Quick Post: Albums That Own My Life Right Now

I don't pretend to be the type that's an expert on music. Usually, I'll love something for its lyricism, or I'll say something stupid like "and then there's this part where the strings go wraaaaaaaaah and it's awesome!" The truth is, for those of us who aren't really musicians (I play guitar, but that's it, and I'm not even remotely good), all we can say about music is what we like, and damned if we can say anything smart about technique or composition. That doesn't mean that I don't know what I'm talking about, just that I don't have the know-how to say it. In any case, here are three albums that are owning my shit, for no other reason than I like them. Look them up, listen for yourself, I doubt you'll regret it. And with the exception of Knives Don't Have Your Back, they're pretty new.

Edited out the parts about France and husbandry.

GIve thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habits as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparent oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Hamlet, am I right? Even if it is from the dumbest character in the play, the words themselves are more or less helpful. It seems contradictory at first: do all these things to please people, but be true to yourself! And yet, at this point in my life, it makes a sort of sense to me:

"Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act": Keep your thoughts to yourself, and don't act rashly.

"Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar; The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.": be nice and open to other people, but not too casual, keep your old friends close to your heart since they've been there for a long time and can be trusted, but don't waste your time with new friends who don't know you yet.

"Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.": Don't fight, but if you fight, you win! I like the phrase "the opposed may beware of thee." Don't beat them, but let them know that you don't appreciate your shit being fucked with.

"Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.": pay close attention to people, but don't make yourself very well known, size everyone up, but don't judge them immediately. A lot of this makes me think of the "every time I meet someone I think of how I could fight them." idea. Listen closely but don't be too loud, don't get into fights but by all means finish them, don't judge people, but size up their weaknesses anyway.

"Costly thy habits as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparent oft proclaims the man." : Don't be tacky. Clothes make the man. Buy LOTS of them.

"Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.": So this is the best-known and most often quoted thing that Polonius ever does in the play. "To thine own self be true" is a pretty heavy mantra, in any case, but I totally dig it. The hard part here is reconciling being true to oneself while also being more or less a spy to everyone else. I think it's perfectly possible.

Pooooooooooooooooem

I am confessing and repeating

(doing what poets have done too long

and too often

and with every metaphor)

My heart is yours to grow.

It will be poetry, for you

it will have assonance

and rhyme with penance

laughing and skipping

behind your shadow,

like a small girl in a blue coat,

so slight her balloon lifts her

off the ground as she goes, so oh!

That will be my voice,

the hopes in my mind,

a breath that will emerge

so light from this heavy frame.

Poetry, mostly love

from a mostly heart:

something shuddering shimmering

off in the water, far out

from where your feet rest,

the sand creeping on your toes,

the sun crawling down.

Books To Get Out Of The Way

Having now read On The Road, the apparent crown jewel of the Beat Generation (at this point, I prefer "Howl", Allen Ginsberg's poem, but whatevs), I can safely summarize it as: meh.

I should go into some detail, just in case someone 1) reads this blog and 2) loves On The Road to no end. I got what Kerouac was doing easy enough: taking wanderlust, individualism, jazz, and a new idea of what writing should be and setting it down to paper. And though Sal Paradise's adventures gave me a serious desire for being out on the road myself, there wasn't anything within the book that struck me as divinely profound (see the "the only ones for me are the mad ones" quote, which may be one of the most common amongst the hipster set). The language, once, jive, was archaic, the motivations less rebellious, the sex and drugs blasé. At it's heart, it was a good story, but in all honesty I don't see what all the fuss is about, so shoot me.

Anyway, this brings me to my big point of this post: a list! List list list. Today's theme is:

The Top 10 Books To Get Out Of The Way Before Graduating High School

Like it says, these are the top 10 books to read before graduating High School. These aren't necessarily the cream of the literary crop, but they do contain all that profound self-realization crap that most teens look for in books, as well as giving them a good idea of just what a good book ought to be. Naturally, most of these books are on school reading lists, if not, then hand-worn paper back copies of them are shared over the lunch table, where sixteen-year-olds declare things like "dude, this book changed my life" or "read this, though really, it's seriously deep shit". And these words ring true when we are young, I remember feeling like my brain worked differently after reading some of them. But then something happens when we graduate and grow up: is it a loss of idealism? The immersion into deeper, more nuanced things? Whatever it may be, when we read these books for the first time after reaching a certain age, the tone shifts, the language becomes sour, and we are left unimpressed by revelations that would have floored us five years before. Like an inoculation, make sure that every teenager you know reads these books before turning 19:

10.

Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

9.

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brönte)

8.

The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemmingway)

7.

To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

6.

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)

5.

On The Road (Jack Kerouac)

4.

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

3.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)

2.

1984 (George Orwell)

1.

The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

Christmas happened again (it does that), and amongst many other wonderful gifts from many wonderful people, one that stood out was a small book from my mother called You're a Genius All the Time; which is a collection of maxims that Jack Kerouac outlined in reference to writing. There are about 30 of them, but these are my personal favorites:

Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy

Submissive to everything, open, listening

Be in love with your life

Something that you feel will find its own form

Blow as deep as you want to blow

Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind the unspeakable visions of the individual

No time for poetry but exactly what is

Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

Believe in the holy contour of life

Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language, knowledge

Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

You're a Genius all the time

This stuff hit me pretty hard, sad as it is to say. As someone who imagines herself to be a writer, I spend very little time writing; my new job at this coffee place downtown takes up a lot of my energy (I think during my interview I was a little too enthusiastic about the possibility of opening at 5:30 in the morning, but it's not so bad), and now that I have a somewhat social life, I spend my days off blustering around. Not that I'm wasting my time, quite the contrary; I've had a better Christmas season than the past two, when there was nothing to do and no one to do it with. But my New Year's resolution '09 was (I think) to publish something, and unless that Erotic Short that I wrote for that show in February was accepted, then we can count this year as un-resolved. In any case, it's inspired me to keep a writing journal, but it's been harder and harder for me to keep a clear head that would facilitate writing. In violation of my usual blog-rule of keeping my personal life out of my posts, here are some vague reasons why:

-Probably still bitter about getting my heart all broke this summer;

-Wanting to have financial independence but being unable to keep two nickels to rub together, hence too often being stressed about self-inflicted financial problems;

-Thinking that I have the best of intentions but then realizing possibly too late that I'm more selfish than I am generous;

-Having feelings I can't express for various reasons, leaving them like the bitter aftertaste of hazelnuts in my mouth;

-Being afraid of what I can't control;

-Refusing to accept that I can't control it;

-Hating myself for all of the above, and

-Causing myself undue stress, pain, and depression from all that self-hatred.

What sucks the most is that all of that crap is internalized--it isn't something that anyone else has anything to do with, and it isn't something that affects anyone else. This means that I have to take responsibility for and deal with it on my own. The horrible thing about 2009 is that, despite all the sea changes that I've experienced, it's been a grand old time for disappointments, or at least let-downs. I don't want to list them all, they'd end up being redundant, and a lot of them are either resolved or don't cause me any worry any more. But it's still weight that I've carried, and though I might be mostly relieved, a lot of the experience has left me weakened, which makes the whole internalization even worse: I can't ask anyone for help. I have to deal with it on my own.

This situation ought to be more of a challenge than a burden. I have caused or suffered all of my problems alone, I should deal with them alone, thus making me the only one who can give myself strength. I'm too good at doing the opposite; discussing my issues to the point of whining and then placing all my self-worth in the opinions that others have of me (though it isn't a peer-group thing, usually it's one or two people on whom all my happiness relies). My best friend, who is one of the people who I rely on, called this unhealthy, and I can't think of a better possible word. My refusal to rely on myself takes me too often to a perceived point of no return, and I end up drowning in myself. When I was a teenager, it was simple self-pity, but now it's self-loathing, which is more dangerous: I am the person I trust the least and fear the most.

And yes, this is all complete naval-gazing, but like I said, my problems demand such a vantage point. What I am going through is petty compared to what many others experience in their lives. There is no point where I can call what I feel sorrow. But this is all the more reason to confront it, and the perspective of "other people have it worse" changes the approach I take but it doesn't make the workload any smaller. And if I do want to, as Kerouac writes, be in love with my life, I have to find some sort of love for myself. And I can't do that simply by listing off my better qualities. I know that there are things that make me a good person. I strive to be a good person. But, as Owen Wilson said in Zoolander, I gotta straighten some shit out.

So this will be my pre-New Year's Resolution: by Friday, I will expand upon the above list of vague things that are wrong with me, and make an outline of what to do and how to approach each issue when it rears its ugly head. It's a very self-help-five-step-program way to do it, but I think that my happiness and the happiness that those I care about the most-- who are too often hurt by what I've done--is more important than my pride or my insistence on being tortured. I would rather get over myself and use that energy to be creative, and do what I'd hoped to accomplish this year. And it may have taken me a long time to figure all of this out, and it happened only because my life started to strain me more than ever, but at least it's happening. I intend to make the most of it.

Please don't whisper sweet nothings in my ear when the sound of shredding vocal cords is all I wanna hear

Hey guys, remember Desaparecidos? Probably not. The only people who remember Desaparecidos are likely just Bright Eyes fans who know the band through lead singer/lyricist/future folk monster Conor Oberst. Honestly, isn't that a little perverse? Congrats, Desaparecidos, you will always be known as "that band Conor Oberst was in that wasn't Bright Eyes, after he was/wasn't in The Faint, before he did solo stuff and way before Monsters of Folk." Tough break. When I was in my Saddle Creek Records phase (have I mentioned that before? I feel like I say it every third post), I actually liked Desaparecidos a bit; they were more awake and less thoughty than Bright Eyes, while still keeping Oberst's overwhelming defeatist angst that he carried so well in that part of the Aughts, before he was slightly miscast as our generation's Dylan.

Listening to them now, though, there are parts I snort at too easily; the overly-social lyrics ("opportunity, no it don't exist/It's the opiate of the populace"), Oberst's screaming that gets whiny so soon it just sounds like he's crying-fighting ("I don't think she likes me!"). But for what he and his band mates were doing, they did it well: almost-punk basement rock; which is what Punk should have turned into instead of getting sidetracked into New Wave (not that it was a mistake) or Grunge (which was a serious mistake).

The only ever released one album, Read Music/Speak Spanish, and it is–with the exception of the few disparages that I mentioned above–not that bad at all. You can almost feel Oberst's spit coming out the speakers as he mumble-screams about divorce and capitalism, the guitars are lo-fi enough to absorb but not be overwhelmed by, and the bass and drums sound more like they're coming up from the floor below instead of from iTunes. They play infomercials over their bridges, it's hardcore without being actually hardcore, and it's rock without having even a drop of douchewater. You could never imagine them being anywhere larger than a dive bar, and with good reason; this is the sort of music that stadiums ruin, the perfect argument against the wide open spaces of crap like Warped Tour.

It might be for this last reason that bands like Desaparecidos never really did make the big time, the music has been around for a long time, but it's hard to transport the songs out of the local venue and into anything else, and it's even harder to say of lo-fi rock that it's supposed to sound that way, especially when it can be done so poorly. But oh my dear reader, worry not. Because, after more or less forgetting that I wanted to listen to it, I listened to The Airing of Grievances, the first full-length by New Jersey's Titus Andronicus. And it is very, very good.

I don't really know that much about Titus Andronicus, so I won't pretend to figure out something biographical (everything that I mentioned above that is of that ilk is only due to my aforementioned Saddle Creek phase). I will, of course, note that in my previous post, I not only mentioned the Shakespearean play that the band took its name from, but quoted from a speech that singer Patrick Stickles himself recites at the end of the album's opener, "Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ", a song which also might contain my favorite possible breakup lyric of the year: "the way we hold each other so tight would look more like a noose if held up to the light/because we betray each other in dreams every night/now let's never speak of it again, all right?"

Stickles' vocals are, as a matter of fact, closely interchangeable from Conor Oberst's baby-punk screams, but they seem to arise more out of desperation and a "fuck you" (or as he himself says, "fuck everything! Fuck me!") attitude instead of just straight up anger at the way things are, he sings with self-loathing and indulgence at the same time, shout-growling "there's nothing I've ever done I didn't learn to be ashamed of", and later, "I hope I never get my fill of pushing this boulder up this hill." And while we're on the subject of Sisyphus, I ought to point out that this album's got plenty for the tongue-in-cheek intellectual: not only does the band borrow from Shakespeare's tragedy, but Sickles also quotes from The Stranger, makes a semi-oblique reference to a W.H. Auden poem, and seems to be one of the few who can do Biblical referencing well. Go team.

Somehow The Airing of Grievances manages to be sincere and ironic, breakneck and thoughtful, angry and contemplative at the same time. And for once, it is a take on lo-fi production that I can get behind, like The Strokes' Is This It, only faster and less of a hipster. It seems to sound the way it does because that's just the best way to hear it; not because they couldn't afford better production, and not because they could afford better production but wanted to seem more indie. And, long story short, I want to see them live, it seems like I'd get bloody and like it, which is really not something that ever happens in my case. Where the audience at the Desaparecidos show bounced their knees and nodded to the beat, Titus Andronicus is more like when the Violent Femmes scream "When I say dance, you'd best dance, motherfucker!"