You know how when you're reading a book your mind will sometimes wander? Only realizing after a few paragraphs that your eyes have just been going over the words while you've been thinking about something else. Everyone has done this, I'm sure.

Today, it happened to me but with a strange twist. In the middle of the page I realized it was happening, but still I let my mind wander. Then after a second, I went back to the top of the page because I thought I had read something I wanted to get. Something I wanted to remember. After I couldn't find it on the page, I realized it had been something I was thinking that I wanted to remember. A thought, as my internal dialogue meandered, I wanted to come back to.

It wasn't a brief confusion. I was wholly convinced that I read what turned out to be something I was thinking. I really searched for it. In my mind I saw the words written in the same font as the book. I read the damn page three times. The words were not there.

This was a first. I had mixed up my mind and my media. 

Maybe when my mind flits off while I'm reading my eyes are on autopilot, but since my thoughts aren't about the book, my eyes can't possibly be processing the words on the page. Besides, my mind is what processes stuff, the eyes only receive light. So in effect, I think my eyes were reading my thoughts. I'm guessing if a person's eyes are continuing along the page while his mind is elsewhere, they are still performing the muscular task of reading. What are they "reading?" Only the mind can process letters, know where to jump between words, notice where the page ends in order to tell the eyes when to go down and to the left (for those of us who read in the Western fashion), and realize that neither your eyes nor your mind have been paying any attention to this book.

Maybe it just happened to you reading this record of my wandering thoughts.

Perhaps it's all just a muscular habit. Your eyes keep doing what they do, no matter what your mind is up to. Put a book in front of them, they go into "read activation mode!" It could be that we aren't as in control of our actions as we intuitively feel we are. Although it's hard to believe something as complex and recently developed as reading comprehension could be much like an animal instinct. It wouldn't explain why I was convinced I had read something that in reality I had only thought.

At the Drive-In Hoopla

The musical internet is abuzz with reunion news this week. The brightest blinking light on my radar is the news that At the Drive-In will be reuniting. There's no shortage of enthusiasm and snark (naturally) spread across the blogs, but my personal favorite anonymous snarky internet comment so far is:

"This reunion marks the first thing ATDI have done that Fugazi didn't already do."

ZING! That came from a comment on some hip music blog, probably Stereogum or BrooklynVegan. Wherever it came from, and whoever typed it, it elicited a hearty laugh from myself.

Personally, I'm a big fan of ATDI. I'm not sure if I'll bother with checking them out on the reunion tour, since I saw them back in the day for far less than the hundreds of dollars the reunion tickets will inevitably cost me. However, I'm sure they'll put on an intense show, though I'm not sure how it will translate to the larger stages they'll be playing this time around.

Now, if somehow the musical gods bless me with a Fugazi reunion, I will definitely try to attend that.

Mention in the Austin Chronicle

Besides the music I make for Hosey and our side projects, I also do music/sound work for dance companies, performance artists, and other weird projects that flutter to life in the avant garde fringes of culture. One such project was providing the score for "Deer, to Me", a multimedia piece put on by the company white road Dance Media. The score was originally put together for the first run of the performance in NYC about two years ago, and just this week it was re-performed over several nights in Austin, Texas. A local newspaper ran a review of the show and complimented the music and mentioned yours truly. It kind of made my day. Here's the link:

http://bit.ly/te1uEa [austinchronicle.com]

Dismiss-a-Band

I think I overheard a stranger sum up the general feeling I have toward all the metal bands I've been hearing lately--at live shows, that is, which is how I prefer to listen to music. Recordings are so twentieth century. Anyway, this unknown-to-me nailed it. Here 'tis:

"Bah, this band is all 'ch-chunk chunk!' Where's the 'Meedly meedly meedly meeeee!!!' "?!

Nice. It also reminds me that I need to go check in on what Strongbad is up to these days.

Liquor and Liqueur

I've always found it odd that the pronunciations of the words "liquor" and "liqueur" seem to be reversed. Liquor, pronounced "lick-er", is spelled like it should be pronounced "lick-or". Likewise, liqueur, which is pronounced "lick-or", looks like it should be pronounced "lick-er".

I was once a bartender and this is the kind of stuff I would think about on slow days.