actually, i think "ms. jackson" has much to thank the brothers johnson for "strawberry letter 23" (see jackie brown the movie for an idea). it's unacknowledged, but it's hard not to make the connection. i think this is one of the roots of my obsession with music: the connections, tracing the evolution of a sound, the progress, the changes through time, the cause-and-effect of it, the when and the how and why.
and this is why rock journalism would make the perfect career: allows for writing and keeping up with music. and studying it and building the record collection and (hopefully) having spare time to write beyond the job. one of my proudest college papers was written on leonard cohen, and one of my favorite paper comments came from that paper, and it was that i make an able pop culture critic. i don't aspire to much more. it's been my passion, pop culture and pop music, since i heard nirvana on kristin's walkman eight years ago. since i saw my first crowd gather eagerly for a concert (king's x and pearl jam, if you must know), since my mother bought me jimi hendrix and led zeppelin and pink floyd albums with that far-off look of memories carried with a tune.
so i have to listen to daniel tell me about music theory and attempt to make sense out of tape op and make the fingers feel at home on the fretboard.
when i was growing into music -- into rock music -- in high school, there was a book that came along with me, and has been with me ever since. yes, one of those books you'll find on the lone music shelf at barnes and noble, sandwiched between the jim morrison poetry and the jimmy buffet bio (cheeseburger in paradise would be an apt title. and speaking of which, at norman's bar in miami beach, it's spelled out "cheeseburger in paris" on the jukebox. this used to dissolve patrick and me into giggles, picturing jimmy in his signature hawaiian shirt holding a margarita and looking utterly displaced in the middle of the champs elysées.). anyway, i'm sure i've mentioned this book before. route 666: the road to nirvana, by rock critic, roadie supreme and übergrrl gina arnold. her first concert was the sex pistols. she's hung out with the replacements and the butthole surfers, been changed by murmur and all shook down and nevermind like so many of us. and this book is sort of an account of rock from the late seventies through the whole nirvana thing, using nirvana as a sort of framework, and all from a fan's -- from her own -- perspective. i don't know if this all sounds hopefully cheesy, but for me this book is like a partial outline of the fabric (the something) i'm made of. i don't know. it's a great great book if you're a music freak. i even have notes on the margins. and i carry it around pretty much wherever i go.
there are a few books i can't do without for long periods of time. books that won't allow themselves to be stored away and forgotten, whose presence is almost essential for various reasons. because they remind me of myself, as in self-awareness. the gina arnold book is one. the fountainhead by ayn rand is another. carl phillips's cortège. jack kerouac's the town and the city. a very large leather-bound volume of federico garcía lorca's collected poems and writings and sketches. cuanto sé de mí (what i know of myself) by josé hierro. the birth of tragedy by mr. nietzsche. the unbearable lightness of being by milan kundera, which i once quoted to ben. reference points and grounding places and whatever is in that intimate discourse between writer and reader. so yes. books and music. there's this quote from paul verlaine that i have written down somewhere, i don't know where, in which he professes his love for music, and especially the irregular, which melts better into the air.
and there you have my little rant for the night. gotta have an outlet somewhere.
today was slow. i didn't get into that chinese film class, so i'm still screwed come next week. the comps are due on friday and this is a very, very sobering prospect. i started her tape over again, and finished one side. i did not make it to his party because it was freezing cold outside, and i was even planning on sporting the def leppard tshirt, which makes rare appearances. i smoked with the girls and we went to watch the virgin suicides in the bio auditorium (it was definitely eye candy but there wasn't much substance to the story). i talked to the boy, and we made plans and laughed a lot and used up a good bit of his phone card -- mine is gone already. and now i'm here. putting off going to bed. bed is my favorite place to be since i've gotten back here, sleeping my favorite activity, but it's so final that i avoid it until my eyes refuse to focus. because once you commit to sleep, you know the suspense is over, and the next thing you know you're awake and it's over, and another day must be gotten through. not the cheeriest outlook, i know. but i'm not in the cheeriest place right now, physically or emotionally. these harsh relentless (as it seems to me) winters drain me.
and so tomorrow will be comps-writing and job-searching and tape-making and package-stuffing and homework-reading. and on and on. to think one day i'll probably miss all this...
only those things should be feared that have power to do us ill, nothing else, for nothing else is fearful[.]
-dante alighieri inferno canto ii (trans. john d. sinclair)
