Dead at 27

Amy Winehouse died yesterday.  Found in her London apartment, aged 27.

I am somehow strangely affected by this news.  Perhaps it can be chalked up to the whole she was 27, I'm 27 thing, but still.  I liked her music and can even remember fond evenings listening to Back to Black in my NYC room on my crummy only-plays-NPR (and thank God) boombox (the one right next to my human-sized blue stuffed bear that I won in a carnie game at Coney Island), realizing I was late to the party in discovering her, not wanting to like her as much because everybody liked her and had liked her for awhile already, but still.

I remember reading all those famous people biographies and picking up on that dead-at-27 pattern that the alcoholic/junkie ones always seemed to fall victim to.  I remember thinking, aged 10 or so, that 27 sounded so old, wondering where I might be when I'm that old.  Settled: certainly.  Boring: probably.  Blogging into nothingness and regularly murdering afternoons with directionless internet browsing somewhere in Dublin: no.  Oh yeah, and engaged and missing front teeth and not knowing what happens next: certainly not.

On a Clear Day in Bray

I followed an old man down to the sea the other day. Old man, not as in some crusty oldish guy wearing cargo shorts and an ugly t-shirt, but an old man, as in he wore a cable-knit sweater, corduroy pants and loafers and looked out longingly into the water. And the sea, not as in a big lake or a large river, but the sea, the Irish Sea.

But I wasn’t in Ireland. I was somewhere where blue and yellow overwhelm, not the green and gray that I know Ireland to be.

 

You Can't Plan for Picnics

So.  It rains here.  A lot.

Not that I didn't know what I was getting into.  At least weatherwise.  While still in the midwest that last week before coming here, I'd look at the 5 day Dublin forecasts and laugh - frowny rainclouds straight through, with temperatures I'm used to only in the thick of autumn or beginnings of spring.  I left 100 degree days for sweater weather - and in my book that's a win.  But.  It rains here.  A lot.  You can't plan for picnics.  It's plain and simple fact that it's just going to rain at some point during the day, if not for the whole day.  Not that I ever plan picnics, but knowing that I now don't have the option does take something away.  The idea of planning for a picnic is one of those luxuriously lazy rights of summer -- for me, it's like thinking about buying a sundress.  The idea of it can be refreshing, thinking about what summery color I would choose, what length for the hemline, the wind kicking up the bottoms of the dress as I eat watermelon or drink fresh, cold lemonade...

Day 8: A Song That Makes Me Fall Asleep

So this is now officially the 25 MONTHS of Music List, seeing as how Day 8 is really Month 10...the whole urgency bit's obviously lost at this point, so why not the 25 Songs I Feel Different Things About List?

Doesn't sound as shiny, I suppose.



Normally I would have gone with something without words, but I've listened to this song so many times and the timbre of Hawley's voice is so enchanting that I will intentionally listen to this song in order to go to sleep with hopes of lovely dreams. 

And sometimes it works. 

Day 7: A Song That You Can Dance To

Ok, so.  There was a scene in Eat, Pray, Love when Julia Roberts is dancing shoeless in some awesomely lit little dive somewhere in Indonesia (the night she meets Javier Bardem) and this song came on and it was WONDROUS.  ( I realize I just lost all my film cred… if I had any) 

It was WONDROUS because it instantly brought me back to my early days in Seoul-  when I’d dance unabashed with fellow expats (usually, the lovely Ms. A, sometimes the lovely Ms. C, Ms. M, Ms. J., another lovely Ms. A and another lovely Ms. M) and we’d be forced to stay out late because the silly subway trains would stop come midnight.    Dancing unabashed is not something I do—but in those early early morning hours in places like Club FF or some similarly sketched out club- I’d see the underbelly of Seoul, see the mass of Koreans dancing- trying to dance, rather—and would realize they didn’t really know how to dance either.  Which made it actually enjoyable- it wasn’t (most of the time) about looking sexy or looking coordinated even- just about enjoying the space with your friends and sometimes (sometimes) enjoying the music.  I didn’t ever hear this song in Club FF, but, I suppose that’s besides the point.

But, back to Marvin Gaye: I love Marvin Gaye. 

…

When I was around 10 or so, I got my hands on a grimy cover-torn book someone had left in the street on Tragic Hollywood Deaths (or some similar title)—along with wanting to read every biography in my library, I also wanted to be able to list off how every famous person had died.  As I remember (this is singularly from my recollection of this book, so if I am wrong, just tell me.  I want to be Wikipedia-free in this entry), Marvin Gaye was shot by his father- I guess he’d come between his mom and dad in a spat and got in the way of one of his dad’s bullets.  Except—when I was little, I’d always confuse his death with Sam Cooke’s, also shot dead, but not by his dad and about 20 years earlier.  I remember wondering why all the pretty talented people died so tragically.  When I picked up that book on the street, I thought it’d be filled with murder/suicides of old ugly producers or sound engineers.  But then I read about Natalie Wood and Rudolph Valentino and didn’t know what was what.  

As a bonus, I’ve just discovered Bobby Bland (how did he slip through the cracks?!)  As he won’t be occupying a future day of music, he’ll serve as Marvin Gaye’s post script.  Just, WONDROUS: 

My Doppelganger Must Be a Bitch. Doppelganger Stories #1 and #2.

Story #1

Some weeks ago, I passed by a lovely restaurant on my walk home from work.  (I’m currently residing in Ann Arbor, MI) I like walking down Washington Street, especially around sunset as everything takes on a majestic golden hue, even, somehow, on the snowy gray days of late.

I have a habit of intensely looking into restaurant and bar windows, I like to study the décor and lighting—and sometimes I forget that there might be people inside that might look back at me mid-chew or mid-sip and I further sometimes forget that what I’m doing might be potentially rude or even creepy.  That aside, this particular restaurant had gorgeous orange walls and fancy tablecloths and so I completely did away with any thought toward public decorum.

While marveling at the mix of exposed brick and earthy tones and heavy curtains and general lack-of-people, I inevitably happened upon the few people in the back who were glaring at me in the safe distance.  One of them made a gesture indicating that I knew her.  Maybe it was a wave, though it looked more like a lazy attempt at one, the kind really in-love-with-themselves-types make, so I didn't pay special attention.  Until I noticed a second later as I was just going out of view that she flipped me off and the rest of her gang seemed to half-nod in approval.  They must have thought they knew me.  Surely, groups of people don't go around to  restaurants half-waving and flipping off people they don't know through windows, right?

Right.  So my estimation: my doppelganger must be a bitch.  To know people like that and for them to respond like that, it must be so.

Story # 2

I was at Bab's on a Saturday night. Lovely little basement bar not too far from story #1.

I would not recommend going there on weekends.  It transforms from its usual quiet and romantic self to a chaotic and unfortunate place, packed with UM cattle of the college girl/boy looking for a quick thrill variety.


Anyhow.  Muscled my way through the UM throng up to the barman.  A very artfully disheveled hipster with an ironic UM hat brought my drinks and excitedly/yet somehow lazily let me know that he thought for sure I was one of his colleagues in his architecture program and wasn’t that something.

No. It wasn’t.  It only proved story # 1’s conclusion.  My doppelganger must be a bitch.

Or even worse….a hipster.

Oh God.
 

Day 6: A Song That You Know All the Words To

I'd originally wanted to be smarmy and put an instrumental here... but in the interest of keeping this list decent, I have put here a song I’ve known the words to for most of my life – and was only recently reminded of this through the good will of my friend (and now co-landlord!), Will.  

A story about this song’s place in my history, a story close friends have heard many times:

When I was 15, I went down to Kentucky to help rebuild houses with my church’s youth group (oh to be religious and altruistic again!).  We'd set there to work a week and the owner of the house I was working on, Lee, was an elderly Southern gentleman with a fondness for sweet tea and country music. 

One day, he called me over to sit with him.  We sat on a swinging bench.  He gave me a glass of pink lemonade.  He wore overalls and a t-shirt and a look of weak interest.  All the other kids in the group had talked to him already.  I'd look over and see them wildly gesticulating, most likely about some bible story that inspired them or something they thought'd impress Lee.  He would smile, not say much and they would saunter off with confused looks.  Hadn't they entertained him with their youth and declarations of devotion to God?  I would see all this and pretend to look busier and busier in the hopes he wouldn't call me over.  Not only did I already know I wouldn't impress Lee, at that time, I was a much shier Renee and the thought of having to talk to some strange Southern man named Lee scared me a little.   Anyhow.  He called me over. 

We sat and looked at his yard for awhile.  I'd already ran out of things to say.  I thanked him for the lemonade and prayed he'd talk soon.  And he did.  He got to talkin' about women. 

His, particularly.  He pointed toward the back of the house where the weeds grew tall and told me his wife was buried there.  He told me he had cancer and had dug the open grave next to his wife's some time ago.  He lit a rolled cigarette from his pocket and told me about other women.

His cousin's, particularly.  I don't remember his name, but Lee said he was a "wild 'un".  He had a red Chevy convertible and would drive it all over town, with a pretty new girl in the passenger seat every weekend.  One of those weekends, Patsy Cline was in the passenger seat.  She was one of his weekend women.

My first thought:  Thank Christ!  Something I can finally talk about!  I LOVED PATSY CLINE.  Second thought:  woah!!!  Patsy Cline!!  What a story.

We spent the better part of that afternoon, finishing a pitcher of pink lemonade and talking about country music.  Old country, the only good country.  He laughed at my enthusiasm for it. 

Apparently, I entertained him with my youth.

So here it is: a song I know all the words to and always will.  "Sweet Dreams" by Ms. Weekend Woman herself: Patsy Cline.