What I tell you three times is true

[labellementeuse]

I have Tuesdays off, and today was this absolutely gorgeous clear still day and it was so warm, the kind of spring day that you never get in Wellington. I opened all my curtains and windows and lay on my bed getting hotter and hotter and reading The Hunting of the Snark, and it was great.

I also fixed up Frankenmix 5.0: Skylights and Sugarpanes. Fair warning: I've been listening to music from Supernatural a LOT lately, and this mix is pretty much a direct reaction to that, by which I mean "as far away from that as I could get." Um, I quite like it anyway! Also, quite a lot of NZ stuff on here, for a change.





1. A holiday song

Goldenhorse – Maybe Tomorrow

In a moment of time
When the fruit becomes wine
And the thought becomes the memory


2. A spring song

Katrina & the Waves – Walking on Sunshine

I'm walking on sunshine, whoa,
And it's time to feel good.

That feeling you get on the first good day of sunshine after a long winter? Yeah.

3. A sleeping song

Bic Runga – Close the Door, Put Out the Light

Close the door, put out the light
Come sleep 'til tomorrow comes creeping
Talk some more, 'til I grow tired
Don't leave 'til you know that I'm sleeping
Don't say goodnight, just slide away into the dark
And take with you my heart


4. A sugared song

Linda Scott – I’ve Told Every Little Star

I've told every little star
Just how sweet I think you are


5. A fierce song

Dar Williams – When I Was A Boy

And you can walk me home,
But I was a boy too.

I really really really love this song a lot, and I can't do it justice. Download it, dammit.

6. A mysterious song

Barenaked Ladies – Light Up My Room

There are luxuries we can't afford
But in our house we never get bored
We can dance to the radio station
That plays in our teeth


7. A yearning song

Strawpeople – Scared of Flying

Is there a reason, did you hear
My love has lately disappeared?
I'm not scared of flying too close to the sun.
Would you take this dance with me?
Our rotten time makes us well-paired.

8. A satisfied song

Nina Simone – My Baby Just Cares for Me

Liz Taylor is not his style
And even Lena Turner's smile
Is something he can't see
My baby don't care who knows it
My baby just cares for me!


9. A mourning song

Cat Stevens – Oh Very Young

And through your dreams may toss and turn you now,
They will vanish away like your daddy's best jeans
Denim blue, faded up to the sides.
And though you want him to last forever,
You know he never will, you know he never will;
And the patches make the goodbye harder still.

10. A kind song

Goodshirt – Fiji Baby

When we went to Hamilton I said
Just pretend it's a holiday, and you said
Yep, I'll just pretend it's Fiji baby.


11. A pure song

Extreme – More than Words

What would you say
If I took those words away?
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying, I love you.

I firmly believe - thanks to early indoctrination with such greats as Simon & Garfunkel - that the purest form of song is two guys and a guitar.

A bitter song

Barnaby Weir – Fly My Pretties

(This one goes out to a special city.)

Well Wellington's a small town
But it packs a lot of punch,
There's tele crews and from the wharves
They eat ideas for lunch.
It can get a little claustrophobic
Even if you try:
Fly my pretties, fly.

Well I reckon this town's brilliant
In lots of different ways
But it doesn't have the money or the glamour of LA.
Sure one day you'll make it there,
The starts shining bright,
If you have to go then fly.

Fly away, as long as you come back someday.
Fly away, hope to see you round someday.

Well I've lived here my whole life,
And sure the living's sweet,
But what I want's the whole world just to listen at my feet.
The only way to do this is to travel far and wide,
So if you have to go then fly.

They say that there's a brain drain,
I reckon that it's true,
Our best are cruising off-shore just to make a buck or two.
It seems a little sad that we can't do it all right here,
But if you have to go take care.

Fly away, as long as you come back someday.
Fly away, hope to see you round someday.

Transcribed all the lyrics because they're not available on teh internets.

From the album notes: "Fly My Pretties was a musical collaboration performed, filmed and recorded over four nights at Bats Theatre in Wellington... Fly my Pretties is not a band rather a collection of Wellington musicians collaborating on songs by Barnaby Weir." And, okay, it's not really all that bitter, but it makes me laugh; especially because, of course, if you want to leave the country flying is pretty much your only option anyway. I was having this conversation with megaffe about the brain drain the other day (do other countries even know what this is? It describes the phenomenon of our best and our brightest buggering off overseas to get better educations, better job opportunities, and frequently better rates of pay.) Basically I'm unsatisfied with it because the more we leave the country the less likely it is that this country is ever going to give, for example, young academics the opportunities they need.

But god knows I'll be leaving too, so hey.


Bonus tracks, to alleviate the sheer candy-cane sweetness of the above: Ry Cooder – Willie Brown Blues (Crossroads OST) (Um, not the Britney one, the one about blues guitarists.) & Us3 – Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia), which are blues and jazz and totally, totally awesome.

Also! For your entertainment, the fucking funniest thing I ever read in academia. (Necessary context: Carroll said of this poem that it was "stuff and nonsense." He did add that "words mean more than we mean to express when we use them", creating an opening for people who want to explore this poem at all: but, seriously, I think that this is maybe taking it a tad too far, and I hope it's tongue-in-cheek. Also, all the characters in the Snark begin with B; the Bellman, the Butcher, the Boojum, the Bandersnatch, etc. Finally, these paragraphs are preceded by an unnecessarily complicated reading of the Snark as the embodiment of nothingness and existential uncertainties.)

           We are poised now on the brink of discovering
        the unsuspected meaning that Carroll's poem
        acquired in 1942 when Enrico Fermi and his
        associates (working, appropriately, in a former
        squash court) obtained the first sustained
        nuclear chain reaction.
           Consider for a moment that remarkable four-letter
        word bomb. It begins and ends with b.
        The second b is silent; the final silence. B
        for birth, non-b for Nothing. Between the two
        b's (to be or not to be) is Om, Hindu symbol
        for the nature of Brahman, the Absolute, the
        god behind the lesser gods whose tasks are to
        create, preserve, and destroy all that is.
-- Marten Gardner, The Annotated Snark: Introduction.

The rest of the introduction (and the notes to text) are woefully dated but interesting. But I mean.