"I'm not around that much, I'm near exhausted and lost...
... What if today I stayed in bed?
--from "Exhausted," Foo Fighters
Like "onomatopoeia" -- when a word sounds like what it means or describes -- there should be a word for songs whose musical elements sound very much like their title or theme. There probably already is.
But whatever it is, Foo Fighters' "Exhausted" would fit the word. It closes out "their" first album -- which was actually just Dave Grohl playing virtually all the parts in his post-Nirvana project.
Its slow intro; steady build; pausing middle; and droning, fading finish perfectly closes an album and captures the feeling of exhaustion -- with a subtextual hint at carrying on to find new energy somehow, some way. Amusingly, the rather minimal lyrics don't quite do that for me, but certain phrases do -- enough for me to remember the song as this perfect picture of exhaustion.
Exhausted isn't a fair self-description of me -- having no small children -- in recent months. But I've bordered on it enough to feel spoken to when the Foo Fighters song came on. Weeks of reading and research for IR class on top of other freely chosen musical, writing and social obligations had me feeling taxed. The holidays were fun but not very restful, as we hosted 20+ people twice, bounced around from family gathering to gathering, and mixed in an out-of-town funeral for good measure.
In accordance with the prophecies, 2008 greeted me jut seven hours in with the stomach flu -- the one that sends you retching and cursing to the vomitorium for hours on end. Long after you've given everything you have to give to the porcelain gods, still they want more. So you get up from your chills and sweats and again dry-heave sweet acrid nothings to them, finally tasting that frightening sensation of preferring death to Carrying on Like This.
The blog naturally suffered from the neglect.
But being filled with ennui by my first two prerequisite IR classes -- and discovering over Christmas how much other reading I've neglected -- I'm taking a term or so off from class. Time to cherry-pick only the course content and professors that sound best. And just maybe, to do some more non-research writing of my own.
In another thing on "the Internets" I'm sure I'm late to hear about -- or haven't heard in a while -- there's some acted-out videos on YouTube to the "MC Hawking" songs that turn science explanations into raps in a computerized voice like that of, yes, Stephen Hawking. There's a bunch of them -- naturally some good and some awful.
A lot are diatribes against the Creationists, or anti-evolutionists. But this one on "entropy" -- to the Naughty By Nature song -- made me laugh at my screen. The time and effort involved! And a good entropy/thermodynamics refresher to boot. See kids -- science is fun!
I'm told by those more in the know than I to not feel guilty, because it's all for science and allegedly Hawking can be a bit of a tool to people (to put it kindly). Of course if I was in his physical situation, I suppose I'd be a bit short with people, too!
And speaking of Creationists, the fine Ali-G work of genius where he has a panel on science and evolution with a fundamentalist and a "futurist," among others, is also on ze YouTube.
I've rarely shed more tears of laughter than the first time I saw this, what with him convincing everyone how stupid "youth" can be while simultaneously revealing the ignorant jackass colors of the Creationist himself. Bouncing from evolutionary biology to scatological humor and back -- how does he stay in character while this is unfolding in front of him?
As you may have noticed, the site has changed. Sampa, the free-site host, did a version 2 of some sort.
Despite an FAQ that made it sound like allowing one's site to go through v.2 surgery would be okay, there were several flexibilities that surprisingly disappeared with the click of a button. (e.g. I cannot believe sidebars like this one are even narrower than before.)
And I'm told -- miraculously! -- that the conversion cannot be undone. Truth be told, I'm actually quite pissed. But free is free. Sampa has otherwise been good to me.
So I need to sort through site "features" to see how I can make do. Except that I don't have the time at the moment, in the middle of graduate classes and Lighthousehockey.com. (btw, I've removed that Lighthouse RSS feed so that you're not clogged with random Islanders hockey gibberish).
But I promise to touch up the accessories when I get a chance, and return to irregularly scheduled blogging.
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. It closes out "their" first album -- which was actually just Dave Grohl playing virtually all the parts in his post-Nirvana project.
February, 2008