Maybe I should try books on tape?
Somewhere online a week or two ago I found myself writing another apology for not reading books. And it's true, for someone of my demographic (ahem), I read very little. Well, allow me to correct myself. I read very few books. As far as reading, I'm awash in text most of my waking life, it's just in the form of articles and studies and summaries and posts and tweets.
For me in about 1993, the Internet happened, and that was it for books.
Nowadays I devour a novel here and there, a handful a year, and occasionally read sufficiently interesting nonfiction books.
The other thing I've realized since then is that instead of being a Book Person, I'm actually a Music Person. And that makes feel a lot less guilty about not being a Book Person. I actually only realized this in the last couple weeks, despite overwhelming evidence going back years!
I think the reason is that music grips me emotionally in a way that other arts can't ever quite match. A painting can be brilliant and evoke wonder. A film can really transport me somewhere emotionally. American Beauty is a great example of this. But films are two hours long, and often a lot of it is build to those moments that pierce my heart like glass. The cab ride in Lost In Translation. The line in American Beauty: "You know how lucky we are to have found each other."
But the funny thing about that movie? It's the score that really ties it all together. I remember just a few of the most resonant scenes in the movie, having seen them four or five times now, but I've listened to the most meaningful pieces from Thomas Newman's score dozens, quite likely hundreds of times. "Mental Boy." "Walk Home," oh god, "Walk Home" will forever bring up a flood of emotion and a jumble of memories that will be with me until I'm dead. "The Power of Denial," too.
I wish I were more well-read, but books I relate to least of all. It's just the most difficult to translate into something I feel, and more importantly, something I can't help but feel.
Music is my thing.
You can tell, too, if you start digging into my iTunes library. (Or hell, if you take my hobbies: I haven't posted about it here much, but I'm still running an Internet radio show.) You'll soon find stacked layers of smart playlists, carefully tweaked and tuned to constantly rotate an endless stream of music into a giant shuffle playlist on my mobile device. The smart playlists work together to ensure songs don't get played out -- nothing I've heard in the past 7 days, nothing I've skipped in the past 11 -- and that unheard songs get heard -- always drop 80 random unrated songs from the "staging" playlist where I drop new albums I don't know for sure I want. There's an aside here about my growing angst over the loss of "album listening" to the Shuffle gods, but I'll skip it for now.
Anyway, the point is, I'm such an avid consumer of music that I have developed my own heavily automated infrastructure to help me consume it. Truth be told, I loathe iTunes and own an Android device, but it's the only program that can do what I need -- that's right, need -- so I stick with it. Now all you avid readers who know stuff about authors don't seem so superior! I'm listening to Au4 right now, never mind it's not the best band (artist? who the hell knows these days when a teenager and a MacBook can create an entire album?) -- YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF IT.
Current music: Molly Sweeney - Radiant Sun
A high school friend of mine put out her debut LP at almost 30, and she's glad she waited (so she said in my interview with her here). So am I, because there are a few real gems on the record. This is one of them. Click to listen and read lyrics.
This song feels like weather to me. You can really get the evocation in Molly's voice and how it's recorded. And then toward the end of the song, there's a transition, as if a cloud passed away from the sun. She suddenly comes into sharp bold relief. You'll hear what I mean. Bonus: Molly has another absolutely masterful transition, this one from English to French, in "Gold Rings and Fur Pelts," the title track to her album.
For me in about 1993, the Internet happened, and that was it for books.
Nowadays I devour a novel here and there, a handful a year, and occasionally read sufficiently interesting nonfiction books.
The other thing I've realized since then is that instead of being a Book Person, I'm actually a Music Person. And that makes feel a lot less guilty about not being a Book Person. I actually only realized this in the last couple weeks, despite overwhelming evidence going back years!
I think the reason is that music grips me emotionally in a way that other arts can't ever quite match. A painting can be brilliant and evoke wonder. A film can really transport me somewhere emotionally. American Beauty is a great example of this. But films are two hours long, and often a lot of it is build to those moments that pierce my heart like glass. The cab ride in Lost In Translation. The line in American Beauty: "You know how lucky we are to have found each other."
But the funny thing about that movie? It's the score that really ties it all together. I remember just a few of the most resonant scenes in the movie, having seen them four or five times now, but I've listened to the most meaningful pieces from Thomas Newman's score dozens, quite likely hundreds of times. "Mental Boy." "Walk Home," oh god, "Walk Home" will forever bring up a flood of emotion and a jumble of memories that will be with me until I'm dead. "The Power of Denial," too.
I wish I were more well-read, but books I relate to least of all. It's just the most difficult to translate into something I feel, and more importantly, something I can't help but feel.
Music is my thing.
You can tell, too, if you start digging into my iTunes library. (Or hell, if you take my hobbies: I haven't posted about it here much, but I'm still running an Internet radio show.) You'll soon find stacked layers of smart playlists, carefully tweaked and tuned to constantly rotate an endless stream of music into a giant shuffle playlist on my mobile device. The smart playlists work together to ensure songs don't get played out -- nothing I've heard in the past 7 days, nothing I've skipped in the past 11 -- and that unheard songs get heard -- always drop 80 random unrated songs from the "staging" playlist where I drop new albums I don't know for sure I want. There's an aside here about my growing angst over the loss of "album listening" to the Shuffle gods, but I'll skip it for now.
Anyway, the point is, I'm such an avid consumer of music that I have developed my own heavily automated infrastructure to help me consume it. Truth be told, I loathe iTunes and own an Android device, but it's the only program that can do what I need -- that's right, need -- so I stick with it. Now all you avid readers who know stuff about authors don't seem so superior! I'm listening to Au4 right now, never mind it's not the best band (artist? who the hell knows these days when a teenager and a MacBook can create an entire album?) -- YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF IT.
Current music: Molly Sweeney - Radiant Sun
A high school friend of mine put out her debut LP at almost 30, and she's glad she waited (so she said in my interview with her here). So am I, because there are a few real gems on the record. This is one of them. Click to listen and read lyrics.
This song feels like weather to me. You can really get the evocation in Molly's voice and how it's recorded. And then toward the end of the song, there's a transition, as if a cloud passed away from the sun. She suddenly comes into sharp bold relief. You'll hear what I mean. Bonus: Molly has another absolutely masterful transition, this one from English to French, in "Gold Rings and Fur Pelts," the title track to her album.