Mr. Henshaw revisited

**This idea of writing letters and never sending them... is interesting/frustrating. Story: There is a VERY cool record store in Old Towne Alex, and one night, I 'ran away' and spent about an hour there, the only person in the store, getting ideas for nu music from the owner (also named Jonathan. I think I live in a Jonathan world. Have never DATED a jonathan. No, that jonathan doesn't count. Maybe I should).He came up with this CD Song Cyclops by The Doleful Lions. In the liner notes, instead of having lyrics, the band listed its email address. So I sent an email. And Jonathan, the singer, responded. He told me I should write him again. Instead, I wrote a respone into Word Perfect. Now, it's here. **Dear Jonathan, I'm writing you this letter for a few reasons. You are a jonathan, and jonathans thus far have been good to me in my life--so even though I don't know you, you are a de-facto good person to write a letter to. Second: I get some sort of mileage out of writing deeply sincere letters to random acquaintances. I do this because I like strangers better than friends, because I like to perform, and because I like to share. Also, you gave me the link to that site that talked about the music you listen to... and the fact that you listen to bands like Slayer and Black Sabbath yet write music that's a cross between Belle and Sebastian and... something 70sretro-y...intrigues me. I never contact musicians I like. Or artists. Or whoever. I went to a Richie Havens concert last year (at The Birchmere) and this guy at the table had collected tabs from every Havens show he'd been to... he sat there the whole time yelling stuff like "we love you, brother" and just waiting to slip his burly arm across the stage after "His Eminence" had left so as to grab another tab for the collection. He commented to my friends and I that he enjoyed the title of ‘roadie/groupie.'I hate that. I hate that so many fans assume that because the music has become their own personal soundtrack, that they take it a step up, assume that a musician has somehow lived their life or watched over them. My favorite painting (or in the top 5) is Picasso's *Girl with a mirror*. I bought a print of it which hangs above the head of my bed. It has been there for maybe a year now. It has enriched my living experience. I love it/it intrigues me. I nurture no believe that it loves me back. I just finished reading an issue of Adbusters. Adbusters puts me in these moods, and I apologize for subjecting you to it... however you said you wanted me to write to you again.. if you just want me to write to you and tell you over and over how much I enjoy your music, I can do that because I do enjoy it... but I'm not too much of a worshipper. I do want to buy your new CD, however, but NOW doesn't sell it. Who does, or how should I go about ordering? I bought the werewolves/rats CD... and it wasn't close enough. Not bad, but no Song Cyclops. But yeah, Adbusters. I feel it's sort of salvationist propaganda which I try not to let interfere with my life too much.. .I try not to be too political, mainly because I think politics are very futile, and it is only the politics of relationships that remain controllable/interesting. When you read something heavy on a long drive, it's only a logical progression that you will spend the next however-many-hours-till you get home thinking about it. And in my case, wanting to write about it. I call Adbusters salvationIST because it lays all these heady issues on the table, provides information which supports its side (the uber-liberal side, I'm guessing) so that you will be informed, and then proposes ways of culturejamming, coming together to mess with the system, little solidarity movements like Buy Nothing Day and TV FREE week. Mad Pride. And there are allusions to a revolution alongside talk of a techno-reigning age. I wonder about the apocalypse, and it pisses me off. Magazines aren't supposed to bring you to this. Like *The Tale of Young Werther* wasn't supposed to cause readers to jump off bridges in mass numbers. Or Marilyn Manson's music wasn't supposed to cause homicides. Art is introspective and/or retrospective and is supposed to cause people to react as such. Art doesn't pull triggers, it's just the products of multiple mind-purges over the years. I entertain passing thoughts of writing a page-long letter to the magazine (like this one) describing my profile *suburbanite white girl, enjoys the idea of being cool/quasielitist, going off to costly preppy private school so she can pair vintage 40 dollar t-shirts with trendy faded jeans and write analytical essays about the Great Books* and ask what life they believe I should be leading. To say "I'm trying to curb my consumption while still loving which I love-- which is art. Which makes me relatively materialistic. Which I think according to you is a bad thing. But I love loving the world and loving people and the things they make. I love dissecting the little things, over-thinking them and listening to people and being frustrated and shopping and repeating this in cycles lasting months into years." We're supposed to be miserable.. We're supposed to be not-obese but not exercising and being productive without being consumers and not doing everything they want us to.. It's the same evangelism, isn't it? Just a different package...I'm not sure what I want to write about this summer.. Or who I want to be, really. I had these ideas of all the things I'd like to change about myself for college.. But none of them seem very important right now. Books I think I SHOULD read. The thought strikes me that you're always supposed to have things you SHOULD do... but that you never ACTUALLY do... guilt can be very lucrative.