Saturday, December 29, 2007
Applying to colleges still suck.

Writing essays. SAT scores (seriously? I don't remember what I got, let alone my College Board password).

I just want the process over, and move on. Then I can start thinking about where I'm living, how I'm living, and what's going on.


“We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us”
~~ Joseph Campbell


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posted by Courtney at 10:08 AM | 0 comments
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Rachel is in the midst of writing out her life in terms of music, song by song explaining the top 50 most significant songs in her life. I liked the idea, but went a slightly different path. Which is now before you.

Formative Years

Miles Davis- Time After Time
John (Cougar) Mellencamp- Pink Houses
Bob Marley- Redemption Song
Dan Fogelberg- Same Auld Lang Syne
Mott the Hopple- All the Young Dudes

This is music I grew up on. A lot of it I associate with driving, which makes sense since I spent most of my childhood in cars. Usually I was sleeping, or reading, or counting off the breaks in the lines in the road by clicking my tongue to keep the car from flipping over (which only repeating much later led me to realize that that wasn’t typical behavior of a seven year old), but music was always playing. My father favors jazz (Miles Davis) and classic rock; my mom likes singer-songwriters and soft rock types (Dan Fogelberg). Supposedly I know all the words to Collective Soul at one point, and as I grow and embrace more of my parents’ records, it’s weird to realize how much of the music I already know.

John Mellencamp was probably the first musician I remember actively moving to listen to. Bob Marley’s “Legend” is the first album I actually went out and purchased (meaning I had my parents buy it for me). And somehow I still haven’t smoked pot. Weird (yet awesome, if you are somehow my mother or father and reading this. I make no promises for the rest of my college years though).

I never really got into the grooves of my peers. I missed (and still do to the most part) pop. Sure, I was into Savage Garden, but in my defense, they played their instruments. And wrote dirty songs. And are Australian. So that’s got to put me above the BSB and N*SYNC fans somehow (I choose to deny the existence of LFO and c/o). I remember when I was at VMES in Brick (this must have been third grade or so) being asked by a semi- popular girl (I won’t ever try to give her a name) when type of music I listened to. I answered honestly, and I noted the look of both disdain and confusion crossing her fresh face when I ended with R.E.M. I realized that day that I both didn’t know how to recognize those hit or miss questions, and I probably wasn’t ever going to be popular. From this, I headed into the awkward years.


Awkward, Angst, In Between Years
Barely Breathing- Duncan Sheik
Anarchy in the U.K- Sex Pistols
The Time Warp- Rocky Horror Picture Show

By the time I was 11, I had the chest of a fifteen year old girl, and the precocious reading habits of a seventeen year old aspiring Patti Smith. I read Jim Carroll and books about horses and abusive families. I wanted to move to New York, develop a heroin addiction, venereal diseases, and die of scurvy and hunger. I also wanted it to be 1975. To complement my reading, I listened to the Sex Pistols, the NY Dolls, the Velvet Underground and cheap punk compilation discs. It was pretty bad. If I had less dignity, I would post some of the poetry. Instead, a choice line: “I smell blood and think it's you/ The way you smell like water sometimes/
And I just want a drink but/You say you're happy- tell the truth/It's ok to hate me, you know I do/Now that we're gone forever".

Yeah. I know.

Duncan Sheik is in there because these were the years of driving between Middlesex and Ocean Counties, between my parents’ houses. My father lived in a series of small apartments, most significant being a house in Normandy Beach. I’m not sure why, but I’ll always consider that home, and especially our winter there, as home (in addition to the town where I went to high school). Something about walking on the beach that winter had always stayed with me, and the intense feeling of possession that I have with that small strip of main drag that lay between us and the beach a mile away. It was transient in every form (we were renting from summer people, and their furniture and markings lay everywhere, from toys to the crappy pseudo abstract prints on the wall), but I loved it. It was home for some inexplicable reason. Duncan Sheik’s “Barely Breathing” reminds me of all that time driving, and my father’s life between the divorce and his move back up to the town we were born in, and had moved back to with our mother.

Moving Up, On

The Weakerthans- Aside
Belle & Sebastian- the Boy with the Arab Strap
Damien Rice- Blower’s Daughter
Jeff Buckley (covering Nusrat)- Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai
Radiohead- High and Dry

This was my moving towards more indy rock and singer songwriter types. This was also my development into more of the writer I am today, beginning with the end of writing about whores and drug abuse, and all those other things I thought were glamorous and tragic that I hadn’t experienced outside of media.

“Aside” is the first song I fell in love with, hard core fell in love with. I listened to it on repeat for an hour after coming across it on a sampler. For the first song, a song had the anxiety and sheer word play that I saw in myself. It was amazing, and the Weakerthans have yet to disappoint me. I cycle through them, going weeks and months without thinking of one of their albums, then falling head over heels in love again. As I listen to this song now, I feel like it’s matured with me, and where I first saw the reflection of my inability to fit into some sort of middle school clique, I now see the true pangs of adulthood. Besides, who isn’t doesn’t rely a bit too heavily on alcohol and irony?

I included Damien Rice here even though he comes a little later on. I got into him the summer of my junior year, right before “Volcano” made it big(ish). While writing at the NJ Govenor School for the Arts, a friend of mine bought it, and I burned it onto my computer. I wrote to this album, and Belle & Sebastian’s “Boy with the Arab Strap” (album), and for the first time felt like I truly belonged somewhere. I was surrounded by neurotic, artistic and sarcastic sixteen/seventeen year olds who got me. While I see both albums as bordering on morose, I spent that summer fucking buoyant.

Jeff Bukley’s “Live At Sin-e” is probably the best live album I’ve heard yet. It’s him at his least restrained, and while that can get sort of old (10 minute version of “If You See Her, Say Hello”? Seriously?), his version of this Nusrat classic is amazing. I fell in love with the point 4:37 minutes in where his voice hits the note that made my skin shake. I point to it as an example of a perfect moment in music.

Radiohead was influential in getting me out of the angst phase, and into the introspective. This song will always remind me of my high school English teacher who loved, absolutely loved this song, and wanted me to record myself singing it for him. I’m not sure why. I think he used it as a measure of a person. It’s a beautiful song, the kind that makes you cry at night when you listen to it through headphones.


End of High School
Death Cab for Cutie- the New Year
Bright Eyes- the Calendar Hung Itself
The Arcade Fire- Wake Up

Mentally, I was done with high school by junior year. I spent senior year trying not to have a breakdown and writing, writing, writing. These songs got me through, kept me strong. Death Cab for Cutie’s concert at the Siren Music Festival on Coney Island is the first concert I really went to (the official first was a radio festival I went to with my dad and sister. Notable acts were Even and Jaron, Jessica Simpson, the A Teens, and Jay Z. Holla). I remember being squished by hundreds (thousands?) of people in this dead end smack against the board walk. I spent the encore on the side of the stage, mostly watching the drummer fucking kill his drum kit on ‘Transatlanticism’.

I heard Bright Eyes through Kevin, when he brought a mix into Writer’s Workshop his turn one Friday, along with Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk’. I fell for the sheer urgency and need in the song; I’m always going to have a thing for the skinny, slightly breaking down guys.

The Arcade Fire was through a birthday mix made for me by Suge. I spent my college visit up to Boston listening to this song over and over again. This whole album (Funeral) remains a strong, strong album in my book that can be listened to with headphones or speakers. ‘Neon Bible’ was decent, but it’s hard to match an album that can mesh an apocalyptic aura, coming of age, and literary style with such grace and power.

Waiting
Van Morrison- Sweet Thing
Jackson Browne- Late for the Sky
Willy Mason- Fear No Pain

The summer before college I started listening to the albums of my parents’ youth/the albums I grew up on- Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne, Van Morrison. I’d walk to work listening to one song, or one album on repeat, and read “the Fountainhead” (not a recommendation) in between answering the phone at the law office. Jackson Browne has special significance because the ‘Late for the Sky’ album was the album my mom listened to her senior year of high school, the album that helped get her through the death of two classmates by car accident.

Van Morrison will always be the top of the pile for me. He’s a Deserted Island keeper, has the albums I’ll play my kids and at my wedding. This spot could have been easily filled by “And it Stoned Me”. There are a few songs I always imagine played a cappella, and that song is one of them- it’s shamelessly beautiful, and I want it played at my funeral and wedding (hopefully those are not the same event. Imagine THAT as some sort of short story. I call that idea). ‘Sweet Thing’ is another song that has the moment that I rewind to, and replay over and over. It’s at 1:38, when he sings ‘I shall drive my chariot down your streets a’ crying: “it’s me, I’m dynamite, and I don’t know why”’. Every time I hear this song I marvel at the simplistic beauty of the lyrics; it’s one of my favorite poems.

Willy Mason’s “Fear No Pain” helped get my through the anxiety of going away to college. It seemed sort of perfect that he played at BU a few months later, and for the record, he’s a super sweet, literate man. I consider that show the first real marker of my friendship with Rachel and Allie, and the beginning on moments shared with bands/musicians (tea biscuits with Elvis Perkins? Yes, please). I’ve been returning to this song lately, as I go through the process of transferring schools and reconsidering my future and what I consider essential to face adulthood and all the scary shit I don’t really want to consider as being my life (taxes, water bills, real jobs that don’t let me take naps during the day).

College, and Beyond

Belle & Sebastian- Like Dylan in the Movies
Sonic Youth- Incinerate
Songs: Ohia- Leave the City
Menomena- Muscle N’ Flow
Okkervil River- Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe
LCD Soundsystem- All My Friends

The first two numbers are the summation of my freshman year, summed up in the wild night of forgoing class to go to a house party (I suppose you could call it that) with a band, with Rachel. It was the breaking of an OCD, paranoid high school shell, and the beginning of the realization that I have the capability to relax, and to embrace life. I feel like that moment directly influenced my decision to travel around Europe, partly alone last summer. It was a necessary catharsis disguised as a sing-a-long.

The last four are songs that have wormed their way into my brain at this moment. Songs: Ohia started appearing more on my radar last year, and this song stuck on out as delicate, beautiful and now summing up perfectly my status: leaving Boston (probably), firmly leaving the teenage years. This song also sums up my impression of the bulk of my childhood- ‘half my life spent on the highways/ half my life I didn’t choose’.

Menomena was the soundtrack of my summer, and continues to stick with me, with this song being chief among its staying power. It’s exuberant, intelligent and catchy. It’s a manifesto, and a battle song. It (along with ‘Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe’) was also one of the official songs of Room 315, which gives it automatic street cred, much in the same way applesauce is now considered a drink.

LCD Soundsytem’s “All My Friends” might be long. It rest on a looped piano piece. It might also be the song I listen to on repeat when I fly to Ireland. I can’t explain it much more than that. It makes sense, and it radiates my emotions.

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posted by Courtney at 7:47 AM | 1 comments
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
I've been thinking lately about my Top Ten Albums of the year, and my Top Underwhelming Albums of the year, for no other reason then I don't reallllllly want to study for finals. I'm not planning on doing much with the information, and it's hard to make the Top Ten Albums truly fair, because some of the albums I played the hell out of this year are older releases, or playlists I made.

All this led me to realize that I tend to favor two sorts of albums- the first is thematic, with a few fist pumpers, that I listen to with my throat, feeling the vibrations from my speakers threading through me (New Pornographer's "Twin Cinema", the Arcade Fire's "Funeral", Menomena's "Friend and Foe"). The other is the album that I must listen to with headphones, that invariably strikes me as delicate or orchestrated (Jose Gonzalez's "Veneer"(/the Live Concert via RBally), the Cinematic Orchestra's "Ma Fluer", Benjamin Biolay's "Negatif").

I wonder why this is. One strikes me as poetry, the other as affirming.

--
I've been watching those Take Away Shows, thanks to the link by Rachel. They're sort of amazing. And in some cases, almost make me cry (the sheer joy both of the kids and the musicians makes me want to pack my bags, grab my markers and hit the road. I swear I will one of these days. And I might be dragging my own kids-if that ever happens- along, I might be dragging a man-if that ever happens- but I swear, I'll do it.

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posted by Courtney at 8:59 PM | 0 comments
Thursday, December 13, 2007
New Jersey is moving hard towards ending the death penalty in our fine state, something I'm more than strongly behind. I feel like the death penalty is an outdated punishment, and yet another incident in which America severely lags behind its 'global equals'. Capital punishment is overwhelmingly not a deterrent to crime, especially if you consider that America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and it's only growing. Maybe if some of that money went towards the necessary social services instead of going to the 'means'-- but then, I guess it's harder to sell bills to provide free, in patient drug counseling, or better work-release programs, or money to juvenile detention centers to push youth offenders towards opportunities that would eliminate the necessity of crime.



--


I've been reading lately about Tom Hurndall, which has led me to learn more about similar cases.

It's not that I don't believe that Israel should have a home land. I do.
But I also believe that Palestinians have just as a viable claim to that land.

And articles like this make me even more skeptical of the sheer 'just' [impunity] of the Israeli government's policies. Not that Fatwa, or Hammas have pursued pacifistic strategies. It is very much a firefight, a battle of wills and stubbornness and age-old mind sets. I wish there was a way I could proactive about helping.

I've realized that's become my mindset about a lot of things: you can bitch, or you can be proactive. I'm working towards the latter.
posted by Courtney at 8:56 PM | 0 comments
Friday, December 07, 2007
Nearly a year.

Yup. If I were super poetic or something, I would wait until January 1, at least, and make some speech about writing more and such. But that's basically bull.

New plan: next semester I will not be in Boston (yet to be determined where I will be). After that, I'll be doing....something. Pancake tour of North America, maybe. So it reasons out that I should use this to get a word in about where I am. Sort of like Waldo. But with better hats. Granted, it wouldn't be too scandalous cause I saw that Lifetime special about the girl who put naked photos of herself online just for her boyfriend and years later they were still online, only then they were haunting her cause she was all wrinkly and withered and a chain smoker from the stress of being stupid and failed relationships.

Plus, I'm billing myself as the Correspondent from Afar on the BU Central blog (where I totally just went batshit or something on finding music) and I figure... if I'm writing in that, I guess I ought to be writing in here. Theoretically.

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posted by Courtney at 12:46 PM | 0 comments