NFSL - My Dear Acquaintance and Pleasure Songs

I don't listen to much radio. When MS presented me with the Nano just before Christmas, I realized that one of the accessories that I had from the Mini was an adapter that allows the owner to pick up radio signals on an iPod...it looks like a Shuffle hooked to a USB charger for the MP3, and then you plug the headphones into the top of the Shuffle-like unit. It didn't generate a radio for my Mini because my Mini was too old, so I used it as a remote control of sorts. But with the Nano, it works just fine.

This week with the shitty work schedule (holidays? what holidays?) I plugged in the adapter and listened to radio all week, easing myself back into Alice and KFOG. Sadly, I could still sing along with much of Alice--Clear Channel tends to stick with the popular and worn-out stuff--but KFOG didn't let me down. I learned a few new songs with KFOG. I couldn't tell you what they are right now, but I remember stopping with a few and taking a 3 and a half minute break and just listening. I guess I needed that break.

In the past I picked up new music from The Coffeehouse station on Yahoo Music or other radio feeds across the internet. I'm just starting to see the possibilities of the internet in a good way again (thanks to on-line friends, remarkably), and I stumble around in the dark a lot, hoping to get lucky. I find a lot that I like, a lot that I like the more I listen to it, and very little that I don't, music-wise. Yesterday I decided to force-feed myself some more vegetables (vegetables that won't kill me with too much Vitamin A, thank God) and downloaded a couple of the free music from iTunes.

The pieces were: My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year) by Regina Spektor and Pleasure Songs by The Mary Onettes. I try not to look at the reviews when I download this stuff--destroys the discovery. Of the two, Pleasure Songs was my favorite, like a modern version of Come Saturday Morning, a little more driving, but still taking me back to the Elfindale Mansion in Springfield on birthday retreats. My Dear Acquaintance is more of a sparking political piece, a lounge lizard ode, something you couldn't find quietly but at a drinking spree with friends at a piano. Both were good. Pleasure Songs gave me more, required less, but probably said less too.

I'm still gonna listen to KFOG, Yahoo Music, and iTunes. The hunt continues, though...like hunting for a spelling of the word when you don't know how to spell it ("you mean I gotta look through all of the D's????") or trying to remember the locker combination you no longer need from twenty years ago. Don't tell me the ending. I want to read it for myself.