This is the record of the time

No, it is not my birthday. Just a couple of songs tonight that speak to the birthday experience.

Alejandro Escovedo's track is on a CD the kids and I have been listening to, called "The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs for Bumpy Wagon Rides." The song, in which a 10-year-old is experiencing something akin to a mid-life crisis, calls to mind the Laurie Anderson song, which endows its characters, presumably adults, with almost unseemly quantities of childlike wonder.

One is catchier than the other, and one is funnier, and I'll leave it to you to guess which is which.

***
--> So Happy Birthday, Laurie Anderson
--> Sad and Dreamy (The Big 1-0), Alejandro Escovedo

Good at being alone

This week finds me in an interesting state of mind — able to take all of the roiling emotions of the past year or so, and not exactly boil them down per se, but essentially taste each discrete element and not let any one of them overpower the rest. I've got the sadness with the hopefulness, the self-loathing with the recovering esteem, the loneliness with the placidity and a growing sense of self-confidence. I wonder if this is what they call "acceptance." Whatever it is, I got here by myself. I wonder if I, or it, will stay.

"There will be no miracles here." And that can be a howl, an exhortation or just a flat observation. It's up to you. (Or me.)

So tonight's playlist calls for some instrumental-y tracks, all the better to non-judge you by. (Or iron shirts by. That's what I listened to them while doing the other night.)

First, in other news, I found a book, or author, I just love. It was pointed out to me not long ago by a female fellow-reader that, despite our voluminous reading lists, there was remarkably little intersection between the two. I took it to mean few female authors on my part, so I picked up Ellen Gilchrist's "The Courts of Love" at the thrift book store. I hadn't heard of Gilchrist before — despite her National Book Award — but by golly, the Washington Post calls her "a national treasure" right there on the cover. I could not resist. Anyway, at a buck the price was right.

I would, lacking any probably better comparisons in my reader's C.V., compare her to John Barth. But there is something distinctly humane I sensed about Gilchrist that Barthy-boy seems to lack. I can't put my finger on it; anyway, despite some quirky po-mo kind of silliness that usually puts me off, I found myself, for better or worse, caring deeply about these characters; so much so, I read the last few pages through moist eyes. (What can I say — my life has made me a softy. These days, I'm practically liable to weep at a well-produced toilet tissue commercial.) I'm through the novella, and into the short stories now. That Nora Jane. Kid reminds me of my son. Awww.

***
--> Archangel, Burial
--> A Paw in My Face, The Field

Oh, mama, can this really be the end?

I have been on an unstoppable Dylan kick lately. It started when I saw I'm Not There around Christmas, then Don't Look Back on a library loan about a month later. Events in my life lately have lent themselves to repeated listenings of "Blood on the Tracks," a purely phenomenal recording, and from that I was inspired to track my way through the back catalogue, which I know mostly through the lens of classic-rock radio and college parties.

"Freewheelin'" is a revelation. What a cool, timeless album. "Blonde on Blonde," the next one I approached, hasn't aged so well. I was surprised. It's so venerated. But it sounds a lot like a product of its times, and I don't mean that in a good way.

"Stuck Inside of Memphis," though, has a fresh sound — you can just about feel your hair being blown back, riding in the convertible, cantcha? — but my lord, it refuses to die. I felt sorry for the lead guitarist — one runs out of licks, you know? Dylan might have been the poet of his generation, but I think the poet could have used an editor sometimes. I think it hit me during the 37th verse. "Can this really be the end?" indeed...

For another taste of an act overstaying its welcome — and the humor is intentional this time, methinks — check out the Richman track. Three minutes of song, five minutes of curtain-call. For all I know, they are playing it still.

***
--> Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again, Bob Dylan
--> Ice-Cream Man (live), Jonathan Richman

I hear you sayin' I am just one kid

If, somehow, I woke up one morning and found myself the host of an afternoon talk-radio show, I'd have no idea what to talk about, but I would know exactly the song to lay under my intros and outros. Take this, Rush and O'Reilly!

***
--> Original Spies, Karate

Don't need no jewels in my crown

These songs are a bit like Mexican cooking. From the same few ingredients — ragged beat, lolling Fender, shimmering Wurlitzer, maybe a gospel choir or two — you get results as predictable as they are tasty. In this case, a sort of lazy transcendence, giving even the coldest January day a flavor of August afternoon on the stilled porch, fingertips dangling to a sweaty bottle that leaves its signature ring on the worn-bare floorboards. What happens when you polish chrome with your oldest, softest denim.

***
--> Aretha, Sing One For Me, Cat Power
--> Tumbling Dice, Rolling Stones