Who has a chance to see John Legend tomorrow? Oh yeah, that’d be THIS GIRL.
“Save Room” / John Legend (2004)
Also, I like this one too. So let’s do co-SOTDs today, shall we?
“Green Light” / John Legend ft. Andre 3000 (2008)
This video is cute for about ten seconds, then gets old. Also, this is the only song I can think of that’s sung from the point of view of a cat.
“A Plea from a cat named Virtute” / The Weakerthans (2003)
Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood / Koren Zailckas / Penguin, 2005
First of all, let’s make this clear: Koren Zailckas is not an alcoholic.
She is a young woman who began experimenting with alcohol before starting high school, and continued past her college graduation into her first post-grad job. Her use of alcohol is classified as abusive, but her attachment was complexly emotional and psychological. Any disease, as it were, would be more accurately labelled as dysfunction.
And, oh, how dysfunctional she was.
Not at all the cliched “party girl,” “sorority slut” or <insert pop culture stereotype here>, Zailckas describes a young woman whose wounds are deeply internal, a girl rubbed raw from the inside by any number of amorphous torments. This is to say that her life is devoid of those tired-and-usually-untrue stories: she did not grow up in poverty, and she had no alcoholic parents, abusive upbringing or traumatic life experiences pre- her first encounter with alcohol.
Instead, she’s just a shy kid from the suburbs who happened to develop a (psychological) taste for vodka before she even took the PSATs.
This book details how drinking affected her self-image (positively, when she was drunk; negatively, when she was hungover), her friendships (beer bonds giving way to fights whose origins she could not even understand) and her relationships with men (only possible when socially lubricated). It’s all brutally honest, sometimes uncomfortably so, particularly as she describes a situation or thought that might be familiar to the reader.
And this is why Zailckas’ story is important (not just as the obvious “cautionary tale”): it reminds us that there is a very wide swath of gray area between those who abstain from alcohol and those whose bodies are physically dependent on it. I’m not sure I’ve read or seen any depictions of alcohol use that really nailed down the phenomenon of abusive drinking as well as this one: somewhere along the way, someone decided that sordid tales of hopeless alcohol dependency were far more interesting than examining lives lead by an emotional, clinging-on to the stuff.
But Zailckas shows us this is not at all true.
Overall: if you’re looking for a superficial string of stories fueled by immature binge drinking, this is not it. Smashed is more deep and emotionally intelligent than it first appears and this, it turns out, is a very good thing.
*Also, for what it’s worth, I think this book would make for interesting and informative reading for a college freshman seminar. It could be easily supplemented with slightly more up-to-date statistics and raises innumerable probing questions: an excellent catalyst for discussion.
Well, kids, I’m back. Went on a brief sojourn to Indiana, bookended by a stop in every major airport out of which Delta Airlines flies. It’s a long, not particularly interesting, story but I’ll tell it later. For now, here’s a variety of SOTDs to summarize my trip to make up for the dearth of previous postings:
This first one was a Trivial Pursuit question answer (question: how many tickets to paradise did Eddie Money have?). We found that increasing the number of tickets and changing the song lyrics is a more entertaining way to sing the song (i.e. “I’ve got 14 tickets to paradise! And I’m taking my immediate family except for my cousin who rarely showers!”). This one’s for you, Jamie:
“Two tickets to paradise” / Eddie Money (1977)
Next, a little number from Everyone’s Favorite Former Symbol. This one goes out to Casey: may your son one day grow to appreciate Prince as much as you do.
“Wonderful Ass” / Prince (1987)
And last, an homage to the college bar at which we played a drinking game called Sink the Biz with pitchers of ice-cold Busch Light. We are classy, yes, but we are also economical.
“I love college” / Asher Roth (2009)
“If I ever leave this world alive” / Flogging Molly (2002)
REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” translated from English into Spanish via BabelFish, then translated from the Spanish back into the English:
I fight of this sensation longer
but I’m still scared to let demonstrate it.
Begun what since friendship has grown more fort.
Desire only that had the force to let demonstrate it
I say that I cannot be maintained towards outside by always.
I say that there is reason of my no fear.
Because I feel so surely when we are together.
You give my direction of the life, you you do everything so clearly.
And even during vague, I am maintaining seen to him.
You are a candle in the window in winter’s cold, dark night.
And I am obtaining more close than I never thought that I could.
And I cannot fight this sensation more.
I have forgotten so I began to fight.
And if I must drag to me on the floor,
come crashing through its door,
baby I cannot fight this sensation more
My life has been such eddy since I saw him.
I have around been working in circles in my mind.
And it seems whenever I am following to him, girl.
Because take me to the places that only never would find.
And even during vague, I am maintaining seen to him.
You are a candle in the window in winter’s cold, dark night.
And I am obtaining more close than I never thought that I could.
And I cannot fight this sensation more.
I have forgotten so I began to fight.
And if I must drag to me on the floor,
come crashing through its door,
baby I cannot fight this sensation more
Oh, Sufjan, you always get me right *here*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mr_VkAXWZA
“All the trees of the field will clap their hands” / Sufjan Stevens (2004)
I just heard this song on the radio. Why hasn’t this song been written before now?* Also, Jarrod Niemann does not look like I thought he looked like.
“Lover, Lover” / Jarrod Niemann (2010)
*Coincidentally enough, I like this song for how it’s written. Guess this dude has written a lot of songs for a lot of other people. Go fig.
There were only two times when this song was not funny to me. Also, sorry for the crappy video.
“She’s on time” / Barenaked Ladies (1998)
the sloppy copy 