Two for the price of one.
Category: Music
To commemorate my making it one full week into Blog-a-day month without missing a day and without cheating either, I'm going to present two different blogs in this one blog. Yay!
Blog 1
Music has been a strange, yet driving force for much of my life. I was a band geek all through school, a music major (turned minor) in college. I often pride myself with liking good music and hating sucky music and reasonably understanding why. And songs, many good but some sucky, tend to bring back memories, many good but some sucky. This summer I tried to regain my music roots by purchasing a piano. More on that in another blog, methinks.
But sometimes music goes weird on me. What I mean by that is that I need to do something that I hate when other people do it. It's song repetition. I like to hear a good variety of songs. When there's a new song that I hear and enjoy, I might listen to it a couple times to get the feel for it, but I don't like to overplay it and kill it. For example, there is no possible way that I could count the number of times I sat through "Satellite" by the Dave Mathews Band while visiting certain friends in college. Not that it's a horrible song, but it's already a repetitive song. And they played it over and over every time we were there. And there was also another song by Sophie B. Hawkings (or something like that - google could clear it up for me, but I'd rather type this thought) with lyrics that went something like "Now I lay me down to sleep, blah blah blah, you can hold me tight, blah blah" (Those that know me know that I rarely know the words to songs. I prefer to make them up as I go). They played that song over and over and over. And it was certainly a sucky song.
So every once in a while, I have to play out a song. I hate it when others do it, so I don't subject others to that. I prefer to do it in the solitude of my car. Once in college it was "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John. That was a weird week. It's often triggered by some emotion, but that's something for another blog, or perhaps for none of you to hear.
Right now, I have two songs. And that's making it kinda weird, since I play one for awhile, then switch to the other, then back to the other, and back, and back. So join me, if you will, in listening to these songs over and over with me:
Weezer "Burndt Jamb" (from Maladroit)
The Strokes "12:51" (from Room on Fire)
Blog 2
I like reading, as well. It's good for you. Possibly more healthy than veggies, and tastes better than that vile weed broccoli. But you shouldn't eat books, you should read them. And in reading them, that is what makes them better. But I tend to find that I need to get into that "reading mood" sometimes. Last few months, it just hasn't been there. When Potter 7 came out, I finished that off pretty quickly, though I wanted to stretch it out more. So I have a list of a bunch of books that I'm trying to read. And since Blog-a-day month was my excuse to force me to start writing, I'm going to use it to force me to start reading, as well. That's right - it's now Book-a-day month as well. Wait... that's a bit extreme... OK, how about here's my list of books that I have started in the past, 6 months (OK, more for some, but who's counting?), and I am pledging right here to finish 8 of these 14 books by the end of 2007. Why 8? Because it's one more than half. Also, if I try to figure three a month, and October is already close to 1/3 done, it works out. Here are the books. Wanna join the reading club?
Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
1776 – David McCullough
His Excellency – Joseph J. Ellis
Little Children – Tom Perrotta
Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut
Until I Find You – John Irving
The Taking – Dean Koontz
The Killing of Reinhard Heyorich, the SS "Butcher of Prague" - Callum MacDonald
Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
And these last three I haven't started yet, but they look interesting to me, and they are sitting next to my bed:
This Is Your Brain On Music - Daniel Levitin
Fiasco - Thomas E. Ricks
1491 - Charles C. Mann
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