write it down

all day long at various intervals i think to myself, i should put something about that in the blog. and i forget bunches of that shit every day. the sad thing is that this problem is not limited in any respect to blog postings. i'm sure i've had lots of worthwhile ideas about what to do with my life throughout the spectrum of importance that i simply considered, filed, and lost. a friend of mine carries around one of those classic little notebooks to jot shit down in, kind of a combination quote book and note-to-self file i guess. but it seems like a good idea, and this is by no means the first time i've considered doing something like that, but i still don't have a little notebook. it wouldn't be too burdensome of an addition as i regularly carry vast amounts of useless and useful shit in my pockets all day every day. but what good does it do to mentally note to get a little notebook if the suggestion just winds up buried? and on the other hand, how much time are people willing to spend reading this shit? i write long enough posts as it is, imagine if i had twice as many topics and went off just as much as every one. hope you've got time to kill; i'm here to help.
one thing i forgot and fortunately remembered was that this weekend i somehow failed to attend faerie con at the palace known as the philadelphia convention center. the city is serious about that place; they've poured a lot of money into it. the odd thing is how similar the situation is to back home, except on such a greater scale. and i'm sure faerie con in west michigan would draw more religious protesters than attendees. but the whole thing was really kind of interesting, lots about knowing what kind of faerie you were, lots of people wearing wings. the article i saw in the metro was quoting someone involved with the convention talking about how the "faerie movement" is like the hippie movement, except without the drugs and dirtiness, or something like that. i got a kick out of it, considering how those are the two things people think of most readily at the mention of hippies these days it seems, with nominal consideration given to the theoretical ideals they allegedly espoused. someone else was telling me about a recent wedding where all the women were wearing faerie wings, and i just hoped that in twenty years they could all look back and laugh.
i don't get enough laughs these days, that much is certain, so one is always most welcome. man is the animal who laughs at himself. i have alway found that to be a very satisfactory and stimulating notion, and i ran across it as i re-read stranger in a strange land, which has proven to be eminently worthy of another read. if you're reading this now, the odds are pretty good that i already told you to read it and you have not. i do not fault you for that, but would merely like to reiterate my admonition that you do. i'm no sci-fi buff, but i know that this one stands as a landmark in the field with justified reason. incredibly deep and provocative, yet with plenty of movement and plot. really the best example of philosophical fiction i've ever encounter. i miss fiction. that was basically a habit of my well-spent youth, and i would really like to bring that back. i've just spent so many years reading plenty of things i had to, with fiction only making an occasional cameo, and voluntary fiction even less so. i don't have oodles of time to whittle away these days, but i need to balance things out some and reading is a better distraction and use of time to relax than just drinking. and a much more effective method of taking one's mind off things, really, offering an alternate universe in which to exercise imagination.
i can use any break i can get from school, which feels like throwing my body into an enormous brick wall every day: entirely ineffectual, intimidating, and seemingly hopeless. i have never felt more brain-dead in my whole life. i guess if i were serious about cheering up i wouldn't be playing tom waits, but he's just been hitting the spot. i even broke donny's one strict rule of personal conduct: do not listen to tom waits while drinking alone. he's right though, it will get you inexplicably intoxicated. anyway, don't be deceived by all my bitching and moaning; school is not all bad i suppose. there's always contracts, which i prefer for some reason. good prof, excellent text. i just don't see why it must be so much better than the others. i don't think the material is intrinsically easier to grasp, but i could easily say i feel the most on board with this class. no exams until the end is a blessing and a curse; sometimes difficult to gauge one's position without grades as reference points, or an indication of what one is expected to be learning, really. i think i have the general idea down, learn the law and be able to create analogies between its relationship with different sets of facts, but how that plays out in specifics is liable to have some variation from class to class and from prof to prof.
enough of that. as much as i want this to be a forum for my law school experience, there is no place of endless obsessing to an audience that cares but is not similarly situated. so how about some good news... steely dan is the real deal, the more i hear the more i dig their project. i just can't believe these guys did reelin' in the years and rikki don't lose that number. i fuckin hate those songs. this album i just got, countdown to ecstasy, started out with a song i didn't really dig either, bodhisottva, where they give their interpretation of some old-school rock n roll stylings with some classic guitar parts that would seem more at homem in a stray cats swing-rock rave-up. strange, really, not all bad, but not really what i was hoping to hear when i put it on. fortunately, the next few cuts are exactly the sort of thing i hoped for: sensible jazz-rock with great rhythmic texture, intelligent lyrics, and outstanding interplay between instruments. oh, also in music news, i heard that pitchfork lets you choose your own rating for the new radiohead album, a dig on the band letting you pay what you want to download it. and i thought pretentious had already been taken to its highest level, but leave it to those folks i guess. aw snap, this album has my old school on it. did not realize. thought that one was on royal scam for some reason; obtaining that is higher on the list than ever before. although this album was still when they were actually sort of a band, mention of this group always reminds me of the phrase 'crack team of studio musicians'. i think 'crack team' is reserved for assemblies of researchers, scientists, or steely dan studio musicians. some other music has certainly involved crack teams of studio musicians, but not in the same mentionable way as this. i owe a debt of gratitude to reynolds and stephen for combining forces to put aja in my possession. and joe (not squaw joe) for pointing out the correlation between college profs and steely dan acolytes, worth looking into. whatever is on now sounds like radiohead eventually ripped it off; steely dan covers a wide swath of musical territory. what are these "synthesizers" you speak of? let's fuck with 'em. and that was probably the notion behind much of the music we all know and love. sorry to go on about music as always, but i am simply not wealthy enough to eat at interesting places on a regular basis. just be glad i didn't write about john kahn's bass playing for a few pages.