... then you can start to make it better

I can't help but to think that if I marry a man who makes me feel as good as I do when I'm listening to Paul McCartney sing "Hey Jude" live, then I might be doing something right. He is, bar none, one of the sexiest men in the world. My opinion of the performance is that content aside, the spectacle of the superbowl half-time show seemed misguided. I was saddened that something as simple and human as listening to one man sing could be cheapened the way it was, with fireworks and a giant, flashing stage. Still, the show (at least from my living room advantage) was satisfying. It made me want to disappear into my beatles music, or go and buy a DVD of a McCartney concert.

But then again, music is meant to be live. Listening to a CD, or watching a show on DVD can almost be likened to sitting in a movie theatre, as opposed to witnessing something take place on a stage in front of you. Part of the magic of music or theatre is in the spectatorship of their creation. When you listen to a recorded song or watch a movie, you are experiencing something that took place in history; while the recording process certainly has its benefits, it is unfair to compare it to the live experience, to sharing space with art as it is being formed and then fades. The evenescence of liveness is striking, as though art crested and fell in your presence and will never be felt by anyone in the exact same way again.

We are all trying to describe ourselves, I think - we just have different venues. Theatre, music and art work as a triptych of human expression; three ways in which we try to explain and understand the world around us, the human experience, the core of our existence. I am drawn to music in the same way that I am drawn to drama, understanding both as tools for a greater mode of expression than words can accomplish. I guess some people look at music and find beauty in the melodies and the beats and the synthesis of instruments in a cohesive whole. I can't hear music in that kind of subjective way ... to me, it always MEANS something.

For example,
- when I hear "Hotel California", I will remember New Years Eve 1999, lounging with my friends at some point between midnight and sunrise, bumming around with a guitar and a couple of voices.
- "What's the Story (Morning Glory)?" was my soccer song. Chelsea, Linds, Hillary and I used to drive to 7am practices together in my car, blearly eyed, balancing boxes of Tim Bits and bottles of peach juice on our laps, belting out "I need a little time to wake up, wake up".
- "I Alone" by Live reminds me of walking through the rain, holding hands with my first boyfriend Mike, going back to his house before his dad came home and cautiously kissing, learning, believing that we were ready for feelings that we didn't even have words for.
- I used to listen to "Clumsy" on the sidelines of my soccer games, standing with my bulky yellow diskman hidden in the pouch of my hoodie, hoping that my coach wouldn't catch me.
- The song "In the Meantime" by Spacehog was what Adam and I danced to at his 11th birthday party in his unfinished basement. I was wearing make up for the first time - lip gloss, I think, and it was the first time I had ever felt a boy's confident hand rest gently on my back. When I hear the song now, I feel 10 years younger, 10 years more innocent and I can't help but to grin.

I guess the idea is that most of the major moments in my life can be connected to music in some way. Most of the major people in my life can be connected to music in some way. I don't, however, have music yet that reminds me of Steve ... it's not that we don't have many shared musical tastes, and it would be easy to say something like Pearl Jam or Soundgarden connects me to him, simply because we spend so much time talking about it. What we haven't shared together yet are many musical experiences (althought that being said, I'll never hear "You Can't Stop the Beat" without thinking of our first date). I don't even connect Green Day with him ... the context wasn't right. I'm still waiting, patiently, for the music that might define our relationship to seep out of the cracks and make itself visible.

I suppose I should get back to work. This wasn't meant to be such a rant, however, I am hoping that putting my ideas down means that they won't be in my head any longer, clogging things up :P