{"id":3032,"date":"2010-01-26T17:40:20","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T22:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2010-01-26T17:45:33","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T22:45:33","slug":"when-a-black-cat-crosses-my-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=3032","title":{"rendered":"When a black cat crosses my path"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have only recently come to realize that I have had the same song running somewhere in the back of my head since at least October.  Not the entire song, end to end, only the really catchy bits.  It&#8217;s funny that I am just now consciously realizing this, after so much time.  I supposed this is not the kind of thing one notices right away. Songs that run in the back of your head tend to the subliminal.<\/p>\n<p>In my case the song is &#8220;Sugar Water&#8221; by Cibo Matto.  I have no idea why this particular song has taken such a place of honor in my brain, rather than other catchy songs like &#8220;Bad Romance&#8221;, or &#8220;Rehab&#8221;, or even the ever-popular &#8220;It&#8217;s a Small World&#8221; (this may be the first time those three songs have ever been mentioned together in one sentence).<\/p>\n<p>But no, it&#8217;s &#8220;Sugar Water&#8221; all the way.  I realize now that the song was playing in my head the entire time I was co-writing &#8220;Sun and Moon&#8221;.  Certainly the song factored into the plot.  For example, the lyric <i>&#8220;A woman in the moon is singing to the earth&#8221;<\/i> essentially plays out as a major story point in the novel.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps this was all triggered in September when I rewatched the episode &#8220;When she was bad&#8221; that kicks off the second season of &#8220;Buffy the Vampire Slayer&#8221;.  The scene in which this song was played is certainly unforgettable.  But I&#8217;m not convinced that&#8217;s it.<\/p>\n<p>No, I think it&#8217;s just that a song is a sort of half-wild creature which comes and visits you for a while.  Like a stray black cat that wanders into your house one day.  You understand that this is a visitor, and you make sure to feed it and set out a bowl of milk at night.  Little by little you become used to it, curled up on a chair or purring contentedly in your lap.<\/p>\n<p>Until one day you realize that it has gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have only recently come to realize that I have had the same song running somewhere in the back of my head since at least October. Not the entire song, end to end, only the really catchy bits. It&#8217;s funny that I am just now consciously realizing this, after so much time. I supposed this &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=3032\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;When a black cat crosses my path&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3039,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions\/3039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}