Extreme Retail Therapy

Borders Student Discount Day yesterday yielded:

  • Statute book for my IT law course, blah.
  • Selected Poems (Galway Kinnell), which I’ve been wanting for ever so long and couldn’t find in the UCL library. I was also tempted by Mark Strand, Jane Kenyon and A.R. Ammons, but successfully resisted those.
  • My Beautiful Demon (Ben Christophers)
  • A Leaf Label sampler (stuff by Manitoba, Susumu Yokota, Boom Bip & Doseone. Also Asa-Chang & Junray, who I’ve always found too weird for even my listening tastes, but perhaps they’ll grow on me.)
  • A Bella Union compilation (stuff by The Czars, Dirty Three, Lift To Experience, Rothko among others)
  • What’s Up Matador, obviously a Matador sampler (loads of Matador artists)
  • A Sub-Pop sampler (Migala, Mark Lanegan, Red House Painters, The Shins, more)

Bright sparks will note a pattern – the sampler fixation is simply due to the fact that I could probably get most of the other albums I want cheaper from Berwick Street or the Internet even with the 20% Borders discount, but samplers aren’t any cheaper in second-hand stores than they are in Borders, probably because they’re dirt cheap anyway. So I got them for dirt cheap, less 20%. Yay.

I came home and somehow found myself at the Django site with about $30 worth of albums in my shopping cart. Then I noticed their “Free shipping worldwide for orders over $50” offer, and couldn’t refuse. For $50, I’m getting:

  • Laika: Sound Of The Satellites
  • Firewater: Psychopharmacology
  • Third Eye Foundation: You Guys Kill Me
  • Prodigy: Dirtchamber Sessions Vol. 1
  • Bows: Blush
  • Ted Leo/Pharmacists: The Tyranny Of Distance

I should probably feel guilty for this, but you know what? I’ve just spent a month writing an essay which shouldn’t have taken anywhere that long to write, but I haven’t been able to go any faster because it’s been bloody difficult stuff, I have to do a second essay as well by the end of the month, all my other Masters course reading has been completely neglected and will remain so for a good while, my brain is so tired I collapse into bed every night by 2 am (you have to know me to understand how rare this is) but since my dreams seem to constantly feature me getting chased by unknown shadowy menacing figures, or getting stung by swarms of bees, or all my teeth falling out, sleep hasn’t been much fun either, and honestly, the pure simple intense joy I get from coming home with new music to listen to just makes what I spent fucking worth it, okay?

Music Geekery