October 2004

The next 15 shuffled songs on my iPod:

Such Great Heights, Iron & Wine
Shake Your Rump, Beastie Boys
Queensboro Bridge, David Mead
Monkey Gone to Heaven, Pixies
Reasons to Quit, Merle Haggard & Willie Nelson
Vice from the Inner Soul, The Confusions
Rock a My Soul, Pixies
The Card Cheat, The Clash
Eugene’s Lament, Beastie Boys
Under the Bridge, Sandy Silver
I Don’t Get It, Cowboy Junkies
Disorder, Joy Division
New Dawn Fades, Joy Division
A Well Respected Man, The Kinks
Police & Thieves, The Clash

You know, I don’t think I’ll ever “get over” being a former born-again; my experiences during that period shaped me in ways that I probably don’t fully understand yet. So imagine my delight and fascination with the blog They Will Know Us By Our T-Shirts [thanks to The Morning News for the link], a blog about working in a Christian bookstore. I’d like to read every entry and add it to my RSS reader, since his comments about Passion of the Christ merchandise and Jay Jay the Jet Plane videos are insightful, honest, and funny. But beyond the humor, there’s a deep look at Christian consumerism and the evangelical subculture, touching on many issues I considered when deciding whether to leave born-againism.

This blog reminds me, in part, of a song by Steve Taylor:

So you need a new car? let your fingers take a walk
through the business guide for the “born again” flock
you’ll be keeping all your money in the kingdom now
and you’ll only drink milk from a Christian cow
don’t you go casting your bread to keep the heathen well-fed
line Christian pockets instead–avoid temptation

guilty by association

Turn the radio on to a down-home drawl
hear a brylcream prophet with a message for y’all
“I have found a new utensil in the devil’s toolbox
and the heads are gonna roll if Jesus rocks
it’s a worldly design! God’s music should be divine!
try buying records like mine–avoid temptation”

guilty by association

So you say it’s of the devil and we’ve got no choice
because you heard a revelation from the “still small voice?”
if the Bible doesn’t back it then it seems quite clear
perhaps it was the devil who whispered in your ear
It’s a Telethon Tuesday for “The Gospel Club”

“send your money in now or they’re gonna pull the plug!”
just remember this fact when they plead and beg
When The Chicken Squawks Loudest Gonna Lay A Big Egg
you could be smelling a crook
you should be checking The Book
but you’d rather listen thank look–the implication

guilty by association

great bartenders + rabbit food + lots of beer + lunar eclipse + new friends = dying

Jay Allen, in discussing why he hasn’t updated the master blacklist since the 9th, explains why Blacklist 2.0 is a better option for fighting spam–to wit, it allows you to moderate the addition of comments to older blog entries, thus freeing you to leave comments open on those entries and still not worry about spammers getting in.

So that’s another option. However, Blacklist 2.0 runs only with Movable Type 3.0 and up, to which I’ve not yet upgraded. I’ve closed off comments now on about half this blog’s entries, and I’ve already noticed a marked difference in how much spam I receive. MT3 does offer other attractive new features, such as entry scheduling (which would allow me to write up an entry now and schedule it to be posted to my blog, say, tomorrow or next week) and subcategories (which I want; I’d love to have an overreaching New York City category and several subcats under it).

So I have a couple good reasons to upgrade, and I can get in on the unsupported free upgrade, which probably works for me for now, since I’ve never used MT support, and I’m the only author on this blog. It’s really just a matter of making the time.

This morning, I was on the 6 train, and after a couple stops this person got on. Ugly person, of indeterminate gender. Unlit cigarette dangling from the mouth. Clearly really out of it somehow–deeply fatigued, strung out, drunk, something.

I paid no attention, but because I was sharing a bench with this person, I kept my distance, as did everyone else who came aboard. The 6 pulled into Grand Central. At the last minute, the woman (I’m guessing/hoping) got up to leave, and I finally saw what she was wearing: a miniskirt, stilleto heels…

…and her panties down around her ankles.

Drool. Let’s be straight, though: I don’t like the photo-album much. It would work great for simple images, but, say, a Grand Canyon panorama would look like shit on the iPod. What I love about this is the introduction of a color screen.

I think it’s funny that just after reading this article, by a book-collecting professor, I read today’s French-Word-A-Day:

bouquiner (boo-kee-nay) verb
1. to hunt after, to collect, old books
2. (informal) to read

I really need to read more after work, and I definitely should start studying French again, but I’m always tired and the TV’s so distracting. Sigh.

Alas, it’s in pukey old Boston. Which sucks, because if it were in NYC, I’d move hell and earth to be there. I mean, to me, that’s like Sting appearing with U2 or something.

But anyway, the show will apparently be archived on the etown site, soonish, and I will get a copy, oh yes, and it will be mine.