Over the weekend, I read Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time. The concept of the book is great--Sheffield, a music critic, explains key moments of his life by sharing a mix tape that he made at the time. Most moments center around his relationship with his wife who died at age 31.
Sheffield's book moved me as much as any mix tape I've ever made. He made me grateful for both music and love. I appreciated his vivid description of both. Most critics talk about his beautiful accounts of music. But the book is so much more. The way he writes about love, marriage and his wife [in particular] filled me with an unexplainable ache.
I was a wallflower who planned to stay that way, who never imagined anybodies else to be. Suddenly, I got all tangled up in this girl's noisy, juicy, sparkly life. Without her, I didn't want to do anything except being good at Renee. You know the story about Colonel Tom Parker, after Elvis died? The Colonel said, "Hell, I'll keep right on managing him." That's how I felt. Every tree in the woods, every car that passed me on the road, every song on the radio, all seemed to be Gloria Grahame at the end of The Big Heat, asking the same question: "What was your wife like?" It was the only conversation I was interested in.
I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying. I realized that Renee had seen me fail and that she was the person I was going to be failing in front of for the rest of my life...But that's who your life is, the person who you fail in front of. Love is so confusing: there's no peace of mind.
The book should most definitely come with a warning:
WARNING: ABOUT TO MAKE YOU CRY LARGE, SNOTTY TEARS IN FRONT OF THE STRANGER NEXT TO YOU ON THE PLANE. THE STRANGER WILL BE HORRIFIED AND ATTEMPT TO OFFER YOU HIS USED NAPKIN. YOU WILL REFUSE AND CONTINUE TO SNIFF OBNOXIOUSLY BECAUSE FOR THE MOMENT YOU JUST WANT TO WALLOW IN THE AUTHOR'S PAIN AND SHARE IT AS YOUR OWN.
Consider this your warning, people.
Oh, and he's a recovering academic so he also throws in a few Nietzsche, Benjamin, Zizek and tenure track references that increase his "adorably geeky" quotient in my eyes.
I was still serfin away at grad school. My friends and I assumed that we would soon be tenured professors, which is an excellent life goal--it's like planning to be Cher. You think, I'm going to wear beads and fringed gowns, and sing "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" on the way to work every morning, and then one day, I'm going to get a call saying, "Congratulations! You're Cher! Can you make it to Vegas by showtime?"
And even though the book is about much more than music, it still got me thinking about the soundtrack of my intimate love and losses throughout the years.
Good stuff. Go, go--pick up some summer reading.
Sheffield's book moved me as much as any mix tape I've ever made. He made me grateful for both music and love. I appreciated his vivid description of both. Most critics talk about his beautiful accounts of music. But the book is so much more. The way he writes about love, marriage and his wife [in particular] filled me with an unexplainable ache.
I was a wallflower who planned to stay that way, who never imagined anybodies else to be. Suddenly, I got all tangled up in this girl's noisy, juicy, sparkly life. Without her, I didn't want to do anything except being good at Renee. You know the story about Colonel Tom Parker, after Elvis died? The Colonel said, "Hell, I'll keep right on managing him." That's how I felt. Every tree in the woods, every car that passed me on the road, every song on the radio, all seemed to be Gloria Grahame at the end of The Big Heat, asking the same question: "What was your wife like?" It was the only conversation I was interested in.
I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying. I realized that Renee had seen me fail and that she was the person I was going to be failing in front of for the rest of my life...But that's who your life is, the person who you fail in front of. Love is so confusing: there's no peace of mind.
The book should most definitely come with a warning:
WARNING: ABOUT TO MAKE YOU CRY LARGE, SNOTTY TEARS IN FRONT OF THE STRANGER NEXT TO YOU ON THE PLANE. THE STRANGER WILL BE HORRIFIED AND ATTEMPT TO OFFER YOU HIS USED NAPKIN. YOU WILL REFUSE AND CONTINUE TO SNIFF OBNOXIOUSLY BECAUSE FOR THE MOMENT YOU JUST WANT TO WALLOW IN THE AUTHOR'S PAIN AND SHARE IT AS YOUR OWN.
Consider this your warning, people.
Oh, and he's a recovering academic so he also throws in a few Nietzsche, Benjamin, Zizek and tenure track references that increase his "adorably geeky" quotient in my eyes.
I was still serfin away at grad school. My friends and I assumed that we would soon be tenured professors, which is an excellent life goal--it's like planning to be Cher. You think, I'm going to wear beads and fringed gowns, and sing "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" on the way to work every morning, and then one day, I'm going to get a call saying, "Congratulations! You're Cher! Can you make it to Vegas by showtime?"
And even though the book is about much more than music, it still got me thinking about the soundtrack of my intimate love and losses throughout the years.
Good stuff. Go, go--pick up some summer reading.
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