love is a mixtape

Just finished reading "Love Is A Mixtape" by Rob Sheffield. Sheffield's a contributing editor at Rollingstone and a pretty badass rock critic. He wrote a pretty badass book. It's a pretty beautiful book, too. Yeah, I just used "pretty" and "beautiful" together in the same sentence. And it worked.

Sheffield's writing really got me thinking about music and life a lot more than I have before. Music's always been extremely important to me, of course. Aggressively searching for new bands and new songs on various indie music blogs ranks right up there in my hobbies with shopping and eating the shit out of new food. And I have had many a melancholic, some would call "emo" moment with song lyric segments and an atmospheric picture, where I ramble about woe is me and about how only this song gets me in the world world. But wow. that's nothing compared to what 'Love Is A Mixtape' got me thinking about. Music is his life. Music was their life, him and Renee, the person he lost. That's pretty amazing that something like music could be the focal point of your whole life. And that it could actually mean something. be poignant and profound and not "i'm trying so hard to be hipster right now."

His writing sent shivers down my spine and really made me feel. and he was writing about music. His writing is music. I wish i had something like that. I don't think music does it for me as much as it does for him, just yet. I always thought my relationship with music was pretty sacred, pretty profound, pretty one of a kind. It's pretty superficial compared to what it could be. I guess what I'm trying to say is-- and I'm never trying to say anything with these blog posts, really, because if I wanted to write an essay with a thesis I would submit it to an English professor-- I guess what I'm trying to say is I want to live life with more. with more feeling, with more something, with more music. i want to live life with more life.

what if my life were a mixtape? I know these songs would be on it.

The Decemberists- Here I Dreamt I was an Architect
Elliott Smith- Between The Bars
Stars- Don't Be Afraid To Sing
Stars- Calendar Girl
Sunset Rubdown- Us Ones In Between
Bright Eyes- "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning," The Whole Album
Ben Kweller- Sundress
Keane- Bedshaped
Ian Broudie- Song For No One
Ben Gibbard- Carolina
The Decemberists- O New England
Dirty Vegas- Home Again
Green Day- Jesus of Suburbia
The Fratellis- Whistle For The Choir
Bishop Allen- The Same Fire
Bishop Allen- Butterfly Nets
Bishop Allen- The Chinatown Bus
Simon& Garfunkel- America
Rilo Kiley- Spectacular Views

and probably many more. Man, I kinda want to make a mixtape now.I wish I could make a mixtape that says how excited I am to be in New York but also how scared and how anxious and how angry. I wish could make a mixtape about how much I love Beijing and how much being away from home hurts and gnaws inside, and I wish I could make a mistake about how disgustingly, disgustingly lonely I feel sometimes. Rob sheffield probably could. I wish he would teach me.

Update from my life? nothing much has changed. Those who know me will know I'm interning at NBC Universal now, with the local integrated media department. I can't say much about it because apparently that would be violating my contract with NBC. not that there's much to say about it. But assume I'm happy.

I'm also interning with Dujour magazine. I've gotten some bylines. Pretty excited. I'm being worked like a horse but it's worth it. Summer classes have ended. My grades come out in T minus one days. Gpa pressure is currently killing me but hopefully I can pull through. It's a rare day that i have time and can sit down and type out a blog entry. It's a rare day that I feel like doing so. I'm glad I did, though, and I think it has made me feel better.

Thanks Rob Sheffield.
Everyone, just go out and read this book.