Best Recommendation Ever

Haight St. store Booksmith clearly knows what's up.

Farewell, Casiotone! [[Hello, Free Time!]]

Last weekend, Owen Ashworth played his last gig as "Casiotone for the Painfully Alone." Openers at this Bottom of the Hill gig included disappointing girl group, "The Ian Fays" and some jammy bros that call themselves "The Donkeys."  The thirteen year anniversary of his first performance as CFTPA, this show was electric and intensely emotional, with a heavy dose of party towards the end. The last several songs (pre-encore) saw Ashworth backed by The Donkeys.  Hearing these tunes fleshed out with a full band was a fantastic surprise.

Great use of white space, poster-people.

At the end of his last song, a tearful Ashworth threw his hands up triumphantly: "I QUIT!"  Eruption.  CFTPA has been a really important musical project for me, having had a huge influence on my writing and poetics.Of course, I'm sad to see it go.  Owen promises that he's already starting work on Round 2, and he will reappear in 2011 with a project called Advance Base.  I can't wait.

The Ian Fays wear only red and black. How mod.  (Psych.)

No one ever played the sitar that was onstage all night. Rude.

Owen's last hurrah.

In other news, fall semester is over, recuperation (read: falling asleep everywhere for several days straight) has occurred, and Christmas break is right around the corner. Forward motion!

Golden Gate Bridge Stroll  (Not a place for arbitrary napping.) 

Aeroplanes, Antiques, and Anniversaries

Thanksgiving was one big love-fest.  Just before hopping on a sweet silver sky-ride, I learned that a recent poem of mine had been nominated by USF for the AWP Intro-Journals Contest. I started vacation with a veritable skip in my step and one red-eye flight later, disembarked to collect hugs galore and more delicious home-cooked food than you can shake a stick at.

Some things happened. It's true.

1) Crashing closed gigs, plus one rad sister, to hear lovely men rock out is a really great idea.  There is just nothing like a live, grinned-through version of "Some Kind of Wonderful."

Load-out o'clock. I was paid in tikka masala and Shafer Merlot. Heaven.

 

The guitar player is a pretty nice guy.

2) Searching for [un]BURIED TREASURE, Meghan and I trekked through the cavernous grocery glory of Jungle Jim's International Market.  Our next stop was the nearby antique mall. See below.

Ghost doll.

Ghost doll posse.

Here's to houndstooth.

CHA CHING.

Fedora'ed Flannery.

Want.

3)  Bonnie and Clyde meet ACADEMIA, stealthily acquiring access to UC's McMicken Hall and roaming the hallowed corridors of the English Graduate Department.  New additions to PhD program application include:

TADA.

An office? For me? Okay.

 4) The Kemples educated us in the following arenas over some zippy Indian cuisine: Aronofsky cinematography, WikiLeaks, and everyday Dadaism.  No pictures available in order to maintain informant anonymity. 

5) Finally, a pilgrimage was made to sacred ground.

Formerly: Toedtman School of Music.

In summary: There was snow. There was a roof-deck for watching sunsets over the city.  There was a Victorian house in Kentucky full of lovely people and Christmas trees.  Thanksgiving, you could not have been sweeter.

Now it's time to finish up that last week of Fall Semester and then it's a mad dash to Christmas vacation.  In the meantime, I give you....