Time & the1 1/2 month mark!

I realized today driving back to my apartment after hanging with familiar friends, that I have 1 1/2 months left in the city I currently make my home in. It's the second home I've formed, with love, familiar friends, hobbies, favorite places-- and as I was driving I started composing a list of things I need to do before I leave. While I am leaving and it is sad, it is incredibly exciting to start a new chapter of my life. I am ready to find a new home with a new love, new familiar friends, new hobbies and new favorite places. I look forward to the day where I have a settled home, with a settled love, settled friends, redundancy, predicability, a boring job and evenings filled with nightcaps gin & tonics and re-runs of Jeopardy. But that time, that time, is not now.

Time is a concept that completely and utterly confounds me, it is constructed by humans and the one thing that we never have any control over, it will progress regardless. I kick the bucket, my temporality will give me a slight nod and a wave, and time still marches forward briskly and evenly.

I know these thoughts were brought on by Billie Holiday and the rain on the freeway. But still, it is a bittersweet moment, letting go of the past, being in 1 1/2 months of transition and flux. Oh time, Billie Holliday, Progression, Goals and Dreams.

All spurred by the following song--

The Blues are so fucking good.

Sassy Satire

Or Why Did I just Discover Married to the Sea?

Hilarious. I am very disappointed I just discovered this internet gem.

After reading many of the cartoons, I am pretty sure, almost positive that many of the satirical, humorous nature of Married to the Sea came directly from "Punch Magazine"

http://www.punch.co.uk/index.html

Example from Punch:

Example from Married to the Sea:

Strikingly similar don't you think? If you've never read any Punch, I'd highly suggest it, the 1840s-1920s are especially wonderful in their political racism, homophobia, AntiSemitism, and sexism. All the great "ism"s that make that era incredibly hilarious and enriching to read. I mean, this was a time of great cultural transition, pre/post WWI, Post- Revolutionary France/America, Rise of the Industrial Revolution, dawn of sexuality in the public sphere and the groundwork of Freud and psychology...some great stuff happening if you pay keen attention.

But, for now, I leave you with this:

Thanks Married to the Sea, you've given me a nice break from my graduate applications and essay writing.

Understanding the Wookie

Or How I lost my Star Wars Virginity

I have been writing this blog fragmented since I watched Star Wars, all three original, on grainy VHS rented from the library last week. I can’t really critique the movie adequately-rather it made me think of the power of the imagination; and how, when one acts out on the imagination, it can do incredibly powerful things. To think that the movie was once a creative idea inside a mind.

I never refused to watch Star Wars—I just simply did not see the point. I understood it was a classic, I understood the popular references, what I didn’t understand was why people seemed so flabbergast about me not watching it.

I simply didn't have the time to sit through hours of a movie I didn't understand or seem to care about. I had things to do.

This all changed when I checked the rectangular, beat-up and worn movies from the library. I sat down, popped them in, just for the hell of it, not knowing that I would actually enjoy the hours I would spend watching the characters develop and the plot unfold.

The movie is incredible contextualized with the time period it was made. It was groundbreaking, the plot and interwoven character development are very complex, the visual effects , while almost laughable now, were advanced, and most importantly, the entire scenario of space is very imaginative.

It is this that I would like to elaborate on.

By using space as the setting, it leaves reality behind and allows for a form of escape. It allows viewers to travel to familiar settings from a different perspective, it shows the power struggle between good and evil in its complexities and it emphasizes the struggle of identity, place and meaning. These are all very human, very important and can reach beyond the screen to viewership and everyday life. This is difficult to do, while simultaneously creating a well done movie and marketing it as a blockbuster.

I could do a critique, but that seems too verbose, there are so many of them on the internet to compete with. Just know, if you have not seen Star Wars, watch it. It is a classic for a reason. Once you have watched it once, I highly suggest doing the Star Wars Drinking Game along with it. This makes for an entirely unique and blurry realization and perspective of a classic, best done with good friends, preferably the nerdy chic ones.

I will then leave you with my friend Kelsey and I with Yoda.

There is nothing like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to lull the rhythmic beating persistence of the rain out in the country.

Post-Grad smooozing

Today, I had a conversation with a very well paid 50 year old man from Wisconsin about the Grateful Dead.

All spurred from a comment I made about his tie and his allusion to Jerry Garcia. A 15 minute conversation ensued about classic rock.

Oh, life.

--------------------

Soon to come!

.

1- I finally watched Star Wars! Epic! "Popping the wookie cherry."

2-And, I've been working on a writing piece about Harlem, once it is completed, I shall share. "Sleeping off the map"

It's been a while since I've had the time to blog, let along blog something worthwhile, summer trend to start. I also have an incredible reading list including (but not limited to)

Moral Disorder- Marget Atwood

Fierce Invalids from Hot Climates- Tom Robbins

Re-reading Les Miserables-Victor Hugo

War & Peace

Re-reading Travels With Charley

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- Junot Díaz

and a keen eye for Russian/Eastern European Lit.

Summer, you are so close I can almost taste you.

Restored faith

This video by the XX has, by itself, restored my faith in modern music.

On one hand, someone needs to show these blokes some sun. On the other, the crisp subtle deterioration of relationships through the choreography is very well done. The XX is incredible.



I will always have a nostalgic place in my heart for Built to Spill. Driving through the open space of Eastern Washington always makes me fall in love with the state I am from all over again. Falling in love with Space.
http://gogorunifyoucan.blogspot.com/2009/02/dear-washington.html

Baby, I've got the Blues

I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory.

Muddy Waters

I believe that strong music, good music is based off of the artist conveying something that transcends the sounds they produce -- the sine cosine waves that are inevitable reverberation, that are a product of instruments. I mean, making noise is easy, but making good noise, noise with tone, emotion and meaning is incredibly difficult to do. After all, the rest it is just noise, just sound to fill the silence.

I am currently reading, "The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century." it is written by the music critic from The New Yorker, Alex Ross. It begins with the fin de siecle of the 19th century and the decadent movement with the Opera, "Salome"- an interpretation of Oscar Wilde's play by Strauss. It was a huge success. It made Strauss famous-- and more importantly, it made him money. Lots of money. It was also an incredibly complex, beautiful, meaningful, good piece of music.

This was also the time that artistic production began to become a commodity in a Modern, Capitalistic system. Music was now something that was to be consumed. Music was something thrown into the market to make money. This eventually led to a huge socialist push at the beginning of the 20th century/end of the 19th century by many artists. They did not want economics put onto self expression- to art.

The book then goes on to explain all of music in terms of cultural relevancy, of its artistic tonality and various components. Ross makes the reader see music is more than just sound.

As I am reading the time period of Harlem, of Chicago, of Atlanta-- of the blues, the many different types of blues, I see the oppression-- I see the struggle, I see the simplicity, I see the emotion. And, I remember this quote by Jimi Hendrix, "Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel"

The first picture above picture is of Chess Records and its artists. I will not name them because, well, let's face it, if I got one wrong, it would be incredibly embarrassing. But, just look at the faces, the race, the power dynamics, the man behind the desk. Back in July I wrote the following post about the record, "Blues James at Chess"

http://gogorunifyoucan.blogspot.com/2009/07/fuck-yes-moment.html

I know I cannot understand complete cultural oppression, I know I am a white middle class female who has been handed things to me that I have not earned, but goddamnit! I love the blues. I love it because it represents struggle, emotion and freedom-- everything that is wonderful about music, everything that I love about music. For some reason, I feel like this record is going to be symbolic of this time period in my life. It isn't poppy, it isn't pretty, it isn't sugar coated, it raw, its uninhibited, it is honest, it is vunerable, and it carries an air of sincerity and uncertainty. It was recorded in a time of great cultural shift. I know it is incredibly ego-centric to relate music directly to my life, music of great struggle-- a struggle I can never truly understand, but something resonates deeply with me. The music transcends the vinyl, the rotating black sphere on my record player and really makes me feel something. That, my friends, is art.

And that brings me back to the beginning of the post, to the thematic ideas in Alex Ross's book. Music is sound, it is really JUST noise, but it is also, paradoxically, so much more than that. It also ties into the beauty of the moment, to one of the central themes of Strauss's Opera, "Salome" of Oscar Wilde's play, of the decadent movement in which Ross purposively opens his novel with.

And, I tie this into James Whistler (Decadent painter, friend of Oscar Wilde) and his painting I saw in the MET while in NYC.

The painting itself simply represents a human on a boat, fog, a city in the background. It contains nothing more. It is simple. It is a moment. That is beautiful. It made him money, in a Capitalistic system where art was to be consumed. It made him famous, much like Strauss adaptation of Salome, much like the record, "Blues Jam at Chess" will represent the moment of post-graduation confusion, chaos and freedom for me. A mere moment. But, at the same time, it is so much more than just noise.