In Which Players Always Love You When They're Playing

Crystal Visions

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Music is a drug. Science has officially demonstrated that music produces the same effects in the brain as powerful euphoric (psychosexual) experiences. The way drugs have an emotional effect on you (why do you think people take drugs?) you are using music as a substance to produce certain emotional effects. That is why you listen to some songs a million times and others once. Individual experiences are subjective. 

In YouTube comments people end up telling you the memory of their most vivid experience of the song. That's why people love pop music in movies so much (done well), because we have all had moments that happened to be perfectly soundtracked. It is another fourth wall. Do you point out how well the music is soundtracking the experience, or does pointing it out automatically stop the existence of the moment?

In the ideal experience you can't point it out because they're inseparable. It's not something you can really set up on purpose. It has to be accidental. The urge to combine all pleasurable experiences is strong, that's why George Costanza wants to eat a sandwich and watch sports during sex. But too much purposeful attempting is an impediment to true enjoyment, the way it can be hard to have fun on your birthday.  

In college Tess and I would occasionally go on drives. Providence is so small it literally sometimes feels like you live in your own mind. The point was never where we went, it was hanging out in the car together, which is why that Dayton/Faris Volkswagen Pink Moon ad blew everyone's mind ("HEY THAT IS WHAT I AM LIKE TOO!") and cornerstone of the enduring appeal of On The Road (uh...in theaters soon?) and Westerns (you're out on horses together someplace. Westerns and War Movies are male romances).

One time we were driving back from the Legal Seafood by the airport, probably really high (jk @probably), heading towards downtown Providence on the highway as the sun was setting. I don't know which came on first, Mr. Blue Sky by ELO or the fireworks (Patriots?) In my memory they occurred simultaneously, but that is because that's how it felt. We both just turned to each other like O___O O___O and felt like plastic bags.

Tess and I have always been obsessed with found poetry. In high school we would talk forever about why the way certain headlines were phrased was so funny. We were especially obsessed with British teen magazines because of their regional slang and lack of shying away from stories about graphic sexual trauma ("I Have Two Wombs!")

I remember reading an interview with The Spice Girls in Seventeen where they asked Baby Spice if she was a virgin and she giggled demurely and said "I might be!" and then a British one where she graphically recounted losing her virginity to a much older man when she was thirteen. American magazines were trying to protect us from full grown child woman Baby Spice's sexuality, and I felt really baffled as to why.

Every time I hear "With Or Without You" I think about when Tess and I would sit on her bed together listening to it in the dark. Theoretically it was about the love we had for some imaginary boys we didn't know yet, but it was just as much about the love we had for each other. It was the desire to meet somebody of the opposite sex that we could feel the same kind of connection with that we automatically always felt with one another. If this sounds so incredibly gay, I mean it is. Straight female friendships don't have the same kind of enforced homosexuality panic as straight male friendships. 

Tess and I are both obsessed with Tony Soprano because we identify with him so deeply, although I identify slightly more with Christopher Moltisanti. Tess finds Tony Soprano attractive, but I do not. I think Don Draper is attractive, but Tess thinks his legs are too short (I have literally no idea what she is talking about). She likes Pete Campbell. I think she's nuts. There are no universal metrics of measurement for anything. Taste is subjective. That's why people define themselves through it.

The Sopranos also always got into how we listen to songs to remind us of how we felt when we heard them at specific times. Tony's obsession with seventies rock spoke to his nostalgia for youthful times when he was brutal and all powerful, not yet locked in by any commitments or responsibilities, with his whole awesome life ahead of him. 

We were obsessed with Fleetwood Mac's The Dance and spent a lot of time speculating about what exactly Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were thinking about during that performance of "Landslide" and whether Lindsey's wife got mad at him afterwards for basically having a taped emotional affair with his ex-girlfriend on a stage. 

Tess and I forward the best spam e-mails we get; realty scams, letters from Nigerian princes, lotto alerts, some pure gibberish. Sometimes inside the text, lurking between the ridiculous typos and half-translations, there is a phrase that catches something. It is always all the more astonishing for being lodged inside of so much junk.

The best are often the e-mails from mail order brides. They prey on the deep human need for connection with sentences like "I'm tall and nice looking girl i saw your profile today, then i decided to drop you some words just to say hello and how was today, i will like to known more about you, and also i will like to tell you about me, please i will be very happy." There's something so touching about it. Hello and how was today.

Sometimes YouTube comments get trolled, but a lot of them are a sort of virtual oasis. A global pangea, an internet commune, a place where people share genuine feelings and thoughts and memories without anyone being a snotty dismissive asshole. People all over the world sharing the experience of listening to a specific song (I told you I'm an optimist). It is the isolating experience that becomes a connective one. 

Selected YouTube Comments From The Above Video For "Dreams"

Race should never play a card in music. But because I'm black I get a lot of weird ass looks for this being something I blast my system to. This song calms me in ways many can not imagine. Stevie Nicks is the shit and I will contest to any person who thinks different. Rock out Stevie, rock out.

Give me an mp3 with 5,000 songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s on it, a pocket full of batteries, my 66 babyblue Pontiac Beaumont, and a back seat and trunk filled with Cold Cokes and Icy Brewskis, and point me to the nearest highway. With a repertoire of great tunes like this one, I will cruise until the tires fall off and then just pull over into a little grove of trees and watch the sunset one last time as my life of pain and sorrow drifts off into a sleep of forever...what a way to go.

Great song!!! Thank you for this great video. Lee .... Santa Barbara , I love life and hope maybe one day you will know that you are a true friend. "Stevie Nicks" 'Rocks" No matter how old I get my heart will forever remain young!  "Sand" Only a call away..... VA Angels

2 very hot women...and 3 guys who got laid like crazy during that decade. WoW.

I remember being small in my car falling asleep as my parents drove home from a long road trip to this song

Why is there even a dislike button on this song??

i used to watch my sister getting ready to go out partying whilst she played rumors over and over again and this song stuck out the most, one of my favourite songs ever

Songs are a snap shot of certain points in our lives. The emotions, moods, etc that are so strongly tied to our most memorable song (even those that are just favorites or well liked) will ALWAYS take us there. And nothing can ever take that away-never! I 54 yrs old, I use this as a tool (sometimes as a drug) to get me there. I am glad I am a human. 'nuff said

man this song makes me smile when I Hear it because it makes me think of life and that we all have to die at one point in time and this song makes those facts not scary....all I know is that i wont forget this song and that when im old il still be hearing this song and it will still make me feel how it makes me feel now.

My voice of singing will never be as great as i wish for it to be, but my father has something wrong with him the doctors cant give him meds for and he is slowly dieing but he told me he would like me to sing this song in the talent show and im learning this song just for him (:

Is there anything more beautiful than the sound of Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, and Lindsey Buckingham singing harmonies together?

i remember hearing this as a lil kid on sundays when my mom would be cleaning the house early morning. lol. AWESOME SONG!

the only reason i heard this song just now was cus a girl told me it was nice. i agree with her now. this is nice

I love this song so much she is the best of all i know that thunder happens when is raining love that when it happens

o i miss my dad his old music we enjoyed together

that's song are amazing! i never tired of listen!

This song is super dreamy. If this song was a girl I would be all over it.

I'm 12 and even I agree today's music isn't as good as anything made from the 60s to the nineties

awesome song, Guys are such dicks.

For as many women that get their hearts broken by men, there are still plenty of guys that get their hearts broken by women, I happen to know quite a few myself. 

I'm getting her face tattooed on my chest

I miss that: a great song that is simple, tells a story, but that can magically contain one's perception of an aspect of life translated it into melody and lyrics. I do think that people who compose and write music are touched in a divine way.

Ok so I can remember the summer of 1978, I had just turned five, I was at my friend Monica's house...I pressed a button on her parents stereo and this song came on

cocaine's a hell of a drug

Hard to believe this woman is anywhere near 60 years old: time goes by like THAT.

hey stevie i agree on how u feel about the tech of the world i wish threre some way to be more of a freindly hand shake to say hello i dont need this texs its not good for us to know whats important to poeple and just be real face to face and say hi i love u steevie 

It was 1977? Sometime back around then.....Living at South Shore...Lake Tahoe. Yep! Fleetwood Mac and a big ol' doobie......Work hard, play hard....Great music that transports me back to some friggin' far-out times..........Instantly...

its amazing how she wrote this song within an hour. This song chose her to share through out the world!

My dad got to dance with Stevie Nicks while he was security at one of her concerts......That lucky bastard! RIP dad..........xoxoxo

Such haunting song too. Dark, sexy, kind of sticks to you after sex on a rainy summer night. When it's over, it leaves you lonely, but interested and wanting more.

Stevie Nicks is pretty as hell in these photos. I would hop on it with out one seconds hesitation if I had the chance.

magic

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She twitters here and tumbls here. She last wrote in these pages about how to be a woman in a boys' club.

"As Long As You Follow" - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

"Landslide (live)" - Stevie Nicks & the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (mp3)

"Dreams" - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

"I'm So Afraid (live in 1997)" - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

"Stop Dragging My Heart Around" - Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty (mp3)

"Rooms on Fire" - Stevie Nicks (mp3)

In Which I Close My Eyes Softly Til I Become That Part Of The Wind

Ingmar Bergman:ABBA::John Cassavetes:Fleetwood Mac

by MOLLY LAMBERT

How satisfying did it feel to do this? Sooooooo fucking satisfying. ABBA and Fleetwood Mac are two of my favorite bands ever. It is definitely tied to my dual love for ensemble casts and the 1970s (also, harmonies and mixed gender vocals). Bergman and Cassavetes are obviously also no slouches at being total fucking geniuses.

Remember that summer that Tusk was the only CD in my car, and I just drove around Los Angeles in the fucking zone like a character in that Joan Didion novel I don't like (just checking to see if Joan Didion has google name alert filters. Hi Joan! What's it like there? Earth?) I am listening to "I Walk A Thin Line" right now, pon de Lindsey. Lindsey Buckingham's black swan was Don Henley. Stevie's was clearly Christine McVie, although there's an argument to be made for Carly Simon (Blonde swans. Blawns.)

These bands both wrote some of the greatest breakup songs of all times, killed at least four marriages, and then had to face each other on stage at night. Cassavetes and Bergman have definitely made some awesome breakup movies. Is poignancy considered a genre? Have yall heard "Sara"? That song makes me feel like I live in a Scorsese montage. It's a field recording of your heart being ripped out of your chest.

Art accurately reflects real life so rarely that when it does it sort of fucks you up. It makes you remember that the whole point is to get people in that place where they have to go "damn it's true" and that art that doesn't even try to do that is fucking bullshit. Comedy can go deeper than drama, and often does, and the desire to be taken seriously is what fucked up Woody Allen's game. Serious movies that aren't at all funny seem unrealistic because life is super fucking funny, especially when it sucks. 

People make fun of all four of these artists for their earnestness. ABBA and Fleetwood Mac don't really ever get tagged as pretentious, because they made such perfect pop music, but they also go incredibly deep. Bergman and Cassavetes get called pretentious so much that it undercuts how awesome they both actually are. I'm not saying The Seventh Seal is a fucking laugh riot but Bergman isn't humorless at all. 

As soon as I realized I was going to do this exercise to completion I felt the rush of having realized my purpose on this earth. I felt like Miley's bong hit. I felt the way Stevie Nicks's voice makes me fucking feel. I want to follow her down every fadeout. Making the photocollages was accepting that my internet practice has no ceilings. 

ABBA : INGMAR BERGMAN

Ring Ring : Smiles Of A Summer Night

Waterloo : The Seventh Seal

ABBA : Wild Strawberries

Arrival : The Virgin Spring

The Album : Through A Glass Darkly

Voulez Vous : Persona

Super Trouper : Cries And Whispers

The Visitors : Scenes From A Marriage

FLEETWOOD MAC : JOHN CASSAVETES

Then Play On : Shadows

Future Games : The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie

Fleetwood Mac : Faces

Rumours : Husbands

Tusk : A Woman Under The Influence

Mirage : Minnie And Moskowitz

Tango In The Night : Opening Night

Behind The Mask : Gloria

Time : Love Streams

Say You Will : Big Trouble

Think About Me - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

Ledge - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

Sara - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

What Makes You Think You're The One - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

Storms - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

Angel - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

Walk A Thin Line - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

Ring Ring - ABBA (mp3)

Dream World - ABBA (mp3)

Put On Your White Sombrero - ABBA (mp3)

Fernando - ABBA (mp3)

I Am The City - ABBA (mp3)

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She runs GIF Party, This Recording's twitter, and JPG CLUB, and the club.

In Which We Get Wired Into The After Dark Side Of The Internet

Girl, I Just Work For You

by MOLLY LAMBERT

I was telling a friend of mine the other day that I hate how aggressively disgusting the ads on the sides of porntubes are. He pointed out that I was asking too much of something that was free, and that it was free for a reason, and he was right. It is like complaining that the free coffee at the optometrist sucks. Of course it sucks. It's free. And you're not there to drink the coffee, you're there to get your vision checked.

Porn sidebar and pop up ads make you feel horrible and ashamed that you are watching porn youtube clones, but not because you are ashamed to watch porn. It's because you get so familiar with all the different iterations of the ads. Familiar enough that you are fonder of certain ones that others, My Teen Ex-Girlfriend occupying a slightly higher position than 18 & Abused. Shades of Maxim's I'd Rape Her 100. 

Who doesn't like feeling a little ashamed? I am a sick half Irish-Catholic fuck. Those ads are always like hey 4th wave feminist lady, so jaded and openminded, here is a huge thicket of misogynist internet porn advertising to remind you you're supposed to feel like watching consenting adults fuck is a repulsive thing only old guys in raincoats do and you're intruding on a sacred no girls allowed circlejerk cumfilled cenote. 

I should probably thank those creepy ads for making me feel like the internet is Times Square in the 70s and 80s, or the curtained off adult section of 20/20 video (RIP). How much less dirty(/successful) would it be without all the tacky accessories and cheap internet trappings? Considering how easy it now is to find anything you could ever possibly think of, at least the clandestine nature replicates the horror of feeling like you might get caught. Who wants to jerk off in an Apple store? It's redundant. 

This is actually also how straight guys feel when they watch Gossip Girl or Sex And The City or Nancy Meyers movies or listen to Ke$ha. That is why they do it literally holed up in bed with the lights out and the blinds shut with the window cracked a half inch open like the Unabomber. (the shivering wind comes in to say "it's truuuuuu")

That's how I watched the super edited Sex And The City reruns that were on KTLA for a while. Sometimes on a broken stairmaster in the porn basement style tan carpeted downstairs living room of the condo I lived in a few years ago. One time MTV2 showed the Beyonce B'Day video anthology for 24 hours and I just left it on the whole time. Sometimes I still think "wow, that was a really great day." These are my confessions. 

Doesn't it feel like people use chat programs like confessionals? As the generation that grew up with instant messaging, when are we going to acknowledge that it is a totally weird thing that we all use completely inappropriately. E-mail is for outlaws.

The extent to which instant messaging has made life more fun and helped me kill boredom/put off work is complicated by all the times I've had serious conversations on IM that really deserved better. Nothing that happens on the internet tends to feel very real, although things that happen in real life never feel very real either. 

Nothing in mainstream pornography is all that weird. Whatever sick stuff you like, it's seriously honestly still probably pretty normative. Just look at the viewcount. That doesn't mean you should go around telling everybody what your specific fetishes are (no1curr), it just means that you're definitely not as fucked up as you might think.

Fantasy is meant to be a deeply isolating personal experience. Knowing how many other people are exactly like you would just ruin the fantasy. You're better off pretending like you're the only perv in the world. People who don't watch porn, those are the real sickos. Also pederasts. Everything else is basically a Kardashian sex tape. 

Lines between the public and the private are so blurred these days. Who can tell the difference anymore between internet self and self? As a kid I used to feel fucked up by the idea that the person you are around your friends at school might be different than the person you are at home with your family, and that the person you are privately could be completely different from both of those things. I was a weird kid, but I wasn't wrong about infinite coexisting selves. Private browsing. Private from who, God?

The endlessly shapeshifting facebook monster has changed to reflect the very, very, recent movement towards people openly admitting how much time they spend on their computers every day. The looking at porn isn't even the shameful part at all, it's the looking at facebook. And even people who avoid facebook have their own internet sandtraps; any browsing that is purposeless or lacking an end point. The obsessively hitting refresh for no actual reason, as nailed by David Fincher in The Social Network. 

It's easy for anyone to Don Draper themselves into believing that they are the idea they present to the world. Some people go too far towards being a coherent exaggerated persona. Others go the opposite direction and lose all filtering ability, telling the internet every single time they are sad (don't do that! why u do? :D)

Ke$ha took a picture of herself getting head, which is mildly rock 'n roll, but how good could it be if you're able to take a camera phone picture (not very good!) Did the internet make people more bipolar, or just expose how bipolar most people generally secretly are? Does mediation always dilute experience? It's completely case by case.

I don't like when celebrities say they never use the internet, because that's ridiculous and they're lying. It's just the new "I don't even own a TV." You don't have to own a TV anymore, because you can just watch TV shows on your computer! I guess there are people out there who have no desire whatsoever to watch narrative television shows. Some of them are my good friends, I imagine they have a hard time talking to me. 

The other weird thing that happens specifically on the internet is the feeling like you're being pulled towards a collective self. This happens on twitter, facebook, and mushrooms. The differences between your taste and anyone else's taste, your self and their selves, more elaborately codified than ever, seem completely meaningless. 

Writing is masturbating with words. Blogging is masturbating on a webcam. You have to get tested for print. After a certain age everyone is fairly committed to the two or three keywords that other people would use to describe or introduce them, but on a daily level no one is really very sure how one day's self connects to the next day's. 

I keep watching music videos late at night on youtube. I like versions that are a few generations of betamax transfer old, because it reminds me of watching music videos on The Box and 120 Minutes. I also like the fuzzier low quality versions better because you can't put VEVOs in a playlist without a fucking commercial always coming up. 

I like to make playlists and let them play in the background while I write, like a Grand Theft Auto radio station of the mind. Then I watch them again the next day in the afternoon for the feeling of displacement from time it gives me. It's a tunnel from one place to the other. It's an endless loop of this Wham! video for "Everything She Wants." 

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She runs GIF Party, This Recording's twitter, and the newly formed JPG CLUB.

"Visit" - Forest Swords (mp3)

"Glory Gongs" - Forest Swords (mp3)

"If Your Girl" - Forest Swords (mp3)