Monthly Archives: May 2004

Seeing Through

I hate how trans­par­ent peo­ple can be. Let me guess…you want to impress this girl, you want to talk about your­self, you want some of my fries, you think that girl has a nice ass, you love your rep­u­ta­tion as a char­ac­ter, you want me to lis­ten to this song.

I only con­sid­er it trans­par­ent when these peo­ple nev­er actu­al­ly say what they think or what. It’s not like they begin with, “I only act this way around you cause I want in your pants”, or “I don’t real­ly care about you but I’ll let you speak first so I can have my turn lat­er”, or “I want some of your fries so I keep ask­ing about how good they are so you’ll offer me some”, or “You’re hot so I’m going to stare”, or “I want a crazy rep­u­ta­tion so I’m going to act crazy”, or “I want to be the one who intro­duced you to this song”.

I’ve been told that I’m very trans­par­ent when it comes to peo­ple I don’t like, and hope­ful­ly that’s the only case for me. I gen­er­al­ly won’t go around telling peo­ple that I hate them, but I’d rather some­one know than not know. That way they won’t waste their time with me and I won’t waste my time with them.

Things would cer­tain­ly be a lot bet­ter that way.

The Deadliest Combo

So Tristan final­ly updat­ed their site for the spring 2004 col­lec­tion. There’s some­thing about a girl in a dress shirt and a blaz­er. And if there’s no dress shirt involved, well…that’s even bet­ter.

I won­der if any­one else melts just look­ing at her. It’s prob­a­bly just me. I can’t be blamed though. The red­head-blaz­er com­bo is dead­ly.

The Equivalent In Work Hours

Over the week­end I bought a dress shirt (with the lit­tle plas­tic insert things that keep the col­lar straight), a silk tie, and a pair of Quicksilver board­ies. I’ve been buy­ing more than I should. I keep cal­cu­lat­ing the price of things in terms of num­ber of work hours.

Mellisonant Apogee

I could nev­er under­stand why some songs could make my eyes water.

  • Radiohead — Paranoid Android, with its con­tra­dic­to­ry chords
  • Thrice — Artist in the Ambulance, with its repent­ing, inspi­ra­tional move­ments
  • Dreamtheater — Disappear, as the harp leads to dis­tor­tion in a bit­ter­sweet explo­sion
  • Billy Talent — Nothing to Lose, with its heartwrench­ing cho­rus
  • Godspeed, You Black Emperor! — Hungover as the Queen in Maida Vale, right when a sin­gle vio­lin inter­rupts the ser­mon
  • No Motiv — Born Again, when the drums kick in heavy and lead the lis­ten­er to the present
  • Lovage — Anger Management, with its pin­ing soft rock melody
  • The Dears — Heartless Romantic, with its thump­ing, dis­tort­ed bass hits against the dron­ing organ synth and dual vocals
  • Elliot Smith — Waltz #2, with its steady, but heart-break­ing tone
  • Bad Astronaut — These Days, every time the effu­sive cho­rus rush­es in
  • Strung Out — Match Book, in its entire ener­getic hope­ful­ness
  • Postal Service — The Dream Of Evan And Chan, through all the open­ing lines
  • Misfits — Saturday Night, as soon as the drag­ging gui­tars kick in
  • Portishead — Undenied, with Beths frag­ile voice accom­pa­ny­ing a sim­ple, dis­tort­ed loop

For the longest time I had assumed that it was the songs them­selves, com­posed so well with so much pain, that would blur my vision. These songs were sad, and tears were the prop­er response.

Then I heard some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, some­thing that was calm­ing yet lift­ing. A dreamy song by Modest Mouse called Float On, that filled me with an inde­scrib­able sat­is­fac­tion every time I heard it. And I real­ized that all these songs, as sad as they are, were mak­ing me hap­py.

So hap­py that tears are the prop­er response.