Thursday, December 4, 2008

A Round Trip From Chicago to Arizona in a Volvo Wagon: Why I Started Listening to Tortoise.

Alas! I feel like a posting wizard today . . . I just keep writing and writing and writing. Obviously, from the title, you can see this post is about Tortoise, of whom I hold a special place in my heart. I first listened to Tortoise . . . well, many years ago . . . like seven years ago, actually. I was still an undergraduate at Northwestern University . . .  and my then roommate and friend, Will, and I had embarked on a trip over the winter holidays, because neither of us had anywhere to go for the break . . . and for some reason we decidedly put our minds and money towards a road trip from Chicago all the way to Arizona (don’t ask me why . . . maybe for the warmth).

The whole way driving there in my old Volvo Wagon, through the snow and ice and sleet, we listened to Tortoise. It just fit that mood, you know, for going on an adventure with just a road map and an automobile to get you wherever on the map you wanted. Personally, I had only started listening to them because of their association with The Sea and Cake, which at the time I listened to nonstop . . . but after those couple days of driving through the night . . . day . . . and then night again listening to Tortoise, I became addicted. They just have that sort of nuance associated with them, which makes them easy to travel to, whether it is by car, plane, train, or bus. You can just put on the headphones, pull out your copy of The Western Lands by Burroughs . . . and well, actually understand what is happening in the book (I did this once while riding the Amtrak to D.C . . . I don’t whether it was Tortoise bringing me clarity or if it was just a good day). 


However, despite the clarity Tortoise gives me when traveling . . . somehow for other situations, it just doesn't work. Like to prep myself to write these passages, I put some on, you know, as a refresher to get the sounds back into my head . . . it didn't work. Maybe my mood was completely off . . . or something, but I was not feeling it . . . at all. I had to wipe the slate off and switch over to something completely different, Grandaddy, to get back into the writing feel. 

Anyways . . . I suspect on the flight to France in May I'll have a sufficient amount of Tortoise on the playlist, to get by. For now I think I will give pause and stop writing for the day. I'm going to put on another sweater I think, while I wait for the fire to warm up the house . . . and I'm probably . . . no wait, I am going to go russle up something in the kitchen for a dessert, I'm feeling kind of peckish, like I want to try everything sweet and fruity all at once. I think I have some frozen strawberries and blackberries leftover from the summer . . . maybe I'll whip something up with them. Yum.

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