I’ve moved from Los Angeles to Dublin, and this has kept me from updating. And now is not the time to update, but I figured the steady traffic deserves some explanation. Thanks for stopping by. Expect some new Irish Music in the next month.

Tom Waits – Alice[play] [buy]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As I write this, I am sitting in the back right corner of a metro bus, typing poorly on my iPhone and watching the auto-correct fix all my mistakes so that you, dear reader, will never know how clumsy my thumbs are.

I’m listening to Mr. Tom Waits, his album Alice to be specific. And it’s good to be specific. The album tells stories from a world gone wrong. It’s like Alice grew up, and Wonderland soured as she was exposed to the awful Earth, and then, as the album begins, she dies, and is at last returned to that strange Land, now twisted, but not at all beyond recognition. No, its horribly familiar.

I am sitting right next to the window, and I see that a similar decomposition is happening in Los Angeles.

The bus is crowded with Americans, all pretending to be so tough and strong. Only one in twenty has the courage to look you in the eye. But maybe of isn’t a lack of courage, only a lack of a shot to give.

The comparison between the denizens of post-mortum Wonderland and pre-Fall L.A. grows stronger: both have resigned themselves to their fates, and whatever face we put on it (for I belong here too,) we refuse to lift our heads and change our world.

It’s all the fault of Alice.

There’s a singing that sometimes fills the air when you’re outside in Hermit’s Cove. I think it comes from the Quiet. This being a foreign concept in Los Angeles, I shall explain:Imagine, when you walk out of a concert, and your ears are ringing. Now, imagine that you can’t hear anything. No drunken concert-fans, obsessed with ignoring the music they claim to love, screaming their laughter as they puke on each other’s flip flops. No cars honking at said drunken fans, urging them to move out of the way, lest they be killed. No, its silent. No, really, silent. There’s no traffic, no cars at all. No machines, no planes, no power stations, no gas stations, no grocery stores, no whatever-the-fuck strange thing you have next to your home in the sprawl that buzzes, hums and talks to itself in the middle of the night. Not a single yapping dog or rich couple fucking.

Got all that? Now, imagine that your ears are still ringing from the concert. Only there’s no other sound to pay attention to.

You get caught up in the singing.

At least, I’ve found that the residue hum from the L.A. Concert is pleasing and tonal. It has waves that you can ride upon, this singing. It rises and falls, and hardly seems to fade away before its back again, building to a strong chord.

Sort of like Iron and Wine.

I got a new album today and let it trip me out. Also, here is my Dad.

And Merry Christmas.

Even this, is prerecorded. Its too much to hide. Similies and metaphors are obsolete when it comes to the strangeness that will be the future. Apparently I decide what that future is.All our news, in this future, will come in the form of podcasts. The most dangerous effect of this, is of course, What day is it?

How easy to change the clocks so that we now have 25 hours in a day. How easy to skip a few choice days. Some people may count, but who will beleive them when every calendar and clock in the world is digital.

I go a bit far with this, but its the beginning of the future, this podcast wave. And I don’t dislike it. Its just that I worry about the actual “Live” news podcasts. How do we know that those aren’t faked? Or just from a year ago instead of right now.

More on this later. Right now, I have a bird sitting behind me. Our bird, Joey, can speak. I mean mimic. His singing sounds like us. He records words and phrases, said in our own voices, and repeats them back to us. He also runs back and forth between two mirrors, and bangs his head into each of them occasionally after he does so.
Its very eerie to hear the bird, he sounds like a little, handheld tape recorder that’s speaker is a bit blown out. Very strange.

And now, to writing.

Ooblah

I don’t know, but I think that music is getting better.

I see it in the way that post modernism has forced us to see everything through the lens of “reference”, pastiche, and that which was done before.  While this has been annoying, it also offers pleasure, something akin to nostalgia.  And music offers that even when unique to itself.  I think that musical quoting is a good thing.  Its like reading about Shardik in the Dark Tower series, and knowing where the giant bear came from (the same mind that wrote Watership Down.)  Knowing where Shardik came from is not essential to the story when it first arrives, it is used in a unique way by King, making it his own, and yet, knowing gives one much pleasure.

It is the same in music.  Knowing that a certain lyric references a Jimi Hendrix song…  That’s good.  Knowing that the melody you’re hearing is a Cole Porter tune…  That’s cool.  People get their panties bunched up because they fear the end of things, they fear that we will run out of things.  But with post-modernism, we’ve really only just added another set of building blocks to our almost infinte pile.

And these blocks glow, and remind you that you have memories.