A Surprisingly Awesome Evening…

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In which jaydk came over and we:

* Watched The Sarah Jane Adventures “Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?” - by far the best SJA yet, so good it made me cry.

* Drank ridiculously good Vinho Verde.

* Watched “The Poison Sky” and were so pleased that it didn’t suck. Helen Raynor redeemed, yay! So good I’ll have to wait until tomorrow and post a proper review instead of a drunken rant.

* Drank a ridiculously good South African shiraz… super rich and chocolatey. I know it would help if I remembered the brands, but it’s 4am, sorry.

* Went to the 1am showing of Iron Man in digital projection at Union Square and it was fucking AWESOME, yay! I ::heart:: Robert Downey, Jr. so much.

* And snuck really good beer in–Blue Moon Summer Ale.

Proper reviews tomorrow or Monday… I’m totally going to pass out now. G’night!

Current Mood: drunk

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.

Iron Man

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( I went to the 1am showing of Iron Man last night )

Current Mood: cheerful

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.

And I dreamed I was a spaceman…

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Did you know that you can buy DRM-free MP3s from Amazon.com? (At least, thirty-seconds of Googling indicated that they’re DRM-free. They’d better be.)

I discovered this because I suddenly had this overwhelming need to hear the song “Great Big White World” from Marilyn Manson’s Mechanical Animals (I have no idea why; my brain is weird). I own two copies of this album on vinyl and one on audio cassette, but I have neither a record player nor a cassette player anymore.

I’m not up on the latest MP3 pirating sites, so I went to Amazon thinking I’d buy the CD and have it in a few days. Instead, I clicked the MP3 download option and got it instantly for $.99. That’s… kind of awesome.

And… now I think I’ll go buy the whole album. I forgot how amazing it is. I’m always listening to Antichrist Superstar but as I get older (and start to understand more of the Bowie references) I’m realizing that Mechanical Animals is at least as good. It’s dreamier and more thoughtful and full of such beautiful creative imagery and infused with such sadness.

I always think of Manson as having gone downhill after Antichrist Superstar, but now I’m thinking it was after Mechanical Animals, because in retrospect this is clearly part of his/their creative height. I think it just didn’t work as well for me at the time because I was still caught up in the teenage angst/scary transformation/anti-religion/anti-conservative culture Antichrist Superstar themes. This is more of an adult album about dealing with the wider world, I think, and about reflecting on who you’ve become.

One of my favorite concert memories is Easter 1999 in Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old me alone in the mosh pit, with Manson playing this song and shiny glittering confetti raining from the ceiling. It was so beautiful. I still have bits of the confetti in a box somewhere along with my concert ticket.

Current Mood: weird

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.