Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt OR God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died this past week, but it is not true to say that we suffered a terrible loss with his passing.

There can be no question that his passing will be noted. If not all of us collectively, I, at least, will certainly miss him. But Mr. Vonnegut described to us throughout his life the one true, terrible loss we all suffer without exception. His work was an obituary he wrote to us over and over to remind us of a thing that was already gone, but one that he exhorted us to become aware of. His reminders were intended to move us, finally, to take the steps in our power to gain that thing back.

Our true loss is our discarded humanity. It is our shared international cultural goal to slip out of the bonds of kindness, rationality, and responsibility to one another faster than the next human in the race. In short, our terrible loss is our missed chance to be good.

We should be bereaved to see our curmudgeonly kind man of letters pass. He treated us as a friend, and we need as many of those as we can get. But do not take off the black crepe when the customary time for mourning a man and a friend has elapsed. Mourn then that in his stead among men of letters in our day there are few but dandies. Mourn then that among men of peace there are few with influence. Mourn then that, because of this, once our selfishness has seen to it that we’ve used up the means to support everything we’ve become, once we’ve surpassed our capabilities to replenish all the clever devices that support who we are, and once our balance of mutual enmity passes into a permanent and irreconcilable surplus- our computers, our stereos, our printing presses, our guitar amplifiers, our televisions, our automobiles, our trains, our refrigerators, our airplanes, our libraries, our roads, our post offices, our museums, our clean water, our food, our stories, our poetry, our art, our love, our families, our cultures, our cities, our civilisation- all of this, even the letters that make up the words you’re reading now, will probably be irretrievably lost.

And then, Goddamnit, stop mourning. Be different. Be kind. Be good. We don’t have any more time to waste.

Thank you, Mr. Vonnegut! Would that you could have said at the end, “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” Would that it might one day be true.

April 18, 2007
New York

Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.

Hi-ho.

We knew a time like this would come to pass. It wasn't the likes of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. who left us with our contemporary literary dandies in lieu of Voices. That is a parting gift we have left ourselves.


It is late now to remember to thank you, but thank you, Mr. Vonnegut.

lower east side demise

Mornings and Churches

The sky here in Manhattan has that blue-r than blue island quality to it this morning, and my walk home brought me past some archival footage of churches.

This photo was taken with my lovely phone.

Apologies for crookedness.

The Ghosts of Loves Unfinished

"Know this thing for certain," these the first words he forms in his mind as though they could be spoken when he wakes in the dark, though he does not actually speak, "Dreams will always betray you and how you think things are going."

When for weeks life was workaday, now those things whose constance was assured and assented to have been summarily brought back under review by the subconscious committee and rejected for fitness in one decisive motion.  In a meeting held as he slept, no less.

His compromise with life is to operate on scale.  His new job could be worse than it is.  The fact that it is better than his last job gives him a solace that will, for a time, function in lieu of success.  His wife is loyal and loves him honestly.  When he imagines his wife's love and the love of the woman he had let come before as neutral red foam bars rising up from the ground beside each other as though they are part of a bar graph quantifying and comparing the two varieties of intimacy and relationship, the sum total of his wife's kindness and honesty stands very noticeably taller than hers, the one he had committed to before,  she who was brilliant but prone to boredom, who had been very adept at digging him hollow like a native's canoe when his jokes and drinking were no longer funny and paddling him ably up shit creek.

Dreams will not re-read the pages of chapters written to their finish and ask what might have been.  Here the length and breadth of the betrayal of a dream is limited to wistful remembering, a fresh taste of the variety of loneliness that that one left you with unameliorated by time or rationalization.  The worst these dreams can do is sit on your chest like a succubus until you've shaken their weight off.  But that weight will always come off.  Demons you have exorcised will drop in for tea now and again, after all, but abide by a politeness not observed in that first breaking and entering.

When dreams team with the phantasms of loves that end by no impetus more robust than circumstance, however, there is the formula that dissolves the palliatives binding prosaic life like an enzyme, a perfect equation suited to the task of digesting the patchwork of acceptance of the way things have become until it appears ragged as resignation.

The dream brought her to him again, she whom he had been happy enough to see off, in whose bon voyage he carried little enough outward culpability, in the acceptance of whose departure he bowed to finance and a nascent career he wasn't particularly interested in.  She, too, young as she was, shrugged off the blow, apparently.

"I'll never know." he speaks aloud this time, lying on his back.

Greater than the hunger that is now awakening in his belly, and harsher than the weird lack of the caffeine his waking mind is beginning to crave, he feels the want to stop the feeling that he's been absolutely thorough in his life only in the pursuit of the wrong thing.

Almost all of his regrets begin with ellipses:

...and that's why I have to go to work in an office every day.
...and that's why I've never been published.
...and that's why I'm not free now to do what I want.

Only one of them, this morning, begins with gold blonde hair and eyes as big and blue and portending of a coming lack as they were once present and tangible in one summer in his life.  Only one of them makes him crave to hear French spoken to him early in the morning as he heard again as he was sleeping that night.

"J'embrasse, mon petit coeur."

Technorati Tags: Fiction

Murakami Magically Comes Around

I've said before that I could never tell if Murakami, with all his meticulously cataloged insight into people, was just fucking with us as he wrote each of his dull and unflinching, non-plussed heroes into some diamond-studded corner of miracles to let amazing experiences wash over them without blessing them with a single iota of an outlook-bending epiphany of self-awareness before eventually killing them. My struggle with Murakami has always been over that: Does he champion an insidious point, or is he winking and laughing as he plays the infidel, dishing up his perfectly socialized characters inured to their impossible fates by boredom in order to injure our own sense of order? Is the meat of his insight served not from the charming, off-beat magic of his fantasy worlds, but instead from the infuriating repetition of menu items, sandwich contents, beverage counts, technical recountings of deeds done and only thought about as weird fate closes in on a character not so much hapless, but wholly unmotivated to question or attempt to thwart his or her own end?

Well, I had given Murkami up for a fantastic nihilist, one whose charming descriptions of horrible fates wholly unavoided in some way advocated complacency. That was the conclusion I had come to even though it was thinking on his books that first brought to my mind the concept of didactic wrongdoing.

I'm still not sure exactly where he stands, but I am about 14 chapters into Kafka on the Shore now, and he's addressed this question more or less head-on. The main character, Kafka Tamura, is discussing his opinion of Soseki Natsume's The Miner. In discussion of the hero of that novel, Tamura complains that "...eventually, he gets out and goes back to his old life... But nothing in the novel shows he learned anything from these experiences, that his life changed, that he thought deeply now about the meaning of life or started questioning society or anything... He's totally passive. But I think in real life people are like that."

Aha! Murakami is, at least in some sense, aware of what he is doing! But, the second person in that conversation retorts with:

"But people need to cling to something... it's like Goethe said: Everything's a metaphor."

So which one is Murakami? Is he directly confronting critics like me here and then offering a one-liner pithy rejoinder for how his characters can remain so broken-spirited and Japanese to the end, come what may: talking cats, mad science, or sado-masochism? Or perhaps the metaphor as transparent as that: this character whose lack of ambition is so grating is YOU, social man, and the story I'm telling is supposed to feel wrong. Didactic wrongdoing is such a stretch, though, and it smacks of naive hero-worship of the author who brought me Pinball, 1973 and Norwegian Wood. Murakami could just as easily be as gifted and equally stunted by the violence of his socialization as Dostoevsky, another unflinching diarist of the human soul.

In any event, my curiosity is piqued.

What It Must Be Like to Record on a Quantum Avogadro's Number Track

I don't think I own another record more complexly committed to archival matter than Kahimi Karie's K.K.K.K.K.K.K.

The Weird Passion

In the recent batch of CDs I picked up at my local Virgin Megastore was A Bestiary of by the Creatures, a compilation of Robert Smith contemporaries the Creatures' early catalog of the Wild Things EP from '81, the Feast LP from '83, and the and Miss the Girl and Right Now/Weathercade singles from '83.

The Creatures are Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Banshees drummer, Budgie. Comprised thus of only rhythm and vox, this disc is an exploration of the textures evoked by layering complicated percussive patterns, spectral pads, cross-cultural/multi-lingual vocal samples, and Siousie's dirging... (Ok, I'm picturing Futurama's Zap Branigan saying this) ...eroticism. Listening through to the end of the disc yields the bonus of the final track, Right Now, a surprise horn-adorned jog into sexual immediacy's gape that, despite the horn line, still seems to rely more on vocal texture and drums than anything else to move the song along.

Now, how to describe all this without using all the same stock phrases that all goth reviews have used usque ad nauseum to express just how Siouxsie's choice of phrase and her unmistakable inflection (interspersed with assorted moans and sundry impassioned escaped utterings) combine to impart the certainty of a dire last chance irrespective of her subject matter?

This is a great disc, holding the attention with spare arrangements and experimental instrumentation and Siouxsie's timelessly terrible (in the old-testament sense) sex, a taste nailed on the tongue as she tickles the ears.


Siouxsie Photos

ignored monument to love, 14th st. and 1st ave, 50 degrees, clear skies and sunny.

Trans-Am Wanks Back to Life

As mentioned in the previous post, I picked up Trans Am's new disc the other day. What I like about Trans Am is that even what is apparently simple about their sound is, to the ear, beyond exacting. Trans Am are post-rock wank wunderkinder. They are a band that is just as likely to wow you with the tightness, subtletly, and complexity of their riffs as use their considerable talents for playing their instruments and manipulating the recording process to fuck with you as they explore an exaggerated iteration of some tangent of rock that has been fascinating them. Trans Am is on a two-record hot streak of solid playability. You cue Sex Change in your media util and there is no need to touch, shuffle, skip ahead, or in any other way molest the cool, reptilian confidence of the recording's progress from frame 00:00:00 to finish. Unlike Thrilljockey labelmates and fellow post-rock accused Tortoise or The Sea and Cake, Trans Am has always kept a strongly symmetrical and Krauty backbone to their rhythm section, along with an allegiance to eerie, aetherial synthesizers. The result is that, instead of producing rock music with the mutant shuffle of math and jazz flourishes, Trans Am assembles rhythmic rock songs of a length unoffensive to the pop-trained attention span, but with all the flourish, artistry, obvious skill, and penchant for oscillation between compatible time signatures and heretofore incompatible styles of instrumentation (distorted Vs. clean guitar, et & c.) of prog. Oh, and sometimes they chill you cold like Kraftwerk. The occasionally tongue-in-cheekiness of the lyrics is interestingly backdropped by the evident effort put into their elaborate instrumentation. Their wank is uncluttered and expansive on Sex Change. Particularly noticeable on this release is their development of their surgical metal guitar and their eerie, 70's prog church choruses. Standout track "Shining Path" grinds from start to finish through an aural world of driving light. Final track "Triangular Pyramid" sounds like it must feel to be thrown, as a titan, upon the merciless crags of some ancient mountain range as gold light pours from your god's wounds.

These guys know their shit and they know how to make a great album. Also check out Futureworld, Surrender to the Night, and the amazing paranoia-fest Liberation.

Wonderful

Ah, router troubles have ended. The long, local freakout appears to be ended. I picked up a few albums in recent days:

Mythmaker:Skinny Puppy
A Bestiary of:The Creatures
Sex Change:Trans Am
Telekon:Gary Numan

Reviews to follow. I feel like I've been cooped up in a box the size of a peanut. My mind is the magazine, my mouth is the AK- watch me spray. Ya'll.

Of Robots, Once Judged

I'm a little late getting to the criticism of the recent auto manufacturer advertisement featuring an assembly line robot being fired. The critical party has already kicked off with a fervor that has apparently produced results, but I'm still going to weigh in with my two cents. The argument and the results that it achieved were neither the argument that needed to be raised as a result of the commercials, nor were the results that were achieved appropriate.

The furor that was portrayed as erupting in the popular media over the recent ads, these ads having been first unveiled during one of the many big games of one of the many incarnations of the (!Sports Bowl!), were raised by an organization for the prevention of suicide whose charter includes, not surprisingly, raising awareness of and increasing prevention of suicide. Their primary beef with the ad in question is that in the course of the advertisement's short storyline, a redundant robot, unable to find fulfilling or fitting gainful employment following getting the pink slip for workplace incompetence, throws itself off a bridge, kissing all prospects a wistful goodbye in the hopes of a shameless oblivion.

The offended organization objected to the ad based on the portrayal of suicide. The auto manufacturer made an amendment to the end of the ad in question in response, removing the automaton's final act of surrender from the short story arc of the commercial spot's montage.

In the new version of the commercial, the robot does not "kill himself", but the overarching message of the commercial's plot remains intact. That is the insidious thing.

The commercial's portrayal of a robot being fired from its assembly line job for a single act of incompetence most willfully calls to mind the original automation of operations this conglomerate of conveyance manufacturers' undertook- the push for automation that vaporized Flint, Michigan, the story of which is recounted in filmmaker Michael Moore's breakthrough documentary, Roger & Me.

In the commercial, human and robot coworkers alike, apparently working in a peaceful and accepting harmony, look on sorrowfully as the management types eject the robot from employment for dropping a screw. This creates the first false impression of the ad, the impression that humans and robots on the assembly line are equals and can and do recognize each other as such, in spite of the acrimonious history between workers and management over the introduction of automated labor devices to the factory setting.

Workers and robots are not on an equal footing. For one, robots are obviously not human. They do not have human needs such as the need to eat or the need to support a family. They do, however, displace workers who, for a few generations were brought up solely to work in the plants of the auto manufacturers.

The second false impression created by the commercial is the apparent legitimization of the company's hiring and firing practices. In the commercial, the management is seen to be fair, in that it runs its business according to the same middle class values as its human workers- when someone is incompetent, they are not allowed to ascend to the acme of success, but are instead penalized with redundancy. However, can it be said that this company's drive toward profit for a few, one that cost so many livelihoods, was legitimate in its execution? Can it be said that the automation of the assembly lines and the ensuing loss of jobs was predicated on the same values as the middle class laborers whose lives were altered?

The third false impression perpetuated by the commercial is that the replacement of the workers and the atomization of the community the company supported, apparently undertaken under the directives of middle class values, was legitimate intrinsically, and not undertaken irresponsibly because automation was based on rags-to-riches, hard work will get you everywhere middle class values.

Overall, the commercial also serves to trivialize the induced sublimation of Michigan's prospects from stuff to vapor in its portrayal of human workers comfortably working alongside their replacements as though it is a natural state of things that has always been accepted. One of the very gripes brought up in Michael Moore's documentary Roger & Me was that this manufacturer attempted to herald its commitment to progress once before with an Epcot-like display of humans and robots working happily side by side singing some song about, essentially, moving forward at the cost of the human laborers' own displacement. In poor taste then, and no less so now, It's obviously not something that the company has put to bed as far as talking points and the influence of public opinion are concerned.

Robots cannot kill themselves. To suggest that they can and that it is funny is to mock the plight of the mob of unemployed laborers this company created. Robots would never feel pressed to review that as an option, unlike the laborers their implementation displaced.

San Fran in the morning.

Tata Steel

Tata Steel, as mentioned in the article the fellows from New York Reggae band Steel Pulse will link you on your mellow way to, has acquired Corus Steel. No word on whether the Tatas will seek to acquire New York Reggae band Steel Pulse, but it is a sure bet that members of New York Reggae band Steel Pulse would like to acquire some tatas. Am I right, fellas? Am I right?

pete's place

pete's place

One Thing, Having Occurred to Me...

A thing occurred to me altogether of a sudden whilst I stood singing in the shower this morning:
The National's "Baby We'll Be Fine" is an update of the Go-Go's "Our Lips Are Sealed". Oh, holiest of shit.

Tighten the Bunions, Screw Down the Tennis Shoes, Make Fast Loose Tread

So, into Friday. Are our teeth loose yet? We're burning up on entry to R&R, and I'm so tired I can hardly see straight.


Lambchop's Damaged came out in August of 2006. You might remember it as "The Summer What Meltede My Face Like Soe Muche Gumme, Oy Vey, What Withe Alle This Uff Da Heate."

I personally thought the summer before was worse, but then I didn't have an air conditioner that summer.

I have made this Lambchop recording a part of my daily ablutions. I know what you might be thinking- "What, another band that started with an adjusted country twang and has since shot well into the experimental left field? I have a LOT of Wilco records, thank you."

Well, alright. However, if you travel that pernicious path, traveler, you will not know the rich sentimental tonality of Kurt Wagner's nearly spoken, rumbling musings. You will not be treated with intimacy by the wry sense of humor that is the spool of yarn from which the songs are darned. You will not meander, fork in hand, through this garden to the feast of non-sequiturs, surprise revelations, instantaneous understandings of things past, that a story as then currently unfolding brought to the singer's memory.

It was the final track on the record that came on my headphones during a shuffle play sometime in the recent few months that remembered the album to me- the track "The Decline of Country and Western Civilization". It's a surprise cloudburst, erupting from a clear atmosphere of noise into something so dramatic it ought to be on stage evoking tears from the aristocracy. But, then, I'm a sucker for songs that subjugate all the most evil tendencies of humanity in order to tell an object of affection how good-looking they are.

This is a drum. Today you can buy it from Musician's Friend for $69.99 in American Currency (or the approximation of said currency floating in digital internets your web browser draws pictures of when you log on to your bank account).

When you hit this, everything becomes more awesome. That especially applies to rock band practice, which we had last night, and which included a guy who was nice enough to hit- not one of these, but a whole set of them- not once, but many, many times. I needn't tell you how much more awesome everything became with each successive strike of drumstick to drum. When you're a member of a band that has been seeking a drummer for a couple of months following the departure of your original drummer after your first show at the now-defunct Siberia, you get a real hard-on for having a drummer in band practice. Everything just fell together with the drunken synergy of a group of people who are on the same page, squeezing the juice that is music from our respective instruments like so many fucking amazing oranges into very tastefully designed juice glasses- perhaps the kind one might buy at Crate & Barrel.

I have been a fan of the glassware for sale at Crate & Barrel for some time. Very classy.

Man, my ears are ringing.



In addition to the above-mentioned Lambchop record, I have also been hearting Destroyer's Rubies by Destroyer. Hearting is something my girlfriend says, and it's pretty cool. It's when you replace your blood with something else, and your heart pumps that through your circulatory system, instead. Did you know that there is about 60,000 miles worth of tubing that comprises the human circulatory system? Needless to say, Destroyer's Rubies is really tired. Sorry, Destroyer's Rubies- you're going around a few more times, I'm afraid.

It's Friday, ya'll. Catch the girls, kiss them and make them cry.

GEARHORNY

Witness, the new offering from Keiyo Organ (KORG to the uninitiated), available in May. Rarr! The R3.