2006
looks as though they’re here to stay
maura @ 9:42 pm
I’m sick, bah. Gus and Jonathan are sick, too, but I have it worst this time (even took a sick day today). This is a bad time to be sick: Gus’ 1.5 week spring break starts tomorrow and I am taking a bunch of days off work to run around town with him and do crazy things like go to Staten Island (the ferry is free!) and to the science museum in Queens. Also we are going to my mom’s this weekend to meet my 10 week old niece, and I don’t want to give her all of our evil germs. Bah.
I’ve been listening to a lot of early Bowie lately, mostly Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane but then last week we watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou* and I remembered that I hadn’t ripped Hunky Dory so I brought that into work this week and listened to it repeatedly, like the obsessive that I am. It’s funny, most music I love makes me reminisce hard about a specific time or place, but Bowie is different, I feel like it’s sort of always been there. Which is patently untrue: unlike Steely Dan or Fleetwood Mac or Carly Simon or Cat Stevens, my parents did not listen to Bowie. I think my first exposure was around age 9 — my best friend at the time had 2 older, jr high + high school age brothers, and we’d sneak into their rooms and take their records, one of which was ChangesOne. But other than that my most nostalgic Bowie memory is listening to (and singing along with) the factory tape of Hunky Dory in my car in high school (also Janet Jackson’s Control, so hot). It’s strange, though, the melodies feel burned into my soul in a way that’s just not like other music.
* The movie was nice: sweet, funny and swell but also kind of slow. Jonathan liked it more than I did. But we both looooooooooooooooved those crazy Portugese acoustic Bowie covers. Loved them! That CD is going right on our wishlist, to be sure.
While convalescing on the sofa today I finished Cosmopolitanism. It was so so so good, everyone should go out to their local library right now and pick it up. His writing is clear and incisive and the subject is so thought provoking. I’ve come out the other side sort of envious of philosphers, and their ability to sit around thinking and writing all day.
Another thing that’s struck me with this is how much better prepared I am to read theory of any sort these days than when I was actually reading it for school, in college and grad school. While I loved the idea of reading theory and primary sources (nerds love doing things that are nerdy), it seemed so far from everything in my life then: friends, parties, music, travel, games, etc. Now that I’m older, a parent, and more mature (in some ways, at least), all of these deep thoughts and heavy ideas seem far less foreign.
Not that I’ll be delving back into Durkheim anytime soon, but I’m quite sure I’d have an easier time with it if I did.
EDITED 8/4/06 TO ADD: Man, those blog spammers are just crazy! The title of this post *used* to be “homo sapiens have outgrown their use”, but the homo is just a blog spam magnet, so I’m changing it in hopes of putting them off the trail. Sheesh!
“Life Aquatic” I liked but it was soooooooo loooooooooong. I kept thinking it might be almost over, not because I was bored but because it seemed to be winding down, then whoa, whole new scene, etc.
Anything after “Rushmore” is kind of a letdown. R. blew me away a) because I didn’t know anything about it when we went to see it (in this dank downstairs movie theater that used to exist in W’burg, VA, in a strip mall by a Big Lots and thrift shop and really good dry cleaner/tailor and excellent Indian restaurant, and Ben had to restrain himself from yelling att the concession guy who was full of theories that aliens built pyraminds, if anyone reading this knows the area or just wants to imagine it) and b) because that kid was the spitting image of Dave from high school! If you can picture Max from the movie and make him lose about 30 lbs. (Dave had CF so was crazy skinny), make the school sort of blue-collar Catholic (Dave thought nothing of showing up dressed as pope on St. Patrick’s Day and blessing people as they walked by him in the halls)…wow. I don’t think most people who saw “Rushmore” have that sense of “that guy reminds me exactly of…” but maybe.
“Bottle Rocket” is hilarious also, all those doofuses (doofi?) remind me of folks I know but not like Max/Dave, that was unfreekincanny!