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10. My Ten Year Old Lady is Giving It Away

9. Belted Sweater

8. You Drink a Lot of Coffee for a Teenager

7. Bears See Things Pretty Much the Way They Are

6. Room Tempature Lounge

5. The World in Perforated Lines

4. Let’s Face it Pal, You Didn’t Need That Eye Surgery

3. Cold Knees-in April

2. A Lot of People Tell Me I Have a Fake British Accent

1. (Let’s Face it Pal You) Haven’t Lived Afro Pop

because I’m grading papers
and want a familiar background story
where I don’t need to concentrate.
Something about showbiz people
with nothing better to do
but to wound each other.
Ten papers in, I’m startled
to hear Betty Schaefer,
the cute scriptwriter who’s smart
enough to be 23, say to Joe Gillis
that she’s crying because she loves Artie,
her intended, but she’s not in love with Artie
but with him, Joe, who’s being kept
by a rich and decrepit star who smells
of decayed tuberoses.
And I remember you said
the same thing—the business
about not being in love
—and I think—
how can one preposition hurt
so much and for so long?
Joe, I moan, getting into character,
won’t you love me, like that, like
that, just a little?

Maggie Jaffe

• warm, bottomless! (Consequences of Sound d/b/a Time Magazine)
• oaken! (Pitchfork)
• subtle! (Drowned in Sound) 
• guitarists hang around its gravity like clouded starlight! (Rolling Stone)
• [on this new record] even deeper! (Coke Machine Glow)
• laconic! (All Music)
• comely! (A.V. Club)
• among the most distinct since Leonard Cohen’s! (No Ripcord)
• sombre! (The Independent U.K. & NOW Toronto)
• familiar! (The Quietus)
• [expressing] trends [that] continue to incite rough bouts of schadenfreude and affirmation! (Tiny Mix Tapes)
• ever-recognizable! (Beats per Minute)
• doleful! (The New York Times in a photo caption)
• counterbalanced [by St. Vincent and Sharon Van Etten’s velvet vocals]!  (NME)
• aching! (Entertainment Weekly)
• [like] Leonard Cohen’s hovering in midair! (Los Angeles Times)
• hangdog! (musicOMH)
• classic! (Wikipedia)