the Salton Sea and the Extraordinary Machine

Dear Fiona Apple,

I think your nuts and not necessarily all the way in a good way. Oh but how Tidal suited me, even though I was a late comer and needed some convincing. Then I was, and there I remain. Then, then the sophomore effort, which I ran and bought without hesitation, it was raining and the title was Guiness book of world record's long. It was some few tender minutes before the dawning of this century, I had on a pink cashmere sweater and leather pants, I took myself out to the newly opened 4th Floor to eat a four star meal and finish with a madeira before I went off to meet my lover. Of course four star meals take time between courses and a dame alone at a bar gets courted, even when she has an extramarital agenda, even when her spouse had his own. It was after the holidays, but it was still winter and it was raining and he was waiting for me while I was waiting for my dessert and I was late and he was angry.

Yeah, so Fiona, I pulled out of that parking lot filled with too much booze and a half life time of regret and a heart wrapped in gossamer for that heady French Chef and your endlessley titled sophmore effort which I found facile and too deadheady-ish (sue me) driving too recklessly with the music too loud toward near certain disaster, it was the end of the century and the truest spot of where I begin. Maybe I am flashpoint in those songs, maybe I was still too young and too lost in that first album, maybe I am the blue of my own oblivion as my own worst enemy or the best lover I could ever, never be.

But that was practically years ago, maybe some things are different now. Maybe I am awash in the perfume of delusion.(but he smells lovely, just like neutrality, he washes his hair with a bar of soap, he wraps around me, but doesn't smother, his kisses spark the swing of my hips and the curl in my lips)

And really, that is beside the point, because all I really wanted to do was thank you for making me an extraordinary machine that I always suspected I was. From the Kinks to the Glenn Miller band to Arcade Fire, I hadn't been shopping for an anthem and I haven't been shopping for new shoes, because I don't have any money, I haven't been spreading myself around because I've got an engineer who I'd make into my own private lollipop. If there was a better way to go than it would it find me, I can't help it the road just runs out behind me, I'll make the most of it, I am an extraordinary machine. I am an extraodinary machine. It's true, I am an extraordinary machine.

The Salton Sea and the dreams engendered will have to wait. wait for an arid climate, wait for the desolate and the desperate, wait for the gin blossoms cloaked in melanoma, alkaline dreams coming to a cinema near you...