is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Firefly, Loud Family, Way Too Helpful.
Firefly, Loud Family, Way Too Helpful.
One very exciting thing that happened at the BBQ on Sunday, that I forgot to tell you about, was that Marco performed the theme from Firefly on his guitar. That�s right, Marco sang the themesong from everyone�s favorite futuristic throwback utopian space western television show written by Joss Whedon and then cancelled! He came walking out of his little office where he, Tom and Stephen had been playing at some music, and he said, �Jill, here�s something you will LIKE!� and then he�s all, �Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. [guitar strumming] I don�t care, I�m still free, you can�t take the sky from me!� Etc. His version still needs some work, i.e., we need to remember the words to the whole song, and figure out all the chords� but still! I jumped up and down for awhile.
We (by which I guess I mean Evany, Marco, Caroleen and I) are all also very excited about the movie version, called Serenity (named after the Firefly-class spaceship from the series), due out in September.
Today I went to Macy�s to try to get some cheap shorts for the trip to White Wolf, because I took all my hiking shorts with me on the cross-country car trip with Evany last year, and then neglected to bring them back with me from Amherst. There they sit, in a box (with a fox), with my yearlong membership to the National Park System, which would also come in handy for the Yosemite trip. Oh well. Let it not be said that I think of EVERTHING.
Anyway, this quest meant that I had to make my way around the frenetic juniors department of Macy�s while being visually assaulted by lights and crazy fashion possibilities, and aurally assaulted by too-loud too-bad club music. Then I remembered I had my ipod with me. So I changed the environment by listening to the song Way Too Helpful by The Loud Family (Scott Miller! Remember Game Theory?) over and over again. Man, did this make the afternoon better or what?! It is a truly amazing song, a song which, if you have never heard it, you should hear it soon. Listening to the song feels to me like being in love, with all the complexity of what it means to be in love�and it is by all means never all good, is it? The melody and music is beautiful, and you kind of float on them (especially when they are piped into your head by headphones drowning out too-loud too-bad club music) and then the lyrics are gorgeous too, but what they state is not so simple as the loveliness of the melody. What do I mean? I have been trying to figure out how to explain it, and this is as good as I�ve got right now: the lyrics (esp. verse 2) somehow unearth what is simultaneously so safe and so unsafe about intimacy. Those who know the most about you are your greatest comfort but also can be your greatest danger because they know best how to DESTROY you on occasion (or more often), you know? As you all know by now, I am the optimist who jumps right in as if to say �HIT ME, HARD (but please do so only metaphorically).� But a more pessimistic creature might come away from the song non-un-scathed, as it were, finding in it confirmation of all his or her conclusions about the dangers of the knowledge (is that what it is?) attained by contact with other human beings. Verse 1 might be trying to dismantle the pessimist�s reliance on her or his conclusions in this matter, but the issue is wide open to interpretation. There is also a rather heinous split infinitive contained in the song. (Note to self: Mixed tape of good songs containing split infinitives. There Are Plenty.) And so I leave you with the link to an mp3, and the lyrics, for you to ponder and enjoy. Buy the album!
By way of closing, I thank Jonathan Segel for giving me this album a number of years ago after I complained about something having to do with music that he thought this album would remedy. I think he was right, but can no longer remember the substance of my complaint. Does this mean that the album is magic? I cannot say. Jonathan would want me to note that he played on the album. And so I have.
Way Too Helpful
(Loud Family/Scott Miller)
You have your guides to you
And they're way too helpful, way too much comes through
Leave room
To for once in your life go home, worth unproved
And the earth unmoved
Leaving on a jet bus
Sitting next to just us
Diesel updraft, gliding on
Oakland airspace, riding the ailerons
Live a day not as if it were your last
But as if at night, and that day had just passed
Big old shoeliner crashed
And all that's left of you is what your mom and dad
Understand, and lovers might
Yell in your face late at night
Which could get proved wrong in the faintest light
Maybe turned in for the pay
Maybe called to end that way
Maybe just as if to say
This strange murder is what we do all day
12:37 a.m. - July 26, 2005
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