Spelunking

So it seems it took an interview with John Maclean to get me to post again. (I think the leftovers are better.)

Sitting at home all summer with no way to download new music, I've been debating whether or not to buy new music and/or how much. I used Insound's 25% off to get:

1. M83: Before the Dawn Heals Us
2. Keith Fullerton Whitman: Multiples
3. Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
4. The Juan Maclean: Less Than Human
5. VA: Total 6 [Kompakt]

I think they are in order of release. Kyle also played me some things by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, including the eponymous song from the eponymous album with, YES!, even eponymous lyrics. That fact made part of me very happy. What made another part of me very happy was that it sounded amazing. So I tried to tell him about some things that I have enjoyed this summer (specifically, songs by Wolf Parade and Art Brut) and realized that I wanted to list the songs that have delighted me since graduation, but haven't gotten around to it yet. It's harder because I'm mostly using the laptop I bought and my music is still on my old computer, so I would have to stand at the other computer and make a list and put it on a disk and then copy it and upload it, and who needs all that trouble?

I heard the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on the way to Maquoketa Caves yesterday (about 2 hours from my house) where we found a lot of small and shallow caves, one enormous cave which was more like a tunnel, and one interesting cave that require shimmying through some pretty tight spaces. Kyle jumped around like Gollum and smeared mud on himself and eventually we (four of us altogether) sat around in the complete darkness and silence before returning to the outside world. Also, we were shocked to discover that Target sells flashlights with batteries for ninety nine cents. They mostly worked, although after we returned home completely filthy, I noticed that the spare batteries had become dented in my pocket and were in fact somewhat malleable. I didn't know what that meant, but I didn't think it was probably good.

The Grand Strand was kind of like the beach usually is. I got pictures and the good ones will go up at Flickr once I get a chance to test out the wireless version of the information superhighway with my computer, probably at the Iowa City Public Library. While there I got the idea that it would be good to mix together some DFA songs with Liquid Liquid's "Optimo" and when I did it today I think it turned out that it was a good idea. It's only fifteen minutes long, though, and I don't have anything else to combine it with to approach mixtape length, so it will probably just exist as is.