Buckingham Nicks

I did this week all wrong. The first half of the week I had many after work obligations which meant staying out and helping others after work rather than going home and sitting still. Going home and sitting still is the salve for the scars cut by the existential malaise brought on by bourgeois life in 21st century America. Anyway, by yesterday I was a wreck, and the going home and sitting still I did could only begin to combat the fatigue accumulated on Mon/Tues, and I couldn’t muster the will to go out and do the fun stuff I had planned to do all week. Instead, I settled, cocoon-like in my room, and listened to the torrential rain outside, felt the assault of wind and sprinkles through the screen in my window, and felt this song by the Cascades in my veins.

Autumn Songs: Before they joined Fleetwood Mac (a then already long-running hard-working British blues band) Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were just two gorgeous hairy kids in love, playing folk songs in California. After recording an LP (Buckingham Nicks) they joined FM, and swiftly revitalized the band’s sound, propelling them all to unparalleled success (with attendant soaring glory and tragic downfall – drugs are bad, kids). Here’s the lovely opening track from that 1973 LP (never released on CD).

A euphemism for Fleetwood Mac

Having a forum where I can weekly share my thoughts puts a lot of pressure on me to actually have thoughts. It also clashes with my general sense that there’s too much talking out there anyway. Maybe it’s the chill in the air, or that school has started again, or major election coverage fatigue, or not understanding the stock market, but I’m tired and have no original commentary to make on anything this week. Instead, look at this fun thing on the internet: it’s a Japanese website, where they recreate album covers using food. Why not? My favorite part so far is this version of Nirvana’s In Utero in rice, followed by this photograph of paper doll versions of the Red Hot Chili Peppers standing vigil over the rice In Utero – mourning the loss of Kurt Cobain presumably – complete with paper doll cut-outs with different outfits. Sorry to make this an entry of “isn’t this crazy thing so crazy?!” …but, isn’t it? Related: informal survey: what is crazier, this or this?

MTM News: Sorry to pummel you with this, but ON THIS DATE in 1970, something dear to my heart premiered and changed the world for the better. (Whoa, and at long last they are set to be releasing seasons 5-7 on DVD.)

Autumn Songs: Yes, autumn is a euphemism for Fleetwood Mac. Here you go. But, also? A song I always rely on when life is hard (often) or I am sad, and last night I parted ways with a drinking buddy feeling a little melancholy. Usually, this song makes things seem like they actually will get easier. (Ultimately entropy means to me that things tend to get more complicated, not easier, but the Five Stairsteps were the First Family of Soul, not the Phirst Phamily of Physics.)

Twin Cities

I think I’ve spread stories of the Twin Cities around quite a bit already; after all, I wrote my last TWAHRF entries in my pajamas from Minneapolis last Friday, before going on a lovely jog around Lake of the Isles. On my running playlist on that occasion was the full version of the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song, originally a vaguely country song by Sonny Curtis, all of which was convincing me that I was turning the world on with my smile, and taking a nothing day and making it seem worthwhile, all totally perfect in a deeply nerdy and almost shameful kind of way, until the lyrics of the full song not shown on television started playing:

You are most likely to succeed
You have the looks and charms,
And girl, you know, that’s all you need
All the men around adore you
That sexy look will do wonders for you.

And suddenly I felt a little sexually harassed by my iPod, not to mention amused by the utter contradiction between the messages of women’s equality espoused by the TV show I so adore, and these suitably un-subtle 1970s lyrics. I am an anachronism to even be listening to this!

I got back on Sunday and watched both the U.S. Open and the Mets game, which is approximately more sports in one evening than I watched in the first 25 years of my life.

Love bacon, but don’t want it in your waffles? Try this alarm clock that allows you to wake up to the savory aromas of cooking bacon. (I don’t know if this was inspired by The Office, or developed independently, but I vote that it doesn’t matter, just as I don’t care too much if Newton and Leibniz each developed Calculus independently or stood on each other’s shoulders to do so. As long as we have Calculus and bacon, I’m happy.)

Autumn Songs: Is an autumn song series just an excuse to listen to Fleetwood Mac? um, maybe.

You know what the midwest is? Young and restless

I’ve spent very little time in the Midwest (although, for some reason, I keep getting sent there by the international human rights organization where I work), so when I visit I’m genuinely, unironically interested in this vast part of our diverse nation. What Minnesota lacks in flatness, it makes up for in lakes. And, here I saw the mighty 2340-mile Mississippi River for the first time! We shocked some locals by being from New York City. I saw political ads for Al Franken. And a lot of public access channels. And weird late night advertising the benefits of going to chef school. And advertisements paid for by the corn refiners’ association of America telling us that popsicles and other products with high fructose corn syrup are actually totally fine and cool and not unhealthy in moderation. And perhaps most amazingly, I finally got a chance to eat waffles WITH BACON IN THE WAFFLES.

Check out this dork standing in front of the house lived in by 1970s fictional character Mary Richards on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Rhoda and Phyllis lived there too.

Song: Capturing the melancholy underlying this change in seasons, but at the same time fairly soaring. Autumn song series starting next week.