My Favorite Music of 2017

Well it is that time again, time for my year-end review of my favorite music! These roll around so fast, it really is a marker for me for how fast time goes!  This year, however, since I am very crunched for free time, it will be a very abbreviated entry, but trust me that I have thought about this long and hard.  I start thinking about my year-end music list sometime around March, and throughout the year roughly 6 or 7 albums at one point in time are poised to take my #1 spot, so I am always thinking about it, but the entries will be short and sweet this year. (If you are interested in seeing how the lists of previous years went, you can see them here: 2016  , 2015 , 2014  , 2013  , 2012  , 2011  , 2010 , 2009  ).  I would also like to say up front that Neil Young recently released an album which unfortunately I have not been able to listen to as of this writing.  Also if you are used to getting a year-end mix disc from me, that will still be coming, they are going out in a few days.  If you don’t get these discs but would like to get them, send me a message! I love sending them. So without further ado, the list:

But first! haha. Some honorable mentions that didn’t make the top ten.  Honorable mentions:

Fleet Foxes, Crack Up, Willis Earl Beal, Turn, The Shins, Heartworms, Tori Amos, Native Invader, St. Vincent,  Masseduction, Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, James McCallister, Plantarium, El Ten Eleven, Unusable Love, Iron and Wine, Beast Epic, and a major shout out to Sufjan Stevens’ live album of Carrie and Lowell songs, which as a live album was released this year, but the songs were from a few years ago, but it was by far one of my favorite things this year.

Now, the top ten:

10.  Grizzly Bear, “Painted Ruins”

Grizzly finally, finally live up to the blissed-out art rock potential the showed on their early releases.

9.  The National, “Sleep Well Beast”

I love the National, and I love this album, but I was expecting it to vie for the top spot, but instead I only love it and am not obsessed with it.  I want to see them evolve more.

8.  Run the Jewels, “Run the Jewels 3”

Ok so this albums was released in December 2016 but the PHYSICAL copies weren’t released until 2017, so I’m backdooring it.  Hey, if you aren’t listening to RTJ, you literally don’t know what’s going on.

7.  Father John Misty, “Pure Comedy”

A few of the songs on “Pure Comedy” are so good they’re practically transcendent; on the strength of those 4-6 songs, this album deserve all the accolades it is getting. Next time, though, we need less fluff.

6.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “Luciferian Towers”

End-times post-rock for the new world; instrumental dirge music that manages to be hyper political.  Godspeed is never less than earnestly terrifying, and they haven’t lose their edge.

5.  Mogwai, “Every Country’s Sun”

It’s a rare year for me when out of the two post rock bands on my list, anyone beats Godspeed, but Mogwai’s new album is a leap forward for them (which is saying something, since they have been around for like 20 years).  It is tender, and brutal, and irreverent.

4.  Real Estate, “In Mind”

This band’s entire aesthetic is about being understated and melodic.  Here they’ve cracked the code for how to do that and be dramatic, too.  Each song crackles.  Your nerves feel this album.

3. Prophets of Rage, “Prophets of Rage”

This album has taken a lot of flack, and yes, it is far from perfect.  But the bright spots–“Who Owns Who”, “Living on the 110”, “Unfuck the World”, “Strength in Numbers”, aming a few others–are so glorious (especially after repeat listens) that the downsides of this project should get a pass.  Could they have done better? Sure.  But who else is even doing anything like this? It truly is a soundtrack for the revolution.  Please give it some spins.

2.  The War on Drugs, “A Deeper Understanding”

In all my years making year-end music lists, I’ve never had a harder time deciding between two albums for the top spot.  This album is astonishing.  Rather than try to do it justice, I want to quote from a review of this album in Pitchfork which I found not only perfectly encapsulated my thoughts on the album, but was itself an amazing piece of writing:

“The band’s lyricist Adam Granduciel doesn’t create fully-drawn characters (other people are phantoms or wishes or memories in his lyrics) but there’s always a desire for connection, and he lets in just enough light to make it seem possible. The album’s first single was the epic 11-minute travelogue “Thinking of a Place,” with a glowing synth swell reminiscent of Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4 and a patient tempo that suggests a slow walk through the woods in the dark, the kind where you keep your hands out in front of you, feeling for branches. It turned out to be an appropriate introduction to this record because “thinking of a place”—somewhere where you can lose yourself, get out of your own head, somewhere else—is what the whole record is ultimately about. A different songwriter—someone like Neil Young, say—might sketch out what this place looks like, tell us about who we might find there. But Granduciel can’t, or doesn’t want to. And that lack of articulation, that inability to identify the source of pain and the path to redemption, becomes another of the record’s themes. But all that happens beneath the surface, almost subliminally; it’s the impossible sweep and grandeur of the music that tells the real story, of how a rush of sound can take us somewhere we can’t explain.”

I mean, yes.

1.  Arcade Fire, “Everything Now”

This album has taken a lot of flack in the press, mostly because (I think) it’s not what anyone expected.  It is markedly different than their previous albums, much shorter, and veers into pop sound.  But the fact is, it is just so good.  There was a point where the CD stayed in my car stereo for over three straight weeks.  The songs are catchy but artistically sound, the theme of the album well-thought out, important, and brilliantly executed.  Yes, there are two clunkers, but the rest of the songs are absolute solid gold.  Time’s going to bear out that “Everything Now” is, in fact, a rock classic.

 

He Likes Sunbathing

Today, Boy and I went to the pool in our development for some late summer swimming. The water was freezing, but the company was terrific, and the sun was shining. After about half an hour we took a break and sat on a bench eating some snacks. Suddenly, something hit me in the chest with a thud. I was shocked and bewildered, and quickly realized it was in fact the largest fly I have ever seen. I guess it is what they call a horsefly, although I have no idea what it scientifically is called. This fly, which after running right into my chest circled around Boy and I for a few minutes, was, hands down, one of the largest insects I have ever seen. It landed on us occasionally, and I swear it was the size of a small rodent. When it landed on you, it had true heft, you could feel its weight on you. I won’t deny being a little creeped out, and I did continually wave it away from me, but naturally, the thought of ending this thing’s life never crossed my mind. Why in the world would it?

After a few minutes of this fly circling around us, it became evident that we were not the first people at the pool to have noticed it, and now a lot of eyes were trained on us, watching us deal with it. A few minutes after it encountered us, it landed on the concrete sidewalk about ten feet away from us. One of the local girls who was also at the pool, probably about ten years old, sat a few feet away from it, staring at it in disgust. She held in one of her hands a flip-flop. She looked at me, assuming that I would be in league with her on this, and she said to me, I hate flies, and she inched toward it raising the flip flop. I said in a calm tone, It’s not hurting anything, leave it alone. What I said must not have registered very much, as it is an unusual stance about insects so it usually washes over people at first. She continued to advance on it and raised the flip flop higher and repeated her statement, I hate flies. Before she got any further I said in a sharper, more urgent tone, It’s not going to hurt you. Please don’t kill it. 

Before I tell any more of this story, I think it is important to note that I am in no way telling this story to get kudos for saving this fly’s life. Asking people around us not to senselessly kill animals who are minding their own business is, in my opinion, the very least we can do, and is not something we deserve kudos for but is in fact a moral obligation. That being said, I will continue the story.

The interesting thing is that when I pleaded for her to not kill it, you could see some sort of flash of recognition across her face. It is probably likely that in her life she had never heard anyone plead for the life of an insect. And although she was about ten years old, which in the grand scheme of how we form our worldview is actually rather old, she is still young enough that simple truths like that can penetrate in ways that the psyches of older people don’t allow. A second after I pleaded for the insect’s life, and the flash of recognition happened to her, she looked at me and gave a little smile, looked back at the fly, and almost seemed to look at it with affection. After a few more seconds, she looked at me and said, He’s sunbathing! He likes sunning, doesn’t he? I said, he probably does.

Boy–who of course is no stranger to this rhetoric and is fully on the “don’t kill insects” team–none-the-less wasn’t so sure about my authority on this particular issue. “How you know it likes suntanning?” He asked me. I don’t, I said. But I bet it does, most people do. And then, looking at the girl again, I said, But one thing I do know is, it doesn’t want to die. Nothing wants to die.

The girl walked away, and over the next few minutes I heard snippets of her conversation with her friends, and she kept saying, The fly like suntanning, the fly likes sunning.  Kids are so receptive to these simple ideas, which almost certainly means they are universal truths that we are born with and culture shoos us away from.

The argument I always come back to in any sort of discussion about veganism, animal liberation, animal rights, etc etc, is that things don’t want to die. People can talk about humane conditions or slaughter, humans being natural carnivores, or even justify eating certain creatures of the sea because they lack certain elements of a nervous system, but sentient beings don’t want to die. Things want to live. Even insects. Even worms. Animals want to live.

Men, Keep Your Shirts On

Men, keep your shirts on.

Listen, I know this sort of ideology really makes lots of people groan, even so-called “liberals” who can often be heard to say “I’m all for (fill in the blank) but enough is enough!”  But usually, when you find yourself saying enough is enough, that usually means you might actually be approaching the line of what is right and just.

When you were growing up, did you ever think to yourself, Isn’t it weird that men or boys can walk around with their shirts off and women can’t?  I’m willing to wager you did think that, probably sometime between the ages of five and ten.  You thought it because it’s OBVIOUS that it’s strange; like so many other oddities you thought of as a child (“Isn’t it weird for humans to drink the milk of a cow?” and “If people of other races are just like me, why do we treat them differently?” and maybe even “If police are here to protect me why do they scare me?”) our culture has a buffet of fictions it has produced that you are fed with such alarming regularity that, after you are a fully acculturated pre-teen, you take these oddities to be self-evident normalcies.  Men can go topless, women can’t.  That’s just the way it is.

Of course, this isn’t about shirts or nipples; not really.  It’s about living in a land where, even with all the strides we’ve made toward gender equality over the past 50 years, the most basic “stories” of our culture still seek to control the woman and set the man free.  We can work toward pay equality, and make superhero movies about women, and all these wonderful things that truly are wonderful, but until we change the most basic tenets of our culture (practically our entire language is about men, women’s clothes aren’t functional or comfortable, women are judged on their appearance to a degree beyond male comprehension, and on and on and on and on) any man who is even moderately awoke to this fact is absolutely obligated to do everything they can to combat it.  And it is absolutely imperative that we not do something that our female counterparts would be forbidden by law to do simply because of their gender.

To walk out of your house without a shirt on is to take part in systemic inequality of the most deeply-rooted, insidious sort.  Who do you think you are, walking around bare chested?  My fiance is not able to do it–so how dare YOU?

I don’t care if you have six pack abs or a beer belly.  I don’t care if you are working out or sunbathing.  It’s not OK.  Once you are “woke” to this fact, a man walking around shirtless can seem, in fact, downright sinister. (I must admit here a caveat: I swim shirtless at our apartment complex because it’s an actual rule there, but I’m working up the courage to stop doing that).

I understand many people I know, after reading this very simple, straightforward statement will still want to argue with it.  This is natural, because the fiction you’ve been told has strong sway on you (even when you are the oppressed class). All I ask is that you let it sit within you for awhile, before pushing back.  Think about it when you see a shirtless man go running past you.  If he were running with a woman, she’d have to be shirted–and hotter and less comfortable.  Let it stew.

On Anti-Fascism, Veganism, Church-Going

1.

 

There are certainly plenty of words out there in the world right now about the current state of our country, and our president, and protesting, and on and on. I realize there’s not a whole lot of original thought I can add to the mix, especially since I am far from an expert on these matters. But I feel as though I should at least take a brief moment here to elucidate exactly where I stand. So here is my elucidation: free speech is an awesome thing. It is one of the truly great things about America. An open and fair exchange of ideas is crucial to maintaining an evolving culture free of dictatorship. However, many folks have pinned this down as the absolute unchangeable linchpin of America, and believe it to be boundless and without exception. And, to the letter of the law, they’re mostly right. The Westboro Baptist assholes have the right to their hate-mongering, and Free Speech lovers like to say things like, “I hate what they’re saying, but I’d fight to the death for their right to say it.”

See, the thing is, some ideas don’t need room to breathe. I grant you that these ideas must be limited to very few, otherwise “free speech” as we know it ends. But ideas that espouse the denial of basic human rights to other citizens DO NOT NEED PROTECTION. Your precious “free exchange of ideas” does not have to extend to Nazism, white nationalism, or other hate rhetoric which, once given any sort of official platform, becomes normalized. The word “Nazi” is getting thrown around a lot in the media today, but only with the pallor of the Holocaust implied. It’s time we said it out loud: we need to take every pain we can to prevent anything even CLOSE to the wholesale murder of citizens from happening again. And it starts with labeling groups, sanctioning hate, rounding people up. This sort of activity has begun in this country. And we can no longer sanction speech that furthers these ideas. I’m not suggesting we outlaw it—that would be tricky—but the citizen policing of this vile threat is perfectly fine by me. Well beyond “punching Nazis”—WHATEVER IT TAKES.

We have seen how these kinds of things end.

2.

On a similar but totally separate topic, allow me to wax whimsical for a little while on the topic of veganism.  I’ve addressed it a little bit previously in the blog but on the whole, not nearly as much as I’d like.  I’ll try to be really gentle about this.

See, I totally get why you non-vegans get really touchy about us vegans.  Veganism–and animal activism–is really the only philosophy I can think of where, by virtue of subscribing to it, you thereby indict literally everyone else who isn’t following it.  Non-vegans sense this (usually unspoken) friction just by someone announcing they are a vegan and become defensive despite a vegan not even directly addressing them on the topic.  This is understandable; as I said, the non-vegan (henceforth referred to in this blog as carnists) senses that their very status as a meat eater means they are at odds with my worldview.  This is not incorrect.

Like any group of people, vegans come with many nuanced views and philosophies.  Many believe that we should be gentle, encouraging, non-confrontational, educational.  Some believe we should work as hard as we can to disrupt the status quo and that by causing loud friction within the world, we do the most to help animals.  Still others just want to be vegan–eat no animal products–and leave it at that.  Obviously, I mostly adhere to the disruption school, but on the whole, I say if you’re a vegan, I’m not overthinking how YOU want to do it.  But my belief that animals are our moral and ethical equals forces me to try to change their plight as quickly as possible.

If you’re a carnist, you have to understand that I don’t think you’re a bad person or an idiot.  How could I? I ate meat until I was 38 years old!  And I fully understand the ways in which our modern culture raises all of us to have blinders on when it comes to the misery the meat, dairy, and egg industry causes, but even more than that, the way our society ingrains in us the belief that we are superior to animals–so superior that we can actually create FACTORY FARMS of them.  The mechanism that can make us all blind to this is powerful.  It isn’t your fault that you don’t see it.

But see, it’s my job to try to wake you up.  And this is where I fail.  On social media, in “real life” interactions with friends and family, I still care more about your comfort and “keeping the peace” than the animal who suffers so terribly so that you don’t have to change.  Many, many people think that since I’ve become a vegan, I’ve changed, become “smug” or “judgmental”–but the problem is, I’m not even doing nearly enough.

For fuck’s sake, they’re out there right now–in the damp cold, in tiny stalls, being force fed, they can’t even turn around, they’re covered in their shit, and they know–those poor, poor animals, they know.  

And I’m not saying or doing enough to help them, just so I don’t rock the boat.  What monsters we are!

3.  Check out this masterpiece Philip Larkin poem:

“Church Going”

by Philip Larkin

Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
“Here endeth” much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation – marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these – for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

My Favorite Music of 2016

It’s that time of year again, oh friendy friends!  Time for my favorite music of the year blog!  For those who haven’t slogged through these before, allow me to get these perfunctories out of the way:

1. All music on this list is NEW music that was released in calendar year 2016.
2. A mix CD of songs from my list can be easily obtained by messaging me and asking.  Those on my “mailing list” will receive one without asking.
3. I am not saying this was the “best” music of 2016.  I used to say that but people got their undies in a bunch.  I’m just saying it’s my “favorite”.
4. If you’re interested in lists from years past, they can be found here:
   My Favorite Music of 2009My Favorite Music of 2010My Favorite Music of 2011

   My Favorite Music of 2012

   My Favorite Music of 2013

   My Favorite Music of 2014

My Favorite Music of 2015

And before I proceed with this year’s list, I’d like to address what was probably my biggest disappointment of my music listening life: this year’s Band of Horses release.  When I heard of the album, and learned it’s title, and saw the artwork and read the tracklist, I was perhaps the most excited I’d been for a new release since the height of my Pearl Jam fandom.  I fully anticipated making it the number one album on my list this year.  Instead, it does not even appear.  The reviews were very mixed–some were ecstatic whereas others reacted quite like I did, and many were very neutral.  So obviously it can be heard many ways.  I personally, after listening about ten time during it’s first month of release, may never listen to it again.

I’d also be remiss if I did not mention Prophets of Rage, a supergroup combination of Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, and Cypress Hill.  Again, many detested it and many loved it; I loved it and thought it was beyond the bee’s knees.  However, for the most part, it was not new music, and it does not make the list, but it formed a very important part of 2016 for me.  In addition, Neil Young+Promise of the Real released a live album, Earth, that felt as fresh and vibrant as a new studio album and I listened to that thing like crazy, but again: not really new.  Now: my list!

15.  Explosions in the Sky, “The Wilderness”

14.  Ray LaMontagne, “Ouroboros”

13.  Public Enemy, “Man Plans God Laughs”

12.  Kiefer Sutherland, “Down in a Hole”

11.  DJ Shadow, “The Mountain Will Fall”

10.  A Tribe Called Quest, “We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service”

The Tribe’s triumphant return was well worth the wait, with lyrics poignantly reflecting the temper of the times and thankfully light on misogyny.  And the beats are dope.

9.  M83, “Junk”

M83’s new album is a kind of throwback space funk jam-off, like a ride in a technicolor elevator, with purple felt walls.  Impossible to dislike.

 

 

 

 

 

8.  Warpaint, “Heads Up”

Warpaint have now built upon the dark, groovy introspection they created in their first two albums with more intricate jams and a subtle pop sensibility; their musical landscape is now a universe all their own.

7.  Mexico City, “When the Day Goes Dark”

This powerful Australian band hadn’t released any new music for six years.  Their return was worth waiting for, as they morphed from terrific bar band into a piledriver of country and blues rock.  A potential classic.

 

 

 

 

 

6.  Jim James, “Eternally Even”

The mastermind behind My Morning Jacket didn’t connect with me on his first solo album a few years back, but this year’s “Eternally Even” tickles my Jacket bone.

5.  Paul Simon, “Stranger to Stranger”

Simon is never bad.  But as he ages, I seem to keep thinking he is getting better and better; his lyrics become more adventurous (from The Werewolf: “The fact is, most obits are mixed reviews./ Life is a lottery, a lotta people lose./ And the winners, the grinners, with money-colored eyes/ they eat all the nuggets, and they order extra fries./  But the werewolf is coming.”), his music more modern, playful, daring.  “Stranger to Stranger” is a delight from start to finish, but especially for those familiar with his full body of work; his evolution is a bewildering achievement.

 

 

4.  Emily Wells, “Promise”

Wells is an astonishing talent, and “Promise” proves she’s an artist worthy of canonization.  Eschewing her previous catchy violin hooks and hip hop undertones, here she digs deep–the level of introspection at times becomes hard to watch.  But ultimately, while not an album of happy, singalong songs, “Promise” proves instead to be a key addition to any music library concerned with–frankly–the meaning of life.

3.  Radiohead, “A Moon Shaped Pool”

What’s still to be said about Radiohead?  They are as good as everyone says, as is this album.  Including a studio version of “True Love Waits” (re-worked for piano) nearly broke me in half.

2.  Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Skeleton Tree”

Cave’s son died tragically while the band was recording the album, and it can be heard in every sound.  It’s a quiet, low-tempo, mostly spoken-word collection of songs, and it is not for the faint of heart.  It is brave, and it is terrifying, but it does not wallow.

1.  Bon Iver, “22, A Million”

I haven’t said much about this album online, as I grew into it slowly, and it came out shortly after a few albums I’d been talking about at length, so I figured I’d stop clogging up everybody’s feed with my music stuff.  But as I kept listening, and listening, and listening, it became clear this album was not going to go away. It is an album of absolutely confounding elements–it incorporates so many genres, styles, and influences, it’s amazing it is coherent.  And it sometimes approaches unlistenable, as vocalist Justin Vernon simply sings through a synthesizer without any music for long lengths of time.  But ultimately it’s not about being catchy, or easy, or even “artsy”.  The album is a true experience, and one that is deeply felt.

 

Favorites, 2016

Back in the old days of the Notes, I used to write a lot more about music, movies, and books, and I would every so often post updated lists of my absolute favorites of things.  Not due to any pressing interest from the public, of course–mostly just because it’s fun for me, and also because having such a blog post can be quite handy during discussions online; I can just link someone to the entry to aid in a discussion of favorites.

Of course this is not to be confused with my annual “Favorite Music” list, where I detail my favorite music released in the previous calendar year; these lists detail my current all-time favorites, which are (like yours, of course) constantly changing.

Looking back at my entries, it appears as though I haven’t done a big posting of lists since 2012, so I’ll make this one fairly comprehensive.  All of these lists have changed since 2012–some very little, some quite dramatically:

My top ten favorite poets

10.  Jane Kenyon
9.   Robert Creeley
8.  William Carlos Williams
7.   Sylvia Plath
6.  Billy Collins
5.  Denise Levertov
4.  E.E. Cummings
3.  Philip Levine
2.  John Updike
1.  Philip Larkin

My top 10 favorite film directors

10.  Federico Fellini
9.  Sidney Lumet
8.  Alejandro Inarritu
7.  Christopher Nolan
6.  Paul Thomas Anderson
5.  Alfonso Cuaron
4.  Stanley Kubrick
3.  Werner Herzog
2.  Alfred Hitchcock
1.  Terrence Malick

My top ten bands

10. This Will Destroy You
9.  My Morning Jacket
8.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor
7.  Radiohead
6.  Seven Mary Three
5.  Hey Rosetta!
4.   The National
3.  Band of Horses
2.  Modest Mouse
1.  Arcade Fire

 

My top ten music solo artists

10.  Tracy Chapman
9.  Ray LaMontagne
8.  Father John Misty
7.  Leonard Cohen
6.  Jim James
5.  Nina Simone
4.  Willis Earl Beal
3.  Emily Wells
2.  Paul Simon
1.  Neil Young

My top ten favorite (non-documentary) movies

10.  Citizen Kane
9.  Night of the Hunter
8.  Fitzcarraldo
7.  Magnolia
6.  The Trouble with Harry
5.  Children of Men
4.  Where the Wild Things Are
3.  The Thin Red Line
2.  I’m Still Here
1.  The Tree of Life

My ten favorite novelists

10.  Malcolm Lowry
9.  John Steinbeck
8.  Isaac Asimov
7.  Ernest Hemingway
6. Oscar Wilde
5.  Kurt Vonnegut
4.  Mark Twain
3.  David Mitchell
2.  Don DeLillo
1.  Dave Eggers

My top twenty favorite books (any genre, fiction or nonfiction)

20.  “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole
19.  “Slade House” by David Mitchell
18.  “The Terror” by Dan Simmons
17.  “You Shall Know Our Velocity” by Dave Eggers
16.  “Point Omega” by Don DeLillo
15.  “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell
14.  “Fallen Founder” by Nancy Isenberg
13.  “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde
12.  “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
11.  “Under the Volcano” by Malcolm Lowry
10.  “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” by Dave Eggers
9.  “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway
8.  “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut
7.  “Dubliners” by James Joyce
6.  “Letters From the Earth” by Mark Twain
5.  “White Noise” by Don DeLillo
4.  “Endurance” by Alfred Lansing
3.  “Your Fathers, Where Are They?  And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?” by Dave Eggers
2.  “Into the Wild” by John Krakauer
1.  “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck

My top twenty favorite albums

20.  “Funeral” by Arcade Fire
19.  “Nobody Knows” by Willis Earl Beal
18.  “High Violet” by The National
17.  “The Battle of Los Angeles” by Rage Against the Machine
16.  “Swamp Ophelia” by Indigo Girls
15.  “Mirrorball” by Neil Young
14.  “Dis/Location” by Seven Mary Three
13.  “Abbey Road” by The Beatles
12.  “Graceland” by Paul Simon
11.  “Bitches Brew” by Miles Davis
10.  “‘Allelujah!  Don’t Bend!  Ascend!” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
9.    “Kid A” by Radiohead
8.   “Strangers to Ourselves” by Modest Mouse
7.   “This Will Destroy You” by This Will Destroy You
6.   “Time Out” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet
5.   “Secret Samadhi” by LIVE
4.   “Infinite Arms” by Band of Horses
3.   “The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire
2.   “RockCrown” by Seven Mary Three
1.  “Into Your Lungs (and Around in Your Heart and On Through Your Blood)” by Hey Rosetta!

 

My top five composers

5.  Philip Glass
4.  Cliff Martinez
3.  Hans Zimmer
2.  Felix Mendelssohn
1.  Carl Nielsen

My top ten painters

10.  Edgar Degas
9.  George Bellows
8.  Mark Rothko
7.  Johannes Vermeer
6.  Mary Cassatt
5.  Maurice Prendergast
4.  Thomas Eakins
3.  Henri Rousseau
2.  Andrew Wyeth
1.  John Sloan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Don’t Like Winter

So stop pretending you do.  When I complain about the impending season, stop saying you look forward to the snow, the cold, the wind, the darkness, because you don’t.  A small, tiny, truly insignificant portion of the human race actually likes the winter.  Do you know why?

Because it’s horrible.  It’s wretched.

You don’t like the way the pervasive cold seeps its way into everywhere, cracking things, drying them out, rendering them lifeless and without use or beauty.  You don’t like the way it gets dark at noon, casting a horrid gloom over the world, forcing you to turn your car headlights on for a short afternoon drive to the Wal-Mart.  You don’t like getting bundled up in clothes so oppressive, so thick and mottled you can barely bend at the elbows, or lean in close to whisper to your lovely bundled-up boyfriends and girlfriends.  You don’t like how it’s cold waiting in line at the movie theater.  You don’t like it.

If there be any sort of higher power (The Great Creator, or Supreme Being, or God, or Collective Unconscious, or just Higher Power, or whatever you want to call it), quite clearly created Winter so that the rest of our existence could be highlighted by its absence.  In Winter, most things die, whereas they birth in Spring and thrive all Summer long.  In Winter, our land becomes sheathed in a smooth, featureless white (which you may find visually appealing) that blots out everything we’ve toiled so hard to create.  The ice forbids us from functioning like competent adult creatures; the snow creates more work on top of our already havoc and labor filled lives.  Winter was built to dislike; this you cannot argue.

And while you may look forward to snowboarding, skiing, sledding or snowball-fighting, these are simply things you like to do.  If you could do them in Summer you surely would.

I know what you are doing, you foolhardy liars: you are whistling past the graveyard.  While some of us admit the dread that fills us as Nature’s worst blight approaches, you attempt to deny your most natural instincts by claiming to ‘like’ such a death-filled disastrous time of year.  The worst part about your transparent denial is that in conversation after conversation, those honest ones are forced to feel like pussies, soft human beings who actually prefer sunlight-filled Eden seasons.  I, for one, will not allow your contrivance to make me feel this way.

You don’t like Winter, so stop pretending you do.

Why I’m Vegan

As most of you know, I became a vegan about four months ago (and before that, a vegetarian about a year and a half ago).  This development has caused no small amount of friction between myself and some friends and loved ones, mostly due to the fact that I’ve become not only a vegan, but a vegan of the outspoken/ activist variety.  This upsets people.  I understand that.  I figured it was time I detail the philosophy for you a little bit.

Here is really where the rubber meets the road, where the rest of the philosophy comes from, and why you feel I am attacking you:

It is my firm and passionate belief that all animals on Earth are deserving of equal moral consideration.  This runs contrary to how even the most compassionate non-vegans in our culture think.  We are raised to believe that, in some way–a way that usually rests just a shade outside our ability to explain–humans exist above animals, in moral or ethical importance.  You may have said at some point in your life, “I’m sad that animals got hurt, but at least no human lives were lost“, or “Of course animal rights matter, but there are human issues that are more pressing.”  I understand why you think that way; I did too most of my life.  Our society (and in fact, most societies) raise you to think that way.  We call this way of thinking speciesism.  Frankly, I don’t love the term.  It begs to be mocked and is, perhaps, a little too precious.  But that’s the term we use and it IS accurate. (also I’ve thought about it quite a bit and can’t actually come up with a better term).  Why is it that you think humans are more important than animals?  REALLY.  WHY IS IT THAT YOU THINK THAT?

There are, of course, many reasons that get put forth to justify putting humans above animals, which I won’t take time to detail here.  Suffice it to say we find those reasons to be poppycock.  Animals feel pain and suffering, and above all, are simply not ours to own, control, kill, or consume.  They are their own.

Having established a moral compass wherein all animals are weighted the same, eating animals, or imprisoning or torturing them, is the exact equivalent to eating or torturing humans.  It bears the exact same moral weight.  Which is why it is not a “diet” and why I will not acknowledge your right to do it as “your choice”.

Picturing a world where all animals are due the same consideration, imagine now a farm.  The manner in which cows, pigs, chickens, et al–who have done nothing wrong whatsoever–are imprisoned, given a horrible, painful, short life and are then butchered: this is like we are doing it to humans.  Factory farms do this on a massive level; hundreds of thousands of PEOPLE are, at any moment, wrongfully imprisoned and murdered.

Yes, we call them people.  It serves to rip further the veil we are all under, this false assumption that because animals are different from us that they are less-than, that we control and own them, that their lives are ours to take, and their suffering meaningless.  These are our ethical equals, these are people, and what we are doing is nothing less than a holocaust.

So yes, you may think it’s silly when we call them people, or when we talk about SLAVEHOLDERS, but the moral equivalency is very real.  The problem is one of urgency for the poor, doomed, imperiled people currently imprisoned all over the world.  And you want me to be silent?  You think I should “accept your choice”?  I would no sooner silently assent to you eating a human limb.  I would no sooner be quiet about American police murdering black people.  I would no sooner be silent about LGBTQ Americans not having equal rights.  I like to think, given a chance to go back in time, I could not have been silent about the Holocaust of the second world war.  I cannot and will not be silent about this holocaust.  Animal rights are human rights.

You feel personally attacked when I post a vegan meme to Facebook; I get it.  You feel judged.  I assure you I am not thinking about you specifically when I spread the message: how you feel about what you read and see is between you and the animals.  But when you engage me on the topic, I can not and will not be soft.  How could I?  Look at what is at stake!

Many in the vegan community also think we should pull back.  They say being in peoples’ faces turns them even more off of vegans and lessens our chances of growing the movement.  Except: every successful social change movement in history disagrees with you.  Stop being cowards (and suggesting I be a coward too!)–if these WERE humans being farmed, would you suggest the best way to stop it is posting “vegan gym selfies” (Look, I get plenty of protein, eat vegan!) and pinning recipes on Pinterest?  I refuse to treat animal liberation like some delicate flower because people might feel a certain way about it.  I IMPLORE THEM TO FEEL A CERTAIN WAY.

The best way to make large, lasting change is to cause friction with the status quo.  It is our goal to hold up to people the true vision of the world: the idea that what we are doing to animals is a needless atrocity.  Some “soft activism” is good, too (gym selfies, Pinterest recipes), but it’s not enough.

The world needed Martin Luther King, but it also needed Malcom X.

Badass Harrisburg, Media vs. Trump, Eraser, Alexander Supertramp

It has now been over a year and a half since we moved to Harrisburg. Like every time I’ve made a large move, it’s been interesting how at first there is a large amount of culture shock, and then just a few weeks or months later, it’s almost like you’ve always lived there. It’s hard to imagine there was a time that I lived in Philadelphia, or Erie,  or Carlisle.  It’s hard to imagine there was a time when I actually could not imagine moving back to Central Pennsylvania. Did I ever actually move away from here? But also, the first time I lived here, I couldn’t have imagined living in Harrisburg, but now it seems the natural center of this area. Harrisburg gets a bad rap from many people, for those are people who are afraid of it, or have never spent much time in it. Granted, it is a city with its troubles, both financial and otherwise. There are plenty of areas that are downtrodden, poor, and wanting of many of the services that the surrounding areas take for granted. But there is a lot to love here, and plenty of neighborhoods that you can feel safe in, and with nice modern housing. There’s more than enough to do, more than enough beautiful views, and a vibrant arts scene. In fact, there are more things that we have not been able to do than those we have been able to do. And it seems clear to me that the city is still on the move. I know there have been lots of stories over the decades about the revitalization of Harrisburg, but this time it does seem legitimate. The independent music scene, hipster coffee shops, art galleries opening all over the place. Even a vegan coffee shop close to the state capitol building! There’s a lot to love here, and although there are certainly times when I’m riding my bike down a side street here that I miss being right in the middle of traffic on Broad Street in Philadelphia, there’s also something to be said for walking out of my job every night, looking to my right, and seeing the beautiful Capitol Dome less than a mile away, or walking my dog six blocks and being along the Susquehanna River Trail, almost always as the sun sets.

 

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The fact is, the system IS rigged against Trump, in the sense that the media (hold up; did I say the MEDIA?? You hate the media, don’t you? [I’m probably not talking to YOU here, but to about 30 people on my Facebook who bitch more about the media than the atrocities they report on}  But what is it you are talking about, when you say “the media”? It’s an institution with hundreds of thousands of outlets, platforms, and systems, and it’s actually one of the best things about our country–one of the things that really DOES keep us free. But see, you gotta do some work, too. You have to sift through some things, figure out what sources you trust, the nuances of how to best receive information from the media, and where and when you receive it. You have to READ things. Hey, quick–who’s your favorite columnist? Don’t have one? How do you HATE the media when you’ve never really consumed it to begin with? Stop being lazy. The American freedom of press truly does set us apart–and I’m not one for “American Exceptionalism”. But yeah–most of the media operates by making a profit, so be careful, and above all READ things. And it does make a difference if it’s printed on paper; it’s harder to trick your eye into only reading the “interesting” stuff or items you already agree with. Just read the news. Hating and callously dismissing “the media” is just active laziness. And memes are not the media. FYI) are not obligated to report on an aspiring despot who would end the American experiment like it was no big deal. The “media”–contrary to what many seem to think–are not obligated to be neutral observers of facts only at all times. They are to report facts, yes–but also interpret them (again, this is where understanding media nuance will serve you well: there ARE places you can go for just fact, and places you can go for opinion, and places you can go for analysis. If you go to one place expecting it to be something it isn’t, you might think it’s corrupt, when in fact you’re just a novice). So yes, the media are biased against Trump because they are reporting on a man who would destroy our nation–and harm the world. And it is not their DUTY to remain neutral. The media IS biased–but not against Trump; they’re biased against evil.

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I wasn’t ready for Thom Yorke’s solo album, The Eraser, when it came out in 2006.  I was baffled by it, listened to it twice, and put it away–not knowing if it was bad or I was daft.  I put it in on a whim today and it turns out I am ready for it.

 

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Two nights ago, I got to meet Jon Krakauer, an author who is currently among America’s top 3 or 4 nonfiction authors.  I’ve admittedly only read two of Jon’s books–“Into the Wild” being his most famous book and a work that has touched my life very deeply.  In it, Krakauer tells the story of Christopher McCandless, who left a very comfprtable and promising life, wandered the country with little to no money and no contact with anyone for over a year, eventually hiking into the Alaskan wilderness where he would eventually die.  Chris’s story is complex and multi-layered–it can’t be reduced to one single element.  When I was at very low points in my life–still drinking and in deep depressions–Chris’s decision to disappear and walk into the wild until he died appealed to me.  Later, sober and happy, other elements of Chris’s philosophy and his journey resonated with me.  Here is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to a man he met on his sojourn across the country.  The man–who had been deeply affected by a month or so he spent with Chris–received the postcard after Chris died:

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” –Christopher McCandless

While it was McCandless whose story has so impacted me, Krakauer’s decision to tell it, and the respect he gave the story, resonated.  In the many years since “Into the Wild” was published, Chris’s story has become of major import to a growing legion of people who find something inspiring about him, and Krakauer does not shy away from his role as a steward of the story.  It was an intense honor to meet him.

****************************************************************************

The sun goes up, the sun goes down. The wind begins to whistle through branches now bare with late months.  The sky grays, the wind grays, everywhere color mutes, curls into itself.  Even the insects look at you with worry.

 

 

 

Howard Bryant for President (of MLB)

I have posted a few entries in the past about the unappreciated world of sports journalism; unfortunately most people writing about sports are not thought of as real journalists or, god forbid, artful writers tackling important topics–and granted, much sports journalism is pure reporting of events.  But longform or opinion sports journalists are some of the most eloquent, incisive writers out there, and some of their work can elicit incredible emotion or hammer home incredible points.  It doesn’t always connect sports to the wider world (although it often does), but sometimes a terrific piece of writing that is just about sports is still worth the time (and money) investment.

One of my favorite sports writers is Howard Bryant, who writes a bi-weekly column for ESPN the Magazine.  I have never, ever once read his column (or one of his longform features) without coming away thinking about something differently than I had before; his ability to turn the angle on a topic and shed a new viewpoint on it is nothing short of mystical.

In the most recent issue, Howard wrote a short column about Major League Baseball in general that I feel is worth reproducing here.  If you have any interest in baseball, sports in general, or terrific opinion journalism, please take a few minutes to read this.  I have pasted the text here for you but a quick search for Howard Bryant and MLB will find the original article on MLB’s site.

 

“After A-Rod’s Fall, He and MLB Are a Perfect Fit” by Howard Bryant, from ESPN the Magazine, September 5th, 2016

IT SOUNDS SO inconceivable, naive, delusional, but it was only a decade ago that Alex Rodriguez was the antidote to a ruinous generation of drugs and greed. He was the choice of the really smart baseball men, such as Theo Epstein and Brian Cashman, both of whom traded for him, and a paralyzed commissioner such as Bud Selig, who tolerated Barry Bonds holding the home run record because soon enough Rodriguez would shatter it and make the game whole again. He would make them clean.

Alex Rodriguez only made it worse. The Golden Boy wasn’t so golden after all. Following a bizarre week in which the Yankees held a retirement ceremony for him even though he’d never announced he was quitting, Rodriguez was discarded without much care. Even the pregame celebration before his final game as a Yankee was curtailed by thunder, lightning and rain, fitting for those who found him less of a True Yankee than the rest. “That wasn’t thunder,” former Yankees player and coach Lee Mazzilli said of the biblical thunderclaps that preceded the downpour. “That was George.” The Yankees’ 1996 championship team was being honored the next day, but for Rodriguez’s night, only Mariano Rivera joined him on the field. Former teammates Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter were not present. Neither was his old manager, Joe Torre. That’s called a message pitch.

Point the blame at Rodriguez, who admitted using PEDs, but no amount of reveling in his inglorious end can undo the enormous collaborative effort that has created baseball’s current dystopia. Rodriguez, along with Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire, is part of the Mount Rushmore of discredited legends that represents the true legacy of the steroid era: It isn’t that they aren’t in Cooperstown. It’s that nobody cares.

The all-time home run list was once led by the most recognizable foursome in sports — Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson. That leaderboard stood for nearly 30 years, until Bonds, who hit his 500th and 600th home runs just one season apart, passed Robinson in 2002. Sammy Sosa hit 60 home runs three times and won the home run title in exactly none of those years. While baseball took the money and laughed at warnings that it was undermining itself, the consequences would be felt later, with Rodriguez amassing 3,000 hits, 2,000 runs and 2,000 RBIs — something only Aaron had done — but leaving the game utterly uncelebrated, inside baseball and especially out.

The Rodriguez epitaph will be a one-sided story about the phenom who was part of the top millionth percentile of talent and blew it all. Yet Alex Rodriguez will in the end be no different from the industry in which he performed for the past two decades, a game that has lost its way, seemingly intent on undermining all that made it special.

The game, like A-Rod, took the money (it is now close to a $10 billion industry), ignored the spread of steroids and lost out on the good stuff. Its records are now as worthless as those in the league it is so envious of, the NFL. It decides which team will host the most important games of the World Series based on an exhibition game. It plays its championship in the worst weather because its leaders refuse to compromise on money and adjust the schedule. It plays at least one game every day between teams that play under two sets of rules. And because baseball cannot decide whether it wants to be truly modern, the game’s leadership allows it to stand weakly in the middle, playing a full season of baseball, simultaneously rewarding and penalizing teams for not coming in first place by staging a one-game playoff, as if the baseball season were the NCAA tournament.

Baseball wants the world to be proud of its drug-testing program. Meanwhile, it deals with an All-Star team of steroid-tainted players who thus far need a ticket to enter the Hall of Fame — Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Manny Ramirez and most certainly Rodriguez — by disciplining virtually none of them and hiring nearly all — laying the weight of accountability on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. If not knowing himself was the self-destructive fatal flaw of Alex Rodriguez, it makes perfect sense that he felt so much at home playing major league baseball.

No Greater Purpose

I Am Henceforth No Longer Paying Attention to Professional Football*

Those who have known me or been reading my blog for more than about six years will remember that it was not that long ago that I was completely anti-sports.  I thought they were a waste of time, a diversion for the masses away from the things that really mattered, and void of any real meaningful human content.

In some ways, I still believe that.

But for some reason, those years ago, I decided to give in, first with hockey, then baseball, then the whole shebang.

I am now firmly in the camp of baseball, hockey and basketball being worthy pursuits of not just entertainment, but, when approached properly, intellectual and emotional import (when digested with moderation).  However, I am here to announce my plans to stop following the National Football League effective immediately.

There are numerous cultural and societal reasons to stop giving money and attention to the NFL–all or most of which I agree with.  But you don’t need me to list them here or discuss them; many other more eloquent writers have explored the topics ad nauseum, and if you don’t know what those topics are, me listing them here wouldn’t be of interest to you, either.  The fact is, I could probably force myself to overlook many of them and continue, with some guilt, to gulp down the admittedly highly-entertaining product the NFL offers.  But it’s not just these dense, important cultural issues that influence me.  The fact is, I also have come to see professional American football as a kind of clown sport.

The rules change so often and so drastically simply to tweak the television viewing experience and to highlight the superstars of the league, so that more dramatic storylines can be crafted for the endless hours of pre-game programming.  Almost nobody watching the game understands what’s going on in the game, other than there is a quarterback and receivers. Rivalries, quests, comebacks (the kinds of human stories that make all sports great) are invented out of whole cloth, exaggerated, repeated constantly; although I have no doubt the game is still real, and brutal, and not pre-determined, one can’t help but feel the comparison to professional wrestling becoming more and more apt.  While the “stories” of sports are what really attract me, the stories in the NFL have become melodramatic soap operas.

I got one of my sports magazines in the mail a few days ago, and Peyton Manning was on the cover (despite it being the NFL off-season and an intense moment in the NBA and NHL seasons) and all I could think to myself was, why wouldn’t they put a real athlete on the cover?  Now, I’m sure Mr. Manning is really a very gifted athlete, but the game he plays no longer evokes within me a thought of epic sports possibilities; it just makes me think about what absolute inane bullshit has been crafted around him.  I just don’t have time for it anymore.

*two caveats, and judge me all you want: if it looks like the Eagles might make a deep playoff run, I’m back in.  It’s hypocrisy but I don’t care.  Also Karla bought me a sweet Eagles hoodie early in our relationship.  It has sentimental value and is a really great hoodie.  I will continue to wear this.

My Favorite Music of 2015

It is again that time of year, for my year-in-review favorite music blog post.  Again, those of you who usually do will get a sampler CD in the mail.  If you’d like to join the ranks of these lucky people, just let me know.  I think it is fair to say this year’s CD will BLOW YOUR MIND.

A quick display of links, if you’re curious to see previous year’s lists.  It’s interesting looking back to see errors I made in retrospect (2010? I love Grinderman but not more than Arcade Fire!!! Man Man beating out Srcade Fire AND The National in 2013!?):

My Favorite Music of 2009

My Favorite Music of 2010

My Favorite Music of 2011

My Favorite Music of 2012

My Favorite Music of 2013

My Favorite Music of 2014

 

Now, my favorite music of this year! I’m keeping all the entries short and sweet, I just don’t have the energy for this like I used to!

15.  EL VY, “Return to the Moon”

Supergroup consisting of members of The National and Menomena manage to actually merge the two groups disparate sounds into a new kind of sullen quirk rock.  It works surprisingly well.

14.  Matt Vasquez, “Austin”

Delta Spirit frontman’s debut solo feature sounds actually very little like Delta Spirit and very much like something new; experimental, riff-heavy, ponderous.

13.  Alabama Shakes, “Sound and Color”

The sophomore effort from super-hip soul/Americana group expands their sound into something more jammy and trippy, to pleasing effect.

12.  El Ten Eleven, “Fast Forward”

Post Rock/ Math Rock looping duo deliver the goods with fifth studio album, somehow find a way to keep the formula fresh.

11.  Marilyn Manson, “The Pale Emperor”

Yes, that’s right: Manson is back and, while maybe not sounding exactly current, manages to make relevant, personal, haunting album.

10.  Will Butler, “Policy”

Arcade Fire guitarist Butler lays down a solo album full of guts, gusto, and deliciously surprising moments.  And he’s not a half-bad singer!

9.  Jennylee, “Right On”

Warpaint bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg drops a solo album (recording as simply Jennylee)–the album is brooding, shadowy, thumping.  This is dirty music.

8.  Sun Kil Moon, “Universal Themes”

Mark Kozelek (recording as Sun Kil Moon) continues his tradition of unexpectedly blunt “blog rock”; although “Universal Themes” fails to live up to his previous album (his masterpiece “Benji”), there are enough disarming, disquieting moments to create a memorable work.

7.  Deerhunter, “Fading Frontier”

The quintessential art rock band’s newest effort surprises at every turn, mostly due to a very unexpected dose of pop and hooky melodies. The styles mesh better than expected with the fuzzy unformed feedback the band is known for.

6.  Willis Earl Beal, “Noctunes”

Beal could not have turned in a more different album from his debut than he did with “Noctunes”: literally songs to fall asleep to, I recommend staying awake–secrets and revelations are tucked away inside the lullabies.

5.  My Morning Jacket, “The Waterfall”

The Jacket return with a concept album that sets its sights as high as possible: an album about lost love and a desire to completely stop time (time is “the waterfall”)–the grandiose vision isn’t quite accomplished but nobody but MMJ could have even got close.

4.  Father John Misty, “I Love You, Honeybear”

Mr. Misty–who has also recorded extensively as Josh Tillman and is a former member of Fleet Foxes as well as Saxon Shore–has finally fully arrived with “Honeybear”.  Sporting dreary, catchy songs with take-no-prisoner lyrics (“She says, like literally, music is the air she breathes/
And the malaprops make me want to fucking scream/
I wonder if she even knows what that word means”).  This album is a game-changer.

3.  Foals, “What Went Down”

From huge, sprawling anthems to ponderous, labyrinthine quietude, “What Went Down” set my head spinning and lead me to devour this band’s entire catalogue in a week.

2.  Sufjan Stevens, “Carrie & Lowell”

A delicate album of intensely personal proportions.  I was not prepared for what the words and melodies here would do to me.  It lived in my car’s CD player for almost a month.

1.  Modest Mouse, “Strangers to Ourselves”

Picking this #1 was not even a debate for me.  Not only hands-down the best album of the year, probably the best rock album of the decade.  “Strangers to Ourselves” is not a very intimate, personal album–no songs about lost loves or your good old days–this is a “feel bad” album that attempts to uncover the nasty truth of the universe and comes to the conclusion that humans are pricks, the world doesn’t care about us, and everything, everything dies.  But it also rocks like a motherfucker.

 

 

 

Something About Something I Just Read

It’s a sad fact that true sports journalism has just about disappeared in our culture.  And here right away I must draw a distinction–sports news is alive and well and thriving, ie the reporting of facts and scores and controversies, etc.  but sports journalism–the longform literary journalism that digs deep into issues in sports and then uses them to illuminate cultural or human issues that transcend the playing of games–is all-but dead, which is a shame, because it’s one of the best and most unique forms of literature there is.

Newspapers–when they used to have a lot more space for stories because there was more space needed for advertisers who no longer exist–used to publish it, but now, except for the New York Times, all newspapers publish is sports news.  Sports Illustrated runs about one longform piece every two weeks, but it’s usually a book excerpt.  Yahoo Sports and FiveThirtyEight.com push out a nice piece every now and then.   The only real go-to place for it anymore is ESPN the Magazine.  The Mag (as us acolytes call it) is a tricky magazine to read, because it actually consists of just about ONLY longform sports journalism, which is GREAT but also makes it tough to just pick up and peruse.  But it’s existence is comforting.

Last year, The Mag published a piece on Alex Rodriguez that remains my favorite piece of sports writing ever.  Before the article, I had a very neutral opinion of A-Rod–I wasn’t rooting for him, but I didn’t hate him like many do.  After the article, I was not only on his side, I was actively rooting for him–even a fan.  but more than that, the article moved me, to tears even.  But not about Alex Rodriguez.  About me.  Like the very best sports journalism, the piece transcended the world of sports and connected the essentially meaningless lives of millionaire athletes to my individual life and our wider, diverse culture.  It was writing of weighty value.  I saved that issue and have since read the piece (which is extremely long and takes about two hours to read) three times.

This was a lengthy way of me introducing the piece I read today, also from ESPN the Magazine.  The article is “Athletes Control the Media” by Kent Russell.  This article qualifies as actual literature, in any field.  Although it is ostensibly about what the title suggests–athletes controlling the media and no longer vice-versa–Mr. Russell expands upon the subject with such aplomb, veracity, and intensity of feeling that the article becomes a large-scale examination of our current media culture, as well as the “many lives” of each of us as individuals in the new age of social media.  Although this might sound like a topic you’ve read about before, Mr. Russell has infused it with a layman’s philosophy quite unlike anything I’ve ever read.  Following are some passages I found especially mind-boggling.  You can read the whole article here (and if you do, just randomly click on an ad or watch the entire video commercial so ESPN the Magazine can make a few cents to keep this kind of journalism going).

Excerpt 1:

“Far below the press box, pacing the field, was the man himself. Bill Belichick kept his arms folded and his chin tucked, sphinxlike. I watched him nod in agreement, conferring via headset as to his next turn in this game of human Stratego, yet I never saw his mouth move. With the help of binoculars, I began to fixate on the small gap between his lips, scanning for the fine mesh screen behind which the smaller, truer Belichick looked out on the world, as if in a Mickey Mouse suit.

By refusing to play along with these people in the press box, Belichick has allowed himself to be transformed, by way of their writing and broadcasting, into a humorless curmudgeon. This is a persona, to be sure; a mask that Belichick donned long ago. What he understood was that over time, many of the journalists up here would begin to mistake this mask for the man’s actual face. And so, in leading them to believe that he is a reticent grump — and not an unflinching actor in addition to the greatest coach of all time — Belichick has gotten the media to direct their questions to the mask.”

 

Excerpt 2:

“When people cheer on the death of the news conference, what they’re also cheering on, perhaps unwittingly, is a future in which all of us will engage in this kind of careful brand management. In such a future, I’ll have my inner circle, the few people I know and care about from real, corporeal life. Then I’ll have my fans and followers, the fellow travelers who don’t really know me but enjoy or support my curated presence. Then I’ll have my “haters,” the people who misinterpret or misconstrue my presented selves, or who actively work against my narrative. These individuals are not with me, physically or in spirit, so they must be against me. This is a feedback-looped orientation toward the wider world that another, better, writer once summed up as: “He who does not feel me is not real to me.”

During his media day news conference, Marshawn Lynch put that sentiment this way: “I don’t know what image y’all trying to portray of me. But it don’t matter what y’all think, what y’all say about me. Because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face, my family that I love, ha, that’s all that really matter to me. So y’all can go and make up whatever y’all want to make up because I don’t say enough for y’all to go and put anything out on me.”

This declaration still makes me want to stand up and cheer, sound as it does like something a pioneer in a cabin on the frontier might say. But — and this is ignoring the fact that his trolling flouted an obligation listed in his $31 million contract — Lynch got at the crux of something capital-T True here. Something that works against the point he was trying to make. Real adult life, the face-to-face relationships that allow one to understand as well as to be understood, is founded upon messiness, dialogue, the abdication of total control. I alone cannot truly know who I am. I alone don’t even get final say. I can have some idea. This idea can be based upon the selves I put forward. Yet it’s the people whose lives are affected by my selves — they get to tell me what all that self-presentation looks like. They get to measure the distance between the kind of guy I say I am and the kind of guy I happen to be. It is unlikely that Lynch, Jeter and Belichick have any interest in hearing what kind of guys they are. This is understandable. Although they are as in the limelight as anyone in our culture can be, “spelunk the darkest caves of your psyche, in public” is listed nowhere in their job descriptions.

“STICK TO SPORTS!!!!!” you might be saying about now. Fair enough. I will not mention the recent TV debate in which moderators were demonized for questioning the backstories and assertions of individuals trying to become the leader of the free world. Nor will I mention how the University of Missouri football team used social media to tell the world that it was going on strike until the university’s president stepped down. When that president did step down and media came to document the campus’ reaction, there was a literal sign of the times staked into the quad — no media / safe space — in addition to an assistant professor of mass media who was filmed saying, “Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here?” This same assistant professor had previously posted on her Facebook page: “Hey folks, students fighting racism on the MU campus want to get their message into the national media. Who among my friends knows someone who would want a scoop on this incredible topic?”

 

Except 3:

“Belichick slid into the room and stood to the left of the dais, out of frame. There was a small pack of reporters about 5 feet from him, but none approached. He leaned into a corner jutting from the wall’s architecture, putting all of his weight onto its right angle. He kept his hands in his pockets and his face fixed, rocking back and forth, toggling his spine against the edge. He watched Brady just as intensely as he does during a game, radiating neither joy nor love but grim determination.

I thought then of all the Kremlinology that people engage in, trying to divine the real Bill Belichick from whatever scraps he leaves. Commenters, both official and unofficial, have looked to his on-field body language and cryptic sound bites for clues. They’ve dissected pictures of him kissing his girlfriend. They’ve pored over Vines of him eating “like a gremlin.” They’ve read way too much into the fact that he sang “Love Potion No. 9” at a party. I, myself, read way too much into the answer he gave during the last Super Bowl media day, when the daughter of one of his players asked Belichick what his favorite stuffed animal was. “I’d like, uh, like a little puppet,” he said, “that you can kinda put your fingers in … it’s a little monkey … and then he can talk.”

Belichick took to the dais. He started delivering a monologue of platitudes, as if trying to get them all out at once. “It was a tough week mentally,” he croaked in his strangled-sounding voice. “But they really pushed themselves. I thought our preparation was good and they played hard tonight.”

Eventually, a question was asked. Belichick stared into the middle distance. He appeared to be imagining some empty, perspectiveless afterlife in which jaunty supermarket Muzak was overlaid with the tortured screams of this interrogator. Then he snapped to and answered, “It was good team defense, which it always is when you play good.”

There were a few more questions about special teams. But no one asked the question that I wanted answered, the only question to ask, I thought, which was: “Bill, how does it feel to be so controlling? So single-minded? To be heir to — and apotheosis of — Vince Lombardi, George S. Patton and Niccolo Machiavelli? At what cost is this success? How can this possibly be enjoyable, still? Who are you?”

There was a lull in the back-and-forth. Camera shutters clicked together like insect legs. Belichick sucked his lips inward, nodded. A wall-mounted digital clock blinked past midnight. I thought about asking my question. He climbed off the dais and left.”

 

 

Jamboree

1.  Here are some questions I would like answers to:  obviously there is a bone in your nose, because it is able to break.  But skulls never have a nose bone, just a hole where the nose was.  What’s going on with that?  What is an electric acoustic guitar?  I mean I get the basic concept, but still.  When you cast a shadow, it is because your body is blocking light rays, but your shadow isn’t pitch dark; some light is still landing there; what mechanism is at play there?  Why can’t beggars be choosers?  Why do I love Furbys so much?  What the heck is fire?

2.  Ever since I became a vegetarian, I’ve noticed (at least on social media) a fair amount of mildly confusing hostility toward us.  Now I know that, like any subculture of people, there is a vocal minority that will actually make unprompted attempts to make meat-eaters feel bad, recruit people to the cause, etc (which honestly I say more power to them, it’s an important issue), but most of us just quietly eat our vegetables and say very little about it; what we do say is because this is an important part of our lives that we are passionate about; how odd to think we should be passionate about how we eat but remain silent about it.

So why do some people get so upset at vegetarians when most of us are largely leaving you alone?  And when most of us bite our tongues at the myriad, countless, terribly unimaginative pro-bacon posts that float around?  It is inconceivable that someone would be made to feel bad for voicing a pro-meat agenda, but those of us who are passionate about the lives of animals are made to feel like voicing our opinion would be indelicate?  The answer seems obvious.

Most people know, at their core, that eating meat is wrong.  Even if their conscious mind firmly believes there is nothing wrong with eating the carcasses of butchered creatures, deep down, at core, they know.  In our modern world, with all the options available to us, the wholesale slaughter and consumption of literally countless beings is radically unnecessary and a moral evil, and this fact resides in most of you.  So while I initially recoil every time one of my friends posts a completely unprompted anti-vegetarian meme, I recover quickly, secure in the knowledge they’ve done so because they wish, deep within themselves, they had the courage to act on what they know to be true.

3.  Let’s talk about sports for a minute; but more to the point, let’s talk about language and sports.  Even more specifically, let’s talk about “clinch”.

Now, in English at large there are quite a few ways to define exactly when one has “clinched” something.  It can mean to settle or finalize, but also to assure oneself of future reward.  In American sports, for many many years, it has meant strictly the latter; that an individual or a team had passed a mathematical hurdle in order to be assured of a reward–typically a playoff berth, but more rarely something like a batting title or a similar individual achievement.

In decades past, the word would be used something like this by a sports announcer:

“And with one more strike, the Padres will win their third game of the best-of-five series, thereby clinching their appearance in next week’s League Championship Series!”.  As in, with this win, they now are assured of moving forward.  They have WON this series, and have CLINCHED an appearance in the next round of the playoffs.

Then, a few years ago, I was watching one of the championships of the major American sports–I don’t remember which–when moments after the winning team won and had just begun their celebration, the announcer said something like this: “And with that, the winning team has clinched the championship!”

I knew it sounded wrong but it took me a few seconds to suss out why.  Really, they clinched it?  To my understanding, they won it.  Clinching implies it has secured further games.  There is nothing after the championship.  The season is over.  There is no longer anything to clinch.  They won the championship.  Nobody ever clinches a championship.  When did they clinch it, in the half a second from when the buzzer started to sound until it was done sounding?  Let’s end this madness, please!

4.

I know, intellectually, that humankind did not have anywhere close to the technology to put a person on the moon until right up until the moment we did so.  In fact, it was almost a miracle we were able to pull it off when we did it.  But it has always struck me as odd–and this is a really challenging thought to put into words so bear with me–that over the long and storied history of humanity, that somebody didn’t get there almost by accident at some point.

OK, let me pull it back a little bit.  Thinking about early Mount Everest climbing, the accepted knowledge is that Sir Edmund Hilary and his Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, were the first human beings to summit the mountain.  And for all we know, they were.  It’s certainly not easy to get up there, and there’s no discernible survivalist reason to do so.  But human history is long, and there have been billions and billions of people walking over the surface of this planet well before we started keeping track of what we all were doing.  It seems to me the likelihood that some human being, at some point in deep history, for reasons completely unknowable to us, once trod upon that summit before Sir Edmund Hilary’s DNA was a glint in an amoeba’s eye.

Now it is harder to make a case for people having gone to the moon in ancient history.  I’m not some conspiracy theorist or quack, I’m just playing the numbers game (but without actual numbers).  While I will go out on a limb and say it is LIKELY a human summited Everest somewhere in the deep past, I will only say that it seems totally feasible that someone got to the moon at some point.

How?  I have no idea.  Some rudimentary capsule on top of a vast amount of explosives?  I really don’t have a working theory.  It does seem to me that if some human in history worked out a way to get to the moon, they probably didn’t arrive alive or live very long once they got there.

Just imagine, though.  Imagine we go back to the moon someday with more time and means to explore it.  Imagine an astronaut is walking down an embankment in a crater.  She sees a small cave tucked into an alcove.  As she approaches to explore, she sees footprints!  Closer still, sitting in dirt on the windless surface, a tattered copy of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”.  She hesitates before entering the cave.  What a story this would make!

And for you smarty-pants out there, I know lunar soil is called regolith, but that would have really ruined the pacing there.

Winter Song #2

I was really into this song for just about two weeks in the winter of 2009.  It remains a notable winter song in my mind because once, I had to drive home at night in an HUGE snowstorm (from York, PA to Carlisle, PA) and I had this song on repeat.  The storm was so bad, I didn’t dare take my eyes or concentration off the road to turn the music off or take it off of repeat.  It’s a GREAT song, but now, it is simply, to me, all about that horrible, terrifying wintry drive:

Winter Songs #1

As winter nears, I being to again turn to the songs that I most associate with this most dreadful of seasons.  We all have different ways we experience music, and our own unique ways we have them tied to specific sensory sensations or memories from our own pasts.  Many of “my winter songs” have little to do with winter; I was just listening to them heavily during winters, or maybe even just once during a very winter-specific moment.  Of course, the same goes for “summer songs”, etc.  Over the next few weeks I’m going to post a few of the more prominent of my own winter songs; usually without personal commentary, but sometimes with.  In the process, I’d love to hear about some of your own “winter songs”!

This first one is one I listened to a lot during a winter, but is also thematically about winter.  “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” by Arcade Fire is an almost wholly unique song in the rock world, at least lyrically.  It tells the story of two kids (who are next door neighbors) whose town is subjected to an enormous, almost apocalyptic snow storm.  They dig a tunnel from one bedroom to the other, and then escape to the surface (supposedly their houses are actually buried) and they begin a life by themselves in this new winter world, eventually almost forgetting the details of their past, and their “skin gets thicker/ from living out in the snow”.  Using very few words, lyricist Win Butler has crafted a song with layers of intense meaning and emotion that I can only begin to write about in this space.  Interspersed with this tale is the love story of these two kids…and perhaps your love story, with the person you love.  Perhaps YOU are the couple living alone in the barren white world.  For my money, you don’t get a more romantic line than

“You change all the lead
sleepin’ in my head to gold.
As the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn:
the song I’ve been trying to sing!”

If you watch the video below and really like the song, there is a BADASS live version if you click  here.

 

 

 

And if the snow buries my neighborhood,
and if my parents are crying
then I’ll dig a tunnel from my window to yours.
Yeah, a tunnel from my window to yours.

You climb out the chimney
and meet me in the middle of the town,
and since there’s no one else around
we let our hair grow long and forget all we used to know.
Then our skin gets thicker from living out in the snow!

You change all the lead
sleepin’ in my head.
As the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn.

Then we tried to name our babies
but we forgot all the names that,
the names we used to know.
But sometimes we remember our bedrooms
and our parent’s bedrooms and the bedrooms of our friends.
Then we think of our parents.
Well, what ever happened to them?

You change all the lead
sleepin’ in my head to gold.
As the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn:
the song I’ve been trying to sing!

Purify colors. Purify my mind.
Purify colors. Purify my mind.
Spread the ashes of the colors
in this heart of mine.

 

 

Sack Races Can Blank My Blank

1.  It should be noted that, a mere two days ago, I did in fact participate in two sack races at a picnic.  That’s right, on some occasions, folks are still doing sack races.  But the important part:  I totally owned my competition both times.  I won by landslides.  I say this to gloat.  Because it is a rare moment indeed in my life when I find myself vanquishing opponents in any physical competition whatsoever–including leisure sports like pool and bowling.  So yeah.  Apparently I rule at sack racing.  However, it should also be duly noted that even now, 48 hours later, my lower abs hurt like crazy!  And I have been working my abs in workouts for a few weeks, so it’s not just from using unused muscles…there is something about sack races that MURDERS the abs, but especially, like…the very bottom ones.  I’m a scientist.

2.  You know who reads a lot?  Homeless people.  I’m not making some tasteless joke here, I’m serious.  At least in Philadelphia, whenever I see homeless people, I would say 50% of the time, they are reading something, and not always a newspaper, but often books.  I hear what some of you are about to say: They sure have plenty of free time to read!  Well sure, and I’m not sure what my point is with this, but it seemed like an observation worth making.  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

3.  So there are these two bands I like (don’t stop reading yet, this isn’t actually about the bands).  The bands are The War on Drugs and Sun Kil Moon.  Both bands are fairly recent discoveries for me.  Over the past month, a very odd “feud” has developed between these bands (who, while both “indie” bands, are not bands that would typically be grouped together or thought of at the same time).  The were both playing the same festival, on different stages, at the same time, and apparently War on Drugs’ sound was drowning out the sound of Sun Kil Moon.  Now, Sun Kil Moon is basically one guy, Mark Kozelek, a very outspoken eccentric who often makes waves in the indie community.  Kozelek writes great songs, then gets other folks to play them with him and calls that band Sun Kil Moon.  The War on Drugs is just a band.  Anyway, so War on Drugs is too loud for Mark Kolezek and he gets pissed at them, for some reason, and he says something like this onstage: “This next song is called ‘The War on Drugs Can Suck My Fucking Cock”.  Now, to make a really long story somewhat short: the indie music press loves feuds (who doesn’t?) and reported on this idiotic stage banter promptly, and Kozelek being the guy he is, he just kept making the problem worse and being extremely mean to War on Drugs for months now; for their part, War on Drugs has stayed mostly silent, seeing as they did truly nothing.  Sun Kil Moon went as far as to release, last week a song called “War on Drugs: Suck My Cock”.      You can read very interesting reporting from the feud as it went down here, or here, or here.

ANYWAY, here is what I want to talk about:  the very first time I read that story, I winced at Kozelek’s choice of words.  Suck my cock, while a slam I may have directed at many a male friend of mine over the years, is not a way I would choose to talk to today.  I don’t want to say I am evolved or enlightened, but I think it would be fair to say I am certainly MORE evolved or enlightened about this topic than I used to be.  The topic, as far as I can generally state it, is men using subtle violence and aggression in every day life to perpetuate the patriarchal society we’ve all come to inhabit; even as women gain a more visible foothold toward equality, men still casually sit with their legs wide open on trains, depriving women of proper legroom (your cock isn’t that big, guys), we use terms associated with the female anatomy to mean negative things (what does it mean when you so viciously call another person a pussy as if it is the last thing on earth you’d like to be?).  Men gawk at women as they walk past on the street as though nobody can tell–or that nobody should care.  And men like Mark Kozelek–ostensibly a very artistic, extremely intelligent man who skirts the edges of our culture in a way that one would assume means he’d be more enlightened–uses the language of male aggression to another man; the suggestion of this language goes deep (NO PUN FREAKIN’ INTENDED) and does more than hint at a latent hatred for homosexuality, not to even begin exploring what a mean-spirited “suck my cock” says about the speaker’s opinion about the women who, one would assume, have done so to him willingly.

Look, I know this line of thought seems “out there” to some people, maybe a little too new-agey. Being a male in today’s culture isn’t easy.  We still want to treat women nice and be chivalrous, but it’s tough to do that and play the equality game.  I get that.  We’re not always going to be perfect at it; ours is a culture in the middle of change, and it’s tough to keep up with that as individuals.  But really, at core, it’s easy.  Treat everyone correctly, and realize that language is also action.  The things couched in what you say are real and have meaning, not just academically, but to your listeners.  Realize that your actions in public, even if they seem benign–looking, where you sit or stand, things you say within earshot–can still reek of male supremacy.  Go ahead and hold the door open for your sweetheart (unless she’s told you to bugger off with that shit), but make sure you’re both standing beside each other at the Starbucks register.  Don’t be a fucking asshole.  What are your thoughts?

 

4.  As much as Mark Kozelek has pissed me off with his War on Drugs feud, his song (as Sun Kil Moon) “Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes” off this year’s new album Benji, is one of the best songs I’ve heard, not just this year, but in years:

 

5.  I like a lot of stuff.  I think I have made that fairly clear over the years.  And most people know that I love backscratchers.  But nobody has ever bought me a really good backscratcher.  #justsayin

Fizzy Waterfalls & the Haircut Bigots

Have you ever filled a big cup up about halfway with a carbonated beverage, and when you go to take a drink of it, you can’t really breathe?  What’s the scientific process going on here?  Is the inside of the cup all filled with carbon dioxide?

Since I buy a lot of music on vinyl that I already own in another format, I keep ending up with a lot of “download cards”–these little guys that come in the vinyl records that also let you download a free version of the album–basically a way to try to convince you to spend money on music in any form at all.  Anyway, for awhile I tried to match up these cards with friends I thought might enjoy the specific music the most, but it’s gotten difficult.  If you legitimately think you might enjoy discovering new music that is the kind of music I like, let me know, the first person to say so just automatically gets all my download cards from here on out.

It seems about every six months, some bigot from the middle of nowhere says something atrocious, gets fired from his high profile job, and all the other bigots start freaking out about the First Amendment.  Now, I know I’m not the first to point this out, so I’ll be brief:  the First Amendment protects your speech (and not even all of it!) from the government.  Not from companies.  And the thing is, the people who want the jobs of these rich hate-mongers saved are the same exact people who are always the first to try to get a waitress fired for next to no reason.  Yeah, let’s keep the job of the rich bigot who definitely doesn’t care about you—because the Constitution!—but let’s fire our actual brethren who are down in the trenches with us because your steak was burnt.  I can only imagine what you’d want if that waitress said something you didn’t like!

I’m currently obsessed with the Kay Ryan poem, “The Niagara River”.  Watch the video below to see me tell you why:

The Niagara River

As though
the river were
a floor, we position
our table and chairs
upon it, eat, and
have conversation.
As it moves along,
we notice–as
calmly as though
dining room paintings
were being replaced–
the changing scenes
along the shore.  We
do know, we do
know this is the
Niagara River, but
it is hard to remember
what that means.

 

It’s kind of difficult to rate your senses, isn’t it?  I was just sitting here thinking, gee, smell has to be the best sense!  But then I thought, oh there is no way smell can compete with touch!  But then I remembered sight.  And on and on.  Senses rule!

I’m getting tired of cutting my hair.  Does this really just have to keep happening?  I mean it’s every couple weeks, for, like, life.  I mean, I get it, body.  You’re good at growing hair on my head and, increasingly, everywhere else.  We’re all very impressed.  But consider your point proven.

My new deodorant smells like soap.

Look at this picture I took:

 

 

The Scent of Bitter Almonds, and etc, etc.

1.  Nothing says “I’m a boring person” quite like posting pictures of your alcoholic beverage to Facebook.  Seriously.  You went out to a bar or club and you think the interesting thing that is supposed to happen is the drink itself?  Uninteresting, repetitive pictures of the person you’re with, or even another selfie, are more interesting than a beverage in a glass.  We’ve got the whole internet, and you want us to look at a beverage.

2.  I’ve brought this up before, but I just have to keep digging at this one.  Why are there two kinds of screws and screw drivers, ie flat head and Philips head?  I’m not over here like, meh, there should only be one kind! I am confident there are very good reasons for there being multiple kinds of screws, but I just for the life of me can’t figure out what those reasons are.  Anyone with any insight, please comment!

3.  War is terrible, but man, for a nation so young, we’ve had two very interesting wars!  I’ll be damned if the Revolution and the Civil War aren’t two of the most amazing stories ever told.

4.  With Philip Seymour Hoffman dead, the greatest actor of this generation (ie the generation currently the correct age to play the most interesting parts in the kind of films that get made the majority of the time) is James Franco.  Discuss.

5.  I get pretty tired of taking the trash out.  I mean, we really just have to keep doing this?

6.  Look at this picture of my dad and sister on vacation in Brigantine, NJ in 1980.  What’s not to love about this picture?  I want to sit on a porch listening to that radio, wearing those socks, next to a child dressed like that:

7.  I recently asked a few friends of mine which baseball team they would like, if they had only to consider the teams uniforms/ colors and logo.  Where you grew up and your previous loyalty should be not considered.  I got a few interesting answers—Billhanna said the Astros, which was a damned good answer.  My answer?  The Marlins or Blue Jays.

8.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez died this week.  He is one of my (and many others’) favorite novelists.  His most famous book is “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, which I love, but my favorite book of his is “Love in the Time of Cholera”, a book about a man who is obsessed/in love with one woman for his whole life, and dedicates his whole life to being with her.  It sounds creepy, and at times, it is, but what I love so much about it is that it is the only work of art in any medium that I have ever encountered that treats the obsessive side of love with the tender and insightful kind of care that most people reserve for “romantic” love.  It is a game-changer of a book.  Here is the first sentence from that book: “It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

9.  I understand you didn’t ask for my postcard or letter in the mail, and I understand, in this day and age, you’re not really sure how to respond to such antiquities.  I really don’t care too much.  Ideally you’d send a letter back, but I’m not expecting that.  You can ignore it.  That’s fine, you didn’t ask for it.  You can text me a response, which is the main thing people do, and that’s fine, if a bit gaudy.  But please, please…don’t post a picture of it on Facebook.

10.  What about this?

 

Hoffman Film Fest, Day One

For the next however-long-it-takes, I’ll be watching a Philip Seymour Hoffman film every day, starting with the ones I own on disc and maybe venturing in to ones available to stream.  I’ll post brief photos and videos here, and maybe a few words on the film.  I’m starting off today with the “biggie”, for me anyway, “Magnolia”, which I talked about at length in yesterday’s blog post.  Watch the clip of Phil in this film below:

 

Philip Seymour Hoffman was important to me.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was important to me.

How does one write a blog entry about how the death of an actor is going to cause them to literally mourn without sounding like a cheeseball dweeb?  I’m pretty sure one does not accomplish this.  So here goes.  Prepare for the cheeseball dweeb.

Celebrities and artists die all the time, and I see people getting all verklempt over it and I think they are fools.  Get over it, I think.  You morons.  You had an emotional connection to Paul Walker? I think to myself.  What jibberjabs.

But Philip was different.  Philip was an artist.  He connected.  He was important.

My first exposure to him was in the movie “Magnolia”, which I would watch probably a hundred times during the most desperate years of my alcoholism, and which is probably the most important movie in my own personal history.  “Magnolia” is not a happy movie.  It is not a hopeful movie.  “Magnolia” didn’t help me get sober.  But I learned things from that movie that continue to shape who I am today.  Things like owning my regret and not denying it.  And recognizing when obsession goes too far and finding another place to put your love.  Embracing my inadequacies.  And on and on.  Now I grant you, Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t write this movie, and he didn’t direct it.  But he did act the fuck out of his part in it.  But more importantly, he chose to be in this movie.  That was his true gift: choosing the right projects to be in.  Movies that meant things.  Movies that were high art without being art films.  Movies that could move you without being trite, or saccharine, or unnecessary.

Even Philip’s few “sellout” movies were well chosen.  “Along Came Polly” might be a populist comedy, but his part in it rings true, and gives the movie heart without giving into sentimentality.  Also, in it, his character coins the term shart, which is still floating around our culture.

Philip didn’t just act.  He directed exactly one movie: “Jack Goes Boating”, an adaptation of a Robert Glaudini stage play (Glaudini wrote the film’s script, too) that most people missed, but such is my love for Mr. Hoffman that I saw it in a theater, and own the blu ray disc (not many can say that, I assure you!).  “Jack Goes Boating” touches me deeply—makes me come to terms with uncomfortable truths about myself, such as my depth of selfishness, my fears of commitment, my reasons for pushing others away—and much of that power is owed to Phil’s perfect sense of tone (oh how I wish he’d directed more!), his powerhouse acting performance in the film, and, of course, the fact that he chose the project.  He knew what to choose.  Watch this clip from “Jack Goes Boating”. 

I felt like I knew Mr. Hoffman.  If I’d ran into him on the street, we would have just started talking, I think.  I wouldn’t have been starstruck.  I would have thought, oh, it’s about time we hung out.  Maybe this makes me creepy or weird, but I think it’s just a testament to a man who built an astoundingly successful acting career by putting trust in his audience, and there being an audience out there who wanted desperately to be trusted.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was important to me.

I don’t understand why you’re angry in November.

So, it is that time of year.  We all know it well.  A day or two after Halloween, and suddenly decorations are up for Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas, and there is holiday music everywhere, and TV specials, and all the big box stores have set aside three huge aisles for holidays that are still a few months away.  My question is, so fucking what?

 

Why are you all so piping mad about this, year after year?  The only thing you can count on more than a relentless parade of Peanuts specials as soon as the leaves turn, is everyone in the whole world bitching about Wal-Mart and Target selling Christmas stuff.  This barrage of bitching has been going on for so long, and by so many people across every possible social strata, that the inherent wickedness of these “early holidays” seems to just be generally accepted by everyone.  It has just become a societal fact: Christmas being advertised in November is evil, it’s bad, it’s annoying.  Give us time for Thanksgiving!, everyone bemoans, as though the Wal-Mart packages of three different kinds of Brut cologne were somehow going to stop them from posting , to their Facebook wall, one thing they were thankful for each day during the month of November.  Let me guess, your kids, husband, job, health, and God, right?  Got it, same as last year.

Listen soccer mom, big cardboard candy canes on the light posts aren’t going to stop you from stuffing Stove Top into a dead, genetically enhanced bird.  Nothing about the holiday of Thanksgiving is changed by our thinking about Christmas early.  Nothing.

I have thought long and hard about why this must get everyone so riled up, and have come up with a stultifying lack of credible reasons.  You’re mad because…why?  You hate Christmas?  You hate loving your fellow humans?  You hate presents and joy and the ringing of bells?  And you don’t really like Thanksgiving that much, do you?  You know turkey and mashed potatoes are available year-round, right?

The only viable argument I can come up with for folks’ dislike to November Christmasing is the obvious commercialization of the holiday, and mega-corporations using this wonderful time of year (whether you celebrate religiously or secularly, it is still a special time) to make money, preying on our emotions and beliefs to squeeze every cent out of us.  That is all true, but seriously, where are you the other ten months? You are aware, right, that this is ALWAYS HAPPENING.  Enormous, headless, faceless companies are constantly using your emotions, desires, memories, and fears in the most brazen, shameful ways to get you to spend three more dollars.  Every fucking moment of your capitalist life, you are being used and prodded.  Every aisle in that Wal-Mart is ALWAYS, year-round, set up to screw you over, psychologically.  If you want to just wake up to the way the world is working because suddenly your Coca-Cola has polar bears on it, I have little sympathy for you.

I don’t understand why you’re angry in November.

Young Blood

1. Let’s talk a little bit about Facebook, and/ or any other online social media you’d like to apply this to: my Facebook page is not a magical realm of free speech and considered debate.  It (as well as, obviously, my blog.  Hey, you want a blog too, you can get one!) is a place where I put the stuff that I already think.  Sometimes, that stuff is “I like Triscuits”, but other times it might be “We need stricter gun control in this country, because guns and people kill people.”  Those are my opinions, and I didn’t get them from numbskulls like you, I got them from the world, and my observations of it.  Now, you are of course more than free to have your own opinions, and even ones that are different than mine, but these people that seem to think that everything needs debated all the time, and that you need to listen to all sides of a debate! are mistaken for a few reasons.  Yes, debate is healthy and necessary, but I don’t spend all my time online, nor do my opinions get formed or forged there.  By the time I’ve “statused” an opinion, I’ve read about, watched something about it, talked to a human being in person about it, observed something about it, etc.  I communicate things via social networks that I already think.  Now, you may ask, what’s wrong with even more debate?  And my answer to you is, nothing is wrong with more debate, but not Facebook debate.  Facebook debate sucks.  Nobody is ever swayed by anything said online, it makes me hate you, it reveals your lack of grasp of the English language, it wastes my time, and makes people who like each other say things they regret.  Just don’t bother.  And then, the topper, is when since it is after all MY Facebook page, I delete the contrary comments so as to avoid the debate, the person notices I’ve deleted the comments and wants to get all high-and-mighty as though I am oppressing their free speech or quashing some important, vital public discourse.  Listen Chachi, this aint Meet the Press, you aren’t the Op-Ed page, and Facebook isn’t housed in the National Archive. Step off my status, Anthony Scalia, I already know what the fuck I think.

2.  I just saw “Gravity” in the movie theater.  This was a fantastic experience.  Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about to become my “favorite” movie, but it is very unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in a movie theater.  It is an experience.  I don’t want to oversell it here, but listen, this thing has GOT to be seen on a big screen, in 3D, if you want to grasp what the whole point of the endeavor is.  Do it.  Go.  Soon.

3.  As you may know, for many years, I was a very vocal opponent of professional sports.  I thought they are a nuisance distraction from what is generally important in the world.  I thought the energy and attention that followers of sports devote to them was a drain on other places they could be placing that attention, such as government and world affairs, the fine arts, the world of science, and the great story of human history.  Guess what?  I still absolutely think that is true.  There isn’t really any getting around it: professional sports are, by-and-large, a great waste of time by otherwise fantastic cultures.  It’s just that at some point a few years ago, I made a conscious decision to drink the Kool-Aid.  I now follow sports like a 70s housewife followed soap operas; all-too aware of their impotence in the world, but completely invested regardless.  And it is through that lens and with those caveats that I now say this: why the fuck do some of you people make a conscious decision to have “your” team be a team that is nowhere near you?  Like someone from Pennsylvania, with no connection to Colorado, being a Denver Broncos fan (hey! We have two pretty neat football teams in our very own state!) or someone from California being a Green Bay Packers fan (again…THREE serviceable teams in that particular state).  Now, I hear what you’re out there saying: But Seth, didn’t you just say that sports were essentially meaningless?  Didn’t you compare them to soap operas?  If so, isn’t my choice to follow the Vancouver Canucks just like preferring “General Hospital” over “One Life to Live”?  Well, that’s a pretty good point, but you’re wrong.  One of the few socially relevant and culturally significant facets sports do afford us is the ability to help define our regional cultures, bring us temporarily and intensely together as citizens of a common area, form loose bonds out of otherwise unrelated people, and energize regions and cities with not only economic growth and civic pride, but a kind of localized patriotism which, even though it arises from games that in reality mean nothing, it serves to define us as people from a certain place, with a certain history and tradition.  Once you have bought into this artificial but nonetheless powerful facade, you become part of the tapestry of the history of a place and culture.  And you want to go and just…like some team colors?  For a team that is from a place you’ve never been, and which you know next-to-nothing about??? That is NOT like choosing one soap opera over another, it’s like watching static on a screen while “Gone With the Wind” is on the other channel.  Put some meaning into your meaningless sport, I don’t care how long you’ve “liked” the Yankees.

4.  My buddy Kyle knows a girl who is in a band called The Colourist, and it turns out, they might actually be on the cusp of being a legit famous band!  (how do we know they are going to be famous? You have seen them in a commercial! This commercial!) They are currently on tour opening for a band called The Naked and Famous, which is a band that is currently enjoying a fair amount of stardom, at least on the “indie rock” scene.  Anyway, Kyle, knowing my penchant for concert-going and thinking one or both bands might be down my alley, asked his friend who is in The Colourist (her name is Maya) if she could put me on the guest list for their upcoming show in Philly at the Trocadero, and she did!  So tomorrow night, I get to go see a rock show for free! Yay!  Now, I have not been able to really familiarize myself all that much with the material of either band, but the listening I have done, I like but don’t love.  Both bands do make, generally, the kind of music I like, but they seem to draw a bit more from pop influences than usually suits my taste, but again, I haven’t listened too much.  But I certainly like them enough to go see them play!  Thanks again for the hookup, Kyle!

Here are the songs I have liked most so far from The Colourist as well as The Naked and Famous:

Get Out of the Kitchen

In the few years since I’ve begun riding a bike for pleasure, I have found a curious thing to hold true: if you want to experience deafening, post-apocalypse-like solitude, there is no place quite like small town or suburban streets in the middle of summer.

Let me state this again: when it gets hot out, the streets of your local neighborhood are always empty.  Eerily so.

OK so, people don’t like the heat, so what?  That’s certainly fine with me.  Go wherever you want and like whatever you want; I’m always glad everyone doesn’t like the same stuff I like (you’d all be making me wait in line for shit)!  But as I was riding my bike around a sweltering small town today, glorying in the sweat on the inside of my cap and the buzzing of relentless insects and the lively way sound has of travelling through active, hot air, I couldn’t help but ponder the many conversations I’ve had with people about their aversion to heat.

I’m pretty into summer, and most people aren’t, so I’ve had lots of these conversations.

Very close to 100% of people give a form of this argument for an anti-summer stance:

At least in the winter, you can go somewhere and warm up, maybe throw a blanket over yourself.  In the summer, sometimes you just get real hot and there’s nothing you can do about it. Give me a blanket any day!

What a load of steaming bullshit.  It is certainly possible that you think that way, and if so, may I suggest that you’re a wanker?  You mean to tell me the foremost thing you base your human happiness on is your level of physical comfort in relation to the atmospheric temperature?  How dreadfully boring, how devoid of active thought or action, how painfully insipid of a way to think about your life.  So, more than anything, you just want to be comfortable, eh?

You know, in many instances, comfort is a synonym for complacency.  That means not giving a shit.

(I have a few readers in parts of the world that are not “four season” areas; this rant applies very little to them)

Curling up under a blanket, while certainly a nice escape from the death season which is Winter, is certainly no valid recompense for losing the ability to partake in just about any meaningful outdoor activity (please, if you’re contemplating commenting about snowboarding, making snowmen, snowball fights, etc, please read this old entry of mine, and then take a flying leap).  It is inherent in the very reasons you give for liking “cold over hot” that these activities revolve around escaping from life, withdrawing from action, focusing on comfort and the absence of the cold from your living room, rather than anything that is celebratory, life-affirming, or satisfying of your human curiosity.

I reject your argument about blankets, fireplaces, and Christmas.  It is invalid.  You don’t like cold more than you like heat.  You like comfort more than you like living.

Hot Dog Soup

About once a month, somebody “accuses” me of having an “opinion about everything”.  Some people actually find this to be a negative trait!  While I suppose having constant opinions coming out of one’s mouth might, over time, seem “negative” or “cynical”, what is the opposite?!  Certainly not “optimistic”, it’s just…unopinionated, which I can’t imagine is very different than uneducated.  Or at the very least, uninterested or lacking any substantial level of curiosity about the world around you.  And to me, a lack of curiosity is just about as unattractive of a personality trait as you can have.

“The blog”, as a general phenomenon is sadly going the way of the dodo.  The lion’s share of the content on the internet is now filtered through three or four different social network sites, with instant sharing, commenting, “liking”, where all the people you know are already congregated.  Taking the time to create and maintain your own blog, and then trying to convince everyone to leave the comforts of the social networking site to actually read your blog, is now more trouble than it’s worth for most people.  Myself included.  My blog output has been pathetic for over a year now.  But that might be partially because when I drop a blog bomb on you, like this or this, it goes largely unnoticed and uncommented on.  You people don’t deserve my blog.  Regardless, I mourn the end of the blog era, when, briefly, a bunch of everyday folks fancied themselves writers.  It was fun.  Now we’re all just statusers.

I’m scared by how fast technology is evolving.  I know, I know: what a very typical thing to say.  Everyone who has tons of opinions has that opinion.  But do you know about Moore’s law? If not, you should click on that link and read that article.  Moore’s Law is not a theory anymore; this is how the world is working now, and it is truly ghastly imagining what things will be like even five years from now.  Microchips in our brains is not a joke anymore.  I dare say it is something that will be happening soon.  And hey, look, I’m not afraid of change.  I’m afraid of change happening faster than we can adapt to it or control it.  There were thousands of years from when we invented the wheel to when we came up with the car.  It’s been 80 years since we invented television, and now we’re about to control them by waving our hands in the air.  And that progress is only going to keep speeding up, according to Moore’s Law.

I’d eat Hot Dog Soup, if it existed.

Washington and Lafayette

For the last few months, I’ve been slowly trodding through Ron Chernow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George Washington, Washington: A Life. I love biographies, especially “life” biographies (meaning books that trace a person’s life from beginning to end, as opposed to some biographies that focus on a specific time in a person’s life, like the very hip Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals ) because full-life biographies not only allow you to see the amazing or substantial things that person did, but also allow you to see how their life, like just about everyone’s life, is kinda sorta like yours, no matter when they lived or what they did.

George Washington’s life was certainly very different than mine, at least as far as its “plot” is concerned.  But in many ways, it was very similar.  He had obsessions, failures, doubts, triumphs.  Women he could never get, purchases he could never make, expecations he wrestled with, and the insidious pallor of mortality.  Reading Chernow’s biography–widely considered the most accurate yet written–is really making the man come alive for me, and I’m finding this book to be not only very informative, but quite surprisingly emotional.

One of George Washington’s best friends was French general Marquis de Lafayette (Gilbert to his pals), one of if not the largest French figure of the American Revolution.  Layfayette was 25 years younger than Washington–he was only 19 years old when he came to our young nation to help us win our independence, and at first, Washington played the role of a mentor to the young Frenchman.  But by war’s end–a war that certainly had to be one of the most emotional and amazing experiences in the history of mankind, and the participants were far from unaware of its immense magnitute—Washington and Lafayette had become great friends and equals.  A portrait of Lafayette hung in Washington’s parlor in Mount Vernon.

I tell you all this so I can put in here a passage I just read that moved me to tears.  It felt odd to be moved to tears by a biography of George Washington, but this is why I love history so much.  There were real people doing extraordinary things.

After all the incredible things these men had been through together in the war, there was a time of relative tranquility, before Washington knew he would become president, when he was looking forward to just farming his land in Virginia and resting.  Lafayette visited him for an extended stay, but eventually, it came time for him to go back to France.  This almost certainly meant the two close friends would never see each other again.  Ocean crossings were no small deal in those days.  Washington rode half the way from Virginia to Philadelphia (where he’d be sailing from) with Lafayette, and somewhere along the road, the two men said goodbye.

A short while later, back at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote Lafayette a letter (they never would see each other again, by the way).  The portion of the letter that moved me so is as follows:

In the moment of our seperation upon the road, as I traveled and every hour since, I felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you with which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me.  I often asked myself, as our carriages distended, whether that was the last sight I should ever have of you?  And though I wished to say no, my fears answered yes.  I called to mind the days of my youth and found they had long since fled to return no more; that I was now descending the hill I had been 52 years climbing; and that though I was blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived family and might soon expect to be entombed in the dreary mansions of my fathers.  These things darkened the shades and gave a gloom to the picture, consequently to my prospects of seeing you again.  Know, my friend, that I have loved you true, and my life stands altered for it.  But I will not repine—I have had my day.

My Favorite Music of 2012

Well well fair blog readers, it is time once again for my year-end favorite music list.  Unlike in years past, this will be the only year-end list here on Notes From the Fire, as I simply haven’t been paying enough attention to anything else to make a decent list.

If you’d like to go back in time, here are links to previous years’ lists:

2011

2010

2009

There were two years of lists before these, but they were on my MySpace blog, which has mysteriously disappeared.  As usual, a mix disc representative of this blog has been made and will be automatically sent to those of you on my “mailing list”; if you aren’t and you want to be, contact me!

All music on this list was released in calendar year 2012.  The list itself is limited to only full-length albums, but there are some runners-up after the list by artists that either didn’t release full-length albums, or whose album sucked, but since this is literally a list of my “favorite music” released this year, it seemed silly to continue limiting it to only full albums.  Now: the list!

10.  Benjamin Gibbard, “Former Lives”

Death Cab for Cutie frontman Gibbard unleashed his first solo effort this year, and of course, it sounds and feels a lot like Death Cab, but lyrically, the album sticks solely to relationships (mostly romantic, but occasionally musing on friendship, too) and never veers onto some of the larger topics Death Cab albums often deal with.  A highlight is Gibbard’s duet with Aimee Mann on “Bigger Than Love“.

9.  Delta Spirit, “Delta Spirit”

The California indie rocker’s, on their second album, grow and evolve from the raw, straight-ahead power they used on 2010’s “History From Below” into a band with more textured, layered sublety, while still retaining their ability to outright gut-punch their listeners.

8.  Alabama Shakes, “Boys and Girls”

The Shakes have spearheaded a new movement of indie Americana, and nobody is going to do it better than they do. They’re not writing songs for the radio.  There are no enormous, sweeping, soundtrack-ready singalong choruses (hello there, annoying second chapter of the Mumford and Sons story), just genuine feeling and the ache of living and working in an America that doesn’t notice you.

7.  Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Psychedelic Pill”

Young and Crazy Horse had quite a year this year, putting out an album of covers, as well as this album, their first new original music together in many, many years.  And it did not disappoint.  A double-disc album, it only has eight songs on it, as these crunchy blasts of feedback perfection keep stretching over the 20 minute mark.  Not to be missed if you’ve ever been a fan of what Young and Crazy Horse do together.

6.  El Ten Eleven, “Transitions”

Practitioners of the dark art of Post-Rock, this duo uses live looping to replicate their large sound in the live setting.  This year’s album, “Transitions”, found them reaching even further toward the epic, big-idea tomes their genre-mates usually turn out, although they still often give their songs goofy titles, like “Thanks Bill“.

5.  Public Enemy, “The Evil Empire of Everything”

I know what you’re saying!  “Rap?!”  Well, yes.  Way back in the day when I was solely into rap (ie, high school) Public Enemy was one of my favorite acts.  Chuck D is an amazing lyricist and they are very hard-hitting musically.  A review in a magazine prompted me to check out this new album, and I was instantly smitten.  Their music is, in fact, closer to “rock” than most hip hop acts, and Chuck’s radical social conscious speaks to my ever-more-liberal than last year ideals.  But warning: this dude is more liberal than you are (whoever you are), and if you have a problem with a black dude still accusing the white establishment of fucking with black folks (which definitely still happens, black president or not) then you should stay away from Public Enemy (and enjoy your Kenny Chesney concert).

4.  Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Americana”

The first album Young and Crazy Horse put out this year, “Americana” is a collection of classic American folk songs, re-written in gritty, in-your-face grunge style that goes great lengths of changing (or in some cases, re-enforcing) how we view these songs we’ve all heard hundreds of times.  Read more about it and stream the entire album here.

3.  Emily Wells, “Mama”

Emily Wells, a solo artist who utilizes live looping much like El Ten Eleven, writes haunting, unconventional visions of angst and longing, but on this year’s “Mama” she took things a step further by writing flat-out stunning poetry for lyrics.  On previous albums she had always witten very effective, affecting songs, but on “Mama” she gets subtle, roundabout, and mysterious while keeping things just within reach of accesibility.  If she continues to evolve at this rate her next album will cement her status as a cult hero.

2.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!”

Aside from perhaps classical and some jazz, there is absolutely nothing more serious in the world of music than Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  Do not approach this band if you are not capable of listening to music to ponder your absolute and complete reason for existence.  And to explore where the line between perfect joy and utter despiar lies.  The godfathers (and godmothers) of post-rock, Godspeed hadn’t released an album in 10 years, and speculation had asserted they probably were not going to.  So when “‘Allelujah” was announced, it sent shockwaves through the post-rock community, with most people assuming no album they could release would possibly be able to live up to expectations.  But they proved everyone wrong.  The album came out to almost universal acclaim.  Most people are actually somewhat baffled by the post-rock perfection that goes on here, and how, after 5 of their own albums and countless (truly, countless) copycat bands, Godspeed is somehow still able to surprise us and find new, truly incredible ways to make this kind of music.  Also, having purchased the album on vinyl, I have a code for a free download of this album that I will pass along to the first person who asks for it.

1.  Band of Horses, “Mirage Rock”

Over the course of the last few years, Band of Horses have come to the forefront of my music-listening life (although I hesitate to crown them my “favorite band”, as other bands might be more at the forefront if they’d been on the same album release and tour schedule as Band of Horses).  The band’s sound, the lyrical content and the overall subject matter of the songs, and even all the albums’ packaging (every album so far has come with a packet of photographs that don’t say anything on them and are just assumed to be a visual accompaniment to the music) steers me to this band.  This year’s “Mirage Rock” only ramped up this enjoyment all the more.  Songs like “Slow Cruel Hands of Time” seem to not only be about my own feelings, but practically a plot-specific memoir of my life.  For the last six months, “Mirage Rock” has been a steady and constant companion, the true soundtrack to my life, and as such, it gets this year’s number one spot!

Runner-up songs:
Imagine Dragons, “Radioactive”
Bruce Springsteen, “We Take Care of Our Own”
Gary Clark Jr., “When My Train Pulls In”
GROUPLOVE, “Itchin’ on a Photograph”
Silversun Pickups, “Skin Graph”
Grizzly Bear, “Yet Again”
Kaiser Chiefs, “Little Shocks”
Mogwai, “San Pedro”
Hey Rosetta!, “New Year Song”

Everything’s Gonna Be Undone

You may or may not know that one of the unstated goals I had when moving to New Jersey and hence ending the “living-alone-very-far-away-from-everyone-I-know” experiment, was to try to be less of an asshole.  Living so solitary, as I did for two years in Erie, hastened an already alarming trend within me that caused me to be cynical, unkind, and judgmental.  And nowhere was this more evident than when I went to concerts.

I was alone, and everyone around me wasn’t.  Generally speaking, the type of people who go to concerts are nice, gregarious, outgoing folks who want to make friends.  I hated them, I ignored them, I went as far as to be mean to them.  I hated strangers, but I hated strangers at concerts the most.

So it was with great pleasure and not just a little surprise that I realized, as Band of Horses was about to start playing tonight, that I had made friends at this concert; I was first in line (that’s right, first), and I never gave a second thought to striking up good-natured temporary kinships with my front-of-the-line-mates.  I ended up on the railing next to two of them (a married couple from Wisconsin who are following the band) and we talked Band of Horses while we waited for the show to start.  They saved my spot for me when I needed to pee—one of the more complicated and worrisome aspects of attending General Admission concerts by yourself.  When the show was over we hung out together to try to get setlists (we didn’t) and it was just very pleasant.  I ran into some other line-mates after the show as we stood in line at the merchandise booth and we talked like we were old pals. It felt nice not to be an asshole.

Here is a picture of the line (from my vantage point at the very front!!) just before doors opened:

Band of Horses speak to my soul, whatever the fuck that means.  This band continues to evolve into a force in my life hitherto unfelt.  Tonight was my fourth time seeing them (still haven’t seen my Band of Horses white whale) and my emotional reaction keeps evolving (meaning I come close to crying like a baby a whole lot).  Ben Bridwell’s lyrics, coupled with the band’s live show–which is 100% exactly the kind of live show I want from a band–hit me in some secret place that even I can’t locate.

Here is tonight’s setlist:

01 Monsters >
02 Neighbors reprise
03 Compliments
04 Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
05 Laredo
06 The Great Salt Lake
07 Islands On the Coast
08 Northwest Apartment
09 Is There A Ghost?
10 Slow Cruel Hands of Time
11 Older
12 Electric Music
13 Dilly
14 Window Blues
15 Everything’s Gonna be Undone
16 Weed Party
17 Knock Knock
18 Ode to LRC
19 The Funeral

encore break

20 No One’s Gonna Love You More Than I Do (Ben & Tyler only)
21 A Song for You (Gram Parsons cover)
22 The General Specific

Lists

Chances are, you care about none or almost none of my top ten lists presented here.  But you have to live with the fact that this post exists anyway.

It’s no secret that I love making top 10, top 5, or even top 100 lists of the things I love.  Not only do I love making them, but I find having them in the public sphere (ie, my blog) handy from time-to-time, as I’m discussing my favorites of something with someone and I can say, hold on, I actually have my list made, let me link you to it.

Over the past few years, I’ve made a few big lists (bands, books, directors, etc), but I find that some of these change so fast, use of the list in any sort of real-time discussion becomes moot.  So I am here updating them, although a few of them remain relatively the same as their original lists, others have changed drastically.

I am including a list of my top ten favorite movies for the first time since I made a very controversial top-100-movie list 6 or 7 years ago on my MySpace blog (most of which has disappeared for no reason).  This movie list will no doubt cause quite a stir with Kyle; it would also doubtless cause a stir with many of my other movie-centric friends, if in fact any of them still read my blog, the bastards.

All lists are in order, and are a list of my favorites, not what I consider “the best”.

My top ten favorite poets

10.  Randall Jarrell
9.   Jane Kenyon
8.  William Carlos Williams
7.   Sylvia Plath
6.  Billy Collins
5.  Denise Levertov
4.  E.E. Cummings
3.  Robert Creeley
2.  John Updike
1.  Philip Larkin

My top 5 favorite hockey teams

5.  San Jose Sharks
4.  Phoenix Coyotes
3.  Buffalo Sabres
2.  Columbus Blue Jackets
1.  Philadelphia Flyers

My 10 favorite (non-documentary) film directors

10.  Lars von Trier
9.  Sidney Lumet
8.  Terrence Malick
7.  Christopher Nolan
6.  Darren Aronofsky
5.  Danny Boyle
4.  Stanley Kubrick
3.  Werner Herzog
2.  Paul Thomas Anderson
1.  Alfred Hitchcock

My 5 favorite sodas

5.  Coke Zero
4.  Mr. Pibb
3.  RC Cola
2.  Tab
1.  Dr. Pepper

My top five football teams

5.  Detroit Lions
4.  Seattle Seahawks
3.  Buffalo Bills
2.  Cleveland Browns
1.  Philadelphia Eagles

My four favorite seaons

4.  Winter
3.  Autumn
2.  Spring
1.  Summer

My top ten radio shows

10.  Tell Me More (NPR)
9.  Science Friday (NPR)
8.  Mike and Mike in the Morning (ESPN Radio)
7.  On the Media (NPR)
6.  MLB Roundtrip (MLB Radio)
5.  A Praire Home Companion (NPR)
4.  Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!  (NPR)
3.  Talk of the Nation (NPR)
2.  On Point (NPR)
1.  Car Talk (NPR)

My top ten bands

10.  The Beatles
9.  Pearl Jam
8.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor
7.  Seven Mary Three
6.  Death Cab For Cutie
5.  Explosions in the Sky
4.  My Morning Jacket
3.  Band of Horses
2.  The National
1.  Hey Rosetta!

My top ten favorite TV shows

10.  Firefly
9.   Mythbusters
8.  Breaking Bad
7.  Seinfeld
6.  Picket Fences
5.  Carnivale
4.  24
3.  Mad Men
2.  LOST
1.  Northern Exposure

My top 5 baseball teams

5.  Baltimore Orioles
4.  New York Mets
3.  Kansas City Royals
2.  Cleveland Indians
1.  Philadelphia Phillies

My top ten favorite movies

10.  12 Angry Men
9.   Rope
8.  Citizen Kane
7.  Fitzcarraldo
6.  Children of Men
5.  Night of the Hunter
4.  Magnolia
3.  Where the Wild Things Are
2.  I’m Still Here
1.  The Tree of Life

My five favorite novelists

5.  Orson Scott Card
4.  Mark Twain
3.  Dave Eggers
2.  John Kennedy Toole
1.  Kurt Vonnegut

My top 5 (pre-my-birth) presidents

5.  John Adams
4.  Abraham Lincoln
3.  James K. Polk
2.  George Washington
1.  Franklin D. Roosevelt

My ten favorite books

10.  “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” by Dave Eggers
9.  “Maps in a Mirror” by Orson Scott Card
8.  “Slaughterhouse-5” by Kurt Vonnegut
7.  “Dubliners” by James Joyce
6.  “Letters From the Earth” by Mark Twain
5.  “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut
4.  “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway
3.  “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
2.  “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole
1.  “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck

My ten favorite friends of all-time

Ha!  You thought I was gonna do this one???

My ten favorite albums

10.  “Plans” by Death Cab for Cutie
9.   “Infinite Arms” by Band of Horses
8.   “Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever” by Explosion in the Sky
7.   “Seeds” by Hey Rosetta!
6.  “The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw” by Pelican
5.   “Secret Samadhi” by LIVE
4.   “Abbey Road” by The Beatles
3.   “RockCrown” by Seven Mary Three
2.   “High Violet” by The National
1.  “Into Your Lungs (and Around in Your Heart and On Through Your Blood)” by Hey Rosetta!

Top women I’ve slept with

1.  Seriously, read this