Crown of Trinkets


Monday, February 25, 2002
Wind-howly afternoon walk in startlingly sunny Portland: there are robins on the telephone lines, my lips are chapped, bright sun in my eyes; the wind was so strong and the sky so clear that it was kind of apocalyptic, especially because the thrift stores I visited were bare.

I picked up a cheap copy of "Chu Chu Rocket", a mesmerizingly silly game for the Sega Dreamcast, this evening at Hollywood Video. It is outstandingly, overwhelmingly silly, but at the same time, it is also addictively well-put-together. I played that, got absorbed, and then wandered over to my computer and decided to play Popol Vuh's _In The Garden of Pharaos_, which I'd just acquired--and I was blown against the wall. Unbelievably intense stuff. My brain wasn't able to cope with the abrupt shift from cutesy Japanese mouse-and-cat to monolithic Teutonic trance-state organ drone; I laid there on the carpet in the cold attic room, wind shaking the house and rumbling between houses, patterns of space mice inscribing squares in my head over and over again. All I could do was lie down and marvel at the potency of the moment.

email me: jake@tapemountain.com

Friday, February 22, 2002
Sorry I haven't posted in ages and ages. I've been busy and some of the fruits are reflected in Bookish Hermit issue number 1, available on the catalog page, more issues of which are sprouting in my head like leaves and flowers on the trees and shrubs of Portland in February. Minmae will be playing shows every two weeks for a while here, culminating in a mini-tour to San Francisco where we'll be meeting up and intermingling with Gang Wizard, which I'll be rejoining for a weekend, I guess. Life is exciting. Work is still kind of sucky, but at least it's the weekend, finally finally finally.

I've been reading Joe Jackson's autobiography A Cure for Gravity and it's as astute and funny as you'd expect from the man, and it is almost exclusively set in the days before he became famous, which is a nice touch, especially for those of us who are not currently in the process of making hit records. Reading this book has made me get out my old Joe Jackson Band records, about which I can say: Good HEAVENS what a bassist Graham Maby is. He plays a lot of notes, blinding rapid succession, but how well-placed they are! and how supple his sound is! It is as sumptuous as this Yunnan tea I'm drinking (the Internet special on Upton Tea's website) and as invigorating as well.

email me: jake@tapemountain.com