Standing at the deli counter in the middle of Ft. Lauderdale on Christmas Eve wearing board shorts and a bright orange t-shirt that i had inadvertently shrunk to a prepubescent size in the wash, it occurred to me immediately that the striking blond man with the “Got Lube?” shirt was going to hit on me. I just knew. It was like a sign from god.
Christmas in Florida was absolutely bizarre, to say the least. At three in the afternoon on C-day i found myself firmly planted on my grandmother’s couch eating bonbons while attentively viewing the Trading Spaces Marathon while my mother lounged out by the pool. I eventually walked down the hall to the condominium of my retired lesbian 2nd-cousins to borrow a deck of cards, and proceeded to play solitaire.
Those two incidents pretty much sum up my trip to Florida, aside from how my mother was flagged down at the airport and — after an extensive search of her person and property — was forced to discard her “bang’s scissors.” Which, honestly, she was more likely to kill someone with in Florida than she was on the way back from it, but safety regulations are safety regulations for a reason.
Happy New Year.
If you were to ask me to talk about my biggest hobby, i would simply say, “Music.”
If you were to ask me to elaborate on my favorite elements of music, i would reply, “Hearing it. Making it.” Or, more explicitly, i enjoy being a fan of music and being a writer of music. One can involve being very critical of other people’s work, while the other requires an unending faith in my own.
Sometimes i have trouble reconciling the two. For example, in a book of my agonizingly chosen flying-to-Florida collection of music, the new Bright Eyes disc faces a burned cd of my recent trios. I have no qualms in admitting that i am skeptical about Conor Oberst’s new effort as Bright Eyes; i was skeptical before ever hearing a song by Conor and continue to feel that way now that i have bought a third album of his. He’s not so different from a previous version of me; a recent Rolling Stone article featured a picture of his slight vegan frame with a guitar almost dwarfing it, singing about heartbreak in a style whose lineage includes Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan.
I happen to really enjoy my new Trios;though the imperfections of my performances are more noticeable when crisply preserved in digital format, i delight in hearing the sound of my own voice captured in such a faithful fashion. I have worked hard for that voice… failing auditions, slaving at voice lessons, struggling through choir. Singing and singing until the sound of my own voice became transparent to me; hearing myself on a recording of “Tangling” or “Excuse” feels the same as performing the songs live. I cannot distinguish anything about my vocal performance other than whether i am hitting the notes i intended to. I cannot be critical of it
Conor is just about a year older than me, and i don’t think he is much of a singer. His bio calls his vocal stylings “quak[ing] with the tumultuous energy that only youth can produce.” Tumultuous energy sounds very much to me like unsteady notes and failing vibrato. There are parts of his album Fevers and Mirrors that i physically cannot consume — he screams, yowls, stretches his voice past the breaking point. I do it too, of course, all rock singers do at some point. But, to me it never sounds as rough… as pained. And, i am doing it for my website… him, for an international audience of consumers..
I ostensibly bought his new disc Lifted to review it, but i know that i am really casing up the competition. In the past i have wondered at the success of others who are only slightly older than me, and whose work i adore. Now, i am wondering about the success of someone who i could very plausibly be; who shares the exact years of pop culture inundation with me, if not some of the same influences. I happen to think that i sing better than him; i also think i write more accessible songs. But, i am in college, and he is on the road. I am on the dean’s list, and he is in Rolling Stone.
My two favorite hobbies will be staring each other in the face deep inside my bookbag as i walk through the metal detector this morning, bound for Fort Lauderdale. They will both air themselves, probably more than any other music i will have with me. And, when my family asks me what i did this year, all i will say is “i am on the dean’s list.”
Merry Christmas.
I’m not much of a fan of pornography. I have always been a bit of a feminist and, even though i know that it’s a stock argument, i typically find porn distasteful primarily because of how degrading it is towards women. There’s just something about selling the image of submissiveness, passivity, eager willingness, or nymphomania as something for men to get off too that bothers me. Of course, i don’t really have much of a daily interaction with porn, other than the inexplicably endless stream of advertisements for it that i receive every morning when i check my email. Reading the incredibly entertaining True Porn Clerk Stories, i found myself wondering What would i do if i worked in a porn store? I mean, other than get hit on by all the guys picking up twink videos. The fact of the matter is, i’m not sure how i would react to the often times disturbing or disgusting videos that were brought up to the counter, or how i would reconcile my feminism with what i was selling. Ali Davis does both in her stories, in a way that is both amusing and honestly very thought-provoking. A very high-quality read (blogged from Tweebiscuit, who i hadn’t read in a long time).
Via the very-hilarious Darn Tootin’: Ecospheres are the absolutely perfect gift for so many different people that i still have to buy for that i almost don’t care that the cheapest model is $80. How can you go wrong with a desk ornament that has an entire living world of sea-creatures inside of it that you never need to take care of? Yes, it’s sea-monkey’s without the awful plastic tank and the awful inevitable death-stink. Or, in the words of the immortal Carl Sagan: “You even wonder if it’s cruel to put them in this crystal prison. But you reassure yourself that at least here they are safe from whales and oil slicks and cocktail sauce.” Cool, eh?