i have an iphone-related injury...

...and it's all my own damn fault. I've gotten addicted to a crossword puzzle app on the iPhone, and unfortunately I've found out that holding the iPhone in my left hand twists and turns my wrist and elbow in just the right way that I do something to them that makes them THROB PAINFULLY ALL NIGHT LONG.

On the way in to work today I stopped by the pharmacy and bought a left-hand wrist brace (I already own a right-hand one for different RSI) and plan on wearing it during down time and at night. If I'm around here even less, you now know why - trying to save my typing for actual work.

Also... Lips Unsealed by Belinda Carlisle

...I read Belinda Carlisle's memoir Lips Unsealed on my Kindle recently. The first part was fascinating as it had a snapshot of pop culture in a certain time and place (LA in the late 70s and early 80s, especially the punk scene) and how one of the first (and still, sadly, almost only) all-female bands got started.

You know how in school you sit around with your friends and say "We should start a band!" and everyone says "Yes, what a great idea!" and you assign out instruments that nobody knows how to play yet and maybe even attempt to write songs and argue over your band name and design your album covers and hairstyles** and a couple of years later you realize that nobody's bothered to learn to play the instruments they were supposed to and eventually the idea of starting a band just sort of fades away? Well, it didn't for the Go-Gos. Most of them didn't start to learn their instruments until after they got a gig. Ah, if only punk hadn't been fading out in favor of New Wave when I was tossing around the idea of starting a band with my friends.**

It was also fascinating to see that the Go-Gos had conceptualized themselves as punk*** and didn't realize they were being sold as pop until after they heard their first album.

After that, the book is mostly concerned with Carlisle's drug and alcohol addictions and her long, long journey to free herself of them and loses some of its appeal for me, mostly because drug & alcohol addiction memoirs are a dime a dozen while girl-band memoirs aren't. I still finished the book and enjoyed it, just not as much as the parts about the LA punk scene and starting a band.

Pat Benatar's got a new memoir out, too. I just may have to indulge.





Now what was it I said in my previous post about not typing as much?

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* It was the 80s. Hair was important, dammit!

** My instrument was the bass guitar. Which I have never laid hands on. But I wrote two songs! Neither of which, thankfully, survive.

*** It does explain their clothes.

(no subject)

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