Life, As Perfection

i wear denim on my legs and drink makers mark from a class. no water, no ice. its january in nashville and i am listening to a music grown in the metropolitan st. louis soil, watered by nashville's own country and fertilized by new york's punk. i am home alone. mtb is currently on the road playing a glizty and popular variety of nashville country that curdles many stomachs on the coasts.

tonight's whiskey is sweet and my LPs are finding a new order, mostly on their own. "turn up the volume i say," from my dusty place on the floor. there is no response. denim molds as i stand, flip the switch and say "much louder," then, miraculously, it is. the shuffle has moved from the afforementioned brand of alternative country, forged in this incarnation by uncle tupelo in the early nineties, to a branch of the music that is more country and less rock, but noticeably rocking. nashville's own br-549 sing as their chorus, "no matter which way you move / it takes a lifetime to prove to yourself / i could have been more / i got one foor in the door, i just want one more."

thoughts start circling my head. i itch to write, markdown these thoughts, and commit them. by the time i lift myself and crack my nuckles to trace these circles with the keyboard the shuffle has again shifted, away from noticeable country altogether, via hank williams' "jambalaya (on the bayou)", into the dirty southern accordian drive sounds of cajun and then zydeco music. while the musical center has dropped five hundred miles to the south, the circles remain noticeable, and in tact.

zachary richard's , "jolie blon," and buckwheat zydeco's, "hot tamale baby," do not distract me as i type the realization, perhaps the first hint of this round discovery, that i am really glad that i moved to nashville. in part it is noticeable in a strangely superficial way, the music that i listen to, or the food i want to cook. but more than that, life in nashville acts like a megaphone projecting these curiosities and interest, that i have had for a while, in a very natural way.

its ridiculous to imagine that life in boston would have brought me any closer to any appreciation of country music, however cheesy, or pulled pork shoulder, cornbread, or hell, i dunno, tennessee whiskey, than nashville has. perhaps what i am trying to get at is this:

physical space resonnates, and this resonnance is shaped by the physical lyout of the land in addition to its history and countours as it presents itself to those currently living there. this resonnance favors certain frequencies, or at least the remarkable thing about this resonannce is that, because it is different, from one place to another, each place picks up and amplifies different frequencies.

so life in boston peaked an interest in urban yankee living, favoring organic markets, fancy avant classical and jazz musics, and public transportation. life in nashville, while not replacing the previously accrued interests, piqued interest in sweet iced tea (seriously?) and dirty, sad, aptly performed music.

not only is this great realization, because i still have some time to stew in these tenessee juices, but because it makes me hopefuly and curious about the marinade that i will get in future home, washington dc.

i gotsta split and hit up a show at my favorite nashville bar, the radio cafe, where i will see a rocking blues band of the local sort open for one half of the frontmen, for the squirrel nut zippers, perform with his blues rock trio, the knockdown society. i must find money and ballard.

oh nashville. oh joy.


**sorry about the spelling, dont forget that i have been drinking