Wednesday, October 1, 2008

39 percent fun!

It is time for me to go to bed (young lady). Tonight I went to see Okkervill River with Joe at The Republic and it was both refreshing and uncomfortable-nostalgic. It reminded me so much of going out late on school nights to see concerts in Chicago; calling Grant at least three times throughout the show so he could hear "I'll Be Yr Bird" or "That Time"; riding the El with all the midnight passengers and puke; walking home unnecessarily terrified of rapists and murderers. It was a time when being an adult was new and felt oddly illegal -- as if hanging out after dark was something I could get caught doing. I dressed up and even wore makeup, and I starved myself like three days of the week so I'd look hotter when I went out to dance and hero-worship the lead singers of Why? and Yo La Tengo (but mostly in general just Jenny Lewis).

Now it feels stale in some ways, and I kept thinking, "should I be drunk right now? Those people are drunk and they look like they're having a blast."

But then I remembered what it looks like to watch someone have the equivalent of a music orgasm on stage, and then open their eyes afterwards with a look of genuine surprise to see hundreds of people staring back at them. It's like reading a diary, almost. Private, intricate, human.

The men came to move the piano and I gave them pie (I made pie! One point.) and we talked pretentiously about Radiohead and Girltalk and Daft Punk and I couldn't remember the names of any of the truly great musicians in the world because I was intimidated because the moving men were French (and thus intimidating).

It was a hard day at school and I'm starting to get that swamped, overwhelmed, slow-yourself-down feeling... and that's okay I guess, as long as I don't lose it.

I was sad about Brutus. Lugo found the rat mom and the other three babies in her kitchen and she told me proudly about how she killed them all. This is why Lugo would survive in the wild and I would not. I got an e-mail today from someone who laments the deaths of snails, and I must say I relate. But life always continues, always.

1 comment:

andrew said...

Did you get to see So Come Back, I Am Waiting burn for seven minutes and then explode? Because having seen it happen on two occasions now (and having played Black Sheep Boy, The Stage Names, The Stand Ins, and just about everything else this band and Shearwater have released dozens of times at this point from start to finish) I'm still kind of awed by it. And by the fact that Will Sheff writes songs that reward repeated listening better than anyone I can think of, given just how dense the songs are (and how they refuse to reveal themselves that way). It makes me think to myself, "I'd like to be able to write something like that. Oh."