The personnel office received an email requesting a listing of the department staff broken down by age and sex.
The personnel office sent this reply:
"Attached is a list of our staff. We currently have no one broken down by age or sex. However, we have a few alcoholics."
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Personnel
This, from GH (I'm assuming someone e-mailed it to her):
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Now It's Time to Say Good-Bye
This week, Professor Bartlett tackles gender, race, class, and nationality. I think he must have known I promised to lay off him after today so he decided to go out with a bang.
Children, to be honest, I don't really have the energy to bang right on out with him. It's not that I've been beaten down, it's just that I'm booooooooooooooooored. Bored. Predictable stupidity is crushingly boring.
But, we press on, for form's sake.
What would possess him to say that Minnie Driver's album will enjoy a "smashing success" despite being not as interesting as either Norah Jones or Natalie Merchant? I mean, how completely insulting to say that music's mediocrity assures its popularity. It's insulting to the artist ("darling, your crap will be popular regardless, so don't try to stretch or improve yourself at all"), insulting to people who, you know, have ears, and, in its own way, implicitly insulting to female musicians. Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's crap. Actually, I have a feeling Minnie Driver's album will probably be an astounding flop. When's the last time you've heard anyone say anything nice about 30 Odd Foot of Grunts or the Bacon Brothers? Exactly. And as far as contemporary female actress/singers go, though I think Driver's a fine and consistently underrated actress (Cassius, care to get into it all over again about her performance in An Ideal Husband?), she's no Hilary Duff or Lindsey Lohan with the potential for tween crossover appeal, either.
"It will, of course, be tempting to treat [Elliott Smith's From a Basement on the Hill] as an extended suicide note set to song . . . " Of course. (It's that "of course" that rankles.) Because a person's music is always inextricably bound to a person's life. And certainly Smith's music, taken on its own terms, will never be as interesting as what the trainspotters read into it for their own macabre amusement. Get a clue, Tommy. You're not only belittling Smith's legacy as a musician, you're also belittling Smith's legions of fans who are still out of their minds with grief about his passing and are desperate to hear whatever shreds of his genius the man left behind. Though Smith's music always was laced with a keen sense of his own mortality, most folks I know (including, emphatically, myself) will be tempted to treat From a Basement on the Hill as nothing other than the precious gift it assuredly will be.
Though Michaelangelo Matos and Oliver Wang have already, rightly, pointed out that Tommy isn't exactly up to the task of writing intelligently about hip-hop, who would have thought he'd write himself into such weird little corners writing about race as well? His commentary on Nelly's collaboration with Tim McGraw, despite the fact that he calls it "both brilliant and absurd," doesn't quite go, you know, there, but then he really outdoes himself by going out of his way to point out that Bloc Party's and The Dears' lead singers (Kele Okekure and Murray Lightburn respectively) are black. With a hilarious lack of self-awareness, he ponders (re: Lightburn), "Apparently I'm alone in finding this [his skin color] noteworthy, because other than a short profile in the Guardian, I haven't found a single review or feature on the band that mentions Lightburn's surprising ethnicity." Um, yeah, you probably are alone in finding this noteworthy, Tommy (or, at least, you're alone in feeling the need to waste bandwith writing about it rather than just offhandedly observing to a friend, "huh, he's black, that's interesting" and leaving it at that). Most respectable writers got past the "but he sounds white/black" school of music criticism, oh, about five minutes after Elvis took over the world. Get a grip, Tommy. At the risk of being too woo-woo, touchy-feely here, music is colorless. Unless the music very specifically deals with a racial agenda (and even then...), you're not helping our collective appreciation of the songs by pointing out something as insignificant as a musician's color.
"The globalization of hip-hop has become inevitable." Oh, SPARE US, PLEASE, Tommy!! You're hurting me with your ill-informed philosophizing. It's like the out-of-touch uncle at family gatherings flapping his jaw and trying to sound informed about every topic at the dinner table. Which is even more unfortunate since, based on the photo on his blog, I'm assuming Tommy is probably in his mid- to late twenties and, as such, kind of has no excuse for being ill-informed--especially about music, especially considering it's HIS FUCKING JOB to be informed if he's going to be writing about it. His "appreciation" of Senegalese rapper Shiffai is valuable in that it exposed me to a performer I might otherwise have been unaware of, but my God, his White Male New York Ego has positively stained any of his good intentions here.
Truthfully, I'm glad that my anti-Bartlett month is over. I'm tired. I'll still be reading his column from week to week, mostly as a consumer, but never not as a critic.
Children, to be honest, I don't really have the energy to bang right on out with him. It's not that I've been beaten down, it's just that I'm booooooooooooooooored. Bored. Predictable stupidity is crushingly boring.
But, we press on, for form's sake.
What would possess him to say that Minnie Driver's album will enjoy a "smashing success" despite being not as interesting as either Norah Jones or Natalie Merchant? I mean, how completely insulting to say that music's mediocrity assures its popularity. It's insulting to the artist ("darling, your crap will be popular regardless, so don't try to stretch or improve yourself at all"), insulting to people who, you know, have ears, and, in its own way, implicitly insulting to female musicians. Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's crap. Actually, I have a feeling Minnie Driver's album will probably be an astounding flop. When's the last time you've heard anyone say anything nice about 30 Odd Foot of Grunts or the Bacon Brothers? Exactly. And as far as contemporary female actress/singers go, though I think Driver's a fine and consistently underrated actress (Cassius, care to get into it all over again about her performance in An Ideal Husband?), she's no Hilary Duff or Lindsey Lohan with the potential for tween crossover appeal, either.
"It will, of course, be tempting to treat [Elliott Smith's From a Basement on the Hill] as an extended suicide note set to song . . . " Of course. (It's that "of course" that rankles.) Because a person's music is always inextricably bound to a person's life. And certainly Smith's music, taken on its own terms, will never be as interesting as what the trainspotters read into it for their own macabre amusement. Get a clue, Tommy. You're not only belittling Smith's legacy as a musician, you're also belittling Smith's legions of fans who are still out of their minds with grief about his passing and are desperate to hear whatever shreds of his genius the man left behind. Though Smith's music always was laced with a keen sense of his own mortality, most folks I know (including, emphatically, myself) will be tempted to treat From a Basement on the Hill as nothing other than the precious gift it assuredly will be.
Though Michaelangelo Matos and Oliver Wang have already, rightly, pointed out that Tommy isn't exactly up to the task of writing intelligently about hip-hop, who would have thought he'd write himself into such weird little corners writing about race as well? His commentary on Nelly's collaboration with Tim McGraw, despite the fact that he calls it "both brilliant and absurd," doesn't quite go, you know, there, but then he really outdoes himself by going out of his way to point out that Bloc Party's and The Dears' lead singers (Kele Okekure and Murray Lightburn respectively) are black. With a hilarious lack of self-awareness, he ponders (re: Lightburn), "Apparently I'm alone in finding this [his skin color] noteworthy, because other than a short profile in the Guardian, I haven't found a single review or feature on the band that mentions Lightburn's surprising ethnicity." Um, yeah, you probably are alone in finding this noteworthy, Tommy (or, at least, you're alone in feeling the need to waste bandwith writing about it rather than just offhandedly observing to a friend, "huh, he's black, that's interesting" and leaving it at that). Most respectable writers got past the "but he sounds white/black" school of music criticism, oh, about five minutes after Elvis took over the world. Get a grip, Tommy. At the risk of being too woo-woo, touchy-feely here, music is colorless. Unless the music very specifically deals with a racial agenda (and even then...), you're not helping our collective appreciation of the songs by pointing out something as insignificant as a musician's color.
"The globalization of hip-hop has become inevitable." Oh, SPARE US, PLEASE, Tommy!! You're hurting me with your ill-informed philosophizing. It's like the out-of-touch uncle at family gatherings flapping his jaw and trying to sound informed about every topic at the dinner table. Which is even more unfortunate since, based on the photo on his blog, I'm assuming Tommy is probably in his mid- to late twenties and, as such, kind of has no excuse for being ill-informed--especially about music, especially considering it's HIS FUCKING JOB to be informed if he's going to be writing about it.
Truthfully, I'm glad that my anti-Bartlett month is over. I'm tired. I'll still be reading his column from week to week, mostly as a consumer, but never not as a critic.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Yes, Children
Yes, children, there is a Santa Claus, and it appears that he visits in the early fall and is quite possibly gay.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Just Because They Asked So Nicely
Go check out Better Propaganda. They're a Chicago- (and San Francisco-) based enterprise offering free downloads and mini bios of all the kewl new bands. Tommy Bartlett gets many of his best mp3s from this site, so why not skip the middleman and go straight to the source? Ah, so this is what freedom from tyranny feels like. . . .
I Fear Change
Raise your hand if the Reader's new print design also stresses you out. So many colors . . . which way are the sections supposed to unfold . . . ?
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Why?
Why, why, why do the newspapers insist on running huge, garish, unavoidable pictures of the U.S. hostages in Iraq on their covers? I'm speaking here primarily of today's issue of the Red Eye. I was having a perfectly pleasant morning walking east on Chicago Avenue toward the office when I happened to glance at one of those ugly red paper machines and see the image of Jack Hensley, blindfolded, trapped behind the glass door. Sure, this probably sounds like I'm ostriching myself away from current events, and, honestly . . . that comment probably wouldn't be completely unfounded. It just depresses the fuck out of me. I know enough of what's going on to be informed; I don't need it shoved in my face at 8:30 in the morning. If I felt the need to see the digital photos, I could have Googled that shit. Don't force it on me. Don't turn it into something to be consumed and then discarded, like Britney Spears's wedding photos. And it's not just the media's use and abuse of those images; it's the actual reality behind the photos that really depresses me. The hatred, the violence, the capacity for true evil in the hearts of human beings. I don't care what the fuck Hensley was doing there, and this is certainly not xenophobia speaking. Sure, there are all kinds of extenuating circumstances involved in that situation, but the fact is that we are talking about torture and beheading. It's just so, so sick, so sad.
I Can't Believe He Actually Put the Accent Over the "U"
It's actually completely coincidental that September, the month I've declared the "I Hate Tommy Bartlett" month, has five Wednesdays in it this year. Just more of my vitriol to suck down, beloved friends!
So, aside from the fact that he, very pretentiously, put the accent over the "u" in Medulla (the frickin' album cover doesn't even use the accent), Tommy's actually pretty right-on in his reading of the album. "I think Medulla is brilliant, one of the best records I've heard this year. I also think it's the least successful of Bjork's five studio albums."
As I've stated elsewhere on this blog, I feel like Bjork's all-vocal mission led her astray when it came to the lighter, funner, more dance-y tracks, so I'm inclined to agree with his statement that "Desired Constellation" is one of the better cuts. However, I will take him ever so slightly to task here for choosing that song specifically; I feel like part of the reason "Desired Constellation" is so easy to relate to and love is because it sounds the most similar to the bulk of Vespertine. (It was kind of hard for me to believe when I checked the liner notes that Matmos weren't responsible for the programming; I could have sworn that dark, dense glitch-field had their fingerprints all over it.) So, Tommy, though it's totally valid to make the distinction between the all-vocal tracks and the ones that use more actual instruments and programming, maybe you're just having nostalgia for an album you've already digested.
[Side note: as ever, Bjork discussing her own work is vastly more interesting than most anything the music critics are saying about it. A friend recently pointed me in the direction of this brief but thought-provoking interview from Newsweek.]
Ah. Now on to the mock-worthy nit-picks.
What's with the proliferation of short parenthetical phrases this week?
"(mostly rapturous praise)"
"(reluctantly)"
"(jubilantly)"
"(I might as well say it)"
I love the kind of borderline autistic ruts he gets into, where he locks on to a phrase or a rhythm in his writing that he just uses over and over and over again in the SAME damn column. I know I can get kind of redundant in my own writing; we all have our pet words and phrases we trot out more frequently than we'd like to admit. But his tics become almost comical in their frequency and density.
Also, calling The Arcade Fire "the most hyped band of the moment"? Hilarious. I mean, yeah, Pitchfork has annointed Funeral as among the best new music of 2004, but there's just something so wonderfully, pathetically snobby the exclusionary diction there. "Wellllll, YOU may not have heard of this band, my dear, sweet child, but if you were privileged enough to rub shoulders with the cabal of brilliant, underappreciated artistic types I run with here in New York, you would certainly know what I'm talking about. But you don't live a life as fantastically urban, or urbane, as mine, so allow me to feed my opinions and prejudices directly to you."
Only one Wednesday left in September, kittens. Get your vitriol while it's hot. (Though if you think I'll permanently swear off giving him a hard time just because the month is over, you're sorely, sorely mistaken. Tommy Bartlett will always have a special place in my spleen.)
So, aside from the fact that he, very pretentiously, put the accent over the "u" in Medulla (the frickin' album cover doesn't even use the accent), Tommy's actually pretty right-on in his reading of the album. "I think Medulla is brilliant, one of the best records I've heard this year. I also think it's the least successful of Bjork's five studio albums."
As I've stated elsewhere on this blog, I feel like Bjork's all-vocal mission led her astray when it came to the lighter, funner, more dance-y tracks, so I'm inclined to agree with his statement that "Desired Constellation" is one of the better cuts. However, I will take him ever so slightly to task here for choosing that song specifically; I feel like part of the reason "Desired Constellation" is so easy to relate to and love is because it sounds the most similar to the bulk of Vespertine. (It was kind of hard for me to believe when I checked the liner notes that Matmos weren't responsible for the programming; I could have sworn that dark, dense glitch-field had their fingerprints all over it.) So, Tommy, though it's totally valid to make the distinction between the all-vocal tracks and the ones that use more actual instruments and programming, maybe you're just having nostalgia for an album you've already digested.
[Side note: as ever, Bjork discussing her own work is vastly more interesting than most anything the music critics are saying about it. A friend recently pointed me in the direction of this brief but thought-provoking interview from Newsweek.]
Ah. Now on to the mock-worthy nit-picks.
What's with the proliferation of short parenthetical phrases this week?
"(mostly rapturous praise)"
"(reluctantly)"
"(jubilantly)"
"(I might as well say it)"
I love the kind of borderline autistic ruts he gets into, where he locks on to a phrase or a rhythm in his writing that he just uses over and over and over again in the SAME damn column. I know I can get kind of redundant in my own writing; we all have our pet words and phrases we trot out more frequently than we'd like to admit. But his tics become almost comical in their frequency and density.
Also, calling The Arcade Fire "the most hyped band of the moment"? Hilarious. I mean, yeah, Pitchfork has annointed Funeral as among the best new music of 2004, but there's just something so wonderfully, pathetically snobby the exclusionary diction there. "Wellllll, YOU may not have heard of this band, my dear, sweet child, but if you were privileged enough to rub shoulders with the cabal of brilliant, underappreciated artistic types I run with here in New York, you would certainly know what I'm talking about. But you don't live a life as fantastically urban, or urbane, as mine, so allow me to feed my opinions and prejudices directly to you."
Only one Wednesday left in September, kittens. Get your vitriol while it's hot. (Though if you think I'll permanently swear off giving him a hard time just because the month is over, you're sorely, sorely mistaken. Tommy Bartlett will always have a special place in my spleen.)
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Russian Sex and Dating in the 21st Century
"Telephone help for Russian women to ward off unwanted flirts"
cf "Sex & Dating in the 21st Century" from Monday, August 9, 2004.
cf "Sex & Dating in the 21st Century" from Monday, August 9, 2004.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Linky McLinks
Kittenpants is certainly one of the best new sites I've stumbled upon recently.
"Five ass-related words I think I use a lot"
"Five ass-related words I think I use a lot"
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
I'm Late Coming to the Table (Again)
Looks like I've already got some others in my corner here. I did a quick Google and found these three other blogs eviscerating Mr. Bartlett. Whereas I'm content to just sneer from a distance, they dive right in and shred him line by line. Well done.
See May 1, 2003, "Get Lost Indeed".
See Saturday, May 22, 2004, about three paragraphs down.
See Sunday, May 23, 2004 "How to Write on Music, Part 439".
See May 1, 2003, "Get Lost Indeed".
See Saturday, May 22, 2004, about three paragraphs down.
See Sunday, May 23, 2004 "How to Write on Music, Part 439".
Tommy Bartlett Update
Tommy Bartlett said nothing to actively piss me off in today's Wednesday Morning Download. Well, except when he said he finds Usher "entirely unexciting as a singer, a songwriter, a dancer and, yes, even as a sex object." Which doesn't anger me as much as it just makes me shake my head, like an older, wiser sister or aunt who's just waiting for him to pull his head out of his ass. Ah, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. It's a good thing we plebeians have you! Otherwise we might be stuck in a world of fun music that we actually enjoy without having to be snobby about! Thank you for saving us from ourselves, for being such a guiding light of taste and sensibility and intelligence.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Best. Week. Ever.
Check this shit out, yo:
Rufus Wainwright at the Vic 10/13
Death Cab for Cutie at the Riv 10/14
Interpol at the Riv 10/17
And I've got tickets for all three! So exciting.
Rufus Wainwright at the Vic 10/13
Death Cab for Cutie at the Riv 10/14
Interpol at the Riv 10/17
And I've got tickets for all three! So exciting.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Offensive Celebrity Statement of the Week
Just when I was starting to not begrudge her her fame, happiness, and success, Gwyneth Paltrow lets this kind of garbage fly out of her mouth in Entertainment Weekly, re: the MTV Video Music Awards: "When you're covered in spit-up and you're kind of overweight, the idea of having someone blow out your hair and putting on a good outfit sounds nice. . . . But I just feel like an impostor now going into that world. I have to remind myself that I've got to go be Gwyneth Paltrow. And I don't even know what that means."
Kind of overweight?
A good outfit?
I don't even know what that means?
**sigh**
My circuits are jammed trying to get my head around how many levels of WRONG are embedded in there.
Gwynnie, we short, chubby, low-20K/year single urban gals wearing Old Navy salute you.
Kind of overweight?
A good outfit?
I don't even know what that means?
**sigh**
My circuits are jammed trying to get my head around how many levels of WRONG are embedded in there.
Gwynnie, we short, chubby, low-20K/year single urban gals wearing Old Navy salute you.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Grab Bag
Cintra, sometimes I hate you and sometimes I love you. Right now, I pretty much love you.
Thanks for the laughs, Kittenpants!
Billboards have started popping up all over the city for the new UPN show Kevin Hill. Whereas that shouldn't merit any notice under normal circumstances, this show happens to star Taye Diggs. Which means, Taye Diggs has started popping up all over the city. **swoon** The show sounds like it has an unbelievably retarded premise, but, my God, if that man isn't just this side of physical perfection. . . .
And in other billboard news, there's one on the north side of Chicago Avenue just east of Franklin (in the empty lot next to Bar Louie) advertising the tenth anniversary edition cover of Chicago Social magazine--featuring Adrien Brody. I nearly dropped my bag of Thai takeout when I saw it for the first time.
Thanks for the laughs, Kittenpants!
Billboards have started popping up all over the city for the new UPN show Kevin Hill. Whereas that shouldn't merit any notice under normal circumstances, this show happens to star Taye Diggs. Which means, Taye Diggs has started popping up all over the city. **swoon** The show sounds like it has an unbelievably retarded premise, but, my God, if that man isn't just this side of physical perfection. . . .
And in other billboard news, there's one on the north side of Chicago Avenue just east of Franklin (in the empty lot next to Bar Louie) advertising the tenth anniversary edition cover of Chicago Social magazine--featuring Adrien Brody. I nearly dropped my bag of Thai takeout when I saw it for the first time.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
I Could Travel Just by Folding a Map
I know I should probably be writing about my continuing thoughts on Medulla* or how I've recently fallen in love with Ted Leo~ or how I was mildly disappointed by We Don't Live Here Anymore^. But . . . all I really want to talk about right now is how amazing Transatlanticism is.
I know, I know, I'm a little late pulling my chair up to the Death Cab for Cutie table. And I'm sure a zillion fans who've loved them since waaay back when will be more than happy to get on my case about how much better and more sonically interesting their early stuff is (I burned a copy of Giddy's We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, so just hold yer horses; I'll get around to listening to it eventually). However, I've been listening to Transatlanticism intermittently at least since early July, and it's still surprising me with new corners to get lost in and new connections to make in order to climb back out of the confusion.
First, let's talk about the fact that the album makes a complete loop on itself. Is this widely acknowledged by the fans? Have other albums by other artists done this before and I've just never known about it? Regardless, Chris Walla, you're a genius. The feedbacky hum that ends "A Lack of Color" is the exact same noise that begins "The New Year," so if your CD player automatically replays the disk from the beginning once it reaches the final track, there's no interruption. It makes a seamless transition. And I don't think it's just a clever parlor trick. It's like an aural literalization of the lyric, "I wish the world was flat like the old days/then I could travel just by folding a map." Which makes complete sense, since that lyric (and the lines that follow it: "no more airplanes or speed-trains or freeways/there'd be no distance that could hold us back") is the album's Rosetta stone.
It took my now-regular weekend road trips out to Indiana for me to realize that Transatlanticism is all about distance, using transportation symbolism as that theme's (pardon the pun) vehicle. When you're alone in your car, doing 80 miles an hour on Route 30 early on a misty Sunday morning, phrases like "in the back of my grey sub-compact" and "from the passenger seat as you are driving me home" tend to lodge themselves in your brain. The album itself almost seems like it wants to fight how much it talks about transportation; aside from the glorious "Title and Registration," there are no direct references to travel in the first half of the album. Then, you get a hint in "Tiny Vessels" and "Transatlanticism" (the former's vacation in Silver Lake and the double meaning of the vessels of the title, the latter's overjoyed people who took to their boats), which eventually leads into the deluge of the final four songs. At which point, of course, you get kicked back to the beginning of the album again. The rush of imagery is both like acceleration and like the kind of verbal diarrhea that comes from repressing an emotion or preoccupation too long--at a certain point, you just can't stop yourself from talking about it and you unwittingly start to reveal the complex, interlocking infrastructure holding your neuroses together. Which is maybe why that image of folding a map is so potent for me: what at first seems like a magic trick that will bring you closer to your heart's desire actually reveals itself as a Mobius strip, keeping you locked in a cycle of obsessive memory.
But what prevents all this from feeling self-serving or self-pitying is the sweeping, epic romance of the thing. Ben Gibbard keening "I need you so much closer" is quite literally the heart of the album. Nestled near the end of track seven (of eleven), it's both the voice of the child in us who never really grows up, murmuring a repeated phrase to lull himself to sleep, and the voice of the frantic lover, chanting a sweaty, desperate prayer against the darkening night. The question then becomes, would it have been better for that prayer to go unanswered?
The fragile perfection of "Passenger Seat," the very next track, starts off in a moment of sublime, peaceful happiness, his wish granted. Then, inexplicably, he starts pondering a crash ("do they collide?"), perhaps suddenly realizing that sometimes far apart is close enough and that sometimes celestial bodies would do best to keep their distance in the interest of avoiding a violent, fiery demise at each other's hands. And yet that dark little cloud in the perfectly clear sky of that moment doesn't affect his capacity for grand gestures of chivalry: "when you feel embarrassed, then I'll be your pride/when you need directions, then I'll be the guide" (note, again, here the map/travel image). But that relationship's ultimate inability to be sustained gives way, not to a spectacular flame-out, but to claustrophobia: the smothered romance of "Death of an Interior Decorator" and the cramped and airless quarters of "We Looked Like Giants," where the desire is intoxicating but choked with doom.
The sound of waves crashing on the beach at the beginning of "A Lack of Color" feels expansive here, and the sweet harmonies lacing the lines "I should have given you a reason to stay" are far more wistful than regretful. The repetition here reminds us of the repetition of "I need you so much closer," this time signaling sorrow, but also resignation, if not necessarily acceptance. After all, the whole drama gets played out again when the album restarts itself.
I am, obviously, just completely entranced with how breathlessly, intricately beautiful this album is. I think it’s telling that the last CD I listened to and found essential to do a close reading on in this manner was Bjork’s Vespertine. And why haven’t the critics been up to the task? Pitchfork’s is one of their retarded concept reviews. Rolling Stone’s is pleasant enough, but not exactly in the proper amount of awe. Typically, The Onion's review is perhaps the only one I've read that agrees with me and is, therefore, right. (Is this sarcasm? I dunno; is it?)
Go, go listen to this album now.
I know, I know, I'm a little late pulling my chair up to the Death Cab for Cutie table. And I'm sure a zillion fans who've loved them since waaay back when will be more than happy to get on my case about how much better and more sonically interesting their early stuff is (I burned a copy of Giddy's We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, so just hold yer horses; I'll get around to listening to it eventually). However, I've been listening to Transatlanticism intermittently at least since early July, and it's still surprising me with new corners to get lost in and new connections to make in order to climb back out of the confusion.
First, let's talk about the fact that the album makes a complete loop on itself. Is this widely acknowledged by the fans? Have other albums by other artists done this before and I've just never known about it? Regardless, Chris Walla, you're a genius. The feedbacky hum that ends "A Lack of Color" is the exact same noise that begins "The New Year," so if your CD player automatically replays the disk from the beginning once it reaches the final track, there's no interruption. It makes a seamless transition. And I don't think it's just a clever parlor trick. It's like an aural literalization of the lyric, "I wish the world was flat like the old days/then I could travel just by folding a map." Which makes complete sense, since that lyric (and the lines that follow it: "no more airplanes or speed-trains or freeways/there'd be no distance that could hold us back") is the album's Rosetta stone.
It took my now-regular weekend road trips out to Indiana for me to realize that Transatlanticism is all about distance, using transportation symbolism as that theme's (pardon the pun) vehicle. When you're alone in your car, doing 80 miles an hour on Route 30 early on a misty Sunday morning, phrases like "in the back of my grey sub-compact" and "from the passenger seat as you are driving me home" tend to lodge themselves in your brain. The album itself almost seems like it wants to fight how much it talks about transportation; aside from the glorious "Title and Registration," there are no direct references to travel in the first half of the album. Then, you get a hint in "Tiny Vessels" and "Transatlanticism" (the former's vacation in Silver Lake and the double meaning of the vessels of the title, the latter's overjoyed people who took to their boats), which eventually leads into the deluge of the final four songs. At which point, of course, you get kicked back to the beginning of the album again. The rush of imagery is both like acceleration and like the kind of verbal diarrhea that comes from repressing an emotion or preoccupation too long--at a certain point, you just can't stop yourself from talking about it and you unwittingly start to reveal the complex, interlocking infrastructure holding your neuroses together. Which is maybe why that image of folding a map is so potent for me: what at first seems like a magic trick that will bring you closer to your heart's desire actually reveals itself as a Mobius strip, keeping you locked in a cycle of obsessive memory.
But what prevents all this from feeling self-serving or self-pitying is the sweeping, epic romance of the thing. Ben Gibbard keening "I need you so much closer" is quite literally the heart of the album. Nestled near the end of track seven (of eleven), it's both the voice of the child in us who never really grows up, murmuring a repeated phrase to lull himself to sleep, and the voice of the frantic lover, chanting a sweaty, desperate prayer against the darkening night. The question then becomes, would it have been better for that prayer to go unanswered?
The fragile perfection of "Passenger Seat," the very next track, starts off in a moment of sublime, peaceful happiness, his wish granted. Then, inexplicably, he starts pondering a crash ("do they collide?"), perhaps suddenly realizing that sometimes far apart is close enough and that sometimes celestial bodies would do best to keep their distance in the interest of avoiding a violent, fiery demise at each other's hands. And yet that dark little cloud in the perfectly clear sky of that moment doesn't affect his capacity for grand gestures of chivalry: "when you feel embarrassed, then I'll be your pride/when you need directions, then I'll be the guide" (note, again, here the map/travel image). But that relationship's ultimate inability to be sustained gives way, not to a spectacular flame-out, but to claustrophobia: the smothered romance of "Death of an Interior Decorator" and the cramped and airless quarters of "We Looked Like Giants," where the desire is intoxicating but choked with doom.
The sound of waves crashing on the beach at the beginning of "A Lack of Color" feels expansive here, and the sweet harmonies lacing the lines "I should have given you a reason to stay" are far more wistful than regretful. The repetition here reminds us of the repetition of "I need you so much closer," this time signaling sorrow, but also resignation, if not necessarily acceptance. After all, the whole drama gets played out again when the album restarts itself.
I am, obviously, just completely entranced with how breathlessly, intricately beautiful this album is. I think it’s telling that the last CD I listened to and found essential to do a close reading on in this manner was Bjork’s Vespertine. And why haven’t the critics been up to the task? Pitchfork’s is one of their retarded concept reviews. Rolling Stone’s is pleasant enough, but not exactly in the proper amount of awe. Typically, The Onion's review is perhaps the only one I've read that agrees with me and is, therefore, right. (Is this sarcasm? I dunno; is it?)
Go, go listen to this album now.
1
It's started to kick in for me, but the question that's keeping me up at night now is, is there any reason for cuts like "Triumph of a Heart" or "Who Is It"--commonly known among reviewers, fans, and other proselytizers as "the more accessible tracks"--to exist specifically in the a cappella style? It seems that they could have just as easily fit in to an album like Post with more traditional electronic orchestration (leave it to Bjork to force me to use a phrase like "traditional electronic orchestration"!). They just don't seem as inextricably linked to the all-vocal mission of this album the way "Where Is the Line" and "Mouth's Cradle" are, and that kind of bugs me, mostly for the sake of trying to defend her to her detractors or to those who've lost their faith in her infallible brilliance.
3
Seriously, Pete and Mark, there wasn't enough money in the film's budget to get you guys some frickin' razors and shaving cream?
Arg! Arg! I Hate This Guy!
It's like pressing a bruise, the fact that I keep reading Salon's Wednesday Morning Download just to get angry with Tommy Bartlett. (I know the byline he uses is Thomas Bartlett, but it's just so much more emotionally satisfying for me to refer to him in the diminutive, especially since that's also the name of two cheesy-ass roadside attractions in Wisconsin: Tommy Bartlett's Robot World and Tommy Bartlett's Sky, Ski, and Stage Waterski Show.) This week's rage-making offense comes from the fact that he starts his last free download description with another "full disclosure" statement: "Full disclosure: Sam Amidon is my best friend, so you could say that I'm not an unbiased judge of his work." Get a grip on yourself, Tommy. We're not interested in you and your friends and your life. We want you to act as a sieve for us, filtering out the good downloads from the bad; we don't want you to use this column as an excuse to foist your own taste on us. You already have a blog; why do you need this platform, too? Are you that much of an egomaniac?
Friday, September 03, 2004
Artistic Ovulation
I'm convinced that Bjork's new album Medulla just made me ovulate. I swear to God, it's comprised of the most fertile sounding music I've ever heard in my life. I'm nowhere near ready to launch an analysis in print just yet, but I couldn't let the week end without some mention of the fact that it hasn't left my CD player. After all, as the cute pierced guy at Borders said, "Ah, the release of the new Bjork album. It's like a holiday, isn't it?"
Also, Jacques Tati's Playtime is similarly stuffed with ideas--miraculously, without causing sensory overload. Had the extreme pleasure and privilege of catching it at the Music Box with CTA last eve on the big screen, the way it's meant to be seen. (As Jaime N. Christley said of Playtime in his "Great Directors" entry for Tati at Senses of Cinema Dot Com, "Playtime on video is the same as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Lawrence of Arabia on video: the television monitor cannot possibly suffice.") Again, I'm not exactly feeling up to the challenge to deal with it in print, but I'll just leave you with my thought on how the movie was divided: the first part of the movie says, "you may not be ready for the city," but the second part says, "but the city's not ready for you, either." Which inevitably leads to the most beautiful kind of breakdown, chaos, and improvisation.
Also, Jacques Tati's Playtime is similarly stuffed with ideas--miraculously, without causing sensory overload. Had the extreme pleasure and privilege of catching it at the Music Box with CTA last eve on the big screen, the way it's meant to be seen. (As Jaime N. Christley said of Playtime in his "Great Directors" entry for Tati at Senses of Cinema Dot Com, "Playtime on video is the same as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Lawrence of Arabia on video: the television monitor cannot possibly suffice.") Again, I'm not exactly feeling up to the challenge to deal with it in print, but I'll just leave you with my thought on how the movie was divided: the first part of the movie says, "you may not be ready for the city," but the second part says, "but the city's not ready for you, either." Which inevitably leads to the most beautiful kind of breakdown, chaos, and improvisation.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
More Journalistic Doublespeak
But this time, it's not about Dubya.
Though I appreciate the service he provides with his Wednesday Morning Download column, I hate Salon's Thomas Bartlett with a white-hot, flaming passion.
"What is it that you're in a snit about now?" you may ask.
Well, when he says, "Full disclosure: I appear on the compilation [Barsuk's Future Soundtrack for America] as the keyboardist in Mike Doughty's band," it is the most thinly veiled example of self-aggrandizement I've seen in print perhaps since my days dabbling at my university's weekend entertainment magazine. "Full disclosure"? Come now. You're not exactly revealing this deep, dark secret about your personal, political, or professional affiliations that exposes an unfortunate but unavoidable conflict of interest for the sake of journalistic integrity. No, you just want everyone to know that you're this hipper than thou indie fuck making a few extra dollars (and a whole boatload of street cred) on the side playing keyboards in a handful of obscure rock bands. Believe me, no one gives a rat's ass. No one thinks you're cool, no one thinks this makes you a better or more informed or more interesting writer. In fact, your own musical ambitions might actually make you a worse writer/critic since professional jealousy is more likely to cloud your judgment (e.g. his needlessly spiteful criticism of Bob Pollard and GBV's swan song). You can't have it both ways, Tommy. You can't be both Lester Bangs and Chris Walla. Sure, Richard Meltzer fronted a punk band and wrote lyrics for Blue Oyster Cult, but he's a dickhead, too.
Though I appreciate the service he provides with his Wednesday Morning Download column, I hate Salon's Thomas Bartlett with a white-hot, flaming passion.
"What is it that you're in a snit about now?" you may ask.
Well, when he says, "Full disclosure: I appear on the compilation [Barsuk's Future Soundtrack for America] as the keyboardist in Mike Doughty's band," it is the most thinly veiled example of self-aggrandizement I've seen in print perhaps since my days dabbling at my university's weekend entertainment magazine. "Full disclosure"? Come now. You're not exactly revealing this deep, dark secret about your personal, political, or professional affiliations that exposes an unfortunate but unavoidable conflict of interest for the sake of journalistic integrity. No, you just want everyone to know that you're this hipper than thou indie fuck making a few extra dollars (and a whole boatload of street cred) on the side playing keyboards in a handful of obscure rock bands. Believe me, no one gives a rat's ass. No one thinks you're cool, no one thinks this makes you a better or more informed or more interesting writer. In fact, your own musical ambitions might actually make you a worse writer/critic since professional jealousy is more likely to cloud your judgment (e.g. his needlessly spiteful criticism of Bob Pollard and GBV's swan song). You can't have it both ways, Tommy. You can't be both Lester Bangs and Chris Walla. Sure, Richard Meltzer fronted a punk band and wrote lyrics for Blue Oyster Cult, but he's a dickhead, too.
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