Just going to clarify where the name Elvis Fucking Christ comes from:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW1gM0w5HjE
The Cramps were pretty neat. I went on about them but this post got too long.
Anyway, I came here to ramble at length about a few things I like, do my best to convince y'all to get on board their glorious trains.
I am fond of this, for example. Recycled rat poison gas is so hot right now. And sciencetype studies (okay, The Onion) show second-hand smoke is linked to second-hand coolness...
But to move on. Here is something.
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1) The book Hons and Rebels: Jessica Mitford.
I haven't read many [auto]biographies, but this one is great. Jessica grew up in the 1920s /30s in Britain in an upper-class type household, sister of the author Nancy Mitford, and of Diana and Unity Mitford, the last two who became super-close with Hitler, especially Unity. As a teenager, Jessica got pissed off with her fascistic family and became a raging commie, eventually escaping by elopement with her also-commie cousin Esmond to Spain. They went to live in America after awhile.
Anyway. This ain't an autobiography that you'd necessarily pick off the shelf; I wouldn't have either based only on a description like that. And most people like to read biographies of people they know something about, it's not like Mitford is a household name. But the thing is, this woman is a fucking great writer. She knows what stories to tell about herself and how to tell them. This book is fucking funny! The stuff about living with her family is the best, she gets all their personalities across really well.
Jessica with Esmond at their Miami bar in 1940
Hmm, I just thought of the reason that the family stuff is better than the stuff about her husband Esmond. It's that she always had a love-hate relationship with her family, which makes her view of them rather clearer and allows her to depict them as fantastic, rounded characters. However, she was madly in love with Esmond, who got killed in action in 1941, so her accounts of her life with him tend to get a bit gushing. Fair enough.
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2) The band Of Montreal:
You know how there are some bands whose music you love and respect, and you really wish you could do something like that but know that you could probably never ever produce something that awesome?
Well, what I like about this band is that yes I like them, and yes I respect them, but when I listen I also feel like this is something I could maybe have a shot at. Their lyrics aren't very poetic, a lot of them sounds like things you might say in regular conversation. But the thing is they work, you can hear them properly in the songs and holy crap they get some things, some feelings completely right. Also they have super-good harmonies.
In the middle is Kevin Barnes, the driving force behind the band, who gave me the rest of his chocolate pudding. (I debated preserving it in a box). Dotti, the laydeh, has a Cyberman tattoo on her leg :D
Some of their songs are fucking annoying (Spooky Spider Chandelier I could stab you) but some are rad. Here is the first song by them I liked, judge for yourselves. Buzzy video is buzzy.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBfgQvM7wtE
Also you know what is nice about this band? Themselves, cos I got to meet them, shit yeah! And their latest album has a popout cover which may or may not make a lampshade, with INSANELY detailed radass artwork on it.
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3) The word 'fuck':
Fuck.
Okay, some of you won't be on board with this, but it is such a fantastic word! The way it rolls off the tongue! And it's so versatile. And the word motherfucker is like a firework in the mouth. Of incest.
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There are so many more things I could talk about, like libraries, or Eddie Izzard, or the stuffed 'moose' head that's in my dad's study waiting to be mounted, but it's late. Ah, what the hell.
'Moose', 2009.
DON'T TELL ME THIS ISN'T GREAT
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