Sid with a "Y"

As on all days I finish long papers, today I wasted a lot of time. Fortunately, my standards for time-wasteage are very low when I have a lot of work to do. That means I can include eating, sleeping, and reading excellent books as complete failures to accomplish anything at all.

Sadly, today I failed to fail by reading. That is to say, I only read a few pages of my most recent purchase. It’s a little book from the 33 1/3 series, which spends a little more than a hundred pages discussing a given album. A very cool concept, to my mind. I’m sure many people are already wise to it, but I can’t be blamed for being behind the curve—I only got into decent music about a year ago, thanks to my excellent roommate. Prior to that, my definition of a rockin’ tune was whatever had a loud enough guitar and power chords. In any case, this particular one is #6 in the series, (I couldn’t find an earlier one, though I am the kind of person who likes to go in order. At my favorite local Indian restaurant, I’ve been going straight through the menu for the past year—I have a long way to go) on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the first album by Pink Floyd.

Now, I’ve liked Pink Floyd since I heard The Wall. I Wikipedia-d them back in the day (I liked Pink Floyd even before I liked most good music), and discovered that their line-up had changed. I read about Syd Barrett, and based entirely upon the fact that his name was Sid spelled with a “y,” decided I liked him. However, a name is not enough to go on when making purchases, so I stuck to my two-CD set of The Wall.

As I tumbled my way through music history, in a weird sort of year-long free-fall, I did my duty and listened to Dark Side of the Moon, finally. I was entertained, but I didn’t fall in love.

But it’s hard not to love that which you’ve begun to understand. So I’m already liking The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and I just started to listen to it a few minutes ago. For one thing, what an excellent title! Apparently, it comes from a chapter title of The Wind in the Willows (pg. 2-3 John Cavanagh). All I can say is, it makes me want to finally read The Wind in the Willows. The only thing I know about that book is that as a child I mixed it up with the Frog and Toad series.

Time lapse: I’m listening to “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” and wondering if this is what a hymn to words might sound like. Not the definitive hymn, or anything, just a hymn. A nice celebration of the way in which weirdness can by conveyed by wordiness. Or maybe it’s a sort of mockery of rhyming. It can be hard to separate mockery and celebration sometimes. “Doctor doctor!/I’m in bed/Achin’ head/ Gold is lead/ Choke on bread/ Underfed.” (http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/take-stethoscope-piper-lyrics.html)

So far, my favorite song is “The Gnome.” I’m a real sucker for characters with names like Grimble Crumble (kind of sounds like Kimball—my last name!). Plus, I like it when people roll their “r“‘s.

Unfortunately, while I have now listened to the album once through, this story can’t really be completed until I’ve finished reading my book. Unfortunately, (part 2) I read four or five books at the same time, so there’s no telling how long it will be until I finish it.

Until then, the reason I like Pink Floyd’s original guitarist Bob Klose: “You heard the early things, you thought maybe it’s the Stones…and you recognise Syd’s voice, but it’s not Pink Floyd sound yet. It needed me to leave to do that. You know, that was quite an important step” (6-7 Cavanagh).

Sincerely,

Spencer Miles Kimball