I often think of random and disjointed things, and have decided to record some of them here:
- Having finished In Search of Lost Time, I went back to Swann's Way and noticed that in the beginning of the book, the Narrator mentions that he has stayed, at one point, with a Mme. de Saint-Loup. I vaguely remember when I first read it and thinking she was probably some random old woman with nice furniture
- Byron and Keats died at 36 and 26 respectively, as did Pushkin and Lermontov. I thought this was a strange coincidence.
- Describing Eric's Trip to someone: is Slowdive meets the Stooges accurate? Or simply a Lo-fi Slowdive (for whatever reason I think the dynamics of both bands were very similar)
- If Chris Osgood does end up in the Hockey Hall of Fame, no member will have been so consistently out-played that I can recall. He's lost his starting job to Mike Vernon, Garth Snow, and Ty Conklin in addition to CuJo/Hasek and finally Jimmy Howard.
- I really should read some Balzac at some point, but I'm not particularly sure which part of La Comédie Humaine I should read (since I likely won't have time for all of it)
Monday, July 25, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
On my favorite band and end of youth
This article by James Hendicott from State Magazine says what has been coming for at least 5 years now: Idlewild, for better or for worse, does not have the same soul it had back in the '90's coming into the new millennium, and may have ceased to exist altogether. That is, per Hendicott, "the anger of the 100 Broken Windows/ Hope Is Important era seemed to be rocking on its last legs".
It shouldn't particularly be any surprise by now that the constituents of the group are going for a softer, more mature sound - Captain to Hope is Important to 100 Broken Windows to The Remote Part to Warnings/Promises all showed a similar progression, and artistically, that's the direction in which the band feels inspired, whether it's due to getting older, losing original bass player and noise rock aficionado Bob Fairfoull, or due to some other cause.
As nothing but a fan and a listener, I can only express my opinion, and I will make no secret of the fact that I wish they could continue producing an endless stream of 100 Broken Windowses forever (although, considering my feelings toward this album, it should seem to me impossible, since even Proust had only one Recherche and Carracci only one Galeria Farnese). A lot of Idlewild fans feel the same way, and lead singer Roddy Woomble has said that he feels the more mature sound appeals to more people, and will incorporate middle aged people who are often un-catered to in the music industry, and I appreciate that.
I will note, however, that part of what makes Idlewild's early oeuvre so special is the way in which it deals with issues that face only young people entering the world on a grander scale in a way that is so mature. Perhaps teenagers are generally rebellious without any particular reason. For me, however, there was a point at which Never Mind the Bullocks or early Clash records were no longer pertinent because the people around me in my age group, more mature or more drawn into the system of contemporary society, whichever way you see it, knew what they wanted to do with their lives and had no time for soul searching or rejecting any more of the status quo than they saw as permissible.
So perhaps there is a reason why I've connected so much to an album like Hope is Important or, even more-so as it remains my favorite record, 100 Broken Windows - because we both are on the verge of entering a world where it is no longer acceptable to rebel. For example, I remember trying one time to convince my college friends that collectivist anarchism was a feasible form of government, and they weren't really able to give it a second thought. This is the important connection that so many have to music - it provides hope in it's very existence, and hope is important (eh?).
100 Broken Windows is really the perfect album in a way. On the outside it conforms to every expectation (although nobody uses Times New Roman on an album cover). It's sound is very standard modern rock, it would seem to many (although the first time my mother and sister heard any of it, they found it very hard and grating. The first song they heard was "Idea Track", so that was probably a misrepresentation. They also haven't listened to McLusky to hear what it sounds like when actually psychopaths write music, making their attitudes toward style less desensitized). Underneath, however, 100 Broken Windows is unlike any other album. "Little Discourage" is all about success and failure, invention and iconoclasm; "I Don't Have the Map" is, interestingly now that I think about it, about learning to live without boundaries, and, it seems, the option to live according to an uncertain sense of authenticity or based on social expectations; "These Wooden Ideas" is probably the only song commenting on metaphysics that I can think of, and probably the cleverest lyrically that I know, a sort of rejection of tunnel vision in modern thought; "Roseability" seems like a song about attaching too much importance to things that are obsolete just because common wisdom says to do so; "Idea Track", the song that, when I first played the CD, showed me the true power of this album that I had bought on a whim, is about living in a world that no longer caters to one's mode of thought or existence; "Let Me Sleep (Next to the Mirror)" is a song about understanding and misunderstanding other people and working through difficult times; "Listen to What You've Got" is a song about people misunderstanding what seems obvious to other people and the awful pressure of needing to understand; "Actually It's Darkness", starting with it's cliché sounding introduction that I'm sure I played on a keyboard one time when I was 10, is a commentary on modern thought and paranoia and, while one of the lighter songs on the album, a strangely sarcastic and hypocritical look at our culture of skepticism and its effects; "Rusty" is a cynical look at society as a whole; "Mistake Pageant" is about social pressures and situations; "Quiet Crown" is about the human need to go home sometimes and escape the world of expectations; and "Bronze Medal" is a condemnation of the numbness imbued in all of us by modern conveniences coupled with a sad recognition of all of us who are doomed never to fulfill our dreams (by the way, they released a fantastically chilling demo version that is worth a listen): at least that is how I see it, since of course any writing is up to interpretation.
At any rate, I'm sad that for the foreseeable future 100 Broken Windows will remain one of its kind - a truly literary album that is both brutally honest and approachable. It made it possible for me to finish my freshman year of college without lining my room with cork tiles, and I wish there were different iterations so that I could know I would never get bored of this piece of art that truly changed my life.
In the article to which I linked above, Roddy says, "There are very few lyricists you can read as poetry. Maybe Dylan, Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits. The greats, but not too many other people. But that’s okay.” I had two thoughts when I read this.
- First I thought, "what happened to Slint and Fugazi? Are we all destined to move on?"
- Next I thought "You're lying. I've heard 100 Broken Windows, and those words mean as much as anything by William Carlos Williams, or John Milton, or Byron."
They probably actually mean more than anything by Pound or Marvell.
Just kidding.
It shouldn't particularly be any surprise by now that the constituents of the group are going for a softer, more mature sound - Captain to Hope is Important to 100 Broken Windows to The Remote Part to Warnings/Promises all showed a similar progression, and artistically, that's the direction in which the band feels inspired, whether it's due to getting older, losing original bass player and noise rock aficionado Bob Fairfoull, or due to some other cause.
As nothing but a fan and a listener, I can only express my opinion, and I will make no secret of the fact that I wish they could continue producing an endless stream of 100 Broken Windowses forever (although, considering my feelings toward this album, it should seem to me impossible, since even Proust had only one Recherche and Carracci only one Galeria Farnese). A lot of Idlewild fans feel the same way, and lead singer Roddy Woomble has said that he feels the more mature sound appeals to more people, and will incorporate middle aged people who are often un-catered to in the music industry, and I appreciate that.
I will note, however, that part of what makes Idlewild's early oeuvre so special is the way in which it deals with issues that face only young people entering the world on a grander scale in a way that is so mature. Perhaps teenagers are generally rebellious without any particular reason. For me, however, there was a point at which Never Mind the Bullocks or early Clash records were no longer pertinent because the people around me in my age group, more mature or more drawn into the system of contemporary society, whichever way you see it, knew what they wanted to do with their lives and had no time for soul searching or rejecting any more of the status quo than they saw as permissible.
So perhaps there is a reason why I've connected so much to an album like Hope is Important or, even more-so as it remains my favorite record, 100 Broken Windows - because we both are on the verge of entering a world where it is no longer acceptable to rebel. For example, I remember trying one time to convince my college friends that collectivist anarchism was a feasible form of government, and they weren't really able to give it a second thought. This is the important connection that so many have to music - it provides hope in it's very existence, and hope is important (eh?).
100 Broken Windows is really the perfect album in a way. On the outside it conforms to every expectation (although nobody uses Times New Roman on an album cover). It's sound is very standard modern rock, it would seem to many (although the first time my mother and sister heard any of it, they found it very hard and grating. The first song they heard was "Idea Track", so that was probably a misrepresentation. They also haven't listened to McLusky to hear what it sounds like when actually psychopaths write music, making their attitudes toward style less desensitized). Underneath, however, 100 Broken Windows is unlike any other album. "Little Discourage" is all about success and failure, invention and iconoclasm; "I Don't Have the Map" is, interestingly now that I think about it, about learning to live without boundaries, and, it seems, the option to live according to an uncertain sense of authenticity or based on social expectations; "These Wooden Ideas" is probably the only song commenting on metaphysics that I can think of, and probably the cleverest lyrically that I know, a sort of rejection of tunnel vision in modern thought; "Roseability" seems like a song about attaching too much importance to things that are obsolete just because common wisdom says to do so; "Idea Track", the song that, when I first played the CD, showed me the true power of this album that I had bought on a whim, is about living in a world that no longer caters to one's mode of thought or existence; "Let Me Sleep (Next to the Mirror)" is a song about understanding and misunderstanding other people and working through difficult times; "Listen to What You've Got" is a song about people misunderstanding what seems obvious to other people and the awful pressure of needing to understand; "Actually It's Darkness", starting with it's cliché sounding introduction that I'm sure I played on a keyboard one time when I was 10, is a commentary on modern thought and paranoia and, while one of the lighter songs on the album, a strangely sarcastic and hypocritical look at our culture of skepticism and its effects; "Rusty" is a cynical look at society as a whole; "Mistake Pageant" is about social pressures and situations; "Quiet Crown" is about the human need to go home sometimes and escape the world of expectations; and "Bronze Medal" is a condemnation of the numbness imbued in all of us by modern conveniences coupled with a sad recognition of all of us who are doomed never to fulfill our dreams (by the way, they released a fantastically chilling demo version that is worth a listen): at least that is how I see it, since of course any writing is up to interpretation.
At any rate, I'm sad that for the foreseeable future 100 Broken Windows will remain one of its kind - a truly literary album that is both brutally honest and approachable. It made it possible for me to finish my freshman year of college without lining my room with cork tiles, and I wish there were different iterations so that I could know I would never get bored of this piece of art that truly changed my life.
In the article to which I linked above, Roddy says, "There are very few lyricists you can read as poetry. Maybe Dylan, Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits. The greats, but not too many other people. But that’s okay.” I had two thoughts when I read this.
- First I thought, "what happened to Slint and Fugazi? Are we all destined to move on?"
- Next I thought "You're lying. I've heard 100 Broken Windows, and those words mean as much as anything by William Carlos Williams, or John Milton, or Byron."
They probably actually mean more than anything by Pound or Marvell.
Just kidding.
Friday, July 15, 2011
First Post!
This is my first post, so I'll just mention a couple things as starters:
- As a pedant, I chose to name this blog after the not particularly noteworthy but nonetheless remarkable character from In Search of Lost Time because I really do love Proust; the name itself reflects my own sense of anachronism; and almost as a hope that I should have the same mysterious and unpredictable talent, bordering on genius, that "I'm a wash-out" (whose real name is Octave - one of three people whom I can recall in the book whose names are in the dictionary, the others being Basin and that guy whom everyone calls Gri-gri but never shows up in La richerche) eventually displays in the art of theatre set design
- I may, assuming I post here, post on a number of different topics, and I don't predict that I shall end up specializing too much
- That was two, and that's all I have to say, but that is too small a number of subjects for bullets to be used, so yeah. Hopefully I post with relative frequency
- As a pedant, I chose to name this blog after the not particularly noteworthy but nonetheless remarkable character from In Search of Lost Time because I really do love Proust; the name itself reflects my own sense of anachronism; and almost as a hope that I should have the same mysterious and unpredictable talent, bordering on genius, that "I'm a wash-out" (whose real name is Octave - one of three people whom I can recall in the book whose names are in the dictionary, the others being Basin and that guy whom everyone calls Gri-gri but never shows up in La richerche) eventually displays in the art of theatre set design
- I may, assuming I post here, post on a number of different topics, and I don't predict that I shall end up specializing too much
- That was two, and that's all I have to say, but that is too small a number of subjects for bullets to be used, so yeah. Hopefully I post with relative frequency
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