Readers of this blog, friends, family (I realise the first is a subset of the latter two), and just about anyone who knows me for any duration of time know that I am not a person who retracts my opinions lightly. Or at all. It is a blessing that 60% of the words out of my mouth go unheeded, because even the 40% will often sting the minds of those less gifted at holding two contradictory thoughts in their head, who will then cry out indignantly that I have contradicted myself. Often I, thinking myself quite clever, will Walt Whitmanize at them: "Do I contradict myself? Then I contradict myself: I am large, I contain multitudes". It is stunning how rarely that placates anybody in the least. To the contrary (aha!) it really riles them up. To be fair, I admit that half this is that I generally smirk after it, because every single time I use it I forget the consequences of every other single time I've used it and think: "I have won the argument. To Whitman there can be no response!" And if you thought that you would smirk too.

However today it is my detractors that shall smirk, for I shall be making some important corrections. I loathe to do this, but these are items of such note that I feel my endorsement of the....wrong opinion could do grevious harm. And detractors love retractors. So without further adieu, let us invite the love.

First my sister, who was the first to find Modest Mouse and recommend them to me. Now my sister and I have a bit of a history on music. Specifically, she absolutely hates everything I listen to, and I absolutely hate everything she listens to. Car rides have been a constant trial for my mother since we learned how to change radio stations (to this day Jenny threatens with all seriousness to barf if NPR comes on).

Thus it happened that my freshman year I was trying to remedy this by asking what music she liked, studiously downloading a few songs of theirs, then telling her I didn't like them, "but really, I tried!". Now when I first came up with this plan it sounded like a brilliant plan to find common ground (or even better have her say "y omg my musix sux urs is so cool") but typing it out now I see that there might have been some flaws here and there. I guess it would have been better to accept that we have different tastes in music and move on, but that's just not my style (see opening paragraph).

Among the other bands I got her to list was Modest Mouse. I didn't actually dl any at the time, but later I heard them playing tinnily out of Leonel's laptop speakers. And reflecting on Leonel's (generally good!) taste in music, it was probably one of their blander more indie pop type songs. And I hate bland indie-pop. So for years I have been walking around with the impression that they were some bland indie-pop band. Like a more self-righteous Coldplay.

This continued until a couple of weeks ago, when I was canvassing. I came across this cool hippie sort, who gave me exactly one dollar in quarters. He invited me in while he sorted out his change (can't accidentally give him two dollars in change! he must have thought), and though the aroma was what one would expect in a hippie's dwellings, the sound was not Cat Stevens but some sort of cool shouting music. And it was with stunned silence that I responded when he told me what it was. He had to guide me out while I muttered to myself "that's not Coldplay...that's not Coldplay AT ALL" over and over.

Rob was visiting at the time. Rob, for those of you not in the know (and you are a shrinking minority, for he gets around) is Lia's super-cool mathemusician boyfriend (graduating from UPenn with a math degree and signed to WB). He's just unfairly cool. And when I told him I didn't like Radiohead, didn't like the Beta Band, and didn't like Modest Mouse, he damn near fainted. I swear there was every sign of grief. "You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding...HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE THEM? Come on, I'll burn you a cd, you just need to hear them more..." When I persisted, he moped for a while, and finally-two days later-he came to me out of the blue and told me he had accepted my music tastes.

However he kept pressuring me, now and then, subtly, and when I heard Modest Mouse at the hippie's hovel I cracked. I really should check them out, I told myself. So when I saw one of Jenny's cds of theirs at Dad's house I couldn't resist, I burned it, I listend to it on the way home, and I enjoyed it. It was really pretty good. Not Against Me, not Pixies, etc., but some of those songs were definitely playlist worthy.

So I with heavy heart must retract a previous statement. Modest Mouse does not in fact "not do anything for me". They do. They do it to me hard. The people who told me they were good, which means just about everybody who's heard them, are wise, and I am a fool. A knave. I am like a child, who enters a movie midway and wants to know what's going on. I was wrong.

There is something else I was wrong about, and this I am reminded with every movement I make, from the moment I painfully get up to the moment I collapse, shooting up a cloud of pain. This I shall say no apologies for, I have become a walking apology, a bright red billboard of I WAS OMG SO WRONG.

Apparently I sunburn.

I know, I hear the protestations: "But Alex, for years you have said you do not burn, I thought you were impervious!". Ah, child. If only it were that simple. Alas it seems that not only do the very pale burn, we actually burn more. Why, we burn to the point of feeling nauseous, to the point where our skin is so tight it makes every joint a sphere of pain, to the point of crimson. My scarlet letter is I, as in I didn't put on enough fucking sunscreen, and it shall be MY ENTIRE BODY. And Hester was lucky, hers didn't ever come off in dust, bits, and patches that shall follow me like some sort of cursed trail for days now as I molt like some sort of bright red and scaly bird.

So this is my world. A confusing world, where wrong is right and right is left. All I know is that I put on sunscreen, damnit. And it failed me. So the one logical resort I have is to never put on sunscreen again. This is the only thing that is clear to me in all the world. It's not like I burn anyway.
12:48 AM