okay, hold me to this one:

my plan is to find a suitable hypno-meditation track, slice it up into very small bits, then rearrange the bits into ridiculous hilarity laced with subliminal messages of blatant greed.


i've already downloaded a couple to get me started:

deepak chopra - stop procrastinating and start speed reading all of deepak chopra's books.mp3

reiki - sounds of nature - kittens falling on cedars.mp3

alan greenspan - the_resolution_of_our_current_account_deficit_and_household_debt_
burdens_does_not_strike_me_as_overly_worrisome_but_that_is_certainly_not_the_case_for_
our_fiscal_deficit_which_according_to_the_congressional_budget_office_will_rise_significantly_
as_the_baby_boomers_start_to_retire_in_2008_our_fiscal_prospects_are_in_my_judgment_a_
significant_obstacle_to_long_term_stability_because_the_budget_deficit_is_not_readily_subject_
to_correction_by_market_forces_that_stabilize_other_imbalances_(ADVANCE)_BY_M@ddog.mp3


the internet is our collective muse.

what would i do if i had a million dollars? i'd meticulously organize my itunes library. i'd add album art. add genres. verify capitalization. strip comments. homogenize file naming conventions. create devastatingly precise smart playlists. i'd leave no song unalbum'd.

but, as they say, one doesn't need a million dollars to do that.

this little music fixation of mine is not wholly without benefit. i know more about my music than the average man knows about his very existence. for some ignorant reason you look at me as though that were a bad thing; look away immediately, but do listen:


nine inch nails - the hand that feeds, c. 2:07
trent got me to thinking about this topic. this moment is about pure buildup, then some more buildup, and finally a very satisfying delivery. like tasting the first bite of your favorite meal, the aromas of which have been wafting out of the kitchen for half an hour.

beck - ghettochip malfunction; c. 2:19
ibidem. we have a winner, and the winner is the speak-and-spell.

john frusciante - carvel; 0:00-1:56
ibidem. johnny! johnny, come back! don't fade out yet! oh thank you, thank you! you big tease, you are the buildup king.

bic runga - gravity; c. 0:28
delayed subtle bass intros are winning. regarding this song, my college newspaper music critic agreed with me, in very specific ways.

led zeppelin - stairway to heaven; 5:33-6:44
in a word, incendiary. i missed, and miss, the seventies.

björk - joga; 0:00-0:31, 1:11-1:18, and 1:59-2:31
count them: three. … though more correctly, i just can't decide which is best. so just consider the whole song to be a best very long moment.

fire set fire - the takeover; 0:00-0:18
i have a fever, and the only prescription is more loud dirty bass. fire set fire, you are the best medicine.

gorillaz - all alone; 1:57-2:56
this is a highly subjective moment, dripping with total emotional resonance. in this moment i am naked and manly in a national forest with you, and the monolith has touched our minds, and we throw bones into the air and they turn into spaceships two million years in the future. in seven seconds i am the star-child.

elliott smith - color bars; 1:25-1:49
another moment of total emotional resonance. in this moment i am in a 1978 chevrolet nova—purring the way a tiger purrs—with you, doing eighty, backs to everything, directly into the rising desert sun.

radiohead - like spinning plates; 3:22-fin
this song ends amazingly well which requires i turn the end way up, part i.

missy higgins - they weren't there; 3:43-fin
part ii.

meat loaf - objects in the rear view mirror; 9:39-fin
part iii.

elliott smith - can't make a sound; 2:20-fin
part iv. fade to bliss.

the stereotypical mother asks, 'if your friends went and jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?' the correct answer (into which, by design, you are pigeonholed) is no. and today, dear stereotypical mother, i gave the correct answer to this very question. i chose looking at arcane words and symbols on a page over following friends off an actual bridge. you'd be so hypothetically proud.

also. remember how i listen to carefully crafted vibrations in the air? it's a thing i was doing today. and by random, the song 'mai' by loudermilk came on. it mentions, specifically, the sixteenth day of may. tell me itunes is not sentient. tell me! tell me! you lie.

that song, remembered from my childhood, that has been running through my head? the one with the fantastic tune? the one that seemed so excellent and sublime all week as i slowly reconstructed the lyrics?

yeah. barbra effing streisand. thanks a lot, mom.

occasionally i'll look sequentially at carefully patterned ink on piles of paper held together with glue at one common edge. occasionally i'll shine a laser onto spinning plastic and metal disks and turn the reflection into sound and hear it.

whenever i do either i create some sort of meaning from the sensory input.

occasionally i'll do both simultaneously and the meaning gets all tangled in my head so that later when i encounter the patterns of one i'll inevitably recall the other without regard for its relevance at that particular time.


i have brilliant examples, roughly sorted by date read:

jurassic park: jon secada
2001 series: lost world soundtrack
the rama series: u2
the stand: nirvana
1984: the cranberries
atonement: fischerspooner
the dark tower series: in various places, out of africa soundtrack, future sound of london, beck, bad company (who make an important thematic cameo in book seven, not to give anything away), moby


and the input is not necessarily linked to books and music. it could as easily be location and music, and often is, viz.:

my honeymoon: muse
the dormitory in which i spent my fourth year of college: audioslave
the shitty basement apartment where i spent the first third of my fifth: the flaming lips
the road: always beck, always to the dismay of my wife



since i have you here, i feel the need to direct your attention to the most powerful weapon in my geek arsenal. oh how i love to analyze data, and, in the process, to be analyzed.

i never really had a problem because of leaving
but everything reminds me of him this evening

so if i seem a little out of it, sorry
but why should i lie?
everything reminds me of her

the spin of the earth impaled a silhouette of the sun on the steeple
and i got to hear the same sermon all the time now from you people
why are you staring into outer space, crying?
just because you came across it, and lost it

everything reminds me of her
everything reminds me of her
everything reminds me of her



elliott smith - everything reminds me of her, my song of the day.

and again, for possibly the thousandth time:
yokwe, big nate. amo te.

here's what i've been up to.

only now, for the first time ever, am i listening to a cd i got months ago. months! okay, here's why. the album is actually four cds meant to be played simultaneously. the logistics of this are challenging at best, but the result is worth it. except for the weird screaming in track 2. and the dogs at the end. get three friends with speakers and party down.

playing battle for middle-earth makes my head spin. sure it's a big advertisement for the movie trilogy, but it's a dang fun one. and dang pretty. you can't go wrong with mumakil and grond and ents. dang dang.

and i just finished the farseer series by robin hobb. i got an unwanted spoiler when i started, and then it turned out to be completely false. i kept waiting for a certain person to die and then the person kept not dying, and not dying, and in the end, finally didn't die. it was all very confusing.


our prospects involving countries east of the atlantic improve daily. hopefully this won't turn out like the failed las vegas bid last spring. hopefully medical conditions remain as they are. unlike last spring. though we might have saved ourselves the hassle of a national security letter, so maybe it all works out in the end. the bright sides just keep getting darker these days.



there's some bad news. jesus was trampled at wal-mart by middle america stampeding toward the 'half-price tripe made in china holiday sale' table.


dear jesus,

i'm sorry we always forget to invite you to your birthday party every year.

love,
matt.