So, I enjoyed putting together the mix tape last month and I was thinking that it might be fun to do that again in March. It wasn’t the best mix tape I’ve ever made, but sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet and hope for the best. February was a little like that. Between being sick and figuring out where to put prospective graduates students and who was riding with whom where, I did a lot of trying hard and then just hoping for the best. And, now its March. Five days into March. The semester is half over. I only have one more day of classes until it is Spring Break and I’m sitting on the couch with a glass of lemonade and trying to come up with a theme.
I have some potential candidates. The first is Spring. It was a gorgeous today (and nearly 45 degrees out!) and that reminds you that Spring is just around the corner. The equinox approaches. Seed money has been paid to the local farms with community sustained agriculture programs.
The second potential candidate is podcasts. I come from class late afternoon/early evening and I unwind a little usually before I dive into the night’s work while I eat dinner. This unwinding often consists of messing around on the internet or watching the news and then maybe a little TV. It occurred to me this week, though, that I have an inordinate number of podcasts and that maybe instead of watching another rerun of Bones, I should give some of these things a listen. So far I’ve only tried this once but it seemed to work pretty well.
The last potential theme for March is “odd combinations”. The theme for the month from the good people on NaBloPoMo is “strange”, and I like that idea but I feel I need to be a little more focused in my investigation of the strange.
Now that I have written all these things out, I feel like the third option is my favorite (who knows if winter will rear its ugly little head again.) But, I’m open to comments or suggestions.
Pandora has this way of playing songs that worm their way into my ear and then stay there. Forever. This happened last summer with the song “Tell it to the Volcano” by Miniature Tigers. This is a fun little ditty about getting your heartbroken. And, then letting your former beloved pay for what they’ve done to you. “You can summon all the Gods that your black heart desires/they can not help you because they’re starting fires…to burn you alive.” The last relationship I was in can be categorically summed up in the word “awful”, so I take a lot of comfort, even now when we broke up almost two years ago, in knowing that other people have been burned and come out the other side…with something pithy and upbeat to show for it.
I would hate to wish misery on another human being, but if its going to inspire something that makes people smile, maybe the misery is worth it.
Album: Tell it to the Volcano
Artist: Miniature Tigers
Song: Tell it to the Volcano
So, I’m not really sure that I approve of shopping for a cause (because *more* of your money would actually get where its going if you just gave to a reputable foundation) but recently I’ve bought a lot of music from which the proceeds have gone to charity.
Most recently I’ve bought the single Everybody Hurts put together by Simon Cowell and to which a bajillion artists contributed.
I’ve always liked this song because there is just something comforting about the notion that everybody at some point feels a little pain and that’s is just part of life. Its a nice little nod to the saying, “This too shall pass.”
“When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone….(just remember) Everybody hurts, everybody cries. Hold on.”
It is a really nice cover of the song, maybe not as slow as the original. And, all the different artists adding a their own little touch really focuses the ubiquity of the experience of life sucking. I highly recommend it.
Album: Everybody Hurts-Single
Artist: Helping Haiti
Song: Everybody Hurts
Speaking of Percy Jackson, I have recently finished the third book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. In this novel, we follow Percy and Co. on a quest to save a goddess and keep the titan Kronos from coming into full power. This is the first adventure with Thalia, a daughter of Zeus. We meet the virgin Goddess Artemis and her hunters led by her lieutenant, the mysterious Zoe Nightshade.
The heroes have to go across the country in order to rescue one of their own in addition to the Goddess. Throughout the adventure, Percy, Grover and Thalia discover an inconsistency about the newest hunter Bianco and her brother’s Nico past that may turn out to be dangerous for the whole world.
In the end, as one would expect, there is an excellent battle between a Titan and the heroes and I was shocked, shocked! (well…not that shocked) by some of the decisions which the characters make. They are still fighting to save Luke from his own decisions and we know a little bit more about the prophesy and who it is about. This was a good little read. As exciting as the first two. It made me want to pick up the next one.
I feel like an orphan today. Well, its not an apt metaphor. I don’t feel abandoned or alone. Actually, I have dinner plans I’m pretty excited about. I just feel like I have broken the connection between the part of me that functions in the world and the part of me responsible for synthesizing and critically analyzing things I connect in the world. This is problematic since, as a graduate student, my job is pretty much to synthesize and analyze things. It is an unpleasant feeling.
In an effort to jump start things, to find this lost bit of me or to reconnect with this abandoned piece of my, I started iTunes and put it on random. The first song that was played was the first song from Neko Case’s album Middle Cyclone. Its a pretty song, its melodic and a little soft. And, then you listen to the lyrics. “My Love, I am the speed of sound/ I left them Motherless, fatherless” Neko Case croons in the opening two lines. And, the imagery gets increasingly gory. “Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths…” Yet, it remains the same, lovely melodic little tune. “I carved your name across three counties/and ground it in with bloody hides.”
Life has this way of being brutal and beautiful at the same time. And, obsessive and destructive. I mean, no one really wants a companion who will literally rip the world to shreds for them. Well, “no one” is a pretty bold statement. Most people, perhaps? I don’t know what the song is about. As I said, the part of me responsible for synthesis is AWOL. Nope, don’t know what it is about. But, I like it.
Song: This Tornado Loves You
Performer: Neko Case
Album: Middle Cyclone
Apparently, the good people at NaBloPoMo have declared February the month to talk about (or bitch about) love. I have decided to take them up on the offer.
Today is a day for giving Thanks. It is also a day off which means that I theoretically have free time in order to catch up on some things…like exporting my movable type blog into the fancy new wordpress blog.
Or, as the case may be, attempting and failing to export my blog because I can’t get the Filezilla to connect to the server so that I can do the rearranging.
My sister and I are also updating our iTunes, or attempting to, so that we can make our libraries accessible to each other. This is also turning out to be more difficult than you’d think. Apparently, she can have widgets on her blog. Won’t that be fun for her?
We’ve got a bacon-wrapped turkey in the oven. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and now we’re playing music for each other. She’s introduced me to <a href=http://www.bryanbrosband.com/>The Bryan Bros band</a>. Yes, that’s for real. And, I introduced her to <a href=http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/wizardrock/jinglespells>Jingle Spells</a>. Yes, that’s real, too. There will be football and beer later, but right now we have tennis and coffee.
