Artist	Song
Yo La Tengo	Everyday
Bic Runga	Captured
Camera Obscura	Country Mile
Harvey Danger	Problems and Bigger Ones
Hank Williams	Ramblin' Man
Beck	Nausea
The Go! Team	Air Raid GTR
Anton Webern	Five Movements For String Quartet - Movement III
The Fields	Song For the Fields
The Mars Volta	Cicatriz Esp
Jai Alai Savant	Thunderstatement
Muse	Butterflies and Hurricanes
Of Montreal	The Past is a Grotesque Animal
The Sights	Good Way to Die
The Zutons	Not a Lot To Do
The Weepies	World Spins Madly On

Comment:

Mix #62, made in February of 2007, an intervention. Inspired in part by Stephen King's Dreamcatcher. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Another lame story about a fictitious girl with crotchless panties. Another spooked woman who disappoints her would-be date. Another patient intent on ignoring his psychiatrist's vital advice. Another promising student who resorted to the academic suicide of cheating on a test.

Each case fueling the certainty of their shared expression: SSDD.

They share more than just SSDD. They share the Dreamcatcher. But that's of little comfort months later when they're dropping like flies in the midst of rapid-growing alien fungus, shit weasels, and the special forces of an amoral - and probably insane - general, with a mission to contain and destroy. SSDD? No, not anymore. They're now stuck in an entirely different kind of fecal matter.

It's been said before, but it's worth repeating: absurdity is dangerous. The danger's in full force here. And the aliens might not be kidding or lying when they proclaim their innocence in the voices of Bill Clinton and Eddie Vedder, but that doesn't make a lick of difference, now does it? It's still a matter of kill or be killed. Kurtz may be insane, but there's still an undeniable basis for that part of his madness.

It's striking, though, how he's essentially the polar opposite of Duddits. Duddits, who found everything fascinating, who could break through the SSDD mentality, as opposed to Kurtz, who long ago lost any trace of curiosity. Henry had lost most of his curiosity as well. He saw the world as a place now fully drained of mystery. His plans, which the other three only barely sensed, were to make this trip to the woods his last.

But Jonesy and Mr. Gray had taken away the luxury of suicide. Now he had to be a hero. Now he had to save the goddamned world. What was the point? Might not this invasion be a step in the right direction? Was humanity really worth saving?

Humanity always manages to find reasons and means for survival, though. Henry found that his reasons and means were caught in the Dreamcatcher all along. If only they'd kept in touch with the kid from 19 Maple Lane.

Months later, he finds himself in a nothing day of a nothing year. Expectations have regained their previous scarcity. He's alive, well, and uneventful. SSDD, he thinks.

But it's no longer a sad thought.

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