Variations on a Theme: No Questions

Let’s not ask each other anything

Not have to explain anything

Not tell

Not confess

 

Let’s not talk about ex-partners

Let’s not talk about our therapists

Let’s not talk about our fucked up families

Let’s not talk about what meds we’re on

Let’s not talk about what majors we had in college or grad school

or whatever our theses were about

Let’s not talk about where we’ve traveled because we’re so privileged we can afford it

even if we stayed in hostels

Let’s not talk about our jobs or office politics

Let’s not talk about politics

Let’s not say things we know the other person already agrees with yet we have to say to make sure

Let’s not talk about what movies we like

or books

Let’s both not say how much we love Anna Karenina, the person, not just the book, as if she were a real person, which to us she is

 

Let’s not talk about where we grew up

or places we’ve lived

Let’s not talk about whether we drink or not

socially or not

or whether we smoke pot

Let’s not talk about our cars

or the internet

or the media

Let’s not talk about dogs or cats

Mac or PC

cellphones

or what kind of teenagers we were

 

No questions

just maybe some music—

a piano in the corner of a bar in Paris

playing As Time Goes By

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Music can hold enormous power in memories and experiences, transporting us instantly to an age, location, or person. What sonic joys, mysteries, disbelief, and clarity have you experienced? Identify songs of influence in your life and explore them like variations on a theme, melding syntax and song structure, recalling the seriousness or levity that accompanies. Whether it’s an account of when a specific song first entered your life, the process of learning to play a song, teaching someone a song, experiencing the same song in different places as it weaves through your life, unbelievable radio timing, sharing songs with those in need, tracking the passing down of songs, creative song analysis, music as politics, etc, I am interested in those ineffable moments and welcoming submissions of your own variations on a theme, as drawn from your life’s soundtrack. Please email submissions to meganentropy@gmail.com and keep an eye out for others’ Variations.

**(“song” is a broad phrase: could be a pop song, a traditional tune, a symphony, commercial jingles, a hummed lullaby, 2^nd grade recorder class horror stories, etc)**