I'm meant to be alone on Saturday night.
"Picture the day, can you still remember
painting the pages while pouring thunder
splashed in the windows and you wished for summer?
Chew on a pencil with your thoughts boiling,
Think of her and him and yourself spoiling,
Clutching the back of your neck as it's tearing.
Imagine summer gold on your lips,
Tracing snakes on friendly shoulders,
Making a face when you think you'll get older...
Take giant steps then you're off,
Ground under tables, playing cat's cradle,
Talk to each other as if you're crazy...
Pacing your pace to a single rhythm,
Standing in rings with fingers linking,
Somebody calls you, but you, you're not listening.
Hey, picture the day, can you still remember
painting the pages while pouring thunder
splashed in the window and you wished for summer?"
-Eyeless in Gaza, "Picture the Day", Drumming the Beating Heart, 1982
The past week in review:
1. Watched episodes of Jonathan Creek (Lord, that takes me back to middle school!), Breaker Morant, and The Conversation this week.
2. Attended a PR meeting on Tuesday. Tabled at the Union again for Market Wednesday and we sold a couple of shirts there. We also dealt with a few odd people, too, one of whom seemed very insulted by how most of the DJs sound lifeless (we're initially instructed to deaden our voices since we're not commercial radio personalities) and the other fellow rambled on about the problems with the Student Government. Makes me wish that someone would form a party that was bent on disbanding Student Government and occupying the university in order to bring on the modern equivalent of the Movement of May 1968. If I were actually a student, I'd vote for that. After tabling, I lingered around the music department room with Will and Drew and reviewed two CDs before leaving for my mother's office, where I fell asleep in her office while waiting for her to get off work!
3. DJed on Thursday and then bumbled around for an hour and a half inside the station with Katherine and Bradley. Barely accomplished anything in the next two days aside from music reviews. That's been about it for me. Next week looks like it could be busier and livelier. I'm pretty certain I'll have to work again, and my paycheck will arrive at the end of the week. Hurrah! Then I can get my haircut again and have money to ride the bus more often and regain some semblance of a social life. I've had to coop myself up a bit these past few months and it's only served to make me feel restless and irritated.
4. This has been providing me some amusement today, however. It's a listing of the Top 100 best selling singles for each year in Italy between 1960 and 1999, and next to each song is the highest chart position. I came across it while trying to find more information about Viola Valentino's "Comprami" (more on that in a little bit). What I've learned: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's "Enola Gay" was apparently the best selling single in Italy in 1981, Plastic Bertrand was fairly popular long after "Ca Plane Pour Moi", Phoebe Cates had the best-selling single in 1982 (WTF?! And knocking out Falco's "Der Kommissar" no less!), and Talk Talk's "Such a Shame" hit Number One there as it flopped over here and in the U.K. - whereas "It's My Life" peaked eight spaces below. Very interesting reversal there.
5. Anyway, on with Viola Valentino's "Comprami". I think I came across it on Hype Machine a few months ago and became highly enamored with the A) whispery vocals and B) the strings that sound like they were left out of a Sulk-era Associates single. Actually, this dates back to 1979 and I think it was her first single. It was a #3 hit in her native Italy and sold about 500,000 copies (although I've read 1,000,000 in another account, but that might be the total sold in the years since and including 1979) and garnered a lot of controversy from its prostitution-oriented lyrical content. Basically, it riled up Italian feminists because the song's - from what I can discern - about a girl who willingly allows herself to be bought in order to requite affection or just be used for company (in less and more explicit ways than that would imply) and enjoys it all the same. There's a video for it here, but it's not terribly interesting aside from the eye candy and excessive amount of lip gloss.
6. And now I'll finally tuck myself in for the night.