excerpt: poignancy
Clare is standing in the main room by a huge stack of new arrivals. Roger doesn't really like people fiddling with unpriced stuff, but I've noticed that he'll let Clare do pretty much whatever she wants in his store. She has her head bent over a small red book. Her hair is trying to escape from the coil on her head, and one strap of her sundress is hanging off her shoulder, exposing a bit of her bathing suit. This is so poignant, so powerful, that I urgently need to walk over to her, touch her, possibly, if no one is looking, bite her, but at the same time I don't want this moment to end...
meme infection and innoculation
printed in blue
"I have no idea why I obsessed about getting one of these notebooks. I don't really have a use in mind for it, but before purchasing one, every time I walked past one, I'd be overwhelmed by the urge to possess one. maybe I was simply overwhelmed by the desire to be hunched over one of these in some exotic location scrawling furiously passionate thoughts that needed to be expressed right then and right there. maybe I imagined that possessing a notebook like this would inspire me to fill it with great ideas I didn't yet have because I didn't yet possess such a wondorous medium for catching great ideas. I suppose, the bottom line is that I'm a sucker for great marketing."
Garden State (soundtrack)
my last year of school in chicago, some random evenings would begin with someone buying a couple of CD's or bringing CD's somewhere ("what are you up to?" "absolutely nothing, but I got music") and end with everyone in a living room crowded around a coffee table full of mudslides and beer. inevitably, some mess of rock and electronica provided a backdrop for fervent and entertaining conversations which were punctuated by the more tipsy of us exclaiming, "you've never heard of [the YADDA YADDA band]?!?! you MUST listen to them RIGHT NOW." as nerdy as it may seem, this wasn't a competition to belittle our friends and lord our extensive music knowledge over them. the evenings weren't frantic with strutting and puffing of nerdiness. well, not always. more often than not, these were evenings of simply enjoying good things; beer, music, company. it was us saying "savor this. relish its awesomeness."
during one of those weekends or between them or whatever, I got a wild hair up my ass to develop a playlist entitled "music to lay around and waste the day to." the goal was to create a mix that wouldn't put you to sleep, wouldn't make you feel antsy and wouldn't make you feel like laying around all day contemplating or just enjoying music was a waste of time. after awhile, milan and I managed to string together a series of songs which created a vague impulse to sit down and maybe recline a little, but nothing worthy of the title. the project was soon aborted or forgotten and filed under "random shit that would be cool to work on after I get a perscription for adderall."
the garden state soundtrack is what I would've tried to create, if I hadn't kept myself so busy with being lazy. the music is, for lack of better descriptors, refreshing. comforting. the songs seemed to be selected in the same "hey, listen to this, it's neat" way that we spent our weekends. so much of pop music nowadays seems to inspire or express angst, pain and irritation. or, the music is designed and manufactured to make us feel cool. "I broadcast my badassedness by blaring sheer cool from my speakers. acknowledge my might!" not that I myself don't occasionally roll my car windows down and crank up the ludwig van, but such constant brazen self-assertion and angst tires the soul. I find myself more and more easily exhausted by the clamoring and whining of "sir, I exist!" from those who haven't realized that, frankly, the universe doesn't give a damn.
take a break from all that. sit outside. put the album on. take a deep breath. let yourself be saturated in the everyday visceral. the soundtrack makes no demands of you or your attention except maybe one; drift. obey and after a few moments, I swear it seems like even the trees sway in time to the music. maybe I'm just a sucker for music that makes me want to lay down, close my eyes and smile. maybe 200 mg of caffeine is bound to make most people euphoric. whatever it is, this CD definitely inspires whatever bliss within you (even the most minute memory of it) to well up and sweep you away. some magic within the listless strumming and the gentle crooning inspires the sweetest melancholy, nostalgia, and optimism. cheers to the realization that so many ecstatic moments have come and gone, but should we choose, we can find ourselves immersed in more like them. cheers to the realization that a significant amount of our stress is about the insignificant. cheers to art that reminds us that the ecstatic can be found in the everyday.
buy this disc. savor it. relish its awesomeness.
Frances the Mute
honestly, I shouldn't be writing this review of Frances the Mute by the Mars Volta simply because I haven't listened to the damn thing enough to form what you might call a coherent understanding of the album. I think that should say something about the disc though. as mentioned in a previous post, Frances the Mute has been particularly disappointing because it was so highly recommended. my first impression was lost amid overwhelming waves of irritation, so I took a break from it before giving the disc a couple more earnest listens. despite some genuinely creative parts, I just can't call this CD "good." whether or not you do depends on how you answer the question, "can raging narcissistic genius still be considered genius?"
the album is kinda like a shitty action movie. over time, you learn to just disregard the bad parts and wait for the good ones. the good parts of this disc are moments of near brilliance. asynchornous conflicting harmonies thrash passionate driving soundscapes and all that bullshit. the music is undeniably novel. and in an era where most pop music is hyper-polished piles of shit, it's occasionally refreshing to hear something a little rough around the edges.
occasionally. but then again, mars volta is rough around the edges like $200 "broken-in" diesel jeans are rough around the edges. kinda, but not. a bunch of times you want to shake the band like the whining babies they are and scream "what the shit are you trying to pull here?"
all too often, rodriguez lopez screeches in the same way he imagines "true rockers" should screech and too many moments of the album are reminiscent of hair-metal jam sessions. parts of the CD are the musical equivalent of some moron rambling on about the moral implications of a science article he read in newsweek. smatterings of noise and dissonance are smugly thrown in between moments of harmony as if to demonstrate self-congratulatory musical enlightenment: "you just don't get it. you hear harmony AND dissonance, but we hear harmony IN the dissonance." wrong, asshole. sometimes, the emperor is just naked. that noise isn't music, it's just noise. and calling yourselves "progressive" doesn't give you license to shit into a jewel case and call it art.
variations on a theme by kaufman
"All is ephemeral, both what remembers and what is remembered"
-- Marcus Aurelius
I felt like the luckiest guy in the world to be able to be there, sitting across the table from her. Having pancakes in the middle of the afternoon of all things. I wanted to save that moment. Right there. Right then. I wanted to capture the essence of it, to put a label on it and file it away for the next time I needed it. I wanted to remember each feeling, each thought, each and every detail. I wanted to save whatever the hell it was that made me feel so good. I wanted to fold the comfort I felt upon itself and delicately set it aside so I could wrap myself in its warmth the next time I faltered.
Our plates arrived under piles of starch and sugar and other manifestations of pure goodness. Magnificence. Her eyes, nose, mouth were all a titter with the barrage of sensations. Her face glowed as she prodded the various concoctions in anticipation. She shot me an excited smile with raised eyebrows that said, "Do you see this? Doesn't it look great?" She looked back down and wrinkled her mouth as she concerned herself with how best to begin. Her delicate features furrowed as she considered how much and how quickly she could shovel food into her mouth while maintaining a level of daintiness.
She looks up at me. "Is this about me?"
"No. Sorry."
I'm not sure if she believes me. She pouts in mock disappointment. She is very pretty. She has these incredible eyes I keep getting lost in. Occasionally, I forget to keep my mouth closed when I look at her. "It's good. I like it so far. You're such a good writer."
"Not really. I'm stuck." I just saw Adaptation. Kaufmann got stuck. Then, he wrote about being stuck. That was pretty cool. I could be cool. But, I remember that annoying kid in junior high who wrote an essay about how he had nothing to write about and thought he was novel and clever until his teacher failed him as an object lesson to the other kids who were thinking about trying to be novel and clever. That kid was not cool. I don't want to be that kid again.
"Well, did this actually happen? You could write about how it actually happened."
"Not really. I have all these false starts and random snippets leading in directions I don't want to take it. Here's a piece I think I want to use, but I'm not sure." She looks down at the laptop. I try not to stare at her neck. I can never concentrate all that well when she puts her hair up. She is very pretty. I stare at my coffee instead. I take a sip and end up staring at her lips. Her mouth is slightly opened as she reads.
I was smiling like an idiot. There was something about the way she optimistically poked at her food. Something about seeing her enjoy herself. I want to say this something was "cute", but "cute" doesn't make me want to climb across the table to kiss her. "Cute" doesn't saturate me in pleasant memories. Lying in bed together on lazy Saturday afternoons. Walking down a quiet street. Her standing very close to me for a moment before kissing my neck.
"This is nice," she says without looking up. I chuckle. She smells good. What is it? Lotion? Perfume? It's intoxicating. My mind struggles for something witty to say.
"Yeah." Idiot. My mind slaps witty-things-to-say neuron for being incompetent. The neuron blames the perfume.
I felt pained. Some dull indescribable ache that for so long, I couldn't understand. The sight was a reminder of what no longer was and what no longer could be. The pain was the longing I felt for those days, the days of such simple contentment. Pancakes in the middle of an afternoon. That moment came so easily. Why did we live with such strained irritation? Hesitation. Distraction. Our moments reeked of effort. What had happened?
"What?" she asked. I had barely touched my food.
"What what?" I replied. This was how we now solved our problems; staring contests. Seemingly casual jousting over a torrent of emotions. I couldn't flinch first. I couldn't be the one to say "I need you. I love having you in my life" because if she didn't feel the same way, it would just be...
"No really, what?" She lowered her fork and knife as she looked at me with increasing interest. I may have been holding my breath. Her brow furrowed just slightly and she cocked her head to one side in an attempt to read the thoughts that are thrashing about in my mind. I felt my thoughts starting to etch themselves into my forehead. She still wasn't sure whether she should be concerned or amused, but this was a staring contest I was going to lose if I didn't come up with something quickly.
"I..." want to tell you that you're beautiful. am enjoying myself. need you. wish things worked out. am thrilled to be here with you. wish I bought roses for you today. don't know what to say. "... have something stuck in my teeth."
She touches her lips. "Aw. That's kinda sad," she says. She sits for a moment still looking at the screen. Thoughtful. Re-reading passages. She's very pretty. We're sitting very close together. Every breath I take is filled with her scent. What voodoo is this? I can't think straight to save my life. Is it my turn to speak? She says, "It's good though. How does it end?"
"I don't know yet. I have a few ideas..."-- none of which are coming to mind at the moment. I'm scrounging about for words. My mind is furiously slapping neurons. This feels familiar. She looks at me again. I am lost again. She bites her lower lip and smiles. Our faces are very close together.
"What?" she asks again.
Tell me what you think. Tell me how you feel. Tell me something has lingered. Tell me you've moved on. Tell me you miss getting pancakes too. Tell me something. Anything. "Nothing."
