Interesting Things

Yes, I will admit it, it IS this first thing that pops into my head. Yes, I am talking about The Sex Lives of Conjoined Twins in The Atlantic. Does that make me a bad person? When you hear about conjoined people, what is the first thing you think of?

I am always in the market for a new set of headphones (Not that I do not love my SkullCandy ones, but...I can always upgrade.), however, headphones can be really expensive. Mashable has a review of $60 headphones that are pretty awesome. These Cheap Headphones Will Knock Your Socks Off.

Middle School/Junior High is the forgotten middle child of education. (I know, because I did not train as a teacher, that I am not allowed to have opinions on how education works. I am just passing this on.) Slate has a piece about a school in Rhode Island that is handling Middle School differently with good results and why it has a tendency to be ignored. The Worst Years of Our Lives: How We Can Make Middle School Less Awful?

Presented Without Comment: Friendship, Dating, Attraction, & Heartbreak (The Hairpin)

Via Kempt: How to Tie a Bow Tie.

I mean, I know you have a smart phone and therefore have access to Untappd (if you do join Untappd, I am ewabbott...just sayin'), but I guess you could use this Moleskin Beer Journal. (Uncrate)

Finally...
Arcade Fire is working on a new album with a release date in sometime 2013. (Pitchfork, Pretty Much Amazing, Vulture)

One last thing on Arcade Fire and the Grammys

This, I think, is part of the beauty of Who Is Arcade Fire. The blog doesn’t actually make its motives clear. I’m sure some of the band’s fans look at it as an opportunity to laugh at the alleged cluelessness of the featured tweets. Others might just be fascinated by the heated reactions people can have to the revelation that there are successful young musicians they’ve never heard of. (I say “young” because the Grammys routinely give big awards to records by older artists who aren’t exactly dominating the top 40.) But of course there’s also the fact that, for a whole lot of listeners, Arcade Fire is the kind of band that’s too ubiquitous — the band backed by a huge, boring critical consensus, the middlebrow-crossover NPR darlings, the bland and tiresome more-of-the-same act that already plays Madison Square Garden and shows up on Saturday Night Live. Given that Who Is Arcade Fire appears on Tumblr, you assume that whoever put it together comes from something like that world, the online post-collegiate indie sphere where Arcade Fire might be one of the least interesting bands you could know about.

Via Vulture

That being said (and I am tempted to agree with it) just watch part of their KROQ session from this past weekend and tell me that they aren't wonderful.

UnCorporate Indie Rock Rules

On Sunday, unsurprisingly (to me at least) Arcade Fire won the Grammy award for Album of the Year which was a shock to some. (Insert snark here about how it was a surprise to those who did not listen to the album or only listened to the Eminem album and fail to appreciate how different genres of music can be compared, or that they are so myopic about their own choices, the fail to recognize brilliance when they see it.)

This is not to say that those who do not like Arcade Fire do not appreciate them as brilliant. (Yes, if you think I am talking about you, I am talking about you.)

But the shock and consternation from some about this album being the Album of the Year is amazing and it would have been something to rant about if a larger announcement about another band that I have an autistic devotion to had not taken up my attention.

Radiohead is releasing a new album, The King of Limbs, and it will be available on the 19th of February. (Yes, I realize that my perspective is skewed. Arcade Fire winning the Album of the Year Grammy is huge while Radiohead announcing another album with an odd distribution method may be fairly banal.)


It has been a good week for me, in terms of music, and I am looking forward to Saturday morning when I can give The King of Limbs several dedicated listens.

Edit at 11:00: Speaking of shock and consternation regarding Arcade Fire: Who is Arcade Fire? (H/T to @jonathanrnash)

Evelyn Waugh was a man.

If you haven't seen it yet...

The Spike Jonze directed video for the Arcade Fire's title track "The Suburbs" is really...interesting.

Monday Randomness

This is my favorite song from Arcade Fire's new album The Suburbs. Please give it a listen.

"But I would rather be alone than pretend I feel alright."

Secondly, I am not proud of what I had to do to get to sleep last night. Curly did not want to snuggle with me, and since @PVH1976 moved out, I no longer have Hemingway to snuggle with.

I have trouble sleeping without someone or something to snuggle up against myself. Maybe it is because I feel abandonment issues...whatever...

Anyway, in order to sleep, I ended up snuggling with pillows. Yes, folks. That's how far I have fallen.

It did lead to rather peaceful if prosaic dreams.

Wishing my life away

Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" comes out in a little more than a month, and I am looking forward to it.

Between this album and Zero History, I am looking forward to a good amount of media that is due to come out.

No Cars Go

I know that I have been listening to too much Arcade Fire as of late, but this cover of No Cars Go made me have to testify about the first one! It's not that it is bad, it is just that the first version of the song is damn near perfect, so why screw with it?

Cinco de Mayo Earworm

Arcade Fire: Black Mirror



The Official Video Embedding Disabled

Check out the official video if you are interested in the studio version of the song as well as a very "end of the world"-esque video.