christmas w/ Saddam

This is the most delightfully weird fact I think I have heard all day: ”I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston was Saddam Hussein’s 2002 campaign song.

“IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WILLLLL ALLLWAYS LOOOOVVVVVE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OO-OO-OOOO*BOOM* *crash* *gunshots* “my leg!! agggg…” *sirens* -OOOOOOOH!”

have yourself a merry little christmas.

actually, come to think of it, have yourself the biggest, best, jolliest and most preposterously over-the-top Christmas you’ve ever had. Since when has America been a nation of self-restraint? Give cookies to everyone on your block! Buy your dog a swing set! Buy all of those amazing-looking new CDs you listen to in the Borders Music Section but never actually buy and probably won’t for at least a few more months. Careen down the street in a sparkling silver Corvette, blasting operatic arrangements of “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)”…

and then, when you have drained all the money from your funds, you can wander door to door, swishing your way through piles of delicate feathers of snow, romantically seeking chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

or maybe marshmallows….. 

this flurry of snow between my ears

the headphone jack on my iPod is damaged – the sound only plays out of one ear.

i am plugged into my computer, hearing complete and perfect sound for the first time in weeks.

“Carol of the Bells” by George Winston

when i was a kid,

on long car trips,

i would listen to this album

feeling silly at first,

like i was trying to be too grown-up and calm,

but the music eventually took hold of me.

and i would emerge 45 minutes later, staring and

smiling vaguely off into the sky,

passing by….

bewitched, bothered and bewildered

am I….

Miss Murder

this absolutely made my day.

I was playing Guitar Hero with my brother, and “Miss Murder” by AFI came on. He got to the screaming part, and all he said was “Someone’s got a scratchy throat…”

I love AFI, but that was really quite funny.

anyway, goodnight. I’ll leave you alone.

(the above picture is Davey Havok of AFI, in case you didn’t deduce that much. And doesn’t he look just fabulous?)

THE HISTORY BOYS

and I’m sorry, to the little pixels that are my friends, that I haven’t posted in a while. I have not lost interest, I have no tlost anything, in fact. I have just not had much to say. Perhaps because musically I have been melting brain cells listening to metal lately. There’s this band called H.I.M. (it stands for “His Infernal Majesty” and yes, they’re completely ridiculous), with an immaculately beautiful frontman who sings like Jim Morrison (only in a metal way) and writes the most awful, goth-cliched lyrics you’ve ever heard.

but it sounds good! And that withstands all of their other shortcomings. The melodies are sparkling and lovely, if hidden under a quagmire of dirty guitar swipes…..the singing sounds intensely romantic, with little words that pop up every now and then to hint at that as well (“love’s the funeral of hearts” “serpentine love’s thighs” “the adored and beloved” “just look into my eyes”, etc, etc, etc.).

as to my title….I got the chance yesterday to see an excellent movie called The History Boys. At the beginning, it seems like a lot of sharp-tongued, priviledged British college boys doing charmingly rotten things, but by the end it questions success, education, homosexuality (undercurrent theme to whole movie) and death. The characters are endearing, the plot is rich, the dialouge is witty, but not obnoxiously so.

And I bought the soundtrack!

1: “Wish Me Luck (As You Wave Me Goodbye)” – a nice little showtune from the ’40s (by the sound of it…). Wonderfully exotic to the kind of music one hears nowadays

2: “Blue Monday” – an extended dip into self-pitying longing, all lost in a marching order of synthesizers

3: “This Charming Man (New York Vocal)”- SMITHS REMIX! Sort-of….the song kept a nice beat to begin with, so they didn’t change it that much. Just a little echoing quiver on Morrissey’s moans, and a bass solo they uncovered in the middle.

4: “L’Accordeoniste”  – a dizzying, ecstatic piano ditty, with lyrics all in French (I know, isn’t it wonderful?). The end is one final note, and a one-beat slamming of many keys (“ARRETE LA MUUUSIIICAAAAAA” *bang*)

5: “Mustapha Dance” – they call it that, but it’s really “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash, with a few layers of beats stacked on its head.

6: “Bewitched” – the old standard (which I happen to have quite a soft spot for), taken from a scene in the movie when one of the boys is singing it (along with “L’Accordeoniste”, for that matter).

8: “A Forest” – by the Cure…nice, subtly dark throb……but it gets a bit dull

10: “Bye Bye Blackbird” – a painfully gourgeous almost-entirely-a-cappella rendition of another old standard, done by the boys at their teacher’s funeral.

11: “Bewitched” – same song, only this time by Rufus Wainwright, so therefore the best song on the soundtrack.

the snow sparkles and there are so many sounds to be had.

go out and enjoy yourselves.