can't sit still when you play that song

When a song comes on that I really love, or is something unfamiliar that I find newly delightful, the first thing I want to do is move. A gentle sway is the usual antidote, lazy curves heading down my spine, but sometimes it's not enough. The skull must nod. The arms must swing. The hips crook, feet shuffle, shoulders bunch and shrug. Moving to music is like laying on the ground while someone beats a drum, or sitting in a room while someone plays the cello and you feel hollow with all the vibrations under your skin.

Which is why I can't sit still to a good song.

The other night I went to see the Magnetic Fields at the Herbst Theater (which is very pretty) and they played an entire evening of good songs (and the particular reason I like Magnetic Fields songs is that they immediately transform me into the character I imagine living them; they open up like stories in puzzle boxes, all witty and sad and beautiful and wicked), but we were sitting in respectable chairs with cushions of red velveteen. Dancing was not to be had. I had to content myself with swaying and foot tapping when what I really, really wanted was to go swinging off the balcony like Tarzan and racing up and down the aisles in full-blown, absolute silliness.

dancing? no, but you can have a mural!

***
ahem.

In other news, Paul Berger, who was my classmate at Clarion, has a story up at Strange Horizons. It is almost a fairytale and it is appropriately unsettling and fun to read.