Monday, October 01, 2007
Diary: In October, 1995.
The randomization of these accounts of months has been weird lately... they almost seem to be pointing toward an actual narrative.
If you like you can pick up here from September 1995, and the huge house-wrecking party described at the end of that entry actually happened in October.
At said party I played my electric clarinet. What this meant was that I electric taped a microphone to the bell (with the effect that notes went way flat), plugged in my amp, and ran up to stary playing. As long as I could continue without losing breath, the feedback distorted in a way that would have worked nicely onstage with a rock band. Unfortunately, this ghettoish setup was as sophisticated as I ever got.
Compared to roucous September, October was a month of meditation and recalibration. I borrowed Vitalogy from Greg and listened to it practically every night. Some days, I'd listen to "Immortality" a few dozen times in a row in my room. There was a lot of lying on my back on my bed and staring at the ceiling. I drove with my sister to Sunset Hills in Flint Township and drove around, studying and exploring the crematory grounds, obelisks, and mausolea. I wasn't a goth. I wasn't obsessed with death. I was intrigued by autumnal decay. This was, after all, the coldest year I can remember. The leaves had started turning in late September; they fell in mid-October. Michigan wouldn't really warm up for good until late May.
I was changing in other ways as well. I had really come to a point from which procrastination was no longer possible. Through tenth grade, I'd drawn pictures in class all day, came home, and listened to music all evening. I also had plans to go to Northwestern University at best, and the U of M at worst. These two lifestyles were becoming quickly incompatible... I'd taken the college prep course at high school, and both Algebra III/IV and Chemistry were ready to hurt me if I didn't pick up the pace. Northwestern wouldn't love a few Cs and Ds in meat-and-potatoes classes my Junior year. So I was studying pretty hard every night – a change from the intense fits and starts that had gotten me through other years – and while Chemistry continued to suck hard, I gradually brought Algebra under control. I think my mom was impressed that I was finally doing homework without coercion. I started writing poetry, and my Creative Writing teacher said, "Connor, this is amazing."
Northwestern held an information session in Grand Rapids, and my parents drove me out there. We sped up and down the hills and the trees were spectacular, veiny redshot and orange. We spent the afternoon with my grandma, and stopped at a particular scenic view where I noticed graffiti left by an exchange student from Flushing. On other days, Paul and I would go to my grandma's house to watch a cable-only special on the war in Bosnia. We were also planning an educational theater workshop series. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Brandi. Mitch and I talked about starting a band, but we never really got it together. I spent most evenings at home.
Toward the end of the month, though, something had developed. My heroes, the Smashing Pumpkins, were preparing to release their first album in the over-a-year since I had discovered them. It was a double album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and it was the biggest news in Alternative music since Kurt Cobain has lost several pounds very quickly. From my own unbiased perspective. I was picking up my brother and sister from junior high when I heard Bullet with Butterfly Wings for the first time. I was pulling in my driveway when I heard 1979. I had to get this album on the day it came out. I had to. But I didn't have a job or any money. I would receive some money for bringing home good grades, but my parents hadn't received my report card yet.
On the week before it came out, I listened to Gish, Pisces Iscariot, and Siamese Dream especially, putting myself in the proper spiritual frame of mind to be up-to-speed and fully receptive.
On the night before it came out, the debut concert at the Chicago Riviera broadcast via Simulcast, and I listened from my parents' Saturn, parked in our garage in Flushing, Michigan. I huddled in the cold with a tape recorder perched on my lap and watched the carbon light streak through slats in the wooden walls. I went to bed at about one in the morning.
The next morning I borrowed $20 from a classmate. The moment that school was over I bolted down to Best Buy and bought the new album. I took it home and listened straight through, reading the lyrics as I went. My brother and sister got home from their music lessons. Somewhere in the house, there was an argument about responsibility or something. My room was a mess. The light was on, and it made a contrast next to my windows as the sun went down and even the Poplars outside went purple and black. The songs that impressed me the most that night are – for the most part – not the songs that impress me today. I liked "To Forgive" and "Cupid de Locke". I still like "In the Arms of Sleep." I wasn't particularly impressed with that album on the first listen, but it continued to challenge me, and still challenges me twelve years later.
A week later, right before Halloween, my friend Mitch tried to get me to skip school to go into Flint with him. I didn't. I was worried about being caught, and anyway, I felt like I was catching a nasty cold. In fact, I was in bed most of Halloween night with a headache and a stuffed nose. But that's okay. I was way too old for trick-or-treating anyway.
Where were you in October 1995?
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Monday, September 10, 2007
Diary: In September 1995.
June 1995 - June 1996 (Year 18) was one of the most momentous years of my life, but I didn't realize it as early as September. The whole summer had been swept up in one massive project, the second Flint Youth Theatre production of Trace Titanic which had toured to Minneapolis in early August. Because of the rehearsal schedule, I was unable to attend training sessions for the Michigan Renaissance Festival Academy. I was allowed to participate at the Apprentice rank for the second year, and for the first year there I wasn't used in a play.
Once Festival started, it pretty much dominated my schedule to the exclusion of all else. I didn't really take school very seriously – in particular, I refused to spend much time on Chemistry and Algebra III-IV almost on principle – I hadn't been cast in the FYT production of The Fall of the House of Usher, so I could focus my full attention upon Festival.
At Festival, I focused less on the program itself than I had ever been before, which was unfortunate since the workshops were more serious that year than ever before or after. I had a huge crush on a girl named Michelle, the "girl with the blue shoes," who had absolutely no romantic interest in me whatsoever. Meanwhile, a girl named Lisa told me that she liked me, and I did not reciprocate. I was very stupid about these things, as Lisa was pretty awesome: kind and reliable and trustworthy and interesting and inspiring, whereas Michelle was "mysterious" and "spritely" and just a little "haunted." While new and old friends – Mike, April, Melissa, and Brandi – helped me woo an increasingly exasperated Michelle, it rained day in and day out. I remember once standing in a tentful of rain while we all bobbed our heads to the Digital Underground. On another night, Brandi sang a beautiful rendition of Disarm that haunts me to this day. Once, my tent flooded and I slept in the backseat of a friend's truck. Another night, I slept in the trunk of my parents' Saturn (keeping the seats open so I wouldn't get shut in). We'd usually go out for Subway after the Festival, but when it rained, we ended up at Denny's instead.
Now writing this today, I feel bad that I remember less in detail about what was going on in my family (as opposed to, say, 1985, when that's all I remember, or 2005, which is more of a balanced mix). I also have to feel a little chagrined that I remember little about school either. I've almost lost track of the classes I was taking (Algebra, Chemistry, Concert Band, Spanish 1, Creative Writing Independent Study, English 11... okay). College, for being only two years away, and Northwestern, for being at best a stretch just then, was an eventuality I ignored. So when I say that "this September was different," that it launched me into such an amazing year, I can't think that I was necessarily more mature or realistic than before. I had, however, somewhere along the line at FYT and the Renaissance Festival, surrounded by friends and family who thought I was talented, charismatic, empathetic, fun, picked up a greater poise and ease in interaction then I'd ever had before. Here's my indulgent hypothesis: Poise and ease kept me from being distracted by trivialities that had always bothered me before. Now, I was able to build my maturity and sense of responsibility. In September, though, I was still pretty selfish.
I lobbied my mom for permission to hold the end of Festival party at our house in early October. Despite her very frustrating experience with the 1992 cast party for The Hobbit she agreed. I ended September by developing a crush on a cute girl in my Spanish class who kept staring at me each day, and by getting ready for the party. The girl, as it turns out, was only staring at a poster on the wall behind me. The party, as it turns out, went off without a hitch.
Where were you in September, 1995?
Labels: 1995, DIARY, September
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