Fly Girl

sazerac:

It takes me a second to get what’s going on in the living room. Scotty is sitting cross-legged, picking at a gold guitar in the shape of a flame. Alice is behind him with her arms around his neck, her face next to his, her hair falling into his lap. Her eyes are closed with joy. I forget who I actually am for a second — all I can think is how Bennie will feel when he sees this. I look around for him, but there’s just Marty peering at the albums on the wall, trying to be inconspicuous. And then I notice the music flooding out of every part of the apartment at once — the couch, the walls, even the floor — and I know Bennie’s alone in Lou’s studio, pouring music around us. A minute ago it was “Don’t Let Me Down.” Then it was Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” Now it’s Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger”

I am the passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the city’s backside
I see the stars come out of the sky

Listening, I think, You will never know how much I understand you.

I finished A Visit from the Goon Squad in three sittings, closed the book and turned on some music. It measured up to the hype better than Freedom did, maybe because Jennifer Egan’s experiments with story structure felt unlike anything I’ve read.

I also had to go back and listen to two excellent interviews from last year: She talked to Sam Tanenhaus about wanting to explore time and that “shock of realizing that time has passed and everyone and everything is a little different.” Then she told Kurt Andersen that pop music isn’t really part of her life now but that her 9-year-old son’s obsession with Eminem won her over.