I walked to my one class today, and was originally listening to the Ike Reilly Assassination (which rocks), but said, “I need something more summery,” for the warm weather today. So I put on John Butler Trio (which also rocks). The first song off Grand National is “Better Than,” which I’ve always liked but never listened that closely to, and when I did today, I realized it’s the perfect song for summer.
The song is one of many great “live in the moment” songs. It’s about learning to be satisfied with what you have. Including a line I’d never noticed before today, “I know the grass is greener, but just as hard to mow.” Granted, mowing a lawn isn’t an extremely poetic image, but it works.
It got me thinking about how my mindset changes with the season. In the summer time, I’m perfectly capable of sitting around for an entire day, listening to music and drinking coffee, barbecueing for dinner, and watching the grass grow. In the winter or fall (thanks to global warming, there isn’t really a spring, temperatures just go from 45 to 70 in a week, apparently) I’m more introspective, more of a muckraker, in the classic definition (as opposed to the yellow journalism one).
There’s something wonderfully healthy about doing nothing, but I don’t do it often enough. And when I’m focusing from production to test to project to production to homework to party (even parties can be work), I don’t spend enough time navel gazing.
Navel gazing is a term I learned from Professor Oronte Churm (check out his stuff at McSweeney’s here) for a bad type of writing. It’s when a character in fiction sits and thinks about stuff in a poor attempt to put a little more philosophy into your writing, and it usually bores the reader to tears. This is exactly the kind of writing I usually do. It’s called navel gazing because nothing is happening to the character, except staring at his belly-button.
Summer is the perfect type to not just do this kind of writing (keep reading my blog this summer!) but to actually do it in real life.
So another two weeks, and then summertime. And the living will be easy.
Carl Newman: appreciates when you don't feel like commenting, but still want to tell him what an asshole he is at warriorpoetresponds@gmail.com
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the217
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Carl Newman
appreciates when you don't feel like commenting, but still want to tell him what an asshole he is at warriorpoetresponds@gmail.com
Mitch (Mitch) says:
(Posted April 28th, 2008 at 10:40 pm)
good song.