Monday, February 28, 2005

Fun & Games

I believe that pop music has a tremendous impact upon one's identity--it's sort of the point of this blog. It's probably a shallow, postmodern (ooo, there's a term that's long in the tooth!), consumerist impulse, this identity-through-consumption meme, but then we live in a shallow, postmodern, consumerist age. I listen to pop. That means, almost by definition, that I don't listen to:
Christina Aguilera, Bob Seger, Philip Glass, Fiona Apple, Miles Davis, The Postal Service, R. Kelly, Kansas, Alabama (or any other state, really), Cheetah, Charlotte Church, The Smiths (I know, I know. Tell me one more time and I'm gonna barf, I swear), Glenn Miller, Britney Spears, Steely Dan, Motley Crue, The Beastie Boys, Leontyne Price, and yes (brace yourselves) The Arcade Fire.

This is not to denigrate any of these artists. I quite like some of them, in moderation. But they're not me, not really. I never mind when people send me music, or ask me about it, because I know that an open and curious ear is part of the responsibility this blog has placed upon my head. I'm good with that. But I'm not, in fact, morally obligated to like everything. I try not to spend money on things I won't like, but beyond that, my ear is open.

Nevertheless, I wasn't quite ready for this. Popstrology purports to determine your identity based on the music that was popular in the year of your birth. Now, I should probably confess that I don't really believe in astrology, despite the fact that my birthday promises the world that I'm quite an entertaining person:
You are intensely emotional and strongly aware of the darker side of human nature. You don't live on the surface of life, but experience it at its deepest levels.

You possess an iron will, a strong ego and a unique personal magnetism. You make a loyal friend and a passionate lover.

You're also intuitive, ambitious and have a penetrating mind. You have a burning need to uncover what is hidden, whether it's a mystery or someone else's innermost secrets. You're rarely who you appear to be on the outside and are not easy to get to know.

Would that that were so! But no, despite my first mother-in-law's lament ("My son can't marry a Scorpio!"--though as it turned out she was right), I'm actually a fairly mellow person in most respects. (I'm similarly entertained by, but skeptical of, tarot and ouija. I sort of wish that they were real, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that, and I've looked, believe me.)

But popstrology seems a blunter object altogether. Maybe it's the by-the-year thing. Like Chinese astrology, I'm hesitant to believe that I have that much in common with those with whom I share a birth year (a hesitancy confirmed by my recent high school reunion. I was right, at 16: I have nothing in common with these people).

This isn't to say there's no wisdom in Popstrology. Consider:

Perhaps the roots of your chronic restlessness lie in the fact that you are an ABBA born in the Year of Debby Boone. Or perhaps the key to finally overcoming your crippling sexual inhibition is to acknowledge that you are a Pat Boone born in the Year of Elvis Presley. These and thousands of other possible lessons are to be found in the pop stars, and even popstrological novices can easily learn the tools necessary to reveal them.

or even better:
If you are an Olivia Newton-John who keeps on falling for Rod Stewarts, or if you are experiencing certain feelings that go along with being a Double George Michael, then the roots of your troubles may be straightforward and obvious. It is more likely, however, that the answer to your relationship issues will only be revealed through an analysis or your Birthstar's relationship to the forty-five constellations in the popstrological firmament.


This is getting to be way too much like math. ("Double George Michael" just means "gay," though, right?) But it's fun, and I encourage you, as a Johnny Rivers born in the third (and most thrilling of all) Year of the Beatles, to read yourselves.

For another fun time-waster, try this test, which determines the circle of hell into which you'll be cast, based on your sins and penchants. I, of course, am in the second circle, with the lustful. Paolo and Francesca, Helen of Troy, LJ, and me, are all going to have a hoot of a time getting drunk and talking about sex. I guess I shouldn't have answered "yes" to question 46: "Do you regularly check Sex Toyblogging at Raging PMS? Do you check back to see what other commenters have said?" Oops. Damn you, LJ! (shaking fist)

Thanks to refinnej for the heads up! Hope I wasn't too weird on the phone the other day; I was half asleep.

28 comments:

ntodd said...

1969 -
It was a year of unparalleled importance in the self-written cultural history of the baby-boom generation, but self-written histories are always to be mistrusted, particularly when written in the medium of movie and television sound tracks. While 1969 may indeed have been the year of Woodstock, it was also the Year of the Fifth Dimension, who joyously proclaimed the dawning of the age of Aquarius, but whose popstrological rise marked the dawning of the age of Lite & White. There are those who call the founding of the constellation Lite & White by a group of African Americans ironic, but be that as it may, the formation of that mighty constellation in the final year of the sixties bestows upon the Fifth Dimension generation an ability to find islands of blissful calm in times of trouble. And while the line between blissful calm and stifling staleness may be a fine one, it's a line that anyone born in a year that saw the rise of B. J. Thomas and Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head is destined to walk.

And I'm sorry to say, but I'm going to miss you when we're gone: I'm condemned to the 6th Circle with the rest of the Heretics.

NYMary said...

NTodd,
Hmmm. Maybe there is something too this. There must be some reason for my penchant for the boys of 1969, including (though not, alas, limited to) Thers. But what's your song?

And I guess that's why it'll be hell: you'll be locked in the 6th circle knowing that all the fun chicks are in the 2nd one.

NYMary said...

But in the Second circle, we'll certainly still have Hunkblogging.

Just sayin'....

Michael said...

The Archies, Sugar Sugar? What does this mean?

ntodd said...

But what's your song? Oops...

Some will call you a visionary, others a Cassandra. Some will simply call you "heavy."

Despite the impression that television might give, Hendrix, the Who, and the Jefferson Airplane were not the only sound of their generation. In fact, when a hundred thousand college students headed home from Woodstock, the song they probably listened to on the drive back to Long Island wasn't Purple Haze -- it was the ponderous In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus) by Denny Zager and Rick Evans, the biggest stars ever to emerge from the Lincoln, Nebraska, motel-lounge circuit. With their trippy dystopian visions of an armless, foodless future, Zager and Evans were like Nostradamus for bong smokers, and they ruled the pop universe absolutely in the summer of 1969. So why have you never heard of them? Blame the relentless efforts of the baby boomers to package and market a grossly incomplete "official" memory of their teenage years. With their talk of environmental collapse, human cloning, and the total disappearance of chewy foods, your Birthstar provided powerful and thought-provoking subject matter to a generation grappling with the urgent question of whether their entire universe might be, like, just a single atom in the fingernail of some giant creature somewhere. Yet like so many stars in the constellation Had to Be There, they've been nearly expunged from popular memory, the tragic victims of the what-were-we-thinking phenomenon. You too might someday find yourself the unlikely master of a given moment in space-time, but always remember that instant fans can sometimes be fickle.
Birthsong
In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus) Jul 6-Aug 16, 1969

you'll be locked in the 6th circle knowing that all the fun chicks are in the 2nd one.God damn it!

But in the Second circle, we'll certainly still have Hunkblogging.Are there visiting hours?

rorschach said...

I am unsurprised that it's the second level for me as well...

Eli said...

Wow, NTodd and I are *both* Heretics from the Year Of The Fifth Dimension.

At least my birthsong isn't widely considered a bad joke (although I personally rather like it) - I got "Get Back", which unfortunately has no analysis whatsoever. So I guess it means I'm, like, "Just A Guy" Guy or something.

Eli said...

I'm still mystified about Sixth Level. I think about the lack of sex in my life than I do about the lack of God in my life.

Eli said...

There should be an "a lot more" in there somewheres...

Anonymous said...

try listenng to the Postal Service's "Nothing Better" again before writing them off entirely. Give Up moved into my CD player and set up permanent residence for several months

watertiger said...

Aiiiiiiiieeeee! Aug. 14: Neil Sedaka, Breaking Up is Hard to Do!

1962: The Year of the Four Seasons

On the banks of the Passaic in the early 1960s, they built their trademark sound from pieces of doo-wop with a dash of Phil Spector thrown in and hatched their plot to launch the Jersey Invasion of 1962. But if the Four Seasons and their compatriots Connie Francis, the Shirelles, and Joey Dee and the Starliters hoped to usher in a lasting era of dominance for the constellation Jersey Pride, they fell well short of their goal. Should they have been able to look at a star like Mr. Acker Bilk and foresee what was about to happen? Probably not, for while Mr. Acker Bilk was British, he was as unrelated to the coming British Invasion as the Four Seasons were themselves, and even if they'd known what was being plotted three thousand miles across the Atlantic, there probably isn't much they could have done about it. Among the children of the Four Seasons generation, one will find more than a few all-American success stories, but one will also find that even the most accomplished children of 1962 have difficulty banishing the sense of grim foreboding that takes some of the pleasure out of their every success.

Um, excuse me, but we'll be having a right mighty time down in the 8th Circle. Hotter = less clothing. Just sayin'.

Michael said...

And still stuck on Level One looking for a way below.

NYMary said...

preznit,
Postal Service aren't bad, but there's no hooks, and the songs take forever to get going. I was listening to that CD today, in fact, and I was more than ready to give it fair hearing, based on reputation alone. But it never hooked me behind the navel, which undoubtedly has more to do with my wiring than their quality.

Aquaria said...

In all fairness, the test appeared before the infamous Sex Toy Blogging, although I'm sure if I'd created the idea sooner, it definitely would have made the cut!

Oh, Mary, don't forget our other 2nd Level compadre, Phila. My goodness, the trouble I'll be getting into with him there!

--LJ, amazed at what some folks will do to get other people to comment on their blogs. ;)

Rmj said...

1955. I don't even want to know. Unless it has something to do with chant, plainsong, and shaped note singing, or an inordinate interest in folk music, progressive rock, Beatles tunes, and Ornette Coleman's style of jazz (or Vince Guaraldi's), I'm not interested.

I'm already as shallow as I wanna be.

Rmj said...

Besides, I'll be in Purgatory. Which promises to be a really square scene, daddy-o.

Like, Dullsville, man.

ntodd said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ntodd said...

Maaaan, I so don't want to spend eternity with Eli in the 6th circle. Reminds me of being condemned t the kids' table at family gatherings. Hopefully I can dig a tunnel to the 2nd circle where all the party girls are.

refinnej said...

Well, this Young Rascals (Groovin) gal from the Year of The Monkees will be joining you in the 2nd level... And you weren't weird on the phone at all. I'm going to have to get back to you about when I an brighten your life with a visit from *Me*.. for an unemployed person I am remarkably busy.

Since I'll be condemned to spend the afterlife being blown about by the winds of unquenchable desire, I figure I should start getting things done NOW.. Do you realize that's like never getting to see the end of the movie FOREVER??

Anonymous said...

I'm in the 6th dimension and the pop thingie does not go back in years far enough. oh well
Loco Lobo

Anonymous said...

Speaking of music, fun, games... take my Tuesday Music Challenge™, if you dare!
.

Anonymous said...

(NYMary is guaranteed to score at least five points, if that is any hint to the rest of y'all...)
.

Aquaria said...

Refinnej:

Funny, that isnt hell to me, never getting to see the end. Lots of things I've seen/read that I didn't want to end really. So think of it as a Soap Opera! Or a great comic book series. :D

refinnej said...

Aquaria:
That's so cool that you can point out the bright side to hell..
:)

Aquaria said...

Psst, Mary: It's RAMPAGING PMS. Not Raging. Thanks.

Aquaria said...

Refi:

It's my Libra ascendant. Always the optimist! :)

Anonymous said...

Hmmmmm...the Dante test says, as a "virtuous pagan [?],I'm headed for limbo [1st level]...and popstrology says I'm summed up by the Monkees' 'I'm a Believer'...so I think it's time to stop taking online personality tests-- they just reinforce my state of confusion.

Nick Carraway (who was restless on the internets tonight)

Fox said...

hehehe. YOU ARE WELCOME for the link I provided you to that Levels Of Hell quiz. ;) I'm glad to have indirectly brought so much joy to the world. lol, just kidding.

I listen to Miles Davis. And don't knock Postal Service, yo. Ever listen to any Death Cab? the lead singer is one of the PS dudes.

and i realize astrology has its pitfalls. but i'm such a textbook Gemini... what can I say? I'm a believer, I couldn't leave'er if I tried.

Thanks for all the support when my life took an Alice in Wonderland turn for the past week or so. I've moved, and things are slowly getting better.