boycott, sanction, divest, and
e sent me this text
while listening to graceland earlier i was thinking about my appreciation for songs that start in one place tonally / melodically / etc and end up somewhere different("diamonds on the soles of her shoes"), and how paul mccartney might be the king of this move / maybe pauls in general
and was thinking about what the word was for it, which "medley" was coming to mind but she didn't think that was right and i also love this form of song and also agree that paul mccartney is the king of this (shout out my personal favorite "uncle albert / admiral halsey"; scanning through his oeuvre the presence of a slash is an overt marker that a song will have this particular form) and also couldn't think of what the word for it (wikipedia said the song is "composed of several unfinished song fragments").
i thought about the term "beat switch" in rap (but that's describing the moment in the song and isn't a classification of the song that contains such moments in its entirety) and the who describing "a quick one while he's away" (such an incredible performance) as a "mini-opera" and chatGPT recommended the classical music term "through-composed" but i could swear there was something else and then deborah and i were lying in bed yesterday morning staring at the bedroom ceiling and listening to music after having sex and out of nowhere my brain suddenly went "suite" or "song suite" which i think is actually the term (cf also CSNY "suite: judy blue eyes" in which "suite" is actually a pun).
(related: tweet from jane hu that "my husband just described phish to me as 'sports for drug addicts'")
the new ari song "yes and", which the verses don't really do it for me (there's something about that particular melodic interval that begins the verse that always feels too "churchy" for me?) and the spoken word bit is dollar store renaissance but the chorus is good (and gets thicker with her beautiful layers as the song progresses) and there's a line in it that metrically works if you replace "be your own fuckin' best friend" with "boycott, sanction, divest, and" so that's how i sing it in my head
i haven't done any erasures for a while (not for lack of trying but so many i start never amount to anything because i just can't find my lines in the text, which is frustrating though it also makes the moment when you do get a good one even more satisfying) but yesterday i did one i like of a story by jon caramanica about lil nas x's new single "j christ":
it's raining and warm enough that the ice will finally fully melt today (can't remember the last time i felt grateful for rain) re: the ice deborah heard someone talking about "crampons" and thought they were some kind of feminine hygiene product.
yesterday she used a combination of tools including the heels of her docs to clear a path to the street so we could get five guys delivered for dinner (i'm thankful for the double cheeseburger, one of the greatest of american inventions, which i am grateful for at a time when there is no other reason to be proud of being american). today we went to the grocery store for the first time in two weeks which even in my current state of trying to avoid processed sugar which eliminates several of my all-time favorite grocery store aisles had me straight up "supermarket in california"-ing at the bounty.
i bought sumo mandarins and once again made a cashier think the amount of money i spent on four oranges must be some kind of horrible mistake (also remembering how ez replied to the 2021 email on this day by saying "Just had a sumo mandarin and I am tripping balls it is so good!!!!!!!")(see also mel's most recent trip report). i also announced to deborah apropos of nothing that "i am in my kiwi era" (which is to say that lately they are a perfect snack size fruit for me especially as a goblin who eats the skin and so needs no knife or spoon).
someone we went to MFA program with came up and i am not a person with many regrets but one that i can remember is in the english department lab making some off-color remark indicating i thought this person was attractive (that i can't remember, because i was just emitting my usual stream of bullshit and it had no actual meaning to me) and i said to deborah that this was on my "eternal regrets list hall of shame" though i couldn't remember what i said and she responded immediately with a direct quote of the exact thing i said, which was, in relation to the placement of this person's mail cubby under my mail cubby, "i'd like to be under her if you know what i mean" which the fact that she specifically immediately remembered it a decade later added to the depth of the regret and also the fact that it was such a hack thing to say!!
making deborah laugh recently by a) doing strange dances, b) pretending i'm going in for a kiss but opening my mouth wide at the last second, c) playing bongo drums on her butt, d) joking about her using "perchance" in a text by using the word "verily" e) something i forget yesterday evening but she was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe and i had to stop. i'm thankful for this list of the ways different languages laugh online and i'm thankful for the depth of my commitment to bits.
