"Lost In Space"

Years ago, and another computer ago, I had downloaded Lost In Space, along with the bonus disc. Anyway, today I finally bought it- got it used for $8.

The album itself is kind of a downer, but in a good way. Disc Two has a little more variety: there are the B-sides, "Nightmare Girl" (which reminds me of the opening theme to Rosemary's Baby) and "Backfire" (why wasn't it released as a single?), a cover of Coldplay's "The Scientist", and two unreleased songs, "Fighting the Stall" and the best song in the whole collection, "Observatory". The rest of the songs are live tracks from Space.

The packaging is really nice too. I'm not into graphic novels, or as I like to call them, comic books, but I guess they're the cool thing now.

If you get the chance, buy it. If you don't believe me, check out the first track, "Humpty Dumpty".

Carrie

I saw this poster for Carrie on Final Girl's blog. I think it has some really cool design elements.

That got me to read about the movie which I had seen years ago and thought was just ok. The book too.

Stephen King tells the story behind the inspiration, writing, and publishing of Carrie in his book On Writing. It's really interesting. You should definitely seek out On Writing. It's excellent.

Anyway, afterwards I looked up Brian De Palma movies. Some I'd seen, others I was surprised by. I'd seen Raising Cain- this was before John Lithgow got really annoying. De Palma did Dressed to Kill and Body Double- I happened to catch Body Double this week at my friend's house while he was at work.

I've wanted to see it ever since it was mentioned in American Psycho. I wanted to see what the big deal was. Number one- it's very dated. It's dated even before the male lead wanders onto a video shoot for Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax".

Number two- the male lead, Craig Wasson, was a wicked pussy. Since I grew up with 80s movies I didn't realize till lately how wimpy a lot of 80s male movie characters were. Wasson was such a passive loner- not to mention- his claustrophobia- that it was distracting. What the hell.

Anyway, De Palma made so many different kinds of movies- the Hitchcock types, Bonfire of the Vanities, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible.

Pretty Woman

A friend is over and we're switching back and forth between what each of us wants to watch: She wants to see the Hairspray re-make; I'm into catching Pretty Woman again- Richard Gere and Julia Roberts look so young.

That guy at the hotel is pretty cool. I read the Stephen King short story "Dedication" the other day. It's from Nightmares & Dreamscapes; if you get a chance check it out.

More pictures

Here are just some other pictures I've come across lately.

There's the Echo promo postcard.

The inside of the University deluxe box. Not exactly on my wish list- I'd rather have the King book.

House Tornado (US) promo poster. I'd go get the UK promo poster off 4AD.com but their site is such a drag to use.

OK

...I couldn't take the suspense. Here it is.

Isn't that the most beautiful picture you've ever seen in your entire life? I already loved the album cover for Red Heaven. Nice colors, and funny- it looks like a bunch of little Madonnas- Blond Ambition-era. And the artwork for the Firepile EPs is awesome too. But this is incredible. So cool, so beautiful. I found it on Throwing Muses's page on 4AD.com.

Coolest poster ever

A couple months ago I was looking for images from The Breeders album Pod and I ended up finding this super-cool promo poster for the Frank Black album Frank Black. I love it and I'd kill to own a copy of it.

Well last night I was looking around and I found a picture of an even cooler poster. It's so beautiful, I don't even know what to say. I'm not going to post it now; maybe I'll put it up later tonight or tomorrow- I wanna build some suspense. Wait till you see it, you're gonna love it. Pictures like this were the reason I started RJ Battles.

Falling in love with songs

I'm really loving two of the newest Throwing Muses demos- actually, I think, they're Kristin Hersh solo demos that may potentially become Throwing Muses songs. Anyway, I love the one from September, "Cherry Candy/ Dripping Trees"; I can't wait to hear the finished version and at the same time I can't see how it could be improved. This months, "Clark's Nutcracker" has a sweet melody. As I might've said before, I hope the next TM record brings back Tanya Donelly. "Clark's" would be perfect with Donelly's singing and guitar. I'm keeping my finger's crossed.

By the way, this past Saturday my status update was, "Don't forget to set your clocks forward two hours- Fall forward!" and I couldn't believe how many of my friends thought I was serious. Am I really that dumb?

The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff (1979) Tom Wolfe

I'm re-reading The Right Stuff and loving it all over again. This is my second time although I've read the first chapter about seven times.

It's call "The Angels" and it's a perfect piece of writing. It tells the story of a pilot's wife waiting to hear if her husband has or hasn't died in an accident. There are parts that make me choke and my eyes will fill up with water.

Wolfe is the best non-fiction writer I've ever read. It might've been a long time till I read him if I hadn't come across an audio-tape version of his 2000 collection, Hooking Up, for $2.99 at a discount store. So good.

Wolfe himself reads about half of the selections and I could listen to him all day.

The two best stories are "Two Young Men Who Went West", and "my Three Stooges", the second about criticism of his second novel, A Man In Full, and specifically John Updike, John Irving, and Norman Mailer, who all came out against the book.

If you see Hooking Up at the store pick it up. Same with The Right Stuff.

"Just Like Anyone"

"Just Like Anyone" is track 10 from Aimee Mann's 1999 album Bachelor #2. A few months ago I found the quote below.


"This is a song I wrote when Jeff Buckley died...I hadn't known Jeff extremely well, but we kept bumping into each other here and there.

"One night we met at a pub in New York City and we started writing messages to each other on a paper placemat that was there, instead of talking, because the music was really loud or something.

"An interesting effect of that was that we found ourselves writing things we would never dare to say to each other out loud. I remember thinking that he seemed sort of lost and sad although outwardly he was very funny and lively and confident, and wrote something about that, amoung other things.

"...one night I got a voicemail from him that said, "I just realized what you were trying to tell me that night". I tried to call him back but the number I had for him was old. I got his new number but I was out of town again and it was hard to call, and then I heard that he was missing and presumed dead..."


"Just Like Anyone" (A. Mann)

So maybe I wasn't
that good a friend
but you were one of us
and I will wonder
just like anyone
if there was something
else I could've done
So maybe it's true that
your cry for help
was oh, so very faint
but still I heard
and knew something was wrong
just nothing you could
put your finger on
and I will wonder
just like anyone
just like anyone

Upcoming movie report

I was just about to go to bed cause I'm working tomorrow at 6:30am but I was flipping around and saw that Grindhouse was starting on IFC. I'm watching Planet Terror now; it's wicked gory. I'll write about it here at RJ Battles next week.

A new Throwing Muses demo, "Clark's Nutcracker", is up now on Kristin Hersh's CASH page. It sounds awesome and it makes me hope that Tanya Donelly will come back again to sing when Throwing Muses gets together to record.

You'll also want to listen to September's song "Cherry Candy/ Dripping Trees".




Note: I'm also gonna write about a show I watched Halloween night called Amityville: The Last Testament.

Throwing Muses promo poster

I'm really excited because tomorrow after work I'm gonna buy the Throwing Muses album from 2003, used, from the local record store.

I downloaded it back when it came out but I had to delete my hardrive back in 2005. Throwing Muses was more like a 50 Foot Wave record than a TM record, and Limbo is still my favorite, but Throwing Muse is awesome in it's own way, plus it's got tanya Donelly doing backing vocals. I like how it's all fast songs, nothing slow and no piano fragments. It really is a party record.

Anyway, here's a House Tornado Sire records promo poster I came across today.

More cool pictures

These are some pictures from ebay. The first three were taken at the beach, maybe at the same time that they made the cover for Trompe Le Monde.
The last picture is the Seal My Fate clear 7" record in front of a red background.

Top- Bright Yellow Gun Throwing Muses
Second- Counting Backwards Throwing Muses
Third- Dizzy Throwing Muses
Forth- Gepetto Belly
Bottom- Seal My Fate Belly

This is a neat package, plus a test printing

The first two pictures are from some kind of promo; the last picture is a text printing of The Real Ramona.

New pictures

Last week, I re-read the last half of Rat Girl. It's really a very good book and you don't have to know Throwing Muses music to like it. I'm hoping that it finds a large audience.

Thses are a couple images from the UK edition.