Relocated

Well, I'm finally here, in the new crib. Actually, right now I'm in the library, because I have no Internet in my studio. It's rather...adventurous...trying to find a working Internet connection. I went to the cyber cafe at my apartment complex, only to find that their wifi was not working. (Maybe it was a proxy issue? I must remember to ask them.) It is eight o'clock, and I rode my bike, which means I will likely be riding home in the dark. Oh well.* So basically I'm just sitting in the cafe/study room and typing away, watching the rapidly dwindling daylight outside the window (when did night start falling so damn FAST?).

However, I am quite happy with the apartment itself; all I need is a few more chairs and some kitchen supplies and I'm pretty much all set. The one neighbor I've met so far seemed nice enough.

I probably ought to get done what needs to get done before the sky goes completely black, so I sign off here with promises of pictures of the new place (once it's satisfactorily furnished, and such).

(*The "Oh well" is assuming I am not hit by a garbage truck or something on the brief stretch of slightly busy highway that I must cross to get home. If I am, then it will more likely be a groan of pain when I awake from a coma with massive brain damage.)

2008's Vampire Movie (and I'm not talking about "Twilight")

So, even though I've been hiding under a rock for the past year and a half or so, it has still not prevented the knowledge of the Twilight film being released last summer from permeating its way into my hermited existence. Obviously, I need to find a bigger rock, or perhaps an old mine shaft in which to descend.

However, we cannot let that abomination of culture (I say culture, because, having not seen the movie firsthand, I can't in good conscience criticize it, though it is a lot of fun to ridicule the fad that has sprung up around this damsel-in-not-so-much-distress-as-pubescent-angst fable) hover like a cloud over the fact that last year also saw the release of another film, also featuring a youngster and a gorgeous vampire.

The Swedish film Let the Right One In, which I had the pleasure of viewing today ex gratis* Netflix, is doubtless the most unusual vampire flick I have ever seen, and I think I'd be hard pressed to find one anywhere that comes close to comparison. It is also a masterpiece of horror and romance. Perhaps it tried to achieve what Twilight did, only it actually succeeded with flying colors - I don't know. But it is a gem.

The Scandinavian winter in which the tale takes place sets the perfect tone, with an opening shot of heavy snow falling around a streetlamp emitting a cold, bluish light. Oskar, a twelve-year-old boy who is bullied at school and obsessed with following the gruesome murders taking place in his town, meets Eli one night in the snow in front of their apartment complex. Eli, it quickly transpires, is a vampire who has apparently hired someone to murder and provide her with fresh blood; there is an unforgettable sequence in which a man is hung upside-down and his throat slit, allowing the blood to drain through a funnel into a large plastic container. When the police catch up with him, Eli is forced to find sustenance on her own.

The film contains many classic elements of the macabre, but its gore is not excessive: there's a balance being struck here, between the adolescent pangs of Oskar, the close bond between the two young protagonists, and Eli's conflict between her monstrous instincts and her affection for Oskar. While the film hovers on each of these themes in turn, and ponders them, the ultimate emotion it exudes is tenderness. Unlike the girl in Twilight, Oskar has his own reservations, and his own moments of true fear and perhaps loathing for what Eli is.

The film's overwhelming empathy is what ultimately won my heart, along with the ending's lingering feeling of unease and unresolvedness despite its satisfaction for the characters. This is certainly a genre-transcending film if ever there was one. It's also one of the absolute best films of 2008 I've yet seen.

(*Dear Latin scholars: ex gratis may be completely wrong. If that is the case, please forgive me. I have never taken Latin. My lexicon just happens to have chosen tonight to short-circuit, and I need to replace the fuses in my brain by sleeping another fourteen hours and perhaps eating more Oreos. Gomen-nosai)

Fun with Poladroid

Zen Moment

Driving along back roads this evening, looking out at fields of corn stalks and aromatic, freshly baled hay, dotted with the blinking of fireflies, and looking at a pale-pink sunset, all surrounded by green-covered mountains, I think I fully appreciated for the first time how beautiful Tennessee can be.

First post from a new computer!

I sometimes feel that my mind is utterly ridiculous.

For example, lately it just seems that it’s such a slow worker. It’s taking me so much longer than I thought it would to sort out everything I’ve been needing to do—like finding an apartment, registering for classes, thinking about the logistics of this summer (I’m going to want to move at the beginning of July—but that’s also when I’ll be wanting to spend a lot of time in my hometown, as some old friends will be back visiting).

Also, I’m subject to the smallest distractions. It’s taking every ounce of concentration I can muster just to write this post, as my brother is loudly playing his guitar and singing in the dining room, which happens to open right into the living room where (for some stupid reason) I am currently sitting. I’m cleaning my room, but I have to break everything into the smallest possible chunk to even be able to process it; for example, doing the laundry, one single basket at a time.

I can’t wait to be back in the swing of things, though. School should be good for me. And I think past experiences have taught me how better to deal with…everything.

Let’s hope so, at least.

New computer screenshot!

(click image for access to embiggenment)

Album Review: Joanna Newsom - "Ys"

I'm sure I've raved and raved about this magnificent record before, but I don't believe I've given it an "official" review. So, for those of you who like form and organisation, here you go.

I believe Joanna Newsom's 2006 release, Ys, to be the best folk album ever produced. Period.

That seems a bold statement, considering one is casting a wide net by using such a broad musical adjective as "folk." How, one may ask, can I take a cadre of musicians that include Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, etc., and declare this album to be the "best"?

The answer is two-fold: One, it contains the best damned songwriting I have ever heard. Two, it contains some of the most entrancing arrangements ever laid to tape.

To be sure, it's not an easily accessible album - even fans of The Milk-Eyed Mender, Newsom's début LP on the Chicago-based label Drag City, may find it meandering, baffling, and long-winded. Newsom makes many obscure references to ancient European folklore. While that record was full of short, quirky vignettes, there is little structure to the five immensely epic songs that comprise Ys, which range in length from seven to seventeen minutes. They meander to and fro, like a river travelling hundreds of miles through varied terrain.

But what beautiful songs they are, once one becomes acquainted with them! Especially if you are following along with the liner notes in the CD (or, if you are lucky enough to get your hands on it - which I recommend - the LP!), it is immediately obvious that Newsom is a one-of-a-kind poet. From the first track "Emily," which seems a sort of ode to her astrophysicist sister and contains many references to astronomy and cosmology; to "Monkey and Bear," a strange fable of promises and desires and envy; to "Only Skin," a lyrical, soaring song about life and death. She sings, "I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain; / spiders' ghosts hang, soaked and dangling, / silently from all the blooming cherry trees / tiny nooses, safe from everyone; / nothing but a nuisance, gone now, dead and done... / Be a woman, be a woman..."

Newsom's voice still has that croneish tone, though it has certainly matured and mellowed since Milk-Eyed Mender, and every now and then it cracks like a false note on an old fiddle. Her voice remains perhaps one of the more controversial aspects of her work, but I love the contrast it makes with the harp she strums - it keeps that layer of unexpectedness and strangeness about her music. Indeed, it's the strangeness that, perhaps more than anything, makes her music so compelling. We feel somewhat lost, but somehow her songs reassure us with their strangeness.

Last, and certainly not least, are the orchestrations that were written for this album by the legendary Van Dyke Parks. These are not the standard "pop" orchestrations either - Parks knows what he is doing here, and manages to create a truly beautiful, rich, layered, symphonic sound, without undermining the songs they are supporting. They never distract from the overall power of Newsom's words, but carry them deftly and gently, creating a perfectly balanced sound that makes this record sound both epic and intimate. This is a skill that is uncommon even in the best classical and film composers, and Parks shows it masterfully.

A combination of beautiful arrangements and masterful songwriting that amounts to sheer poetry is what makes this album such a gem, and I will be very surprised if it doesn't eventually find its own place in modern folk music history.

LGBTerrific

Just a Polaroid-esque photo of me wearing a shirt I found online. Not much to report here.