Happiness and money
Posted: February 24, 2013 Filed under: philosophical ponderings, philosophy, riff | Tags: Aristotle, career, goals, golden mean, happiness, money, personal economics, philosophy, purpose, salary Leave a comment
While hosting a little dinner party at my house, a friend who just found a new job discussed his life goals, his primary objective.
“Make money. Well, yeah, to be happy and all of that, but make money.”
Located in a city that is as ambitious and cash-driven as it is sarcastic, I couldn’t tell if he was being serious. “Are you… joking?”
“Well, no. That’s the point, isn’t it?”
I mumbled something incoherent back-“Uh, um, I disagree,” and turned to the next conversation. After some time to muddle it over, though, here is my imagined reply:
Focusing on making money as your primary objective, as a purpose in itself, is a flawed argument. Viewing the acquisition of wealth as the central, intrinsic value in life doesn’t foster your simultaneous goal to be happy. Those two words- ‘be happy’- have some serious baggage to unpack. Gaining wealth can be an offshoot of your goals, but by putting it as the central objective, it’s limiting to the scope of human experience.
Life is not a series of levels in Super Mario – collect gold coins, toss the bad guy in lava, rescue the princess. “Winning” doesn’t exist. Viewing life in this way, as a series of tasks to conquer and points to amass, is a limiting view on the breadth, beauty and complexity of existence.
We can agree that money can indeed buy happiness when it is related to your and your family’s livelihood – healthcare, education, a comfortable home. Beyond the basics, though, there are additional things that play a major role in happiness; for example, being able to take paid days off from work to spend time with those important to you.
A widely-cited 2010 study conducted by Princeton University found that money makes people more satisfied with their lives overall, but income reaches a tipping point where it doesn’t make a significant difference to your happiness day-to-day: $75,000.
“We conclude that lack of money brings both emotional misery and low life evaluation; similar results were found for anger,” Kahneman and Deaton, both professors at Princeton University, wrote in the report. “Beyond $75,000 in the contemporary United States, however, higher income is neither the road to experience happiness nor the road to relief of unhappiness or stress, although higher income continues to improve individuals’ life evaluations.”
Consider the $75,000 figure as a ballpark number, it makes sense to adjust that number based on cost of living, familial situation and other factors. But the point is there: after a certain point of gaining wealth, you receive dwindling returns. Sure, you can upgrade your vacation house in Tahoe or get a slick new ride, but your level of happiness doesn’t drastically increase. At some level, the ‘more is more’ equation just doesn’t bring the purposeful satisfaction you desire.
I’m not going to argue that making money doesn’t play a role in your happiness. For me, making money and satisfaction is related to a sense of autonomy and the ability to make my own decisions. In the not-so-distant past, a woman’s decision-making abilities and economic choices were largely not her own, and I savor my ability to live the life I choose to based upon my own volition. I derive a great sense of satisfaction from economic independence, and I would say that clearly personal income plays a huge role in that. But, it is best to view money as a corollary rather than a primary objective; it isn’t ultimately what I am aiming for, and it is not the ideal that I want to be remembered by.
In my experience, happiness is largely tied to our sense of inter-connectivity- rather than collecting individual moments as if they were charms on a bracelet, the true beauty and satisfaction in life lies in our connections with others. The subtle nuances of human compassion, friendship and empathy are the things in which I derive the most lasting happiness, the values that I espouse and what I hope others remember about me. Relationships are dynamic and constantly shifting; without attention, they can flounder and wilt. Instead of focusing on money as the be-all-end-all, strive for balance in your economic ambitions and personal relationships.
Aristotle was right – aim for the mean between extremes!
Time of the season
Posted: February 19, 2013 Filed under: philosophical ponderings, photography, riff | Tags: contemplation, corona heights, end of summer, photography, san francisco, sutro tower Leave a comment
October 1
It was one of those harshly warm autumn San Francisco days, a sort of final hurrah before the opaque gloom of winter rolls in. A few records left in a sunny patch by the window fell victim to the rays, vinyl warping and distorting Jerry Garcia’s vocals into an intolerable nasal whine. “Ripple” rippled, goodbye American Beauty! Listening to it now makes your skin stand on edge.
Around seven pm on a Monday after work, I walked to Corona Heights, a craggy hidden park that brings to mind a dusty lunar landscape. The hillside was crowded with admirers; we were grasping for the final dredges of summer, the last moments of sun on a dwindling day. We knew this was the last time we were going to feel this sensation for a while. The sense of change in the air brought almost a mournful feeling, warm breeze blowing across your skin.
San Francisco stood at our feet cast in a tangerine haze. The landscape felt incomprehensible in its beauty, like you have to shield your eyes from absorbing it all. It gave the sense that you could never fully take in all that it has to offer; just out of grasp but intoxicating in its promise.
I felt a sense of languishing dread, attempting to appreciate the moment while anticipating the inevitable bitter chill soon to arrive. Sort of like that feeling you get on Sunday evenings, puttering around to avoid thinking about the impeding week, a dull twist of anxiety in your gut.
While mourning the loss of the season, I simultaneously craved a reprieve from the suffocating warmth; enveloping your body in a saline stickiness and making you kick off your sheets in the night. The dreaminess began to turn to delirium; a cold slap of reality was needed. It was time for a change.
Cosmic Bros: Tolstoy, Janáček and Murakami
Posted: January 11, 2013 Filed under: philosophical ponderings, riff | Tags: 1Q84, haruki murakami, kafka on the shore, leo tolstoy, leos janacek, russian literature, sinfonietta, string quartet no. 1, the kreutzer sonata Leave a comment
I love finding weird connections between artists, musicians and writers. While it’s easy to conceive of artists drawing inspiration from one another in the present day, it’s intriguing to see how artists of the past were influenced by one another and how that translates to the present. In my Wikipedia wanderings I discovered some interesting links between Russian literary great Leo Tolstoy, Czech composer Leoš Janáček, and the contemporary Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Each are masters in capturing the sensation of the aching, wonderful, terrible, beautiful nature of life, and were influenced by one another in intriguing ways.
Let’s start chronologically with Tolstoy, who is best known for Anna Karenina and War and Peace. (By the way, I am firmly on Team Tolstoy in the Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky debate, just throwin’ my bias out there!) In his later years, Tolstoy composed shorter works that capture his exceptional insight without the insane page count. His novella The Death of Ivan Ilych is one of my favorite philosophical pieces, and at only 134 pages it’s much easier to handle than carting War and Peace onto the bus.
Tolstoy’s short story The Kreutzer Sonata , which was inspired by Beethoven’s music, was forbidden by the Russian government when it was published in 1889. It was banned in the United States in the following year, with Theodore Roosevelt calling Tolstoy a “sexual moral pervert.” Surprisingly, the radical content was Tolstoy’s argument for abstinence against the “swinish” nature of relationships.
In 1923, Czeck composer Leoš Janáček was inspired by Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata in his creation of String Quartet No. 1. Describing his influence, Janacek wrote that he “was imagining a poor woman, tormented and run down, just like the one the Russian writer Tolstoy describes in his Kreutzer Sonata.” Janáček’s piece captures a sense of infatuation mingling with fear.
In turn, Janáček proved to be an inspiring force nearly a century later for internationally-acclaimed writer Haruki Murakami. In Murakami’s 2011 novel IQ84, Janacek’s Sinfonietta plays a recurring role, starting from the first page as the orchestral piece plays from a taxi’s radio.
An excerpt from IQ84:
She closed her eyes again and concentrated on the music. She knew nothing about Janáček as a person, but she was quite sure that he never imagined that in 1984 someone would be listening to his composition in a hushed Toyota Crown Royal Saloon on the gridlocked elevated Metropolitan Expressway in Tokyo.
And now to come full circle, Murakami discussed the influence of Leo Tolstoy’s storytelling techniques in his novel Kafka on the Shore:
“That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
The intermingling influences of Tolstoy, Janáček and Murakami which span generations show the timeless nature of philosophical and aesthetic concepts. We can play a major role in others’ lives without ever actually meeting them. It reflects the causal connections between individuals that transcend space and time, how ideas can go beyond one’s corporeal existence.
The surrealist dream of “Holy Motors”
Posted: December 31, 2012 Filed under: film reviews, philosophical ponderings, riff | Tags: cannes film festival, denis lavant, eva mendes, french film, holy rollers, kylie minogue, leos carax, roxie theater, san francisco, single screen cinema, surrealism Leave a comment
Holy Motors is a metaphysical dream-scape of a film; a beautiful, ingenious tale that unapologetically stretches the limits of imagination, described by Time‘s Richard Corliss as an “exhilarating trip of movie madness and sadness.”
French filmmaker Leos Carax’s first film in ten years shocked and perplexed filmgoers at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with some hailing it as a cinematic masterpiece and others decrying it as malarkey. Holy Motors follows Monsieur Oscar (an astounding Denis Lavant) as he goes through one day of work for “The Agency,” traveling in a stretch white limo to ten “appointments” throughout Paris. Oscar is either a super-spy or a prodigal actor, but as a master of disguise transforms himself completely – identities including a beggar-woman, manic psychopath, accordion bandleader, dying old man, anarchist, and father to a teenage girl. The purpose of Oscar’s work for The Agency is never fully disclosed and at times the illusion is broken, as others in the scene are revealed to be at an “appointment” as well.
The film also includes a few notable cameos, including Kylie Minogue as a fellow spy for The Agency and Eva Mendes as an oddly placid kidnapped supermodel.
I saw Holy Motors at the Roxie Theater in the Mission after hearing the unfortunate news that the Bridge Theater and the Lumiere Theater have closed this month. In a city with 74 neighborhood cinemas at its peak, six additional cinemas have closed in the past decade, including the demise of the Upper Haight’s beloved Red Vic in 2011.
Independent films are increasingly available on Netflix or other streaming sites shortly after their theatrical release. Why pay to sit in a living room-sized theater when you can sit in your own living room and watch it at no additional cost? THE EXPERIENCE, people! The character and history of single-screen cinemas provide a unique memory with each film; granted, the clientele is exceedingly pretentious, but it’s a special experience rather than the slog of unending escalators, acrid chemical butter scent, and labyrinthian carpeted hallways at multi-mega-plexes. I always think of my hometown Bijou, a theater crafted out of an old church, and the signature large cat snoozing in a chair in the lobby- would that ever happen at a Regal? No!
Yeah, this guy. Apparently Boo the Bijou cat is no longer with us.
Back to Motors: This specific genre of film is of a particular taste and somewhat divisive; if the surrealist absurdity of films like Dali’s Un Chien Andalou, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or the Dylan biopic I’m Not There appeal to you, then make haste to go see it. If you find those works to be frustratingly devoid of continuity and obnoxiously head-scratching, then stay away. In watching a surrealist movie, you have to allow each moment to wash over you, rather than analyze each bit of it, agonizing over how it doesn’t follow common logic. The moment is what it is and you can interpret it however you see fit- it allows the audience to be actively participatory.
The film reads as a love-letter to cinema, reminding me of the silent-film infatuation of 2012’s Oscar darling The Artist. Rather than sticking to one specific style, Holy Motors draws reference ranging from 19th century stop-motion film pioneer Eadweard Muybridge to today’s CGI animation using motion sensor technology.
The first-ever silent film by Muybridge… go, Sallie, go!
At times the frenetic pace of Holy Motors becomes draining, particularly in the second half of the film. Overall though, it is an exhilarating ride that allows the audience to laugh at themselves, the absurdity of the art-world, and not take it all too seriously.
After I left the Roxie, I wandered over to the bus stop to hop on the 33. Just sayin’, San Francisco is an excellent place to contemplate absurdity and the strangeness of existence. On Muni, strangers shared cantaloupe on the bus and chatted about Mother Teresa and Black Rock City, Nevada. At 18th and Castro, shirtless muscular men sipped lattes outside of Starbucks while a pack of mimosa-drunk women giggled and swayed on the sidewalk. To some degree the film made me think about the multiple identities that we create for ourselves, from that carefully selected hat that gives off the perfect don’t care stance, to acting as a mini self-funded PR machine for our curated Instagram posts (“What does the Valencia filter say about me?”).
Rather than worrying about our social perceptions, perhaps we should just enjoy this bizarre, 80-something year journey in which we appear to have found ourselves. “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
the place where you go to listen
Posted: March 14, 2012 Filed under: art, philosophical ponderings, riff | Tags: alex ross, ambient, john luther adams, soundscape, the museum of the north, the new yorker, the place where you go to listen, the rest is noise Leave a comment
Excerpt from “Song of the Earth: The Arctic Sound of John Luther Adams.” Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise. Originally published in The New Yorker, 2008.
At The Museum of the North, the composer John Luther Adams has created a sound-and-light instillation called The Place Where You Go To Listen— a kind of infinite musical work that is controlled by natural events occurring in real time. The mechanism of The Place translates raw data into music: information from seismological, meterological, and geomagnetic stations in various parts of Alaska is fed into a computer and transformed into a luminous field of electronic sound.
The Place occupies a small white-walled room on the museum’s second floor. You sit on a bench before five glass panels, which change color according to the time of day and the season.
What you notice first is a dense, organlike sonority; the notes follow the contour of the natural harmonic series– the rainbow of overtones that emnate from a vibrating string– and have the brightness of music in a major key. The moon is audible as a narrow sliver of noise. Pulsating patterns in the bass are activated by small earthquakes and other seismic events around Alaska. And shimmering sounds in the highest registers are tied to the fluctuations in the magnetic field that cause the Northern Lights.
For stellar audio of Adams’ complex, ambient compositions, check out his website and listen to his pieces, which he describes as “electro-acoustic soundscapes.” Here’s a video of The Place in action (albeit with subpar sound quality):
Adams describes The Place in his own words:
“I knew that I wanted to hear the unheard, that I wanted to somehow transpose the music that is just beyond the reach of our ears into audible vibrations. I knew that it had to be its own space. And I knew that it had to be real– that I couldn’t fake this, that nothing could be recorded. It had to have the ring of truth.
“Actually my original conception for The Place was truly grandiose. I thought that it might be a piece that could be realized at any location on the earth, and that each location would have its unique sonic signature. That idea– tuning the whole world– stayed with me for a long time. But at some point I realized that I was tuning it so that this place, this room, on this hill, looking out over the Alaska Range, was the sweetest-sounding spot on Earth.”
The composer and artist, John Luther Adams
The wistful, bittersweet lure of nostalgia
Posted: February 21, 2012 Filed under: philosophical ponderings | Tags: 1970, alemany flea market, aphex twin, aub zam zam, cafe du nord, civil rights, life magazine, nostalgia, rolling stones, san francisco, st francis fountain, the first twenty years Leave a commentThe term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form. The word is a learned formulation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming”, a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain, ache”.
(Definition via the ever accurate and always trustworthy source of our times, Wikipedia.)
As an admitted nostalgia fiend, there are few things I find pleasure in more than reading a weathered book with someone else’s notes scrawled in the margins, a looped, cursive signature of a stranger on a yellowed LP cover, a ripped tag from a foreign brand on a secondhand, delightfully unique garment. The mystery of discovering the joys of lives once lived, grasping at the small tokens of pleasure that perhaps contributed to a sense of purpose, escapism, longing, beauty… an infinite possibility of meanings, never fully uncovered.
The minutiae of life help to drive us through the daily slog of the mundane, fuel our aspirations, and tell our stories beyond our ultimate demise. In discovering the artifacts of the past, the eternal and the temporal nature of existence is fused together in a moment. I find myself infatuated with the past partially due to to the terminal nature of life, in the dark hope that the minuscule items that contribute to my sense of self will somehow transcend my time kickin’ it as a corporeal being. Our lives are ever changing, constantly moving, but the significance of past histories remains, the ideas behind them will never die.
(Side note: the auditory accompaniment for this article is provided by Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th”.)
One of my luckiest finds: an issue of LIFE magazine from January 9, 1970. Fascinating speculations about the future, analysis of cultural norms, beautiful photography and design aesthetics.
Streisand and a Picasso.
These statistics are from your parents’ lifespans. Illuminating, fascinating, and more than a little disturbing.
“What sort of society are our computers and computer-oriented society driving us?”
Predictions of androgyny for 1970’s fashion.
Fantastic Rolling Stones book (The First Twenty Years):
LBJ-era political cartoons:
How much has changed, and how much is exactly the same?
San Francisco seems to be an endless treasure trove for individuals who are drawn to the unique histories of the past. Other recommendations for those who love to imagine stories told in the waxy wood grain of weathered bar tops:
Aub Zam Zam: Sip a wicked martini with the 3 pm-Tuesday regulars in this decadently divey Haight locale. The lush red walls, dingy carpets, and gold-encrusted Persian mural behind the bar are the original 1940’s decor… try to find the black-and-white framed photo in the back of this haunt in its heyday!
Cafe Du Nord: Originally opened during the Prohibition era, Cafe Du Nord feels like a hidden relic, a dark-wooded basement gem (featuring an excellent live music roster). In more recent nostalgia news, apparently it was THE place for the late ’80’s gothic scene, with a wildly popular event called “Dark Sparkle”… how intriguing!
St Francis Fountain: Operating continuously since its inception in 1917, this wood-paneled Mission diner evokes the days of the sock-hop while you are served vegan soyrizo and artisanal coffee by attractively grungy servers (how appropriate for the neighborhood). Past ‘n’ present, UNITE!
What are your favorite places to reminisce about a lost time that perhaps never even existed?
The Luxury of Solitude
Posted: January 2, 2012 Filed under: philosophical ponderings, Uncategorized | Tags: alone time, bridge theater, james brown, lars von trier, margarita karapanou, melancholia, prelude tristan und isolde, rien ne va plus, wagner 2 Comments
Maintaining a firm sense of self is an integral part of a well-rounded life. Spending time alone is one of the best opportunities I have to re-evaluate why I am acting in the way that I am, rather than going through the motions mindlessly. It is a wholly self-centered pursuit, devoid of any ulterior motive other than making oneself feel more complete. Being alone provides a chance to do things that you truly enjoy without worrying if anyone else is having a good time.
As any economist will tell you, luxury is a function of scarcity. So, your alone time becomes more valuable when there is less of it available. Conversely, if all of your time is spent alone then it becomes somewhat meaningless, devoid of value… life is all about moderation, and time in solitude is no exception. Especially after starting working full-time, I cherish my moments alone, where I am able to engage in activities that I perform for the sake of themselves rather than activities performed for an ultimately functional purpose.
Below is an excerpt from Margarita Karapanou’s novel Rien Ne Va Plus, translated from the original Greek version by Karen Emmerich.
For me freedom means solitude, a solitude full of walks in the country, solitary strolls through unfamiliar cities, books scattered around my bed at night, lying open at random pages… When I’m sitting at a cafe, I look at my hand resting on the table, my pale hand with its long red nails, maybe I’m wearing a ring, and it fills me with an indescribable pleasure, because that hand is my hand, and I’ve made it beautiful for myself, and when I leave this cafe in this unfamiliar city, I’ll return to the hotel, take a hot fragrant bath, and then fall asleep. I want to be alone, to sail like a ship and stop and whatever harbor I choose, and leave again when I want. My solitude is sacred.
Spending time alone helps you to develop a strong sense of self in future challenges; pardon the cliché, but a sense of calm amidst the storm. Being good to yourself helps you to bring something to the table in terms of your fundamental beliefs, passions, and understanding of truths. Once you embrace your unique-ness and comfortability as an individual, it makes life a hell of a lot easier, more carefree, and fun.
One of my favorite solo indulgences is going to see films. Now, I’ve gotten plenty of bewildered glances from ticket-sellers when I ask for one ticket, even had an usher ask me, “Don’t you have any friends?” Yes, usher dude, I do indeed have friends, but movies are possibly the least sociable activity to partake in. You sit parallel to another person in the dark for a few hours, with minimal eye contact and conversation forbidden. It is lovely to see flicks with fellow film-nerds and analyze it over drinks afterwards, but having company is by no means a necessary component to enjoying a film.
My film tastes run towards the snobbish, obnoxiously esoteric side of things, not exactly everyone’s cup of tea. Why drag a friend to sit morosely through a movie they don’t want to see when it is is perfectly acceptable to go solo? On a quiet Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, I saw Lars Von Trier’s visually stunning Melancholia, a cosmically epic film that lives up to its tragic name. The film garnered rave reviews for its dual depiction of clinical depression and an impending apocalypse, with some good ol’ criticism of capitalism thrown in. Oh, and gratuitous usage of Wagner’s Prelude from Tristan Und Isolde.
As a bit of a nostalgia fiend, I adored seeing the film at the legendary Bridge Theater, a throwback single-screen movie house that has been operating nonstop since 1939. It’s the kind of place where the projectionist is the same guy who sells you your ticket, shills popcorn, and does a charmingly awkward introduction of the film to the audience (referring to Melancholia as a “downer”). After the film, I walked down the street to my favorite cafe, sipped an Americano, people-watched, and thought about the purpose of it all.
So, that’s the kind of thing I like to do alone. Now, I’m not advocating that you spend your alone time seeing semi-depressing movies, you do YOUR thing! Appreciate your individual quirks, unapologetically foster your interests, get down with your bad self.
’90’s Nostalgia Overload
Posted: November 1, 2011 Filed under: philosophical ponderings, riff, Uncategorized | Tags: '90's, chuck klosterman, grunge, nickelodeon, nostalgia, post-modern, proenza schouler, rag & bone, vena cava, yuck Leave a commentHas our search-engine mentality taken our craving for nostalgia to a ridiculous, unprecedented level? (And why are we so obsessed with the ’90’s?)
Attention! Clarissa has an important message for you.
Romanticizing the past and idealizing one’s youth is no new phenomenon. But it seems that our capacity for pop-culture nostalgia of the not-so-distant past has risen to an absurd level, bolstered by the lightening-quick ease of our internet search culture. It’s now easier than ever to find an obscure clip from Salute Your Shorts or Hey Dude at any time due to the constant presence of iPhones tucked in our back pockets.
The 1990’s are the new target of our national love affair with nostalgia. Fashion, music, and television in 2011 have been remarkably influenced and inspired by the last decade of the twentieth century.
Remember this guy?
Nickelodeon has seen a ratings smash with the revival of beloved ’90’s programming (Kenan & Kel, Clarissa Explains It All, Pete & Pete, All That) on Teen Nick. According to NY Mag, The ’90’s Are All That attracted ratings roughly 850 percent higher than the channel’s previous time-period average in the midnight-to-2 a.m. block. Nickelodeon is targeting the 18-34 demographic with their late-night nostalgia block, the Gen-Y young adults who grew up with old-school Nick and think fondly of Marc Summers and green slime.
The fuzzy indie rock of the ’90’s has seen a revival in music recently through “the Slumberland-streaked indie pop of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart or Best Coast, the artful squall of No Age, the achingly nostalgic paeans of Deerhunter, the ambling guitar epics of Real Estate, and the slacker punk-pop of Wavves.” (Pitchfork) London foursome Yuck draws influence from the screechy guitars and heavy feedback of early ’90’s rockers like Dinosaur Jr. and Superchunk. Check out the video for “Get Away,” a standout track from their self-titled debut. Pretty impressive for a band with an average age of 20.
Even the fashion world has been infected by the ’90’s bug, with Fall 2011 threads that hearkened back to the days of Nevermind and the Clinton Administration. Proenza Schouler and Rag & Bone showed modern takes on grunge, while Vena Cava showed glam Azzedine Alaia-style looks. Vena Cava even produced a lo-fi ‘zine titled Zina Cava to accompany their Fall 2011 show.
Is our ’90’s obsession related to a craving for a more stable time, politically and economically? As Generation-Y’ers, are we inadvertently trying to grasp for the warm comfort of our childhood, rather than the stark economic and social truths we find ourselves enmeshed in?
On Grantland, Chuck Klosterman analyzed the disparaging aspects of nostalgia in the way that it is “an uncritical form of artistic appreciation.”
“If you unconditionally love something from your own past, it might just mean you love that period of your own life. In other words, you’re not really hearing “Baby Got Back.” What you’re hearing is a song that reminds you of a time when you were happy, and you’ve unconsciously conflated that positive memory with any music connected to the recollection.”
Are we yearning for a time when the United States seemed like an insurmountable superpower, when a college degree would consistently lead to gainful employment, when the phrase “National Terror Alert” hadn’t entered our cultural lexicon? Or are we simply affixing the shiny gauze of nostalgia onto the ’90’s, fantasizing about a decade that wasn’t really THAT great?
It seems incredibly appropriate that we returned to the decade that represented the height of post-modern thinking, through the recycling of aesthetic concepts and cultural movements.”There is no present or future, only the past happening over and over again, now.” – Eugene O’Neill
Literary Rock: Poetic or Pretentious?
Posted: September 30, 2011 Filed under: philosophical ponderings, riff | Tags: a good man is hard to find, calamity song, david foster wallace, decemberists, destroyer, dumb i sound, flannery o'connor, literary bands, okkervil river, sufjan stevens, will sheff Leave a comment
This photo just SCREAMS rock star.
Literary bands, including Destroyer, Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, and Okkervil River, have gained a foothold in the modern music scene; it’s the type of tunes where songwriting prose competes with or even outshines instrumentation. It’s a listening experience where fans intently read liner notes while dropping the needle to the groove, analyzing heady lyrics for a multiplicity of meanings. Founded on the legacy of Morrissey, this new crop of singer-songwriters infuse an nerdish, academic vibe into their work that seems at odds with the supposedly scuzzy world of rock.
What makes a band ‘literary’? Is it based on clever wordplay, ‘wordiness’, or writing one’s lyrics in prose? Is it founded on obscure allusions (for example, Okkervil River takes its name from a short story by Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya)? Are goofily thick prescription glasses a necessary component (a la Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, pictured to the right)?
Portland-based indie breakout The Decemberists take the literary slant to the next level, with a music video drawn from an acclaimed novel. “Calamity Song” (from 2011’s The King Is Dead) is directly inspired by David Foster Wallace’s legendary tomb Infinite Jest. Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur directed the video, which depicts Eschaton, a tennis-like game.
Interestingly enough, some rockers began their careers as writers, such as Sufjan Stevens. Stevens received his MFA in Creative Writing from the New School in 1999, and has had his work published in the UK Sunday Observer, Topic, and The Best Non-Required American Reading 2007. He wrote his 1999 debut album, A Sun Came, as a student; “Dumb I Sound” is one of my favorites of his early work, a rough, rakish but beautiful cut.
“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” from Stevens’ 2004 banjo-laden Seven Swans was inspired by Flannery O’Connor’s short story of the same name. Check out his KCRW performance of “A Good Man is Hard to Find”:
Austin-based band Okkervil River is one band that is almost always described as literary, particularly due to their critically-acclaimed stand-out 2005 album Black Sheep Boy. Here is an excerpt of a review from Dusted:
Will Sheff’s lyrics garner acclaim for being “literary,” but simply writing one’s lyrics in prose form, as Sheff does, doesn’t quite make his songs worthy of Cliff Notes. What Sheff can do, and do very well, is nurture his images into believable symbols of greater girth, like when the grey, inert qualities of a rock become fodder for a jilted lover’s diatribe (“A Stone”) or the word real is ironically twisted into multiple, shifting meanings (“For Real”).
Will Sheff emphatically rejected the “bookish and literary” label ascribed to Okkervil River in a 2007 interview with The Believer, describing it classist and vaguely insulting to pop music.
“I don’t want to be some fop pretending to be a half-baked poet… I’m very happy that the New York Times wrote a big piece and called us “literary,” because it’s good to have somebody say something about you, but honestly I think it’s all bullshit. My favorite groups, whether it’s the Rolling Stones or Neil Young or the Shangri-Las, they don’t have anything “literary” about them. It’s like saying that comic books are good if they’re like paintings. In the end, it’s classist, you know? And all these bands that are trying to dignify themselves by coming across as literary are classist.”
I see Sheff’s point, but perhaps ‘literary’ can be considered as more of a descriptor rather than a definition. It is confining to smack a band into one particular category when there are multiple influences at play. Is there really anything detrimental in the ‘literary’ descriptor, when it seems only to augment the breadth of possible interpretations?
From a listener’s perspective, I hope that esoteric references to Russian literature and flowery language maintain their place in popular music. After all, I gotta pore over and over-analyze SOMETHING while listening to records.
Two Two-Minute Ditties: Little Joy + Velvet Underground
Posted: September 1, 2011 Filed under: philosophical ponderings, riff | Tags: devendra banhart, edie sedgwick, little joy, velvet underground Leave a commentSometimes short can be sweet.
Little Joy’s self-titled 2008 debut has to be one of my favorite albums of the last few years, a rarity in a world of failed side-projects floundering in mediocrity. Little Joy is a trio comprised of three already-establised artists: Fabrizio Moretti (of the Strokes), Rodrigo Amarante (Los Hermanos), and Binki Shapiro. The Brazilian-American group named their band after a favorite cocktail haunt in LA… God, I wish I could hang out with them there, so cool. I bet Fab’s ex Drew Barrymore meets up with them before they kick it at Devendra Banhart’s crumbling-but-charming bungalow. For further evidence check out their retro-cool video for “No One’s Better Sake”… that shrouded figure rattling shakers in the background is none other than freak-folk god Banhart.
ANYWAY, Little Joy is a kick ass album, apparently Nick Hornby (author of music-nerd bible High Fidelity) even voted it his favorite release of ’08. SO GIVE IT A LISTEN if you haven’t already!
At just two minutes, “Unattainable” is a whisper of a song, you might miss it upon first listen. But, wow, once you give this seemingly-simple track your attention it really has some substance. Binki Shapiro appears simultaneously innocent and jaded, sweetly singing of world-weary longing. It feels intimate, almost as if we listening to her inner dialogue expressing themes of loneliness and isolation.
This track reminds me of one of my favorite Velvet Underground songs, “After Hours,” the tenth song from their self-titled 1969 album. Drummer Maureen Tucker helms the vocals for this song, in a pure, almost child-like voice that addresses both hope and desperation (“drink a toast to never”… very upbeat, no?).
This fan vid stars Edie Sedgwick, Warhol muse and subject of Dylan’s “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat”. She is captivating, mysterious, and a little sad. A tragic beauty. Although I am not exactly Sedgwick fan Numero Uno (she strikes me as a bit obnoxious and attention-whorey), one cannot deny her sartorial influence and pop-culture clout. Here, she is both fragile and bruised, a not-so-innocent ingenue.
Complexity bubbles beneath a sweet veneer….
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