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I will sing your fears if you sing my neurosis
This is the week of random fantastic presents. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oldcharliebrown's late and most welcome holiday gift arrived in the mail: the Dresden Dolls' vinyl single of "Good Day" (b-side, "A Night at the Roses"). Since "Good Day" was the first Dresden Dolls song I ever heard, when I was trying to find my seat at the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony and wondering what on earth I was listening to, this is most appropriate.* The cover illustration and the faces printed onto the label are terrific, in one of the ways that makes me wish I had an actual talent for visual art. And besides, it's vinyl. I'll have to borrow my parents' turntable to play it, but this is still immensely cool.
Hm. Most likely I am the last person in the universe to find this out, but their new album has a name: Yes, Virginia, and it's due out in spring 2006. This makes me happy. I also see that it contains "Sex Changes," "Dirty Business," and "Mandy Goes to Med School," which are three of my favorite so-far unreleased songs (others are "Boston," "The Sheep Song," and recently "The Gardener" and "My Alcoholic Friends"; if I were to count the ones collected on A Is For Accident, that list would expand like crazy) and includes some I haven't heard yet, like "Me and the Minibar" or "Sing." There are about three bands I follow actively, and the Dresden Dolls are one of them.
Now all I need is a new Jill Tracy album and my need for weird cabaret will be (temporarily) fulfilled. I keep meaning to see the short film of "The Fine Art of Poisoning" or the films in which she appears, but I haven't yet. I need an actual slice of free time to set aside for tracking down oddities by favorite artists of mine. (Hey: compilation. Ah, the internet. Aiding free-association since . . .) I need free time, period. And I need not to use it staring at CDs I can't afford.
My poem "In Sight of the Seasons" (Not One of Us #34) has been nominated for the 2006 Rhysling Award, Short Poem. I am starting to feel guilty.
*I went home with that song stuck in my head, despite the presence of a theremin in the opening ceremonies and the performance of "Christopher Lydon" that eventually found its way onto A Is For Accident. It was the "I took out the trash today and I'm on fire . . ." bit, because I hadn't been able to catch most of the other lyrics. My parents were very patient with me. And years later, I was able to attain semidemisortagod status in the eyes of an adolescent girl on the subway back from the 2005 WFNX Best Music Poll, dressed in serious black and chaperoned by her mother, who looked at me wide-eyed and said, "You were really there?" and I could feel for a moment like some veteran of the war at Troy (or pick a heroic epoch of your choice) before I realized how weird that was . . .
oldcharliebrown's late and most welcome holiday gift arrived in the mail: the Dresden Dolls' vinyl single of "Good Day" (b-side, "A Night at the Roses"). Since "Good Day" was the first Dresden Dolls song I ever heard, when I was trying to find my seat at the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony and wondering what on earth I was listening to, this is most appropriate.* The cover illustration and the faces printed onto the label are terrific, in one of the ways that makes me wish I had an actual talent for visual art. And besides, it's vinyl. I'll have to borrow my parents' turntable to play it, but this is still immensely cool. 
Hm. Most likely I am the last person in the universe to find this out, but their new album has a name: Yes, Virginia, and it's due out in spring 2006. This makes me happy. I also see that it contains "Sex Changes," "Dirty Business," and "Mandy Goes to Med School," which are three of my favorite so-far unreleased songs (others are "Boston," "The Sheep Song," and recently "The Gardener" and "My Alcoholic Friends"; if I were to count the ones collected on A Is For Accident, that list would expand like crazy) and includes some I haven't heard yet, like "Me and the Minibar" or "Sing." There are about three bands I follow actively, and the Dresden Dolls are one of them.
Now all I need is a new Jill Tracy album and my need for weird cabaret will be (temporarily) fulfilled. I keep meaning to see the short film of "The Fine Art of Poisoning" or the films in which she appears, but I haven't yet. I need an actual slice of free time to set aside for tracking down oddities by favorite artists of mine. (Hey: compilation. Ah, the internet. Aiding free-association since . . .) I need free time, period. And I need not to use it staring at CDs I can't afford.
My poem "In Sight of the Seasons" (Not One of Us #34) has been nominated for the 2006 Rhysling Award, Short Poem. I am starting to feel guilty.
*I went home with that song stuck in my head, despite the presence of a theremin in the opening ceremonies and the performance of "Christopher Lydon" that eventually found its way onto A Is For Accident. It was the "I took out the trash today and I'm on fire . . ." bit, because I hadn't been able to catch most of the other lyrics. My parents were very patient with me. And years later, I was able to attain semidemisortagod status in the eyes of an adolescent girl on the subway back from the 2005 WFNX Best Music Poll, dressed in serious black and chaperoned by her mother, who looked at me wide-eyed and said, "You were really there?" and I could feel for a moment like some veteran of the war at Troy (or pick a heroic epoch of your choice) before I realized how weird that was . . .
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Leaving aside the obvious logical holes in that statement, that sounds more like embarrassment than guilt.
---L.
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Should Michael Jordan(*) feel guilty for being told he's a very good basketball player? Should Tiger Woods(*) be ashamed of the fact that he can hit a golf ball in ways that most people can't? Of course not.
It is a simple fact of life. Sonya Taaffe writes really good stuff. The stuff you write is better than the stuff most people write. You should smile and be proud. There are a million others who would trade you for that ability in a heartbeat.
(*)Note: These players were chosen not necessarily because I think your writing has reached that comparative level, but had I picked people like Mark Price or Anika Sorenstam or Robert Varkoyni you probably would not have reecognized them. Even though they're all amazingly good at what they do.
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I am working on it, all right? I no longer blither like an idiot when people express a liking for my stories. (I just want to hide under the table. I haven't, so far . . .) One of my students turned up yesterday reading Singing Innocence and Experience in the McDougal Center and I only thanked him profusely for contributing to the Allow Sovay To Afford A Non-Sketchy Apartment Fund and, once he'd located a pen, signed it thus for him. I just still feel weird about multiple nominations. There must be other, more worthwhile poems out there, aren't there?
but had I picked people like Mark Price or Anika Sorenstam or Robert Varkoyni you probably would not have reecognized them.
Yeah. My basic reaction to all of those people was: who?
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You have improved, this much is true. Your writing has also improved . . . and also, you are not the ONLY nominee, are you? :)
(I mean, your poem is probably the best of the nominees out there, but it's not the only one . . .)
As to who the people are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Price
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annika_Sorenstam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Varkonyi
and apparently, I can't spell. Oh well, that's hardly news :)
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Oh. Good. : P
and also, you are not the ONLY nominee, are you? :)
Can't be: there must also be the people I nominated . . .