Commercial Excess

And just as I typed that title, I realised it sounds like one of those many, many, many, many rants over the commercialisation of Thanksgiving. I got tired of those rants. I get tired of most crowd-sourced rants. In any case, this has nothing to do with Black Friday.

For three straight weeks, I woke up every morning singing Call Me Maybe to myself. Well, only "Hey, I just met you, this may seem crazy, but here's my number, call me, maybe..." since those are the only words I know. This effectively earwormed me for the whole day, every day. I sang that line mindlessly as I ran to the printer, got some water, signed off on invoices... embarrassing, really.

I'm a professional, people.

Over the last week, I've suddenly changed course, singing Express Yourself, again, with little knowledge of the words. In my version it goes, "Express yourself, express yourself, la la la mmmmmawkward when I speak, da deedee dum, EXPRESS YOURSELF..."

I woke up at 2:00 this morning with that playing in my head and started to craft this post. I was going to make a comparison to hits of the 80's, when I was a deep, dark metalhead with punk overtones who barely listened to the radio and always changed the channel when Hall & Oates came on, yet when I'm in the grocery store and the oldies station is playing (don't get me started), I can sing every. freaking. word of every. freaking. song.

Then it hit me: the reason I know Call Me to Express Yourself at all, and the reason I only know those little bits, is because I watch way too much TV and those are songs on commercials.



No, don't


Express your own damn self

Still, I mused, why does my brain think I need these so badly that it won't let me stop playing them, day or night. My subconscious is like the bad guy from the Saw movies, torturing me in specific and creative ways... to what end?

Where is the intellectual or Darwinistic advantage to this sort of madness, I wondered, mentally writing a white paper as theories pinwheeled through my pre-REM mind.

"Why, brain? Why? mmmawkward when I... express yourself..." I muttered.

I dozed off, still blogging, and my next dreamed opened with my friend Matt's cheerleader daughter Erin, in full cheerleader regalia, beribboned ponytail bouncing earnestly as she completely disregarded the fourth wall to look me straight in the eyes to say, "When I want music for something, I don't read the headlines. I look in my own mind."

That's just too deep. And my subconscious is a supervillain.

Knitting Van Gogh

Last night, Brother, Girlthing Cindy and I went to "Becoming Van Gogh" at the Denver Art Museum.

Van Gogh's early career was steeped, both geographically and philosophically, in the Dutch manner. He worked in somber, earthy colours and his subject matter tended to be the common man, his pursuits and detritus.

Stick with me, the story gets better.

It was when he joined his brother, Theo, in Paris, that he began to immerse himself in the colour and - for lack of a better word - whimsy of the French style of the time.

A part of the exhibit talks about how colour pairs and defines and blends and contrasts, and how Van Gogh explained this to his brother. There was a box of yarn under glass by the colour wheels. The placard above it explained that, somehow, in his pursuit of colour theory education, he found that he could twist different colours of yarn together to see how they would play.

I nudged Brother, pointed to the display, and said, "Yarn!"

"Huh. Van Gogh had a stash too," he said.

Van Gogh and I both indulged in yarn stash.

And we both had little brothers who were, ultimately, teachable.