I thought I was going to get to do that ironical thing, though.

Four years ago I had a fight with Verizon and promised them, I think in writing, that I’d never use them again. And this worked out fine, because it turned out there were a couple of unsecured wireless networks near my apartment. They were really quite reliable, and I used them every goddamn day until about two weeks ago, when the last of them started sporting a little lock icon meaning “I’m onto you, you big mooch.”

Great, I thought. I’ll get so much done. I’ll start reading again, go for walks, and then the fantasy trailed off into the realm of the fantastic I guess with my ability to concentrate for more than a minute at a time without CLICKING ON SOMETHING coming back to me.

Really, I was going to jot down little notes and then regale you all with the tale of how I got my life back.

How it has gone in practice: the first few days, I felt some sense of withdrawal in good and bad ways. I practiced scales on the piano. I did, yes, leave the house more. Went to bed early a few nights in a row. Um, maybe two.

You can’t spend all your time on an iphone. It’s too tiny, and there’s stuff it doesn’t do.

I have begun spending all my time on my iphone. Lying on the couch (which is sort of nice–I never used to use the couch because the table by it is very low and I couldn’t sit on the couch and type on the laptop) making out with facebook, watching so much Netflix I got a passive-aggressive little text from AT&T (“Wow, seems like you’re using a lot of data! How about that! We srsly wouldn’t want your streaming and stuff to slow down or anything, god forbid it should happen in the middle of Downton Abbey.”) reading blogs/typing comments/correcting everything a thousand times because autocorrect still things “Thr” is likely what I meant rather than the overly obvious “the”…stuff like that.

Is this perhaps my actual addiction? Remember that time I talked about the CAGE test? Is there a questionnaire about Internet Madness? [dramatic organ chord] Is the internet RUINING MY LIFE?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Formerly-here-blogged-about soprano Anna Netrebko in preposterously fine form singing the big scene from Il Trovatore to a bunch of German people. She is twice joined by the offstage voice of almost equally exciting tenor Jonas Kaufmann, only some producer wasn’t content to leave well enough alone and the cameras swoop backstage to show you him. Howdy, Jonas! Netrebko doesn’t get to act here because it’s a concert performance, which is a shame because she’s an unusually good actor for a singer, but oh well.

I’ll put one more on in case anyone is in an opera mood. C’mon, Lane, you know you are.

I will make it as different as possible for the sake of novelty. Old instead of recent, tenor instead of soprano, German instead of Italian, embarrassing acting instead of reasonably restrained concert gestures, way shorter and…possibly lip-synched? Still marvelous singing, though. American tenor James King in Siegmund’s big “hey sis, let’s do it!” number from Die Walkuere. Seriously, fifteen minutes later the act ends and they are boinking like Teutonic, leather-lunged bunnies.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tracklist:

A Real Hero. College
Nightcall. Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx
Warm in the Winter. Glass Candy
My Name is Trouble. Karen Ann
Kelly. When Saints Go Machine
Winter Beats. I Break Horses
Summer Days. Toy Camera
My Mistakes. Eleanor Friedberger
Shampain. Marina & the Diamonds
Ten-Twenty-Ten. Generationals
Undertow. Stars
As If You’ve Never Been Away. Ulrich Schnauss
Other Girls. Eux Autres
Mouthful of Diamonds. Phantogram
Romance. Wild Flag
East Harlem. Beirut
An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death. Eluvium
Home. Jenny O
Put the Days Away. Sun Airway
Repatriated. Handsome Furs

Most of these songs are from 2011. But also 2010, 2008, 2004, 2001. I trust that your iTunes will provide all those sorts of details. It’s always a thrill for us to stumble across great songs that we missed from another era. If there is a theme here, it’s that there are a lot of synthesizers. If there are thank-yous, it’s to the usual Bryan and Jeremy for their pathologic song-enthusiasms, and to our friends on this mix who are making kick-ass music. By the way, there are no songs on this one by Destroyer (in August you might recall that we posted our Mixmas part 1 with the splendid “Poor in Love” on it). Destroyer’s Kaput was hands-down our favorite album of the year. If you haven’t already done so, we recommend playing it over and over in its entirety and discovering its layers of sublimenessness.
Also you should know how much fun we had editing this mix down to just 20 songs. Last night was a surprisingly uncontested dance-party of taste-brokering joyousness. Colossal. We hope you have as much fun listening! Long live TGW and its deep roots in music. We felt so lucky a few days ago to raise a festive glass of bubbles with so many of you and toast to a wonderful 2012. We love love love youse! And to those who couldn’t be there, you know who you are. Play this and feel our TGW love. Our love is wide-reaching and enduring. Until we meet again!

A few days ago I was discussing Red, Hot & Blue with Dave and he said he’d been unaware of it when it came out, so I wondered if it was something that was just on my radar. Do you remember it?

Red, Hot & Blue (you don’t really use an Oxford comma with an ampersand, right?) was this collection of Cole Porter songs covered and, in some cases, substantially reimagined by pop singers from various genres. They played it on Network tv, a thing I just cannot imagine now, and then I believe they sold the album with some money going to AIDS.

And the thing about it is that a good many of these covers were magical. So I’m going to see what’s on youtube and maybe post a couple of them for, one hopes, your delectation–nostalgic if you remember them; revelatory if not!

The cream of the crop is this one:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If I am remembering correctly, Annie Lennox sang this in a Derek Jarman film, and this clip is something of a memorial. “She’s classically trained” people would say at the time, which is sort of a meaningless statement, but her singing is certainly accomplished, technically and artistically. It’s not an easy song to pull off.

I’ve always loved this one, too:

Click here to view the embedded video.

That’s Sinead O’Connor in the Veronica Lake getup.

Maybe not as succesful as a genre-hop, but fun:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I mean, c’mon. The Pogues do Cole Porter? That’s a kind of heaven.

I’ll stop before I put the whole thing on. It’s hard not to link KD Lang’s “So in Love”…actually I just started watching it and it’s impossible not to link to it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ahem. It’s hard not to link to Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop’s bizarro tangle with “Well, did you evah?” and David Byrne’s very fun “Don’t Fence Me In” but at least for that one the video is kind of annoying.

Googling around, I found out a couple of things, like that Wim Wenders did the video for U2′s (ugh) cover of “Night and Day,” and that “Don’t Fence Me In” was Cole Porter’s least favorite of his works. Go know!