Contact High

Australian electro artists sure know how to spice up my morning. I just listened to Architecture in Helsinki's new song "Contact High" and I spent the entire three minutes, thirty-eight seconds slightly dizzy. It starts off with an '80s-ish guttery synth grunt, and I'm like okay yeah, sweet. Then this Chromeo-ish voice comes in and I'm like aw no. And then some weird rolling drums ease in and I'm like uhhh. And THEN, the chorus comes in, a peppy, sparkly dance-inducer. And then the Chromeo-ish nonsense comes back in. And then what sounds like 46 different synth loops blast me in the face. At this point, I'm so intrigued and so nauseous, I feel like I'm riding a violent rollercoaster soaring through rainbows.

I felt this way when Cut Copy came out with Bright like Neon Love (sadly, Zonoscope is doing NOTHING for me, btw) and when Empire with the Sun came out with "Walking on a Dream." I spend alternating moments loving the bright sparkliness of these Ozzie synths, and then being thrown into a spiral of confusion when they abruptly change the pacing with dirtier, darker beats/sounds. When all is said and done, I really do like this "experimental" music. It's fun, it's dancey and it's weird. Contact high indeed...

A lil' Thursday literary/musical morbidity

me: i'm about to start my first virginia woolf

Eric: haha lemme know how that goes

me: ever read her?

Eric: nope!

can't say i have

which one are u going to start with

me: her first novel actually

someone left it at work

"the voyage out"

Eric: what's that about?

me: i find it interesting (and a little morbid) to read someone's work, knowing she offed herself not that long after

Eric: haha

kinda like listening to nirvana?

me: yeahhh!

Eric: or elliot smith?

me: good comparison

all those

Eric: or hendrix?

haha

Eric: i'm sure there have been others

but ya, can't think of any off the top of my head

me: did hemingway off himself?

1Eric: if u call drinking urself to death offing yourself

The Children's Book

I think, at its heart, this novel is about the perils of being a dreamer. For those of this nature, it is far too easy to get caught up in your own thoughts, and thus, to ignore the damage you are enacting. The Children's Book focuses on the lives of the Wellwood family and their friends. In the late 19th century, they are immersed in the height of England's Fabian socialist movement. They believe in a society of free love, and a clean, simple livelihood enforced by literature, art and nature. Their children are brought up thus and the effects of such a bringing up have fierce and startling echoes down the line.

It is an eminently rich book, peopled with various fascinating characters, both dreamers and pragmatics alike. Shot through with poetic and literary references, a deep reverence for the pottery art of the time and a keen understanding of the various political/social elements of the period before WWI, it is a book worthy of the Man Booker nomination. AS Byatt has a supreme knack for combining such disparate elements, winding them neatly throughout a book, to create an effect that causes both rumination, fascination and an intense desire to understand the characters on a deeper level.

I, myself, am a dreamer. While reading, I've realized that dreamers and zealots have much in common. Both believe fiercely in a world that has yet to exist, and may never exist. It's the pragmatists, in the end, who, even through disaster and strife, have the gumption to keep on. But do they miss out on what it is to hope and dream? What it is to feel so absolutely impassioned by an idea?

NYC pictorial pt. XVII

Let the Great World Spin

Column McCann is master evoker of the human spirit. I don't really think he's a storyteller, he's more of an analyst of emotion, and boy, does he do it well. In 1974, Phillipe Petit constructs a high wire strung between the two towers of the World Trade Center, and in the early morning hours, he proceeds to walk, dance and even lie down upon it. When questioned why, he said "when I see oranges, I want to juggle them. When I see towers, I want to walk between them." This event becomes the core center of the novel, as different characters, seemingly unconnected, live out their lives while this extraordinary event occurs.

As McCann points out: New York isn't a city that wallows in the past. We don't build many monuments or cherish history the way older European cities do. What we revel in are flash-in-the-pan theatricals. Wild and effusive displays that compel people to marvel and think, "only in New York." To me, this is the most apt description of New York City that I've ever come across. Each of the characters, in their varied struggles, are trying to make more sense of their existences, but really, it's simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, balancing on the ever-tricky high wire of life.

Sprawl II

'Cause on the surface the city lights shine
They're calling at me, come and find your kind
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
Can we ever get away from the sprawl

NYC pictorial pt. XVI