If Music Be the Food of Love...

I believe there is something primal in live music. Something that stirs us, moves us, compels us to immediate camaraderie to the crowd. Instant friendships are made on the basis of shared excitement and joy- we’re all here for the same thing, after all. We come together- an overgrown tribe of fans- to jump and jive, swoon and sway, whoop and holler.

Music so loud you can’t think; don’t think. Baselines so heavy your sternum vibrates and heart thumps not to its own beat but to the music’s. Hands clap of their own volition; are we keeping time with the band or for the band? In the end we’re all a part of the music.

Live shows are magical. I can’t help but picture long-ago gatherings with little more than a drum and a voice and plenty of heart. Everyone knows the songs and sings along and dances far into the night. If you strip away the stage, amps and wiring, microphones and relay boxes you can come close.

It’s not so hard to imagine when you drunk on drums and heady with song.

Duck Love

On a usual lazy, quiet Sunday morning, I wandered upstairs to chat with Roommate. Small Talk, Small Talk, and oh, by the way, the ducks were eaten last night.

Como say what? My heart sunk as I pictured limp feathered bodies in our once-inviting backyard. I suddenly found an afternoon in the hammock unappealing.

These were not my pets, but I loved them nonetheless. They were such happy little creatures. I would lounge back there, watching them absent mindedly, soothed by their murmuring. When their pool was refilled, I smiled to watch them ecstatically dive and torpedo themselves in circles. They would eventually come to sit underneath me in the hammock as I read, clicking away their bills, looking for bugs in the tall grass. “Hey duckducks, heeyy, duckduckducks…”

When Roommate would come out back, they would squawk and follow at her heels. Momma and her flock.

It’s surprising to me how calming and pacifying their presence was. They weren’t great conversationalists, but perhaps that’s why I liked them best. They would just talk amongst themselves without demanding anything from me. I could simply sit and watch them, content in their duckness: preen and eat, eat and bath, bath and swim, swim and nap. Their actions were instructive to them, but meditative for me.

“Hey duckducks… heeyy, duckduckducks…”

Open Mic Night

(muffled) clips of riffs and licks
slip by corners and
drift through legs-
staged against a crowd of 3.
Speakers hold to beer
as if a mic-
two minutes and forever is your spot tonight.
(Locals Broadway with fewer ovations)
Beatnik Theory drops
like cigarettes
coughing out clouded thoughts,
subdued by even cloudier hops.
An audience of ethos
which claps
lights another cigarette
and sits back
waiting- more than watching...
Soft Bitters sweeten the mood...

Sing little Bluebird,
your wings need resting.
Perch up-top your headed-mic and
speak your spot:
two minutes tonight.

Follow Your Nose

“Aannaa??” I hear around the corner.

“Yes?”

“I need help with homework…” Roommate uncertainly replies. Even her statement sounds unsure of itself.

I meander over and plop down to see what’s up. Or, down. Or-

“Hm, ok…” I start to look over what we’ve got.

My nose twitches and I begin to think What’s that smell? I know that smell; kinda smells good. Familiar… What did she eat? Oo- I know that smell! Sniff. Sniff. Snnniiiifff.

Roommate suddenly exclaims, breaking me from my internal dialogue and investigation, “It’s fish sticks! I’m sorry, I ate fish sticks!”

Well, there you have it. We had an entire conversation through my sniffing and mental comments.

Oh, And One Other Note-

This song has been stuck in my head all weekend. Perhaps this blithe tune contributed to my equally blithe mood? Regardless, here it is so that you, too, may have it set on repeat inside your head. Bueno!

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings

These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

Silver white winters that melt into springs

These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad

A Perfectly Wonderful Day

I have spent the day in a delicious haze; a stupor even. I am now just noticing the time- as I step back to wonder where and how my day has been spent. My consciousness has been anchored elsewhere and I’ve floated and drifted on my whims of the moment: coffee, paper, food, repeat. Drive, mini nap, coffee, repeat. I made the Good Rounds and saw the parents, put in some TV time, lingered here and there in lazy conversation. Good friends and family met me in the morning, with equal passivity towards activity.

It was a day of backyards and their subdued noises. There were the chickens to be visited (hastily fed and eggs warily gathered), sparse conversation with the sprinkler’s hypnotic chka-chka-chka-cchhsshh, and finally my own backyard with the comfortable chatter and murmur of The Ducks.

I swung in the hammock for what I now know to be hours- the pitch and roll of the hammock knocking all my thoughts about. The dilemma of choosing between a nap and my book occupied the more conscious parts of my mind, and oftentimes I didn’t need to choose- I dozed and woke; ebbed and flowed. I rocked and listened to far-off children in the street, the occasional drone of an airplane, the busy rustle of the tree branches. The sun slowly made its way across my legs: temperate for July. Daydreams came and went. My friend took pity on my inertia and brought out dinner.

I only noticed the change in time when the flies started to bite. I feel that for the first time in a long, long time, I successfully checked out. Where I checked in to, though, that’s anyone’s guess.

If ever there was a way to celebrate independence, this, this is it.

Surprise, Surprise

A good friend surprised me last night with a belated birthday gift of old Bob Dylan records. I think I squealed. He handed me a short stack of awesomeness wrapped up in a haphazard bow. They were dirty and roughed up with love. Edges shabby and soft with age, ink faded to that genuine crack that cannot be imitated. The paperboard sleeves smelled stale (like paper once wet and now dry) and arid with dust settled oh-so-sinisterly into the groves of the record. The vinyl snapped a bit with static electricity when I pulled them out, and many still had that sheen to the surface that makes my stomach do little dips of excitement: the quality is still good in that spot.

Examining a newly acquired record is such a tactile adventure for me. Scrutinizing the condition, feeling the stiff and course covers, smelling the ghosts of cigarettes, plastic, household perfumes- that inexplicable cocktail of smells given off by things dug out from attics. Contemplating how Bob looked oddly like Adam Sandler in the mid-80s…

It surely the best surprise in quite a while. I can’t wait to get home and clean them.

In Which I am Neurotic

So, as you may or may not have heard, the Saturn line of cars has been sold off and discontinued. As you also may or may not know, I am greatly saddened by this. I am a Saturn orphan.

Anyway, the downtown Saturn dealership is the only place my little red Apollo has ever been. And now they’re closed. I got mailings saying that Jerry Seiner GMC is now the official place for certified mechanics and that they’ll pick up where my Saturn people left off. I don’t like this one bit. Nu-uh. Nope. Never!

I am ridiculous, I know, but I feel like a little lost lamb from the flock. Who are these people? Can I trust them with my car? The Saturn mechanics knew my car as well as I did and the service there was unbelievable! Besides, they had record of all my visits there and had the service history for my car. You know, like a medical record. “Allergies?” Synthetic oil. “Past surgeries?” Yes, I recently has my brakes replaced. “Current medications?” What?

Now I have to wrack my brain and fill out another medical history for the new ones.

But, change is good, the Doctor teaches us this. So, I made an appointment for an oil change with these people and I felt like a little kid going to the doctor’s office for shots.

I didn’t tell Apollo. I just launched it on him. Poor thing.

I slowly pulled into the very large parking lot, wild west shootout music whistling in the background. I glanced around for a bouncing tumbleweed, but they had had the sense to remove all of them. Where the hell do I park? I’m always hesitant to park next to the stock of other cars, irrationally afraid that my car will get mistaken for one for sale.

The smiling faces eagerly took Apollo into the bay, drawing up paperwork and pitch-perfect reassurances that they are the best people for the job. Apollo rolled into the back as I was distracted and shuffled off with a tour of my new facility. Hm, I think, I will not be hoodwinked by their confidence…

It was all rather painless, really. In fact, anticlimactic. These new mechanics handed my car back to me in the same condition in which I gave it to them (except with new oil, of course). I was shown out with parting gifts and well-wishes. It would seem that my Saturn and I have been adopted into a new flock. I need to learn to take one from Apollo and just roll with it.

Fortune Cookie Wisdom from a Blog

As my two faithful readers can see, I’ve been very quiet on this blog for some time now. I’ve not forgotten about it. Quite the contrary, actually, I’ve been fretting about it. You see, I can write six ways from Tuesday on an academic topic without breaking a sweat. But, when it comes to writing about myself, my life, my Same Old, Same Old I not only stop short, I fall off the cliff.

I’ve always written in some form or another, but have never been a journal keeper. The idea of logging away daily events is foreign to me, and a little strange. When I think of journaling I think of “Dear Diary…” and “For breakfast today, I had…” Srsly? This stuff is important?

This is why I started the blog; to warm to the habit and idea of logging away nearly every day. But, I’m puzzled, hesitant and… lost. I am a middle-class white girl who has been fortunate in life. I’ve never encountered any great adversities, and those that I have encountered seem overused, cliché, trite. There is no drama to explore, and I don’t feel I have a story to tell. Who wants to hear about the woes of a white girl with a good education and job? I am afraid that anything I write will seem self-aggrandizing.

Yet, while I’m writing this I am thinking to myself, but there are things I want to say, things I want to explore in my writing, thoughts and feelings that need the space of the page to grow. So, I ask you, what the hell is my problem?! How is it that I can have the former paragraph next to the latter and still mentally choke on my blog entries?

Someone much wiser than me recently told me that I am too hard on myself. Part of me believes this person, the other part of me disagrees and says, No, I’m not hard on myself, I’m setting the bar high and demanding my best. But at what point is my bar too high?

There is a blog I follow, Sleep Talkin Man. It is always good for a laugh and you can find it in my subscriptions to the right. The best post to-date was on June 2, 2010, when Adam comments that: “Your blue sky thinking is blighted with dark clouds and piss-poor ideas”. Thank you, Adam, for closed captioning my problem with my blog and my writing at present. And, for giving me a hearty laugh.

I have high expectations of myself and idyllic, blue sky hopes for this blog. Fat lot of good it does me though if I never post on it though. And, yes, it blighted with dark clouds of insecurity and my piss-poor ideas hang in the wings reminding me that for every good post there will be 10 bad ones.

So, aside from acquiring this quote on a t-shirt (and suggesting it for fortune cookie inserts), I will take to heart its unwitting assessment. Screw my dark clouds and hello my piss-poor ideas. This is my space for my thoughts- well written, important, or not. To hell with blue sky thinking, I need a reality check in daily writing.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

Barnes and Noble is dangerous ground for me. So much so that I’ve laid down cardinal rules that I follow always (almost).
Rule #1: Never go unless I have money to spend.
Rule #2: Never go when I’m moody, bored, or avoiding responsibility or people.
Rule #3: Bring a Sponsor.
Rule #4: Go in knowing what I’m after.

Who am I kidding, I never follow any of my rules.

Case in point- I went in for a book I wasn’t convinced I wanted over all the others (breaking Rule #4) while I was avoiding homework (breaking Rule #2) and alone (breaking Rule #3).

Hm, I’ll just go look over here now.

Oh- what’s on this table?

So, of course, I find something I never knew I needed.

But this time it was a good find! No, really, it was.

A little bright green book at the top of the self entitled “It All Changed In An Instant”. It is a published writing project sponsored by a literary magazine of six word memoirs. Six. No more no less. Thou shalt go no farther than six, nor less than six. Nor shall thou count in twos, but only by ones, to six. (Pop quiz: name that movie).

A life story told in six words. The minimalist in me squealed.

I was completely captivated by what was not said; by what was hugely implied by carefully chosen words. By the novels between the lines:

“Geek got LASIK. Life started over.”
“Had kitties. Not kiddies. God misunderstood.”
“Studied Psych, went psycho. Exploring psyche. “
“Mommy, why won’t Daddy wake up?”
“Blonde tramp found husband, and conscience. “
“Goth girl, white cat, lint roller.”
“Visited Kenya, returned to build church.”

These memoirs are amazingly intimate. How could I not love this? Ordinary people choosing six words for the opportunity to be published, to tell their story. Which part of their life would they deem more important than all the others? How to succinctly say it all with the understanding that it cannot all be said?

And, the biggest question of them all: what would mine say?

Wanted: mad man with blue box.
Writer suffering in permanent writer’s block.
Peace purchased in currency of loss.
I would have given you children.
Wino reconciles her love of beer.

No, no, I know:

Started college, dropped out. Received education.

I lead an exciting life, people, lemme me tell ya. (And, by "people" at this moment I mean my two jolly followers.) I'm young, single, well read, think I'm funny, upwardly mobile, and... spent the last month's worth of Friday nights glancing between reruns of Big Bang, the interweb, or my various books. Add a cat to the mix and I'm shapin up to be model Cat Lady. Oh- Roommate's cat just slunk around the corner. Shit.

It's currently 10:45pm on just such a Friday and I am painfully aware that I've not had a drink all week. Wow, I sound like a lush.

Jonesy's been milling around in circles. This blog isn't going to help her chattering.

Wanted: The Blue Box

There is a man in a blue box who is called The Doctor. He has all of space and time opened to him through the zchruoosh, zchruoosh, zshree, zshree of the blue box’s engines. And, he doesn’t know it yet, but one day I’ll hitch a ride.

This is probably what professionals call “living under a delusion”. I think I’m ok with that; they can put it in my permanent record. Because the Doctor keeps me dreaming and keeps me wondering.

When I was younger, I would lie in my backyard in the chilly, stiff crab grass and peer up at the stars, straining to see them through the city’s lights. I would hold my breath and lie perfectly still, willing myself to float off the ground behind me and into the syrupy black in front of me. Sometimes, while lying there, I would rock my head backwards so I could feel that upside-down rush of vertigo- thinking that I could use that exhilaration as a booster to get closer to the stars just like a rocket using earth’s rotation to fling itself skyward. Once, through sheer stubbornness of belief, I made it a whole half-inch off the ground. Sadly, that’s my personal best.

Today, I still strain to see the stars through the city lights but my gaze has gone beyond the simple blackness and into what’s beyond. I am gripped with a longing nearly unparalleled and a desperate curiosity when I let my imagination drift upwards. All respects to Earth, I would cast off everything for chance to walk among the stars.

These thoughts and desires fall down to me, dropped into my head from what seems like elsewhere. Driving along the highway at night, I spot the brightest of the stars through the flood lamps and before I know it I’m drifting into other lanes of traffic; distracted to the point of negligence. I have become increasingly impatient with my life. Increasingly ready to throw my hands in the air and everything with it. Increasingly needful of change, curiosity, adventure. And, at this point, the grandest adventure would be up.

I watch The Doctor not with rose-colored, smitten eyes, but with eyes turned green from envy. The opportunity! All those worlds, all those people. None of whom know my name. None of whom know me. To lift off to the exhilarating zchruoosh, zchruoosh, zshree, zshree, to discover, to explore, to finally satiate that hungry curiosity, to just…leave. Yes, I watch with deep, deep envy.

So, if you see the blue box let me know. I have plans to hitch a ride.

Who You Callin "Ma'am"?

Excuse me, but when did I become a “Ma’am”? I’m 23 for hell’s sake, I’m not married, do not have children and am still in college. I’ll be damned if I think of myself as an adult. Shit, if I am an adult then I’m in trouble. I’m just a big kid playing House.

So- what is it that makes grocery store boys call me “Ma’am” and strangers on the street stop me with, “Um, Ma’am-“ ? Is it the clothes? The hair? The conspicuously-studious eye glasses? No, I know, it’s the walk, isn’t it? Or, the car??

I want to know when I crossed over from “Miss” to “Ma’am”. It’s like a lingering effect of puberty. I think I want to appeal.

Interweb: Jonesy. Jonesy: Interweb

This blog is just a personal microphone attached to an infinite volume control, we all realize that, right? A (generally) uninhibited ticker-tape of an internal voice that is usually shushed. Yes? Alright, then.

I guess then it’s time to introduce Jonesy. Jonesy is my internal voice. Not an alter-ego, but “another” ego. Jonesy is that little driver in my head that commands from the helm, steers the ship, runs the errands, keeps the records, works on the machinery and does any other odd job that needs taking care of “up there”.

(I know the description used above is rather nautical, but I prefer to think of the ship of more the space-faring quality and less the water-logged quality.)

“Jonesy, look sharp! We have guests”.

Jonesy is androgynous- kinda. It’s not that I don’t identify as being female and a woman, because I do, it’s just that most of what goes on inside my head is genderless. In other words, the jobs that Jonsey does aren’t inherently linked to gender roles in my eyes. Therefore, Jonesy is either male or female depending on my mood, or locale, or dream. Sex is static, gender should be fluid. Oh- I digress. I’ll refer to Jonesy as “she” for sake of this discussion.

Jonsey runs a lot. Generally in a hurry, she rushes about in my head, picking up files, dropping off files (dropping files), sweeping extra files into a corner, filing the files… her M.O. is trying to be everywhere at once and only being able to be in one place at a time. Like me.

You may have noticed I refer to “files”. Yes, my head is analog. I also picture the inside of my head as a giant, dimly lit system of shelves. Not unlike a library. Jonsey oftentimes employs a dolly cart to pile the files she’s currently toting.

I provide this introduction so that when I refer to “Jonesy” we’re not thinking of some flesh-and-blood resident of my life. Thus, let it be known that sometimes it will be me, Anna, talking while other times it will be Jonesy. I don’t know if Jonesy will make it known that it is her and not me, though…

Digital May Be Sex, But Analog Is Romance

I am an odd kind of techy. I revel in Sci-Fi, delight in gadgets, curiously pick over wiring and deeply inhale that warm, metallic, airy fuzz that hangs in server rooms. This is energizing! This is awakening! This is change in the making! Give me more, give me new, give me different. Hook me up, plus me in, log me on. But keep me away from those damn MP3s.

"Saay, whaa-?"

You heard me. I suppose now is a good time to confess I've never owned an iPod.

"But, those are so convenient, so sleek, so... techy!" Meh.

I love technology for the quality. Electricity is brighter than candles. Internal combustion is faster than steam. But don't anyone try tell me that MP3s are better than- well, anything.

I am in love with Bob Dylan. Most of my music preferences are from the '60s - '80s, when the hair was long, the sound was deep and the instruments were played. Why, then, would I smash Bob's sound, hollow out his voice and thin his notes through an MP3? Why indeed.

Thus, I've recently entered a new relationship with vinyl. "Hullo, luv, did you miss me?" (I mentioned this to my coworker. He looked at me blankly and asked if I'd heard of iTunes.)

Yes, analog is bulky. Yes, analog takes time. Yes, analog is now hard to find and difficult to maintain. But those are labors of love that deal out so much reward.

I decided to rebuild my Bob Dylan collection completely on vinyl. From the ground up, I will acquire each album in the order that they were released. I am determined to experience his music in the manner that he intended: with each song in the order it was recorded and as a collective. I want to hear these songs in their fullness, literally.

Vinyl is a tangible material (well, so are CDs, but that's another blog) and it is resonant. When a blank record is cut, the tiny knife bumps around in minuscule zig-zag motions, building frequency into the vinyl. These details, this richness, this fullness is missing from our digital world. MP3s screech and wail in their one-dimensional recording. Vinyl bellows and swoons. No, pardon, I swoon.

You see, analog may not be able to keep pace with the fashionista digital music world, but with what digital has gained in portability and in diminished price and shelf-space, it has lost in character and quality. You may argue about the infamous "noise" in the vinyl- the scratches that interfere with the sound. I will not deny these are enemies of vinyl. But they are symptoms of poorly cared for vinyl, not the medium itself.

It is more than a desire to hear good sound, it is a hobby. Well, one might say obsession. Vinyl takes dedication, patience, trial and error, education. You cannot set up a turntable system without some education. The nature of the analog world requires one to slow down and think about what's what. The same cannot be said for the digital music world. The world of iTunes has soiled the nature of the album. The songs were chosen in the order they were for a reason. Most of the time these albums are meant to be listened to collectively. With a record, you cannot just jump to track 5. You can if you're skilled, but even then you land somewhere in the previous song. Vinyl requires you to start at the beginning and patiently listen. No more though, with the advent of CDs and MP3s: "I don't want to pay for that whole album, I just want the song I heard on the radio. I'll just rip it!"

There is a disconnect from our music collections. People take pride in the number of songs they have. 1,000. 5,000. 10,000. Let me ask you super-collectors: do you even know what you have anymore? Do you know your music? I dare say you don't. Because you don't need to. The MP3s take up no physical space, they cost nearly nothing and they are bought on impulse and in mass quantity. The desire for the collection of MP3s is in the acquisition, and rarely for the collection itself. Just line them up on the computer and download ad nasium.

Let's get back to the root, back to the source, back to the analog. Lets rediscover our music, but more importantly, our musicians. Listen to them. Hear them. Connect with them. Build the rapport that is inevitable when we go back to the record store and talk with fellow music lovers. Build the relationship that is cherished when you know when, where and why you bought an album. If you're willing to let the music take up your time and money, let is be a physical presence in your home. Slow down, take notice and realize that the quality of a music collection comes in the time and dedication one has taken to groom it, not the sheer quantity.

Quality over quantity.

I remember the first time I sat devoted to a record. It was my father's pristine copy of Dark Side of the Moon. I'm not kidding. What a baptism! I sat rooted to the floor (no, I was not high), with these large, over-the-ear headphones on. The vinyl was clean, the needle worth flaunting, the preamp covetous. And, I was stunned. The music resonated through my skull and filled my head with a new kind of musical education. "Forget CDs!" I thought, "What dumbass ever threw out their turntable?" I was smitten.

So here, I am, lusting after the brave, new, technological world, but swooning to the tried and true.

Digital may be sex, but analog is romance.

Returns Within 30 Days With Receipt

And, Anna said, "Let there be blog". And, it was good. Or, it will be good. Or, maybe it won't. In fact, it'll probably suck. And Anna said, "Is it too late to take it back?"

Aahh, Buyer's Remorse. Am I really expected to sit here and talk? Me? I have to contend with this "narrative" thing, this "voice" thing? Yeah, I know I'm in school for English and all, but you mean I have to write as a result of that degree? Well, shit.

As the Wimpy Kid said: I'm not going to be doing any of that 'Dear Diary' crap.

Houston, we have lift off.