In Which I Did/Didn't Start the Fire.

I have this problem where if I neglect some area of writing for a time (correspondence with a particular individual, say, or journalling, or maybe blogging is a good example?), then I feel like when I return to it, I need to write something really spectacular to make up for all the writing I didn't do. It doesn't really make any sense; it's self-defeating, because the mental challenge of trying to come up with something really spectacular just makes it that much harder to return to whatever I was neglecting. But there it is, this weird idea I've always had. Right there. I am putting it on the lawn, see, and I am punting it into the street. This will not be a really spectacular blog post.

Last night I went to the Doug Fir Lounge with Bee and Spider (and their parents, who are visiting from out of town). We saw Sounds Like Fun, Norfolk & Western, and Heroes and Villains. (I wanted to link to the bands, but I couldn't find any pages that didn't automatically start playing music when you load them. Don't they know everybody hates that? You can see photos of the first two bands, and click through to their pages, on the Doug Fir calendar page.)

Sounds Like Fun was three loud guys. They played loudly and sang loudly, and they smiled loudly, showing many, many teeth. I liked them a lot, not only because they made good music, but because they also seemed to be laughing at themselves and us as they played. Like it was the best joke ever that they were up there playing music for a bunch of people.

Norfolk & Western was a bigger band, with a more polished sound that reminded me a lot of the Decemberists. Later I found out that the drummer/singer used to play for the Decemberists. I liked them about as much as I like the Decemberists, which is pretty well, but they weren't as much fun to listen to as the first band. The drummer was awesome, though. And a girl. An awesome girl drummer. Awesome!

By the time Heroes and Villains took the stage, I was too tired to really get much out of their set -- ironic, since they were the reason I was there. But they were of course very good. You have to be wide awake to fully appreciate the complexity of their music, with its frequent shifts in rhythm and key, but even sleepy people can enjoy watching such a strange cast of characters as they are. One of them looks like she was invented by Bryan Lee O'Malley. In fact, I even checked just now to see if he had a sketch that looks uncannily like her, but this was as close as I could get. No, not the snoozing girl at the top; scroll down to the girl screaming on the table. That's pretty close. Her hair is pink, and her little crooked mouth gets all huge when she sings.

I spent some time at the show trying to picture the rest of Heroes and Villains as drawn by indie comic artists. The other girl reminded me of how Gabrielle Bell draws herself. The guys were harder, especially the drummer, because the pink-haired girl was blocking my view of him. (He actually looks sorta like Bee's boyfriend, if you happen to know who that is.) And the other two guys had dark bristly beards. I haven't seen a lot of beards in comics lately, so I kind of got stuck at that point.

The Doug Fir Lounge is a really, really nice venue. I was impressed. The building is new, but the decor is retro-rustic, like it was designed in the '60s with a log cabin theme, and the lighting and layout are comfortable yet hip. There is some seating along the sides, but I stood throughout the show, on a raised area of the floor between a pillar and a railing. I had a great view of the stage the entire time, and if you know how tall I am, you can guess how rare that is. Also, the show was only $6. If you live in Portland, enjoy indie rock, and haven't yet been to the DFL, let me encourage you to remedy that as soon as possible.

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I have lit a fire in my fireplace, and am sitting here by it with a blanket over my lap. It's very cozy. "But wait!" you are saying, if you've ever been inside my house. "Your fireplace is not connected to a chimney! It's Strictly Decorative! This sounds very dangerous!" To which I answer: actually, I have lit several very small wax-based fires in glass jars, or as I like to call them, "candles." They are in my new fireplace candelabra that my mom and dad gave me for Christmas. The flickery flames glint off the tile of my pretend fireplace, and they give off just enough heat to warm your hands by, so the effect is ideal for a rainy winter evening like this one. And arrayed across the mantel is my Christmas present from the Ranums. It's bee-yewtiful. And FEROCIOUS.