The Invisibles [entries|friends|calendar] metwhat A B O U T You know who I am. D A F O O L I pity him. credits This layout was made in Photoshop CS, handcoded in Notepad by Nocturne, using brushes by Liajedi and Linzee. All rights reserved. Modified by Matthew Davidson for a green color scheme. [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

My faith in humanity restored [November 4th, 2006 | 02.00] [ mood | ecstatic ] [ music | Decemberists ] This always happens after a great rock show. Tonight, I went to see the Decemberists at Hammerstein Ballroom, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. It's rare that I see a show these days (and those of you who know me well know why), but this was totally worth it. They mostly played songs from their new album, The Crane Wife, playing The Crane Wife 3, The Island, Yankee Bayonet, O Valencia!, The Perfect Crime #2, Shankhill Butchers, The Crane Wife 1 & 2, and Sons and Daughters. I wanted to hear When the War Came, but 'twas not to be. From their older stuff, they played Song for Myla Goldberg, We Both Go Down Together, The Engine Driver, and 16 Military Wives. (I think that's it for the main set.) They also played this great cutthroat song (yes, I know they have many songs with cutthroats, but this one is gorier) called Culling the Fold. It was recorded for Crane Wife, but Colin said it was "too violent" to make it onto the album. He got them to turn the lights down to all red for it, hehe. But it's not just about the music, oh no. There's so much more. There's massive amounts of sing-alongs, to the point where Colin lead us through some vocal cord warm-ups. Witness a duel between the left and the right halves of the room over the chorus to 16 Military Wives. Circles were formed for the purpose of having a dance competition for The Perfect Crime #2 (amazingly better live than on the record.) And best of all, during the encore, half the Decemberists opened up a little space in the crowd, and got audience members to participate in a reenactment of some British military battle that involved running into each other. The encore was Red Right Ankle, A Cautionary Song, and I Was Meant for the Stage. I know a lot of people really resonate to I Was Meant For the Stage, but it's never appealed to me. Personally, I would have died to hear The Soldiering Life or Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect, since those songs have special meaning to me. My only other minor quibble was that I've heard great stories about the Decemberists' covers, and I wanted to hear some. In other news, I've written so little of late. Work has really picked up and left no time for noodlings of the electronic sort. 2|+

Feeling ill [October 6th, 2006 | 17.17] [ music | Decemberists' The Crane Wife ] Illness seems to be running around, methinks. My coworker, two of my roommates, one labmate, and one of my friends are all sick. So naturally, I started to get a little touch of it myself. I can't tell if I have mild symptoms that are waning or if I'm just starting to get sick. Weird, non? I have a little tightness in the throat, a low-grade headache, and mild agitation. I want to curl up in front of a fire with a blanket and a book. In other news, some Minuteman asshole appeared at Columbia last night and protesters took to the stage, shutting it down. (For those who don't recall, the Minutemen are an anti-immigrant group that's been doing vigilante-style patrols along the Mexican border.) Today, Bill O'Reilly called Columbia the "University of Havana-North". Since Fox only reports the Truth, it must be very truthy indeed. I, for one, welcome our designation as U Havana-North, and look forward to a brisk business bootlegging cheap rum and cigars. Che Guematthew out. 1|+

The hell are they doing? [October 2nd, 2006 | 18.36] [ mood | restless ] On my way down to Chelsea today, I saw these two blond boys run in to the end of the subway car and sit down. A moment later, their mom came walking down the car. Then at the very next stop, they all left, and ran as far as they could down the next car and entered again. This amused me greatly. Don't these tourists know that the whole reason we walk between cars is for the thrill of seeing that rare Mole Person between stops? They just don't know what they're missing. +

Been a while [September 28th, 2006 | 23.07] [ mood | sugar rush! ] [ music | Junior Boys ] I haven't posted in almost two weeks, been busy. My new class on psychology methods is half interesting, half tedious. We'll see how it shakes out. I'm starting to feel like Morningside is my neighborhood now, though I still miss Brooklyn. Well, I'll be spending plenty of time there this weekend for Evan and Sarah's wedding. They're taking over some bank(?) for the wedding proper, and then after the reception, we're going to go to an afterparty at the Roebling Tea Room... which serves booze. I've been biking a lot, it's really a great way for me to stay in shape because I see nifty sights and it keeps me engaged. On the other hand, I haven't gotten too much practical use of the bike yet, since I fear dying in the streets. That fact alone burns hundreds of calories. My pulse quickens every time the light changes. I should market it as the "Creamed (by) Car" diet. I sent my newlywed friends Kevin and Kate a cast-iron teapot set. It's very nice, and I'd been lusting after one for myself for years, as they seemed to provide that holy grail of being able to boil water in them, add tea, and then pour from as well. However, once I actually set about investigating them I learned that for anything less than a couple hundred bucks, you can't boil water in them. Foo! For those of you wondering about the less cohesive nature of this post compared to prior ones, fear not. I will still compose ponderous tomes, but I'm also going to try and keep it a bit simpler with more frequent updates. 2|+

An appropriate High Fidelity quote for the day [September 14th, 2006 | 16.34] [ mood | gloomy ] [ music | The Magnetic Fields ] "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" +

Deliverance [September 6th, 2006 | 20.33] [ mood | bit sad about life sometimes ] [ music | Junior Boys' So This Is Goodbye ] So, it's down to the steamy, kudzu-infested domain of Alabama this weekend for wedding number two! I haven't been in Alabama since I worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority (go figure). Last time I was here, I worked an 80-hour week and started hallucinating from sleep deprivation by the end of it. After our final demo had concluded, I walked out of the building and straight into a dreamscape, everything shimmering with the heat evaporating the thoughts out of my head. My literary friends Kevin and Kate will be getting married. They work at the College Board. Yes, the one responsible for inflicting the SAT on you in high school. Kate comes from a little town in Alabama so small that a) half the town will be in attendance and b) there's no stoplight. So I hear. Even more fun, there's no place to stay nearby, so everyone has to get a hotel room a half hour away. This conflicts with my plan to take the subway home once I get smashed. Foo. Why a wedding can't be held in a place with nearby airports like New York, I don't know. I can only conclude that this is the price Kate must pay for marrying a damn Yankee carpetbagger like Kevin! Thanks folks. I'm Matthew; I'll be here all week. The next wedding at least has the decency to hold itself in a Brooklyn art venue. I myself plan to get married while skydiving. This has the advantage of cutting down on both the ceremony length and the number of guests. On the downside, it greatly increases your chance of attending a funeral the same weekend. 2|+

Zucchini [September 2nd, 2006 | 15.26] [ mood | nostalgic ] One thing I doubt I mentioned when I first moved to my new place is the astonishingly large zucchini plants growing on my street. There's two of them, growing in those little concrete-less spaces where trees usually stand, which got me reminiscing. How do I know they're zucchini? Well, when I was 9, my parents moved out to an old tobacco farm just outside of the city, and my father proceeded to grow a huge, no, tremendous, vegetable garden, which his children were required to help out in. We seeded, we weeded, we mulched, we moaned about working. Mostly I loathed the garden, since it seemed I was participating in my own dinner-time torture by being forced to not just eat my vegetables, but grow them too. Like ordering condemned men to dig their own graves, I thought. Insidious. One fun memory I do have though, is of the summer my older cousin came to visit. The zucchini plants were especially large, and we were still small enough that if we got down in the dirt, the leaves would arch over us and create a green-shaded world broken with the occasional sunbeam for that couple of feet above the ground. The zucchinis themselves were wild, dark-green prey to be hunted, cowering amongst the stalks and leaves, hoping to escape our notice. Foolish squashlings! Some we would display our munificence with, and turn loose to grow another week. Most we culled, creating heaps and heaps of zucchini. I still wasn't a big fan of eating the zucchini straight, but as anyone who has ever grown them knows, they are very prolific, so you are forced to do other things with them. My parents turned many of them into zucchini bread, which I loved, and gave them away to anyone who would take a batch. We had so many that, at the end of the summer when it came time for my cousin to fly home, she let him pick a few zucchinis to take with him. Mostly he chose some good-sized zucchini, but he also chose the single largest one we grew, a 3-foot, multi-pound monster. Now, these larger ones are mostly inedible, but why should a 13-year old care about that? I found out when my mom returned from the airport that a major security incident had occurred. Apparently, at the checkpoint when they ask you if you have any weapons to declare, my cousin held the zucchini up high and shouted "Does this count?!!" Many people panicked. Nowadays, they'd grill my cousin and the zucchini for Al Qaeda sympathies, demanding to know what sort of Middle Eastern "dish" he was planning to "cook up", but in those days, terrorists like my cousin received only a stern talking-to. +

GREs [September 1st, 2006 | 17.04] [ mood | blah ] I am about to get all hardcore nerdy and start studying for the GREs, the Psych GREs and preparing my grad school application. The next four months will suck ass. But don't worry, I still love you all. :) And now for the soul-searching part of today's blog: What do you really love to do and how much are you prepared to give up to do it? Would you give up lesser, but enjoyable, activities? Would you let your health go? Would you move to another place where you knew nobody? Would you neglect your friends? Would you sell your grandmother into slavery? 6|+

Minor update [August 26th, 2006 | 21.35] [ mood | chipper ] [ music | The Band ] So, I just wanted to post real quick and say that my date with the DJ girl, Sydney, was merely ok. She's only a part-time, occasional DJ. Mostly she worked for a citizen watchdog group that monitored politicians for bad behavior. I wish her luck in that, though I feel it's akin to a band-aid over more fundamental problems. In other news, Christina IMed me, and mentioned that she was "thinking too much". So I teased her a bit about that, suggesting Valium. She asked if I thought she needed Valium, and I didn't know she was being serious, so I joked about "not snorting so much coke" instead, and she started getting weird. Mostly, she was trying to figure out if I was going to ask her out on a second date, and I wasn't really providing any clues one way or the other. I try not to play with people's feelings, but perhaps it would be better not to talk to women if I know it will go nowhere further. In more positive news, I finally assembled my computer desk, so I now have room to walk around my, uh, room. +

Wow, a whole week [August 20th, 2006 | 23.57] [ mood | This mood courtesy of Ursula K ] [ music | Merely the silence of eternal twilight ] So, I noticed it has been a week since my last posting. What has happened in the interim? Well, I had a date with a lovely young lady named Christina last Tuesday, but it's not to be because, well, she doesn't excite me. She's perfectly normal, certainly cute, and with decent taste in music, I suppose, but I was left unmoved. Looking back on my romantic choices of the past, I can only conclude that I am drawn to the unusual, the exotic, the flamboyant and the freaky. I blame Catholic school. The highlight of this so far was a goth girl who worked at a heroin rehab clinic and was covered in piercings and scarifications. Her scars were very hot, both mentally, and to the touch. ;) Still looking for an anime chick with blue hair, though. So why didn't I say more earlier? In my defense, gentle readers, I have been sick with strep since Wednesday, and have been hard at work trying to get rid of this one irritating lung that just won't seem to go away. I gazed hazingly at the Trinidad and Tobago block party happening on my block on Saturday. I have become intimately familiar with the layout of my neighborhood Rite-Aid. I have even had to reschedule another date twice due to it. Ah yes, the second date. This young lass is a bit harder to read, so perhaps it will work out. She's also a DJ, which piques my curiosity. We shall see. I remain, Matthew Davidson +

Bikin' [August 13th, 2006 | 22.38] [ mood | pleased ] So, I carted my bike down 5 flights of stairs today, put foot to pedal, and zipped across Bway to the west side park for a nice bike ride. My bike, for those who are not aware, is a hastily cobbled together green Schwinn thing purchased from some shady guy in Wburg a few months ago. The smallest couple of gears have a lovely habit of slipping. And the entire gear changing mechanism involves moving thick... I suppose the only word is spoons, up and down. There's no kind of discrete sense of where the chain flips from one one gear to the next, sort of like manipulating a trombone. Or computing electron orbitals a lá quantum mechanics. Anyway, the ride was nice enough. I was passed by dozens of superior bikers, with helmets, shiny bikes, suspensions, water bottles, and padded asses so that they remain fertile. I made my way down to the level of 82nd St and then sat and watched park traffic and read my book. I learned that there are way more people still rollerblading than I ever imagined. I thought that was supposed to have gone out of fashion along with phrenology, martini lunches, and composing poetry as a drawing room hobby. Eventually I decided to leave, and I saw to my dismay that my front tire was flat. Don't get me wrong, it was still much more of a circle than say, a trapezoid, but various parts were less circular than the rest. Namely, the part that touches the ground. Not wanting to damage the rims by placing any more weight on it, I carried the bike to the 86th St station and annoyed everyone around me with its presence. For one brief moment, though, I became psychic. Everyone in the car was thinking, "If you have a bike, why are you riding the subway, asshole?" +

Settling in [August 9th, 2006 | 18.57] [ mood | satisfied ] [ music | Silencio ] So, it's been a while, loyal readers (yes, both of you). When last I dipped pen to e-paper, I spoke of a joyous party in the untamed wilderness of Queens. Since then, I have moved up to Columbia, and seen my brother get married. The move went alright. It was on Wednesday the Second, the freakin' hottest day of the summer so far. I'm pretty sure I drank a small lake's worth of water. But at least this time there were no spectacular disasters. It was just long and hot. My new roommies are nice. Here's the move breakdown: Moving date: 2nd Roommates: 3 Flights I have to walk up: 5 Commute: 15 minutes Critters still alive: 2 Critters dead: 3 Fire hydrants spraying water down my block: 2 Homeless guys selling the stuff I had just gotten rid of: 2 The wedding was quite nice. There were the usual shenanigans, but nothing disastrous. My brother and his wife seem like a good fit, judging by the way they banter. While I'm a bit skeptical of marriage myself, I wish him the best. Although I did forget to give him hell about the time he stabbed me with a steak fork. Also, I discovered that my older cousin once dated one of my professors here at Columbia. (Fade out to the tune of "It's a Small World".) 1|+

The Juan and Only [July 31st, 2006 | 20.52] [ mood | energetic ] [ music | Bumpin beats ] So, on Saturday, I trekked out to the wilds of Long Island City to see The Juan Maclean spin at PS1's Warm Up. It was fan-tastic! For starters, PS1 is simply the city's best art museum. Not overrun by old masters or too stuffy to have a little fun with the museumgoers. I saw an exquisite, life-size sculpture of three guys vomiting into snow around a tree. Somebody worked real hard to capture the way hot puke sinks into cold, virginal snow. I have never been disappointed at PS1. :) Then there was Warm Up itself. I mostly went for The Juan Maclean and Adam X. The Juan Maclean is one of the best electroclash guys around, off of DFA records. Adam X was one of the DJ's at one of the best parties of my life, New Year's 2000 in a burnt-out warehouse in Brooklyn. My M.O. for Warm Up is usually to show up before the music, scope out the museum, and then party, which I did. Success! After I was done poking around the museum, I returned outside to the courtyard where the bands are. They had an ice cave, a dark room filled with huge blocks of ice to sit in, pricey beer ($6, ugh), these massive shady overhangs shaped like the Sydney Opera House, little wooden wading pools, misting stations and barbecue. Yay! I danced til I was soaked all the way through. I think I got a little heat exhaustion, though. Boo. Anyway, I'm rarely this fanboyish, but a good party always makes me think all is right with the world. +

Manhattan - good for me? [July 27th, 2006 | 22.15] [ mood | hungry ] [ music | THe whirr of the fan ] So, after a 2-3 month period of tight breath and a primal urge to cough, I am once again breathing easily. And yet, I can't determine why. I've had stuff like this crop up in past years since moving to New York, so it could very well be seasonal. I never had any allergies before moving up here, but who knows? OTOH, it could also be due to leaving Williamsburg. See, as much I loved it, Williamsburg has an industrial history, and even today, overrun by young people with record collections, it still has a lot of auto repair and light industrial. The pollution can't all be from increased levels of tattoo ink. Wburg processes half the waste of the entire city. There were some intersections where the smell of sewage wafted through the air with disturbing regularity. The only thing missing was green glowing swamp gas. Plus, I lived just a few blocks from the BQE. Are highways vastly worse than bumper-to-bumper taxis? Or could I have been sick with low-grade mono? Shame there's too many confounds to tell which it is. Every year I tell myself I'll remember the timing of the onset next year to determine if it's an allergy. And next year will be no different. :) But anyway, a toast! To the rough city breeze, to the cooing of pigeons on a sticky asphalt day, to the slow beeeeep-beeeep-beeeep of a truck backing up! New York, I salute yo-(cough, cough)... +

Home, home on BWay! [July 23rd, 2006 | 16.02] [ mood | relieved ] [ music | Lily Allen ] So, I have a new place to live. I will be moving to 109th St between BWay and Amsterdam. Close enough to Columbia to be 50% more expensive than my previous place, but also close enough to Manhattan Valley to be flavorful. Whatever. I'm watching one of my cats sniff the other's ass right now. It seems disgusting, but perhaps this is a form of non-verbal communication we're not fully appreciating. Scene: Two friends meet. One sticks his nose in the other's crotch, and inhales deeply. "You smell stale. Are things not working out between you and Mike?" Perhaps not. 3|+

Stuporman [July 16th, 2006 | 00.07] [ mood | restless ] [ music | Silence ] Well, I was having a blah day, the stress of finding a new place to live (again) was getting to me, so I went to go see Superman Returns. Perhaps it's merely that I'm looking for a little mental popcorn to go with my, eh... popcorn, but I found this movie awfully heavy. The entire subplot involving Lois's new husband and kid gave me new insights into asthma, as it was sucking the air out of the theater. Perhaps the fact that Bryan Singer is trying to show Superman returning to a more complex world just isn't sitting too well with me given my current mood. Or maybe it's the popcorn that's not sitting too well. It's hard to tell through the buttery haze. The best moments are the goofy little Clark moments, where Brandon Routh emerges, and Clark Kent comes alive. To me, the whole appeal of Superman lies in this duality. By himself, Superman is straightforward and unsurprising. But throw in Clark, where he has to pretend to be mortal, and the tension emerges. By making Lois a married woman, though, there's not even a hint of the fun we had when we could see both Superman and Clark chasing after Lois. Clark is too polite to hit on a married woman. (Though Superman is weirdly stalker-esque in this film.) As always, the villains have more fun, Kevin Spacey doing a decent Lex Luthor, and Parker Posey acting better than everyone else in the movie. Either that or I just have the hots for Parker Posey. I saw her in the House of Yes years ago, and was simultaneously creeped out and intensely drawn to her. (Side note to James Marsden: between Cyclops and Lois' husband, you're recreating the career trajectory of Paul Walker. I'd say watch out, but you haven't yet gotten me to care, which is the whole point.) In other news, this is my first real blog posting. The meme thing doesn't count. I've been thinking about doing a blog for a long time, and have held off because, as a former dot-com programmer, I feel that I should run my blog as my own website. But because I only have one computer at home, I can't dedicate it to being a server, so I'd have to pay for hosting elsewhere. We'll see what happens in the future, but for now, LJ is my home. -m +

[July 14th, 2006 | 00.53] [ mood | no A/C! ] [ music | Caribou nee Manitoba ] (Click here to post your own answers for this meme.) ✓ I miss somebody right now. ✓ I don't watch much TV these days. ✓ I own lots of books. ✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses. ✓ I love to play video games.  (But I rarely have time to) ✓ I've tried marijuana. ✓ I've watched porn movies. × I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship. ✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy. ✓ I curse sometimes.  (Fudge yeah!) × I have changed a lot mentally over the last year. × I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me. ( it goes on... ) 1|+

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