Did I tell you I went to see the "new" 10,000 Maniacs the other night? No, I'm pretty sure I didn't. It was over at the House of Blues, which is over on North State Street if you're not familiar with it. I always liked Natalie Merchant's voice, and now I've decided that I really like Mary's voice, but I guess I have to agree with the reviewer from the Tribune, that they can only lean on Natalie's material so long.
I didn't stay until the end. The place was sold out and I started feeling a little crowded. I probably would have felt differently if I'd gone with people, but it was Thursday night and I'd gotten the ticket a while ago after visiting their website. After this, I think they go to fabulous Ames, Iowa.
I have most of their recordings. I first heard of them when I was nineteen and they were just starting out. I'd seen them on The Tonight Show and went out and bought their CD. It caught something in me. I can't explain it. Some music does that... sort of catches me and picks me up, and ever after, I can't picture a world without that music.
There's so much music now that seems so mechanical, so rote, so common. I've always been drawn toward the distinct. It doesn't even have to be good. Just distinct and honest.
I've sometimes gone over to Kingston Mines over on North Halsted. It's a blues club, and if I think about it, that's about the last sort of music you'd expect me to like, I mean, if you walked up to me on the street or saw me somewhere. I just look so... suburban, and that music... isn't. But it's that same distinction, the honesty. The pure feelings. I only wish I felt more secure going to the seedier blues bars alone, because I have a feeling that's where the music really lives.
Today was steel-gray broken up by a little sun. Mostly that Midwest iron-colored sky, where I can't really tell the sky from the land from the lake from myself.
Tomorrow it may snow.
Fargo was curled up against my neck this morning. The heat isn't all that strong in my bedroom, and he tends to like to be on top of me or wedged in next to me. When I was young, I had a cat named Margie who would climb up on my bed, but she never had any interest in being on me, per se. She just liked my bed. My parents never let Margie into their room at night, so she'd come into mine. Margie died of kidney failure when she was 19, the same year I was 19. My parents never got another pet after that, and so Fargo is the first new cat in my life in ten years.
I kind of like him. We'll see what he thinks of me after his neutering appointment in December!
I still feel a little like Princess Jeanne tonight. I hung up the costume but not all the good feelings.