Steinbeck on Steroids – 11.02.08

Usually, you work out to something upbeat. Something with energy. Hip hop, or metal, or anything with a steady beat and a constant electricity. It’s only natural that we typically just select one of these genres to shuffle.

Today, I didn’t. I just Super Shuffled it. In doing this, outside of a ramping up at both ends, I found tranquility in staying quiet, my playlist ranging from brooding to folky, emo to childish. Nothing hard-core. Nothing from the streets. Just a vanilla and, surprisingly, soothing playlist.

It worked. I was able to think. I left not just physically accelerated, but mentally.

“Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me” – The Pipettes
“Red Letter Day” – The Get Up Kids
“Rear View Mirror” – Grandaddy
“Hot Cha” – They Might Be Giants
“Origami” – Ani DiFranco
“Star Me Kitten (Demo)” – R.E.M.
“Reckoning (Live)” – Ani DiFranco
“Bombtrack” – Rage Against the Machine

(Let’s stop here for a second. While it sometimes seems as if Steinbeck can read my mind, piecing together a perfect series of songs using some intense E.S.P., there are times when it reveals its inner machine – pulling some song out of the recesses of the system that is so completely off track it leaves me wondering how it ever ended up on the iPod in the first place.

This was the case with Rage Against the Machine this go around. Steinbeck was gently soothing me through my first trip to the gym in over a month, keeping me settled and smooth, and it tried to slip this one past me.

I skipped it. Then I scolded the machine. It responded with one of the oldest songs in its repertoire.)

“I Wish I Were in Love With You” – Ella Fitzgerald
“In 3’s” – Beastie Boys
“In the Jailhouse Now” – Johnny Cash
“Unemployed Black Astronaut (Nobody Remix)” – Busdriver

This was lovingly handwritten on December 2nd, 2008