Chapter Five: Will you still love a man out of time?

I should keep more snacks around the house. As I write this, a bag of popcorn is brewing in the microwave. Been eating a lot of popcorn lately. Whenever I buy other snacks (crackers, eg,) I end up frustrated with myself not having time to eat them, letting them go stale. Popcorn stays good. Now I'm craving crackers. I can't win against my appetite. what else is new?

Yep, this is what I'm writing about. You knew what you were getting into when you logged on. Don't pretend you don't love it.

The title of today's entry is from an Elvis Costello song - a poppy, well-orchestrated ballad whose lyrics don't mean much but sound pretty when strung together. That song, and the album that birthed it (Imperial Bedroom) have been considered by critics as both some of Costello's best work, and his attempt to do Lennon-McCartney. What I like about it - what I've heard anyway - is that while you can sense a sort of Lennon-McCartneyishness in it, it's still very much Costello, in that the lyrics are intellectually obscure to be McCartney, the arrangement too lush to have been Lennon, and so comes off as original. Because as aficionados know, there are John songs and Paul songs, but rarely do they overlap into something so well blended as the song that Costello wrote there. That's kind of what I love about music. You can track influences all you want, but it's so joyous to find a song (if it's a good one) where the supposed influences remain somewhat obscured by the artist himself.

It's part of my ongoing mission of "Let's find something new to listen to." Eagle-eyed readers of yesterday's entry may note that I ended with a lyrical shout-out to the Pixies. The Pixes are one of those bands... like Velvet Underground and My Bloody Valentine... that I was always aware of, from hanging out with music geeks, but I resented the reverent tones used to speak of them, so I stayed away out of resentment. I seem to recall Cary name-dropping them one time back in grade 10, then turning to me (or somebody) and going "That's a band" as if I (or they) didn't already know, or couldn't deduce. Or maybe what he said was "They don't play the kind of music their name sounds like." Or something? I don't know. Like he needed to explain to me what they were, although I knew a thing or two. I was way into Allmusic back in the day and knew that Kurt Cobain was way into the Pixies. Cary and I weren't all that good of friends at this point, and wouldn't be for over two years, and this exchange, however it went, probably explains that dynamic. In the case of the Velvets, it was Josh Weichel's brother who did the hoity-toity music-geekery.

I'm a lot less sensitive about that kind thing nowadays, and am usually glad to hear musical recommendations. My initial impression of the Pixies, which may have been before or after the Cary conversation (which there's a possibility I outright fabricated, my pre-blog memory is duff) was based entirely on "Where Is My Mind?" which I didn't like the first few times I heard it, making me think the whole band was overrated. Eventually (years later) I revised this opinion and allowed "Where Is My Mind?" on the iPod, although for whatever reason I never investigated much further, and then got tired of that song.

So the way the Pixies re-entered my life recently was that I was rewatching season 4 of Lost, and there's this scene where flashforward Jack pulls up to the funeral home and there's this weird, loud song is playing on his car stereo that intrigued me, and the briefest investigation ever revealed it was, in fact, "Gouge Away" by the Pixies. So I think Okay, this I can get into, let's see what else they've got, which, not being inclined to dig deeper than "Some fan-favourite songs by the Pixies are..." led me to "Debaser" and "Here Comes Your Man," the latter of which I really dug.

So there's that.

I blame video games for having sidetracked me over the last year or so away from movie-watching and writing. Most of the time, when sitting around bored, I think, instead of "Let's check Movie Network OnDemand" or "Let's write something!" my mind goes to Guitar Hero or whatever else. My best writing (okay, well, most productive times anyway) were when I had no interest in video games whatsoever, didn't own a system newer than N64 or maybe after we got a PS2 but I didn't play it much. Now it's like "Bored? Let's try to beat my high score on Santeria!"

Well not last night. I did write, and write fairly well. Well, I mean, we'll see later if it turns out to be any good, but I enjoyed doing it. I'm back to short stories, back to Curiosities, finally writing some more of those stories I've been smoothing out in my head for two years, after stalling. It's probably the influence of the short story class. It makes me want to take my cues from the likes of Hemingway and Flannery O'Connor. Hemingway in particular, I could learn from, since he was all about brevity and succinctness, and one of my stories clocked in at about 15 pages in Word. Now, there's nothing wrong with length in and of itself... "Sightseeing" from first year had some fairly lengthy numbers in there, but I feel as though certain stories benefit from keeping a lid on things. Leave lots to the imagination, let them piece it together. So I'm trending towards shorter pieces, then I'll decide later what to do with the longer ones.

So I did the writing and I watched some movies lately. I watched a documentary called "American Teen" which was not totally fascinating but re-watchable. I also sat down to watch WALL-E finally, which was very good.

I could've sworn I had more to say about today, although it wasn't a particularly interesting day. Max spent the night downstairs last night, probably disoriented. Before going to bed I considered sleeping on the couch so as to be nearby him, but I ultimately decided to leave him to his own devices. He rewarded my faith in him by only peeing a bit, and this was discovered well after I should've woken up and let him out, so I guess we're even from my 4:00 feeding the other day. We're all really kinda obsessed with the idea he could go anytime, even though, if anything, he's shown improvement over the weekend.

But yeah, we're not letting our guard down. It's been on our minds for over a year. We're all just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Well, there's still a ways to go. In life and dog death.

Bored last night, I started a Twitter account. I'd link you to it, but.... I don't want to. I'm a little ashamed to even have it. Not sure what purpose it'll serve, mixed in with this blog and Facebook and whatever else I have in my life. I have an acquaintance who uses it to keep people updated on his bowel movements. He has two followers, including me.

Well it'll all get sorted out.

I should be writing.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto