The Trouble With Classicists Monday, May 02, 2005

I forgot to mention in the post below that one of the great sidebar pleasures of Hitchhiker's was the theme music, Journey of the Sorceror, which if memory serves was lifted from the Eagles. Adams, I think, also mentioned that he played One Trick Pony nonstop while writing Restaurant at the End of the Universe. A guy with excellent tastes. I don't really begrudge him his atheism; I just don't think it sings to me anymore, which makes me a little sad. Those were nifty books. Drifting away from them is like losing an old friend.

Speaking of which...I've been looking back at some of the posts from the heat of the campaign last year and I'm not happy with them. I don't regret the sentiments; I regret posting first drafts and not taking one last critical look at how I was expressing them. Most of the entries never rise above High Snark, and browsing them quickly, many of them don't even make sense.

I bring this up mostly because an acquaintance, who I have mentioned often before, told me that he had read around the site a while ago and it made him "angry and sad." I figured de gustibus; but looking back on the stuff he most likely read, it made me uncomfortable too. Those were not the most relaxed times in your correspondent's life, and it came through in the prose. Strangely, most of the stuff I wrote while working in New York--on five minutes' sleep every night and twelve hours' stress every day--is positively pastoral. Go figure.

At any rate, if I came off like a boozy brother-in-law, my apologies. Apparently I also misquoted my acquaintance; I took what he said as best I remembered it. Apologies for any harm done.

Pax again. We find out about our house (or non-house) tomorrow. Apparently, six people bid and we were in the top three. Here's hoping we have the privilege of signing over every penny we have to people we will never know!

@ 10:07:00 PM,

2 Comments:

At 9:01 AM, Blogger BeK said...

I'm still trying to recover from the Springsteen/Joel comparison. I mean, c'mon. The first side of "Born to Run" eclipses Billy's entire catalog.

 
At 12:19 PM, Blogger Aaron said...

Not so, Bri! I'll take Billy's ridiculous but awesome Miami 2017 over anything by the so-called Boss, with all his gritty pomp. And how about Summer, Highland Falls? What a gorgeous song! I think the comparison is as worthy as the one in Almost Famous when Lester Bangs is comparing some famous, artsy rock band (I don't remember which one) to the Guess Who and he says "give me the Guess Who anyday. They're drunken idiots who know they're drunken idiots." Billy Joel at his height was absolutely magnificent and I'd take him over Bruce anyday.

 

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