Shorthand for Nothing

Dear girls who hated me when I first started college,

This was about 2005-2006, I guess. You may remember! I was always hanging out on the couches, along with some of my friends. I think there were two or three of you. I only remember one of your names, and that one of you was blonde. Apparently one time you complained about me to the guy who works in the cafeteria, who knew me. “Do you know Robert Mason?” you asked. And when he said he did, you just said how much you hated me.

I have no idea what I had done to earn your ire. I suppose it was probably just a case of being completely different people who happened to share proximity all the time. Apparently your hate for me was pretty intense. I’m sorry if I caused you to lose sleep or something. I mean, I’m sure you aren’t terrible people. Maybe you are very nice, and I just rubbed you the wrong way? So, I’m sorry. I hope that you don’t think back of how much you hated me from time to time, unless it’s just to laugh about the follies of youth. We should all laugh about the follies of youth.

Yours,

Rob Mason

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Dear waitresses who served me in high school,

I am so sorry. I didn’t know any better.

We were young and stupid and loud and obnoxious. We probably never tipped, or if we did it was in small change that we just left on the table in an annoying heap. It was probably worse than nothing. We stayed for hours, we were loud, we didn’t order very much, we were demanding and took up a lot of space. I think we must have thought of you as some weird combination between a vending machine and the lunch ladies at school–someone who existed to give us food in exchange for money and occasionally complain that we were breaking rules or being disruptive.

In our defense, we were in high school. We hadn’t really learned that the world around us existed. I mean, we knew, on some level, but it seemed like remote knowledge–like knowing that Mt. Everest exists. I’ve never seen it. I can’t conceptualize it. It’s out there and I know it and I believe it and on most levels I just don’t care.

I know better now. We all do. We’re nice to waitresses these days. In Seattle they actually liked seeing us because we were fun and tipped nicely and gave them someone to talk to. I appreciate that you have jobs that are demanding and often filled with annoying people and I try to be as pleasant as possible. I know that doesn’t make what we did any better, but I hope it helps to know that I’ve learned my lesson, and I wish I could make it up to you somehow.

Sadly sincerely,

Rob Mason

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Dear guy handing out pens in the quad earlier today,

I’m sorry I thought you were ridiculous and a terrible idea for marketing. It’s not your fault your employers wanted to become synonymous with those cheap pens with company names on them that nobody pays attention to. I’m sorry that if I don’t lose your pen, your company name will probably end up getting scratched off to near illegibility. I’m sorry that those pens aren’t very good advertising, since most of the time the person who ends up with it has no idea where it came from, and even if they do they don’t care. I’m sorry I don’t like your pen as much as the one I stole from the Berkman center last year.

I’m also sorry that after I wrote “it’s not your fault” above I considered adding the clause “unless you came up with the idea, in which case I’m sorry that you are not very good at marketing, but I congratulate you on finding a way to get paid to hand out pens to college students.” I’m sorry that I’m not going to write out your company name here.

I’m sorry that it wasn’t a terribly good pen. It wouldn’t write for me earlier, when I needed a pen to write on a napkin. It’s one of those cheap Bic pens that has a cap and isn’t even clicky. I’m sorry that I’m probably going to lose that cap the next time I use the pen, and I’m sorry that I’ll probably either let a friend steal it or forget it at a restaurant somewhere. I would say that I am terrible at keeping pens, but that’s not true at all. I’m just terrible at keeping things I don’t care about.

Yours,

RM

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Idea for this shamelessly stolen from Dave Bry’s regular feature on The Awl.

Dear Canvassers Who Have Stopped Me At Various Times Around Northeastern,

I am sorry for wasting your time. I was never going to give you money, even if I had any to spare. But I feel bad and I really wish I could help in non-money-related ways.

The first time you stopped me, you were the guy who had just moved in to the place I’d just moved out of. It was cool or at least funny running into you. You needed to meet quota, and I appreciate that you were straightforward about that. I hope you managed despite wasting several minutes talking to me and only getting me to sign one of your little postcards in exchange. I am sorry I am broke and miserly.

The second time you stopped me, you were a cute girl who thought that the news article I read a few weeks ago that I was vaguely sure about was pretty neat. I signed yet another postcard, and I think I even checked the little box that said I would volunteer. You gave me a flier for working at Environment Mass, and we chatted about our majors and our lives and so on, and I am pretty sure you were hitting on me. If you were, I am sorry that we will never get coffee. You were gone when I went to get dinner later. I never got a call. I am sorry I am not helpful.

The third time you stopped me, you were very persistent, and I seriously considered saying “look, I have already signed like three postcards for you guys, I have no money, I am glad you exist but you don’t want to waste your time talking to me,” but I didn’t because you seemed so enthusiastic. You said a few things which were slightly dishonest, and I smirked and ignored them. You didn’t stop until I finally said I would not give you any money. I am sorry I found you amusing and entertained myself by making you come up with ways to counter my excuses.

The time you didn’t stop me, I was on my way to class. I’m sorry that I told you this instead of just continuing to walk. You hear that all the time, and it makes you wonder why they sent you to a college campus like they did, because everyone is either poor or on their way to class.

I am sorry that I embody the type of person you hate running into on college campuses, someone who is sympathetic and willing to listen and talk but has no interest in giving you money because that’s money I could spend on food or concerts or booze and at this stage in my life that’s a significant sum of money and I just can’t afford generosity. I am sorry that despite my attempts to be friendly and helpful you probably just sigh and shake your head and wonder why college students all suck.

Mostly sincerely,

Rob Mason

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There was a trailer for some movie involving hell demons featuring Nick Cage at Sherlock Holmes. I have no interest in seeing it! But I would be interested in seeing this:

DIABLO: THE MOVIE

Teaser trailer.

A dark set–a dark sky, a faint horizon, wilderness. Moody music. A fire is lit, casting red lighting over:

Two figures, a MAN and a WOMAN, seated around a small campfire; around them the signs of battle, or at least skirmish, are barely visible.

MAN: I don’t understand it. It’s like they were–

WOMAN: Possessed?

Shot of mountainous country with a desolate and slightly ominous feel. The music swells in intensity. WOMAN speaks over this.

WOMAN: This is an evil neither of us can hope to comprehend. We need to find someone who knows. We need to find Cain.

Cut to many scenes of the MAN and WOMAN battling demons, zombies, et cetera. Music is appropriately fighty. The montage concludes with an image of a massive, terrifying demon. The MAN and WOMAN pause, glance at each other, and simultaneously raise their weapons to charge. Cut to black, silence. The lights slowly raise on DECKARD CAIN.

CAIN: Stay a while, and listen…

The title DIABLO flashes on the screen. Fin.

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Harvey Danger are my favorite, favorite band, and I have written about them a few times. They sadly broke up in 2009, but that is no reason not to listen to them! Let’s move onward.

Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?
This is their first album, and it is the one you may have heard. The single is called Flagpole Sitta. I have always thought the title is pretty appropriate for the tone of the album, at least partly because lyricist and vocalist Sean Nelson is the sort of person who would be concerned with that sort of thing. It is less polished than the other albums, but in a very appropriate way. This is an album about departures and reflection. I am not entirely convinced lo-fi is the term I want here, but it’s got a simple sound with pretty memories, beautiful vocals, and lyrics which are hopeful and nostalgic and sad. It is simple and straightforward and makes me happy. If you like your indie rock simple and nostalgic, you could do no better than this album.

King James Version
In contrast, the King James Version is a complex and sarcastic exploration of faith and skepticism and alienation. Polished, self-aware, and snarky, this album has a lot of energy and a lot of really great moments. Mostly it is a restless album, from Carjack Fever suggesting that we “empty all the minibars and leave this town in flames” to Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo’s tale of its titular heroine and her life of corporate drudgery. There is a lot of dissatisfaction and restlessness expressed here in a lot of different ways, because Sean Nelson is excellent at capturing those subtle nuances of things. It closes with The Same As Being In Love, which is one of my favorite Harvey Danger songs and certainly my favorite closing track. If you like guitars and energetic well-constructed rock albums, you probably want this one first.

Little By Little…
This album came five years later and represents quite the departure stylistically, from the guitar rock of KJV to a more mellow, piano-driven sound. (It is also available for free as a download at their website, so you have no excuse for not listening. At all. This is free music, completely free, and it is a really good album. That is free.) The pianos give it a more mature sound, and lends itself nicely to an album which is darker and, if not exactly brooding, at least a little bleaker. (It also makes one of the happiest songs on the planet, Happiness Writes White, even prettier.) There are songs about record collections, stalkers, shattered relationships, and dying by what you live by. Despite this it ends on an optimistic note in Diminishing Returns, about finding something tangible in a world of -isms. It seems to say: This will all make sense one day, so just hang on. The perfect album for people who like introspective albums, and especially for people who like to fall in love with songs about someone who has fallen in love with their music collection.

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I remember waiting for the year 2000. I can vaguely recall the computer I must have been using at the time, running Windows 98. Even then we thought it was slow. Today it would be utterly decrepit.  My netbook is significantly faster and I still cringe sometimes at how long it takes to perform some tasks. Longer still, fifteen years ago, I probably wouldn’t have blinked an eye at the delay.

It seems so cliche to say that the decade was characterized by change. And that’s not quite right. It was inconsistency. It was mercurial. It was frequently beautiful and frequently terrible, often at the same time. There are parts I don’t remember. I was a completely different person then. There are little fragments of memory, like fragments of a strange dream. Some days I wonder if they really happened.

I’ve lived in four places in the last five years. I’ve been in this city for a year now. More than a year, even, and I’m restless. I am far from home, but I have a home now. That’s new. I want to travel and explore. I want to find secret places and make them my own, and stumble home exhausted with a smile on my face because I have seen and experienced things that no one else knows.

I’m not sure what to think of this decade. I’m not sure what happened. It’s been that sort of quiet which is really restless underneath, where everything is moving into place, waiting for the other shoe to fall. It’s tense. It’s dissonant. It’s full of ghosts and regrets and memories. Everything that happened is screaming at me to write about it, but none of them are important anymore.

Here is one thing that happened in this decade. Maybe it will help make sense of things.

It was March of 2008, I believe, and Harvey Danger was performing their tenth anniversary public spectacle, a two-evening event in which they played essentially their entire discography. On the first night they played rarities and B-sides, along with their debut album, “Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?”

Just before they played one of my favorite b-sides, a track called Incommunicado, Aaron Huffman and Jeff Lin switched instruments. Rachel Bowman came on the stage and I realized she was the same Rachel Bowman who sings some beautiful lo-fi songs. Sean Nelson said something about how much he liked it when Aaron Huffman and Jeff Lin switched instruments. To my knowledge this is the only song for which they do this.

Incommunicado is a song which used to be on the “Little By Little…” album, but it evidently didn’t fit with the rest of the album and was ultimately removed. It is beautiful and sweet. It opens with the line “I wish the words would fail me just for once.” Yet despite its charm it was ill-fated, and it is a secret now, a strange and unique and wonderful moment waiting to be found.

Happy New Year.

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Hello! I have been spending the holidays up in New Hampshire, and I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie with my brother-in-law. I don’t think I ever read any of the of the books, but I may have read one or two. I was, of course, familiar with the premise. I went into this having known only that it featured Robert Downey Junior, and some explosions.

This was not a mystery movie. This was a Victorian adventure story filled with some fun explosions. It was humorous, it was macabre, it was clever. The pacing was good and the action was exciting, without being excessive. I really enjoyed myself.

That said, some caveats. I am in love with Victorian adventure stories. I was not a fan before, so it couldn’t possibly have ruined anything for me. I don’t know to what extent it would have. And it was clever, which is not the same as intelligent. I’m not saying it was a stupid movie, but it is more likely to dazzle you with charm than with brilliance.

The acting was excellent and the characters strong. I had fun and was glad I’d seen it, and wouldn’t mind going again. It has been a while since I’ve seen something clever and fun and I’m glad this was both.

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An excerpt:

I wish I could say “time stopped moving.” That would be easier. I wish there were some clear logical way to explain it, some rules that it followed. There aren’t any. The nearest I can get is this:

Time stopped moving, but everyone kept going anyway, for the most part.

Except it didn’t really stop. It just moved in fits and starts. The sun would be hanging in the sky for three days and then suddenly it’s night time, two weeks later. Or sometimes it would just be a few hours later. Sometimes it’s like everything stopped happening and sometimes it’s like the clocks and the sun aren’t moving but the trains still run and we could still do whatever.

The worst part is that the intervening time didn’t happen. It’s just suddenly I’d be somewhere else, a new context, in the middle of something sometimes, and I’d just have to figure out what’s going on. Eventually you learn to play it by ear.

It’s hard, though. “Relearning to walk” doesn’t begin to cover it when it’s the rules you thought the universe followed that have stopped working. And they don’t even have the decency to break them in ways that make sense.

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I finally got around to reading Joey Comeau’s Lockpick Pornography yesterday. It is a pretty quick read, and the whole thing is online as a PDF at the link there.

He describes it as a “genderqueer adventure story,” and that is probably the best description I can think of for it. You wouldn’t expect a book about LGBT (as people or as a movement) to be light-hearted and fun, and I think that’s a lot of its charm. It’s fun without being mindless. It asks good questions and makes you think, and while it has some parts which are kind of bleak, it’s not too serious and it doesn’t moralize. It made me think about “the movement” and about gender and sexuality, both generally and specifically. It has some refreshing perspective.

It’s a pretty fun read overall. In places it definitely feels like a first draft or a first novel or something: not quite finished, a little sloppy. But it was a nice way to spend the evening and I feel like I’ve gained something from reading, which doesn’t happen often enough anymore.

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