7 posts tagged “music”

Happiest thing on YouTube for me this week: the 1965 promo video for "I Can't Explain." Oh, The Who! You are all so incredibly young! Check out the incredible knee-wobbling moves of striped shirt guy, and the guy after him who dances entirely by making the international hand signal for "time out." And everyone is chewing gum, because gum is totally bohemian.

It's "The Jessica Numbers".

When people share their "Top 25 Most Played" music lists complete with play counts, I am freshly reminded that other people do not listen to music the way I do. I listen to albums or little temporary mixes on loop all day long all day all day, and sprinkled in I will get crushes on individual songs and play them on individual endless loop. I stay in these little ruts for a week or more on end. And this is how it comes to pass that my #1 most played song has been played 387 times since I imported my music library onto this computer a mere five months ago.

No one wants to hear about your cat.

The other day, I was telling Snark about my ingenious plan to wean the cat away from his habit of racing after me and leaping into the sink every time I enter the bathroom. He does this, with great vigor and consistency, because I began turning on a little stream of water for him to drink whenever he happened to be around. The entirely foreseeable leaping behavior is sub-optimal, though, what with the way he sheds all over the sink and the fact that I am often in the bathroom because I want to use the sink, say to brush my teeth, which is somewhat hampered by the presence of a furry, insistent creature filling my spittin' basin. (My ingenious plan, by the way, is to turn on the trickle of water in the bathtub, instead.)

Snark does not have this sink problem, because the cat is apparently capable of remembering that bearded human does not produce delicious water trickle, while russet human does. We were discussing all this, musing about the mind of the cat and its mysterious ways:

Me: Russet human supports life!
Snark: Hey, bearded human supports life too. You just give him water. I give him delicious food.
Me: True.
Snark: And yet he loves you better. Not rational.
Me (brilliantly): Ah, but I give him water. Whereas you are continually not giving him food.

It's true! For every time that Snark actually feeds him, there are probably dozens if not hundreds of times that the cat wants food and is denied. Whereas I am simply not implicated in the food question at all. Ergo, I win.

Martha Stewart ain't got nothin' on me.

It's Sunday! Which means that I ought to be working hard in my spotless kitchen, making dinners for the coming week. But my kitchen is not remotely spotless, and instead I am sitting here with uncombed hair, dinking around on the internet. Also I should be working on this pile of letters of application and my article draft. All in good time, all in good time. First I have to clean my fingernails and stare at the wall. That wall won't just stare at itself, you know.

On Friday night we went to the house of our friends, where we played cribbage and worked on a jigsaw puzzle of a shiny Art-Deco train, because we are all seventy-eight years old. We had a rousing good time. Then everyone's sciatica started acting up so we went off to bed. Somewhere in there we decided that "The Muffins" would be an excellent name for one's country estate. Join us tomorrow for cocktails and tennis at The Muffins. This year's grouse-hunting party will depart from The Muffins at ten o'clock sharp. A casual breakfast will be served in the pavilion, beginning at eight.

We know how to party.

Last night we went to a screening of Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock's last silent movie (he also released a version with sound, but since not all theaters were set up for sound yet in those days, there was also this silent version) with live music written and performed by the Alloy Orchestra. I was feeling sluggish and reluctant to go out, but then I got over myself and was glad I did. It was really great. Alloy does such great work, and although Blackmail is pretty low-key for Hitchcock, it's got some great moments and is really delightfully shot. Also we bought a DVD of one of my all-time favorites, Man With a Movie Camera, with Alloy score. Woo.

Veritably, as if it were nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine.

And, actually, on Thursday we went out too. Good lord, that's not like us. We went to game 5 of the Indians/Red Sox series. It was, as I said afterwards, a musty game. The Indians did not bring it. But I had a good time wearing my borrowed baseball cap and (not borrowed) tweed jacket, and waving my little "Tribe Time" towel as if it were a hanky and I was waving goodbye to my friend on a train. (You are supposed to hold it by one end and whip it around and around in excited circles.) We didn't get to sleep until one thirty. From the way I felt the next day you would have thought I had been up tripping all night, instead of watching a baseball game until a little past my bedtime, but I guess being seventy-eight is starting to catch up with me.

Fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa, fa.

Today I had to make a little flyer for an upcoming lecture. I used a shitload of Gill Sans in red and black and called it pretty, perhaps because Edward Tufte was controlling my mind. Tomorrow we will see if he is also controlling the mind of the colleague who will be weighing in on what the flyer should look like and whether we should send it out as-is. I hope so! That would be handy. Then we can go graph the Russian campaign of 1812 together. What a wonderful time it will be.

Fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa, fa.

This weekend we will be in Chicago. Hooray for Chicago. I doubt we will manage to see anyone who lives there while we are there, but we will think of them fondly. Then it will dump sleet on our heads, in punishment for how much we are enjoying today's gorgeous weather. We will be in Chicago again for a wedding over Memorial Day weekend, when perhaps the weather will be more obliging. In case you are ever in Chicago, let me tell you that you need to go to Julius Meinl, on North Southport, where you can find the very best baked goods you ever ate under the looming visage of a dubious European black-boy logo. Is it weird to spell out "North" in "North Southport"? Also they always bring a nice glass of not-too-cold water to go with your coffee drink. You will not regret it.

Fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa, fa.

I am collecting songs for a playlist. The songs for this list feature a lot of "fa fa fa" or "ba ba ba" or "la la la," that kind of thing. The resulting mix will be called "The McGurk Effect" because I am a nerd. It is a great name. You should all title your mixes so brilliantly.

This conveys much that is universal while at the same time saying something very charming about Finnish culture in particular. Also, like the turtle video I linked to a while back, this made me cry, though this time it is probably even more inexplicable. (Is there something special about tiny videos that stabs me in the tear ducts?) It's a choral work composed of the small and large daily irritants in the lives of the people of Helsinki.

Today we bought out every last tomatillo for sale at every last stand at the farmers' market. We'll see if this actually results in enough salsa verde to freeze. I'll just use up the last of the gigantor jar of the last batch in time to make this batch. To look at my Vox history, you would think that I did nothing but make salsa,* but in reality, I also write many (many many) words and complete a number of crosswords. Other than that, though, not much, these days. Some laundry.

We did go to a Ladytron show on Wednesday and I had a spectacular time. I wasn't even consumed by fiery hate for any of the people standing near me, which is pretty much unheard of. The crowd was composed largely of deliriously happy art students (and even so I did not hate them!) and was of the sort that you know must be really nice for the band: extremely enthusastic all through the set and yet absolutely no request-screaming or other crap. Also, we got back before midnight, which is good because I am old.

Right now there is an ad along the side of my screen exhorting me to stylize my phone with fashion graphix!! Strangely, I find it unenticing.

*Okay, I just looked at my history and that is not really true.

The best thing I ate in Paris, I think, was a croissant aux amandes, or rather, several croissants aux amandes. These are a diabolical transformation of the already incredibly butter-laden treat that is a croissant into something many, many times more decadent, sweet, and buttery. You take a croissant, perhaps a day-old croissant, and (a) soak it in sugar syrup, (b) split it and fill it with rich almond custard cream, (c) add more of the almond cream on top, (d) sprinkle with almonds, and (e) bake it again until it the custard is set and the edges are all bubbly and crispy. I would like another right this minute, please, although it is probably unwise to consume too many of them when you are not walking around a city for ten hours straight or perhaps earning your living as a quarry worker.

Adriana will be pleased to know that I also spent the entire trip swaying to the tune of an internal soundtrack of "Tous les Garçons et les Filles".