Mrs Metaphor

Hmm.  Anger management, anyone?  

I can’t criticize too much.  I FEEL this…deeply, babe.

then what kind of drug do I want to be?

Am I penicillin or heroin?

Opium or Ibuprofen?

Arsenic?

Aspirin?

Do I heal or do I harm?

There is your radical thought for the day.

…then I will introduce you to another fantastic loop-a-rific pair of performers.  This vastly talented duo came to me through a series of friends recently and I am proud to say I was stealthy enough to woo them as friends myself via Facebook.  God love Facebook.

This is Steve Lawson and Lobelia Sabo (whose voice, by the way, SLAYS me…SLAYS me, I say.) I hope you’ll dig their stuff.  I know that I do.

As Steve says in his description:

“Bass ‘n’ voice looping and strangeness take on Pat Benatar’s 80s arena rock classic… enjoy, but be warned, it gets very odd towards the end! 

All the loops and layers are live - there are no pre-recorded samples or backing tracks. the looper used is a looperlative. And that’s a 6 string fretless bass, not just a tiny guitarist… :o) ”

For more info about their duo live EP, see www.stevelawson.net or www.lobelia.net

I love my Aunt Barb…she sends me things like this all the time. Here’s a hint, put it in “manic” mode for hours of fun.

Stress Relief

I confess that I think one of my blogger friends may have posted this in the past but in my parenting stupor I just cannot rightly recall…so Aunt Barb gets the credit.  

I went to my guitar lesson this week and plugged into the amp.  As I played I realized that the sound coming out was not even remotely similar to what I hear at home.  This was crunchy and grungy and erm…not quite the me I expected to hear.  I was thrashing without even trying, babe. My guitar teacher reached down and turned a knob, pressed a button, something… bringing me back to familiar ground and sound.

I confess that while I feel I’m picking up the musicality of the instrument fairly well, I am still finding my way around the technology.  For the first time since I made the decision to purchase my semi-hollow body electric rather than the nice sounding but not sexy acoustic I wondered if I was maybe in over my head.

I’m making some good noises with the guitar.  I am really very happy with my progress.  I even “hammer-on” stuff now and again.  Yeah, baby.  The trouble is that I still have to think about what each of the little knobs and buttons and bells and whistles do in this setup.  I am astounded at how one thing turned ever so slightly completely changes everything.

Things are simpler on an acoustic.  You sit, you play.  No electricity involved.  No 9v batteries to change so that your humbuckers stop humming. No grunge buttons pushed by mistake.  You sit, you play, kum ba ya, my Lord, kum ba ya.

I imagine my learning curve would be less steep had I gone with the acoustic.

Then again….there is this moment I recognise in all of this and if everything is metaphor then there is one here as well, yes?

There is this moment where I think about this complicated choice, this sharp learning curve and I see how having this kind of latitude in sound fits me.  It mirrors so well the life I’ve chosen….the life of the artist, the wife of an artist, the mother of the chaos crazed artists in training.  Nothing is certain.  Everything can change in a breath.  We adapt, we push a button, we turn a knob and find a sound that works here.  Half the time we don’t know what will happen…feedback, more often than not, trial and error, it’s all good….or it’s all good-ish at least.  It’s an adventure.

I will learn what each knob does in time.  I hope I remember after I learn it.  It will probably take the rest of my life to figure it out and put it all into practice…then again, metaphorically the lesson is that perhaps really it’s more about seeing this AS my life after all…rather than something I do to fill the time.

That Writerchick. I like her an awful lot. She has issued a “meme” recently that really did stick in my brain so I thought I would venture out and join the crazy fun. For the most part, “meme” stuff makes me mental these days (although I secretly enjoy them….go figure.)

Anyway, this one is fairly easily and acts as a kind of “self marketing” meme in the process.

Here is the basic layout:

1. Go through past posts and link to five of your favorites, one for each of the following categories:

* Family
* Friends
* Yourself
* Something you love
* Your personal choice

2. Tag five other people to do this meme. Two of them must be people you already know so that you can get to know each other better. That Writerchick is so very wise and cool that I am actually going to copy her and not “tag” anyone. Maybe it will stick in your brain this week and you’ll want to just tag yourself, though huh?

My picks:

Family: What I don’t know is a lot
Friends: Into Africa
Yourself: Falling in love with me
Something I Love: Why don’t you like me?
My Choice: New

Enjoy delving into the archives….

To whomever Googled and found me using the phrase, “I don’t get metaphors…”

Stick around, grasshopper and I will show you the light.  Everything is metaphor.

love always,

Mrs M.

Watch this video and you will see the wonder of my new girl crush, Imogen Heap. Maybe you will not realize, just at first, how astounding it is, what she is doing here. Each and every sound of this song is made and recorded by her voice or her hands right then, right there…fed into samplers and looped as she cues them. Live. Nothing has been pre-recorded.

Maybe you don’t realize this but I am going to just tell you and I know you will trust me, your friend Mrs Metaphor, when I say that this is astounding. It truly is. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

It’s that time of year
Leave all our hopelessness’s aside
If just for a little while
tears stop right here
I know we’ve all had a bumpy ride.
I’m secretly on your side

A few months back a friend of mine turned me on to Facebook. I was so hooked in. It’s scary how addictive it is. It’s like crack, it really is. Suddenly I felt like I had a connection to the outside world again. This is a good thing overall, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I find I spend way too much time taking personality tests and playing “scrabulous” and not so much time actually, say, talking to people in real life. This is a problem. That’s the first step, admitting that I HAVE a problem, yes?

So now, the same friend for a variety of reasons is taking a brief hiatus from the online world. My drug buddy has left the building. This gave me some pause and I began to examine my own stuff around what he calls a “social addiction.” One MIGHT think this would lead me to take my own hiatus but, erm…no. Not yet. Instead I wrote a song about it. It’s a start though.

For your edification and enjoyment I shall post the lyrics here:

Social Addiction

I rely on constant touch
saying things I think are clever
it’s no mystery
how much it means
every precious word
or gesture

no one knows
how deep this goes

I compose the perfect scene
arranging shows of my infirmity
wrap them close
keep them safe
clutched in my hand
just like a rosary

no one knows
how deep this goes
even I can’t find
the fear below

And the manifest symptom is this
My social addiction exists
Is it part of my story
Or half of my problem
Or one more solution that fits?

I confess to deep unrest
discontent to take the test
it’s no mystery
how much it seems
to press this pulse
and stop the beating

no one knows
how deep this goes
even I can’t find
the fear below
the surface

And the manifest symptom is this
My social addiction exists
Is it part of my story
Or half of my problem
Or one more solution that fits
For now?

Here is your radical thought for the coming week.

Pay attention.

Pay attention to the feel of the air on your skin. Pay attention to the color of the sky and the trees. Pay attention to the sound that fills the room and failing that, pay attention to the silence.

If you had a camera in your brain (and in effect, you DO have a camera in your brain as it were) and your eye is the lens then this week take as many well framed and focused photos as you can.

Slow down.

Look deep.

Breathe it in.

Pay attention.