Tuesday, August 05, 2008

In Laramie

I'm in my apt. in Laramie, and missing the fuck out of my friends. After two days of lugging shit up four flights of stairs over and over, I did absolutely nothing today, aside from see my parents off, which was fucking difficult, I don't mind saying.

So now I'm just reading the AV Club's review of Lollapalooza, drinking a Busch, and listening to some music I haven't taken the time to hear before. Up now is Wowee Zowee by Pavement, by far the album of theirs I've listened to the least. I don't actually have a favorite, the songs tend to bleed over in my mind and the highlights are just as sharp from any album. Though I do think the one-two punch that begins Brighten the Corners - Shady Lane and Stereo - is my favorite Pavement moment. It's got that pent-up Malkmus scream and the bombast the band could bring when they were properly motivated.

I tried listening to And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out by Yo La Tengo, but it's so tied to the Illinois summer for me, I can't listen to it without getting teary-eyed right now. And that title, which I never really contemplated before, actually deals with something I've written about in some short stories - negative space transformed into something, where nothing has as much presence as the night sky. In a story I wrote, I have a character watching the horizon, where nothing dances. But it's something dancing - in his mind- nothing, to him, is not a vacuum, but an invisible force that might be mendicant, like some feral animal trailing you as you walk.

And so I'm intimidated by the thought of starting writing again, though I have no excuse. It's what I do all the time, but I risk being self-conscious. Oh well, I'll do it anyway.

Oh, and listen to "Grave Architecture" by Pavement. It's the sort of curveball they can throw, something of a departure, driven more by rhythm than controlled noise.