Kablammo!
Death gods carving life, take their souls! Death!
Mano
May 31, 2007None of these quite made it as its own post.
- Setting the scene: a few weeks ago I began reading Nineteen Eighty-Four, and soon after, I finished reading it. (I quite enjoyed it, incidentally, though at times it seemed distressingly prescient, as though some people had treated it as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary example.) I mentioned reading it to an acquaintance, and he recommended that I read Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out in Paris and London next, saying they were his favorite Orwell books.
As it happens, last week I found myself unable to get Lodger’s “I Love Death” out of my head. (This will become more important later on.)
Also last week, I discovered that AFI Silver would be playing 七人の侍 (Seven Samurai), and the page about it also mentioned a film called Wild Strawberries, saying: “Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece is to cinema what Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past is to the novel: the definitive ‘memory piece’ of the art form.” This caught my eye, since memory is something I find fascinating, so I had it in the back of my mind as I made my way to go see Samurai.
I was humming Lodger to myself the whole way to the movie theatre, and after buying my ticket I had some time to kill before the screening actually began, so I figured I’d go to the Borders around the corner on the off-chance they’d be carrying an album by a Finnish indie-rock band. And maybe while I was there, I’d be able to expand my Orwell collection. Once I entered the store, I strode purposefully towards the music section, confident that I wouldn’t find the album I was looking for, and already consoling myself with the knowledge that my taste in music was hip enough that a faceless conglomerate with a brick-and-mortar presence couldn’t possibly satisfy me. Alas, they had exactly what I wanted, and I had to settle for being thrilled with my purchase. I vaguely browsed the music section a bit more, hovering over a best-of Country Joe and the Fish compilation before deciding against it, when I started looking for Bobby Bare Jr. As it turned out, this time I did in fact stump the record store, but since they did have some Bobby Bare [Sr.], I picked up an album of his that had a particularly glowing cover blurb: “Good-time outlaw country — One of the greatest live recordings ever!”
Music in hand, I made my way to the “Literature” section of the store, confident that a chain of bookstores that stocked eclectic Finnish CDs would have Orwell’s novels. They did have about eight copies each of 1984 and Animal Farm, but no Catalonia or Down and Out to be found, other than as excerpts in a compilation. Fuck that. Disappointed, I decided to look for that Proust memory thing I read about earlier. I found the Proust section quick enough (”Or” and “Pr” aren’t too far apart) and started looking at the spines of the books. I had a dim recollection of hearing about Proust as a writer of short stories, so I paid more attention to the slender books on the shelf and ignored the enormous tomes. After a fruitless search, I finally looked at the huge books in the Proust section and realized that this Remembrance thing was waaaay the fuck longer than I’d been expecting. Oh well, so it goes.
There have been a lot of times when I’ve wondered about the threshold of incongruity required for a cashier to comment on a purchase. Apparently this time I crossed it, since as he rang everything up, the guy exclaimed, “Country music and Proust!?“
- This Tuesday I discovered that my login for the timekeeping/payroll system at work had been deactivated. My supervisor got it straightened out in a few minutes, but it was still mildly disconcerting.
- I think I’ve crossed a Rubicon of sorts: I got a haircut today, without even being at the point where I’d been needing a haircut for weeks or months already.
Helpless automaton
May 25, 2007So I’ve basically been offered an ultimatum, and it’s entirely up to me to determine which way things will progress. The requirement for the ‘good’ result is eminently doable, I just have to bring myself to do it. Yet sometimes it feels like this is what I’m hearing:
“Sisyphus, if you don’t push that rock up the hill an extra time next week, we’ll take it away from you and you’ll never push another rock up another hill again.”
Faut-il imaginer Sisyphe heureux?
I wish I knew what I wanted. And I wish I knew which is a worse punishment: having my rock taken away completely, or having it replaced with a heavier one.
Friday 4.5.7
May 4, 2007Here I go again, with the end-of-week shuffle action . . .
- Weezer — “My Name is Jonas”
I keep thinking I like Pinkerton better than the blue album, until I actually go back and listen to the blue album again. The cleverness and dreadful melancholy of Pinkerton will always have a place in my heart, but as soon as the opening notes of “Jonas” come in, I immediately forget all that crap and brace myself for an album of unapologetic rocking. - Sublime — “By the Rivers of Babylon”
What can I say, I’m a sucker for acoustic guitars and soulful harmonies. - Pink Floyd — “Brain Damage (live)”
The only thing that was capable of making Dark Side better was rerecording it in front of a live studio audience. Studio audiences suck when they’re perfunctorily reacting to cues in the form of signs that say or some such, but when they’re legitimately enjoying the experience they can have an immensely positive effect, and that’s just one of the reasons why Pulse is so good. - Unbelievable Truth — “Home Again”
Even for somebody as hopelessly obsessed with mopey British bands as I am, this is a goddamn sleeping pill of boring crap. - Django Reinhardt — “Belleville”
Django and a clarinet: what more do you really need? - Beer is Bad — “Poo”
Have you ever seen that episode of That 70s Show where they set up a tape recorder before getting high, to archive all their pot-induced wit and wisdom for posterity? This was a similar idea, and I have to say it didn’t come out much better in real life than it did on TV. - Eels — “The Stars Shine in the Sky Tonight”
It’s one of the closing songs on a double-album, and it sounds like it — for better and for worse. - Feeder — “Radioman”
I bought this album because the title (Yesterday Went Too Soon) summed up how I was feeling at that particular moment (January 2 or 3, 2000). Also because it was in the bargain bin and only cost $2. Then I found out it’s actually quite a good album as well, and this song in particular entered heavy rotation on my mp3 player, which had a whopping 64MB capacity. Oh, to be young again . . . - Badly Wooden Head — “After the Party”
Fucker had two whole albums recorded already by the time he was my age. Sure, they’re “uplifting as a trainwreck”, but more importantly they’re good. Meanwhile I’m lucky if I can pull off one decent song a year. - Manu Chao — “Malegria”
The entire album Clandestino is too good for words, but honestly this is one of my least favourite songs on it. - Starsailor — “Talk Her Down”
Starsailor always walk a fine line between exhilarating and unlistenable, mostly because of their singer’s delivery, which is usually implausibly earnest and shamelessly maudlin, while somehow being even breathier than Matt Bellamy’s. It can be a lot to take, but in small doses it’s often very nice, and this song has a strong enough melody that it isn’t completely overshadowed by the giant sign saying “LOOK HOW SENSITIVE I AM, IS THIS NOT HEARTBREAKING?”
Powered by WordPress with Hiperminimalist Theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Valid XHTML and CSS.