Unbelievable MUZAK!

My place of employ was recently the victim of a malfunctioning MUZAK machine, leaving a bare silence in its place. It has sense been fixed and with due gratitude to once again be mildly entertained by the background MUZAK, I have been paying particular attention to the lyrics of the oft repeated songs. This has lead to a disturbing discovery: you can put absolutely anything into a song lyric and people will still sing along and perhaps even enjoy the song.

For instance, one of the more frequent denizens of the MUZAK world contains the lyric:

I want you
I need you
I'm never gonna love you
But two out of three ain't bad.

Seriously! This is a horrible song! Why would anyone write this, let alone choose this as "soothing" to the shopping experience? This is just one of the many examples of wildly inappropriate lyrics in songs commonly played in department stores. Its just wrong!

Thoughts

I miss "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey".

Stream of consciousness writings are ridiculously random.

The book is always better than the movie.

I miss Popples, the original Strawberry Shortcake, and Rainbow Brite.

The 80s were amazingly cool.

SNL was so much better 10 years ago.

Potato chips aren't really chips. They are slices.

Fall is the season with the best colors.

Nostalgia colors the past rosy.

Looking At People

Sometimes it's good to people watch. The man on street with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders shrugged to ward off the cold. Who is he? What's his story? Perhaps he is a single father, struggling to support his small children and finding the task impossible. Maybe he's a traveler, passing through town with only a few dollars in his pocket and looking for work.

In this passage we call life, can we ever really know another person? Do the tenuous bonds that link us to our fellows really afford us a glimpse into the essence of the person under the layers? It's like we are all spinning balls of yarn whose ends may get briefly tangled together or sometimes they get knotted a little more permanently, but always we stay in our spinning selves.

Permanence is transitory and our touchstones flawed.

In An Instant

In an instant everything can change.

And you can never change it back.

The Mystery Begins

What would life be like if it was like of those books that lets you "make your own story"? In case you have no idea what I am talking about, there are books marketed for adolescents that allow them to solve mysteries and have adventures by choosing one of several options and key points in the story. Whichever choice they make eventually leads them to another juncture where they make another choice and so on until they reach the conclusion of the book.

The fun of this is that if you don't like the way your "personal adventure" turns out you can go back and essentially redo the entire book. How great would it be if life was like this? You could relive your life as many times as necessary to avoid great catastrophe. You could choose to marry or not a certain spouse. You could choose to go to college, or go to Africa, or be a scuba diver. Your choices would be unlimited in a grand sort of way.

The problem with this would naturally be on how many do overs you are allowed. If you were only alloted say 5, your avoidance of a specific pitfall would only be as good as the next major decision in your life. With only so many chances to fix your mistakes life would become an endless game of 'What do I do?'

So they real question becomes is life more stressful now, facing the unknown head on or would it be more stressful constantly looking back and second guessing yourself?

And The Band Played On....

I have always been intrigued by the fact that the night the Titanic sank the musicians on the upper deck continued to play as that mighty ship sank. In many ways music is a cultural marker. A song can define a generation, a war, an idea and those brave gentlemen chose to give what solace they could with the simple tools of their trade.

Could there be a more noble act?

Phantasm

Daydreams lie like languid milk
shimmering under smooth diamond symphonies
of cool watery ache
as hopes like moon-shaped rose petals
live elaborately in blue vision seas.

Power yearns for vivid control over
boiling masses of love starved minions
skating on vague black skies
where failure lurks like charred hulks
of shattered glass.

Want vs. Need

"Will the defendant please rise," the gravely voice of the grizzled judge commanded harshly.

With a scuffle of chair legs and nervous feet the well-dressed defendant and his high profile, highly polished lawyer stood with him. He had a small, smug smile on his tight face. He felt assured of his victory. He had yet to be denied any of his desires.

He glanced over to the other table in the shabby courtroom. The table looked as beat up, as worn down as the threadbare man that sat behind it. Clearly, he thought to himself, this loser does not stand a chance. I have won. The rest of this is merely a formality.

The judge cleared his throat impatiently, fully aware that he did not possess the defendant's full attention. The defendant looked sheepishly down, hating having been caught.

The judge cleared his throat once more. "We, the Court of Life find the defendant, Want, to be in violation of both Common Sense and Reality. Furthermore we sentence the defendant to exile until such time as the Court of Life finds it reasonable to do so."

This cannot be happening! Not to me! The defendant could do no more than stand there in shock at the court's decision. Not once had it occurred to him that he might lose. He looked over to the other table. His nemesis seemed brighter, more sure of himself, and inexplicably he also seemed less threadbare, less tired than before.

Want fumed. He was banished and it was all the fault of the paltry little man at the next table. He vowed his revenge even as the court officers bound his hands and took him away. Need would never be safe from Want.

The Secret Life of Shadow

The warm, swollen sun dipped gently below the far off horizon. Man began his nightly rituals in preparation for the long sleep ahead and gradually the world tucked itself cozily into bed. And then it was the shadows turn to play.

In daylight, where light rules with iron shackles, the shadow is prisoner to the harsh glare of the sun, but at night the shadows are king. Soft starlight illuminates their nightly dance. Long, transparent limbs swing freely through the crisp night air while the crickets sing their earthy tune.

These nocturnal denizens give themselves over to the freedom of dark and slowly, as the sun begins to rise, they return to their places. The light once more binding them to the mundane things of life. They wait silently for the moon. Their silvery revels the stuff of dreams.