Containment, deportment.
Good breeding: listening to someone, or a slew of someones, report endlessly about themselves and instead of screaming for mercy, or running for the nearest bottle of booze, smile merrily and use all energy to maintain a body language of interest - all the while ignoring the inner badass suggesting a karate chop to the speaker's forehead.
Last stop of samedi soir (Bay City Rollers title song to you non-frenchyphiles) was at a joint with a swingy 50s-loving band and I'm watching these rascals thinking how there's a community of these folks with tattoos, hush puppies, hair swoops and the wardrobes, smiling maniacal 50s smiles and generally gesticulating in a way we irony-minded tribesmen recognize as such.
So the lead man, Pete Worden, is out there playing the hell out of his guitar and I'm watching the band when suddenly I flashed back to Japan, in a scene amid thousands of Americana-loving Japanese youth. Revelation: these 50s-loving people are doing the same thing half a world away. Just because one network is born of the culture doesn't mean there's any greater affinity. It's all about the style, lifestyle.
Swept into the indie record shoppe with Jen and Laura and instantly had R.S.A. (record store amnesia), the running list of must-gets gone in a poof.
Laura raved, lifted from shelf, handed into my hands and exclaimed about Sigur Ros's new one.
It's on now, an instrumental minimal maze of introspection. It's a landscape covered with deep snow and if in the wrong mood it'd be nearly lethal.
I was going to write about the bong filled with white wine in lieu of water at last night's holiday gathering of old friends but I'm censoring... and still coughing.
Holiday pots of love.