But our lips, but our lips.

You held each other by well-groomed hands, mumbling prayers to a neglected Jesus. The Maître-Des quiver as they watch you shiver as the mask and the mouth knit into each other. Our laughter was deafening but our lips, but our lips, but our lips were trembling.


Putting flowers on The Blood Brothers' grave, so to speak. What an awesome fucking group. I wish I had gotten into them a bit more than 5 months before their breaking up, but here we are. As I rotate through their discography again, I find "Six Nightmares Of The Pinball Masquerade" is my favorite song this time around. 


If I ever find a band that composes lyrics like morbid post modern poetry, if ever find a band that balances two vocalists perfectly, if I ever find a band that balances quivering guitars and tantrum fit drums and a sobbing keyboard, if I ever find a band half as great as The Blood Brothers, you bet your ass I'll love them with everything I have left. 

In Which Sinclair remembers her favorite band of several years;

Recently, I dug out a lot of old Nine Inch Nails. 200ish tracks of Nine Inch Nails, to be particular. Lets talk about this.

Does anyone not know this? (Does anyone read this blog?) Okay, I'll elaborate a tad. I was really, really into Nine Inch Nails. There isn't much more to it. When I was a. . . sophomore, I think, in high school, I bought 'And All That Could Have Been' off eBay because I knew a total of two of their songs; 'Hurt' (I'd never heard the original NIN version, I only knew Johnny Cash's rendition) and 'Closer'. When I got it in the mail, I was actually pretty sad to find out it was a live album. I can't stand live albums*. Regardless, I went through the painful 'getting to know an album' time and came out head over heels in love with this band. The next four years can attest to that. Even though my obsession has run out, I still hold a special, sad little corner of my heart for all that is Nine Inched and Nailed.

(*mostly. Why? Because I'm a terrible person. Though, on Modest Mouses 'Baron Von Bullshit' Isaac Brock goes off about how they'll never play 'Freebird' and it's hilarious. ANYWAY NINE INCH NAILS~)

I might have even flipped out a bit when I found out Trent was getting married and again when I found out Mariqueen was preggo.

Nine Inch Nails isn't about being sad or despondent, it's about a level of aching sadness and unease that, when awash in your own depression, you see being the core of the world. It's about being aware that past a certain point, you're not 'depressed', you're cynical and it's simply your world view; your philosophy. You are immersed in this idea that the skeletal system of everything around you is a varied array of flaws and exploitation of them.

Upon poking around, this is what Trent had to say about The Downward Spiral;

"Thematically I wanted to explore the idea of somebody who systematically throws or uncovers every layer of what he's surrounded with, comfort-wise, from personal relationships to religion to questioning the whole situation. Someone dissecting his own ability to relate to other people or to have anything to believe in."

Sounds about right. People have drug various ideas into trying to figure out the 'concept' of the album, and there's a lengthy writing on how, if memory serves, TDS is about a man becoming god and seeking to destroy himself as a result. S'pretty brilliant.

The great thing about a band being around for 20 years is watching the changes; what stays the same and what doesn't. I was a rabid fan for about 4 of those 20, but it gave me plenty of time to become aquatinted with the material. It's a range of emotion with the same core of loneliness and desperation; whether it be in relation to yourself or the social issues surrounding you.

Sometimes I think about the times I drug my ex to NIN shows and weep for her. Sorry, Miranda.

I spent a lot of rainy days listening to 'Ghosts', I spent a lot of days sitting in my car before work listening to 'The Fragile', a lot of afternoons after school just laying in bed, staring at my ceiling listening to 'The Downward Spiral' and feelings like I understood something I didn't before. Thanks for everything NIN, you'll n'er be forgotten.

Bee tee dub, I got the link and the quote off of the NIN wiki. Check it out at your local library!

Winter reading.

WINTER BREAK READING ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN.

OR SOMETHING.

Bolded have been read. Italicized are in progress.

• The Hunger Games
• Catching Fire
• Mockingjay
• Lolita
• Persuasion
• Less Than Zero
• The Informers
• Imperial Bedrooms
• Interview With A Vampire
• The Vampire Lestat
• Queen Of The Damned
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheniox
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Hunger

On Things.

On the above picture:

I'm reminded of spring break, when I was desperate for an escape, hoping that the absent rock faces and barren terrain of the Owhyee County outside of Caldwell would cure what ailed me; fill me with that sort of inspiration that only my home can. It very much did. I'm always enamored when I see dense forests and towering trees, but something about rocks and sagebrush and nothing but hills and flatness puts something deep inside of me at ease. Reminds me of something I don't consciously remember, but helps whatever that part of me is.

Despite the fact we decided to go on a rainy day where the trail was slippery, followed but us taking possibly the most slippery icy straight wall of a trail which resulted in a peach sized bruise on my ass. Ouch.

Anyway.

On nanowrimo:

I got to somewhere under 30k. I'm not beating myself up over it, though. I got 30k more than I would have originally. I'm still working on editing it off and on. . . which at this point, is mostly just cutting the shit out of its fur, so to speak.

On other stories:

I've been trying to write YA sort of material over break if only to practice the tone. Working on what will probably end up being a short story with a dumb (read also:no) plot. But! It's stupid and romantic and fun to write so there's that.

On school:

I'm burnt out and that's all I'll say because it's frustrating talking/thinking/acknowledging it.

On music:

Caribou is an excellent band. I've been listening to "Swim" on repeat while reading. Also I wasn't aware of The Lonely Island's second album and been listening to that off and on.

On reading:

I have total of 18 books I want to read over break. I'll make a separate post for these. If I get through all of them I'll be super impressed with myself.

On the new year:

2011 sucked but I'm finding myself sort of optimistic- there is really no way 2012 can suck as much as this year did. I'll probably ramble about this later.

Nanowrimo day 8.

• 

Things are. . . coming along. Day 8 and I've only been averaging about 500 words the last few days. Luckily the first couple days got me far enough ahead it hasn't been a huge issue. Hoping to pound out a bit before bed tonight. As pictured above I hung out and got to my daily minimum at the Flying M in Nampa. I absolutely adore this place and it would probably make me barf if I ever looked at how much money I've spent there.

I said it before and I'll say it again: Jonah is hard to write. He's depressing. He's never in a good mood. He's helpful but he's an asshole. Having a completely character driven story is FUCKING MISERABLE when you want your character to do something or learn something but they CAN'T because that's not how they work. They're assholes. They can't. It has to come SLOWLY and. . . ugh. It's always tempting to let him slip out of character so something will happen.

Following what is apparently suit, here's a few of his songs.

"Bukowski" by Modest Mouse.

• "It seems to me that every day turns out to be a little bit more like Bukowski and yeah I know he's a pretty good read but god, who'd wanna be such an asshole?" Jonah would. Jonah would want to be such an asshole.

"Ghouls" by We Are Scientists.

• "We all recognize that I'm the problem here. Can't help but feel attacked-- what's that supposed to mean? And no I won't relax or act like it's 'no big deal'."

"Videotape" by Radiohead.

• I don't know why but I decided at some point this was his favorite song. He relates to it without it hitting so close to home as to upset him.

in early. out late.

I am not who I want to be. I probably will not ever be.

Nanowrimo day 3.

So I don't remember what I put in that first post about what I was doing to prepare but I almost guarantee I didn't do it. Pictured above was what I used for sprints last night. Didn't get a WHOLE lot done as I ended up iChatting with Miranda. Alcohol and a new pen and my already abused spiral notebook and pear vodka and whiskey and Hersheys mini cookies and cream left over from halloween. I am a cycle of bad habits.

I'm currently sitting at a bit over 8k and I worry how long it's going to last. This story is largely introspective and exploring Jonah is really depressing. He's a terrible little dude and he breaks my heart. But! Having him interact with the others is fun.

A note on editing? I'm aware once I go back over this its probably going to be cut down to about 10k. . . if that much. But this is extensively flushing out the characters and I think that's worth it.

I'll end this with a couple of songs on his playlist.

"All Along The Watchtower" by Bob Dylan.

• There is a theory that this song is about the book of Issiah, which goes along with one of Jonah's themes. The song also simply "feels" like someone running away or being in the process of running. Something urgent.

"Snow" by The Antlers.

• If I love The Antlers for anything, it's the absolutely heart breaking vocals. That's a lie. I love The Antlers for everything. The song is slow and quiet and is basically an anthem to crying in bed to abstracted metaphors of your own creation.

"The Fruit That Ate Itself" by Modest Mouse.

• One of my favorite songs ever. "Are you gonna be your own goddamn best friend?" + the fact Isaac Brock is literally yelling it at you is pretty great.