lust for life

2010 anthem.

my favorite albums of 2000's

This list doesn't mean anything except that I loved these albums because they integrated themselves into my life like living beings, and sometimes they acted as stronger friends to me than my actual friends in the way they listened to the silent yearning and raging of my heart and body, like we were connected by some invisible magnetic thread, and the way they spoke to me and for me when I had no power to use my own voice to sing. It's been a really hectic 10 years! So fuck Pitchfork and Rolling Stone and Spin and Fader and NME. These ten albums mattered most to me.*

*Honorable mentions: The Libertines: The Libertines, Myths of the Near Future: Klaxons, Oracular Spectacular: MGMT, Fever to Tell: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Amnesiac: Radiohead, The Marshall Mathers LP: Eminem and anything else recorded by the 10 acts below.

10. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse, 2006

I'm surprised too. But the more time I spend with this album the more I feel like Amy Winehouse knows what she's talking about, even a little bit more than Pete Doherty and The Libertines who she kicked out of my top 10. A song like "Love is a Losing Game" perfectly describes the futility in trying to find a trustworthy and permanent partner. "Five story fire as you came/Love is a losing game" means you can find yourself floored by a man and want to start new with him and give it your all (like, know, meeting the love of your life in a frat house basement) but ultimately you will wind up alone and heartbroken again (4 years later). "Back to Black" is a beautiful, bittersweet reminder to watch your own back in the dirty dealings of love and sex because everyone's out for himself in this world. You should be too.

9. We All Belong, Dr. Dog, 2007/Takers and Leavers EP, Dr. Dog, 2006

Dr. Dog opened for The Raconteurs on tour in 2006, and I kinda fell in love with them due solely to the fact that Toby Leaman looks like a short hipster version of my favorite professor and the gut-wrenching, Bob Dylan-leaning Beatness of "Die Die Die," quite possibly one of the best songs ever written.

8. '07, The Virgins, 2007/Self-Taught Learner, Lissie Trullie, 2009

I highly prefer The Virgins' EP to their full-length debut because Donald Cumming's the kind of boy who deserves to keep it simple and dirty. He does better with his sinus infection vocals and rough, homemade 8-track production. (He does best naked in photos by Ryan McGinley or on stage in telephone-patterned red skintight leggings.) Songs like "Fernando Pando" and "Radio Christiane" made me feel at home in a big city like New York, and seeing the Virgins as much as possible from NYE 07 to the present has helped me to love this place more than any other. Not to mention, Donald's kinda my dream man, after Julian Casablancas, of course.

I put Lissy Trullie into the same position because she's friends with the band, and I found her thru loving The Virgins. In reverse, though, I like her full-length better than her demos because she collabs with everyone's favorite crack addict Adam Green on a poignant cover of "Just a Friend" and she includes the song that got me into her, "You Bleed You." Also "Don't to Do" was pretty much my anthem during my break-up over this past summer, and I love love love Lissy's man fashion-influenced style.

7. Little Joy, Little Joy, 2008

Fabulous Moretti doesn't let us down with his "solo"-ish debut with Rodrigo Amarante and gf Binki Shapiro. Songs like "With Strangers" and "Play the Part," with their quiet acceptance of failure and sadness, made me feel okay this summer when I ate anxiety for breakfast and swallowed disappointment like anti-depressants (in lieu of health insurance and its over-medicating benefits.) "Unattainable" sung by Binki with her innocent, assured voice makes me want to love a man that deserves it. Out of all the Strokes' solo/side efforts, Fab and Little Joy take the cake.

6. Album, Girls, 2009

I can't help it; I'm obsessed. I listen to this one non-stop because it's so damn good. Christopher Owens could come into my apartment and stay for 56 weeks without paying rent, or I would cook casseroles for him and leave them outside in a dog house beside baggies of weed that I personally bought (shock!) and sew him a delux set of sheets and pillows so he could sleep all day long. Or he could curl up in my bed in a ratty thrift-store sweater knitted circa 1972 and sing with his Elvis Costello croon into my ear all night. I don't do drugs, but I'd drop a Valium or 2 with him and let him cry over my naked body all night long. Some people say sex is the motivation behind all creative endeavors, and I kind believe it because Owens and his band mate JR White made this awesome awesome awesome sunshine-in-hell breakup album on pills of all kinds, and you know a breakup hangover is really just the sick realization that you'll never get to fuck that girl (or boy) again. This album makes me happy that I'm sad and sad that I'm happy in spite of myself. It's like the record that spins me round, round, baby, right round, like a record baby round, right round, round, which must explain why this sucker's been on repeat since I bought it.

5. Friends of Mine, Adam Green, 2003

I've sung his praises on this blog before. The guy's the sad song writing maestro, and with his unpredictable antics he puts on one of the most entertaining and ridiculous live shows. Adam Green, I bow to you. Your drug-addled craziness belies your musical seriousness and talent. But if you can write a song like "Bungee" that has become an actual component of my soul I will follow you down whatever roads your music takes you for the rest of my life.

4. The New Fellas, The Cribs, 2005

The Cribs came to me by accident; I'm pretty sure I found them while cyber-stalking Misshapes protege Jackson Pollis, aka Kids Meal while I was living in Tremont. I fell in love with their bad vocals (especially Ryan Jarman's) and lo-fi-ish production. "I'm Alright Me" became my nihilistic anthem and made me feel okay when I over-imbibed and over-caffeinated and didn't care and didn't sleep. Seeing the Cribs for the first time made me fall in love for life, and with each album they've grown consistently, showing that hard work pays off and bad teeth and bad hair and bad fashion in general make for the output of some damn fine songs about living young and fast in a tour van.

3. Favourite Worst Nightmare, Arctic Monkeys, 2007

They might be young and they might have been hyped up the wazoo in 2006, but Alex Turner can write inner anger better than anyone I've yet to find (except for Kurt Cobain.) His relentless use of Matt Helders' immaculate and powerful drumming over atmospheric guitars and 1950's obscure rock song loops make music so haunting and potent and dangerous that you just want to stab yourself in the face. I hold anger in my body for years, and it takes me a long time to get over anything, so to have this album confirm the rightness of such an unhealthy and wrong harboring of negativity makes me feel like it's a little bit okay, or at least like I'm in good, hot company. "Do Me a Favour" and "505" make me die a little bit every time, and when I finally make my movie (you know, a neo-New Wave crazy train semi-autobiographical coming of age flick featuring a blonde with a chic haircut and black-lined blue eyes) the music from this album will pretty much take over the entire soundtrack.

2. White Blood Cells, The White Stripes, 2001

Jack White's a force of fucking nature, and I could listen to this album for the rest of my life. "The Union Forever" starts with a flippant, fuck-you guitar riff and says, "It can't be love, for there is no true love." How true, Jackie, how true. The song then devolves into a grunge-tastic, bitter, slightly out-of-control reinterpretation of Citizen Kane... Egomaniacs must love each other, I guess, and Orson Welles and Jack White will surely meet each other in Hell or wherever geniuses go when they die.

1. Room on Fire, The Strokes, 2003

Duh! What did you expect? Oh, yeah. Is This It? Like every other countdown on the planet. Well I'm no first album lover. I like sophomore efforts, and while Is This It? changed my life and personality and goals and dreams (I stopped worshipping fuck face Billy Corgan's melodrama and traded it in for sleek, magnetic structure; I let my neurotic nature and demands fly; I decided I would one day move to New York City and make out with drunken bed-headed dirty boys; I would see the Strokes LIVE ONE DAY) Room on Fire solidified all that. When Julian Casablancas wrote "12:51" he wrote the perfect pop song. When he wrote "Under Control" he wrote the song of my life. When he wrote "I Can't Win" he wrote about the failings every artist faces at the hands of his own worst enemy: himself. Some people say that they like all music and all songs and all things, but I'm the kind of girl who loves ALWAYS one of whatever it is the best, and Room on Fire is not only my favorite album of The Aughts, it's also my desert island album, one of my best friends, and pretty much the only thing that can make me close my eyes and sob for sheer amazement and gratitude when I'm not absolutely wasted. So thank you, Jules and Co. for this little gem. You've made my decade and life worth living, and that's a cliche and an overstatement (classic Brittany hyperbole) but it's also very true (classic Brittany doesn't lie.)

sweet thoughts for the tortured mind

I got to see one of my faves today, and he gave me these sweet gloves. I'm all smiles and no sleep.

heyyyyy, so glad you could make it

Is it bad that I still feel myself identify with Courtney Love, especially when I go through old boxes and old journals, especially those from the years 1997-1999? Crazy train as she is, I gotta respect her lyrics from her 1st 3 studio albums and the B-side collection My Body the Hand Grenade (AMAZING TITLE, btw), and I've kind of always adored her fashion sense. She and Billy Corgan might be the ghosts of my Christmases past (or you know, that kind of metaphor) but I love myself a little Hole now and then.

like a fucked-up face

my parents got me the criterion collection copy of my own private idaho for christmas, and i have to say once again, how beautiful is river phoenix? classic. classic. classic. and how sad the lines, "i really wanna kiss you, man." ughhhh it's the neo-easy rider. and gus van sant and i love the same dirty boys. no wonder i'm obsessed.

i'm so confused about my life that i can't sleep, and i totally should be since i have to work a double tomorrow and then i gotta meet up with my homegirl kelly!

my phone was off the hook tonight, and i kept falling asleep on the train in my red hunting hat. thing's padded like a pillow and almost as awesome as my new american apparel sheets.

but i'm tired of sleeping alone, so maybe i won't hold out for the mountain i'm trying to crumble as if i were an absolute earthquake created solely to crumble that one fucking mountain like a destructive siren of awesomeness.

maybe i'm just brainwashing myself into believing i want something that i don't even want at all.

maybe i should listen to the craziness that surrounds me and realize that i don't want anything specific, just the multitude of possibilities that present themselves to me.

maybe i want something i've always sort of had but never really had at all, and maybe now's not the time for that and maybe there never will be a time.

whatever the case may be, i do know my new years resolutions:

1. wash face daily and take off old makeup. no more pancake layers or any more of this edie sedgwick shit.

2. floss

3. stop eating cake.

4. make a plan for the future and execute it. writing poetry in notebooks doesn't count, but it should still happen every day.

5. figure out a way to stop sleeping.

6. allow myself to accept what life offers with two open hands. you know, kind of like, "wherever, whatever, have a nice day."

Merry Christmas!!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your friends and fams. Les extrano mucho a mis muchachos y amigas en Nuevo York, but I'm glad to be home for the holidays. I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A CHRISTMAS AS LEGENDARY AS THE GRISWOLD FAMILY CHRISTMAS TREE! And remember, getting presents is fun, but giving presents is so much better...............

11th Dimension video by Julian Casablancas

I LOVE JULIAN CASABLANCAS. HE'S A BEAUTIFUL HUMAN. MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE.

Exactly!

6. crushes can consume you, and take a lot of energy. Make sure the person you have a crush on is worth the brain power!

(advice via Alexi Wasser @ imboycrazy.com)

BAILA!

Above, exhibits A. and B. from James Franco's latest SNL stint, which happens to be the best episode I've seen in a LOOOOOOOOOONG time. (God, he's so hot it hurts, and I just die every time he opens his pretty little mouth.) So, question... the fact that Franco's playing a muchacho in both of these skits... is he trying to tell me something? AKA, "Brittany, I am the man of your dreams"??? Please. Please be.

we've got tonight

How Do You Know You're in Love (I'm totally ripping off imboycrazy.com)

1. You can't eat normal foods. Somehow vegetables and salad greens (the mere thought of them) make you gag a little bit. But you don't wanna eat anything unhealthy because you need to remain skinny to attract that one person you desire more than all the others. So the day passes by, and at 8:00 PM you realize all you've ingested during the course of the day was a 7:00 AM non-fat latte, Diet Coke (wish it had been Diet Pepsi, dammit), and water. And that's why you've got the shakes!

2. When you do give into your growling stomach, the only thing you can stuff in your face are carbohydrates, and not the good whole-grain kind, but the most unhealthy ones that exist: white bread, plain bagels, grilled cheese, salty chips, and CHOCOLATE. The "Cloud Cookie Coma" (shout out, Brooklyn Standard) exists for you to make yourself sick by eating DEATH chocolate at the speed of Speedy Gonzales on an empty stomach.

3. Every night you come home exhausted and cannot fall asleep because you toss and turn, going over the hypothetical details to the lead-up to the boning that you wanna do with that one person whose black eyes are burned into the projector screen of your skull.

4. When you do finally fall into a dull, un-deep, tooth-grinding sleep at 4 in the morning, you wind up sleeping till 3 PM the next day. The sun's almost down for the count, and you wanna kill yourself because you wasted your daylight hours on depressing and hopeless dreams that you can't even remember. And then you just have to laugh because maybe all this melodrama/vampire bed-keeping hours has something to do with the cultural phenomenon that is TWILIGHT.

5. Caffeination Nation begins the minute you step foot out the front door, no matter the hour. You feel naked without a coffee beverage clutched in your trembling, ungloved hand.

6. When you switch from the caffeine to the alcohol while out with your invincible, tireless friends (thank God for them, for listening to your neurotic/impulsive/crazylocalokacraziest problemas) you drink way too fast and don't feel it till you hit the 7-beverage-wall and then vomit*** out everything, crying because your heart's so stuffed up with love and anxiety.

7. ***Not before the WORD VOMIT, of course. Thanks again, aforementioned, tough-as-balls-to-the-walls confidants.

8. Your iPod playlists consist of sad-sack rubble. Example: "Samson" by Regina Spektor, "I Wanna Die" by Adam Green, "Can't Live (If Living Is Without You)" by Air Supply, "The First Cut is the Deepest" by Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens OR Sheryl Crow, "Unattainable" by Little Joy, "The Way I Feel Inside" by The Zombies, "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" by Bob Dylan, "We've Got Tonight" by Bob Seger, "Headache" by Girls, and the ULTIMATE LOVELORN SONG OF THE PAST CENTURY "Between the Bars" by the saddest sack of them all, Elliott Smith.

9. Weekends: desperation kicks in because you're not with him or her, and the hours go slow, and you delude yourself into thinking you're having a good time, complete with elaborately accessorized dresses, the highest heels you have, bad Pop playlists and false enthusiasm for mundane get-togethers and regular cocktails.

10. Free time: you spend it listing pros and cons, reasons to stay miserable and reasons to move on. And blogging lists like these when you could be doing something much more productive like finishing your Christmas shopping, writing scholarly essays, volunteering for Amnesty International, or running 3 miles in 27 minutes.

11. You used to wake up alone and sad about your ex, but now when you think of him you wistfully smile and remember him fondly. Aw, fuck. Life goes on.

12. Your tendency for over-analyzation runs rampant like an unnamed and unclassified beast a la Where the Wild Things Are. You're the victim in this unrequited love situation, but your mostly a victim of yourself, your own un-back-down-able challenge for one-person domination, and keeping it real, chill and together all at the same time. Good luck. I hope you can defeat yourself with this one.

image by Ryan McGinley, Hanna (Ophelia) 2008/2009

DISCLAIMER: I'm not necessarily in love at the present but I always wish I was.

Crying Lightning Terminal 5 12/11/09

Turns out Alex Turner busted out his Rod Stewart during "Crying Lightning." Wait for it at the end.

Reddy Fox---

"admiring my new red silk blouse, stroking his fingertips down the front, and my eyes wide, because I could feel his fingers on my chest, even though I was holding the blouse in front of me on a hanger to be admired. All those moments, and all they meant was that I was fooled into thinking I knew these people because I knew the small things, the personal things."

Once again I turn to "The Burning House" by Ann Beattie for help in these tumultuous times.

I, like the protagonist in this, my favorite short story, believe I actually know the men in my life because I can list their favorite foods, colors, and songs. And like a stupid, naive girl I always think that boundaries don't matter. Age, sex, country of origin. But like Gatsby, I "beat ceaselessly" against a current that always knocks me back to square one. People are different. We don't really ever know anyone. And life is pretty pointless.

I learn my lessons the hard way.

Arctic Monkeys at Terminal 5

Alex Turner and the boys came back to New York this week to stun us all again with their beautiful and aggressive music. I'm pretty sure they used the same set list that Brooklyn Vegan posted from last night's show. At one point during "Potion Approaching" (I think) Turner belted out, "If you want my body and you think Im sexy, come on, sugar, let me know," a la Rod Stewart.

The Jeweller's Hands
Brianstorm
This House is a Circus
Still Take You Home
Potion Approaching
Red Right Hand (Nick Cave cover)
My Propeller
Crying Lightning
Sketchead
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
The View from the Afternon
Cornerstone
If You Were There, Beware
Pretty Visitors
Do Me a Favour
Fluorescent Adolescent -> Last Christmas (cover) -> Fluorescent Adolescent

Encore:
Secret Door
505

The crowd consisted of mostly young, rowdy kids, but I had fun in the pit. For some reason I wore my long coat the whole time, but at least I got my sweat on. Tomorrow morning my ankles will be covered in bruises, but they're war wounds well deserved, and Alex Turner makes everything worth it. His beauty and sexiness absolutely stun, not to mention the clarity of his angelic, and at times super intense, voice. He looks like a skinny horse straight out of 1963 Beatlemania, and his slow graceful movements interjected with spastic head-banging guitar bursts mirror the Monkeys' sound, now atmospheric and brooding, now angry and drunk, smashing a glass across the room in a crowded bar.

I was a late-comer (2005) to the Arctic Monkeys fan base, but these kids have done nothing but improve and negate all the shit-talking spewed by the naysayers. They continue to make great music and to evolve on their own terms, and I hope they cross the pond again soon. Thanks guys!

JANUARY 14, TERMINAL FIVE

After 3.5 long horrible years of no Julian, 2010 will start with a bang! Buy your tickets for his Terminal 5 show. Yes, the venue sucks. Yes, they allow children inside. Yes, this is not The Strokes. But I haven't felt this much excitement in a long time. Thank you, Ticketmaster and American Express. You have made my day.

MACGRUBERRRRRRRR

Apparently the MacGruber movie kicks ass. I can't wait!!!

2000's

I really like this NYMag article about the 2000's. Read it.

i love me some fauxhawk

There's something sexy about this follicle non-committal as exhibited by Cristiano Ronaldo. He can be super punk if he wants and rock out a Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious inspired mohawk, or he can comb it over if he wants to come over and meet your mom for the 1st time. Either way, home boy's lookin fine in this 'do.

Jules sings Ludlow Street

i love when his anger's visible.