Dear Jalapeño. It's springtime.

I tend to make playlists when the seasons change, though mainly during winter and spring. This winter I was obsessed with every single Bon Iver song I could get my hands on. And with Nina Kinert, who gave me some alternatives for my need to listen to "Peach Plum Pear" at moments of transition.

Now that the weather is crazy, wavering between late fall and early summer and wreaking havoc on my sinuses, I'm pulling out songs that always always remind me of springtime: Arcade Fire's "No Cars Go," as cheesy as it may seem, is a big spring song for me--I first heard the EP version several years ago while I was living in England, and I listened to it on my long walks into town from my flat, everything shrouded in mist and drizzle. I prefer the momentum in the newer version, though I don't know if it will fit into "Dear Jalapeño." Arcade Fire tends to overpower everything else in mixes.

The Most Serene Republic's song "Phages," is pretty much the song I put on as soon as the sun comes out. Renewal! New beginnings! I am pretty much desperate to see them again in concert.

All this talk of playlists and music because I'm going to the Margot & the Nuclear So & Sos show next week with Gale and Jess--I'm excited for the first taste of live music since last semester. I like Margot, I do, despite the fact that I think they milk the melancholy in their songs. I think I am more looking forward to being against the stage and trying to hear what the person next to me is saying.

"Dear Jalapeño" because I went to a Zach Schomburg and Emily Kendall Frey reading last week, and Emily read a slew of her "Dear Jalapeño" poems. I like the idea of tying poems together through the repeated use of one phrase, with the aim of changing the meaning of the phrase itself and how we think about it in relation to other lines (at least I think this is what's going on here). Gale and I talked about how "jalapeño" becomes an endearment: her word was "tender." You can read some poems with tender "Dear Jalapeños" in them at La Petite Zine here.

Zach Schomburg read new poems from his MS "Scary, No Scary," and I liked them, of course. I almost liked my friend Ben's introduction of Zach Schomburg even better, though. A kind of amazement about the brain that gave us The Man Suit, which made me realize I could be writing very different kinds of poems. You can read some new Zach Schomburg over at Typo.

And now...a bad spring playlist:

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Dear Jalapeño--it's springtime (in the works)
1. The Changeling (Get Guilty) / A.C. Newman / Get Guilty
2. Fitz and the Dizzyspells / Andrew Bird / Noble Beast
3. Nightlife / The Muslims / The Muslims
4. Blindness / Metric / Fantasies
5. Zero / Yeah Yeah Yeahs / It's Blitz!
6. Take Me to the Riot / Stars / In Our Bedroom After the War
7. LES Artistes (XXXchange Remix) / Santogold
8. Phages / The Most Serene Republic / Phages
9. Swimming Pools / Thao Nguyen & The Get Down Stay Down / We Brave Beestings & All
10. Only Pieces / Here We Go Magic / Here We Go Magic
11. Dance Dance Dance / Lykke Li / Little Bit EP
12. Take on Me / A.C. Newman / Cheesy Starbucks compilation

{Edit: also, apparently I can't spell but I do know how to use a tilda. Who let me into grad school, anyway?}