No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.

--Dogen

It's Monday. Hello.

Draggy weekend. Watched Last Tango in Paris, which has to be the worst movie ever made, unless watching a smarmy Marlon Brando and an imbecilic Maria Schneider cavorting and spouting really arch faux-existentialist dialogue is your idea of a hot time.

Psychomusicology study: Sheryl Crow.

Although I don't remember what possessed me at the time, last summer I bought Sheryl Crow's C'mon C'mon album. I listened to it straight through once, and then another time, just to make sure I didn't miss anything, and then I promptly put it away and never listened again.

I had my standard Crow/Petty reaction: this is almost good...the songs have a Stones-y kind of feeling, the playing is flawless, and yet ultimately the record loses my interest because the lyrics are bad and the production is ultra-schmaltzy.

Anyway, throughout the year, in various stores and gyms, I'd passively hear this kinda catchy, classic-rock-Pet-Sounds sounding song and wondered who it was. It was always being played faintly enough so that the catchphrase "Soak up the sun..." never registered. But I was in a store this weekend and heard it, and realized what it was, and that I actually owned the record. Yay! So I went home and cranked it up...and promptly put it away and will most likely never listen again.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that some music is meant to be enjoyed from afar, but once you actually regard it fully, it dissolves like cotton candy in a rainstorm.

While that may seem like an obvious lesson, I really have to test these things--I am not content to hold a negative position about a popular performer or work of art based solely on the fact of their popularity. I must find out for myself how bad they are before I can move on.