"Best" of 2008

Everybody does it, I can't help it.
Here they are, my entirely subjective Top 5 records/songs of Oheight. Picked more autobiographically than critically. Though all of 'em are very good.

Records

I Kettcar - Sylt
II Get Well Soon - Rest Now! Weary Head, You Will Get Well Soon
III Portugal. the Man - Censored Colors
IV Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
V Tomte - Heureka


Songs

I Chuck Ragan & Nagel - No Rubber Tired Vehicles Beyond This Point
II Why? - The Hollows
III Bon Iver - Skinny Love
IV MGMT - Time to Pretend
V The Hold Steady - Constructive Summer

Video

Stars - Bitches in Tokyo


Thoughts, comments, disapproval.

Things to Spoil the Holiday Spirit III*

A Dennis Prager quote via Feministing:

First, women need to recognize how a man understands a wife's refusal to have sex with him: A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny).

Some people should just fucking stop talking about women AND/OR men.



* Thing I obviously being the Israel - Palestine mess, II the pope's remarks on non-traditional heterosexual relationships. But don't even get me started on that.

Merry Christmas

Put the Lights on the Tree!

Coy Copyboy Procrastinates..

Christmas Shopping

(Cartoon by Gary Markstein via Cagle)

I'm done with all my Christmas shopping for this year - and even without too strenuous encounters with the shopping masses - thanks, Internet! I once made the mistake of trying to enter a brand new Ikea on Dec. 23 - not such a good idea. But now that this ridiculous (but some how necessary) part of this time of year is behind me, I'm ready for the merry holidays.

How Can I Express?

I see you in your car
-your air, your hair, your stare.
I feel you in your street
- your feet, your beat, your cheat.
I hear you in your room -
- your steps, your regrets, your sex.

How can I express,
overwhelmed by your presence?

That.
I'm.
Lonely.

Vogue.

Stunning black blocks your insecurity,
obsession with your style
represses your troubles.
Spend it all on your look,
that looks like you never looked.

Do everything to get his intention,
then act like your not interested
Interest through desinterest,
oldest trick in the book.

Ode to Giamatti.

A day after today is not enough /Words trick more than they play /Of sparks so sweet and rough / To taste the colors is your way to pray / Your life is bottom shelf / Your booze tops yourself / Crank up the TV / Tear up the books /Create more / be less / never undress / Differ from difference / another Other /The naked leeds the blind / surprise is far behind

I---------------------------------------------------------I

There's a beep in static,
that's worth fighting for.

Thought taped tediously.

Nothing's not necessarily nothingness.
Less labor longer lingering!
Radical Rudy reduces randomness.
Sexy Suzie seduces silence.

[Hope]

In a long plastic tube
you trip over your own feet

~

A race to face;
the goal wants you


The bear is named!
The bear is named!
It bears the same!


Same sex, same flex,
same cheques, same fame,
same failure, same solution.

~

The tube has an end.
The silver lining was
just reflecting silver.

:-/

repetitive words on
repetitive flags.

individuals marching
one by one
unisono.

flash vote
revolts by mailingslist
emoticons of hate.

in a last gasping breath
the fish yelps:
"pour la solidarité humaine."

I'm Lost for Words.

"Language rules everything"

-says he.

"That's genius!"

-says she.

But what is it worth,
if language fails me?

random acts of kindness.

Improveverywhere.com
[via]

The Male Mujer.

From the New York Times:

But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call "muxes" (pronounced MOO-shays) -- men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.

"Muxe" is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish "mujer," or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community.

Not only is it a interesting third gender concept (more/via). But it is an indigenous, an old concept. A socially accepted role for men who feel like women - something 'we' in the Occident* either still dismiss or see as a progressive achievement. In my eyes, this is just another little fact proving the whole colonial "European societies as epitome of the civilization" idea was (or is) ridiculous.

*As a sort of Said-esque term

It's not easy being a manly ad..

(Image byCaveman 92223; via)

Night Out.

To the tune of 80's heartbreak
I drink to understand.

I raise my glass to your mind,
I drown a bottle on your body,
I take a shot on your eyes.

My feet shuffle til they fade.
My hips wiggle til they break.
My hands clap til they're sore.
My voice sings til it's gone.


And at gloomy halogen dawn,
nothing has changed.
Except our ways.

Visions for the Illuminated Pint.

In case you're reading this and live near Ulm: Be sure to go to the 'Offene Lesung' at Kultbar (Ex-Regenbogen), organized by Union Hills guitarist and plain ol' great dude Samuel and titled: "Visionen fürs leuchtende Bierglas"
Present your own poetry or just listen - it's supposed to be even more relaxed than 'regular' poetry slams. No competition, just an attempt of art. Too bad I can't be there.

It's too offensive, too offensive.

So metal(poseur) Label Roadrunner Rec. apparently refused to promote Amanda Palmer's (Dresden Dolls) Leeds United video and album - because her belly looks to fat in the vid. After this ridiculous refusal, Roadrunner lost its most talented (and maybe even skinniest) artist.
And it only makes me like Ms. Palmer more.
The video is amazing, by the way.