Lazy Summer, Full of Excuses

This week marks the release of Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus's 3rd
album, "Face the Truth". Malkmus, once the undeniable Prince of Indie
Rock, has recently faded into a laconic, 30-something-afraid-to-grow-up
slump, but this new album promises a return to the "sunset nostalgia"
of Pavement's glorious early pat. And what better time for a new
(essentially) Pavement album to come out, here on the cusp of the
summer when yours truily is -- once again -- considering dropping any
and all free-time web ventures (blogging this year, The Manifest last
year) in favor of a more embodied, cavorting dalliance across the
summer grasses 'neath the summer moon with all of the female summer
swoons.

And what of awareness? And meditation? Does one sit when one is
sweating and craving spiked lemonade. Does the Buddha ogle neighborhood
girls by the makeshift pool, run down beer-drenched slip and slides,
and start makeshift folk duos in the tiny public spaces left by the
cool breezes of the 70-degree moors and marshes. A frog darts into a
slender little stream, a mountain bike tire is being fixed in the
center of a cool glade, sweat beads and glistens in the armpits of
Wendy, age 23, on her 3rd mile with the 4th song of the new Malkmus
album blasting on her 'Mini.

And rainbows coat our bomb pops, hiking trails spiral into my
dreamscapes, a yoga book is stained with Annie's salad dressing, and
even the anarchists eschew black clothing. Two dogs fight over a stick
behind a coffee shop dumpster, while a magpie shoots straight into the
sky, nearly missing what looks to be a far-off Concord jet thousands of
miles outside of its theatre of operations.

And we are lost, lost, lost in our dreams of new vacations, visions of
bactrian camels reflecting off the hula-hopping molecules of our
sunglass lenses. And the gravity cops hold sway over the frisbee
fields, with softballs pelting little children in a soft rain of round
leather red-stitched balls; watch the Milfs cheer, watch the Milfs
cheer.