"Davidoff Could Speak of Nothing But Himself For Long and Rarely Strayed Far from the Subject.

But Baddeley had always taken comfort in being led from his troubles by a mind that acknowledged no troubles but its own. Whenever he grew tired of himself, spending time with Davidoff allowed Baddeley to grow tired of someone else. It allowed him to return refreshed to his own company."

From André Alexis' newest novella A (BookThug, September 2013). I really like this idea, but unfortunately, under no circumstance can I endure people who talk about themselves incessantly. Perhaps my troubles aren't great enough.

Read an excerpt from A at BookThug.

"The Visual Art of Brian Eno: Light and Time"

"What I'm always doing is - both in music and in light-work - is trying to make something that I wish existed. So I sort of imagine something existing, and I think, 'That's funny that doesn't exist. Why doesn't that exist?' And actually, I'd be quite happy sometimes if I found out that somebody else had done it, and I didn't have to."

How often do you hear an artist say that?

The White Stripes Charlie Rose Interview

Charlie Rose: "When did you two meet?"
Jack White: "Well, we started the band in '97."

Oh, Jackson. Always skirting those sibling questions.

Jack White on Perfectionism

The Guardian: What life lessons did you take from working in the upholstery business?

Jack White: Well, from Brian's shop it was perfectionism to the hilt – to the last nail and the last tack. He's got it down to the last wrinkle. And I just recently rebuilt my shop in Nashville, so I've got it back going again. But I learned to take a step back from perfectionism: that there's beauty in not achieving it. The pursuit of it is interesting, but the actual achieving of it can be a disaster at times – especially with technology, and the sounds that come from trying to achieve perfect recording. There's a balance going on there. I'm glad I had perfectionism in the mix, because I think a lot of artists don't get that in the mix. Like, if you come up through punk you think: "Well, I can just do anything – and it's punk!" But if you have a mix of that with the perfectionist side, then something interesting can happen.

Read the full interview at The Guardian.

Marnie Stern: Endless Quote Machine

"In 'Proof of Life', there's the line, 'All my life is based on fantasy'-- I sit here all day, living in this fantasy world and wondering if I have let my life go by without having real connections, no family or anything like that. Like, I am embarrassed that I can't afford health insurance, and then there's the separate issue of not caring about any of that and wanting to write a really good song that's important to me, which ends up overriding everything else. But then I lay in bed awake at night and think, 'Oh god, what will I do? I've got to find a guitar lesson to teach, or sell something.' But it's a choice. I feel very fortunate to have people hear my music. I don't feel like I have much of a right to complain about not making money out of it."

I kind of want to see Marnie Stern at the Media Club on April 25 just for the small, small, ohhh sooooo smalllll chance of meeting her. I don't know what I'd say though; I've met a few of my favourite musicians of all time, and I didn't say much to any of them.

"In This Day and Age, 'Punk Ideals' Are Totally Irrelevant.

Not that it isn't cool to have them, but times have changed, man." 

 - Kurt Vile on criticisms of "selling out" to the Bank of America. Full interview and more context here.

Remembering Roger Ebert and Why I Write

"Ebert was without a doubt one of the best critics out there. I can't count the times I went to his page only to find that he said what I thought or felt but couldn't articulate. The guy was a very gifted writer, regardless of what you think of his opinions on film. He was a voice of civility and understanding."

 - Anonymous


I'm not a big film fan. Unfortunately, I lack the attention span, and there are a lot of things I'd rather do instead of sit idly and burn out my eyes on a screen for two hours. I'm trying to watch more films though because I know there's an endless amount of good work out there, and my to-watch list grows by the week. As you can imagine, I don't read many film reviews either, Ebert's included. I also don't have the first clue as to what goes into film criticism.

But despite my lack of familiarity with film history and film criticism, taking the above quotation as a general consensus, I can say that the anonymous remembrance of Roger Ebert speaks to everything I strive for in writing about music. I know how difficult it can be to articulate the emotions that some music makes me feel. I've said time and time again (although more likely, I've only said it in several drafts of posts) that I rarely write about the music that moves me the most because I can struggle for up to months to articulate exactly how and why the music that moves me the most moves me the way it does.

I also know what it's like to come across writing that conveys exactly how I feel about a certain musician or piece of music, writing that re-affirms my belief that as little as personal tastes should matter, sometimes, they do matter, because to understand a piece of music, a movie or a book the same way someone else does - the way you thought no one else ever could or did - is to speak a same language. In these comforting moments, I feel a jolt of faith in my connection to other humans and in my capacity to empathize.

That I might possibly articulate how even one other person feels about music - that I might create a mutual understanding between people who may never meet and in doing so assuage any social anxiety that arises from a sense of aesthetic-and-wider-philosophy-based isolation - is the fundamental reason why I write. To be able to provide fresh perspectives and "contribute to the conversation" or "discourse" is just a bonus.

I consider myself fairly non-partisan. I can usually appreciate good writers whether or not I agree with them because when many issues are broken down, there are valid arguments for all sides. At the very least, I try to appreciate well-defended positions as motivation to remain as non-partisan as possible when I disagree. "Civility and understanding." If you can at least uphold those virtues, the way Roger Ebert was purportedly able to, there's value in your writing. It's least I can hope to do.

#IWD

Carson Cox: "I Was in 100% the Worst Social Environment I Have Ever Been In."

Pitchfork: Were there any other personal experiences that inspired the record?

CC: I was in 100% the worst social environment I have ever been in. My social life had become poisoned by friendships gone down the drain. Identity played a big role in this for me. I see this new, passive identity, especially in big cities; fall in, download, and be whatever. But you can only be one thing, and that is yourself. The people that are afraid to do that are wasting their time with their image. They're wasting their time with friendships built on nothing, their love lives built on nothing, fucking people they don't care about. It's poisonous, and it became poisonous to me. So I removed myself from it and made a record, basically.

"... I Sort of Had a Nervous Breakdown When I Was 19."

"When I was a teenager I would recognise characteristics in people like ego and temper and say, I'm not going to do that. And it got to the point where I became so self-conscious that I sort of had a nervous breakdown when I was 19. I couldn't handle it: I was becoming very paranoid and extremely anti-myself. I wouldn't let myself enjoy anything. And remnants of that are still there. I don't do drugs, I don't get drunk, I don't vote. Girls I don't do. With this whole band [the White Stripes], it's obvious how much we're forcing ourselves and limiting ourselves all the time.”

 - Jack White

TED Talk: Young-Ha Kim: "Be an Artist, Right Now!"

"The reason I make [my students] write like crazy is because when you write slowly and lots of thoughts cross your mind, the artistic devil creeps in. This devil will tell you hundreds of reasons why you can't write: 'People will laugh at you. This is not good writing! What kind of sentence is this? Look at your handwriting!' It will say a lot of things. You have to run fast so the devil can't catch up."

 

"There Is an Even More Insidious Problem with Digital Systems.

As much as binary code might be a universal language, the methods of processing it are always evolving. 'There really isn't an archival medium for digital data,' [Steve] Albini explains. 'Computer technology has changed so rapidly that drive specifications and media specifications change constantly. That's one of the benefits of the computer paradigm - it changes quickly to adapt to its market. But it also makes formats into orphans. Lets say you discovered a nine-track tape of a digital audio recording. What would you do with it? You wouldn't be able to play it. You wouldn't be able to decipher the audio that's on it. Even if you could find something to play it back to, you'd need to find some way of looking at the file, some way of determining what that data meant. It's a virtually irretrievable recording once the specific system it was recorded on is no longer in use.' The mighty compact disc may not be immune to this vicious evolution. 'The vinyl record will certainly outlast CDs. I don't think we will see the end of vinyl LP manufacture in my lifetime.'

It’s too early to know if this dystopia is what's in store for our digital audio world. But if it ever comes, a lot of music will no longer make a sound. Neil Young said we'd wake up one day and wonder what the digital age really sounded like. What an awful question to ask and literally not be able to answer."

- Greg Milner, "Perfecting Sound Forever": An Aural History of Recorded Music (Faber and Faber, Inc., 2009) 

"It's Only Just Beginning To Occur To Me That It's Important To Have Something Going on Somewhere,

at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on. ... You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then?"

- Nick Hornby, High Fidelity (Victoria Gollancz Ltd., 1995)

First Name "Chilly," Last Name "Gonzo"

"I believe in rapping as a way to transmit ideas because I think rap is more like a conversation; hence it has all the projection and bullshit of when we talk to each other."

 - Chilly Gonzales

Don DeLillo Quote

"How The Spice Girls Taught Me To Be a Riot Grrl" By Mish Way

I remember watching the special "Girl Power A-Z" hosted by the Spice Girls. They named Courtney Love for C and showed a clip of the "Doll Parts" video. The Spice Girls commended Courtney for her anger, "Yeah Courtney! Throw that chair! Yeah! Raw! Courtney!" They clearly had no understanding of feminist politics, post-structural analysis or the fact that the inversion of gender roles is counter-productive and binary. But did I? Fuck no. That's something I figured out third year university. Deconstructing Spice was something I would do as a woman, not a girl.

Click here to read the full article.

"Then Vote Hezbollah Did a Pro-Bush Song That Pissed Everyone Off

but that was the whole point and even when the crowd booed, they had a great time doing it because they got the joke. You have to stop trying to make sense of Punk - what it's for, what it's against. It's against everything. The singer from Vote Hezbollah pissed on the Qur'an. Everyone loved it. Then he picked up the kitab, shook some drips off, carefully turned the frail wet pages and recited Ya Sin with absolute sincerity. Somehow, the whole thing made sense."

"They're a Different Bunch," Replied Jehangir,

his eyes stuck on the closed door.

"They're a buncha cocks," said Muzammil.

"They're decent guys," said Jehangir. "They'll give you anything. If all they have to give you is a fuckin' Bic pen, they'll fork it over. But they're a little rough to deal with sometimes-"

"Hatemongers, Jehangir. Fuckin' bigots. If they had their way I'd be tossed from a minaret." Jehangir paused for a moment.

"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, Muzammil. They hate you. And they hate me too. They hate all of us for something. Me for the beer in my hand, you for the cock in your mouth, Rabeya for having her clitoris intact. We're all going something haram. Look at us. We're the ones that have always been fuckin' excluded, ostracized, afraid to be ourselves around our fuckin' brothers. They don't build masjids for us. We have to get our own. A fuckin' fag mosque in Toronto, you know I'm all for it. Female imams, God bless 'em. Whatever. You know I don't give a shit. But let's not play that bullshit game where once we get our own scene we can push people to the sidelines, to the fuckin' fringe like they did us. Do you only want a community so you can make someone else feel like the Outsider?" His voice gradually raised. "Fuck that, he said sharply. "Fuck being as small as they are. I say be big. Be bigger. Kill 'em with kindness. How the fuck are they going to hate you when you love them?"

"Why Don't You Have Any Taqwacore Bands?" I Asked.

"Because the fuckers put all their shit out on vinyl."

"What? Why?"

"They just do," he answered shrugging.

"But who even has a record player anymore?"

"I do," said Jehangir. "But just so I can listen to those guys. And it fuckin' sucks because it can't record from vinyl to a cassette, the shit's so old."

"I don't get the vinyl thing," I said. "Is there some kind of ideological point behind that?"

"Maybe. A lot of punks turn out to be sentimental suckers."

"Like Amazing Ayyub last night," Fasiq interjected, "when he said that there hasn't been any real punk since 1980."

"What does that have to do with vinyl?" I asked. "Do they think that they're closer to the Lost Golden Age by rejecting CDs? What does that have to do with anything?"

Mountains

“… mountains proclaim a message that is easy to understand when you have seen their steep walls and layers upon layers of rock, twisted, cracked, filled with gaping wounds. ‘We have suffered most brutally,’ they announce, ‘and we are suffering still.’ But they say it proudly, sternly, and with clenched teeth, like ancient, indomitable warriors.”

 - Hermann Hesse, Peter Camenzind