all your sanity and wits, they will all vanish

At Gogol Bordello on Sunday night. A dancing pixie successfully resisted arrest by two burly security guards, then was lifted out of the balcony by a police officer. A lighthouse and the wheel of an imaginery ship. Reunion with long-lost friend. Someone in a Barney costume came to the front of the balcony at the appropriate moment to remind us all that s/he has always worn purple.

glowing young ruffians

The National show last week was kind of like this.

I think I just like crowd energy, as long as it's focused on a point that is very far from me.

Seeing The National play last night was really great. They actually stuck a nice mix of songs from not-High Violet in there, and played nearly all my favorite Boxer songs. R and I both wore oversized hipster-mocking glasses. Saw two people from my 20-person work team, including my mentor. I always manage to be wearing animal hats when I bump into work people.

Good shows make me punchy. I was clutching at my elbows and vibrating in place.

Also, since they played for the Prez "Whoahbama" earlier that night, it's like I didn't even miss much by skipping the rally. Kidding. The lead singer was right, though, when he said they really don't actually have any songs that are political. Still, they dedicated a couple songs "to America." Eyeroll. The Decemberists somehow manage to be more hope-y change-y than them.

Getting tied/forgetting why.

Slew of links

Charming & thrilling: Genderfork.com
Hilarious & scathing: The latest Thursday Lost Roundtable at Feministe. (spoilers)
Amazing: Times Online interview with Lady Gaga.
Adjective adjective adjective: Raw video of the collapse of BP & TransOcean & Halliburton's Deepwater Horizon rig.

Just found a recording of this pianist I used to know who died in a car crash in 2008. Someone in his posse was driving drunk, the idiots (all of them). So talented. Chewing on my fingers listening.

I'll build you a fortress, I will

A friend introduced me to River Falls band Hello Bird, just in time to catch them live in concert the other night. In person, it's also exciting to note their use of an antique typewriter to create music, and the dapper attire of the two men: vests and bowler hats and waxed mustaches. But just listen to that voice. It's trance-inducingly lovely. I keep stopping what I'm doing to stare with my ears.

I love driving north in the morning. Wisconsin is the quietly beautiful place that no one else knows about, and it just gets better as you approach Baraboo. Today, snow blows from left to right, but broken up by sun. Everything shines. The sun's behind me, Neutral Milk Hotel crouches over the steering wheel with me, the wetlands the fields the hills the trees all dusted white so they catch and reflect every small variation in the light. At Cascade Mountain, the snow machines are on full blast, powder rises like smoke above the trees, it's a god-damn snow inferno. I have a long day ahead and a tattoo appointment tomorrow about which I am nervous (say goodbye to this uniformly colored shoulderblade, this unbroken stretch of skin). I am behind on my rent, my first student loan payment is due on Christmas Day after the alleged end of my economic hardship. A kindly-worded poetry rejection in my e-mail inbox. On the radio, Anne Strainchamps interviews a woman about happiness, and a caller says, "I just smile falsely until I feel it."