I was sitting at the foot of our poofy brown love seat, staring at our magical talking box (television), watching the inhabitants of the Big Apple lift cell phones to the air, taking pictures of the Ball dropping, shouting in an absurdly joyous way "Happy New Year!" It just sort of hit me how utterly weird we are as a people. A thousand years ago, I wonder if they even celebrated a New Year. The optimistic ones of that age probably celebrated A New Day every day. But I'm sure if a Greco Roman citizen of 70 A.D. were to observe from the MTB (Magical Talking Box) what I had observed, he would be befuddled. Why the silly hats? Why the big Ball of fire with numbers and letters on it? Why the flashy things in their hands? Why all the pomp and confetti?
I guess that's not a very profound thought. But it was just in my head and I thought it might be blog-worthy. Now I'm not so sure....
The New Years. A second chance. I've had eighteen of them so far. I'm sure that's the saddest thing you've ever heard. Eighteen new chances to be a better person, and lo and behold, all you see in front of you is this selfish, ridiculous boy who still doesn't pick up after himself after a meal.... and on occasion picks his nose instead. I do think we need to stop making the New Years and a Second Chance synonymous. Every day should be a second chance.
Wow. I just became trendy and cliche', which is a No No among the Hipster culture, of which I beg to be part of. Pretty soon I'll start telling you All You Need Is Love, or some foolishness. Which is something I've also been thinking about.... how the fact that something is cliche' or overused takes away from the truth of the concept, or the beauty of the concept. To say that people should love each other is such an incredibly overused idea. Boring. Gandhi already said this. Eat Pray Love already covered this. Old news. Give me something new. But honestly, nearly none of us have come close to being acquainted with this concept. We just pass it off as cliche' and boring than actually listen to its truths.
This is also found in the music scene. I shall now quote from singer/songwriter/blogger Jeremy Larson.
I was at a bookstore the other day and came across an interesting article in Under The Radar magazine (or one of those indie music magazines). I didn't actually have time to read the full article, but I did skim though and find some interesting points. It was talking about how by nature, this "indie" music culture cycles through bands very quickly. It is now being run by music bloggers who are always on the hunt for the best new music that no one's heard of. There is a lot of pressure to find something quickly, and be the first to write up a review. Then, as in many cases, it catches on to other music blogs, and creates this online frenzy of write ups, features and interviews.
The problem with this, is that many of these bands are still extremely young in their career. A lot of them haven't had time to fully develop into what they will become as they mature. I know that doesn't sound like a problem, but there is a dark side to this trend. When a band passes the point of "cool" and moves on to a "trend", then there is pressure for these same bloggers that discovered them to completely disregard them as just that, a trend. The sad thing, is that by the time these bands are working on their second album, they are already the band that everyone loves to hate. And all they did was make an album that a lot of people liked.
More and more we are only seeing "snap-shots" of the beginning of a promising career of a band, rather than an evolution of creativity throughout a band's career. It's very hard for bands to keep our attention through a whole album, much less an entire career. It's a little scary to think that this is what I might possibly have to look forward to. In this "indie" music culture, people can love me, but only if most people don't. This probably came across as more negative than I meant for it to be, it's just an interesting observation. Just imagine if The Beach Boys' album "Surfin' Safari" blew up all over the blogs and they were discarded as a trend before "Pet Sounds" ever came out. Or if the Beatles had so much success with "Please Please Me", that people were annoyed with them by "Rubber Soul".
Anyway, I'm sidetracked and am probably boring you. This blog is kind of all over the place. But the man speaks truth, I think.
Apart from deep ideas about the music scene and what 1st Century Greco Romans would think of our culture today, I will add one more thing.
The words I received in Apples to Apples. Apparently, I am Sensual and Delicious, but Careful. I'm Furious!
A Happy New Year to all of you. May you change what you want to change in your life, if there is anything you wish to change. And if you can't make the changes you want, well... don't worry. Nobody can ever be exactly what they want to be.
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