march 15, 2000.

"Happiness is easy..."

During the time leading up to the last essay, I've been listening to a lot of Talk Talk. Talk Talk - and Marc Hollis - are two of the Boy's BIG TIME musical obsessions, even more than Brian Wilson. He has 4 copies of "Laughingstock," one of which is still in the plastic...I call it his break-in-case-of-emergency copy. But I digress. Somewhere along the line the Boy lent me a copy of "The Colour of Spring." I think it was last summer, actually. It's gathered dust on my bureau until I turning to it in desperation this week.

See, I needed some quiet music conducive to researching Canadian history. "Spirit of Eden" went on and basically stayed on for a week. During yesterday's marathon session with the word processor, I listened to it for seven straight hours.

(Don't be alarmed; I do this all the time. When I was studying for a 18th & 19th century art test, I listened to Ben Folds Five non-stop. I don't revisit that album much nowadays, but there are certain parts of the work that make me unable to think of anything but Delacroix.)

So yeah. "Spirit of Eden." The Boy says it's the bridge album between the synthpop of the first two Talk Talk projects and the more experimental music produced for the last two albums. It's the album with "It's my life," so it's not all that heavy. Still, I couldn't help but be struck by a few things on the 100th listen or so. The very first song, "Happiness is Easy," mixes a melancholy British sort-of-pop song with a children's choir singing about Jesus. I can't figure out if they're even in the same key - the kids are typically atonal and all over the place. But the mix is shockingly beautiful, one of those inspired things that makes me wonder. I think about it on the subway and sing it under my breath in class.

The Boy is so proud.

Day 3 at the new job. I took a "mental health" day yesterday in order to finish up the "state & sexuality" essay due in last night's class. Okay, my agency doesn't even pay for sick days; there's no way I get mental health days. But it was a higher truth, even if I camouflaged my essay anxiety by reporting a "24-hour thing." And my "breakdown" was confined to a 3000-word paper containing at least 6 sources and worth 40% of the final mark. Still, I was feeling pretty anxious about the whole thing, and I don't do this sort of thing very often. Hence: sick day.