thoughts derived while apartment hunting

-Is it normal to visit another college, particularly one you’ll soon attend, and see people who look identical to “that one guy/girl” you knew at your own/past college?

-Damn it all, I’m really getting into Country Music. Country Music should always be capitalized because it can be so damn fun. I guess it really is acceptable in some (southern) cultures to have whiskey for breakfast.

-I will absolutely, without reservation, take hot and humid weather over snow and bone-chilling temperatures any day.

-The longest, most difficult path to a new friendship is through a bruised ego. The quickest is owning a puppy.

-I fear that airlines that offer wi-fi midflight are a coming sign of the apocalypse.

-Lugging a washer and dryer set up three flights of stairs seems like an activity reserved for a certain circle of hell.

-“No rest for the wicked” truly is a lesson for the quick-witted teenage survivors in any horror movie, particularly for the moment at the end when they’re gazing in awe at the monster they’ve supposedly just slain. Trust me, it’s just a fucked up game of peek-a-boo. Best be runnin’.

-I get bored on airplanes. That last bit explains that nicely.

monday

It rained this morning. It rained this morning and I'm at Java's, drinking coffee, reading travel blogs and cracking open a new book. Around 11 it got better and the sun came out; the inside of my car is an oven but the air is still cool and comfortable for the most part.

This new book takes place in Vietnam, and between that and the travel blogs I'm feeling this feeling somewhere between "you're missing out on something big" and "what's the difference between wasting time and spending it?"

I'm restless. Last year I was on the Noordam, in Europe, in Spain and Italy and everywhere I swore I'd see with the job. This realization was a cold slap a few weeks ago when I looked at a calendar and realized that exactly one year ago today I was in Lisbon with the elegant sidewalk designs and bandoneon players on the street. I know that I'm spoiled in that sense, but it is what it is, and I'm grateful and unapologetic about it. I'd give anything to peer down that one corner in Barcelona or go back to that one place in Mallorca. I'd get as lost as I could in Santorini and climb that fucking monster hill again for that restaurant in Florence.

But, really, I'm debating the difference between wasting time and spending it.

ka-boom.

Last night I knocked over a stack of books. I do this often; I try not to, but it happens. It's usually an accumulation of things I've read and set aside. I tell myself I'll put it on a shelf, but it gets hidden by the next thing I've read, then obscured by something I look at once, they buried by two books I just bought, all the way into becoming a base to my mountain of procrastination. Happens.

Somewhere in this stack was a songbook for Lalo. Lalo is a vibe player; she's modern, multi-influenced, chaotic, childish, organic, sexy and cohesive all at once, multiple facets claiming dominance at random intervals. I saw her at the Rochester Jazz Festival a few years ago and she struck me as the most original thing I've heard in a long time. She was my favorite musical paradox: someone quiet and unassuming who can completely tear the living Christ out of their instrument. Plus, she's pretty cute.

So, she was selling a songbook and I picked one up. I wanted to arrange some of her stuff for guitar but, somewhere between sophomore and junior year, the book got lost in another stack waiting to get toppled over. Last night I found it, and every promise about what I wanted to do but never got to awoke to stare me in the face.

I know that making promises to yourself then forgetting about them is a stereotype of my generation. Still...they come back to haunt you one way or another.

life lesson: accepted

It doesn't matter how good I am at guitar right now; how many pieces I can pull off flawlessly from memory or how clean my scales are.

All it takes is a creative half hour on youtube to discover I know nothing compared to what's out there.

Which is cool, because it means I have that much more to learn.

"so many nouns to verb..."

The Rest is Noise, the first book from New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, is an absolute masterpiece of music nerdom. Noise details the directions and deviations taken by classical composers since the turn of the last century, but Ross’ debut could be mistaken as a bizarre form of fiction with how personal and desperate the players stood between themselves and society. Ross makes the case that classical music born in the twentieth century is inherently tied to what was happening politically and culturally; true of any era, any genre, but Ross lays out his chapters like a casual history lesson, each topic, composer and controversy flowing unblemished. Noise is nothing if not the who/what/where/when/why/(how) of every significant movement and notion of what’s called “contemporary classical,” an impeccably detailed narrative for anyone who salivates at the thought of Stravinsky and Schoenberg trading blows over the future of music.

In short, I love this book.

Even if the Germans are a bit particular.

For the uninitiated, Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg played a major role in maiming tonality in the twentieth century. Schoenberg developed a method of writing that involved ordering pitches of music in a codified form which determined the course of the composition. He impaled tonality on his 12-tone spike and quickly became the headmaster of the Second Viennese school, leading Berg, Webern and, eventually, countless German and Austrian composers towards the notion of finding schematics (key word) outside of tonal centers to write music. This became a trend - chaotic music for the chaotic times of post-WWII Germany - and advanced to a point where composers across the world indulged in a new idea: notes and phrases that don’t make sense actually couldn’t be any other way.

From there, countless young composers, mostly German, accepted this idea as the new gospel. It was kind of a hipper than thou vibe – you’re not acceptable unless your stuff is edgy. Literally. Festivals and collectives developed solely to push music to its limits, then break them. Looking back was shameful.

Again, particular.

Music as an intellectual exercise. Music as a battlefield. It’s fascinating, really. Everything progresses, everything changes, and an art form that can span from charming folk tales to aural murder is destined for infinite variations. Still, I think there’s a fine line between “music” and a “neat idea.” John Cage wrote 4’33” to expose silence as music itself. Pierre Boulez developed total serialism and confined melody, harmony and rhythm to preset grids – music as math.

Neat ideas, really. Ground breaking stuff. Maybe a little/quite a bit masturbatory, but enough to make you go “huh” in a good way. Maybe it doesn’t always work. Maybe it never really works in that sense. But interesting ideas nonetheless.

Exactly – ideas. There’s a difference between “that’s cool” and “I’d listen to that.” Building entire repertoires based on vigorously denouncing Mozart and formal structure and key centers seems like Lenny Bruce after the obscenity trials: hammering out the same theme that wasn’t strong enough to sustain in the first place.

On a complete 180, I went to see John Mayer Saturday night. His new album is his love/relationship album, no question. He’s a heartthrob, pursued by legions of fairer sex fans. I didn’t know what mode he’d be in that night: John the rock star, John the modern-day troubadour, John the “Body is a Wonderland” singer (we all make mistakes).

Honestly, he was, and he’ll always be, the nerd who loves playing guitar that did right.

Everything about the show fit. Mayer was charming between songs. He opened things up to show how killer his band is. And, most importantly, he made the guitar his bitch.

The show felt good. Crowd, venue, everything else that comes with the show didn’t matter. Mayer did exactly what he’s supposed to do. He made the music work.

It fit. It felt good. It worked.

Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, etc. – they all deserve their praise for pulling out revolutionary cards and forcing modern music to face progress for what it is, curious or ugly. Still, sometimes it just needs to work.

However, a brilliant guitar solo can trump everything else once in a while. Sorry, that’s just how the world works.

--

Seriously though, everyone should buy The Rest is Noise. It defines “brilliant.” Alex Ross deserves sainthood for this.

etc. etc. etc.

I've been reading the blogs of this guy-Bob Lefsetz. He writes about music...inevitably. He'll start off writing about television, politics, business, the iPad-anything, really-but he'll always end up circling back around to making some point about music. Sometimes he'll use specific examples, sometimes he'll just drop vague implications, but there's always something there.

Lefsetz writes like a fan who grew up with (rock) stars in his eyes, but then grew up with a cynical lump in his throat. He's as apt to call out Ticketmaster on their "convenience" charge injustice and bemoan the pitiful state of rock concerts today as he is to champion a real-life Bad Blake and debate the upside to alcoholism and drug addiction to an artist's creative impulses. Occasionally he'll dive deep into something relevant only to those in the great northern yonder (Canadian, he is), but on the whole I can make it through without wikipedia's help.

He's good people.

-

need to listen: new Jamie Cullum
need to read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
need to watch: House

always House

again...again...

I’ve always been interested in the way things begin. The first words an author starts a novel with. The first sounds you hear when you listen to a new album. The image that appears after the darkness fades away when a movie begins. When I was little I thought that everything had to meet my approval; the first few moments of any bit of media had to satisfy my need to know exactly what was going to unfold. Everything had to flow along smoothly until the logical conclusion was reached. Anything that I could consider a deviation was a flaw and, however small, soured the experience just a little bit.
That was then. That was when I thought things should glide in a smooth circle, everything fitting gently in the right place. Now, I relish curveballs. There’s still something to be said for following protocol, but I prefer it if the narrative line bends into a curve like a Formula 1, making it but doing so with a collective gasp from the audience, a near-catastrophe sharply averted. Even more so, I love it when I don’t know what the hell’s going on, when I blindly stumble into a new movie or book with only a vague notion after the poster of the cover.
Personally, I think I just like being surprised. Maybe it’s a reaction to my media-saturated brain having grown far too accustomed to perfect authentic cadences and the boy getting the girl. Even if the ending is tried and true I at least want a complete harmonic meltdown at some point in the middle.
I once read a quote that the second time you see something is really the first. First impressions are to introduce and second ones are to clarify. I like that idea. Reading a book the second time around makes it your favorite. A week’s worth of listening to a record tells you what it’s really about. Looking at the things you don’t always look at make the difference between “good” and “brilliant,” “enticing” and “safe.”
I think a bit of confusion is a good thing.