike / Mo Wax
DJ Spooky / Creation Rebel / Trojan
Dr. Dre / The Chronic / Interscope
Donovan / The Hurdy Gurdy Man / Epic
Drugstore / S/T / Honey/Go!
Echobelly / Everyone’s Got One / Rhythm King
Elastica / The Menace / Deceptive/EMI
Missy Elliott / Under Construction / Elektra
Enigma / MCMXC a.D. / Charisma/Virgin
Eurythmics / Touch / RCA

Fat Boy Slim / You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby / Astralwerks
Aretha Franklin / I Never Loved A Man the Way I Love You / Rhino
Aretha Franklin / Lady Soul / Rhino

Franz Ferdinand / You Could Have It So Much Better / Domino
Frente! / Marvin the Album / Mammoth/Atlantic
Garbage / S/T / Almo Sounds

Davíd Garza / This Euphoria / Atlantic
Marvin Gaye / What’s Going On / Motown/BMG
Gene / Drawn To the Deep End / Polydor
George Gershwin / Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls / Elektra

Groovie Ghoulies / World Contact Day / Lookout
Juliana Hatfield / Hey Babe / Mammoth
Don Henley / The End of the Innocence / Geffen

Today is a gloomy, cold day, and I am a gloomy, cold girl, but I made a flier:

librarian_dj_0001