Friday, June 13, 2003
Tennesse...Teh-Tennesse:
My eyes have seen the South again, and heard her people's amazement at my Northified wonders such as "shorts that go past the knee" (actual quote).
Erin was both fly and gracious as a host, welcoming me into her Nash-swank appartment and into her communal swimming pool, as well. Mint cokes, homemade shepard's pie & biscuits, Godard movies, and jazz abounded during my three day stay.
Out in the actual Nashvillian expanse, we tasted its wonders: burgers at Rotier's, the platonic FORM of pancakes at Pancake Pantry (take me back!), ribs and drowned chocolate cake at Blackstones, microbrewed beer everywhere. Food.
We also attended a free Hail to the Thief party on the eve of its release/my birthday (now I'm 23) at this great independent theater called The Bellcourt. Plenty of hipsters crawled out of their bohemian woodworks, eager to feed on the magnified Radiohead buzz, and pleasant times were had...well at least until they screened Meeting People is Easy during which we all became existential balls of despair. The most fascinating part of this evening was before the documentary, they were playing the new album over the theater PA and simultaneously screening what appeared to be a crude but effective sillhoutte-animation silent adventure film depicting sultans, princes, and flying horse machines, and other Arabian Nights-ish happenings, but all in Gernam intertitles (with english subtitles). Of course, Erin and I were bugged out, but also entranced. Was this an attempt/homage at the cultish Pink Floyd/The Wizard of Oz synchronicity?
Research reveals the film to be a 1926 German feature, often cited as one of the first feature length animated films, or something, and its title is Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, or The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Eerily, several of the film's sequences work in a dialectic with songs from the album, most noteably when the images where Achmed uses his flying horse to escape a sex-crazed harem, and climbs high into the night air are paired to the delicate minor crooning of "Sail to the Moon." Affective. In addition, seeing as how at one point Achmed's love interest, Peri Banu, had been kidnapped and about to be forced to marry someone hideous else, and Achmed on the way to kick some ass, "A Punch-up at at Wedding" was about to seem rock-em sock-em appropriate. Unfortunately they pulled the plug on both the music and film to start "the actual ceremony." Erin and I both silently, but resolutely, disapproved.
And then Thursday, the crazy thousand-mile car-trek back to The Island. It really wasn't that crazy, but it was long. I'm surprised I only started schitzing out toward the end, and only when the rain-fog glare started to make exits and other strange turns dangerous, and then there was the I-95 detour that almost took me through Harlem. But I avoided wrong turns, which astonished me given my mental state at 1:15 AM and having been driving since noon. Seven states where passed through over 14.5 hours, so my average speed was 68 mph. (In Tennesee and W. Virginia, the speed limit is 70!!). Incredibly, my odometer indicates that the journey, including all pit stops, was 998 miles from the Pancake Pantry to the School gates. Yes, Erin, this prompted thoughts of The Proclaimers and made me miss you even more. insert pouty sad face here.
Thanks to Flynn, who helped me overcome the first onset of exhaustion and psychological fatigue by calling and carrying on a good 25 minute conversation, during which I covered muchos de tierra like a silver breeze. It helped that I had four new MasterCraft tires put on in Nashville on accout of some strange noise The Hyundai was making (and still is, but hey I needed new tires anyway, the old ones were passed done). As Flynn commented, it must be like "driving on a baby's butt." Indeed.
Thanks, again. Nashvegas rocked me.
My eyes have seen the South again, and heard her people's amazement at my Northified wonders such as "shorts that go past the knee" (actual quote).
Erin was both fly and gracious as a host, welcoming me into her Nash-swank appartment and into her communal swimming pool, as well. Mint cokes, homemade shepard's pie & biscuits, Godard movies, and jazz abounded during my three day stay.
Out in the actual Nashvillian expanse, we tasted its wonders: burgers at Rotier's, the platonic FORM of pancakes at Pancake Pantry (take me back!), ribs and drowned chocolate cake at Blackstones, microbrewed beer everywhere. Food.
We also attended a free Hail to the Thief party on the eve of its release/my birthday (now I'm 23) at this great independent theater called The Bellcourt. Plenty of hipsters crawled out of their bohemian woodworks, eager to feed on the magnified Radiohead buzz, and pleasant times were had...well at least until they screened Meeting People is Easy during which we all became existential balls of despair. The most fascinating part of this evening was before the documentary, they were playing the new album over the theater PA and simultaneously screening what appeared to be a crude but effective sillhoutte-animation silent adventure film depicting sultans, princes, and flying horse machines, and other Arabian Nights-ish happenings, but all in Gernam intertitles (with english subtitles). Of course, Erin and I were bugged out, but also entranced. Was this an attempt/homage at the cultish Pink Floyd/The Wizard of Oz synchronicity?
Research reveals the film to be a 1926 German feature, often cited as one of the first feature length animated films, or something, and its title is Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, or The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Eerily, several of the film's sequences work in a dialectic with songs from the album, most noteably when the images where Achmed uses his flying horse to escape a sex-crazed harem, and climbs high into the night air are paired to the delicate minor crooning of "Sail to the Moon." Affective. In addition, seeing as how at one point Achmed's love interest, Peri Banu, had been kidnapped and about to be forced to marry someone hideous else, and Achmed on the way to kick some ass, "A Punch-up at at Wedding" was about to seem rock-em sock-em appropriate. Unfortunately they pulled the plug on both the music and film to start "the actual ceremony." Erin and I both silently, but resolutely, disapproved.
And then Thursday, the crazy thousand-mile car-trek back to The Island. It really wasn't that crazy, but it was long. I'm surprised I only started schitzing out toward the end, and only when the rain-fog glare started to make exits and other strange turns dangerous, and then there was the I-95 detour that almost took me through Harlem. But I avoided wrong turns, which astonished me given my mental state at 1:15 AM and having been driving since noon. Seven states where passed through over 14.5 hours, so my average speed was 68 mph. (In Tennesee and W. Virginia, the speed limit is 70!!). Incredibly, my odometer indicates that the journey, including all pit stops, was 998 miles from the Pancake Pantry to the School gates. Yes, Erin, this prompted thoughts of The Proclaimers and made me miss you even more. insert pouty sad face here.
Thanks to Flynn, who helped me overcome the first onset of exhaustion and psychological fatigue by calling and carrying on a good 25 minute conversation, during which I covered muchos de tierra like a silver breeze. It helped that I had four new MasterCraft tires put on in Nashville on accout of some strange noise The Hyundai was making (and still is, but hey I needed new tires anyway, the old ones were passed done). As Flynn commented, it must be like "driving on a baby's butt." Indeed.
Thanks, again. Nashvegas rocked me.
