Quodlibets

Cat, out of bag

Independent of Rita and my sister, I've been considering doing NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month, the invention of M. Kennedy, at Fussy) as a way to rekindle some sort of emotion towards blogging.  About a week ago, I seriously considered it, but then stopped short of committing.  I even had an email open and ready to send to announce my participation.  But I sort of chickened out, giving myself another week to decide.  Well, I've decided.

Sign me up!

Starting tomorrow, 30 days of blog posts.  I'll try not to be too vapid. 

Do you find that things are moving just a little too fast?

I think that lots of people have heard at least one Nick Drake song, Pink Moon.  It was in a commercial, after all.  (Volkswagen; a commercial you might never forget, because the song is arresting.)  And a whole other group of people have heard the song One of These Things First, because that song was in Garden State, a movie that a good number of people saw.  Most people probably haven't heard Nick Drake's best song, though.  That song is "Hazey Jane", and it's such a good song that sometimes I just want to sit at my desk, put my head down and listen, over and over again.  If I acquired a dog (or a child, oh the insanity) at this moment, I'd probably insist on naming it Hazey Jane (I will only acquire the female of the species).  Probably, in fact, too many people know who Nick Drake is, and not enough people know who Nick Drake is.  I'm sure there are lots of people out there with Way To Blue, because Pink Moon made them think it was a good idea to buy it.  But I'd also guess that a vast majority of those people put that one song on mixes, and never listened to the rest of the album, which is a shame.

Drake's music doesn't sound as if it was made in the early seventies.  It sounds now, and it sounds perfect.  His voice comes from somewhere I can't understand; when I look at his picture, I can't imagine how those sounds came out of him.  It's not that often that I actually feel like that; for example, when I look at Sufjan Stevens, I can see exactly where his voice has come from.  It makes Drake's music somehow more magical, somehow deeper than maybe it even is.  And I only came to like Drake after that song was in a commercial, though I didn't buy Way To Blue because of it.  I bought that album because someone whose music taste I trusted very much told me to buy it.  He was right about the album (I could give you a long list of album's he was right about), but it took me a long time to see that he was right.  I am only beginning now to truly appreciate just how special Drake is, how singular his music is.  Most likely, this can be put down to the fact that Drake's music, as I've said here before, is the original sad bastard music, and can put you down faster than your dog's death.  It takes some gumption, some pluck, to just dive in and listen.  But it's worth it, oh, it's worth it.

I am now starting, also, to get indignant that someone would use a song of his in a commercial.  I've always hated the crass melding of music and commerce; there's nothing right about hearing one of your favorite songs in a commercial for insurance or cars or cleaning products.  Pink Moon isn't one of my favorite song, but it still rankles.  It's just the ugliest use of music that I can imagine, and though I've become inured to the chill of hearing a good song ill-used, sometimes it can throw me. 

The first time I heard Half-Acre in a commercial, I wanted to cry.  It's a song by a band called Hem, and it is a song that I might love, after all these songs, best of all.  There are times when the song alone has brought me to tears in the relative peace of my dark car, and there are times when I have laid my head down on my steering wheel and just let it wash over me.  It's a magnificent song, and it's terrifyingly awful to realize that an insurance company or whatever can appropriate it to sell something.  I'm sad for the song, and I'm sad for Hem, for pimping out what is too beautiful to be pimped.  I'm sad for me too, because I still turn and look at the TV when the song begins, when the commercial comes on.  And I don't want to look at an ad, I want to hear the song.  It will never cease to horrify me, the commercial usage of this song.  This particular song.

This is a very roundabout way of saying that if you don't listen to Nick Drake or Hem, maybe you should.  Maybe you should ignore those commercials, and give these guys a try without the weight of thinking you need a new car, or you need to get some better insurance.  The Hem CD with Half-Acre on it is called Rabbit Songs, and the whole album is exceptional.  It is also very mellow, very quiet, and can be also classified as sad bastard music.  I wish I could tell you that you wouldn't be sorry if you invested in these albums, but I can't quite be sure.  Maybe you'll hate them.

I hope not, though.

The Forgetting

One of my greatest fears is that someone I love will develop Alzheimer's as they age.  I'm not sure precisely why it's Alzheimer's that scares me most profoundly; perhaps because I place an abnormal value on being loved and loving (I've always said it's my only ambition) I consider the complete negation of that the most terrifying thing ever.  Because that's what Alzheimer's really does--it makes it very hard for you to love someone in the fullest way, and they do cease to love you in the way they once did.  It is very, very hard for me to live with the idea of a disease that might make it so that my mom doesn't know who I am.  Or S.  I can only imagine devastation, and mourning.  Isn't that what it really is?  Death, while the body lives on?

The only reason I'm bringing this up is because on Kottke this morning, there was a link to a NY Times article about an artist who painted portraits during the years of his own forgetting, and I looked at these and my heart broke.  My heart broke because I don't think I've ever seen such a visual display of how clearly horrible Alzheimer's is.  I just can't imagine an artist having to watch his skills disappear; I just can't imagine making the descent into cubism involuntarily.  I think I have looked at that slide show five times this morning, because it is hard to look away from, because it is a portrait of the process of losing it all.

There is a film called, actually, "The Forgetting" and I know that I should watch it.  I have wanted to watch it for a long time, because it is supposed to be excellent.  I'm sure it is also heartbreaking, just as I am sure that those portraits above are.  And I suppose that I will be living with this fear of mine for a long time, for as long as I love anyone, or they love me.

Minesweeper as a metaphor for life

I play a lot of Minesweeper at work.  (I never play minesweeper at home because Macs do not come equipped with the game; you have to go out there and hunt it down and download it and even then it's a curious imitation of the game, an attempt by someone to improve the game for us finicky Mac users.)  I suspect that it is the only game that really captivates my attention for long periods of time because I find it incredibly hard to win.  My mind is not great with numbers, and it's very hard for me to compute the logics and reasonings of what goes where when there is no obvious move.  (I imagine that I would similarly inclined to while away the hours playing tetris, but there is no tetris on my computer here at work, and that has always seemed more fun as a handheld game anyway.) 

More than that, though, sometimes I find myself making the wrong choice even though I know it is the wrong choice.  I've played enough times that I can recognize certain patterns of mines and numbers, and yet sometimes I ignore those patterns altogether.  It is as if I am pretending that just this once, the mine might not be where it so obviously should be.  Of course, I am almost 100% wrong in this supposition, because this is a computer, and the little computer within that runs minesweeper isn't tricksy enough to keep things that random.  Oh, sure, every once in a while (a great while), something exciting like a 7 pops up; those are rare enough to provoke genuine astonishment.  But that is seemingly so random as to not even factor into those run-of-the-mill everyday games that I have with myself on an increasingly frequent basis.

So mostly I grapple with 3's and 5's and 6's, and seem to most often go wrong on those 5's, because I sometimes forget what five mines attached to one box looks like.  Also, I like to pretend that I can go faster than I can, and I end up making stupid, stupid mistakes in one or two out of every ten or so games: a botched 1, or a 2 that's touching three mines.  Sometimes I go so fast that my finger hits the wrong mouse button (I am a firm two button minesweeper player; I use both buttons pressed at the same time to open up squares around a mine, something that not too many people I know do.), or hits the two buttons together impotently, when there is nothing left to clear away.  But mostly, I just plug away, for 20-25 minutes, after which I turn my attention to other things: web browsing or reading, most likely.

I keep coming back to minesweeper, even though I really don't think I can beat the last speed record I set, and even though it is essentially the same game, over and over and over again.  Strange, isn't it?

Car woes

I've spoken here before about my car, and the problems I have with bringing it in for service.  But this last time (last Weds, Thurs, Fri), takes the cake.  The service was just BAD.  The service representatives TWICE called me at the wrong number, once with an estimate of when my car would be done (meaning I called the place panicking and needing an estimate of time, to make plans for the pick-up of the car) and then when the car was actually done, meaning I sat at work waiting and waiting until the last possible minute to pick it up, because I had to call and ask if it was done at the last possible minute I had to do so.  The baffling, mind-boggling thing is that both of those wrong calls were made to different numbers.  And then, I waited 20 minutes for my car to be portered out, and when it came out, black, sticky gunk was all over the driver's seat.  Suffice it to say that the gunk was not there when I brought the car in.  They cleaned it off, but that meant that I waited, in a state of absolute pique, for about 15 more minutes.

Today, someone from the service place called to see how my service was.  I considered, for a split second, lying, and saying that the service was fine.  Because it was a woman who sounded nice, very earnest, and I felt guilty because my experience was so bad.  But then, I knew that I just couldn't gloss over it.  So I told her, though I left out the part about NEVER. GOING. BACK. EVER. AGAIN.  She seemed incredibly apologetic, and asked if there was some small thing they could do for me to make it better, to which I said no.  But then she offered me a card for some free gasoline, and I didn't say no.  She said that she hoped I would call back, because she was trying to institute some changes, and things would get better.  (To which I thought:  Over my dead fucking body.) 

And I know that this is lame, but I feel really guilty for accepting the gas card.  Make no mistake about it, it was a baaaaad experience, and I left feeling angry and upset that I had spent so much money to get treated like shit.  But I didn't tell the truth about that experience because I was trying to get something out of these people, and I don't want them to think that I did.  In fact, I've had repeatedly BAD experiences at this place, but kept going back because of a) convenience and b) masochism, apparently.  Even so, I don't want to be one of those bitchers.  I'll raise a ruckus, but I never raise a ruckus expecting anything but what I was promised when I walked in the door.  (And I do so love my new tires.)  Also, I think that taking the card is sort of saying, "Okay, I'm pacified.  Your badness is forgotten."  Which it's not.  I will not be going back to that place; I'll find another place to have service done, in the future.

So the question is, what is the right thing to do?  Should I have turned that gas card down?

Never mind.

Mud Slide Slim

In order, the bands I'd like to go back in time to see:  1.  Led Zeppelin, 2.  The Beatles, 3.  James Taylor.

I came to this realization after last night's viewing of James Taylor in concert.  He's okay at 57 or however old he is now, but he must have been magnificent at 21.  If I could go to the city of Los Angeles in 1970 and see JT play the Troubador, I'd be a happy person.  His voice is simply superb, and it's amazing how GOOD his songs really are.  I told S that I'd happily listen to JT sing the ABC's over and over again, and that's not that far off the mark.  As much as I hate Bob Dylan's voice, I love James Taylor's.

And the thing is, I've never really ever had a conversation with any of my music-loving, music-reverent friends about James Taylor, unless it was about what the song "Fire and Rain" is really about.  I think most people can admit that "Fire and Rain" is one of the finest songs ever written, and if my friends would like to contradict me, that is fine.  But I am sticking to that story.  Actually, I think it stems from the fact that JT got old, and as he aged, his music hasn't necessarily aged to the tastes of modern, young music fans.  Led Zeppelin seems to work with teenagers, JT just ain't gonna fly.  But he was, for a time, part of the music world in CA that included Joni, CSNY, the Eagles, Carol King, etc.  They were the top of the game at that time, and he was the golden child of that set.  He is important, and he is real.  What he's done now can't change the immediacy and beauty of that music written in his 20's.  I must say that I find it hard to imagine a kid of 20 singing "Fire and Rain", because the song seems life-weary.  Then again, JT certainly took in his share of life-wearing events by 20.

So yes, this concert brings a mixed review.  His songs are good, but he's not THAT good anymore.  Although, his voice is as clear and beautiful as it ever was, unlike those CSN guys.  And his crowd is horrific.  I've never been in a more ruthless, rude audience.  We were at the Chicago Theater, and people were SHOVING their way up to the stage to get tickets signed by the man.  One man behind us kept pushing his kids up there, any time JT entered or exited the stage.  It was sick, and inappropriate, and they were looking bewildered by the whole thing.  And the drunkenness.  I say it every time, I know, but it was even out of hand here.  Just weird.  Weird weird weird.  (And to the four people sitting behind me:  This wasn't a freaking movie.  Put your popcorn, and your crinkly, loud popcorn bag AWAY when James Taylor comes onstage with a guitar.  Your popcorn chewing sounds?  Not enhancing the songs.)

So, um, yeah.  I think I'll start acquring JT albums.

I don't own "Blonde on Blonde" (and hope to never)

Did you know that Bob Dylan is a born-again Christian?  Me neither, but apparently, he released some albums that contain only religious songs?  It doesn't seem like it can be true; it's just really surreal.

I don't much like Dylan, and never have (I like to joke that I like Dylan when not sung by Dylan), because his voice makes me want to curl up in a ball and die.  But I understand that his genius is incomparably important to the history of music, to the history of rock and roll.  When S and I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the special exhibit was on Dylan, and it was comprehensive and well-attended.  I found it boring, and I'm pretty sure S didn't think much of it either.  I don't remember reading anywhere that Dylan was born-again, though (is he still? for instance), and believe me, I read everything you put in front of me.  It could be that I was sort of negligent at this exhibit, however, due to my deep apathy towards the subject.

I always feel a slight shock when I learn that people who you wouldn't think are are, and not only are, but are born-again.  It's that last part that's ever so shocking, what with the foul taste fundamental christianity leaves in my mouth, and the fact that (this is conjecture) a large number of born-again folks are fundies.  I'm not suggesting that Bob Dylan is a fundie, however, because I obviously have no idea how his Christianity works, feels, etc.  And of course, it's not making me re-evaluate his music because I'm pretty much done with that evaluation, and have been for a while.  Dylan's voice makes his music not for me.

Still, do you at least know what I mean?  It's like finding out...that your best friend...has six toes.  It doesn't really change the way you feel about them, but damn!  Six toes?  Freaky.  (Although, I will go on record and admit that I don't like polydactylic cats.  I find them so creepy I can barely stand to look at them.  I suppose that because I've never seen a person with six toes, I might in fact have an adverse reaction to said person.  But I think the person could just wear shoes, and cats can't.  This is how your best friends hides six toes from you in the first place: shoes.)  So yeah, I feel sort of the same way about Bob Dylan's Christianity.  I don't hate his music because of it (oh wait...I already hated his music, so what is the equivalent?), but I find it kind of freaky.

If you're wondering how I came to know that Bob Dylan is a born-again Christian, well, that is an interesting question, isn't it.  I actually have just finished Positively 4th Street, the book by David Hajdu about Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez-Farina, and Richard Farina.  As is my habit, whenever I read a book that includes something that warrants further delving, I further delve.  In this case, the book ends just after Richard's 1966 death by motorcycle (sorry that I ruined the ending, guys!), and I found myself wondering about Bob's, Joan's and Mimi's future.  Richard, of course, had no future to wonder about.  The point is, as I so often do, I took to reading the wikipedia articles about each person.  (Longer than a paragraph, and shorter than a book--perfect post-book biography reading.)  This is how I discovered Bob Dylan's secret Christianity.  Secret to me, of course.

If you're also wondering how I came to be reading a book about four singers that I've never listened to, ever, well, that's interesting too.  I've really been digging books about music recently (some Beatles books, a few books about the California music scene, the Toure book), and when this one presented itself to me, I thought, "hell, why not?"  And sure, it was interesting.  It made me want to listen to Joan Baez, though thinking about it rationally, I can't imagine I will like her music.  Nonetheless, that is how I came to be reading Hadju's book.  I don't think I have any more music books at home, though, so I will be moving on to other things.

The end.

Willfull ignorance?

Is Bill O'Reilly fucking insane?  I think so.

South Dakota, as you know, has voted to outlaw abortions unless the mother's life is in danger, which is never the case, because you can always have a C-section and do those kinds of things.

Forty-five percent of Americans, according to a new CNN poll -- 45 percent say all abortions should be outlawed unless the mother's going to die -- or catastrophic health consequences, which again, is never the case -- never.

Because clearly, these statements are patently lies.  Look up pre-eclampsia or eclampsia, or ectopic pregnancies.  These are things that kill pregnant women, or mess up her organs, or put her into a coma.  If those aren't catastrophic health consquences, I'd like to know what Mr. O'Reilly thinks is a catastrophic health consequence.

I just can't believe the man would say something like this.  I want to say that it's some sort of crazy disregard for women, or a willful ignorance of science, but I really think it's delusion, the kind of delusion that warrants locking up.

Pessimism

It may surprise you to note that I did not watch the Bears game last night.  Oh, I watched the first quarter or so, but then when Tivobot wanted to change to Studio 60, I let Tivobot do that.  And after I watched Studio 60, I went to bed.

See, I'm a Chicago (Cubs) sports fan, and we are different from all other sports fans in that at the first sign of trouble, we fatalistically decide that it's all over.  Faster than you can say "Super Bowl Shuffle", we're predicting a 5-12 season or somehow expecting the league to take wins away from us.  So when the Bears started playing like Pops Warner players on a bad day, I couldn't take it anymore.  It's like torture to me, pure torture.  I scream at the TV, I swear profusely, and yes, I even curse the opposing players with my pinkie and forefinger (like making the rock on symbol, but turning your hand down and pointing it a the player you want to fail.  Miserably.).  That behavior I learned from my paternal grandmother, who is sort of Italian (by which I mean not 100%, but some unknown-to-me percentage), and who I assume got that from the Italian symbol for being made a cuckold.  I'm not sure how that curses an opposing player, but it seemed to work last night.

I knew that the Bears won before this morning, though, because S was kind enough (or stupid enough, depending on how you look at his pre-six am wake-up time) to stay awake and watch. the. game.  (Now, if you don't know S, you don't know that if it's possible, he is the least interested person in Chicago in the Bears.  Seriously.  I'm pretty sure that he couldn't name the Bears defensive line, whereas I'm pretty good on that note.  He probably doesn't even really get quite how football works.  I'm not sure, because we've sincerely never had a conversation about football.  Ever.  I've also never been quite this into it, but that's because when we're losing, it's too excrutiatingly hard to watch.  And that goes for all sports teams in the city, save the Sox.  [I'm not, predictably, a Sox fan.]  I don't think this can be construed as fair-weather fandom, because I always love my teams.  It just hurts me too much to watch them lose.  Hence, now that the Bears are okay, I can watch.  Sort of.)  Anyway, the point is, S watched the game, and at 11 pm, he came and woke me from my uneasy slumber (I had gone to sleep with a stomach-ache) and said (and this is only an approximation, as I was sort-of asleep) "The Bears are going to win, 24-23." 

I can't remember how I responded, but my first thought must have been, "Leave me alone."  Because I know my second thought was, "Well, shit.  I should have stayed up and watched."  And then my third thought was, "No, it's too late, and I don't regret getting my eight hours in."  I think I lost conscious thought after that.  When I woke up this morning, S was up and around, getting ready for work, and so I asked for some confirmation of the facts, because maybe it was a dream.  I mean, when I went to bed at 10:15, it seemed impossible.  S told me that they did indeed win, and explained how, and that's when all those good feelings turned to bad, because the Bears won BAD.  They won like they won last year, with the D scoring all the points.  That ain't going to cut it, and because I'm a Chicago fan, I'm bound and determined to expect the worst.  We were riding high there for a while (and, you know, we are 6-0.  But it's a BAD 6-0.), talking big, talking undefeated, talking Super Bowl.  But it's patently clear now that all that joy was misplaced.

Maybe it was a blip.  Maybe Grossman was having an off night.  Either way, I'm going to go on the record and say that I'm not hoping for anything, because I'm a Chicago (Cubs) fan, after all, and high hopes only lead to bad things (like Bartman, for instance).  Nobody will be happier than me if the Bears win lots and lots of games.  I'm just not going to expect them to win from now on.  (If I was in a football pool of some sort, I'd always pick the Bears to lose from now on, and make that my 1-point game for the week.  You see what I'm saying?)