$4 //
Edition of 10 //
https://dancingshadowstapes.bandcamp.com/album/my-body-is-a-hole-2 //
🎧 //
There once was a movie called "200 Cigarettes" in which the characters confessed that smoking cigarettes was a means of being antisocial. I was a smoker at the time and never thought of it that way but was kind of happy when I imagined this cloud of smoke around me to keep other people away. I've not smoked for something like fifteen years and now I find other ways to remain antisocial, healthier ways and music is one of them.
I listen to my Walkman when I do laundry. What I listen to depends upon my mood for the day. One time, I went to do laundry with two different cassettes and listened to them both all the way through before I was done and on this day I knew I wouldn't make that same mistake again. At 83 minutes, I've seen movies shorter than "My Body Is A Hole". If it takes me longer than this to do laundry then something is seriously wrong.
People debate headphones versus earbuds but to me I like earbuds better. It's more of a way to plug the ears so all of the sound is contained within you and only you. We Also Let Blood let out a large wall of static noise, this constant feeling of being in a windstorm, and yet it is still better than the soundtrack of the life going on around me. On the television, "The Price Is Right" dashes some middle class college kid's hopes and dreams of paying insurance on a brand new car.
Whle doing the wash, people look at me, see the earbuds in and decide against approaching me, trying to talk to me, and the antisocial plan is working. As I switch over to the dryers, I sit now and watch as the man next to me makes some sort of comment to the woman next to him. They don't know each other but they had one of those "Laundry, am I right?" type of moments I try so hard to avoid. I realize we are all sitting on benches next to each other- three benches in a row- and wonder why I didn't retreat to the corner dryers again. Fuck.
As Side A comes to a close and I flip the cassette to Side B I manage to hear a woman yell across the laundromat "Do you have a bathroom?" There are two laundromats near me and though I am in the larger of the two, it is still not that big. If you spend any amount of time in it, you will easily find the bathroom. It's not hidden and with its door wide open it is not locked in any way. I retreat to the static noise as that is all I can stand of humans for the day.
The dryers end and as I bend down to pick up clothes from the bottom dryer, the clip comes off my pocket and the Walkman falls out onto the floor. Earbuds rip out of my ears but only manage to fall to my shoulders as they come unplugged. I pick up the Walkman, plug the earbuds back in and press play. It seems fine though now there is this sort of humming, a soft screech, coming from the Walkman itself. I can turn the volume down all the way and still hear it. It's as if my Walkman is asking We Also Let Blood "Collab?"
I drop a dryer sheet while folding and pick it up. The Walkman does the same falling down trick and I've had enough of it so I put it into my bag and walk home without music. When I get home, I find the play button stuck halfway between on and off. It's not playing, but it's not stopped. I cannot force the window open so I have to use a butter knife to pry the cassette out and then it seemingly resets itself and all is well. Between avoiding people and trying to wreck a personal cassette player, I'd say this We Also Let Blood cassette is right on.
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