32:23

Take Me To Church (acoustic) - Hozier

Made to be broken

No Smile (acoustic) - I Blame Coco 

 

Now you see her

now you don't.

Magician - Lou Reed


 

Doctor you're no magician - and I am no believer 
I need more than faith 
Can give me now 
I want to believe in miracles - not just belief in numbers 
I need some magic to take me away

Blueprint

Man - Neko Case



You didn't know what a man was
Until I showed you

Pas de deux

It's always the unlikely couples that make sense in the end.

Long Time Gone (cover) - Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones

Russian roulette

"...Interestingly enough, it's a bit harder to draw an immediate direct comparison between the more primary female characters in Dostoyevsky's work and those in Turgenev's. I think that's partly because Turgenev's main female characters are more of the 'genteel', 'upper class’, whose actions and words are restricted--constricted?--by the the impositions placed on them by those specific labels, so they may not be immediately visibly influential in their central role although they're sensed as such. In contrast,[most of] Dostoyevsky's main female characters are deemed a principal force in his novels by virtue of not being burdened by those same class constraints, being of a 'working' or 'lower' class, while noticeably making their mark. However, what is common to both sets of characters is the insistence they have, for the most part, to throw themselves into the those very definitions, even as they're aware of the ramification(s) it has for them, despite their actual lack of desire to succumb to those definitions. In a way, Turgenev's leading ladies are a fine Italian hand at being so, while Dostoyevsky's are all brass knuckles.

That's why it is entirely satisfying to compare the abandonment with which Nastassya Filipovna (The Idiot) pursues her self-proclaimed fate doggedly, just as Maria Nikolayevna (Spring Torrents) does hers, both with destruction in mind. However, in Nastassya's case self-destruction is the primary motivator (that of others only secondary to achieving hers); for Maria, it is completely the opposite. They are both, however, wholly aware of what the end result will be and have no illusions about themselves,their circumstances, or their own role in influencing the circumstances. Their introspection is based in reality, as is that of all the primary female characters in both authors' works.
 
And how different that introspection is from that of the main male characters, both in presentation and in definition. The male characters' internal rumination serves their strong narcissistic need that must be recognized outwardly in order for it to mean anything to them; these ruminations then manifest in various misguided forms from criminal undertakings (Raskolnikov in in Crime and Punishment) to deliberate malice (Gagin in Turgenev's Asya) to contradictory beliefs and behavior (Bazarov in Fathers and Sons) to cynicism (Ivan in The Brothers' Karamazov) to altruistic protection (Prince Myshkin in The Idiot) to... Whereas the women turn an inward eye to themselves, because of a lack of a presence of true love--including and especially self-love--leading up to (and often throughout) the events being depicted in the novels. The men, for the most part, continue to defy the circumstances thinking they can create better ones; the women ultimately assist the circumstances knowing the futility of changing them.

That's not to say the women are more fatalistic than the men are--though, certainly, characters like Nastassya or Nellie (The Insulted and the Humiliated) or even Liza (Home of the Gentry) or Natasha (The Insulted and The Humiliated) seem that way on the surface, especially when compared to the male counterparts (Raskolnikov, or Ivan or Dmitri (The Brothers' Karamazov)). Some are hard-pressed to characterize even superficially as fatalistic, though, especially if you consider the general negative connotation with that descriptor (once again, Maria Nikolayevna or, even better, Varvara Pavlovna (from A Home of the Gentry) come to mind. They both enjoy the pursuit of actions that can really only mean a specific path in life for them, probably because they are two of the characters who are the least blameless in their destiny. But for them there is none of the despair the succumbing to fate usually carries). No, the women are not more fatalistic, it's just that their acceptance of their fate seems more pronounced and less open to interpretation or change, because of their internal assessment and acknowledgement of it..."

***

Mama Was An Opium Smoker - Rasputina 

 

High, low, dolly, pepper

Talk Me Down - Willy Mason (live)




(September always reminds me of playing conkers, double dutch, 'Chinese' jump rope, and 7-up ball. No one around here would have a clue what most of those mean. It's a shame, because I was damn good at all of them, especially Chinese jump rope--it helped to have extra flexible joints).

Blow hot, blow cold

Fire vs. Snow (mashup/remix) - Mother Earth (Joe Budden [feat. Busta Rhymes] vs. Red Hot Chili Peppers)





Loving this right now.

Tied to a chair

Flapper Girl - The Lumineers (live)


Cut off all of your hair
Did you flinch, did you care
Did he look, did he stop and stare
At your brand new hair

Five by five

You will always be and look better to me than anyone else, no matter what the circumstances, he says. I'm never leaving you.

Even when I'm dead and rotting? Now that's some dedication, I say.

You're impossible, he says and walks away.

4 & 4 - The Districts

F7 to D8

Some days you just need to give up the fight already.


Shah Mot - Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson

In my head

So American - Portugal.The Man



The Youth - MGMT


Default - Django Django 

 

POW: 122612

Right now, I seem to be stuck indefinitely on the first part. Then again, it does aptly say, "The circle of life is a wheel that gets stuck in a rut."

 Harder Before It Gets Easier - David Wax Museum



Knock, knock, fate was at the door
Knock, knock, too loud to ignore
Knock, knock, we were unprepared
Knock, knock, fate it does not care

Sum, ergo cogito

It is true that something good will come out of something bad.

When one of the very, very things few things you truly fear happening comes to pass, and comes to pass much more painfully and horribly that you could have imagined, I think it changes something in you that sets you on an opposite course of some core characteristic you used to have. It's not a matter of whether it's for better or worse; it's just that you're not--you can't--be the same for that one thing that probably got affected the most by that terrible experience.

In my case, it's caring about people.

I do care as fiercely about the very small number of people I love better than myself, probably even more than ever before. That's not my change, though. My change is that I don't care the same way about the others, even those who I loved (or still do).

It's not that I won't get upset if something bad was to happen to someone I know, especially someone I like or even care about on a level of loving. I'm going to still want to do what I can--more reasonably scaled, versus my all out way before--for them. I'm going to be there if asked for, and offer if not (though much less insistently).

But it's a function of my head now instead of my heart. And my head can handle blows better than my heart ever could.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (cover) - Nick Drake 

 

Shine on, brightly

I'm not just being a typical mom when I say that truly my favorite person to spend time with and to talk to, especially in the past year, is the kid. I mean, sure, I love him and like spending time with him because he's my kid, and if you can't stand your own kid for at least part of your waking hours...well, there's something wrong with one or both of you.

Or maybe I am. I don't know. It's just that the times when he is being that favorite person (and not otherwise a pain in the ass 7 year old kid, which is to be expected from time to time--in fact, it'd be worrisome if he wasn't), I'm really not talking to him as my kid. Or even a kid, maybe. It's more like talking to a smaller version of myself. No, it's exactly like talking to a smaller version of myself, except one who's got an even smaller filter on calling bullshit on your, well, bullshit...and who is most definitely going to kick my ass in the memory game in a few years, not because he's younger (and I'm getting senile) but because he does have a better memory than I do (talk about freakish). 

He already knows more than I do, relative to his age--even if you take into account his ease of access to information, both due to geography and technology. Note I don't say he's smarter, because I'd beat his ass if we were peers under the same living circumstances. (Well, I'd like to think that, anyway. And I sure as heck am going to make him think that. Now that's being a typical mom).

If that whole justification sounds narcissistic, it because it is. And I'm not one bit ashamed of it.

Everybody's A Star (Starmaker) - The Kinks

Parfois

Memory is a funny thing.

I can recall the minutest details about events or conversations that happened decades ago...not just for me but for someone else who was there with me (and sometimes who was there without me. Make of that what you will.)

People who know me well tend to describe my ability to recall things as 'freakish', sooner or later. It doesn't matter what language they do it in, either--they all use a deviation of the word 'freak'.

I look in the mirror and sometimes I honestly can't remember what I looked like when I had "my" hair.

***

When I cut my waist length hair after leaving college, it was of course as symbolic a gesture as you could dream of, and then some. The long hair was a reminder of everything I had wanted to leave behind, not just willingly but with almost a feverish desire: the limitations forced by the government and rebelled against; the expectation of demureness and maturity foisted by the invisible but still existing caste system of the educated upper middle class, back home, on the daughters of the families in that grouping; the strong, controlling streak festering under the cover of my father's unquestionable limitless love for his family.

After it was finally over, when the last cut was made and the final twist and turn of my now very short hair was done to the satisfaction of the person styling it, I looked in the mirror and tried to think of exactly how I felt. I remember that almost immediately a word jumped into my head, and it felt exactly right.

Capricious.

***

Here is another word that jumps into my head a lot these days: permanent. A straightforward word. Neither a good word or a bad word. It says what it has to and is done.

It's not a word that you hear often, though--or if you do, the veracity of the statement using it is usually anywhere between mildly to highly questionable. You have to be not just completely committed to but completely competent to handle the outcome of anything you're declaring as permanent. Even if you're doing it for someone else.

That's why doctors so rarely like to use it.

They like using it even less when it's an inevitable, irrefutable result but they have no concrete cause. Then again, who would like using it under those circumstances? How frustrating is it to have to explain that you will, without any doubt, go from B to C and remain there, permanently, but there's no explanation for how you got to B in the first place. (Was it A? A'? A''? Or some crazy X that was marking the spot?)

It's not half as frustrating as the person hearing it, though, I can tell you.

Il y a (live) - Vanessa Paradis

360...and 5

I don't look like what I did a year ago. Well, I realize that's not such a big deal, but I've pretty much looked the same, give or take a few pounds, and give (unfortunately not take) a few wrinkles, over the past 17 years (i.e. ever since the great shearing). More importantly, I will probably never look the same ever--and again, by that I don't mean I'll be an aged version, I mean I literally will not look the same. 

 I don't feel the same that I do a year ago. In some ways I am stronger, in some weaker, and--along similar lines as my physical appearance--there isn't going to be any reverting back to what was. The weaknesses will stay and increase, and the strengths...well, let's just be optimistic and say they'll stick around for a while longer. 

 I don't think the way I did a year ago. Part of that is thanks to the little blue pill and the little white pill I now take without fail every day, its tell tale alarm scheduled into every electronic device owned or worn or even just glanced at by me--and by L. (That's how serious it got. That's how serious it is.) 

Mostly, though, I lost my faith entirely in everything right around this time last year, and then had to slog through the next six months trying to redefine it. I hurt a small but very important group of people--and they don't even know, and I hope they never will know, the half of it--but, as the cliche goes, I hurt myself most of all. I'm not quite over doing that, but I'm getting better at taking precautions when I do. 

 (If I were religious, I'd throw in right about now that I broke every commandment but one since a year ago.)

 ***
 None of this is intended to be any kind of soul searching introspection, by the way. If I've learned anything in the past year, it's that acceptance is the hardest thing to do but you certainly don't need to add to the burden with endless whats and whys and hows. To paraphrase the inimitable Leo Getz, I'm not better (or worse) than the froggie I was before--just different.

 Don't Look Back In Anger (cover) - Devendra Banhart

Not as much fun

I would have thought a collaboration between one of my favorite skinny boys and the exuberant voice I fell for in Idlewild would be...well something else.

We Are Young - Fun. featuring Janelle Monáe

Burning up

Man On Fire (live) - Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros

New one from their as yet unreleased album. I've been playing a lot the last few days...it's rather simple and... linear?... compared to their songs on the previous album, and similar in tone to the work Alex did on his solo album.

It's growing on me. Simple and linear is something I find myself preferring more and more lately, instead of my complex and deviating.

Here's to making it to May 11th. And possibly enjoy the second hand benefits of the, uh, herbal refreshments of my fellow concert attendees. (Although I'm wondering how likely that will be, given that this time it's a not an open air venue, like their last trip here...)

Love story

Apparently, I never mentioned that one of the most covered love songs of all time is, in a way, a cover itself. (And well covered itself, too, in its original form).

The words (Jean Paul Martini) and the arrangements (Hector Berlioz) go a long way back--18th and 19th century, respectively, to be exact.


Plaisir D'Amour (cover; live) - Nana Mouskori

This is the first version I recall hearing; my parents had the double LP album of the British concert she did two years earlier, which pretty much sounds exactly like this, and it was one of their (and later mine, especially as a little girl) favorite albums to play.

You could also argue it's the first version that I don't recall hearing even though I did, since my parents were at that 1972 concert, with my mom very much in full swing of her pregnancy with me.




My favorite use of this song anywhere is in the movie Love Affair, with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. Did you know Irene Dunne was a classically trained singer who had actually hoped to become an opera singer at one point, before becoming an actress? Now you do.

Plaisir D'Amour (cover) - Irene Dunne (from the movie Love Affair)



Did you know Charles Boyer committed suicide two days after the love of his life, his wife of 44 years, passed away from cancer? Now you know that, too.