Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Heaven is a Place Where Nothing Ever Happens
I never read a book so fast in my life.
I only picked up the thing at 4:00 PM yesterday and I set it down, finished, no later than 12:45 AM.
And in between I stopped to have dinner, goof off on the web, and then watch television with Chiara for an hour or so.
When I was a teenager and had the chicken pox, I read all of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books over a three day lie in at home, but I've never had anything like that sort of reader's rapidity or endurance since.
I mean all of this as a compliment. Lost Horizon is a charming and affecting adventure story and that I devoured it as I did is a testament to how much fun it was to read.
I have this kind of goal - to read all of the classic adventure novels. And this is one of the real classics. Published in 1933, Lost Horizon invented and introduced to the world Shangri-La, the lamasery hidden in the Himalayas where one may find immortality and wisdom and peacefulness.
What I found so deeply charming about the mythical place and the protagonist of the book is how willing Hilton is to celebrate indolence, anomie, and insouciance. This novel is a fullthroated rebuttal to the very notion of the protestant work ethic; a downright celebration of procrastination and laziness.
Our hero, Conway, is made of the stuff one would expect from heroes - he's handsome and athletic, accomplished and brilliant. But he is also completely uninterested in success and has a midlevel consular job that he doesn't give two damns about. He isn't particularly amorous and doesn't get too worked up over right and wrong. He's like Allan Quatermain on Prozac. This is a hero I can get behind.
And the most remarkable thing, when considering how little time it took me to read the book, is how little actually happens in it. The opening chapters are replete with mystery and tension and high adventure and the closing chapter has an echo of that frenetic energy, but in between it is, quite literally, a book in which three or four not that interesting people sit around tables and chat.
And yet, you just barrel through the thing. Or anyway, I did. It is no wonder Shangri-La, based on the Hindu/Buddhist myth of Shambhala, should have passed so completely into our own mythology; it is a delightful idea, an Eden of the sort that those of us who do not admire asceticism can cling to, a heaven with sex and drinking and popular music.
Anyway, this "review" is already too long. This is a wonderful little book and you should read it.
Gathering No Moss (But Plenty of Girls and Drugs)
Just finished Keith Richards' autobiography, Life.
It took a while; it's a real tome.
And, while it is filled with preposterously charming vignettes wherein our hero sleeps with lovely women, procures drugs, and takes a piss at the law (sometimes literally), it is also, after a few hundred pages, a bit repetitive.
Every chapter after the first four or five, more or less, goes like this: look for drugs; find drugs; have argument with someone you love dearly but don't get along with; sleep with new girl; make new friend that you keep for life; record classic song; REPEAT.
Or maybe I'd say it like this: Keith Richards' life has been far more interesting that almost anyone's - in music or otherwise - but the story of that life, headshakingly strange and bigger than life as it is, suffers from a bit of "then i did this, then i did this, then i did this."
I mean, of course, everyone's life IS actually like that; lives don't have narrative arcs, climaxes, or denouements. But.
The Bob Dylan autobiography didn't suffer from this flaw because Dylan wasn't so slavish about the chronology. Dylan took the few parts of his life that he wanted to talk about and structured those narratively in such a way that the "story" was still incomplete but the story was better told. Though the jacket tells me that Keef had a co-writer on this, I can't tell exactly what he did, because the life is far more interesting than it has any right to be, but the writing itself doesn't live up to the events it describes most of the time.
Let' say this: if you love the Rolling Stones and picaresques, then this is a book that cannot fail to delight you, full as it is of the musical arcane, unbelievable escapes, sexual conquests, and debauches - but it won't all delight you equally, and that is a failure of editing and authorship, which is a bit of a shame.
Still, I enjoyed the shit out of it, so.
Monday, March 21, 2011
On Silm and the Sacking of Troy
I mean, let's not pretend those aren't the parts we like most.
I am reliably informed that today is UNESCO's World Poetry Day and so I am posting two poems that I am forever foisting upon everyone I know.
Both are by Robert Hass and only one contains a (probably) made up word:
Etymology
Her body by the fire
Mimicked the light-conferring midnights
Of philosophy.
Suppose they are dead now.
Isn’t “dead now” an odd expression?
The sound of the owls outside
And the wind soughing in the trees
Catches in their ears, is sent out
In scouting parties of sensation down their spines.
If you say it became language or it was nothing,
Who touched whom?
In what hurtle of starlight?
Poor language, poor theory
Of language. The shards of skull
In the Egyptian museum looked like maps of the wind-eroded
Canyon labyrinths from which,
Standing on the verge
In the yellow of a dwindling fall, you hear
Echo and re-echo the cries of terns
Fishing the worked silver of a rapids.
And what to say of her wetness? The Anglo-Saxons
Had a name for it. They called it silm.
They were navigators. It was also
Their word for the look of moonlight on the sea.
Mimicked the light-conferring midnights
Of philosophy.
Suppose they are dead now.
Isn’t “dead now” an odd expression?
The sound of the owls outside
And the wind soughing in the trees
Catches in their ears, is sent out
In scouting parties of sensation down their spines.
If you say it became language or it was nothing,
Who touched whom?
In what hurtle of starlight?
Poor language, poor theory
Of language. The shards of skull
In the Egyptian museum looked like maps of the wind-eroded
Canyon labyrinths from which,
Standing on the verge
In the yellow of a dwindling fall, you hear
Echo and re-echo the cries of terns
Fishing the worked silver of a rapids.
And what to say of her wetness? The Anglo-Saxons
Had a name for it. They called it silm.
They were navigators. It was also
Their word for the look of moonlight on the sea.
Against Botticelli
1
In the life we lead together every paradise is lost.
Nothing could be easier: summer gathers new leaves
to casual darkness. So few things we need to know.
And the old wisdoms shudder in us and grow slack.
Like renunciation. Like the melancholy beauty
of giving it all up. Like walking steadfast
in the rhythms, winter light and summer dark.
And the time for cutting furrows and the dance.
Mad seed. Death waits it out. It waits us out,
the sleek incandescent saints, earthly and prayerful.
In our modesty. In our shamefast and steady attention
to the ceremony, its preparation, the formal hovering
of pleasure which falls like the rain we pray not to get
and are glad for and drown in. Or spray of that sea,
irised: otters in the tide lash, in the kelp-drench,
mammal warmth and the inhuman element. Ah, that is the secret.
That she is an otter, that Botticelli saw her so.
That we are not otters and are not in the painting
by Botticelli. We are not even in the painting by Bosch
where the people are standing around looking at the frame
of the Botticelli painting and when Love arrives, they throw up.
Or the Goya painting of the sad ones, angular and shriven,
who watch the Bosch and feel very compassionate
but hurt each other often and inefficiently. We are not in any
painting.
If we do it at all, we will be like the old Russians.
We’ll walk down through scrub oak to the sea
and where the seals lie preening on the beach
we will look at each other steadily
and butcher them and skin them.
Nothing could be easier: summer gathers new leaves
to casual darkness. So few things we need to know.
And the old wisdoms shudder in us and grow slack.
Like renunciation. Like the melancholy beauty
of giving it all up. Like walking steadfast
in the rhythms, winter light and summer dark.
And the time for cutting furrows and the dance.
Mad seed. Death waits it out. It waits us out,
the sleek incandescent saints, earthly and prayerful.
In our modesty. In our shamefast and steady attention
to the ceremony, its preparation, the formal hovering
of pleasure which falls like the rain we pray not to get
and are glad for and drown in. Or spray of that sea,
irised: otters in the tide lash, in the kelp-drench,
mammal warmth and the inhuman element. Ah, that is the secret.
That she is an otter, that Botticelli saw her so.
That we are not otters and are not in the painting
by Botticelli. We are not even in the painting by Bosch
where the people are standing around looking at the frame
of the Botticelli painting and when Love arrives, they throw up.
Or the Goya painting of the sad ones, angular and shriven,
who watch the Bosch and feel very compassionate
but hurt each other often and inefficiently. We are not in any
painting.
If we do it at all, we will be like the old Russians.
We’ll walk down through scrub oak to the sea
and where the seals lie preening on the beach
we will look at each other steadily
and butcher them and skin them.
2
The myth they chose was the constant lovers.
The theme was richness over time.
It is a difficult story and the wise never choose it
because it requires a long performance
and because there is nothing, by definition, between the acts.
It is different in kind from a man and the pale woman
he fucks in the ass underneath the stars
because it is summer and they are full of longing
and sick of birth. They burn coolly
like phosphorus, and the thing need be done
only once. Like the sacking of Troy
it survives in imagination,
in the longing brought perfectly to closing,
the woman’s white hands opening, opening,
and the man churning inside her, thrashing there.
And light travels as if all the stars they were under
exploded centuries ago and they are resting now, glowing.
The woman thinks what she is feeling is like the dark
and utterly complete. The man is past sadness,
though his eyes are wet. He is learning about gratitude,
how final it is, as if the grace in Botticelli’s Primavera ,
the one with sad eyes who represents pleasure,
had a canvas to herself, entirely to herself.
The theme was richness over time.
It is a difficult story and the wise never choose it
because it requires a long performance
and because there is nothing, by definition, between the acts.
It is different in kind from a man and the pale woman
he fucks in the ass underneath the stars
because it is summer and they are full of longing
and sick of birth. They burn coolly
like phosphorus, and the thing need be done
only once. Like the sacking of Troy
it survives in imagination,
in the longing brought perfectly to closing,
the woman’s white hands opening, opening,
and the man churning inside her, thrashing there.
And light travels as if all the stars they were under
exploded centuries ago and they are resting now, glowing.
The woman thinks what she is feeling is like the dark
and utterly complete. The man is past sadness,
though his eyes are wet. He is learning about gratitude,
how final it is, as if the grace in Botticelli’s Primavera ,
the one with sad eyes who represents pleasure,
had a canvas to herself, entirely to herself.
Easter 2011
So, in my secular paganism, today would be (is?) Easter. Easter would always be on the 21st of March, because the 21st of March is the Vernal Equinox.
Today, in the old world, was the Beginning. This is why we have April Fool's Day (another post) and why the financial year still begins at this time on the calendar; this is the New Year. This is the day on which the sun regains its hold on the day; after this and until September, the days are longer than the nights.
Passover. The resurrection of Jesus. Nowruz. The rebirth of Mithras and of Attis, consort of Cybele. This time of year has always been about birth and rebirth.
That's why eggs and rabbits and baby birds.
Easter is named for Eostre who is also Eos who is also Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn and of Spring, which is, in a way, the dawn of a new year or the dawn of the living things that have been sleeping under snow.
All of that is well and good, but it isn't why today is my Easter. Today is my Easter because, damnitall, holidays should be predictable and evenly distributed throughout the year (as I've mentioned before) and they should have good decorations.
And, since we in America celebrate Easter entirely in a pagan sense anyway, and clearly regard it (as it is) as a festival of Springtime and fertility, we may as well do the thing on the Spring Equinox.
So, today is for eggs and rabbits and birds and flowers and chocolate and peeps and brunches and fancy hats. Winter is finally dead today, at least for another turn of the wheel.
Of course, that's why I'll be so infuriated when it snows in April (but not when Prince does so), because GET IN THE GROUND, Winter!
Botticelli (as always) knew what was up:
Today, in the old world, was the Beginning. This is why we have April Fool's Day (another post) and why the financial year still begins at this time on the calendar; this is the New Year. This is the day on which the sun regains its hold on the day; after this and until September, the days are longer than the nights.
Passover. The resurrection of Jesus. Nowruz. The rebirth of Mithras and of Attis, consort of Cybele. This time of year has always been about birth and rebirth.
That's why eggs and rabbits and baby birds.
Easter is named for Eostre who is also Eos who is also Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn and of Spring, which is, in a way, the dawn of a new year or the dawn of the living things that have been sleeping under snow.
All of that is well and good, but it isn't why today is my Easter. Today is my Easter because, damnitall, holidays should be predictable and evenly distributed throughout the year (as I've mentioned before) and they should have good decorations.
And, since we in America celebrate Easter entirely in a pagan sense anyway, and clearly regard it (as it is) as a festival of Springtime and fertility, we may as well do the thing on the Spring Equinox.
So, today is for eggs and rabbits and birds and flowers and chocolate and peeps and brunches and fancy hats. Winter is finally dead today, at least for another turn of the wheel.
Of course, that's why I'll be so infuriated when it snows in April (but not when Prince does so), because GET IN THE GROUND, Winter!
Botticelli (as always) knew what was up:
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Because I Am Denied the Supermoon:
I will have to settle for Italo Calvino, who understands how it is to be denied the moon.
The Daughters of the Moon
And, the Distance of the Moon:
The Daughters of the Moon
And, the Distance of the Moon:
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Propitious Day For Fighting
The Romans used to celebrate the ides of March (the month named for Mars, the god of war) with a festival dedicated to Mars. And Tuesday is the day of Mars (Martes in Spanish, Martedi in Italian, Mardi in French) because Tyr was the Norse equivalent of Mars and Tuesday is, of course, Tyr's Day, really.
So, what I am saying is that this is the day of Mars, the month of Mars, and the date of the festival dedicated to Mars; today would be a propitious day to start (or finish) a fight of some kind. You know, like if you are Marcus Junius Brutus, or like if you are little Zangrief.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Bon Voyage, You Horrible Monster
Finally rid myself of the spiky boulderette that has been blundering about my insides. Good riddance, though that x-ray from a few days back suggests there may yet be a sequel. Ugh.
Had some people over last night for a bit of a hangout. Drinks, music, swapping of anecdotes, the usual thing. I admit I had a glass or six, but, when asked to produce the stone, I did. Satisfying gasps and expressions of horror all 'round. It was suggested I snap a photo of the evil thing and post it.
But I would never. That's just awful. Instead, I have found the following image that closely approximates the appearance of the rocky crumb that has been haunting my urinary system for the past couple of weeks; imagine it as about the size of a largish caper.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
iPod Roulette with Chris
Been a while, but the shtick is the same: The shuffle goes on and the first six songs (no cheating) have to be discussed or defended or disowned. Yesterday, over a plate of Chinese food, my subject was Chris.
Jeff: Okay, so now we're recording.
Chris: Okay.
Jeff: So. So what you've gotta do is -- you have it paused, on shuffle, ready to go, right? So now you press 'next song' or whatever and then you do that six times and then I'll talk to you about those songs and you have to --
Chris: All right.
Jeff: -- you know -- if they're awful, you have to defend them and if they're good, then you have to talk about why. So, when you're ready, go ahead and do it.
Chris: Here we go.
Jeff: Yeah, make sure to get a mouthful of food first.
Chris: Haha. And the first song is . . .
Jeff: K.
Chris: "Virgo Self Esteem Broadcast" by the Flaming Lips.
Jeff: Yikes! What album is that on?
Chris: It's on Embryonic, which is their most recent.
Jeff: Right. I don't have that one. Do you like it? Do you listen to it?
Chris: I only have like half this album, and most of it is a lot like Yoshimi, except with more LSD.
Jeff: HA! Which is not what that band needs!
Chris: No.
Jeff: Haha. Is this the one that has the cover where it looks like this hairy bowling ball is giving birth to a screaming face?
Chris: Yeah. So it's like LSD and a little bit of speed.
Jeff: Hahahaha.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Is this song in particular memorable to you -- do you really have any idea what song this is?
Chris: This song has got a really good pace to it. I like this song. But it . . . it has this really good pace, and then it slows down . . . it's just classic Flaming Lips, you know? The second half of Flaming Lips, not the first half of Flaming Lips.
Jeff: Right. I know what you mean. The Wayne Coyne with hulk fists period of their oeuvre.
Chris: Right.
Jeff: So I don't have this album and I have never heard this song, but so far it sounds, to me, like the soundtrack to a 1970s science fiction film. Like a pre-Star Wars science fiction film. This is like incidental music from the Flash Gordon movie to me, even if that was after Star Wars. You know what I mean.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Okay, yeah. Fair enough.
Chris: Yeah, this is like the soundtrack to, uh . . . what's that movie? That sci-fi psychological thriller about the planet?
Jeff: Forbidden Planet?
Chris: No.
Jeff: I don't know what you're -- Solaris.
Chris: Solaris.
Jeff: Yes. Right. A journey into the human soul.
Chris: . . .
Jeff: All right. Good. I think I've heard enough about that. And enough of this song. Seriously. It is like I'm being pinged by some sort of psychedelic submarine of the unconscious. Go to the next song.
Chris: All right. Second one.
Jeff: Yeah.
Chris: Modest Mouse. "So Much Beauty in Dirt."
Jeff: What album is this on?
Chris: This is on Everywhere and his Nasty Parlour Tricks. Which may be one of my favorite albums from them. Because it was short and sweet; only like eight songs. And this song has a MASH reference in it, which thrills me.
Jeff: Hahaha. MASH the movie or MASH the TV show?
Chris: The TV show.
Jeff: See? That thrills me less.
Chris: . . .
Jeff: Um. Yeah, all right. So far, I feel like this is going well for you.
Chris: It is.
Jeff: I'm a little worried that what's happening here is that you have been culling your music library of all the crappy stuff.
Chris: No. there's some bad shit on here.
Jeff: Because what I'm really hoping for, to be honest, is the stuff that you drunk-bought on iTunes one night, right? I'm looking for Loverboy.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Loverboy album tracks. not singles. That's what i really want out of this, truthfully.
Chris: Well, let's see if the Style Council comes up.
Jeff: Haha. Perfect. Okay, so what's next?
Chris: Yo La Tengo. "Point and Shoot."
Jeff: See, I feel like this is rigged or something.
Chris: Hahahaha.
Jeff: Seriously. have you looked at the other iPod Roulettes? They have had ridiculous things happen and you're getting three totally defensible great bands. Of this decade, by the way! I mean, what?
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Tell what album this is on.
Chris: This is off of I'm Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.
Jeff: From the end of the album, right? Right before the other really long one.
Chris: Yeah. I barely ever get to this song. That album is a juggernaut.
Jeff: But it's not only that, right? It's that the first song, "Pass the Hatchett, I think I'm Goodkind," is like seventeen minutes long all by itself. And as much as I love that song, by the time it's over, I'm a bit worn out.
Chris: Sometimes I don't get these guys; they'll have these rusty jams that last for twelve minutes, and they'll have like quirky little dance songs that annoy the living shit out of me.
Jeff: See? This is where I am not with you. Because I think this is what keeps Yo La Tengo from being a kind of Sonic Youth knockoff. They definitely began life as a -- you know -- as a Velvet Underground meets Sonic Youth kind of a knockoff. You know, if record store clerks ran the world, that is the only kind of band there would be, but nevertheless, what keeps them from being that in toto is that they're willing to be innocent in a way that Sonic Youth would never -- were not willing to be.
Chris: Right.
Jeff: Right? And what you're talking about - those kinda early 60s dance jives or the occasional bossa nova number are sort of what makes them, to me, what brings them together.
Chris: Well, those are cool. I mean, "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House," that's a great song.
Jeff: Well, but I think what you're talking about is "Mr. Tough" --
Chris: Yes!
Jeff: -- on this same album. But I think that's a great song. I think you're outta your mind. So, you know, Eric went to go see them the other day and you know what they're doing now on tour, right?
Chris: No, what?
Jeff: They're doing this wheel of fortune thing --
Chris: Oh yeah?
Jeff: Yeah. So Yo La Tengo comes out on stage and they have this gigantic wheel, classic wheel of fortune like; the whole thing is divided into wedges and every wedge has something different written on it. So, one might say "All Songs That Begin With The Letter 'S'" and another might say "All Track Sevens" or "Songs From Movies." And one of the things on the wheel of fortune is "Classic Sitcoms." And, so anyway, an audience member is invited in stage to spin the wheel and whatever the wheel decides is what they do that night.
Chris: Oh, no way.
Jeff: Yeah, so, if you get "songs with the letter 'S'" then that's all they play for the first set that night. So Eric's at the show the other night and they spin the wheel and it comes up "classic sitcoms." Haha. So, so, the band comes out, and all of them have scripts from a Spongebob Squarepants episode.
Chris: Nice.
Jeff: And so then they literally do a script read of the entire half hour Spongebob episode. No music, nothing; just Spongebob. In the beginning it's funny, but, you know, after a little while people are sort of getting upset. In Chicago they did this and they did an episode of Seinfeld. They did the "Chinese Restaurant", appropriately enough, for you.
Chris: Haha
Jeff: See, and in a way that's a metaphor for what I'm talking about with their entire, you know, thing.
Chris: Right. Were you with us at the Yo La Tengo show all those years ago on campus?
Jeff: No. No, the first time I ever saw them was in 2006. That was the best rock show I ever saw.
Chris: Well, at the end of that one on campus that I went to, they did this hand jive encore and that was great.
Jeff: When i saw them, in 2006, they did two encores and the second was all requests. So that was nice. All right, that was your third song. What's next?
Chris: Uh-oh. We hit one.
Jeff: What is it?
Chris: "Into the Light," by jj.
Jeff: But that's not embarrassing. Again, this isn't -- that's got indie cred. It's Balearic and summery, whatever.
Chris: Yeah, but when i think about this now, this is probably a song that I won't listen to while I'm single. Hahaha.
Jeff: Right. I sorta get that.
Chris: Hahaha. I don't know why, but I couldn't put this on and clean the kitchen.
Jeff: You should put this on a playlist and call the playlist "Makeout Music for Making Out with Desperate Girls I Met on Match.com."
Chris: Hahaha
Jeff: You should make sure those girls never look at your computer, by the way.
Chris: Hahaha. Right. But it is just that sort of song that you have to have around in case a girl comes over that wants you to listen to that. Sort of make a quinoa dinner for them . . .
Jeff: Oh, god.
Chris: Hahahaha. And it's jj.
Jeff: Yeah, all right. So that was your fourth song. Fifth song, here we go.
Chris: Here we go. Richmond Fontaine.
Jeff: All right. What song is it?
Chris: "The Incident at Conklin Creek," which is basically --
Jeff: An Ambrose Bierce short story.
Chris: -- every single Richmond Fontaine song; they all have to do with someone who died prematurely . . . but had nothing going for them anyway.
Jeff: Hahaha. Yeah, that's fair.
Chris: So.
Jeff: Because alt country. Characters who work at a gas station in rural Nevada.
Chris: Or at a Casino.
Jeff: What album is this on?
Chris: The Fitzgerald. Which is by far their most depressing.
Jeff: Which is saying something for this band.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Do you listen to them a lot? You used to, I feel like.
Chris: I used to, yeah, for like five years.
Jeff: All right. You don't seem to have much to say about this one. I certainly don't. Or, anyway, all I would tell you about Richmond Fontaine is this:
Chris: K.
Jeff: I have three Richmond Fontaine albums, I think. I like them all fine.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: To me they are the band that doesn't exist, in some ways. Like, I know you really liked them at one point --
Chris: Uh-huh.
Jeff: -- for me they are a band that is like a space-saver in my library. They are the beige hotel furniture in my iTunes.
Chris: You think so? I don't feel that way about them at all.
Jeff: Like, for me, if a Richmond Fontaine song comes on while I have the iPod set to shuffle, it is indistinguishable to me from any other Richmond Fontaine song and, after it is done playing, there would be no way for me to hum the melody or remember the tune.
Chris: Yeah, ok. That's definitely a thing.
Jeff: So --
Chris: They're quinoa.
Jeff: if you told those guys that you thought they were the quinoa of bands, i think they would take a busted beer bottle to your face.
Chris: Yeah, pretty much. It'd be bad.
Jeff: Chris. I am saying you are boring and so is the music you like.
Chris: Hahaha.
Jeff: God. What if Richmond Fontaine finds my blog? The other day, I posted a video of a song that I like and the artist saw it, I guess, and he "liked" my blogpost. And that was weird.
Chris: Oh, cool.
Jeff: Nooooo. No. Not cool. It was weird. I felt very weird about it. I mean, now I am worried that anything bad I ever said about a book I read or an album I bought or a movie I watched is going to maybe end up in front of the artist. Ugh.
Chris: Haha.
Jeff: I mean, I never thought anyone would see those posts. I mean, I know that's a crap excuse, but it's just that it's one thing if you are Charlie Sheen and you say something on Twitter or whatever, it is another if you're me.
Chris: Who was it?
Jeff: I mean, nobody big, really. But, you know, now I have to put that I said THAT on my blog, too. Ugh.
Chris: A band googling themselves. Whatever.
Jeff: Haha. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was song five. You get six.
Chris: I do?
Jeff: Well, the metaphor we're working with here is Russian Roulette, right? And I guess I just imagine that being done with a six shooter, for some reason? I dunno, man, you get six.
Chris: Okay, here we go. "St. Augustine." Band of Horses.
Jeff: That's good; that's a great song. I love this song.
Chris: Yeah, it's good.
Jeff: I dunno. You got anything to say about this?
Chris: I dunno. Honestly, I only listen to one song on this album and it's the first one, "The First Song."
Jeff: Is "St. Augustine" about, do you think, the place in Florida? Or do you think it is about the actual St. Augustine? I mean, I don't recall the words to the song, so.
Chris: Well, I dunno; I haven't listened to the lyrics in a long time. But if it's about the catholic, then someone in the band feels guilty.
Jeff: Haha. Chiara and I were just talking the other night about St. Augustine. I was reading about how he is sort of the classic bad boy turns christian or whatever but he wasn't really some great big sinner or anything. How he became this ultimate ascetic person, but his whole thing before that was as this kind of normal guy - not even some hedonist. His mother, apparently, convinced him to become christian and to dump the love of his life, who was the girlfriend he had for like fourteen years or something. She had his baby. And he was completely in love with her. He wrote about it later. He called her like "the One" and shit like that.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: And he never had any physical relationship after that. He never had any interest in women ever again. You know, and then he invents original sin. So, you know, charming.
Chris: Haha. Yeah.
Jeff: But, I mean, he probably makes the hundred most important humans of all time list, right? He was this great philosopher and writer. Could he have even been great if he didn't give that all up?
Chris: No. Because his Confessions is credited with being the first autobiography. And that's all about giving that all up.
Jeff: What's the famous prayer he says he used to make? "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet"?
Chris: But not yet. Yeah. That's great.
Jeff: Yeah, I think so too. So, okay, Band of Horses. Clearly you've pulled the best roulette session of anyone. I'm convinced it is because you've simply not drunk purchased on iTunes enough.
Chris: Nah, that's in there.
Jeff: Or you've been erasing the shit music from your library or something.
Chris: Maybe I can find something for you . . .
Jeff: What would have been the most embarrassing thing to have had come up?
Chris: It probably would have been Style Council, actually. Maybe "My Ever Changing Moods."
Jeff: Is that really on there?
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: So please, play us out with that, would you?
Chris: Yeah. (he finds it and presses play, turns up the volume and begins this shoulder shimmy that is out of this world)
Jeff: HA!
Chris: This is a Stacey band, all the way.
Jeff: Yup.
Chris: Can't you see her and Eric in the mirror, going like this: (he begins a more advanced shoulder pointing maneuver).
Jeff: Oh my god. I wish the audio recording could capture this.
Chris: Hahaha.
Jeff: I don't feel like this is the most embarrassing song.
Chris: It's kind of a guilty pleasure. I wouldn't play it for anyone else, except for you guys.
Jeff: Yeah, all right. I think we can shoulder-point our way out of this, then. On that note, Thank you, Chris.
Chris: Yeah. (continues his aggressive shoulder gyrating, shimmying, and pointing).
Jeff: Okay, so now we're recording.
Chris: Okay.
Jeff: So. So what you've gotta do is -- you have it paused, on shuffle, ready to go, right? So now you press 'next song' or whatever and then you do that six times and then I'll talk to you about those songs and you have to --
Chris: All right.
Jeff: -- you know -- if they're awful, you have to defend them and if they're good, then you have to talk about why. So, when you're ready, go ahead and do it.
Chris: Here we go.
Jeff: Yeah, make sure to get a mouthful of food first.
Chris: Haha. And the first song is . . .
Jeff: K.
Chris: "Virgo Self Esteem Broadcast" by the Flaming Lips.
Jeff: Yikes! What album is that on?
Chris: It's on Embryonic, which is their most recent.
Jeff: Right. I don't have that one. Do you like it? Do you listen to it?
Chris: I only have like half this album, and most of it is a lot like Yoshimi, except with more LSD.
Jeff: HA! Which is not what that band needs!
Chris: No.
Jeff: Haha. Is this the one that has the cover where it looks like this hairy bowling ball is giving birth to a screaming face?
Chris: Yeah. So it's like LSD and a little bit of speed.
Jeff: Hahahaha.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Is this song in particular memorable to you -- do you really have any idea what song this is?
Chris: This song has got a really good pace to it. I like this song. But it . . . it has this really good pace, and then it slows down . . . it's just classic Flaming Lips, you know? The second half of Flaming Lips, not the first half of Flaming Lips.
Jeff: Right. I know what you mean. The Wayne Coyne with hulk fists period of their oeuvre.
Chris: Right.
Jeff: So I don't have this album and I have never heard this song, but so far it sounds, to me, like the soundtrack to a 1970s science fiction film. Like a pre-Star Wars science fiction film. This is like incidental music from the Flash Gordon movie to me, even if that was after Star Wars. You know what I mean.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Okay, yeah. Fair enough.
Chris: Yeah, this is like the soundtrack to, uh . . . what's that movie? That sci-fi psychological thriller about the planet?
Jeff: Forbidden Planet?
Chris: No.
Jeff: I don't know what you're -- Solaris.
Chris: Solaris.
Jeff: Yes. Right. A journey into the human soul.
Chris: . . .
Jeff: All right. Good. I think I've heard enough about that. And enough of this song. Seriously. It is like I'm being pinged by some sort of psychedelic submarine of the unconscious. Go to the next song.
Chris: All right. Second one.
Jeff: Yeah.
Chris: Modest Mouse. "So Much Beauty in Dirt."
Jeff: What album is this on?
Chris: This is on Everywhere and his Nasty Parlour Tricks. Which may be one of my favorite albums from them. Because it was short and sweet; only like eight songs. And this song has a MASH reference in it, which thrills me.
Jeff: Hahaha. MASH the movie or MASH the TV show?
Chris: The TV show.
Jeff: See? That thrills me less.
Chris: . . .
Jeff: Um. Yeah, all right. So far, I feel like this is going well for you.
Chris: It is.
Jeff: I'm a little worried that what's happening here is that you have been culling your music library of all the crappy stuff.
Chris: No. there's some bad shit on here.
Jeff: Because what I'm really hoping for, to be honest, is the stuff that you drunk-bought on iTunes one night, right? I'm looking for Loverboy.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Loverboy album tracks. not singles. That's what i really want out of this, truthfully.
Chris: Well, let's see if the Style Council comes up.
Jeff: Haha. Perfect. Okay, so what's next?
Chris: Yo La Tengo. "Point and Shoot."
Jeff: See, I feel like this is rigged or something.
Chris: Hahahaha.
Jeff: Seriously. have you looked at the other iPod Roulettes? They have had ridiculous things happen and you're getting three totally defensible great bands. Of this decade, by the way! I mean, what?
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Tell what album this is on.
Chris: This is off of I'm Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.
Jeff: From the end of the album, right? Right before the other really long one.
Chris: Yeah. I barely ever get to this song. That album is a juggernaut.
Jeff: But it's not only that, right? It's that the first song, "Pass the Hatchett, I think I'm Goodkind," is like seventeen minutes long all by itself. And as much as I love that song, by the time it's over, I'm a bit worn out.
Chris: Sometimes I don't get these guys; they'll have these rusty jams that last for twelve minutes, and they'll have like quirky little dance songs that annoy the living shit out of me.
Jeff: See? This is where I am not with you. Because I think this is what keeps Yo La Tengo from being a kind of Sonic Youth knockoff. They definitely began life as a -- you know -- as a Velvet Underground meets Sonic Youth kind of a knockoff. You know, if record store clerks ran the world, that is the only kind of band there would be, but nevertheless, what keeps them from being that in toto is that they're willing to be innocent in a way that Sonic Youth would never -- were not willing to be.
Chris: Right.
Jeff: Right? And what you're talking about - those kinda early 60s dance jives or the occasional bossa nova number are sort of what makes them, to me, what brings them together.
Chris: Well, those are cool. I mean, "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House," that's a great song.
Jeff: Well, but I think what you're talking about is "Mr. Tough" --
Chris: Yes!
Jeff: -- on this same album. But I think that's a great song. I think you're outta your mind. So, you know, Eric went to go see them the other day and you know what they're doing now on tour, right?
Chris: No, what?
Jeff: They're doing this wheel of fortune thing --
Chris: Oh yeah?
Jeff: Yeah. So Yo La Tengo comes out on stage and they have this gigantic wheel, classic wheel of fortune like; the whole thing is divided into wedges and every wedge has something different written on it. So, one might say "All Songs That Begin With The Letter 'S'" and another might say "All Track Sevens" or "Songs From Movies." And one of the things on the wheel of fortune is "Classic Sitcoms." And, so anyway, an audience member is invited in stage to spin the wheel and whatever the wheel decides is what they do that night.
Chris: Oh, no way.
Jeff: Yeah, so, if you get "songs with the letter 'S'" then that's all they play for the first set that night. So Eric's at the show the other night and they spin the wheel and it comes up "classic sitcoms." Haha. So, so, the band comes out, and all of them have scripts from a Spongebob Squarepants episode.
Chris: Nice.
Jeff: And so then they literally do a script read of the entire half hour Spongebob episode. No music, nothing; just Spongebob. In the beginning it's funny, but, you know, after a little while people are sort of getting upset. In Chicago they did this and they did an episode of Seinfeld. They did the "Chinese Restaurant", appropriately enough, for you.
Chris: Haha
Jeff: See, and in a way that's a metaphor for what I'm talking about with their entire, you know, thing.
Chris: Right. Were you with us at the Yo La Tengo show all those years ago on campus?
Jeff: No. No, the first time I ever saw them was in 2006. That was the best rock show I ever saw.
Chris: Well, at the end of that one on campus that I went to, they did this hand jive encore and that was great.
Jeff: When i saw them, in 2006, they did two encores and the second was all requests. So that was nice. All right, that was your third song. What's next?
Chris: Uh-oh. We hit one.
Jeff: What is it?
Chris: "Into the Light," by jj.
Jeff: But that's not embarrassing. Again, this isn't -- that's got indie cred. It's Balearic and summery, whatever.
Chris: Yeah, but when i think about this now, this is probably a song that I won't listen to while I'm single. Hahaha.
Jeff: Right. I sorta get that.
Chris: Hahaha. I don't know why, but I couldn't put this on and clean the kitchen.
Jeff: You should put this on a playlist and call the playlist "Makeout Music for Making Out with Desperate Girls I Met on Match.com."
Chris: Hahaha
Jeff: You should make sure those girls never look at your computer, by the way.
Chris: Hahaha. Right. But it is just that sort of song that you have to have around in case a girl comes over that wants you to listen to that. Sort of make a quinoa dinner for them . . .
Jeff: Oh, god.
Chris: Hahahaha. And it's jj.
Jeff: Yeah, all right. So that was your fourth song. Fifth song, here we go.
Chris: Here we go. Richmond Fontaine.
Jeff: All right. What song is it?
Chris: "The Incident at Conklin Creek," which is basically --
Jeff: An Ambrose Bierce short story.
Chris: -- every single Richmond Fontaine song; they all have to do with someone who died prematurely . . . but had nothing going for them anyway.
Jeff: Hahaha. Yeah, that's fair.
Chris: So.
Jeff: Because alt country. Characters who work at a gas station in rural Nevada.
Chris: Or at a Casino.
Jeff: What album is this on?
Chris: The Fitzgerald. Which is by far their most depressing.
Jeff: Which is saying something for this band.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: Do you listen to them a lot? You used to, I feel like.
Chris: I used to, yeah, for like five years.
Jeff: All right. You don't seem to have much to say about this one. I certainly don't. Or, anyway, all I would tell you about Richmond Fontaine is this:
Chris: K.
Jeff: I have three Richmond Fontaine albums, I think. I like them all fine.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: To me they are the band that doesn't exist, in some ways. Like, I know you really liked them at one point --
Chris: Uh-huh.
Jeff: -- for me they are a band that is like a space-saver in my library. They are the beige hotel furniture in my iTunes.
Chris: You think so? I don't feel that way about them at all.
Jeff: Like, for me, if a Richmond Fontaine song comes on while I have the iPod set to shuffle, it is indistinguishable to me from any other Richmond Fontaine song and, after it is done playing, there would be no way for me to hum the melody or remember the tune.
Chris: Yeah, ok. That's definitely a thing.
Jeff: So --
Chris: They're quinoa.
Jeff: if you told those guys that you thought they were the quinoa of bands, i think they would take a busted beer bottle to your face.
Chris: Yeah, pretty much. It'd be bad.
Jeff: Chris. I am saying you are boring and so is the music you like.
Chris: Hahaha.
Jeff: God. What if Richmond Fontaine finds my blog? The other day, I posted a video of a song that I like and the artist saw it, I guess, and he "liked" my blogpost. And that was weird.
Chris: Oh, cool.
Jeff: Nooooo. No. Not cool. It was weird. I felt very weird about it. I mean, now I am worried that anything bad I ever said about a book I read or an album I bought or a movie I watched is going to maybe end up in front of the artist. Ugh.
Chris: Haha.
Jeff: I mean, I never thought anyone would see those posts. I mean, I know that's a crap excuse, but it's just that it's one thing if you are Charlie Sheen and you say something on Twitter or whatever, it is another if you're me.
Chris: Who was it?
Jeff: I mean, nobody big, really. But, you know, now I have to put that I said THAT on my blog, too. Ugh.
Chris: A band googling themselves. Whatever.
Jeff: Haha. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was song five. You get six.
Chris: I do?
Jeff: Well, the metaphor we're working with here is Russian Roulette, right? And I guess I just imagine that being done with a six shooter, for some reason? I dunno, man, you get six.
Chris: Okay, here we go. "St. Augustine." Band of Horses.
Jeff: That's good; that's a great song. I love this song.
Chris: Yeah, it's good.
Jeff: I dunno. You got anything to say about this?
Chris: I dunno. Honestly, I only listen to one song on this album and it's the first one, "The First Song."
Jeff: Is "St. Augustine" about, do you think, the place in Florida? Or do you think it is about the actual St. Augustine? I mean, I don't recall the words to the song, so.
Chris: Well, I dunno; I haven't listened to the lyrics in a long time. But if it's about the catholic, then someone in the band feels guilty.
Jeff: Haha. Chiara and I were just talking the other night about St. Augustine. I was reading about how he is sort of the classic bad boy turns christian or whatever but he wasn't really some great big sinner or anything. How he became this ultimate ascetic person, but his whole thing before that was as this kind of normal guy - not even some hedonist. His mother, apparently, convinced him to become christian and to dump the love of his life, who was the girlfriend he had for like fourteen years or something. She had his baby. And he was completely in love with her. He wrote about it later. He called her like "the One" and shit like that.
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: And he never had any physical relationship after that. He never had any interest in women ever again. You know, and then he invents original sin. So, you know, charming.
Chris: Haha. Yeah.
Jeff: But, I mean, he probably makes the hundred most important humans of all time list, right? He was this great philosopher and writer. Could he have even been great if he didn't give that all up?
Chris: No. Because his Confessions is credited with being the first autobiography. And that's all about giving that all up.
Jeff: What's the famous prayer he says he used to make? "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet"?
Chris: But not yet. Yeah. That's great.
Jeff: Yeah, I think so too. So, okay, Band of Horses. Clearly you've pulled the best roulette session of anyone. I'm convinced it is because you've simply not drunk purchased on iTunes enough.
Chris: Nah, that's in there.
Jeff: Or you've been erasing the shit music from your library or something.
Chris: Maybe I can find something for you . . .
Jeff: What would have been the most embarrassing thing to have had come up?
Chris: It probably would have been Style Council, actually. Maybe "My Ever Changing Moods."
Jeff: Is that really on there?
Chris: Yeah.
Jeff: So please, play us out with that, would you?
Chris: Yeah. (he finds it and presses play, turns up the volume and begins this shoulder shimmy that is out of this world)
Jeff: HA!
Chris: This is a Stacey band, all the way.
Jeff: Yup.
Chris: Can't you see her and Eric in the mirror, going like this: (he begins a more advanced shoulder pointing maneuver).
Jeff: Oh my god. I wish the audio recording could capture this.
Chris: Hahaha.
Jeff: I don't feel like this is the most embarrassing song.
Chris: It's kind of a guilty pleasure. I wouldn't play it for anyone else, except for you guys.
Jeff: Yeah, all right. I think we can shoulder-point our way out of this, then. On that note, Thank you, Chris.
Chris: Yeah. (continues his aggressive shoulder gyrating, shimmying, and pointing).
Friday, March 11, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
TMI (with X-Rays!)
Like some sort of renal al-Qaeda, these kidney stones have been hiding, sleeper cell style, planning for their horrible strike and now they are on the move.
This image of the inside of my abdomen shows that there may be as many as four of the little calciferous terrorists hiding in my urinary tract. They are the little round spots visible beneath and to the sides of my tailbone.
Kidney Stone Alert Level is now at SEVERE.
Here Are Four Quotes
"You are such a good drink, for a four o'clock drink."
-- Nadia Sirota, Violist, said to a Campari and Soda
"I don't think I go a day without accidentally eating an onion."
-- Eric Wing, Television Producer
"It is comforting to think that we can love so powerfully that fate itself wheels and turns at the command of our souls."
-- Roger Ebert, Film Critic (and the BEST)
"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."
-- Lord Darlington, from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
-- Nadia Sirota, Violist, said to a Campari and Soda
"I don't think I go a day without accidentally eating an onion."
-- Eric Wing, Television Producer
"It is comforting to think that we can love so powerfully that fate itself wheels and turns at the command of our souls."
-- Roger Ebert, Film Critic (and the BEST)
"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."
-- Lord Darlington, from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
My Postapocalyptic Kidneys
These two, shrunk down to the size of a pea, more or less, are even now thrashing and smashing their way through the tiny tubules of my left kidney trying to find their way out via the bladder and then, eventually, the urethra.
The assholes.
There is nothing that can be done, really. Just try to ignore them with pain meds, if I can get them.
Doctors are annoyingly difficult about this, even when you calmly explain to them about the Road Warrior themed professional wrestlers that were shrunk down and placed in your kidneys. Even when you demonstrate that you pee only blood.
You'd think that a person with angry shrunken wrestlers kitted out with spiked football pads fucking around in their internal organs could get a little help.
Besides. I'd be a piss poor drug addict if I only needed thirty percocets every ten months or so, right?
Eventually, the angry little cunts will escape from my urinary tract and I'll be free of them for a year or so.
While thrashing in slow motion and moaning into the bathroom floor tiles at four in the morning, this is little comfort.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The Jennifer Dispatches IV: Tim Sequiturs
Jennifer reports to me the following:
Tim woke up from a nap and started to wave his left arm around wildly like he was looking for an alarm clock to shut off.
When Jen asked what he was doing with his arm, Tim said "I'm trying to think of all of the simple classifications of flowers."
Jen giggled quietly and asked him if he knew what he had just said.
"Sure. Yes." he replied, as though she was the crazy one, and then: "I don't knooooooooooooow."
Then he went back to sleep.
Later, Tim had no memory of any of this.
Tim woke up from a nap and started to wave his left arm around wildly like he was looking for an alarm clock to shut off.
When Jen asked what he was doing with his arm, Tim said "I'm trying to think of all of the simple classifications of flowers."
Jen giggled quietly and asked him if he knew what he had just said.
"Sure. Yes." he replied, as though she was the crazy one, and then: "I don't knooooooooooooow."
Then he went back to sleep.
Later, Tim had no memory of any of this.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Oprah is THE BEST (at being THE WORST)
I am in the office, doing some work. Chiara is down the hall in the bedroom, watching Oprah. I cannot really hear the program, but I am suddenly aware of the whooping and hollering of a couple hundred middle aged women coming from the TV.
Me: What is all that noise? Did Oprah just give everyone some milquetoast country singer's CD?
Chiara: No, she let some kid play guitar with his hero, Lenny Kravitz.
I nearly laughed up a lung.
Me: What is all that noise? Did Oprah just give everyone some milquetoast country singer's CD?
Chiara: No, she let some kid play guitar with his hero, Lenny Kravitz.
I nearly laughed up a lung.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Chiara Heresies III
We are in the supermarket. I have been in the baking aisle, trying to select a baking soda. Chiara comes up behind me with the cart and leans in conspiratorially.
"Deed you see those missionaries?" she asks me, eyes wide.
"No, why?" I reply.
"They were soooooo ugly!"
"You mean because of their cheap suits or their 1950s haircuts or something?"
"No, I mean they were ugly. Like trolls."
"You mean they were just physically unattractive people?"
"Yes, and there was a group of them, all ugly like each other."
"Why do you care about this?"
"I would never believe in some invisible man for people so ugly."
"You mean you would consider it if they were better looking?"
She thinks for a moment, cocking her head for comedic effect.
"They'd have to be pretty hot."
"Deed you see those missionaries?" she asks me, eyes wide.
"No, why?" I reply.
"They were soooooo ugly!"
"You mean because of their cheap suits or their 1950s haircuts or something?"
"No, I mean they were ugly. Like trolls."
"You mean they were just physically unattractive people?"
"Yes, and there was a group of them, all ugly like each other."
"Why do you care about this?"
"I would never believe in some invisible man for people so ugly."
"You mean you would consider it if they were better looking?"
She thinks for a moment, cocking her head for comedic effect.
"They'd have to be pretty hot."
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