Playing Uno

Each month on my transit news website I do a thing where I curate Portland's best public-transit-related missed connections of the month. It's one of the better ideas I've had and always one of the best parts of my month.

This one isn't quite a public transit connection, but I wanted to share it somewhere. It's from 3:03 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11.

Dear JP. - w4m
from craigslist portland
JP,

It's been years since you decided that my words weren't worth yours. Unfortunately, your music still haunts me from time to time, so I can't help but remember you.

It's been some time since you pulled your stunt. Words, links to youtube videos, tea. Holding doors. Charm, and sly comments about how the waitstaff likes you if they act rude to you.

In that time, I've nearly completed two worthless degrees. I traveled and fell in love with the world. I tried to love romantically more than once before realizing that maybe artists are no good for me. I get sick of feeding egos and scheduling my world around theirs. This new years day, I woke up in the bed of one of my best friends. He can't write a song, but he has a strong mind and sharp tongue. He makes me laugh. We play UNO together in airports and bus and ferry terminals.

Sometimes I think of running off, despite all the beautiful things Portland has given me. I am happy most of the time, but sometimes I feel a longing to get to know the grit of the earth intimately. I want to bike over mountains and international boundaries until I am not sure my body can hold itself together any longer. I want unruly matted hair to be a testament to my time on the road. I want to conquer fear of being alone, of being vulnerable, of being a woman where I'm not supposed to be one. I want nothing left to lose by having nothing at all.

Tonight I listened to your music while I walked home. There was a ring around the moon and scattered bits of valentines weekend litter. I felt a pang of the aforementioned longing. That, and the music, brought me to write this. Why else would I? You don't ever want to hear it. But if I could ask one thing, it would be for your lyrics. You see, sometimes you sing too fast for me to understand. And they are some of my favorite songs, if for nothing else than the words.

After all, it's always been about words.

Giants at play

My latest thought about Wikipedia and the cognitive surplus is that the most useful object ever constructed by human beings was just a flick of the wrist -- a seven-year whim -- of the world's unimaginably powerful labor force of understimulated, implausibly motivated men.

It was a very lucky whim, and I'm grateful. But we'll never slip a yoke over this beast.

Dirty hands

Working late tonight on the bazillionth self-inflicted writing project of my life, I'm grateful to believe in the mechanics of my job.

Some of my friends complain about working long hours for companies whose objectives they share but whose strategies they don't believe in.

I keep signing up to do this stuff because I'm certain that words work.

Where I'll end up

If I do well in this life, hopefully I'll come back as the "n" sound in the line all he asks from me is the food to give him strength from Cat Stevens's breakout 1966 single "I Love My Dog."

As long as the waters flow

Do we know anything about Maria Strehinsky, the only woman who seems to be doing much of anything on the Atlantic's masthead? Because this trick of constantly hiring female writers to tell hard, politically incorrect truths about gender roles has been feeling a little -- how to say? -- Cowboys and Indians.

White wedding

Update! See this list assailed mercifully, with my defense thereof!

The way I see it, wedding playlist songs for white people fall into 10 categories.

1) The bride-and-groom (bride-and-bride, etc.) song. Obviously this is specifically chosen for the first dance and whatever it is is fine. Warning: see section (9) below.

2) The undisputed must-have classics.
I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor
Respect, Aretha Franklin
Walking on Broken Glass, Annie Lennox (IMO this has graduated from category 3)
You Never Can Tell, Chuck Berry (note special inclusion for weddings)
Like a Prayer, Madonna
Brown-Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
Don't Stop Believing, Journey

3) The judiciously chosen FM standbys. As when selecting a wedding gift, selecting a wedding playlist is not the time to be a hero. All you can do here is carefully select the best among several plausible options per artist.
All Day and All of the Night, The Kinks
Wouldn't It Be Nice, The Beach Boys
Help!, The Beatles
Rocks Off, The Rolling Stones
Only the Good Die Young, Billy Joel
Modern Love, David Bowie
I'm Gonna Love You Too, Blondie
Teach Your Children, CSNY
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Cyndi Lauper
Bad, Michael Jackson
Raspberry Beret, Prince
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, Paul Simon
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, The Police
And She Was, Talking Heads

4) The expired radio hit. Like their target audience, these tracks have lately emerged out of awkward adolescence into what now appear to be long, prosperous adulthoods, almost without anyone really noticing. Ushering these songs closer to the canon, one reception at a time, is perhaps the most precious duty of the wedding DJ.
Breakfast at Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something
The Sign, Ace of Base
Baby One More Time, Britney Spears
The Impression that I Get, Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Stacy's Mom, Fountains of Wayne
She's a Rebel, Green Day
Semi-Charmed Life, Third Eye Blind
Oi to the World, No Doubt
Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...), Lou Bega
Livin' La Vida Loca, Ricky Martin
If I Had $1000000, Barenaked Ladies
Angel, Shaggy
Hey Ya, Outkast
Buddy Holly, Weezer
What's Up, 4 Non Blondes

5) The slow songs. Approximately one-fifth of the total. Mandatory. I cannot help you much on this one.

6) The R&B/hip-hop/last few years songs. Mandatory. Ditto.

7) The generational twofers. Wedding DJs who pride themselves on cultural literacy look for songs that were once granted second life by being featured in a movie more than a decade after their release.
Son of a Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield
Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters, Elton John
I Love to Boogie, T.Rex
It's Raining Men, The Weather Girls
Video Killed the Radio Star, The Buggles
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), The Proclaimers
Mickey, Toni Basil
Blister in the Sun, Violent Femmes
Get Rhythm, Johnny Cash

8) The long-tail tidbits. This is exactly as edgy as weddings are allowed to get. Appropriate only when at least a dozen people present meet a particular, relatively narrow demographic. Easy to mishandle. Optional. To illustrate, I'll name a few that might work in my own demographics but could be disastrous in the wrong room.
American Pie, Don McLean
Cheeseburger in Paradise, Jimmy Buffett
Barrel of a Gun, Guster
Closer to Fine, the Indigo Girls
Magic Dance, David Bowie (OK, this will never be disastrous)
Polyester Bride, Liz Phair
Turning Japanese, The Vapors

9) The custom selection. Other than the song in section (1), at most three songs may be played as in-jokes among friends or family of the bride and groom. Definitely optional. Smash them together and make it quick.

10) The closer. Not the final crowd-pleaser (you'll need one of those, too) but the final slow song that signals that people really have to wrap it up before the lights come on.
The Wind, Cat Stevens
Let it Be, The Beatles
Still Crazy After All These Years, Paul Simon
You've Got a Friend, Carole King
Stand By Me, Ben E. King
I Will Always Love You, Whitney Houston

Covalence

A few months ago I took a great big breath of friendship and submerged. Now I'm underwater, wondering which way is up and savoring the tiny precious explosions of new energy in my capillaries every time a bond snaps.