on popular demand:

more pictures from our little trip!

it wasn’t only jackie o’s first time to chew betel nuts, but she also took her first stab at being a biker babe. as you can see, she succeeded quite admirably:

we also hitched a ride with this nice little pickup truck:

english claire demonstrated her deep commitment to global ecology, hugging this slightly disgusting and mossy jungle tree:

and some various pictures of temples, just because they’re so beautiful, colourful and serene. well, they would be serene, if someone blew the soundsystem. they ALWAYS play horrible, tinny chinese opera music. why?

so yeah. today was particularly uneventful so far, because we had a meeting slated at work, but i couldn’t go because i was supposed to ask for my final exam results at school. so i should really dart off to the gym, and more exciting, the hairdresser (yay!) now.

life is dangerous, noiserock is fun.

i fell into a bottomless k-hole last night, while i was listening to bjork’s ‘it’s in our hands’. everything was a bit much to bear, and when i woke up, well ‘woke up’, in a room full of clothes piled up to almost the height of my bed (and how did that happen?), things were looking not so good indeed.

then we went to our favourite sunday afternoon hangover institution, the diner, where the consumption of a big cheese-and-bacon burger, scrambled eggs and a bloody mary made me feel slightly less shaky and fuzzy. the diner is a lifesaver, the personnel should be knighted for serving the most delicious food in taipei.

besides, i’ve been listening to some brazilian music my friend sue strongly recommended to me. how right she was about marcos valle and quarteto em cy! seventies goodness, and a trifle cheesy. i’m still searching for edu lobo, another brazilian musician from that timeframe, but his music seems to be rather elusive, heh heh.

more contemporary, but not less eccentric: marnie stern’s wonderful debut, in advance of the broken arm. this flippant singer-songwriter teamed up with hella’s drummer to deliver this chunk of deerhoof-like goodness. her voice is a bit grating, and the synth, guitar and drum arrangements are never less than plain weird, but it is amusing and profoundly rewarding music, for marnie stern is not above the occasional beautiful, or even catchy, harmony or melody. i especially recommend ‘this american life’ and ‘plato’s fucked up cave’.
dissonance + strange lyrics + shrill voice + monster drums = a very good album by a very, very promising artist.

sun moon lake can suck my titties.

our holiday was, simply put, awesome. wonderful sightseeing, fun with offroad scooters, exhausting ourselves to the point that we WILLINGLY went to bed at nine o’clock, good food, and plenty of dazzling nature all around us. also, we were graced with a visit by one ana magriteh, well-known to you, dear reader.

it was nice to hang out with my roomies/good friend/boyfriend in a setting that was not taipei! i will let the pictures speak, as i fall into a deep, comatose sleep. oh so tired!

yes, it was quite the trip. i’m glad to be back home, of course, and will update my blog regularly again, promise kay?

恭喜發財! Happy Chinese New Year!

i wonder how i always get so thoroughly wasted. i wasn’t THAT high when i finally said bye to vicky, the poor darling. i’ll miss her, but i’ll see her in june of course, that goes without saying. it was weird though, to sit on her flat’s balcony and to know that it was probably the last time i’d ever be there – i’ve even lived with vicky for a week!

then ana magriteh, the local version of antigone, iphigenia AND some sex symbol, and the boys came around, because we were collectively going to a hook-ah bar (ha ha). i was bored with the long wait (they were tinkering with iPhoto and i needed to phase out of reality), so took some mian. now, drinking on top of that isn’t very nice. i remember nothing and i feel like i’m 77 years old. if ana magriteh is a combination of antigone and a sex symbol, then i’m a combination of christiane f. and henri bergson. BAH.

in other news, we’re going on a short trip tomorrow morning, so i won’t be here for a week. happy chinese new year and stay tuned, dear reader!

french claire is going to teach you who’s the boss.

french claire’s blog address changed, and i cordially invite you, dear reader, to honour her with your continuing patronage for many interesting pictures from the foxy parisian’s ritzy life.

http://amanea.wordpress.com

music is my hot hot sex.

another music post, about some things i’ve been listening to, and a mix i made for dear claire (she’s after all the one who has to comfort me when i’m crying on the living room floor with a bowl on my head).

first of all, i’ve been listening to susumu yokota a lot again lately. i’ve had his grinning cat album for five years now, but it ages like fine wine, much unlike boards of canada or other downtempo electronica acts (who listens to seefeel nowadays? eh? eh?). grinning cat is so good because there’s a lot of innovation going on: unusual polyrhythms, good sampling, and a warm, organic gloss over the whole album, that makes it sound contemporary, and not like some etude played by a 1970s ibm computer (and yes, most ‘ambient’ albums sound a bit soulless). so i’ve been listening to sakura and the boy and the tree as well, and they’re still worth your while.

i’m also rapidly becoming obsessed with electrelane’s new no shouts, no calls. it’s a perfect mix between the pop ditties of the power out and the krautrock noodling of axes (especially when verity sussman starts wailing: i’m tearing down THE WAAAALLLLLS! THE WALLLLLLLS!). everyone should buy it and they should become massively famous, or at least stereolab-kind-of-famous, since they sound like an improved, updated version of mid-90s stereolab now anyway. and that’s not a bad thing in my book!

and the new bracken album, we know about the need, is good. this bracken person is apparently hood’s singer, and his album sounds a lot like hood’s last couple of releases. the same mix of shoegaze and deconstruction borrowed directly from prefuse 73 and clouddead… me like me like.

now for claire’s mix:

1. the greater times (electrelane) [verity sussmann wails that she will tear down the walls because of love]
2. heathens (bracken) [easily the best track off the album]
3. homecoming (the teenagers) [a delicious slide of cutesy dirty music]
4. north american scum (the lcd soundsystem) [the album is a wee bit disappointing, but well... they're the lcd soundsystem, after all!]
5. pillow fight (the 6ths)
6. percolator (stereolab)
7. used goods (love is all) [a song for spastic breakdancing around the house]
8. young folks (peter, bjorn and john) [i will forever associate this with painting the living room in obscenely glossy outdoors paint]
9. where youth and laughter go (broadcast)
10. card nation (susumu yokota)
11. cherry cream on (unrest) [delicious early 90s nostalgia]
12. your private dancer (kevin blechdom)
13. sarah sitting (the swirlies) [see, unrest]
14. someone great (lcd soundsystem) [sound of silver's most memorable song, hands down]
15. one for all (lansing-dreiden)
16. why won’t you talk about it? (the radio dept.) [this mix is silently getting darker and moodier, mmyes]
17. you’re my disco (fischerspooner)
18. a night full of open eyes (the blow) [because it's so cute]
19. take ecstasy with me (the magnetic fields) [i've got a version where susan amway, and not stephin merritt, sings; so much better. and i like the title]

that’s all for now.

blade runner.

we went to the fabric market to acquire some interesting clothes for claire. she’ll be pretty in her new skirts with fabulous japanese-y prints!

some burlesque pictures from that buzzing hive of notoriously unfashionable activity:

use your heart as a telephone:

the happy shoppers:

taipei looks a bit like blade runner and a bit like moscow before the glasnost:

miss zwandels will go back to belgium tomorrow, so we went for lunch. she’ll be missed! we saw a crazy man sniff glue from a bag, and to add insult to injury, dan’s hair looked like he was ready to front duran duran. also, darren sported his golden scooter… made of gold… uh-huh.

so yeah. it was quite the tiresome day and i’ll miss vicky A. LOT. well, see you in belgium, miss zwandels!

elephant.

before i saw this cute blue elephant, everything was okay. the moment i saw his cute glittering heart with all those sequins though, i realised how bad my life was, that i’ll never find love and that love doesn’t exist anyway. love isn’t like this elephant at all, love is awful and never works out. i will always be alone, just like everybody else is. and i’m listening to beirut and crying my eyes out… bouhouhouhou.