READIN

🦋 Random 10 while reading

Another difference between Inherent Vice and my standard category of novel-reading experience is, I like the reading a lot better if there is music playing in the background. Normally I have a hard time reading when I'm listening to music, here they seem to enhance one another. From my iTunes shuffle today:

1. It ain't nobody's business, Mississippi John Hurt
2. La-Do-Dada, Dale Hawkins
3. What Goes On, Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips -- this was a very nice coincidence because it came on just as I was starting to read the lyrics to the Spotted Dicks' new single "Long Trip Out" (which is on the radio in Doc's car), and suddenly I am singing them to the tune of "What Goes On", and they are fitting pretty well. Here is a verse of it:

   Long trip out, from the Mekong Delta...
   It's a last lost chance, when you need a friend,
   And you're flyin on out of
   Cam Ranh Bay at midnight,
   And you won't know how, to
   Get back home again.

   Then I spent a little while distracted, trying to find out more about "What Goes On" -- turns out it is a Velvet Underground song.
4. The Birds Were Singing, Carter Family
5. There'll be Joy, Joy, Joy, Carter Family -- the Carter Family threatening to distract from the novel, they do not quite work together.
6. Floater, Bob Dylan -- now this is more like it --
7. Till the End of the World, Ernie Tubb
8. Salty Dog Blues, John Hurt
9. Knockin on Heaven's Door, Dylan and the Band -- I was not actually participating in the music-listening/reading activity here, "Salty Dog" had reminded me that Lola needed to go out --
10. I Something You, Robyn Hitchcock.

...and later on in the shuffle, Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra plays the "What-cha-call-'em Blues" which go very nicely with the lyrics I am reading at this moment, to Carmine and the Cal-Zones' "Just the Lasagna". Conclusion, when there's music playing it's much easier to imagine Pynchon's lyrics being sung.

posted afternoon of Sunday, August 16th, 2009
➳ More posts about Inherent Vice
➳ More posts about Thomas Pynchon
➳ More posts about Readings
➳ More posts about random tunes
➳ More posts about Music
➳ More posts about Robyn Hitchcock
➳ More posts about Grant Lee Phillips
➳ More posts about Bob Dylan

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