nataliepo

NOT MODCULT MATERIAL: Dog and Dolphin Pals.

 

One of the many reasons why I love to live in Brooklyn.

Most weekends, when the sun is just high enough, and the leaves rustle gently in the breeze, my neighbors play the most beautiful music I've ever scrambled eggs to.

I don't want to know who my neighbors are, and I especially don't want them to know that I'm listening to their heavenly chord experimentations.  I want us to coexist at a peaceful emotional distance while spatially close.  You guys can do your own thing to your heart's content, and I'll do mine.  It just so happens that in a place like Brooklyn, statistically, each person's own thing has a greater likelihood to be incredible.

In the event of a emergency, like a fire or the lack of a cup of sugar, I'd lend my neighbor a hand, and I believe they'd do the same for me.  The fact that neighbors in a big city can't deploy high hedges or large plots to divide each others' boundaries lends itself to a mutually-reinforced emotional distance.  I LOVE IT.

 

NOT MODCULT MATERIAL: Grumpy Old Owls.

Today, my iPod expressed its undying love for me.

Has anyone ever made a mixtape for you as a way to circumvent an awkward admittance of their feelings for you?  For some reason, I attract that type of dude, and I've had more mixtape gifts than I care to expand upon.

But this morning, I rolled the dice with a Genius Playlist on a Neil Young song, and the mixtape that it made me has changed how I see my iPod, which I call my nPod, forever.

nPod loves me.

I personally have fallen in love with technology, but I never thought it could return the favor.  I nearly blushed as the quality, tone, and mix-up of songs that my lover, the Genius Playlist Maker, chose for me.

Yes, of course, I chose the set of songs to upload onto this device, and yes, I've heard all of them before, so it wasn't quite the same as a love interest attempting to connect with me through their favorite songs.   But I will say that the algorithm not only matched the weather, the time of day, and my mood, but also the progression of my commute as I walked from my Brooklyn apartment, rode the crowded train, and walked around cool, windy, newly sunny Manhattan into work.

Here were the songs that unlocked the key to my heart:

1. Neil Young - Old Man
2. David Bowie - Changes
3. Cat Stevens - The Wind
4. Wilco - Jesus, etc
5. Ray LaMontagne - Trouble
6. Pretenders - Brass in Pocket
7. Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
8. Wilco - California Stars
9. Neil Young - Harvest Moon
10. David Bowie - Heroes
11. My Morning Jacket - One Big Holiday
12. Cat Power - The Greatest
13. David Bowie - Space Oddity
14. Neil Young - Unknown Legend
15. New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle

The Pretenders put me in the mood for a fine latte from Cafe Grumpy, then Cat Power congratulated that good decision and encouraged me to put on sunglasses.  New Order greeted me and a good-looking stranger in the elevator up to the office.