It's dreamy weather...

It took about a hundred and eight years, but eventually I came to love Tom Waits.  Now that I do, I'm not sure what my problem was - I think it was everyone telling me I HAD to love him.

Anyway, on dark, cold, rainy days, such as today, almost nothing will do, except for the album Alice.  This morning when I got to work, I put in my headphones and Tom's husky voice started whispering in my ear.  Instead of acknowledging the reality of me typing code as I shivered beneath fluorescent lights, I could imagine myself asleep in a warm bed, snuggled under a pile of multi-colored, fluffy quilts, my dreams filled with a strange menagerie of characters.

This album covers a wide range of my predilections: the German language, cynicalness, tragic and desperate love stories, creepy carnival music, Victorian sexuality, and my name.  Oh yes, I love hearing Tom rasping my name over and over, " ... and I must be insane, to go skating on your name, and by tracing it twice, I fell through the ice, of Alice ... "

The music on this album was written for a play, based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  I'm so incredibly jealous that Andrew saw the play before we met.

Some of my favorite lyrics on the album:

"Everything You Can Think"
Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors
Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore

"We're All Mad Here"
And your eyes will die like fish
And the shore of your face will turn to bone

"Watch Her Disappear"
Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you

"Fish and Bird"
(this song always me a little verklempt)
[the sailor sang] A song of a little bird
That fell in love with a whale

He said, 'You cannot live in the ocean'
And she said to him
'You never can live in the sky'
But the ocean is filled with tears
And the sea turns into a mirror
There's a whale in the moon when it's clear
And a bird on the tide

[photo taken 1-10-2006 in Philadelphia]