Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" has just come up on the iTunes. I can't quite figure out what I seen in the '80s electronica that I seem to have a fetish for.* It's as if the very vacancy of the music -- it seems so content-free -- is its attraction. Pure ear candy. I used to think I listened to it because it reminded of the days when I was underage and single and used to stay out half the night dancing. But really, I didn't enjoy it as much as all that. I'm used to thinking of music as social and communicative, tugging at the emotion, but much of the 80s electronica seems designed to separate, to numb. Even the way we danced then was different, each in his or her own individual trance, the observer and observed in total separation, the only contact forced upon you by the realities of the crowded dance floor. It wasn't about social contact. It was about shuffling off my daytime self.

The main reason I went clubbing was to be out at night. It was liberating, and yet I could never quite bring myself to just go out at night and walk around. Smart girls don't do that. I was always jealous of my friend E. (male) whom I would often run into on my way home. He would be out striding around the neighborhood with no other purpose then to get himself outside in the dark. It's the only time in my life I remember really wishing I were a boy.

AJ and I walked to the playground this morning under clouds scudding across the sky in the stiff autumn breeze. After we got back, we settled into the comfy sofa to watch Bambi. I haven't seen this movie in years and AJ had never seen it. We were both transfixed. Compared to the newer movies, this one's an absolute work of art. Each frame is gorgeous, the music is richly textured and evocative, dense. The story is slender, so it's the technical virtuosity that stands out. I'm kind of sorry it has to go back to the library tomorrow. I'd like to see it again.

Instead I'm rereading a bunch of articles on feminist theory and musicology in order to remind myself what the hell I had in mind when I started this whole dissertation thing. Much less aesthetically pleasing, but satisfying in its own way.

*REVISION smedindy has kindly reminded me that Kraftwerk's Autobahn album came out in 1974, not in the 1980s at all. The title track, however, received heavy play at several clubs I used to frequent in the late '80s, probably because the sound fit well with the contemporary electronica and also, perhaps, because there seemed to be a thing for German imports at the time. I always think of the album in an 80s context. But it's also interesting to hear it in terms of the music of 1974. And many critics have noted that the song seems to be a direct response to the Beach Boys' "Fun, fun, fun" from '63/'64.

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