Reading “All the
Pretty Horses,” but really listening to the Clientele. Clientele, Clientele,
Clientele. The only band that matters. Not really, of course, but every band
worth listening to will feel that way to you at times. I saw the videos for
“Reflections after Jane” and “House on Fire” a few months ago while I was at
Thomas and Katie’s, babysitting for Eden. I had put her down to sleep and I was
in their living room for several hours before they got home, and I watched
those two videos, on Matt’s recommendation. I probably watched them five times
each that evening, and listened to their first record, too…crazy that you can
do that now. “Reflections after Jane” is still maybe my favorite song of
theirs, largely because of the association of that evening I’m sure. It was the
perfect thing to listen to, all by yourself with a little girl asleep in the
next room. I also worked on a story I was writing at the time, though nothing
came of that.
I’ve also been listening
to Felt, and they’re great too, probably better, but harder to
get into…I like the song “The World is as Soft as Lace.” They have
an extra dimension that the Clientele don’t have, a depth of thought. The
Clientele guy is terrific, and he can write some lovely stuff (“Butterflies
with gilded wings this morning/touched the red sun and the rain…”). He is
pretty one dimensional, though, a little too melancholy and more than a little
trite…but that’s not why you love it. It’s a feeling; you have to play it by
its own rules. Anyway it’s the music I find myself putting on just about every
time I go to put on music, if I’m not careful. The Clientele, Felt, Belle and
Sebastian, Orange Juice...The Clientele…
A friend accused me recently of only liking shoegaze and post punk, and he was right for the most part... Music used to be
much more of a thing for me. I used to spend quite a lot of time just listening
to music, with headphones or just sitting in me and Matt’s old room…I don’t
know if I’m just busy now or what, but I don’t do that much anymore. It’s become much more of a background thing. So much of the music I used to love I love now just
in theory, and in reality only on rare occasions. Can you just get bored with
music? Do I need to start branching out into other genres? The only
music I love unconditionally and with no reservations is Lee Bozeman’s stuff - Luxury, and especially the
Orient Is His Name stuff - and Low, and Starflyer 59. That's the good stuff, the true and honest stuff. The rest of it is mostly for
the background, for a mood, when I’m just “around the house” or at work.
I’m such a tool.
Sorry about that… I need to get back to reading Cormac McCarthy.
This is from Alexander Sokurov’s film “Dialogues
with Solzhenitsyn.” It was filmed in and around Solzhenitsyn’s house outside
Moscow in 1998, and most of it is Sokurov talking with Solzhenitsyn. Just seeing
the great man himself on screen was enough to hold my rapt attention. It’s full
of great sound-bytes like this one. If it seems to wander a little bit, that’s
because Solzhenitsyn treats every question on several levels.
“Some people know that God exists, even some
scientists. Some great physicists know it, others don’t know. One knows,
another doesn’t. No, it must be in the heart. One must live with it. Morality
is not attained by knowledge. It is attained first in a child’s upbringing, and
later by a self-teaching.”
I especially like the idea of a “self-teaching.”
It’s all through his novels, particularly “In the First Circle,” and correlates
to Solzhenitsyn’s own experience in the gulags. It’s especially poignant in
light of the oppressive, manipulative communist state he lived in. What a man he was.
