Dance Music

Okay, let's get one thing STRAIGHT: Pop does not /Rock, and Rap is just Crap with the C off the front. Maybe I'm an ignorant fool, and there really is a deeper message behind all those pop/rap songs which sound exactly the same--but at least I'm an ignorant fool with musical taste!

Here's how it is, written by an authentic stuck-in-60's-and-70's girl: I think they should play soul and rock music at dances. No, seriously! I confess that when I attend a school dance, the rap and bouncing around is thrilling and really fun, for a time, especially with all the lights and glitzy effects and stuff. But as soon as my quadriceps begin to ache and I want to sit down for a dance or two, I have to go outside, where I can't hear the music. To me, rap really isn't catchy at all! I lose interest in the dancing if I can't find my friends, because the music sucks so bad, I can't just listen and have fun by myself. I can only return to the dance floor when they're playing something with a TUNE, which is usually some sappy slow song about "don't-leave-me-girl-or-i'll-do-something-really-bad-like-sing-in-a-falsetto". I think if they played good 60's and 70's rock and soul music there, people could sit out dances and still enjoy it--plus we wouldn't all have to listen to slow songs, thinking, "Oh, I wish I hadn't eaten those refreshments."

And see, I don't object to the fact that the only songs played at dances are ones about broken hearts or new relationships or all that fun and happy lurrrve stuff. Not at all! I'm not telling everyone to play anti-government songs at dances; that's not what I mean when I say 60's and 70's! The themes for the songs were a lot the same in those days as they are these days, and hell! I don't care. But half the time, whether we're listening to old music or current crap, we don't understand half the words. So while we're at it, why don't we pick songs where we can enjoy the tune at least?

You don't all have to take my hate of current music to heart, seeing as I am writing this post while listening to "The Very Best of Aretha Franklin", and it's hard for me to listen to a singer like Aretha and admire today's pop singers. But here's all I'm saying: why don't we bring back some of the old songs, the ones in which tunes existed?

TFATF!!!!
-Ahaneen :D

Emma, Mother of my Father's Father

So for Christmas, as she often does, my aunt Sue sent us a card, a pretty tree ornament, and some old family pictures. Both of my paternal great-grandmothers' single portraits (when they were young women) were in there. Both of my great-grandmothers were coincidentally named Emma. Emma, the mother of my father's father, had such a strange-looking picture: stolid, as many at that time were, but one whose stolidity naturally evoked respect. Her face was rather like a gypsy's, as are many on my dad's side of the family--dark eyes and hair, thin-faced, and almost harsh-looking. (These are traits which I didn't inherit, with my blond hair and blue eyes, and a rather unbecoming laugh.) looked at it and was like, "Wow. This is my great-grandmother. Ain't it cool to be related to someone like this? What would I say to my great-grandmother, if she and I could speak together just once?" Well, I didn't continue on this vein long, but just for old lang zine, this is an address to Emma, Mother of my Father's Father:

My first impression of you, great-grandmother, is that you resemble a gypsy, those wandering people who fascinated me for all of sixth and seventh grade. You are a pilgrim, in many ways: you were a German in New Zealand for all of your youth, until you married Jacob and made the perilous voyage to America. You were young, I know, around twenty--a good Lutheran, you were, to marry a preacher. I wonder what you would think if you knew my faith is proportionally less than yours. But forgive me, great-grandmother. Be consoled by the fact that your son Walt and grandson my father are both very strict Christians--perhaps too much so, for their own good. I don't know where Walt stood on the age line of your eight children. What I do know is how, when you left for America on that tightly-packed ship, your youngest child died of some disease before he saw the United States. God rest him. But you probably bore it well--if you are so strong and stolid as you look in that picture. Sadly, I'm not sure we share too much in common, personalitywise. But who could tell? I've just seen one picture of you, and maybe we have a good deal of similarity to our souls.

Ah well. I've just been wanting to get my thoughts straightened out on that subject. A strange thing, addressing a photo. But hell. Old lang zine!
TFATF
-Ahaneen
p.s. Not all the names in this post are accurate, though Emma is.

FUNKY (BUT HONEST) POEM!!!!

This bit of lyrical work is dedicated to all those who are infatuated with a laugher, dreamer, killer, or a few in one.

hey laugher
why you make me cry so much?
your two sweet lips are so lovely when they smile
my love for you's as long as the nile
on your breath always flows something witty or clever
think i could speak its equal but not in forever
when you laugh at me, it's always with good will
told myself it's over, but I'm looking at you still
make life rise to its peak and death disappear down the hill
laugher
you make the sun stand still

dreamer
why must i sigh so much?
your mind is something i could never comprehend
wish I could make you believe i was more than just your friend
you talk of time and love and god and the establishment
but I'm always too far gone to talk about what's sent
i know you're as deep as i am but if for once you understood
I'm not sure this new acquaintance will do me much good
take the highest to the extreme and make me wonder if i could
dreamer
i don't know if i should

killer
why do i die so much?
it's in you that i have finally become the freest of free
can't help thinking its you that made me me
i don't know if it is love which i am feeling
there's a lot of people who've made it sound unappealing
but whenever I'm around you i just say who gives a damn
i figure this is life and that you are who i am
on the day i met you i saw the fish fly and the birds swam
dreamer
it can't all be a scam?

laugher, dreamer, killer
you strike me sweet as stars
stop me swift as the setting sun
make me mad as mars
melt me like the moon...!

"Christmas -All -The -Time -Because -We're -Actually -Ignorant -Fools -Who -Copied -The -Romans"

This post encompasses the ambiguity of the phrase "Winter Break" as you really think about it. If you don't give a shit, buzz off! :)
So, it's nice to have a couple o' weeks off. Most of my time is spent writing a tag-team story with one of my abundant friends (Well I guess they're not really ABUNDANT), playing "Stairway To Heaven" on my acoustic millions of times though I remain a failure at it, and watching Johnny Depp movies. I would have made a trip to the library today to get a few books and bring my mind back to life, but it's pouring outside. So I guess I'm a bit Under the Weather in Under the Rain today.
As soon as my mom gets back, I'll probably learn the REAL meaning of "Winter Break": it means that you spend your winter "breaking" your ass around the house, doing chores for God knows who, or perhaps going to Jackson Park to break your ass sledding. I don't know about you, but the second one appeals to me more.
And I STILL haven't gotten a single trip of X-mas shopping in, and have absolutely no idea what to get my parents. Mothers never seem to want to tell you what they want for X-mas or their birthday or whatever.

And what is with gift-giving anyway? Sorry to be a misanthrope, but for God's sake, we don't even KNOW when Jesus was born. Yes, the Roman records show that he did indeed exist and that he was indeed crucified, but we don't know the date of his birth. We Christians just assigned Biblical meaning to the Roman holidays; thus "Yule" became the supposed date when Jesus Christ was born. Now, I ask you this: if all this gift-giving is supposed to be celebratory of the wise men giving gifts to the baby Jesus, and we have no idea when Jesus was born, then why don't we all just slack off and give gifts when we want during the year? For one thing, it would certainly release unneeded holiday tension. For another, nobody would suddenly be pressed to know exactly what they want. They could just tell a relative any time of the year when an idea pops up, and that relative would give them their "annual Christmas gift". This plan would, theoretically, slim down the dense commercialism of the Yule season, making malls less jammed and wrapping paper more accessible.
So why don't we do this? I mean, SOMEONE has to have had these thoughts before. I mean someone more influential than me, like maybe a dude in Congress. SO why haven't we adopted the system of "Christmas all the time because we're actually ignorant fools who copied the Romans"? Because of this little thing called CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. It's what makes the holidays special for a lot of us. It is, really, the reason for Christmas Break in the first place: I mean, no one can get holiday gift-shopping done with school and work and all that. It's the reason for Santa's image. It's the gleam of snow outside someone's door that says: "Happy Holidays!" Which means that we REALLY give gifts because of the material prompts all around us.
That said, since I come from a family which thinks of Christmas as a religious and not material holiday (except the agnostic me), I don't have to buy gifts this year! Woohoo! Winter Break is suddenly looking a lot better.
Bye now--I'm off to Jackson Park.
-Ahaneen

When We Gonna Make It Work?

Guess what time it is, kiddies? It's time for "guess which song the title is a lyric of?"
Actually, no. It's time to divulge the latest happenings of my life, which include a mad move, a freaky english project and, yes, a red herring.
Minus the red herring part. I lied.
Anyway: short news first. The aforementioned wierd old couple (remember Jenny and Rob?) are movin' out. I guess this neighborhood won't ever be the same again--but then, that might be a good thing. At least now that they're moving, they've taken down the bag of Tostitos from the top of their frigidaire, a frigidaire which our entire family could see from our kitchen nook window. Geez, those Tostitos must have been there for months.
Second news: I have one new english project and two new hates. The two hates are
1) balsa wood
2) super glue
This english project involves building a mini-set for a play we read, out of materials such as balsa wood, super glue and card board. Card board, besides the fact that it could be cement for all that my scissors do to it when trying to cut, is okay. Balsa wood is not. Super glue tastes bad (I'll get to that later). And I am a stupid person. A real spaz.
The first stupid thing I did last night when constructing mini-furniture for my mini-stage was to paint a bunch of the pieces and then try to glue them together with Superglue while the paint was drying. Quickly discovered that this yields bad results. Second stupid thing I did was to glue the pieces first, then try to paint them while the Superglue was drying. Yielded results along the lines of "balsa wood falls apart in 8th grader's hands". The third stupid thing I did, after I had frustratedly ripped apart the offending pieces of balsa wood, was to try and lazily cut out new wood pieces with my sewing scissors. The wood fractured. Had to use more and more Superglue, and after an hour of constructing a mini-counter the glue was diminishing.

Here comes the low point, folks. I eventually used so much Superglue that my hands were caked with the dried stuff and I couldn't squeeze another drop onto another balsa wood shard. My severely spastic brain reasoned that maybe biting the bottom of the bottle of Superglue would coax some more drops out. Well, in a sense it did. As my teeth made contact with the bottom and clenched down on the plastic, which was made brittle by layers of glue, the bottle cracked and I realized my mouth was suddenly full of Superglue.

I was only lucky that my lips weren't glued shut, so I could go up to the bathroom and wash out my mouth. As I reminiscently run my tongue over my molars, remembering last night's fiasco, I wonder if I'm just imagining a crust of glue still sticking to the enamel. I'm certainly not imagining the layer of glue which remains on my fingertips.

Now I must leave you. I have a new bottle of Superglue and I have to finish my english project. Pray for me! And TFATF!!!
-Ahaneen (who has suddenly forgotten which song the title of this post comes from actually, will someone who knows remind me???)

Choking on a Laugh

So my last few posts have been a bit depressing, so I'm going to post a newly happy one! On several occasions today I have been caught choking on my own laughs. For example: in Spanish class, we were reviewing vocab and my teacher called on one kid to answer a question. My other friend decided spastically that she would just mumble along with the words, and she did this totally unconsciously. So I began to crack up, but soon a strange taste rose in my throat and I found myself more embarrassed than my friend could ever have been as I publicly gagged on my laugh! It was great. I couldn't stop laughing spasms until third period began and my friends ruler-pounded the spasizness out of me. Then the second thing occurred which triggered laughing happiness! SNOW!!!!
Global warming, my eye. We've had cold weather for days, dry and cold and crisp as a frozen fingernail. Now it snows! It's right during school and all, so one of my block periods was converted into a "tech/snow" period. We ran out, dancing, hugging random people, choking and gagging on bursts of laughter; praising our own idols (like Mr. Darcy) for the miracle. So down with rain, it's Under the Snow now, besides the fact that the snow itself is not sticking. I only hope it lasts till tonight so it freezes on the ground and we have a snow day... :)
TFATS (you figure out the last letter; it's not fishsticks this time).
-Ahaneen