Music to Write a Book By

In my normal life, I like halfway decent music, I swear. I'm never going to be on the cutting edge of anything, but I like to think that nothing I listen to is going to cause anyone to roll their eyes. Lately, for example, the music in heaviest rotation has been the Police, Jolie Holland, Cat Power, Andres Segovia, and the Garden State soundtrack.

This all changes when I flip to my "work" folder on iTunes. There you will find not only a bit of classical music (which I don't normally listen to, but there's something wonderfully apocalyptic about a requiem mass), but also an embarrassing collection of cheesy neo-medieval music. Seriously, this stuff is the aural equivalent of reading a trashy romance novel with Fabio on the cover while attending your local Renaissance Faire. I don't know how else to describe it. It is, by all measures, Not Good Music.

And yet... somehow, as background noise it works to put me in a write-about-the-middle-ages frame of mind. Just so long as I don't actively pay attention to it, I'm fine.

I'm sure other people have less embarrassing work music. Thank god this blog is (mostly) anonymous.