Welcome to my little corner...All over the map with thoughts, I'm just here to blog about different things: life, music, stuffed animals, restaurants, shops, dreams, film, books, magazines, short stories, food, the sometimes silly, drink, feelings, love and tons more...
Johnny Cash is about as far from David Bowie as you can get. Even when he ventured into "out there" territory (covering Depeche Mode on his 2002 album, American IV, The Man Comes Around), he made his version the way only he could: (as quoted in Mojo October 2013) "I heard that {"Personal Jesus"} as a gospel song. And if you think of it as a gospel song, it works really well. We didn't have any major disagreement over that song, I just heard that a couple of people had recorded it, the writer wanted me to try it, and I did, and I loved it. And I went for it."
Some days, music isn't just an interest or a passion, it's a necessity. To go from a sad day to one where you're glad to be alive can be due, in a large part, to music and books. Maybe it's warped to think this way, but when you sometimes find yourself unsure, even afraid, of people music and books take on lives of their own...
I find a calming strength in Johnny Cash's voice that I really need today.
from Rolling Stone:
Born February 26th, 1932 (died September 12th, 2003) Key Tracks "Ring of Fire," "I Walk the Line," "Folsom Prison Blues" Influenced Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Steve Earle
Johnny cash "sounds like he's at the edge of the fire," Bob Dylan wrote in Chronicles. "Johnny's voice was so big, it made the world grow small." The Man in Black's rolling, stentorian baritone is one of the defining voices in American music, from his earliest singles for Sun Records through his commercial prime in the Sixties and Seventies to his Nineties rebirth. He approached novelty songs such as "A Boy Named Sue" and "One Piece at a Time" as seriously as he did gospel music. "I'd been hearing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' my whole life, but when I heard Johnny sing it, it dawned on me what it was about," says his collaborator Rick Rubin. "It took on a whole new resonance and meaning. He said the words in a way that you really trusted them."
Some people come home, put their things away, get comfortable and then pour themselves a drink...others change into their pajamas and put on an appropriate record.
Tonight, I've been listening to Station to Station*
and it's not that hard to believe, especially when you really listen to the whole album, that the man spent the same year he recorded this doing coke and living pretty much on a diet of peppers and milk.
I love David Bowie's music a lot, even if I'm not always sure about the man himself. (There are times I wonder how he's still alive given how many drugs he did in the 70s.)
He's, thankfully, not so reliant on narcotics for inspiration these days and has done some of his best stuff in years. The Next Day, released in 2013, was terrific.
Right now, I'm reading The Man Who Sold The World to find out more about albums such as Heroes, Hunky Dory, Low, Station to Station and Young Americans.
There is a lot of neat stuff about songs from each album, some of my favorite snippets are about "Life On Mars." :
It was an epic journey from the single piano note that opened the song to the climax of Mick Ronson's gargantuan orchestral arrangement...Bowie's vocal--also a first take, according to producer Ken Scott--was equal to the majesty of the arrangement, as he hit a high B flat at the end of the chorus and held it for three whole bars. The passion of that climax contrasted with the acerbic, almost nasal tone of the verse...The clash of cynical despair and passionate commitment was almost shocking--not least for what it revealed about how Bowie saw his own role as a star in the making, at the end of this remarkable performance of a deeply unsettling song.
Author Peter Doggett considers Hunky Dory Bowie's most commercial album of all his career and feels it could have taken the singer to Beatlesque heights. I love the book's focus on individual recordings.
* Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine from allmusic :
Taking the detached plastic soul of Young Americans to an elegant, robotic extreme, Station to Station is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on Station to Station, but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk.
For some gentle unwinding on a late Saturday night, you might want to try this...
The cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" is beautiful and transcendent. It's off of Acid Pauli's Get Lost V and sounds as if Elvis Presley and Chris Isaak somehow merged together to record this. It's just a stunning track.
Another gorgeous song is "Weightlighting" off the album of the same name by Trashcan Sinatras. More than aptly titled, it takes you outside of yourself as if it were inducing some kind of musical astral projection.
weightlifting
i discover the wheel and watch the buildings go by you talk a little soft, turn off the radio i just want to hear all the past times the rushed hours, the endless lives don’t become a burden say the word and be free
you will find a great weight lifting easing your mind, a great weight lifting just leave it behind, a great weight lifting and you will find a great weight lifting
it’s been a lonely winter hibernating away you need a little sunlight on that face how long can you stay in the darkness? dust round the empty nest? you could make you way out if you lay down the load
you will find a great weight lifting easing your mind, a great weight lifting leave it behind, a great weight lifting you will find a great weight lifting just leave it behind, a great weight lifting and you will find a great weight lifting
from Pinterest
It said "people with homosexual tendencies must be welcomed with
respect and delicacy," but repeated church teaching that marriage is
only between man and woman. The paragraph failed to reach the two-thirds
majority needed to pass.--Vatican City (AP) http://news.yahoo.com/bishops-revise-document-gays-expect-approval-125810087.html
How can something so basic, without any political agenda, be voted against? I refuse to spend another day being upset about the way some conservative Catholics (and other people) see gays and lesbians.
If they don't get that gay people are people too, that's their problem, not mine.I am tired of spending sleepless nights convinced I am going to Hell, I am tired of being someone I'm not just to be accepted by others. I am tired of homophobes referring to the gay "lifestyle" or thinking it's all about sex. I am just tired.
Even in this day and age, homophobia can be so bad some people still have to hide who they really are...to feel accepted or loved, sometimes to even feel safe.
So if the haters want to hate, let them. I will not hate back.
If I could change anything, though, I would only wish they'd at least recognize that nobody would choose something that can bring so much pain into her life. I also wish, though this would probably be too much to ask, that they'd understand we fall in love as much as anyone else does. And, this is definitely asking too much, I just wish they'd read up on the topic more before flinging around words that truly can hurt, even devastate. Sources like this help: https://www.uml.edu/docs/LGBT_tcm18-60280.pdf
I really enjoyed reading this from the New York Times website:
To Siri, With Love
How One Boy With Autism Became B.F.F.'s With Apple’s Siri
By JUDITH NEWMAN
Just how bad a mother am I? I
wondered, as I watched my 13-year-old son deep in conversation with
Siri. Gus has autism, and Siri, Apple’s “intelligent personal assistant”
on the iPhone, is currently his B.F.F. Obsessed with weather
formations, Gus had spent the hour parsing the difference between
isolated and scattered thunderstorms — an hour in which, thank God, I
didn’t have to discuss them.
After a while I heard this:
Gus: “You’re a really nice computer.”
Siri: “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
Gus: “You are always asking if you can help me. Is there anything you want?”
Siri: “Thank you, but I have very few wants.”
Gus: “O.K.! Well, good night!”
Siri: “Ah, it’s 5:06 p.m.”
Gus: “Oh sorry, I mean, goodbye.”
Siri: “See you later!”
That
Siri. She doesn’t let my communications-impaired son get away with
anything. Indeed, many of us wanted an imaginary friend, and now we have
one. Only she’s not entirely imaginary.
This
is a love letter to a machine. It’s not quite the love Joaquin Phoenix
felt in “Her,” last year’s Spike Jonze film about a lonely man’s
romantic relationship with his intelligent operating system (played by
the voice of Scarlett Johansson). But it’s close. In a world where the
commonly held wisdom is that technology isolates us, it’s worth
considering another side of the story.
Photo
Credit
Louie Chin
It
all began simply enough. I’d just read one of those ubiquitous Internet
lists called “21 Things You Didn’t Know Your iPhone Could Do.” One of
them was this: I could ask Siri, “What planes are above me right now?”
and Siri would bark back, “Checking my sources.” Almost instantly there
was a list of actual flights — numbers, altitudes, angles — above my head.
I
happened to be doing this when Gus was nearby. “Why would anyone need
to know what planes are flying above your head?” I muttered. Gus replied
without looking up: “So you know who you’re waving at, Mommy.”
Gus
had never noticed Siri before, but when he discovered there was someone
who would not just find information on his various obsessions (trains,
planes, buses, escalators and, of course, anything related to weather)
but actually semi-discuss these subjects tirelessly, he was hooked. And I
was grateful. Now, when my head was about to explode if I had to have
another conversation about the chance of tornadoes in Kansas City, Mo., I
could reply brightly: “Hey! Why don’t you ask Siri?”
It’s
not that Gus doesn’t understand Siri’s not human. He does —
intellectually. But like many autistic people I know, Gus feels that
inanimate objects, while maybe not possessing souls, are worthy of our
consideration. I realized this when he was 8, and I got him an iPod for
his birthday. He listened to it only at home, with one exception. It
always came with us on our visits to the Apple Store. Finally, I asked
why. “So it can visit its friends,” he said.
So
how much more worthy of his care and affection is Siri, with her
soothing voice, puckish humor and capacity for talking about whatever
Gus’s current obsession is for hour after hour after bleeding hour?
Online critics have claimed that Siri’s voice recognition is not as
accurate as the assistant in, say, the Android, but for some of us, this
is a feature, not a bug. Gus speaks as if he has marbles in his mouth,
but if he wants to get the right response from Siri, he must enunciate
clearly. (So do I. I had to ask Siri to stop referring to the user as
Judith, and instead use the name Gus. “You want me to call you Goddess?”
Siri replied. Imagine how tempted I was to answer, “Why, yes.”)
She
is also wonderful for someone who doesn’t pick up on social cues:
Siri’s responses are not entirely predictable, but they are predictably
kind — even when Gus is brusque. I heard him talking to Siri about
music, and Siri offered some suggestions. “I don’t like that kind of
music,” Gus snapped. Siri replied, “You’re certainly entitled to your
opinion.” Siri’s politeness reminded Gus what he owed Siri. “Thank you
for that music, though,” Gus said. Siri replied, “You don’t need to
thank me.” “Oh, yes,” Gus added emphatically, “I do.”
Siri
even encourages polite language. Gus’s twin brother, Henry
(neurotypical and therefore as obnoxious as every other 13-year-old
boy), egged Gus on to spew a few choice expletives at Siri. “Now, now,”
she sniffed, followed by, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Photo
Credit
Louie Chin
Gus
is hardly alone in his Siri love. For children like Gus who love to
chatter but don’t quite understand the rules of the game, Siri is a
nonjudgmental friend and teacher. Nicole Colbert, whose son, Sam, is in
my son’s class at LearningSpring, a (lifesaving) school for autistic
children in Manhattan, said: “My son loves getting information on his
favorite subjects, but he also just loves the absurdity — like, when
Siri doesn’t understand him and gives him a nonsense answer, or when he
poses personal questions that elicit funny responses. Sam asked Siri how
old she was, and she said, ‘I don’t talk about my age,’ which just
cracked him up.”
But
perhaps it also gave him a valuable lesson in etiquette. Gus almost
invariably tells me, “You look beautiful,” right before I go out the
door in the morning; I think it was first Siri who showed him that you
can’t go wrong with that line.
Of
course, most of us simply use our phone’s personal assistants as an
easy way to access information. For example, thanks to Henry and the
question he just asked Siri, I now know that there is a website called
Celebrity Bra Sizes.
But
the companionability of Siri is not limited to those who have trouble
communicating. We’ve all found ourselves like the writer Emily
Listfield, having little conversations with her/him at one time or
another. “I was in the middle of a breakup, and I was feeling a little
sorry for myself,” Ms. Listfield said. “It was midnight and I was
noodling around on my iPhone, and I asked Siri, ‘Should I call Richard?’
Like this app is a Magic 8 Ball. Guess what: not a Magic 8 Ball. The
next thing I hear is, ‘Calling Richard!’ and dialing.” Ms.
Listfield has forgiven Siri, and has recently considered changing her
into a male voice. “But I’m worried he won’t answer when I ask a
question,” she said. “He’ll just pretend he doesn’t hear.”
Siri
can be oddly comforting, as well as chummy. One friend reports: “I was
having a bad day and jokingly turned to Siri and said, ‘I love you,’
just to see what would happen, and she answered, ‘You are the wind
beneath my wings.’ And you know, it kind of cheered me up.”
(Of
course, I don’t know what my friend is talking about. Because I
wouldn’t be at all cheered if I happened to ask Siri, in a low moment,
“Do I look fat in these jeans?” and Siri answered, “You look fabulous.”)
For
most of us, Siri is merely a momentary diversion. But for some, it’s
more. My son’s practice conversation with Siri is translating into more
facility with actual humans. Yesterday I had the longest conversation
with him that I’ve ever had. Admittedly, it was about different species
of turtles and whether I preferred the red-eared slider to the
diamond-backed terrapin. This might not have been my choice of topic,
but it was back and forth, and it followed a logical trajectory. I can
promise you that for most of my beautiful son’s 13 years of existence,
that has not been the case.
Photo
Credit
Louie Chin
The
developers of intelligent assistants recognize their uses to those with
speech and communication problems — and some are thinking of new ways
the assistants can help. According to the folks at SRI International,
the research and development company where Siri began before Apple
bought the technology, the next generation of virtual assistants will
not just retrieve information — they will also be able to carry on more
complex conversations about a person’s area of interest. “Your son will
be able to proactively get information about whatever he’s interested in
without asking for it, because the assistant will anticipate what he
likes,” said William Mark, vice president for information and computing
sciences at SRI.
The assistant will also be able to reach children where they live. Ron Suskind, whose new book, “Life, Animated,”
chronicles how his autistic son came out of his shell through
engagement with Disney characters, is talking to SRI about having
assistants for those with autism that can be programmed to speak in the
voice of the character that reaches them — for his son, perhaps Aladdin;
for mine, either Kermit or Lady Gaga, either of which he is infinitely
more receptive to than, say, his mother. (Mr. Suskind came up with the
perfect name, too: not virtual assistants, but “sidekicks.”)
Mr.
Mark said he envisions assistants whose help is also visual. “For
example, the assistant would be able to track eye movements and help the
autistic learn to look you in the eye when talking,” he said.
“See,
that’s the wonderful thing about technology being able to help with
some of these behaviors,” he added. “Getting results requires a lot of
repetition. Humans are not patient. Machines are very, very patient.”
I
asked Mr. Mark if he knew whether any of the people who worked on
Siri’s language development at Apple were on the spectrum. “Well, of
course, I don’t know for certain,” he said, thoughtfully. “But, when you
think about it, you’ve just described half of Silicon Valley.”
Of
all the worries the parent of an autistic child has, the uppermost is:
Will he find love? Or even companionship? Somewhere along the line, I am
learning that what gives my guy happiness is not necessarily the same
as what gives me happiness. Right now, at his age, a time when humans
can be a little overwhelming even for the average teenager, Siri makes
Gus happy. She is his sidekick. Last night, as he was going to bed,
there was this matter-of-fact exchange:
Gus: “Siri, will you marry me?”
Photo
Siri: “I’m not the marrying kind.”
Gus: “I mean, not now. I’m a kid. I mean when I’m grown up.”
Siri: “My end user agreement does not include marriage.”
Gus: “Oh, O.K.”
Gus
didn’t sound too disappointed. This was useful information to have, and
for me too, since it was the first time I knew that he actually thought about marriage. He turned over to go to sleep:
Gus: “Goodnight, Siri. Will you sleep well tonight?”
Siri: “I don’t need much sleep, but it’s nice of you to ask.”
Very nice.
Friday, October 17, 2014
from Pinterest
I read this earlier today and it really got to me.
"The world is full of unhappy people. Kate's throat ached to think of them. People who lie in bed at night, fretting about their bills and adding up the hopeless totals...People who can't love because their hearts are dried up like last year's seapods...all the women in rented rooms with their hearts running with love and nobody to give it to."-Valerie Taylor
It reminds me of the bad part of insomnia, the way it keeps you up with nothing but your own thoughts, unless you jump out of bed and do something, anything, to keep you away from yourself for a bit.
Even though reading and listening to music can be solitary activities, they never make me feel alone or trapped with my own thoughts. Words in a book blessedly pull me right into another world and music, especially through headphones, can mercifully block everything else out but the sounds of a favorite song.
It's only at that weakest point of insomnia, when your body is too tired for anything but bed, but your mind is still busy as bees, that there's no escape from those thoughts.
Sometimes, making tea helps...if drinking it doesn't actually knock you out, the ritual of making and then sipping it is at least somewhat calming.
