Weekend Whimsy

As the study break draws to a close, I have found myself putting to increasingly good use (note the sarcasm) the free days with which I have been gifted. Yesterday, for example, I didn't leave the house, except for a short period in the late afternoon when I went to the doctor's to have the lump on the outside of my right thigh checked out. She didn't know what it was, which is rather disconcerting. It is inconsistent with anything that she has seen before. The pain is gone now, but physically it is still there and I can feel the pressure of it against my muscles when I walk. There isn't a corresponding lump on the other side of my body. I am vaguely asymmetrical. It is a strange thing to contemplate.

I had an interesting non-related discussion with my doctor, though. We theorised as to why time seems to speed up as you get older, but then returns to the speed at which it was in your childhood when -- if -- you reach your senior years, as some of her patients have described. In the end we came to the conclusion that time passes at a relatively mild pace during your childhood, because everything that happens is new and unique and you are constantly learning new things. As you move through high school and into adulthood, life settles into a repetitive rhythm. It does progress, but you do not notice this progression as it is so gradual. This is why people talk about the days of their lives blurring together. The blurring produces the illusion that time is passing at a faster rate. A year has the potential to seem shorter than three hundred and sixty-five days, because clusters of days are merging together to form one day in your mind as a result of each day's huge similarities to the others. When -- if -- you reach your golden years of retirement, you break out of the day-to-day routine and start to look back on your life in reflection, and this in part causes time to return to the pace that was apparent when you were a child. I like my doctor.

A highlight of the past few days has been no doubt my acquisition of the outstanding Genesis album Platinum Collection for an exceptional bargain price. Nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents is what it cost me at Sounds Shore City. I'm telling you, that's not bad for a three-CD box set containing just under four hours of great progressive and pop music. Ironically, last week I had been considering buying this album to give to my dad on Father's Day -- at which point in time it was priced thirty-four dollars and ninety-five cents. I had thought even that was a bargain. It's really no surprise, then, that I selfishly bagged this album for myself on Thursday when I saw it priced so reasonably. I had always been sceptical as to whether I would enjoy Genesis' less progressive, more pop-oriented material from the late seventies, the eighties and the nineties (of which two thirds of Platinum Collection is composed) but the price on this prompted me to give up my prejudices and give it a try.

It was surprising to find that I actually knew many of the songs -- particularly the captivating Home By The Sea and Second Home By The Sea, segued together to form a radio-friendly epic riddled with creative elements that hark back to Genesis' more progressive phase from the early seventies, and a danceable beat to boot. The rest of the pop material on Platinum Collection is thoroughly appealing as well, with No Son Of Mine and I Can't Dance both deserving special mention. No doubt there's many more favourites that I have yet to develop. Let me just say that a good injection of sexually-charged-yet-intelligent eighties pop makes for a very refreshing break from some of the more conceptually heavy music that tends to dominate my cochlear diet. Also, who could possibly resist those electric drums?

I thoroughly recommend that -- if you are a Genesis fan, if you have at any point considered giving Genesis' music a try, or even simply if you enjoy guitar-driven eighties pop -- you bumble on down to Sounds and give this one a listen and a bit of thought as your next CD purchase. You can't really go wrong for twenty dollars; Platinum Collection is quite plainly tremendous value. To find out more about Genesis and have a listen to some free MP3s (mostly of material from their earlier progressive phase -- I highly recommend The Musical Box if you have the time), check out the entry for the band on Prog Archives.