Happy Birthday To You

When my wife and I first started dating, I was afraid that we didn't really have much in common. Sure, we grew up on the same side of town, had parents that came from almost identical cultural backgrounds, knew a lot of the same people, went to the same kinds of schools, etc. But really, we didn't like the same kind of music and I worried that this masked deeper aesthetic and political divisions.

It was a great relief then when we discovered that we both liked this song. She, being a fan of Sinatra and musicals, I being a fan of early punk. It turns out she also has a soft spot for Debbie Harry.

The track is from one of the earliest Red Hot & Blue releases and supposedly the video is directed by Alex Cox of Sid & Nancy, Repo Man, and Straight to Hell fame.

Fun trivia: I wanted to include the line "Next July We Collide With Mars" on our wedding invites.

Song of the Day: I'll Be Seeing You

(The second revision is maybe 60% done and I'm starting to find it hard to remain true to the original vision I had for the novel. As things become more "streamlined," alternative plot points make themselves available -but are they better?)

The other day I had the chance to read a Paris Review Interview with French author Michel Houellebeq, whose novel Elementary Particles was seemingly on every bookstand in Paris when I was there in the summer of 1998. I regretted not buying it at the time because I fell in love with quantum mechanics in junior high and must admit that it has been very influential in my thinking. It even skewed my reading of philosophers like Nietzsche and allusions to it crop up in the character develop parts of Games of Chance. I was surprised when Houellebeq mentioned a similiar connection. You can read the interview here:

However, Houellebeq and I most recently crossed paths in interviews with Iggy Pop over his new album Preliminaires, something that reminded me of his previous collaboration with a French artist:

Music Update

Musically speaking, the last month has been dominated by the glorious noise drenched ramblings of Vancouver's Japandroids and their album Post-Nothing. Here they are living it up with the CBC:

I've also been spending a fair bit of time with hometown heroes The Dudes and their new album Blood Guts Bruises Cuts as well as Iggy Pop's jazz-inspired Preliminaires. A friend and I briefly wondered whether songs like "Search & Destroy" or "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell" would make the set list for this tour. Anything's possible.