Flashlight (into the past)
Posted by Joss Albert on Saturday, January 9, 2010
Apologies once again for the unexplained absence. I could easily blog daily with some knee-jerk reaction to 'this, that and the other', but I find myself content to be choosy with what I share. I'd rather wait until something comes along that doesn't feel forced or overarching - the same method I employ with writing poetry. Fortunately for you all, their is no poetry in me at the moment.
What their is, is the meat of a real-life event. I am writing this in a room half-dispersed into cardboard boxes, the other half of its contents floundering in piles. A week from now I should be in a new house - not a shared house, or flat, or commune but a real, purchased house - in Brighton, a short walk from the sea and a day or twos canoeing from France.
I am amazed at how many boxes of 'things' me and my partner have. It is tiring to process everything and pack it away knowing the reverse will be happening in a matter of days. Its merits lie in the brief time you have with a few items you cherish, or items you thought you'd lost. You remember why you have them, what they were meant to mean and what they mean now and each one is like a little play, each curtained off as you place them into cardboard boxes.
A tape emerged from a small collection of tapes I'd kept for years, despite not having a tape deck anymore to play them. It was from the early nineties and one of the first waves of 'freebies' that you get on the front of music magazines to tempt your pennies. On it was a selection of about 6 or 7 indie also-rans from the era of scuzzy guitar-pop and one of those, for some reason of tune or hook, I became fond of. I kept the tape for so long because this band never really made it in the UK, I couldn't find the record anywhere and thought to myself that I'd one day have to digitise the tape, just to save that song.
I don't understand why I hadn't done this before, but on finding the tape I decided to have a little look on youtube... naturally it was there in all its glory, with a video I'd never seen; full of people I'd never seen; playing a song I'd heard hundreds of times.
As someone comments on the video, it's like a great lost REM song.
What their is, is the meat of a real-life event. I am writing this in a room half-dispersed into cardboard boxes, the other half of its contents floundering in piles. A week from now I should be in a new house - not a shared house, or flat, or commune but a real, purchased house - in Brighton, a short walk from the sea and a day or twos canoeing from France.
I am amazed at how many boxes of 'things' me and my partner have. It is tiring to process everything and pack it away knowing the reverse will be happening in a matter of days. Its merits lie in the brief time you have with a few items you cherish, or items you thought you'd lost. You remember why you have them, what they were meant to mean and what they mean now and each one is like a little play, each curtained off as you place them into cardboard boxes.
A tape emerged from a small collection of tapes I'd kept for years, despite not having a tape deck anymore to play them. It was from the early nineties and one of the first waves of 'freebies' that you get on the front of music magazines to tempt your pennies. On it was a selection of about 6 or 7 indie also-rans from the era of scuzzy guitar-pop and one of those, for some reason of tune or hook, I became fond of. I kept the tape for so long because this band never really made it in the UK, I couldn't find the record anywhere and thought to myself that I'd one day have to digitise the tape, just to save that song.
I don't understand why I hadn't done this before, but on finding the tape I decided to have a little look on youtube... naturally it was there in all its glory, with a video I'd never seen; full of people I'd never seen; playing a song I'd heard hundreds of times.
As someone comments on the video, it's like a great lost REM song.
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