Break Up Albums

I'm not including the years because I don't know them all, and I'm too lazy to look them up:

Amy Winehouse, "Back to Black" - any album that includes the lyric "I cried for you on the kitchen floor" is clearly an album for me.

The Good, The Bad, and the Queen, "The Good, The Bad, and the Queen" - ah, Damon Albarn, master of the building song, how did I get by before I knew ye? This album makes me feel there is something larger than myself to which I belong.

Of Montreal, "Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer?" - again, a lyric: "The mousy girl screams 'violence, violence!'" But everything about this album is a huge release. I love it. Thanks, PB.

PJ Harvey, "White Chalk" - already got its own write-up here, but the decadence of this pathos is too rich not to mention. I cry just thinking about the white chalk hills...for me they're red clay, but we've been over that too...

Tori Amos, "Boys for Pele" - it's all in the title, really, and this album has seen me through a few. "Don't take me back to the range" is a standout thematically correct lyric for this one...but again, there are so many.

Iron and Wine, "The Sea and the Woman" - ok, it's not a real album, but the ground it covers in five short songs leaves me bereft enough. To be enjoyed in moderation, along with these other artists: Ben Trickey, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Aphex Twin, Sparklehorse, and Mogwai. For different reasons, of course.

In addition to GBQ, these all make me happy in a forget myself and sing along way:

No Doubt, "Best" - don't knock it.

Cake - anything, really. I can sing pretty much all their songs, and I do it so well.

Regina Spektor, "Begin to Hope" - it's all in the title, and she has a piano.

The Sugarcubes or Bjork - again, pretty much anything makes me happy.

Blur, "Parklife" - Blur makes me happy, but "Parklife" sticks out as the shiniest album (to me).

Um, that's enough for now. I wish more (any) of you had music blogs. It would be a good way for us to learn about good music. Do it!

Food, Death, and the South

I love the South. I love being a Southerner (by the grace of God). It's warm and lush and sometimes a little beat-up and impoverished, but the people are good, and there is community, and there is sometimes even a little leisure. And I am from Georgia.

So, we had a death in the family recently, and I was overwhelmed and shocked by the immediate, enormous support we received from our community. Not only did we receive buckets of cards, but not once did anyone have to cook, make a call, run an errand, do a chore, nothing. We were completely cared for and loved. We got fried chicken and peach pie and pound cake and pork roast and pot roast and pimento cheese and rolls and hashbrown casserole and dressing and gravy and butterbeans and green beans and yams and sweet tea and cole slaw and cookies and you name it. We had people stopping in to check on us, sending neighbors to do the same, calling kin, singing songs, praying, adding us to prayer chains, offering to help - the phone rang 'round the clock. The grass was even cut (and we're talking about several acres worth of bush-hogging here) while the family was making arrangements at the funeral home one day. It was incredible.

So, I'm proud to come from the Christ-haunted South, where the flies bite and the dirt's red and the lakes are all dusty. And I'll write my piece on food some other time.