Mousike

2011.01.02
149 Days Remaining

01. So here we are, in a New Year, and I just finished typing up my 2011 Calendar. For several years now I've made (on Word) a calendar for my own use, with birthdays, anniversaries, (multi-faith) holidays, class schedules, lunar phases, solstices, equinoxes, etc. typed in. As the days go by, I mark time's passing by shading each day. It actually takes a while to do all of this (about 2.5 hours, today), but at the end I feel like I have a decent sense of the year's chronological progression. This year, of course, the certain dates only go through May.

02. Another thought on music; in my previous post I remarked that Arcade Fire's song "Modern Man" falls into a type of music that I find appearing now and again in particular songs. It's a personal genre, if you will. Another song in that type is Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days," which just came up on my iTunes (one of the virtues of iTunes is the "shuffle" feature, which can surprise me).

03. The video for "Dance Hall Days" demonstrates that in the 80s, even nerdy guys could produce major club hits in the UK and USA. I've occasionally been struck by the slow but steady (if perhaps not completely regular) movement in the entertainment industry to privilege the physically attractive performers, which one would think is somewhat irrelevant for musicians. But the growth of video, I suspect, particularly exacerbated (or perhaps permitted) this development. The various issues people had with Susan Boyle actually proved this by emphasizing her exceptional experience.

04. On the topic of appearance and music, does anyone know if Ke$ha is for real? She was on Dick Clark's Rocking New Year's Eve. I only saw her on the stage with Ryan Seacrest and the various members of the New Kids on the Block and some other boy band. Seacrest was asking people for their resolutions, and her's was "not to be a douchebag." That struck me as a high point of the broadcast, because (vernacular notwithstanding) it's not a bad sentiment. Anyway, Selena commented that Ke$ha is usually high as a kite, and I heard (for the first time, to my knowledge) one of her songs ("Tik Tok") while driving back to New London last night. Curious, I watched two of her videos on YouTube and I can't decide if this is an act or if she's making Tupac's mistake, and living the lifestyle her songs claim. According to an interview I found online, she says it's all an act and not what she does off-camera. After TAing the class on Tupac Shakur, I've been interested in the issue of self/mask in musical performance, especially the extreme instances (gangstas, party girls) where there is clearly a premium put on displaying one's social marginality to the greatest extent possible (short of doing actual porn or killing people on camera).

05. Anyway, onto other matters. One of the things I've commented on in the past is that I often experience my life as a series of lists (primarily as a practical and mnemonic method). Last night and today I went through the lists from the past week and a half: websites, financial transactions, ideas, essays, etc. This is how my life will be re-constructable some day, by me or someone else. By this long chain of information.

06. Some days I just want to scream.