Musings from outside the circle
So, I could say that I just didn’t have anything to post about and I totally knew this existed, but that would be a lie. The fact is, I have nothing to post about that I can think of at the moment…so please enjoy this, courtesy of the Failblog.
I remember, at some point last year after I met Susan, I came to school wearing my orange pants (as I often do). I was standing outside Ms. Hsu’s classroom with Susan, waiting to be let in, and we were talking about–something, I don’t know. This one eighth-grader who was in my Algebra class, henceforth referred to as K, suddenly said to me, “Why are you wearing orange pants? Who wears orange pants?”
“Um…I do?” I replied. He looked bemused for a few moments, then said, fairly quietly, “Well, of course you would, Constance, because…you’re weird…” And I swear I could hear him thinking, Damn you, you ruined my insult.
K has not been the only person to do this. The other day in Core, the person next to me, henceforth referred to as M, said, “Only nerds like to read.”
“And?” I said.
“And…you like to read.”
“So?”
“So…you’re a nerd.”
“And?”
“You’re…a nerd?”
“Was that supposed to be an insult?”
M, who was beginning to look very uncomfortable, muttered “No, no” very quickly and returned to what he was doing.
I love ruining people’s insults. It’s so satisfying.
As gratified as I am that Beatles Rock Band has finally come out, I am disgusted by the number of people who are suddenly Beatles fans. Hey, guys? [whistles] Over here! I was a Beatles fan before they were cool in this decade!
If I become cool for liking them, the Apocalypse is coming.
I bet you’re wondering why this bothers me so much. I mean, I love the Beatles. Why should I protest if everyone else does too? Two reasons:
1) I don’t want to become mainstream, although this is less important.
2) You know they only like the Beatles because they’ve suddenly become new and exciting again. In two months they’ll be back with–whatever teenagers listen to now. I am a real Beatles fan. All these other people are just joining in because it’s something new. Kind of like in Ankh-Morpork.
What do you think? Tell me your opinions on this not-particularly-phenomenal phenomenon.
…Probably.
I have recently completed many tasks on my warped mental To Do list, which is my terrible excuse for the recent lack of posts. Let’s review, shall we?
Brainwash Susan with the Beatles ?
Finally finish the third chapter of my book ?
Go to the library ?
Survive the first week of school ?
Finally buy A Hard Day’s Night (squee) ?
Aaaand here’s what I still have to do.
Remember to watch Yellow Submarine, dammit
Forget I ever watched Across the Universe
Talk to my dad about a schedule for guitar lessons
Think of a title for my book
Learn to draw a decent picture of a dragon-gryphon hybrid (long story)
I really don’t have anything else interesting to say, so in closing, here’s a funny picture.
Thank you.
One must wonder what news channels are coming to when one sees this kind of thing.
How does my brother watch these TV shows?
Hannah Montana, for instance. It’s billed as a show about the adventures of a rock star who lives a double life as a normal girl. This could be pretty good if it were true to description. I see the story of a crappy singer whose only good idea, ever, is to hide her real identity. Anyone else?
Spongebob, of course, is a cartoon and thusly inherently evil, but still. Annoying idiots running around doing stupid and occasionally mildly entertaining things. Yeah, I’ll have to agree with Squidward on this one. He’s still a mediocre musician, though.
And then there’s that Back At The Barnyard show. Seriously, guys. Who thought it was a good idea to make a TV show out of what may well have been a perfectly good movie? (Though I highly doubt that. Nickelodeon movies are devolving.)
And yes, this is a bit ranty. But I hate most TV shows anyway, so I will rant about them all I want. Sorry.
On a mostly unrelated note, has anyone seen Across The Universe? The movie which is mostly made up of oddly redone Beatles songs? I swear, some of those actors should be arrested for music terrorism. Just…yeah. But I was entertained by the girl singing “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.
I’m feeling uncharitable toward TV today, in case you couldn’t tell.
No one seems to read this anymore. Thusly, I can address my mental goings-on without fear of…something.
I’m going to explain part of something very complicated. I have this little version of myself in my head which is sort of me how I’d like to be. And I wander around through various worlds from books and movies and my own demented thinking. Generally I single out a few characters and stalk them, at least in the beginning. This would explain by Beatles issues to some extent.
Anyway, the other me likes to bug people. One person in particular. So much that I climb in his window at five in the morning just because it bothers him. And I make fun of him a lot, because I know he won’t hit me. (This isn’t because I have control over what he does in my head. I like to stay true to character.) And no, it’s not Paul. That’s a whole ‘nother…thing that’s whole.
Ahem. Anyway, just because I enjoy bugging people doesn’t mean I don’t like them. What I want to know is, can an idiot not be stupid? This question has been presented to me in various situations by a certain talking dog. I’ve stopped making assorted comments because of it. So…answers?
Also, my sanity is severely disrupted by the nosreps. “Nosrep” is “person” backwards. They’re exact opposites of existing people, and a plot device that I made up because I was running out of ideas for ways to—never mind. Well, they aren’t exact opposites in all ways, just in most aspects of personality. Most people never meet theirs, which is good, because it could start a huge war. You should have seen—never mind. But they’ve kind of taken on a life of their own. I reconciled with my nosrep, Ecnatsnoc, a while ago, and we met in an alley while she was hunting a nosrep called Tsiom. Um. So you can see my problem.
I forgot what I was talking about. Sorry.
Exaggeration.
So I’m finally getting back to my standard Beatles-related things. Today I shall address my limited experience of the Beatles as a little kid.
First, Yellow Submarine. No clue how many times I watched it back then, but certain bits of it always stayed with me. I never forgot the Blue Meanies or the Glove, obviously, but there’s more. I retained some of the strangest things, too, like the “Nowhere Man” sequence and the part toward the end: “Arise, arise, arouse, a rose!…a rosy nose?” And “All Together Now”. Not surprisingly, I had vague memories of all the songs apart from “It’s All Too Much”. By the way, there are some weird lyrics in that. For example:
Show me that I’m everywhere, and get me home for tea
Then there’s Rubber Soul. I first heard that when I was I don’t know how old, and I fell in love with the CD. I never even knew it was by the Beatles. You already know about that “the world is love” thing, which is very entertaining now, but I had other odd experiences as well. At one point I was singing “Girl” under my breath (as I often do) as we were leaving for somewhere, and my parents thought it was really funny.
This would not be complete without mentioning Abbey Road, which you should not put in the CD player if you’re going to hit “shuffle”. I think we had it on tape when I was in…first grade? I remember listening to it in the car and my favorite song being “Oh! Darling”. I didn’t know the name, so it was simply “Song Number Four”. “Can we listen to Song Number Four, Mommy?” “Mommy, I want to hear Song Number Four.” “Skip to Song Number Four, please.” And I also enjoyed (and knew the name of) “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.
A strange thing happened when I slowly but surely got back into the Beatles in October. For years I’d had scraps of random songs floating around my head, having no idea what they were from. One day, I come home from school and, wanting a change, play 1.
BAM. Recollection. So awesome.
This is gonna be a realllllly long post.
I blame my Beatles obsession partly on Peyton and partly on my Spelling textbook. It’s Peyton’s fault because, on the way home from school, I mentioned I had a Beatles song stuck in my head. She said she did, too, and started singing “Help!” very quietly, skipping a line at the beginning. To my surprise, I remembered most of the song. At home, I pulled out the Help! CD and listened to it all the way through. Now my obsession was spread over two albums. What really turned me into a fully-fledged Beatles fan was reading one day, in my Spelling book, something about “Love Me Do”. I then realized I knew four of the lines to the song (which are actually almost all of it). Thusly I became the psycho you see today.
Just because I said I’d stop with the random posts doesn’t mean I can’t do this.
I have been getting a LOT of spam lately. They’re really stupid, too. On that one post about the argument with my dad, I got a spam comment that said this:
Pretty nice post. I just came by your site and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon!
Er. I repeat: This was a post about my dad. Being mad at me. And telling me I had to buy my own food. “Pretty nice post”, huh?
Yeah. Therefore I have installed the SPAM-Be-Gone™! This odd-looking computer-art cannon in the sidebar will eliminate all spam from my site.
Well, probably not. But it’ll be cool.
Sam Vimes: awesomer than you.
Don’t worry, this is probably the last of these. Also, the only reason it’s probably always going to be Vimes is that there never seems to be anything about Moist.
Copyright © 2010 Insights of an Outsider All rights reserved. Theme by Laptop Geek.