take your pick

sometimes you just need a word to fit the situation. or a few words.

here are a few. take your pick.

whiplash: the problem with whiplash is that you have this long, long buildup, and then this awful letdown when you realize that you won't get anything good out of the situation that gave you whiplash except for a sore neck and some incredibly cranky feelings. this track is the same way.

hit the lights: you just want to call it quits. some relationships aren't worth it. but you will ultimately feel, at some point, that your initial reaction to things was infantile, and you will second guess throwing in the towel. so, this song--just as childish as that prematurely ended relationship.

no remorse: this is how you should feel when you get out of 1) a bad relationship 2) a relationship that would have been bad if you had let it become a relationship 3) a sticky friendship with someone who likes you intensely and inexplicably and then just doesn't. this is what you feel, complete with hair-raising solo ten seconds in. when you feel this way about a recently past relationship, you exult. the solos always come ten seconds in when you feel like this--so on.

and, finally, the reason for it all: randall moves on.

so here's to words for situations. and here's to special k.

drums & guns II

where would you go if the gun fell in your hand?

questions, questions. Low asks a plenty of these on the new album. but whether or not you choose to answer them, they are perhaps worth some attention.

not that the problems of our personal lives aren't pressing, but at times they can seem rather petty and insignificant compared to the problems people in other parts of the world are having. in other words, i have the luxury of being stressed out about chinese language exams.

the album itself: some electronic touches, primarily drums that are definitely not mimi and her snare and floor tom, but rather a blend of organ-produced beats mixed with a modern aesthetic. overall the production is pretty sparse, which lets the vocals come through nicely. but low has always been about vocals. this is nothing new.














what is new is the way that low continues to push at the barriers of music. this is a band that was playing songs at so-called glacial tempos before sigur ros even existed, during the age of nirvana and grunge, if you can believe it. now they show that they are unafraid not only to move around in the freedom they bought with their last album, but also to continue to break new ground.

and while when younger i would have certainly passed them off as boring and moved on to the more adrenaline-filled grunge rock, it is low who has ended up staying with me, eight albums and more than ten years later.

so listen. war, violence, death: there's got to be an end to that.

wynton

this is us last night.

i suppose a more accurate description would be that this is where we were last night.


but I think, given the music, that a melding of subjects is appropriate.

anyway, the hill auditorium is pretty impressive and the acoustics are even more so.

This is who we were last night; that is, who we were with.

Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

they played all the standards we didn't know but should have. Most impressive was their blistering "sweet georgia brown" and of course, "a night in tunesia."

something about the pure note that horns sound in your soul makes you feel as though there is a reason for everything.

between songs, wynton offered small commentary: "when people from other planets come to earth, they aren't going to want our technology. They're going to want some barbecued ribs, and some blues."

on a thursday night, this is about all you can ask.

take the bait. go on. take it.

have had two recent rejections that i prefer to think about as almost acceptances. both of them did indeed say that they almost took the respective pieces for publication. this is more encouraging than anything else that has happened so far. both encouraged me to submit more work in the future, and though this is a standard stroke, i think they meant it. i feel like i am moving ahead, slowly, painfully, and may be making progress in my writing. almost, i say to myself. next time.

days

just get you down sometimes.

K the destroyer

wonderful and wondering visit paid to K in SB, where she did, in not particular order (though of course there was an order imposed upon these things by the pre-recorded bells of ND that clocked our movements):

-handled the mic like a rock star
-brought lula's to a sincerely attentive silence with her poetry
-served chocolate cake up as a prequel to her reading
-proved herself a masterful reader/performer of said poetry
-soaked up much-deserved praise and applause at said reading
-made our visit very much worth it with her amazing coffee cake

and these as well:

-showed us around the soggy ND campus
-broke her elevator riding lent oath just for us
-showed us the very same place that rudy prayed at, wow
-was very good company

and of course the most important of all:

-was the good friend she has always been

here is to K.