One Might Indeed Ponder the Imponderables of Time and Space

Skeletal Lamping is an album that initially disappointed me. I went back to it recently and haven't stopped playing it and have to say I've completely reversed. In a year in which I've barely listened to any vocal albums (mainly I play classical), Skeletal Lamping fascinates me with its packed impressionistic blurbs that could easily expand into 10 albums. Not so much a concept album as hypercompression - it's either one long song or 50 little songs. Kevin Barnes tries to pull off a Ziggy Stardust with his "Georgie Fruit" character, but it never fully emerges as a separate identity and most of the time I think that's just a defense mechanism for all the diary-like thoughts composing the lyrics, words that move between the mythical and the mundane. And a lot of it's pretentious and sophomoric - the major themes are drugs and having sex with fans, but that's not too far off the last few albums (Hissing Fauna and The Sunlandic Twins are much more accessible, however). That being said, I embrace the lyrics as they are and thoroughly soak in the album's schizophrenic mood shifts. Of Montreal have come a long way since the folky rock of Cherry Peel, and they're one of my favorite bands.

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Iron Man has sharp bantering, a fast story, and memorable characters. But it's still just a superhero story for kids, disposable. I doubt I'd ever be compelled to watch it again.

What I would rather see, as soon as we invent a time machine, is sending an Iron Man DVD (and DVD player) back in time to 1930s era Charlie Chaplin and having him remake Iron Man with 1930s technology. That would be far more interesting than Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man (or Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin).

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I had to use Excel yesterday and I never use Excel. God, what a shitty counterintuitive ugly piece of software.

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Sunday I went to Suwon where the Hwaseong fortress has a wall about 4 miles long that stretches around the city and I walked all of it. It's like an abridged version of the Great Wall of China. My camera batteries were dead but here's an internet photo.

But it wasn't snowing and was actually beautiful weather. People say Seoul-area has smog but it's not bad in fall and actually incredibly clear some days. It also hasn't really snowed yet. It started to snow one day but then melted and it's been okay since. But later this week that might change.