Pop songs

12 April 2014

Update bij Claire:
“The captain, such a man. I’d follow him to hell and back, I would.
– Dr. Zoidberg, on an episode of ‘Futurama’.
As we near Horta (and speaking of the captain, he’s told us we’re still on schedule to reach it) I’m finding it more difficult, not easier, to write. So maybe I’ll just take random incidents and musings from the last few days and write about them, and leave you, gentle reader, to extract your own meaning, and throw in some song lyrics for fun and/or to be obnoxious, depending on your tastes. Is there a theme here? I don’t know, you tell me.
“Wouldn’t you like to put on something oily?” someone asked me as I emerged onto the deck in a light rain, which we’re seeing more and more often as we head further north, like an echo of what we left in the Southern Hemisphere. Apparently he meant rain gear, which are often known as oilskins. I never put them on unless I absolutely have to, since, as a vain, shallow creature, I hate the bulk they add. “Um, I’ll pass,” I said.
We ignore the breeze
Most of the time.
– Damien Rice
“Vogel!” someone cried next to me while I stood at the helm. I hadn’t seen a bird in several days, and sharing the excitement of the moment and knowing, because I’d seen the same tern gliding overhead, I repeated “vogel!” Thanks to the books on the ship, I knew what the Dutch word meant. Only, it probably came out sounding more like ‘voogguhull.’ Everyone looked at me, surprised by my unexpected attempt to say this, and asked me to repeat myself. “I said what I meant,” I said. “Voogguhull.”
My gentle relations have names they must call me
For loving the freedom of all flying things
– Joni Mitchell
The current watch, according the people in it, is always responsible, knowledgable and conscientous; the previous watch is full of a bunch of lazy incompetents who either made your coffee wrong, too early, too late, or didn’t make it at all. This, despite that the watches have changed three times and gone through every possible permutation of people. This is the way it is and ever shall be.
There are people here who adamantly claim that they do not care about money, even though they may not have that much of it. “Whenever I climb the mast and watch the ocean beneath me, I feel like a millionaire,” one guy told me. Then there are people here who, whenever we stop, like to flash cash around like it’s going out of style. Then there are people like me who wish we didn’t have to care about money, but for a variety of reasons, do. But, for the time we’re on board, since there’s nothing to buy or sell, we’re all equally as rich and as broke as one another. My sandals and my jacket zipper are broken. It’s annoying, but I can’t go to the store to buy new ones, so I’ve either got to figure out how to fix them (but, come on, not likely), or just deal with it.
How is it we swim and drink cheap wine
The richest kids without a dime
Our bank accounts are filled with time
– Dolorean
I won the Pop [Music] Quiz by about 20 points, but in defense of my two worthy competitors, one was too Spanish (he admitted this himself) and the other too young. “Why are all these songs so old?” she asked. Of course, all of the um, older guys declined to participate on the grounds that all the songs would be too new. That leaves me. It doesn’t hurt that I essentially grew up playing this game every night at the dinner table (Dad: Guess who this is! Think Bob Dylan. Me and/or Mom: Uh, Bob Dylan?) I won a beer. Actually, we all won beers, so hurray!
Brighten my northern sky.
– Nick Drake
Pretty much everyone except Wim hated the music I put on during dinner, after it took me weeks to build up the courage to play anything. ‘”Captain’s request” I justified, which is true, because Arian had requested that I play him cult 1970s English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, whose life is partly the subject of an ongoing writing project I’m working on. Unfortunately, I chose his third album ‘Pink Moon’, which except for the title song is his most moody and idiosyncratic, realizing only too late that I should have started with his upbeat second, ‘Bryter Layter.’ The problem is that album is pretty much my favorite album ever, and if everyone hated THAT, I’d be heartbroken. I guess I didn’t have as much courage as I thought.
I broke something while drying dishes the other night; of course there were only a few people left around at the time (and the least judgmental ones at that), but I waited for the crying, screaming, hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing and recriminations, but they did not follow. In fact, we just swiftly cleaned it up and went about our business. It was a non-event. So why I am writing about it?
Am I looking forward to Horta? Yes. The end of the trip? Not so much. After I get home, I pretty much know exactly what will happen next. Strangely for me, I am going to miss the fun of not knowing (but we’re not talking about that right now).
Never thought I would miss you
But then I miss you so much
– The Jayhawks“