Explanation Mark

Today I am enjoying the glitches and voice samples that is The Books. I'm not exactly ready to blog about them quite yet, though. I've taken quite a few breaks from the project in the last few days, but I feel that this will be the last break for a while.

The day was spent trekking through the Botanical Gardens. I originally intended on walking from the Lake Hills library to the small botanical garden (or is it a nursery?) that is tucked away that can only be accessed by a trail through a small forest. I haven't been back there in four years, so it's very likely I would not have found it at all. Today I'm just thankful for my friends who make time for me even though I rarely want to crawl out of the house.

I feel that it would be cheating not to share any music yet again, so here are a couple of songs that I have been enjoying lately.

"My My" - Menomena

I specifically enjoy this song for the lyric: "What if I sold everything I own/And ran away from everyone I know/Could I make another place my home?". At the time when I heard it, I was sitting on the bus with my ipod on shuffle, reflecting on how I had decided to push away every single one of my friends, and wondering how far this isolation could take me. Serendipity.

"The Purple Bottle" - Animal Collective

It's hard for me to keep track of all my favorite Animal Collective song, there are just way too many. Nobody does a love song like Animal Collective. The first time I heard it, my favorite lyric was "I wear a coat of feelings and they are loud", but as I listen to it again and again, other lines jump out at me, like "Can I tell you that you are the purple in me?"

"Giving Up the Gun" - Vampire Weekend

Of course I have to put some new music here. I've been listening to Contra too much (almost), and "Giving Up the Guns" immediately caught my attention because of the lines "When I was 17 I had wrists like steel and I felt complete/And now my body fades behind a brass charade and I'm obsolete/But if the chance remained to see those better days I'd cut my cannons down".

"Rainwater Cassette Exchange" - Deerhunter

"Two weeks of misery/Capture my heart and destroy me/Destroy my mind and my body/And make like a disease/And conquer me". Who can resist that?!

"Wrestlers" - Hot Chip

I just enjoy the fact that they would sing about wrestling.

For the rest of the week I don't think that I will take any breaks from the 365 project. Which means next up will be, The Books' The Lemon of Pink, The Thermals' The Body The Blood The Machine, Vitalic's OK Cowboy and Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. I have to make quite a few skips because I haven't been able to find quite a few albums on my list.

Awaken

I woke up this morning with "Wet and Rusting" by Menomena tickling my synapses. It seems as though my best thinking on any given day is usually when I'm walking to the bus stop. Some people have toothbrush moments, others have their entire mornings. Mine usually is best done when I'm traveling, probably because my body feels a natural urge to follow my line of thought, to leave each thought behind me and have enough space to escape to if necessary. My main comfort these days lie in motion -- whether it be the motion of moving great distances, or simply the motion of my muscles.


Today I need a break from my 365 project, mainly because of a need to simply sit back and enjoy music. Maybe it's a bit early to already be quiting on the project, I am definitely wary of failing to follow through on this project. But at the same time it's hard to understand what's so good about an album when you can't enjoy music.


Does anyone else feel so acutely a person's absence by the space they leave behind? Or fear the space that they don't occupy anymore? I still feel a sting in the center of me when I consider that the people who matter most to me once never loved me at all. It's strange that you can be born loving someone, like your family, only to realize that for whatever expanse of time, you didn't exist at all to them. That perhaps they could choose not to love you at all, or that maybe you are simply an add-on, a superfluous appendage to their life.


Is it silly to be jealous of the people who fill the space I should occupy?