Half A World Away
I haven’t posted on here in quite some time, and this post is meant to indicate that I will never do so again. In the past few months I’ve taken a break from Tumblr in an attempt to evaluate its place, if any, in my life. Ultimately, I have found that its capacity as a blog engine and a way to keep in touch with certain news channels is useful, but its nature as a source of constant distraction is too much of a problem. This is not to say I can’t control this. As of now I have unfollowed all non-professional blogs and limited myself to a few writers, publications, and artists. Additionally, though I will not be deleting this blog, I have begun a private one to take its place. No concept of popularity, reach, or any need for approval. I’m considering a short post each day describing what I’ve done and what I hope to accomplish in the near or far future. It’s been a good run and I’m grateful for the few people I’ve met via this site, but I can no longer allow myself to waste time apathetically scrolling through the endless stream of negativity, apathy, and sarcastic “cleverness” that this site provides. This is not directed at anyone I know, rather, it is my fault for maintaining a subscription to such blogs. If I have time to blankly stare at a “poignant” gif from a romantic comedy, it means that I have time to be doing something productive instead.
As for a final state of affairs, my life is, as it always has been, incredible and crushing at the same time. Like a sunset, it is a beautiful wane. In the past few months, I’ve changed majors, met new people, founded a jazz band, and starred in a short film. I threw one of the best parties this dorm has ever seen, thanks to some good friends and roommates. I confessed my romantic feelings to a good friend and learned that a compassionate rejection is one of the worst experiences a person can go through. I’ve started dorm traditions, played saxophone with Ari Brown, and applied to study in Paris. I got a 13 on my math final but still passed the class. A beautiful girl asked me to sleep with her but my heart not being in it, I turned her down. I’ve maintained a beard, cut my own hair, and taken a cold shower in a berserk state. I shaved while listening to “Needle In The Hay” and am still alive. I let a relationship dissolve through apathy, while another was cut short by a girl for reasons I don’t understand but must respect. I still don’t believe in any god. Based on the past few months of listening, my current favorite genres are punk, rap, and electronic pop, and my favorite bands at the moment are Titus Andronicus, Japandroids, Death Grips, Interpol, and Passion Pit. I don’t work, except when I have to. I don’t want to be in a relationship but now I know that I could never have sex with someone I didn’t care about. I still don’t drink coffee. I believe desire is the root of all suffering but I don’t know what to do about it yet. I want to be the kind of person that people want to know, but will temporarily settle for being the kind of person that people don’t regret knowing. I told a girl once that people can change and I really hope I was right. There is so much to say and so much to do and so little time.
I am still trying.
My best to you all,
Connor
I think this is my favorite song by them, which comes as something of a surprise to even me. It was “Creep” forever, and then “High And Dry”, and then “Karma Police”, and then “Fake Plastic Trees”, and then “Karma Police” again, and then “Black Star”, and then “Street Spirit (Fade Out), and then “Let Down”, and then “No Surprises”, and then “How To Disappear Completely”, and then “The National Anthem”, and then it was “Fake Plastic Trees” again for a really long time, and now it’s this. And that is a little history spun out of my warped mind. The order might not be exactly right, but at some point these were all my favorite songs by them, and they’re not anymore. I still like them, of course. And the omission of “Paranoid Android” is deliberate; it’s always been and still is a song that I appreciate more in an academic sense than a visceral one. It’s nice, it’s well-arranged, it’s pretty cool, and it’s undeniably them, I just don’t get it. (Same goes for “Just”, although my brain has never been able to accept that they wrote it. The concept is just wrong, somehow.)
The two lines that always get me are “Everything all of the time”, which blurs that line between meaninglessness and incredible significance, and that later repetition of the line “This is really HAAAApenning”. You know the one. The one that makes your hair stand up and your blood run cold for a second. That one.
Also noteworthy is the combination of the lyric “Ice age coming” and one of the coldest beats known to man. The Bends had some pretty flesh-and-blood songs on it, the acoustic chords going right to the heart. Not so here. This song is a rare combination of isolation and bone-chilling terror.
I have a strange relationship with this band, but it’s 1:06 AM and I don’t feel like getting into it. My flight leaves in about 14 hours and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. So I watched their 2003 Glastonbury performance, a few covers of this song to see if it was possible, and some old footage of Jim Carrey’s stand-up. It’s a strange time in my life. Chicago tonight, school in a little more than a week. I drove to the store this evening to get some ice cream for my family, and listened to Simon & Garfunkel on the way home. ”The Only Living Boy In New York”, about planes, “America”, about travel and wanderlust, and “The Sound Of Silence”, an unrelated but good song. Not listened to was “The Boxer”, which is unfortunate because it has a certain line that goes,
“I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains”
And on a similar note,
“At some time he will ride away to you, people of the twilight, his password will be the echoes of a vesper bell, his coach, a zephyr from the West. Forgive him, for you will understand him no better than we who linger on this side of the pale.”
- George Herriman
Farewell again. One more departure on the road to leaving home for good.
Moanin’ - Charles Mingus
A very cool thing I got to be a part of in 2011. This was the Jazz Ensemble’s closing number for the Northeastern Senior District Concert. Forgive the mistakes during the solos, I was young(er). Some of the most fun I’ve ever had with the instrument, and a constant reminder of how much I love it.
Don’t really want to waste a lot of time on this because I found it so disappointing. I did go into it with low expectations and a forgiving nature, but it really did let me down (no pun intended). For the first half hour or so, everything was going decently. The songs fit pretty well, the singing was passable, and it was enjoyably generic plot-wise. One area of praise was the use of “It Won’t Be Long,” a favorite of mine that fit nicely into the plot and was performed well (Sidenote; The section where the students sing the chorus, anticipating the end of school, reminded me of the classic song that opens A Goofy Movie). An area of criticism was the pointlessness of “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” which, confusingly, was only performed so as to show off its unique, slowed-down arrangement (because that’s such a specific, particular song that it would be almost impossible to fit in naturally, right?)
Anyway, after the characters move to New York, the plot dissolves and the movie becomes a scattered, generic portrait of the 60s. The songs come and go without any narrative beyond the incredibly basic. It was really a shame to watch it fall apart, as they had such good source material to work from. A review I read mentioned that the film seemed to take itself very seriously, as if the filmmakers thought they were creating brilliant, timeless art. I’d agree, I suppose.
At the very least, now I actually have credibility in discussing it with others, but I really would not recommend it.
Somebody said to me,
You know that I could be in love with almost everyone,
I think that people are the greatest fun,
And I will be alone again tonight, my dear
I’ve written about this before, but here’s something I generally believe, as delivered by a pretty excellent (and unique) 60s song. Nice acoustic work, really dig this verse, and great trumpet solo.
Tonight’s viewing, and long overdue.
Not bad.
Fitting that I came across this song last night, seeing as I had almost the exact reaction while hearing it as I did while watching Before Sunset. Profoundly sad, this is a kind of music that I still don’t fully understand, being a little more experimental than I’m used to. However, this fact only makes me more convinced of its power because despite the music’s unfamiliar nature, when it gets going I know exactly what it means. It means pain, and it means sorrow, and it means wanting help but having no one to ask for it. And it says it more beautifully than almost anything I know.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space.”
So I was wondering how they were going to keep this from being a complete copy of the original, and now my eyes are watering and my heart is in a lot of pain. Oh, man. I wouldn’t be surprised if Richard Linklater had a time machine and used it to gather every detail about my personality and character, then went back in time to make a movie that I could relate to, fall in love with, and make me feel good about life. A movie that combined all my little hopes and dreams and inner fantasies about life. It was called Before Sunrise. I loved it.
Then, apparently being the coldest, most heartless bastard on the face of the earth, he waited nine years to make this movie. A movie that combined all my fears and dreads and inner terrors about life. It was called Before Sunset. It broke my heart.
