The Unevents in Kelly D-M's Life, or Why Dior under Galliano Owns After All

I think the best thing I can say about my 2007 thus far is that Sundays have been significantly less depressing. Unfortunately, I know that this is only because I am leading a rather dull life this semester, and the days have just sort of amalgamated into a foggy gray drone of (and in this order):

My Radetzky March cell phone alarm at 7 AM; Green Tea or Chai Tea or Orange Spice Tea or Rooibus, depending on how dark the circles under my eyes are; vitamins; clumsy and unattractive early morning sprints to catch the bus; the green rays and the growl-squeak-growl of the copy machines at work; job ads; the daily "are you gonna take a lunch break?" "no." exchange between me and my boss; blogs, blogs, blogs, and gluttonous amounts of facebook; Nick Hornby and Haruki Murakami and James Joyce; the bleak 45 minute walk from work home that I take for my daily exercise; my salmon-colored room with its rainbow-colored string lights, that is always cluttered even when it is clean; whatever is on Travel Channel or National Geographic Channel before I go to bed; and finally, bed. All this underscored by the music played by my iPod on its shuffle setting, which obviously gets old considering I have been too lazy to update it with new music (I know it's hard to believe, but yes, even Chris Bridges, even Kevin Barnes will wear on you after a while).

Weekends are basically the same except my exercise doesn't come from sprinting to the bus and walking home by the intramural fields where the hot soccer players look at me funny because I am unconsciously auditioning for my own private (or not-so-private) iPod commercial, and I don't usually work but instead sit in my room writing notes to myself of things I should do but never do do because I am too busy writing notes to myself. So, because my life right now is so unvaried, Sundays don't seem particularly depressing in comparison to other days. I don't use them to wallow in the blues like I used to, but instead to wallow in that foggy gray of nothingness. But hey, feeling nothing is better than feeling depressed, innit?, and I prefer to think of this change-of-consciousness as a big step in the general direction of Mind-Over-Matterville, USA. Oh, boy! What comes after that? Vaguely-Useful-Member-Of-Societyville, USA?

For the record, today is Monday, not Sunday. My life is so dull that I am resigned to write about what didn't happen the day before rather than what is happening the day of. But you know what, I'm kind of exaggerating things; my life can't be that gray (even despite the gray of the sky in the dead of winter here), because this weekend I actually interacted with real human beings! And did cool stuff! For one, I ate an actual meal that wasn't a rice cake with peanut butter and raisins: a falafel plate at Clocked, mmm, me want more fried chickpea ball eat. Too bad it couldn't have been falafel from Lenny Kravitz' favorite falafelerie in Paris, but we're not pining away over Paris right now, are we Kelly-Welly? No we're not, because we're content at Copy Services in the UGA Library! Good girl!

Anyway, here's what I did that was awesome this weekend:

1) Went to my cozy little 5 Pts Joe's to meet with my lovely unique-named girlfriends, Bronwyn and Sodashi, to discuss sex and the 'situationship;'
2) discovered Target's new line of homeware; subsequently asked myself why I was teasing myself with Target's bounty in the first place;
3) had a movement-based callback for a play, during which we did lots of Tai Chi (who knew ol' Billy Shakespeare was into Tai Chi???);
4) did Ghostbusters and Hot Chocolate with my elitist-but-sweet-as-pie rockrrr pal, Ryan White;
5) went downtown and bar-hopped both Friday and Saturday nights, thanks to the 21st b*day of Brookie's pal, Cherish, and the almost impromptu but much-welcomed visits of one beautiful Moroccan/Israeli, Adria, and one beloved Scotsman, Andrew* (he'll kill me for saying this, but we even got Andrew to tag along to the new gay bar, Detour, and EVEN to dance to the ghastly, why-was-I-ever-born-into-the-free-world techno music they were blaring);
6) and finally, I sobered up - it took the entire weekend, and I'm still a little intoxicated - from PARIS. SPRING. COUTURE. WEEK. And JOHN. GALLIANO'S. INCONCEIVABLY. NO. OTHER-WORLDLY BEAUTIFUL. ART-FOR-ART. MADAME. BUTTERFLY. INSPIRED. MOST DIOR DIOR HAS EVER BEEN SINCE GALLIANO SIGNED ON. CHEF D'OEUVRE. SHOW. FOR CHRISTIAN. "NEW LOOK." DIOR.

......I will post on this tomorrow. I will post on this as it deserves, or I will find Galliano himself and tell him that he just may have replaced Tom Ford for YSL in my book. Maybe even McQueen? Maybe even the original Dior, monsieur Christian? Maybe even God. I don't know. The impossible handiwork and IIIIIIIMMACULATE hair and makeup (done by, I can only assume, Pat McGrath and Orlando Pita) and operatic presentation of it all have my ass knocked so deeply into the floor that I can't think straight. Anyway, I'll think on it tonight, calm down, clear my head, and tomorrow I'll post with slightly less zeal, OK, lunacy, on just why it is so brilliant. Maybe by then I'll even find a flaw or two. Oh, and I'll post on the rest of Paris Couture Week, too, and how excited I am about NY fashion week starting this Saturday!!!!!!!1 And then I'll get a job.

Cheery-Bye!

* Andrew "warmed the cockles of my heart," as a certain someone would say, this weekend with a Woody Allen quote (of course, any Woody Allen quote would make my heart melt, but this one was particularly good), when explaining why he so frequently made the 5 hour drive up all the way from south Georgia to Athens to see his friends: "Well, I don't think money and gas really matter in the end. There's this great Woody Allen quote that goes: '90% of life is just showing up.' I figure any true friends are worth at the very least showing up for." *Swoon*! Woody Allen, the king of quotations, would SO be proud of himself for that one.

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Song I will be making my iPod commercial to on my walk home today: Junior Boys' "In The Morning," which much to my delight the delightful Winston played at Go Bar on Friday. That catchy squeak synth part of the song plays in my head whenever I make a faux pas. So I hear it at least 21,657 times a day.

As your heels hit the floor to the blaring Division

Well, for to satisfy no one's curiosity, I'm going to publish my top 10 album list of 2006, and I'm going to review one album per post, in no particular order, and it's going to be long and you won't read all of any of it. No further ado. Harumph.

# (?): Snowden - Anti-Anti

Here's where I make like the 40 Watt, supporting local music and screwing another good band out of a good spot: I have to give # (something) to Anti-Anti, the first EP by Snowden, a relatively young Atlantan (but almost Athenian) band led by a young Dorian Gray of a singer, Jordan Jeffares. I do so if only on the biases that they are local (repreSENT!); that they gave one of the most impressive performances I saw all year; that they have shared the stage with lauded (and good) bands such as Malajube, the Arcade Fire, Deerhunter, and the Junior Boys; and that some of their ATH friends are my friends. But that's neither here nor there. Anti-Anti really is a treat, and I can honestly say that it is one of my favorite records of 2006. But I probably would never have heard it if Snowden hadn't occurred to me one grungy evening back in October at the Caledonia Lounge. The Caledonia, mind you, is a puny little dive that often harbors surprisingly big sound (sometimes sandwiching it between lesser sounds); big sound that feels as if it should be spilling out onto the parking lot and into the much bigger 40 Watt Club, just a bop around the corner. Snowden's name had found its way into my awareness through indie osmosis, so when I saw their name on the roster for that night I did a bit of research, and, being bombarded with Interpol comparisons, i sighed (why are SO MANY BANDS today compared to Interpol? why don't you just make a White Album reference and call it a day?) and elected to go decide for myself if such a cliché comparison was defensible.

It was, and it wasn't. Both bands have the trench-scooping, staccato bass lines that invalidate any shoegaze classifications, and the washed-out, E-Bowed Les Pauls filling and breaching said trenches, that re-validate them. The vocals in both Interpol and Snowden, while not necessarily the driving force of either band, do make the ultimate call on their overall moods. Jordan Jeffares' voice certainly has a Paul Banks affectation, and everyone knows that Paul Banks' voice is an affectation of Ian Curtis' voice. But where Banks borrows both the impression of distance and the ennui from Ian Curtis' croon, Jeffares borrows only the distance. Joy Division is filtered out all the more, and thus if you just HAD to make some sort of an Interpol comparison, you would have to at least call Snowden an Interpol with a stronger sense of HOPE.

So how is Snowden NOT comparable to Interpol? In that they don't mean to be. It's as apparent live as recorded. If you lost the reverb you'd have a group of not-so-brooding, not-so-hardcore, not-so-Bowery Ballroom young musicians just tryin' to get by doing what they love best. Not-so-cool? Not necessarily. Just maybe not self-proclaimed cool. Even Corinne Lee, who may be the coolest, hottest, most badass female bassist I've ever seen, is as humble as the rest of them. No, I don't see Jeffares as lying around on his shag carpet listening to "Roland" on repeat, weeping with frustration as he struggles to figure out just how Paul Banks makes his voice sound so distant. I see him as listening to music, in general, in his car or on his iPod like the rest of the world, subconsciously drawing inspiration here and there, and it all just sort of seat-belting - and voilà - a band is born.

That night at the Caledonia, Snowden's big sound, as it turned out, did not spill out onto the pavement through the front and back doors of the Caledonia Lounge. It was contained, and potent, and effervescent, and and I drowned in sound and died happy. But if it ever were to burst through the doors, it would not spill out evenly but instead break apart, and each über-crafted bit would butterfly on in its own direction. Because Snowden's sound, while hauntingly harmonious, is a vulnerable one. It's one of those rare bands that could be described as "moody" or "atmospheric" and yet still be able to be easily broken down into four perfect plastic parts. If they were a compact 1980's toy, they'd be more of a Rubix Cube than a Koosh Ball. If they were a rock, they'd be sedimentary limestone long before metamorphic marble. If they were an abstract expressionist painting, they'd be a Rothko, not a Pollock (accordingly, Interpol would be an early Duchamp, My Bloody Valentine a De Kooning). Unfussily put for you.

But damn it! I forgot that this was an album review, not a concert review. You know what, though, in all honesty, Snowden's Anti Anti is a lot like a Snowden show. You've got a lot of warm, empowering waves moving around and through you, perhaps due to all the different kinds of electricity involved, or to the toxic blending of melancholic loops. Troposphere. Listening to, feeling these waves, you feel like you're being protected by your Rugby-playing older brother. You've got Chandler Rentz' FANTASTIC percussion, having quite the personality of its own, that he and the rest of the band obviously have so much fun with. If the Transformer played drums, I imagine it'd sound something like this. Stratosphere. You've got Jeffares and guitarist David Payne's doing all kinds of strumming and pedal effects, from buzzing to jangling (especially remarkable on the dead-in-your-tracks track "Black Eyes") to bell-ringing to telephone-ringing to siren-calling. You have lots of scary bass, minor chords, some first person plural, some syncopation, fun stuff like that. Mesosphere. And you don't need to see Jordan Jeffares' thrusting and digging man-movements as he plays and sings, or his soft, sweet, beautiful, romantic, mystifying, heroic, cherubic, no, almost Ganymedian, blond-headed face with its delicate, nuanced, sensual expressions...wait, what was I talking about again? Oh yes...You don't need to see Jordan Jeffares' decent mug with its decent expressions to know that I am a stalker. I mean, that he means what he sings. (!). No, you can hear it on the record, in the way he physically plays with his words, in the quietly embittered way he sings his anthems*, the unironic way he sings his diary pages**; so unironic, in fact, that it's Ironic***. Ah yes...magnetosphere.

Okokyeahyeah, I'm getting carried away. But you know what I mean: like, they're awesome. The only major difference between Anti-Anti played on your stereo and Anti-Anti played live (which is essentially what I saw that night) is that one is cooler to look at. And live, the bite is evenly dispersed throughout the evening, whereas en stéréo, it sort of fizzles after the 6th track, "Between the Rent and Me" (which happens to be the most effective track overall, if you ask me). Not to say that the second half of the album is bad, not at all, just that it doesn't quite match the magnificent production quality and presentation of the first. The songs become less intense, which would work if Anti-Anti weren't meant to be an intense album. But I'm pretty sure Snowden meant it to be so. Even two of the slows on the album, "My Murmuring Darling" and "Sisters" bite hard, if only in their sharp, if a little nouveau-goth, lyrics****. The other two slow songs, "Innocent Heathen" and "Victim Card,"*****, both second half songs, aren't so effective in this department or in any other department, really. But you know what, even if there are a few weak points, Anti-Anti is still a four star album in my opinion, and anyway, we can't all be as tough as Paul Banks.

Visit Snowden's myspace page to listen to some of Anti-Anti's highlights, and for a more extensive tour date listing than that on their website.

* "Like Bullets," "Anti-Anti," "Counterfeit Rules," "Kill the Power," "Victim Card." A bit of an overkill.
** This is where I realize/my trouble comes with bluest eyes/now when I walk in the room you know it's all I can do/to stare at the floor and not to look at you/I flavor to taste because taste is free/there are so few things between the rent and me (from "Between the Rent and Me")
*** Don't listen to me; I'm an idiot.
**** You've got a million things upon your nightstand/oh, I hate them/but it was in the pill I am swallowing still/'cause I messed up/so keep the lights on so I can remember why I came/sometimes I doubt you my murmuring darling (from "My Murmuring Darling")
**** A badass uptempo anthem version of "Victim Card" was the shining track on Snowden's otherwise mediocre 2003 self-titled EP; I really don't understand why it was slowed down for Anti-Anti, as the only thing it lacked in its original form was a little polish. It's unfortunate.

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How many minutes late I was to work this morning: 1 (!!!)

How many minutes late I am to actually leaving work because I have nothing else to do and because at work I have real contact with real humans and because I am actually a zombie and am going to eat some brains pretty soon: 1 hour, 23 minutes (...)

You don' KNOWWW me.

By the way. My name is Kelly Doyle-Mace. I am a 22-year-old female, which is probably the most depressing age I've been so far (not in terms of how i feel at this age, just in terms of the age itself). I am a student at the University of Georgia currently taking a semester break from classes due to financial/existential crisis. I live in Athens, Georgia, USA, and sometimes I live in Cumming, Georgia, USA, but once I lived in Paris, Île-de-France, France, and i wish I still lived in Paris, Île-de-France, France, and I'm not sure if i'll figure out my purpose in this world until I am yet again in Paris, Île-de-France, France (just so you know, if you ever write a letter to Paris, Île-de-France, France, you don't actually have to include the province (state) name, Île-de-France; I just like to show off when it comes to my knowledge of the land of the frogs). This is my new blog, and at this point I'm not sure exactly what I'd like it to be, besides awesome. Which is the exact same way I feel about myself. Cross your fingers for my great success. And read often!

Some things that make me no-fail, consistently, inordinately happy:

Paris - Dogs and cats, and 99.9% of other animals, including and especially dinosaurs - Orbit Gum - Anthony Bourdain and Samantha Brown, and their respective television shows (really the only great shows on what should be a great channel, Travel Channel) - Love - Arbor Mist - Foreign Language of any kind, but especially French - Wireless Internet access - Gustav Klimt, Pierre Bonnard, John Singer Sargent - Bodies of water -The Apple enterprise - Wilco - Stuff that happens on a stage - Coming up with hypothetical bands/albums/songs - style.com - Fellini and Woody Allen films - Xzibit - Dancing, Driving, or Singing to extremely loud music - Ice Cream, and moreso, Italian Gelato - Marc Jacobs - Traveling - Magazines, the wittier the better - Making lists of any kind, as I'm sure you've already gathered

Things that make me inordinately, or at least somewhat unhappy:

Being from Florida (am I a southerner? am I a misplaced northerner? the jury's out.) - Ugg boots and fleece North Face jackets when worn out of context, Vera Bradley bags or anything embroidered with initials when worn ever (read: the University of Georgia sorority getup) - War - Salvador Dalí - Post-grunge music, which unfortunately takes up a vast majority of gigabytage on my sister's iPod Mini - Britney Spears' fall from grace (um you're gonna want to click on that one) - Mosquitos (though they sure do LOVE me) - Lazy Poseurs who put "anything" on their online profiles under "music interests" - Poseur hipsters who think that the rad thing to do is be standoffish and have the posture of a decrepit wizard and the lame thing to do is be friendly and enthusiastic and remember people's names - Cigarette breath or other essence of cigarette (but not necessarily cigarette smokers; most of my friends are euro-poseurs, after all) - Tori Spelling's omnipotence in otherwise good celebrity trash magazines - High Fructose Corn Syrup

Like I said, making lists makes me inordinately happy, and these lists could go on, and on, and on. But perhaps it would be better for you to pick up on what I like and what I don't like while reading my posts. The best things in life are slowly unfolded. Anyone who has ever lived in Paris, Île-de-France, France, would agree with me, oui?

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What I'd like to do for lunch today: Around 1:30, stuff a pocket pita with baba gannouj, smoked turkey, and romaine lettuce.
What I'll actually do for lunch today: Grab a handful of snapea crisps, a handful of grapes, and a bite of the chocolate cloud cake I made last night for the girls. It will be around 5 pm, I will ruin my appetite, and dinner (caramel rice cake with peanut butter sandwich, a yogurt, more cake?) will be around 11pm. I will be watching whatever is on Travel Channel at the time, and it will probably be a world poker tournament, and I will be mad.

Get Out of my Vernacular

I don't believe in boredom, and along the same lines, I don't believe in the the act of attempting to explain your mental absence in an awkward protocol social situation on the pretext of being "out of it". Yeah, I say it myself; more often than I am comfortable with, in fact. It's become a default response for these situations, though; you can't blame me. But whoever came up with it, whosoever so deeply ingrained it into our social code* SHOULD BE SHOT. Like a dog. (Yo, who came up with that one? Wouldn't it be more - i want to write humane, but I would have red paint on me in like 3 seconds - hm, more appropriate to joke about shooting an animal like a possum, or something, for such a colloquialism? Is it just that we humans have more control over dogs than any other creature, or is it because a dog would die in an undignified manner? If that's the case, that's just preposterous; a possum would die with much less dignity than a dog. Did Koreans come up with "shoot like a dog?" Did Kazakhs?)

Anyway, the other night seated at Brooke and I's sturdy "outdated-country-home-with-lots-of-apples-and-tractors-stenciled-on-the-wall-somewhere"-esque dining table (no, there's really no goal behind that absurd description, it's just how I feel about it, ok?), Bronwyn, Brooke and I were shooting the shit**, and we started talking about this whole "out of it" nonsense for some reason. We all agreed that it is tragically overused. Sorry, I'm just really out of it today! Ugggggggggh. You know you're dull when. I HATE "I'M JUST REALLY OUT OF IT TODAY." And I hate the fact that "it" wears such a crown. Quel "it"? Listen, interlocuter? Don't believe a word I say, because I am not "out of" any "it". I am not out of time. I am not out of bounds. Certainly not out of style. Word- I am not out of context, sight, mind, proportion, the running, my element, my head, out of print, out of hand, out of tune, shape, sorts; i am not out of control. But know this over everything else: I am not even out of things to say to you, because in fact what I have in mind but am just too polite to say is I am interested in many things but not in having this conversation with you at this time.

So we came up with some good replacements for "out of it." They'll never be put to use in all hell, but wouldn't the world be more fun if they were? Here they are, and feel free to preface them with the words "I'm sorry;" I actually think they're even better that way, or if anything, more polite:

I'm sorry,

my potassium's really low; mercury's in retrograde; i'm on like, the 18th day of my cycle; i just realized one of my boobs is bigger than the other; david hyde pierce was on letterman last night; i met deerhoof earlier; i need to go exist; i need to go get really drunk; i feel like i'm going to be sick; i just this second got sick; i'm having flashbacks of 'Nam; i forgot to take my whipping this morning, i mean, my vitamins; i'm hungry for a knuckle sandwich, are you; i've been listening to too much math rock***; they just announced that dump trucks are the new coolest thing; do you have any hard liquor on you; girrrrrl, i'm thinkin' 'bout this freak nasty dream i had with you last night; i'm missing my favorite telenovela right now; son, i'm afraid things have just taken a Strindbergian turn for the worse; i'm drinking water right now; it's time for me to get a watch; i temporarily forgot my child; you aren't in my autobiography; don't you think salad is overrated; don't you think that heroin is underrated; there's a big dumb dragon flying through the sky; you remind me of a wagner opera in this light; my dog killed himself 5 years ago; i'm doing my exercises; i'm really important; i'm really into garbage right now; sand castles are fucking rad, dude; i'm watching this cockfight on the corner over there.

Collect 'em all!

* Other things that were set way too deeply to dig up and abolish directly: the standard men's dress shoe (UGLY. BORING. POORLY ARCHITECTED. EFFIMINATE.), the phrasal structure "such and such is AMAZING" (another one I'm guilty of, but I mean, I'm theater folk), the idea that "Casablanca" is the greatest film ever made (actually, it's as overrated as its male lead, mr. Bogart), LIFE (make love, not war, folks), yada

** Haha, shooting the shit...I love the idea of an english-learning foreigner reading and writhing with frustration, trying to decipher our idiom-riddled patois; sort of like me in my first attempts to be hip to the hippest magazine in France, Le Standard

*** Only applies if you live in Athens, GA