COLLIDED

A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

If I spent any time actually thinking about the basic facts of this collider -- if anyone did, besides Swiss physicists and the staff of the New York Times Science section -- I would stop sleeping altogether. Who can nap when particles are maybe going backwards in time and altering events? For real, you guys. FOR REAL.

Important: Yesterday at CVS, Bret and I found and purchased the World's Largest pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, which costs an astounding $9.99, but weighs 1 pound total, and is crazy. Truth: the CVS on the corner of Pacific and Court is like ground-zero for enormous versions of ordinary objects (ie. the 12 x 6" universal remote control I once talked my husband into purchasing, and is still hilarious, STILL), so mark yr Christmas lists, accordingly.

NEGATIVE CREEP

A few days ago I got a copy of a freshly-reissue'd Bleach in the mail, and although it is thick and solid and lovely, objectively, I've been eyeballing it with real trepidation. Precious as it may be, I'm still knotty about revisiting, critically or otherwise, records that were vital to me when I was 16 (in this case, already seven cool-crippling years after its original release), if for no other reason than it reminds me, for the 95 zillionth time, how differently music functions in my life now, how differently -- both practically and otherwise -- I listen. Also, I don't want to read 57 nostalgia pieces.

The good news is that someone had in in their sweet sweet heart to ship out promos of Creedence Clearwater Revival: The Singles Collection the same day, so whatever.

Elsewhere: A gaggle of episodes of Bored to Death had gotten stored up on our Tivo, and B and I watched them all late Saturday night (in my defense, CMJ, it was raining really hard), and even though I am dubious of many of the factors involved in the production of this television show, I totally loved it, especially -- especially! -- Ted Danson.

OH, GLORY

Last Friday, B cajoled me into going to the Sunset Rubdown show at the Grand Ballroom, which is a venue I have written about but never actually entered before. It's weird: You have to take an elevator to the 7th floor, there's a concession stand selling Reese's Pieces and Gummi Bears and popcorn, and the floor is coated with patterned carpet, like a hotel conference room or a casino. There was a fight that lasted an uncomfortably long time and consisted of two skinny dudes clawing at each others' faces and rolling around on the carpet. One of them lost a shoe, and I saw this tiny girl hide it in her purse, and then later he came back with a security guard and a flashlight looking for the shoe, and then later I saw him again, sitting outside on the steps to the building, with one white shoe and bloody scratch marks on his face, looking cheesed. Who says indie rock is for losers?

I keep forgetting to pick up my CMJ badge, mostly because I am home playing and replaying the excellent new Holopaw record, and sometimes Bob Dylan's Christmas album, which is mostly nuts. I wrote a review of it for Pitchfork. I tried to give it a 12.25.

More importantly, on Friday night I am going with my Mom and Dad to this, and may finally realize my dream of seeing a dinosaur comprised exclusively of jack o'lanterns.

A THING LIKE THAT!

Last week Bret and I went to see old Bruce close out Giants Stadium, and there were fireworks and he sang "Jersey Girl" and all of "Born in the U.S.A." and I ate a bad pretzel and we sat approximately 3.1 miles away from the stage, but it was so so good, and I felt bad for indie rock bands everywhere. The next night we went to see Frank Bruni interview Anthony Bourdain and I found Bourdain intermittently annoying. I think he's annoying himself. Let's make fun of Guy Fieri! Let's make fun of McDonald's! Cooks are CRAZY and smoke cigarettes! Snoozefest, man.

Today, all I have been doing is listening to Dylan's insane Christmas album and thinking about Mad Men and Pete Campbell. Like many Americans, I fell in love with Pete Campbell the night he hollered "Hell's Bells, Trudy!" and hurled a roast chicken out the window of his high-rise apartment. This is the sort of grand gesture I aspire to in my own life, but infrequently achieve.

Pete reminds me of George W. Bush, in that he's moderately affable, enormously entitled, blindly ambitious, ethically perplexing, and 100% ridiculous. Also, this, from the first season:

"You know what? I have good ideas. In fact, I used to carry around a notebook and a pen, just to keep track. Direct marketing? I thought of that. It turned out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently. And then I come to this place, and you people tell me that I’m good with people, which is strange, because I’d never heard that before."

Pete's rich father died in a plane crash. Pete awkwardly tried to blackmail Don Draper and fumbled. Pete awkwardly tried to seduce Peggy Olsen and fumbled. Pete returned a chip-n-dip and bought a gun. Pete raped an au pair and watches cartoons without his shirt on. Pete can't smoke a cigarette. Pete thinks he never gets what he wants. He is smarmy and weirdly honest, certainly more honest than most everyone else on the show. Pete has a real voice and a fake voice. He is neurotic, and jealous, and dorky, and arrogant, and insincere, and sort of prescient sometimes. Vincent Kartheiser, the actor who plays Pete, has bangs and thinks only Spanish-speaking people ride the bus. It's a lot to think about.

It's fall and a nor'easter is coming!

WHY DO I FEEL THIS PARTY'S OVER?

Loose Ends:

I'm beginning to maybe think that Pete Campbell is the most interesting character that has been on television in a very, very long time.

Yesterday I impulse-bought a Venus fly trap at Lowes, and I brought it home and put it inside a little glass jar with a cork lid, and added some peat and some polished stones and a tiny bit of water, and then I learned on the internet that I can hand-feed it flies if I so desire. Do I desire that? Does anyone desire that? I have been checking on it every few minutes. Maybe Cascadian Farms makes faux-flies I can defrost in my microwave.

I have this problem with concord grapes -- or with concord grape seeds, more specifically. Pls send tutorials on how to eat them, as the Greenmarket has been flooded, and they smell so, so awesome.

I've always had a healthy bit of claustrophobia, but it's getting way worse as I get older, and I spent all day Sunday fretting about whether or not I would find a sold-out Bowery Ballroom (jammed with Sufjan Stevens fans) wholly intolerable. Here's my claustrophobia hierarchy: airplanes, stalled subway cars, a bathroom full of steam, the Bowery Ballroom. It turned out OK.

STARTER SOPHISTICATION

I like Sam Sifton, and I'm excited that he's taking over Frank Bruni's semi-coveted slot as the New York Times restaurant critic, if only because he (successfully!) refers to restaurants as "balloons kept aloft by a restless crowd." And: "To remove [an acclaimed dish] from the menu is to play loose bridge at a table that rewards cavalier behavior with Cromwellian violence." Crowellian violence! Pork chops! Bless you, old Sam Sifton. I look forward to more references to women preparing chicken Marbella for their building’s co-op boards in 1983, I do!

I don't read much music criticism anymore, although I used to read everything; I do read lots and lots of film and food writing. I like that a restaurant review, in particular, is able to address its subject as a squirming, shifting organism, whereas albums never change, not really, certainly not literally. I am envious, sometimes, of all those moving parts.

It's fall and I'm feeling good swirly things: nostalgic, weird, excited, introspective, ready ready ready.

JUST FOR FUN HE SAYS GET A JOB

Long after I had convinced myself that I was going to spend the rest of my life covered in hives, they went away. I wanted to cry, except I thought that would make me get hives again. Thanks again for all the well-wishes, goons. You are the greatest.

This is going to make me sound like a gigantic asshole, but I am discovering that I am really deeply and disturbingly entertained by middle-aged man music. Last week I was writing a preview for a Michael McDonald/Boz Scaggs show, and just contemplating the event itself -- like, that it was even happening -- kind of made me go nuts. It's as if there is nothing on planet Earth that I find funnier than Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs! Why? Today I had to write a preview for a Bruce Hornsby show, and the Wikipedia description of his new album contains these two sentences: "Bruce's newest Noisemakers album, Levitate, is due for release on September 15, 2009. It primarily features songwriting more than instrumental fireworks, going so far as to have no piano solos." When I read the phrase "going so far as to have no piano solos," I lost my mind. As if it were the best and funniest thing I have ever read! Why is this happening to me? But then the worst part is that I can't stop playing the songs! I have listened to "The Way It Is" like 14 times today! (A single tear.)

Another thing I like is the celebrity autobiography, particularly if it is written by a musician of ill-repute. For example, I read the entirety of The Dirt in 48 hours. For example, Waylon by Waylon Jennings is my favorite book I read in 2005. For example, I am totes buying Scar Tissue to read on my next (preferably non-hives related) staycation.

Confessions.

BLOODIER THAN BLOOD

HIVE DISPATCH: One thing I have learned is that every system in the crazy-amazing human body is aggravated by stress and anxiety (I feel like the bus from Speed, real serious), so DVDs and carrot cake and jokes about syphilis are all useful medicines. Also, I have learned that you can wander the streets of Brooklyn, NY on a lovely 75 degree day with unwashed hair, giant sunglasses, a scarf around your neck, an Epi-pen clutched in yr hand, and 4 mismatched layers of winter clothing and nobody looks twice. Hives chic!

WHY DONT YOU GO BLOG ABOUT IT

You guys. I woke up last Thursday morning covered scalp to toe in massive hives, realized I wasn't breathing very well, and managed to walk myself into the E.R. at LICH. Real talk: I have never been so happy to live one block from a hospital. I got a plastic bracelet and a paper gown and my own stretcher and a few well-timed intramuscular shots of steroids/epinephrine. I lived! But I'm still fucked up and on all kinds of steroids, even after emergency allergy testing (85 needles in my back) and four days at my parents' house and a giant plastic bag full of insane-person medication. OMG! This is the part in the story where you sprint to my apartment with tissues and ice cream, because really, I could not possibly be feeling sorrier for myself. It is self-pity city over here. I have been whining, moaning, crying hysterically, yelling, and itching like crazy, and it is kind of a miracle that I am still married and that anyone is responding to my emails. Some of this is because of the medication I'm taking, and some of it is because I am a giant baby who has been covered in terrifying, itchy welts for 5 days, and, guess what, now I'm blogging about it.

Anyway, it seems like there is a very good chance that I am having an allergic reaction to a cold virus, which is what I get for telling a cold that I win. I lose, I lose ten million times.

YOU SHOULD ATONE SOME

I've been sick for the last week, and while I'm starting to feel better, I'm still producing an ungodly amount of snot. Every August, I manage to acquire one of these totally debilitating summer-colds. This is summer's way of getting back at me for all the complaining I've been doing. Whatever, summer. It is like 70 degrees out right now. I win!

Anyway, I've been curled up in bed, surrounded by used tissues and Halls wrappers. I did manage to read a lot of books. I read Frank Bruni's memoir. I read David Carr's memoir. I read American Wife. (All of these books are very good, and probably available for purchase right now at yr local bookseller.) I photoshopped fake covers for Bob Dylan's forthcoming Christmas album. I got a magical package in the mail with three (!) reissues of Jackie DeShannon records. I also demanded that Bret prepare and serve me various meals, including chocolate pudding, chicken noodle soup, and grilled sweet potatoes. Maybe summer-cold has not been all that terrible.

BABY JUST SAY YES

I finally finished my Pitchfork ballot for the 100 BEST ALBUMS OF THE DECADE, after much cajoling and prodding by my kind and patient editors. This was the both the easiest and the hardest ballot of this sort that I've ever had to fill out, mostly because I've been writing about music critically for the last seven (!!) years, which means the 00s were the most aggressively music-crammed decade of my little old life. Also, I am a shitty and disorganized list-maker and bad at hierarchies (except candy bar hierarchies, about which I am quite clear).

After I submitted my list, I subway'd into midtown for a meeting. Is there any more profound an indication of our separation from ye olde Planet Earth than 45-year old dudes wearing wool suits and wingtips on 6th Avenue in the crazyblazing noontime sun? I was early, and I went into an Ann Taylor (!!) because when I walked by the entrance, I could feel the air conditioning billowing out the door and it beckoned me forth like some kind of non-energy-efficient Peter Pan, and I roamed Ann Taylor in a moist, glassy-eyed stupor. An Ann Taylor blackhole! The intoxication of Ann Taylor! I almost couldn't bring myself to leave.

Also, before I ferget, I was lucky enough to have a delightful chat this week with Jessica Hopper, whose new book, The Girls' Guide to Rocking, is just super awesome. Buy ten copies for every ten year old you know!

YOU AINT A BITCH OR A HO

Here is what my work day has devolved into: singing along to the first Queen Latifah album, singing along to the second Hole album, making a smoothie, and emailing pictures of capybaras to my husband. Sometimes when I have an insurmountable amount of writing to do, something snaps. That's all I'm saying.

JUST NAMING GIRLS AND SAYING "ICE CREAM PARLOR"

This is sort of my new favorite blog.

I'M TRYNA' COMPREHEND YOU, I GOT A DYSLEXIC HEART

I'm entering my summer hibernation. This is a madcap period of miraculous irritability/exhaustion/mania that ends on the first crisp day in September. I can't properly function when it gets this hot and muggy. I can't breathe. I am a hot werewolf. Do you feel sorry for me yet?

Good News: Over the weekend, I finally trotted up the High Line, which I think is really neat, and would be even neater (super neat!) if I was the only one allowed access to it. I also consumed approximately 47 black bean burritos from Calexico, which recently opened a small storefront on Union and Columbia, and successfully concealed (and then conceded) several packs of Parliament Lights from beloved college pals, who were staying with us and developing an odd/deadly affinity for cheap cigarettes. Most importantly, I've been listening to/writing about two new releases from Tompkins Square -- Tim Buckley Live at the Folklore Center and the Complete Recordings of the Red Fox Chasers (1928-31) -- and they are really, really good. Plus, Kevin brought me Swedish Fish at Abilene and I stayed up all night eating candy and finishing The Right Stuff.

Bad News: Today I got a copy of a new John Fogerty album called "The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again." The title is slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly driving me completely insane.

It's summertime, ya'll!

NOT READY TO MAKE NICE

I finally watched the Twilight movie. I had to do it when Bret wasn't home. Really, I tricked myself into believing it was field research for the 45 half-written young adult novels bouncing around my brain. But I actually just wanted to see if there was really a scene where the vampire is painted sparkly. There is! (Spoiler alert.) Anyway, I thought the movie was ridiculous/boring for the first 95 minutes (I like Kristen Stewart, I really do, but what's going on with that perma-tremble?), then by the end I sorta got it. I can only imagine the troves of undergraduate theses being churned out re: adolescent sexuality and Twilight. Good God.

I've been feeling a bit under the weather -- I chalk it up to tick bites and/or starting a new, big writing project -- so I've had plenty of time to continue re-watching the lunar landing. I cry every time. Also, I'm reading The Right Stuff for the very first time, approximately 7 years after I bought a used copy at Heartwood Books. Old Tom Wolfe. Old righteous stuff.

It's thunderstorm season, which I love.