Gaga

I had planned another discussion of the woes and whees of moving house, but then I stumbled upon this little nugget ("nugget" because he is both small in stature and akin to gold).



This is what inspires me today.

My friend Tress shared this on Facebook yesterday. When I watched it this morning, the video had less than 20,000 views. Now there have been 1,532,234. Wait -- I forgot to hit "refresh." Make that 2,137,217. When I opened my browser to write this blog, Yahoo! had a front page story displayed about him, Greyson Michael Chance, or "Little Lord Gaga," as their music blogger called him.

But it's not the trajectory of this tyke that impresses me most. It's his gosh-given talent and the charisma with which he was able to hold the attention of all those girls (though at least one was able to keep a pretty good Pokerface throughout the performance) and the other 2 million of us. And Lady Gaga is only a gateway for the boy (though she is listed first when he lists his two main musical influences); the two other videos on his YouTube channel are for songs Chance wrote himself. "Broken Hearts" is really more powerful than it has any right to be (to whomever broke this precious popple's heart: thanks. Sucker). "Stars" is a touch repetitive, but it's no fun to critique a 13-year-old negatively.

I want to be jealous of his astounding voice and his ivory tickling and his overnight success (and I am jealous of the ivory tickling), but the real achievement is that he is using his talent. He is writing songs, and learning the art of performance, and posting a showcase of the art he deems complete enough to share (even though he admits that "it needs a lot of work"). And yeah, he has had genetic and/or economical advantages over others -- the voice is worth noting, his house looks to be several tiers above hovel, and he's got the looks those Tiger Beat tweens go mad for. And it's clear from the "Paparazzi" video that he goes to some fancy all-girls school and really had no choice but to cultivate the skills necessary to woo them all.

But really, he's doing it. I'm just proud of him, is all. It is really a shame that he has to achieve celebrity before he hits puberty, though. This means the whole world will witness his balls drop. It will be like New Year's Eve. Hope you're ready, Greyson.

Bloggers and YouTube commenters alike have been making comparisons between Little Lord Gaga and Justin Bieber. But I don't know Justin Bieber. Instead, Chance reminds me of this artist.



Local treasure, oh dorian.

The comparison may seem like a bit of a jump to you, but whatever, kids. Both have voices that would melt polar bears (and you know how high melting point is for polar bears), both play piano with style. And I'd wager both are younger than me -- even Lady Gaga her majestic self is younger than me. Greyson Michael Chance and oh dorian -- and Lady Gaga, too, for that matter -- write original songs and perform them with a quality that is at once haunting and darling.

And I find myself in awe. Greyson Michael Chance is going to be on Ellen. Lady Gaga went to Tisch and supposedly taught herself piano at age 4. Even that guy Matt works with goes to open-mic night at Mellow Mushroom and sings '90s songs in front of people.
I taught myself guitar at 15 and haven't improved since then. I played flute in middle school; I can still play my favorite Australian aboriginal folk song, but nothing else. I took chorus for 13 years.
And I am blogging about other people's art.

Homeward Boned

I have just bought my own home. That means I have the great pleasure of packing up all the stuff and nonsense I've collected over the 24.961643835 years I lived at my old house and hauling it 5 miles up the road to my new house (which is actually about the same age as the old house). This is my first moving experience. And it's been, I suppose, rather a moving experience.

It's strange to have to quickly become accustomed to new and fascinating doorknobs, lightswitches, musty odors. The soapscum in the shower is not my soapscum. Except legally. And though we've been at the new house for nearly three weeks, I still feel, to an extent, like a guest -- one who's making herself very comfortable, painting the rooms and weeding and whatnot, but still a guest. At least I no longer really feel like I'm living in someone else's filth, as I did the first few days, because Matt and I were good about moving our own filth over, early on. The dogs can snuggle in dirty laundry or old pizza boxes or paint-splattered drop cloths, and it feels just like home to them. The first day we brought the dogs, Walter was dry-heavingly stressed out, so they've made a lot of progress.

I'm sure I'll feel more at home once we've moved every everything over. We're still in that limbo where we've brought over the absolute essentials -- bed, undies, dogs, dental floss, chargers for various electronics, lamp in the shape of an airplane, frozen waffles (we haven't brought the toaster over yet), box of liquor, etc -- but the rest of our stuff (and most of my life) is still at the old house. It's hard to decide what you can't live without when you've never had to live without anything you've ever received or bought since the day you were born. Some of the moving-day decisions were tough -- like I chose to bring this low-cut-but-still-work-appropriate blouse first because I've worn the other six more recently or something -- but I had to be practical. Neil Gaiman looks more attractive in his book-jacket photo than Bill Bryson does (despite Bill's beard), so he got to come hang out on my new nightstand first. And I'd already read all the Bryson books.


Mostly, though, I just find the whole thing exhausting. Not only do we have to pack up and move, but there's all this broken crap we have to shell out precious time, money, and effort to fix we've been presented with all these wonderful opportunities to rejuvenate the home!

For instance, the home inspector noted that the railing around the stairs was too low and a safety hazard, so the seller fixed it for us.

The inspector also mentioned that the oven that was to come with the house did not have an anti-tip bracket. So the seller bought a new (used) oven that also doesn't have an anti-tip bracket. And he only had to saw off a little bit of the kitchen counter to make it fit!

If that's not a dare to renovate, I don't know what is.

And then there's the delightful leak in the quirky room under the front porch, which has inspired us to completely demo and rebuild the room. And we wouldn't even have thought to do it if it weren't for the few pints of water coming in last Sunday. There are just home improvement ideas everywhere!

But I'm happy to start really making this place our home. I'd go on and on about it, but I have to go paint the dining room and bring over a few more books and lowish-cut blouses.