Despertar

transcendental

1. What are you listening to right now?
Even though everyone else does it, I still don't feel comfortable wearing my headphones in what is still, ostensibly, a professional office. So I'm listening to a lot of ambient sound that reminds me a lot of the drone at the beginning of Office Space.

2. What song makes you sad?
I used to listen to Dave Matthews Band's "Spoon" and cry about Marcus. I don't think it would have the same effect now.

3. What is the most annoying song in the world?
I hate most things by The Killers and Fallout Boy. What do they call that genre, even? And how is it possible that so many people just totally overlook the complete absence of rhythm?

4. Your all time favorite band?
I don't have a single favorite. I don't even know if there are any bands of whose repertoire I like more than a few things.

5. Your newly discovered band is?
The musicianship of Nya Jade was pretty incredible, I think, but I was drunk, and experiencing a tiny short-term crush on the bass player, so I don't know that I'm all that reliable on that.

6. Best female voice?
Maria Callas had amazing control. Whitney Houston trills like a bird without making it sound all ignorant (Mariah, Christina, I'm looking at you). Celine Dion is a pain, but the sheer size of her voice channels Barbra, which is a major thing. And then, of course, Ella, Sarah, Billie. Surveys like this one make me feel pressure to come across as eclectic, but really, the classics tend to have the most training and the best technique.

7. Best male voice?
Seal.

8. Music type you find yourself listening to most?
I almost always keep my iPod on shuffle. I find myself skipping through lots of stuff, I need to be in the mood for certain things, but I almost never pass up a showtune.

9. What do you listen to, to hype you up?
You mean, do I have a playlist full of eighties power sports themes? No, but that reminds me, when I was working with teachers, over the summer, one of my coworkers, a total social reject, used to start every morning with a two-song playlist consisting ONLY of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Together Forever." This was before the days of Rickrolling, so there was nothing ironic about it. He was completely sincere in his desire to start every day with Rick Astley. He would sit alone in his classroom, at his desk, staring at his computer and mouthing along the words till he became aware of someone watching from the door. It was the most incredibly pathetic thing any of us had ever seen.

10. What do you listen to when you want to calm down?
I had this compilation CD called Adagios for After Hours. It had a bunch of Romantic-era pavanes on it, a lot of Debussy, and if I turned it on just before I got into bed, I never, ever lasted through the fifth track. I had forgotten about that until just now. I'm going to download it the second I get home.

11. Last gig/concert you went to?
Smith Point, on the now-famous evening of June fourteenth.

12. Artist/band you find yourself listening to the most right now?
I'm actually going through a Mies Davis Quintet thing right now, trying to come up with a decent set of reviews of his body of work. I already know the major ones (Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Birth of the Cool), so I wanted to do some of the lesser-known stuff, and I am finding that, largely, there is a reason they are lesser-known. Based on the intriguing liner notes, I thought I was going to love Quiet Nights, which instead turned out to be one of the worst jazz albums I had ever listened to all the way through.

13. Most hated band?
I just really turn my nose up at bands that mistake volume for passion, speed for technique. And I hate bastardizations of rhythm. I hate Rilo Kiley, Ted Leo and The Pharmacists and, I may have mentioned, The Killers.

14. Song that makes you think?
Linda Ronstadt's "Long, Long Time" makes me think about how basically every woman on the planet has been through the same thing I went through with Marcus.

15. Artist/band that you think the word should love as much as you do?
I don't. Everyone has different taste, and if I had to guess, I would guess that most people aren't as particular as I am about music. As evidenced by the fact that Miley Cyrus has a higher earning potential than Stevie Wonder, right now.

16. Coolest music video?
By and large, most music videos are not that great. Michael Jackson's short films are still some of the best. To my knowledge, no one has yet surpassed the genius of "Smooth Criminal."

17. Music video with the most babe watch?
That's a dumb question. All music videos, except for those of Fiona Apple, are shameless T&A showcases.

18. What would you play in the bedroom to spice things up?
Hypothetically, probably something like Maxwell's "You Are Me/We Are You."

19. Can you play a musical instrument?
I can play the piano proficiently, the guitar passably and the violin very poorly. I wish I were better at all three.

20. Ever been in a mosh pit?
What on earth would I be doing there?

21. Are you in a band?
I am not.

22. Missing question!
I will take this moment to inform you that Allison and I dressed almost identically today: white camisole, red sweater, black slacks, pewter flats. I had to wear my glasses today, though, because my eyes hurt too much to try to negotiate contacts, so she wins this round.

23. Ever dated a musician?
Not one on a professional level, and I'm not even sure that I could.

24. Missing question!
I am very much at peace with my new policy of not pressuring people into not flaking out of Follow the Leader. Today was the third (albeit non-adjacent) day I read so many entries, I started accidentally referencing them in real life and being confused when people didn't know what the hell I was talking about.

25. Missing question!
Bleh.

26. Missing question!
To elaborate, my uterus is falling out, my throat is on fire and my eyes are all aswim. (Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays.)

27. Missing question!
And it's the last one, thank goodness.

28. Do you wish yourself that you were a musician?
It would be fun to be in a band if I weren't too shy to perform, but I couldn't be a songwriter. I don't hear songs that don't exist, which, supposedly, is what it takes.

29. Best chick band you know of?
The Spice Girls.

30. Missing question!
Sherry, the new temp, is the single most abrasive person I have yet met on the West Coast. They're giving her use of my desk on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and making me share a conference room with some part-timers. I wouldn't have minded this so much, but Sherry is inexcusably rude for it to only be her first day, and she continually confuses amount words. Less/fewer. Number/amount. And so on.

31. Last song that you heard on the radio/CD etc.?
"Soon I'll Be Loving You," Marvin Gaye, which reminded me that I need to find a salon out here before I go home.

32. What do you think of classical music?
I feel really sorry for people who group it all into one big lump. There but for the grace of God go I, and so forth. My grandfather was a major connoisseur, and he taught me how to recognize famous symphonic themes in jazz riffs, Looney Tunes cartoons, and so on. Tchaikovsky is my favorite Classical composer. Ravel is my favorite Romantic composer. Rimsky-Korsakov composed all my favorite contemporary orchestral pieces.

33. What do you think of country music?
I like some bluegrass, some fusion with electric guitar, that kind of stuff. Mostly, country freaks me out because of the politics associated with it. Self-professed rednecks like Gretchen Wilson are only a generation (or fewer) removed from the remnants of Jim Crow and lynching culture. Also, for the most part, the states where country music is actually popular tend to be largely religious, largely Republican and largely terrifying to drive through at night.

34. What do you think of death metal?
Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.

35. Last BIG band that you saw live?
It's been a long time. The last major band I saw was probably Dave Matthews. I'm not really into that scene because I don't like when things are too loud, and they tend to be, at concerts.

36. Are you a groupie?
No, and they gross me out.

37. Do you listen to music in foreign languages?
Sometimes. I like Khaled (thanks, Hugh!), Jacques Brel (thanks, Caroline!) and Edith Piaf (thanks, La Vie En Rose!), plus the aforementioned Callas, classics by the Three Tenors and, embarrassingly, Andrea Bocelli.

38. Missing question!
The good thing about periods, though, is they make you feel thin again. For the last four days, before I remembered my period was about to start, I kept staring into the mirror in total dismay, wondering why my stomach was sticking out so much and whether I had finally crossed the threshold into Fat Zone. Four days and nine gallons of blood later, my stomach is flat and my pants fit again. Thank God.

39. Worst concert moment?
Marcus behaved like a dick at the Dave Matthews concert, but what else is new.

40. Funny concert moment?
Cody Chestnutt wrapped his arms around me and told me to "trust the might of God daily." He wrote the same thing on my poster, underneath his signature. A gay couple sitting in front of us asked whether I was Sean's daughter.

41. Sad concert moment?
Mostly the worst emotion that comes from concerts, for me, is impatience. I really, really hate when things are too loud.

42. Best local act you can think of?
I think Nya Jade is local to this area.

43. If you were a musical instrument, what would you be?
Probably a violin. Unlike a clarinet, which lays out the basic story with very little fanfare, I tend to embellish, I throw in a lot of waaaa-waaaa. Men are more like clarinets, in the way they communicate. I have never been able to figure out why anyone would choose the clarinet over a less...matte instrument.

44. Do you listen to the radio?
Rarely. It'll be an obsolete medium soon. I see no reason why I should have to listen to songs someone else chose in an order someone else chose, when I could choose both myself.

45. Do you watch music TV?
It doesn't really exist anymore, unless your cable package has a dozen extra channels umbrellaed under each basic one. VH1 Soul still plays music videos, but VH1 definitely doesn't, and MTV definitely doesn't. Even the countdowns aren't musical anymore. They're about toys from the eighties and outrageous Youtube moments and stuff.

46. Do you follow the music charts, like the top forty?
If I come across that chart, like in EW, I might skim it and snort.

47. Have you ever met any famous musicians?
A few.

48. Are any of your friends/family musicians?
Multiple relatives on my dad's side have side gigs as composers, and my paternal aunt makes her living playing the harp. That's her in the background of most Motown tracks from the sixties, actually.

49. Song that best describes your feelings right now?
"She Lives In My Lap," Andre Benjamin, not for the lyrics, but for the agitated feel and the lack of resolution. I am not enjoying being in my own skin today.

50. Song that describes your life?
If one does, I haven't heard it yet.

51. Do you know the names of all the band members that you listen to?
Unfortunately, no. That's just how it goes. The frontman gets all the credit.

52. Does a musician's physical attractiveness play a role in the music you listen to?
If listeners based their musical choices on the physical attractiveness of artists, Lil Wayne's career would have died in utero. It is largely, or wholly, a function of swagger.

53. What famous musician do you want to marry?
I don't. I would hate it if I had to. Musicians whose hearts are really full of their art make terrible, contentious partners, because they are already in love. Even Marcus, who was a far cry from professional-level anything, would never have thought I was as beautiful as the chord progression from "#41." B.B. King's seven marriages fell apart, as I understand it, because Lucille always came first, before his wives. If I could avoid it at all, falling for someone I had to constantly fight for, I would.

54. Favorite movie soundtrack?
If scores count, it is probably a three-way tie: The Empire Strikes Back, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Donnie Darko.

55. Any musician pet peeves?
To borrow a phrase from Aaron, it annoys me when musicians buy into their own hype. Religious or not, true musicianship is a gift, and while musicians rely heavily on their fan bases, music relies only on itself. Stevie Wonder has something most of the rest of us don't. That's not to say he deserves it. It's a random talent.

56. What do your parents listen to?
My dad doesn't give a shit about music, and my mom kind of subscribes to the Oprah's Book Club of music, so to speak.

57. What are you listening to right NOW?
Clack-clack-clack-CLICK. Computer keys. Kelsey is updating a spreadsheet, so there are clackety-clacks as she types, and CLICKs each time she switches to a new cell. Fifty-four minutes and I can go home.

58. Do you wear band T-shirts?
No.

59. What do you think of people who do?
They are rarely very attractive, so I tend to judge them based on the bands they depict.

60. What music sub-culture do you feel like you belong to?
I'm pretty sure I don't. I'm not likely to enjoy a particular song just because it falls into a specific genre or was written by a specific artist. My iPods have a combined two thousand songs on them, and I don't think I have more than four or five by any one artist.

61. What song is stuck in your head right now?
"Gone," Miles Davis.

62. Do you sing in the shower?
No. In the car, I do.

63. If so, what? If not, why not?
I just don't. I test out new story ideas in the shower.

64. Would you rather marry a musican or be one yourself?
It would be nice if we could both be musicians, because then our marriage would be like a sneaky affair, full of passion and stolen moments between hours in our respective studios. It would probably become very competitive, though, and there would be awkward silences when, inevitably, we didn't always like each other's efforts. Still, it would be better than the alternative, one musician and one groupie.

65. Missing question!
Fifty-one minutes.

66. How important is your partner's taste in music to you?
I could live if it wasn't the same as mine, but not if he was really obsessed with a shitty band and wanted to drag me to a bunch of bad concerts.

67. Hanson moves in next door to you, do you introduce yourself, or do you arrange to beat them up?
I probably wouldn't recognize them unless someone told me who it was. I have no reason to beat them up. I'd probably introduce myself, because according to celebritybabyscoop.com, they're all in the process of having lots of cute babies right now.

68. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, you dig?
Free love and LSD don't have a healthy place in the new millennium. Rock probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon, though.

69. Do you cook to music?
Anything I have to do where both my hands are occupied, I listen to music, yes.