Music/Book/Location

A really cool thread on I Love Books: Memorable book / music / location combos – (uhm – the first one mentions a South Kingstown Town Beach?? Rhode Island friends? What say you about this??)

Anyway – some of the answers are great –

For example:

December 1989: Aqua-blue beanbag chair placed (awkwardly) between the kitchen and dining room. Watership Down + George M! Original Broadway Recording

hahaha There are a bunch of great ones in the thread. I never would have thought about this combo together, but turns out – once I put my mind to it, I came up with a couple of examples from my own life.

Okay, so here are some of my combos (and I can’t help it – I’ve added some touches of my own)

Time: Summer 1992
Location: My scratchy two-seater couch in my one-room apartment on Melrose Street in Chicago.
Book: Lives of the Saints (Voices of the South) by Nancy Lemann (my favorite book I read that year)
Album: Tori Amos “Little Earthquakes”. I listened to that album so much that summer that I am pretty much done listening to it for life. It’s weird how that happens. I still love that album – but I will probably only listen to it once a decade from now on – because I listened to it SO MUCH in that first frenzy.
Other Sensory Memories from that Summer, listed at random, as I think of them:
— my black derby
— the plaintive meow of my new cat Samuel – his glowing green eyes staring at me in the dark
— the slightly sweet smell of roach motels which was quite strong in the main corridors of my apartment buildings
— meeting M. M. calling me to ask if I wanted to go out. The first date. It went well, even though his MOTHER had to come pick him up from the pool hall where we were hanging out. He didn’t have a car for some reason at that point. He was so mortified. “I guess I need to go call my mom now so she can come get me …” Our second date. That went well too. But it was our third date when I thought: hmmmmm. That whole summer was about M. and doing Golden Boy.
— the B 52’s “Love Shack” – blaring in my ears – as I took my daily run along Lake Michigan
— the taste of Cracklin’ Oat Bran – weird. I ate it that whole summer for some reason. And every time I have a bowl of it now – I get a whole flash of the summer of 1992 – Cracklin’ Oat Bran makes me think of Tori Amos, B52s, Window Boy, and the smell of roach motels. WEIRD
— the smell of the Oatmeal & Honey facial mask I bought. I gave myself a facial once a week. I still do, actually. But that summer was when I got really into it. I was BROKE – but I “splurged” and bought a facial mask kit from H20 – which probably cost 20 bucks – but that was a HUGE deal to me. And the mask was rough, and scratchy when you put it on – and it smelled deeply of oatmeal and honey. I can still smell it right now – just by writing about it!! I think I remember that particular mask so well because I had NO money and the fact that I had “splurged” meant a great deal to me – a sign of independence – I was on my own for the first time. I saved up and bought the Oatmeal Honey Mask for 20 bucks. It meant a lot.

Time: October 1991
Location: The Westfalia van my boyfriend and I traveled across America in. It had a small stove – with a blue cooking flame – a pop-up roof – the van was a dirty-brown color – and we camped all across the country, cooking on a grill, putting laundry out to dry, etc. I would wear my long johns, my big wool socks, a flannel shirt over myself, and I had a blue bandana tied around my head – perpetually – that bandana was pretty much on my head for 2 months straight.
Book: Curled up in my sleeping bag, reading The Passion – a novel by Jeanette Winterson
Album: Bonnie Raitt plqying – the “Nick of Time” album. Ouch. Very melancholy time for me.
Other Sensory Memories from that trip, listed at random, as I think of them:
— The frost freezing our laundry into the shapes they took while on the line.
— Scotch with ice cubes, sipped at twilight – from little blue tin camp cups
— the smell of tuna on the grill
— those damn long johns.

Time: August 1982.
Location: On the beach with my friends (but not South Kingstown Town Beach – because I’m actually not sure what that would be – is there an SK Town Beach?) We all lay there on beach blankets, cramming to finish our summer reading list before the start of school. Transistor radio on our beach blanket.
Book: A Tale of Two Cities (Dover Thrift Editions)
Album: listening to “Rock the Casbah” – on the radio. You could not get away from “Rock the Casbah” that summer, if I recall correctly. So – strangely – when I picked up Tale of 2 Cities to re-read it a couple years ago – out of nowhere, I got a 3-D flash of that summer – of The Clash – strange, how memory works. I read the first couple paragraphs and immediately went back in time to that hot summer, when I basically SPEED-READ Tale of 2 Cities to the accompaniment of “Rock the Casbah”.

Time: December 1999
Location: B&B off O’Connell Street in Dublin
Book: Plays Well with Others, by Allan Gurganus
Album: Robbie Williams’ Millennium – again, you could not escape Robbie Williams in Dublin at that time. And why would you want to?? Robbie Williams rocks!
Extenuating Circumstances I always think of when I look at Gurganus’ book::
— I was in Dublin with my dear friend Ann Marie. We were having a blast.
— I got sicker than I have ever been in my life. There was some kind of influenza breakout and I caught it. Everyone was sick. But this wasn’t a workable cold – I could do NOTHING ELSE while I had it – I was bedridden. In Dublin. During the millennium. There was also this huge “we have a shortage of nurses” crisis going on in Ireland at that time. I bought cold medicine which dried me out. I lay in bed. Moaning. Listening to Robbie Williams. Ann Marie would go out and sight-see – by herself – and come back to what she called “the disembodied head” that was once her friend. She told people: “Sheila is now a disembodied head back in the B & B.”
— I lay in bed and read the entirety of Plays Well with Others in one day. It’s a kind of long and dense novel. I took no breaks – because basically I could not get out of bed. I read the whole thing. I ALWAYS think of having influenza in damn Ireland every time I look at that book.
— I actually was well enough by New Year’s Eve to go out and have fun. I mean, I probably WASN’T well enough – but I was DAMNED if I would stay home and be sick on that night. Thank God I did go out. If I had stayed home and remained a disembodied head I would have missed this.