argentina

(More or less)

dreaming of salt.

Forever is a long long time when you've lost your way.

before my brain floods again, after writing all i know in my last test, this afternoon is the only time right after the end of finals and right before i start my new job tomorrow early in the morning. i have today and right now to swim into this. only today to lose my perspective of history, stream-conscious the fuck out of this. the cancellation of void spaces. simple lists, the murmur of language says barthes, is all the same. what matter is that there is a birth of the author that comes along with the text, it is this precisely that gives it sense. just do a list now that you cant think of anything else. a list and a picture of you, biting your lips, kitchen ponderings. i like over sized sweaters in the winter, and the way a face looks right when they wake up, and sleep parked outside eyelids. i think of you like this. i try to explain Phoenix to a girl who has never heard of them before. how, how do you describe them? besides, you know, the feeling that it suscites in you, the tapping of feet, the dancing. it is drunkenness before it gets messy, the wind when the car is going fast fast fast and it is not cold enough for you to wear coats yet. The Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix album is turning out to be one of my favorite albums of the year (Rome, Fences, Girlfriend.) we listened to it the other day, three of us making dinner on a Thursday night, pasta with pieces of beef jerky, (i tried beef jerky for the very first time! it is not that awesome! but this one had bacon!) i don't cook much. I don't cook at all, to be honest. but let me tell you something. i love doing the dishes. it is the strangest thing. (this is my confession. I like, no, love doing the dishes. I like the warm water and the humming of songs. The hands covered in soap and a vague tangy scent of cleanliness.) this semester has gone by so fast. i will take with me the late night group study sessions and everyone with hundreds of papers spread all over the living room floor and the moment when no one cant, for the life of them, analyze anything meta-linguistic anymore and we go into strange subjects and think about the future, when none of this will matter as much. i like all of the random memories we accumulate from classes. the coffee vending machine for a dollar, the best coffee you'll ever drink, your fingers around the hot plastic cup when still daydreaming and listening to your professor recite excerpts of golden age spanish theater, Calderon de la Barca's:

¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,una sombra, una ficción,y el mayor bien es pequeño;que toda la vida es sueño,y los sueños, sueños son.

ah! life!

TV on the Radio.

Lets talk about TV on the Radio.

I cannot get over this band. I know it has been around for a while (2001-ish) and started listening to them a couple of years ago, mainly Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes in which tracks like Ambulance, Wear You Out, Staring at the Sun, Poppy, stood out mainly because of how different they were from one another, and also because, i don't know, their sound is so new and carefully crafted. It is refreshing, that is the only way to put it. Later came Return to Cookie Mountain, and Dear Science, which has been recognized as one of the best albums of 2008. (I think i prefer Return to Cookie Mountain, though.) anyway, their discography has been consistently good, and you can definitely see an evolution in their experimentation, still without ever compromising their sound.

Still, i didn't really realize how awesome they really were until recently.

Curiosity, and the high you get when being at a rock concert, all screams and sways (an Hermanos Brother's show i had gone to, to support my drummer friend) made me look up their videos of live performances on YouTube. i was not ready for what i saw. they seriously blew my mind and aside from kicking myself from all the missed opportunities of watching them live while i lived in DC, all i could think about was, oh my god.

i have a hard time condensing all that i want to say about them into one coherent paragraph, so i am dividing this entry in three parts with three of my favorite performances. here it goes.

1. "Wolf Like Me" on Letterman

First of all, talk about amazing live performance. This has to be, the very definition of killing it. Not only that, but i think the energy from the entire band is pretty fucking rad. From Tunde Adebimpe's singing and just overall presence, i mean, little things, like the way his hands move and how it correlates with the song, its brilliant, and Sitek's guitar which never fucking misses a beat and how powerful it is from the get go, a cathartic explosion from the start. My favorite part though, is right around 1:43, and how it deliciously slows down for a second and Tunde's hands when he sings Open my hands and let them weave onto yours. I cannot get over that, i've never seen someone bring so much texture into a song, if that makes any sense. Anyway, also, the whole werewolf/little red riding hood metaphor is not only clever but also sexy as hell. I know i've talked about music and sex before, and i think i am really interested in how these two elements can compliment each other without resorting to cliches like Lets Get it On, or some Barry White-esque go-to. I mean, don't get me wrong, i am all for the classics, John Coltrane, and whatnot, but i think that the kind of sex that these artists evoke is very...vanilla. I think that it is tremendously hard for music to achieve the kind of erotic feel that revolves around the other kind of sex. I mean, hard, decadent, tearing of clothes, kitchen-counter kind of sex.

And with that note, i present to you this video

2. "Wear You Out" at La Route du Rock, 2004

Even without seeing this performance, this song is, in my book, one of the sexiest songs of all time. The lyrics are so blatantly seductive and so unapologetic about it, especially in contrast with Wolf Like Me, which plays with meanings and metaphors, Wear You Out goes straight to the point. Seduction at its best. So it is only fitting that this performance starts the way it does, slowly, with steady drums, only to be built up into the most amazing climax by the end of it. What i love about this performance is how well Tunde and Kip Malone compliment each other. It seems like both of their voices have been blended into one to form an entire new entity, so blunt about desire in a way that is not contrived or trite but honest from the get-go with lines like I can barely move from want of room/ and i'm forgetting to breathe/ But the sight of you/ Has me instantly Remember my needs and then it starts ascending and ascending until it explodes at 3:10 and they sing

Well, here i am, just a man/Is this light flattering?/Did you notice my crown of feathers/And check out my vital vibrant comb?/Oh puff chest out and play strong/Grab you by the hair and pull you along

Or do I just talk to you And tell you what I really really really want to do.

I don't know if it is those lyrics, or his snake-like moves, dripped in sweat, open shirt persona, but, honestly, i think it is impossible not to be completely turned on by this performance.

Last but not least:

3. Providence, live at De La Sema, 2008

Although not as hard or sexually charged as the previous two, this song absolutely kills me. They
have created the perfect sounds to blend not only the melody but also the general tone of the song which is, unmistakably hopeful. Kip Malone stated on an interview that he saw LOVE IS THE PROVIDENCE OF THE BRAVE written on a wall, a quote by Gandhi, and that is how the idea of the song came about. For me, personally, it is about moving on, but that is just my interpretation of it. I bet that it speaks to so many others in so many other levels. I think this song does a great job at salvaging the stubbornness of the human heart, from all aspects, from the melody to the words, i find it so inspiring and beautiful.

Anyway, so yes, TV on the Radio. I cannot say enough about them, except that i hope they keep making music and their vision of music as art never changes. I'll close with this; on an interview with the site Hate Something Beautiful, when they ask Tunde Adebimpe how did you he got into music, he replied

Probably like I'm guessing maybe 45 seconds after I came out of my mother's womb. I can't really imagine my life with out music. I mean as far as getting into recording and playing it, it was mostly as a teenager, messing around with friends in bands. I always hanging out in a group of people or doing a lot creative work and the bands were a huge part of that. I don't know. I can't pinpoint the exact second I got into music, it's always. When I think about my life without music, it becomes a very cold and sinister thing and I don't like to think about it.

yes.

24 electric feel.

so i turned twenty-four. it was unplanned and disorganized and blurred between whatever drink was in my hand and whatever was playing in the background. i have bits and pieces of the night with me and i will keep them constant to remember that i am still young. I am not going to lie. I really thought i would have shit a little more figured out by this time. Things a little more resolved, more settled. but everything is so far beyond that. I have a job writing for a magazine, i have my classes about colonial/medieval/theory literature, highlighted critical studies and books checked out for research. i have an apartment with not enough water-pressure in the shower, i have a total of eight completed paper journals, wooden bookshelfs built into my studio, a theme for my thesis, plans of NYU for gradschool, all of elliott smith, wilco, the decemberists albums. i have great friends. the greatest friends who burst through the doors of my apartment with whirlwinds of stories and fears like fiorella's irrational fear of spontaneos combustion which makes me laugh a little but worries me at the same time. all of the memories of all things said, things left unsaid, borrowed clothes, shared drinks. the jokes that will always make us laugh and the feeling when dancing at places with high cealings and distinct, clear moments like being in a car with no air conditioner and no real working windows and three boys who study what you love and stay up all night with you before midterms, driving through the coast, looking back right at the moment the sun hit the horizon line look at the fucking sun, man it was so huge and burning and melting and beautiful, all four of us with our heads turned in sheer awe and rushing as its going down before it hides for good and his wreckless driving with half of his body being pulled towards the sky like a charging magnet. memories like that. i turned twenty-four, i am still nineteen at heart.

this was my text message the morning after, which, pretty much sums up the kind of debauchery that defines these troubled times.

"I dont remember how the night ended. All i know is that i woke up wearing two pajama shirts and no underwear."

we are chained

I am listening to Hey by Pixies and let me start with this. This song is fucking hot. what else can i say except to point out the obvious; the direct, remarkable way that this song exudes and breathes sex and desire and the twisted turns of events that makes us human, that makes us go back to mistakes and nonsense, all which seem to be rearranged, or justified by the 3 odd minutes of this song being played. I really like this concert because of the dim orange lights that seem to be powerless and the way they slow the tempo and everybody singing in the background. it reminds me about my contemporary literary theory class this week, about Mikhail Bajtin studies of Rabelais use of the carnival in Rennaisance literature. The carnival, (or concert, in this context) is a celebration of abundance and decadence, a new way to look at the world based on feeling like a definite part of a collective union. Chaos and self awareness fully formed as a revolt of a culture controlled by the paradigms imposed by social hierarchy and organized institution. It was a response, a way to hold onto inmortality. todo menos morir. people feel, first than anything their unity in time, their inmortality in history. they put all their faith in the collective feeling that swirled in a shared space and a faith was acquired because this was bigger than life itself, or bigger than you for that matter and your own impending death.

i love this song because of the texture of Frank Black's voice and Kim Deal and the
chorus with the we're chaained that comes and goes and completely complements the chord progression, and the base and that intro, which has to be, by far, one of the most powerful intros ever. This anguish, i have felt before. maybe that is why i like it so much? i don't know. we are chained. we have conversations on weekends at seven in the morning about our past and confess that which blinded us, to feel again, with that intensity, fuck. nothing will test you like that. now we build gods out of skepticism, we are made of stone, beautiful granite. we smoke and drink way way too much for our own good and then we can never fall asleep right and my heart starts beating out of my chest, too much cheap red wine, we are exhausted and 24 is just around the corner.

the night multiplies into hundreds, last night i laughed at the ridiculousness of your excuse to come upstairs which spelled desire right from the bat because how little sense it made. we don't make any sense. this is the location of chemistry and reason reducing chaos to movement patterns of fusion and expansion, possible infinites of move and response bounded by the imagination, the unspoken agreements, blah blah blah. i am about to turn 24, i go to sleep, i study, i read, i walk, i work, i sing must be a devil between us and find so much truth in the things we carry. the constant struggle that is being in between the sloppy intersection of desires and fears and having no idea what is going to happen next. what a gift. what a fucked up gift this life has given us.

"It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human state: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again." - David Foster Wallace.

Intimacy

This, then, could be our last evening together. My last night with a woman I have known for 10 years, a woman I know almost everything about, and want no more of. Soon, we will be like strangers. No, we can never be that. Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history. That first time she put her hand on my arm- I wish i had turned away. Why didnt I? The waste; the waste of time and feeling. She has said something similar about me. But do we mean it?

- Hanif Kureishi.