Sunday, June 30, 2013

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Houston, we have a problem.




hello, and thanks for reading. I have a few questions.

Is it possible to have lost all of my purchased music in iTunes? My phone reset itself last night out of the blue and when I tried to restore it my laptop died, well died-ish. So I got this great idea to load iTunes on my work machine and deactivate all other computers... I tried to restore my phone from the back up but it didn't take and ended up wiping the whole thing... back to it's original settings, without any music on it... and when I look at my iTunes account on the new work laptop, there's no music.

THERE'S NO MUSIC.

help me music club, you are my only hope.

your best friend in America,

gb 

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

51 Entries About 51 Years

#51: Impossible Things #2 by Looper

I have no idea how this is going to evolve.

Back in January 2012 I made the mistake of mentioning that enough time had passed to take on another list project; and since I was turning fifty that spring the theme was going to be Pat's Top 50 Favorite Songs. I figured that gave me at least four months to cobble a list together, or at the very worst a year and four months, since as long as I was still fifty when it came out everything would be cool.

Well, yeah. Turns out it is pretty hard. I don't have a list. Tell the truth, I haven't even thought about it all that much other than the initial brain dump of stuff I like (and as an aside this song was not on that initial list at all. Which reminds me, I never know exactly how to handle asides. My one rule of writing is to keep my writing voice as similar to my speaking voice as I can; but I go on tangents when I speak and it can be tricky to capture that on the page without rambling, such as now.) Whenever I think about diving in I feel overwhelmed and anxious and change my focus as quickly as possible.

But you gotta start somewhere. I don't know how often there will be entries, I don't know if an entry will contain multiple selections or not, I don't know if there will even be another entry much less fifty more. I do have some concept of things that will be at or near the top but other than that we are driving blind here.

I do know this: I am giving myself very wide leeway as to what constitutes an entry. It could be a single song, it could be an album or it could be a portion of an album. An entry will be whatever speaks to me. I am not limiting myself by artist or time frame either. I'm sure if and when we end I'll be disappointed by some of the stuff that is in and also about things that should be but aren't; but that just needs to be accepted up front. Really, consider this a catch-all of stuff that means something to me at the moment and that I felt the need to share.

Honesty dictates I mention that sharing is currently a bit of a challenge thanks to recurring depression and the related awkwardness and self loathing it entails. Because really, the whole idea of a list is all about sharing, since it is the emotions and experiences that we associate with a particular piece of music that makes it an all-time favorite in the first place.

Given this current state of ineptitude and introversion plus the immensity of not being able to get my head around this toxic heffalump of a project it is rather fitting to start with Impossible Things #2 by Looper. It is the story of an awkward shy boy and an awkward shy girl who write to each other (and occasionally meet) for a very long time, and it is gentle and sweet and melancholy and more often than not has me on the verge of tearing up a little bit.

For about two years in my mid-twenties I had a long distance relationship. During that time we spent probably an hour and a half on the telephone every day. When you are infatuated (in hindsight that was exactly what it was) and not able to actually see and do stuff with the person you feel this way about then phone conversations take the place of watching and learning about her from observing how she interacts with the world. They become incredibly important and confessional and relevant because at that age you are still trying to figure out who you are and what your place is in the world, and having the opportunity to do that makes you feel evolved and liberated and real and yes, in love. In time you learn its proper context and where it fits in who you are but I'm sure that's a subject for some entry down the line.

The same thing should apply with letters, so even though it is not spoken of in the song and there is a distinct impression that this could be an Impossible Thing when I listen to this I just want them to be together and young and happy; and any time you can make me feel that way about make-believe people in about five minutes then I think you've accomplished whatever goal you were aiming for.

A goal such as starting a series.