Author: Abby

[Abby’s Road] Summertime, and the living is easy?

While I can appreciate the beauty of a jumpin’ fish and a nap on a warm day, I am not a fan of the summer months, in DC anyway. If you’ve ever experienced the sticky un-pleasantries of living as a skint undergraduate in a sweltering, almost windowless, 2nd floor row-house apartment with no AC, a place so hot that your lifeblood (read: ramen) has to be eaten… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] Summertime, and the living is easy?

[Abby’s Road] Reunited and it feels so weird

Reunions. When I was a kid they were pretty fantastic. It meant an extended family gathering at my great-Uncle Charles’ house. Grown-ups chattered and played poker. My sister Jenny and I, shy around those we saw but once a year, chased bunnies from their peaceful slumber under one giant pine tree to the next, gulped sugary soft drinks and gorged ourselves with mayonnaise-based salads, greasy potato chips (and anything else that was banished from our own kitchen cupboards)… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] Reunited and it feels so weird

[Abby’s Road] Caring about the young folks

“Let it be known across the land that 35 is the new 25.” Ah yes, I remember the evening fondly, mostly the proclamation I made, whiskey in hand, on the eve of my thirty-fifth birthday. In this year’s mantra I bumped both double-digits up by 1. I plan to do the same next year (and… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] Caring about the young folks

Caribou’s Swim does everything but sink

Caribou’s (Dan Snaith’s) most recent project/record, Swim, to nick words from the title, is, well, “swimmy.” The vocals seem to be sung inside an open-clamshell discotheque on the ocean floor, accompanied, at times, by a woodwind orchestra. His ability to somehow combine organic sounds with analog and metronomic digitalism results in one beaut of a… Continue reading Caribou’s Swim does everything but sink

[Abby’s Road] All the world’s a stage

I’m not a big fan of street performers. Funny, while so easily entertained by the mundane actions (inactions?) of random bodies, living and breathing and moving through life, a rehearsed performance attempting to look random, as random as someone playing with their hair or twirling a pencil between their knuckles, makes me scowl a little.… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] All the world’s a stage

[Abby’s Road] People watching: Music tells the story

I spend approximately ten hours a week underground – about two hours, daily, traveling in a sea of humans on a train. I’ve collected some interesting items on my journeys: a rhinovirus or six, indelible perspiration marks on the fabric of a favorite shift, wads of gum on the soles of my shoes and fascinating… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] People watching: Music tells the story

[Abby’s Road] Popularity and Love: Mutually exclusive?

Who doesn’t like being first? First in line for tickets, on the blue ribbon platform in a bonsai branch cutting competition, the first to hear a new single – we all want to be there. If you say you don’t…well, you’re a liar. My competitive nature, as far as a desire to be progressive in… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] Popularity and Love: Mutually exclusive?

[Abby’s Road] It’s about the sound, not the words

It never fails: whenever I overhear mumblings of folks yammering away about Jim Morrison and his fantastic poetry (snore) I have to stop myself in my tracks. I. Hate. The. Doors. That said, since we all know Doors fans aren’t made, they’re born, I never bother trying to tell them, anywhere, at any time about… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] It’s about the sound, not the words

[Abby’s Road] Collections live on, and that’s okay

I’m truly disappointed. Ne’er did a sentence scar as deep as that one. I can still hear the words coming out my father’s mouth when I did something particularly stupid as a teenager. Disappointment: one of the miseries of life. Be it a result of the loss of a favorite t-shirt or when the surprise… Continue reading [Abby’s Road] Collections live on, and that’s okay