Sirius/Eye In The Sky - Alan Parsons Project

And a little further down the road from where Amos Lee wrote his song, here's a guy who's just had it with someone promising things will be different this time, really, I didn't mean it, I'll never do it again, I promise, honest, and so he's basically saying, "Fuck off and die, you, I'm done."

I love this song for the ruthless rage that's all wrapped up in a cuddly, soft-rock, lite-FM blankie.

I kept the "Sirius" intro because it segues so perfectly into the song, and besides, it just sounds really cool.



Eye in the Sky
by Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson

Don't think sorry's easily said
Don't try turning tables instead
You've taken lots of chances before
But I ain't gonna give any more
Don't ask me
That's how it goes
Cause part of me knows what you're thinkin'

Don't say words you're gonna regret
Don't let the fire rush to your head
I've heard the accusation before
And I ain't gonna take any more
Believe me
The sun in your eyes
Made some of the lies worth believing

I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you,
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools,
I can cheat you blind
And I don't need to see any more to know that
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind

Don't leave false illusions behind
Don't cry, I ain't changing my mind
So find another fool like before
Cause I ain't gonna live anymore believing
Some of the lies
while all of the signs are deceiving

I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you,
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools,
I can cheat you blind
And I don't need to see any more to know that
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind (looking at you)
I can read your mind

Hello Again -- Amos Lee

So beautiful, haunting, and sad. I think this must be what it sounds like right after someone gives up for the very last time.

(Wahhh, video no longer available on youtube. Wahhh. You'll just have to buy the song.)

Hello Again
by Amos Lee

Hello again,
I know it's been a long time coming
You say you've been
Out there now a long time running

You used to be so beautiful
But you lost it somewhere along the way
You used to be so beautiful
But it's easy now to walk away

That wonderwall
You're waiting for is now collapsing
Tell me more, but wait no no
Let me find out what you're asking for

You used to be, so beautiful
But you lost it somewhere along the way
You used to be so beautiful
And it's easy now to walk away
Away, away

Now you have
Everything that you have ever wanted
Oh it's so sad to see
When the hunter becomes the hunted

You used to be so beautiful
But you lost it somewhere along the way
You used to be so beautiful
And I'm sorry now I don't have more to say

T.B.R.

I think I may have mentioned the "To Be Read" Challenge out there on the Facebook thingie, or somewhere else, or maybe just in passing conversation with someone, but since I'm writing this on the old Kberry, on which the Blogger post/edit functions are decidedly user hostile, and I can't post the link via my email upload, I'll have to come back and add it later.

Anyway, some guy out there on the interwebs has an annual reading challenge called "TBR," in which you list 12 books that you own that you haven't gotten around to reading yet. If you're registered on his site, you report back on your progress.

This sent me searching through my bookshelves, because surely I don't have a dozen unread books! Well, to my chagrin, there are 12, and then some. I guess I've got a busy year ahead of me, don't I?

Here's what I found:

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, Susanna Clarke (started this once but grew intimidated by its sheer bulk)

Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory

The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B, J.P. Donleavy

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

Contact, Carl Sagan

In America, Susan Sontag

Where Men Win Glory, The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, John Krakauer (borrowed from Yishun with a stack of other books)

The Black Book, Orhan Pamuk

The March, E.L. Doctorow (another Yishun borrow)

The BFG, Roald Dahl (thanks again, Yishun)

Gorky Park, Martin Cruz Smith (bought off a blanket on Bedford Avenue for fifty cents)

The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon (wrote one of my top three favorite books of all time, Wonder Boys)

Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passos (started several times, I WILL get through it!)

The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

No Man Is An Island, Thomas Merton

The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels

Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

I imagine I'll get through a good portion of this list, since I'll be spending a lot of time on airplanes -- it looks like I may have to go to Italy at least once in the next two months, and if I'm lucky, twice. Nine hours in coach, whee. Better have a big book for each way. (I want a day on either side of those press checks, so I can finally see the Duomo, darn it. And I'll be back and forth to LA a couple times over the summer, as well, so there are those long trips, too.

I think I'll save the Dostoyevsky for those summer Fridays at Coney Island, because I've always wanted to be one of those girls who reads Dostoyevsky on the beach.

Totally unrelated aside: Once last summer, I was on the G train after a Coney Island Friday, sandy and salty and full of Nathan's, reading Jack Kerouac's "Desolation Angels," when I felt someone looking at me. I looked up from under my straw hat, and a tousle-headed hipster was looking at me and smiling. When I smiled back at him, he looked at my book, back at me, and smiled more broadly. I went back to reading. All the way to Metropolitan Avenue, we exchanged those smiling glances. I think he liked that I was reading Kerouac. I imagined that he was at just the right age that Kerouac was really important to him.

Isn't it funny how you create a persona about people based on what you see them reading? If I had been sitting there reading a book written by, say, Glenn Beck, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been so shyly appreciative. Or who knows, maybe he would have been completely dazzled (scary thought). When I got off the train, he gave me a half-wave and I smiled at him again.

Anyway, I think I'll take the Clarke with me for this trip, since it's a long one, and I'll report back with my findings as I plow through my list.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. Bed.

Is Taking Care of Oneself Selfish? (cross-posted from JCBW)

Introspective people are often accused of being self-absorbed or self-centered. But to look inward and learn to take full responsibility for oneself is the most courageous and unselfish work a human being can do. To find out how and why one is cruel, intolerant, hateful, greedy, blaming, and judging and to learn to let go of the behaviors that accompany those attitudes is 180 degrees from selfish -- it is selfless.



Cheri Huber

Sex & Money...Are Dirty, Aren't They?

(A Guided Journal)

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

So then what if we can’t stop the judgmental, critical thoughts, or that “I must fix this” sort of feeling? Well, how would we respond if we found our best friend in that state? Would we tell her she’s being bad? Or tell her to just stop it? I doubt it. I’d want to sit down with her and be supportive, find out what’s underneath all those thoughts, and why she’s feeling that way. I’d want to at least just listen and let her know I care. Can we do that for ourselves? Now THAT is a practice of kindness.



Every time we turn to ourselves with patience and forgiveness for our supposed “failures,” we’re training ourselves to be kind. I find a sense of relief in being honest and authentic with myself in this way. It’s not an admission of failure. I’m not condoning my critical thoughts, but I AM forgiving the person who is having those thoughts.



So the whole idea here is to learn how to BE kind, right now, and not to try to shape myself into some future-oriented image of what I think I should be. The more we practice the act of being kind now, the more it becomes natural to us. This is the practice.

Ask Auntie Suvanna

"Learning to Love Ourselves"

Wildmind Buddhist Meditation

Snow, and More Snow

Jesus H. Christ, I'm tired of winter.

Waking up in the dark and leaving work in the dark tires me. If I didn't force myself to stand up from my desk and walk outside for some fresh air (read: cigarette break), it's conceivable I could go an entire winter without seeing more than a few minutes of sunshine a day, like someone living in Alaska or Siberia.  If it wasn't for the 5000 Kelvin light boxes we use every day for reviewing color proofs, I swear I'd be a raving drunk or depressive or trying to find a few Palins on whom I can exercise my 2nd Amendment rights.

Navigating 3-week old piles of semi-frozen snow on every street corner by having to detour out into traffic tires me. Same with having to do the Don't Walk Too Close To The Street shuffle, because that one asshole cab driver spots you from half a block away, guns it, and swerves into the puddle of melting slush and god-knows-what-else you happen to be passing.

Inane elevator chatter about the weather makes me tired. Oh my good Christ, do you have something better to say to people on the elevator than, "Brr, it's COLD out there!"

Winter clothes tire me. Especially since I wear a lot of turtlenecks and spend the first part of my day with my hair in a staticky cloud around my head.  Before I leave the house, I already look as though I've had a serious fright.  I will say, though, in the past couple of years, I am seeing many excellent boots on the feet of New York City women.

The constant "Snowstorm a-comin'! Better start a run on the bread aisle!" panic that overtakes the local news every time a little, bitty front shows up on Doppler tires me. What does it say about us that before a snowstorm people rush off...to the grocery store? In America? As if there will be food shortages here? Really? Really?

Even if all of America was paralyzed for five days because of a giant continental blizzard, most people, and yes, I'm talking you, lardy-ass America, most people could simply stay at home marinating in their own filth and living off their own blubber. 

Look around at any public gathering place, your local mall, movie theater, or airport. Do any of those people look like they've missed a meal recently?

Plus, put a winter coat on everyone, and the subways get really crowded, really fast. 

Not to mention that the knobby yellow blind-people-stop-here strip on the platform is slippery as shit when it's wet, which is pretty much all winter long, as long as there is snow on the ground.  I've lost count of how many times I've hit that motherfucker while boarding a train and ended up doing the heel-slip, then overcompensating by lurching forward and nearly falling into the train. Sometimes I'll do jazz hands and throw in a "Ta-dahhhh!" to let the other passengers know I meant to do that.

It's a good thing I'm virtually un-embarrassable.