I know I mentioned The Decemberists’ Hazards of Love the last time around, but I’d only listened through it once, I think, and since then I have listened to it… many more times through. I love an album that really feels like it’s MEANT to be heard as an album and is also good enough to actually bother doing it. I’ve never been a big Decemberists guy though of course like any sane person I do have some favorites including “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” and “Los Angeles, I’m Yours” and though I have given myself some shit for never bothering to investigate further and thus missing out on many years of enjoyment of this album, I also know that with all things, sometimes stuff just comes to you at exactly the right time and 2024 is my year for Hazards of Love, I guess.

And, after listening to I’ll Be Your Girl several times, the Decemberists in general!

I also spent a lot of time this first quarter of the year listening to Metric’s Formentera which is just 48 minutes of strangely danceable beats under kind of bleak lyrics, which feels appropriate for the world where we’re living in. “All Comes Crashing” kind of kicks my ass like brand new every time – When push it comes to shove / We do not fall out of love / We double down, we do not fade / For all I know / This might be my last night / If that’s how it goes, there’s no one / I would rather be lying beside – like, good god damn, folks!

I also got super into Art of Doubt, so perhaps 2024 is the year of the Decemberists and Metric? Sounds good!

One of my resolutions this year was to watch one movie a week and that’s been going pretty good! I’m ~allowed to rewatch, so I have hit some favorites, but we recently watched The Bodyguard on a whim and it ripped.

Every time I watch a Kevin Costner movie I’m just a little bit amazed that at one point he was basically like, THE biggest movie star in the world and could pretty much do anything he wanted because he’s just not really that good looking (though handsome and human in a way that I feel kind of disappeared from big movies because everything’s a comic book movie and everyone’s ripped and jawsome) and he’s really not particularly charismatic or compelling and YET! By the end of the movie you’re pretty much sold on him and it’s kind of inexplicable and wild tbh.

This one had all the pieces though: Whitney is so beautiful and the songs are so good and all the pieces work just right — hearing “I Will Always Love You” at the bar… CINEMA! — and the harrowing rescue at The Mayan Theater… what a SCENE! It wasn’t necessarily good by any real definition, but it was a MOVIE, and everyone had human looking teeth instead of bathroom tile veneers and I will take what I can get in this day and age.

Also men should always be cutting fruit with a knife in their hand and eating it from the blade. Things would be better if they did.

Okay, that’s all for now! Bye!