Fractionals

My Village Voice review of the new Stereolab album has hit the web.

I'm busy/on semi-vacation this week (yes, again), but someone stumbled upon this and I had to share - not just because he's right, although I think he is (and Simon's put his finger on something that's long kind of bugged me), but because of the really flattering mention of both Stylus and myself. It's appreciated.

Feel good hits of the 16th of August, 2008:

The National - "City Middle"
Hefner - "Don't Flake Out on Me"
The Rolling Stones - "Loving Cup"
Hot Chip - "Making Tracks"
Thrush Hermit - "French Inhale"
Mogwai - "The Sun Smells Too Loud"
Dragonette - "Take It Like a Man"
Low - "Will the Night"
Bardo Pond - "This Time (So Fucked)"
Grizzly Bear - "While You Wait For the Others"

My review of the new, fantabulous Stars Like Fleas record is up today at PopMatters.

It feels like I was gone forever, but I guess not; all that's been up in my absence was this review of the new Gas boxset that went up today, and my most recent turn at What Was It Anyway?, on Mike Paradinas' finest hour.

If you go away for more than a few days, leave a pile of stuff in your computer chair. Frank the cat sheds a lot, and he misses you.

So I'm in the 'business center' of the Holiday Inn we've been staying at in San Antonio since Wednesday; today we drive up to Killeen, where my cousin who just got married lives, and we stay there until Wednesday when we come back down here to fly up to Canada again.

I am looking forward to being cold again like you wouldn't believe. It's not that it actually gets that much hotter there (5 degrees, maybe) it's just that instead of that being a once in a while thing, in the full glare of the afternoon, it's constant. I was sitting out on the front patio of the hotel at 1 am this morning, cold beer in hand, shooting the shit, and the sweat was just pouring off of us all. The darkness didn't make it cooler at all.

It doesn't help that we're all drinking constantly, although it's certainly made for a good vacation (and relatively action packed at that - marathon golf sessions, a bachelor party and a wedding, bar hopping, tour of the River Walk, etc etc etc). I like San Antonio - and, in general, Texans - very much, but we're all very close to getting ready to go home. My birthday is tomorrow and I'll be doing I-don't-know-what for it - don't really want to celebrate, to be honest. Between this and the reunion in Kincardine and Hillside before that, I'm all relaxed out. I want to get back to work (but there's still one more 'vacation' before that, which I'm looking forward to...).

In any case, still alive, having a great time, so sick of sweating that you just wouldn't believe it. I get back to Ontario Tuesday, I work Wednesday. Hopefully my personal bottom line can survive this month.

The weekend was excellent, and I'll write about it later - I've had two days with virtually no sleep and I have to pass out now. In the meantime, he's a very well-written, rather heartbreaking story about Genesis P-Orridge, a man the world tried so hard to break that he tried to break it right back.