(no subject)

[adiva_calandia]

So I was looking up ambrosia and nectar in Wikipedia for a tag I was writing this morning, which led me to ichor, which led me to The Dunwich Horror, which led me to the library to pick up some Lovecraft for the hell of it. Yay?

I also picked up some books for the paper I'm gonna be writing. I was originally gonna do it on pirate kangaroo courts, but I'm not sure I know where to look for resources on that, so I'm gonna go back to my original idea of exploring how thieves' cant and other slang worked as a method of separating the socially deviant underworld from the rest of society. Which sounds so much better than "I'm using this paper as an excuse to learn thieves' cant for a character I roleplay online," doesn't it?

I need to make a Milliways post about zombies later, but I have to write this paper proposal and work out first.

Man, I already miss working on MacB. *sadface* It was so nice to feel involved in theatre again.

So I have this theory about all these classic rock songs from Supernatural. The rhythm of them fundamentally implies motion; they're all in very steady 4/4, at a pace that very often equals a brisk walking pace, at least for me. I'm not sure if my legs are just exactly the right length or what, but if I listen to them while walking, I'm pretty much always stepping on the beat.

Comments

[agonistes]

silveraspen and I were actually talking about the Supernatural soundtrack the other day, and contrasting it with the show Life. Those two shows have soundtracks that are quite thoroughly bitchin' -- but they serve different purposes.

I'm not sure that the rhythm of the SPN soundtrack fundamentally implies motion, and I don't listen to it as regularly as I do the soundtrack to Life -- but what I am sure about is that those songs are to some degree chosen because of the culture(s) they invoke. In your spare time (ha!) I'd recommend picking up Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman -- it's both memoir and commentary. Klosterman grew up on a farm in North Dakota, and loved (and loves) heavy metal, and the entire time I was reading it I kept thinking Lynne needs to read this like she needs to breathe. The songs and groups that Dean Winchester loves go hand in hand with the culture that Klosterman experienced and talks about -- bars, booze, babes, and the Midwest.

(Life, in contrast, isn't invoking a culture so much as adding to characterization and pace, with its soundtrack. 3/4 of the songs are between 70 and 90 beats a minute -- or a really, really high heart rate, which corresponds nicely to Charlie Crews in his more manic moods. But I do not think you have seen Life, so I will refrain from tl;dr-ing further!)

[adiva_calandia]

those songs are to some degree chosen because of the culture(s) they invoke.

Oh, absolutely. What I'm interested in is if there's something in the structure of the music itself that ties it to the culture of the open road, invoking a certain pace. I don't have enough music theory to talk about it intelligently, though. *wry grin*

My other theory about Dean and classic rock is kind of summed up in that line in "Dream A Little Dream" when dream!Dean says "Your music -- Dad's." Dean's tied to the past, and his music reflects that. I wish we knew more about Sam's taste in music; the only song I can think of that's tied to him rather than Dean is "Look At You" from "Heart," which is a considerably more recent song, but still not exactly current.

(I have not seen, though I begin to think I may have to.)