27 March 2008

Music Culture

It all started when we talked about music.

He was kind and gracious and offered to take me to the Library to help me find a manuscript mentioned in a footnote of a book that I bought for that class--the one with the famous professor.

No one seemed to be that interested in the book that started the hunt for me.

There's nothing like the first time you want to find something. Really find it. (Re)discover it and claim it as yours.

A painter--a woman--had written about her companionate marriage in the late seventeenth century. Her husband? She loved him. She liked him even. He helped her to manage her accounts, keep her studio organized, keep her supplied with jewel toned paints.

(So what if she 'followed' Sir Peter Lely. She didn't always and she wouldn't always.)

It's the memories of that first big find, the triumphant metro ride home, that reminds me of him. Our interests overlapped academically, and through that we found that we had somewhat similar tastes in music. There were conversations about bands we liked, bands we loved, bands we wish we knew more about.

There was the last mix tape and the first mix CD and the confusion and hope and the disappointment.

The was the going to see Son Volt and Wilco--the bands born out of heartbreak.

Thank goodness the music remained after all of that.

Then there were more years and more music and more shows and more compilations of songs that I loved that I knew that needed to be put on CDs to tell a story.

And tonight it was work until 11:00pm and so a friend and Pandora and Andrew Byrd Radio and the music that the genome thought would burn though silence buttressed a phone call and a cranky exchange.

Luckily, that friend was kind enough to drive me all the way home. No walking through Columbia Heights too close to midnight on a weeknight.

I've been on edge this week. Things from all sides. And I forgot that music does help.

What I really I want to learn about Ellen Spolsky's cognitive hunger, but my work prevents me. And I want to know about the connection between music and cognitive hunger. I wonder if one can be a glutton-- surfeiting on as much music as possible.

I miss having a car at these times. The Ipod could be connected to car stereo with a world of music and miles to drive and songs to sing. That erases the crankiness (jerkiness? who knows. a girl can be called a lot in day).

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely it fits into cognitive hunger, if I read the introduction correctly! :) Just waiting to be written. Sequel!

I'll keep quiet about the memories. Makes me a little sad.

a little of this, a little of that... said...

A glutton for music - why not?

Other things to responsibly embrace gluttony for: books, learning & knowledge, good blogs.

...a world of music and miles to drive and songs to sing. Music and driving are both good escapes, but there is something particularly synergetic about combining the two.

Casey said...

Fuck memories. make new ones irresponsbly

Anonymous said...

Music is as vital to cognition - some might suggest to the soul - as water is to our bodies' cells.

In our age of easily-consumable music - and I speak of the last 125 years, not just the past few decades - we've managed to trivialize the element of music in the makeup of our cultural and philosophical identities.

I would suggest even that we've shown contempt and arrogance but then such would be the case with nearly all discourse that's been written since we started using words like "discourse" and "writing."

It seems that we've objectified music and relegated it to the role of "soundtrack" to our lives when we should be lifting it up as the very expression of our consciousness - collective or other.

I think you just did that for me - thank you for the reminder!

Very thought-provoking & nicely done.

Anonymous said...

you sure bring it..in this one...
xoxo

m.a. said...

megarita, It's all good!

alot, I think you're so right.

casey, you're drunk. :)

pascal, thank you and thank you.

sb, thank you and thank you!