WHAT IS THIS I CAN'T EVEN

Keeping up with this blog has felt like a chore lately. I think too fast and I have too many things to say to just limit myself to one post a day. Obviously, no one is stopping me from doing more, but I feel like my blog is more legitimate with "rules" and standards. By this I mean that I feel like I HAVE to post a specific number of posts each month, a number that is divisible by 5. It's lax but also rigid at the same time...if I have nothing to say, I post anyway, just because I know I have to reach 5 or 10 or 15 or whichever feels appropriate. (This month it was 5.) And sometimes I have way more to say than the 5 times tables will allow.

I also feel like I'm doing myself a disservice if the writing isn't up to "standard." I've let this one go over the last few months; I've barely written anything at all. I just post videos and quote songs and it's everything I did NOT want this blog to be. Page views are down. This place is like a wasteland. And since I have such an erratic posting schedule it's hard to keep people interested, especially with so few posts a month in comparison to other, "similar" blogs.

Last July I posted every single day -- well, almost. I took 1 day off. I don't think I'll be able to do that again this year, but somehow, imposing such a strict rule on myself really helped. I made some good posts and some bad posts, but at least there was variety and it really helped me get some traffic. Numbers are arbitrary, sure, but why am I writing in a public forum if I don't want people to read it?

So, while I definitely will not be posting every day in July, I will try to put more effort into my posts and try to schedule things a little bit better. I have some good ideas of things to write about; it's just a matter of getting them on paper. Err, or whatever the virtual equivalent of that is.

I was gonna quote "Clint Eastwood" by Gorillaz but that's an easy trap that I don't want to fall back into. So, instead I will bid you farewell, until July...which starts quite soon.

Dat Saxophone

Here's a very nice performance of the radical song "Bizness" by the crazy kids in tune-yards, which is stylized as something so stupid and annoying to type out that I refuse to do so. Check this song out! It's addicting.

Uncontrollable Excitement

So Jeff Mangum is one of the most elusive people in the music industry -- not that he really is IN the industry anymore. Ever since their magnum opus In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Jeff and the rest of Neutral Milk Hotel have kept themselves out of the public eye, unfortunately, and for reasons unknown.



But! Over the past year Jeff has come out of his self-imposed isolation to play some shows, both secretly and publicized. And this fall he's embarking on his first solo tour in YEARS.

And guess who's going to see him play in September?

MOI! Let's hope this doesn't turn into another JGL thing where depressing circumstances cause me to miss out on what will surely be the greatest night of my exceptionally young, college-bound life. I'm super excited to see him play and I'll let you guys know how it is.

Graduating

I graduate high school in a few hours. I don't feel as reflective as I think I should be. I'm just letting this song do the comtemplating for me.



The ultimate graduation song, naturally. High school was a weird time for me with a lot of good and a lot of bad...I think I had a romantic notion of what it would be and was disappointed when it didn't turn out that way, but I enjoyed a lot of my atypical moments as that weirdo people never knew the name of despite going to school with me since kindergarten.

High school ended on a good note, and I guess that's all I can ask for.

Happy Birthday Anne Frank

Today would have been her 82nd birthday.

I've been a huge Anne Frank fan since I was in elementary school. I've always had a thing for epistolary novels, whether it was because of her or just because they feel more personal than other books. I'm big on dialogue, and letters are just constant dialogue.

I've read her book several times and each time it means something different to me. It's hard for me to articulate. Maybe because I'm tired and lazy. But if you haven't read The Diary of Anne Frank, you definitely should.

Whenever I rave about this book to my uncultured friends they ask me why I like it so much, and I don't really know how to answer them. Maybe it's because I can relate to Anne in a way I can't really with other "characters". It helps that we have the same last name, sure. But there's just something about this girl unself-consciously delving into herself through writing like this that I always liked. I can't explain it, but it's the one book that I've never gotten sick of.

Also, one of my favorite albums of all time is inspired by it, so that helps.

To play us out, here's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel.