Saturday, March 24, 2007
Just to keep those itchy feet in check, A and I are going on a trip in a couple of weeks to Paris, France and Prague, Czech Republic. We are doing each city for one week. I'm thrilled to discover Prague since it's been on my list of places to go for several years now. Don't ask me why, I tend to set my sights on a place which are usually more difficult ones to get to. I have to admit, I like going places that most people I know have not yet been. It's not motivated by a competitive spirit, rather a desire to experience something unknown to me. I'll just blame it on itchy feet because there is no real explanation for it.
Contrast to my desire to visit unexposed areas of the world, Paris is the number one tourist spot on the globe. Over 36 million tourists travel Paris each year. No wonder Parisians get so hauty towards tourists who can't speak French, like me. I'm hoping the pregnant state I'm in will provide me with reasons for Parisians to be gracious.
For some reason, I've often imagined living in Paris, even though I've never been to it. If I think back far enough, that was more than likely established when I read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I adored the lifestyle depicted by Hem and his entourage, which included Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. In a 1964 NYTimes article, writer Charles Poore wrote the following observations about A Moveable Feast:
"The importance of beating Ernest, someone once said, gave a hopeless target to industrious lit'ry careerists. How cheerfully Hemingway was aware of that--and how early--appears quite clearly in this memoir of what I can only call his brilliantly obscure emergence as a man of letters. Here is Hemingway at his best. No one has ever written about Paris in the nineteen twenties as well as Hemingway. Thousands, of course, have given their own bright versions of that unaccountably perpetual springtime, but too many lost parts of their own identities in taking on some of Hemingway's. And they could not precisely share his astounding fugue of interests, which wove Tolstoy out of Sylvia Beach's bookship with days at the great race tracks, skiing expeditions to the Alps and the study of CÈzanne, noticing that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wearing a British Guardsman's tie and boxing with Ezra Pound, forays to Pamplona and living above a sawmill at 113 Rue Notre Dame des Champs.
It made a very movable feast. The feasting was sometimes pretty Spartan. Yet Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and their infant son, lived high on low amounts of money. Wages were precarious for a writer trying to get on paper, in his phrase, "the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion," trying to create rather than describe."
I've got to read that book before I go, or while I'm there. Between laughing at references that remind me of Bumby and drooling over what to order from each patisserie, I think I'll be just fine.
Contrast to my desire to visit unexposed areas of the world, Paris is the number one tourist spot on the globe. Over 36 million tourists travel Paris each year. No wonder Parisians get so hauty towards tourists who can't speak French, like me. I'm hoping the pregnant state I'm in will provide me with reasons for Parisians to be gracious.
For some reason, I've often imagined living in Paris, even though I've never been to it. If I think back far enough, that was more than likely established when I read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I adored the lifestyle depicted by Hem and his entourage, which included Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. In a 1964 NYTimes article, writer Charles Poore wrote the following observations about A Moveable Feast:
"The importance of beating Ernest, someone once said, gave a hopeless target to industrious lit'ry careerists. How cheerfully Hemingway was aware of that--and how early--appears quite clearly in this memoir of what I can only call his brilliantly obscure emergence as a man of letters. Here is Hemingway at his best. No one has ever written about Paris in the nineteen twenties as well as Hemingway. Thousands, of course, have given their own bright versions of that unaccountably perpetual springtime, but too many lost parts of their own identities in taking on some of Hemingway's. And they could not precisely share his astounding fugue of interests, which wove Tolstoy out of Sylvia Beach's bookship with days at the great race tracks, skiing expeditions to the Alps and the study of CÈzanne, noticing that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wearing a British Guardsman's tie and boxing with Ezra Pound, forays to Pamplona and living above a sawmill at 113 Rue Notre Dame des Champs.
It made a very movable feast. The feasting was sometimes pretty Spartan. Yet Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and their infant son, lived high on low amounts of money. Wages were precarious for a writer trying to get on paper, in his phrase, "the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion," trying to create rather than describe."
I've got to read that book before I go, or while I'm there. Between laughing at references that remind me of Bumby and drooling over what to order from each patisserie, I think I'll be just fine.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Birds' nest = tfoxfan's home. Yep, we're in a stage typically referred to as "nesting". Funny, someone pointed this out to me when I was discussing our intention to furnish our place. I balked at the suggestion simply stating that we've been married nearly 14 years and felt that, in light of baby's arrival, we would be better served to have furniture. Hmm...K, let me back up here... yes, we've refrained from furniture purchases for 14 years. I don't necessarily take pride in that, but I do find it somehow endearing (can one be endeared to their own marital quirks?) and most amusing. We started out young and idealistic. I remember our first kitchen table was a large camper cooler. We used that for a while and although we knew it could be awkward in the event we would host guests, we didn't worry about it much. Soon enough, someone offered us a neglected card table to eat off of. I remember thinking it odd that the glass wouldn't rest all that evenly on the surface because card tables are puffy. Ah, it worked with a wee bit of jostling. We had our futon mattress on the floor for well over five years and never worried for a bed. Didn't have a TV until four or five years into our marriage and when we got one, we put it on two overturned milk crates, swiped from my mom's cafeteria with a flashy Guatemalan throw over it. And, a sofa? Well, there was 'the worm' - a hippie-built, (really, my parent's friends sewed it in the late 60s) cordeuroy "U" that had a separate long tube in the middle of the U that served us for eight years or so. The list goes on. Believe me, if you ask my parents, they'll be more than inclined to say they never felt all that 'comfortable' coming over to our place. I don't blame them, it's hard to get out of a worm or any variations thereof.
And now, with mini-tfox on the way, we're feeling like it's time to grow up - you know... be adults. I must admit that over the 14 years of making up living 'sustainable' environs, we're pretty clear about what it is that we need. Much to our parent's delight, we purchased a sofa they can get out of without asking for a hand. We also got a kitchen table that we love and have begun to eat food at. How civilized - no more food in our laps or on our shirts, burning the insides of our thighs.
We have come to recognize that we're going to be home a good deal and should be comfortable, practically. No, this does not include end tables or light fixtures from the ceiling or coat racks or welcome mats, but it does involve microfibre and clearcoat.
Oh, baby we're nesting.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
I read and included below an interesting article from The Economist titled "Happiness (and how to measure it)".
"Happiness (and how to measure it)"
Dec 19th 2006 From The Economist print edition
Capitalism can make a society rich and keep it free. Don't ask it to make you happy as well.
HAVING grown at an annual rate of 3.2% per head since 2000, the world economy is over half way towards notching up its best decade ever. If it keeps going at this clip, it will beat both the supposedly idyllic 1950s and the 1960s. Market capitalism, the engine that runs most of the world economy, seems to be doing its job well.
But is it? Once upon a time, that job was generally agreed to be to make people better off. Nowadays that's not so clear. A number of economists, in search of big problems to solve, and politicians, looking for bold promises to make, think that it ought to be doing something else: making people happy.
The view that economics should be about more than money is widely held in continental Europe. In debates with Anglo-American capitalists, wily bons vivants have tended to cite the idea of “quality of life” to excuse slower economic growth. But now David Cameron, the latest leader of Britain's once rather materialistic Conservative Party, has espoused the notion of “general well-being” (GWB) as an alternative to the more traditional GDP. In America, meanwhile, inequality, over-work and other hidden costs of prosperity were much discussed in the mid-term elections; and “wellness” (as opposed to health) has become a huge industry, catering especially to the prosperous discontent of the baby-boomers.
The things you never knew you wanted
Much of this draws on the upstart science of happiness, which mixes psychology with economics (see article). Its adherents start with copious survey data, such as those derived from the simple, folksy question put to thousands of Americans every year or two since 1972: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?” Some of the results are unsurprising: the rich report being happier than do the poor. But a paradox emerges that requires explanation: affluent countries have not got much happier as they have grown richer. From America to Japan, figures for well-being have barely budged.
The science of happiness offers two explanations for the paradox. Capitalism, it notes, is adept at turning luxuries into necessities—bringing to the masses what the elites have always enjoyed. But the flip side of this genius is that people come to take for granted things they once coveted from afar. Frills they never thought they could have become essentials that they cannot do without. People are stuck on a treadmill: as they achieve a better standard of living, they become inured to its pleasures.
Capitalism's ability to take things downmarket also has its limits. Many of the things people most prize—such as the top jobs, the best education, or an exclusive home address—are luxuries by necessity. An elite schooling, for example, ceases to be so if it is provided to everyone. These “positional goods”, as they are called, are in fixed supply: you can enjoy them only if others do not. The amount of money and effort required to grab them depends on how much your rivals are putting in.
Some economists think the results cast doubt on the long-held verities of their discipline. The dismal science traditionally assumes that people know their own interests, and are best left to mind their own business. How much they work, and what they buy, is their own affair. A properly brought-up economist seeks to explain their decisions, not to quarrel with them. But the new happiness gurus are much less willing to defer to people's choices.
Take work, for instance. In 1930 John Maynard Keynes imagined that richer societies would become more leisured ones, liberated from toil to enjoy the finer things in life. Yet most people still put in a decent shift. They work hard to afford things they think will make them happy, only to discover the fruits of their labour sour quickly. They also aspire to a higher place in society's pecking order, but in so doing force others in the rat race to run faster to keep up. So everyone loses.
Yet it is not self-evident that less work would mean more happiness. In America, when the working week has shortened, the gap has been filled by assiduous TV-watching. As for well-being, other studies show that elderly people who stop working tend to die sooner than their peers who labour on. Indeed, another side of happiness economics busies itself studying the non-monetary rewards from work: most people enjoy parts of their work, and some people love it.
As for capitalism's wasteful materialism, even Adam Smith had a problem with it. “How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility?” he complained. It is hard to claim that pyramid-shaped tea-bags (developed at great expense over four years) have added much to the sum of human happiness. Yet if capitalism sometimes persuades people to buy stuff they only imagine they want, it also appeals to tastes and aptitudes they never knew they had. In the arts, this is called “originality” and is venerated. In commerce it is called “novelty” and too often dismissed. But without the urge for material improvement, people would still be wearing woollen underwear and holidaying in Bognor rather than Bhutan. Would that be so great?
The joys of niche capitalism
If growth of this kind does not make people happy, stagnation will hardly do the trick. Ossified societies guard positional goods more, not less, jealously. A flourishing economy, on the other hand, creates what biologists call “a tangled bank” of niches, with no clear hierarchy between them. Tyler Cowen, of George Mason University, points out that America has more than 3,000 halls of fame, honouring everyone from rock stars and sportsmen to dog mushers, pickle-packers and accountants. In such a society, everyone can hope to come top of his particular monkey troop, even as the people he looks down on count themselves top of a subtly different troop.
To find the market system wanting because it does not bring joy as well as growth is to place too heavy a burden on it. Capitalism can make you well off. And it also leaves you free to be as unhappy as you choose. To ask any more of it would be asking too much.
________
The article points clearly to the concept that people now need what they didn't know they wanted before and have since attained. More poignant are the stats which indicate that happiness has not increased in correlation to accumulated wealth, but more specifically because a new level of wealth continues to rise up in place of the previous wealthy measure.
I can relate to this concept on a basic level. I recall a time when I only shopped at Value Village. The choice to shop VV was two-pronged; I liked old school and quirky clothes and I liked the prices. VV started to 'up' their prices because they caught on that gals and guys like me could spend more (though we prefered not to). Okay, so we usually bought ten items for $18.00 rather than 2 quality items for the same price elsewhere. VV was most certainly not about quality rather quanity. Anyway, when VV price tags went up (and dot-day sales were pulled - still a little bitter), I went to the Gap.
I never loved the Gap, but the clothes fit me well and I needed to get a bit more mature in my style. I only bought off the sale rack and to this day rarely buy a "new arrival". Gap quality has declined significantly over the last few years albeit their (sale) prices remain decent.
Now, I troll the Banana Republic stores because they're professional, well-built clothing which looks simply darling on. I've only ever bought one item (on sale) from there, which I wore to death. Having said that, I can see a trend forming here, you know... hanging out there, picking the items I like that are new and then going back a month later in search of that item for a heavily discounted price in my size. Yep.
My point is, I shop for Gap clothes, but I want BR. Funny, they're the same company and likely the same manufacturing shop somewhere in Asia. For me, to justify to afford BR, I have to make more $ and work in a job that demands that look. Is that aspiring for a more desirable "pecking order"? Likely. Man, that grinds on me to admit. Would wearing BR make me happier than Gap or VV? Nope. In fact, I know I'd have buyer's remorse the moment I had to figure out how to wash it - oh the agony of a failed launder.
Okay, so I don't have any mind-boggling finale for contemplation regarding this article. What I do like about tossing capitalism and happiness in the same handbag is that the dumping out of contents will end up a mess. I'm fascinated by the fact that the intent to form a capitalist society was to make a lot of money for a few people while the majority, who are great fans of the concept and structure of it, are poor or middle-class. I can't offer a meaningful alternative to a capitalist society although I'll be sure to keep you posted if I find one. Believe me, I'm looking. Happiness and sustainability surely has a practical application somehow, somewhere over the rainbow.
"Happiness (and how to measure it)"
Dec 19th 2006 From The Economist print edition
Capitalism can make a society rich and keep it free. Don't ask it to make you happy as well.
HAVING grown at an annual rate of 3.2% per head since 2000, the world economy is over half way towards notching up its best decade ever. If it keeps going at this clip, it will beat both the supposedly idyllic 1950s and the 1960s. Market capitalism, the engine that runs most of the world economy, seems to be doing its job well.
But is it? Once upon a time, that job was generally agreed to be to make people better off. Nowadays that's not so clear. A number of economists, in search of big problems to solve, and politicians, looking for bold promises to make, think that it ought to be doing something else: making people happy.
The view that economics should be about more than money is widely held in continental Europe. In debates with Anglo-American capitalists, wily bons vivants have tended to cite the idea of “quality of life” to excuse slower economic growth. But now David Cameron, the latest leader of Britain's once rather materialistic Conservative Party, has espoused the notion of “general well-being” (GWB) as an alternative to the more traditional GDP. In America, meanwhile, inequality, over-work and other hidden costs of prosperity were much discussed in the mid-term elections; and “wellness” (as opposed to health) has become a huge industry, catering especially to the prosperous discontent of the baby-boomers.
The things you never knew you wanted
Much of this draws on the upstart science of happiness, which mixes psychology with economics (see article). Its adherents start with copious survey data, such as those derived from the simple, folksy question put to thousands of Americans every year or two since 1972: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?” Some of the results are unsurprising: the rich report being happier than do the poor. But a paradox emerges that requires explanation: affluent countries have not got much happier as they have grown richer. From America to Japan, figures for well-being have barely budged.
The science of happiness offers two explanations for the paradox. Capitalism, it notes, is adept at turning luxuries into necessities—bringing to the masses what the elites have always enjoyed. But the flip side of this genius is that people come to take for granted things they once coveted from afar. Frills they never thought they could have become essentials that they cannot do without. People are stuck on a treadmill: as they achieve a better standard of living, they become inured to its pleasures.
Capitalism's ability to take things downmarket also has its limits. Many of the things people most prize—such as the top jobs, the best education, or an exclusive home address—are luxuries by necessity. An elite schooling, for example, ceases to be so if it is provided to everyone. These “positional goods”, as they are called, are in fixed supply: you can enjoy them only if others do not. The amount of money and effort required to grab them depends on how much your rivals are putting in.
Some economists think the results cast doubt on the long-held verities of their discipline. The dismal science traditionally assumes that people know their own interests, and are best left to mind their own business. How much they work, and what they buy, is their own affair. A properly brought-up economist seeks to explain their decisions, not to quarrel with them. But the new happiness gurus are much less willing to defer to people's choices.
Take work, for instance. In 1930 John Maynard Keynes imagined that richer societies would become more leisured ones, liberated from toil to enjoy the finer things in life. Yet most people still put in a decent shift. They work hard to afford things they think will make them happy, only to discover the fruits of their labour sour quickly. They also aspire to a higher place in society's pecking order, but in so doing force others in the rat race to run faster to keep up. So everyone loses.
Yet it is not self-evident that less work would mean more happiness. In America, when the working week has shortened, the gap has been filled by assiduous TV-watching. As for well-being, other studies show that elderly people who stop working tend to die sooner than their peers who labour on. Indeed, another side of happiness economics busies itself studying the non-monetary rewards from work: most people enjoy parts of their work, and some people love it.
As for capitalism's wasteful materialism, even Adam Smith had a problem with it. “How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility?” he complained. It is hard to claim that pyramid-shaped tea-bags (developed at great expense over four years) have added much to the sum of human happiness. Yet if capitalism sometimes persuades people to buy stuff they only imagine they want, it also appeals to tastes and aptitudes they never knew they had. In the arts, this is called “originality” and is venerated. In commerce it is called “novelty” and too often dismissed. But without the urge for material improvement, people would still be wearing woollen underwear and holidaying in Bognor rather than Bhutan. Would that be so great?
The joys of niche capitalism
If growth of this kind does not make people happy, stagnation will hardly do the trick. Ossified societies guard positional goods more, not less, jealously. A flourishing economy, on the other hand, creates what biologists call “a tangled bank” of niches, with no clear hierarchy between them. Tyler Cowen, of George Mason University, points out that America has more than 3,000 halls of fame, honouring everyone from rock stars and sportsmen to dog mushers, pickle-packers and accountants. In such a society, everyone can hope to come top of his particular monkey troop, even as the people he looks down on count themselves top of a subtly different troop.
To find the market system wanting because it does not bring joy as well as growth is to place too heavy a burden on it. Capitalism can make you well off. And it also leaves you free to be as unhappy as you choose. To ask any more of it would be asking too much.
________
The article points clearly to the concept that people now need what they didn't know they wanted before and have since attained. More poignant are the stats which indicate that happiness has not increased in correlation to accumulated wealth, but more specifically because a new level of wealth continues to rise up in place of the previous wealthy measure.
I can relate to this concept on a basic level. I recall a time when I only shopped at Value Village. The choice to shop VV was two-pronged; I liked old school and quirky clothes and I liked the prices. VV started to 'up' their prices because they caught on that gals and guys like me could spend more (though we prefered not to). Okay, so we usually bought ten items for $18.00 rather than 2 quality items for the same price elsewhere. VV was most certainly not about quality rather quanity. Anyway, when VV price tags went up (and dot-day sales were pulled - still a little bitter), I went to the Gap.
I never loved the Gap, but the clothes fit me well and I needed to get a bit more mature in my style. I only bought off the sale rack and to this day rarely buy a "new arrival". Gap quality has declined significantly over the last few years albeit their (sale) prices remain decent.
Now, I troll the Banana Republic stores because they're professional, well-built clothing which looks simply darling on. I've only ever bought one item (on sale) from there, which I wore to death. Having said that, I can see a trend forming here, you know... hanging out there, picking the items I like that are new and then going back a month later in search of that item for a heavily discounted price in my size. Yep.
My point is, I shop for Gap clothes, but I want BR. Funny, they're the same company and likely the same manufacturing shop somewhere in Asia. For me, to justify to afford BR, I have to make more $ and work in a job that demands that look. Is that aspiring for a more desirable "pecking order"? Likely. Man, that grinds on me to admit. Would wearing BR make me happier than Gap or VV? Nope. In fact, I know I'd have buyer's remorse the moment I had to figure out how to wash it - oh the agony of a failed launder.
Okay, so I don't have any mind-boggling finale for contemplation regarding this article. What I do like about tossing capitalism and happiness in the same handbag is that the dumping out of contents will end up a mess. I'm fascinated by the fact that the intent to form a capitalist society was to make a lot of money for a few people while the majority, who are great fans of the concept and structure of it, are poor or middle-class. I can't offer a meaningful alternative to a capitalist society although I'll be sure to keep you posted if I find one. Believe me, I'm looking. Happiness and sustainability surely has a practical application somehow, somewhere over the rainbow.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
I've just passed the half-way point in my pregnancy. It's surprised me a bit since I thought that nine months (or 40 weeks for those that understand the calculation thing) would feel quite long. The first 12 weeks went slowly, the last five weeks went fast, and the ones in between were a blur.
Of course, this whole process has given me substantial cause for reflection. A question that has provided an insightful answer is "How did I/we get here?". Meaning, how did I finally end up making this decision? My close friends and family would likely echo this question, begging for answers of any kind from me.
I've ended up with one concrete answer which carries a lot of history. The answer is that I am settled - for the first time. Historically, I'm a restless person. If not restless, then a girl with a severe case of itchy feet. The only cure for itchy feet is to travel or very simply, to explore. Prior to owning a car, I had a list of places I wanted to go and where I wanted to live.
Before A and I got married, we traded in our cars for the Pumpkin, which was a 1983 VW getaway van. In the course of a year and a half (inclusive of our honeymoon), we drove south and then north and then east and then west. When we weren't stopping over for extended periods of time at family's places we were in the van or living somewhere other than where either of us grew up.
I could go on, but the first year of our lives together crystallizes the way that I felt all of the time - restless to experience places and cultures. I don't know if I ever hungered to find a particular place and settle there although I was certainly open to find the right 'fit' for me in each place we parked ourselves. Seven apartments, four retail jobs, 15 Starbucks stores, 1 year of university and a related career job later, I end up here. Oh, that's not including a cumulative of nearly one year of total travel time in 10 countries peppered throughout those 14 years of marriage... and that's not including roadtrips. At any rate, we moved around a fair deal and each time we moved it was by being compelled to do so.
So, I end up here, in East Vancouver. It makes sense, really. The more I learn about this spot, the more I understand why I live here and more importantly, why I love it. Now, if you followed my blabla above you'll notice that I've parked myself now. Therefore, the answer to my initial question is that I found my home. Itchy feet and all, I'm content to be at home. I swear I never knew the meaning of home until now. What I marvel at is how the sense of belonging and correlating settling-in of home equals a new level of decisions being made. Once I sorted out the fact that I didn't have to think about where to travel to or where to move anymore, I got into a 'new head'. This mindspace included a whole bunch of decisions that were never very seriously considered before; one of which included whether or not I wanted to start a family.
So, how did I get here? Blame East Van.
Of course, this whole process has given me substantial cause for reflection. A question that has provided an insightful answer is "How did I/we get here?". Meaning, how did I finally end up making this decision? My close friends and family would likely echo this question, begging for answers of any kind from me.
I've ended up with one concrete answer which carries a lot of history. The answer is that I am settled - for the first time. Historically, I'm a restless person. If not restless, then a girl with a severe case of itchy feet. The only cure for itchy feet is to travel or very simply, to explore. Prior to owning a car, I had a list of places I wanted to go and where I wanted to live.
Before A and I got married, we traded in our cars for the Pumpkin, which was a 1983 VW getaway van. In the course of a year and a half (inclusive of our honeymoon), we drove south and then north and then east and then west. When we weren't stopping over for extended periods of time at family's places we were in the van or living somewhere other than where either of us grew up.
I could go on, but the first year of our lives together crystallizes the way that I felt all of the time - restless to experience places and cultures. I don't know if I ever hungered to find a particular place and settle there although I was certainly open to find the right 'fit' for me in each place we parked ourselves. Seven apartments, four retail jobs, 15 Starbucks stores, 1 year of university and a related career job later, I end up here. Oh, that's not including a cumulative of nearly one year of total travel time in 10 countries peppered throughout those 14 years of marriage... and that's not including roadtrips. At any rate, we moved around a fair deal and each time we moved it was by being compelled to do so.
So, I end up here, in East Vancouver. It makes sense, really. The more I learn about this spot, the more I understand why I live here and more importantly, why I love it. Now, if you followed my blabla above you'll notice that I've parked myself now. Therefore, the answer to my initial question is that I found my home. Itchy feet and all, I'm content to be at home. I swear I never knew the meaning of home until now. What I marvel at is how the sense of belonging and correlating settling-in of home equals a new level of decisions being made. Once I sorted out the fact that I didn't have to think about where to travel to or where to move anymore, I got into a 'new head'. This mindspace included a whole bunch of decisions that were never very seriously considered before; one of which included whether or not I wanted to start a family.
So, how did I get here? Blame East Van.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Whatever happened to Dolores O'Roirdan? I popped The Cranberries first album everybody else is doing it so why can't we? in last week. I couldn't believe it had fifteen years since that album was released. I only got into the band in 1994, when no need to argue was released. Driving to work and listening to the all-too familiar songs made me quite emotional - even to tear up. Okay, there may be some extra hormones involved here, but it was somehow poignant when Linger came on. The years of 1994 and 1995 flew through my mind like when you watch a movie of when a character is about to die and memories are displayed quickly like over-exposed postcards on the screen.
I remember when we went to see The Cranberries at GM Place for their third album tour. Not a stellar album, but quality nonetheless. Dolores was mesmerizing.
Listening to her, I realize that she was the last female vocalist I truly fell in love with. Previous to her, was (and remains on top of the list) Annie Lennox. Apparently, Dolores is about to release her first solo album since the Cranberries dissolution. I'll probably take the chance to hear her voice again, particularly in light of my recent trip down memory lane.
