Friday Random Ten: Placeholder Edition

OK, next year there will probably be a return to real blogginess of some sort, but right now things are a little too crazy for ruminations and recordings of Wild Thing's charming elocutions. This will have to suffice for my ravening readers until January, most likely.

1. Eighth Cognition/All You've Left--Six Organs of Admittance, School of the Flower
2. Little Emma's Smile--Viking Moses, Crosses
3. Insurance Fraud--The Mountain Goats, The Coroner's Gambit
4. Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)--Miles Davis, Porgy and Bess
5. Goodbye--Steve Earle, Train a Comin'
6. Long Vermont Roads--The Magnetic Fields, Old Enough 2 Know Better-15 Years of Merge Records
7. I'll Believe in Anything--Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary
8. Firsts--Richard Buckner, Dents & Shells
9. The End--The Doors, Best Of.
10. Come, Gone (Alternate Take)--Sonny Rollins, Way Out West.

Friday Random Ten: The Mysterious Production of iTunes

1. Picture Day—Richard Buckner, Dents and Shells
2. Anna—Ernest Ranglin, In Search of the Lost Riddim
3. Countdown—John Coltrane, Giant Steps
4. Here at the Right Time—Josh Ritter, The Animal Years
5. Haze—Tessitura, On the Importance of Being Confused
6. Twisting—They Might Be Giants, Flood
7. You Do Something to Me—Ella Fitzgerald, The Cole Porter Songbook
8. MX Missles—Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs
9. Alex Chilton—The Replacements, Pleased to Meet Me
10. Left Only with Love—Smog, Knock Knock

Developmental notes: the varieties of affection

Wild Thing has been working hard at figuring out how to express affection lately. "I love you" is pretty much old hat by now, so he's begun experimenting. Since he's figured out that people who are married love each other a lot (in theory, and, in his personal experience, in practice), he's begun proposing to people. He's recently offered marriage proposals to me as well as to his mother and grandmother.

Yet more charming: yesterday morning, he gave me a big hug and said, "Daddy--you're my best friend." I'm still emitting a faint glow from that one. But it's also fascinating to see him trying to figure out how one expresses strong affection and attachment. The adult world subdivides and categorizes all that stuff in a thousand different ways, and it seems as if he's starting to see that, even though what he feels is still (relatively) straightforward.

A matter of perspective

Wild Thing sometimes solves conceptual problems in unexpected ways.

WT: "Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman! Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread!" [Note: this is one of his favorite stock phrases this month.]

Me: "WT, are you a giant?"

WT: "No."

Me: "Are giants big or little?"

WT: "Big!"

Me: "How about you? Are you big or little?"

WT: "Little!"

Me: "So how can you be a giant?"

WT: [brief pause, then ...] "I'm pretending that giants are little."

Friday Random Ten: Big Thaw Edition

1. Whip-Smart--Liz Phair, Whip-Smart. Catchy but overlong.
2. Every Word Except Goodbye--Peter Mulvey, The Trouble with Poets.
3. Holiday Schottisch--Will Barrow, Beautiful Dreamer : The Songs Of Stephen Foster. This track is cheery enough to melt ice.
4. Nebraska--Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Live 1975-1985. OK, that's a significant change in tone. Thanks for ruining my day, iTunes.
5. I'm an Old Cowhand--Sonny Rollins, Way Out West. Back on the upbeat side.
6. Dirty Old Town--The Pogues, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash. This is not one of Shane's more memorable efforts, IMHO.
7. Come on Up to the House--Tom Waits, Mule Variations.
8. Who Am I--Les Misearables, Original Broadway Cast.
9. You Get What You Deserve--Big Star, Radio City.
10. Menina Moca--Stan Getz, Bossa Nova. Ending the day on a note that blends the upbeat and the soft-spoken.

Bonus # 11:

Holland, 1945--Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. A famous blogger recently referred to this as the cheeriest song ever sung about the Holocaust. I'm not sure if that's right, but it's certainly plausible.

And, for a holocaust of a more personal sort, also in a strangely upbeat key--bonus # 12--

Lion's Teeth--The Mountain Goats, The Sunset Tree.