Friday, May 28, 2010

Pseudo-making it

Pseudo-making it

It is not a must that one breaks up to enjoy a good break-up song.


Back in 1995, I did not know the anger and pain of a break-up. During a past life, my abstinence extended to the radio as well so I was not hit by the emotional tidal wave of Alanis Morissette and You Oughta Know until after September of 1997. But from what I know, the song became a phenomenal international hit and an anthem to disgruntled ex-lovers across the globe. I, for one, began to wait for the day when I could tell someone who broke my heart, "When I scratch my nails down someone else's back I hope you feel it."

Can you feel it?

In June 2008, we got a new kind of break-up song from Ms. Morissette: Not As We.


(My hope was to embed the video to this song, but I was able to do that. It's beautiful and truly worth viewing. Follow this link.)

Unlike You Oughta Know, there is no anger radiating from this broken relationship; however, like You Oughta Know, the emotions come from pain. After the anger, still in the daze of pain and confusion--asking ourselves, "What happened?"-- we all must start over again. Alanis expresses all these feelings so beautifully through this song. It's from her Flavors of Entanglement album from 2008. It did not take two years after the song's release for me to discover it; I bought the album in June 2008 when it came out. Not As We was instantly one of my favourite tracks of the album. However, until last night, I'd never seen the video.

For various reasons, I've been in an Alanis mood lately. I ventured over to youtube last night when the internet decided to stop crawling at a snail's pace, and I did a search for Alanis's 1995 performance of All I Really Want on MTV's 120 Minutes (I just like her crazy facial expressions and the way her hands remain eerily stiff during that particular performance). Somehow that search also led me to the Not As We video. I was moved by the beauty of both the song and the video and felt that it must be shared.

It's no longer 1997; therefore, I'm a little bit older (and according to one recent acquaintance, the aging process is a bit accelerated for me: especially around the eyes). I cannot make the same claims of inexperience I could in 1995... Thank goodness!


Monday, May 24, 2010

Sweet Back-Loaded Puppet

Sweet Back-Loaded Puppet

Alanis Morissette is the soundtrack for this entry. I think, maybe, I should stop reading the newspaper. It might just get me in trouble one day; however, I needed something to occupy my time as I waited to get my hair cut this afternoon.

Politics. Not my favorite subject. At the risk of sounding too cliché, I'll state that opinions are like assholes: we all have one. And Mr. Awel Uwihanganye expressed his in today's New Vision. I have had the honor of meeting Mr. Uwihanganye on several occasions. He's a friend of friends. While he's entitled to his opinion and can believe in a "larger design... where US interests are primary", I'd just like to clarify that the time he "lived in North America long enough to know that the established Western democratic system has little interest in the stability and economic development of countries such as Uganda" was as a university student in CANADA!

Oh, Awel. I'll leave the rest of your propaganda alone for now. As I stated before, politics: not my favorite subject. But your taste for poorly-written articles leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

As Alanis sang: I see right through you. Apparently, others do too.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Sunday musing...

Sunday musing...

Taking an idea from a friend I conversed with at an art exhibition on Friday evening, after my Sunday morning jog, I bought newspapers (both the Vision and Monitor) and found an outdoor seat at Cafe Java to keep myself informed... as well as entertained.

H.E. Museveni had two statements attributed to him in two different articles that triggered audible responses from me. The two were:
Sadly, Cafe Java becomes too crowed to be enjoyed these days. It's great business for the owners, but for people like myself who'd prefer a more relaxed environment, the after-10am crowd on Sunday mornings is not desirable. After my fruit salad, I was out of there.

The rest of the day was spent doing as little as possible at home until my ritual at Zone 7. Good times.

As I type, I'm having a Spring Awakening moment. Fantastic music.


(Before Lea was Rachel, she was Wendla... she was also Shprintze, Little Girl and Cosette.) I've never seen Spring Awakening on stage, but it's definitely on my must see list... hopefully I'll be in an area where a tour is passing through.