Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
I see those forward-leaning boys and think of high school, of tiny boys with overfull backpacks trying desperately to counter the weight. The boys i pass here at Drexel are the same as those younger ones; though they may have left their bags behind, they have not left behind that forward slouch — now leaning into the wind of their academic challenges as if it is still tangibly forcing them backwards.
by krisis
Elliott Smith dead, of apparent suicide, at age thirty four. First read at Alison’s, then at Pitchfork, with additional information gleaned from a recent Under the Radar article, Sweet Adeline, Rolling Stone, and the AP obit.
I don’t remember buying XO, or why i bought XO, or the first time i listened to XO, all of which is highly out of character for me. I was oblivious, i’m sure, to the fact that Elliott had been nominated for an Academy Award. All i knew of him, i think, is that Anastasia liked him. The music that went with the name was instantly familiar, drawn straight from a McCartney-like obsession with simplicitly. It made me want to play guitar and sing, sing higher than i could sing, sing fragile and delicate and about to break just like Elliott.
Elliott Smith was one of the first men that i listened to whose music i could simultaneously covet and aspire to. I only ever bought one other album of his, because i couldn’t imagine a more simple, more perfect record than XO. It was a record that did not have a skippable song; a record my mother stole from my apartment; a record whose songs represented a kaleidoscopic promise of genius, and of more to come. And now it will live eternally as the penultimate record Smith’s life, followed by Figure 8 but never by the promised From A Basement On The Hill.
by krisis
This morning i downloaded the newly released iTunes for Windows.
Now, we already know my feelings on MP3 exchanges, which can easy be extrapolated to P2P networks, but i’ve yet to form an opinion on iTunes, other than that nothing will ever truly render purchasing a physical album obsolete for me. I need to open the case, touch the liner notes, and remember how and when each scratch and crack on the disc and case were acquired. For me, consuming music is as much tactile as it is aural … i need to hear, but also to touch (which is probably why i like buying sheet music to my favorite albums so much; playing along is the ultimate tactile accompaniment to sound).
A service like iTunes does have its benefits, though (i’ll mention here that i’ve never even seen the Mac version; for a more comparative discussion, see Benjy). For example, tonight i was putting together a rehearsal disc for the Treblemakers and thought for a second that i hadn’t actually borrowed one of the source discs that included two that i don’t own. on it. I was about to tear apart my room apart looking for them when i realized that both songs would probably be on iTunes and, sure enough, both were available for just $.99.
iTunes will never be more than that to me — just a quick resource for making mix tapes. In a way, it is something i’ve dreamed of ever since i sat by the stereo, anxiously awaiting the chance to tape a new favorite song; it is a standing resource, a library of music that’s available at a moment’s notice. However, between my need for a tactile music experience, my uber-completist CD collecting behavior, and the fact that it currently has nary a song by Madonna or Ani DiFranco, i can’t say that i find it indispensable.
Maybe if it had streaming radio… (as if i don’t have enough things to listen to here already). On that note, TDavid has some praise for another new application, Rhapsody. If your a PC music fiend who doesn’t mind shelling out for the priveledge of listening, it seems worth looking into.
by krisis
I’ve been holding on to this awful fear in the pit of my stomach for over a year now — that anytime the phone rings it’s going to be bad news about my grandmother. Maybe it’s why i hate the phone so much, how i always avoiding answering its ring and why i made sure to leave my cell phone safely ensconced within my old office building for the last two weeks … why i wasn’t surprised to finally pick it up only to hear a sequence a messages from my mother, each serving as a cold comfort as none quite claimed the worst.
I was caught, though, last night, live and on the line to my mother as she once again laid on this guilt, as if i know how to set aside my entire life and somehow make this all easier for her, or how to make my grandmom happier and not in so much pain, or how to do anything. The truth is that i don’t know, i can’t do anything, and every time my mother reminds me of how truly bad things are i see my grandmother and i convince myself that everything is okay.
I have finally been convinced now, though, that it is not okay. Sitting in the middle of the floor idly strumming my guitar and it all at once hit me that even though i made Elise promise to drive me over there tomorrow when her class is over that i missed out. I missed out on bringing Elise to meet her like i said i would, and on having her come to my college graduation, or even have her see me become successful or hold my children in some distant future. I realized all of that, and that maybe i have resisted dealing with it emotionally for all this time because i was hoping that somehow if i pushed it to the back of my mind and just kept working i would somehow make everything that she’s always dreamed for me come true.
What followed was a mess of tears and words and suddenly, two hours later, i’ve lost a box of tissues but gained a song so stupidly simple that i can’t help but keep crying as i have it on repeat because it encapsulates so very perfectly just how crushed this is leaving my life, and how much i just want to be able to have my college diploma and my successful life ready to bring with me tomorrow when i sit next to her bed, because i can’t think of anything else to give her (because she doesn’t really like songs all that much).
But, on the bright side, i’m a third of the way done my next Trio.
by krisis
I spent all day worried about the notes that i fucked up on Mother Mother. Peter, i kept thinking, how could you post a Trio with notes that fucked up?. Well, i knew how; “Mother Mother” had been holding me up for over a week, and finally this morning i just woke up, tuned my guitar, screamed intermittently for about three minutes, and then wiped my hands of the Trio just in time for my directing class.
I walked to said class while listening to, for the first time in many many years, Paula Abdul’s Forever Your Girl. This was an album that, in my pre-adolescent life, was probably second only to the LPs in my Madonna collection when it came to getting the most spins, though i would be hard pressed to explain that phenomenon to you after a day of suffering through the ten-track atrocity that Paula passed off as a debut album.
I refer to it as such not because it failed to be a coldly calculated synth-fueled pop smash (it was), but because even with the best computers the late eighties had to offer and a multi-cultural multi-gender team of anonymous back of singers, Paula can still barely hit a solid note. It’s actually quite pathetic. Verses that i remembered being supple and sweet were instead slurred and sloppy, and vocal crescendos on choruses were actually a tiny, squeaky Paula being carried by a crashing layered tide of herself and said crack team of backup singers.
I can appreciate that some people aren’t the most phenomenal singers, but all through my walk to and from class i found myself wondering couldn’t they have gotten a better performance out of her? Obviously the album was destined for success whether it featured assured singing or not, but why settle for not? Why not train more, or record more takes, or pick a pop-model who can actually sing to sell your songs rather than a former cheerleader destined to be remembered more for her scripted anti-Simon quips than her amazing vocal abilities?
I don’t know that i’ve figured out the answers, but tonight i found myself absent-mindedly listening to my first Trio ever, and i realized that i really didn’t hit very many of the notes. I was singing, and supporting a little, and i had pitch, but i was not singing with the tuneful confidence that invites harmony, a band, or a record deal. If had i turned in a similar performance earlier today it would have been promptly thrown into the recycle bin. And, yet, three years later i find myself kvetching about a “so” on “Not So Bad” whose O wasn’t round enough, how Paula Abdul’s singing is nothing but unimpressive and contrived without the wonderful world of Pro Tools to augment it’s many Britney quality failures, and how the vowel i sing in the word “mother” makes me sound like i’m trying to remember how to vomit.
In a moment of absolutely clarity, i realized that the only thing i know how to settle for is progress. None of these three complaints would have even occurred to me three years ago, two years ago i wouldn’t have known what to do about them, and a year ago i would have settled for a few mistakes and called it a day. Each step represented a previously unimaginable improvement from the last, but at each junction i was just as imperfect as Paula.
So, essentially, i cannot wait until season five starts. And that’s a long way from now…