guitar and pen
03.09.04 @ 7:54 p.m.
Dear girl in the Clay Aiken t-shirt:
I wished dearly that you were being ironic, because then maybe it wouldn't seem so sad. But the petulant way you shoved the door open in front of me indicates that this probably isn't so. I mean... ew.
Much to talk about, because I just didn't feel like writing yesterday and it's been somewhat eventful.
So, firstly, to steal from Liz, I have the first fifteen songs that come up when I hit random on my favorites playlist on iTunes. Because, I don't know, I feel compelled to share.
- Bell Boy - The Who
- Jigsaw Puzzle - The Rolling Stones
- Helter Skelter - The Beatles
- Along Comes Mary - The Association
- I Know There's An Answer - The Beach Boys
- Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground - The White Stripes
- Are You Gonna Be My Girl - JET
- Rain - The Beatles
- Heaven and Hell - The Who
- Salt of the Earth - The Rolling Stones
- Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis
- Heatwave - The Who
- New York City Cops - The Strokes
- Music Must Change - The Who
- Friday Night - The Darkness
Man. I love "Jigsaw Puzzle." It's playing right now.
So. Chronologically.
Sunday night was another opportunity to display my heretofore unknown talents as Goddess of Things Domestic, but not in a Martha Stewart way. I shan't over elaborate, because it's not that interesting, but the toilet was running slow and then actually clogged. Ena went out and bought a plunger in the middle of the night, determined to take care of it herself, but then she had no idea what to do. It's not something I've ever done before, but like I said, I've got mysterious skills all of a sudden. My only comment, apart from "Yay me, I rock" is a general "What the fuck?" aimed at Ena. Comet. She poured a bunch of my can of Comet down the toilet to try to fix it. WHAT THE FUCK. It's scrubby stuff, not acid. She told me that that in Taiwan, they just have something they pour in. Um. Whatever. Jump ahead to today, when the hook that holds the screen door spring stripped out the hole it was screwed into and I fixed it by imitating my dad's methods for fixing the stripped screw in my guitar: Snap the head off a wooden match, pound it into the hole, screw the screw back in. Voila.
Monday morning brought puzzling euphoria. Perhaps it was the continuing delightful weather or listening to Empty Glass while I got dressed, but I felt good. Which was strange in itself because I didn't sleep until after 3 because my ear was hurting so fucking much. I had been having dreams that I had forgotten what it was like to live without pain and they were scary. Eventually, I did sleep but I woke up really early. Perhaps my morning euphoria was related to the mysterious disappearance of the ear ache. And I stopped taking the medicine the Health Center gave me out of paranoid suspicion that it was making my ear hurt, but I'm coughing a bunch now that I'm not taking an expectorant. Oh well. I'm almost completely healthy, that's something. I whupped an Italian test (93.7%), signed up for one of the later appointments for the oral final, went home to laze around and finish the end of my book (I think it ROCKED, but everyone be hatin' on my dislike of Jim Morrison.)
English brought a big long realization on the nature of rock music that I wrote in my notes, but I kind of lack the will to transcribe it. Maybe another day. I can't figure out how I wrote so very much when the jist of it was "Robert Johnson legendarily sold his soul to the devil in exchange for skill with the guitar -- Almost everyone will acknowledge that Johnson was vastly influential, won't they? So what if the devil's influence passed down through music, through rock and roll? Is that why it's 'the devil's music'?" And many ruminations on the idea that music, mostly rock, is some kind of living entity, maybe a parasite, that has a will and attaches to the sensative or the creative and drains them? There's symbiotic aspects, the joy of the fan, the delight and rapture of being near-consumed by a piece of music, but then there's the obvious examples of a person being used up and destroyed by the music. It's... not consciously malevolent so much as an unconscious consumer. (Think Joplin, Hendrix, anyone used up, gripped by rock so that they can't get away and end up shattered by it.) There's just that trope where the guitar is the repository of that animalistic music spirit, it lives, it subtly influences the mind of the player and guides him to success so it can feed off the adulation, but it feeds off the player, too, and so often hurts them irreparably. Some can withstand it, but it seems like the most creative are the weakest. And then you end up with the tragic deaths of fiery young talents.
Oh look. I could go through it again.
Okay. The last thing. Last night and today has been a feverish brainstorming session for my social circle. Andrew wanted to start a Round Robin story and I leapt on the idea, suggesting that we have a hard copy, a composition book to send around so we can illustrate it and such. And the idea just caught fire! We made plans and rules and this evening I bought the book to start us off in. Since the stories usually included demented versions of ourselves, I think I'm going to start us off with Unusual Fornication, our imaginary band. Well, the imaginary band of Martha and Ellen. Perhaps Martha would prefer to keep it pure, though, I'll have to run it by her. The pressure of being the first writer is a bit much. But I get to be dictatorial and write the rules inside it and organize the addresses inside.
[I keep reusing title tracks, but sometimes they're just... accurate.]
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
