Thing of the Week: Adam Yauch & Itchycoo Parks, A Story About Mary Timony, 'Jurrasic Park' 3D

LJ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Adam Yauch Park & "Itchycoo Park"

This past Saturday was the one-year anniversary of the day Adam Yauch died, which means it was also the one-year anniversary of the day I bought an iPhone and named it Dan Humphrey. I named my cellular phone after a character on the TV show Gossip Girl because I felt similarly ambivalent toward both of them.

I bought Dan Humphrey within forty-five minutes of finding out Adam Yauch died. I wondered if maybe the circumstances of the afternoon were too grave to justify my making such a frivolous purchase but my Internet was broken and had I not bought that iPhone I knew I would've been really bored all night so I went ahead and did it anyway. 

On the day Adam Yauch died I was in shock and couldn't wrap my head around it. I couldn't accept it then, I can't accept it now, and I honestly don't think it will ever happen. Nobody was there the summer I turned fourteen and my family took a trip to Alberta for the Faulds family reunion, when I climbed up a very craggy hill and once I made it to the top realized I could see for hundreds and hundreds of miles across the prairies, all the way to the Rocky Mountains (it's this kind of thing). There were silos and tremendous bales of hay which were almost more magnificent than the mountains to me. I thought about how the land probably looked almost exactly the same as it did when dinosaurs roamed Alberta, which is the coolest thing to think about when you're in Alberta, the whole dinosaurs aspect of it, and I listened to Hello Nasty on headphones and swore to myself that when I grew up and married Adam Yauch I'd bring him back to this exact spot and it would be the most peaceful, romantic time. 

But I'm happy, at least, that now Adam Yauch Park exists. It's the second most wonderfully-named place in the world after John Lennon International Airport. I've written approximately five songs in my life, and one of them was named John Lennon International Airport, which I remembered about myself as soon as I found out Adam Yauch Park existed and tweeted "I want to write a song called Adam Yauch Park that'd be more like Waterloo Sunset & less like MacArthur Park but a little like Itchycoo Park." It was a very unpopular tweet, but it motivated me to put Itchycoo Park on my iPod and listen to Itchycoo Park on my way to work that morning. 

Because I'm a human, I've always liked Itchycoo Park, but this past week marked the first time in my life I ever loved Itchycoo Park, and it's also the first time in a long time that my loving a particular song has meant anything about myself to myself. I was just sort of skipping down the street in the sunshine when it got to the "... feed the ducks with a bun/ they all come out/ to groove about/ be nice and have fun in the sun" bit and I totally swooned over it, to a point where I needed to rewind the song and listen to it again, and I thought, "I must be very happy"- had been a year ago, I would have felt embarrassed by the phrase "fun in the sun" and resented Steve Marriott for thinking it was all too beautiful, since one year ago I thought that absolutely everything was in no way beautiful enough. It's kind of nice these days, how every time I consider what my life was like one year ago (shitty) vs. how it is today it's seriously insane how comparatively excellent things are, and my feelings toward Itchycoo Park are emblematic of that excellence. I think that "the sky" is definitely the coolest and most exciting possible answer to the question "What will we touch there?", but I don't want you to think I'm stupidly frolicking around feeling like it's all too beautiful, because it's not. What's especially excellent is that I feel like it's all the exact appropriate amount of beautiful that it should be.

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: The Mary Timony Profile in Yesterday's Washington Post

She's just my favorite. Here's the article. It's the most I've ever learned about Mary's life and it's still not very much, but I'm grateful for it. She talks about going to see Fugazi as a teenager and sweat condensing on the ceiling and dripping onto her head, she talks about depression and how after Helium disbanded she was so broke that there was a month when all she ate was string cheese. She talks about how she writes her songs and about using music "to deal with my brain," and she says something about music as a tool for connection and it's so devastating and beautiful, kind of like a lot of Mary Timony songs. I want to quote like every other paragraph of the profile but instead you should just read it, while listening to The Golden Dove, on your headphones, ideally outside in the sun or the shade.

Plus look how cute she is standing in her backyard with her guitar. Look at that dress! It is just so very Mary Timony-y.

JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: Jurrasic Park 3D

 

I saw Jurrasic Park 3D and it was amazing. I went with the Goldblum Gals, obviously. We laughed a lot. We bought the gigantic tub of popcorn and finished it. Joan brought it out to the concession stand and asked if there was a free refill. They said sure, this is ridiculous. We ate most of that one too! The giant popcorn came with a gigantic soda which made me laugh every time it was passed to me. It was so heavy and sweet and gross and also good. We had so much fun. We maybe had more fun than when we actually met Jeff Goldblum? This was on our one year anniversary of meeting him/starting all of our relationships with Jeff. Oh, and we were in Times Square, obviously. The last time I was at the Times Square AMC theater Joan and I saw Bachelorette. After the movie I had to pee of course and Joan came into the bathroom just to wait online with me, still eating popcorn. The image of Joan in the bathroom, surrounded by stalls eating popcorn is one of my favorite images. I tried to take a picture but I was laughing too much so it's all blurry. We relived that experience and brought the gigantic tub into the bathroom and hung out in there for like a half hour like high school.

I totally forgot about how the first scene in Jurrasic Park is scary. The movie is really good. So fun. The combination of Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum is truly a gift. Sam Neil too! I like him. I think it's really cool that Laura Dern is in Jurrasic Park. Of every actress, she's the one that got the part, like, thank god. (This is a spoiler but I kind of feel like if you haven't seen Jurrasic Park yet that's your problem) It's so beautiful that in the end a vegetarian hacker teenage girl saves everyone from the dinos.