Episode 2 - A Bucket of Beeps
11 years ago
A Cornucopia of Cs Collected and a Chunk of a Chronicle Compiled
Confined to to his cubicle, Claude couldn't concentrate on the considerable collection of correspondence on the cabinet. So cursing his calling, he confided his concerns to a community of cyberspace colleagues. Calmed by their contributions of consolation, Claude considered a change of course, a conversion of career. Concluding that he could contrive a cunning callous caper, he came away from his commercial cell and converged conspicuously with the corridor crowd. While he casually carried along through the current of cuisine-craving company characters, he commenced conceiving contraptions he could commit to his crafty cause. Not conscious of the circumstances in the couloir, the concentrating criminal-to-be collided with a captivating and curvaceous childcare worker. Clothed in a cashmere coat and camouflage capris, the chic chick was a curious contradiction. I can't conceive of a conclusion so in closing, take care.
An Alright Poem Revisited and (hopefully) improved
"Our Weapons or What Have You"
always fading
into water
into moonlight into blackness
into dark voices and memories and dreams
flushed and buried ghosts
and wisps and hints and spectres pushing out against shores and walls
endlessly burning like bridges
like candles
like for you being born and being alive being dying
being dead lovers in windows
in beds and cafes
expressing their passions and lust
their wantings
similizing their love like a sunset like a flower like a battlefield
and like a flame
a million flowers for a million starry, starry
nights endlessly bleeding on the floor
on the tablecloth on the sidewalk in our hearts
stones thrown and breaking bones
children and animals running freely and
dancing with the wind
with angels
in the streets rivers and streams and creeks drinking
from all things soft and rocking infinitely
used
to describe to destroy to build
to immortalize words and paragraphs and
... pauses
exploited and embraced themes
and tones and
intimations pulsing together in riotous clumps and
tirelessly bending like willow trees like tools
like slaves.
A Bounty of Bs Bunched Up and a Bit of a Book Begat
Bedecked in Boucheron baubles and Bulgarian bedclothes beyond compare, the bewitching and bizarre Baron Brisko breezes through the boondocks, bestowing benign benefaction upon the bonnets and bowlers of each burgher and burgess. Bumping into a bitter and beleaguered bum, the Baron bows to beseech the beggar his biography. Busted in bed betwixt a beguiling baker and a bonny barmaid, his blushing bride banished his bullshitting bottom from their balmy abode. Bombarding the buffoon with blatant and biting blasphemies, and bouncing the buxom babes out with the brute, the belligerent bride embraced her brand new brio. So now bereft of belongings and bound to belly-ache and beg bystanders for benevolent beneficence, the bawdy and belittled brat bethinks and broods over his breached bethrothal.
Alabama Shakes
This is a post dedicated entirely to the video linked below. I have no words to go with it because...
really I just have no words. She is incredible and this song should be the ruler of a small nation.
That's all,
Sad Blogger
really I just have no words. She is incredible and this song should be the ruler of a small nation.
That's all,
Sad Blogger
Love Sick
A month and a bit ago, my friend the Happy Blogger convinced me--a year after writing angrily about the fact that it existed--to watch a movie called The Art of Getting By. I did so, begrudgingly, because she said she liked it a lot, but also because I was curious to see if it was as enraging as I predicted it to be. It was. But it was also engaging enough to sit through and actually had some downright endearing scenes. One of those scenes, the Happy Blogger and I agreed, contained the best lines in the movie:
"I'm allergic to hormones."
"What hormones?"
"My own."
And so we decided it would behoove us not to put together a story about a young man attempting to maintain a normal existence while struggling with the impossible frustration of an allergy to his own hormones. And so I'm proud to present my first draft of the prologue to that story. I'm not sure if I will be posting the rest of the story because of all the things I've ever written, I think this idea actually has a chance of having some sort of mainstream appeal and publish-ibility. So, you know, gotta keep the genius a secret.
If anything, I'll just update this post with any additions so that it's all in one place and not drifting loosely all over the blog. Like some other posts I know. If that's the case, I'll move it up to the top of the queue so it doesn't go unnoticed. But for God's sake, let me know if you like it. I'm dying here.
If anything, I'll just update this post with any additions so that it's all in one place and not drifting loosely all over the blog. Like some other posts I know. If that's the case, I'll move it up to the top of the queue so it doesn't go unnoticed. But for God's sake, let me know if you like it. I'm dying here.
PS - I know that some of the medical stuff is inaccurate or just plain wrong. I'm making this shit up, people. We don't all have time for research or fact checking. Anyways, enjoy.
Prologue
In the
first grade, I had a friend named Riley who was allergic to peanuts. When
you’re a kid, nobody really explains to you what an allergy is beyond that
touching or eating certain things makes you fall over dead. I don’t think they
even tell you when you’re the one with the allergy because the allergic kids
would tell you the exact same thing.
“I’m
allergic to those.”
“What
does that mean?”
"I
dunno. They make my blood stop working and I die.”
And in
most cases, I don't think the kids have ever really even had a reaction. It's
sort of just a fearful notion their parents dump into their smushy, soft little
heads without explanation. I know that for me, it was a beautiful lie I used to
avoid the embarrassment of not being allowed to enjoy all the sugary, fatty,
expensive delights the other kids’ parents were loving enough to let their
children ingest. I have a distinct memory of a pizza day in the second grade on
which I was offered a cup of orange soda from one of the supervising moms. I
had only tried sodie-pop maybe twice in my life and was pretty certain I didn’t
like the way the fizz made my mouth feel. So I told the mom that I was
“allergic to pop” and moved onto my bland, familiar companion, the 8oz milkbox.
In hindsight, I have to assume that her understanding nod was masked amusement.
This developed into a plethora of convenient allergies to whatever new thing
had any potential to be awful: pickles, Italian dressing, mayonnaise, bananas,
liver, whatever.
I didn't
know then and I wouldn't know for a good number of years yet that I had a real
allergy incubating somewhere deep inside me that would go on to ruin my life
worse than any sickness or sudden death ever could have.
My first
crush presented itself more as a bouquet of crushes on almost every girl in my
third grade class. I remember Brie, Kaylee, Katelyn, Josee, Talia, Dawn, and Aria. I
remember feeling all impressive when I helped Michael Grady wheel a TV cart
into our class and making eye contact with Brie like see how strong I
am, Baby? I remember laying in my bed, licking all up the back of my
hand so it was nice and wet so I could make out with it and pretend I was
kissing and dancing romantically with Jocelyn and Dawn. I remember a teacher
forcing me to help Katelyn clean up the pile of snow I had dumped in her coat
during recess and wanting to hold her hand while I flicked the snow off her
shirt. I was a soft, sappy child who in hindsight should have been beat up on a
constant basis by all the boys while they yelled at me about cooties or prenups
or whatever.
But all
of that was just a little boy who thought girls were pretty and wanted to hug
them because that's what you do to people you like. I kept liking girls without
thinking about it...as you do...but didn't land my first real concentrated
crush until a new girl started on the first day of the sixth grade. Alyson
Stewart had frizzy red hair and thick-framed glasses and laughed like somebody
had punched her in the stomach. She was a good half foot taller than all the
other girls, thought cursing was fun, and taught me how to play Chinese jump
rope. She liked my friend Joel but I always had been and always will be a
foolish, patient, hopeful sap. Alyson, though, was the first one to send me
into that wide-eyed, twitterpated, doodling-hearts-in-notebooks sort of
obsession. She was also the catalyst for my latent allergy.
Gym class
in grade school follows a rigid schedule that presents the students with a
different theme or category of activities each week. Every year, we went
through the cycle of badminton week to soccer week to floor hockey week to
running week et cetera. I'm only assuming based on my recollection of there
being safety mats on the floor and by merit of the fact that we were practicing
handstands that said catalyst was somewhere in the middle of gymnastics week.
Split off into pairs, we were instructed to spot our partners while we all did
headstands and handstands against the wall. I'll have you know that I was completely
incapable of standing on my head. BUT! I can tell you that Alyson was more than
prepared to show off her handstanding ability. And that, my friend, was the
very moment that something glorious and terrifying was awakened in me. This was
the sixth grade. I think I was maybe 11 years old? It's been almost two decades and my memory of that moment is just as clear as if it was last week. I was just sort of lazily glancing around the gymnasium while my
partner, Andrew, pulled off his acrobatics with ease and it was really just
half a fraction of a second that I happened to notice Alyson flip up against
the wall and swing back down quickly to tuck her tshirt back into her jeans.
But that was all I needed. Obviously the black band I saw strapped around the
back of her ribcage was some version of a training bra or what have you. But to
my watery, innocent eyes, it was the finest lingerie and that brief blip in
time was the sexiest thing I had ever seen; the only sexy thing I had ever
seen.
"Casey."
"Hmm?
What? Did you see that?"
Andrew
had peeled himself from the wall and was waiting to watch me struggle against
gravity for five minutes.
"See
what?"
"Alyson.
Her shirt just fell down."
"Did
you see her nipples?"
"What?!
No..."
"Then
so what?"
"So
what it was awesome."
"I
saw my sister's nipples once."
Andrew
had six sisters in high school. They were all terrifying. I was about to launch
into a diatribe on exactly how gross that was when my throat clamped shut and I
bent double under a torrent of coughs and hacks. I squeaked out a
"whatever."
"What'sat?"
"I
said whatever," I breathed and scratched my arm.
Then the
seventh grade science teacher--he taught Phys. Ed. to the lower grades when our
teachers got sick of us—blew his whistle and relieved me from the Herculean
task he'd thrust upon me. I peeked over at Alyson whenever I thought she wasn't
looking, full of curiosity and longing as we all meandered back to our
classrooms. There were only two sixth grade classes in our school and of course
she wasn't in mine so instead of having the opportunity to gaze pathetically at
her hair for the rest of the day, I paused like a doofus in the doorway and
watched her disappear though theirs.
"Go..."
My
reverie was interrupted by dumb Erin James' nasally voice and ridiculous fuzzy
sweater. I awkwardly turned on my heel and shuffled through the door to escape
the static wail of her impatience. Sinking into my chair, I sighed forlornly
and tried to stare through the wall to my true love. The ringing Erin's stupid
voice had caused was still echoing around my skull. I turned and whispered to
my friend Britney,
"Do
you hear that?"
"What
did you say?" she chuckled.
I had to
yell now to hear myself over the screech.
"I
asked if you could hear that sound!"
"Casey,
keep your voice down," Ms. Dublin was glaring at me from her desk.
Another
cluster of aggressive coughs railed my body and the room went dark. I felt
something slam into my head and heard my breath trying to escape from my lungs.
A couple of the girls gave a shriek of terror, but they had nothing on the
cacophony in my head.
The next ten minutes felt like three hours. It was like listening to a carnival barker in slow motion in a pitch black room with a cold vise on my lips and helium pumping into my arms. At one point gravity shifted and the dark room moved around me as I catapulted through nothingness. The room shook violently a couple times and suddenly gravity was back and something was pressing against the back of my head. The carnival barker was still somewhere above me, heaving out his nightmare spiel. Then he suddenly stopped and something pierced my shoulder. My entire body was inhaled into the ground as the helium rushed through the hole in my arm and a pinprick of light appeared in front of my face. It gradually grew until everything was ceiling panels.
“How are
we doing, Mr. Kittlaus? You really gave us a scare, there.”
The
school nurse, Mrs. Ruele, was peering at me over her old lady spectacles. She
was only in her early 30s, maybe, but she had obviously bought her glasses
without consulting a friend. Or a mirror. I moved to prop myself up on my
shoulder but she gently pressed me back into the cot.
“Not
quite yet, Casey. You had anaphylaxis. You need to rest for a while.”
A bungee
cord had been stretched between my bowels and neck.
“Whurs
anflaxiz?” The vise was still on my lips.
“I’ll
explain when your parents get here.”
My pelvis
continued to pull down on my chin and vice versa.
“Uhn
gurna sherd merh prnts.”
“You need
to breathe, Casey. I can’t understand you.”
I
struggled against the tension on my neck to drag some air down into my lungs.
The moment I hit what felt like a regular rhythm, the bungee cord snapped. I
felt my head roll back and an unnerving looseness course through my body. I
squirmed uselessly on the cot, my eyes wide.
“I said
I’m going to shit my pants!”
“Language! The
feeling will pass in a moment. Just lay back and rest. We’ll talk it all
through when your parents get here. They're on their way.”
I let my
weight sag into the cot and stared hopelessly and confused at the ceiling. I
didn't even have a guess as to what Anna's Flack Tits was, but it had to have
something to do with Erin. I was feeling just fine until she did her weird
voodoo head thing. I tried retracing my steps for other possible causes of my
AFT. I'd had Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast like almost every other morning.
The walk to school took exactly thirteen minutes and could practically have
been a step-by-step reproduction of every other walk to school; nothing out of
place. We'd done math and social studies in the morning and they were boring as
usual. We played Chinese jump rope at recess and the only abnormalty was some
first grade girl toddling up and kissing Joeseph K on the arm and running away
giggling to her little friends. Britney called him a cradle robber and we
laughed our asses off. After recess, we'd gone straight to gym and...
The image
of Alyson's swaddled ribcage floated through my head and my blood reversed
direction. I felt a stirring in my shorts and tried to roll onto my side in a
panic but another fit of coughing kicked my arm out from under me and I
collapsed on my back, convulsing with each hack. Mrs. Ruele skittered back into
the room and steadied my shaking with a hand on my shoulder.
“Casey?
Try to relax and breathe deeply. You need to breathe right now, hun.”
It felt
like I was micromanaging each step of the breathing process.
Okay,
expand the lungs....
Now
contrict. Feel the air? Push the air upwards and out.
That's
right, up aaaaaand out! Good job!
Now find
some more air and grab it...
yup,
grab...
grab that
air, good, now pull it down.
Down,
down,
down,
pull harder, down...GOOOOOOOOD.
That's
one.
It felt
like Mrs. Ruele and I sat nodding at each other on the side of the cot for
another three hours. Her face calm and reassuring, mine desperate and
terrified. She was still coaching me on the basics of not dying when my parents
strode in ten minutes later.
“We're so
sorry. Greg was in the middle of a demonstration in the North East and I was
waiting for him and thought I should come but the bus might have taken longer
oh my god Casey.”
My mother
swept past my dad and knelt down beside the cot, folding me into her and
smothering my head.
“Mum, I'm
fine,” I wheezed.
“Yes, but
you weren't. Theresa, why is he talking like that?”
Mrs.
Ruele and my mother used to sell perfume or make Tupperware or something
together. It was always weird hearing grown-ups call each other by their first
names.
“He had a
bit of an asthma attack. He's calmed down now though.”
“Asthma?
I though he grew out of that six years ago.”
“Well
that's what we need to talk about. When was the last time you had Casey tested
for allergies?”
My
parents glanced at each other with identical looks of confused concern.
“Just
last year. He got sick after a visit to his uncle's house. We thought it might
have been the dogs.”
“I could
have told you that,” I offered drily. Kids think sarcasm makes them sound more
mature.
“And
nothing came up?”
My dad
leaned forward and shook his head, “It was just a coinicidence,” he insisted.
This time
it was Mrs. Ruele's turn to look concerned.
“Listen,
what exactly happened?” my mother demanded.
“Casey,”
sighed the nursed, “went into anaphylactic shock shortly after returning from
gym class. I just can't figure out why. If you say he has no known allergies,
it's a complete mystery to me. You're going to have to take him to a
specialist.”
My
parents listened to all this with increasingly terrified faces. I looked from
one face to the other to the other while they silently gaped at each other.
Then something occurred to me.
“Wait.
You mean my body stopped working because I'm allergic to something?”
“Probably.”
“Like
orange pop?”
My dad
choked out a chuckle and my mom stared at me. Mrs. Ruele just looked confused.
“Not
quite, Case. But we're going to figure it out, okay? Terry, is Casey excused
for the rest of the day?”
The nurse
nodded, “But make sure he gets tested as soon as possible.”
We were
already halfway through the teachers' lounge.
“Of
course. ASAP!”
An Abundance of A's Amassed and an Apologue Articulated
Having avoided arrest and auspiciously attained atonement for every atrocity, the animal absconds from his active application of artifice and aligns his ambitions with activities more appropriate for an average inhabitant. Astutely adhering to the arduous aphorisms ascribed to him, the ambitious adept applies admirable aptitude to every assignment and accepts adulation amidst his associates. Almost acheiving absolute ascendancy, and approaching an appointment among the apprentice and his administrator, the adjusted and ameliorated applicant accomplishes the about-face he had always aimed at.
Well At Least This One Starts Off Cheerful
I obviously still have not figured out how to embed streaming audio, but I've signed up for a couple different hosting sites so now it's just going to be a process of elimination. However, since I'm putting all of this together on my work computer, you'll have to bear with another collection of YouTube links until I can get on my own machine.
1. Kishi Bashi - Bright Whites
3. The Love Language - Stars
midnight organ fight
yours gives into mine
it's all right
and the fast blood
hurricanes through me
How. Fucking. SEXY is that? I was riding the bus this morning and letting the words make love to my ears and that bit just tears me up. I wanted to make out with the window and ravage the seat in front of me (calm down, I was the only one on the bus). But yeah. Good freaking song.
9. Sharon Van Etten - Much More Than That
1. Kishi Bashi - Bright Whites
I just found this one yesterday while trawling through old episodes of "All Songs Considered" Tiny Desk Concerts on NPR's Youtube channel. This album version is nowhere near the bizarre, prodigious, musical arts-and-crafts session that Kishi puts together for NPR, but it is a lot easier to sit back and enjoy. Not having any sort of comprehension of the Japanese lyrics laced throughout, for me they add a level of whimsy. They conjure up images of running on beaches or hang gliding or riding unicycles or something.
2. The Parlotones - Push Me to the Floor
These guys, while massively popular in their home country of South Africa, were just sort of languishing in global obscurity since 2003. Until they showed up at SXSW this year and were able to jump off of the acclaim that earned them to begin touring with Coldplay. I don't know why I decided to start giving you their biography rather than just make comments on the song. Probably something to do with not really having much to say and wanting to show off that I know something about something.
3. The Love Language - Stars
I somehow end up wending my way to this song every time that I listen to music because it is perfect. I love that it's about a girl named Kathleen because how often do you hear a song for a Kathleen. I love the yearning twang of the guitars. I love their peaking voices all layered and staggered over top of each other. It makes me think of a circle of men on a porch, howling at the moon. Night delivers cold shivers. And so does this song.
4. The Mountain Goats - Going to Georgia
Quite obviously, this is not the album version, but to me it is so much better. Even though he trips over one of the lyrics, you have to know it's because he's just so into the ferocity and the passion of the song. The words have to be almost yelled because that's how important they are. The lines:
The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway
is that it's you
and you're standing in the doorway
are such goosebump-inducing characterizations of the simplicity of something being remarkable; something being perfect and right and awesome. Then the downward curve of "SMIIIIILE" and the slight quaver of "when you ease the gun from my hand". Everything about everything he says with this song is amazing to me and then you add the forceful, driving strumming of the guitar and all that comes out of me are sighs of satisfaction, jealousy, inspiration, and rage.
5. Brian Lopez - Montjuic
Brian Lopez took the inspiration for this song from the long, broad hill that overlooks the harbour in Barcelona, Spain. I couldn't necessarily tell you how one draws inspiration from a hill, but you can dwell on it while you give the song a listen.
6. The Bowerbirds - In Our Talons
I can't remember where exactly I heard this song for the first time, but I know that it has become one of the default songs I share with people when they cry out for new music. Who doesn't love eerie, harmonized imitations of screeching birds or meandering accordion woven over the world's oldest-sounding guitar? I think this song is so unique and just the right mix of upbeat, pretty, and haunting. Plus it comes with a quirky stopmotion video. What's not to love?
7. Annuals - Always Do
This one tends to end up playing immediately after Stars by The Love Language. I couldn't tell you why, but they've just always gone hand in hand for me. They don't sound the same, they're not really about the same things, but I guess they just both have that note of desperation and painful wanting. But the mix of the pedal steel guitars and the cacophony of crash cymbals and the almost Brand New-esque screaming at the end...ugh so goddamn listen-to-able.
8. Frightened Rabbit - Fast Blood
I think that there was brief period when I would have claimed this was my favorite song by Frightened Rabbit. Then it was Backwards Walk. Then it was Old, Old Fashioned, then Keep Yourself Warm, then Modern Leper, then Good Arms vs. Bad Arms. And I have to admit that I completely forgot that this song even existed until I tossed Midnight Organ Fight on shuffle last night and had my heart seized and mangled and broken and mended by this song. And then again for the rest of the night and some of this morning. Listen to the lyrics and try to count how many goosebumps break out on your arms.
midnight organ fight
yours gives into mine
it's all right
and the fast blood
hurricanes through me
How. Fucking. SEXY is that? I was riding the bus this morning and letting the words make love to my ears and that bit just tears me up. I wanted to make out with the window and ravage the seat in front of me (calm down, I was the only one on the bus). But yeah. Good freaking song.
9. Sharon Van Etten - Much More Than That
K so I couldn't help veering off back into my depressing music. And I really don't have much to say about this song. I think sometimes it's my life. I can tell you I always pictured Sharon as like this little, pixie-looking girl. She's looks more like Winona Ryder in Beetljuice gained some weight. Not that that's a thought that needed to make it's way into this...article? It was really just all I had to say.
10. Joanna Newsom - Does Not Suffice
Joanna Newsom is brilliant and bizarre and unsettling and a genius. This is a great song. She has better songs. But this is the first of hers that I heard and the one that sent me tumbling down the rabbit hole of needing-to-always-be-listening-to-music-by-Joanna Newsom. It may, though, be one of the saddest relationship songs ever written. So that's something.
Finding My Way Back to Here - Chapter 2
Staring out the window of my dad’s Explorer is a surreal shift from the active monotony the ward’s windows had to offer. The trees and fence posts and then the streetlamps and buildings scrolling past leave little to the imagination but there’s something calming and fantastic at the same time about the world just playing itself out for you.You know? Like why put all the work into imagining there’s other stuff going on when there’s all this stuff just there for you to fly by and take in? Isn’t it enough to even just process all the STUFF that’s just lying around? Anyways, we were mostly quiet, still, while my dad drove and my mom’s head stayed pointed in the same direction the entire time. I breathe out an amused half-snort at the thought that she was probably staring at the glass not unlike I had been back in the ward. My dad turns briefly in response to the sudden sound but I’m watching the buildings again.
“So they set you up with another doctor for visits or anything, Ty?”
“I don’t know if I really want to talk about it right now.”
My mom, “That’s fine, hun.”
Dad gave her a look like it wasn’t fine but she was watching the window again so he turned back to driving silently. I don’t know how else it was supposed to go. Like we were going to turn on some Danny Elfman soundtrack and discuss my plans for the rest of my life. Or I’d sit in the middle seat, pushed up against the backs of their seats and enthusiastically describe all the swell realizations I’d made about myself in therapy. Like we were on some jovial, bouncing ride in Pa’s jalopy after a fun-filled summer away at camp. As if. Imagine us crammed into an old Model-A or whatever with Mom all Thelma-and-Louis’ed up and Dad in a leather jacket with some of those pilot’s goggles and a scarf streaming out behind him. I silent-snort again and Dad whips around again, looking all mad. He probably thinks I’m laughing at Mom shutting him down.
I start to notice that the blur outside the window is turning into my parents’ neighborhood.
“Hey! Why aren’t we going to my place?”
Mom turns to face me for the first time, “Your car was impounded. You'll have lunch with us, then Layne is picking you up at 2.”
Layne was a guy I went to high school with who I didn’t really like, but he was under the impression we were best friends because we used to eat lunch at the same table. He was a major stoner and he lived with his major stoner girlfriend in a house that his grandma or aunt or something left to him when she died. It might have been his mom. I know it was a lady. Whoever it was, I don’t think he really cared and she probably hadn’t known him very well because I think if I was a dying lady, I would have left my house to somebody who got their hair cut sometimes and didn’t smell like wet leaves. Whatever, dying ladies can do whatever they want I guess. But because Layne was under the impression we were friends, he let me live in his basement for almost nothing. By ‘almost’ I more mean ‘usually’. When he first offered me the basement, I asked him about rent and his response was, “Sure thing.” So sometimes I give him cash when I think I won’t need it, but mostly it’s a non-issue.
Anyways, lunch with my nervous parents didn’t sound particularly appealing, but it was better than listening to Layne and Cassidy playing Halo upstairs while I ate cereal alone at my desk. I still didn’t particularly want to have to talk about what comes next, but it was an inevitability. Maybe they wouldn’t even bring it up now. We could talk about the virus Mom got on her work computer and how she thought to herself, “Ty could have handled this in a second huh-yuk-yuk.” Then Dad could drone about ‘the boys down at The P&W’ and all their tribulations and how the world was a different place (yep yep yep) and something about something his old man had told him and how his old man was right this whole time and then the meal would be over and I could go home finally.
But obviously that wasn’t going to be the case.
As we turned onto their street, I had a brief flashback of the last time I was here. My hands tensed and I realized they’d been wrapped around my little month’s supply of meds the whole time. I stuffed them in my hoodie and flicked at my mom’s headrest self-consciously. “Here we are!” she felt it necessary to announce as the Explorer pulled into the driveway. You have to imagine that when people do that, they do realize everyone else is capable of recognizing an arrival at a destination. Is it more of a neurotic confirmation that everything is as it should be? Here we are!...Right? We’re all here, aren’t we? From now on when I go places, I’m going to cheerfully announce to everyone, “We can’t ever truly know if we exist!” just to see if it has any effect.
Inside the house, I drop my hoodie on the chair that’s usually mine and survey the kitchen for the promised meal. In true form, my mother had set out plates and silverware before she left but hadn’t made any preparations to actually serve anything.
But wait...a wintery breath from the freezer...a desert-y cough from the oven..small talk...tick tock tick...a lasagna emerges...we sit.
The last time I had that 20-minute lasagna that comes in the tin was like nine years ago. I got food poisoning from it and spent an entire day and night either wrapped around the toilet waiting to throw up or crouched over the toilet waiting to stop throwing up again. So this time I didn’t hesitate to dump it down my gullet as quick as possible in the hopes it would send me into shock or something and at least I could get away from my parents. But whatever indignation my father had felt on the drive here must have taken up residence on my mom’s plate because he mostly just watched her fork and knife while she ate. And all the questions and advice I’d thought she’d have prepared for me had apparently asked a stream of celebrity gossip and weather predictions to cover their shift. So I just sort of sat there picking at the crusty bits around the edge of the tin and nodded at my mother’s yapping.
“So I think it’s going to go up to something like 98° tomorrow.”
I could feel the lasagna declaring war on my digestive system.
“Speaking of which, did you hear about Nick Lachey marrying that Jennifer Simpson?”
Digestive system requests a parley but the lasagna laughs in its face.
“I don’t know what such talented young men ever see in those show business floozies in the first place.”
The lasagna determines that it will be most effective to divide and conquer, firing a volley of tracer rounds at my stomach, intestines, and colon.
“I mean Justin Timberlake dating that Britney Spearie girl and Nick Carter getting into fights at bars. There are no more heroes in the world, Tyler.”
Straining under the onslaught, my digestive system groans its protestations and attempts to fight off the assault with a fierce shudder.
“Tyler? You’ve been awful quiet. Are you still hungry? There’s still some...Tyler, what’s wrong?!”
I’d pointed my convulsing body in the direction of the bathroom and lurched from my chair in hopes that the momentum alone would get me there. Bent double, I lumbered towards the shimmering, porcelain refuge I knew to be housed down the hall. My mom’s confusion and my dad’s irritability were barely audible over the hellish snarling coming from my bowels. But then above all the noise I heard my mother screeching,
“Walter! He’s GOING for the GUNS!”
I stopped and turned to face them. I felt the hordes waging war in my guts drop their weapons and retreat in abrupt surrender as every recess of my body was filled with a foreign sensation. It was like I could suddenly feel all my bits and pieces the way they looked in those anatomy cut-away books. I could feel each vein and artery and muscle and tendon seize up like they were individual plastic tubes. I felt my face heating up and my arms tensing and it was like there was a completely other body inside mine.
“MOM!” What the FUCK?!?”
They both stared at me like I’d just burst from the floor dressed like Adam Ant. My dad was halfway out of his chair with his fork and knife still in his hands. Mom just stood there with her dumb mouth hanging open, looking to him, to me, to him, to me. Six seconds felt like twenty while I just glared at them and felt my blood being blood. It wasn’t like you see in shitty action flicks when an angry dude will stand there with his shoulders hunched and his eyebrows scrunched, all breathing hard and whatnot. It wasn’t that I felt more powerful or any nonsense like that, but I was just so aware of all the hard warmth coursing through me. I wanted to be infuriated forever. But then the lasagna noticed the smoke drifting up over my digestive system’s camp and took advantage of the situation to mount their blitz. My stomach gave a startled gurgle and time skipped a beat as the fake pasta I’d shoveled into my body erupted from my mouth.
I wiped some lasagna-y mush off my lip with a fist, "I was going for the bathroom."
I walked to the kitchen sink and rinsed my mouth out from the tap while my parents awkwardly settled themselves back at the table. Turning and grabbing my hoodie from the chair, I stepped quickly to the front door. Knob in hand, I turned to my parents,
"I'm fine. I'm going to walk home. I'll call you."
The door closed on my mother stammering something about a crumb cake.
I felt like an album cover for a shitty emo band, trudging through the leaf-littered gutter with my hood up and hands shoved down the pockets. I don't think I actually cared that my parents didn't know where my mind was at. That was mostly my fault anyways. They were concerned and that's fine. I just needed to be home. My home. I looked up as a car moseyed by and remembered sauntering down the same street for guitar lessons when I was a kid, always hoping somebody would take pity on the kid with the heavy guitar case and offer to give me a ride. Not even hoping; expecting. As though anybody in the world is paying that much attention to anyone else, let alone giving a fuck. I smiled and nodded at a girl as she walked by with her dog and while I started dreaming up what our first house would look like and what we would name our kids, she silently worried about an upcoming exam or what she would make for dinner and I didn't exist to her.
I fall in love with everyone on the planet.
“So they set you up with another doctor for visits or anything, Ty?”
“I don’t know if I really want to talk about it right now.”
My mom, “That’s fine, hun.”
Dad gave her a look like it wasn’t fine but she was watching the window again so he turned back to driving silently. I don’t know how else it was supposed to go. Like we were going to turn on some Danny Elfman soundtrack and discuss my plans for the rest of my life. Or I’d sit in the middle seat, pushed up against the backs of their seats and enthusiastically describe all the swell realizations I’d made about myself in therapy. Like we were on some jovial, bouncing ride in Pa’s jalopy after a fun-filled summer away at camp. As if. Imagine us crammed into an old Model-A or whatever with Mom all Thelma-and-Louis’ed up and Dad in a leather jacket with some of those pilot’s goggles and a scarf streaming out behind him. I silent-snort again and Dad whips around again, looking all mad. He probably thinks I’m laughing at Mom shutting him down.
I start to notice that the blur outside the window is turning into my parents’ neighborhood.
“Hey! Why aren’t we going to my place?”
Mom turns to face me for the first time, “Your car was impounded. You'll have lunch with us, then Layne is picking you up at 2.”
Layne was a guy I went to high school with who I didn’t really like, but he was under the impression we were best friends because we used to eat lunch at the same table. He was a major stoner and he lived with his major stoner girlfriend in a house that his grandma or aunt or something left to him when she died. It might have been his mom. I know it was a lady. Whoever it was, I don’t think he really cared and she probably hadn’t known him very well because I think if I was a dying lady, I would have left my house to somebody who got their hair cut sometimes and didn’t smell like wet leaves. Whatever, dying ladies can do whatever they want I guess. But because Layne was under the impression we were friends, he let me live in his basement for almost nothing. By ‘almost’ I more mean ‘usually’. When he first offered me the basement, I asked him about rent and his response was, “Sure thing.” So sometimes I give him cash when I think I won’t need it, but mostly it’s a non-issue.
Anyways, lunch with my nervous parents didn’t sound particularly appealing, but it was better than listening to Layne and Cassidy playing Halo upstairs while I ate cereal alone at my desk. I still didn’t particularly want to have to talk about what comes next, but it was an inevitability. Maybe they wouldn’t even bring it up now. We could talk about the virus Mom got on her work computer and how she thought to herself, “Ty could have handled this in a second huh-yuk-yuk.” Then Dad could drone about ‘the boys down at The P&W’ and all their tribulations and how the world was a different place (yep yep yep) and something about something his old man had told him and how his old man was right this whole time and then the meal would be over and I could go home finally.
But obviously that wasn’t going to be the case.
As we turned onto their street, I had a brief flashback of the last time I was here. My hands tensed and I realized they’d been wrapped around my little month’s supply of meds the whole time. I stuffed them in my hoodie and flicked at my mom’s headrest self-consciously. “Here we are!” she felt it necessary to announce as the Explorer pulled into the driveway. You have to imagine that when people do that, they do realize everyone else is capable of recognizing an arrival at a destination. Is it more of a neurotic confirmation that everything is as it should be? Here we are!...Right? We’re all here, aren’t we? From now on when I go places, I’m going to cheerfully announce to everyone, “We can’t ever truly know if we exist!” just to see if it has any effect.
Inside the house, I drop my hoodie on the chair that’s usually mine and survey the kitchen for the promised meal. In true form, my mother had set out plates and silverware before she left but hadn’t made any preparations to actually serve anything.
But wait...a wintery breath from the freezer...a desert-y cough from the oven..small talk...tick tock tick...a lasagna emerges...we sit.
The last time I had that 20-minute lasagna that comes in the tin was like nine years ago. I got food poisoning from it and spent an entire day and night either wrapped around the toilet waiting to throw up or crouched over the toilet waiting to stop throwing up again. So this time I didn’t hesitate to dump it down my gullet as quick as possible in the hopes it would send me into shock or something and at least I could get away from my parents. But whatever indignation my father had felt on the drive here must have taken up residence on my mom’s plate because he mostly just watched her fork and knife while she ate. And all the questions and advice I’d thought she’d have prepared for me had apparently asked a stream of celebrity gossip and weather predictions to cover their shift. So I just sort of sat there picking at the crusty bits around the edge of the tin and nodded at my mother’s yapping.
“So I think it’s going to go up to something like 98° tomorrow.”
I could feel the lasagna declaring war on my digestive system.
“Speaking of which, did you hear about Nick Lachey marrying that Jennifer Simpson?”
Digestive system requests a parley but the lasagna laughs in its face.
“I don’t know what such talented young men ever see in those show business floozies in the first place.”
The lasagna determines that it will be most effective to divide and conquer, firing a volley of tracer rounds at my stomach, intestines, and colon.
“I mean Justin Timberlake dating that Britney Spearie girl and Nick Carter getting into fights at bars. There are no more heroes in the world, Tyler.”
Straining under the onslaught, my digestive system groans its protestations and attempts to fight off the assault with a fierce shudder.
“Tyler? You’ve been awful quiet. Are you still hungry? There’s still some...Tyler, what’s wrong?!”
I’d pointed my convulsing body in the direction of the bathroom and lurched from my chair in hopes that the momentum alone would get me there. Bent double, I lumbered towards the shimmering, porcelain refuge I knew to be housed down the hall. My mom’s confusion and my dad’s irritability were barely audible over the hellish snarling coming from my bowels. But then above all the noise I heard my mother screeching,
“Walter! He’s GOING for the GUNS!”
I stopped and turned to face them. I felt the hordes waging war in my guts drop their weapons and retreat in abrupt surrender as every recess of my body was filled with a foreign sensation. It was like I could suddenly feel all my bits and pieces the way they looked in those anatomy cut-away books. I could feel each vein and artery and muscle and tendon seize up like they were individual plastic tubes. I felt my face heating up and my arms tensing and it was like there was a completely other body inside mine.
“MOM!” What the FUCK?!?”
They both stared at me like I’d just burst from the floor dressed like Adam Ant. My dad was halfway out of his chair with his fork and knife still in his hands. Mom just stood there with her dumb mouth hanging open, looking to him, to me, to him, to me. Six seconds felt like twenty while I just glared at them and felt my blood being blood. It wasn’t like you see in shitty action flicks when an angry dude will stand there with his shoulders hunched and his eyebrows scrunched, all breathing hard and whatnot. It wasn’t that I felt more powerful or any nonsense like that, but I was just so aware of all the hard warmth coursing through me. I wanted to be infuriated forever. But then the lasagna noticed the smoke drifting up over my digestive system’s camp and took advantage of the situation to mount their blitz. My stomach gave a startled gurgle and time skipped a beat as the fake pasta I’d shoveled into my body erupted from my mouth.
I wiped some lasagna-y mush off my lip with a fist, "I was going for the bathroom."
I walked to the kitchen sink and rinsed my mouth out from the tap while my parents awkwardly settled themselves back at the table. Turning and grabbing my hoodie from the chair, I stepped quickly to the front door. Knob in hand, I turned to my parents,
"I'm fine. I'm going to walk home. I'll call you."
The door closed on my mother stammering something about a crumb cake.
I felt like an album cover for a shitty emo band, trudging through the leaf-littered gutter with my hood up and hands shoved down the pockets. I don't think I actually cared that my parents didn't know where my mind was at. That was mostly my fault anyways. They were concerned and that's fine. I just needed to be home. My home. I looked up as a car moseyed by and remembered sauntering down the same street for guitar lessons when I was a kid, always hoping somebody would take pity on the kid with the heavy guitar case and offer to give me a ride. Not even hoping; expecting. As though anybody in the world is paying that much attention to anyone else, let alone giving a fuck. I smiled and nodded at a girl as she walked by with her dog and while I started dreaming up what our first house would look like and what we would name our kids, she silently worried about an upcoming exam or what she would make for dinner and I didn't exist to her.
I fall in love with everyone on the planet.
Selfishness Part 2
I'm really starting to forget what I thought was going to be so complicated about articulating this damn thing. All it took was swapping some words out. Anyhow, everything below is literally copy+pasted from the end of "Selfishness Part 1" so if it feels like you're just kind of jumping into the middle of a conversation that makes no sense, try giving that post a read first.
All that being said, I originally sat down to write this dumb thing because I lost an entire night of sleep tossing and turning to the idea of how selfish it is to love another person. (That's where the problem was. I sort of landed on "selfish" as the default word for the concept I was trying to express. As concluded in the previous post, the word I was aiming for was "cruel") And when I say love, I mean that heartbreaking, obsessive, body-numbing, jealous, giggly, warm, uncomfortable, beautiful, aching kind of love that buries into your spinal chord and just absolutely destroys you piece by piece. But also gives you a reason to exist. That kind of love that replaces any need for religion or food or knowledge or movement. It's everything you ever need to know or think or experience. Having written all that, I don't like that I have to refer to it as "that kind of love". That's just what love should be.
Devastating.
So take all that into account and then mix in the often-truth of a line from Chuck Palanhiuk's Invisible Monsters: "The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person." I say often-truth because obviously, there are cases in which it's not. Now and then, a person happens to run into another person and they actually feel that devastating love for each other. So the torment is shared and balanced and mitigated like that. I think in most cases, though, love for another person just sort of wells up inside you until it becomes a structural hazard and needs to find somewhere else to go. And that's what I think my point is.
It's hard to conceive of a heavier weight to dump on a person than the rusty-barbed-wire burden of your own feelings. You know? All that broiling, bubbling shit just festering inside you is bad enough for you and you've had it building up over however long and had the chance to acclimatize to it. To unload that on another person without warning is just cruel. ESPECIALLY if they're not prepared to balance out that nonsense. Sharing you anger or your sadness or even your joy if you're one of those types of Joe Rinos...as sympathetic and compassionate as most people want to be...it's all just sort of overwhelming when we're all trying to sort through our OWN mess of emotions. So why do we expect something as painful as love to be any different?
Maybe I'm just a sociopath, but the thought occurred to me and I figured it was worth bringing up. Maybe tomorrow I can write a dissertation on why it's wrong to give children hugs or eat ice cream or laugh at funny things. I dunno.You only have yourself to blame if you're still reading. I hate feeling this way. I want to write angry things about superficial nonsense. Dear Diary, boo-fucking-hoo.
Give me another week and I'll be fine,
Sad Blogger
All that being said, I originally sat down to write this dumb thing because I lost an entire night of sleep tossing and turning to the idea of how selfish it is to love another person. (That's where the problem was. I sort of landed on "selfish" as the default word for the concept I was trying to express. As concluded in the previous post, the word I was aiming for was "cruel") And when I say love, I mean that heartbreaking, obsessive, body-numbing, jealous, giggly, warm, uncomfortable, beautiful, aching kind of love that buries into your spinal chord and just absolutely destroys you piece by piece. But also gives you a reason to exist. That kind of love that replaces any need for religion or food or knowledge or movement. It's everything you ever need to know or think or experience. Having written all that, I don't like that I have to refer to it as "that kind of love". That's just what love should be.
Devastating.
So take all that into account and then mix in the often-truth of a line from Chuck Palanhiuk's Invisible Monsters: "The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person." I say often-truth because obviously, there are cases in which it's not. Now and then, a person happens to run into another person and they actually feel that devastating love for each other. So the torment is shared and balanced and mitigated like that. I think in most cases, though, love for another person just sort of wells up inside you until it becomes a structural hazard and needs to find somewhere else to go. And that's what I think my point is.
It's hard to conceive of a heavier weight to dump on a person than the rusty-barbed-wire burden of your own feelings. You know? All that broiling, bubbling shit just festering inside you is bad enough for you and you've had it building up over however long and had the chance to acclimatize to it. To unload that on another person without warning is just cruel. ESPECIALLY if they're not prepared to balance out that nonsense. Sharing you anger or your sadness or even your joy if you're one of those types of Joe Rinos...as sympathetic and compassionate as most people want to be...it's all just sort of overwhelming when we're all trying to sort through our OWN mess of emotions. So why do we expect something as painful as love to be any different?
Maybe I'm just a sociopath, but the thought occurred to me and I figured it was worth bringing up. Maybe tomorrow I can write a dissertation on why it's wrong to give children hugs or eat ice cream or laugh at funny things. I dunno.You only have yourself to blame if you're still reading. I hate feeling this way. I want to write angry things about superficial nonsense. Dear Diary, boo-fucking-hoo.
Give me another week and I'll be fine,
Sad Blogger
Selfishness Part 1
I feel like I bring up Ayn Rand and Objectivism far too often and just assume people automatically know what I'm referring to. Maybe not in the writing that I do here, but I know they're subjects I touch on regularly because they're extremely important to me and my intellectual development coming out of high school. I think most people tend to finger Atlas Shrugged as Rand's seminal work and thesis on Objectivism, but I have to admit I haven't read it and really much more prefer The Fountainhead. I've always related to Howard Roark's character and his attitude/approach towards happiness really influenced me right around the time that I was transitioning from that awful whiney, depressed, me-me-me phase that comes with being a teenager.
What I took away from The Fountainhead and have tried to apply to my life is that selfishness does not always deserve the negative connotation that is typically tagged onto it. People who have fostered a predilection for selflessness their entire lives will obviously not be able to think of it in this way, but if you really break down the word "selfish" and ignore the notion of it having something to do with greed or apathy, it really is about your self. When it comes to the big picture, your self is the most important thing in your life. It is your life...without your self, you're just a breathing machine. Self is personality and sentience and taste and emotions and dreams. And selflessness would literally imply having a lack of self. I mean we're told by certain types of people to "give of ourselves" but if you think of your self as that thing that makes and defines and is you, why would you give pieces of it away? So for me, the point of Objectivism is that you value your self before all other things. AS LONG AS it's not hurting other people. That sort of selfishness is just an absolute lack of consideration for the selves of others and that's more like what you'd call cruelty.
So that's what I meant when I was writing about my school and work decisions a couple posts ago. I still like to think that I quit school because it was starting to choke out my love for writing. It took five months for me to find a job because my "search" was constantly cockblocked by my need to find something that wasn't going to bore me. As though cash wasn't a sufficient incentive to get off my ass for almost half a year. Writing that feels like I've just completely given up on the validity of the argument for selfishness, but I really haven't. I still feel it's something worth yelling about if it comes up in conversation and I'll continue to make references to it as an attitude I feel is worth adopting...it's just also a possibility that it might have kind of fucked me in terms of my academic career and progress as a human being.
I wrote all of this in order to introduce an idea that had me tossing and turning for an entire night. That was a week ago and these three paragraphs have been sitting around for about as long in addition to another three or four that had more to the with the idea I just referred to. However, I've started to lose faith in the direction of the idea so I'm just going to be posting this part for now. Doooooon't worry, the second part will be going up eventually, but I want to take some time to work on the logic of it so that it sounds less like the ravings of a sleep deprived fool and at least resembles a something like a coherent argument. So I hope that for now this enough to go on. Honestly, it's far enough back in the timeline of writing things this week that I can't remember if I've even said anything. And I'll be damned if I'm about to go back and read it all.
Be a little less self...less,
Sad Blogger
What I took away from The Fountainhead and have tried to apply to my life is that selfishness does not always deserve the negative connotation that is typically tagged onto it. People who have fostered a predilection for selflessness their entire lives will obviously not be able to think of it in this way, but if you really break down the word "selfish" and ignore the notion of it having something to do with greed or apathy, it really is about your self. When it comes to the big picture, your self is the most important thing in your life. It is your life...without your self, you're just a breathing machine. Self is personality and sentience and taste and emotions and dreams. And selflessness would literally imply having a lack of self. I mean we're told by certain types of people to "give of ourselves" but if you think of your self as that thing that makes and defines and is you, why would you give pieces of it away? So for me, the point of Objectivism is that you value your self before all other things. AS LONG AS it's not hurting other people. That sort of selfishness is just an absolute lack of consideration for the selves of others and that's more like what you'd call cruelty.
So that's what I meant when I was writing about my school and work decisions a couple posts ago. I still like to think that I quit school because it was starting to choke out my love for writing. It took five months for me to find a job because my "search" was constantly cockblocked by my need to find something that wasn't going to bore me. As though cash wasn't a sufficient incentive to get off my ass for almost half a year. Writing that feels like I've just completely given up on the validity of the argument for selfishness, but I really haven't. I still feel it's something worth yelling about if it comes up in conversation and I'll continue to make references to it as an attitude I feel is worth adopting...it's just also a possibility that it might have kind of fucked me in terms of my academic career and progress as a human being.
I wrote all of this in order to introduce an idea that had me tossing and turning for an entire night. That was a week ago and these three paragraphs have been sitting around for about as long in addition to another three or four that had more to the with the idea I just referred to. However, I've started to lose faith in the direction of the idea so I'm just going to be posting this part for now. Doooooon't worry, the second part will be going up eventually, but I want to take some time to work on the logic of it so that it sounds less like the ravings of a sleep deprived fool and at least resembles a something like a coherent argument. So I hope that for now this enough to go on. Honestly, it's far enough back in the timeline of writing things this week that I can't remember if I've even said anything. And I'll be damned if I'm about to go back and read it all.
Be a little less self...less,
Sad Blogger
sleep sounds/the way things change pt. 1
I wanted to write poetry and I had an idea and I ran with it. I'll find my groove again someday.
when i was a little boy my
pulse was soldiers marching through
my white and blue striped
mattress. and when i was a little boy my
fluttering eyelashes were dogs
sniffing and searching through my
blankets. and when this poem
began it was going to end
up being about you but poems
written for people named
you are just like every other
poem. so instead it's about how silent
my bed is these days. because
nobody writes poems about that
when i was a little boy my
pulse was soldiers marching through
my white and blue striped
mattress. and when i was a little boy my
fluttering eyelashes were dogs
sniffing and searching through my
blankets. and when this poem
began it was going to end
up being about you but poems
written for people named
you are just like every other
poem. so instead it's about how silent
my bed is these days. because
nobody writes poems about that
Bleh
Lately I've been fixated on worrying that I might be mentally challenged. I feel like my whole life people have been particularly friendly to me despite how socially awkward I can be and how often I'm just babbling nonsense. In terms of my education, I've always been treated like I was slightly ahead of the curve compared to everyone else even though most of the time the work I would hand in was just a graffiti-like decoupage of ideas about nothing. In what I've always considered intellectual conversation, people act overly enthusiastic when responding to my contributions. And I know that in grades two through four, I was taken out of my regular classes to attend a class of maybe six other kids in which we drew pictures and talked about what we did at home and what we like to watch on TV and whatever else. My mom always said it was class for brighter kids, but I really have no evidence back up to that claim.
I dunno. I've spent the past few years exercising a spectrum of feelings of superiority compared to my peers and other people in general, but in the last month or so I've just started to wonder if I've had any right to. I mean probably as a general rule and as a decent human being, I don't. But in accordance to my way of thinking, I just have to question whether my narcissism, smugness, egoism, and eccentricity have all be justified.
Ugh. I just did some research on Narcissism and now I just feel ashamed and gross. I don't know how to end this and I don't know what the title should be. So I'll just call it how I'm feeling.
Here's some words to take the place of a salutation,
Sad Blogger
PS - the music sharing post below didn't work out at all like I had originally crafted it. All the sharing sites I was using only worked if I was signed in. And obviously I'm not going to make people sign up on the sites just to hear a couple songs. I'll figure it out.
I dunno. I've spent the past few years exercising a spectrum of feelings of superiority compared to my peers and other people in general, but in the last month or so I've just started to wonder if I've had any right to. I mean probably as a general rule and as a decent human being, I don't. But in accordance to my way of thinking, I just have to question whether my narcissism, smugness, egoism, and eccentricity have all be justified.
Ugh. I just did some research on Narcissism and now I just feel ashamed and gross. I don't know how to end this and I don't know what the title should be. So I'll just call it how I'm feeling.
Here's some words to take the place of a salutation,
Sad Blogger
PS - the music sharing post below didn't work out at all like I had originally crafted it. All the sharing sites I was using only worked if I was signed in. And obviously I'm not going to make people sign up on the sites just to hear a couple songs. I'll figure it out.
This Makes It Seem Like I Only Like Sad Songs
I created the Aural Stimulation panel from the outset of this blog because I like music a lot and I like a lot of music. Actually, before it was added and back when we had maybe two posts and a pile of ideas for stories and songs and poems we've never written, it was just a single song embedded in the code of the website that would play once and drift off into an uncertain silence. The intended effect being that readers would have something pretty to listen to while they browsed through our fantastic contributions. The problem with having the song embedded, however, was that if you happened to be on the page for longer than the duration of the song (which I believe was Crime Window by Grand Archives and is not even 4 minutes long), it would just abruptly end and leave the reader itching for more if the reader was a decent human being. On the other hand, if you weren't particularly interested in hearing any music, there was no way to stop it other than navigating away from the page. Which is bad for business. That being said, if you didn't happen to have you speakers on or headphones in, there was no indication that music was being played if you were in any kind of mood for some.
So it just did't work all around.
I was driving just after sunset a few weeks back and this song came up on the radio and just so perfectly complemented the twists and turns of the road with the street lights flashing by overhead and the tumbling indigo folds of the twilit clouds beyond. The DJ described Shara Worden--My Brightest Diamond is her stage name--as having a fixation with various forms of visual art and having taken specific inspiration for her most recent album (and this song) from Japanese performance art...kabuki theater, traditional puppets and masks, etc. So I can't help imagining a dark, bizarre marionette show being acted out to this song with their voices portraying two different characters. I always picture DM Stith's belonging to a crow. I dunno. Close your eyes, give it a few listens, and see where your mind goes.
I've been a fan of Lykke Li for years so this doesn't really count as a new discovery, but I wanted to integrate something a little less gloomy into the mix but also make a transition from My Brightest Diamond that didn't seem awkward and forced. So I have nothing really special or insightful to say about this song other than it's a fun song to softly bob your head to and maybe even tap your toe a little bit.
5. Dawes - Million Dollar Bill
We'll bring it back to the sad and pretty now with a song that was recommended to me by a guy I met when I was on a road trip across the States. Despite having a small laptop filled with a few thousand songs, this song became one of the fifteen or so that I had on almost-constant repeat. It's a great song by itself, but when you're rolling through the endless green hills of Oregon or the barren nonsense that is New Mexico or up some east coast Interstate, head pressed against the cold window and staring at the moon, this song is the perfect soundtrack for whatever forlorn, romantic garbage is tugging at your heartstrings. Just the lines:
So when she steps out into the night
and finds the light that makes her prettiest
she'll be facing me every time she shines.
are every crush that went nowhere in grade school, middle school, high school. That longing just to be noticed or thought of or cared for. I'm pathetic, but this song is magic to me.
6. First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
Okay here's an actual fresh one! I first heard this song maybe a week ago and have had it on an endless loop on my iPod, phone, and computer since. Until forty seconds ago I would have told you it was about a relationship gone wrong blah blah blah. But I popped over to songmeanings.com just to see what other people were saying about it and if you take the first verse and apply it to the rest of the song, it really does sound like a bitter love song for the Church. Now I'm not here to interpret lyrics for one song out of ten. I actually want to get up at some point and enjoy the day. So all I'm going to say about this song is that it is just goddamn brilliant. Listen to the harmonies and the feeling in the chorus and agree with me. Also, as much as I've linked the official video, I would really recommend checking out this version.
7. The Milk Carton Kids - Michigan
I'm going to be honest with the next few songs. I just heard them either yesterday or the day before and haven't listened to them enough to write any essays on. This particular one I've heard enough to say I absolutely love the David Rawlings-style guitar picking and the sadness in the chorus. Other than that, it's just a gorgeous song that I should probably learn a little bit more about. I should also say this is the last of the folkey songs for this entry. Hopefully this song will transition well enough to the three lead-out songs. Probably not.
8. Metallic Falcons - Four Hearts
Some more pretty. Some more piano.
10. How To Dress Well - Suicide Dream 2
This is not the version of this song that I would have preferred to use, but I really just can't remember where I found the original version or how to find it again so this version will have to do. It's still pretty. As much as the whole thing is just an airy, dreamy cacophony, the "no air, no air, no air" at the end has always been my favorite part and hopefully it will make for the perfect conclusion to this entire playlist. This is one of those songs that I often fall asleep to. Don't worry...it won't actually make you dream about suicide. Give it a try.
So that's the first attempt at embedding songs. My fingers are really crossed hardcore. Let us know in the comments if there are any improvements we could make. Otherwise I just hope you enjoy the songs.
Happy listening,
Sad Blogger
So it just did't work all around.
Enter the Grooveshark playlist! It allowed us to construct a mix of whatever sounds we were particularly obsessed with at the time and let us just drop them into a simple, pre-assembled player that any buffoon could figure out. There's the songs, there's who's playing them, hit the button with the big triangle, noise comes out!!! Which meant that I wouldn't have to toil over figuring out how to design my own player. Which meant I was extremely relieved. Which is good. So the problem of giving readers some sort of control over the music was solved as was the impotence of only having a single track playing. I know that in another website I put together for a friend, I was able to link a playlist with over 600 songs. So the sky's the limit in that regard.
However, despite having to do more with my own burgeoning ambitions for the blog than anything else, a new snag presented itself. See, if I were to write up a supplement for one of the playlists--a listening guide...AN ABSTRACT if you will--it would be a splendidly relevant read but only as long as that specific playlist was posted. As soon as we chose some new songs to go up, there would be a meaningless entry floating around the site going on about a bunch of songs that nobody had any links to. I think that there is actually still a post up that does just that.
So now just three years or whatever since the site went up, I've finally put some effort into finding a way to share music that is both comprehensive and full of options for us but intuitive and effortless for you all. And after an afternoon of wasting money on a couple of subscription-based hosting sites, I think I've finally found a method that will work for everyone. As such, this will mark the first of hopefully many posts full of songs that I just haven't been able to stop listening to.
Because goddamn it if sometimes I just can't suck it up and write out an entire post. I've got a couple of drafts piling up now. Like spinning plates. I'll log in and add a few words, get frustrated with the concept, and angrily exit out of the browser completely before realizing my mistake and opening it back up to browse Tumblr and Imgur for a few hours. With the introductions of this fancy new music posting stuff, now I can just pop on, upload some new songs, and vomit out a few lines to go with each one before mashing the POST button and feeling like I actually achieved something. So without any more ado, I present you with 10 songs that make my heart and face go all gooey (cuz they're awesome):
PS - Hopefully I can find a more convenient way to embed actual MP3 files within the next few days. Until then, just play with the YouTube links.
1. Cat Power - Good Woman
This one I discovered last weekend with the help of a movie called "Submarine". One of those slow, quirky coming of age stories about a teenage boy falling in love and falling apart at the same time. I think I kind of sold it short there, but really if you can find a way to watch it, do. The soundtrack for the film has a sweet late-60s/early-70s folk-pop sort of sound that I was surprised to find was all written and performed by Arctic Monkeys lead singer, Alex Turner. Naturally, I chose one of the gloomier of the set, but I think it gives a better overall impression of the tone of the film. So if you like the song, check out the flick.
3. My Brightest Diamond feat. DM Stith - Everything is in Line
However, despite having to do more with my own burgeoning ambitions for the blog than anything else, a new snag presented itself. See, if I were to write up a supplement for one of the playlists--a listening guide...AN ABSTRACT if you will--it would be a splendidly relevant read but only as long as that specific playlist was posted. As soon as we chose some new songs to go up, there would be a meaningless entry floating around the site going on about a bunch of songs that nobody had any links to. I think that there is actually still a post up that does just that.
So now just three years or whatever since the site went up, I've finally put some effort into finding a way to share music that is both comprehensive and full of options for us but intuitive and effortless for you all. And after an afternoon of wasting money on a couple of subscription-based hosting sites, I think I've finally found a method that will work for everyone. As such, this will mark the first of hopefully many posts full of songs that I just haven't been able to stop listening to.
Because goddamn it if sometimes I just can't suck it up and write out an entire post. I've got a couple of drafts piling up now. Like spinning plates. I'll log in and add a few words, get frustrated with the concept, and angrily exit out of the browser completely before realizing my mistake and opening it back up to browse Tumblr and Imgur for a few hours. With the introductions of this fancy new music posting stuff, now I can just pop on, upload some new songs, and vomit out a few lines to go with each one before mashing the POST button and feeling like I actually achieved something. So without any more ado, I present you with 10 songs that make my heart and face go all gooey (cuz they're awesome):
PS - Hopefully I can find a more convenient way to embed actual MP3 files within the next few days. Until then, just play with the YouTube links.
1. Cat Power - Good Woman
This one isn't that much of a newcomer to my radar, but towards the end of my most recent music reconnaissance mission, I started picking out some similarities between Cat Power and some of the other gals that I'll be posting below. I just had to go back and experience the almost sort of non-music that she creates. I was originally going to post Metal Heart as a perfect example with it's out of sync guitars and barely audible vocals but I really have always been in love with Good Woman. So here it is. There's just something so heartbreakingly simple about it. The meandering, overdriven guitar and choppy fiddle are almost drunkenly emphasizing the regret in her voice as Chan sadly breathes out her poetry. I hope it can become as much as a staple for you as it has for me.
2. Alex Turner - It's Hard to Get Around the Wind
This one I discovered last weekend with the help of a movie called "Submarine". One of those slow, quirky coming of age stories about a teenage boy falling in love and falling apart at the same time. I think I kind of sold it short there, but really if you can find a way to watch it, do. The soundtrack for the film has a sweet late-60s/early-70s folk-pop sort of sound that I was surprised to find was all written and performed by Arctic Monkeys lead singer, Alex Turner. Naturally, I chose one of the gloomier of the set, but I think it gives a better overall impression of the tone of the film. So if you like the song, check out the flick.
3. My Brightest Diamond feat. DM Stith - Everything is in Line
I was driving just after sunset a few weeks back and this song came up on the radio and just so perfectly complemented the twists and turns of the road with the street lights flashing by overhead and the tumbling indigo folds of the twilit clouds beyond. The DJ described Shara Worden--My Brightest Diamond is her stage name--as having a fixation with various forms of visual art and having taken specific inspiration for her most recent album (and this song) from Japanese performance art...kabuki theater, traditional puppets and masks, etc. So I can't help imagining a dark, bizarre marionette show being acted out to this song with their voices portraying two different characters. I always picture DM Stith's belonging to a crow. I dunno. Close your eyes, give it a few listens, and see where your mind goes.
4. Lykke Li - Dance, Dance, Dance
I've been a fan of Lykke Li for years so this doesn't really count as a new discovery, but I wanted to integrate something a little less gloomy into the mix but also make a transition from My Brightest Diamond that didn't seem awkward and forced. So I have nothing really special or insightful to say about this song other than it's a fun song to softly bob your head to and maybe even tap your toe a little bit.
5. Dawes - Million Dollar Bill
We'll bring it back to the sad and pretty now with a song that was recommended to me by a guy I met when I was on a road trip across the States. Despite having a small laptop filled with a few thousand songs, this song became one of the fifteen or so that I had on almost-constant repeat. It's a great song by itself, but when you're rolling through the endless green hills of Oregon or the barren nonsense that is New Mexico or up some east coast Interstate, head pressed against the cold window and staring at the moon, this song is the perfect soundtrack for whatever forlorn, romantic garbage is tugging at your heartstrings. Just the lines:
So when she steps out into the night
and finds the light that makes her prettiest
she'll be facing me every time she shines.
are every crush that went nowhere in grade school, middle school, high school. That longing just to be noticed or thought of or cared for. I'm pathetic, but this song is magic to me.
6. First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
Okay here's an actual fresh one! I first heard this song maybe a week ago and have had it on an endless loop on my iPod, phone, and computer since. Until forty seconds ago I would have told you it was about a relationship gone wrong blah blah blah. But I popped over to songmeanings.com just to see what other people were saying about it and if you take the first verse and apply it to the rest of the song, it really does sound like a bitter love song for the Church. Now I'm not here to interpret lyrics for one song out of ten. I actually want to get up at some point and enjoy the day. So all I'm going to say about this song is that it is just goddamn brilliant. Listen to the harmonies and the feeling in the chorus and agree with me. Also, as much as I've linked the official video, I would really recommend checking out this version.
7. The Milk Carton Kids - Michigan
I'm going to be honest with the next few songs. I just heard them either yesterday or the day before and haven't listened to them enough to write any essays on. This particular one I've heard enough to say I absolutely love the David Rawlings-style guitar picking and the sadness in the chorus. Other than that, it's just a gorgeous song that I should probably learn a little bit more about. I should also say this is the last of the folkey songs for this entry. Hopefully this song will transition well enough to the three lead-out songs. Probably not.
8. Metallic Falcons - Four Hearts
This one is just floaty and drifty and haunting and nice.
9. Soap&Skin - Turbine Womb
Some more pretty. Some more piano.
10. How To Dress Well - Suicide Dream 2
This is not the version of this song that I would have preferred to use, but I really just can't remember where I found the original version or how to find it again so this version will have to do. It's still pretty. As much as the whole thing is just an airy, dreamy cacophony, the "no air, no air, no air" at the end has always been my favorite part and hopefully it will make for the perfect conclusion to this entire playlist. This is one of those songs that I often fall asleep to. Don't worry...it won't actually make you dream about suicide. Give it a try.
So that's the first attempt at embedding songs. My fingers are really crossed hardcore. Let us know in the comments if there are any improvements we could make. Otherwise I just hope you enjoy the songs.
Happy listening,
Sad Blogger
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)