Blood And Mint

I’ve never understood the mentality behind flavoring dental floss.
What’s the anticipated result? “Oh boy, that vague mint flavor really makes up for the fact that the floss is slicing into my gums! And nothing beats that blood and mint flavor combination!”
It was a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up toiletries and sundry other items that brought that particular thought to mind.
While there, I picked up the DVD of “Batman Begins.”
From Wal-Mart I made my way home with a stop at the grocery store along the way.
Excepting the walk I went on this morning before heading out to Wal-Mart, that was pretty much my day.
At home I’ve been working on cleaning up my files to help ease the transition to the new computer.
Mostly I’ve been using a program called Picasa from Google to rename and organize the various pictures I’ve got stockpiled on my hard drive.
I’ve been listening to Liz Phair’s latest album “Somebody’s Miracle” a lot lately, and so far it’s failed to grow on me.
My first exposure to Liz Phair, beyond simply knowing that she existed, came with her last album, 2003’s self-titled “Liz Phair.”
It was a very commercially successful album, with a polished, commercial pop sound, though it did have something of an alternative edge.
Overall, I liked it. I liked it enough to look into her earlier work, which I liked a great deal more, and though it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of “Liz Phair,” I could understand the complaints that many of her original fans had about the more radio-friendly album.
I get the distinct impression that “Miracle” is an attempt at reaching a happy medium between the low-fidelity indie pop sound of her earlier works and the slick, overly-produced bubblegum pop of her self-titled album.
The problem, though, is that the recipe she used to try to achieve this result is a little too infused with a country flavor.
In particular on “Got My Own Thing,” a song replete with steel guitar (or whatever the hell kind of guitar that is that does the whole honky-tonk twang thing), there are definite moments in which it sounds like Liz Phair is doing Shania Twain – and not in a good, “Where The Boys Aren’t Volume 50: Pop Star Edition” kind of way.
There some nice lyrical touches throughout the album that stand out, though, such as the chorus of the title track:

Baby, There goes somebody's miracle
Walking down the street
There goes some other fairy tale
I wish it could happen to me
But I look at myself
Wonderin' if i'm just too weak
To have such faith in myself

And of course, the best line in the song (italics added for emphasis):

I never cry out loud, I
I keep my tears to myself
But I woke up one day and I found my life had left me for someone else
I, I guess it must be unhappywith me

Despite the fact that I myself am not “pretty as a song,” as Liz claims “they” say about her, I do often find myself able to relate to many (though not all) of the ideas Liz expresses, and on every album there is at least one song that really resonates with me.
This album is no exception. The title track, of course, has a certain resonance, but the song that really hits me in the chest is “Table For One.”
The title alone is appropriate to my life, but the resonance builds from there.
Still, I remain more than a little disappointed in the album.
In any case, it’s getting to be close to “My Name is Earl” time, so I think I’ll end this entry here.