• Mood: zippy or zapped?
• Music: another memory of "Cinnamon Girl"

Everything Is Artifactual

I concluded my entry about the Bob Mould show I recently saw in L.A. with a description of the first time I saw him perform back on 10/28/89. Today I searched my archives for hard evidence that I attended that concert. I wasn't sure I'd find it, though. But I did.

As I've noted previously, Mould was the best opening act I've ever seen. And, even though I was happy to see the Pixies -- I'd been listening to Doolittle constantly and Surfer Rosa was one of my favorite freshman-year albums -- their set felt like an anti-climax. Maybe that's because I was sitting down the whole time with my friend Priscilla. Maybe it's because the number of Rolling Rocks I consumed exceeded my fingers in number. Maybe it's because I was in the mood for heart-pounding rawness instead of its ironic simulation. I do remember liking "Gigantic" a lot and that the highlight was Kim Deal telling us that it was "her turn" for the limelight followed by the band playing "Into the White" as a single spot extracted her from otherwise total darkness. While I'm glad to have seen the Pixies back when they were the hottest alternative act around, though, I'll always think of that night as a Bob Mould concert.

When I'm not thinking of it as the first stage in a sequence of events that led me to my future wife, that is. Had I not decided to take my friend Priscilla with the ticket I'd originally purchased for tpratt; had she and I not abused our noses with No-Doz -- "It's minty fresh!" -- and our palates with 40s of Mickey's; had I not gone to Saul's with Priscilla the next evening, after hours of deliberation about whether to have sex or not; had Leanne not suggested that we see Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors on Monday the 30th -- the list of counter-factual subjunctives goes on and on. The main thing is that when I look at this ticket I see my future from a special place in my past. I could do that through memory alone, of course, but there's something special that happens when it's triggered by contemplation of an artifact.