Visiting This Planet...

Check this out! I know I tend to obsess over Mr O'Rourke (goddamit, I've got a link section dedicated to him) but have a look at this, a page tucked away on the Domino site. Wish he'd/they'd have kept this one up...

26/11/03 » Jim O'Rourke
Jim O'Rourke's old favourites that get him excited to go to work...
sparks -propaganda
claudio rocchi -volo magico no.1
juan hidalgo -rrose selavy
geino yamashiro gumi - oserezon
talking heads - more songs about buildings and food
roberto cacciapaglia - sei note in logica
souled american - frozen
supersister - spiral staircase
neil young - on the beach
jackie o motherfucker - the magick fire music

03/06/03 » Jim O'Rourke
ten top tunes turning on the turntable of mr jim o'rourke
cockney rebel "cavaliers"
alex harvey band "action strasse"
jan garbarek "blow away zone"
jay ferguson "thunder island"
tubeway army "listen to the sirens"
tisziji munoz "visiting this planet"
billy mernit "i'm open"
lady june "the letter"
sweet "yesterday's rain"
whitehouse "you don't have to say please"

30/01/03 » Jim O'Rourke
Jim O'Rourke's Current Listening
jan dukes de gray "sun symphony"
conlon nancarrow "etude no. 20"
merzbow "puroland"
michael schumacher "room piece 24"
masayuki takayanagi "variations on a theme of qahafi"

30/01/03 » Jim O'Rourke
Some Of Jim O's Favorite Songs
something in the air - thunderclap newman
rawhide - scott walker
davy the fatboy - randy newman
thank god it's not christmas - sparks
the all golden - van dyke parks
somewhere in hollywood - 10cc
half a chance/where i belong - gerry rafferty
achilles last stand - led zeppelin
lifemask - roy harper
it - genesis
dancing queen - abba
the kiss - judee sill
the man - patto
laughing - david crosby
i'm so confused - mick softley

And if that wasn't enough for all you O'Rourke freaks out there (what? that's just me? oh, ok...) look at this!!!!! Another hard-to-find page tucked away on the Amazon.co.uk site. Mr O'Rourke's fave albums. Here's a snippet regarding Van Dyke Parks: Song Cycle:

I thought for once I'd keep this off a list, but, I'm a good boy, so it's time to do penance at the altar of the greatest album ever made. Yes. EVER. No, I still haven't changed my mind. This is still so ahead of it's time, it'll be some work for some folks, and that's cool and all. Everyone I know who loves this, myself included, finds a new association, a new layer, a new lyrical twist every time. A richer album you can not find. And it's probably only 10 bucks! If there's an Edsel CD, get that one, they did a better job transferring the tape. Shame on you Warner Bros!

Some Fabulous Chocolate Eclairs

Armando Ianucci spoke recently at the Royal Philharmonic Society awards. The transcript is here courtesy of The Guardian. As with all of Ianucci, even when he's addressing serious issues he can't help pepper it with humour:

I'm aware that it's easy to fall back on quasi-mystical, pretentious language when trying to talk about one's experience of classical music, but that shouldn't stop us trying. We don't talk about music enough. As someone who's never felt he's had the technical language at his fingertips, I feel all I can do is talk about it in whatever English I have at my command. I want to emote about how I feel. After a concert, I want to grab people by the lapels and tell them how lucky we are as a species that, out of all the hundreds of billions of us who ever lived, one of us managed to come up with the Goldberg Variations. But I don't, because that's not the done thing. So instead I mention that the cafe downstairs does some fabulous chocolate éclairs.

Here he talks of his upbringing and his approach to music:

I loved strange noises. I had no notion of what was considered contemporary or old-fashioned, cutting edge, or period. It was all wonderful and new. I wasn't scared of the avant garde because I had no notion of what an avant garde was.

I realised this a few years ago, taking my son to school. He was eight or nine at the time. A piece of Ligeti was on the radio. Not to put him off with what maybe he would think was a strange, slightly disturbing noise, I tried to draw a simple analogy. 'Sounds a bit like bees buzzing, doesn't it?' I said. He listened for a bit, then said, 'No, it sounds like a lot of penguins fighting for a fish, and one of them's just got it.'

He was right - that's precisely what it sounded like. He was listening much harder than me. And it struck me then that I was worrying about my son being put off classical music by being exposed to something that may have been too difficult.

And that worrying was unneccessary, because labelling the music 'difficult' was a very adult way of categorising the music in the first place. He, not knowing much about chromaticism, harmony or serialism, nor anything about theory, had no reason to label what he was hearing as being significantly different from, say, Handel. It was just a very interesting, very alluring, piece of ordered sound.

The Lack of Eternity

Go here to read Hank Rollins discussing Henry Miller, Camus, John Fante, Lautreamont, Baudelaire, Artaud, Rimbaud...

On Miller:

Reading Miller gave me a lot of courage. You know, just to see how completely flat out he was, you know, with his thing, he was so brave. And as a young man reading Black Spring and the Tropics and the Paris writing, of Miller, that gave me a lot of strength too.

On Bukowski:

Bukowski was fun. You know, for a couple of summers when you’re in your early 20s, I think it’s really great reading. I think that to worship him in your 30s is to kind of lose the plot.

A great quote for me is this:

Ben Franklin had a quote, I wish I could pull it out of my mind and say it to you. Basically he said, “It’s okay to have a whole lot of books that you don’t read. Or don’t get all the way through. It’s not a bad thing to be kind of surrounded by books.”

Even better, Rollins paraphrases a Hemingway quote which was actually said as:

“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.”

The Ghost of a Toaster

And this is one of the great Wayne Coyne interviews from The Observer. I love to read this every now and then. It doesn't have the length and breadth of previous interviews I've posted but it's a great perspective to have on life:

All that heaven and hell stuff sounds like fun. But come on, be serious - nothing happens after you die. When you turn off the toaster, it doesn't sit there longing to make more toast, it doesn't become the ghost of a toaster. When the spark of life is gone, we're just a sack of flesh and chemicals with no ignition. That's why I live life with such enthusiasm.

War and its consequences...

Mr Geras talking, once again, with much sense.

I'll put a permanent link on the right when I get chance. In the meantime, take a look at this site, featuring the most astonishing photo essays from around the world. Hardly uplifting, it has to be said, and there is something intrinsically vile about admiring photography of horrific images, when the events captured in the shots are so recent.

Repressing Colloquial Barbarisms #5

From the Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell 1791

He had an abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr Langton he said,

'Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality....Depend upon it, that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for when there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it'.

Another view from DUMBO

Giddy Up

Me and Mr Kenny Kramer whose Reality Seinfeld Tour was even better than last time. Perhaps because of the Soup Nazi stop. Allow me to draw your attention to the elderly fellow in the checked shirt walking behind me. It was a hot day. Sweltering. Surely he might as well have worn trousers...bold look though...

Another hilarious photo, like

Me in Gay St near Washington Square in the Village. I'm not gay. Anyone who says I am is a liar.

Meat Purveyor

And so, another area completely unique to NYC: the meatpacking district. We had some super French fare here and saw some glitz and glamour but the area started to grate after repeat visits. You can't help feel slightly belittled by those who populate the area. The Village and the Lower East Side seemed to hold more appeal as the our week went on.

Hipster Doofuses

The view from DUMBO (Down Underneath Manhattan Bridge Overpass. I know, crazy New Yorkers). It's the latest area of New York to be converted from a cesspit into a cooler-than-thou hipster area, full of artist studios and soaring rents. There didn't seem to be much there to be honest. Either a work in progress or me and Rusted Willy were oblivious to it all. This post gives a New Yorker's perspective on and from DUMBO on July 4th.

Repressing Colloquial Barbarisms #4

From the Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell 1791

Johnson: 'Poor stuff! No, Sir, Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy'

I reminded him how heartily he and I used to drink wine together, when we were first acquainted; and how I used to have a headache after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this recalled, or, perhaps, thinking that I had boasted improperly, resolved to have a witty stroke at me:

Johnson: Nay, Sir, it was not the wine that made your head ache, but the sense that I put into it
Boswell: What, Sir! will sense make the head ache?
Johnson: Yes, Sir, (with a smile) when it is not used to it.

Repressing Colloquial Barbarisms #3

From the Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell 1791

Here I shall record a scene of too much heat between Dr Johnson and Dr Thomas Percy, which I should have supressed were it not that it gave occasion to display the truely tender and benevolent heart of Johnson, who, as soon as he found a friend was at all hurt by any thing whe he had 'said in his wrath', was not only prompt and desirous to be reconciled, but exerted himself to make ample reparation. Books of Travel having been mentioned, Johnson praised Pennant very highly.

Percy: Pennant does not describe well; a carrier who goes along the side of Loch Lomond would describe it better.
Johnson: I think he describes very well.
Percy: I travelled after him.
Johnson: And I travelled after him.
Percy: But, my good friend, you are short-sighted, and do not see so well as I do.

Dr Johnson said nothing at the time; but inflammable particles were collecting for a cloud to burst. In a little while Dr Percy said something more in disparagement of Pennant.

Johnson (pointedly): This is the resentment of a narrow mind, because he did find every thing in Northumberland
Percy (feeling the stroke): Sir, you may be as rude as you please
Johnson: Hold, Sir! Don't talk of rudeness; remember, Sir, you told me (puffing hard with passion struggling for a vent) I was short sighted. We have done with civility. We are to be as rude as we please.
Percy: Upon my honour, Sir, I did not mean to be uncivil.
Johnson: I cannot say so, Sir; for I did mean to be uncivil, thinking you had been uncivil.

Repressing Colloquial Barbarisms #2

From the Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell 1791

Johnson gave a very earnest reccomendation of what he himself practiced with the utmost conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. He was indeed so much impressed with the prevalence of falsehood, voluntary or unintentional, that I never knew any person who upon hearing an extraordinary circumstance told, discovered more of the incredulus odi. He would say, with a significant look and decisive tone, 'It is not so. Do not tell this again'. He inculcated upon all his friends the importance of perpetual vigilance against the slightest degrees of falsehood; the effect of which, as Sir Joshua Reynolds observed to me, has been, that all who were of his school are distinguished for a love of truth and accuracy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree, if they had not been acquanted with Johnson.

I've been bad....

Recent purchases:

Mobile Glenn Kotche
Born Again in the USA Loose Fur
The Essential Gyorgi Ligeti
The Milk-Eyed Mender Joanna Newsom
Tropicalia: A Brasilian Revolution In Sound
Drum's Not Dead Liars
Pleïades Iannis Xenakis
Dusty in Memphis Dusty Springfield
Les Illuminations; Nocturne; Serenade Benjamin Britten
Radiance [Live] Keith Jarrett
Laughing Stock Talk Talk
Everybody Loves the Sunshine Roy Ayers
Fishscale Ghostface Killah
French Choral Works Gabriel Fauré
Being There Wilco
Soul Gospel Vol.2
Propaganda Sparks
The Vienna Concert: Recorded at the Vienna State Opera [Live] Keith Jarrett
The Art of the Trio Vol.3: Songs Brad Mehldau
The Koln Concert: 24 January 1975 [Live] Keith Jarrett
Rock Bottom Robert Wyatt
Requiem Op. 48, Gabriel Faure
Off the Wall: Michael Jackson
New Thing!: Deep Jazz From The USA 1970-80
Philadelphia Roots Vol. 2: Funk Soul And The Roots Of Disco 1965-73

I went to see Grizzly Bear at the Bowery Ballroom a few weeks ago now. They were every thing you look for in a band these days: innovation, deconstuction, forward thinking, samples, loops, 4-part harmonies. They have recently been signed to Warp and have a new album out in September. I bought an older album from them after the show. They have a great blog with some great photos. Link is here: Horn of Plenty Grizzly Bear

The following are from Downtown Music Gallery, a fine, fine shop on the Bowery, Lower East Side, NYC.
Tears For Dolphy Ted Curson
Citadel Mike Westbrook Orchestra
Wild Silk Peter Fairclough and Keith Tippett
Xylophonen Virtuosen Jim O'Rourke Mats Gustafsson
The Return of Fenn O'Berg Fennesz, O'Rourke, Rehberg
Carnival Skin

I'm not going to buy anything for a while....

Repressing Colloquial Barbarisms #1

From the Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell 1791

He found fault with me for using the phrase to make money. 'Don't you see (said he), the impropriety of it? To make money is to coin it: you should say get money'. The phrase, however, is, I think, pretty current. But Johnson was at all times jealous upon the infractions upon the genuine English language, and prompt to repress colloquial barbarisms...He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind.

An armful of Potassium Chloride

Letter to Governor Schwarzenegger:

It must, as you said, have been a very difficult decision to kill Stanley Williams. Very difficult indeed. The governor had to ignore the overwhelming support Mr Williams had received from various so-called humanitarian organizations (as well as the petition signed by over 170,000 of his own Californian constituents asking for a temporary suspension of executions. There's gratitude for you!)....

....Sadly, we have to maintain the appearance of a fair trial by a jury of one's peers. Although I do feel that the scumbags who recently scraped the paint on my car should have been made to fast forward to the punishment end of the judicial system...

...."They'll be back"? Not after an armful of Potassium Chloride, they won't!

Read the letters to ASDA and Dixons here

F-F-Fluttering

When the power button fell off Caroline's remote control last night she had never before felt so lonely without the sound of the TV to accompany her nights alone. Resorting to staring into space, or at the unfashionable curtains that her ex-best-friend Kelly recommended, she couldn't remove the nauseating thought that Kelly was now dating her ex-boyfriend.

'I've always got on better with men', Kelly nonchalantly remarked at the outset of their relationship, two and a half weeks ago. Now the thoughts were flooding in…how to resolve the issues that were eating away at both her mind and stomach. She felt a constant presence deep inside her belly, not dissimilar to the nervous f-f-fluttering butterflies most people seem to get from time to time. But this feeling was different, slightly darker, a pervading dread that seemed to be consuming her. Was this depression? She had never considered being depressed before. Always thought it was a fad. Not that she wanted to think about it. Dwelling could only make it worse, and anyway, she was good at putting things to the back of her mind. So, the thought of depression was consciously avoided but the thought of her ex being with Kelly was consciously brought to the forefront.

Her stereo was programmed to wake her up with Wham’s Freedom. As it did so the next morning, she was conscious of feeling only slightly better than she had the night before. Trying not to think about the situation, she poured herself some instant coffee. She preferred instant coffee to the 'bitter' real alternative. After eating a bowl of corn flakes, she checked the post to see if anything interesting had arrived. She was expecting a reply from a recent job application. It was probably out of her league, she thought, and indeed it probably was, but it helped to keep her from thinking of other matters. That was why she loved the TV soaps, as she didn't have to think too much. She always had her routine planned for when she got in from work. She watched every soap on all of the terrestrial channels. However, the remote control problem was something she had to overcome, and soon. Sure, she could physically change the channel at the TV set itself, but she liked to snuggle on the sofa up of an evening from around 7 until 11, when her eyes would become heavy. Anyhow, she put the thought of a night without TV to best place she could think of: some far away recess in her mind…

The Night Sighed With Relief

One of my short stories has kindly been posted by Mr Geras here. A nice pick-me-up following the inevitable post-NYC come-down. The short short story comp is announced and explained here. And for those tired of following links, here is the piece:

The night sighed with relief as he went to bed in the early hours. Despite the harrowing uproar created by the early-rising birds that haunted the trees outside his bedroom window, he could no longer keep his eyes open. Equally, he was unable to rudely interrupt and devastate the serene silence that usually pervaded the surrounding streets at five in the morning. For several nights he'd bawled his soul out, screaming for a higher power to strike him down. Although this was a new low, his fear of death prevented him from taking his own life and thus he prayed for a divine, ultimate intervention.

It was not to be, and he woke up the following afternoon feeling around 30 per cent alive, as if he had been sieved and then left to dry in the heat. Many areas of his body, his mouth, head, legs and stomach, felt as though they didn't belong to him, as if stolen from some undernourished, sickly fellow. His tongue... well, he would have liked to be able to feel it, or at least encounter some moisture. This had become a duty, an obligation to himself that he had to fulfil regardless of the circumstances. He wasn't sure when it was going to end, and even if he could control the end. He was certain, however, that the end was not now and that now was not the end and also that he would know when the end had arrived.

The Time Halved

The time halved
And nothing was left
The stand marred
And strained at the heft
The life of cards
And the luck so deft
Where the sigh carved
And our lives bereft

The mind broke
And abandoned its line
The ruin of the folk
And the start of the lying
The faint, true croak
And a feeling of mine
The kind spoke
And doubled the time