Beatles Deconstruction

Well, now that Thom's days off are over, it's back to the same old: hanging around the house all day, cleaning, cooking, and trying to figure out what to do with myself. I can tell you right now that I'm not cut out to be a housewife, and that's a good thing to figure out this early in life. As much as I hate the thought of going back to work in the cafe, I know at least there will be distraction in the cafe, and I'll be needed and appreciated, by my co-workers at least. You can't excpect too much from the customers.

So what's been going on? Well, Thom and I spent all of yesterday hanging out. We took a long walk, cooked, and watched The Ruling Class on our landlord's TV. Talk about a dark comedy. Sometimes, though, dark comedy is the best. It was a really good movie. After the movie was over, I couldn't do much, except fold laundry. I only had 50 pages left of The Tin Drum, but The Tin Drum is every bit as dark as The Ruling Class, and two of them occupying the same brain at the same time would have easily spelled disaster.

Thom left for work at 9:15 this morning, so I straightened up the house, watched some Homestar Runner, went to the landlord's, and cleaned up there (did I mention that our landlord and landlady go to the Virgin Islands for two weeks ever summer, and we are charged with watching the house and their precious cat, Pippen? Well, we don't mind, really. We like the cat, get to have a change of scenery, get to watch TV and movies, and, best of all, get to do laundry for free!) While cleaning up their kitchen, I was listening to my Beatle's "Past Masters" CD, which is a collection of "rare" Beatles tracks from the first half of their career.

Let me talk about the Beatles. I caught the BB (Beatles Bug) when I was 15, and although I'm over my hysterical fandom, they're still a band I love. My walls used to be covered with posters and old beat-up LPs, with the crowning glory: a 3'X5' poster of them at the Sgt. Pepper's album release party. Talk about a poster with great colors. At any rate, unlike many people, I have an appreciation for both halves of the Beatles' career. I love the early stuff. Yes, some of it is a bit boring, but most of it is just great pop tunes, which I'm a sucker for. In fact, it was "She Loves You" that instantly converted me to Beatlemania. I know that a lot of people don't like the later stuff because they would just like to hang on to the mop-heads with great pop tunes. I love the second half of the career, too, though. It got incredibly interesting, lyrically and sonicaally. The White Album is my favorite Beatles album by far. My parents bought it for me for Christmas when I was 16 or 17 and I listened to nothing else for about two months. Nothing. And this is coming from a teenager who listened to her headphones for several hours every day. Not that I'm into making huge, flourishing statements, but I must say that if I had to pick out the greatest group of pop performers, ever since the beginning of the modern western music industry, I'd have to pick the Beatles. That's right, screw Elvis, screw the Stones. As for Jazz (progressive stuff, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, etc), I leave that in another category. Not that I've listened to much, but I've listened to enough so that when Thom says that they pretty much "ended western music," I'm inclined to believe him.

At any rate, so, back to the kitchen. We love our landlord and landlady to death. They are great people, nevertheless, great people with questionable taste. Not that the cottage is any paragon of decoration, not that it's been decorated at all. I haven't done any decorating since I've moved in. My mom laments this, because she feels that I haven't "made my mark," that it's not my cottage, too. Well, I've "made my mark" with things like books and furniture. My mom seems to forget that this place was little more than a music studio with kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom attached before I moved in. Now we've got things like...oh...a couch, a table, more bookshelves, a nicer desk and dresser, rugs and dishes. Thom had one plate, one fork, a couple of spoons, etc. We have more than enough dishes now, you can actually cook in the oven, and there's a lot more food around the house.

At ANY rate, back to the (landlord's) kitchen. Like I said, we love the LL's, but they have questionable taste and questionable ways of cleaning things. Not that you would be struck by "Oh, this house is terribly decorated" or "Oh, this house is dirty" when first walking in. You actually have to pay some attention before you realize the house is badly decorated and dirty. Everything in their kitchen is covered in grease, even, it seems, clean dishes sitting in the cupboard, they have way too much food in the fridge, which all rots, and it seems like they only do very easy and routine things like, for instance, wiping off the kitchen counter, about once a month or two. As for the way the house is decorated, I won't go into it. They do have many genuinely nice pieces of furniture, but it's the wall-hangings and the knick-knacks I'm worried about. Also, let it be known that they have bad taste, as opposed to no taste, and I'll take the former over the latter any day.

So, there I was, in the kitchen, listening to the Beatles and cleaning, and having an imaginary conversation with Aurelius. I guess it all started because I was thinking that Aurelius probably wouldn't like the early Beatles stuff, because there wasn't "enough there" for him. See, Aurelius is truly the modern academic: everything must be deconstructed, psychoanalyzed, Marxitized, feminist and queer-theoried. A couple of weeks ago I typed up this big rant about why literary theory (the institution, not the theories themselves) is total crap. But I lost it. Oh, well. "Why can't you simply like something for what it is?" I asked him in my head, "These are great pop tunes, can't you just take a pop tune and its simple-minded lyrics at face value?" And then I realized two things: 1) Aurelius probably wouldn't like early Beatles, but it's not like it's ever going to come up between us and 2) I need to get a life if I'm having an imaginary argument with my TA about a pop band. So it goes.

At any rate, tonight I'm making my first homemade pizza, and it's not that Chef Boyardee crap. Oh, no, it's going to be good. At least I have something to look forward to.