April 28, 2008

Something Hot and Dry as an Antidote to This Wet Cold Spring

It’s spring again… if you define Spring as a 44° degree day with cold rain soaking litter into the neighborhood and you have to heat the apartment with the oven because you turned off your heater two weeks ago on a chance 69° degree day.

It used to be that in San Francisco I complained because the weather never really ventured outside the limited scale of 50-68°. Now these temperatures seem tropical to me.

My boyfriend made a resolution a few weeks back that he would never ever discuss the weather again, because to him it’s an easy conversational cop-out. Weather gets discussed out here a lot more than in California… BECAUSE IT’S SO FREAKING INSANE! What is this? There are tulips outside and prospects of an overnight low of 32°. Woe to the person who planted something that might be killed by a frost.

But yes… here I am… discussing the weather with you. For me the weather dictates my internal state… or perhaps it’s more like a catalyst, it stirs certain chemicals in my internal state that result in (sometimes) new states of being.

For the last few weeks I’ve had these strange cravings for the southwest and my imaginings of the wild wild west. Then I remembered, that for several years, spring time was when I took off for a few weeks to drive through the southwest.

Yesterday, in my craving for hot dry twang, sun-bleached wood, parched air and a blistering silence punctuated only by the skitter of rattlesnakes, I searched on emusic for some music that would satisfy just a little bit of that craving.

I came across two delights.

 

 Brokeback: Running Scared [2:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

 

 Valley of the Giants: Waiting to Catch a Bullet [10:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

One: Brokeback. I discovered a later album, “Looks at the Bird” sometime last year and decided to go back for more… this time for a three track album that is thoughtful and innocuous. I mean this in the very best sense of the word. I sometimes need noise that does not draw me out of my thoughts, but provides just a colorful enough background to my current activities. It’s like mood-lighting. There are any number of noise distractions in my neighborhood that bear a necessity to be drowned out, but black-metal isn’t always the answer. Brokeback has a very thoughtful bass, probably something that resembles a guitar run through some effects and some other sounds that might be created by stringed instruments, such as a pedal-steel guitar, but I can’t be sure. There is definitely a satisfying amount of empty space interspersed by the faint rumble of a drum that simulates a far away approaching storm.

Two: Valley of the Giants
This is indeed a self-aggrandizing name to give to a supergroup… the members of whom also apparently belong to a bunch of other important Indie Rock bands. Since I have the pleasure of ignorance, I can only judge them on their current sound.

Anyone who uses an image of of Cathedral valley as their cover art is risking extreme scrutiny in my book. It’s almost hubris. It would be like a politician using Jesus as a mascot. To me, such landscape is holy land, meant to be preserved, appreciated and regarded with the awe it truly deserves.

The title of the album: “Morse Code In The Modern Age: Across The Americas” could easily be truncated to simply, “Across the Americas” because that’s the documentary that could accompany this blissful soundtrack.

I’ve only played the whole album through one or two times, but a few tracks are a meandering journey through an abandoned mining town, which is enough to satisfy me. There are other themes, other landscapes that seem to be evoked, making this indeed an interesting journey across America, and not just an abandoned roadtrip that expires in Death Valley through the fault of poor planning.

June 23, 2006

Moving iPod Advertisement

It’s funny- there are advertisements pasted all over America; silhouettes of skinny people attatched to iPods, captured in an instant of rawking out… it’s Apple’s depiction of someone really digging their product. Most people I see who have them walk through crowds, oblivous of what’s around them, or lose themselves in their music on the train, sometimes multi-tasking with a book for the paper. Their personal space aura is clearly demarcated by the white earbuds and the subtle bobbing of head.

But when you actually bust out and dance to the music playing on your iPod in the train station, people get really distracted. I was commented at by no less than eight people while shuffling around to some Saint Germain and Count Basie tonight. One dude even tried to sort of dance near me. I asked if he danced and he said, “no… not really.” But he kept on anyways.

I was hanging out in a corner of the station that didn’t have too many people waiting, not really into putting on a performance. But I had twenty minutes to wait for the train and just sitting there seemed really boring, especially when I had just come from a pretty good two hour practice session with my dance buddies. So if people walked by and saw me, I wasn’t gonna stop and act like I wasn’t dancing, because what is wrong with dancing after all? So I just kept it up, feeling kinda goofy, but prefering to wiggle around than to just stand there looking all affected and cool.

I felt a little bit like one of those train station musicians… people walked by and smiled, the way I always do when a guitarist or saxophone player adds a little bit to the ambiance of a public space. Maybe next time I’ll put a hat out. Haw haw. THAT would be funny.

June 20, 2006

Curtains and Commitment

It used to be that I did not consider myself settled into a place until there were curtains. If my apartment came pre-packaged with those cheap white mini-blinds I would immediately exorcise them and install my own curtains, most often hand-stitched and hung on a wooden dowel I had cut to size at the lumber yard. (more…)

May 8, 2006

Living on the edge… or rather, the floor

My furniture is gone. Well. It wasn’t mine. For six kind months, I lived on the furniture of a friend, who at the time was living elsewhere. But when he found his own place closer to the city, he reclaimed it. Thing is, it happened suddenly. As in, “Hey Ruby- wanna come with me to check out this apartment?” “Sure!” I said. Little did I know that my suggestion to drive around the neighborhood and check out For Rent signs would result in him writing a deposit check that night. But the apartment was perfect for him. That was Saturday. (more…)

May 2, 2006

Letting Go: Finding God

What happened this week-end was nothing short of a religious experience. I piled into a car with three good friends and headed to St. Louis for Cheap Thrills. I entered as one person and came out another. After three nights of dancing that drew into the early hours of the morning and two days of classes in leading, following, jazz steps, ballroom spins and grinding to hip-hop I found myself more fully converted than I ever have before. You might say I found god. (more…)

March 24, 2006

Nine days in

Sky’s red and it’s snowing again, all quiet and secret-like, like it thought I wouldn’t notice. It’s not blowing hard and the flakes have tried to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible. You can only tell they’re coming down in the orangish light of a back porch or the rare suburban street lamp. (more…)

March 15, 2006

My Novel Month

So today was the first day of my offical novel writing month. I have a partner who is doing it with me and at 8:00am we got crackin’ with the laptops and requisite cups of warm stuff to drink. After our first break we busted into bowls of muesli. I’m excited that I have a neato idea. I just don’t know how to execute it. But I guess I’ll figure that out each morning.

The word count for this morning was 1,698 words. I struggled at the end, because I wasn’t really sure what kind of opening scene I was setting up. But the point is just to get something on the page. I can go back and fix it later.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to seek readers during the process or after. We’ll just see. After a week I may need a reader to give me some kind of feedback or ask me the right questions.

I’d better lay my little head down soon so as to get a good night’s rest for tomorrow’s second installment.

March 12, 2006

Houseguests, of a sort

Two days ago there was a ladybug on my kitchen window. Now there are five. From where do they spring? Although if yesterday’s balmy temperature and soft winds are an indicator, then perhaps they are a true symbol of spring. I often wonder, if we analyzed our daily lives the way we analyze our dreams, what would we learn? What do the ladybugs on the window mean in the grander scheme? Do they represent some nascent form of creativity? A secret life? Can they be read like tea leaves? (more…)

Little Funerals

Sometimes you do things that you just don’t mean to do. Sometimes some other part of your brain takes over and does what you don’t want it to. (more…)

March 9, 2006

Novelus Interruptus

Well, with a kernel of an idea, I hammered out 1740 words of my first chapter (see the previous entry for clarification).* Then my advisor on this matter beseeched me to abstain from my literary dalliances long enough (more…)