— छह हज़ार बयालीस —
I guess if I
had to be hospitalized from a bike accident, it was best for it to happen in late May—right
after the weekend trip with Gabriel to Lummi Island, and three weeks before Shobhit's and my weekend trip to Whistler, when I'll be recovered-ish. I'm
really glad it didn't happen right before any of these trips, especially the trip to Amsterdam.
It didn't rain today, so for the first time since being back in-office this week, I walked to work. I'll still take the bus home, which I'll probably do at least the rest of this week. It's good for me to be moving around and walking, but it's also tiring. Sleeping remains a mixed bag; I am able to sleep on my side now, but kind of barely, and I still have to shift back and forth between that and lying on my back with a pillow under my knees.
I sure feel old and busted. Bleh. You know what's the worst? Putting on socks! What a pain in the pass. Or a pain in the back, to be more specific. The motion required to do that still hurts more than anything else I do now. It hurts slightly less each day I think, albeit by a barely perceptible amount. I can only hope I actually do
feel fully recovered when this six-week period of doctor-ordered carefulness is over. I'm supposed to be able to ride my bike again after that time, but we'll see how I'm feeling. The pacing of this recovery feels truly glacial.
In fact, there's also this: last night Shobhit and I watched a couple episodes of
Curb Your Enthusiasm, and then I went into the bedroom and watched
the new Patton Oswalt comedy special, which he uploaded for free on YouTube. This means I spent a lot of time laughing last night, and guess what? It left me feeling fucking sore! I have to hold my chest in a little when I laugh so it doesn't hurt too much, and although I'm mostly okay today, I feel a little more sore than yesterday and I think it's just because the laughing sort of shook my organs that are still on the mend a little too much. It's not some major complication or anything, but I might do well to avoid comedy specials by genuinely funny comedians for a few weeks.
Getting back to my feet. It's much easier just to wear sandals, but the problem there is that the soles of my sandals are so hard that walking in them creates a kind of impact with each step that's still hard on my recovering body. I thought about wearing sandals today, but decided to wear shoes (and therefore socks) because I wanted to walk to work, and I didn't want my back to be killing me by the time I got to work just because I was wearing the stupid sandals.
Gabby mentioned in our 1x1 meeting yesterday how proud I had been during one of our P3 team meeting "ice breakers" of how long since I had ever had to stay in the hospital (overnight, at least). The two nights I spent in the hospital two weeks ago were the first time I stayed overnight in a hospital since I was five years old. I
broke my leg trying to jump over a six-inch stool.
At least the injury this time wasn't quite as pathetic. I can't remember how long Mom told me I was in the hospital but it was something like one or two weeks, and then I was in a leg-length cast (partially supported by cast halfway down the
other leg with a bar wedged between my thighs) for some weeks after that. Comparatively, this time around I got off easy.
Still, both Shobhit and I have had to go to the hospital for different reasons, Shobhit a couple of times now, since turning 50. It almost feels suspicious.
— छह हज़ार बयालीस —
— छह हज़ार बयालीस —
In other news, Madonna is releasing a new album July 3, and although I've known about it for months and have even been jamming to the few tracks that have been pre-released, she released
a ten-minute, promotional video medley that has my interest piqued about it in a way she hasn't managed since the 2005 release of
Confessions on a Dance Floor, which this album is a sequel to. (It's actually called CONFESSIONS II.)
This promotional rollout has me turning back around on Madonna in a way I wasn't sure was possible; she's been largely out of touch for ages, and some time ago I unfollowed her on Instagram because I was just constantly embarrassed for her and I couldn't take it anymore.
But here's what I feel is the difference this time around. Madonna always had a knack for effectively calculated collaboration. She was always the center of any of said attention, sure, but I feel like the albums that came after
Confessions on a Dance Floor were largely diminishing returns because she was more focused on what she was interested in than what might actually work as something marketable in the context of its time.
Hard Candy, released the year she turned 50 in 2008 had one big hit (a duet with Justin Timberlake) but otherwise kind of fizzled;
MDNA (2012) had one modest hit ("Give Me All Your Luvin") that was quickly dated and silly; I still maintain that
Rebel Heart (2015) was the most generic, forgettable pop album she ever recorded. Each album has sold less than the last, to the point where her cultutal impact is almost nonexistent; her 2019 release,
Madame X, continued that trend but at the very least it's arguably the most interesting artistic left-turn she's released since
Ray of Light in 1998.
It's now been seven years since then, by far the longest she's ever gone between full-length studio album releases (the longest prior to this was four years). It's kind of odd for her to be making a "sequel" album after so many years of saying she never wants to repeat herself, but to me there's also a counterpoint here: the songs feel fresh and infective, and
Confessions on a Dance Floor was itself a return to her dance roots, something she's doing again now and was always where she most thrived artistically.
Perhaps more crucially, she must have hired the right marketing team for this release, because it feels like she's being provocative in just the right ways, trying new things, and actually managing some relevance in ways she hasn't managed in twenty years. It's pretty clear this album won't have any track as iconic as "Hung Up" with its rare, and fabulously effective, sample of ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)," but for once she seems to understand that albums don't tend to succeed on the strength of one lead single anymore. This is why the medley video makes sense, as it serves as a promo for the album on the whole, which itself will exist in support of an expected world tour, and that's the way the industry has worked for decades now: arists once toured to support album sales; now they release albums to support concert ticket sales. And I bet anything Madonna will clean up when she goes on tour for this album, even at age 68 (the age she'll be on her birthday in August), just as she has done many times over with world tours in the past.
I did last see her at her
Celebration tour in 2024, the first tour she ever did that was not in support of any album release. They had billed her 2004
Re-Invention tour as a "Greatest Hits tour," but that was still in support of her 2003 album
American Life, which by the standards of the era was her biggest commercial flop to date; she only performed a few songs from that album, and usually she quite pointedly weighs the set list with mostly tracks from whichever album she's touring. When she went on the
Madame X tour in 2019, though, that was the first tour I skipped since going to every one of them prior since
Drowned World in 2001, for two reasons: 1) she made this tour all mini-residencies in smaller theaters in only a select few sities and tickets were way too expensive; and 2) the closest stop on that tour was San Francisco, and although I actually did fly there to see her in 2001, I just didn't feel it was worth the expense of a trip on top of the exhorbitant ticket prices. More critically, I already had a lot of major travel planned that year, including both Tortonto and Las Vegas with Danielle. (The Vegas dates for the tour were in November; Danielle and I went at the end of September, and the trip had already been planned when tour dates were announced.) And then, the
Madame X tour was cut short by covid anyway.
When she toured again in 2024, she actually had a stop in Seattle, so how could I
not go? I really thought that, given her age, that might be the last time I ever see her live, but that's clearly not going to be the case now; I knew nothing about CONFESSIONS II then. Historically she seems to switch back and forth between tours regarding whether she stops in Seattle; we'll see how it goes, but I kind of expect that her next tour she'll skip Seattle but have stops in both Vancouver, B.C. and Portland, like she did for the
Rebel Heart tour in 2015. Hmm, if she does that though then I'll have a perfect excuse to visit Vancouver again! I should make a note of that, especially considering all the other travel I was already considering for both 2025 and 2026. But mark my words: I
will see her on her next tour, I don't care how I have to make it happen.
Anyway, back to the 14-minute video medley. Pussy lasers! Madonna's sense of humor is hit and miss at best historically, but again, I credit whoever was hired to put this stuff together. To me, it's kind of perfect. And people can start calling this her "horny grandma era" if they want. I think it works. I don't care how old she gets, I think staying on-brand with her sexual provocations is the best. I do think there are some lighting and touchup tricks making her less freakish with all the face work she's had done, but whatever. This video alone makes me more excited for both the album and her inevitable tour.
— छह हज़ार बयालीस —
[posted 12:25pm]
