Caroline Polachek is playing through the speaker right now. However, I just spent a whole week, Sunday to Sunday, without Spotify. I renewed my Premium because I was not going to get into the bath one more time with YouTube lyrics videos playing, or worse, silence. This was one of those silly little challenges that I arbitrarily place on myself just to see what happens this. This was lower stakes than the 6-month sobriety I enforced on myself that was meant to end at the end of April, but in some ways more taxing. I love music! It’s brat summer! I am a chronic podcast listener.
Without Spotify I had only Joni Mitchell’s Blue, which I purchased when she took her discography off Spotify last year because she was rightfully sick of that shit! I had Frank Ocean’s nostalgia ULTRA mixtape, the Miley Cyrus song Lighter, and the aforementioned YouTube lyric videos. I had to hear my own thoughts a lot this week and as I sit here typing that might explain why I was palpably sadder this week.
It wasn’t all bad though. I think the thing that makes these weeks where I unplug from some form of media, is that they are always great exercises in tuning in to my own voice which is honestly very important to me. It was nice to know what I think without Ezra Klein or Nymphet Alumni in my ears giving me something else to think about. To be honest no Spotify is likely why I was able to finally publish this newsletter this week even though I’ve had this name picked out for months.
Also, with the two albums I did have I kept thinking how being so offline and traipsing around the world is what guided Frank’s to conceptualizing of one of the best songs ever, American Wedding. The Eagles wish! The Eagles are mad! The Eagles were found seething! Joni Mitchell sings about lovers, friends and children in Africa, Paris and California and I want that kind of life so bad.
I promised you updates on the bananas. The birds ate some of them and I am honestly fine with this. It was a gentle reminder that we share this world with other beings and we should be okay with not having more than we need. I got reprimanded a bit for slowing down the picking because of my monitoring of the grown of the bananas which ultimately led to the birds getting a chomp, but is that so bad? We already had bananas in the house. There was more than enough to go around.
Maybe that’s what’s funny about all this. There are more than enough bananas but sometimes, when I listen to a podcast that is over an hour long, I get the sense there is not more than enough of my time and attention. I’ve been rereading The Odyssey as well as listening to the audiobook version of The Possessed by Elif Batuman and both of these books keep reminding me that leisure a long time ago, for the Greeks, for Tolstoy, for people in 2003 was different than it is now. Leisure was walking to people’s houses, balls, playing whist; whatever that is. Right now, my friend Jasmine (Hi Jasmine) is in town and this past Friday we engaged in what felt like antiquated leisure. We went to lunch and were meant to catch a movie but then we sort of lost track of time (we haven’t seen each other IRL in a little over a year), and then moved to a favourite coffee shop. It was loafing, it was pointless, it was meandering, it was ours, it was great. To entertain yourself for with not much at your disposal has been turned into this scary thing since the smartphone but I like it out here.
I told myself to aim for 500 words and here I am at 586 just churning it out. Do you know I have been worried the last year about what I’m doing with my time and this week in a lot of ways I was still very anxious about the future but because I had to keep thinking “what do I do now?” I was engrossed in now a lot more. We missed the movie! I called up a friend and cried. I talked to my sisters really late and I laughed so much I cried some more. Filling the air with sounds that came from the recesses of my brain felt really good. My head is a sick place to be sometimes, and I mean that in bad way, but my head is also sick in the good twisty, darkly funny, “yes and?” place to be and I can’t believe I get to live in it. There is not enough of my time and attention so give it to every podcast, album or audiobook and I know the same is true for you. If this resonates, write me a comment so I can pause my Spotify and reply to you.
Anyway, I watched 3 movies today on CABLE TV because I also have no WiFi now. Maybe I will write about those findings in the next one.
pause your spotify! reply to me!