skin tone work load

the start of the song reminds me of star wars, and this fact has somehow trancended it's geekiness in my mind, and made the song that much more tender. 'you have a father' is a noir-perspective on the 'i am your father' scene/line, and 'there is another' is an actual quote - when luke has just launched his x-wing from the dagaba system, the ghost of obi-wan speaks to yoda, something about 'that boy is our only hope', when yoda says 'no....there is another,' just as the red from the boosters blanches across his face. it's one of the most underated moments in the trilogy. 'you have a sister' could also be a quote, when obi-wan lets on about leia.

this whole parallel turns the first verse into a montage of the films, with little sequences accompanying each line, turning both the song into an inevitable tragedy, and the film sequences into a desperate freudian web. 'there is another' destroys the sinister hope yoda gives us, the same hope that occurs again and again throughout any kind of hollywood narrative or a forced personal-narrative; the hope that is the turning point, or the reason we keep digging. it turns it into an inevitable dissapointment - it's telling us, it's delivering the line, but the quivering quiet gives away the fact that, they know better. they are the ego scriptor. they have written the rest of the lines - they know how their story unfolds. you will not come out well, and they have a really hard time hiding that from you.

but then, we get theresa - 'it's Theresa you love the best'. whenever i sing it to myself, i can't help singing it with the 'th' rather than just the 't'. it's because Theresa is so similar to there is another - THEREiSAnother. what does that mean? have we hope again? is Theresa the actual other, rather than the abstract hope/inevitable misery? or is Theresa the one who steals our life - is she fire? is she a sister?

i have no idea if Theresa fits into the bible, but we've got some half references to noah's ark - there was a flood, a world of water', but the story is, again, ripped from it's roots - they tear a steeple down to survive, and the boat is less a boat than a mass of floating shards of wood, and Theresa seems to snatch a piece of driftwood that you might've got.

'from near his heart he took a rib, all fires have to burn a life to live'. at this point i thought that Theresa might be Lilith, the first woman. She's taken the name, and some virginity...but she's also not there any more. and eve lives because she doesn't. lilith is some kind of dichotomy, a slaughtered lamb and simultaneously a social outcast, seen as evil. eve's heart is lilith's death.

i don't know what that means.

swan lake - all fires

a chronicle of early failures, part two

here's another. i don't like the way i wrote the beginning of this, but i like the (true) story. i also remember a couple of people telling me they liked this one in particular, so, here we go. and i like it near the end.

repetition of failure! this was written 04/Oct/05

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more of the same

"i had a lot of things from birmingham that i wanted to write but completely forgot about, and was consequently frustrated. very frustrated. but i remembered one - i went into a guys room. basically, there was an ajoining door between my room and the "executive suite" or some shit like that. i opened my door, and then there was a second door that was, obviously, his door. his connection to the ajoining door-ness of it all. late at night, very late at night, after staring through the massive, pristine, sterile windows at the building opposite (and after trying to work out whether the lost in translation-esque red neons were reflecting off some windows, or if they were above my room, or if they were, indeed, radiating from this prison-like building across the way) for too many hours to count, i drank some coffee, drank some hot chocolate, and then drank some more coffee, and wrote a letter to the cleaner for the next day. i got up and tried the ajoining door. mine opened, as i had control over it - the lock was on my side. i pushed his, and it fucking opened. it opened. i only pushed it with enough force to make it ajar, but it was obvious that it would open all the way if i pushed it. of course, i pulled it shut as quickly and quietly as i could, and jumped back onto the bed, completely with an adrenaline rush pulsing through my arms and chest. fuck, that was probably the most exciting thing that's going to happen in an empty hotel room at 4:00 in the morning. after a while, i drifted off to sleep. actually, that's a lie. i didn't fall asleep. about 20 minutes later, after trying to take my mind of it any way i could - reading a book, reading some of the bible, watching wrestling on the tv (controlled with a keyboard!), watching a bad, bad film on some sky channel, i got up again. i was fucking juiced by this time, high on caffine, sugar, the bible and adrenaline, and the loudest thing in the room really was my heart, beating through my ears. i opened my door, and i was a little nervous that maybe he'd heard my jarring from before, and locked his side. but he hadn't, and i was confident, and i opened it fully. there was a single, compact bag on the table, open, and not much else. there might have been a jacket on the back of a chair. then i heard him sleeping. when i look back, he could've been awake. he could've even been awake when i heard him breathe, but i was pretty sure it was the sound of sleep, while i took a few tentative footsteps round his executive suite. i saw some books on the middle section of a shelf but i couldn't see what they were, buried in shadow, so i took one out. guess what? the books were the complete works of charles dickens. i always wondered what you paid for with an executive suite. at least, i think he was asleep. i went back into my room, and although i didn't sleep, i didn't go back, and watched through the peephole in the morning when i heard him leaving. he was the person you are imagining. the person who occupies the executive suite on all the films, the one who will cause the eventual fall of the capitalist society with his kidney failure and his stress, along with 50,000 other workers/rulers who will fall into the ground on the way to work, work, work. ok, so maybe not the last point, i get carried away. pity i don't get carried away. but, he was the executive. he was the person that this room was designed for, indended for. he is the person who will pick up a dickens novel, and think, yes, i am in touch. i am cultured, and i am high up here. and then he will go to reception and say, i enjoyed the dickens collection, and that he will stay here again. of course, i'm taking the piss a bit here. there is only a 85% chance i could tell all this from his partially opened compack bag and the back of his suit viewed through the skewed eye of the convex peephole, through the skewed eye of this concave youth. maybe he watched me. amy's got a baby in her stomach mike*"

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90 day men - i've got designs on you

mediator mixtape #5 - donna summmmer?

it's weird how, in summer, these tracks just fall into your hands. it's not even that they're being advertisied to you at this point - earlier, i just happened to get a few mp3s off insound's back catalogue, and they all stank of summer, of hot swamps and dragonflies on red brick.

it's a bit more understandable when summery tracks appear on a mixtape made while staring out the window, at light across a roof, while i'm supposed to be writing an essay. i would probably describe telepathy constants as a winter tape, but then again i would never hesitate to describe belong as summer music. so, summer isn't necessarily short songs, or twinkling songs, or songs with words in; i don't know how much of a coincidence it is that the new do make say think is incredibly sunny and open compared to anything they've done before...how do you create that atmosphere on record when you're writing in winter? maybe it's different in a barn, or a cabin, in canada.

so, here's an admittedly summery tape. it seems that most music can adapt to a season, but it must all be played loud.

mediator mixtape #5 - donna summmmer?
tracklist:
1. akron/family - blessing force
2. desert sessions - in my head...or something
3. black moth super rainbow - jump into my mouth and breathe the stardust
4. ted leo and the pharmacists - the sons of cain
5. the national - about today (live)
6. beirut - scenic world
7. dirty three - i really should've gone out last night
8. frog eyes - bushels
9. pavement - range life
10. caetano veloso - clarice
11. the thermals - i hold the sound

i was walking into uni the other day, and i merged in with everyone who just got off the bus. the end of about today kicked in, and i've left all the clapping at the end on. it feels really good to listen to in headphones - your own private audience, telling you that you're fucking great. i thought, i bet you could make a whole cd of this, and feel really awesome every single morning, if you set it as an alarm - to wake up to applause. then i thought...i bet some of the people around me can hear the clapping, and think that i just listen to clapping to motivate myself. do they think i just need it to have a good reason to walk to uni - so i can play the clapping track, over and over? or do they think i need it, constantly, to keep smiling? will i be in front of their bus home, when the cd player cuts out? none of them hand me sweaty batteries from a cold palm, so i presume the former and smile. what else can i do? i'm listening to thirty seconds of solid handclaps.


i also uploaded all the previous tapes again, because i found an easier way to keep them up. which is also known as procrastination.

mediator mixtape #4 - crooked polar night
tracklist:
1. mugison - salt
2. sufjan stevens - alanson, crooked river
3. growing - primitive associations/great mass above
4. black moth super rainbow - hazy field people
5. colleen - i'll read you a story
6. joanna newsom - only skin
7. belong - i never lose. never really
8. labradford - midrange
9. tindersticks - miles davis' funeral
10. august born - more dead bird blues

mediator mixtape #3 - telepathy constants
tracklist:
1. godspeed you black emperor! - divorce&fever... (edit)
2. belong - all equal now
3. hood - intro
4. bjork - an echo, a stain
5. múm - please sing my spring reverb (isan catena remix)
6. thom yorke - skip divided
7. slowdive - cello
8. six organs of admittance - regeneration
9. wilco - i am trying to break your heart
10. final - sorry
11. thee more shallows - perfect map (bbc session)
12. devendra banhart - dragonflys

mediator mixtape #2 - oceans never listen
tracklist:
1. manitoba - bijoux
2. weird weeds - sweet thing
3. akron/family - before and again
4. the books - all our base are belong to them
5. jana hunter - k
6. adem - everything you need
7. psapp - tricycle
8. broken social scene - ibi dreams of pavement (KCRW acoustic session)
9. cat power - satisfaction (planet claire session)
10. mice parade - the boat room
11. sunset rubdown - shut up i am dreaming of places where lovers have wings
12. secret stars - wait
13. múm - the ghosts you draw on my back

mediator mixtape #1 - drive north
tracklist:
1. set fire to flames - wild dogs of the thunderbolt/'they cannot lock me up...i am eternally free...' (from the lips of lying dying wonder body #2)
2. amina - skakka
3. low - lordie (peel session)
4. espers - widow's weed
5. efterklang - bright
6. six organs of admittance - black needle rhymes (live on KVRX)
7. saul williams & blackalicious - release
8. jeff tweedy - crack a smile
9. peter and the wolf - red sun
10. the album leaf - spinning makes me dizzy
11. beirut - mount wroclai (idle days)
12. four tet - my angel rocks back and forth (live in copenhagen)

a chronicle of early failures, part one

how far did narcissus lean before falling in? what i mean by that, is - that i think i'm going to post a few things from my old weblog - back when they were called online diaries, or some shit like that. i remembered a post i did about pavement's shady lane, and i looked it up, and it wasn't as bad as i thought. i also read some others while trying to find the shady post, and they wern't too bad either. and, i think they're quite good at showing some kind of progression. but - i'm not trying to say i write better now. it's probably time to employ that samuel beckett quote, fail, fail better or whatever. the one that every writer ever, even before beckett, has quoted. i'm trying not to say much, because this is kind of unforgivable...so, sorry. i hope you can take this for what it is. all the bold, italic, and mistakes are from the original text. also, when something went wrong with the site these were hosted on, i lost all the linebreaks. i am a fan of linebreaks.

a fan of linebreaks, right? okay?

...but maybe it's better this way - so it won't be so connected with my thoughts now, but more with the ongoing patterns and emotions. hah! i'm already slipping back into the style...

i am in love with mistakes. this was written 09/Jul/05

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have we missed an opportunity//

"the smallest bits of music are the best. those moments that you know only after listening to a record again, and again and again, something that is becoming increasingly harder with the malestrom of music that assaults the mind and the senses to some kind of sadomasochistic orgasm. there's a bit in pavement's shady lane where malkamus (who shares a birthday with me) breathes in just before he starts to sing and just before that beautifully, fucking beautifully simply riff kicks in, and it sets off the whole song. even after that strange break where the song starts again, that breath still hangs and makes the song feel completely perfect and at home for it's exact duration. it's a thing that you wouldn't notice the first 30 times you listen to the song, but you will notice it the 31st time, and you will repeat the intro again and again to hear it, and then it will be there every time you play the song again. it's like a little secret message between you and one of the most influential and brilliant indie bands ever, and that's something special. that's something to be proud of, on your side and theirs. i struggle to think of any more examples right now, brighten the corners now playing in it's entirety, blissfully drowning out and coating all other thoughts in a thick layer of golden honey and sunshine; but you know what they are, and you have your own special moments like that. and they make you smile, and you know there will never be a time when they won't make you smile - no matter what kind of explosions are happening anywhere in the world or your mind, these things will remind you of the inevitably beauty, the indestructably subtle perfection that is about as frequent as a lottery win - but, fuck, so much more rewarding. what with live8, the g8, the london incident, i've been thinking a lot about what i want to write about it, because i do want to write something. but maybe this is it. maybe what i want to write is a defence of the little things, the little bursts of joy. i guarantee that i'm even more surprised than you, what with my usual deathly cynical outlook. yes, these events make you feel sick, especially when you realise this is how it will always be - money, greed, war, death, religion. the continuous strength of evil over good, or, even worse - the continual rise of the evil good (the ones who pretend to be) and the rise of the gray/grey area between it all. nothing is black and white, my boy. but. but. no one can deny the light on your hands, the dust in the air in the morning, the reverb from your favourite note. little things. when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries. i guess i don't have much good to say after all. but not much never lost. watch her reinvent the wheel, i don't need your summary acts to give into the narrative mike*"

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Pavement - Shady Lane

p.s., i'm thinking about doing another mixtape pretty soon?