the mer-people of new york

I often use music to help me out during times of loneliness. When I first moved to New York and lived in The House of Mormons I listened to Carla Bruni, like, all the time. I only had a portable CD player and since I didn't want to carry around a bunch of CDs I was pretty much always listening to her. And since that album was all sad and it was November in New York and raining all the time it was a pretty good match. I burned that album from my sister so it always made me think of her and, by extension the rest of my family, whom I had just left in Seattle (at a good orphanage though, so that wasn't bothering me). Then when I did my internship at a certain theater I started listening to a lot of Kristin Hersh (which reminded me of my other sister because I downloaded that off of her computer when she visited me) because a lot of her stuff reflected my (sad) mood too. Unfortunately, now if I hear any of the songs from those albums I'm taken back into my memories and get, well, sad again. I used those songs to take away sadness but they didn't just take it away, I put it into them. Now they carry it and throw it back at me whenever they're played. I think the only way I'll be able to listen to those songs again is to play them a lot when I'm excruciatingly happy so as to balance them out.

So, the play on Wednesday. It's title was The Big Voice: God or Merman? First of all, I kept thinking it was Man or Merman, like some nod to George Bernard Shaw so that was already throwing me off. But when I first read the title I thought this:



Or, more accurately, this:



But what they meant was this:



Do you see why I was confused? What's really pathetic is that I never made the connection despite the numerous references to Ethel Merman throughout the show. Of course, during the show all I thought about was how bored I was and how all the songs sounded the same (dull) and uh oh, can the performers see this snide look on my face, this is a pretty small theater? I think my version of the show would have been better. As it was we once again left at intermission. HL pointed out that my values must have really dropped since I used to say that I would leave a show only if I actually found it offensive. Now I just leave if I think it's a waste of time, which is a type of offense so I don't think I've changed too much.