Music Monday: Don't Say You Love Me

After an absurd amount of dithering over which Corrs song to post, I've chosen 'Don't Say You Love Me.'

In a philosophy of art class last year, my lecturer asked us if we would want to go back to the musical tastes we had 10 years ago. He was trying (as I understood it anyway) to make the point that some artistic tastes are better than others - expecting that people would feel that their taste had improved over the years. At the time I wasn't convinced because, although I don't want to go back to the taste I had then, I also wouldn't want to force my current musical tastes on my younger self. It just wouldn't have worked. What I liked then was good for me then and what I like now is good for me now.

Rewind a few years and this was my favourite song.



I still like it. In fact, choosing a song for this has quite probably sparked a Corrs renaissance in my brain... Anyway, I want to hear others' thoughts. Would you be happy to go back to the musical tastes you had, say, 5 years ago? How have they changed since then? What makes them change? Do you think some people just have better taste than others?

I think I've become braver - I used to like music that has nice, safe lyrics that didn't weird me out or make me uncomfortable and melodies that are emotional in a big, obvious way. Looking back, some of it is embarrassingly cheesey. I'm not sure I'm explaining that very well but it doesn't really matter. Now my comfort zone is wider and I like more subtle tunes that take longer to 'get.' I'm even starting to get the hang of jazz! It's less that I've abandoned my old taste than expanded on it though. I still love the sweet/cheesey stuff, I just have a slightly different perspective on it I guess.

Your turn. :-)

It is never too late to be who you might have been. George Eliot

Haunted houses

I sometimes feel slack for not reading non-fiction unless I have to for class, especially for not reading stuff that’s relevant to my majors. Yesterday though, I realised just how much I absorb from the internet, usually via Wikipedia. I started at haunted houses and ended up learning about sleep paralysis, hypnic jerks, infrasound, and the Tetris Effect. All the blockquotes are from Wikipedia.

Sleep paralysis is something many people experience once or twice in their life and some more often. It happens just before you fall asleep or just before you wake up. What happens is you can’t move. Your mind is awake but your body is still asleep. It is also common for people to be able to open their eyes and see, to feel terror, to feel a (usually threatening) presence, to feel pressure on their chest, to hallucinate, or to feel like they’re floating upward. There are other things too but those are some of the most common. Sleep paralysis is a likely candidate for explaining many 'supernatural' experiences, from incubi and succubi to alien abductions.

I get it occasionally and it’s horrible. Often I’m trying to scream or call out to mum but can’t. It seems to happen when I sleep on my back so I try to avoid that. You can read more about sleep paralysis here.


You know how sometimes, when you’re in the process of falling asleep, your body does a random twitch that jolts you awake again? That’s a hypnic jerk. According to Wikipedia there are two theories as to what causes them:

The neurological reason that hypnic jerks occur is not fully understood, although there are two predominant theories.

Some researchers suggest that as a subject's heartbeat and breathing slow down, hypnic jerks occur as a natural part of muscular transition.

Another theory states that as a subject falls asleep, their muscles begin to relax and cease working, causing the brain to believe that the body must be falling through air - and triggering a response to thrash the limbs in an attempt to catch something or turn oneself upright.

Infrasound is sound that has a frequency below 20 Hz. If I remembered more of 7th form physics I would know what that meant. It can be created by lots of stuff, including earthquakes, lightning, and wind turbines. Some animals (elephants, alligators, rhinos, giraffes…) use it to communicate. We can perceive infrasound too, even if we can’t hear it. What I found interesting (and this is the link between infrasound and haunted houses) is that:

Infrasound has been known to cause feelings of awe or fear in humans. Since it is not consciously perceived, it can make people feel vaguely that supernatural events are taking place.

Some film soundtracks make use of infrasound to produce unease or disorientation in the audience. Irréversible is one such movie.

In music, Brian "Lustmord" Williams is known to utilize infrasound to create these same feelings.

Some scientists (Richard Wiseman is one) think it possible that infrasound might explain some of the experiences people have in ‘haunted’ houses. Skepdic has a great article about it.


The Tetris Effect is my favourite. That’s what it’s called when you play a game like Tetris for hours and then keep seeing those stupid blocks whenever you close your eyes.

The Tetris effect is the ability of an activity to which people devote sufficient time and attention to begin overshadowing their thoughts, mental images, and dreams.

The Tetris effect can occur with other video games, with any prolonged visual task (such as classifying cells on microscope slides, weeding, picking fruit, flipping burgers, or even playing chess), and in other sensory modalities. For example, there is the tendency for a catchy tune to play out unbidden in one's mind (an "earworm").

Apparently even amnesiacs who can’t remember playing Tetris get it.

I can’t remember where, but I also read that it tends to happen with new activities. I definitely had the Tetris Effect when I started my new job. I’d be trying to sleep and couldn’t get the image of the room I work in out of my head.

Not strictly relevant but funny:

You can buy the t-shirt at BustedTees

I will be so thrilled if any of this comes up at the pub quiz tonight.

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. Ralph W. Sockman

The Age of Innocence

My first Casual Classic, Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (which you can download in various formats at Girlebooks).

I really, really liked it. I want to get a copy (yay for classics being cheap at 2nd hand stores!), reread it in a few years, and try some more Edith Wharton soon.

It's funny how you are lead to books. I looked up Edith Wharton after I heard her name in a Suzanne Vega song. I discovered Suzanne Vega when I was googling for songwriters similar to Dar Williams. I heard of Dar Williams via the Institute for Humanist Studies' podcast. I could go on...

The Age of Innocence was written just after WWI but the setting is 1870s New York. On one level it's a love triangle: Newland Archer is engaged to May Welland but finds himself drawn to her cousin, the Countess Olenska. It's also social commentary. Innocent May is the perfect woman by the standards of upper class New York. The Countess is more worldly, having returned from Europe and a disastrous marriage. Newland, who is intelligent enough to see through the rules and traditions of his society, becomes increasingly disillusioned and frustrated with the life he is expected to lead.

It's also a window into the culture of the time, from the perspective of a woman who lived through it and has the advantage of hindsight. There are heaps of those little details that make historical novels interesting. Like the fact that the wealthy New York women used to order their dresses from Paris and then not wear them for a couple of years because it was considered vulgar to be wearing the latest fashions.

I struggled with the first few pages, especially the chunks detailing the families the story focusses on, but after that I was hooked. I think it was this bit that made me decide I was going to like this book:

She sang, of course, "M'ama!" and not "he loves me," since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

There's a lot of ironic and witty commentary like that but overall the story isn't quite as light-hearted. To me it felt like slightly more serious and realistic Jane Austen. Witty, but serious.

Ok, now the film. There's a 1993 movie adaptation directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Danial Day-Lewis (Newland), Winona Ryder (May), and Michelle Pfeiffer (Countess Olenska). As a film, it's beautiful. It got an Oscar for the costumes, and the food... *drools* As an adaptation of the novel, it's AMAZING. After The da Vinci Code, I've been wary of watching movies too soon after reading the book but I watched The Age of Innocence a day after I finished it and didn't notice a single thing that had been changed or left out. Every time I got the feeling something needed explanation or elaboration, the voiceover quoted a passage from the book that did it. It was wonderful.

The last bit is about the ending and is full of spoilers, obviously. I made the text white so you can skip it if you like.

I know that the ending makes sense, and I can't think of any way it could have been different and still worked, but... Waaaaaah! I suspect I was being blindly optimistic but I held out hope for Newland and Ellen to the very end and couldn't believe it when he didn't go up. I wish they could have run away, joined a community of bohemians, and lived happily ever after. Also, I hate it when authors jump forward in time like that. :-(

One classic down, three to go! I read the first chapter of The Picture of Dorian Gray last night and was less than thrilled by it but I'll persevere a little longer and see how it goes.

A good book has no ending. R.D. Cumming

GoodBooksNZ

I feel like this post should begin with some preamble about why I haven’t posted anything in ages but I’m having trouble deciding what to say so screw that, I’m just going to skip to the actual point. Which is to say that, if you’re a Kiwi and haven’t already, you should check out the online bookstore GoodBooksNZ.

GoodBooksNZ sells books, audiobooks, and music. Here’s a bit from their site:

The Good Books model is simple. Every time anyone buys a book through the Good Books website, 100% of the retail profit from every sale goes to support communities in need through Oxfam projects.

As a result, charitable donation is built into an everyday activity at no extra cost.

No one at Good Books is paid and we have zero operating costs. All time, professional services and resources are donated.

Yep. Buy books, save the cheerleader world. There’s no shipping fee so it’s no more expensive than buying from anywhere else—the only the downside is the delayed gratification and lets face it, knowing you have exciting mail on the way is almost as exciting as getting it.

I’ve ordered one book so far and am very happy—it came more quickly than I expected, with bubble-wrap! Plus it was something that I might have had quite a wait to get my hands on otherwise. I only wish they sold DVDs and had specials and/or coupons…

Luckily, Fishpond does both. Add in local 2nd hand bookshops and I’m sorted. Not that I buy all that many books, but it’s nice to know that they’re there when you need them. ☺

Next post topic: The Age of Innocence. My first book challenge read!

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. Anna Quindlen

Reading challenges '09

I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the line I vowed never to get myself into any of these but I've decided to sign up for a bunch of 'em. I'm not making things too hard for myself though - mostly I found challenges that would accommodate pre-existing goals. Hopefully a bit of external pressure will help me actually do something about them.

The name of the challenge links to my own post with the details of the challenge and the host's name links to the sign-up page.

RYOB Challenge hosted by MizB

Casual Classics Challenge also hosted by MizB

Essay Reading Challenge hosted by Carrie

A couple of mini-challenges I've set myself.

Goals are dreams with deadlines. Diana Scharf Hunt