There are times when there isn't time

This is one of them.

There isn't, or wasn't, time to put my Beekeeper-discovery thoughts in order, and listen to the album again, and listen to "Garlands" again, and watch the best interviewer on Australian television back at work, and edit a previous post as per a friend's request, and have some fun by watching Desperate Housewives, and stumble across an incredibly valuable portion of a friend's blog and fall in love with poetry all over again, and have my dinner, and watch the auditions on the X Factor which (like all shows of its ilk) I know I will find so much more moving than the finals where the public votes, and put the garbage out and make my lunch for tomorrow and get a good night's sleep.

I'll leave it to your imagination exactly which tasks are not being fulfilled, except to say the last one is already doomed.

The thrill of the new: No.4

Why oh why do I put myself through all that preparation when it doesn't work? Maybe because the experience is all the better when it defies expectations...

The arrival of a new Tori Amos album is quite different for me than music from any other artist. That's because she has earned a unique distinction: I will buy her music without having listened to it beforehand. But, paradoxically, I do far more searching for titbits of news, information and music samples for Tori than for anyone else. I have websites I scour on a daily basis for updates, as if I can't bear the thought of information being out there that I haven't heard yet.

So, I've known about her latest album, "The Beekeeper", for something approaching six months. I can also tell you exactly what portions of the album I'd heard before purchasing the disc:

• Truncated versions of "Sleeps With Butterflies" and "Cars and Guitars" (basically one verse and one chorus) which appeared on a website that polls people on what they like. Apparently it's used by the music industry to gauge reaction to possible singles. I probably listened to these about 5 times in total.
• One listen to the whole of "Sleeps With Butterflies" when it appeared as the first single on her official website.
• One listen to "Hoochie Woman" courtesy of a webcast from a French radio station.
• One listen to "Sweet the Sting" when it appeared on the official website.
• One listen to "Jamaica Inn" when it appeared on the official website.
• Hearing samples of "Sweet the Sting", "The Power of Orange Knickers", "Jamaica Inn", "Sleeps with Butterflies", "Cars and Guitars" and "Witness" which currently appear on the front of the official website. I heard these on two occasions.
• 30 second samples of all the songs from one of the 'shop' sites, it might have been Amazon but I think they all have the same samples anyway.

If you think this information is excessive, or obsessive, then it's worth mentioning that I was acutely aware of a fine line between my thirst for information and my desire to not ruin the experience of hearing the album as a whole. Towards the end I was feeling I might have overdone it and deliberately avoided a chance to hear the song "Parasol".

I also read all the lyrics, although I certainly wouldn't say I studied them intently other than for "Sleeps with Butterflies" once it was the single. I've also read a range of reviews from professional critics and fellow fans.

The reason I'm setting all this out is as a prelude to the discoveries I've made now that I have listened to the whole album. Which boils down to: you cannot possibly understand music other than by listening to it.

It's something I've known for a long time, but it still surprises me how emphatically it gets confirmed again and again. The Beekeeper has taught me several lessons which I'm hoping I might actually remember if I write them down.

LESSON ONE: Sound quality is quite important, and most streaming audio is inadequate - at least through my relatively small computer speakers. This doesn't affect all music equally, but I especially noticed the difference with the song "The Power of Orange Knickers" - the samples I heard sounded particularly bland and flat and, while it isn't a very creative song in sonic terms, it sounds a lot better on CD. Any well produced CD will sound more rounded and three-dimensional than what my tinny speakers can manage.

LESSON TWO: Small samples of a piece of music can give highly misleading impressions. To be fair, for the songs I hadn't heard the samples were a reasonably good guide as to what I ultimately liked on my initial full listens - "Mother Revolution" was instantly attractive in both forms, for example. But I'm acutely aware that the pleasant, sweet sample of "Marys of the Sea" I heard was utterly different to the powerful force that assaulted me in the full song. I suppose the more complex the song, the more misleading a sample can be - "Marys of the Sea" has two radically different tempos, as well as different moods within one of those tempos.

LESSON THREE: Lyrics do not make anything like the same sense divorced from their context. Reading cannot tell you which notes will be emphasised by their length or pitch. It cannot tell you when the grammatical sense will deliberately be separated from the musical rhythm, so that the end of a line and the end of a phrase are not in the same place. It cannot tell you which lines will lodge in your brain and say "sing me".

I was quite frightened that I would be disappointed by The Beekeeper after hearing those first two samples. Chopin's music was famously described (if you accept the translation) as "guns buried in flowers", and I've adopted that phrase on numerous occasions to describe Tori Amos' music. I was worried that this time, there would be plenty of flowers but no guns. Those fears weren't totally allayed by the rest of my sampling, although I did notice that the lyrics of "Sleeps with Butterflies" were not all made from sunshine. Now that the album is here, however, there are plenty of guns. They've been placed among flowers that are more beautiful than ever, and they've been decorated, but I'm quite sure that if the right target comes along they would roar into action.

I'm well aware that all of the above (apart perhaps from the last paragraph) says very little about what I actually think of this album. I'm concentrating on the process of discovery - the "thrill of the new" experience in general. Partly this is because I doubt I can adequately cover a 19-song, 80-minute album (in fact 20 songs and 88 minutes counting the song "Garlands" which appears on the limited edition's DVD) in the space of a single post. There may well be another 20 posts involved before I'm through. What I wanted to capture before I forgot is the sensation of the process of hearing something for the first time - a fragment, then a song, then an entire album.

That process will never cease to excite me so long as new music is being created.

Player 4

Okay, here's a little musical something that is doing the rounds. I think it's most unfair I only get to add 3 new items, but I'll give it my best shot. My three are at the end. There are a few I would consider deleting but I'm not that cruel...

Anything to advocate listening to entire albums in the age of mp3s is worthy of my support. Now, pass it on!

[Edit note: Player 1 has now changed the instructions, here is the new improved version!]
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Instructions:

1. Copy the list and the instructions on to your blog.

2. Put in bold the ones you have listened to (completely from begining to end)

3. Add three more albums that you think people should have heard before they turn into their parents - remember, it isn't necessarily your most favourite albums but the ones you think people should listen to... and when we say listen we mean from track one through to the end.

4. Make yourself the NEXT player number. For example, if you found this in a blog posted by Player 4, you would then post it in your blog as Player 5, with a mention back to Player 4's blog. And so on and so on.

5. Please put a link to where your list is (your blog post) in the comments of the site where you found it so the chain will be trackable. (However, if you wish to take the idea and quietly begin to spread it on your own blog without tracking back to the person before you, I suppose we can't stop you! ;) )

6. You are also allowed to DELETE up to THREE albums on the existing list, if you feel that this is an album which should not reasonably be foisted upon anybody. (Mary's note: It is not mandatory to delete anything, merely an option. You can have a growing list, if you prefer.)

The original list of albums came from www.mazrywords.blogspot.com**********************************

The List, by Player 4 (orfeo):

No More Shall We Part - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
From the Choirgirl Hotel - Tori Amos
Grace - Jeff Buckley
OK Computer - Radiohead
Happenstance - Rachael Yamagata
O - Damien Rice
Michigan: Greetings from the Great Lake State - Sufjan Stevens
Full Moon Fever - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
London Calling - The Clash
The Soul Cages - Sting
Madman Across The Water - Elton John
S&M - Metallica
Rockin The Suburbs - Ben Folds
Crash - Dave Matthews Band
Unity - george
World Without Tears - Lucinda Williams
Daybreaker - Beth Orton
After The Gold Rush - Neil Young
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
By The Way - Red Hot Chili Peppers
... And Justice For All - Metallica
Aenima - Tool
The Wall - Pink Floyd
Tidal - Fiona Apple
Boys for Pele - Tori Amos
Pink Moon - Nick Drake
The Rainy Season - Marc Cohn
The Seeds of Love - Tears for Fears
Echolalia - Something for Kate

Something else…

…is also contributing to my joy, and it’s so unexpected that I think it’s worth an entry of its own.

A screensaver.

One of my more unusual musical pleasures of recent years has been a group called “Sons of Korah” who basically put the words of the psalms (From the Old Testament. Yes, from the Bible.) to music. They do it in English rather than ancient Hebrew, but apart from that I can’t help feeling that they capture the spirit of the original works, which were intended to be sung rather than read, far better than anyone else. Our hymn books and song books at church are filled to the brim with versions of the psalms, but few if any of them have the emotional range that the Sons of Korah display.

I don’t listen to their music nearly as often as I think I should, for something so musically satisfying and spiritually satisfying at the same time. A friend I introduced to their music reminded me about it recently, and I realised she listens to it far more than I do.

As a result of the slight pang of guilt this induced, I pulled out the two CDs of theirs that I own and noticed something for the first time. Well, probably not literally for the first time, but this time I was paying attention properly. The album “Redemption Songs” includes a screensaver.

The artwork for the album consists of a series of stylised and often quite dramatic pictures of hands. Okay, strictly speaking upper arms and hands. All in monochrome, but with distinct personalities, and all reaching up to the heavens. The screen saver takes these and combines them with a (apparently very large) selection of verses from the psalms. The verses change more quickly than the images, and the two cycles are quite independent of each other.

It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen on a computer screen.

I can’t think of anything better for a computer at rest than a series of quiet contemplations, which is really what it amounts to. There’s a sense of peace to it, and depth of thought, and timelessness, and a call to worship.

And sitting at this computer typing has prevented it appearing for about 30 minutes, so I’m going to stop!

Feels like home

Well, I’m in.

This is being written from my house. The one with my name on the ‘papers’ which, in this less romantic age, actually consist of an entry on an electronic title register.

I’ve actually been ‘in’ for a day and a half at the time of writing. I’m also going to have to copy this across to my blog in another day or two when I have an internet connection. But even that slight hiccup contains the prospect of a small thrill, seeing as this will be the first blog entry written on MY computer, which until now has never had an internet connection (didn’t really seem worthwhile to pay for two connections in the one house).

The air is filled with the smell of… well, it’s supposed to be lemon, but it’s a somewhat overpowering version of lemon designed by someone in the cleaning industry for whom near enough was good enough. So, the air is filled with the smell of hyper-lemon. A lovely couple have just cleaned by newly bought 3rd-hand lounge suite for me. I have a dinner table, a bed, a fridge, a TV and VCR located on and in a sensational looking entertainment unit, a washing machine, a plum tree in season (needs more flavour), and all in all things are going pretty well just at the moment.

I wanted to put that last bit on the record, for posterity. I am officially in a really, REALLY good mood.

The fact that I cleaned up some of the initial mess at the same time as Mick & Sue were cleaning my lounge suite may have something to do with that. There’s plenty of work to do (heck, half my stuff hasn’t made it over here yet, which would explain why I still have so much cupboard space), and there’ll be at least four more visits from people/groups during this week to shell out money to for their services, but right now at this moment I am…

…joyfully in love with my house. More to the point, I believe this is somewhere I could enjoy living.

Nyaaaaaaargggghhhh!!!

Bloody hell!

Is it too much to ask to find a TV cabinet that has room for a 68cm television, a DVD player and a VCR (yes I know, how quaint) and has storage space that is actually the right shape for, oh, let's say, SOME DVDs AND VIDEOS???!!!

Apparently, the answer to that question is yes. How stupid of me to think otherwise.

To be precise, the answer was a modified yes, because it turned out there was one discontinued model that would do the job (at least I think it will, after 732 measurements my mind was probably getting a little hazy and I could have slipped up). It just astounds me that the fashion appears to be for units that give your DVD player lots of pretty space to take up, because there's absolutely no way you could store anything else useful nearby. Just admire the view, please, and stack the discs on the carpet in a wobbly pile nearby.

The young woman who sold me the discontinued model in question was excessively polite and cold, and managed to talk to me as if I was a complete idiot for trying to establish that she had one new one (in pieces) as well as the horribly scratched floor stock that was on offer for the same price. The only reason I didn't attempt to garotte her there and then was because she had something I wanted. AND she knew it.

If I find so much as a single screw missing...

A brief commentary on the relative shock value of certain images from the artwork for the 'Boys for Pele' album

Everyone always carries on about the pig. The pig is perfectly safe and happy. No-one ever seems to care that the piano is on fire.

Luddite pt.5 (special automotive edition)

You know you're in trouble when your own car is smarter than you.

To be fair to myself, I've only owned my current car for about 3 months, and it takes time to learn some of the finer details. It simply never occurred to me that the air conditioning system knew I shouldn't be trying to fog up the windscreen by having recirculated air aimed at it.

Instead, I spent two days driving around in the belief that the "Max" button (which switches from outside air to recirculating the existing air, enabling rapid cooling) was broken. It wasn't until I was attempting to demonstrate it was broken to my father that I switched the vent direction (yet another dial) away from the windscreen, miraculously restoring function to the recalcitrant button.

All this because I tried adjusting the strength of the airflow before adjusting its direction, and not the other way around.

I preferred it when the car left it to me to figure out how not to fog up the windscreen. I could manage that.

Homeowner

As of a very short time ago, I officially own a house.

If you want to be perfectly pedantic about it, there's a bank with an interest in about 80% of the property's value, but nevertheless the name on the certificate of title is mine.

Clearly this is a significant milestone in my life, and one that in some ways I'm quite relieved to see happen. There were moments over the last 3 years or so where I couldn't see how it was possible in an insanely booming market. I've seen plenty of newspaper reports about my generation is being shut out of home ownership in this country, thanks to investment laws that are excessively generous to baby boomers who already own one house and make income from a second.

The thing about these kind of milestones is that they are frequently a gateway to a whole to a whole host of new experiences: the first party, the first overnight visitor, the first "letter to the householder"... the first bill, the first sleepless night wondering how to meet the next mortgage repayment, the first argument with the neighbour from hell...

The only thing it's safe to say is that life has changed.

Angels are everywhere

The moments when you feel part of something bigger are very special.

I can't even begin to explain the emotions that led to yesterday's blog entry in the 20 minutes or so I have available right at the moment. Half the problem with them (the emotions) is that they are extremely complex and I am trying to choose which conversations out of dozens playing in my head to actually carry out, and in what order. A "conversation" with readers of this blog, symbolising the world in general, is only one of the options and not one I am confident in embarking on as the first in the series.

But the motivations for that post have become swept up in something bigger and both darker and more radiant, in someone else's life.

At more or less the same time as I was writing, a friend was going through a crisis that makes my current ordeals seem pretty small. From the moment I finished writing, I found myself longing for that same friend to read that one line I had written.

I selfishly thought this was for my benefit, and maybe it was in part. God is quite big enough to be capable of sending messages in more than one direction with the same words. But I also now know that there was a reason for having that friend on my heart, and specifically for longing to hear from her. I also know that God sent numerous messages her way at the same time, to show how much he loved her. Some of the messages were written, some verbal, and at least one was an object. "My" message was one of unlooked for empathy.

The number of things that had to come together for that moment to happen - to keep it to the most proximate causes: my depression, my motivation to write about it in such an oblique way, my desire to even start a blog, her knowledge that this blog exists (I haven't advertised its existence widely) - are more than I can comprehend or would dream to design.

As a human being, I would plan to take the most direct action possible, but I can only be in one place at a time. Which is more believable, that a series of small random events could 'conspire' to rescue someone from a terrible moment of darkness, or that a divine being acted to save one of his children?