I’m reviewing all my CDs. Yes, all of them.
Not Accepted Anywhere - The Automatic
One day in the late 00s I was looking at videos related to a favorite British sci-fi comedy series, Red Dwarf. One of them was simply a fan-made montage of scenes from the show set to a catchy punk song, "Monster" by The Automatic (called The Automatic Automatic in the US, for reasons I don’t find interesting). The video itself wasn’t all that great, but I found myself watching it over and over just because I liked the song. Finally I decided to buy the album it was on. This is one reason that non-commercial creative use of copyrighted material isn’t necessarily harmful to artists; in at least some circumstances, it can provide a benefit as free advertising. But this is not a political blog (except when it is), so I am digressing.
Not Accepted Anywhere consists entirely of songs as catchy and enjoyable as "Monster." There are no exceptions. It’s fun music to listen to, and interesting enough that I can’t see myself getting bored of it all that easily. It has the high energy of other punk music I’ve enjoyed, and the anti-establishment lyrics that have become almost establishment at this point, but it isn’t overwhelmingly angry. If I listen to it casually, as background noise, it’s content to sit at the back of my awareness cheerfully enhancing my mood. But if I listen more actively, it gladly comes forward and shows me what it can do.
Almost every song has at least one moment of vocal harmony that I would describe as truly beautiful, such as the final a-capella chorus of “Monster”. The instrumentation is so textured as to have an almost physical presence, taking up three dimensions of space in the mind.
The lyrics are well-written and original, but don’t really take center stage; when they do, they don’t stand out as anything more than vaguely poetic. A few exceptions exist, as songs like “Lost at Home” and “By My Side” strike me as having a point, but not being too anxious to get to it. Of all the songs, “By My Side” comes closest to striking a personal cord with me, as the words hint at some experiences I can identify with. Otherwise, they don’t really resonate emotionally.
I’ve enjoyed spending the past few days with this album, but all things must end.
Next: Yellow Submarine
Monday, June 30, 2014
Friday, June 27, 2014
All My CDs, pt 6: The Suburbs
Maybe it’s time I stopped trying desperately to write unique intros to these reviews.
The Suburbs - The Arcade Fire
If I got Funeral under un-hipsterish circumstances, The Suburbs was no different. I’d considered checking it out after it was recommended by a favorite webcomic artist, and then I heard that it had won a Grammy for “album of the year,” taking by surprise all the music fans who had never heard of The Arcade Fire. That’s when I bought it. At first I was a bit unimpressed with The Suburbs, which struck me as far less passionate and interesting than Funeral. It’s true than the overall sonic and thematic tone is a bit less textured, but after repeated listening I came to realize that it was still very good.
In some ways, the more subtle and low-contrast quality makes it more deeply appreciable and contributes to its underlying messages as a concept album. After all, the suburbs themselves are less differentiated, more homogenous, and less exuberant than either the city or the countryside. Moreover, the instrumentation in The Suburbs also skews more electronic and synthesized than Funeral, perhaps reflecting the artificial nature of the suburban sprawl the lyrics constantly allude to. But when you listen to the music, it speaks of a genuine soulfulness that exists even in the midst of such artificiality, and that is the driving force behind the album’s quiet power.
I’ve lived most of my life in a city known for being more urban than its size would suggest. When I bought The Suburbs, I was living in a more stereotypically suburban town, complete with blocks of boxlike houses, abundant strip malls, and a complete dearth of coffeeshops or poetry slams. I had never felt more out of place, trapped in a pseudo-community where I felt no kinship with my neighbors and no attachment to the land. I thought that the suburbs had no culture because I did not share in their culture. I was wrong.
It’s common to assume that a suburban life is necessarily less soulful, less artful, than an urban one (with its vibrant and hot-blooded diversity) or a rural one (with its closeness to nature and tradition). It’s also common to make similar assumptions about modern living, dependence on technology, social media, and other “mindless” pop-cultural phenomena. There is often doubt about whether the youngest cultural movements of the world even qualify as “culture”. People debate such questions as whether lolcats are art - or dismiss such debates as beneath their consideration entirely.
I’m a member of a generation currently coming of age, a generation who were children in the 90s, adolescents in the early 21st century, and uniquely familiar with both technological abundance and economic decline. We are citizens of a world that is growing and dying at the same time - where “dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains.” The lyrics and music found in The Suburbs speaks to me of that world and specifically my generation, more so than most other music I’ve heard. If for no other reason (and there are other reasons), this will remain a very special album to me.
It occurs to me I haven't mentioned any specific songs here. It's true that the album's overall consistency makes it difficult to pick favorites, but a few stand out to me anyway: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), Ready to Start, City With No Children, and Rococo, to name a few. I don't really dislike any of them.
Next: Not Accepted Anywhere
The Suburbs - The Arcade Fire
If I got Funeral under un-hipsterish circumstances, The Suburbs was no different. I’d considered checking it out after it was recommended by a favorite webcomic artist, and then I heard that it had won a Grammy for “album of the year,” taking by surprise all the music fans who had never heard of The Arcade Fire. That’s when I bought it. At first I was a bit unimpressed with The Suburbs, which struck me as far less passionate and interesting than Funeral. It’s true than the overall sonic and thematic tone is a bit less textured, but after repeated listening I came to realize that it was still very good.
In some ways, the more subtle and low-contrast quality makes it more deeply appreciable and contributes to its underlying messages as a concept album. After all, the suburbs themselves are less differentiated, more homogenous, and less exuberant than either the city or the countryside. Moreover, the instrumentation in The Suburbs also skews more electronic and synthesized than Funeral, perhaps reflecting the artificial nature of the suburban sprawl the lyrics constantly allude to. But when you listen to the music, it speaks of a genuine soulfulness that exists even in the midst of such artificiality, and that is the driving force behind the album’s quiet power.
I’ve lived most of my life in a city known for being more urban than its size would suggest. When I bought The Suburbs, I was living in a more stereotypically suburban town, complete with blocks of boxlike houses, abundant strip malls, and a complete dearth of coffeeshops or poetry slams. I had never felt more out of place, trapped in a pseudo-community where I felt no kinship with my neighbors and no attachment to the land. I thought that the suburbs had no culture because I did not share in their culture. I was wrong.
It’s common to assume that a suburban life is necessarily less soulful, less artful, than an urban one (with its vibrant and hot-blooded diversity) or a rural one (with its closeness to nature and tradition). It’s also common to make similar assumptions about modern living, dependence on technology, social media, and other “mindless” pop-cultural phenomena. There is often doubt about whether the youngest cultural movements of the world even qualify as “culture”. People debate such questions as whether lolcats are art - or dismiss such debates as beneath their consideration entirely.
I’m a member of a generation currently coming of age, a generation who were children in the 90s, adolescents in the early 21st century, and uniquely familiar with both technological abundance and economic decline. We are citizens of a world that is growing and dying at the same time - where “dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains.” The lyrics and music found in The Suburbs speaks to me of that world and specifically my generation, more so than most other music I’ve heard. If for no other reason (and there are other reasons), this will remain a very special album to me.
It occurs to me I haven't mentioned any specific songs here. It's true that the album's overall consistency makes it difficult to pick favorites, but a few stand out to me anyway: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), Ready to Start, City With No Children, and Rococo, to name a few. I don't really dislike any of them.
Next: Not Accepted Anywhere
Sunday, June 22, 2014
All My CDs, pt 5: Funeral
I’ve been looking forward to this one since two or three CDs ago. I like it so much I took a whole week to write this review.
Funeral - The Arcade Fire
I realize that being a fan of The Arcade Fire makes me look like a hipster, but if that bothers you then rest assured that I came across this album in one of the most un-hipsterish ways possible. I first heard Wake Up in a trailer for a major motion picture. When I bought the soundtrack to that film and played it for friends, they invariably asked if that song from the trailer was on it; disappointingly, it was not, and so I bought this album. This was in fall of 2009, all of five years after the album was first released. I truly arrived late to this party, as did apparently much of the rest of the world.
“We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms...”
Funeral is full of unlikely wonder and discordant beauty. The Arcade Fire’s musical style comes across as undisciplined and immoderate, as if a roomful of exuberant and talented children were let loose in a recording studio, but at least a few of them had the wisdom of decades to inform the subtlety and depth of the lyrics and mood. They make an art form of using too many instruments, sometimes yoking together odd combinations of sounds that traditionally belong to separate genres. The vocalists (of which there are a few) are passionate but lack the refined, "pure" sound of classically trained singers, but that sort of thing is popular nowadays. The results are surprising and, I think, delightful. This is music that doesn’t see a need to follow the rules, and this might make it hard on the ears of some listeners. I am not one of those listeners.
Without hesitation I can say that Wake Up is my favorite song on the album. I dare you to listen to that song without getting its chorus of “Aah-aah-aah”s stuck in your head. Its bittersweet mixture of moods makes you feel like your heart is breaking and healing at the same time, like a tree that continues to grow even as some of its limbs wither and its trunk is gradually hollowed by rot. One can suffer even while feeling triumphant, and vice versa. The lyrics allude to themes of childhood and growing up and the pains associated with both, but are careful not to directly say anything specific, so you’re free to imagine they’re speaking about whatever memories fill your heart at the moment.
Crown of Love is another good one, and is clearly in the top ten of my favorite break-up songs of all time, alongside Tori Amos’s Baker Baker. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) has a fast pace and jaunty-but-dark aesthetic that makes for good dancing or workout music. Rebellion (Lies) is also catchy, but don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics if you’re prone to insomnia and in a particularly suggestible frame of mind.
Overall this is one of my favorite albums, and I’m sorry to have to put it back on the shelf. I have a lot of reviews left to get through.
Next: The Suburbs.
Funeral - The Arcade Fire
I realize that being a fan of The Arcade Fire makes me look like a hipster, but if that bothers you then rest assured that I came across this album in one of the most un-hipsterish ways possible. I first heard Wake Up in a trailer for a major motion picture. When I bought the soundtrack to that film and played it for friends, they invariably asked if that song from the trailer was on it; disappointingly, it was not, and so I bought this album. This was in fall of 2009, all of five years after the album was first released. I truly arrived late to this party, as did apparently much of the rest of the world.
“We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms...”
Funeral is full of unlikely wonder and discordant beauty. The Arcade Fire’s musical style comes across as undisciplined and immoderate, as if a roomful of exuberant and talented children were let loose in a recording studio, but at least a few of them had the wisdom of decades to inform the subtlety and depth of the lyrics and mood. They make an art form of using too many instruments, sometimes yoking together odd combinations of sounds that traditionally belong to separate genres. The vocalists (of which there are a few) are passionate but lack the refined, "pure" sound of classically trained singers, but that sort of thing is popular nowadays. The results are surprising and, I think, delightful. This is music that doesn’t see a need to follow the rules, and this might make it hard on the ears of some listeners. I am not one of those listeners.
Without hesitation I can say that Wake Up is my favorite song on the album. I dare you to listen to that song without getting its chorus of “Aah-aah-aah”s stuck in your head. Its bittersweet mixture of moods makes you feel like your heart is breaking and healing at the same time, like a tree that continues to grow even as some of its limbs wither and its trunk is gradually hollowed by rot. One can suffer even while feeling triumphant, and vice versa. The lyrics allude to themes of childhood and growing up and the pains associated with both, but are careful not to directly say anything specific, so you’re free to imagine they’re speaking about whatever memories fill your heart at the moment.
Crown of Love is another good one, and is clearly in the top ten of my favorite break-up songs of all time, alongside Tori Amos’s Baker Baker. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) has a fast pace and jaunty-but-dark aesthetic that makes for good dancing or workout music. Rebellion (Lies) is also catchy, but don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics if you’re prone to insomnia and in a particularly suggestible frame of mind.
Overall this is one of my favorite albums, and I’m sorry to have to put it back on the shelf. I have a lot of reviews left to get through.
Next: The Suburbs.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
All My CDs, pt 4: Amplified
Yes I'm still doing this.
Amplified: A Decade of Reinventing the Cello - Apocalyptica
I have heard rumors that of all musical instruments, cello is measurably most similar to the human voice, and I’m inclined to believe it. As you will see later in this series of reviews, I have a real soft spot in my heart for stringed instruments, especially when paired effectively with voice.The sound of stringed instruments, and cello in particular, inspires an instinctual recognition and empathy that makes for especially emotive music. This may account for part of Apocalyptica’s success: their incorporation of the most emotionally expressive instrument into one of the most emotionally charged genres. However, I think in at least one respect their reliance on cello’s vocal qualities may have counted against them.
Amplified is a two-disk album, and disk one contains several instrumental covers of highly recognizable songs (such as Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters), with cello in place of the vocal part. This makes sense given their style, but while cello does invoke a reaction similar to that of a human voice, it’s still not a voice, and thus is a step below vocals in terms of emotional expressiveness. This counts double in a genre known for having vocalists not just singing, but growling and even screaming - making sounds simply not replicable or imitable by conventional instrumentation.
The result is a taming effect on these instrumental covers, and a loss of some of their original impact. These songs are pleasurable to listen to, but I suspect a large part of that pleasure is due to their recognizability as popular songs. Still, a large part is also due to the band’s genuine ability as musicians, so I wouldn’t discount the covers entirely.
Disk one also features a truly stunning rendition of Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King, which has practically screamed out for a heavy-metal cover ever since it was first composed. The rest are originals, and boy are they awesome.
Disk two is much shorter, and seems to contain original songs retrofitted with lyrics and vocals. I think for the most part these songs were better as instrumentals, but that’s me. I prefer the first disk, which I feel has better music and a lot more of it.
Wikipedia claims that Amplified isn’t an album so much as a “best of” compilation, and I’m satisfied that what I’ve got here is some of Apocalyptica’s best work. While I listened to the album Worlds Collide rarely, I hardly listened to this collection at all since I first got it (and I can’t even remember when that was). Shame on me. It’s a good one, and deserves respect and hours of listening.
Next: Funeral
Amplified: A Decade of Reinventing the Cello - Apocalyptica
I have heard rumors that of all musical instruments, cello is measurably most similar to the human voice, and I’m inclined to believe it. As you will see later in this series of reviews, I have a real soft spot in my heart for stringed instruments, especially when paired effectively with voice.The sound of stringed instruments, and cello in particular, inspires an instinctual recognition and empathy that makes for especially emotive music. This may account for part of Apocalyptica’s success: their incorporation of the most emotionally expressive instrument into one of the most emotionally charged genres. However, I think in at least one respect their reliance on cello’s vocal qualities may have counted against them.
Amplified is a two-disk album, and disk one contains several instrumental covers of highly recognizable songs (such as Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters), with cello in place of the vocal part. This makes sense given their style, but while cello does invoke a reaction similar to that of a human voice, it’s still not a voice, and thus is a step below vocals in terms of emotional expressiveness. This counts double in a genre known for having vocalists not just singing, but growling and even screaming - making sounds simply not replicable or imitable by conventional instrumentation.
The result is a taming effect on these instrumental covers, and a loss of some of their original impact. These songs are pleasurable to listen to, but I suspect a large part of that pleasure is due to their recognizability as popular songs. Still, a large part is also due to the band’s genuine ability as musicians, so I wouldn’t discount the covers entirely.
Disk one also features a truly stunning rendition of Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King, which has practically screamed out for a heavy-metal cover ever since it was first composed. The rest are originals, and boy are they awesome.
Disk two is much shorter, and seems to contain original songs retrofitted with lyrics and vocals. I think for the most part these songs were better as instrumentals, but that’s me. I prefer the first disk, which I feel has better music and a lot more of it.
Wikipedia claims that Amplified isn’t an album so much as a “best of” compilation, and I’m satisfied that what I’ve got here is some of Apocalyptica’s best work. While I listened to the album Worlds Collide rarely, I hardly listened to this collection at all since I first got it (and I can’t even remember when that was). Shame on me. It’s a good one, and deserves respect and hours of listening.
Next: Funeral
Sunday, June 15, 2014
All My CDs, pt 3: Worlds Collide
I’m listening to and reviewing every CD in my collection. Three down, countless to go.
Worlds Collide - Apocalyptica
You may recognize Apocalyptica as “that metal band with the cellos.” I remember learning of them many years ago when my brother, whose tastes have always been a bit more pretentious than mine, shared their visually stunning video for Path. Apparently I enjoyed their music enough to buy two of their albums, but have not listened to them very much, and cannot remember the circumstances under which I acquired this one.
In Worlds Collide, the typically instrumental Apocalyptica joins forces with various vocalists for four out of eleven tracks; the rest are in their usual metal-plus-cello instrumental style. Having been drawn to Apocalyptica because of this specific style, I am a little underwhelmed by the tracks with vocals added, which strike me as lyrically unimaginative. I don't think they would have been worth buying on their own, unless I had heard them for the first time as a teenager.
The exception is Helden, a song sung in German by Rammstein’s Till Lindemann. I enjoy it a lot, and it stands out as one of the better songs on the album as a whole. Perhaps this is because music sung in a language the listener does not personally understand is sometimes treated by the brain as a sort of hybrid between instrumentals and lyrical songs, combining aspects of both. Or perhaps I just like Rammstein.
The instrumental tracks I find appealing in a primal, nonintellectual way, much different from the way I enjoy my favorite lyrical musicians. Their mixture of acoustic and electric elements makes them sufficiently metal to satisfy my need to bang my head, but sufficiently melodic to avoid overwhelming the part of me that desires a gentler approach. I imagine they’d be good background for a workout, for heavy chores, or for sex. I know for a fact they make an excellent accompaniment for windows-down summertime highway driving.
This album may not have made it onto my most-played list, but perhaps it deserves more attention than I’ve been able to give it over the years. With my brain often overstimulated by a lifestyle centered mostly on verbal interactions, it might be healthy to enjoy good instrumental music more often, and not just what shows up on the local classical music station.
My favorite song on this album is Peace, marking the third time in a row that my favorite track has been the last on the album. Coincidence?
Next time: Amplified.
Worlds Collide - Apocalyptica
You may recognize Apocalyptica as “that metal band with the cellos.” I remember learning of them many years ago when my brother, whose tastes have always been a bit more pretentious than mine, shared their visually stunning video for Path. Apparently I enjoyed their music enough to buy two of their albums, but have not listened to them very much, and cannot remember the circumstances under which I acquired this one.
In Worlds Collide, the typically instrumental Apocalyptica joins forces with various vocalists for four out of eleven tracks; the rest are in their usual metal-plus-cello instrumental style. Having been drawn to Apocalyptica because of this specific style, I am a little underwhelmed by the tracks with vocals added, which strike me as lyrically unimaginative. I don't think they would have been worth buying on their own, unless I had heard them for the first time as a teenager.
The exception is Helden, a song sung in German by Rammstein’s Till Lindemann. I enjoy it a lot, and it stands out as one of the better songs on the album as a whole. Perhaps this is because music sung in a language the listener does not personally understand is sometimes treated by the brain as a sort of hybrid between instrumentals and lyrical songs, combining aspects of both. Or perhaps I just like Rammstein.
The instrumental tracks I find appealing in a primal, nonintellectual way, much different from the way I enjoy my favorite lyrical musicians. Their mixture of acoustic and electric elements makes them sufficiently metal to satisfy my need to bang my head, but sufficiently melodic to avoid overwhelming the part of me that desires a gentler approach. I imagine they’d be good background for a workout, for heavy chores, or for sex. I know for a fact they make an excellent accompaniment for windows-down summertime highway driving.
This album may not have made it onto my most-played list, but perhaps it deserves more attention than I’ve been able to give it over the years. With my brain often overstimulated by a lifestyle centered mostly on verbal interactions, it might be healthy to enjoy good instrumental music more often, and not just what shows up on the local classical music station.
My favorite song on this album is Peace, marking the third time in a row that my favorite track has been the last on the album. Coincidence?
Next time: Amplified.
Friday, June 13, 2014
All My CDs, pt 2: Little Earthquakes
This could take me well over a year if I hurry, so let’s get right back into it. I’m reviewing all my CDs one by one.
Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos
While Under The Pink was a relatively early acquisition, Little Earthquakes entered my life very recently, in late fall of 2013. I was in the midst of preparing for my first marathon, which I ran in May of 2014, and this album became one of the ones I listened to while running during the coldest months of winter. I know that Tori Amos, with her pensive and sometimes entirely beatless art-songs, is an odd choice for running music, but I could find no more appropriate fare to accompany me on an hour-long, solitary run through a bitter cold, snow-filled park. A few of the songs even make good conventional workout music, such as Happy Phantom and Crucify. The only one I tended to skip over during such times was Me and a Gun, which was simply too slow to keep me moving. But Little Earthquakes, the title track, is one of the better running songs I've encountered, despite a relatively stately tempo.
“Doesn’t take much to rip us into pieces...”
Because it’s only been half a year since I got this album, it hasn’t had a lot of time to sink all the way into the depths of my consciousness. In many ways, it’s still very fresh and unfamiliar to me. I believe that, like with Under the Pink, it may take me several years to really get a sense of what these songs mean to me personally. But that doesn’t mean I don’t already have some ideas.
My impression is that this album is more interconnected than Under the Pink, with songs referring subtly to one another or mirroring each other’s themes in interesting ways, despite differing just as broadly in style and mood. The motherly images in Mother echo the fatherly ones in Winter, and both convey a sense of lost innocence. Other losses and pains are felt in Crucify, Girl, and Me and a Gun, the later of which is definitely the darkest both in words and in sound.Other songs are more cheerful, but still with dark or morbid images, such as Happy Phantom, which opens with the line “If I die today I’ll be the happy phantom.” If that’s not about making the best of a bad situation, I’m not sure what is.
That’s perhaps the central theme, if there is one, of the whole album. Earthquakes may tear our various worlds apart, but they are little, and even the darkest situation may contain some humor. Me and a Gun, while describing a violent rape and its aftermath, says “You can laugh, it’s kind of funny.” We’ve been given permission, then, to not have the end of the world be the end of the world, and to continue seeing good and happiness in a world that also contains death and pain. After all, pain may be what defines our life in the long run.
“Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.”
Next time: Worlds Collide.
Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos
While Under The Pink was a relatively early acquisition, Little Earthquakes entered my life very recently, in late fall of 2013. I was in the midst of preparing for my first marathon, which I ran in May of 2014, and this album became one of the ones I listened to while running during the coldest months of winter. I know that Tori Amos, with her pensive and sometimes entirely beatless art-songs, is an odd choice for running music, but I could find no more appropriate fare to accompany me on an hour-long, solitary run through a bitter cold, snow-filled park. A few of the songs even make good conventional workout music, such as Happy Phantom and Crucify. The only one I tended to skip over during such times was Me and a Gun, which was simply too slow to keep me moving. But Little Earthquakes, the title track, is one of the better running songs I've encountered, despite a relatively stately tempo.“Doesn’t take much to rip us into pieces...”
Because it’s only been half a year since I got this album, it hasn’t had a lot of time to sink all the way into the depths of my consciousness. In many ways, it’s still very fresh and unfamiliar to me. I believe that, like with Under the Pink, it may take me several years to really get a sense of what these songs mean to me personally. But that doesn’t mean I don’t already have some ideas.
My impression is that this album is more interconnected than Under the Pink, with songs referring subtly to one another or mirroring each other’s themes in interesting ways, despite differing just as broadly in style and mood. The motherly images in Mother echo the fatherly ones in Winter, and both convey a sense of lost innocence. Other losses and pains are felt in Crucify, Girl, and Me and a Gun, the later of which is definitely the darkest both in words and in sound.Other songs are more cheerful, but still with dark or morbid images, such as Happy Phantom, which opens with the line “If I die today I’ll be the happy phantom.” If that’s not about making the best of a bad situation, I’m not sure what is.
That’s perhaps the central theme, if there is one, of the whole album. Earthquakes may tear our various worlds apart, but they are little, and even the darkest situation may contain some humor. Me and a Gun, while describing a violent rape and its aftermath, says “You can laugh, it’s kind of funny.” We’ve been given permission, then, to not have the end of the world be the end of the world, and to continue seeing good and happiness in a world that also contains death and pain. After all, pain may be what defines our life in the long run.
“Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.”
Next time: Worlds Collide.
Friday, June 06, 2014
Marathon
On February 17th, 2013, I was crouching on the floor for several minutes working on a jigsaw puzzle. When I stood up, my heart rate didn’t adapt quickly enough to the sudden change of position and my blood pressure dropped precipitously. I fainted. A few seconds later, when I came to, the first thing I became aware of was intense, howling pain: I had sprained my ankle in the fall.
Exercise had been an indispensable part of my life for a few years at that point, and running in particular had become a favorite pastime. Although the pain of the sprain and the severe loss of mobility made almost every aspect of life more difficult or even implausible, I felt the loss of regular exercise most acutely. Almost from the moment I realized I was injured, I began to miss running. It had been an outlet for stress, a way to regulate my energy and health, and even a spiritual practice for me, and now it was impossible. I researched how athletes recover from similar injuries, and counted the days til I could safely run again.
My first run after the injury was on March 9th, about three weeks later. I made it 0.3 miles - as far as the old oak tree in the middle of the block - before the pain forced me to stop. I limped home and waited another two weeks to try again. My second run was even longer - 0.4 miles, as far as the train tracks. A week after that, my third run took me all the way around the block: a whole mile. The pain was slight, manageable, but still there.
Over the month of April I gradually increased the frequency and length of my runs, until the pain was gone and I was back up to the distances I was used to. On April 27th, I ran 7.1 miles without stopping, and thus broke my pre-injury record. That was when I made a decision which would come to consume more than a year of my life after that. I didn’t want to simply return to the level of ability I’d attained prior to spraining my ankle. I wanted to get better than ever. I wanted to dare to achieve even the impossible, or at least what I had always thought of as unattainable. For me, that was the marathon.
A plan began to form in my head. I would work my way up to a half-marathon by the end of the year, and set my sights on running a full marathon at some point during the next year. Since 2014 was the year I would turn 26, the number of miles in a marathon, it felt not just plausible but blessed by the superstitious, pattern-seeking part of my mind that is always looking for favorable omens. 2014 was going to be the year I ran the marathon. I was sure of it.
I ran all summer. I kept track of my miles and times in a spreadsheet I had used to record those first post-sprain runs. My times improved, and so did my gear, as I invested in a belt with bottle holsters so I could carry water with me for longer runs. I signed up for a half-marathon in September, and set up a schedule for when I would reach each milestone on the way to that goal. Every month, I added another mile to my maximum. On August 21st, I ran twice: a three-mile run in the morning and later, as the sun began to set, I ran 13.4 more miles - more than the distance of the half-marathon. I knew I was ready, and felt that this next step was in reach.
On September 8th, I donned a bib and ran the 2013 River Run Half-Marathon in Rocky River Reservation. Expecting to take two and a half hours, I ran it in 2:19:19, and received a finisher’s medal which hangs above my desk.
I was proud, and exhausted, and looked forward to a short break to focus on other things, but I knew that I was not finished yet. The ultimate goal was still a distant one: the full marathon. At that time, I signed up for the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon, which would take place on May 18th, 2014. I took a longer break than I had planned to, and began running again on October 1st.
A challenge I had not anticipated was the coming winter. Running in cold and snow is never pleasant, but that winter was one of the harshest and coldest I had ever experienced, with record-breaking freezes and endless, piling snow. Still, I ran, and sometimes pushed my tired shins through knee-deep drifts that covered the paths in the park. I learned exactly how many layers of clothing were necessary to prevent frostbite, but not broil my insides when I began to work up a sweat. Improvements were slow to come, and setbacks were frequent. My miles per week fluctuated widely with the weather. I began to wonder if I would be ready in time.
When Spring finally came, in fits and spurts of warm wind and melting ice, running became pleasurable once more. I could head out for a run of 8 miles or longer without spending an hour preparing my outfit and psyching myself up for the piercing cold. My optimism returned, but anxiety followed close on its heels: I was running out of time, and didn’t feel ready yet. None of my training runs were close enough to 26 miles to really inspire confidence. I didn’t know if I could do it.
One morning I woke up and realized that there was less than a week left. It was all but over. I didn’t have enough time to improve, so if I wasn’t good enough yet, there was nothing I could do.Dread and excitement ruled me for the next several days. The day before was devoted to nothing but preparation: eating carbohydrates, laying out my gear for the morning, calling my dad to make sure he would be up in time to drive me to the starting line, and going to bed at 7 that evening.
I woke up at 4:20. Miraculously, I seemed to have gotten a full eight hours of sleep.The race would start at 7. I ate toast. Lots of toast. I drank Mountain Dew. I filled my bottles with blue Gatorade and put them in my belt-holsters. I called my dad. It was time to go.
By 6:30 I had checked my glasses, phone, and other non-essential essentials in a transparent bag labeled with my name, and made my way to the starting line near Public Square. The 20,000 runners were “corralled” in order of their expected finishing time, and I found myself near the back of the line, expecting to finish somewhere between five and six hours. I stood in a dense throng of people, in shorts and a tank top, shivering in the 40-degree pre-dawn. Traded jokes with strangers about the impossibility of understanding the amplified voice of an announcer somewhere nearer the front of the line. A singer somewhere up there sang The Star Spangled Banner. I put on my headphones and started the playlist I had put together especially for this purpose. And restarted the first song every few minutes until a signal rippled through the crowd and all began walking forward.
I knew that the clock would not officially begin ticking until the sensor chip in my bib crossed the starting line, but I was eager to begin running. My fingers had gone numb and turned white in the cold, and I desperately needed the circulation. Finally I did cross the starting line, simultaneously starting my stopwatch, and began to run.
***
Hiccups of nervous excitement occasionally rolled up from my chest to my throat and provoked little laughs to escape. Familiar landmarks of the city barely registered in my mind as I passed them. I had not bothered to review the course ahead of time, beyond a brief glance; my plan was just to follow the path ahead and not try to figure out where I was. Since the event consisted of several races at one time, the only thing I really had to pay attention to was when the course diverged from that of the 5k, 10k, or half-marathon runners. To be sure that I hadn’t gone the wrong way, I occasionally glanced around at others’ bibs to see that there were still blue ones like mine in the area. It was still a crowded race.
I felt fast and good. I didn’t know how fast, and didn’t really care. My fingers had gradually lost their numbness and I no longer felt cold. I glanced at my watch a few times, but knew from where I was in my playlist that almost an hour had gone by. It had felt like half that. Shortly after, I crossed the 10k mark. I was ahead of schedule. I reached for a paper cup of Powerade held out by a volunteer and drank it without stopping. Right after drinking it and disposing of the cup, my foot landed on another discarded paper cup. It felt like stepping on a rock with bare feet, so sensitive had my soles become. This was my first sign that my body was getting worn out.
I noticed from my surroundings that I was nearing my own neighborhood, and that soon I would be passing my own building (I knew enough about the course to know this, at least). But I was going the wrong way. I looked around me for blue bibs, but only saw red half-marathon ones. I saw a volunteer up ahead, and approached him.
“Is this still the course for the marathon?”
“Yeah. This is just a checkpoint.”
“The full marathon?”
“Yep.”
I accepted the answer and continued running, but moments later another volunteer chased me down and called out to me.
“Were you asking where the full marathon course is?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“He told you wrong. It split off a few blocks back there,” she said, pointing the opposite direction.
Dread. “Am I very far off course?”
The volunteer shook her head. “No, it’s just a little ways back.”
“Okay! Thanks!”
I turned and ran against the flow of traffic, and sure enough, a few minutes later I saw where the courses diverged. I hadn’t seen the signs pointing me in the right direction. But once I was back where I was supposed to be, all fear was forgotten. I was beginning to fatigue, and had felt myself slow down considerably from that first frenzied hour, but still felt strong.
I left the city of Cleveland and ran down familiar streets - streets I had always seen from the sidewalk, I now ran straight down the center turning lane. This was where I began to see the fastest runners - superhumans like Philip Lagat - powering along in the other direction, on their way back from the other end of the loop. These runners clocked in at almost twelve miles per hour. For them, this was the homestretch, and they were almost done. I still hadn’t reached the halfway point. Still, I smiled when I saw them. I had never expected to reach their level of ability anyway, and it was an honor just to be sharing the racecourse with them.
The next several miles were a blur of suburban houses, paper cups of water, and dwindling but persistent sideline onlookers with their encouraging hand-drawn-signs. The course was no longer crowded. The thousands of runners I had begun with two hours before had been whittled down to just the full-marathoners, and those had been stretched out over almost the entire twenty-six miles as the slowpokes like me fell increasingly behind the faster ones. The few others I saw around me then, my pace-cohorts, would repeatedly show up somewhere in my peripheral vision for hours. They became like friends to me in that strange alternate reality.
It was during this time that I passed the halfway checkpoint. In almost no time at all, I looked up and saw a flag marking the 15th mile, and was audibly amazed. By then I was in outer suburbs that I had never been to before, and had lost all reference for where I was except the placement of those flags at every mile. I looked for them desperately as signals that this was still happening, and an end was somewhere in the future. My hips had begun hurting, and the soles of my feet were raw. Then, I reached the end of the loop and found myself going back the way I had come. I was on the way back to center of Cleveland. It felt like a landmark in itself.
It was shortly after that - somewhere during mile 18 - that I reached for yet another paper cup of Powerade and stumbled. My hips seemed to buckle, and I almost stopped. A volunteer came and put his hand on my shoulder, saying “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I gasped. “I just need a minute.” I drank while walking (having stopped myself from stopping), and a moment later, shoved my legs back into running. As luck would have it, that was when a song began on my playlist that I had placed there specifically for when I am having trouble going on. When it began, I found it easier to match my strides to the beat of the music, and was back up to a pace I could feel confident in. I punched my hurting hip once with my fist, urging it to keep working, although this may not have been necessary (or helpful).
It was a short-lived second-wind. Barely a mile later, I was done for. I slowed to a walk. I wasn’t giving up, but I just could not run another step. Not now. It hurt. I sucked on a bottle of Gatorade from my belt and focused on moving forward at whatever speed.
I walked for fifteen minutes, less than a mile. I was walking when I re-entered familiar neighborhoods. I wasn’t entirely aware of where I was, though. So I was surprised when I recognized, off in the distance, my family standing on the sidelines. I didn’t find the sight of them inspiring so much as galling. I had planned to walk another five minutes before attempting to run again, but this was not going to happen. With a sigh and an inward nod to the pain, I forced myself into a run.
From then on, it was a dogged, stubborn struggle against my body. It hurt, and it begged for rest. Meanwhile, I had forgotten what rest was. Stopping was not an option. My pace fluctuated, but I gauged my success only by whether I was running or walking. Other runners around me were alternating between running and walking, and in one particularly dark-humored moment I realized that a person ahead was walking faster than me - and I was running.
I stopped once to use a porta-potty right before entering the Shoreway. The flags told me that only a few miles remained. This was the best news I had ever received.
The Shoreway was easily the most surreal stretch of the imagination I had encountered. To run or walk at any speed down the middle of an abandoned highway, littered with dead animals and other debris that don’t get cleared away as on city streets, after more than twenty miles’ worth of exhaustion, is like the perfect metaphor for desolation. Almost no other runners were around, and when I did see one, their presence barely made a mark on my consciousness. It was in the middle of this wasteland that I saw the flag marking the end of the 25th mile, and I swear when I read it I had an orgasm.
One mile left.
Every step was pain, but I had forgotten what it was like not to hurt. I felt like I was barely moving forward at all, but I was running, not walking. An indeterminate amount of time later, I saw a figure up ahead, standing on the sidelines, that I recognized. My brother. The moment I saw him, I doubled my speed, ignoring the screams of my joints and muscles and feet. I saw him say something into his phone and, when I had reached him, he turned and ran at my side.
“How far is it?” I asked. I didn’t hear his answer, but it was 200 yards.
It was so close. I left the highway and was downtown, and saw the finish line just as my brother pointed it out. He told me he had to leave, and made his way back to the sidelines. I kept running as fast as I could, thinking, at least I can finish fast. I was aware of cameras clicking when I approached and crossed the finish line, simultaneously stopping my watch, five hours and thirty-five minutes after I had begun.
***
I tell people that I like running because it’s cheap, solitary, and simple: all I need is my own body and the space to do it. No special equipment (although many specialized products are available), no teammates to coordinate schedules with (although running in pairs or groups can be fun), and no complex rules or techniques to master (although there are volumes to read on how to improve form and performance, often with contradictory or dubious science behind them).
I feel now that my running experience has not been simple, and is far from solitary. Like the authors of books with long acknowledgment pages, I have many people to thank for this victory, and although that road seemed lonely at times, I look back and realize that I never ran completely alone.
These people I thank: my family, especially Ian who ran those last few steps alongside me, and my father who brought me to the starting line. My friends, especially Erin who, true to her word, was waiting at the finish line with a Chipotle burrito ordered to my exact specifications, and Ahmie, the best wheelchair-using cheerleader one could hope for, applauding every training milestone.
Although most of my training was solo, I also thank everyone who ever joined me for a run, including Ian, Vivian, Melinda, and George. And even when I was solo, I thank the many musicians whose songs occupied my ears while my body was busy, especially Imagine Dragons, Fall Out Boy, Vienna Teng, Indigo Girls, Hank Green, Tim Minchin, Igor Stravinsky, Tori Amos, Nikki Minaj, Chameleon Circuit, Andrew Calhoun, Course of Empire, and probably others, I mean, I listen to a lot of music.
I thank the administrators of the race, and the 20,000 runners who joined me that morning and stood in that way-too-cold street waiting for the signal. And, of course, the athletes, scientists, engineers, and other contributors who have worked to turn running from a simple defense mechanism into something that an affluent, sedentary individual might undertake to do regularly and far beyond what is called for in any rational sense if she knows what’s good for her. I mean, come on.
I’ve signed up for a 5k race in just five weeks’ time. Hopefully, it will be my longest run for a while.
Exercise had been an indispensable part of my life for a few years at that point, and running in particular had become a favorite pastime. Although the pain of the sprain and the severe loss of mobility made almost every aspect of life more difficult or even implausible, I felt the loss of regular exercise most acutely. Almost from the moment I realized I was injured, I began to miss running. It had been an outlet for stress, a way to regulate my energy and health, and even a spiritual practice for me, and now it was impossible. I researched how athletes recover from similar injuries, and counted the days til I could safely run again.
My first run after the injury was on March 9th, about three weeks later. I made it 0.3 miles - as far as the old oak tree in the middle of the block - before the pain forced me to stop. I limped home and waited another two weeks to try again. My second run was even longer - 0.4 miles, as far as the train tracks. A week after that, my third run took me all the way around the block: a whole mile. The pain was slight, manageable, but still there.
Over the month of April I gradually increased the frequency and length of my runs, until the pain was gone and I was back up to the distances I was used to. On April 27th, I ran 7.1 miles without stopping, and thus broke my pre-injury record. That was when I made a decision which would come to consume more than a year of my life after that. I didn’t want to simply return to the level of ability I’d attained prior to spraining my ankle. I wanted to get better than ever. I wanted to dare to achieve even the impossible, or at least what I had always thought of as unattainable. For me, that was the marathon.
A plan began to form in my head. I would work my way up to a half-marathon by the end of the year, and set my sights on running a full marathon at some point during the next year. Since 2014 was the year I would turn 26, the number of miles in a marathon, it felt not just plausible but blessed by the superstitious, pattern-seeking part of my mind that is always looking for favorable omens. 2014 was going to be the year I ran the marathon. I was sure of it.
I ran all summer. I kept track of my miles and times in a spreadsheet I had used to record those first post-sprain runs. My times improved, and so did my gear, as I invested in a belt with bottle holsters so I could carry water with me for longer runs. I signed up for a half-marathon in September, and set up a schedule for when I would reach each milestone on the way to that goal. Every month, I added another mile to my maximum. On August 21st, I ran twice: a three-mile run in the morning and later, as the sun began to set, I ran 13.4 more miles - more than the distance of the half-marathon. I knew I was ready, and felt that this next step was in reach.
On September 8th, I donned a bib and ran the 2013 River Run Half-Marathon in Rocky River Reservation. Expecting to take two and a half hours, I ran it in 2:19:19, and received a finisher’s medal which hangs above my desk.
I was proud, and exhausted, and looked forward to a short break to focus on other things, but I knew that I was not finished yet. The ultimate goal was still a distant one: the full marathon. At that time, I signed up for the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon, which would take place on May 18th, 2014. I took a longer break than I had planned to, and began running again on October 1st.
A challenge I had not anticipated was the coming winter. Running in cold and snow is never pleasant, but that winter was one of the harshest and coldest I had ever experienced, with record-breaking freezes and endless, piling snow. Still, I ran, and sometimes pushed my tired shins through knee-deep drifts that covered the paths in the park. I learned exactly how many layers of clothing were necessary to prevent frostbite, but not broil my insides when I began to work up a sweat. Improvements were slow to come, and setbacks were frequent. My miles per week fluctuated widely with the weather. I began to wonder if I would be ready in time.
When Spring finally came, in fits and spurts of warm wind and melting ice, running became pleasurable once more. I could head out for a run of 8 miles or longer without spending an hour preparing my outfit and psyching myself up for the piercing cold. My optimism returned, but anxiety followed close on its heels: I was running out of time, and didn’t feel ready yet. None of my training runs were close enough to 26 miles to really inspire confidence. I didn’t know if I could do it.
One morning I woke up and realized that there was less than a week left. It was all but over. I didn’t have enough time to improve, so if I wasn’t good enough yet, there was nothing I could do.Dread and excitement ruled me for the next several days. The day before was devoted to nothing but preparation: eating carbohydrates, laying out my gear for the morning, calling my dad to make sure he would be up in time to drive me to the starting line, and going to bed at 7 that evening.
I woke up at 4:20. Miraculously, I seemed to have gotten a full eight hours of sleep.The race would start at 7. I ate toast. Lots of toast. I drank Mountain Dew. I filled my bottles with blue Gatorade and put them in my belt-holsters. I called my dad. It was time to go.
By 6:30 I had checked my glasses, phone, and other non-essential essentials in a transparent bag labeled with my name, and made my way to the starting line near Public Square. The 20,000 runners were “corralled” in order of their expected finishing time, and I found myself near the back of the line, expecting to finish somewhere between five and six hours. I stood in a dense throng of people, in shorts and a tank top, shivering in the 40-degree pre-dawn. Traded jokes with strangers about the impossibility of understanding the amplified voice of an announcer somewhere nearer the front of the line. A singer somewhere up there sang The Star Spangled Banner. I put on my headphones and started the playlist I had put together especially for this purpose. And restarted the first song every few minutes until a signal rippled through the crowd and all began walking forward.
I knew that the clock would not officially begin ticking until the sensor chip in my bib crossed the starting line, but I was eager to begin running. My fingers had gone numb and turned white in the cold, and I desperately needed the circulation. Finally I did cross the starting line, simultaneously starting my stopwatch, and began to run.
***
Hiccups of nervous excitement occasionally rolled up from my chest to my throat and provoked little laughs to escape. Familiar landmarks of the city barely registered in my mind as I passed them. I had not bothered to review the course ahead of time, beyond a brief glance; my plan was just to follow the path ahead and not try to figure out where I was. Since the event consisted of several races at one time, the only thing I really had to pay attention to was when the course diverged from that of the 5k, 10k, or half-marathon runners. To be sure that I hadn’t gone the wrong way, I occasionally glanced around at others’ bibs to see that there were still blue ones like mine in the area. It was still a crowded race.
I felt fast and good. I didn’t know how fast, and didn’t really care. My fingers had gradually lost their numbness and I no longer felt cold. I glanced at my watch a few times, but knew from where I was in my playlist that almost an hour had gone by. It had felt like half that. Shortly after, I crossed the 10k mark. I was ahead of schedule. I reached for a paper cup of Powerade held out by a volunteer and drank it without stopping. Right after drinking it and disposing of the cup, my foot landed on another discarded paper cup. It felt like stepping on a rock with bare feet, so sensitive had my soles become. This was my first sign that my body was getting worn out.
I noticed from my surroundings that I was nearing my own neighborhood, and that soon I would be passing my own building (I knew enough about the course to know this, at least). But I was going the wrong way. I looked around me for blue bibs, but only saw red half-marathon ones. I saw a volunteer up ahead, and approached him.
“Is this still the course for the marathon?”
“Yeah. This is just a checkpoint.”
“The full marathon?”
“Yep.”
I accepted the answer and continued running, but moments later another volunteer chased me down and called out to me.
“Were you asking where the full marathon course is?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“He told you wrong. It split off a few blocks back there,” she said, pointing the opposite direction.
Dread. “Am I very far off course?”
The volunteer shook her head. “No, it’s just a little ways back.”
“Okay! Thanks!”
I turned and ran against the flow of traffic, and sure enough, a few minutes later I saw where the courses diverged. I hadn’t seen the signs pointing me in the right direction. But once I was back where I was supposed to be, all fear was forgotten. I was beginning to fatigue, and had felt myself slow down considerably from that first frenzied hour, but still felt strong.
I left the city of Cleveland and ran down familiar streets - streets I had always seen from the sidewalk, I now ran straight down the center turning lane. This was where I began to see the fastest runners - superhumans like Philip Lagat - powering along in the other direction, on their way back from the other end of the loop. These runners clocked in at almost twelve miles per hour. For them, this was the homestretch, and they were almost done. I still hadn’t reached the halfway point. Still, I smiled when I saw them. I had never expected to reach their level of ability anyway, and it was an honor just to be sharing the racecourse with them.
The next several miles were a blur of suburban houses, paper cups of water, and dwindling but persistent sideline onlookers with their encouraging hand-drawn-signs. The course was no longer crowded. The thousands of runners I had begun with two hours before had been whittled down to just the full-marathoners, and those had been stretched out over almost the entire twenty-six miles as the slowpokes like me fell increasingly behind the faster ones. The few others I saw around me then, my pace-cohorts, would repeatedly show up somewhere in my peripheral vision for hours. They became like friends to me in that strange alternate reality.
It was during this time that I passed the halfway checkpoint. In almost no time at all, I looked up and saw a flag marking the 15th mile, and was audibly amazed. By then I was in outer suburbs that I had never been to before, and had lost all reference for where I was except the placement of those flags at every mile. I looked for them desperately as signals that this was still happening, and an end was somewhere in the future. My hips had begun hurting, and the soles of my feet were raw. Then, I reached the end of the loop and found myself going back the way I had come. I was on the way back to center of Cleveland. It felt like a landmark in itself.
It was shortly after that - somewhere during mile 18 - that I reached for yet another paper cup of Powerade and stumbled. My hips seemed to buckle, and I almost stopped. A volunteer came and put his hand on my shoulder, saying “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I gasped. “I just need a minute.” I drank while walking (having stopped myself from stopping), and a moment later, shoved my legs back into running. As luck would have it, that was when a song began on my playlist that I had placed there specifically for when I am having trouble going on. When it began, I found it easier to match my strides to the beat of the music, and was back up to a pace I could feel confident in. I punched my hurting hip once with my fist, urging it to keep working, although this may not have been necessary (or helpful).
It was a short-lived second-wind. Barely a mile later, I was done for. I slowed to a walk. I wasn’t giving up, but I just could not run another step. Not now. It hurt. I sucked on a bottle of Gatorade from my belt and focused on moving forward at whatever speed.
I walked for fifteen minutes, less than a mile. I was walking when I re-entered familiar neighborhoods. I wasn’t entirely aware of where I was, though. So I was surprised when I recognized, off in the distance, my family standing on the sidelines. I didn’t find the sight of them inspiring so much as galling. I had planned to walk another five minutes before attempting to run again, but this was not going to happen. With a sigh and an inward nod to the pain, I forced myself into a run.
From then on, it was a dogged, stubborn struggle against my body. It hurt, and it begged for rest. Meanwhile, I had forgotten what rest was. Stopping was not an option. My pace fluctuated, but I gauged my success only by whether I was running or walking. Other runners around me were alternating between running and walking, and in one particularly dark-humored moment I realized that a person ahead was walking faster than me - and I was running.
I stopped once to use a porta-potty right before entering the Shoreway. The flags told me that only a few miles remained. This was the best news I had ever received.
The Shoreway was easily the most surreal stretch of the imagination I had encountered. To run or walk at any speed down the middle of an abandoned highway, littered with dead animals and other debris that don’t get cleared away as on city streets, after more than twenty miles’ worth of exhaustion, is like the perfect metaphor for desolation. Almost no other runners were around, and when I did see one, their presence barely made a mark on my consciousness. It was in the middle of this wasteland that I saw the flag marking the end of the 25th mile, and I swear when I read it I had an orgasm.
One mile left.
Every step was pain, but I had forgotten what it was like not to hurt. I felt like I was barely moving forward at all, but I was running, not walking. An indeterminate amount of time later, I saw a figure up ahead, standing on the sidelines, that I recognized. My brother. The moment I saw him, I doubled my speed, ignoring the screams of my joints and muscles and feet. I saw him say something into his phone and, when I had reached him, he turned and ran at my side.
“How far is it?” I asked. I didn’t hear his answer, but it was 200 yards.
It was so close. I left the highway and was downtown, and saw the finish line just as my brother pointed it out. He told me he had to leave, and made his way back to the sidelines. I kept running as fast as I could, thinking, at least I can finish fast. I was aware of cameras clicking when I approached and crossed the finish line, simultaneously stopping my watch, five hours and thirty-five minutes after I had begun.
***
I tell people that I like running because it’s cheap, solitary, and simple: all I need is my own body and the space to do it. No special equipment (although many specialized products are available), no teammates to coordinate schedules with (although running in pairs or groups can be fun), and no complex rules or techniques to master (although there are volumes to read on how to improve form and performance, often with contradictory or dubious science behind them).
I feel now that my running experience has not been simple, and is far from solitary. Like the authors of books with long acknowledgment pages, I have many people to thank for this victory, and although that road seemed lonely at times, I look back and realize that I never ran completely alone.
These people I thank: my family, especially Ian who ran those last few steps alongside me, and my father who brought me to the starting line. My friends, especially Erin who, true to her word, was waiting at the finish line with a Chipotle burrito ordered to my exact specifications, and Ahmie, the best wheelchair-using cheerleader one could hope for, applauding every training milestone.
Although most of my training was solo, I also thank everyone who ever joined me for a run, including Ian, Vivian, Melinda, and George. And even when I was solo, I thank the many musicians whose songs occupied my ears while my body was busy, especially Imagine Dragons, Fall Out Boy, Vienna Teng, Indigo Girls, Hank Green, Tim Minchin, Igor Stravinsky, Tori Amos, Nikki Minaj, Chameleon Circuit, Andrew Calhoun, Course of Empire, and probably others, I mean, I listen to a lot of music.
I thank the administrators of the race, and the 20,000 runners who joined me that morning and stood in that way-too-cold street waiting for the signal. And, of course, the athletes, scientists, engineers, and other contributors who have worked to turn running from a simple defense mechanism into something that an affluent, sedentary individual might undertake to do regularly and far beyond what is called for in any rational sense if she knows what’s good for her. I mean, come on.
I’ve signed up for a 5k race in just five weeks’ time. Hopefully, it will be my longest run for a while.
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
All My CDs, pt 1: Under the Pink
Here’s how it’s going to happen. One by one, starting with the one on the top left of this shelf, I’m going to listen to and review each and every CD I own. They’ll go in the order they’re currently shelved in, which is roughly alphabetical, but maybe not strictly. And until each one has been listened to and reviewed, I won’t buy any new CDs. Sound fair?
Okay, let’s begin.
Under The Pink - Tori Amos
In February of 2007, I was 19, a late bloomer, and recently rejected for the first time by someone I had fallen hard for. In his words, he “really valued my friendship” - a platitude often meant insincerely, but in this case apparently true. He and I remain very close friends to this day. Still, to say that it depressed me would have been an understatement. I was devastated.
At the time I had been listening to Pandora internet radio, and my favorite personalized station had been built around the collaboration between Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet known as The Juliet Letters. The similar music that Pandora’s algorithms chose for me often had distinctive singers accompanied by string or piano with an acoustic, artsy style, and one of the songs that frequently came up was Tori Amos’s Baker Baker. Its lovelorn lyrics and melancholy melody echoed my inner state in the wake of that heartbreak, and I bought the album so I could listen to it more often. My young self was instantly enamored with this artist I had heard so much about.
Seven years later, the album is still adept at plucking my tenderest heartstrings. For me music, more so than many other art forms, is the language of the heart where it diverges from the mind. Tori Amos, with her emotive voice and often extra-rational words, is particularly fluent in that language. My experience of Under the Pink as an album has evolved since that first listening, but remains as strong. Having weathered several breakups since then, including the breaking of my engagement less than a month before the wedding, Baker Baker has a few more bittersweet memories attached to it. It inhabits a space in the healing process somewhere between regret and acceptance - the mind is still searching for a way back, while the heart knows that time can only move forward.
Most of the album is similarly artful and melancholy, with thoughtful but largely figurative language that takes some attention and imagination to really appreciate. The topics, once parsed, are far-ranging and occasionally taboo-breaching, as with Icicle, which brazenly addresses the uncomfortable subject of children’s’ sexuality and is even so bold as to juxtapose it with religious imagery. The sinister Bells for Her carefully avoids facing its true subject directly, but its fearful-sounding piano and ominous vocal tone betrays its reference to the intimate danger that inspires such silence in its victims. “I said you don’t need my voice ‘cause you have your own...”
Other songs are less contemplative than disruptive. Then, as now, God is a bit too discordant for my taste, and I’m uncommonly tolerant of discord. This Waitress also gets my goat, even though (perhaps because?) I understand how belief in peace does not necessarily quench the desire to kill. Cornflake Girl is more to my liking when I’m in the mood for something with a beat. I’m still not sure what a cornflake girl is, but still suspect that I never was one either. Plus it’s fun to sing “You bet your life it is!” at the top of your voice on the highway.
Pretty Good Year seems to tie the whole thing together, and makes an appropriate first track, somehow encompassing a multitude of complimentary moods in a relatively short and light-filled space. In contrast Yes Anastasia, the concluding track, is a sprawling ten-minute opus exploring a world of mostly-dark themes. If I had to choose a favorite (and cultural convention says that I must) then this would be it, if only because of its length. I never really want a good song to end, and this one takes a satisfyingly long time to build its first tentative notes into a rousing and energetic climax.
Even after all these years there are several songs whose meanings elude me, though I enjoy them as much as the rest of the album. The Wrong Band, Cloud on My Tongue, and Space Dog are as enjoyable as they are incomprehensible, and serve to remind me that art need not be fully accessible to be appreciated. Somewhere between the voice and the instruments, the words and their sound, lies a magical, ineffable connection to the transcendent. Perhaps, with more years and more listenings, I will start to get a feeling of what these songs mean for me. Until then, I will simply enjoy them as beautiful nonsense.
Next time: Little Earthquakes
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