Whelp. That was a fun run while it lasted. I'm going to edit this post eventually and put up the tracklist, but here it is. If I ever post another mix it will have to be at least in a year as I figure out whether or not the mix has actually stood the test of time with me, but with this one there is no question.
It's the first mix I ever made, for Hector in the winter of 2006, when he was working at a law firm and I was on the outside looking in for medical school. It's hard to realize that it's almost been four years since I've graduated from college. In the time intervening many playlists have come and gone, and favorite bands too, but no sequence of songs ever synergized themselves into an entity that led to such a procession of repeats and beating of songs to death as this one.
Two other worthy notes. 1. On a degree of difficulty scale this one is unmatched. It's only 36 minutes until you include the 10:44 and 10:46 songs as bookends, and it somehow still flows. I found later that you could also parcel it out into four groups of trios that actually sound pretty well stand-alone. It's so balanced that from my point of view this is the fucking Scarlet Letter of mixtapes.
2. Where all the other playlists I've made since have involved in some form of me listening to my iTunes on shuffle and collecting those song transitions that had a perfect pitch/chord pairing between the last second of the first song to the first second of the second song, this mix had none. Being my first it was more a touch-and-feel kind of thing, a kind of song juxtaposition that iTunes Genius would never be able to give you. I never thought twice about it and I never spent nights upon nights wondering if there were ways I could do it better. Yes, I was pretty neurotic about the creations of some of my last mixes. Which is one of the reasons I am going to stop for the foreseeable future. Until something can endear itself to me the way this mix did.
One last thing: although I once hoped that other people might be able to experience the same feelings I had when listening to music, I didn't really need my experiment with mix cd's to demonstrate how ignorant and stupid I really was for believing that. There's a saying which I've singlehandedly turned into a cliche, that songs are like smells which evoke memories. And it's folly to expect anyone to be able to share in that rerealization in any manner other than a tangential one. But that doesn't stop us from trying does it? It's like some Chekhov play where everyone is shouting to everyone else without ever really listening. For a variety of reasons and in a variety of moods, I feel as though I am alone in the world and will always be so. I might wake up one day married and with children, but no one will ever have the ability (much less the desire) to try to solve my mystery. And what could I possibly do to deserve such grace? Nevertheless, through thick and thin, some of my most fruitful connections have been those with friends that I met who also derived much meaning from the music they appropriated as their own, as well as from these playlists which when truthfully appraised are nothing more than exercises to enhance my own reliving of the magic. It's been more than worth it being able to talk to friends that cared and believed like me that without stuff like this life just wouldn't be worth living.
I don't listen too much to this playlist anymore. Even the best ones get worn out eventually. Armando's would probably be #1 on my current list. But this one had a great ride. I hope everyone finds a playlist of their own making which they can enjoy as much as I enjoyed this one.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G5AXEUHB
P.S.S. Congratulations Wes. Your marriage today marks the end of an era.
