Or Christmas Day? I don't know, it's after midnight. By all rights, I should be sleeping.
I'm posting tonight, but I don't really know anything unique or profound that I should write. I have some writings I could share, but they aren't really done. I could make something up, but it probably wouldn't be any good; I tried writing a little poem a few minutes ago, and I couldn't think of anything except the word "blue." Now, I like the word "blue," but it takes more than just that to write anything. If I want to write tonight, then I've got to write what I want to say.
So what should I say? I guess that all I really want to say is "Merry Christmas." I don't mean that as a political statement. Whatever your holiday of choice, I'd be glad to hear that December 25th passed as pleasantly as possible for as many people as possible. We might not be able to resist cynicism the rest of the year (I know I can't), but it's good to have at least one day set aside for feeling selfless.
That's what Christmas is supposed to be, really: a celebration of selflessness. Unfortunately, it can feel like the opposite sometimes. Nothing involving this much money can ever be pure. But if we want to give ourselves a worthy challenge, how about this: why not take the time to rearrange our lives to make other people comfortable?
Whether it's Jesus's birthday, Jesus's fake birthday, or just another Sunday, let's all act like decent human beings. Hell, let's be merry. Let's look at every ordinary thing like it's the coolest thing we've ever seen. Let's act like we enjoy human company, even if it's with some unenthusiastic humans. Let's pretend that the best way to serve our self interest is by serving the public interest, rather than the other way around.
OK, that turned into a little bit of a political statement. I'm sorry.
(A brief aside to more pressing business. If I don't get up and turn off the DVD player soon, those singers on the menu screen for A Christmas Carol are likely to keep singing forever. Rest ye, merry gentlemen, indeed.)
So have a merry Christmas, everyone. If you can, try to keep the merriment up through the New Year. Longer, if you can; there's really no reason to stop, ever. If you can't make it past January, though, don't worry about it. Sober up and try again next year.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Poetry Jam #8
Welcome to the latest installment of my growing poetical corpus, a curious body of strange ideas and uncomfortable over-sharing. Today we have poems written between February and April of this past year, having aged in my folder for the requisite time and achieved the proper vintage.
Actually, I've been putting off this post for a while, concerned that the backlog I like to keep might have worn thin. Opening said folder now, I find this to be an entirely unfounded worry. I have lots of poems in there, enough even to justify holding back the really awful ones. The terrible poems will dwell in the folder forever, or at least until a future archaeologist explores my artifacts and finds himself wondering what the hell I was thinking.
But enough of that jibber. Here's the goods:
Teenage Secrecy
Let's carve a place out of the hill
And keep it for ourselves, forever;
We'll care for it, and make it clean,
And keep it to ourselves, and never
Talk or tell a single soul
About the work that we have done.
We'll cuddle in our little place
And close the warmth inside,
And keep it for ourselves, forever.
Let's whisper in each other's ears
And keep it to ourselves forever;
We'll wait for something good to come
And keep it for ourselves, and never
Leave our pleasant little place
We carved into the tender hill.
We'll catch the moment in a jar
And cool it in our arms,
And keep it for ourselves, forever.
Real Presence
Fill me, phantom,
face me now,
Awake, and warm me
with your smile,
Your beaming body
bearing ever down
In dreams and only dreams,
in days and nights,
I wake and whisper,
where'd you go?
It's not enough
to know you're there,
To rise and reach
for your real presence
And find it to be false,
a fading, empty sight.
The Liar
I told a truth, but no one else believed;
They each condemned me, charged that I deceived
And lied in muck and shit, just like a worm;
They scorned me, and I scorned them in return.
I ran away in rage-arrested fright;
I gnash on comfort bones and hone my bite,
To eat and speak a filthy-worded meal
And tell the truth that suits the way I feel.
The Softness of a Broken Wing
The numbing, warm and gentle sting
Of mouth and brain and acid wine,
The softness of a broken wing;
What thoughts and dreams they often bring
Of hopes and plans that once were mine,
This numbing, warm and gentle sting,
This memory, this borrowed ring,
The feel of something small and fine,
The softness of a broken wing.
Within my ear, a length of string
Becomes a pure melodic line,
A numbing, warm and gentle sting,
And resting, nestled in a sling,
The touch of yours for which I pine,
The softness of a broken wing.
At times I hear a woman sing,
And as she does it calls to mind
That numbing, warm and gentle sting,
The softness of a broken wing.
The Magpie
Ten, eleven, twelve o'clock and nothing sounded in the kitchen,
Nor the hallway, bath or bedroom of my lonely little home;
Hours advanced across the window, and the night increased in darkness
As I rested, reading terrors in my sitting room alone;
Hours of existential horrors in my sitting room, alone,
When I chanced to hear a groan.
Minutes, hours and days seemed past, but still the sound resisted silence,
All my best attempts to find it faltered, and the noise grew loud;
Louder, fouler always, ever sickening my brain and body,
Never shrieking din so ugly was so hidden by a shroud;
An excruciating presence hid completely by a shroud,
Never was a sin so loud.
One, and two, and three o'clock, and not a sound in my apartment,
Not a sound could I perceive as I stared madly at my phone;
No sensation in my eardrum, no vibration in my body,
Only memories of terrors met impoverished and alone;
Heard perpetually in silence, isolated in my home,
Since I chanced to hear that groan.
The Ladder
Gaze at the city beyond from the balcony,
Dreaming of freedom and narrow escapes;
Listen for someone who doesn't reply,
Look for the ladder and learn to fly.
Climb on the ladder, to peer in the opening;
Breathe in the dust of that musty old place.
Howl in the attic and bark at the sky,
Fall from the ladder and nearly die.
Two Thousand and Five Degrees
Only a dwindling season in paradise;
Dancing and quivering under the moon,
Talking together, alone in the light,
Slowly unraveling, squeezing white.
Summer in paradise, glowing and simmering
Rocks in the water and heat in the dark;
Bottled and bursting alone in the night,
Sweating and breathing and squeezing tight.
Now a shell of boiling summer,
Shrinking under shine of day;
Someone calls for something bright,
Something must ignite.
I Am Not a One of Them
I am not a one of them:
Unencumbered, unrestrained,
Undeterred by passion, lust
For flesh or drink or breast,
Underwhelmed and under-stressed.
Behind the Door
If everybody's got to make a living,
It stands to reason, someone's got to pay;
And some of us can be too eager giving
While the other ones are taking it away.
A fortune for a moments satisfaction
And a universe of hunger for the same;
Desire pinching at the same reaction
In my heart as from the moment that it came.
Insecurity
Secretly whistling words in my ear,
Wishing for something unsubtle, she
Beckons to hold her and scold her at will,
Name her my darling, my dearest, my dear;
Crushing my shoulders and holding me still,
Wasting for something unspoken, impatiently
Pining for, dying for me to come near,
Slowly unwinding, exposing a chill.
Cascade Square
The trees are swinging in the sky;
Their leaves are shining in the light,
And now a cloud is passing by
As noon is drifting into night.
And lying on my back, I wait
And hope that things are not too late.
Weight
My love is like a summer's dream
I woke from in a fitful start
And tried in vain to recollect,
An absence weighing down my heart,
An impulse felt, denied and mute,
The urge to run away, ignored;
A heat is blushing at my neck
As I am walking slowly, bored.
Golden Wire
Entangled in a golden wire,
Hanging from a yellow thread,
I lie consumed in silent fire
Burning in my silent head,
And drowning as my dreams are mired
In the darkness of my bed.
Yes, that's the way I feel tonight,
Alone and frightened, hurt and sad,
My heartbeat isn't feeling right,
My brain is slowly turning mad;
If she would only shine a light
I might have cause to feel glad.
I don't, because she's far away,
Her glow is shaded from my eyes
Although it shines as bright as day,
And somewhere in the night she lies
Alone and empty, locked away;
But does she know I realize?
__________
And now for some notes!
I wrote Teenage Secrecy out of a desire to write something sweet and dreamlike. My friends and I have a (somewhat) weekly writing group, where we share our scribblings by email. One of my friends read this particular poem and, bemused by my "tender heart," suggested I try writing poetry a little more like Edgar Allen Poe. This will be relevant later. I struggled with the title for a while; I had half a mind to call it Teenage Sex. With that title, the perspective changes a little bit, and I wasn't sure if I wanted that to be the perspective people brought to it. Anyway, since the poem is about secrecy, I think it's appropriate for it to have a "secret title." But now everyone knows it, so...
Real Presence is a kind of experimental poem. I was intrigued at the time by the aesthetics of the alliterative meter used by Anglo-Saxon bards in days of yore. I wrote another poem around the same time that was even more experimental, using a complex pattern of alternating between voiced and unvoiced consonant alliteration. But while Real Presence is pretty and meaningful, this other poem (which really deserves no title) is ridiculous and terrible.
The Liar is a meditation on an observation I had about how two people can tell the truth about a single situation, and still disagree so strongly with one another that they devolve into trolls, or something. I don't know. I was reading about international politics at the time, and I generalized back to individuals. Sometimes people's interests are the truth.
The Softness of a Broken Wing is a really pretty one, if I do say so myself. It is written in the form of a villanelle, a very strict form of verse requiring the repetition of the first and third lines at specific points. It's a beautiful form: Dylan Thomas wrote a very famous one, Do not go gentle into that good night, that everyone seems to like. It's also frustrating as hell to come up with six rhymes for "wing" and six for "wine" that actually flow together in an interesting way. Villanelles are fun, but like many strict forms, I don't find myself committed to them for long.
The Magpie is my response to that friend who asked me to write more like Poe: it is, in fact, a flagrant Poe pastiche. I lifted the meter directly from The Raven (a magpie is a smaller member of the corvid family of birds, you see), the "plot" is an echo of The Tell-Tale-Heart, and the tone and diction are as generally Poe-ish as I could manage on my ability. Looking at it now, it seems kind of silly, but I worked much too hard on it to keep it suppressed.
The Ladder and Two Thousand and Five Degrees are both experimental, in a way. They're both products of my (successful?) attempt to invent a unique, reusable poetic form, which is why they have the exact same meter (excepting the coda to the second one, which is just a condensed form of the meter). Two Thousand is kind of steamy, I guess. Everyone likes some steamy goodness.
I wrote I Am Not a One of Them and Behind the Door one night in San Francisco, apparently in a monkish sort of mood. It wasn't until I wrote it out just now that I realized that the first one makes absolutely no sense, but oddly, that makes me like it more than I did before.
And as for the last four... honestly, I was obsessed with a girl at the time. There's no redeeming way to say it! Awkward as I am, I don't have a whole lot of experience with dating, but last April I managed to land myself in an emotionally exhausting run-around for about a month with a person who didn't seem able to make up her mind about what she wanted. The specific course of events don't really need to be related, seeing as they were extremely confusing. Needless to say, I wrote (or started writing) a LOT of poetry at the time. Most of it was horrible, but I like these four.
Insecurity, in fact, I would go so far as calling really, really good. Look at that rhyme scheme! Look at those unstressed rhymes on lines two and six! So good. Cascade Square is pretty little piece of fluff, a poem for a postcard you might say. Weight works (for me) primarily because of the jarring contrast between the cliche first line and the subversion that immediately follows it; other than that, I don't have much use for it. Golden Wire is pretty heavy on the psycho-melodrama, so I don't blame anyone for hating it, but I felt pretty strongly about it at the time.
Actually, I've been putting off this post for a while, concerned that the backlog I like to keep might have worn thin. Opening said folder now, I find this to be an entirely unfounded worry. I have lots of poems in there, enough even to justify holding back the really awful ones. The terrible poems will dwell in the folder forever, or at least until a future archaeologist explores my artifacts and finds himself wondering what the hell I was thinking.
But enough of that jibber. Here's the goods:
Teenage Secrecy
Let's carve a place out of the hill
And keep it for ourselves, forever;
We'll care for it, and make it clean,
And keep it to ourselves, and never
Talk or tell a single soul
About the work that we have done.
We'll cuddle in our little place
And close the warmth inside,
And keep it for ourselves, forever.
Let's whisper in each other's ears
And keep it to ourselves forever;
We'll wait for something good to come
And keep it for ourselves, and never
Leave our pleasant little place
We carved into the tender hill.
We'll catch the moment in a jar
And cool it in our arms,
And keep it for ourselves, forever.
Real Presence
Fill me, phantom,
face me now,
Awake, and warm me
with your smile,
Your beaming body
bearing ever down
In dreams and only dreams,
in days and nights,
I wake and whisper,
where'd you go?
It's not enough
to know you're there,
To rise and reach
for your real presence
And find it to be false,
a fading, empty sight.
The Liar
I told a truth, but no one else believed;
They each condemned me, charged that I deceived
And lied in muck and shit, just like a worm;
They scorned me, and I scorned them in return.
I ran away in rage-arrested fright;
I gnash on comfort bones and hone my bite,
To eat and speak a filthy-worded meal
And tell the truth that suits the way I feel.
The Softness of a Broken Wing
The numbing, warm and gentle sting
Of mouth and brain and acid wine,
The softness of a broken wing;
What thoughts and dreams they often bring
Of hopes and plans that once were mine,
This numbing, warm and gentle sting,
This memory, this borrowed ring,
The feel of something small and fine,
The softness of a broken wing.
Within my ear, a length of string
Becomes a pure melodic line,
A numbing, warm and gentle sting,
And resting, nestled in a sling,
The touch of yours for which I pine,
The softness of a broken wing.
At times I hear a woman sing,
And as she does it calls to mind
That numbing, warm and gentle sting,
The softness of a broken wing.
The Magpie
Ten, eleven, twelve o'clock and nothing sounded in the kitchen,
Nor the hallway, bath or bedroom of my lonely little home;
Hours advanced across the window, and the night increased in darkness
As I rested, reading terrors in my sitting room alone;
Hours of existential horrors in my sitting room, alone,
When I chanced to hear a groan.
Minutes, hours and days seemed past, but still the sound resisted silence,
All my best attempts to find it faltered, and the noise grew loud;
Louder, fouler always, ever sickening my brain and body,
Never shrieking din so ugly was so hidden by a shroud;
An excruciating presence hid completely by a shroud,
Never was a sin so loud.
One, and two, and three o'clock, and not a sound in my apartment,
Not a sound could I perceive as I stared madly at my phone;
No sensation in my eardrum, no vibration in my body,
Only memories of terrors met impoverished and alone;
Heard perpetually in silence, isolated in my home,
Since I chanced to hear that groan.
The Ladder
Gaze at the city beyond from the balcony,
Dreaming of freedom and narrow escapes;
Listen for someone who doesn't reply,
Look for the ladder and learn to fly.
Climb on the ladder, to peer in the opening;
Breathe in the dust of that musty old place.
Howl in the attic and bark at the sky,
Fall from the ladder and nearly die.
Two Thousand and Five Degrees
Only a dwindling season in paradise;
Dancing and quivering under the moon,
Talking together, alone in the light,
Slowly unraveling, squeezing white.
Summer in paradise, glowing and simmering
Rocks in the water and heat in the dark;
Bottled and bursting alone in the night,
Sweating and breathing and squeezing tight.
Now a shell of boiling summer,
Shrinking under shine of day;
Someone calls for something bright,
Something must ignite.
I Am Not a One of Them
I am not a one of them:
Unencumbered, unrestrained,
Undeterred by passion, lust
For flesh or drink or breast,
Underwhelmed and under-stressed.
Behind the Door
If everybody's got to make a living,
It stands to reason, someone's got to pay;
And some of us can be too eager giving
While the other ones are taking it away.
A fortune for a moments satisfaction
And a universe of hunger for the same;
Desire pinching at the same reaction
In my heart as from the moment that it came.
Insecurity
Secretly whistling words in my ear,
Wishing for something unsubtle, she
Beckons to hold her and scold her at will,
Name her my darling, my dearest, my dear;
Crushing my shoulders and holding me still,
Wasting for something unspoken, impatiently
Pining for, dying for me to come near,
Slowly unwinding, exposing a chill.
Cascade Square
The trees are swinging in the sky;
Their leaves are shining in the light,
And now a cloud is passing by
As noon is drifting into night.
And lying on my back, I wait
And hope that things are not too late.
Weight
My love is like a summer's dream
I woke from in a fitful start
And tried in vain to recollect,
An absence weighing down my heart,
An impulse felt, denied and mute,
The urge to run away, ignored;
A heat is blushing at my neck
As I am walking slowly, bored.
Golden Wire
Entangled in a golden wire,
Hanging from a yellow thread,
I lie consumed in silent fire
Burning in my silent head,
And drowning as my dreams are mired
In the darkness of my bed.
Yes, that's the way I feel tonight,
Alone and frightened, hurt and sad,
My heartbeat isn't feeling right,
My brain is slowly turning mad;
If she would only shine a light
I might have cause to feel glad.
I don't, because she's far away,
Her glow is shaded from my eyes
Although it shines as bright as day,
And somewhere in the night she lies
Alone and empty, locked away;
But does she know I realize?
__________
And now for some notes!
I wrote Teenage Secrecy out of a desire to write something sweet and dreamlike. My friends and I have a (somewhat) weekly writing group, where we share our scribblings by email. One of my friends read this particular poem and, bemused by my "tender heart," suggested I try writing poetry a little more like Edgar Allen Poe. This will be relevant later. I struggled with the title for a while; I had half a mind to call it Teenage Sex. With that title, the perspective changes a little bit, and I wasn't sure if I wanted that to be the perspective people brought to it. Anyway, since the poem is about secrecy, I think it's appropriate for it to have a "secret title." But now everyone knows it, so...
Real Presence is a kind of experimental poem. I was intrigued at the time by the aesthetics of the alliterative meter used by Anglo-Saxon bards in days of yore. I wrote another poem around the same time that was even more experimental, using a complex pattern of alternating between voiced and unvoiced consonant alliteration. But while Real Presence is pretty and meaningful, this other poem (which really deserves no title) is ridiculous and terrible.
The Liar is a meditation on an observation I had about how two people can tell the truth about a single situation, and still disagree so strongly with one another that they devolve into trolls, or something. I don't know. I was reading about international politics at the time, and I generalized back to individuals. Sometimes people's interests are the truth.
The Softness of a Broken Wing is a really pretty one, if I do say so myself. It is written in the form of a villanelle, a very strict form of verse requiring the repetition of the first and third lines at specific points. It's a beautiful form: Dylan Thomas wrote a very famous one, Do not go gentle into that good night, that everyone seems to like. It's also frustrating as hell to come up with six rhymes for "wing" and six for "wine" that actually flow together in an interesting way. Villanelles are fun, but like many strict forms, I don't find myself committed to them for long.
The Magpie is my response to that friend who asked me to write more like Poe: it is, in fact, a flagrant Poe pastiche. I lifted the meter directly from The Raven (a magpie is a smaller member of the corvid family of birds, you see), the "plot" is an echo of The Tell-Tale-Heart, and the tone and diction are as generally Poe-ish as I could manage on my ability. Looking at it now, it seems kind of silly, but I worked much too hard on it to keep it suppressed.
The Ladder and Two Thousand and Five Degrees are both experimental, in a way. They're both products of my (successful?) attempt to invent a unique, reusable poetic form, which is why they have the exact same meter (excepting the coda to the second one, which is just a condensed form of the meter). Two Thousand is kind of steamy, I guess. Everyone likes some steamy goodness.
I wrote I Am Not a One of Them and Behind the Door one night in San Francisco, apparently in a monkish sort of mood. It wasn't until I wrote it out just now that I realized that the first one makes absolutely no sense, but oddly, that makes me like it more than I did before.
And as for the last four... honestly, I was obsessed with a girl at the time. There's no redeeming way to say it! Awkward as I am, I don't have a whole lot of experience with dating, but last April I managed to land myself in an emotionally exhausting run-around for about a month with a person who didn't seem able to make up her mind about what she wanted. The specific course of events don't really need to be related, seeing as they were extremely confusing. Needless to say, I wrote (or started writing) a LOT of poetry at the time. Most of it was horrible, but I like these four.
Insecurity, in fact, I would go so far as calling really, really good. Look at that rhyme scheme! Look at those unstressed rhymes on lines two and six! So good. Cascade Square is pretty little piece of fluff, a poem for a postcard you might say. Weight works (for me) primarily because of the jarring contrast between the cliche first line and the subversion that immediately follows it; other than that, I don't have much use for it. Golden Wire is pretty heavy on the psycho-melodrama, so I don't blame anyone for hating it, but I felt pretty strongly about it at the time.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Grown Up Business
While I've been known to articulate some vaguely radical political philosophy, the truth is that I'm very much a moderate in my habits. I'll vote at any opportunity, and I'll gladly speak my opinions when moved to do so. I'll even sign a petition or two, fixing my (largely illegible) signature in support of a noble cause. But I don't like holding signs or chanting slogans, especially when such activities are held outdoors, where temperatures can reach such frightful lows as fifty degrees (or worse!) and I might be forced to carry on conversations with complete strangers.
Even a privately symbolic act, like changing banks, is something I undertake only with reluctance. Ideologically, I stand with the 99%, and regard large banking corporations with distaste. Stories like this little gem can only serve as proof that America's financial giants exist primarily for their own sake, a perversion of whatever nobility there is in a capitalist system. And yet, for as long as I can remember I've kept a small sum of of money in an account at Bank of America, one of the biggest of the Wall Street bigs.
When it comes to something like changing banks, the practical simplicity of the act is countered in my mind by the conceptual difficulty of overcoming the inertia of familiarity. The Bank of America in scary news alerts seems almost like a different company from the one that holds my spare cash and issues me a convenient debit card. Lately, however, the kind and gentle behemoth I remember has been acting more like the ogre the rest of the world sees. This spring they pushed me into a new type of account that imposed an eight dollar monthly fee if I committed certain rash, irresponsible actions, like speaking to a human teller. Then there was the farce two months ago when the company threatened to impose a five dollar monthly fee on the use of debit cards. If they hadn't backed down when they did, I would have probably dumped them as soon as the fee went in place.
The final push came when I realized that I was more thoroughly entangled with Bank of America than I'd ever realized. A while ago my favorite (and only) credit card, originally issued to me by Charles Schwab, became disassociated with that company and managed directly by a group called FIA Card Services. It never occurred to me to check, but I learned this past month that FIA was, in fact, owned by Bank of America. Paying my bill on the Charles Schwab website was fairly simple; every change since then has only made paying more inconvenient. I might have gone on with the status quo indefinitely, but I was tired of trying to play the bank's game. I decided on Wednesday to go to my local branch and, once and for all, sever all of my connections with the company.
On the long march downtown, I girded myself for an emotional battle. Bank of America is a very large, intimidating organization, much like the mafia. I imagined they would try to talk me out of it, perhaps by appealing to our long history together, or prophesying the collapse of the financial system, or making veiled threats against my family while caressing a baseball bat. I am terrified of confrontation; even though I was definitely sure that I didn't want to bank with them anymore, and had absolutely no shame about my motives, I dreaded explaining myself to the people whose livelihoods depended, in part, on my money.
Once inside, however, the staff were nothing but polite and professional. When I announced that I wished to close my account, they did not ask why. They simply ushered me to a cubicle to process my request quickly. The lady at the desk even smiled the whole time. It was a little creepy.
There were a few road bumps. The lady informed me that she'd "heard somewhere" that cancelling a credit card could have a negative impact on a person's credit score. I was sensitive to the prospect of bad credit, but I held firm; credit card providers are a devious lot, and that sounded like exactly the sort of bluff they might try on a noob like me. I held my ground, and insisted on ending the card. She promptly called an associate, and handed the phone off to me. Score one for the 99%.
The man on the phone who manages credit cards asked me, point blank, if they had "done anything wrong" to warrant the loss of my business. My resolve shook: a more committed ideologue would have readily recited all of Bank of America's corporate sins, laying them at the feet of the hapless employee and demanding an apology. A more disgruntled customer would have recounted a tale of woe and abuse, shaming the employee and demanding an even weepier apology. I, on the other hand, felt compelled to reassure the poor man by offering a vague "it's not you, it's me" excuse and insisting I only wanted something "simpler." I think he took it well.
There were some charges on my credit card, so I told the lady to take them out of my checking account before closing it. She then left me, ostensibly to retrieve the cash from the secret vault, but possibly to give me one last chance to repent my sins. I waited. I sat up straight, lest my slouching posture alert observers to my degenerate socialist nature. I eyed the passersby for signs of concealed cans of pepper spray. I clutched my Charles Schwab checkbook, hoping it might ward off the demons of financial insecurity. I thought of the good old days, and I yearned.
Finally, the lady returned with my (woefully meager) balance, and I was free. I was proud of my accomplishment, but felt suddenly vulnerable as I realized that I now lacked the ability to pay for anything except by cash or check. And so, even as I stepped out into the cold autumn air of liberty, I eagerly leaped back into the warm embrace of another (significantly smaller) financial institution.
Ironically, my exit from Bank of America resulted in perhaps the best customer service they'd ever given me. I worried that, having to deal with decent human beings rather than a faceless corporate "person," I might back down from this confrontation and consent to keep my money in the big machine. But realistically, there was no confrontation. They did what I asked, and I left with no strings attached (at least, no strings that I know of).
I felt a little guilty about the protests that had taken place on the branch's front drive back in October. While Bank of America may be a perfectly legitimate target for populist rage, most of the people in that building were as much a part of the 99% as the people outside. I don't feel bad about cutting the corporation down to size, but I'm also not entirely eager to see the downfall of large banks that offer employment and the possibility of assistance to ordinary people. If we had some concrete assurance that the powerful financial institutions actually regarded their mission as one of helping others rather than merely enriching themselves, we wouldn't have any reason to occupy everything under the sun.
Even a privately symbolic act, like changing banks, is something I undertake only with reluctance. Ideologically, I stand with the 99%, and regard large banking corporations with distaste. Stories like this little gem can only serve as proof that America's financial giants exist primarily for their own sake, a perversion of whatever nobility there is in a capitalist system. And yet, for as long as I can remember I've kept a small sum of of money in an account at Bank of America, one of the biggest of the Wall Street bigs.
When it comes to something like changing banks, the practical simplicity of the act is countered in my mind by the conceptual difficulty of overcoming the inertia of familiarity. The Bank of America in scary news alerts seems almost like a different company from the one that holds my spare cash and issues me a convenient debit card. Lately, however, the kind and gentle behemoth I remember has been acting more like the ogre the rest of the world sees. This spring they pushed me into a new type of account that imposed an eight dollar monthly fee if I committed certain rash, irresponsible actions, like speaking to a human teller. Then there was the farce two months ago when the company threatened to impose a five dollar monthly fee on the use of debit cards. If they hadn't backed down when they did, I would have probably dumped them as soon as the fee went in place.
The final push came when I realized that I was more thoroughly entangled with Bank of America than I'd ever realized. A while ago my favorite (and only) credit card, originally issued to me by Charles Schwab, became disassociated with that company and managed directly by a group called FIA Card Services. It never occurred to me to check, but I learned this past month that FIA was, in fact, owned by Bank of America. Paying my bill on the Charles Schwab website was fairly simple; every change since then has only made paying more inconvenient. I might have gone on with the status quo indefinitely, but I was tired of trying to play the bank's game. I decided on Wednesday to go to my local branch and, once and for all, sever all of my connections with the company.
On the long march downtown, I girded myself for an emotional battle. Bank of America is a very large, intimidating organization, much like the mafia. I imagined they would try to talk me out of it, perhaps by appealing to our long history together, or prophesying the collapse of the financial system, or making veiled threats against my family while caressing a baseball bat. I am terrified of confrontation; even though I was definitely sure that I didn't want to bank with them anymore, and had absolutely no shame about my motives, I dreaded explaining myself to the people whose livelihoods depended, in part, on my money.
Once inside, however, the staff were nothing but polite and professional. When I announced that I wished to close my account, they did not ask why. They simply ushered me to a cubicle to process my request quickly. The lady at the desk even smiled the whole time. It was a little creepy.
There were a few road bumps. The lady informed me that she'd "heard somewhere" that cancelling a credit card could have a negative impact on a person's credit score. I was sensitive to the prospect of bad credit, but I held firm; credit card providers are a devious lot, and that sounded like exactly the sort of bluff they might try on a noob like me. I held my ground, and insisted on ending the card. She promptly called an associate, and handed the phone off to me. Score one for the 99%.
The man on the phone who manages credit cards asked me, point blank, if they had "done anything wrong" to warrant the loss of my business. My resolve shook: a more committed ideologue would have readily recited all of Bank of America's corporate sins, laying them at the feet of the hapless employee and demanding an apology. A more disgruntled customer would have recounted a tale of woe and abuse, shaming the employee and demanding an even weepier apology. I, on the other hand, felt compelled to reassure the poor man by offering a vague "it's not you, it's me" excuse and insisting I only wanted something "simpler." I think he took it well.
There were some charges on my credit card, so I told the lady to take them out of my checking account before closing it. She then left me, ostensibly to retrieve the cash from the secret vault, but possibly to give me one last chance to repent my sins. I waited. I sat up straight, lest my slouching posture alert observers to my degenerate socialist nature. I eyed the passersby for signs of concealed cans of pepper spray. I clutched my Charles Schwab checkbook, hoping it might ward off the demons of financial insecurity. I thought of the good old days, and I yearned.
Finally, the lady returned with my (woefully meager) balance, and I was free. I was proud of my accomplishment, but felt suddenly vulnerable as I realized that I now lacked the ability to pay for anything except by cash or check. And so, even as I stepped out into the cold autumn air of liberty, I eagerly leaped back into the warm embrace of another (significantly smaller) financial institution.
Ironically, my exit from Bank of America resulted in perhaps the best customer service they'd ever given me. I worried that, having to deal with decent human beings rather than a faceless corporate "person," I might back down from this confrontation and consent to keep my money in the big machine. But realistically, there was no confrontation. They did what I asked, and I left with no strings attached (at least, no strings that I know of).
I felt a little guilty about the protests that had taken place on the branch's front drive back in October. While Bank of America may be a perfectly legitimate target for populist rage, most of the people in that building were as much a part of the 99% as the people outside. I don't feel bad about cutting the corporation down to size, but I'm also not entirely eager to see the downfall of large banks that offer employment and the possibility of assistance to ordinary people. If we had some concrete assurance that the powerful financial institutions actually regarded their mission as one of helping others rather than merely enriching themselves, we wouldn't have any reason to occupy everything under the sun.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Things Become Momentarily Real
First of all, happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I hope you've each eaten many turkeys and gravies by now. Lord knows we can't let them rest after what they've done. (They know what they did). If you're not American and didn't celebrate Thanksgiving today, then I wish you a happy Thursday. Thursdays are pretty fantastic, too!
But that's not really the point of all this. No, I actually wanted to tell a little story, about myself. It's not really a story so much as a description of a train of thought, experienced over the course of about ten minutes.
Like most people, I fantasize. In fact, I fantasize a lot. In the car, on the street, in the shower; wherever I am, even if I seem to be paying attention to something else, my brain is often constructing an alternate universe of thoughts and ideas that everyone else finds very interesting indeed. It's a useful byproduct of my amateur insanity, because it provides me with conversation topics (not usually as useful in the shower), as well as ideas that sometimes find their way into the words I scribble on the computer screen.
About a week and a half ago I had one such story idea. Actually, and improbably, it began with a title. While running bizarre and unconventional sentences through my head, analyzing them for phonetic and metrical beauty (or whatever strikes me as beautiful), I happened upon the phrase "a hundred degrees in my head." I liked it, and my first thought was to use it in a poem. It suggested a lot of things: fevers, obviously, but also uncomfortable buzzing of an overclocked, overstressed brain, or a mind on the cusp of a meltdown. It had that familiar um-DA-da um-DA-da um-DA beat, long associated with some of our culture's finest poetry, and it struck me that I'd never heard anyone say it before, even though it was (I thought) a pretty awesome line.
But before I could think of any accompanying lines, I began wondering, and fantasizing, about what sort of things (apart from spontaneous illness) might make someone's head feel superheated. It struck me that A Hundred Degrees in my Head might make an excellent short story title, and since my record with titles is remarkably dismal, I thought it would be a bad idea to waste this one.
My fantasy immediately sprung into action. Half-thinking, half-mumbling, I assembled the skeleton of a basic plot. I cobbled together disparate snatches of autobiography and furtive melodrama, with an eye to something both fictional and true-to-life. A sequence of progressive vignettes took shape in my mind's eye: a series of misfortunes and disappointments, climaxing in a mental and physical collapse, followed by a slow slide into a jaded paralysis. It was pretty depressing. I liked it.
By the time I was out of the shower (for I'd been there the whole time!), I had practically scored the entire thing to music, having developed grandiose plans to film my newest opus. With a camera and some actors, we could shoot the movie on a modest budget. We would take Sundance by storm. I'd make a million dollars and retire to France, eating all the hot, buttery croissants a million dollars could buy.
I was getting the slightest bit ahead of myself. I decided to stick to what I knew, or thought I knew: the short story form (movie rights can always be negotiated later). But even so, I felt energized. I was genuinely excited by the story. It had potential; it felt honest, expressive, even relevant to today's issues and stuff. I wanted to do a really good job on it. And supposing I did, was it unreasonable to think of finally getting seeking some form of professional publication?
Suddenly, it felt like a hundred degrees in my head.
As it is, I'm still running the story through its paces. Plot details have to be ironed out, characters have to be named. The right tone still has to be set. But I feel really good about it. If its potential holds up, I may try some things I've never tried before. Right now, I've got to focus on getting it off the ground.
But that's not really the point of all this. No, I actually wanted to tell a little story, about myself. It's not really a story so much as a description of a train of thought, experienced over the course of about ten minutes.
Like most people, I fantasize. In fact, I fantasize a lot. In the car, on the street, in the shower; wherever I am, even if I seem to be paying attention to something else, my brain is often constructing an alternate universe of thoughts and ideas that everyone else finds very interesting indeed. It's a useful byproduct of my amateur insanity, because it provides me with conversation topics (not usually as useful in the shower), as well as ideas that sometimes find their way into the words I scribble on the computer screen.
About a week and a half ago I had one such story idea. Actually, and improbably, it began with a title. While running bizarre and unconventional sentences through my head, analyzing them for phonetic and metrical beauty (or whatever strikes me as beautiful), I happened upon the phrase "a hundred degrees in my head." I liked it, and my first thought was to use it in a poem. It suggested a lot of things: fevers, obviously, but also uncomfortable buzzing of an overclocked, overstressed brain, or a mind on the cusp of a meltdown. It had that familiar um-DA-da um-DA-da um-DA beat, long associated with some of our culture's finest poetry, and it struck me that I'd never heard anyone say it before, even though it was (I thought) a pretty awesome line.
But before I could think of any accompanying lines, I began wondering, and fantasizing, about what sort of things (apart from spontaneous illness) might make someone's head feel superheated. It struck me that A Hundred Degrees in my Head might make an excellent short story title, and since my record with titles is remarkably dismal, I thought it would be a bad idea to waste this one.
My fantasy immediately sprung into action. Half-thinking, half-mumbling, I assembled the skeleton of a basic plot. I cobbled together disparate snatches of autobiography and furtive melodrama, with an eye to something both fictional and true-to-life. A sequence of progressive vignettes took shape in my mind's eye: a series of misfortunes and disappointments, climaxing in a mental and physical collapse, followed by a slow slide into a jaded paralysis. It was pretty depressing. I liked it.
By the time I was out of the shower (for I'd been there the whole time!), I had practically scored the entire thing to music, having developed grandiose plans to film my newest opus. With a camera and some actors, we could shoot the movie on a modest budget. We would take Sundance by storm. I'd make a million dollars and retire to France, eating all the hot, buttery croissants a million dollars could buy.
I was getting the slightest bit ahead of myself. I decided to stick to what I knew, or thought I knew: the short story form (movie rights can always be negotiated later). But even so, I felt energized. I was genuinely excited by the story. It had potential; it felt honest, expressive, even relevant to today's issues and stuff. I wanted to do a really good job on it. And supposing I did, was it unreasonable to think of finally getting seeking some form of professional publication?
Suddenly, it felt like a hundred degrees in my head.
As it is, I'm still running the story through its paces. Plot details have to be ironed out, characters have to be named. The right tone still has to be set. But I feel really good about it. If its potential holds up, I may try some things I've never tried before. Right now, I've got to focus on getting it off the ground.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Neighbors: A Brief Tale Of Irritation
"Goddammit, I'm working here!" It was two in the morning. He should have been sleeping, but he probably couldn't do any of that, either. Some distractions were simply too profound.
The sound was familiar and unmistakable. He stared at the ceiling for a while, seeing nothing (except the ceiling), but hearing more than he needed; the furtive creaks, the muffled voices, the unaccountable changes in pace and tempo. He could not work, he could only stare. But why stare? Why bother? Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak. Creakcreakcreakcreak...
"Goddammit, got to finish this." The work didn't need to be finished. It wasn't really work: it was strictly voluntary, pro bono, for the good of the people. Just like procreation. And there he went, thinking about procreation at a time like this! He had work to do; he worked harder. What did she look like?
A train sounded in the distance, and that was just ridiculous. He imagined that he could hear drums. He couldn't, but suppose for a moment he could? What the hell were they doing up there? "What the hell are they doing up there?" He knew what they were doing; somehow it just helped to imagine they were doing it in the middle of a massive drum circle. A massive drum circle in their tiny little apartment. Full of hippies taking drugs and eating brownies. Brownies? Special ones. "I'd like some brownies," he thought. Not the special ones, though, because they tasted like shit. Where did the train fit into all of this? Was the train even involved? Of course not, because trains don't fit in apartments. It didn't matter, he couldn't hear the drums anyway. He wished he could.
It was two fifteen. Was she pretty? He focused on his typing. He typed harder. It was almost loud enough. Two twenty. Jesus Christ. The woman said something, and he was irritated at the thought that he couldn't hear it. But why did he care? "I need a drink." There were no drinks to be had. The stores were closing. The bars were far away. He had work to do. The bars were way too far away. He heard some more voices. Why weren't there any drinks in the fridge? What did she say? Wait, how many people were up there?
He kicked the wall and no one heard it. He didn't bother to kick it again. "Now my foot hurts," he said, and he grabbed his foot to show himself he meant it. It didn't hurt for very long. "My foot hurts and it's late and I have work to do. I don't want to do it, but I have to!" He wanted to have to, really badly. What else did he have? Nothing for a sore foot. Nothing at all. Brown hair?
Two thirty. He began browsing Wikipedia; any article would suit him. After a few lines of Flag Day, a sudden realization: the noises had stopped. He looked from side to side, as if there were something to see. He saw nothing. He slowly looked behind his chair; did his roommate hear anything? He scratched his brow and turned his head, ears tuned to maximum attention. Nothing. A voice. Nothing. What did she say? Nothing.
"Thank God," he sighed, "I can get back to work." It wasn't very important. It was only a distraction, a profound distraction. Distractions were unavoidable; at any rate, he couldn't avoid them. No one likes to admit such things, but he had to have been aware; there was nothing in his life except for two in the morning, and "work," and maybe Flag Day. Flag Day was on June 15th, more than half a year away. Did he miss it? "Man, I can't even remember." Was that the day of the barbecue? With the beach and the sand, and the hippies, and all the pretty girls in bikinis? The lithe, nubile, brown-haired girls in the tiny flag bikinis? Was that Flag Day? Did that even happen? He googled it, but he couldn't tell.
Two thirty five, and he heard music. "What?" It was faint music, and he couldn't tell what kind. It could have been opera. It could have been hippies, playing their hippie panpipes. Not their hippie drums, though. It could have been Spanish pop. Music, and then, tentatively, creaking. Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak. "Goddammit."
He couldn't work. It was important, but he couldn't work. "I'll do the rest tomorrow." He went to the living room, where he couldn't hear the creaking, to play some video games. He stared at the television, and the screen was empty. He didn't see a thing. Some distractions were simply too profound.
The sound was familiar and unmistakable. He stared at the ceiling for a while, seeing nothing (except the ceiling), but hearing more than he needed; the furtive creaks, the muffled voices, the unaccountable changes in pace and tempo. He could not work, he could only stare. But why stare? Why bother? Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak. Creakcreakcreakcreak...
"Goddammit, got to finish this." The work didn't need to be finished. It wasn't really work: it was strictly voluntary, pro bono, for the good of the people. Just like procreation. And there he went, thinking about procreation at a time like this! He had work to do; he worked harder. What did she look like?
A train sounded in the distance, and that was just ridiculous. He imagined that he could hear drums. He couldn't, but suppose for a moment he could? What the hell were they doing up there? "What the hell are they doing up there?" He knew what they were doing; somehow it just helped to imagine they were doing it in the middle of a massive drum circle. A massive drum circle in their tiny little apartment. Full of hippies taking drugs and eating brownies. Brownies? Special ones. "I'd like some brownies," he thought. Not the special ones, though, because they tasted like shit. Where did the train fit into all of this? Was the train even involved? Of course not, because trains don't fit in apartments. It didn't matter, he couldn't hear the drums anyway. He wished he could.
It was two fifteen. Was she pretty? He focused on his typing. He typed harder. It was almost loud enough. Two twenty. Jesus Christ. The woman said something, and he was irritated at the thought that he couldn't hear it. But why did he care? "I need a drink." There were no drinks to be had. The stores were closing. The bars were far away. He had work to do. The bars were way too far away. He heard some more voices. Why weren't there any drinks in the fridge? What did she say? Wait, how many people were up there?
He kicked the wall and no one heard it. He didn't bother to kick it again. "Now my foot hurts," he said, and he grabbed his foot to show himself he meant it. It didn't hurt for very long. "My foot hurts and it's late and I have work to do. I don't want to do it, but I have to!" He wanted to have to, really badly. What else did he have? Nothing for a sore foot. Nothing at all. Brown hair?
Two thirty. He began browsing Wikipedia; any article would suit him. After a few lines of Flag Day, a sudden realization: the noises had stopped. He looked from side to side, as if there were something to see. He saw nothing. He slowly looked behind his chair; did his roommate hear anything? He scratched his brow and turned his head, ears tuned to maximum attention. Nothing. A voice. Nothing. What did she say? Nothing.
"Thank God," he sighed, "I can get back to work." It wasn't very important. It was only a distraction, a profound distraction. Distractions were unavoidable; at any rate, he couldn't avoid them. No one likes to admit such things, but he had to have been aware; there was nothing in his life except for two in the morning, and "work," and maybe Flag Day. Flag Day was on June 15th, more than half a year away. Did he miss it? "Man, I can't even remember." Was that the day of the barbecue? With the beach and the sand, and the hippies, and all the pretty girls in bikinis? The lithe, nubile, brown-haired girls in the tiny flag bikinis? Was that Flag Day? Did that even happen? He googled it, but he couldn't tell.
Two thirty five, and he heard music. "What?" It was faint music, and he couldn't tell what kind. It could have been opera. It could have been hippies, playing their hippie panpipes. Not their hippie drums, though. It could have been Spanish pop. Music, and then, tentatively, creaking. Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak. "Goddammit."
He couldn't work. It was important, but he couldn't work. "I'll do the rest tomorrow." He went to the living room, where he couldn't hear the creaking, to play some video games. He stared at the television, and the screen was empty. He didn't see a thing. Some distractions were simply too profound.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Smile Sessions
In 1967, the Beach Boys narrowly missed out on the opportunity to become the boldest, most avant garde act in the history of pop music. Fully explaining why they missed that opportunity would take pages upon pages; it's a long and involved tale of contractual problems, drug abuse, mental illness, and personal conflicts between members of the band. However, the opportunity certainly existed. The previous year, the band had begun work on an album that almost certainly would have produced an impact to rival Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, months before that album was even due for release. Brian Wilson, the band's leader and principal composer, was bound and determined to shock the world with his sound. Forty four years later, the fruits of those labors have now been commercially released, and their psychedelic sound can still startle.
The album, Smile, didn't come out in 1967, because it was not finished. In 2004 Brian Wilson finally settled on a running order, and enlisted his collaborator (songwriter Van Dyke Parks) to write new lyrics for tracks which still had none. With a new band he rerecorded everything from the ground up, producing a very successful album that, nevertheless, wasn't really Smile. Now, the Beach Boys have finally released The Smile Sessions, a collection of the most complete and most intriguing music recorded from the time. But that isn't really Smile, either. It's Smile with an asterisk, or a grade of "incomplete," in more or less the state in which it was abandoned all those years ago.
None of this should detract from the beauty of the music, which has been newly remastered. The album's key tracks (Heroes and Villains, Cabinessence, Wonderful, Surf's Up, Vega-Tables, and Good Vibrations) sound excellent, and are as near to "complete" as one could ever ask. Secondary tracks such as Do You Like Worms? and I Love to Say Dada don't carry the same impact without the lyrics added for the 2004 version, but their relative completeness is remarkable. Painfully, you can see how, with another month or two and a clear plan of attack, Smile probably could have been finished in time to really make its mark. It wasn't, so this (generously expansive) collection will have to do.
The sound of Smile, or at least The Smile Sessions, is defined by its eclecticism. Many songs are defined by baroque instruments like pianos, horns and harpsichords, but heavily distorted electric guitars make appearances at surprising turns. Melodic, dynamic bass lines enhance the arrangements, and in some places even try to dominate the mix. Of course the truly dominant sound is of the Beach Boys' unparalleled singing; except when it isn't, and the Sessions present us with long stretches where the words were either never written, or simply never laid down on tape. Thanks to the 2004 album, we now have lyrics to go along with them, but the fact that they were written so late (who knows what the words might have been in the 60s?) helps to preserve a bit of the mystery from long ago.
Smile, as originally conceived, was completely unlike anything ever attempted in the world of rock and pop. It was meant to be constructed like a puzzle; songs would be built from small, separately recorded pieces which could be stitched together to form larger compositions. Pieces of those compositions could then be used to sew the songs together, allowing them to flow with few to no breaks between tracks. The songs themselves were also unique; the bulk of it was new work with highly abstract lyrics by Parks, but mixed in among them were excerpts from classic 40's and 50's pop tunes (Gee, You Are My Sunshine, I Wanna be Around). Put together, Smile was supposed to be serious, humorous, spiritual and spontaneous: more or less, everything at once.
Pieces of the puzzle have always been available for those willing to explore the Beach Boy's 1970s albums, as well as the tapes spread by the noble bootleggers who've kept the legend alive. Now that they've been assembled, it's easier to see the scope of Brian Wilson's ambition, and it helps to take the edge off of mourning for the greatest album that never was. It isn't everything at once, but it is definitely something special.
Embedded amongst the outtakes and alternate versions are tracks that, while properly belonging to Smile, weren't integrated into the 2004 version. The merits of songs like He Gives Speeches may be debatable, but it's obscure ephemera like that that make Smile special, and add to the value of the Sessions. The main event, however, remains the core tracks. They are among the very best work the Beach Boys, or any band of their era, ever recorded, and it's wonderful to see them finally enshrined in their discography where they belong.
The album, Smile, didn't come out in 1967, because it was not finished. In 2004 Brian Wilson finally settled on a running order, and enlisted his collaborator (songwriter Van Dyke Parks) to write new lyrics for tracks which still had none. With a new band he rerecorded everything from the ground up, producing a very successful album that, nevertheless, wasn't really Smile. Now, the Beach Boys have finally released The Smile Sessions, a collection of the most complete and most intriguing music recorded from the time. But that isn't really Smile, either. It's Smile with an asterisk, or a grade of "incomplete," in more or less the state in which it was abandoned all those years ago.
None of this should detract from the beauty of the music, which has been newly remastered. The album's key tracks (Heroes and Villains, Cabinessence, Wonderful, Surf's Up, Vega-Tables, and Good Vibrations) sound excellent, and are as near to "complete" as one could ever ask. Secondary tracks such as Do You Like Worms? and I Love to Say Dada don't carry the same impact without the lyrics added for the 2004 version, but their relative completeness is remarkable. Painfully, you can see how, with another month or two and a clear plan of attack, Smile probably could have been finished in time to really make its mark. It wasn't, so this (generously expansive) collection will have to do.
The sound of Smile, or at least The Smile Sessions, is defined by its eclecticism. Many songs are defined by baroque instruments like pianos, horns and harpsichords, but heavily distorted electric guitars make appearances at surprising turns. Melodic, dynamic bass lines enhance the arrangements, and in some places even try to dominate the mix. Of course the truly dominant sound is of the Beach Boys' unparalleled singing; except when it isn't, and the Sessions present us with long stretches where the words were either never written, or simply never laid down on tape. Thanks to the 2004 album, we now have lyrics to go along with them, but the fact that they were written so late (who knows what the words might have been in the 60s?) helps to preserve a bit of the mystery from long ago.
Smile, as originally conceived, was completely unlike anything ever attempted in the world of rock and pop. It was meant to be constructed like a puzzle; songs would be built from small, separately recorded pieces which could be stitched together to form larger compositions. Pieces of those compositions could then be used to sew the songs together, allowing them to flow with few to no breaks between tracks. The songs themselves were also unique; the bulk of it was new work with highly abstract lyrics by Parks, but mixed in among them were excerpts from classic 40's and 50's pop tunes (Gee, You Are My Sunshine, I Wanna be Around). Put together, Smile was supposed to be serious, humorous, spiritual and spontaneous: more or less, everything at once.
Pieces of the puzzle have always been available for those willing to explore the Beach Boy's 1970s albums, as well as the tapes spread by the noble bootleggers who've kept the legend alive. Now that they've been assembled, it's easier to see the scope of Brian Wilson's ambition, and it helps to take the edge off of mourning for the greatest album that never was. It isn't everything at once, but it is definitely something special.
Embedded amongst the outtakes and alternate versions are tracks that, while properly belonging to Smile, weren't integrated into the 2004 version. The merits of songs like He Gives Speeches may be debatable, but it's obscure ephemera like that that make Smile special, and add to the value of the Sessions. The main event, however, remains the core tracks. They are among the very best work the Beach Boys, or any band of their era, ever recorded, and it's wonderful to see them finally enshrined in their discography where they belong.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Insanity Calls the Bells of Halloween
In honor of Hallowe'en and all of the spirits purportedly rising from their graves, I've written a thematically appropriate poem. It's sort of like a zombie apocalypse, but because zombies aren't really as interesting as everyone thinks they are, I've replaced them with knife-wielding ghosts, driven to madness and murder by the sound of bells on All Hallows Eve. I hope you enjoy!
You say you don't believe in magic spells;
But something's cast and something fell has come
To ring that iron bell. And now it's ringing
So I tell you, playing dead won't end
This hell; just pick yourself up off the ground
And stand alert: you'll know them by their smell.
The iron breaks and tremors shake the walls,
And horrors from the earth are crawling from
Forgotten graves. They sprawl across the city
Streets and call for allies, reinforcements;
All our homes will swarm with evil shapes
and shadows, seizing lives within their halls.
And soon the shades will set about their work;
They start in stages, first by lurking, then
Emerging from the murk to claim their prey.
They go berserk with ghastly rage and sharply
Jerk their frightened victims from their homes,
To menace them with cruel knives and dirks.
Until the night is through we'll be at war;
I fear the bells won't stop before they tear
Our fences down and bore their terrors in
Our skulls! The score is grim: the revenants
Abhor us, their insanity will break
Our flimsy gates and batter down our doors.
You say you don't believe in magic spells;
But something's cast and something fell has come
To ring that iron bell. And now it's ringing
So I tell you, playing dead won't end
This hell; just pick yourself up off the ground
And stand alert: you'll know them by their smell.
The iron breaks and tremors shake the walls,
And horrors from the earth are crawling from
Forgotten graves. They sprawl across the city
Streets and call for allies, reinforcements;
All our homes will swarm with evil shapes
and shadows, seizing lives within their halls.
And soon the shades will set about their work;
They start in stages, first by lurking, then
Emerging from the murk to claim their prey.
They go berserk with ghastly rage and sharply
Jerk their frightened victims from their homes,
To menace them with cruel knives and dirks.
Until the night is through we'll be at war;
I fear the bells won't stop before they tear
Our fences down and bore their terrors in
Our skulls! The score is grim: the revenants
Abhor us, their insanity will break
Our flimsy gates and batter down our doors.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)