is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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On Finding Inspiration In Unexpected Places.
People like it when I write about being alone. About that I probably have some things to say. But not today!
Today I have this. First of all, a friend of mine just sent me, over email, a story about farting that had me crying with laughter. Not only was it inherently hilarious, as fart stories tend to be, but it was so well written that I just couldn�t believe how much I was enjoying the way it unfolded. I wish I could share it with you. But it is not up to me to do so! Oh, but here�s one little piece: �Now, my commitment to catastrophe studies makes me pause before this claim, this claim about the unspeakable. But I'm just being honest here. There is a time for poetry. No poetry is justifiable in the wake of this [fart in question]. There is another time, a time that responds to having been torn asunder by disaster, in which single or coupled elliptical words are called for. Unspeakable. Radical Evil. �These words impose themselves upon our discourse,� as Derrida might have said.�
Man! It demonstrates, among other things, that one can find writerly inspiration anywhere. Except on the days when one can find it nowhere.
Second of all, UPS showed up at my door today with one HUGE box and one tiny package. (Hmmm, that sounds like the beginning of a bad hook-up story, but it isn�t.) UPS guy is all, �wow, what are you expecting from California?� I�m like, �I DON�T KNOW! IT IS A SURPRISE!� So I carry the small package and UPS guy carries the HUGE BOX up the flights of stairs. He�s all, �Man, this must suck when you have lots of groceries!� Me: �Yes. Yes, it does.� Anyway, what do I find when I open the huge box once it is safely ensconced inside my apartment? A FLAT-SCREEN TELEVISION! My dad sent me his old television! Except that it is not very old at all! It is gloriously new!
Just the other day I was telling my neighbor that I couldn�t invite him over to watch television because my television is both very tiny and emits a constant loud buzzing noise such that I am the only human left on earth capable of watching it as much as I do. On a related note, recently B.E. wondered aloud whether I might be bothered that we were spending a lot time at his house, and not so much time at mine, and my answer was: �Um, have you noticed how nice your television is?� Ha.
Anyway, I can�t tell you how LOVELY it is to watch a television with a large wide screen and NO BUZZING NOISE in my own home! It is so relaxing! Oh the things I can do now! If you fear the way I seem to be inspired by television, so be it. I also love pepsi, and cute cats, and stuffed animals. And dresses and shoes. And some books, but not all books. Not necessarily in that order.
Third of all, today my ipod on shuffle played Fountains of Wayne�s �Prom Theme� for me. It had been awhile. I think I had forgotten it existed, that song. But man, what great ironic brilliance! It is in the form of the kind of song that would end up being someone�s prom theme, but its lyrics are about how pathetisad proms are at the time they are lived, and also at the time they are relived as nostalgia, by those whose lives have become pathetisad in different ways.
Here�s my favorite part:
Here we are at last
We're running out of gas
The air is getting thick
The girls are feeling sick
We'll pass out on the beach
Our keys just out of reach
And soon we'll say goodbye
Then we'll work until we die
But tonight we feel like we�re stars
We'll play our air guitars
Cause we're eighteen
It's a perfect night
To sing our prom theme
All the while surrounded by dopily lush instrumentals such as a high school couple might have slow-danced to, back when people my age were high school couples. It might actually be too much, the song. But then again the Utopia Parkway album is about nostalgia, for better and for worse.
Oh. I just remembered that I once wrote, quite a long time ago, something about this, under another name (by which I mean, under a name other than Jill). And, strange to say, the article I wrote was about finding inspiration in unexpected places! Interesting coincidence of theme�. I mean, how is it that, on the very same day I hear a song that once drove me to write about inspiration arriving from odd places, I later receive over email a fart story showing signs of that very condition?
Magic!
Fourthly, one more thing about music. So I went to the symphony with my philosopher/conductor friend, and it was fun. The orchestra was OK� mistakes were made. My friend tells me that the conductor was bad, was all about his own ego, showing he knows the score (literally) rather than really being a leader to his musicians. My favorite part of the evening was listening to my friend (let�s call him MK) talk about music and about what the conductor did wrong, and what should have been done instead. We were walking around afterward, talking, and MK would get so caught up in describing the music, and what went wrong, and what could have been right, that he would have to stop walking, to gesticulate or make instrument noises, or conduct or something, but in the meantime I�d be so intently concentrating on what he was saying that I wouldn�t notice he had stopped walking until it suddenly became clear that he was no longer at my side but was rather standing still, ten feet behind me. That happened three or four times. It was fun to learn a bit about what it means to conduct music, and to hear MK�s enthusiasm and inspiration for it. He will soon be conducting one of the same pieces we saw that night, but it seems like I may not be able to see him do it, because I�ll be hosting a Symposium here in QB that night. We�ll see if maybe I can make a mad dash over there, but it�s not seeming likely, sadly.
Then, ten minutes later, sitting in his car for the ride back to the suburbs, I realized what song I had in my head. It was that damned thing from Music and Lyrics. Not inspiring at all. But man! what a hook.
11:10 p.m. - February 27, 2007
puhmeow - 2007-02-28 14:48:45
Congrats on the new tv! yay i say!
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MatthewB - 2007-02-28 22:42:09
"Prom Theme" has always been one of my favorite FoW tracks -- a song whose melody, as sung plaintively by Chris, is so gorgeous that it manages to be genuinely wistful and moving despite its oh-so-meta lyric.
Looking forward to watching the next nationally televised event on your new Flat-Screen Television! Guess we'll have to bake something...
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Max Maloney - 2007-03-02 20:03:53
You can totally reprint the story of my flatulence. I'm not embarrassed in the least. Just change the external names to protect the innocent...they shouldn't be dragged into this madness.
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