Friday, October 17, 2003
Pointless post and the return of the song of the day!
I live in Des Moines and work mostly in Ames. I have no office other than my apartment so to check my e-mail I go to the Ames public library, which has a very good selection of stuff-other-than-books. So in a borrowing frenzy I grabbed Five Cds as follows.
Phish - Billy Breathes
Pavement - Brighten the Corners
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
Prodigy - Fat of the Land
and
Pearl Jam - Riot Act
Not bad for a public library huh? And I didn't pay for them, making listening to a new Cd less of an event than I usually make it.
Even though I am listening through Billy Breathes right now, the official song of the day is the incredible Paradise by the DashBoard Lights by Meat Loaf.
It's just a fun song but (and you have to understand the cynicism in which I view relationships at this point) but I love how reflective it is of the core dissonance of thinking between males and females. And I think it's the male/female vocal that helps pull it off for sure so you have a dialogue between the one track mind guy and the girl who probably has a base desire like any adolescent but who needs the emotional validation of what they have ("Will you love me forever?") before she gives in to these desires. The boy of the song is then so upset when he lies to the woman ("Praying for the end of time") because there's a looming deceit over his head. Sure he got some lovin', but being a nice guy he feels bad for being dishonest (I don't see how this song fits in with the whole Bat out of Hell concept, I don't like the other songs on the album very much).
The woman is overemotional and asks for all these long-term promises in order to innocently have a hot little fling. The guy, in translating his instinct to spread his seed into a type of social affection that the moment doesn't call for, lies and gets extremely frustrated.
And then there's all this glorious rock and roll music behind it to make it seem like this situation was so big and huge when it was really just high school fun.
When you're bopping around the final repeated lyrics jump in.
"It was long ago / It was far away / It was so much better than it is today"
Mr. Loaf (Mr. Steiman actually) is interjecting solemn reflection on the past. Even though this high school experience had enormous tension (for barely seventeen-year olds) maybe the emotional dynamics were more defined and simple back then. Then as the years go by the basic conflict of the boy and girl in the song get muddled with socially constructed ideas of "commitment", etc. It becomes even crazier and darker until you get to the Trent Reznor-esque view of relationships.
So, postive weekend thought. Whatever hassles you had dealing with the opposite sex through high school and early college, if you are individual that marginally respects your own personal dignity in these matters, relationships just get worse and worse!
ha ha, just kidding. You can say enough with this bullshit let's find me a wife somewhere.
But I'd like a girlfriend pretty soon.
Thanks for listening.
Phish - Billy Breathes
Pavement - Brighten the Corners
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
Prodigy - Fat of the Land
and
Pearl Jam - Riot Act
Not bad for a public library huh? And I didn't pay for them, making listening to a new Cd less of an event than I usually make it.
Even though I am listening through Billy Breathes right now, the official song of the day is the incredible Paradise by the DashBoard Lights by Meat Loaf.
It's just a fun song but (and you have to understand the cynicism in which I view relationships at this point) but I love how reflective it is of the core dissonance of thinking between males and females. And I think it's the male/female vocal that helps pull it off for sure so you have a dialogue between the one track mind guy and the girl who probably has a base desire like any adolescent but who needs the emotional validation of what they have ("Will you love me forever?") before she gives in to these desires. The boy of the song is then so upset when he lies to the woman ("Praying for the end of time") because there's a looming deceit over his head. Sure he got some lovin', but being a nice guy he feels bad for being dishonest (I don't see how this song fits in with the whole Bat out of Hell concept, I don't like the other songs on the album very much).
The woman is overemotional and asks for all these long-term promises in order to innocently have a hot little fling. The guy, in translating his instinct to spread his seed into a type of social affection that the moment doesn't call for, lies and gets extremely frustrated.
And then there's all this glorious rock and roll music behind it to make it seem like this situation was so big and huge when it was really just high school fun.
When you're bopping around the final repeated lyrics jump in.
"It was long ago / It was far away / It was so much better than it is today"
Mr. Loaf (Mr. Steiman actually) is interjecting solemn reflection on the past. Even though this high school experience had enormous tension (for barely seventeen-year olds) maybe the emotional dynamics were more defined and simple back then. Then as the years go by the basic conflict of the boy and girl in the song get muddled with socially constructed ideas of "commitment", etc. It becomes even crazier and darker until you get to the Trent Reznor-esque view of relationships.
So, postive weekend thought. Whatever hassles you had dealing with the opposite sex through high school and early college, if you are individual that marginally respects your own personal dignity in these matters, relationships just get worse and worse!
ha ha, just kidding. You can say enough with this bullshit let's find me a wife somewhere.
But I'd like a girlfriend pretty soon.
Thanks for listening.
Monday, October 13, 2003
Well I don't want to bother finding out how post titles work again. And my first link in my last post was wrong!! Why, god, why! Anyway, the blog of Brian Fleming thanked me and others for linking to his play "Fair and Balanced which I did a couple months ago. You're welcome, and thanks for adding another link when I do a google search on "Jonah Katz" for building my ego.
I'm such a dork but I like the attention.
Yeah! It's been a while but my involvement in online discourse has caused my blog to be name-checked here and an e-mail I sent was quoted at my favorite obscure blog by a fellow liberal in his early twenties . I don't post this blog or respond to bloggers much because I think its just too anomymous, but maybe this proves that it's a small world after all. How do I get my e-mail address up so vast numbers of people can respond to my wisdom? Someone tell me at jwcatz@earthlink.net. And I have another e-mail address in case somebody wants to make my life miserable and allow to experience massive spam for the first time.
Anyway, there is a good science fiction short story I read from 1966 called "Day Million" by Frederick Pohl. The money line from that 5-pager for me:
"the love story did not entail that sublimination of the urge to rape and concurrent postponement of the instinct to submit which we at present understand in such matters."
hee hee my cynicism towards the murky lines between biological and social attraction will probably never go that far. I want to read more of this guy (the rest of the story goes far beyond that clever line).
I got a full time job in my field since the last time I posted. A lot of expected repetitive drudgery but it could get better. I'll rant about it another time.
Anyway, there is a good science fiction short story I read from 1966 called "Day Million" by Frederick Pohl. The money line from that 5-pager for me:
"the love story did not entail that sublimination of the urge to rape and concurrent postponement of the instinct to submit which we at present understand in such matters."
hee hee my cynicism towards the murky lines between biological and social attraction will probably never go that far. I want to read more of this guy (the rest of the story goes far beyond that clever line).
I got a full time job in my field since the last time I posted. A lot of expected repetitive drudgery but it could get better. I'll rant about it another time.
