BLAZE

At last...

I know that we've all been waiting breathlessly for my thoughts and so...

Hmmm, doo-dee-doo, cogito err... sum, zoom...zoom zoom, whoo hoo... doo-dee-doo. Ta-da!

Well.. I gotta haircut, no new job, Bill bought a new Volvo (drool), Jim denies ever having sped down Groat Road (as if!). Zak's back (see Vermeer, L. 14/07/03 http://moreblaze.blogspot.com) I'll have to post some pictures of my yard soon... maybe I'll take the camera home this evening. Other than that nothing phenomenal is happening. Leslie is still not relaxing enough and I am still relaxing too much...

Oh ya, I discovered something. Though L and I share many similar music tastes and often praise the talents of many of the same artists (although admittedly she ranges farther from the mainstream than I do and she has this idiosyncratic quirk that makes her think that pianos make better primary instuments than guitars... I mean really!), I recently learned that she has no sense at all of what defines the good songs on a cd. I mean who would have thought that "See Forever Eyes" was worth rippin' and then leave out "Vladivostock" and "Take Me to the Kaptain"!

The story begins as I was making my playlist for the ipod (as some unknown evil-dooer had corrupted it with all sorts ofunworthy material) from the main library of ripped music and consistently - album after album - Leslie (she who is "in charge" of ripping cds) had managed (contrived?) not to rip the only good songs on them.

To truly understand how big a crime this is you have to understand that we have been chucking perfectly good software like crazy fools just to make room for more mp3's. Space is at a premium and every song must be made to count! So as I sat and tried to make the best playlist possible, my jaw kept dropping lower and lower. As each artist's album came up and lo I would discover barely a good track had been made available. At first I declared censorship! But it was soon obvious that her taste was actually impaired and that even she knew it. Not only were the good songs missing, but consistently, the weaker, less-worthy tracks had been meticulously added to the main library. Leslie's awareness of her own flaws was obvious as shame had driven her to deliberately set itunes to either sort by artist or song title, thereby hiding the fact that the albums had been horrifically vivisected with only the entrails left to besmirch the harddrive.

But alas even as I discover the shocking truth, there is still a conumdrum. As previously blogged, there is scant space available for the true worthy tracks and the only sensible solution (eliminating the chaff in order to store the wheat) fills me with such dread at the predictable reaction from the musical 'Big Brother', who iron-fistedly controls the access to all sources of music in the household, that I am forced to contemplate purchasing more harddrive space at great expense and personal danger, and to begin secretly adding the correct tracks to the play list. If only I can perform this action stealthily enough, then perhaps not only will taste and justice prevail, but there remains a faint hope to convert the 'uneducated ears of L' to a more soothiing and sensible aesthetic.

But alas, the danger inherent in this vision of the future is foreshadowed in Leslie's oft-quoted verse "The dream never dies, just the dreamer..." Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream... if you hear from me no more, know the truth... and now, farewell!

B

P.S. Has it ever occured to you, that in an electronic age the postscript is unnecessary and overly sefl-indulgent. Without the permanence of a pen there is no need for the afterthought... (I think?)

P.P.S. The trick is always (as previously noted) to sort the wheat from the chaff. After all there is often a grain of truth. Weeding it out can be onerous but such work can often blossom into new fields of endeavor and... aaargh, enough with the horticultural metaph....