by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/07/23 03:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/07/23/8765885.aspx
There is a distinct lack of inspiration around the SiaO halls at the moment.
The last track on Aimee Mann's Lost in Space entitled It's Not kind of captures the feeling.
Mainly the second verse, but I'll put the whole song up and just emphasize the second verse:
I keep going round and round on the same old circuit
A wire travels underground to a vacant lot
Where something I can't see interrupts the current
And shrinks the picture down to a tiny dot.
And from behind the screen it can look so perfect
But it's not.
So here I'm sitting in my car at the same old stop light.
I keep waiting for a change but I don't know what.
So red turns into green turning into yellow,
But I'm just frozen here in the same old spot.
And all I have to do is to press the pedal.
But I'm not.
No I'm not.
People are tricky you can't afford to show
Anything risky anything they don't know.
The moment you try...
Well, kiss it goodbye.
So baby kiss me like a drug, like a respirator
And let me fall into the dream of the astronaut
Where I get lost in space that goes on forever
And you make all the rest just an afterthought
And I believe it's you could make it better
Though it's not
No it's not
No it's not...
It is my second favorite song on the album (right after Invisible Ink), but what is grabbing me at the moment is that feeling of waiting.
I have like dozens of blogs already written on various topics, yet something holds me back.
I have no idea what it is.
But I've done that very thing at a stoplight on occasion, and I've certainly done it in the scooter at the Walk/Don't Walk sign sometimes, too.
For the record, I'm not doing it at work, or at the other random events going on (exhibitions, an Insider summit with associated off-hours events, random meals turned social intercourse, etc.).
But in the blog, something holds me back.
Hmmmm.
You know, I look at the lyrics and am reminded of an incident in a bar several years prior, after a show.
Someone there was insistent that the line in the last verse was "and you may call the rest..." despite my calm assurances that the actual words were "and you make all the rest..." . When I went out to my car, brought in the CD with the lyrics in it, and collected the round I won after he admitted I was right, a woman asked what the difference was.
I was probably a bit drunk at the time, but that did give me pause. I wanted to get the thought out clearly, I wonder how much that moment sobered me up, at least conceptually?
"Well, there is usually big difference between calling something an afterthought and making it one. Especially in the context of a song from the point of view of someone who can't seem to get things started, while other things appear to have no trouble starting around them -- where other people are getting things done, making things happen."
She didn't literally have a light bulb come on over her head, but nobody paying attention would have failed to see the light of the bulb there as Heather nodded.
Yes, I found out her name. It was Heather. She introduced herself right after the above described little incident. The guy who lost the bet didn't introduce himself, but that was his own fault for trying to argue lyrics with me....
Anyway, I did my job that night. Putting out the whole "importance of the words" message I tend to preach about from time to time.
This is also an interesting linguistic phenomenon as well, whose name I can't immediately recall.
I expected that the whole "not actually being a linguist" thing my come back to haunt me at some point. No sense putting off a trip to the dentist!
But the difference in meaning is an important one, really....
I remember talking with Liz about this one once. Her comment was along the lines of "I may call you lyrically OCD, but you make all the claims real." And she made the two incidences sound identical, though I pointed out that her example left one of the cases completely unmabiguous (to which she responded that I mansged to prove the OCD point right there).
I plead nolo contendere. :-)
Back to the topic at hand -- I think I have to just make myself post some of these blogs that are done.
It is true that there are no cars behind me waiting to go through the light that I'm blocking. But I feel like the Blog goes ever on and on (in true Tolkienian fashion), and I feel like I am stopping up the works a bit.
Sorry about that.
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