Friday, April 30, 2004
Batting Around
I am tired of not writing, and since it's finally Springing, I've decided to keep a live BLOG entry going while I'm on duty this weekend. I hope to be able to record some of the various stresses and joys from recent times, as well as some of the new ideas or concepts I've been pondering.
Current video game of addiction: Konami's Winning Eleven 7, simply the best transposition of the game of soccer into gaming format EVER. It's only fun to play with the boarding students, though, particularly Jib and Steve. Daniel will occasionally play, but he's younger and not as collected as some of the others; he takes wild shots and plays without grace. Steve in particular knows the players and tries to build beautiful attacks. Jib loves Argentina (and old Michael Jackson -- does the moonwalk whene he scores) and attacker Crespo. We play most nights afters study hall.
Current sport: Varsity softball co-coach...The girls this year are unstable. A certain clique of junior ballplayers is controlled by moods and dominant personalities. It's been difficult keeping everyone motivated to even practice, but on gamedays, somehow they show up. Everyone shows up. It's satisfying to coach a game when good things happen. Granted, we have errors and walks followed by walks, but we swing the bat and make manic runs around the bases. For the last week and a half, morale has been from neutral (which I'll take) to electric (like all the straggling parts of our lineup making contact and playing the game with intelligence). The weather has also been direly linked to attitudes, all school year. Now that warm winds have come, and sun, there are smiles (or at least less disrespect). The team scrimmaged with the varsity baseball boys this afternoon. I really love the sport right now. The school's cable package now includes the YES Network. There's nothing like a beer and the Yankees on television as relaxants after a day of work. It's also healthy to me to be playing: the simple acts of throw and catch are like a constantly settling music. It was in college, playing intermural softball in the afternoons, when I first regretted not playing more while growing up. I didnt' have the confidence or coordination, I suppose, and I don't know how I have even the small amounts I have now.
Music: The assignment now is to start to cull songs for the engagement party/wedding. We don't have "a song," yet we have many songs. I've probably been pre-arranging the soundtrack to my wedding for ten years without knowing it. It's certainly not a day exclusively for music -- I'll probably be rapt in the experience to hear it -- but it's a liminal event, and one that draws in all these points of human contact I've plotted over the various stages of my life (ah, Miles Davis "Moon Dreams" is a taker) and concentrates them in one room for an afternoon and an evening. Our union, like a venn diagram, has this profound ego-gravity (I'm straying back into 8 1/2 territory again, now). It's a party at which we are the foci; all relationships present site us as pure origin. I am very much casting my own fantasy-party, and in this onanistic planning phase, music is an important dressing. I'm torn between the domineering voice of taste in my head and the contrary voice of modesty and guilt for subjecting others to my own notions and judgments -- the same whince I've been gutting since I dared to break with my friends one high school night and not see the third Batman movie in the local mall theater. Do I want "The Electric Slide" at my wedding? No, but do my guests? Amanda? No. I know her. But we both want to accomodate all the electric sliders, those for whom "it's getting hot-in-here", the "oh what a nighters", those paradisical by the dashboard light, and other pilgrims of wedding reception staples. Will there be alcohol sufficient enough to get people shaking to R.E.M., Miles Davis, the Pixies, the Smiths, They Might be Giants, Travis, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie (well...), the Slackers, Wilco...? Yes, there will be, but will they dance? Does Radiohead really fit the mood of the day? Probably not: "Let down and hanging around/ Crushed like a bug in the ground" (although, "You had to ruin it for all concerned/ In a drunken punchup..." hee hee). At base, the music has to suggest either earnest love or a call to bust out the moves (or both, like "Rumpshaker"). It will be a set list that caters but caters with quality and originality. I think it's accurate to call that a defining credo for Amanda and I in general.
It's twelve-twenty AM and I just finished losing two out of three games of Winning Eleven to Steve. His use of the attacking German squad is deft, although impetuously earning two red cards for harsh tackling didn't help my cause (it became Losing Nine for me). The rest of the boarders went on a Midnight Rock and Bowl trip at the local Smithtown lanes, and I'm awaiting for them ("I got a broken faaace, uh huh uh huh") to return so we can all go to sleep in the brick dorm we call dorm.
Earlier, two senior students came over wanting to watch all of Apocalypse Now, and we ordered pizza. Each time since Jon and I first watched it in the sound-proof den his father built about four years ago, I come to some new clarity. Actually, the opacity began when I chose to read Heart of Darkness during the summer before senior year of high school, mostly at on the benches and among the sordid bathers of the William J. Flynn Memorial swimming pool. For such an "inconclusive" narrative, it has tremendous metaphorical weight. If exact meaning is still foggy to me, at least I have increased my resolution/comprehension of that fog and its importance. We're just starting to tease Conrad's novel apart in English IV, and so I'm all guiqued up about Civilization vs. the Primative, Jungian archetypes, and eager to break into Eliot. Maybe I should stop reading as many new books, and just reread those I've glimpsed genius in but never quite fastened my intellect around.
It's a death-rebirth cycle, each school year teaching British Literature. The Spring trimester (birthing process?) arrives with Blake and the Romantic poets in all their revolutionary and wanton spirit, soon giving way to the mechanics of modernity. Add industry and shifting cultural centers, and we arrive at Wilde, Conrad, and Eliot, the death of civilization during the season of rebirth. The summer is a dormant period, followed by the resurrecting ritual of reading Beowulf, the epic poem that IMMORTALIZES its ideal hero. And on to the Green Knight, riding around with his severed head in his grip, regenerating. The kids grow thicker and more disillusioned as they enter senior year, but also more mature in ways.
Hair: I haven't cut my hair since November; I must be very "toothy," right Flynn?
Books: Re-reading HofD, as mentioned above, but also just finished Romeo and Juliet with freshmen, the most satisfying encounter I've had with the play. This year's boss freshmen made it so. Otherwise, I'm still finishing up all of Flannery O'Connor (specifically Wise Blood); she's easily now part of my personal canon. Ridiculous stuff, punchy but mythic, and damn wickedly funny. Read The Glass Menagerie, am also reading a Thurber collection I borrowed from the old school library.
poems: can't seem to write any.
I am tired of not writing, and since it's finally Springing, I've decided to keep a live BLOG entry going while I'm on duty this weekend. I hope to be able to record some of the various stresses and joys from recent times, as well as some of the new ideas or concepts I've been pondering.
Current video game of addiction: Konami's Winning Eleven 7, simply the best transposition of the game of soccer into gaming format EVER. It's only fun to play with the boarding students, though, particularly Jib and Steve. Daniel will occasionally play, but he's younger and not as collected as some of the others; he takes wild shots and plays without grace. Steve in particular knows the players and tries to build beautiful attacks. Jib loves Argentina (and old Michael Jackson -- does the moonwalk whene he scores) and attacker Crespo. We play most nights afters study hall.
Current sport: Varsity softball co-coach...The girls this year are unstable. A certain clique of junior ballplayers is controlled by moods and dominant personalities. It's been difficult keeping everyone motivated to even practice, but on gamedays, somehow they show up. Everyone shows up. It's satisfying to coach a game when good things happen. Granted, we have errors and walks followed by walks, but we swing the bat and make manic runs around the bases. For the last week and a half, morale has been from neutral (which I'll take) to electric (like all the straggling parts of our lineup making contact and playing the game with intelligence). The weather has also been direly linked to attitudes, all school year. Now that warm winds have come, and sun, there are smiles (or at least less disrespect). The team scrimmaged with the varsity baseball boys this afternoon. I really love the sport right now. The school's cable package now includes the YES Network. There's nothing like a beer and the Yankees on television as relaxants after a day of work. It's also healthy to me to be playing: the simple acts of throw and catch are like a constantly settling music. It was in college, playing intermural softball in the afternoons, when I first regretted not playing more while growing up. I didnt' have the confidence or coordination, I suppose, and I don't know how I have even the small amounts I have now.
Music: The assignment now is to start to cull songs for the engagement party/wedding. We don't have "a song," yet we have many songs. I've probably been pre-arranging the soundtrack to my wedding for ten years without knowing it. It's certainly not a day exclusively for music -- I'll probably be rapt in the experience to hear it -- but it's a liminal event, and one that draws in all these points of human contact I've plotted over the various stages of my life (ah, Miles Davis "Moon Dreams" is a taker) and concentrates them in one room for an afternoon and an evening. Our union, like a venn diagram, has this profound ego-gravity (I'm straying back into 8 1/2 territory again, now). It's a party at which we are the foci; all relationships present site us as pure origin. I am very much casting my own fantasy-party, and in this onanistic planning phase, music is an important dressing. I'm torn between the domineering voice of taste in my head and the contrary voice of modesty and guilt for subjecting others to my own notions and judgments -- the same whince I've been gutting since I dared to break with my friends one high school night and not see the third Batman movie in the local mall theater. Do I want "The Electric Slide" at my wedding? No, but do my guests? Amanda? No. I know her. But we both want to accomodate all the electric sliders, those for whom "it's getting hot-in-here", the "oh what a nighters", those paradisical by the dashboard light, and other pilgrims of wedding reception staples. Will there be alcohol sufficient enough to get people shaking to R.E.M., Miles Davis, the Pixies, the Smiths, They Might be Giants, Travis, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie (well...), the Slackers, Wilco...? Yes, there will be, but will they dance? Does Radiohead really fit the mood of the day? Probably not: "Let down and hanging around/ Crushed like a bug in the ground" (although, "You had to ruin it for all concerned/ In a drunken punchup..." hee hee). At base, the music has to suggest either earnest love or a call to bust out the moves (or both, like "Rumpshaker"). It will be a set list that caters but caters with quality and originality. I think it's accurate to call that a defining credo for Amanda and I in general.
It's twelve-twenty AM and I just finished losing two out of three games of Winning Eleven to Steve. His use of the attacking German squad is deft, although impetuously earning two red cards for harsh tackling didn't help my cause (it became Losing Nine for me). The rest of the boarders went on a Midnight Rock and Bowl trip at the local Smithtown lanes, and I'm awaiting for them ("I got a broken faaace, uh huh uh huh") to return so we can all go to sleep in the brick dorm we call dorm.
Earlier, two senior students came over wanting to watch all of Apocalypse Now, and we ordered pizza. Each time since Jon and I first watched it in the sound-proof den his father built about four years ago, I come to some new clarity. Actually, the opacity began when I chose to read Heart of Darkness during the summer before senior year of high school, mostly at on the benches and among the sordid bathers of the William J. Flynn Memorial swimming pool. For such an "inconclusive" narrative, it has tremendous metaphorical weight. If exact meaning is still foggy to me, at least I have increased my resolution/comprehension of that fog and its importance. We're just starting to tease Conrad's novel apart in English IV, and so I'm all guiqued up about Civilization vs. the Primative, Jungian archetypes, and eager to break into Eliot. Maybe I should stop reading as many new books, and just reread those I've glimpsed genius in but never quite fastened my intellect around.
It's a death-rebirth cycle, each school year teaching British Literature. The Spring trimester (birthing process?) arrives with Blake and the Romantic poets in all their revolutionary and wanton spirit, soon giving way to the mechanics of modernity. Add industry and shifting cultural centers, and we arrive at Wilde, Conrad, and Eliot, the death of civilization during the season of rebirth. The summer is a dormant period, followed by the resurrecting ritual of reading Beowulf, the epic poem that IMMORTALIZES its ideal hero. And on to the Green Knight, riding around with his severed head in his grip, regenerating. The kids grow thicker and more disillusioned as they enter senior year, but also more mature in ways.
Hair: I haven't cut my hair since November; I must be very "toothy," right Flynn?
Books: Re-reading HofD, as mentioned above, but also just finished Romeo and Juliet with freshmen, the most satisfying encounter I've had with the play. This year's boss freshmen made it so. Otherwise, I'm still finishing up all of Flannery O'Connor (specifically Wise Blood); she's easily now part of my personal canon. Ridiculous stuff, punchy but mythic, and damn wickedly funny. Read The Glass Menagerie, am also reading a Thurber collection I borrowed from the old school library.
poems: can't seem to write any.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
It's Always Better on Holiday
Three-day weekend!!!...is over. And while I should be finishing up with the grading of a series of Freshman directorial interpretations of a scene from Romeo and Juliet, I am instead reviewing another corner of our current pop-cultural backpack:
While the retro term post-punk and the contemporary would-be term “dance-punk” have been thrown about reviews of the debut s/t EP from Glasgow rockers Franz Ferdinand like so many lit matchbooks at a powder keg (prompting comparisons to Joy Division and Wire as often as newcomers Interpol and Hot Hot Heat), a more profane pedigree places the groups posture and sound closer to a mixture of T-Rex and Right Said Fred. It’s Scottish-disco-punk.
Something about the mock-earnest-mock passion in lead singer Alex Kapranos’s tenor as he observes, in the dance-inviting track “Michael,” “Beautiful boys on a beautiful dance floor/ Michael you’re dancing like a beautiful dance-whore,” and proceeds to beg, “I’m all that you’ll see[be], you’ll ever see so come and dance with me, Michael” conjurs images of buff Germans in skintight tee-shirts strutting. It’s about as subtle as “It’s Raining Men” but with more conscious camp.
But these buff Germans are actually slinky Scots, fooker, and their agenda involves an old book of goofy steps and the moving-of-their-audience-to-dance-them. With tracks like the aforementioned “Michael,” and others titled “This Fire” and the first single “Take Me Out,” Franz Ferdinand does not advocate dwelling in your sadness or in your parent’s basement; they are fighting the good fight against bad emo (or just emo) — C’mon, Chet, trade in those spectacles and frowns for contact lenses and a black silk button-down.
“Take Me Out” (an obvious choice for a flagship) initially threatens to thrash until the tempo eases down into a decadent game of bouncing beats. It is as if the band wants to lure unsuspecting head-bangers into their otherwise groove-digging fold. Or, it could be that Franz Ferdinand does not want to sift their rawk from their dance-pop, even if the majority of the tracks on this album will sooner get your arms wrapped around a new strange lover than get your eye-socket smacked by some nut’s flailing bald head. The next track, equally strong, follows like wandering into the club’s secret VIP dancefloor. “The Dark of the Matinee” is a ponderous character study. Its narrator seems to be an unscrupulous but successful personality, as he boasts from the darkness “…the boys I hate/ all the girls I hate/ all the words I hate/ all the clothes I hate/ how I’ll never be anything I hate.”
Another highlight, “Darts of Pleasure” contains Franz Ferdinand at their debaucherous best: “You can feel my lips undress your eyes/ undress your eyes undress your eyes/ words of love and words so leisured/ Words are poison darts of pleasure/ Die and so you die.” It’s as if in their lyrics, they are aware of the ugliness inherent in a life of wild times but don’t care about the damage. Subtle un-cliches like “undress your eyes” and “words so leisured” are testament to the band’s inventiveness and refusal to be ordinary.
Bob Hardy (bass) and Paul Thomson (drumming) establish a steady but aggressive strain of the boggie-bounce, making Franz Ferdinand’s rhythm section a pronounced character in their tragic dance-comedy. Nick McCarthy’s guitars get near Mick-Jonesish on many tracks, but his riffs could have appeared in any spy/surf film soundtrack from the 1950s (Agent for H.A.R.M. anyone?). Haunting but hokey synths add just a touch of sci-fi glamor.
In their attitude and in their raucous approach to creating dancy-party music, the band’s spiritual progenitor is the Berlin manifestation of David Bowie (particularly Station to Station), sans his wicked eclecticism and less the influence of Brian Eno. All name-dropping aside, Franz Ferdinand is something new and worthy of your stereo system the next time you’re entertaining guests who just might bust out the moves all over your den or perhaps on your tables and coaches. “Ich heisse super fantastische!”
Three-day weekend!!!...is over. And while I should be finishing up with the grading of a series of Freshman directorial interpretations of a scene from Romeo and Juliet, I am instead reviewing another corner of our current pop-cultural backpack:
While the retro term post-punk and the contemporary would-be term “dance-punk” have been thrown about reviews of the debut s/t EP from Glasgow rockers Franz Ferdinand like so many lit matchbooks at a powder keg (prompting comparisons to Joy Division and Wire as often as newcomers Interpol and Hot Hot Heat), a more profane pedigree places the groups posture and sound closer to a mixture of T-Rex and Right Said Fred. It’s Scottish-disco-punk.
Something about the mock-earnest-mock passion in lead singer Alex Kapranos’s tenor as he observes, in the dance-inviting track “Michael,” “Beautiful boys on a beautiful dance floor/ Michael you’re dancing like a beautiful dance-whore,” and proceeds to beg, “I’m all that you’ll see[be], you’ll ever see so come and dance with me, Michael” conjurs images of buff Germans in skintight tee-shirts strutting. It’s about as subtle as “It’s Raining Men” but with more conscious camp.
But these buff Germans are actually slinky Scots, fooker, and their agenda involves an old book of goofy steps and the moving-of-their-audience-to-dance-them. With tracks like the aforementioned “Michael,” and others titled “This Fire” and the first single “Take Me Out,” Franz Ferdinand does not advocate dwelling in your sadness or in your parent’s basement; they are fighting the good fight against bad emo (or just emo) — C’mon, Chet, trade in those spectacles and frowns for contact lenses and a black silk button-down.
“Take Me Out” (an obvious choice for a flagship) initially threatens to thrash until the tempo eases down into a decadent game of bouncing beats. It is as if the band wants to lure unsuspecting head-bangers into their otherwise groove-digging fold. Or, it could be that Franz Ferdinand does not want to sift their rawk from their dance-pop, even if the majority of the tracks on this album will sooner get your arms wrapped around a new strange lover than get your eye-socket smacked by some nut’s flailing bald head. The next track, equally strong, follows like wandering into the club’s secret VIP dancefloor. “The Dark of the Matinee” is a ponderous character study. Its narrator seems to be an unscrupulous but successful personality, as he boasts from the darkness “…the boys I hate/ all the girls I hate/ all the words I hate/ all the clothes I hate/ how I’ll never be anything I hate.”
Another highlight, “Darts of Pleasure” contains Franz Ferdinand at their debaucherous best: “You can feel my lips undress your eyes/ undress your eyes undress your eyes/ words of love and words so leisured/ Words are poison darts of pleasure/ Die and so you die.” It’s as if in their lyrics, they are aware of the ugliness inherent in a life of wild times but don’t care about the damage. Subtle un-cliches like “undress your eyes” and “words so leisured” are testament to the band’s inventiveness and refusal to be ordinary.
Bob Hardy (bass) and Paul Thomson (drumming) establish a steady but aggressive strain of the boggie-bounce, making Franz Ferdinand’s rhythm section a pronounced character in their tragic dance-comedy. Nick McCarthy’s guitars get near Mick-Jonesish on many tracks, but his riffs could have appeared in any spy/surf film soundtrack from the 1950s (Agent for H.A.R.M. anyone?). Haunting but hokey synths add just a touch of sci-fi glamor.
In their attitude and in their raucous approach to creating dancy-party music, the band’s spiritual progenitor is the Berlin manifestation of David Bowie (particularly Station to Station), sans his wicked eclecticism and less the influence of Brian Eno. All name-dropping aside, Franz Ferdinand is something new and worthy of your stereo system the next time you’re entertaining guests who just might bust out the moves all over your den or perhaps on your tables and coaches. “Ich heisse super fantastische!”
