I always feel like running. Not away, because there is no such place.
…running will be the way your life and mine will be described.
As in, the long run or
As in, having given someone a run for their money or
As in, running out of time.
When do we stop? When does it calm down? When do these hurried years slow down and wait for you to make up the distance and meet them by the fountain in the park? I don’t know. A childhood friend, Alistair, ran ran ran. I begged him to walk, pleaded that he breathe deeply, asked him to envision a snail in the downpour of a rattling thunderstorm and how slowly it slithers in the midst of chaos. I was young. I was wrong.
Who thinks these thoughts? Athletes in hundred meter sprints, muscles and ligaments sweating through their skin. Homo sapien housebodies quiet by the dining room fireplace, partners handing them mugs of decaf coffee to sip on while the room is bare; the air, silent.
When do you think these thoughts? In your waking moments, blurred-eyed and disinterested. In your sleeping moments, abruptly shaken from film noir night terrors. In the seconds you hesitate before saying, “I do.” In the seconds you contemplate before leaving the room. In your living room thumbing through chocolate biscuits, crumbs sticking to your skin, watching Swedish films with taglines like Att fly är livet, att dröja döden (To flee is life; to linger, death). In uncertainty. In every breath. [I’m new here.]
Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
On June 18th, 2071, at 12:34am: televisions will turn off. Monochrome sets. Colour sets. High definition, three-dimensional sets. Television screens across the planet will hum, black out, leave a minuscule circle of despair in the center of the frame. People will stop, look at each other, pull their arms from the shoulders of those next to them. Feel uncomfortable. Scrape the musky bottoms of their brains for conversation, for something to say. The wires will fray and burn. Satellites will tumble quietly from the midnight sky. Some people will make salami and cheese sandwiches. Some will rifle through cupboards for one of few straggling paperbacks. Some will riot and revolt and kill. Some will stop, sigh, use their thumbs to pull down their eyelids, die. [What remains of all the pieces of a man.]
The cities we live in could be distant stars
When I graduated from college, my friend’s mother gave me a pen, 10 monogrammed cards, and the advice that a handwritten message was the most important form of communication. At the time, I nodded in that way you do when you’re 21 and too overwhelmed by the future to comprehend any significance in the moment. Now, however, I’m inclined to agree with her even though I posses the penmanship of a sugar-bombed toddler.
I suspect Win Butler would also nod, but in a genuine way. He overstates the case – “Now it seems strange / How we used to wait for letters to arrive / But what’s stronger still / is how something small could keep you alive” – but less so than you might think. Think of the emails you could whip off in the time it takes to relay a charming anecdote or express sincere appreciation, then to track down an envelope, a stamp, a physical address. Love in $.44.
This isn’t a rant against technology or the pace of life or alienation in the time of Wikileaks. Electronic communication works wonders; I’d rather run than walk; transparency is vital. But Arcade Fire wrote the best album everyone heard in 2010 (sorry, Kanye) because they set out to achieve simple goal. “2009 / 2010 / I want to make a record for how I felt then,” Butler sings on “Month of May.” They succeeded in taking What It Means To Be Alive Today and transferring that onto a record that’s desperately urgent.
“We Used To Wait” is a vital track in the persuasive appeal of the 16-song whole. But when taken in a vacuum, it’s much closer to timeless. It’s a letter that reaches you eventually, not a time-stamped packet of zeros and ones that demands an immediate response. Take a second, uncross your arms, and write back. [Happy Holidays!]
Breaking little boys’ hearts
David Bazan – Harmless Sparks/God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Daytrotter)
I remember my first joke in college. We were paired up, two by two, to help us find a friends among our fellow freshmen and to complete a scavenger hunt. I looked at my partner, some 25-year-old guido named Tony. “Oh man, I feel all nervous, like I’m on a blind date. Like gays must feel when they meet their new roommates.” I’m pretty sure crickets had invaded that hallway and chose exactly that moment to chirp. Tony coughed and looked out the window. I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants. “Well, uh, shall we start?” I stuttered, looking at the list of shit we were looking for. Friendship wasn’t explicitly on the list, but I knew I’d failed to find that.
I remember my second joke in college. Navigating my tray down the cafeteria hallway, I reached the soft drink station. I overflowed the short cup with Sierra Mist bubbles and foam, the excess spilling down my wrist. Then, because half had poured out, I overflowed it again. I glanced over at the security guard watching me. “I got a scholarship for spilling Sierra Mist,” I deadpanned. He chuckled.
Beaming, I strolled into the dining hall. Looking over the full tables, I recognized no one. I sat down next to strangers who gave me a disgusted look and ignored me. My beef quesadilla tasted burnt and my drink flat.
Will you kindly kill that doll for me?
Party.
Opening as the provider of solace, Fiesta’s saxophone breathes grace into saluting lungs, and assists the ease of such with plumes of waltzing bass. It is a firm liar. An opening scene twist through restless guns.
Off they charge!
The song barks into the life of a virile orgy with fanciful instrumentation and bleating drives of drunken babble fodder – of times and moments had. “Come all you rambling boys of pleasure and ladies of easy leisure.” The swift strumming of guitar accompanies prancing accordion through an entire rush of musical ecstasy before coming to cartoon conclusion. “There is a minstrel! There! You see?” Fiesta is sheer electricity, without flinch and without apology. It leaves no time for thought or for the now; it is a call to reaction and the faster pulse. Pure pleasure. [Charge.]
Skin’s blistering; violent females
Violent Femmes – Blister In The Sun
“It’s heroin music,” Sara croons, linking her fingers with his, sidling up against him. “Heroin music?” he asks, eyebrows raised. “Were they on heroin when they released this?” She laughs. “No – well, I don’t think so. It’s just so addictive.” She kisses his cheek. “Let me go ooooon! / like I blister in the sun / let me go ooooon!” Tightening her grip on his fingers, whispering. “Big Hands, I know you’re the one.” [Cornucopia.]
** Wait, before you leave: Sara never sleeps with Big Hands.
(illustration by Kim Sielbeck)
News clippings from across America
Iron & Wine – Walking Far From Home
1. Utah – According to my sources (idle gossip from my friend Jon), Mormons have a practice called “floating.” Pre-married couples will strip, penetrate, but then just hold each other instead of using friction to induce orgasms. It’s how they avoid sex before marriage without avoiding sex before marriage. Allegedly, the couple then can discuss religion and their relationship, with the penis “floating” in the vaginal cavity. Back when I was a kid, when we wanted to skirt the line, we just blew each other.
2. Texas – In the Lone Star State, it is still legal to smoke in bars. After driving two days straight, my brother texted me the address of Page Pub and had me meet him there (he is the second one I’ve visited on this trip to direct me to a bar before his or her home). On the tables, turned upside down, sat little black ashtrays. My eyes lit up. I’m not much of a smoker – whenever I run out of (now-illegal) cloves, I generally go several months without before I find some more – but smoking in bars is nostalgic for me. When I was first starting, sneaking off to dive bars to escape the frigid Michigan cold and judgmental roommates, I would tap out my ash next to a glass of beer or onto the floor at shitty local-band concerts. My brother’s friend Richard handed me a Marlboro Red. I hate Reds and I hate most non-clove cigarettes, but this one tasted like the frozen air in Michigan, my visible breath and the smoke escaping my mouth in one dense plume.
3. Tennessee – People in Murfreesboro actually say “y’all.” I mean, you figure the stereotype is based in reality; you assume people in Canada might say “eh?” slightly more on average than Americans. But it’s still startling when the waitress has a thick Southern accent and sing-songs, “Y’all come back now” as you bluster out the door. The expression is so tied to insults about illiteracy and inbreeding that I guess I didn’t really believe people used it any more.
I don’t think I’ll come back after all.
[Buy the single.]
Who’s got a beard that’s long and white?
Today, in town, minus the merry-related products and gifts, you could be mistaken for thinking it was just another evening of shopping and grabbing. A convivial air to be sure, but nothing too definite. Beyond the window of toys, maybe things were always like this.
This Christmas will be my very first away from family. I want both where I’m going and where I’ve been. Too comfortable in what I’ve had and too excited for what I don’t. So off I trot (with that skip in step). The destination: the beach, the wonderful, the partner in crime. I might write her a children’s book – one to make her smile. With illustrations, too no less. One where a girl of doubt grows to defeat the big monster. It has been done before. It can be done better with a brighter light. Or I’ll be the one to sprightly devour whatever I’m told to buy; mow the shelves of “the perfect” gift.
Christmas used to be something different. It used to be excitement and vibrancy and trance-like and selfish. Now it has become somewhat symbolic and grows every year as a distraction to the norm. It’s a way out of the crippling formalities and normalities of every other day. It’s not the birth nor the under-tree offering; it’s a sort of time you can trust. You may now vomit. [Be Santa.]
Only bored as I get older
Deerhunter – He Would Have Laughed
Deerhunter makes rather wonderful winter music. For three of the last four winters – I spent the fourth in a place where winter doesn’t exist – their singles, EPs and long-players have dominated my snow-season soundtracks. Ethereal soundscapes. Abstract, repetitious, but somehow tangible lyrics. It works. It works especially well around this time of year, trust me. From Wikipedia I recently learnt that “[Deerhunter frontman Bradford] Cox’s method of creating music is stream-of-consciousness, and he does not write lyrics in advance.” That makes sense after you listen to their music, but it’s also an amazing achievement when you consider songs like “Nothing Ever Happened” or this year’s “Memory Boy.”
Bradford Cox is the leader of Deerhunter. He also fronts a project called Atlas Sound, which is similarly excellent. He is incredibly prolific. Brad has Marfan Syndrome, which means he’s very tall and skinny and strange-looking and doesn’t feel well most of the time. From his singing and his blog and interviews, he comes across as an extremely nice, shy, humane person. He puts a lot of his time and being into music. It’s worth it. I think it would be lovely to be his friend. He seems like he’d be a very good friend.
Anyway, this is my favourite song of the year.
[Get Halcyon Digest. And listen to it with a good pair of headphones. Your winter will be substantially enriched, or your money back. Those last four words were a joke, by the way…]
(follow @elrob)
FIRST ENCOUNTERS
We’ve just met, Local Natives and I. We were introduced through friends. We shared some small talk, bought each other a couple of glasses of wine, sat out on the patio – so I could light a cigarette – and whittled the night away asking questions; feeling the moment through. We’re unsure.
I have to ask Michael a couple of things first, like if they’ve just been through a messy breakup or a death in the family. If maybe they’re grieving, or plain cold. I don’t think they are, but early on you can’t be sure. They seem nice, inviting. But a couple of months down the line they might move in – yeah, I know I’m thinking too far ahead – and start turning the air-con up every time I turn it down. They’ll talk loudly on the phone. Take long, long showers. Shirk house duties.
It’s just that right now, they’re a lot of fun. Fresh. Wide-eyed and adventurous. Maybe inside they’re jaded, tired, waiting ’til they’re comfortable enough to get irritated, confrontational, a hassle. [Buy.]