Ghost in the Machine

This is me talking about my uncle again, so if you find that tiresome look away.

Roger was really into music; I just never realized how much. I'd known he was a reggae fanatic, and since we always exchanged gifts at Christmas that became sort of a shorthand for shopping. But when my brother and I went to the house the day after my sister's wedding--and what a weird, difficult experience that was--I found shelves packed with not just Jamaican artists like Bunny Wailer and Steel Pulse but also Miles Davis, Gilberto & Getz, Dwight Yoakam, k.d. lang, Gwen Stefani, Nelly Furtado, etc. My mom had told me to take some stuff so I did, along with a few books and a leather jacket. Then on the drive home my brother mentioned that he had my uncle's iPod and didn't really have a use for it. I could have it if I wanted it. I lost my own about six months ago, so I said sure.

At first I thought I'd just take it home and overwrite it with my own music, but then I thought maybe I'd listen to what was on it first. So far it's been a weird emotional roller coaster. Some of the stuff I'm not so sure about--I could do without Shaggy and pretty much anything jam-band related--but a lot of the jazz is stuff that I've been meaning to investigate more, and there are lots of nice surprises. The bits that kill me, though, are the overlaps. I hear Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer doing "Redemption Song" and I think about last Christmas, when my folks gave me Cash's Unearthed and Roger was so impressed by the lineup that he decided to buy it. I hear Lyle Lovett and I wonder how I could not have known that we were both fans of his. I can't help regretting the time we could have spent listening to and talking about music together. Sometimes it really hurts.

Anyway, I've decided that the library of tunes on Roger's iPod will stay the same. Eventually I'll probably buy another to put my own stuff on, but for now I feel like I'm getting to know him in a way I didn't while he was alive. Odd how a skinny little chunk of metal allows me to hang on to him, keep him alive, a while longer.

Um, now I'm worried that this ended up sounding kind of like a sappy commercial for Apple. Sorry about that.

WFC

I am, as it turns out, going to Austin. Who's going to be there?

Four People Who Are Awesome In My Opinion Right At This Moment (Not Eight Years Ago)

It's a Friday, no one is on the Internet, and I'm posting like a rabid chipmunk looking for a bass player. Savor the madness.

1. Jane Austen. Somewhere, out there, is a video from 1998 or so of me on a drunken rampage, threatening squirrels (not real ones) and screaming invectives at Jane Austen, whom I had never read. This is my official retraction of that evening (which, to be fair to myself, I have little memory of in the first place). I'm lugging around a big, ugly (seriously; later I'll post the slipcover to this monstrosity) collected edition of Austen's novels plus the unpublished Lady Susan. So far I've read Sense and Sensibility (I quite liked Colonel Brandon) and this morning I finished Pride and Prejudice (Mr. Bennett was my fave. I mean, yes, he's a bit cruel to his wife at times, but she really does ask for it). I enjoyed both much more than I would have believed back then. Ah, youth. I must admit that at times I find it a bit irksome that, for narratives so concerned with money as it affects marriage, there's almost no mention of anyone actually working; but these are romances, I suppose, so I'm willing to overlook it. Next up: Mansfield Park.

2. Jackie Chan. This is the only proof I need.

3. Michel Gondry, and "The Science of Sleep." For more on this keep an eye on the Strange Horizons reviews page. Good stuff.

4. Torii Hunter. Yeah, so he missed that catch. How many Gold Gloves do YOU have? I'm just sayin', it ain't over.