Miles Davis Stages My State of Mind (or What Happens When an Overeducated Bum Uses the Stream of Consciousness Method)

Music at a very basic level sets the mood. It can create a thick haze perfect for seduction. It can set off your pink and blue endorphins which have no place to go except in the springy bounce of your flip-flop clad feet and in the tossing of your citrus-smelling hair. It can be a swirling kaleidoscope which combined with alcohol sinks you into a funk. But mood is merely reactive. It is the desired effect of the puppet master (a.k.a. the composer). Once you sink into the mood and actually start spinning thoughts in your head, then music has gone beyond passively setting your mood. You have absorbed the music, made it your own, and allowed your neurons to fire and create ideas way beyond the composer’s contemplation. You are no longer merely reacting, you are creating.

At this moment, Miles Davis is setting the stage for my state of mind. It’s a plaintive Miles Davis piece –moody, laid-back, piercing….I know it sounds pretentious, but they don’t call it the blues for nothing. As I said, it goes beyond mood (am not depressed) but more into a state of mind. Picture this: alarm clock glowing 3 a.m., Miles Davis in the background, girl sprawled on bed reading Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. Miles Davis just sets the perfect stage for any kind of mental intercourse with either yourself or with another. In my bumming state I have the luxury of pursuing these thoughts uninterruptedly. What thoughts are tossing and jockeying for top-dog position in my head? Where has Miles brought me? Like the Pied Piper, I’ve followed him recklessly. I’ve allowed myself to soar, sink, and be soothed…but I’ve gone beyond an emotional connection with Miles. My mind is literally miles away (I could not resist the pun), I’ve started thinking about where I was exactly a year ago. I’m wondering where I’ll be a year from now. These are all against one of my basic rules. Rule 2: Live in the present. But I allow myself this indulgence. After all, I am a teller of tales and tales must exist in some fabric of time: the past, present and future. And Middlesex’ time-lapse technique may have somewhat influenced the way I’ve been processing things lately. Ah, an idle mind is the devil’s playground.

Moi? Let me give you a visual: a tiger frozen in a capsuled moment, whose power is coiled and just waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. I, of course, would never have the gravitas of a tiger. Size and temperament might make me closer to a pussycat, but I am the sole author of my own thought bubble and if frozen, powerful tiger is the image I choose to fill the bubble, so be it! I never said I was not a narcissist. And I dare say, blogging is every narcissist's favorite past time.

I am a nostalgic person. This week’s episode of Cold Case had the detectives solving a Jane Doe death in 1979. The soundtrack was pure retro: England Dan and John Ford Coley’s “I Really Want to See You Tonight”, KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” and Bread’s “Goodbye Girl”. It just sucked me in. Hey, they were also employing the time-lapse technique here. Isn’t that interesting? My fiction of choice have been using the time-lapse technique which I’ve been using to reflect on my own journey. Literary techniques as a tool for self-analysis? This is where a Psychology major and an English Lit minor meet.

So where am I? Miles Davis has faded and the long intro to the Dave Matthews Band’s “Seek Up” is soaring from my laptop speakers, over my head, skimming my nape and the small of my back, before disappearing somewhere near my feet. What is the opposite of syncopated? Whatever that word is, it best describes the DMB.

I’ve meandered so much in this entry. Reading it and even writing it is like finding a faint trail in the woods, following it, and finding that it leads to nothing. Am no tease. Totally not the intention. If there is any redeeming value, this entry is a snapshot of my unruly brain at this moment. No beginning, middle or end. Just a trail that twists, disappears, reappears, moving, teasing, but there. My function here (I cannot abide useless things so I’ve got to justify this) is that I’ve just set the mood. Where your own brain takes you after this, is up to you.