The transcendent nature of hearing a strange old robotically buzzy 20 year old song as the bus crested the hill on Punt Rd and, a little later, I stepped off and walked to the office; it fit the cold morning air so well.
When did I first hear this song? I’d bought the CD in Singapore and listened to it on this train trip to Kuala Lumpur in early 2004, in very different weather to this wintry morning:
I learnt so much on that trip, and saw so many things:
As we get older, it’s harder and harder to fight the pull of nostalgia. What would I have done differently? Plenty of things, but also nothing.
We visited Ueno Station one cold, grey morning, entirely because of a memory of an old song, as you do – or, well, as I do.
My wife found it odd. I couldn't really explain how songs seep into your bones over time, but it related to how I needed to experience a more random nature of Tokyo beyond other people's top-N lists.
We could've seen anything at all here, and it would've helped a few more connections form somewhere in my brain. That's what I'm looking for – the joy of less-conscious discoveries. After all, it's up to you what the image means.
I woke up to a sea of memories from musicians and other folks about Tom Verlaine and Television; my own are more second-hand.
An influential friend gave me a mixtape in the last year of high school containing a single from a local band we all liked (and whose guitarist would, in a strange mixing of worlds much later on, become my manager for a year or so). The b-side of that single was a cover of Little Johnny Jewel which lodged itself squarely in my mind, even after I bought the impossibly good Marquee Moon later on.
Somewhere among the waves, I enjoyed reading Lucy Sante mention how every gig sounded different – it almost makes me miss going along to more live music in the hope of those transcendental moments (who am I kidding? I feel too old for all that standing up).
Having some time on my hands is a gift – I've been using it to just get out and spend time on my feet, each day. I might struggle to suggest that I'm making the most of my time, but that's the point – I don't have to! The main battle has been to disconnect myself from the constant need to feel productive, and to just let it happen. This includes photographic opportunities.
Hi! I’m Cos, and I run this service. My pronouns are he/him and I live in #Naarm / #Melbourne in Australia with my wife and cats.
I’ve been hanging around the Internet since the days of UUCP connections. The distributed / less-centralized nature of those times is something that still appeals to me, which is why I’m still here #selfhosting and hosting for others – I’ve loved empowering friends to get their thoughts up and into the Internet so that it’s not just the same old nerds like me in here.
I’m trying out WriteFreely as a way to better aggregate my writing and some other information. This post serves as both an #introduction and a test.
It's hard to avoid the gravitational pull of music from our formative years – in my case, around the end of high school. One such song has its 30th birthday today, on July 16th – #Swervedriver's Son of Mustang Ford.
I wasn't early enough to enjoy the morning fog, but what a crisp morning! I braved a street I once lived in (some memories are harder than others), and pushed further west into some streets I rarely visit anymore, full of the usual mix of terrifying mansion-like things amongst the preserved prior world.
There are tiny hints amongst the blankness – subtle things, not the wall-high scrawls – I appreciate the little notes.
Remnants of another milk bar that succumbed to the ravages of our times, though I struggle to remember the particular nature of this one.
Really, it's just nice to be out, seeing nothing in particular.
Musical accompaniment was something new (competely unheard) and something old (but not listened to for a long time):
