A sostenuto over tea kettle

The interesting thing about siloed and stratified workplaces is that, sometimes, people get out over their skies and, because you know their background you know they are well out over their skis. We all get there eventually. Racing along until you’re flailing along. The next part is about how graceful you can be when the physics are no longer your friend.

This is why I don’t talk a lot about market equities or PEST analyses. My hips and shoulders would be out of alignment pretty quickly. And if those were the sorts of things in your vocabulary, you’d know how much flailing about I was doing.

Another interesting thing about working in a place like this is that I today had occasion to say this sentence.

“… and the point behind that is based on research developed in this very building … ”

Because that, friends, sounds cool.

This is also an area where I can talk about something I’m trained in, to someone who is not, and delivery as much clarity as necessary, operationalizing things like the Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing and cognitive processing in video messages or, more broadly, concentrated messaging or holistic strategies.

Looks like it is time to catch up once again with the Re-Listening Project. I’m filling valuable blog space and valueless time in the car by working my way through all of my old CDs in chronological order. None of these are reviews, but sometimes there’s something fun. And, today, there’s a lot of good music. So fall back to the mid 1990s with me, won’t you.

I’ve probably listened to this as much as anything I own. If there’s something I’ve played more, I’d like to know what it is. I bought this double live album as a cassette. How much did I listen to this? I learned how long you had to rewind each song to get back to the front again. I listened to it a lot. When I picked it up again as a CD, I had a copy for the car and a copy for the house.

As I listened to this last week I found myself reciting all the spoken parts, and playing the bass lines on the steering wheel. The only problem with listening to this in the car is that it is always tempting to just keep driving.

Some times, when Amy Ray is singing, it is really quite tempting. Anyway, 28 great tracks make up just under two-and-a-half magical musical hours, and they’ll all play in that one fabulous box above. There’s one song I skip, but this time I listened all the way through.

Speaking of bass lines, the next record is from Martin Page. “In the House of Stone and Light” had a top 10 hit and a top 20 followup in 1994. I bought this later than that because it just seemed like the choice at the time. I don’t play it a lot, but it never disappoints. The guy has had a star-studded career, working with Kim Carnes, Earth, Wind & Fire and Barbra Streisand. The keyboards you love on the Ghostbusters theme? That’s him. He’s also worked with the great Bernie Taupin, Starship and Heart. He composed for Neil Diamond, worked with Chaka Khan and produced Tom Jones, among others. And then he did that mid-90s AC and VH-1 staple.

Rather than play the two radio hits from this record, though …

This one was released as a single, but it didn’t get the same traction. Somehow I imagine it was huge in retail shopping settings, though. Play this, you can just feel that weird sensation of extra hangers grabbing hold of one another, or that new shoe smell from the back right corner of the store.

Someone took the ballad and made it a Pride & Prejudice track. It … works?

Those are from his debut album. This summer he released his 10th record. So I have some work to do, hips and shoulders. Hips and shoulders.

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