9.26.2002 [just before midnight]

it's COLD today.

it was sunny and mild yesterday, but today, waking up, i could tell something was different. i can't see the sky from my bed, but there was a change about the fall of light in the very air. i don't know how to describe it, except that it was - hm - more refracted, less direct? not necessarily darker - it was one of those "bright" overcast days, where the sky's an incredible shade of silver-white - but just...diffracted.

like the light that normally moves from point a (sun) to point b (earth) is now moving zigzag through points c d e f g h ... etc (water droplets in clouds and air). it was like there was a glow to the air itself, like when you're really high or it's really late at night and someone turns on an incandescent lamp.

so. yeah. autumn. it's official. it's odd; it was equinox just a few days ago, the official calender beginning of fall, and it's like nature changes to match.

of course, i've said this like fifty times in the past few days, as the weather swings back and forth between scorching summer heat, the kind that weighs down on you and forces you face-down to the ground - and an odd chill that makes me shout about the fall. then it gets warm again, and while i always say "it's not the same; it doesn't feel like SUMMER anymore", i go and talk about the official beginning of fall yet again when it gets cold.

hmm. then again, it doesn't feel like summer. even when it's hot. summer's...not just heat. it's a feel in the air, in the ground. it's like a smell, only not so definite, even. it's just:

well. you can tell. it's a certain blur in the air, pollen and insects and light. it's the heat, sure, but it's also the moonlight on sidewalks at night when you walk, or run, and then leave the windows open all night listening to the electric fan and the crickets.

god, this song. this song is going to drive me nuts. in a good way. i've had it on eternal repeat for hours. well, with breaks in between, but right now it's without-a-doubt my favorite.

lebanese blonde.

the title says it all.

well, it doesn't - but it is a very evocative title. yeah, yeah, i know, i just completely switched gears, jumped tracks, whatever. i need to talk about this song. i've had it on my mind too long.

artist. thievery corporation. title. lebanese blonde. wtf does that mean?! lebanon's apparently in like the middle east/palestine/sinai/whatever area. i thought people there were dusky and dark-haired. i guess that's what makes the title so evocative. lebanese, it sounds dark, swarthy, it sounds like deserts and scorching sun. then: blonde.

oh, yeah. that makes it different, doesn't it? you think of those golden people, with hair and skin and eyes nearly the same hue of golden brown, like honey; skin just a shade darker than eyes just a shade darker than hair. i think vonnegut's book, cat's cradle, features a girl who looks like that. mona. like mona lisa: remote, unapproachable, but oh-so-much-lovelier.

lebanese blonde. she'd be a lebanese blonde. you think of scorching sun and deserts reflected in golden-hazel eyes lashed low in honey-gold against skin of dusky-gold. you think of curves like the sand dunes, smooth, taut; you think of the distance of the horizon she sees, and that mona lisa smile.

she could be my new girl with burgundy hair. i have something about girls in the desert, eyes half-closed against the sun, looking for the horizon.

this song doesn't mention a lebanese blonde once. it's a tripout song, if you listen to the lyrics. good lyrics. maybe i'll put them up someday. a line goes, i can hear the sun, the clouds drifting through the blinds. the lyrics sound like someone sprawled in their apartment on a tuesday afteroon, blinds half-closed, slashing light into lines falling across her body on the ground, slicing through the whirling clouds of whatever drug of choice she'd intoxicated herself on today.

but the song itself, not the lyrics but the song, sounds exactly like its name. it starts with a twangy string instrument, very hinduish, plucking one mid-tempo, deliberate riff. one measure of that.

then: the bassline. this bassline's almost as subversive as the flowers become screen one. same idea: pieces of the song coming together one measure apart, fitting together into the whole. oh, glory. i can't type fast enough to capture it as it happens.

no; not subversive; the bassline is more just - evocative. provocative. what it sounds like, those first two measures, is some old city (the Old City), sandstone walls and dusty unpaved streets, empty, an old man somewhere playing that twangy instrument. sun beating down.

then - bassline. you turn around; there she is. maybe she's got laundry, or food - she has something in her hands, her and her golden skin golden eyes golden hair, just a glimpse.

drum loop comes in a measure after. it's night. don't ask me how. it just is: night. fireshadows on the walls.

--then, this odd tropical sounding flute; exoticity; it smells like her perfume.

that doesn't make any sense, does it? but that's how the song feels. that lilt of a sort of muffled flute is just like the hint of perfume scented on a hot summer night in a desert halfway across the world, worn by a girl whose every inch is a shade of gold.

her perfume, i think, should smell like jasmine. yes, yes, overdone, but it's perfect. the scent of jasmine on a hot dry summer's night with a sandstorm howling outside the walls, blurring the lights of even the house across the way--

--where she lives. a shadow thrown by a lamp, falling against a ragged cloth curtain moving gently in the hot wind. (singing: a woman vocalizing, rhythmic.) undressing? bathing? being undressed? oh, it wouldn't be fair if she belonged to another. i can't decide if she does or doesn't. both appeals.

there's this part with this slightly metallic thing, probably electronic, picking out a melody that echoes (sort of) the original twangy instrument's melody. it sounds like stars.

sounds like sights sounds places and scents - suddenly that line, now i can hear the sun, makes a lot more sense.

the brilliance of this song isn't in the vocals. it's just the backdrop music; the pauses between the vocals. the vocals don't tell a story; they just fill up space. the pauses, though -

there are these portions where it's just the muffled flute and the drum loop, a hint of bass. it sounds like a dance. i can't quite imagine my lebanese blonde dancing, though, so maybe it's not her. maybe it's someone else dancing, lots of people; maybe she's just watching at the side, fire in her eyes. (back to the twangy instrument, picking out an intro, then - bass, the melody of the instrument.)

but this doesn't sound like the day. i can't figure out why. this still sounds like night. it sounds like smells like her, perfume now and sweat under that, and the clean scent of her clothes.

i swear, listen hard enough, shut your eyes and you can almost see it: the firelight, the stars clear and bright now that the sandstorm has died down; the girl watching from the edges, remote, not so much an outcast as she is deliberately withdrawn. one of those mysterious girls with the desert in their eyes, but not cold. something in those eyes, a hint of desert heat. a deepburied amusement, almost alien. you get the feeling, looking at her, that if she wanted to (and she does want to, but won't do it), she could dance to break hearts.

i think the thing about that song that makes it so unforgettable is that it's never allowed to get where it's hinting at the whole time.

(what does THAT mean?)

that means, the girl never dances. beginning to end, she's at the ends; something else is the center of the screen, but she's the focus, and you know this.

there's no lust in this song. there's just longing. the insinuation of lust. a hint of what it could be, if it were a song like flowers become screens. a tease; like a low-lashed glance sideways while the girl nibbles at her thumbnail; that depression where her thumb presses against her lip. a suggestion: a shadow, suggesting what you could see if she weren't bathing behind the curtain and. never. showing it.

christ. who knew a song could be so, damn...

....eeerg.