Music

Aaargh. I have that blasted Don't Laugh at Me song in my mind that Jenny linked to a while back. I swear, it came at me from out of nowhere. It's like a sleeper earworm or something.

A window into my personality? I don't know, but I'd say this randomly-generated playlist is a pretty accurate representation of my stubbornly unhip taste in music.

1. The Smiths - I Want the One I Can't Have
2. The Primitives - Crash
3. Mötley Crüe - Too Young to Fall in Love
4. Shelby Lynne - Leavin'
5. Procol Harum - Whiter Shade of Pale
6. Mary J. Blige - Family Affair
7. Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
8. Combustible Edison and Esquivel! - Miniskirt
9. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk (live with USC band)
10. Ludacris - Southern Hospitality

To "Hey Jude," that is. I absolutely love that song. This whole halftime show is so much better than last year's obvious lip-synching by Shania Twain, and that other thing.

UPDATE: I tire of the word "dynasty."

I love Joni Mitchell so very much. I wish I could listen to her all day today, but duty calls and writing deadlines abound. Oh well, today in class we're going to be discussing Mr. Kang Goes to Washington, and I'm looking forward to it. I hope it will be a good way to reflect on election rhetoric at a certain level of remove, being that it's Clinton/Dole and not Kerry/Bush.

I feel good today (possibly because I've worked on my dissertation prospectus all weekend). If I still lived in Knoxville, I'd hop in my car and run off to the Smoky Mountains and to Hot Springs, where I'd lounge in a hot tub among pine trees all day [edited to add: all kinds of trees, actually. Lots of cedars, as I recall. Doesn't the limestone in the soil enable them to thrive? That's what I've heard.]. I'd relish the drive, and I'd blast these songs, among others:

"You Got the Car" -- Kasey Chambers (*)
"Let There Be Rock" -- Drive-By Truckers (*)
"Daddy Sang Bass" -- Johnny Cash (*)
"Two More Bottles of Wine" -- Emmylou Harris (*)
"A Boy Named Sue" -- Johnny Cash (*)
"Righteously" -- Lucinda Williams (*)
"Last Hard Bible" -- Kasey Chambers (*)
"C'est La Vie (You Never Can Tell)" -- Emmylou Harris (*)
"Barricades and Brickwalls" -- Kasey Chambers (*)
"Joy" -- Lucinda Williams (*)
"Walking in Memphis" -- Marc Cohn (*)
[Edited to add "Get Right With God" -- Lucinda Williams (:o How could I forget that one?!)] (*)

Anyone else want to come along? :)

NCA is going on right now. Is anyone blogging it?

Lately I've been checking out those Standard Deviants DVDs from the public library, particularly the ones on physics and chemistry. I figured it was time for a review of scientific notation, scalars, vectors, one- and two-dimensional kinematics, Newton's laws of motion, etc. The viewing is motivated by my desire to use metaphorically terms like "covalent bonds" in casual conversation to impress my friends and my paranoid fantasy that one day I just might find myself in an imperiled spacecraft and need to know this stuff. Yeah, you can say it! I'm an "odd bird." I've heard it hundreds of times before.

There aren't many annoying situations that can't be assuaged by listening to music. Yesterday I was standing in a long line at the post office -- which normally causes me to seethe in my cauldron of impatience -- and I had my CD player, headphones, and Emmylou Harris' Anthology playing. I decided right then and there to make it a point to take my CD player, headphones, and several CDs everywhere I go. Today's soundtrack is Pizzicato Five's Happy End of the World, which you should all check out from your libraries immediately.

I want to start the sequel meme! I mean, after the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, they released "More Dirty Dancing." After "Songs from Ally McBeal," they released Heart And Soul: New Songs From Ally McBeal Featuring Vonda Shepard. If they can do it, why can't I? :P Here are 100 more things about me:

1. I have never bought or sold anything on eBay.
2. My least favorite household chore is cleaning out the microwave.
3. My second least favorite household chore is ironing. For years I bought only clothes that didn't require ironing.
4. About twelve years ago, I wanted to be a writer for Soap Opera Digest. I mean it was my dream job. Ugh.
5. I love almond butter and jam and honey sandwiches on stone ground wheat bread.
6. I prepare and eat such sandwiches in a ritualistic manner. I put the honey on the bread first, so that it can absorb into the nooks and crannies. Then I apply thick layers of almond butter and jam. When I take a bite, the almond butter and jam ooze out from the crusts of the bread, so in between bites, I constantly run my tongue around the crusts of the bread to catch the excess, like I'm eating an ice cream cone on a hot, windy day.

I'm sitting here with Saturday Night Live in the background, and Ashlee Simpson was about to perform one of her singles (I don't know which one). She started singing, and I think either her microphone flaked out, or she just froze. Anyway, she stopped singing, stood there for a few seconds (UPDATE: Actually, I think she hopped around on one foot for a second, alternating feet), then walked off the stage. The band continued playing, and the guitarists shot each other knowing, somewhat rueful smiles. Then it cut to a commercial. Did anyone else see it? The way my apartment is arranged, I have my back to the TV when I'm on the computer, so I didn't see exactly what occurred. Did she forget the words? Was she exposed as a lip-syncher?

SECOND UPDATE: Simpson explains: apparently "the band started playing the wrong song," so she started "doing a hoedown." :? I don't follow. Couldn't she have just sung the song they were playing? That's what Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds, Bette Midler, and a host of other truly professional stand-up broads would have done.

THIRD UPDATE: See the hoedown here, and Amy's Robot has an mpeg of the whole thing, as well as a much funnier narrative of the event than what you see here. Now that I've really gotten to watch it, I'm guessing the person running the mixer board was taken out and shot by Lorne Michaels himself.