A Great Migration

Dear TOP Readers,

I'm switching over to wordpress, so you can now find my blog at this address.

Farewell, blogspot. It's been fun!

Jen

A Critical Look at Some Pornographers

The New Pornographers, that is. So if I had to pick a favorite band, these Canadian Indie Rockers would be my go-to guys. However, whenever I pause to seriously consider the meaning of their song lyrics, my reaction is something along the lines of, "What the hell?"

I mean, not all their lyrics are so nonsensical; It seems that "Challengers" speaks of two people who are attracted to one another, but who both have families to whom they've committed their lives. And "Go Places" is a love song with poignant lines such as, "yes a heart will always go one step too far," which captures the nature of love, beautifully.

But then... then you've got songs like "Use It," on their album, Twin Cinema, and that's what this blog entry is going to focus on. Here's a link to the lyrics, although I will reference them throughout the post. It's a great song, with some awesome one liners, but what's really going on? I'm going to try and decode this. Wish me luck.

In the beginning of the song, we are outside and it is night. A cat calls and "two chicks in the parking lot crack wise at the price of fame they stood to gain." So I guess they want to be famous, and are making wisecracks about the height of its price? Let's move on...

Then, "the phonebook's been ripped off and two shapes in the dark across the way know the price of flight." Umm... what?

I'd like to know what it means for a phonebook to be ripped off. Has someone been copying it? Was it sold for an expensive price? OR was it physically ripped off of some surface or ripped apart? And who are these two shapes? We might still be looking at the two chicks or maybe there are two more characters that have just entered the stage. Whoever they are, it seems that they are discussing the price of running away from something. But what are they running from? Is it still fame? And why are they running? What is the price? So many questions!

Here's the next block of lyrics:

"If you've got something
That sheds some light
Use it tonight, tonight (chorus)
Heads down thumbs up (chorus)
Two sips from the cup of human kindness
And I'm shit faced, just laid to waste"

Hmm... maybe the narrator doesn't know what's going on either? If anyone's listening, please shed some light on this night scene! We could still be talking about fame and flight here. And then a game of seven-up begins- that wacky game that kids to sometimes play in elementary and middle school on substitute teacher days. It was fun, but why does it make an appearance in the song?

I love the last two lines; they seem to work really well as a stand alone quote. "Two sips from the cup of human kindness and I'm shit faced." What a great image. One can only do so many good deeds before they get fed up, OR after doing only a small number of good deeds, it's possible to become obsessed with your own kindness. "Just laid to waste" sounds like the said drinker has perhaps died after drinking from the cup. So maybe the cup of human kindness contains poison? I'm sure there are additional readings.

Skipping ahead a little bit:

"If you've got will and a little time
Use it tonight, tonight
You had to send a wrecking crew after me
I cant walk right"

This "wrecking crew" is mentioned many times, and it seems that the speaker is seeking death because... he or she can't walk right. I mean I'm assuming they are referencing a group of people that knock down buildings? And so this brings forth a slew of further questions: why does not walking right demand death? And why a wrecking crew? It's a cool (yet disturbing) image. Maybe "walking right" has a deeper meaning, and refers to the mishandling of some important life situation or a generally despicable manner of living?

Onto the last passage I'm going to examine, since the rest is just composed of random and repeated chorus lines:

"Phantom of the heart
Four beats from the parting lungs and mind
Since I was a child
Just grew there wild"

Not really sure where to begin. It seems that this person's heart has disappeared, and only a phantom of it remains. The "parting lungs and mind" line goes along with the image of dying, with the assumption that the mind lives on after the body dies. Not sure what the child part of it is about, because wanting to die since childhood is a very grim image.

Anyway, the song, or scene fades to black with a repetition of "use it tonight," and never fails to leave me baffled. Use what tonight? Why tonight? Maybe it's supposed to be nonsensical. In any case, it's a fun song. Give it a listen.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

As a part of my undergraduate program, I spent the last academic year in England studying at an English university, and I returned to the states this past June. I experienced a little bit of culture shock when I first got back, mainly in the form of being taken aback when someone would talk to me in the line at the grocery store, or wondering why there were no packages of Digestives (the best biscuit ever) down the cookie aisle of the grocery store. I was able to adjust quickly however, and my mourning period for the digestive was cut short by the realization that you can actually purchase them at specialty stores, like Wegman's. phew!

That is I thought I was able to adjust quickly, but not until I got back to college in America did I realize that there was a whole separate realm of culture shock that I was yet to face. And here I am, staring it in the face.

The Sunday.

In England these days didn't hold any weight at all, especially since during my second semester at the University of East Anglia I had no class on Mondays or Fridays. Sunday was just another day of the week whose night would probably be spent at the campus pub, hanging out with friends, or finding some tv show or movie online to watch. I did the latter a lot, thanks to the bbc iplayer, megavideo, etc.

Anyway, my point is that there was no rush to do homework on Sundays. In fact there wasn't really a great deal of work to do any day of the week, since the workload of most classes consisted of either two papers or one paper and one exam. So one week was incredibly busy, while the rest were completely devoid of homework. It's therefore strange that these 100 pages of readings have suddenly materialized in front of me and necessitate my attention. The whole idea of the weekend offering a break from the overwhelming week schedule has become alien to me, because the week schedule was never overwhelming. All in all I am enjoying this packed schedule as my mind finally feels perpetually stimulated again, but I think it's going to take a few of these bloody Sundays before I've conquered culture shock for good.

But for now...

Flight of Subconsciousness

Last night, for the first time in a year or so, I dreamed that I was flying. These dreams don't come often, but when they do, they're usually a lot of fun, and when I wake up I always wonder when the next one will come along. This last dream was a bit different from others, because I was using this odd mechanism to get off the ground. It was sort of like a chair, but more malleable than a chair, and the way it worked was that I pushed down on the armrests to get higher in the air. Getting off the ground was always a little difficult; a couple of fruitless jumps always had to occur before I was finally airborne. For the majority of the dream I was flying through this large wooden tunnel, and I felt very proud and mighty as I zoomed past all the people who were just walking through. "They must all be amazed by the sight of me," I remember thinking. Then at one point there was another person, hovering just below the ceiling of the tunnel, strapped into a similar contraption to the one I was using, and when I went up to talk with them, I went a bit too high and nearly bumped my head on the wooden roof.

I did a bit of hasty research on a couple of dream sites about what flying symbolizes in dreams, because I was curious as to why these experiences have spaced themselves out throughout my subconscious life. One site said something about how flying symbolizes liberation from something that one has been struggling against, but if the dreamer finds it difficult to get off the ground, or finds his or her flight interrupted by some boundary, that means there is an actual boundary in real life, someone or something in the way of some sort of goal. Freud was of the opinion that flying represented sexual release, while the Greek myth of Icarus illustrated the repercussions of trying to fly too high. Icarus's father made Icarus a pair of wax wings, and warned his son not to go too high or too close to the ocean. Icarus became too absorbed with the exhilaration of flight and did both of these things; the wings were melted by the sun, and he fell into the ocean.

Based on this research, I'm assuming that something in my subconscious feels dually liberated and constricted, since I was able to fly above everyone else, but there were times when I had trouble with getting into the air, and there was the physical barrier of the tunnel roof. Perhaps the liberation could be the powerful feeling of being a senior in college, and the constriction the fear of next year? Who knows, but all I can think to do now is to wait for that wooden roof to lift, and when it does, stay a safe distance away from the sun.

Living Large

Today I am going to detail my first experience on a private jet. No, I'm not obscenely rich, or famous, but my dad happens to be a pretty decent endocrinologist, and one of his patients is very much the former of those two things. He began as a lawyer, and now he makes his money by buying struggling businesses, and after they begin to flourish, selling them for much more.

Anyway, back to the jet. We left from the Atlantic City International airport, bound for Lenox, Massachusetts, the location of the Tanglewood Institute and of (last weekend at least) The One Day University, a program that hires the most prestigious and popular professors from the best schools to come and give their best lecture. Now, normally it would take about 7 hours to get to this part of the Berkshires. I've actually driven that distance before, and it's not too much fun.

However, on Sunday it took all of 45 minutes. No check in, no security, not even a wait on the runway. As soon as the ten of us buckled our seatbelts, we started moving. The plane was furnished with several couchy benches and one restaurant-like booth in which my parents and I chose to sit. So not only was this my first ride on a private jet, but the first time I faced the back of the plane during take off. That was a little strange, but it was much easier to see everything on the ground getting smaller and smaller. I opted for the other side of the booth on the way back. Once there, and after a breakfast of bagels and cream cheese and coffee, we climbed out, hopped into a couple of vans and set off for the institute. Note that the day's activities began at 9am.

The day was really interesting. There were three professors from Harvard and Yale; one gave a lecture on the appreciation of art, one on the "science" of happiness, and the third on Beethoven's 9th symphony. After these, we broke for lunch and then went to a concert that contained the symphony. I think the whole day is normally $299, but my parents and I were completely treated, which was incredible.

After the day was over, we rode back to the airport, hopped into the plane, second-lunched on cheese, crackers, and shrimp coctail, and arrived back in Atlantic City just in time for a walk on the beach, and then dinner. So we left at 7am and returned at around 6pm. Needless to say, I wouldn't mind making a habit of something like that. Apparently the family regularly flies to London and Paris, and they use another plane for longer trips. They also told us a story about how, when flying to Nice, France, they took a plane as large as a commercial one, but rather than rows of seats inside, it had a dining room table, a couple bedrooms, couches, a huge TV, and even a shower. Feeling guilty about your carbon footprint? I'm not anymore.

The Satanic Cameos

I'm taking a seminar focused on Rushdie this upcoming semester, and back in May I got a pretty long reading list, so as to alleviate reading during the semester. Of course I waited until August to start working on it, and decided to begin with The Satanic Verses, as it seems to be his most heated work. I'm really enjoying it so far; it's magical realism so a lot of crazy things occur throughout the story. For instance, two people fall from a plane's height, and by flapping their arms, they are able to slow themselves down. Afterward, one of those two men turns into a demonic goat while the other acquires a halo that floats above his head.

There is also another character in the book who remains unnamed, and who is the subject of this post. He appears on page 292 of my edition, and then disappears forever. He is a "perfectly ordinary looking 'accountant type,'" who goes home every night with a briefcase and a box of sweetmeats, and every day when he gets home he rearranges his sitting room furniture, placing chairs in two rows with an aisle in between. Then, for a half hour exactly, he pretends that he is the conductor of a single-decker bus bound for Bangladesh. Not only that, but his family is obliged to participate every night. "and after half an hour precisely he snaps out of it, and the rest of the time he's the dullest guy you could meet."

Now when I read this I was initially extremely amused (I certainly laughed out loud) but after that started wondering about a lot of things. First of all, what does his family think of this? Have they told him, "Hey daddy, it's really strange that you pretend to be a bus conductor every evening," or "We don't really like pretending to be your passengers every single day, can this please not happen anymore?" or "Robert, buses can't drive to Bangladesh. There's water in the way."

Or maybe they just go with it without complaint. Apparently the entire community knows about this habit, so I'm guessing the family has told everyone about how peculiar this man is? Or maybe people overheard fake horn blasts coming from the house, shouts of, "Next stop is Pakistan!" Does he know that he does this every night, or does he go into a trance during these episodes? And has he seen a pyschotherapist at all?

What I love is that he is incredibly dull otherwise. I mean, what could be more interesting than having a fantasy about driving a bus across the English Channel. And what's with the sweetmeats? Does he bring home anything else other than sweetmeats? These are all questions I have, but alas he is only mentioned in passing, so I will never learn the answers.

But seriously, what a weirdo.

The Artsy Side of Jersey

There is this summer art festival that's held in Collingswood, a town about twenty minutes away from me, and it's become a tradition for my family to go every year. Basically the main street gets filled to bursting with tents, in which artists, jewelry makers, handbag designers, etc. display their work, most of which is for sale. Some artists come back every year, but for the most part, there is a good deal of variety. There were a few booths that really caught my eye this year.

One artist constructed animals out of old car and bike parts. This was neat, because some of the animals (dogs and snails, I think) functioned as things such as wine holders, or salt and pepper shakers. There was another jewler who made earrings and neclaces out of recycled iced tea and soda cans, and other recylcled objects. I was particularly drawn to her display of typewriter key earrings. She somehow extracted the letters and symbols from the keys and replaced them with different words. For instance one pair said, "kvetch" and "kvell." Another said "artist" and "poet." The pair I bought said "read" and "write." The paying process took longer than I expected, as the man running the booth gave me this whole schpiel about how I should send him my picture so he could show it to his 23 yr old, jewish, med student son (this was mainly because I understood what the "kvetch" and "kvell" earrings meant), but that's beside the point.

The most interesting booth at this year's festival belonged to a man named Paul Laoria and was filled with his mostly abstract oil on canvas paintings. He attended Juliard, and was very insistent about telling the story of every painting. Two of the pieces really stood out to me, and one is hanging in our living room at the moment; it's called "After the Ball," and according to Laoria it depicts the view of someone looking up at confetti and streamers at the end of the night, at a ball:


(After the Ball)

That was the painting that my mom ended up buying. The one that I liked the most was called "Rainbow Symphony," and it was supposed to depict just that-- the way a symphony would appear, if it were seen and not heard. The reason why I loved this piece so much was that I thought it captured music so well. It also made me think about how it might be cool to have synaesthesia, and be able to automatically match musical notes with colors:


(Rainbow Symphony)

Anyway, just thought I'd share, and if you're interested in the festival, it's in Collingswood, NJ, this year it was at the end of July (not sure when it'll be next year, or whether there will be one in the middle of this year). If not, it's a nice, quaint town with funky coffee shops, restaurants, and other crafty stores, so go check it out!