It's comin' out!! It's comin' atchaaaaa!!

Food Bed Gospel is, that is.

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Beethoven, String Quartets Ops 59 and 74 (perf. the Takacs Quartet).

Big Star, #1 Record.

Mitch Hedberg, Mitch All Together.

Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That.

Dr. Octagon, Dr. Octagonecologyst.

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Carved apart a turkey yesterday, yesterday being our actual Thanksgiving. The turkey I roasted turned out to be extra, and so I was able to practice carving it in edifying privacy. The experience turned out to be memorable, and put me in this frame of mind:

"A technique is a procedure that may be mastered, but the skill of the sage goes beyond this. One might say that it has become an 'art,' a dao. With Zhuangzi's conception, any physical activity, whether butchering a carcass, making wooden wheels, or carving beautiful ceremonial bell stands, becomes a dao when it is performed in a spiritual state of heightened awareness."

Presidential reading habits, maybe

Camera Obscura, Let's Get Out of This Country

Luna, Rendezvous

Wayne Newton, Mr. Las Vegas

The Notorious Bettie Page, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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In the line at the bank yesterday, I was complimented for having the foresight to bring a book with me: Turgenev's Fathers & Sons. The complimenter was a Vegas-looking fellow, with brilliantined Lancelottish hair, black clothes, a light amt. of girth around his middle, black specs, and a reedy-but-big voice. I relayed to him the Matt Fitsko-derived fact - not since confirmed or denied - that Abraham Lincoln always carried a book with him, wherever he went. He enjoyed this possible fact. Then a young fellow with a British accent and a laddish mien interrupted him to ask what the date was. "It's November 22nd," Vegas Lancelot said, "tomorrow is the November 23rd, which is Thanksgiving." Which I took to be a surprising five seconds of harsh school and condescension for poor British Guy. American Hegemony at work within America itself, perhaps?

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Weird: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on the tube over my shoulder right now happens to feature the fellows from Spamalot. Everything's connected today.

The core thaw

Puccini, Tosca.

Animal Collective, Feels.

Ryan Adams, Demolition.

The Decemberists, Picaresque.

Rufus Wainwright, Want One.

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Inconspicuous Consumption.

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Lines, at last. Ahem:

Kids don't pick each other up
too frequently, I know you're after
all boys will be boys & it's something
to heft a person who's lived as long as you,
I would swim with Drew Marong
on my back & felt like Atlas: he'd
pretend to drown & so would become
the world to me.

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A turkey's in the sink, thawing. Will it be alright by Thanksgiving? Say I began the thaw this afternoon? I'm thinking about the innermost thaw. Also: thaw begins to look fascinating with enough consideration (and Scotch). I'd play this game with various words when I was younger. I would say Cheerio - as in the cereal O - until the word lost all associative meaning.

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Blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

The charm offensive

Otis Rush, All My Loving.

Shout Out Louds, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff.

Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs.

Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender.

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Sadly, there's been no time to read poems, write them, or run.

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This town darkens quickly. Valley life. I also suspect that the absence of material in the atmosphere means that light doesn't catch on anything. Ambient light levels stay low.

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I'm bringing back the use of "presently" for "right away" or "as soon as I can." Who's with me?

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Tonight's post title is brought to you by Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which deserves your patronage.

Current listening & more

Beethoven, String Quartets Ops. 59 and 74.

Fiery Furnaces, Bitter Tea.

Portishead, Dummy.

Radiohead, Amnesiac.

Duncan Sheik, Phantom Moon.

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Now entering a thirteenth straight hour of work. Occasional stops for food don't count.

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Someone tell me how The Simpsons were tonight.

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"The reigning economic system is founded on isolation; at the same time it is a circular process designed to produce isolation. Isolation underpins technology, and technology isolates in its turn; all goods proposed by the spectacular system, from cars to television, also serve as weapons for that system as it strives to reinforce the isolation of 'the lonely crowd.' The spectacle is continually rediscovering its own basic assumptions - and each time in a more concrete manner." ~ Guy Debord

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"They are THE OPPORTUNISTS, those souls who in life were neither for good nor evil but who took no sides in the Rebellion of the Angels. They are neither in Hell nor out of it. Eternally unclassified, they race round and round pursuing a wavering banner that runs forever before them through the dirty air..." ~ John Ciardi

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Two contests to ready Food Bed Gospel for. Currently taking bets on how the MS will fare. The odds that it'll win the day are not in your favor - let's call them at 800 to 1 - but brother will they pay.