amazing thing of the day: yo la tengo

am at work cutting sound effects for a scene involving a medical emergency. doing this kind of work is both creative and tedious. there is a certain amount of veracity required (less impressionistic say, than the "scary surfing" scene i put sfx on in the cleaner last season. (someday ask me about all the rad stuff that one can use to make the ocean sound scrary and hostile.)

anywhoo, am listening to yo la tengo's latest album "popular songs." (see inset) a minute ago the song playing caught my ear. it was "more stars than there are in heaven." it was in minute six. soooo beautiful.

sometime last month i went to see yo la tengo at the avalon. i was very close to having to miss the show b/c of nutty work happenings (visual effects, don'tchewknow), but through a group effort at the office, got there having only missed about 15 min.

wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. b/c i have to get back to the aforementioned medical emergency scene, i will cut this short.

yo la tengo are the masters of the slow build. they can play a song for 10 minutes at a steady, almost imperceptible build. man, i love it.

this song, "more stars than there are in heaven" is just lovely. makes me want to watch hal hartley movies. and walk around on a windy day. and visit arcata.

after this song comes the delicate, "fireside," then the 15 minute feedback-tacular "and the glitter is gone." that will get things cooking in here. ;)

11.26.08-post hal hartley, al wazir, eye of the hawk

am feeling a drive to consolidate.

don't know if it's the movie i just watched, the dinner i ate or the prospect of having the next four days off from work: i'm motivated to shed stuff. to pull out 150 cds, 30 t-shirts, the unused cafe table wedged between the filing cabinet and the wall in my sewing room, all the bits gathering dust from lack of use in my apt, and haul them out to the goodwill, cd trade in, wherever someone might find a use for them...

i struggle against my pack-rat tendencies: i don't want to save every scrap and clipping, just the odd ticket stub or note from a friend that will rocket me back to that time and place. last week during some deep apt. cleaning i looked through a collection of bits in a box on my bookshelf. i've had this box since 1985 and filled it with things when it was still a new thing in my life. most of the time i forget it's there. every couple of years or so i open it up and there it is: some of 1987. grateful dead ticket stubs, a nyc subway token, sea shells collected on long island, cat whiskers from a tom cat who moved into my apt, stones from some gem shop in los gatos.

i don't want to go through my life dragging trunks of relics from all my years, but i do like a few small things here and there. the polaroids on my fridge, a photobutton of a grade school friend, a mug sent to me by my sister the summer of 1990 when i was desperate to know someone was in my corner-even from hundreds of miles away...

it's the nature of acquistion that one has to make space for all this stuff. i don't want to make more room. and i don't want to out grow this apt. i'm tired of having to move things to clean under them.

so.

got to thin this stuff out. i'm also reluctant to put anything in a landfill. so, if it's at all of use, i want to find a home for it.

i know how this goes: i am swept up in the excitement of a new endeavor, try to tackle it from too many angles at once, get sleepy and never quite accomplish what it is i'd set out to do. i've got four days off. step one: establish a clean slate. start with the laundry. that will have me focused on cleaning out the closets. (is it too much to want all my clothes to fit into drawers and closets and not have ever revolving piles of shirts and sweaters that i move from place to place?)

and i'm going to play the piano this weekend. all that potential music in there. and my memories of playing that piano are directly tied to family holidays. i don't remember they were thanksgiving or christmas holidays: i just remember loading rolls in the piano in the basement of my grandparents' house while my brother, sisters and cousins played pool there. oh! i am just realizing now: this piano is the biggest artifact that i am toting around. and it is so heavy i can't even move it to clean under. ha!

man, i am a sentimental bugger. blindsides me sometimes. :)

a friend of mine used the word savor in a converstion we were having. (i've been trying to figure a way to relate the context, but it just gets too weedy). the minute she said it i could tell it was the idea i'd been looking for: i've got too much dross. (now this started as a writing about objects, possessions, stuff and clutter but one may apply it liberally to broader concepts as well. ;) )

ok. when i sat down to write this i put on grant-lee phillips nineteen-eighties album. it's done and the fab mix from my pal john in central fla. has just come on. laundry sorting music if ever there was!

feeding into this: tomorrow is thanksgiving. it's been raining off and on all day. hands down my favorite time of year. and how can a girl even think of sewing when she has to move stuff off the desk to even get to the sewing machine? honestly.

for the record: mentioned at the top of the letter: movie viewed: unbelievable truth, hal hartley, dir; dinner eaten: al wazir, shwarma plate; days off: thanksgiving holiday weekend :) woo!

and this is how it starts! good night!