Aarktica >> I can really feel it now

Aarktica - "Big Year"

(Silber Records, 2002)

It is a new year, a year in which you can do a lot of things!  Rather than sitting here and reading this, you could be doing any one of several productive things at this very moment.

I got this CD, Pure Tone Audiometry, in 2003 or '04.  Read a lot of reviews of it on Aarktica's website here.  Despite the wonky Stereolab-esque title, it sounds nothing like those boring pinkos.  I'd recommend this album to fans of laid-back dreamy drone confections like Stars Of The Lid, Low, and Windy And Carl.  Aarktica is pretty much a one-man instant party headed by Jon DeRosa, with guests on instruments like cello (Andrew Prinz of Mahogany), trumpet, upright bass, etc.

Opuszine said: If "Ocean" is the album's most affecting piece, "Big Year" is the most haunting. DeRosa's guitar takes on an endless sound, creating ghostly, bell-like tones that seem to hang suspended in the dark ocean depths. DeRosa's tired vocals have a sinking quality, as if lyrics like "Today I learned to tie my shoes / I can feed myself again / It's gonna be a big year / I think I'll even start to talk" are a weight dragging him down into the depths plumbed by his guitar. Far above, Prinz' cello can be glimpsed, filtering through the murky surface like dim rays of sunlight, forever out of reach.

Be fucking amazed by this huge, whitish-blue agave (likely a rare Agave franzosinii, or else just a really whitish and floppy Agave americana) that I found a week ago.  I won't reveal where it is, other than to say that it's in a well-landscaped parking lot.  I helped myself to a pup, and as a souvenir I got a big cut on my left tricep from the mama's imposing leaf spines.  Finding this plant was a great way to cap my year on a high note, since I never thought I'd see one in real life.  Compare its leaf color to that of the "normal" dark-green leaves on the Sabal palmetto (Cabbage palmetto) and Cycas revoluta (Sago) in the background.  Mind-boggling.

On New Year's Eve, I stayed home and decided to do a quickie painting, after realizing that I pretty much slacked off from making art in 2011.  The background was done ca. Feb. 2010, and it sat around for almost two years.  I had planned on painting a reclining nude lady, but I'm not good enough at that yet, so I waved the white flag and threw on a palm:

On 10x20" canvas board; as usual, it's acrylic paint.  The palm is not done in black paint, but rather in Payne's Gray with a type of silver paint called Iridescent Stainless Steel mixed in.  Not my most impressive work ever, but its uncluttered-ness gives it a nice Zen-like quality.

On Monday I brought my busted greenhouse to this scrap metal yard by the Superdome.  After about half an hour I received a whopping $3.60, wrapped in a piece of white paper, for about 40 lbs. of iron.  "Stairway To Heaven" played on a little raggedy boombox, barely audible over the cacophony of clanking metallic noises.  Some guy was wearing a Notorious B.I.G. sweatshirt.  I'm into recycling and all, but this was one of the most depressing experiences of my life.  Luckily I didn't get a flat tire from all of the nails and screws littering the lot.  I then picked up a book of John Ashbery poems and a Morcheeba CD, then shot some hoops at the Annunciation St. basketball court.  Later I got a chicken carbonara at a Quiznos in Marrero, and was subjected to a Ke$ha song on the satellite radio station.

Yesterday I made an impromptu stop at NOMA's Sculpture Garden, and it was much better than I had remembered being a few years ago.  Pics forthcoming.

I'm going to the Saints-Lions playoff game tomorrow (my dad scored us free tickets), but not to the LSU-Bama BCS title game on Monday.

Planets with similar climates: Unwound - "Below The Salt" (2000), Low - "Lullaby" (1993), Windy &Carl - "A Dream Of Blue" (1997), Bark Psychosis - "All Different Things" (1989), Mazzy Star - "Umbilical" (1996), Talk Talk - "After The Flood" (1991).