what rhymes with chaos?

If loving you is wrong, I'd like to be partially incorrect.

This week, I'm going to give you some advice on romance. Now, I know what you're thinking. It's either A) How did I end up at this page when I was looking for videos of cats playing keyboards??? or B) Why on earth would J. M. Donellan be qualified to give relationship advice? He seems to just post about getting dumped all the time. 

 

I have no answer for A) but in regards to B) I'm hardly going to be the first amateur to deign to impart ill-founded advice. I mean, the Situation wrote a fucking book with advice on dating, I'm pretty goddamn sure I'm more qualified than he is. Not least because of the fact that I realise that a book should consist of more than just 133 pages of narcissistic, misogynistic ranting. And fashion tips. 

Sure, love can be a beautiful thing. But let's face it there are plenty of times when it can also be gross, stupid, frustrating, painful and sometimes, just really fucking inconvenient. Maybe they're your housemate. Perhaps you just have the wrong anatomy for their romantic preferences. Or they just said the sentence "I don't know who David Bowie is." Maybe they're dating your best friend and the three of you hang out all the time and once in a while you'll all have a little too much to drink and he/she will suggest you all head into the bedroom together and by the time you realise they were only joking you're already half undressed and then you have to pretend like you were only joking too but they both know you weren't and it gets super awkward and even worse they've seen they embarrassing tattoo that you keen meaning to get removed...

Whatever the case. There are times when being in love in just a terrible idea, so here are my strategies to help you not love someone.

 1 IMAGINE THEM AS YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE POLITICIAN

Simple but effective. If the politician in question is ugly and/or the wrong gender for your preferences, even better. Just imagine someone who really sums up everything that's wrong with politics and modern society in general, someone like, oh I don't know...

2 DEVELOP A NEGATIVE PAVLOVIAN REACTION 

"Jenny? Oh no, I'm WAY over her. She smells like transmutational butterfly larvae."

Sounds weird, I know, but weirder than tying all your hopes, dreams and happiness to one single human being who is just going to end up decomposing in the ground some day? I think not. Keep a packet of something disgusting in your pocket, like canned chrysalises for instance. Every time you see or think about your soon-to-be-not-loved one, shove something putrid into your facehole. Once you associate the object of your desire with squirming, crunchy larvae, IT'S BYE BYE ROMANCE!

3 INTRODUCE THEM TO YOUR PARENTS

I know this is often what people do when a relationship is going WELL, but this is primarily due to the fact that people are idiots. By the time dear old dad asks them for the sixth time if they got that nose ring because they were hoping to more closely resemble a swine or just to antagonise their deadbeat parents you'll know that all hopes of a happy, successful relationship are dead in the water.

4 THINK ABOUT THE LAST TIME YOU BROKE UP WITH SOMEONE

"Oh god! I can't do crosswords anymore! She used to use words like, all the time! Sometimes in sentences, or paragraphs even! It was our special thing..."

Bear in mind all relationships end, the only variables are when and how badly. Just try and picture that last time, when you listened to the 3 Smith Kings of Misery (Elliott Smith, The Smiths and Robert Smith) on repeat and lived on a daily intake of three bottles of cheap red wine and a family sized block of cadbury chocolate. Actually that last bit doesn't sound too bad, but then there was the bawling over summertime photos, the dividing of possessions, the places, songs, books and movies that were forever ruined. Yeah, that's right. You've got all of THAT to look forward to. Maybe in three months time, maybe three years, maybe three decades but whatever the case we all know that breaking up with someone feels like having your heart torn out of your chest, ripped in half, spat on, then forcibly reinserted via your colon.

So there you have it. Next time you start falling in love and it's going to be the worst idea ever you can thank me for reminding you that's it's the worst idea ever. Send me a thank you email. Maybe with a photo attached. Perhaps a facebook friend request.

Are you single?

 

A human writes about human rights.

OR: WHY I BASE MY VOTE EXCLUSIVELY ON A PARTY’S CIVIL RIGHTS POLICIES.

Congratulations QLD! Your new premier has a lucky elephant. So presumably everything is going to be just fine! (Not making this up he really does call it his lucky elephant.)

The economy is in permanent flux, that's the nature of the beast. Complaining about the economy being unstable is like complaining about water being wet, ice cream being fattening or commercial radio DJs being moronic neanderthals with all the musical and cultural knowledge of a intellectually impaired iguana with early onset dementia. That is simply their inherent condition. 

However, when a government brings in improvements to civil rights, an action, by the way, that can be achieved quickly and at very small cost to the state, then that action becomes very hard to repeal. Newman has made the claim he is going to overturn the civil union act. I'm going to go ahead and bet that he's done that merely to chase the hate vote. Overturning such a recently introduced law would be arduous and, more importantly, unnecessary now that's won this round of game of thrones. 

We need to recognise that the myriad changes that a government can bring in during their three year term in regards to employment, taxation and even infrastructure are of course all very important, but civil rights policy should trump ALL of these. Every. Single. Time. Governments and financial conditions come and go. But the rights of every citizen to be treated equal, to have access to uniform rights and privileges and to enjoy the multitudinous opportunities that being a member of this nation and this state should entitle you to, regardless of gender, race, sexual preference or religion, should be indelible and unassailable. 

People like to use the term 'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic' I think a more apt metaphor for this situation would be arguing about the Apollo 11’s interior decoration whilst ignoring its trajectory.

"Hey Buzz, whaddya think, should we put the put the coffee table over by the drapes or near the ottoman? Whassat? Ah...I dunno just make a left at the stratosphere and head for the big white hunka rock I guess?"

GOVERNMENT INQUIRY INTO THE PROPOSED GAY MARRIAGE BILL please go and voice your opinion. 

 

 

 

 

Dearest Academy Floral OR STFU Valentine's day

Dearest Academy Floral

Thanks so much for your suggestion for me to send more flowers to my now ex-girlfriend for Valentine's day. And yes, you are right. That first bouquet I sent back in September did indeed ‘WOW!’ her. The problem is that the flowers I had delivered to her have now withered and died and been tossed into the nearest trash receptacle.

 Much like our relationship. 

For a brief period which future literary historians will doubtlessly refer to as ‘J.M. Donellan’s “SWEET MOTHER OF GOD WHY IS EVERYTHING SO UTTERLY AND INCOMPREHENSIBLY HORRIBLE ALWAYS AND ALL THE TIME?’ period I was temporarily transformed into a quivering and mildly alcoholic wreck spending most of my time lying on the floor listening to the Cure’s Disintegration on repeat and consuming a weekly average of twelve packs of oreos.

 

Thankfully I’ve now more or less recovered, reduced my oreo intake to a much healthier and more sustainable pack a day habit and returned to an emotional state of which Oprah would be far more approving. After all, as the old cliché says, there are ‘plenty more fish in the sea.’ (The fact that the search for love is so frequently compared to tricking a small water dwelling animal into spearing a hook through its face and then subsequently forcing it to asphyxiate in one final furious fit of fatal convulsions before removing its outer layer and internal organs before cooking and consuming said animal does, however, somewhat concern me.)

I suppose I COULD still send her more flowers, but that would seem kind of weird and pathetic. I am both of those things of course, but I’m trying to pretend like I’m not. So far I am attempting to accomplish this by doing push ups every morning, but I’ve been doing this for literally DAYS now and I still don’t have rippling biceps so I’m not really sure what the point is when I can just be my normal scrawny self with absolutely no effort whatsoever.  

I’m sure your message was well intentioned, but the fact is, for a great many people Valentine’s day is just a reminder of the fact that they are tragically alone. It’s a day when single people feel like the entire world has conspired to say LOOK AT US! LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE! LOOK HOW MUCH HAPPIER WE ARE THAN YOU!

"I wuv you honey baby sweetie pie!"

"Not as much as I wuv YOU my little muffintop on stuffed crust pizza base with double cherries on top and a side of bacon fondue pudding!"

Of course I can always take solace in the fact that the vast majority of those couples are either going to break up at some point in the near future or alternatively edge incrementally towards their graves despising each other slightly more with each transpiring hour until they are just a pair of nonagenarian husks that stare into each other’s gimlet-like eyes with an odious cocktail of disdain and boredom whose potency is outdone only by their own body odour and crippling ennui.

In conclusion, unless you feel like adding a ‘deliver large box filled with vodka, cheesecake and Stevie Ray Vaughn’ albums to your Valentine’s day package options I don’t think I will be interested in your services.

+      +  =  YES.

In fact, after I finish writing this email I am going to instigate a campaign to have National “I Am Still Single Because I Refuse to Settle Down with Anyone Who Won’t Make Me Supremely Happy and Allow Me To Do the Same for Them in Return in Order to Allow My Already Astonishing Levels of Awesomeness to Attain Even Greater Heights” day. This will basically involve a host of astoundingly wonderful single people getting together to drink vodka, eat cheesecake, air guitar to Stevie Ray Vaughn albums and indulge in guilt-free make out sessions in the utilities closet.  Feel free to attend.

Kind re:Guards

J.M. Donellan

 

 

My Dearest Target

My Dearest Target,

How are you? I trust you are enjoying the start of the Christmas period, which I imagine major retailers look forward to with all the anticipation of a sex addict awaiting a holiday in Ibiza.

Yesterday I was perusing your shelves in search of a toiletries bag that I had believed I would require for my planned trip to New York. As it turns out neither the toiletries bag nor the trip to New York will now be necessary as my girlfriend decided to break up with me a few days before our one year anniversary and thus reduce me to an irrational, quivering wreck engaged in peculiar behavior such as writing elaborate complaint letters to department stores, but that’s neither here nor the other place.

Whilst waiting in line to make my purchase I was subjected to your holiday promo clip. Now, aside from the fact that this insufferably saccharine commercial featured lots of sickeningly elated blonde white people and storks carrying babies (when was this thing written, the 1950s?) the ad and its ridiculously loud music were repeated and repeated over and over again and again and again. It was interrupted by only the intermittent PROCEED TO CHECKOUT FIVE announcements, making me feel as though I was alternating my time between some Kafkaesque consumer hell and some Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare (Kafka really was the king of literary misery wasn’t he?)

If I had to listen to a Target ad on infinite loop my writing would have been even MORE despressing!

I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but incessantly repeated music is actually one of the most popular modern forms of psychological torture. During the Bush era two of the favourite bands used at Guantanamo bay were Nine Inch Nails and Massive Attack. Quite ironic given the fact that both of those bands despised the Bush administration. Do you think they got paid royalties for public broadcast each time their song got repeated? 

Once in India I took a 20 hour jeep ride from Srinagar to Leh, and the MP3 player kept skipping back to the start of whatever song it was playing. We asked the driver to just turn it off but he told us that without music he would fall asleep and at this point we were on a tiny Himalayan mountain road with a steep ravine right reaching ominously out beneath us so we let him have his way. Just before we finally reached Leh, we heard the first ten seconds of the song Gimmie More featuring the delightful opening line “It’s Britney bitch!” over and over and over (and over). By the time we reached Leh we had been reduced to giggling, hysterical lunatics.

 

Try listening to THIS 500 times in a row...

So as I’m listening to this syrupy commercial on infinite repeatrepeatrepeat, I’m thinking, what effect is this having on the staff here? Surely this can’t be psychologically healthy? Finally the all-commanding screen interrupts the commercial and instructs me to move to the checkout. I always do what television tells me, so I dutifully obeyed and handed my soon to be redundant travel toiletries bag to the young man behind the counter.

“That’s a total of five cents.” Says he. I looked at price tag, which quite definitely stated $9.05, and I thought to myself, surely I must have misheard him? It can’t possibly be some sort of 99.45% Christmas discount? I passed him $20, and he handed me back $19.95. I took the money in my hand and was open to say something along the lines of “Whaaaaaaaaat?” when the all-seeing monitor demanded that I vacate the checkout so that it might be utilised by another obedient consumer.

In conclusion: perhaps you should reconsider the all-seeing monitor playing your advertisements on infinite loop, not only for the effect it has on your staff, but the effect it has on your profit margin.

AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS OR WHATEVER THE HELL ELSE YOU BELIEVE IN TO ALL!

Swarm regards

J.M. Donellan

 

Can you hate the artist but love their art?

I have a conundrum, my dotcomrades. I recently read a post by one of my writing heroes that made me want to transform his body of work into a paper-mache sculpture of his own severed head. Frank Miller’s work has been an inspiration to me ever since I was a kid. His work on graphic novels like Sin City is nothing short of legendary. Miller was among the forefront of writers in the 1980s that convinced wider audiences that comic books weren’t solely a medium for brightly coloured, cliché-ridden characters. His work demonstrated that comics could be an excellent medium for communicating gritty, grisly stories. 

"You know what makes me mad? When people think I am a graphic novel adaptation of that quirky 90s sitcom 'Spin City.'"

However, around a week ago, Miller wrote this post discussing his opposition to the occupy movement. Fair enough, everyone’s got a right to their opinion. But he then proceeds to call them ‘louts’ ‘thieves’, ‘rapists’ and ‘pond scum’ and furthermore make the insane argument that because ‘America is at war with Islamicism’ then all other struggle is basically a waste of time. It’s one thing to disagree with a political movement, but to so hatefully vilify them and then start making insane Islamophobic connections is quite another. I mean, I'm strongly opposed to the values of the American Tea Party movement, but I'm not going to go around addressing them with awful and unjustified slurs. Particularly when they are weird and crazy enough to embarrass themselves on their own without needing my help. 

 

"Yeah! Cut funding to education! Who needs it?"

I now look at Miller's work with a feeling that I would describe as a combination of 'cute little puppies being shoved in a blender' and 'listening to Duck Sauce's Barbara Streisand on repeat for 36 hours.' Is it really possible to enjoy the output of an artist, which is an indubitably brilliant collection of work, whilst hating its creator who, according to recent evidence, is something of a fuckwit?

I’m reminded of a costume party I attended a few years ago when a Michael Jackson song came on the stereo and everyone proceeded to whoop and holler and dance around the living room until some girl ran towards the stereo yelling “NO! TURN THAT OFF! HE IS A PAEDOPHILE!” I have to be honest, she seemed a little crazy, and not only because of the Britney Spears costume she was wearing. A bunch of people turned to her and said, "Relax, it's just a song!" But maybe she had a point. Lately I feel like that girl dressed as Britney Spears. And not in a closet cross-dressing kind of way. 

There are plenty of other examples. Bill Murray, famous for both his extraordinary body of work and his idiosyncratic approach to the movie industry (he doesn’t have an agent, manager or email) has a record of domestic violence. Jack Kerouac was infamously racist, the Nobel prize winning author V.S. Naipul recently made some insanely sexist remarks and James Brown also had a history of domestic abuse. You can see him drunkenly-sort-of-half-denying-it-in-between-singing-his-own-songs-and-wearing weird-giant-yellow-glasses here:

  

I'm not able to separate the art from the artist. Every time someone puts on 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag' a part of me lights up and wants to dance whilst my guilt complex simultaneously kicks into overdrive. I feel like I'm placing one hand on the world's largest diamond and the other in the hand of a rabid crocodile (crocodiles can get rabies, right?) What about you, residents of internetland? Can you happily sing along to Wonderwall despite the fact that Liam Gallagher is a pretentious, arrogant git? I'd love to hear your thoughts (just not the really weird ones, even I have my limits).

In conclusion: seriously Frank, what the fuck. 

 

100 stories release & Electric Youth

The paperback of 100 stories for Queensland will be finally released on May 17. eMergent publishing is hosting a 'chart rush' in order to push to get the book as high on the amazon sales chart as possible. Here's a link to the facebook event, make sure you get amongst it and show the world that people read books that don't have titles like 'You Deserve Everything Right Now! How to get all the things you ever wanted for no reason without working for them.' or 'The Omega Conspiracy Complex Agenda: A Jack Spyhero novel.'

You can order the book from amazon HERE.

100% of the proceeds of this anthology will be donated to the The Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal. You can hear an interview of me talking about the book and other things on the 4zzz book show here (thanks Fraser Wright for the recording):

interview with 4zzz book show

My next project will be writing for the Literary Mixtapes project, I've been asked to write a story based on Debbie Gibson's 'Electric Youth.' FUCK. YES.

 

 In next week's adventures: Why I Hate Pandas & Other Tales.

 

 

THIS IS THE EIGHTH OR NINTH WORST THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY EVER HAPPEN.

 

A bad thing happened last week. One of the worst things that can happen, actually. Well, almost. If you wrote a list of the 100 worst things you could possibly imagine occurring with ‘stepping on a thumbtack’ at the bottom and 'nuclear holocaust' or 'waking up next to Kochie'  at the absolute top, then this particular event would probably rate around an eight or a nine, depending on your personal preferences. Perhaps your entire family was killed by a rogue thumbtack and everytime you see one it triggers a wave of emotional anguish that leads to a three day rampage of drugs and grand larcency, who knows. But we aren’t here to talk about your problems. It’s the internet people, I want to whine about ME.

Ever since this the eighth or ninth worst thing that could ever happen to me did I've been working my way through the 7 Stages of Grieving. Not that textbook list that they give you, I mean I'm working through MY list, which is immensely superior. If the eighth or ninth worst thing that you could think of happens to you, then you may find it useful.

1 POSTING A SHAMEFACEDLY ATTENTION SEEKING STATUS UPDATE

 

Come on, we’ve all done it. Maybe you prefer the unsubtle approach, something along the lines of: “OMG I AM GOING TO FUCKING KILL MY BOSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” or maybe, much like westpac bank, you’re the cryptic kind who favours generic melancholic statements such as ‘oh so over it today.' I'm sorry Westpac, we've all been so caught up with minor concerns like global warming and colony collapse disorder that we haven't had time to spare a thought for those poor little corporations that only posted 1.6 billion dollar profits last quarter. Text me later. We can eat cookie dough, talk about boys and watch 'Beaches.'

2 TRYING TO CAUSE LOVESICK COUPLES TO SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST

Sure. A week ago you were my allies. I would look at you and think, "dawww…look at those two crazy kids; sniffing the rosebushes, sharing their sandwhiches, picking nits out of each others' hair." But no more. You have all become my nemeses. If I see hear ANYONE using any kind of ridiculously sappy pet name (honeybabysweetiemuffinsugar) in the  next few days I am going to just speed up the whole combustion process by means of a can of petrol and some cheap, illegal fireworks.

 

"Here darling, I bought you a

present to sweeten you up before 

I tell you that I gave you the clap."

 "Oh that's a relief,

it'll give me some return fire

ammo for when I tell you I've been

sleeping with your mum."

3 WRITING BAD POETRY

4 REMEMBERING WHY I SHOULDN'T TRY TO WRITE POETRY

5 LISTENING TO THE 3 SMITH KINGS OF MISERY

              

   Robert smith.             Elliot Smith.            Steven Morrissey.

    (of the Smiths)

6 CHECKING MY AMAZON.COM SALES RANKING

This is a somewhat risky game of Russian roulette. It may offer me a tenuous rope out of the depths of the abyss, but more often than not I may simply find that the rope in question comes in the form of a tight fitting noose. That episode of Bored to Death where Johnathon says that "those amazon sales rankings are very misleading" ain't no joke. Somedays my book can jump a MILLION slots. Which I think means its sold around 3 copies that day.

7 BURNING COOKIES

 

Much like my now non-existent relationship these cookies were once sweet, colourful and nourishing. Under my careful watch however, they became burnt, deformed and fit only for the rubbish bin. END METAPHOR.

It'll get better. OBVIOUSLY. I mean, it's not as though I had my legs devoured by flesh eating ants or had my brain surgically transplanted in Pauline Hansen's body or anything as horrible as that. In the meantime I can be grateful that as a writer I have the only job in the world where being a depressed drunk is actually an advantage. Well, writing and detective work perhaps.

Feel free to post your own grieving practices, although I'll probably be too preoccupied with lying on the floor drinking cheap vodka, listening to 'Roman Candle' and eating burnt cookies to read it.

REVIEW OF MY EX-GIRLFRIEND'S WEDDING

The last time I wore this suit was to a funeral. Yesterday I wore it to a wedding. In many ways it’s difficult to see the difference between the two events, save for the fact that at the former I was mourning the loss of one life, whereas at yesterday’s event I mourned the loss of two. Or more correctly, the transformation of two once highly functioning, successful, outgoing human beings with healthy social lives into one androgynous, socially retarded, mildly agoraphobic morlock with an unhealthy fondness for Ikea catalogues.

    (x 2)   +         =  

The invitation promised ‘a celebration of a perfect union’ which I initially mistook for the opening of a new ‘perfect donut n pancakes diner’ in my area. I was bitterly disappointed to discover this was not the case. Furthermore, ‘a perfect union’ requires a somewhat unforgivable stretch of the imagination in order to describe two people who met as the result of a minor car accident, and got engaged as the result of a second accident. This time located in the uterus.

The food was on offer was the culinary equivalent of a Kenny G b-side; lukewarm and unsatisfying. I think I may have obtained a mild case of gastro from the shrimp cocktail, then again this may have merely been by body physically protesting to the insipid and insufferably saccharine vows. These included lines such as “I would walk barefoot for a thousand days across burning sands to bring you my love.” I have a feeling they may have been written by the team at ‘Days of our Lives’ during an extended cigarette break.

Then of course came the obligatory: “If anyone has any reason why these two should not be married” bit that I’m fairly certain was invented specifically by movie studios as a plot device. At this point I did consider raising my hand and mentioning Cynthia’s fairly irritating habit of chewing her nails at the same time as her food, but decided it best to let the young lovers discover this in their own good time. Perhaps over a nice meal of caviar, destined to be imbibed with a small garnish of keratin protein from Cynthia’s index finger.

As I watched the girl I once shared a bed, apartment, bank account, rolling stone subscription and one minor but painful case of VD promise herself to another man, I couldn’t help but think: I wonder if the bridesmaid is single? Five Black Russians and a badly made Manhattan later her tongue being inexpertly shoved down by throat answered my question. Our brief romantic encounter ended with the two of us uncomfortably fumbling under clothes in the back of her Daihatsu, an exchange of numbers and a mutual promise to call each other that we both quite clearly knew was disingenuous. In many ways, this two hour long romantic collision was entirely superior to my last; it lacked both the painful redistribution of assets, and the rather ghastly task of having to pretend to enjoy family get togethers with drunken slightly racist in laws.

In total I give the whole affair three stars. Out of fifty. And those are only for the bartender who made up for his lack of blending with his generosity in alcoholic content. Those drinks had more ethanol than a mills and boon novel has tawdry clichés. Let’s hope the results of the wedding day are somewhat less lacklustre than the event itself, although the facebook photos of their honeymoon on a contiki tour of Thailand certainly aren’t a good indication.

NEXT WEEK: REVIEW OF YOUR GRANDMA

On Love and Mediocrity.

So with the yearly celebration of the decline of modern romance (aka Valentine’s day) fast approaching I find myself asking whether or not we all have a dichotomous choice to be single, individual and creative or fat, lazy and in love.

There are those who would accuse me of being cynical and maudlin because I won’t have a companion to exchange sappy teddy bear cards with on this particular Hallmark holiday. Given the fact that the last girl I fell in love with is about to get married to some guy she has been dating for less time than most people take to decide on an evening outfit I can see how you’d make that erroneous assumption. However, I would be quick to point out the fact that I am a tragic, fanatic, emphatic romantic. In India I once stole a flower from a forbidden garden in a Maharaja’s palace beneath the watch of armed guards for a girl I was at the time entangled with. Try and package and mass-produce THAT Hallmark.

When I was thirteen I read Wuthering Heights and basically treated it as a manual for romance. To my churlish, hormone saturated teenage brain nothing made more sense than a love that was overwhelming, enrapturing and ultimately tragic. A few years transpired and I was jettisoned unexpectedly into the real world where all of a sudden it became apparent that when searching for potential partners people actually considered things like income, style of dress and choice of residence, as if romance were some sort of credit card plan to be decided upon by a series of ticked boxes. I’ve always thought of it as an insurmountable tidal wave of force that can no more be reasoned with than a grizzly bear can be taught to play guitar hero.

At this point in my life I find many of the beloved people I surround myself with are, (with a few notable exceptions, you know who you are,) either coupling up, settling down and erecting cages out of white picket fences or staying single and living in a constant whirlwind of dizzying debauchery and, more importantly, losing themselves in wild storms of violent creative outbursts. It appears that many around me are rapidly transmogrifying into progenitors and newlyweds, and I am starting to wonder if the incessant barrage of revelry and debauchery that I have lately been basking in will decline at an exponential rate.

The ultimate goal, as far as I can see, is not to find someone who makes you content, dependant and repentant but rather one who makes you wild, resplendent and relentless. I have a particular fondness for bands led by married couples such as Sonic Youth and Viva Voce. Anyone who can manage to find someone that they want to spend the rest of their life with not only reading Sunday papers and getting fat but making art and continuing to greedily devour the world that is their oyster deserves some sort of mountain made of pancakes as a reward.