13 Éxitos que Nunca Oirás: A Serial Poem (Part 2)

There are several schools of thought regarding the proper use and execution of a mix CD. I read “The VICE Guide To Being Totally Crushed Out”, which advises (in an ‘emergency’, ‘emergency’ robot voice): “do not make a mix tape for someone you have not fooled around with yet”. Also: “once you have horsed around with her…do not pay too close attention to the lyrics. Trying to frame a message in other people’s lyrics is gay.” Furthermore, the author suggests including a few mean songs. For these purposes, “She’s a Rejector” (Of Montreal) and “Looking Over My Shoulder” (Elliott Smith) were included in the mix.

Roland Barthes, in A Lover’s Discourse, argues that the love letter is not tactical; it is not an “enterprise to defend positions, make conquests” (158). Rather, the letter is “purely expressive”. What is engaged in the other is a total relation between two images and not a mathematical correspondence with the other’s perceived weak points. Barthes did not live to see the inception of consumer-level recordable media, but the thought still bears mention.

I had a girlfriend who told me I was very talented at making mix CDs. She was impressed with the way in which the songs fit together in sequential order. I later made a mix for a different girl, including a song I had written about her; the lyrics were written accompanying the track list. Her roommates read it at her birthday party. Upon reviewing both cases (one with whom I had fooled around, the other about whom I had been fooled), I find that the use of “tactics” or “strategery” depends very much on your relationship to the other.