ruminations in rendezvous

1) you gotta love the guys at rendezvous. I've never met a bigger bunch of clowns in my life. i'm sitting here writing a paper and one of them's belting "maria maria!!!" the santana song from the back room, the other's banging on the countertop, bread and capers and lettuce flying everywhere, one of them's speaking rapidly in french to the girl next to me, spittle flying in her hair. It's a monday morning and it's very, very slow. I just asked for a Mango chiller and the greek guy I always see behind the counter with a completely blank facial expression goes, "no." I had just walked a mile from my house and back again because I forgot my wallet, so I'm red in the face and panting, and I go, "uh, please?" And the guy goes, "If you that thirsty, why don't you just get some water?" And I go, trying to be as polite as possible, "Because I don't want water, I want a mango chiller?" This goes on for a good minute, until his stone face cracks and he shrieks, "AHHHH!! MANGO CHILLER!!!!" I jumped about 3 feet in the air. Then he heckled me a little more, just for kicks. "I make it good for you, special, because I like your sweater," he says, flashing me a toothy grin. "The next time I not be so nice." Ah, foreign humor...

2) I'm completely fascinated by the way we use visual and tactile adjectives to describe music. Ex: "warm cellos," "bright snare," "dark mood," "curving melodies." it adds such a clear mental element to visualizing sound. In the mixing process words like that fly out all over the place and I'm pretty attuned to them, but once in a while I actually stop to think about it and realize how interesting it is. I guess it beats trying to replicate the noise in my mouth when trying to describe it, because usually it's laughably inaccurate and i end up looking like a fool. I would love to have synesthesia. Hearing colors and patterns whenever you listened to music would be the most awesome disorder ever.

3) All right, spring. Where the hell have you been? It's the end of march and I'm still putting up with your bullshit. Now you listen, you get here within the next couple weeks or I will personally go up there and drag you out from behind the clouds with my own two hands. I'm serious.

4) Figure skating is so awesome. I watched the couples world championships on TV last night and i was completely enthralled. I never realized what an art it is, how many factors actually go into the judging process. This couple from China performed their routine PERFECTLY, like, not an elbow out of place; they were technically flawless. But this Russian couple who went right after them flubbed once on a double axel and STILL got a higher score on their routine because they "elicited more emotion" in the judges. I was floored. Putting aside all my thoughts on race and the questionability of judged sports...it also made me think that it's just like music - technicality only accounts for so much, unless you've got some kind of authenticity or soul it means nothing. Makes me think about how the goal of all art is to elicit emotion or thought in the viewer/reader/listener. Cool.

FIN!