Double dutching ropes

in burning city summers.

I do wonder if anyone else is going through the same "halfway-through-college" crisis I am. I won't waste words with the "it was barely" and "seems like only" yesterdays but correlation between age and the speed of the passage of time is just... stupid. Stupid like the crushes I get at the ends of semesters that are nothing more than bad ideas and dramas waiting to happen. But I digress.

For you, I present this. A mixlist that sums my sophomore year up better than I ever could. Each of these songs has some connection to a day or an event or an emotional stroke, a firing of synapses and a majesty in relation.

I thought about providing explanation, but it occurs to me that trying to explain this would be impossible-- I can think of what makes these songs special, what people, and I think that's enough. There are inside selections here and if you wanted to ask, I'd answer.

1. "Stars" Hum
"She thinks she missed the train to mars, she's out back counting stars."

2. "Album of the Year" The Good Life
"She took me to her mother’s house outside of town where the stars hang down.
She said she’d never seen someone so lost, I said I’d never felt so found."

3. "Digital Love" Daft Punk
"Why don't you play the game?"

4. "The Ocean Breathes Salty" Modest Mouse
"And maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both grow old. Well I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I hope so. "

5. "15 Step" Radiohead
"Et cetera, et cetera."

6. "Can You Please Climb Out Your Window?" The Hold Steady, Bob Dylan cover for I'm Not There
"Why does he look so righteous while your face is so changed?"

7. "I Can Barely Breathe" Manchester Orchestra
"I watched the beauties, watched the fires and the fire burning beauty in their eyes."

8. "Westfall" Okkervil River
"When I was younger, handsomer and stronger, I felt like I could do anything."

9. C.R.E.A.M." Wu-Tang Clan
"I grew up in the crime side, New York Times side. Staying alive was no jive."

10. "Can't Stand It" Wilco
"Speakers speaking, speakers speaking, speaking in code."

11. "Nothing to You" Two Gallants
"But the lost cause of words walks away with my nerves 'cause I'm gay as a choir boy for you."

12. "Sweetest Girl" Wyclef Jean ft. Akon and Lil Wayne
"You don't know not to lay low 'cause 25 to life is no joke."

13. "You Get What You Give" The New Radicals"
"Wake up kids, we've got the dreamer's disease."

14. "Gimme The Loot" Notorious B.I.G.
"I'm all that and a dime sack, where the paper at?"

15. "Lovely NYC" dj BC and The Beastles
"Brownstones, water towers, trees, skyscrapers
Writers, prize fighters and Wall Street traders
We come together on the subway cars."

16. "Watermelon Man" Herbie Hancock
"woo WOO woo WOO! woo WOO! woo WOO!"

17. "Roses" Outkast
"I know you like to thank your shit don't stank but lean a little bit closer, see. Roses really smell like--"

18. "Are You In?" Incubus
"It's so much better when everyone is in, are you in?"

19. "1,000 Deaths" Aesop Rock
"You ever died a thousand deaths? I have.
And in the morrow stood a thousand steps from where my nourish laughed
And made a boat at, nomad, I roam in a social coma
Jones and be home alone days sink how my poems I
Dig in the dirt I bring up the earth like pulley systems
Thereby painting the perfect metaphor for hung juries
Strung along a song of spawning thorns of fury."

20. "Hallelujah" Jeff Buckley
"Well I heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
Well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah"

That this year is over hasn't sunk it, and probably won't for a couple of days. Maybe then I'll be ready to reflect on how much this year has changed me and the people I've met and stayed close with. The things I've done and the jokes I've heard and the people I've hurt. Soon.

'til then.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike