you can go your own way

Today I'm going to a phone bank to help get out the vote for John Kerry, the first time in my life I've volunteered time to a political party.

On Friday I will be moving to Seattle for a few months. Sorry if I am uncommunicative, I'm just busy packing and loading and getting vans and all of that.

the 11th hour boogeyman

The day the tape was released, I sort of settled into a silent thoughtfulness for several hours.

My first few years studying history seriously in college were in Ireland; as a result I gained an appreciative sense for the idea of terrorism as a political tool and how that comes to pass. It is embedded in the very idea of the Republic of Ireland as a state.

Which is why the transcript we have been shown has sort of shocked me. I felt alone on Friday in believing contrary to the spin being established on how the tape would hurt or help either candidate (free republic morons going on about how great it was for Osama to pop up, rather than question why he's still at large, leading to a clusterfuck of oppositional thought that truly goes under the Nietzcheian "be careful when fighting monsters that one does not become a monster"), that what we had here was very, very strange and sad. Almost reconciliatory and limited to attacking Bush as a figure of fun. But what was that reconciliatory tone all about? The article below expands on what my instinct about the tape was.

Bin Laden, in Tape, May Have Sights on New Role

a few days spun..

listening to The Arcade Fire album, Funeral.

Now I have time to pay attention to lyrics. There's a general consensus written about this band: first of all that you can hear within them upwards of thirty of your favorite bands. There's something for everyone.

But think of it this way. This is their first real album. Their first. They are coming out the gate this fully formed in intention and style and purpose and their album tells a story.

That's the declarative thread upon which the rock writer seizes - the album is informed by the grief of so many members of the band going through a period when loved ones passed away. This is the journalistic hook; yes, but everyone else is quick to comment on the emotional force of the band. And curiously there's a lot of invocation of "honest emotion". Well what's lacking in the rest of indie music today that "honest emotion" is such a surprise?

Like, for instance, in all honesty - is there a whit, a jot of even a single sound on the new Interpol album that enters the core of your being and hits you like a good sharp kiss or scream? I'm not asking whether it rocks or if the arrangements are good. I'm asking if there's anything there that moves you. They dress right, they sound right, they reference right, they even write songs right. But no one will be musing playing a song off that album at their wedding or on their deathbed, the fanastical extreme scenarios all music lovers must tease themselves with late at night alone.

It's as simple as two lines in Une anee sans lumiere, the third track on the album.

"hey! The street lights all burnt out...
"...hey! My eyes are shooting sparks"

The street lights have gone out. Your loved ones are becoming more and more seperate from you - age or distance the culprit, take your pick. You are starting to realize, nearing thirty, that life is hard in a subtle way. You're going to have to say goodbye to all the good stuff, all the childhood and adolescence that went with it. You will even have to abandon some dreams. But not all of it. There's still beauty in a snowstorm, in a power outage, in a realization of mortality. There's feet stomping and hand clapping and singing in unison. I believe this is why every song this band delivers, no matter how informed by that story, the handle the writers will hold onto about death and emigration, ends on a note of elation.

This album is stumbling into a dark cold room on one of those winter days where the sun set too early, too early perhaps for you to ever notice it... And there's a blanket that's a comfort, or someone to lie down next to. It's a joke at the darkest moment, a grim recognition of absurdity. It's honest emotion, because it's not afraid to show bleakness, despair... But in a triumph for pop music it complicates the emotion, and says that oh dear god there's still the opposite of that, too, and they coexist in the same moments. If anything, the funeral is a wake. This is the ultimate liberation of this band, and why everyone keeps denoting it is full of "honest emotion". It makes you feel but doesn't lie to you. It is not one track, it is not a pose, it is not a philosophy carried in the way in they dress. It's a cruel word and a banishment, and plea and a prayer all at once.

Yes, my favorite album of the year.

ire and wrath in condensed form with new heapings of lunatic divine mandates

Frank Rich on the levels of media control attendant with the current administration - even more resolute than Nixon's.

"The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before," wrote William Safire last month. When an alumnus of the Nixon White House says our free press is being attacked as "never before," you listen.

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Even scarier - Ron Suskind weighs in with the most damning and lucid critique of what is wrong with the current administration which will run in the Sunday NY Times magazine. This time he is backed by direct quotation from conservatives and religious leaders who have had dealings with the Bush Administration. The picture that emerges is the tenet of every central argument I make with Conservatives about George Wilhelm II Bush. That as conservatives they should be opposed to the fact that Bush is a monarchical leader transforming America into a Feudal Empire engaged in a Crusade. The establishment of our country and its core utopian values come from a very conservative argument; the right to self govern, as opposed to commands issued at the whim of a leader who has acceeded authority dependent on heredity and the notion that they have been chosen by God to lead. This is what gives all Emperors and Kings their power - the concept that God speaks and rules directly through them. I ask all conservatives who vote based upon rationality and reason and not Christian fundamentalism to look into their hearts and ask them if a leader who resembles a King more than any other poltiical leader of America fulfills what they have continued to argue is the defining trait of America.

It's a good theoretical, abstract argument - but this article actually proves that is the ailing heart of the Bush administration. Also, perhaps the most embarassing thing I've read yet.

The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. ''You were right,'' he said, with bonhomie. ''Sweden does have an army.''

This story was told to me by one of the senators in the Oval Office that December day, Joe Biden. Lantos, a liberal Democrat, would not comment about it.

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CMJ and a fire in the arcade

Skip all the personal reminders if you will, because at the very least this post is intended to do one singular thing: get you to scroll down to the bottom and download the mp3 of the band I am about to extoll the virtues of.

I was in New York for the past week and just got home. I was spending some time with Dawn in Brooklyn and due to her work caught quite a fair bit of CMJ, which I'd never attended before. I got to see The Decemberists and check in on their return from a triumphant first pass in England. I don't know if they'd use the word triumphant, but I talked to a British promoter who said they'd gone down incredibly well.

I did a little shooting of them at a KEXP radio performance in the Museum of TV and Radio. The hallway outside the radio booth were lined with cels from Hanna Barbara superhero shows; something that my Korean uncle had a hand in making, strangely.

Everyone was doing well, if a little hungover and having to deal with colds. Big respect is due to erstwhile bassist Nate Query, who had to lug his upright bass across lunchtime traffic on the subway to the Bowery Ballroom. Not easy. They'd played McEnroe the day before. The funniest thing about that was that Chris had managed to get a photo of Colin posing with a lifesize standup of McEnroe but not the real one, despite being on his television show.

That night they played the showcase for booker Kevin French and were their usual charming selves. The audience went nuts for Infanta, but sadly I did not hear any Fleetwood Mac bits smuggled into songs. But finally an album has usurped Tusk in my rotation now...

I managed to be in New York the same time as Duncan Jones, my old film school roommate who was visiting his Dad. Duncan just shot his first big ad in the UK. Good to see him in good spirits and inching towards respectability. Also got to see a bit of Dan Droller, one of the founders of Music for America, who I graciously marvel at for having registered some 15000 new voters in the upcoming election.

The Arcade Fire

But now the real gist of everything - there was some attendant hype about a band called The Arcade Fire. Vaguely American and Canadian. 9.7 review in Pitchfork. Art rock. Every scenester at CMJ was desperate to get into the 1am set they were going to perform at the Mercury Lounge. Usual signs of me saying "ok I'm not going to be interested in that". Visions of another Interpol. But Dawn needed to go.

Oh my dear god.

They opened with a track called Wake Up, and there's a moment where all seven members onstage were singing together and it just reached everything inside me. By the second song I was a complete convert. I haven't had a strong reaction to a band since I first got Songs About Airplanes from Nick in the mail, or heard the Decemberists in my car while driving in San Francisco. Their first words on stage were "here we are, the flavor of the month". And proceeded to fucking rock the place to tatters.

This is art rock that rocks. This is emotive music that is not manipulative or petty or self absorbed. This is joy and sweat and even dancability but still experimental and unusual. You can hear everything you've ever liked in them, but I don't wish to draw parallels. They really do have their own thing going and are about to head out on tour and I urge you to catch them before inevitable hugeness.

They were so intense onstage, crowded into that little space in the Mercury, banging tambourines off of each other and embracing and singing their fucking guts out, sometimes other members playing percussion literally off the walls, I was a little scared to approach any of them, but found them after the set to be incredibly sweet kids, too.

Jordan, Death Cab's manager, was there and agreed with me that they were amazing. I believe I caught him even doing a little bit of dancing at one point. Not to embarass Jordan but it was really sweet to see.

Please, please if you're free go to their shows and below is an .mp3 of the track of the year for me, in a pretty damn good year for music... This is my track of the year.

Wake Up mp3 by The Arcade Fire.

for me

Dawn has an apartment in the best spot in Park Slope. She's not up in the higher ave's where the rent gets ridiculous. There's a lot of color in her neighborhood, both figuratively and literally.

This is really important. It's one of the essential things about New York that is so great, and why New Yorkers themselves are so great, why they strike everyone as somewhat more American than others. For me it's not tied to vaguely patriotic admonishments about surviving 9/11. It's about the eternal collusion of people in public space, the toughness of the city and how that forces strangers to bond in civil unions that wouldn't exist otherwise. I talked to Dawn's friend about this, about the importance of a subway to any city. Any city that forces people to confine themselves with strangers of all walks of life into crowded public spaces with margins of failure or disaster must in essence produce people who are more tolerant and accepting. The old tribal lines exist in New York, but more subliminally is an undercurrent of having to deal. It may be grudging sometimes, but ultimately it's utopian, the antithesis of the privatization of public space. But there is always attendant change, and I did talk to some old neighborhood people, and Brooklyn itself is under seige, a proposed football stadium coming to Flatbush that would eradicate countless brownstones and more importantly neighboorhoods for parking spaces and dollars. I believe this is why for a city that remains at the wounded heart of the country why it is so openly and adamantly anti Bush - signs of this everywhere, since urban spaces are battles in semiotic instability. But I do not think I spied a single Bush Cheney bumper sticker anywhere I went in New York.

Dawn's around the corner from the 826 Valencia Brooklyn branch, a Superhero outfitting store. An incredible deli called Pollio's that sells most importantly the best bagels I've ever eaten and more importantly San Pelligrino Limonata, the best soft drink in the world. In a few days there I managed to settle into a morning routine of waking up just before Dawn and sneaking out to grab bagel, New York Times, and getting in just in time to make her tea to wake her up with. Smoking a cig on her stoop in early morning, watching the street wake up. There's something about patterns and habits that are entirely satisfying, and that's what I fell into.

She was really busy throughout the week but we got to do some walking through the city. Kissing a girl you're crazy about on the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk is really wonderful.

I love New York. I'm crazy about my girl, something I don't have to be so quiet about any more. Chris Funk says he knows who the wedding band will be. Everyone is silent for a moment then giggles. We already did Vegas and didn't do it then so I don't believe that's a possibility. Colin is supportive and kindly about the whole thing in a gracious manner that cuts through all that. Like him I have distrust of marriage as an institution, maybe not for the same reasons. But I have always believed there's someone you can share your time with and it is in the tiniest things that they make everything full of elation. The way they hold your hand while walking or how they look at you while eating. He sings in a new song, a quiet ode to a person like that, that "we go a drowning". Intense feelings are terrifying, getting to be known is immersion. And you risk drowning. But you can also drown in sharing a Sunday newspaper and doing small nice things to each other that renders all the problems of the day and maybe even the world tolerable.

Yeah, I love New York.

somethin' * filled up * my heart * with nothin' * someone * told me not to cry * but now that * i'm older * my heart's * colder * and i can * see that it's a lie

children * wake up * hold your * mistake up * before they * turn the summer into dust * if the children * don't grow up * our bodies get bigger. but * our hearts get torn up * we're just * a million little gods causing rain storms * turning every good thing to rust * i guess we'll just have to adjust

with my lightining bolts a-glowin' i can see where i am going to be when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand

with my lightning bolts a-glowin' i can see where i am goin'

Look out below!

Wake Up mp3 by The Arcade Fire.

the side of reason and rationality

My second favorite magazine, ranked only below Giant Robot, is New Scientist and in this special they weigh in with an election special looking at the candidates from the viewpoint of science and the politics of such.

Yet the perception that the world cannot do without oil is misguided. True, many of the alternatives, such as wind power, biofuels or a hydrogen economy, appear too impractical or distant to allow an immediate divorce from oil. But a raft of studies, researched and funded not just by advocates of alternative energy but also those with vested interests in the status quo, suggest otherwise.

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the fly

In transit to New York. Be back on the 16th. Until then, text me on the cell phone and keep me company as I practice psychogeography in Park Slope, The Bowery, and Washington Square.

I wish to give my congratulations to Julie Ng. You rock and hope Thursday goes well and remember you could always be in that elevator. Oh and I never told you about the girl in my film school who claimed she was Cronenberg's illegitimate daughter...

utterly pointless

Good things:

Cooking. Vegetable stir fry is really easy to make. Really good rice. Rice COOKERS. Sweet. Dairy free brownies.
Craig Thompson's Blankets.
Emails from Tokyo. Anticipation.
My friend Christina.
Sealab 2021.
Watching Bush get his ass handed to him in a sack by John Kerry.
Jim McDermott is on C-SPAN right now. Goddamn that guy makes me proud to come from Washington. He just said "punk rock is not going to be the in thing. Voting is going to be the in thing."
I am still relentlessly listening to Fleetwood Mac. And The Cocteau Twins now.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - I stand by my assessment it is the best film ever made - for me. I do not think there can be a singular movie that is greater than all others. But for me, and my own reasons, and my perceptions of the world, and as someone who has watched a lot of old movies - it is my favorite movie.

Bad things:
There's this girl at the local supermarket I go to. One day she had on a t shirt with a quote on it that was really Edward Gorey, some grim, morbid take on children. The quote was unattributed. While bagging my groceries I asked her who said it. She said it was a quote from John Wayne Gacy. Gacy, for those who don't read Juxtapoz magazine occasionally or had that weird period where you study odd subjects like serial killers, was the clown - no I mean literally, really a clown, who killed lots and lots of children. I remarked upon how weird it was that his art sold for so much money. Next time she ends up being my checkout person she talks about serial killers.

I am full of bizzare trivia. Completely useless, pointless. If you get me going, I will remark upon the strangest stuff offhandedly. I never really studied serial killers - I thought they were an eschatological dead end. They consume so much imagination for their extremity, but the actual number of people they kill is far outweighed by the number of children killed or sexually abused by family members. Sadly they become figures of enchantment in the broader imagination because of that extremity. That is not to denigrate any of the suffering they have caused - for some weird reason people I know who grew up where I did have a pointed reaction to the Green River murders, because we lived in their shadow and the news we got on them weekly entered our brain at the same juncture fear of nuclear apocalypse did. It was a boogeyman.

So anyway, I still have for some reason a bizzare amount of trivial knowledge in my head about serial killers as well as knowing that a lean to moisture trap is the most effective way to catch water in the desert and Jean Yves Escoffier's first film photographed in America was The Crow 2. So every time over the past six months I get groceries and this girl is at the checkout stand, she makes small talk about serial killers and their foibles. I tend to reel off.

So the other night I go in the grocery store pretty late, and as I walk in the door she's manning a checkstand and she actually quite literally yells "HI SERIAL KILLER GUY!"

I kid you not every face in the store turned to stare at my unshaven visage.

And finally - Nick got quoted in The Onion today. That's the second time Death Cab have been in a feature fake story in The Onion. But this time they attributed him a fake quote.

"Bush is fucking evil," said Nick Harmer, bassist for Death Cab For Cutie. "The economy is for shit, and we're stuck in this unjust war that he lied about to get us to agree to. Me and the other guys in the band wanted to do something real to get him out of office. We were like, 'We gotta do a concert.'"

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aesthetic beauty bores me because there's just too much of it

Interesting piece by Umberto Eco on the definition of aesthetic beauty in the 20th century - how it is nonlinear and immediately accessible.

We cannot look at things from such a distance; all we can do is content ourselves with noting that the first half of the 20th century, up to and including the 1960s at most (after which it would be more difficult), witnessed a dramatic struggle between the beauty of provocation and the beauty of consumption.

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