The .Plan

Oh baby,
I’m so tired.
–Jane’s Addiction

Changes come
Turn my world around
Changes come
Bring the whole thing down
–Over the Rhine, “Changes Come”

From the movie, ‘Once‘:

If you don’t have any context, this scene is robbed of its power. But it’s still good music.

There are no bad words for the coast today.
–Rilo Kiley

Grandma put on her best for Sunday morn’
Went off to church to praise the Lord in all his glory
Grandpa died sometime back and far away
Grandma listened to Johnny Cash almost everyday
–Kelley McRae, ‘Johnny Cash’

Another brother slayed, the wound is deep
But they givin’ us a Band-Aid
–Ice-T, ‘New Jack Hustler’

I know it’s not too late
To wrestle with this angel
–Over the Rhine, ‘Not too Late (Idea #21)’

Hoping all the verses rhyme,
And the very best of choruses, too
–The Kinks, ‘Better Things’

I.

Portable music players were banned at this year’s Marine Corps Marathon, annoying marathoners who rely on music to get them through the ordeal:

But nothing, no magical stories of crowd noise or strict rules that threatened disqualification, deterred some iPod users in the Marine Corps Marathon from bringing their music along on the 26.2-mile journey through scenic Washington and Virginia. They tucked them into their shorts, taped them to the inside of their bras, shoved them into tiny belts. They hid their headphones under headbands and ball caps.

No matter the rule, Jennifer Rock, an Air Force officer from Little Rock, Ark., would have her Sean Paul. She had her mother, Denise, meet her at Mile 15 to hand over her iPod. The race director Rick Nealis said the marines guarding the start line would remind competitors to leave their headphones behind, but there was no enforcement. More than 20,000 runners flooded the starting gate, many with iPods strapped to their arms and unabashedly wearing headphones, including the huge foam ones, circa 1985.
–Juliet Macur, “Rule Jostles Runners Who Race to Their Own Tune”, New York Times, November 1, 2007

II.

When Ally McBeal first came out, the timing couldn’t have been better. She had internal monologues. She walked briskly to a personal soundtrack (”Tell Him”). And she danced in her office — wildly, carefree, and sometimes alone.

Grey’s Anatomy, eight years later, shares some of these features. Internal monologues. Aching pleas (even more painful to watch than the infamous “pick me” speech). And of course, the personal soundtrack (”Portions for Foxes”).

They say INFJ’s have rich internal lives. College was a blur, but there was a time when I thought that many of the significant events of my internal life could be remembered by episodes of Ally McBeal. Same could have been said for my intern year and Grey’s Anatomy.

Wish I liked Bionic Woman more.

III.

There is something to be said for experiencing familiar running trails on a consistent basis. You remember exactly what you were thinking on a sunny afternoon running along the banks of the Charles, listening to “Closing Time”. You lose liters of water slogging up Murray Hill under the midday Cleveland sun, and you rot your teeth on Coca-Cola trying to replenish it. You see the Seattle skyline from Gas Works Park through different seasons, and although the sun, rain, and snow may change with seeming caprice, your prayers do not. You begin to appreciate how the painful run along Ocean Beach feels on your calves when you are happy and when you are sad, but how the same houses are consistently illuminated by the light of the fading sun.

In the meantime, ideas continue to trickle through the gyri of your cerebral cortex, red blood cells scamper through your left circumflex artery, and the painful wheezes through your terminal bronchioles intermingle with sighing exhalations through your bronchi.

And the soundtrack never stops.

Hey somewhere,
you threw your fear in the Sea of No Cares
Hey somewhere,
you threw your fear in the Sea of No Cares
–Great Big Sea

The Swell Season (band formed by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, the two novice actors who star in the movie “Once“) are now touring the West Coast.

Upcoming tour dates:

Nov 5: Moore Theatre, Seattle
Nov 6: Crystal Ballroom, Portland
Nov 8: Regency Center Grand Ballroom, San Francisco
Nov 9: Regency Center Grand Ballroom, San Francisco

East coast tour dates posted on their MySpace page…

When you are on a 12-hour plane ride, the last thing you want to do is watch something serious. Bring on the brain-numbing “Pirates of the Caribbean 3″, “Die Hard 4″, and “Harry Potter 5″ instead. It has been years since I’ve deliberately watched a movie like this; even romantic comedies have been discarded (and that time KJ made us watch “Hitch” doesn’t count; I was just too tired to get up from the couch).

But “Once” catches you by surprise.

He works in his father’s vacuum cleaner repair shop by day, singing himself hoarse over his battered guitar in the evenings for spare change, trying to forget about the woman who broke his heart and left him for another man.

She sells flowers in the street, works as a maid when she can find work, and is trying to make sense of her life with her two year-old daughter after her husband left them.

When they meet, their interactions are awkward. It is clear they have nearly nothing in common besides their common ability to wail their repressed feelings through music. But maybe that’s all that matters — this one non-negotiable — and that gives you all the more reason to be drawn in to notice everything about their aching romance: the first ‘no’, the first disclosure, the first time she cries on his shoulder.

When she listens to him play one of his original songs, adds the background keyboard, and then tentatively joins him in harmony, it may as well be a first kiss.

Take this sinking buoy
and point it home
we’ve still got time

Neither he nor she are even given names in the movie. When, in part due to her insistent prodding, he finally gets around to recording a demo, they invite some random guys off the street — nobodys who are also not given names. The signature song starts off as a nondescript whisper, and the jerk sound engineer (the only guy in the movie who does get a name) is talking on the phone in the sound booth to his girlfriend complaining about how he’s stuck in the studio for the weekend making a CD for some “losers”.

And then the drums kick in. You start experiencing goosebumps when you realize this is the understated climax of the movie — and at that moment the sound engineer also begins to realize the beauty in what they are creating in the studio, perks up, and starts making adjustments on the mixer.

So
if you want something
and you call, call
then I’ll come running
to fight
and I’ll be at your door
when there’s nothing worth running for

“Once” is a wistful film. Easily the best movie I’ve seen this year.