Spring Fever

(More blog entries from kellykelly)

I thought I was the only one.  I was so relieved when I witnessed a friend indulge in her guilty pleasure, playing a song she fell in love with over and over again.  (Thank god it was Neutral Milk Hotel.  I mean, I have a Britney Spears fetish and all but you won’t catch me playing Womanizer on repeat.)  We were in the car and we discovered the song and the haunting lyrics, beautiful simplicity and the story made it feel as if Wes Anderson himself were making a movie and soundtrack of our lives down a Brooklyn street in the fall of 2005.  When the song would come to its last guitar cords, she would hit the play button on the CD player and say, Again!  I was not alone – here was another “song addict.”

We couldn’t get enough of it.  That song became a mantra, a message, a secret code – it alluded to what was going on among friends, behind doors, the past, the future, all perfectly bundled in a tightly succinct beautiful song.  To listen to it was to live it.  The code meant the song could come up on the ipod shuffle and a knowing glance would be exchanged around the room to those who understood its deeper meaning.  And the song had a way of punctuating time  - signifying in a moment, heartbreak, kinship, trust. If I heard it on my own, I drifted off this planet, my mind going to “the Greyhound station where I send my thoughts to far off destinations so they may have a chance of finding a place where they’re far more suited than here.”

The joy of the iPod, or any mp3 listening devise, is that I don’t have to subject others to my obsessive madness.  To me, its as if I’m searching for clues every time I listen – why do I love this song so much?  And why does it make me feel like I’m here but not really here and that feels so good.  Whereas my hapless subway car rider, if traveling with me more than the F train 2nd Ave stop past Broadway Lafayette might implore me to play something else already.  No, in my personal universe, I get to indulge in the one song over and over again as much as I want.

I have to admit, I got a little addicted to the movie.  And its absurd. Its not a great film.  I can spar any day about the genius of movies like The Mission and Heat or performances in Doubt and La Vie en Rose.  This film – is better than I thought it would be – but its not great by any means, but its growing on me, I’m obsessing over it, and not in just a guilty pleasure kind of way.  When Casino Royale came out years ago the same thing happened.  Yes it re-revolutionized Bond and inserted real actors where beautiful mannequins once purred pithy lines.  But something about this Bond got under my skin.  I saw it in the theater at least 13 times.  My favorite was to go alone (no I am NOT Pee Wee Herman). The story, the relationships, as cheesy as they were, they resonated with me.  I can still watch that film and never be bored. And it meant something more to me than just pure entertainment.

So my obsession makes me demand answers, of myself and of why this – this music, this movie – why these of all things have me hooked.  I don’t know – I kind of know – but not totally – and maybe that’s what makes it all the more interesting.  Maybe I think that if I uncover some hidden truth in the song, realize some clue in the film, it will open up my perspective and be the key that unlocks everything in my life.

Now that would be interesting.

My obsession the other night drove me to a website and I read… “I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream.”  And then, “What if true love left you? Not some ordinary high school romance, not some random jock boyfriend, not anyone at all replaceable. True love. The real deal. Your other half, your true soul's match. What happens if he leaves?”

Whoa. Clues?  Random?  My own private Da Vinci Code?

I don’t believe in random.  What do I believe?

I’m going to bed, headphones on, the moon through my window, the spring blossoms like white cotton balls against a midnight blue sky.  And again…

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