the soundtrack of contemporary life

Oh I'm still living
at the old address
and I'm waiting on the weather
that I know will pass
I know that it's true - it's gonna be a good year
outta the darkness - and into the fire
I'll tell ya I love ya
and my heart's in the strangest place
that's how it started
and that's how it ends

and I know you're with me
it's a point of pride
and it's louder than lightning
in this room of mine
oh I'm just like you I never hear the bad news
and I never will
we won by a landslide
our troubles are over
my sisters are married
to all of my friends
yeah that's how it started

you took your sweet time
and I waited by you without complaint
till all the pipe dreams made me insane
so it's all over
it's all over anyhow
you took your sweet time
finally I opened my eyes

my friends and my family
they are asking of me
how long will you ramble
how long will you still repeat
the snow is still falling
and I'm almost home
I see a new year

In The New Year, The Walkmen

life lessons that are priceless – le minimum de travail

“La vraie science de la vie matérielle consiste, je crois, à suivre l’exemple de ces Tahitiens d’autrefois: trouver les moins de travailler le moins possible, tout en recherchant les moyens, par ce minimum de travail, de se procurer le maximum de vie la plus “saine” possible.”

Kaimiloa, Eric de Bisschop

sporting life (3)

The Fool rides a bicycle. Another ‘orrible, common sport, cycling. And, like swimming, burdened with its own particularly vile sartorial code. Fortunately, unlike swimming – where one isn’t even allowed into the pool unless professionally attired –, no one will actually arrest you for wearing sensible clothes to ride your bike.

One finds, however, after doing it for a while, that there are reasons behind some of the bizarre choices. And that’s how the Fool eventually found himself resplendent in another pair of lycra shorts – only this time a little longer in the leg and, reader, padded in indescribable places (to protect sensitive, un-nameable body parts against chafe, you understand).

Now, this padding, in this location, may confer on the wearer a more flattering and … enthusiastic figure of a man than he has any right to claim for himself. And which may fool (forgive the pun) the casual observer, the untrained eye (or even the jaded one, as we shall see), into thinking they are looking at something which they really aren’t.

If you see what I mean.

“Oooh!”, went the Begum Sahiba – I was about to write Mrs. Fool, but my hand was stayed by a mysterious force (an instinct of self-preservation, probably, or the urgently whispered advice of a guardian angel) – when she first saw the Fool in his ludicrous new togs.

But she immediatelly realised her mistake for what it was – mere artifice, sweet illusion, a trick of the light –, and dismissively went back to more important occupations.

So I have taken to hiding the misleading bulge beneath modest tennis shorts, and reverted to type – just another overweight old codger, laboriously pedalling his way up hill and down dale in a vain attempt to reclaim some of the vigour of long-lost youth.

the soundtrack of contemporary life

Sea Talk, Zola Jesus

life lessons that are priceless – daughters

«The father of a daughter, for example, is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, “Daddy, I need to ask you something”, he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan. The butter thinks to itself, “This time I really am going to remain rectangular”, and then it feels very relaxed, and then it smells smoke»

The Book of Guys, Garrison Keilor

the soundtrack of the very, very old life

Lollipop, The Chordettes

The very first song the Fool remembers liking, sneakily dancing to it in front of his Other Grandmother's full-length mirror, he must have been 4 or 5 years-old. How sad is that?

the soundtrack of the craven life

She can’t blame him for avoiding the end
He don’t want to hit the bottom of the pool
She says he’s afraid of pain
Afraid of the dark and lonely days
And if he’d only take a dive
She says, he’d surface in Heaven
She says, he’d surface in Heaven
She says, he’d surface in Heaven

“Dive, dive, dive …”

This tangled web is a safety net
He won’t interfere ‘cos it’s all he’s got
She says, he’s a coward now, deterioration escalates
She’s threatening and heckling:
“Dive and you’d surface in Heaven,
Oh dive and you’d surface in Heaven
Oh come on, dive and you’d surface in Heaven”

“C’mon try, try, try …”

He calls, “please don’t make me change too much,
It’s taken so much time to learn so little
And I won’t go under for Heaven
No, I won’t go under for Heaven
I won’t go under for Heaven”

“C’mon dive, dive, dive, ah, ahhh, aahhh, oh dive …“

Surface in Heaven, Pierce Turner

modern life

They go for days without shaving.
They walk the streets in their bare backs – and think nothing of sitting down to lunch without even a t-shirt on.
They don’t know how to tie their own bow ties.
They have extended casual Friday (an iniquitous concept in itself) to sloppy everyday.
They wear socks with their Topsiders.

They don’t care if they are served fish without proper fish cutlery.
They can’t tell Milka from Valrhona.
They go out for breakfast.
They drink Coke.
They like cheesecake. And Oreos.

They unhesitatingly enter the lift or cross the door ahead of you – the idea of letting you have precedence doesn’t even cross their minds.
They watch soaps and reality shows.
They genuinely don’t understand the concept of delayed gratification. Or of sin and penance.

They treat – and talk to – their elders as if they were their own age.
They wouldn’t know how to address a King if they met him (as one does).

They NEVER sit up straight.

Sometimes I lie awake at night and worry about these things.