A Girl With a Sword

pretty words doled up on silver platters

Yesterday I spent the afternoon listening to Jeff Mangum Live at Jittery Joe's (the Pitchfork review is actually quite eloquent). I actually started listening because it has recently taken up residence between the two Neutral Milk Hotel albums on my iTunes, and I had to cross it to get to On Avery Island, but then after a few tracks it sucked me in and whatever I had been doing before (reading about syntax, I think) became secondary to this amazing experience I was having with some people a long time ago at a bar I hadn't heard of. There's this baby that keeps making shrieking noises in the background. It actually really adds to the music. I thought it was just part of the music at first, but then I realized there was definately a live baby on that live album. (Barfhead, perhaps you should become a traveling musician while your baby is still young enough to function as a musical instrument).

I've also been listening to Laura Viers lately. I love her. I saw her live and I just looked at her and thought, "she's like me." It wasn't a profound moment, it just felt true. Laura Viers and Jeff Mangum, beautiful and strange metaphors. "Furnaces burn everlasting black tattoos of you onto me."

Yesterday I also moved rooms. I was on the second floor of the building everyone at SIL is staying in, but then yesterday I realized that the third floor was so much cooler. Think of it like this: the second floor was like Carter and I was fifth north, but I was the only fifth north, and the third floor is like Founders, lots of community and lobby action. So I came up here, scoped out the room situation, found an empty room and moved in. I did talk to the authorities about it before I moved my stuff, so I am totally legitamate. And very happy--I spent about an hour tonight doing Syntax and Morphology homework in the common room with a lot of other people who felt very strongly about their own views on the homework. It was loud.