listening to the newish yo la tengo - so jazzy jazz - having those winsome high school thoughts. whenever i listen to them i get dangerously close to setting up those dreaded reception scenarios that bad writers always use in reviews...music for pre-twilight winter drives while chewing mint gum with the heater on 65% warm.

i have an article on 'the state of new music in rhode island,' pun intended, up at New Music Box, a fine website on all things avant classical. the photo was required, prompting me to wish i sort of had a real author photo (see the most recent issue of Stop Smiling for my interview with Marion Ettlinger, photographer of many of the 20th century's most iconic author photos). providence overload includes a girlie travel article for the upcoming Venus and my recent (oops, late) pitch to EMP about the localized definition of 'noise' in context of the noise rock scene there. i have a sick reading list to go through - noise: the political economy of sound, which my friend mark made crazy faces while reading a few years ago, and noise water meat, which i saw at the pretentious kid in my department's book shelf at his holiday party, at which i drunkenly danced on his bed with a keyboard to 'i ran,' which may have been one of the top 10 moments of my 2003. oh the golden memories of last month.

am thinking about that HUGE throbbing gristle book, is it worth the read? email pinkgerl@yahoo.com for suggestions. i also just read simon reynolds essay in 'blissed out' on noise, very negative in his situating noise as anti-body, anti-life.