New Animal Collective Video
Yesterday I woke up to the sun like a photocopier’s light scanning my face and I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep so I read for a while and then, suitably hungered, I got out of bed and made some scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. I made coffee with a press. Gritty, muddy, delicious pressed coffee.
I drove my car to the beach, where I washed it at a self-serve car wash. I had to buy a bottle of wine at the liquor store next to the car wash to get as change the small bills required by the wash’s quarter-dispenser. I washed efficiently. There are tricks, if you want to know: Rinse your car quickly with the high-pressure spray, then switch immediately to the soapy foaming brush. If your four minutes runs out and you are still on the brush you can keep scrubbing because the soapy foaming brush stays soapy even when not foaming. Time is not an issue, within reason. When your car is scrubbed and foamy with soap, put in more quarters and go back to the high-pressure spray. You now have four luxurious minutes to rinse your car and think about how great it is that someone on the internet is willing to cut through all the mumbo jumbo of the car wash and give you the straight dope.
Driving home there were girls, dozens of them, on their way to the beach. Like a beflipflopped army wearing bikinis under t-shirts and shorts. Which is to say: The Deadliest Army in the World.
Later, I drove to Los Feliz and had brunch with a friend under a tree next to a fountain full of coy. We talked about websites and movies and books and photography, and then later she showed me a bookstore where I bought Miranda July’s collection of stories, a couple of which I had already read in magazines, usually while sharing the bathtub with a bottle of cold beer, which I recommend as a good way to read these stories. On our walk back to the car I took pictures of all the pretty signs people had made and put over their stores or on the façades of their apartment buildings. I threw that cedilla in there because my brunch friend is french. Also just now I didn’t capitalize french; another nod to her héritage. I could keep doing this all day.
In the evening I went to another friend’s house and we ate leftovers from the previous night’s dinner party and watched some cooking shows and a film from Taiwan and split the aforementioned bottle of wine.
I got home late but I read until it was early again. And when I was done with Miranda July’s book I went to my bank’s website and checked my balance to see if I had enough money to buy a copy of her book for everyone I know. And even though I don’t know many people I didn’t, of course, have enough money in the bank. And anyway lots of people I know wouldn’t like the book. Some would even hate it. So I sat at my desk and, under the light of the computer screen, made a list (I have a special pad for this kind of list) of everyone I know who wouldn’t hate the book, and then narrowed that down to everyone I know who would like the book, and then narrowed that down even more, to everyone I know who would love the book. Then I checked my bank balance again. If you’re on the list, your copy is on its way.
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A day like that doesn’t build. It just starts out on a high note and keeps it up for the next twenty-four hours. A lot of pop songs build. They start slow or quiet or meek and then get bolder and louder and faster over the next couple of minutes. I have no problem with this, but I have a soft spot for songs that start out fast and loud and bold and can hold onto that boldness: