How to Hush a Sick Transmission

In a few days, I move into Brooklyn. Yesterday I held my new keys in my hand, finally after 23 years, a New Yorker.

Tonight I sped up 440 listening to Califone as the sodium lights winked around me. The turbo howled, competing with the grunt of the cylinders as the volvo soared across the back roads of Hudson County. It's a fitting way to bring my time on the peninsula to a close. Today I looked up the phonetic specifics of the North Jersey accent. Apparently what we do is rhotic and lacks a short a split. (wikipedia it. "new jersey english.") For 23 years of my life I continued my mothers dream of getting out of Hudson County and becoming a New Yorker. Now I know simultaneously that this will always be home, and that it's sensibilities will always somewhere be a part of me.

I'm moving into a place with Elias in Bedford-Stuyvesant, part of a network of beautiful brownstoned blocks. We have a beautiful if unimpressive view from the third story, and I will be within walking distance of John.

There's a new woman in my life. We'll call her Kay. And she makes me very happy.

I have a new job, working with Jay, as an "Investigator Journalist" at a due-diligence investigative firm. I write boring reports on hedge fund managers, and have a blast trying to catch mistakes that the research team makes. It's nominally enjoyable. It pays the bills. The office and the people in it are pretty good. Writing slogans in French from May 1968 on my impromptu bulletin board is only marginally helpful. Once I'm more on my feet, I'll look for something creative again.

Oh, and also, apparently, the PATH train is on fire.

Each one of those things could be a full post. But I am very tired. I'll try to write y'all more asap, but the move may make that difficult. Many happy regards to all. Boredom is counter-revolutionary.

Passaic and Ganges One

Three issues of the Paris Review ago, there was a phenomenal interview with a poet that I knew nothing of (little surprise there; I'm a bit of a Philistine). Dude's name was August Kleinzahler, Jersey City's own, and he riffed about writing and life about as well as it seems he has written and lived. Anyway, he gets some props in the New York Times this morn. Check it out. An excerpt of note:

Ultimately Mr. Kleinzahler boiled his case against Mr. Keillor down to these three-and-a-half sentences: “Multivitamins are good for you. Exercise, fresh air, and sex are good for you. Fruit and vegetables are good for you. Poetry is not.”

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Life's moving fast over here, by the way. New job, and it looks like I'll be moving to Brooklyn (though my heart still belongs to the crown jewel of Hudson County). I'll catch y'all up when I'm not on the clock.

Airmen

A birthday E-mail I received today from a dear friend:

Dear Charlotte,

Happy Birthday! From me and the folks at Merriam-Webster.

with love.


The Word of the Day for April 7 is:

luftmensch \LOOFT-mensh (the "OO" is as in "foot")\ noun
: an impractical contemplative person having no definite business or income

Example sentence:
I worry that my nephew, who has several advanced degrees but no practical skills, will be a luftmensch all his life.

Did you know?
Are you someone who always seems to have your head in the clouds? Do you have trouble getting down to the lowly business of earning a living? If so, you may deserve to be labeled a "luftmensch." That airy appellation is an adaptation of the Yiddish "luftmentsh," which breaks down into "luft" (a Germanic root meaning "air" that is also related to the English words "loft" and "lofty") plus "mentsh," meaning "human being." "Luftmensch" was first introduced to English prose in 1907, when Israel Zangwill wrote, "The word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man.... He was an air-man, floating on facile wings."

I am touched.

Today is my birthday, and it has already been beyond splendid. I am so happy about today. Today makes me very happy.







!!!

Word Juice

So I'm sitting in the office, drinking a fresh cup of coffee (or as I like to call it, "word juice"), writing up a few little pieces for the paper's daily web updates. Listening to a digable gal I just met on the radio. Wearin' a t-shirt 'cause it's warm.

Life's pretty OK. And a there's a lot to update y'all about. Like the giant leaps forward that the band is making. Like how I'll soon be starting a job working alongside Jay as a private investigator (I know, right??). Like how I might be an extra in some photoshoot.

But earlier today, I was hanging out in my favorite bike shop, shooting the shit with Malcom as I was re-lacing a wheel and changing out an axle, talking guitars, life, women and bicycle racing, when I realized I was late for work. So I ran downtown, wheel strapped to my back, wolfing a slice of pizza on the way. The last two bites tasted awful, and the whole day I've been smacking my well-lubricated lips, quite concerned that I ate a significant amount of bicycle grease.

Accelerate

Today is a sacred day for two reasons.

First, it is April Fools Day, the most high holiday of my friends from academy. They are on the west coast now, yes, but I'm half expecting to leave my apartment today to find my door cardboarded over, or at the very least to receive a few forged e-mails. So watch out.

Second, today R.E.M.'s new album drops. Growing up, R.E.M. taught me what indie rock was. They painted pictures of a south I had not yet seen, they said to high-school-frosh me "there is a world where crazed yet mellow guitars create beautiful landscapes where Michael Stipe is busy weaving threads, but Mike Mills will invite you in for a glass of lemonade." And I liked that. I was a guitarist reared on Hendrix and the blues, but R.E.M. was this wonderful alternate sonic possibility, constructed of blends and arpeggios. I went through the entire discography voraciously. I was about done with the then-last album, "up", when "Reveal" dropped. I dug the singles, but the album felt like someone else trying to be R.E.M. After hearing the singles for "Around the Sun", the last album (in the current issue of SPIN, guitarist Peter Buck refers to it only as "the Last Record") I didnt even buy it. I felt it was an important if bittersweet facet of growing up... Watching my heroes lose their touch, slide into the inevitable loss of inspiration and energy that befalls all who don't burn out. I tightened up my guitar strap and started rocking harder with Maxwell's Demon, to do my part filling the void thus opening in the world. I didn't look back, it was too painful. I just learned how to play half of "Reckoning", that's all.
Well.... A little bird sent me a copy of the new "Accelerate", due to drop today. Popped it in last night, and, damn--the boys are back. Now I'm not going to go off the deep end as some reviewers have. This is no grand return to the IRS years. There're still relatively few post-punk Four-on-the-floor, we're-gonna-knock-down-half-the-buildings-in-Athens drum beats (do check out Horse to Water, though). Buck's arpeggios are back (thank GOD!), but not as frenetic as they once were. The production clearly cost what all the albums from the IRS years cost combined, and I would like more Lo-Fi to match my favorite sonic landscapes. But all that being said... damn, this is good! Mills is on point as ever, returning to his off-mic backup-vocal-cries, Buck is getting his tone dirty again, not just distorted, and Stipe finally sounds like he's having fun again.

It's a good day for music.