and how the pollen fell all around your face in strange yellow patterns.

although it snowed a wee bit recently, it has been getting consistently warmer. as i mentioned previously, the thought of baseball season has also re-entered my thoughts, and spring is on the way. i cannot wait. tradition requires that i make a playlist consisting entirely of summer music and this is maybe my favorite part of waiting for spring.

caitlin and i have not been friends for long, but we are the sort of people to talk about things to come. we are both excited for summer and have been planning extensively. our plans include such things as trips to the zoo, running around outside barefoot, making imitation jackson pollacks in the driveway, flying kites, picnics, and the like. we also recently decided that we need to commit more fully to hippie lifestyles. this had a hefty influence on my playlist this year. the artists are as follows:

the aggrolites, air, andrew bird, angels of light, animal collective, antsy pants, appleseed cast, aqualung, the avett brothers, band of horses, barry louis polisar, the beatles, beck, belle & sebastian, ben kweller, big star, black moth super rainbow, black rebel motorcycle club, bob (both dylan and marley), brian jonestown massacre, buffalo springfield, the byrds, cat power, cat stevens, damien dempsey, david bowie, the decemberists, desmond dekker, devendra banhart, donovan, the doors, doug martsch, eisley, elton john, the flaming lips, goldspot, gregory and the hawk, the hives, iggy and the stooges, iron & wine, jack johnson, janis joplin, the jayhawks, jeff buckley, jet, jimi hendrix, joanna newsom, joe cocker, jonathan richman, joni mitchell, kimya dawson, the kinks, led zeppelin, lou reed, the lovin' spoonful, m. ward, the mamas and the papas, the maytals, mazzy star, the melodians, minipop, the moldy peaches, the mountain goats, neil young, nico, of montreal, old canes, old crow medicine show, peter bjorn and john, pixies, the polyphonic spree, rilo kiley, rod stewart, the rolling stones, the rubinoos, ryan adams, sea wolf, the seeds, the shins, simon & garfunkel, sparkelhorse, spoon, the standells, sunset rubdown, t rex, tegan & sara, them, the thrills, the turtles, van morrison, the velvet underground, the weepies, wilco, wreckless eric, the zombies, 13th floor elevators

...well, that's most of them, at least.

around this same time last year, nate and i were discussing which subculture we more fully associated with: punks or hippies, and we came to the conclusion that we were a near equal amount of both. punks lend themselves easily to the winter months for several logical reasons. first of all, the discomfort of the cold matches that of the violence and bitter anger that is such a large part of punk culture. punks also seem to wear a lot of clothes, which can be helpful from october till march. hippies, however, thrive in the summer. the warmth radiates not only from the summer sun, but from the hearts of hippies that believe in peace and love and all sorts of comforting things that ought to exist more than they do. and in the same sense that punks with their layers fit in the winter months, hippies with their lack thereof are at home when it's warmest outdoors.

so, as i mentioned earlier, i can feel myself morphing into a hippie at this very moment. i'm quite excited about this transformation. i think i like being nice more than i like being a jerk. but uh... we'll see what i have to say in october.




and just for novelty's sake, THIS WEBSITE is hilarious and awesome.