I like those rock songs which begin with a gentle, faux classical keyboard interlude, before guitars and bass crash in and define the song.
This morning I've been surfing around LiveJournals in the "people who are friends of my friends but not on my friends list" vein, although I never use the friendsoffriendsof functions to get there.
Although sometimes I like to hit the "memories" section of journals to see what posts folks found memorable, I notice today that I cannot see the posts in "memories" in any journal but my own. Perhaps it is the current vogue to lock "memories" as "friends only". Perhaps it is an LJ glitch, or an LJ innovation. On LJ, I am never certain what is intention and what is happenstance. It is cool to see little dots where topic names used to be, but not as cool as being able to get to the heart of a journal quickly by reading memorable posts.
I remember when I took piano lessons, each level of study involved a little pianobook with a different color cover.
I think I got up to purple. I remember that I could do a
ninuet, whose name escapes me now. I also remember that
when I would approach his door, my piano teacher might be playing spirited jazz, but when he heard me ring the doorbell, he always switched to classical.
There's that contrast, always, between the private musician and the public musician. I sometimes want my journal to be
this really cool electronic rocker, but I try instead to keep it much as I am, a sort of sing-along with rather easy words. Even so, I'm sure the song I show must not be identical to the song I sing. I think this is the key challenge of the journal--to keep it on key.
I had a fantasy for months about owning a strumstick. A strumstick is a stringed instrument designed for people who are too lazy to learn the guitar. It's particularly easy to chord. I already play the autoharp, which also qualifies in the laziness sweepstakes, although an autoharp has subtelties for those, unlike me, who are willing to delve into them.
When my friend Scott learned that I was tempted to buy a strumstick, because my goal was to play more music with less trouble, he tuned a ukelele like a strumstick for me. I played with it for a week or two. I was cured of the strumstick. If songs are going to be easy enough for me to play, they must be easy indeed.
Perhaps this is a virtue--to just write down one's own thoughts, edited as one sees fit. I know I certainly
enjoy reading others' thoughts in this way. I like reading the posts the think and dream aloud, and I like seeing the pictures and the trivia in journals.
Perhaps the memories section appeals to me because it is where people put the things that resonate with them. It's perhaps a sad commentary on me that my own memories section is little more than a collection of bad poetry and random rants. I am surprised that I do not place others' posts in my memories section, because there are some posts I come back to over again, and because I am vain but clueles enough to admit that I so enjoy when one of my posts is in someone else's memories section.
It's perhaps easy to discuss the "voyeur" aspect of the journals, but "voyeur", in my experience, is an over-used term. This process is not really about enjoying the sexual or scandalous in others' lives. I suppose that once in a while a titillating post catches the attention, but really, this would for me be a boring experience indeed if its real purpose was to serve as some sort of letters section for an adult magazine. I'm not knocking anyone, of course. But I like journals to be more than such a narrow track. I'm not looking for a thrill. Thrills are too easy to find, and I've rather given up on cheap thrills. For that matter, I've never been much for cheap thrills. Perhaps there is a certain arrogance in that. I'm afraid I never quite gave up on arrogance. Who knows? Maybe I do not know what I think about cheap thrills.
I think of the things I read as windows into other universes.
I think of them as friends met (and friends unmet, simultaneously). I scroll down, and enjoy. I notice lately that I think of some journals as old, familiar friends even though I do not comment. This may be a discourtesy.
I like the way that people on television seem to be like Suzuki kids, playing those violins. They play so well, and so vividly. But real life is more like the second guitar lesson. One knows how to finger F and C and G, but one cannot yet play many songs. Of course, I have to use an instrument that fingers the chords for me.
"Heart and Soul". That's the song everyone learns right after chopsticks. I was surprised to play with my little 8 note glockenspiel, and discover I knew "Born Free". But I cannot resist, nonetheless, the metaphor about how reading journals is a bit like symphony. I don't mean the Portsmouth Sinfonia, where everyone got an instrument they don't know how to play. I mean symphony. Music. Noise. Notes. Flow.