:: anne in the attic ::

Create Your Own Countdown

:: Friday, March 25, 2005 ::

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing...

It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government...

God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion...."

-- Thomas Jefferson (1780)

Doing the analog recording thing lately, investing in that. Also, I've been tired to the bone, run down in ways that simply shouldn't be, considering my schedule has let up tremendously since the new year.

I've also discovered some excellent power pop-- new to me, anyway, but dated early 70's: Emitt Rhodes. Clips of his totally unavailable (in the U.S.) music can be heard here.

I'm working at getting my hands on some of it.

Things seem to be going by at quite a pace, like I'm on the bullet train sometimes. Well, I'll be stepping out of the rat race the first week in April for my first week of annual leave for 2005. I'm really looking forward to it. They upped my leave to four weeks this year, a nice surprise. No, Dad, no California this time, but perhaps not so far in the future, since it seemed closer than ever last time. Something there is pulling me, but I'm not sure what. More roots stuff, probably. Maybe next time I want to go further south, to my old stomping grounds, deep into the heart of my counterculture past....

:: Anne 7:02 PM [smartass remarks] ::
...

I happened upon an imported copy of Portland's "Mercury" today, and it set off a nice little ride of discoveries in the creative world. I love it when that happens. Makes me feel like a pioneer. Left to my own devices, I often manage to scrape up/stumble over/step in some of the defining moments of my appreciation. Makes me feel self-sufficient to think that I can introduce myself to some of the best stuff out there. Of course, I do that mostly by reading and listening. The raw version of this kind of discovery would, I suppose, be going to live shows and picking books off of shelves NOT based on reviews I'd read or references from other musicians or artists.

Today I'm intrigued by Advancement Theory. Chuck Klosterman wrote a quick intro to it here:
http://www.thesongcorporation.com/klosterman-advancement2.htm
I'm a sucker for classification, even if it is clothed in seemingly anti-categorical rules like "overtness," where the very irony inherent in the term's definition is exclusionary. I have a fondness for a good brain twisting. It's like a good game.

Discovery number two is something that I didn't expect to grow on me, an album called "Morning Kills the Dark" by Biirdie (yes, two i's there). Their latest can be heard (excellent streaming quality for the high speed connection) in its entirety at
http://www.flyawaybiirdie.com/

With the advent of home recording, even the most foolish can preserve their inklings for all time. That's par for the course. The accesibility it provides is somewhere along the line of Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own," where "women writers" is replaced by "budding musicians" and "room to write" by "home studio." I call on blogs for evidence as well. Yes, there will most certainly be a lot more crap produced. But is it worth that to have perhaps a few great musicians who might otherwise never have found a way to their calling? I say yes, yes, and yes again.

:: Anne 11:12 PM [smartass remarks] ::
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There was an amazing fire-in-the-sky sunset this evening. I even called people to tell them to look. It's natural phenomena like this that knocks me off my feet and reminds me that my little life dramas are just that-- things that won't much matter in a week or two, or perhaps even a day later.

I've been feeling like an outcast again, and though I try to stay away from the whole whiny blog scene, sometimes it helps just to say it out loud, see the words there. So instead of harboring this unnamed feeling inside, I can label it and thus categorize and deal accordingly. I live so much in my head that sometimes it's hard to know exactly how much I perpetuate the "outcast" persona and project it into a kind of aura that keeps people at bay. Or maybe sometimes it's hard for some people to accept the degree of independence (for lack of a better word) I need to exercise most of the time; I've been told it makes people think I don't need them, or can't be bothered with them. And I suppose they're a bit put off by that.

Don't know how to address that precisely, but I should say that's it's only true of the general population, not the people in my community, friends, family.

That said, I am still absolutely convinced of my insignificance. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself in the moment, just means there are also moments of this that wash over me and remind me. Approaching forty has certainly changed the way I look at the world and my place in it.

:: Anne 8:02 PM [smartass remarks] ::
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