Connecting to People

Van Morrison is the soundtrack for this blog entry. Shannon created a Van Morrison collection for me, nabbing songs from two albums: The Philosopher's Stone and Moondance. I've only ever heard what the radio plays from Mr. Morrison, and last week, when I was just beginning to settle into this sad funk I'm currently attending, I asked her to compile a CD of "sad Van Morrison songs you think I'd like."

I'm thinking less, though, about the songs, the man, or even the lyrics, which I know is what I'm supposed to be thinking of. Instead, I'm thinking of what it says about Shannon that she grooves to this kind of music -- the same thing I've been trying to figure out with Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan,, and, to a lesser extent, Ryan Adams. I've sort of been sold on Ryan Adams anyway, and Bob Dylan was a relatively easy sell, considering he's a lyrical genius and poet... I could get used to the voice and have even come to appreciate it at times, particularly early Bob. But I've never gotten there with Elvis Costello, even after I listened to the ones she's most talked about. I'm sort of feeling the same way about Van Morrison; there's something... unleashed? a playing about the edges of control?... that I don't appreciate about them. There's a deliberate roughness, and imperfection that doesn't please me the same way listening to the flawless voices of, say, Amos Lee, Beyonce, or Sarah McLachlan does.

And then a song about flamingos? Am I hallucinating?

The quest most recently has been for music to listen to while I'm reading. I go to this coffee shop to read because it has great coffee and free wifi -- great ambiance most of the time, although this morning, in my 4th hour of intense focus at my happy study spot, a group of emo highschool types ascended the stairs from both ends of the building, wielding "gamer" cards in fancy carrying cases, preparing for then launching an intense game of Magic or Dungeons and Dragons or something. Black tee shirts, black long shorts with chains, premature beards? I had to leave.

But before I left, the music that put me in a 3-hour zone was a new playlist I'm sculpting on Pandora around the artist called Lajaari. It's New Age music that provides just the right amount of ambient noise to keep other noises out. It worked well until the Hobbits stomped from booth to booth, the moist perspiration from having just slain a dragon humidifying our small space with the stench of Middle Earth.

But I digress... Lajaari. Try it and see what you think.