The Signifiers Have No Value for Us Anymore

How abnormal is it that I have a sufficiently well-developed personal symbolic system that when I am at a concert and some random dude in a Halloween skeleton costume comes out before the lead singer to ask, "What kind of moth do you want to be?  The kind of moth who beats itself to death against the wall of the lantern, delusionally imagining it to be the moon?  Or the kind of moth who manages to sneak onto a space rocket and flies to THE!  ACTUAL!  MOON!, I don't even have to think before mentally responding, "I want to be the kind of moth who helps to create the moon on Earth with my own hands!"?

I think the problem with the symbolism here is that, as far as I know, most scientists think that the moon that we already have was in fact created on Earth?  On the other hand, I guess it was not created on Earth by the hands of moths, so maybe that's still okay?  Well, okay, the other problem with the symbolism is that moths don't have hands.  But the moon was also not created on Earth by the. . . legs of moths?  Antennae of moths?  Something?

Bassem Sabry

The first song from of Montreal's next album, Aureate Gloom, has dropped.  I must like it, given that I've replayed it multiple times today.  I'm kind of surprised by the rather explicitly political title and lyrics (and, for that matter, not even on American politics but on the Arab Spring, unless the Arab Spring is being used as a metaphor for American politics?), though.  That isn't really what I would have expected from Kevin Barnes.

Reading _Alice_'s Footnotes

Maybe it's just me, but I find this a hilarious footnote in the heavily annotated edition of Alice's Adventures  in Wonderland that I'm now reading: "The Liddell children had a particularly distinguished drawing-master at this time, John Ruskin. . . ."  What an incredibly bizarre way to describe Ruskin, "a particularly distinguished drawing-master?"  Seriously?  Later on, the footnote says, "He taught Alice drawing in the deanery, lending her paintings of Turner to copy. . .," and I found that hilarious too, but that really is probably just me.  The thing is, most of my exposure to Ruskin was in my summer course back in high school on Victorian literature, where our big joke was that Ruskin suffered from profound lust for Turner because he just would not shut up in any of his work about how great Turner was. . . I suppose by this principle I myself suffer with profound lust for Byron, Shelley, Henry James, DWJ, Jenna Moran, Bowie and Kevin Barnes?

I also seriously had no idea that the Liddell in Alice Liddell was the same as the Liddell in Liddell-Scott.

Obviously, these are the kinds of things I am going to blog about.

Yes!

"I know it's the shadow cast by what's looming and not the thing in itself that engenders fear."

---Kevin Barnes, "Malefic Dowery," Paralytic Stalks

This Amuses Me

Apparently Nina Barnes is a Zizek fan. This would probably amuse me more if it were Kevin Barnes, but it's still pretty good. I think that means that any Lacan references I find in of Montreal lyrics can be taken as deliberate, which, given my propensity for finding Lacan references, is probably convenient ;-)

What Hitherby Does to Me

I adore Satanic Panic in the Attic. It is an amazing album that I want to listen to whenever I feel happy, and sometimes when I'm not particularly happy, because it is just so full of happy, amazing songs. That having been said, there are a few songs on the album that I don't particularly care for, and among that number is "City Bird." I just find it kind of dull. Nonetheless, I have had it inexplicably stuck in my head for the past few weeks. I really can't understand it; I have no conscious reason for that particular song to be constantly stuck in my head.

Then yesterday there was this. And today, on one of those occasions when I have to stand around for an hour doing nothing, I was thinking about that, and had "City Bird" stuck in my head, and it suddenly occurred to me, Oh, "City Bird" is a song about a bodhisattva. It simultaneously makes so much sense and is so completely over-interpreting, but I just know I'm never going to unsee it now. From now on, I'm always going to just assume it's a song about a bodhisattva.

More Music Video Reviews

Given the fact that I spent my entire high school career procrastinating by watching music videos, it's weird how boring I find most of them now that I have the internet to procrastinate with. This is especially tragic when it's my current favorite band's videos that I'm being bored by. of Montreal has made a couple of really awesome videos - "Heimdelsgate Like a Promethean Curse" is fascinating, and I actually once spent an entire evening repeatedly playing "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games" and sobbing - but most of their videos I watch only one time, can barely focus at all, and then never care to see again. So with their most recent video - "L'Age D'or". Just boring.

I don't know what it was about the music videos of my adolescence that made at least some of them far more interesting to me - but I guess I have some idea of what I like about certain videos. For example, I definitely know that I approve of videos with charismatic performers, just as I approve of live performances with charismatic performers. I know Kevin Barnes tries really hard to make an aesthetically interesting performance, but I'm not sure he really has that raw charisma. It's definitely something that's different from musical quality. But, whatever it is, it can really make a video. Let me list some examples:

-Save Ferris: "Come On Eileen" - I am far more likely to find male performers charismatic than female ones, but I think Monique Powell is really appealing in this video - I fell in love with their cover when I was a teenager just because she was so attractive in the video. It's hard to sum up what it is that makes her performance work so well for me, but I think her facial expression is a key part of it. She looks simultaneously so happy and kind of knowing. It's an intriguing combination that makes her much more interesting to watch than most singers. I'm able to stay focused and keep paying attention to the video because I want to see more of her expressions.

-Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Under the Bridge" - I don't even particularly like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, on the whole - occasionally I get curious about some of their other songs because I like the video for "Under the Bridge" so much, but none of them has ever worked for me the way this one does. But the reason for that is very clear in this case - in this video, Anthony Kiedis is an attractive man with long, straight hair and no shirt (well, at least for large portions of the video he has no shirt) who occasionally makes rather facetious-looking gestures. He spends the second half of the video running with no shirt on and his long, straight hair blowing in the wind (imagery that is so appealing to me that my best friend has actually recommended a movie to me purely on the basis of its including a scene with similar imagery). I really need say no more.

-David Bowie - "New Killer Star (live)" - Now, of course, as you may have noticed, I do in fact particularly like David Bowie. What's more, more or less everyone I know finds Bowie to be a particularly charismatic and attractive performer. It's therefore slightly embarrassing to me that I never find the younger Bowie particularly attractive, unlike everyone else and despite the way that I love his music. Somehow, though, I get over this problem with the older Bowie. Maybe it's because this 2003 Reality Tour was the only time I ever saw Bowie live myself. I usually really don't enjoy the kinds of concerts where you have to sit all that much (I feel like the point of live music is to get really into the music and dance around to it), but Bowie's concert was an exception. Just because he was that good a performer, that he was still inspiring even when he was tiny.

-Pulp - "His N Hers (live)" - When last I wanted to post this on my blog, I couldn't find it anywhere - now there are actually two versions up on youTube! This one, though cut short, is still worth watching, because, well, it's amazing, but the one I linked to first is the full song and is possibly the paradigmatic example of what artists who want to please me should be doing. The wasp bit! The way he ends the wasp bit! I have to be honest and admit that it's hard to pick apart how much it's true that what Jarvis Cocker does is perfect for my tastes from how much it simply is that Jarvis Cocker was the formative influence on my performance aesthetic, but man. I am not kidding when I say this is what all artists who want me to actually watch their videos should be doing! That little hand wave - "anyway, I'm getting away from the subject here." How do you even come up with such genius?

Dante Had Two Prussians in Her Brush

People online that I've seen have been wondering about the lyric from the new of Montreal song "Slave Translator": "Dante had two Prussians in her brush, quite a rush."

Yesterday, I wanted to take a nap, but, as you do, I also wanted to delay the nap. I also am quite bored of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and wanted to look at the next two books in my list so as to remind myself that this was not the only book. A friend of mine who left the country to go travel for months gave me all her books as she knew I'd give them a good home, so I've been reading my way through them, in more or less random order. So I pulled out The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Maurice, feeling that I was likely to delay my nap for quite a while looking through them.

Instead, on the very first page of The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I found "Dante had two brushes in her press," was deeply amused, and felt pleased enough to just go take my nap. It's a little interesting that Kevin is referencing James Joyce again - he already started talking about Ulysses in "Vegan in Furs."

This is how you go about constructing a system. Truth is obviously irrelevant!

If the End of the World Has Ever Happened, This Must Be It

Okay, so as far as things to be emotionally involved with go, Mely's opinion of Spike is a rather pathetic one. Nonetheless, I can't help but be pleasantly surprised at the fact that she's suddenly criticizing how Joss wrote Buffy because she's too forgiving of Angel and fails to sufficiently appreciate Spike!

Don't Want To Really Get To Know It Better

One of the few bands that I actually pay attention to and try to buy CDs by, when they come out, is an extremely obscure British indie group that I discovered through some form of Internet radio - I can no longer recall if it was Pandora or Live 365. As it happens, about a year and a half ago this group (which is not the point of the entry) actually played a show in the city where I was living, at an indie festival. Naturally, I had to go. I am kind of obsessive about standing near the front at concerts (it wound up being well-worth the obsession at this particular concert), so I was there for all of the bands even though the band I'd come to see was the last to play.

Rather early on in the festival proceedings was a performance by Janelle Monáe. This made an impression on me, for several reasons. First of all, I was surprised to see a black woman performing at an indie festival - one thinks of indie as fairly white and male. Secondly, lots of people came specifically to see her performance, talked about past shows of hers they'd seen, and generally hyped her. Finally, she was undeniably an interesting performer - she comes off a bit cold for my tastes, but she definitely has style.

I wasn't really expecting Janelle Monáe to turn up in my life again, but she's popped up more and more often since that first performance. For one thing, although I'd first seen Janelle perform in a context completely unrelated to of Montreal, I wound up seeing her perform two more times (three in total), because she and Kevin Barnes have become quite good friends, and she often served as an opening act for of Montreal. Kevin talks about her all the time and even recorded a song for her new album - "Make the Bus." Meanwhile, Coffeeandink, whose blog, as I've mentioned in the past, I quite enjoy, has started posting about her quite a bit. I suppose this isn't really surprising, as Janelle is a black woman who writes science fiction, and that's generally what Coffeeandink likes anyway, but it's still interesting in that it's a context completely unrelated to either Kevin Barnes or the indie band I originally mentioned.

So, the thing is, I don't particularly like Janelle Monáe's music. I realize that I've mostly only heard it live, and I rarely like music I hear live, but I still feel like having seen her stage show three times does qualify me to have a sense for whether or not I'm eager to hear more, and I wouldn't say I am, particularly. I barely remember her songs despite having seen the show so many times; they didn't make much of an impression on me. And yet, despite this, I feel as though I kind of have to buy her album. I wasn't going to - after all, all these coincidences aside, it didn't interest me - but I've been listening to "Make the Bus" so much - and I like it! It mentions Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - that I feel I really ought to own it legally, and somehow that's pushed me over the edge. It's a kind of weird situation - everything I've read online makes it quite clear that "Make the Bus" is an of Montreal song with only minor participation by Janelle Monáe, and that it's really out of place on the album, and everyone who loves the album doesn't particularly feel that it fits in. So I really should just purchase the single track "Make the Bus" and let it go. But the fact that I like this song so much - much better than "Coquet Coquette", the first song released from of Montreal's upcoming False Priset - makes me feel like, given the preponderant weight of coincidence on the side of the album, I might as well go the whole hog. I feel as though I am fated to buy this album, taste aside.

I Will Post Something in March So There Hah.

Tonight I feel like I should just destroy myself
Tonight I feel like I should just explode myself
Myself

Tonight I feel like I should just destroy myself
Tonight I feel like I should just explode myself
Myself

There's someone calling my name
But there's nothing to respond
I lost so much in our collapse
Man, what little hope is gone

The voice said, "Don't worry, friend
The darkness is just a suggestion
No, don't worry, kid
The darkness is just suggestion
No, don't worry, Kevin"

Tonight I feel like I should just destroy myself
Tonight I feel like I should just explode myself
Myself

There's someone calling my name
But there's no one to respond
I lost so much in our collapse
Oh, what little hope is gone

The voice said, "Don't worry, friend
This darkness is just a suggestion
No, don't worry, kid
This darkness is just suggestion
No, don't worry, kid"

Tonight I feel like I should just destroy myself
Tonight I feel like I should just explode myself
Myself

I'm allergic to the world when we are separated
There's nothing in my heart that's worth a beating
Feeling like a Styrofoam prop ennui is eating
Oh, sure, we talk and talk and talk
But nothing worth repeating

I feel defeated
I feel defeated
I feel defeated

Now I'm OD'ing on your cocksucker blues
You make me uptight when you just don't work right
You painted my prison, now something's wrong
And I never, ever, ever wanted to write this song

I'm killing myself but it's not suicide
I'm killing myself
I'm killing myself but it's not suicide
I'm killing myself but my friends will never know
Because I've never been
Because I've never been honest with anyone

Always pulling faces from the unprepossessing places
Of the universal mind
I'm crippled by the world when we are divided
There's nothing in my heart that's worth the creaking
Feeling like a Pamplona bull that's finished kicking

Although we try to break the loop, it's always stuck repeating

I feel defeated
I feel defeated
I feel defeated

Now I'm OD'ing on your cocksucker blues
You make me uptight when you just don't work right
You painted my prison, now something's wrong

And I never, ever, ever wanted to write this song
I always thought things would change somehow
And we would start getting along but it's hopeless
Hopeless

And I never, ever, ever wanted to write this song
I always thought things would change somehow
And we would start getting along but it's hopeless
Hopeless

And I never, ever, ever wanted to write this song
I always thought things would change somehow
And we would start getting along but it's hopeless
Hopeless

And I never, ever, ever wanted to write this song
I always thought things would change somehow
And we would start getting along but it's hopeless
Hopeless

And I never, ever, ever wanted to write this song
I always thought things would change somehow
And we would start getting along but it's hopeless
Hopeless

Kevin Barnes (of Montreal), "No Conclusion"

Amusing Thought of the Morning

Wait, which song is that part in, again? You know, the part that goes, "I'm searching for the context, not finding it."

List of References to Publications and Photography on Skeletal Lamping

Publications:

1. "I'm the motherfucking headliner." - "Wicked Wisdom"

2. "All I care to hear: elitist's commentary about some faded press limited edition" - "Wicked Wisdom"

3. "Then I was wrapped in discourse with a magazine reader." - "For Our Elegant Caste"

4. "I wanna write you books." - "Gallery Piece"

5. "I read his journal. It was very revealing." - "Beware Our Nubile Miscreants"

6. "I know from past experience he never takes it easy on his readers." - "Mingusings"

Photography:

1. "Now I'm viewing my memory reel in reverse, scrolling back to come to feel your whether-then." - "An Eluardian Instance"

2. "I check my shutter speed, my aperture, my domino, can't focus, can't stop staring at the face I used to know." - "Women's Studies Victims"

3. "I only photograph my fascinations till the stress of the flash makes them fade." - "St. Exquisite's Confessions" [Note: A really good line, by the way, and generally applicable.]

Both?:

1. "I'm the kind of mannequin that cheats and opens its eyes to the ladies of the spread." - "Women's Studies Victims" [Note: "Ladies of the spread" must mean centerfold models, yes?]

2. "I read it with my head open or only slightly cracked. Somebody else will have to close it when I'm done, make the most out of the visuals." - "Women's Studies Victims"

3. "It's time to get to know the article that you'll be stripping. Ladies of the spread, you better keep my secrets in that perfume poodle head." - "St. Exquisite's Confessions"

There isn't really a point to this list; it's a motif I've noticed without really having much of an idea as to what the point of the motif is.

The Greek Chorus of My Skull

The most recent Of Montreal radio appearance confirms something I'd heard already - "Triphallus, to Punctuate!" was named after something having to do with ancient Greek theater. Consequently, anything that follows is pretty clearly more about my reaction to the song lyrics than authorial intent, but, hey.

As far as I can tell, "Triphallus, to Punctuate!" is the only song on Skeletal Lamping that includes any end punctuation. And it's an exclamation point. Is an exclamation point phallic punctuation? Well, it's more phallic than a period or question mark. As an adolescent, I dreamt yearningly of a visit from one of my favorite imaginary characters. I frequently wrote (in car windows, on pieces of scrap paper) "[Her name] wuzn't here!!! (yet. . .)." The three exclamation points after "here" were a vital part of the phrase; in fact, I'm still in the habit of carefully making sure, whenever I use multiple exclamation points in any other context, that I'm not using three. And so I can't help but think that a triphallus that punctuates is three exclamation points, signaling the arrival of my own personal Messiah -

And right there we fall into my Lacan obsession. Wikipedia says, "The Name-of-the-Father is the fundamental signifier which permits signification to proceed normally." This makes it kind of synonymous with the phallus; a Lacanian Wiki explains that the phallus "is a particularly privileged signifier because it inaugurates the process of signification itself." The Lacanian Wiki points out that "the rexpression [sic] is. . . a semi-humorous religious allusion." Which seems obvious - "the fundamental signifier which permits signification to proceed normally" is your father the father in Freudianism, God the Father in religion. So a Triphallus is the Trinity.

This could easily be just a joke - like my Christian/history of critical theory joke - Q. What is the definition of the sublime? A. Jesus necrophilia! But it's a little more infuriating than that, because of the religious allusions that do make it into the body of "Triphallus, to Punctuate!" (the lyrics here aren't, IMHO, entirely right, but they'll do, and I like that website). "The senseless killings gifts God gives us have no one to love them?" What are these "senseless killings gifts?" What do they have to do with God? "Damascus blade" is obviously NOT a religious reference - only coming so soon after the mention of God, it really makes me wish that it had something to do with Paul. I can't think why it would - Damascus blades are, like, a thing, having nothing whatsoever to do with Paul - but I wish I were wrong. And then "heaven's patience glaring down at us, filling your womb with black butterflies?" It's like a creepy birth of Jesus story. Jesus is black butterflies, and God isn't very happy with Mary? And then maybe the black butterfly Jesus is the senseless killings gifts God gives us? And then what? Is there a way you can fit the chorus into this story? Maybe it's Joseph singing to creepy alternate Mary? After all, Joseph supported Mary back before she ever became famous, right? He waved her flag when no one else did, didn't he?

Anyway, I guess there probably isn't a coherent way to interpret the lyrics to this song as having to do with Christianity. But I can't help but try. I blame Xenogears. If it weren't for XG, I wouldn't immediately think Christianity whenever I hear "phallus." Surely?

Always Stuck Repeating

The of Montreal blog posts links to two new interviews today. Both focus on mention Kevin's ambition to write songs on Skeletal Lamping that differ from the standard pop template, "something that was constantly shifting, constantly changing, with no rules and no limitations, no structure really...." The interview with The Toronto Star even features Kevin saying, "I know people don't want this record, really – I can tell by most of the reviews. Everyone seems so befuddled. Some people are actually pissed off. `How dare he make this record? Obviously, he can write pop songs. Why is he doing this?' It's absurd, the reaction, when people are given something that is complicated and unconventional and exceptional. They don't even know what to think of it." A statement which is totally true - I've seen reviews along those lines.

So maybe now is the time to mention that I just don't think Skeletal Lamping is all that weird. I don't know. I mean, yes, some of the songs really differ from traditional song structures, like the opener, "Nonpareil of Favor." That song basically follows the structure ABCD and is legitimately unusual. But there are also several songs that seem to mostly follow a standard verse-chorus structure, maybe deviating from this slightly at a couple of points, but not to any genuinely unusual extent. "An Eluardian Instance," "Triphallus, to Punctuate!," and "Beware Our Nubile Miscreants" all strike me as fitting to at least some extent to the standard pop song verse-chorus template, and are three of the most immediately catchy songs on the album, presumably because of this; first single "Id Engager" fits into this category as well, which is, again, presumably why it was chosen as the first single. Even the lengthy "Plastis Wafers," which certainly doesn't fit the standard template, actually starts out with an ABCABC structure, enough to make the song's catchy "chorus" get stuck in my head, at least, even if it moves on to different places from there.

Furthermore, even when it comes to the album's more unusual songs, intellectually, I certainly notice the disorienting effects that Kevin and his interviewers are talking about, but, viscerally, I don't feel like what I'm listening to is particularly bizarre. I don't know. Is there something unusual about the way that I listen to music? I don't feel disoriented at all, and I'm not sure I feel like listening to Skeletal Lamping is different from listening to any other reasonably good album. Does anyone else in the world feel this way? Or is there really something I'm missing?

The Lack of Need for Words

A long time ago, at summer camp, someone discussed the topic of "should we think of song lyrics as poetry?" I like song lyrics, I like poetry, but, much to my surprise, I decided that, no, we shouldn't think of song lyrics as poetry. This isn't to argue that song lyrics cannot be effective poetry, but I feel like this is something totally irrelevant to whether or not they are effective song lyrics.

Recently, I've been thinking of this because I've found myself with the CD Firebrand by a capella filk group Sassafrass. When I get new music, I always listen to it, many times, because I tend not to be able to successfully evaluate my attitude towards a song until I've heard it many times. I was a little biased against "Firebrand" for irrelevant personal reasons, but now that I've listened to it a few times, I think that I am legitimately not too fond of this CD. Oh, sure, I get songs from it stuck in my head, but you get songs from anything stuck in your head if you listen to them enough. I can't imagine ever thinking that I want to put on a song from this CD to listen to in the future, however, or even thinking about it much after I stop listening to it.

I'm reasonably sure that the CD doesn't work for me for a pretty simple reason - I don't particularly care for this kind of music ("folk in style with Renaissance elements"). On the just-linked website, the group gives some fairly valid reasons for their lack of interest in doing the more typical pop-based a capella songs, which I totally understand, but I'm just more interested in that type of a capella. I'm not good enough at dancing about architecture to explain my taste, but I'm conscious enough to be aware of it. So this is music that fundamentally bores me, and that would be why I'm not so fond of the CD.

But I'm also interested in my reaction to the lyrics. The lyrics, mostly written by the group itself, are not your standard pop-style lyrics, either (as to be expected from a filk group). And, to my mind, at least, they seem to be particularly poetic lyrics - often narrative poetry, going into great detail on various stories, but sometimes more lyric poetry. What makes me feel this way? Hard to say (I'm not an expert on writing about poetry, either - even in my academic studies, I'm pretty much a narrative girl rather than a form girl), but I think it's the sheer complexity of the lyrics. Listening to the song isn't enough to get all of the meaning out of it - you simply need to read the lyrics to follow along (and I feel like I'm missing a lot from those songs where the group hasn't published lyrics on their website yet). It takes time to process them (an exception would be "A Proper Mermaid Tale", which has clever, funny lyrics that are simple enough that you can probably get the joke just from listening to the song).

Some of these poetic lyrics aren't particularly interesting, good or bad. So "Toys for Big Kids" has lyrics definitely more complicated than those of most songs I listen to, but, ultimately, I think they're pretty disposable. I wouldn't be interested in this poem, but I wouldn't hate it, either. Some of them are a little worse, like "Somebody Will," which seems irritatingly preachy - I wouldn't want to read that poem.

But the one that interests me the most is "Fall", because I actually really like these lyrics. Of course, I would - they're revisionist Christian mythology lyrics, and I'm pretty much a sucker for revisionist Christian mythology. I really like the lyrics as a poem, and the fact that I like them does improve the song, in the sense that, when this song comes on, I kind of want to listen to it, to hear the story again. As a poem, these lyrics are at least as good, if not better, than Kevin Barnes' lyrics to "The Repudiated Immortals," a song which, similarly, seems to have something to do with revisionist Christian mythology.

Now, if you read over the latter, you'll notice the definite difference between Sassafrass and of Montreal. "Fall" really does tell a story. It's a narrative poem. "The Repudiated Immortals" seems more like an abstract painting - a couple of lines that gesture at a deeper meaning. I don't really know what the scenario behind the lines is; I just have a sense of a couple of scenes. I'm not sure how you'd evaluate it as a poem, without music. You might not look at it twice. But the music for "The Repudiated Immortals" is much more appealing to me than the music for "Fall," and that makes a difference. The music and the lyrics for this song really work together in a way that I'm unable to perceive them doing in "Fall" - the sketchiness of the lyrics means that the music is able to fill in the holes, and the lyrics add the slightest dash of representationality to the music, and it's just much more powerful (for me) than the combination of music and lyrics in "Fall."

So that's why I'm not interested so much in evaluating song lyrics as poetry - because, for me, the best song lyrics combine with the music to create an aesthetic experience that would be lesser with either part left out (my favorite example here is Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts' "Call Me Call Me," with lyrics by Tim Jensen - I once had a major epiphany in part caused by the combination of music and lyrics in this song). I think it's awesome that Sassafrass could write a really good poem, like "Fall," and I respect them for that, but, as lyrics go, I'd take "The Repudiated Immortals" any time!

This is a really appealing interview with Georgie Fruit (not Kevin Barnes, Georgie Fruit). Or, at least, it appeals to me. Georgie Fruit sounds suspiciously like Achewood (n.b., I do not read Achewood, but I know enough about it from my brother to be able to tell). I like what he has to say about Kevin. One assumes that Kevin was ventriloquizing Georgie Fruit again. . . . I would love to talk about myself from the perspective of another persona, but I don't feel like there's much room in my life to do that. A lot of artists whom I'm very drawn to have interests in Dissociative Identity Disorder (off the top of my head - Philip Dick, Jenna Moran, Tetsuya Takahashi, DWJ, and Kevin Barnes all seem to fit the bill). I'm always curious as to why, given that it's something that I find almost impossible to imagine for myself. I always feel pretty secure in my identity and selfhood - so I'm not sure why I love so much to read about the experiences of people who don't, why this, in particular, should be a theme that appeals to me so significantly.

I Was Going to Write About Iceland Last Week, but I Didn't Have Enough Time, so This Is Still a Purely Of Montreal Blog

I listened to this BBC interview/performance with of Montreal. It was interesting, because I felt a little embarrassed while listening to it. The interviewer obviously knew nothing about the band, and I suppose I just felt a kind of sympathetic awkwardness - I would feel so embarrassed if I were supposed to be somewhat well-known and got interviewed by people who knew nothing about me.

I have, of course, been reading and listening to a bunch of of Montreal interviews lately, some of which have been heavily criticized by fans of the band. In general, though, the interviews I've read and heard seem to involve interviewers who know quite a lot about the band's history and background (example of a radio interview here). I feel like it's not so awkward for the band members to answer a question about a potentially touchy issue like Kevin's creative domination of the band when everyone's starting from the awareness that that's true. Even if the question is hostile, the interviewer and the interviewees all know what the situation is, and the interviewees can just casually deflect and say something along the lines of: "We know you think this is bad for us, but, just like we've said a million times before, no, we don't mind it." But I feel like the situation is different when the interviewer really genuinely believes that maybe everyone in the band takes a creative role. I feel like the answer to this question in the BBC interview was more awkward for Kevin to give, because the person asking the question isn't starting from the premise of knowing anything about the band. Even in bands that tend to have one dominant creative force, they usually aren't as dominant as Kevin, who basically makes the entire album himself and only gets the band to play on the live shows. So I feel like Kevin would have to really shock the interviewer if he was to give the whole truth - which is why he kind of hedges in this interview, at least in my reading of it.

Maybe this is actually perfectly comfortable and non-awkward for Kevin, since he's presumably at least somewhat secure in his decisions, as, one would hope, are the rest of the band. But I'm not. If I were to start a band, I'd feel really, really weird about saying, "Okay, I am going to define the sounds of these songs precisely, and your only job is to recreate them when we do a tour." Our perceptions of bands are shaped by groups where often there's a dominant creative force but all of the other members at least get to play their own instruments and affect the sound that way. I'm hardly trying to say that I think Kevin is wrong in what he does. Actually, I think he's a brilliant genius and that if this is the best way for him to make music than, Jesus, he should go for it, and I'm glad he's found a bunch of people who are happy to support him. But I think it makes me feel slightly insecure, because it's out of the ordinary, and thus I feel embarrassed for his deviation, even if he doesn't, and even if I support him.

Just Wanna Play with You

I don't know why I love listening to pop music so much, but I guess one reason why I love to go to pop music concerts it's because it's an accepted space where grown adult people act completely ridiculous and over-the-top. And I don't mean me - I mean the performers. I love the way they behave completely differently from what we would expect of ordinary people - they way they are putting on a performance that has only a fairly tenuous link with reality.

One aspect of pop music as performance that does seem to carry over, every so often, into the music itself is the idea of singer as playing a role. For whatever reason, first-person confessional is by far the most common mode for pop music lyrics. I think that listeners and songwriters definitely realize that this can easily be fictional; although many of the songs I listen to apparently refer actual events in the writer's biography, many of them don't, and the same is true for people who listen to very different music than I. Nonetheless, even when writing about fictional events or emotions, the writer still tends to use "you" and "I." But some writer/performers take this a bit further and end up constructing an entirely fictional character whom they explicitly play on the stage, and who has at least something to do with the lyrics they write. The most famous example of this is, of course, David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust.

I find this fascinating - but then, I always like to think about people who are pretending to be other people; it's one of my favorite topics. For over a decade now, I guess, I've been creeped out by the actual song "Ziggy Stardust." Bowie, singing this song onstage, was performing in the role of Ziggy Stardust but somehow simultaneously singing a song from the first-person point-of-view of another character ("we were Ziggy's band" clearly indicates that the singer is a member of Ziggy's band, not Ziggy himself). The lyrics of the song, to at least some extent, involve the narrator expressing his somewhat ambivalent feelings towards Ziggy - but the person singing the song is in the role of Ziggy himself - Ziggy is ventroloquizing his own band members' somewhat negative attitudes towards him! I just find that soooooo creepy!

Right now, Kevin Barnes is taking on the role of "black she-male" Georgie Fruit. And yet we know this is just a role - I don't think he's constantly playing Georgie Fruit the way Bowie probably was always playing Ziggy in that stage of his career, and certainly not all of the lyrics on Skeletal Lamping could possibly be Georgie's. I continue to find this role-playing fascinating. In particular, at the beginning of "Death Is Not a Parallel Move," Kevin sings? raps?, "All of my thoughts come from a foreign host. I feel just like a ghost." The rest of the song would seemingly be sung from Kevin's own point of view - Kevin must be addressing his family when he sings "lille venn" - it apparently means "little friend," a term he commonly uses when singing about his family, in Norwegian, his wife's native language. But surely "all of my thoughts come from a foreign host" must be Georgie talking? After all, it's Kevin's body and brain that are the foreign host for Georgie, and it's Kevin who's actually the creator of the Georgie persona. A casual listener might think that the line involves Kevin expressing his anxiety about his thoughts coming from Georgie, but this seems highly implausible to me, as Georgie has no actual body of his own. And so we come across something as creepy in its own way as what David Bowie sung in "Ziggy" - Kevin is ventroloquizing the fictional Georgie Fruit's discomfort with their* own fictionality, their own forced binding to the body and mind of Kevin Barnes. And yet it's Kevin who's creating that very dissatisfaction! Fascinating!

First Actual Post

This post is about politics!

Well, maybe it's actually about of Montreal.

So, today, John McCain said this:


I think he is ignoring the wisdom so well-expressed by Kevin Barnes:
"This life is not a prison. We are always free to go, any time."