Time is strange and all that

Everytime someone says "only 10" or "only 9" more days till the election, I think, "what election?" That's in November, this is only October. October what? I can't believe how autumn is slipping past.

Today we had a reminder of sunshine and warmth. I had no idea how much it rained during the night, and didn't know that was why there were strips of leafless areas down my driveway, until, on my run, I saw the stream roaring by. I ran in a tank top, and then went into a sunny spot in my backyard and stretched in the sun. I even felt too hot to lie there in shavasana! The birds were very active. Why do that blue jay's feathers seem a much brighter blue than in the summer?

Those ads for some phone that features Google are aimed just at me: all those random questions you want answers to right away! Fortunately, I'm usually close enough to my computer.

Today is a day of recuperation after the academic conference it was mandatory for me to attend at the local college where I adjunct. They have to appease the accreditors by assuring them they are making sure all the adjuncts are toeing the line. So I had to listen to them proclaim as recent discoveries the facts about online teaching that I am practicing every day. I kind of feel dirty.

it's the space between

I grew up listening to vinyl. One by one, I added to my record collection, and played my favorite albums over and over. Now there was a thing this technology would do. Any little scratch in the vinyl would cause it to skip and the record would repeat a musical phrase over and over again. Sometimes you could stop it by stomping hard on the floor, but mostly you had to get up and tap the needle arm. It would reach the point that the skips became a part of the song. To this day, there songs from Janis Joplin's "Got Dem Old Kozmic Blues Again" that startle me when I heard them blasting right through the place where it was supposed to get stuck.

In the same way, record listeners grew to expect that songs would come on in a certain order, after a three or four second hiss of silence. That was their proper order. Some musicians created albums with this in mind. Some people still prefer to listen to music this way. I have to admit, I am not one of them.

That was always the appeal of radio, after all. The fortuitious playing of the song you really liked, or needed at that moment. The juxtaposition: both those songs mentioned pumpkins and it was like totally mind-blowing!!!

I tried listening to an old mix tape I had made (it was in the car and there was nothing but commercials and pledge appeals on the radio) and found myself listening just to hear what the next song was, rather than to enjoy the current song. I realized it then. It's the juxtapositions I like. The connections. The links I make in my own mind, when one song comments on another and turns it upside down. Does that mean I'm just an unreformed modernist, shoring fragments against my ruin? Or too post-modern to bother actually listening to a simple song?