Boredom, whoredom--er, workdom, fandom

[fire_everything]

I’m so tired of opening this journal and seeing the same picture of J.K. Rowling that’s been sitting there undisturbed since Valentine’s Day that I think a little thought experiment is in order. I’m going to try and see if for once I can post something new without tweaking it for a fucking week beforehand.

For the last month my working life has been

Comments

[elfinesmom]

It's been too long. I may not have work angst but I certainly have my fair share of things angrily keeping me from my fandom. Neutral Milk Hotel is my FAVourite, btw. Maybe in a month or so I can be one of those good writers that inspires you. I, of course, love my Snape but I'm still floating through the trippy rabbit-hole that is Spock/Uhura.

[fire_everything]

Argh! The NMH conspiracy! You're part of it too!

I kid. I'm probably enjoying "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" more now than I would have when it was new and I'd have been wondering and worrying about What This Band Meant. (I am the kind of person who worries about shit like that.) Now that history has subsumed them, it's possible to chill out and appreciate them for what they have to offer.

I'm sure part of my early objection was due to their name, which I'm still not crazy about. It dares you to be bored by them before the fact, and back then, I was happy to take them at their word.

[elfinesmom]

I couldn't disagree more. You have to do the research. Jeff Mangum is messed up. He and I both share an eerie love of Anne Frank as you'll be able to tell with the album- he saw visions of her and stuff. Just picked up her diary in a used book store, went home and read it, began with his strange obsession with her. After the huge success of the garage band recorded album he did the "Leave me alone, I don't want to be famous!" thing. It's a rarity for him to perform anymore.

I like to think of him as Crispin Glover in Back to the Future.

[fire_everything]

I did look up the basics on NMH and Mangum when I got hold of the album, because I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with this myth that seems to have developed around it/him. Truthfully, though, I don’t think a record’s impact should hinge on listener familiarity with the artist’s backstory or personal obsessions. When I finally read Tolkien, it definitely added a bit of insider amusement to my experience of Led Zeppelin, but it didn’t significantly change my feeling toward them as a band, which is as it should be, I think

[elfinesmom]

One day you'll find a musician that you have a bizarre connection to that you've never had with any other person. A commonality that no one can understand- beyond spiritual. You've both been visited by the same ghost and no one else knows what you're talking about.

I hope you do anyway. It's creepy, exhilarating, and heart wrenching. Unless you already have. At any rate, you still in the throes of Spock/Uhura or has that flame run out of a combustible material and diminished?

[fire_everything]

I already have, and creepy/exhilarating/heartwrenching is right. It ended in a spectacularly traumatic way, and I wince to remember myself actually talking about it in a therapist's office on more than one occasion. After a ridiculously drawn-out period of grief that I could not fully explain or justify to anyone, including the therapist, I finally got myself a psychic divorce from the musician in question. I can talk about him like a normal person now, but only if I don't let on that I had this past episode involving him.

If Mangum is that musician for you, I say godspeed - you could do a LOT worse. I certainly did, although I still rank my guy's talent in the highest bracket there is. But what am I saying? It's not like you really choose these things anyway. They're not based on some rational, neatly typed list of merits - plays six instruments! released four inarguably classic albums! supports Latin American leftist rebel movements! or whatever the case may be. It's based on something other.

[pennswoods]

We are indeed on a woefully infrequent schedule, and I think at best tend to put out 4 episodes a year. I wish it was more frequent. I think we our aiming for June 1 for our next episode, which will probably be rather silly.

I too miss the level of Snape analysis that seemed to pop up all over.

[fire_everything]

Aw, Shannon, so nice to have you over here visiting my joint

[pennswoods]

:)

I'm hoping the movies will lead to an increase in Snape-ing - even if it is bitching about how badly WB handles the Snape scenes.

I am serious about maybe possibly doing a semi-unscientific poll on movie fans' perception of Snape. Ah research...