A Smorgasbord of Delights

Everything I should have posted one at a time over the past few weeks will now be posted in an orgy of a single post. Mmm...gluttony.

The Top Three Things On My Mind are as follows.

1) I was talking to someone in my program about “research” for the topics we want to write about -- that is, if you want to write a memoir about traveling, you’d read as many travel memoirs as you could and get a sense of the genre. I have discovered in my research that the “funeral home lit” genre is sparse. So I expanded into cinema and here’s what I came up with:





Hmmmm...

2) Today I asked myself the question, "What would I do to be able to travel back and time and be one of Otis Redding’s back up dancers?"
"I would kill a man" was not a good enough answer for me, so I turned to my favorite source of information about the limits of human depravity...the website “What Would You Do to Get With Justin Bieber?” IT HAS BEEN (TRAGICALLY) (AND HILARIOUSLY) DELETED! I guess comments like "I would bake my arm in the oven until it was as crispy as chicken then eat it" was just too much for people.

3) I keep thinking maybe I could use this blog to write enlightening book reviews or share some social commentary but then I realize I just want to be able to tell you all stories like this one, i.e. a recent example of the game of Telephone that is my mind: I once read a review of a “sodomy memoir” (what…that’s not an established genre?) by a former ballerina about how anal sex had taught her to let go and get closer to God. The memoir’s title was Surrender. Later, when I was trying to remember this title to tell someone about it, I remembered that “it was one word, and it had some spiritual double meaning…like, Filled.” WOMP WOMP WOOOOMP.

Some More of My Feelings

It's that time of year, when the summer rainstorms rumble and people take the Blue Line out to Revere Beach and women waiting to get BerryLine go absolutely apeshit if they run out of strawberries...but most of all it is the time of year when Rolling Stone tells us what they think are the 500 best songs...of all time.

I know...why should I even enter into this fray? Why should I stand in front of the newstand, reading this Rolling Stone issue without paying, audibly cheering and jumping around when true greats appear on the list, then grunting and muttering when they PUT THE BEATLES ON THE LIST THREE HUNDRED FRIGGIN' TIMES? I'm gonna go ahead and say this, Beatles, and you know I'm not the first...you're fucking overrated.


(Except you, Ringo. We're cool.)

So I will go straight to the heart of the problem here: in their self-obsession, Rolling Stone chose "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan and "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones as the two greatest songs...ever. I have no problem with being into yourself, Rolling Stone, but the atrocity of giving the Rolling Stones' version of Satisfaction this much credit cannot go unpunished.* Case in point:



Suck it, Mick Jagger.


But two of my dearest favorites are in the top 25, so I won't hate too hard:

at 12: A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
at 24: People Get Ready - The Impressions

Though we could go deep about the history this list reveals especially around white musicians "borrowing"/co-opting black musical styles or songs...but that's another (long-ass) post for another day.

*The 500 Greatest list considers covers as their own songs -- i.e., Aretha's version of "Respect" is listed even though Otis wrote it.