Bottle Up And Explode!

  

  

#44

02.13.10

  

Photo

  

This photograph is reminiscent of the light and glass light cubes from Dulles International Airport that I posted on January 17.  Only this time we're not in D.C., and there wasn't some high-browed artist working it out.  This time it was made by some creative line cooks at Mexico in Alaska, our favorite restaurant in Anchorage for authentic mexican food.
 
We had just been served a half-order of guacamole in a molcajete, but before I could dig in, this little glass and light piece over in a corner, adorned with nothing more than a sombrero, caught my eye.  Nice!  I had to walk over and get some photos, not necessarily intending them for this iPhone Photo Blog, but just because I appreciated the effort and attempt of someone trying to make something interesting to look at whilst eating Pollo en Mole.  The waiter came over to see what I was doing, and told me it was actually the line cooks that made the thing.  ¡Buen provecho!

When I was reviewing the photos today, I thought this close-up was actually kind of pretty, and it immediately sent today's featured music playing in my mind... and that is a sure-fire way for a blog entry to be created and shared.
 
Here are two more photos of the entire piece, which is more whimsical than beautiful (though I stand by my featured close-up as a thing worthy of looking at and appreciating):
 

 

 

What a rip in the shorts!  I love it.  Corona Light bottles turned into "something else".

 
And finally... what posting that relates to Mexico in Alaska would be complete without featuring both a molcajete of guac, and the wild, crazy-eyed stares it evokes from the E Clan up Alaska way:
 

Go Q, Go!

Music

 
At this point I think it hardly necessary for me to gush over the fine musicianship of Elliott Smith.  I believe I have made my position quite clear back in post #37 'Failure's Art'.  If Elliott decides to sing Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (from the afterlife, of course)... then I shall line up at Midnight to purchase it in both polycarbonate plastic, digital download, and vinyl if so offered.  
 
Bottle Up And Explode! comes off his album XO, the same album that featured Tomorrow Tomorrow in blog #37.  You may think I chose today's song based only on the word "bottle" in the title... but in fact it is also due to the following lyrics:

 

Bottle up and explode over and over
Keep the troublemaker below
Put it away and check out for the day
And in for a round of overexposure
The thing Mother Nature provides to get up and go
Bottle up and explode, seeing the stars surrounding you
Red, white, and blue
You look at him like you've never known him
But I know for a fact that you have
The last time you cried, who'd you think was inside?
Thinking that you were about to come over
But I'm tired now of waiting for you
You never show
Bottle up and go, if you're going to hide it's up to you
I'm coming through
Bottle up and go, I can make it outside
I'll get through becoming you
 
Becoming you
Becoming you    
  
Okay, so there really isn't "blue" in my photo... Maybe Elliott had something else in mind when he wrote it, aside from a future, random, obscure blog entry about beer bottles lit up with Christmas lights.  I do like the tension in the song.  I won't spend a lot of time trying to interpret the lyrics this time... I'm posting today's entry late and I think the lyrics are self-explanatory.  Don't let your deep emotional feelings get trapped inside... let them out before they explode.  
  
Thank you, Elliott... yet once more, I thank you. 
 

Parting Comments

  
It isn't lost on me that tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and my featured photo has red and white in it.  Please, please, please, PLEASE do not assume they are related!  I think Valentine's Day is for goofballs and ninnies who bow to the commercial pressures of Hallmarkian  schlockery.  Ptooey.  I shall not use any of my disposable income to buy T soft little stuffed animal plushies, nor a box of waxy chocolate made several months ago in some polluted industrial center, nor flowers 'forced' in some greenhouse twenty states removed from Alaska.  Instead, I shall give her a hug and tell her I love her; just like I did the day before Valentine's Day, and just like I'll do the day after.  (Incidentally, it will be today that I buy her a stuffed little soft animal plushie, and it will be the day after Valentine's day that I will buy her waxy chocolates and forced roses.)
  
Finally, I don't know if it will strike you in the same way, and I would bet it does not... but every time Bottle Up And Explode! winds up and there is that little disjointed baritone saxophone solo, I find myself giggling like a school boy who just put a grasshopper in B.B.'s backpack.  (I swear, B.B.!  It wasn't me!  It was, er, D.R.S.!  Yeah, that's it... it was D.R.S.!)  
 
I really don't know why that little solo generates boyish giggles from me.  I played the alto sax for years, but that isn't it.  I love the bari sax, especially when played by either Dana Colley of Morphine, or Pepper Adams / Ronnie Cuber when working with Charles Mingus.  But that still isn't it.  And it's not because Lisa Simpson plays disjointed bari sax solos in every Simpson's episode worth watching (I've only seen about 2 episodes, but they both had that element.  Perhaps every episode has it?)  
  
In the end, I guess I won't ever know why it makes me giggle.  Maybe I'm just 'jolly'?
 
Until tomorrow... thank you for looking, listening and reading.  CCE