Since two hours of total non-math isn't enough incentive, we get a nice array of snacks during rehearsal breaks with the skilled, serious, always-in-tune Caltech concert band. Except, of course, when the director arrives at the snack storage locale to find a small horde of NPR employees merrily swallowing our marshmallow fudge lumps.

Bastards! I thought. We'll see if I ever support the quality programming on my local public radio station!

But my ire vanished once the break was over and I discovered that we're going to play PDQ Bach's March of the Cute Little Wood Sprites on the next concert. Wheee!!!

There is an important accessory to college life, and that is the Boy Whose Sister Makes Music. When you have one of those around, good things happen, like incredible musicians coming to play in the lounge where you do homework so you don't have to pay any money or even move to hear them. So on Thursday night between sets, we all bought shiny new Noe Venable CDs and for the past three days her voice has been leaking out of rooms, through closets and cupboards, ventilation, plumbing, secret conduits of all kinds.

It's a good voice. If you've never heard it, you should spend some money on a shiny new CD for yourself. If you need a target demographic, it's the kind of shiny new CD that would open for an ani difranco concert. It's definitely a super bonus good change from the usual subwoofer études. But I'm starting to see (hallucinate, maybe, but maybe not!) people tilting their heads in unison, eating in rhythm, and other signs of zombie singer-songwriter mind meld. It's creepy.

Look at this. Now, you ask, how do I know it was God telling me to post this link, and not, say, my half-finished can of ginger ale? Well, guess what song was playing when I saw it. We all know God spoke through the Pixies.

slicing up eyeballs
ha ha ha ho
girlie so groovie

Music for me is very easily tainted by the circumstances in which I've heard it. Pop songs from circa 2020-2020 make me angsty, the end of Sibelius' second symphony makes me light-headed, and Wolfstone recalls that spirited open-road feeling from the summer after I got out of high school, when I'd grab my pickup truck after a day at the assembly line and drive 5 hours for the only long-distance relationship I've ever tried. I've got a fair amount of nostalgic energy invested in that truck, actually, so in a tangential way the bass player's mullet almost made sense. But it still took me until the end of the first set to remember that even though the band was rockin' out like the noisy part of a trailer park, they were still playing music. After that, though, the dance pit started to be a bit more believable, and it was full of people grabbing each other by the elbows and skipping in circles, which I find infinitely preferable to trendier kinds of jumping about. So I still had a good time, and it took the entire train ride home for the rawness to ease from my lungs.

And due to my usual lack of planning, er, spontaneity, I went alone with an extra unused ticket. I think it's because I made the mistake of telling people what kind of music this was - for some reason people were no more enthusiastic about Scottish folkrock than they were about a traditional Irish band. Maybe next time I'll just describe the event as "unique" and "a surprise" and trick someone into coming along; it should work at least once. Anyway, since I've got such an unpopular taste in music I've begun to pay attention to all the other people going to concerts alone, and they all seem to fit in a small number of pigeonholes. You've got two or three potbellied balding men who look like refugees from a science fiction convention, one mid-thirties woman with a leather jacket, and then tonight there was a middle-aged man dressed in black smoking a pipe. If I get any choice in the matter, I hope I turn into the guy with the pipe, and not the transplanted scifi fans or the woman in her mid-fifties who stood up in the middle of songs and clapped wildly with no sense of rhythm at all.

Now, Danu is a perfectly wonderful recording group, but I just went to see them live (neener neener neener). Holy-fucking-incredible. It feels like I've got little leprechauns embedded in my skin, dancing jigs and playing concertinas. And aside from that pesky little matter of their actually being legitimate musicians, a group of seven twentysomething men could basically be considered the traditional Irish boy band - I was strongly tempted to throw my underwear onstage. I've totally got the hots for the bouzouki player. Short hair, but such a crisply ironed shirt!

That, and I've always wanted to say I have the hots for a bouzouki player. I don't know why. Bouzoukis are just sexy.

A commercial for credit suisse is backed by an aria from La Wally - yes, the one from Diva. Every time it comes on, I'm suddenly amazed and discombobulated by the fact that my life isn't shot in blue filter. In fact, other than the occasional correction for polarized light glaring off a sheet of water, I'm not certain that my life is shot through any kind of filter at all, and this is a bit disappointing. I've always wanted to be one of those sexy films with innovative art direction - I mean, doesn't everyone? - but I might have to settle for a light-hearted docudrama. As long as the movie of my life doesn't turn out to be a dogme film, I'll be fine.

*stifles a bad joke on the Vow of Chastity*

Hoo, yeah. My next blogging, I think, should be by request. O loyal readers, give me a topic! I am prepared to fill out one of those silly personal data emails, or ramble at length about Being an Agnostic, or to say something almost witty (but not quite) about sheep, or to come up with something completely different just because you say so. It's a rare occasion when I care this much, and am also this bored... take ruthless advantage while you can!

A 639 year organ concert. I've never been a huge fan of actually listening to John Cage, though I usually find his stuff interesting from an intellectual standpoint, but this is an incredibly inspiring project. That kind of lifespan is rarely contemplated even in architecture, let alone music, which is supposed to be fleeting, ephemeral, and above all a human experience. The idea that we can stretch it out beyond human time scales is at once bizarre and compelling.