2008
hello everyone, it’s nice to be here
maura @ 9:50 pm
Lately for me it’s been all about minute 1:04 in New Order’s song “Sooner Than You Think,” from their incredibly fantastic (and practically prehistoric) record Low Life. (Go ahead, cue it up, I’ll wait.) It’s just about the most perfect moment on that record: the point where the increasingly-layered drums, synth, bass and guitar all merge in a rush, just before the vocals start.
I’ve been obsessing over New Order recently, a situation which threatens that band’s good-for-work-music status. When I need to concentrate (read, write, think) the music I listen to usually has to be familiar enough that it fades into the background without making me sing along in my head. Which means that certain records get a lot of play (right now: Pipas, The Shins; when I was dissertating: Orbital, Beastie Boys [really!]). But anything that pushes my brain to recognize the music at more than a background level is just too intrusive for working.
Tonight I’m replacing most of my ipod with New Order, and finally ripping those Joy Division discs to add them, too. Maybe I am just looking forward to next month, when Control finally comes out on DVD.
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Writing, writing, writing. I’ve been thinking about writing a lot recently. And simultaneously not doing enough of it. Writing is never easy, but I felt like it was easier while I was in library school and I had to do it. Deadlines can be mighty useful.
These days I’m having trouble even blagging and writing in my journal, much less attacking anything scholarly. Maybe I need to NaBloPoMo again, maybe just for a little while, to get back into the swing of it. I have some plans, I have some ideas, but most of them are too big for the small stretches of time I can afford to give them right now.
I do have 6 summer Fridays coming up during which I will buckle down and get some writing done (NOT clean, reorganize, regrout, or sew, really!). And if I can do the preliminary research (just right for small bits of time) on some of these ideas beforehand, all the better.
And all the better for you, too, since more writing should = fewer long + boring posts like this one. “Oh you know what I mean, yes you do.”
