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The Things That Make My Heart Beat Faster, Pushing Down My Anger So As To Avoid Hurting The Ones I Love Edition

It’s an utterly true and completely shitty fact about me that sometimes it’s the small words spoken to me in what is obvious encouraging kindness which throws me into an internal rage, the likes of which burn with the white-hot searing heat of a thousand suns.

At those moments, it’s all I can do to not want to eviscerate the person because though the intent was encouragement, the actual feeling is patronization.

It’s not their fault, I admit I can be a tough tightrope to walk. I appreciate the attempt, and given this difficult side to me I am lucky that anyone bothers.

But holy crap do I get angry.

In an attempt to calm down, here is a song I have liked a lot for a long time that can be tough to find sometimes, and a picture of Amelia because she generally smoothes me out.

Download: Blonde Redhead - Jetstar (Threadwaxing Space Live)
Buy the Album: Various Artists - Threadwaxing Space Live 1993-94

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Today it feels as if my deep bruise-colored loneliness has filled my chest cavity to protect my heart.

Download: Jolie Holland - Do You
Buy the Album: Jolie Holland - Escondida

I don’t idolize Rock Stars, or get caught up in nostalgia trips for music made before I was old enough to read, but there was something uniquely cool and tragic about Syd Barrett, and his recent death touched me. I wrote elsewhere that it was a weird combination of pathos and bathos — the inevitable conclusion of a sad story that most of us had forgotten was still going on.

But then again, who are we to say it’s sad? For all I know, Syd Roger led a perfectly nice, ordinary life in the 35 years since he cocooned himself away from the public eye. Meanwhile, other artists were clothing themselves in the butterfly skin he shed, viz.:

Download: Last Laughs For The Madcap … a mix for Syd [73 MB]
View: the track listing

The Things That Make My Heart Beat Faster, Part Two

I am unmade bed but perfect skin,

nails bitten to the quick but toenails the color of seashells pulled inside out,

wrinkled collar but sugar scented neck.

This song is me falling over and over again

this song is me watching the world pass by from my window

heart pounding in my chest because I just want to be there.

In the world.

Real, in the world.

&

I don’t know how to cross-over, where people touch each other

with hands and words

and hurt each other

with eyes and indifference.

I dream of connection over and over,

red and gold.

I don’t know if I’ll be good at it again, but I sure would like to try.

&

I was wrong:

I am not people-broken, I am just re-working my velveteen rabbit stitches is all.

Download: Jose González - Heartbeats
Buy the Album: Jose González - Veneer

I’d have forgotten all about Earwig if my favorite Chicagoan, Jessica, didn’t occasionally pull out their album on sleepless nights and reminisce. And then write about it.
There’s a, you know, 90’s tinge left all over this album - remnants of that 4AD sound (apropos, given that Earwig became Insides and signed to a subsidy of 4AD), that “hey, I’ve listened to a lot of Factory Records releases” sound. But that’s not a bad thing, necessarily. Earwig has been said to have sounded like Stereolab if they had been into the Factory scene and not kraut rock. Intriguing. Unfortunate that they only released a handful of records, (all now out of print, Under My Skin I Am Laughing the only real full-length effort of them) because there is a pain and a longing expressed in their songs that isn’t all cloying melodrama. Kirsty Yates has a hauntingly beautiful voice that reminds me a little of Hope Sandoval. Earwig is some pretty decent shit.

The Things That Make My Heart Beat Faster, Part One

photo courtesy of perri

Do you know what that feels like?

I can show you what that feels like.

I want to.

Download: Nikaidoh Kazumi - A Little Bit Away From My House / Masakatsu Takagi - Ween Piano
Buy the Album: Nikaidoh Kazumi - Mata Otoshimasitayo / Masakatsu Takagi - Rehome

Download: Only - Hometown