41 of #100daychallenge
Music shapes and fundamentally changes us. Once we have listened we do not stop. We do not ever recover from music. We will return again and again to the radio, the record store, the bedroom where girls listen to music all day.
— Rickie Lee Jones, Last Chance Texaco
I had a quiet day today, with naps, some reading, some ironing, some laundry, a little bit of gardening, and substantially more television than I have viewed in weeks. Part of me is frustrated with the lack of forward motion where it is really needed, but perhaps I need a bit of break.
On Saturday night, I went to have dinner with Rand and Lydia. That was the usual pleasant and loving evening. I never really know what we talk about besides politics and aging mothers, but the time flies by. We were playing rummy and Rand was kicking our asses as usual. We don't always pay a lot of attention to the background music, but for some reason, it was more part of the mix last night. Then their best friends came to pick up their dogs who R&L had been dogsitting.
Without much ado and with some armangac, we were suddenly dancing to the Buena Vista Social Club. Roy and Rand provided some additional percussion. It was really fun. Old people can have fun, too.
Rickie Lee's quote at the beginning here resonated with me very much. Listening to and sharing music with people is fairly rare for me these days, but it is an activity I never tire of. And I very much recall hanging out in the bedroom Kim shared with her sister Pam, for hours at a time. Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon and Blue and Laura Nyro's Christmas and the Beads of Sweat are the ones I remember the clearest. I would bet that Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Deja Vu were in high rotation as well. We would listen to the radio hoping that Fleetwood Mac's Oh Well would magically appear. I did my listening to the Dead at home.
HIDE AND SEEK
It’s hard not
to jump out
instead of
waiting to be
found. It’s
hard to be
alone so long
and then hear
someone come
around. It’s
like some form
of skin’s developed
in the air
that, rather
than have torn,
you tear.
— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York, 2010
It's funny. I pulled out a box of CDs from our move last week to see if I had forgotten to add any to my itunes playlist. I had so much more before the imac died, and the pc seems to be lacking in that I'm missingmusic I had added over the years. Buena Vista Social Club was one of them and I found it was already part of my compilation. I first heard about them while working on What Dreams May Come. K gave me a copy to listen to as she raved about them. That was 1999, it seems like another life and a lifetime ago.
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