Archive for February 5th, 2009
Thursday, February the 5th, 2009
036 - Life Is Better With A Soundtrack
I yawned, stretched, and sat down at my computer. As had been customary lately, I put on some music and donned my cans before diving into my morning pages.
As I mentioned before, my brain partners with entertainment media in a compelling way. The right piece can completely shift an otherwise quotidian experience for me.
I remember once just strolling through campus, listening to the Original Soundtrack to that flick, based on the Hubert Selby Jr. novel.
Everything just seemed so…significant.
When writing code, I mostly listen to podcasts. I like lectures, talks, and works of fiction that I can easily pause and whose meaning would not be entirely lost if I blacked out for a few seconds. The high literary stuff is too much for me. I tried listening to a reading of H. G. Wells’s “The Invisible Man,” once, but I quickly turned it off and put on some Trash80 instead. Wells deserves my undivided attention, and I made a note to pick some of his work up from the library instead.
When not enhancing myself, I listen mostly to a mix of chippy techno songs, rap, and some rock. I discovered entirely by accident that Kid A provides an excellent ambiance for coding, and I’m apparently not the only person who thinks this.
For writing words, though, choosing background music is a bit more difficult. The playlist has to be interesting enough to encourage the process, but unobtrusive enough to not get in the way. I have a few standby’s. Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s crossover hit is on that list. For some reason, that album, the musical equivalent of deep fried Twinkies, puts me in the right mood for creating.
One of my favorite tracks came on, putting the lyrics of “Papercut” to the beat of “Big Pimpin’”, and I banged out my pages in record time. The song appeals simultaneously to my “baller” and “angsty teen” sensibilities, clearly a searing commentary on social mores…or something.
Or maybe I just like bad music.