The Necessary Nose Ring

Last night saw the continuation of the To All The Albums I’ve Loved Before saga. The work that received sporadic bursts of attention and inattention was a seminar on reservation of title clauses.

It never fails to astound me how no matter how much you seem to be trying to cram into your head at any one time, there remains an immense and unbelievably complex metropolis of the rest of it that you have yet to navigate. People have written 800 page tomes just on reservation of title clauses. I spend a term reading Crime And Punishment, ten minutes a day, and at the end of it there are thousands more great works of literature to read. I have been a classically trained musician since the age of 5 and there remain thousands of composers and their works that I have yet to appreciate. Will my mind ever stop boggling?

So last night’s playlist was chosen much in the same way as the night before, with much of the same effect i.e. not much work done, because I kept having to stop what I was doing and listen to exceptionally good bits. Or exceptionally good songs. Or exceptionally good song sequences. You’re probably beginning to realize my problem…

Wowee Zowee (Pavement): I should probably say that every Pavement album I own has been my favourite at one point or another (yes, even Brighten The Corners), but last night I was in the mood for catchiness, so that meant this one was it. Business Idea Which Will Never Succeed But Would Be Really Cool If It Could: Pavement karaoke. I mean it. Just imagine a room full of people going “Whenever, whenever, whenever, when-ne-ne-ne-ne…” or “Graaaaaaaaaave architecture…” I think it’d be fun. :)

Ben Folds Five (Ben Folds Five): I lost track of them a bit after The Unauthorised Biography Of Reinhold Messner disappointed me hugely, so I don’t really know what’s going on with them now, but this album is still rollickingly great. My two highlights have always been the piano intro to Philosophy and the chorus of Alice Childress, but Underground and Julianne are immensely entertaining as well.

After these two I realized that listening to albums to which I knew almost all the lyrics was a bad idea while trying to write notes. “Hand me my nose ring” and “the necessary fiduciary relationship existed to enable use of the equitable tracing process” do not mix well in the brain. I only just managed to stop myself from writing “the necessary nose ring“.