all the news that print will fit.
|
|
| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
|
|
Thursday, August 30, 2001 np: oh, why don't you come on back from way out west... so guess what, kids? i'm finally in london. where i'll be spending the entire fall semester, and you, yes you will be privy to all my misadventures via this journal. so, frequenters, expect updates, 1-2 times a week. (emailers, i'll be checking my email 2-3 times a week, which is as often as i'd like to update my blog, but i'm realistic about my lazinees.) let's start with the flight over. we arrived about two hours before take off and i had to go through a very agonizing and painful goodbye with b----. it was full of a lot of tears and excitement all at once, which is very hard and weird to do. the flight was about 7 1/2 hours long and fairly plesant. i landed at gatwick airport at around 6:20am London time. i met one of my flatmates, michael, at the boarding station for the gatwick express, which is the train system that takes you from the airport to victoria station, one of the big trainstations in london. from there, we took the train to victoria, then a taxi to our hotel. we stayed the night there and the next afternoon at noon met the rest of our guilford folk at another hotel nearby. we went to our new flat with my new flatmates: (in alphabetical order) alison, james, lizzy and michael. we have two bedrooms with all the guys in one and the girls in the other. the bathroom has this really spiffy green tile. i'm taking a lot of pictures, but i probably won't develop them and post them until i get home in december. sorry. unless i decide otherwise. in which case you'll find out, no? we start our internship on tuesday and classes on wednesday. i'm really looking forward to it. i got my monthly tube pass today, which allows me unlimited access to zones 1 and 2 on the tube. this means, basically, i can go anywhere within central london. which is all i'll need to use unless i go somewhere else, in which case a train might be the best option. i'll have to pay a little extra to go pick up b---- at heathrow by tube in november. she's coming to visit for thanksgiving and for that i am ever, so incredibly thankful. she is all i could ask for for the holiday season. *smile* the neighborhood we live in is really nice and isn't far from the very busy oxford st. it's a busy, commercial area with lots of restaurants, stores, etc. the place i'm typing from is located there. it's a twenty-four hour a day internet café. very hip. heh. the connection isn't that fast, but it's better than the dialup at home, that's for sure. hoorah for technology. there's also a ton of great shows coming. quick list: ryan adams (of whiskeytown fame), weezer, nanci griffith, willie nelson, placebo, embrace and a bunch more. i'll update you, of course, with any that i see or catch word of. so for now, i expect, that i am off. long and boring but it can only get better from here. actually.. if you're ever looking for a cheap wine to toast your new flat and flatmates with, never wonder in and buy two bottles of white and red wine titled, respectively, old tart and old git. face it, the bottles may be highly amusing, as might be the names, but it is not amusing to swallow. bleh. heh. best wishes to all of you, love to some more, and immense respect and immense love to one in particular. posted by J. Neas | 8/30/2001 11:16:00 AM (0) comments Friday, August 17, 2001 eddie 'n' carla's song was 'o, canada'.. and as i looked out those ever foggy windows i saw a blue truck like the one she used to drive. i imagine looking through heat-release intentioned cracked windows to see her copy of bone machine on the dash she was sitting in the bed playing another Cohen dirge the kind where her voice got low like a plaintive, seductive breath and there was me, hands 'tween my legs on the stool perched with the stickyness of rocky road on my lips my body rich in aural goodness the honey-drip of her words an intravenous meal of soul, and love, and life. and then gone. her refrigerator the white, ice block ancient giant and paintings, and scent and memories and stamps. i never mailed the letter. the one that told her everything. the one that spilled every bean and fruit of the water-logged existence the weight of feet and miles you couldn't run. the ages you could not physically (ring-counting) but only mentally transcend. she had a decade's head start. and i will never (my achilles to her tortoise) catch up. formulate infinity/store it deep inside me posted by J. Neas | 8/17/2001 03:01:00 AM (0) comments Friday, August 10, 2001 np: whiskeytown - stranger's almanac what an album. it's like..all that i thought was capable of alt-country and its fusion with every other palpable style of popular music from the last seventy years came together in one grandiose collection. i purchased it, along with the tragically hip's day for night, nanci griffith's flyer and the wallflowers' breach which has that marvelous replacements reference in "murder 101." ("..now my intuition failed, i can't graduate unskilled..") everything is drawing closer to an end. i realised that this monday is two weeks until i leave. and after that, nothing is certain ever again. i was always so anxious to leave. to light out for the territory all over again. but what happens when you found what you were looking for all that time, and it can't go with you? you manage. i suppose. that's such an ugly word. manage. a close relative of "mangle" and all sorts of other jarring, dis-membering words. they also cancelled the tibetan freedom concert. on the other hand, placebo is playing the brixton academy in october. maybe i can make up for them ignoring the carolinas on their american swing. i saw one of the best live performances ever last night. glen phillips played at amos' here in charlotte and totally blew me away again. he kind of let me down a bit on monday night in winston-salem. he was a bit lackluster, not as talkative and less energetic in his performance. but all that was replaced with the normal glen last night. he played "torn," one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite toad albums (pale), "windmills," (from the awe-inspiring dulcinea), had one encore of just sing-along songs ("fall down," "something's always wrong," and an incredibly loud and boisterous crowds' larger than life version of "walk on the ocean") and then a final encore of kool and the gang's "celebration," and the only toad song to potentially be considered better than "windmills," "i will not take these things for granted" as a closer. intensity. everyone find yourself this week. and if you can work it in, a killer pair of pants on a clearance rack somewhere. posted by J. Neas | 8/10/2001 09:40:00 PM (0) comments Sunday, August 05, 2001 man, the rollin' stones are playin' in philadelphia tonight..but fuck 'em..we're better np: antica... i just finished toni morrison's the bluest eye and it was absolutely marvelous. her writing is akin to ray bradbury's, in that her ideas, her prose comes across more like poetry than anything else. the ideas conveyed in the bluest eye, about racial self-lothing and that inherent quality that was built into the children of 'aframericans' (to quote george schuyler) to think that they were not beautiful. to think they were not worthy. i am going to see glen phillips twice next week. once in winston-salem on monday. (at the incomparable ziggy's) and then in charlotte on thursday. i am tré excited. things're dragging closer towards london. michael has left for his backpacking pre-london trip so that means less than a month to go. as of today, 22 days. i am a bit frightened, though terribly excited. any fear has to do with me and her. and how i can deal, and exist when i've learned to focus so much on her appearance and existence within my physical plane. i can deal, though. i want to. i have to. bands i plan on seeing whilst in london: pulp, gary numan, josh rouse. and the list grows. sara told me about josh rouse playing in september. she's a peach for informin' me. i'm pumped to see him. i heart his dressed up like nebraska album incredibly much. i don't know how to close. i guess i'll just... posted by J. Neas | 8/05/2001 03:32:00 AM (0) comments |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
