Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Puzzling

Sooo ... what career option lends well to overanalysis and narrow focus? I find it's virtually impossible for me to see or hear something new without turning it around in my head and comparing it to a host of similar, different, and unrelated things until I have fit it in the proper cubby in my vast collection of similarity, differentness, and unrelatedness (they're words, they're words, shut up spell check).

Everyone does this, but I believe it's to excess with me. First time I listened to Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory: "Oh, that's interesting. The chorus has a nice feel to it. Now it's going to be stuck in my head. Hmmm-hmm- ... wait, "edge of nowhere," that's not in the song, it's edge of glory. Why am I ... oh, wait, wait, I see now, with the loud voice and the rallying and the up-down-up -- this sounds just like Song for the Lonely!"
It doesn't that much I suppose, but from then on they were interchangeable as far as being stuck in my head went.

Not long before that I was collecting Christmas music and stumbled on Sheryl Crow's rendition of All Through the Night (the lullaby, not the other one). Found myself stuck on the chorus again, couldn't figure why, was driving me batty until it clicked. "The chorus to this sounds just like We Owned the Night! It even has the same last two words, and they're both the chorus so if I compared they'd probably both show up around the 45 second mark!" (Yes, with new songs I tend to skip straight to the end of first verse/beginning of chorus to see if I like them, and I've learned over the years that that's about 45 seconds in.) In my mind this was Very Important And Significant. For what it's worth, I think the choruses start at 47 seconds and 50 seconds, respectively.

I also rattle off quotes (books, movies, TV shows, song lyrics, sayings, random things said by friends or coworkers) at a moment's notice. If I get them wrong or forget part of them (which is rather often), I'll spend up to twenty minutes searching until I find the correct version. When someone said I had to go back (to work) soon, I dug through my shelves for my copy of "The House at Pooh Corner" just to figure out what Owl had to say about "Backson" (as in, "BISY BACKSON" and "the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson").

Sometimes things go terribly awry and quotes stack upon quotes in an endless progression. "You need to press the button" becomes "You need to press the button ... button, who's got the button," which (if you've just watched a lot of Buffy recently) further transforms after a moment's recollection to "You need to press the button ... button, who's got the button ... my money's on, THE WITCH." And then people stare at you just a little bit. But that's okay, because you're psyched that you got the quote right the first time.

It can be helpful at times ... speaking of Buffy, I'll always remember how to spell Juliet Landau's name since waking up this morning and thinking, "Is it Juliet or Juliette, I'm pretty sure it's just "et," not "ette," Landau, Spandau ... HEY, it's like Spandau Ballet but backwards!"

As Lorelai Gilmore would say, "My brain is a wild jungle full of scary gibberish." I would recite the rest of the (oddly appropriate) quote here, but you've humored me long enough already and I still haven't given you any pictures. Here, thanks for waiting:


(I totally made a puzzle out of this ... /plugging website)


1 comment:

  1. Love the post, love the puzzle, "love the bag, love the shoes, love everything.(George in "My Best Friend's Wedding")

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