wtf

I was listening to my Black Flag station on Pandora today and it played an Ashlee Simpson song. Perhaps Pandora thinks that I listen to Black Flag for ironic purposes and therefore could appreciate Ashlee Simpson for the same reasons. Wrong! I listen to Black Flag because of my giant boner for Henry Rollins. Duh!

inspiration

I was getting really nervous about my thesis topic because I wasn't actually sure if I liked it or not. When I was doing some reading for it last night, however, I got really interested again! Good.

I have submitted my first two grad school applications. And I apparently made a mistake on one of them! However, I'm hoping that since that took the time to contact me and correct me, there are hopefully looking at me with some interest. Maybe not.

Also, I quit one of my jobs yesterday. At the bookstore. I just couldn't deal with the monotony anymore, and they keep making all sorts of really absurd rules. Most recently, we are not allowed to hug anyone or to tell anyone 'I love you.' I think the only thing I'm really going to miss, other than the money, is one of my coworkers. I don't know if I want her or if I want to be her. I will just need to go watch/listen to her spin more often.

Lesson learned

I thought I was supposed to take the GRE on Saturday, but it turns out my registration didn't go through, so I had to reschedule for next Thursday. At least that means I have a few extra days in which not to study.

Today is the first meeting of my honors thesis class, which I suppose basically means milling around with some assholes and trying to convince the honors program director to let me go to faculty recitals instead of lectures.

Something I've been thinking about a little:

Was there any kind of music being produced in colonial Latin America? I mean, of course there must have been, but I would like to know what it was like and how it related to the contemporary classical music being produced in Europe and how it evolved and presumably diverged from European music.

Poor little Bessie may soon starve and die

Who is the audience for a version of "Somewhere Out There" sung by a little blind girl named Courtney on her album "Perfect in His Eyes"? Also, what meaning does a particular audience lend to a song like this?
Louis thinks maybe evangelical suburban soccer moms, but I think maybe widows (also evangelical) with lots of angel figurines and commemorative plates. Or, I suppose, another audience would be people such as me and Louis who appreciate these things in an ironic way or an academic way. What we both found surprising was that many members of the grad seminar liked it from the standpoint that she has a really lovely voice for little girl, and, being as many of them are music educators returning to school for their masters degrees, they wish their students could sing like that.
It also reminded me of a recording of the temperance movement era song "Father's a Drunkard and Mother is Dead" by Mrs. E.A. Parkhurst (or something similar) that I first heard at the beginning of last summer.

rokenroleg

It's my favorite Russian's birthday today.

rock and roll music

Pop music is weird because it's about itself. How many rock songs are about how great rock music is? Or about being in a band, or playing the guitar or whatever. I wonder if this phenomenon is specific to pop music. I'm sure that there are exceptions, but genres like musical theatre or opera don't seem to like to call attention to the fact that they are singing (with exceptions like that fabulous episode of Buffy which is a great example of postmodernism's willingness to point out its medium), nor do "serious" art songs. To my knowledge, anyway.