"Got to find my corner of the sky"
-Pippin
Empire Records 1995
I think some of you need to hear this: there -is -no- return- to normal. COVID is perhaps the great schism, and you couldn't go back there if you tried.
When we finally come out of this rut our world will be different! Whatever demons we faced during this time we will slowly part with, and realize that they made us stronger, smarter, and more grounded.
We have to accept what happened, and use it as fuel for positive change, forging ahead into whatever new abnormal awaits us:
As Westworld's Maeve Millay says over and over "This is the new world and in it you can be whoever the fuck you want".
Im already loading up ammunition for the new world, so fittingly, I created a sort of "Live and Let Die" playlist. Let it be known that when the new frontier opens I plan on leaving some things behind.
"This Time Tomorrow" off of the Kinks' Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One
The Darjeeling Limited isn't my favorite Wes Anderson film( a little too Eat Pray Love for me), but it's opening offers up a perfect marriage of song and scene.
As Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody) manages to catch on the fly, an unnamed businessman (Bill Murray) is literally left in the dust and out of breathe. The camera moves to focus on Murray from the rear of the train as it departs where, Peter, raising his shades, watches Murray melt out in the distance, in slow motion (a beautiful shot).
Freight-hopping, although a sort of cinematic cliche, never fails to convey our hesitance to move forward, and leap out of our comfort zone, kind of like the line in the film Polar Express "one thing about trains, it doesn't matter where they're going, what matters is that you get on!".
Where a train leads may be unfamiliar but it chugs on relentlessly, seeking new territories and horizons. In that sense, the railroad, an American invention, speaks to one very American characteristic- elusiveness and restlessness. Perhaps nothing is more American than starting over and leaving it all behind.
(Also, Adrien Brodys legs are also so long! Look at those strides!)
In Americas finest hour, another train is pulling into the station. I'm getting on.
"Float On" and "The World At Large" off of Modest Mouse's album Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Album title: A- Plus!
Like all disgruntled New Yorkers (It was a long first year ok) I have this pipe dream about moving to California to start over. Whenever I listen to "The World At Large" that dream immediately resurfaces.
There's something about moving to California that seems so fresh to me. From someone with SAD it's an ideal escape (seasons are so overrated) To quote Overhead In New York, "The only seasons in NYC are rat and cockroach!"
With this massive exodus from New York maybe we'll see the second Westword movement, this time minus all the saloons and manifest destiny shit.
If you think about it, so many great American tragedies are etched with an escape out west, it's almost cliche. When people move to New York they are seeking, striving. People go to California when they've had it, to finally be free. Is it time to flee the dirty sidewalks and dash the American dream for a Mai tai?
"For West is where we all plan to go some day.... its where you go when you get the letter saying: flee! All is discovered!...its where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it... It's where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire... its just where you go.” -Robert Penn Waring, All The Kings Men
"Care of Cell 44" and "This Will Be Our Year" off The Zombies album Odyssey Oracle
Ok so I decided 2020 is not my year: But 2021: Yup thats the one! (On my 23rd birthday I captioned one of my instagram photos "making 23 my bitch," yeah nope- that didn't age well.)
"This Will Be Our Year" is the perfect track and end credits couple to supplement your cliffhanger ending. It's optimistic but uncertain. For as long as I can remember every New Years Day I have played this track, so of course it will ring in my new abnormal.
Turning to the albums opening track, "Care of Cell 44" is about a man thrilled over his girlfriends release from prison.
The sort of elatedness in this track certainly may bear resemblance to our transition from confinement to renounced freedom, but we should be conscious of the fact that people may craw out of their shells-not spring out of them. .
"And then you can tell me about your prison stay", In other words "how was the Q?".
I love the track "Beechwood Park"- its like "Strawberry Fields" meets "A Whiter Shade of Pale".
"Deep Blue" and "Ready to Start" off of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs
In 1996 (the year I was born) Deep Blue became the first computer to ever win a chess game against world champion Gerry Kasparov. Surrendering after only seventeen moves, Gasparov stood up in furry, his hands on his head- he had lost to a machine.
Brittanica.com Kasparov vs the computer
I fear that this post apocalyptic world might take us to digital extremes, and while digital has unequivocally served to unite us during this crisis, galvanizing movements, and building strong coalitions, still, there is something hollow and contrived about our digital identities.
Despite its efficiencies, technology remains a black mirror. The T.V show doesn't hesitate to portray this. While futuristic technology offers great potential, it may inevitably loom on us, denying us the very intimacy it seeks to mimic. To me, Deep Blue's victory serves as a microcosm for technology ultimately outsmarting all of us.
In tomorrow's episode of machine vs. man who will win?
As foreshadowed in Westworld, the achilles heel of a robot is it's inability to recreate human conscience- robots cant feel. No matter how hard programmers try, sentience fails to transcend into a digital world. Even the most nuanced Artificial Empathy (AE) will never equate to real human empathy. Feelings cannot be programmed-at least not yet.
We have to ask ourselves: in an extreme digital world do we control our devices or do they control us?
Harry Nilsson's "Everybodys Talkin" single featured in the1969 film Midnight Cowboy.
"Going where the sun keeps shining through the pouring rain
Skipping over the ocean like a stone"
Midnight Cowboy remains an unsung New York film (I wrote a separate piece on it because I have so much to say). To me, the film's strongest punctuations are in it's beginning and its ending that touch on pulling up stakes after a raptured dream.
The film opens with Joe leaving his sooty western roots literally in the dust. He gets on a bus and heads for New York City with just a briefcase and a radio. Oh, and he takes his cowboy getup with him.
The track in this opening scene helps lay a foreground for Joe's starry-eyed and escapist ogle that would later be guttered by the cities ruthless and menacing reality. He is quickly pushed out of his ivory tower and into the broken down shackles of the mean streets.
But even despite all the disillusionment, theres something special about the fresh perspective and visions we take onto new places even if we later find out they are falsely advertised. Somewhere else the grass is greener and the soil more rich.
But this film really begs the question: is the grass really greener on paved concrete?
This pandemic has surfaced the grim underbelly, not just of New York, but of the American Dream. But even amidst all the disappointment that this film delineates, if you pay close attention you'll notice that the film constantly hoists up another message- that in the midst of hardship we find new beginnings and newfound friendships. Sometimes our struggles can serve to unite us.
The track was featured in Gucci's Spring Summer 2020 Campaign. I kind of love it!
The track was also featured in the film favorite Borat.
"Sea Diver" off of Mott The Hopple's All The Young Dudes
The album is produced by David Bowie and the strings arrangements are done by Mick Ronson.
The song carries both a defeated yet dignified message, that "something dies before it grows".
Describing the armor on his depression as an iron veil, feeling akin to a "sea diver lost in space,"(very Bowie-esque) the song illustrates both being lost, and a sense of having to move on even if you're dragging your feet.
It reminds me of my favorite MLK saying: "if you cant fly then run, if you cant run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl..but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward."
Then there's the winning line: "Ride on my son....Ride until you fail", the gist: even if you don't win you need to die trying! Never give up!
Fun fact: Morrisey listed this song as one of his favorites in Desert Island Discs (highly recommend this podcast).
"Rip It Up" off Orange Juice's sophomore album Rip It Up.
You'll especially like this album if you like acid synths- it literally oozes synths. This album was actually the first to use the Roland TB 303 one of the first digital synthesizers.
This track has always been my "wipe that slate clean" anthem! It's unapologetically giddy.
My favorite track on this album is "Mud in Your Eye". I think its so pretty!
Its time to dismantle, abolish, tear it down and build something new! Augmenting and amending broken systems wont fly anymore. Sometimes you have to start over!
"The Song Is Over" off of The Who's Who's Next
This song is over so rip up it up ,Orange Juice style, and write a new one. Right now it kind of seems like we hit pause or the record is scratched. Eventually though we will hit play and nobody knows what song is next. The rest is still unwritten and I've realized the beauty in that.
"Don't Think Twice its Alright" off of Bob Dylan's Freewheelin'
I listened to this song as I walked out of L'Oreal months ago. As I pushed through the heavy revolver door at Hudson Yards and walked past that ugly ass vessel for the last time, I swallowed a feeling of deep-seated uncertainty but let out a surrendering breath of relief.
My disillusionment morphed into hope-hope for something better. I'll never forget that moment.
There's no use dwelling on what could have been. Because it wasn't, it didn't. There's no point.
The song is featured in the Season 1 Finale of, one of my favorite TV shows, Mad Men. The song is perfectly poised as Draper stoops at the bottom of his staircase, pondering what his life could have been like had he made a series of different choices.
(Sidenote: "Draper Existentialism" should honestly be coined its own branch of philosophy)
"New Age" off of The Velvet Underground's 1970 album Loaded
To me, this album makes me nostalgic for a New York I never knew and will never know. It perfectly encapsulates 1970's New York grit and the misfits that ruled downtown Manhattan. Ah the era of Chelsea Girls.
In time, we will be "over the hill" and a new age will be awaiting us. Our dark in between tunnel will soon see the light of a new era.
"Oh Sweet Nuthin" is my favorite track off of this album. There really is something bittersweet about rock bottom...you can start over. You have nothing to lose.
"The Two of Us" off of Supertramp's off of Crisis? What Crisis?
If any band screams existential it's Supertramp. Crime Of The Century goes DEEP! To me, the band remains highly under-appreciated.
While this isn't my favorite Supertramp album, it's hard not to appreciate this album cover and title right now. Not only does it foreshadow the current apocalyptic mood, but to me, the greater crisis we face: climate change. On the cover is a man sunbathing next to a bright yellow umbrella surrounded by a very inconvenient truth and forbidding smog. Tell me that isn't a perfect representation of our apathy towards climate change.
I love the stark contrast between the bright yellow and the black and white background.
Some of us will bask in ignorant bliss while the world falls apart around us. Just a fact!
The closing track "Two of Us" is a cheesy song about a romance in a post apocalyptic world. It's totally sappy but I kind of love it.
Call me sinister, but I've always romanticized spending the end of the world with someone.
I love the organ at the end of this song its beautiful.
"Where do we go from here?"
