Placebo Poetry

Oh God, I have discovered one of the greatest comedic writing geniuses of modern times. The only problem is that I don’t think Brian Molko of Placebo means to be funny.

I was brushing my teeth this morning when Xfm played Placebo’s new single, Special K. By the chorus I had ingested half the toothpaste and sprayed the other half onto the mirror. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t expect every song to be Strange Fruit, and one of my favourite singers did start an album by confessing “Father, I killed my monkey” and my favourite band did give the world My Friend Goo, but really, Brian, leitmotif?

SPECIAL K (words in bold are particular gems IMO)

Coming up beyond belief
On this coronary thief
More than just a leitmotif
More chaotic, no relief

I’ll describe the way I feel
Weeping wounds that never heal
Can the savior be for real
Or are you just my seventh seal?

No hesitation, no delay
You come on just like special K
Just like I swallowed half my stash
I never ever want to crash
No hesitation, no delay
You come on just like special K
Now you’re back with dope demand
I’m on sinking sand
Gravity
No escaping gravity
Gravity
No escaping… not for free
I fall down… hit the ground
Make a heavy sound
Every time you seem to come around

I’ll describe the way I feel
You’re my new Achilles heel
Can this savior be for real
Or are you just my seventh seal?

No escaping gravity
No escaping gravity
No escaping gravity
No escaping gravity
Gravity (x4)

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, Brian, friendly note: calling a song Slave To The Wage and having this chorus –

It’s a maze for rats to try x2
It’s a race, a race for rats
A race for rats to die
It’s a race, a race for rats
A race for rats to die

– does not make for penetrating social commentary. It sounds asinine.

Poem: lifedance (charles bukowski)

the area dividing the brain and the soul
is affected in many ways by
experience —
some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
some lose both and become:
accepted.

Adagio For Last-Minute Essays

Last night had to be one of the most chilled last minute desperate essay rushes ever.

Having been obsessed with Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings over the past couple of days, I had Adagio for Strings, Agnus Dei (its choral arrangement) and William Orbit’s version of the work on repeat in WinAmp, and it’s interesting how each version creates a mood of its own quite distinct from that of its counterparts.

The strings arrangement gives me a feeling of overwhelming grief, tempered with dignity. The sort of grief that is tight-lipped and painfully controlled in public but collapses into shattering sobs in private. You feel almost disrespectful if you don’t stop what you’re doing and listen. (This didn’t help the essay-writing process much)

In contrast, there’s little or no sadness in the choral arrangement. I think of worship and reverence, buoyed by quiet hope. This is obviously also due to its title and lyrical content, but even without my Catholic consciousness of what Agnus Dei means, I get a distinctly different feeling from this one than the strings arrangement.

To me, the William Orbit version lacks the warmth and depth of the previous two. It’s a wash of synth, from which I get little or no feeling at all. I just keep thinking of that beloved tribal gesture of trance clubbers, usually made while one track is seguing into another – the “raise your upturned palms in the air as if you are a lightless people and have just seen the sun”. Hmm. Sounds like a Godspeed You Black Emperor! album title. Where was I? Oh, the William Orbit version. I guess this illustrates my point – it’s just really forgettable.

It was almost cosy. Me, Samuel Barber, and the European Court of Justice.

Afternoon With XFM

Song on the Xfm playlist I’m enjoying:
Clint Eastwood (Gorillaz) – Every time this plays I am overcome by a strange compulsion to do that embarrassingly unhip headboppin’ thang. Damon Albarn’s vocals have that laid back Stephen Malkmus vibe he’s gotten good at since Blur’s self-titled album, and as for the rapping in the verses…well, I just like it. I don’t know why. (Note to self: do not quit study of law to become world-famous music journalist just yet.) I’m not sure what to make of the whole virtual reality group concept (Idoru?), but the quality of the two singles released so far suggest we might just be into something good.

Song on the Xfm playlist I’m hating:
Butterfly (Crazy Town) – Will someone please explain to this band that if they want to be yet another nu-metal band, they need to actually have some metal. These guys do the whole Limp Bizkit rap stylie thing, but there isn’t a single overblown, whiplash-inducing riff in this song. If that isn’t bad enough, the song’s called Butterfly, and includes “sugar-pie” in its lyrics. Disgraceful. I want my nu-metal songs to conjure up images of socially dysfunctional adolescents wearing black clothes and neck-braces. File under just “nu”.

Song on the Xfm playlist I’m ashamed of enjoying:
The Next Episode (Dr Dre) – I have no explanations. No excuses. I offer this personal revelation in the hope that public humiliation is good for the soul.

Just randomly:
Thank you, Spencer Owen from Pitchfork, for giving Coldplay’s Parachutes a review it deserves – by this, I mean a review that fully acknowledges its stunning mediocrity. Spot on about the blatant Jeff Buckley influence in Shiver as well, as well as the fact that Jeff did it so much better. I sometimes raise my eyebrows at some of their reviews, but I couldn’t agree with this one more. The mainstream UK music press really should stop relying on that one brain cell they pass round.

Break free
From NME!

Classical Re-Education

A radical change in listening choices today. I was doing reception duty in my hall this morning, and was about to put on Xfm when I noticed a cassette tape lying beside the stereo. Nigel Kennedy playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor and Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor. I put the tape on, and ended up listening to each work two or three times through.

My links with classical music have become somewhat eroded over the years. I finished Grade 8 in violin and piano, and meandered for a while after that, unwilling to take on the practice required for performance certificates and diplomas, due to my increasing commitment to competitive debating. I was a first violinist in the Singapore Youth Orchestra from when I was 13, and left when I was 18, also because I needed time to train for the World Schools Debating Championships.

The music this morning took me back to that time of my life. They were pieces I’ve played, and loved, and I suddenly felt a sudden and acute loss of those days when classical music was so much a part of my life. I might pop down to Oxford Street later and look for some of those old loves, but I realize the inadequacy and stagnation of my knowledge here now – which interpretation?

Who does the best rendition of Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole? Stravinsky’s The Rites Of Spring? Who will give me the sound and fury I love in Mussorgsky’s Night On Bare Mountain and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, but preserve the sinuous beauty that peeps in every now and then? I know nothing about Mahler but want to, who will teach me to appreciate him? Can anyone play Paganini’s violin caprices and do them justice? Bach’s Goldberg Variations?

Ignorance is anything but bliss.

After Miss Wyoming

Perhaps it was a mistake to read a Douglas Coupland book (Miss Wyoming) soon after Valentine’s Day. Characters in Coupland novels are quirky and rarefied; they exist comfortably above the median of the bell curve whatever their station in life, and are equipped with extraordinary ability in pop-culture based wisecracking. Behind all this they’re ultimately on a quest for meaning, and resolution of nagging issues that persist despite that facade of blithe zeitgeistiness. And they eventually find this in the love of other people they meet along the way, other people who are interesting, intelligent, and basically compatible in all the ways that count, and love unfolds effortlessly, minus the sap. Characters in Coupland novels start off alone, or at least metaphorically so if not literally, but end up with that magical person who makes them whole.

Coupland writes about love the way I want it to happen.

And yet, I have to wonder how realistic it all is. I wonder how likely it is that two gloriously unique people wading through the vast mulch plains of the ordinary somehow meet, and how likely that will be for me, given that it hasn’t happened yet. I wonder how they manage this in a couple hundred pages. I wonder how come everyone else living in the same book as me has managed this a lot earlier, and how many pages I have left to go before it ends, and I’m that one character who doesn’t end up “completed”.

And then the explanations kick in. I’m a lot more interesting than everyone else I know, so it’s that much harder for me to find someone who doesn’t bore me. The average male is intimidated by my intelligence and strength of personality, and backs off, but I’m not interested in the average male, after all. What’s all this about needing someone else to complete me, anyway? Who died and made the Jerry Maguire scriptwriters God? Most people go into relationships that won’t last, and I’m waiting for the one that will instead of wasting my time. Always the rationalizer…

And then the doubts kick in – shock! horror! – yes, even the pathologically well-adjusted “ineffable” Michelle has doubts once in a while. Maybe all that in the last paragraph is the work of an overdeveloped intellect trying to compensate for an underdeveloped emotional core. Maybe there is some undefinable quality about me that screams “BUDDY!” to every potentially desirable male I meet, and “SEX GODDESS!” to every grievously flawed, hideously incompatible denizen of Major Turnoff City.

Maybe I should start checking out nunneries.

Actually, that’s where the doubts end. I don’t think a nunnery is anywhere in my future. I’d rather settle for a life of meaningless physical encounters and serial killing…of my romantic ideals, of course. Nothing with flesh and a highly developed cerebral cortex. (Calista Flockhart, start looking over your shoulder.)

At the end of the day, this isn’t meant as a pathetic lament of my singlehood. It’s something I think about from time to time, but it doesn’t affect me deeply enough to qualify as anything remotely problematic. Perhaps it’s just a variation on one of my biggest fears – that people (close friends, family, etc.etc.) don’t love me as much as I love them. Perhaps I just want that confirmation that at least one person does.

Paris

Back from Paris, and it was good!

As with my return from Madrid in December last year, I dumped my bags in my room, and headed straight for the computer room. (Oh, I stopped for a minute to swear at my Dali poster, which had fallen down yet again some time while I was away. I guess Blu-Tack really isn’t as persistent as memory.)

But back to Paris, which was good. Random thoughts follow.

I should probably try not to tell my mother that we stayed smack in the middle of the friendly neighbourhood sex shop street. But it was a good hotel – clean room, TV, great location, and all for 240 francs a night for a double, though we had to pay 15 francs for showering. It’s Hotel de la Vallee, for anyone who’s planning a trip to Paris and doesn’t mind a little sleaze.

Time Out decided to take their guide to Paris off the shelves just before we went guide-book shopping, and put it back on the shelves very soon before we left Paris. Le Petit Vatel, a cheapie but highly-rated restaurant we were keen on trying, also decided to take a month off and re-open the day after our Monday night quest. Gah.

I haven’t figured out whether any of our Paris walks surpassed our previous best of 25 kilometres in a day (Brick Lane, Liverpool Street, the financial district, South Bank, Covent Garden, Chinatown, and home to Ramsay Hall off Tottenham Court Road, all done on a summer Saturday in 2000) Thank you, Acupuncture. You make good shoes.

Walking achievements in Paris:
Saturday: La Defense –> Arc de Triomphe –> Eiffel Tower –> St Germain –> our hotel (Rue St Denis, near Chatelet Les Halles)
Sunday: hotel –> Notre Dame –> the other island –> Sacre-Couer –> all the way back to the hotel
Monday: hotel –> the Louvre, a marathon in itself –> Champs Elysees –> metro to St Germain –> wandering in search of food –> dinner at Polidor –> hotel

We went ice-skating outside the Hotel de Ville. My right thigh still aches slightly from my fall. People laughed, either due to my good imitation of an ice-hockey puck, or from the very loud “Oh, FUUUUUUCK!” I let out along the way. Either way, I agree it was probably funny.

The Louvre: beautiful, but exhausting. Our first real glimpse of it was on the way home from Montmartre on Sunday night. I lay down on the edge of the
fountain, near the lighted pyramid and looked up at the sky. It was one of those moments of tranquility that’s almost cliched in its sheer bliss. We spent about five and a half hours inside the museum the next day. I feel like I didn’t even come close to doing it justice. I bought postcards of Liberty Leading The People (Delacroix), and the descriptively titled Young Man Sitting Naked Beside The Sea (Flandrin)>. I did not buy postcards of the Mona Lisa or Venus de Milo, or contribute to the epilepsy-inducing flash photography in their general vicinity. I did, however, take pictures of the people looking at them. Go figure. Overall verdict: Loved the Louvre.

Typical holiday morning conversation:
(mobile phone alarms go off at 9 am)
Me: Russ, wake up.
Russ: I’m awake.
Me: Well, get out of bed then.
Russ: You get out of bed then.
Me: I can’t. If you get out and keep nagging me, then I’ll manage to wake up.
Russ: I can get out of bed, but I’m not going to until you do.
(etc. etc.)

This is why we generally didn’t get out of the hotel till noonish every day…

All in all, a good holiday. :)

Paris Blip

I just popped in to the computer room to (a) print out my essay and (b) say that I’m going to Paris with Russ today, and we get back on Tuesday.

HMV Got My Number

Argh. After buying 4 CDs at Borders on Tuesday, I suppose I can’t possibly justify buying three more at HMV with the 3 for £20 offer. Stuff I’m tempted by:

  • Outkast: Aquemini
  • Hefner: Fear Of God (although I’m not sure if I should get this or just wait till I can afford The Fidelity Wars.)
  • Spiritualized: Pure Phase or Lazer Guided Melodies
  • Red Snapper: Making Bones
  • Nick Drake: Way To Blue
  • David Holmes: This Film’s Crap Let’s Slash The Seats
  • Miles Davis: Kind Of Blue

As I said, argh.

Student Discount Day Yay

I love Student Discount Day at Borders. Today’s haul:
The Sandman Companion (Hy Bender), £8.99
Grandaddy: Under The Western Freeway, £6.99
Roots Manuva: Brand New Second Hand, £6.99
Stereo MCs: DJ Kicks, £6.99
The Beta Band’s self titled, £6.99
20% off everything. :)

Speaking of Sandman, I just found this new and pretty damn excellent gallery! I also found out that Neil Gaiman has a new book coming out in July, American Gods. It’s already on my wishlist.

Discovering little things like these make me happy, and are good for the stress headache I seem to be suffering from right now. Another site for sore heads is this one in honour of artist Dave McKean. which I’ve been devouring over quite a while. Its parent site, erasing.org is also highly worth a visit – it’s one of the very small number of sites I check every day.

Hmm. What else before I return to my room and my property law essay?

I’m a wallpaper junkie. Even more so when it’s eels wallpaper (the band. Not the long slimy sea thing.)

This Peanuts version of the breakup of the Smashing Pumpkins is funny and all, but after reading it, I sort of just sat here and felt…sad. Say what you will about the theatrics, the tantrums and the teen angst lyrics, but at the end of it all, I loved the music, lusted after James Iha, liked Billy in spite of all the bad press he got, and thoroughly enjoyed the two occasions I saw the band in concert (Singapore 1995ish, London 2000). Current favourite SP song, (though it might well be a different one in a few days time): Soothe. I love the guitar work on it.

Damn it, someone already made a Kilgore Trout page. I often find it difficult to commit myself to absolute rankings i.e. My All-Time Favourite ______, but I think I can say, without a doubt, that Kilgore Trout would probably be my all-time favourite writer who doesn’t exist.