It seems like a lot of people these days are too cool to play board games, and to those people I say "Shut up, hippie." Unfortunately, it seems like the adrenaline-laden Monopoly battles that remain set in mid-play for weeks on end in the middle of the kitchen table are losing out to newer and flashier games, such as Street Fighter 2: Turbo and NHL '95. My daddy and granddaddy didn't fight the French in the Siberian wilderness so you could waste your freedom listening to FM radio and sniffing glue! Cut your hair and learn to play a real game, for God's sake!
One of the all-time greats is, of course, Scrabble. After several heated matches with a co-worker on lunch breaks, the game has finally seeped from the tiles through my fingertips and into my bloodstream, so that I no longer pump blood through my veins but rather anagrams. I don't dream of flying or casual sex with Kevin Federline or whatever the rest of society dreams about - I dream of the possibility of a triple word score, or, one perfect day: using all seven letters at once and getting that elusive 50-point bonus I've been wanting for so long.
I think that might help explain why, while trying to write an article on an upcoming Avey Tare tour, I can't help but find myself reflexively rearranging the letters of as many words as I can get my eyes on - for example, did you know that "Tiny Mix Tapes" converts into "I am spiny text?" A.T.'s label, "Paw Tracks," on whose website the tour was recently announced, becomes "Wart packs" when just a few letters are switched around. "Touring in like three weeks or so" becomes "sewer hookers like intrigue - not." The possibilities are endless, except with "Avey Tare", which doesn't really rearrange into anything remotely interesting.
Sharpen y'all's minds and bring them to the following tour stops:
11.26.06 - New York, New York - Tonic
11.27.06 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
11.29.06 - Providence, RI - AS220
11.30.06 - Toronto, Canada - Sneaky Dee's
12.01.06 - Montreal, Canada - Main Hall
12.02.06 - Ottawa, Canada - Mavericks
$ - w/ Beach House and Over The Atlantic
% - w/ Peter Wright and Antony Milton