Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
In an odd little piece of deja-vu, Benjy blogged the new Nintendo logo, which is a play on Necker’s Cube – which is essentially any drawn 3d box which one can reverse with one’s perception of it. Where’d we hear about this already? Why… in the first exchange Benjy and I had on sBlog2. Blast from the past, i know…
by krisis
The sky is so very grey that i feel like it’s drowning out all the reds and oranges in my personality and just leaving me calm with layers of blue and purple with maybe just a peak of yellow underneath. Or, maybe i just didn’t get quite enough sleep last night and am looking for an excuse to be low-key. Life is moving by very quickly as of late and i’m just trying to put in an appearance in every day and hour so i can at least say i was in on it even though it will be a blur in my memory.
I seem to be performing in a bar on campus tonight for an hour but i couldn’t explain to you how that happened if you were to ask me so you probably shouldn’t. I’ll get a weekly invite if i do well with the patrons this week and next, so if you have id (that’s identification, not the thing that hides underneath the ego and the superego and makes you all primal and stuff) you should come (Buffalo Bill’s, 35th and Lancaster, $5 cover, i’m on near 11pm). Also, my beloved Treble Makers are singing at the Drexel a capella show Saturday @ 4pm in Mandell Theatre, and they’re much cooler than i am even after you allow for the fact that there’s 10 of them and just the 1 of me. But, enough advertisement.
If one thinks ahead (i know, it’s frightening) to me actually being asked to show up with my guitar on a weekly basis, one would realize i’ll eventually have to get up off my ass and learn some new cover songs to play. In the last 24 hours i happen to have learned three, but that’s mostly because i just got an Ani DiFranco guitar book in my teeny metal mailbox and so now i am in study to eventually have an entire set just of Ani DiFranco songs (as if anyone can really tell the difference). I’ll definitely be Trioing my new covers this weekend, so keep an ear out for them. Should be interesting.
In a tangent tangentially related to my slow but sure musical growth and exploration, Gina seems to be moving into the apartment directly above mine for the summer (after which point i’m probably moving out). The ramifications of having Gina and I stacked one on top of the other with all of our various guitars and cds and things are rather exciting (probably more like terrifying to our neighbors), and life should definitely get more interesting. Or maybe just louder. We shall see. But, speaking of vertical neighbors, my downstairs neighbor randomly showed up at my door last night while my mother was fussing over my newly installed air conditioner, and a strange and uneasy conversation ensued. I have never been one to have guests over, especially on zero notice, so my entire third of the conversation seemed to be geared at getting one or more of us to exit the apartment. It’s not that i’m unfriendly, i’m just not really used to people being in my space. But, downstairs neighbor is very sweet and she likes to listen to me through the ceiling, so i won’t begrudge her some time standing on my threshold talking about where to get good 2for1 deals on whole frozen chickens with my mother.
Wow, that post got much more literal as it went along.
Even the music i brought with me to work today is sorta greyish sounding, and it’s all new so it’s just flying past my ears as i try to absorb some little pieces of it. But, i think i come here to actually work, as odd as that might sound, so i’m off for now, into the grey. Wish me luck.
by krisis
The most shocking thing to me was that Rabi actually knew my songs from Trios, but i evened up the score because i knew the context of her poems from following her log. After a few requests, the set wound up as: Punk, Because, Unstrung, Colorblind, Under My Skin, Lost, All That’s True, Give, Never Say Goodbye. Trio has an interesting effect on how i make up a setlist when i’m playing for someone who actually listens to it … something i’ve never really had to deal with before. But, anyway, it was good excercise for me, and i think she really liked Never Say Goodbye cause she sorta just stared at my guitar while i played it. I could always ask her, but, erm, yeah. Maybe she’ll blog about it ;)
by krisis
Trying to recognize someone you’ve never met before is just a little tricky, but my guitar and mod-squad jacket were definitely a giveaway. She was a bit more obscure, but somewhere between the bright blue eyes and the bright purple kiddie band-aid on her finger i had it figured out.
I have to say that Rabi was a lot more effervescent than i pictured her (although, how many vegan astrophysicist rugby players do i really know to judge by?), and i can’t even begin to imagine what about me was suprising to her. Swarthmore would definitely turn me into the kind of metaphorical blogger that she’s become known as, because nothing i saw there translated literally the way things do in Philadelphia. We wound up getting right under the sun as if it was just a spotlight and trading poetry for songs (literally: she took home a demo and i took home my favourite of her poems), and finding things we had in common (bitten up fingers, music fetishes, and obviously obscure writing) and some differences (my fingers are just bit by my guitar and i can’t wear band-aids, my music fetish is slighty less rare and much less under control, and how taking the middle step out of word association makes it much more mysterious) . It felt just like talking to anyone, and i’m not sure if that’s because we know too much about each other’s thoughts and things or if it’s because we’re just two too friendly people. Except, this is all about my life and Wockjabby is all about her thoughts on life, so i think we almost swapped my thoughts for her life. Or something.
Three and a half hours later felt like a much longer time, though not long enough. I had more fun playing “Under My Skin” for her than i have for anyone since i recorded it. She read a poem she’d never read out loud before. Maybe i’ll see her again in the fall.
by krisis
The only person i’ve ever consciously cut out of my life without a single look back was one of my best friends. One day i just realized that even though i trusted him and enjoyed talking to him i was a worse person for the wear. Just because you like someone doesn’t mean they’re anything good for you – and when i finally realized that i knew i had to simply say goodbye because i wasn’t a strong enough person to deal with him from day to day. I don’t know what i would’ve done if i had i keep seeing him every day; trying to combine civility (because he never did anything wrong) with my urge to erase him wholly from my life. I don’t think it would’ve worked out. I probably would have wound up worse for the wear of trying to be nice to him than i would have if i had kept being his friend. I’m honestly just not mature enough to find that middle ground. So i’m stuck right where i’m standing. Again.