So I was impulse buying. At Starbucks. I know, don't ask. Don't even go there. I mean I'm totally off caffeine so what the f was I there for? The short answer: Diedrichs sold out and a certain two.5 year old need chocolate milk. Anyhow. At the counter. Paying way too much for chocolate milk, even the organic kind, when I just hand to the woman, along with my debit card, the latest Joni Mitchell CD just perched there by the biscotti. Because, let's face it, the Disney Pixar Cars soundtrack is driving momma frickin nuts. So we buy Joni. For $17.95. Plus tax. And well, even longer story short: In addition to where old race-cars retire, I now have the soundtrack of hippy death. No really. I'm sure Joan Didion is working her next essay collection around this. Even the funky--what is it? snare drum, cymbal, synthesized woodland imp retired jazz is included. Lucky me.
So yesterday was a bad day. At least bad in the music and milk variety.
But today?
Oh! today.
Today I was saddled up for a long morning of grading essays on the use of rhetoric in 17th century texts--really I should have just got in the Saab with my stack of papers and a red pen, rolled up the windows, put Joni on full blast and had it out--but instead I stayed at my desk, streamlined Morning Becomes Eclectic and what to my wondering ears did I hear?
Shelby Lynne, live.
But wait, it gets better.
Shelby Lynne live covering Dusty Springfield. Her Dusty record.
(And Nick, don't be too quick to jump up on the pulpit. Dusty's Dusty. Shelby's Shelby. She knows that. In fact, and I quote: "I'm not filling her shoes. No one can. I just set out to sing songs we all want to hear again." And boy does she. Because it's soft. And throaty. And calm. And perfect. And really, when's the last time you heard "Breakfast in Bed" on a Tuesday morning? Because it's enough to melt your heart and send you off to live another life. One where you're not puking and sweeping ash off your sidewalk and grading 17th century philosophy papers and running to the ends of the earth for bad hippy music and pricey organic chocolate milk.)
3 comments:
They paved paradise and put up a Starbuck's shop.
It's late. 2 something a.m. And suddenly, through the magic of pandora, shelby lynne is playing. And she's not Dusty, no. But late, on All Hallow's Eve? It's okay not to be Dusty. It's okay to be halfnaked on your record cover. Okay to sing like you mean it. Okay to copy/emulate the best. Because who wants to copy as a halfmeasure? And while she's doing her thing, throaty and purry, I'd like to do mine. I'd like to crack open that bottle of Absinthe, the real thing, winging its way to me. Since it's legal again, after 100 years, to buy the fairy in our united states. So I want to crack it, set that cube of sugar on the swirly antique spoon I have, spill some absinthe over the cube, light the cube with a long match, see the flame catch, dance, watch the sugar change color, heat, bubble, while i steady the spoon over the glass of absinthe, watch the molten sugar drip into the green, then pour some water over the spoon, cleaning it of the remaining sugar and as the water touches green, see it turn into a cloud, a ghost, swirling in the glass. Just swirling.
And while i'd like to do that, my absinthe hasn't arrived. So wait I must. Wait. I must.
anyone else wanna wait? maybe sing along with shelby?
or perhaps just say 'ta' and fall asleep. seeing as how late it is.
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