(quote from Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past by Simon Reynolds)



"Nostalgia in the modern sense is an impossible emotion, or at least an incurable one: the only remedy would involve time travel." So Simon Reynolds writes and he is absolutely right. That's why nostalgia (when one drowns herself in it) can become so annoying and tedious.

Yes, our pasts (especially our teenage pasts) can seem wonderful to us in these modern times when the economy is tanking and our adult lives can be so challenging.

But I'm willing to bet (at least, on my own past) that we often remember things better than the way they really happened...

I picked up this special magazine put out by the editors of NME and UNCUT over the weekend and it's really quite interesting.

Not only are there songs mentioned that I've always loved and now feel kind of redeemed (not that I need to feel this) for liking, there are lots of sidebars and interesting tibdibts about "lost" tracks and underrated albums throughout pop music history.

I'm also discovering wonderful songs that I never knew existed.

missed connection in a grocery store

I love shopping at the grocery store late at night...the music always seems better, the people more mysterious and the checkers eerily sedate.

Last evening I was at my local Giant Food when this amazingly gorgeous song came over the speakers. Usually when this happens, a "clean-up in aisle 4" message almost always interrupts the flow and the magic is gone.

But this time I got to hear the entire song. And once I realized I really liked it, I pulled out my cell and scrambled to type every word I heard into my "notepad tool," sure that when I got home I'd be able to figure out the song title through Google, Bing and even song lyrics websites.

Alas, I wasn't able to and now the song is still swirling through my mind, or the rather the echo of it is, taunting me with the fact I may never know its beauty again. :(

Oh mi dios!

Gloria Estefan's Miss Little Havana came out this Tuesday and though I just read a great review for it, I'm not sure I like the album all that much except for three stand-out ("you've got to get on the floor and dance right now!") songs.

"Right Away" kinda sounds like good old school Miami Sound Machine, "Hotel Nacional" rhymes Susan Lucci with hoochie coochie and has a mean horn section that defies you not to move and "Make My Heart Go"...well...not really sure why I like this one.

Of course, there is some absolutely awful, awful material on here as well: the first time I heard "Wepa" I thought it was some kind of joke, a throw-in track to see if fans were still paying attention to Estefan et al after all these years.

And the title track is almost as abysmal. Yet I still feel so terribly guilty for writing something so cruel (in the late 80s I thought the sun set and the moon rose by her) because it's very obvious Estefan put her heart and soul into this...


read the article here

Experimenting with some new gadgets and branching out some...

I recently discovered you can add a gadget to a Blogger account that lets you post a link for your favorite charity.

If people click the link on (there is no charge at all!), money will go to the blogger's favorite cause.

To Write Love On Her Arms (see here for more info) is mine.


from fundraisingip.com:


To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) is a charity about suicide prevention, started by Jamie Tworkowski in 2006. Jamie himself is a major draw for the organization, as beneficiaries of TWLOHA feel a personal connection with him. 

The organization’s strategies for spreading the word include live events and effective use of the internet and have helped to create almost two million dollars in gross receipts. Not every group will be able to produce such stellar results in such a short time, but there are several things you can do to…