I was watching, as is my wont these days, cross-legged on the parlor floor, making sure to change the channel any time the dreaded Ellen appeared on screen, hoping to find some more wonderful music to ponder. Aha! Just the thing came to me, at the start of a very confusing movie:

What a song! They’re right, this hidden man and his band, about love; it has an undeniable power, and I found myself nodding in agreement from the first lyric. But I have to admit something about the movie disturbed me.

Luckily, a few days ago Tyrone had helped me connect a VCR to the micro-vision, so I could record any interesting scenes I might find. Before I go back to the tape, though, I want to address an issue that I’ve seen brought up many times in the programs I’ve watched over the past few weeks (or is it days? the micro-vision baffles me): the VCR is hard to program. I am not joking, though I realize this is somehow, for some reason, meant to be a joke of some kind. Again: I am not joking. I do not joke when I say the VCR is hard to work with.

Listen. I have never used one before. Okay? It is hard. It is stupid. It is a stupid machine, no matter how useful. Please don’t ever joke about it.

But the video: this young man is veritably skating along the surface of the road, as if on ice skates or something, and, what’s more, attaching himself to the motor vehicles that pass by. I don’t believe it! If I were the driver of one of those vehicles, I would be furious! Or at least terrified. Either way, I certainly wouldn’t keep driving like this fellow:

Come to think of it, the more I watch this section of tape again, the more I realize there must be something more to it, something hidden. See how the two acknowledge each other? And the strange writing on the man’s hat, what is that?

Mountain Dew? What does that have to do with driving? Or with the power of love? I have to ask Tyrone about this…

I decided to start fixing up the parlor the other day, as I’ve really had an itch to clear a proper space for some wall hangings. Before starting work on the mold and rotting wood, though, I wanted to play a little work music (or eine kleine werkmusik, as Mozart might call it) on the stereo, so I might feel energized for the hard work ahead. As luck would have it, I couldn’t borrow Tyrone’s stereo, as his room was locked and I didn’t dare knock to disturb the very funkular beats I heard coming through the door. So I thought I would try playing music on the television, which, as Tyrone tells me, has entire channels devoted to music and music videos, a point he drove home by expounding for a half hour at least about one such video in particular.

At the moment, the only TV we have is a microwave-television combination set, which I gather was designed by this man, who, from the looks of it, has much the same kind of animal infestation issues we do. So I pushed it from the kitchen into a spot in the center of the parlor, and hoping to find a little Wagner to make fun of as I worked (or maybe, luck of lucks, some Dvořák to enjoy), turned it on. I was transfixed. Apparently I had found, on first attempt, one of these music channels, and what’s more, one that exclusively played the most hypnotic music known to microwave television:

I couldn’t believe it. In an instant, the song was seared in my brain, from the first reverberant notes of an oversized drum to the last, plaintive cries of a squished man. I can’t say for sure, as the afternoon and evening are lost in a haze, but I wouldn’t doubt I watched that music video channel for hours, legs tucked under my bottom, hands on my knees, waiting with acute yearning for the song to play again.

There it was!! And as good as the first time. What fun this music television turns out to be! Discarding chores in favor of the font I had found, I endured the long, half-hour commercial breaks in between repeats of the music video–advertisements selling, for all I could tell, morons and kitchen islands–wondering all the while why Tyrone hadn’t told me about this song before.

It wasn’t until three or four in the morning a day or two later that I realized the damage the song, like any drug, had done to my mind. Like a chigger finding flesh after eating through an inch of wool, the song had bitten down on my brain’s core and had refused to ever let up. When today I returned to the microwave television, finding it still perched on a stool amongst the rabbit-warren-honeycombed plaster piles of the parlor, I thought I might watch a few of my favorite movies, but I was dismayed to find I couldn’t watch without that song creeping in my ears.

I’m not sure what I’ll do to rectify this.

That song is really catchy.

Take the painting on sale: Too many boats. And who are those people in front? Get out of the way. I’m trying to admire a bridge.
	Cute, but worth $40 million?

Now take this other Monet r/b/A painting. Getting better–he has at least covered up the people with a muscular shrub-topped hillock. But still, there’s another winky-dinky sailboat flitting around, just daring to be stuck in your eye like a cinder.
	Have to love that hillock.

Here. Finally Monet got it right. No boats, no people, just a train on a bridge. Perfect. It even has the added bonus of being dimly lit, which does nothing but encourage a connoisseur’s nap, which is highly appropriate for the parlor, I think you’ll agree.
	Perfect for napping.

Alas, his best bridge painting wasn’t for sale (probably in some auction-house bargain bin somewhere), and the one that was on sale sold for $41.4 million, which at least saved me the embarrassment of coming up short on my promised $900 bid.

Anyway, as I returned from the auction, I realized our parlor is in no shape to be decorated by Impressionist masterworks; the peeling wallpaper, exposed beams in the ceiling, and all-around funk demand quite a bit of fixing-up, and for the time being seem more appropriate an environment for this dingy old favorite I unpacked from my trunk. Tyrone thinks it’s a little too “Precious Moments.” But I like the big clay jug. It reminds me that we haven’t fixed the bathroom yet.