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It was Mazzy Star performing \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E for MTV’s 120 Minutes. It was the early 90s, a time when MTV aired in a UHF channel that perpetually aired grainy music videos that seemed always destined to be old. I had no idea then that it would age like Benjamin Button 19 years later, looking crisper than I remember with all the grains ironed out.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYoutube will never stop being amazing for someone who grew up in the dark ages, yet it will also never cease to unsettle, the way it stubbornly replaces the warm dreaminess of your memory with the plainness of reality. I somehow remember Hope Sandoval looking a lot more drugged than she apparently was. Specifically, I remember her eyes scanning the studio crazily, which the actual video clearly refutes \u003Ci\u003Ebecause we almost never see her eyes\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9eptj2EZ4xE\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut memories are ultimately never about what actually happened – they are only about \u003Ci\u003Ewhat happened to you\u003C\/i\u003E. We don’t remember the accurate details of moments; only what those moments ultimately mean to us. And 1994 Hope Sandoval was the first time I’ve ever found darkness sexy. \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E was my jam in the fall of ’94, not that we have fall in the Philippines, but my consciousness certainly did. I kept playing it from October, through sem-break and November despite not having a tape of \u003Ci\u003ESo Tonight That I Might See\u003C\/i\u003E until a year later, but I didn’t need to – it was already playing in my head, echoing through the dim chambers of my pubescence, my moping sanctuary.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESeeing that video confirmed everything I thought about Mazzy Star’s music – the airy Halloween fogginess hovering over this ghostly beauty. Seeing Hope Sandoval for the first time, or her grainy ghost, left my mind in a dizzy spell, trying to fill in the haze with my own fuzziness.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo it’s kinda tough to see Hope Sandoval - in full digital, cold clarity - looking so old all of a sudden.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-3tVyF-dBhTs\/Uj6jzkQpowI\/AAAAAAAAA4Q\/f-28qmX2PGg\/s1600\/hope+old.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"213\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-3tVyF-dBhTs\/Uj6jzkQpowI\/AAAAAAAAA4Q\/f-28qmX2PGg\/s320\/hope+old.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cspan id=\"goog_457951960\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan id=\"goog_457951961\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’m not a lookist (or at least not consciously more than the average person, since we’re all really subconsciously lookist) or an ageist (see: my continuous infatuation with Neko Case and Susan Sarandon) in any way. What I am, though, is a memorist. Mazzy Star, more than any 90s band making a comeback over the last few years, operates primarily like a hazy memory, mainly because their music sounds like one. \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E, their most popular song, was never a number one hit, yet it remains one of the most enduring tunes from the 90s just by constantly echoing in our psyche like a recurring dream. It never sounded old or dated. It's just always there, omnipresent and invisible, like ether.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EListening to their new album, \u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E, makes the image of an older Hope Sandoval even more jarring. Not only has her voice not aged one smidge, but this album also happens to be Mazzy Star’s best. It's Mazzy Star at their mazziest.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/itHc2Pb_Up0\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat hurt the band’s status among the 90s cult was that missing iconic album that could double as proof of their greatness and shorthand for the era’s supposed superiority, like say, a \u003Ci\u003ESlanted and Enchanted\u003C\/i\u003E, or \u003Ci\u003ERid of Me\u003C\/i\u003E, or even a \u003Ci\u003ECopacetic\u003C\/i\u003E - \u003Ci\u003EShe Hangs Brightly\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003ESo Tonight That I Might See\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003EAmong My Swan\u003C\/i\u003E just don’t evoke the same kind of reverence. What they have, however, is a tiny wall of great singles – the aforementioned \u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Flowers in December”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Halah”\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003E“Blue Flower”\u003C\/i\u003E – which only highlight the unevenness of their albums. Every so often, when I find myself missing Mazzy Star, I pop one of their CDs only to find myself increasingly disillusioned for the next hour (they had a habit of loading their best songs at the front end). While I have stopped doing that over the past few years, their truly great songs remain in my go-to playlists (\u003Ci\u003E“Fade Into You”\u003C\/i\u003E can be found in 3 playlists named “Hickory Smoke”, “Adolescence Lost”, and “Unsatisfied”; and in one mix CD entitled “Sad Bastard Music”, which also features \u003Ci\u003E“Take Everything”\u003C\/i\u003E from \u003Ci\u003EAmong My Swan\u003C\/i\u003E). My impression of their music has therefore improved over time. Yet, while my memory of Mazzy Star may have been altered by technology once again, it is now rendered in the same selective incompleteness from which it was originally formed. Mythology ver. 2.0.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zw5VrD_d3fE\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn \u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E, Mazzy Star finally sounds like the Mazzy Star I always wanted to hear, the Mazzy Star I always imagined myself hearing. It’s the kind of record you could describe as “vintage Mazzy Star” if you never bothered to sit down and actually listen to their three previous albums in full. It’s as if the band itself, in the space of 17 years, reconstructed their music on foggy memory.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI always found Mazzy Star’s propensity for sub-zero coldness frustrating. I attributed this to David Roback, mainly because my love for Hope Sandoval was blinding, but also partly because he was the chief sonic architect of the band. This was confirmed when Hope finally went solo with her Warm Inventions project and recorded \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2009\/12\/2000s-hindsight-is-1010-my-number-3s.html\"\u003Eone my most beloved albums of the last decade – \u003Ci\u003EBavarian Fruit Bread\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. Finally detoxed of Roback’s bad-trip psychedelia, Hope’s voice soared and hit the ear like a warm, damp kiss. You can’t even describe the experience as “eargasm” – just plain orgasm.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kCXdnHa508M\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E sounds like a Sandoval-Roback collaboration more than a Mazzy Star record, which is the best thing that could ever happen to the Mazzy Star sound. I like that Roback saw the darkness in Hope's effortlessly melodic voice years ago, but as much as I enjoy the wrist-slitting charm of \u003Ci\u003E\"All Your Sisters\"\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E\"Mary of Silence\"\u003C\/i\u003E, I feel like her voice - with those moaning, slithering crescendos - was always meant for songs like \u003Ci\u003E\"Common Burn\"\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E\"I've Gotta Stop\"\u003C\/i\u003E. They showcase Hope in all her unencumbered beauty, which never ages as long as it stays in the dream logic of her music. I’m utterly convinced, as I type this, that \u003Ci\u003ESeasons of Your Day\u003C\/i\u003E is the greatest Mazzy Star album of all time. This may very well be hyperbole caused by a still ongoing time-travel high (previously felt with My Bloody Valentine’s \u003Ci\u003Embv\u003C\/i\u003E earlier this year), but I’m not really big on objectivity right now, or things like clarity and being right. That’s the job of music criticism – to tell it like it is, to rate an album’s musical merits. I’m more interested in the haze, the smudge, the narrow keyhole through which childhood views all music. I want – no, \u003Ci\u003Eneed\u003C\/i\u003E – to keep listening this way.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ryhXfAdU8VI\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4633049844132739088\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=4633049844132739088","title":"5 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/4633049844132739088"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/4633049844132739088"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/mazzier-than-ever.html","title":"Mazzier Than Ever"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-l_M9Em49eew\/Uj6jwL3X_iI\/AAAAAAAAA4I\/bmwXPOqru0Q\/s72-c\/hope+young.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"5"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-680197215551207326"},"published":{"$t":"2013-07-01T11:31:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-21T19:54:27.126+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Eulogy for the Living: The Forgotten Paul Westerberg"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-S6U6fjp8Sno\/Uc7frguz7aI\/AAAAAAAAA14\/WbsiVlx3Hpo\/s400\/westerberg_finger1.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-S6U6fjp8Sno\/Uc7frguz7aI\/AAAAAAAAA14\/WbsiVlx3Hpo\/s400\/westerberg_finger1.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“I will play a song that I like…and it’s not sad, so don’t be deceived.”\u003Cbr \/\u003E– Paul Westerberg on “Let the Bad Times Roll”\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E(from a KCRW “Morning Becomes Eclectic” \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lOdR1SOPZ08\"\u003Esession\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E***\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: justify;\"\u003EPaul Westerberg is not dead. He’s not dying either. In fact, based on \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.spin.com\/articles\/the-replacements-reunion-riot-fest-chicago-denver-toronto-lineup\/\"\u003Erecent reports of a Replacements reunion tour\u003C\/a\u003E, it seems like he’s not even close to dying any time soon.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut I want to write about him as if he just did.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEulogies are the best kinds of tributes because they come from a place of deep reverence that can only exist in mourning, or – as twitter demonstrates – feverish self-identification. I have no interest in being identified as the biggest Paul Westerberg fan in the world by pre-empting his death and thereby beating everyone else to the punch. I’m not an old ‘Mats fan from the early 80s – I discovered the Replacements in the early 90s when they were already churning-out the lame-ass mellow stuff that longtime fans were supposed to be disappointed with. I only felt compelled to rediscover their back catalogue in the early aughts, after falling in love with Paul Westerberg’s greatest hits collection glibly entitled \u003Ci\u003E\"Besterberg\"\u003C\/i\u003E. Early-80s underground music has always been something I've studied more than witnessed first-hand.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mPRJD0sE69c\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI write from a place where Paul Westerberg and The Replacements (or at least the Bob Stinson-era Replacements) are two separate entities. I fell in love with \u003Ci\u003E“Waiting For Somebody”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Runaway Wind”\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003E“It’s A Wonderful Lie”\u003C\/i\u003E before I even discovered \u003Ci\u003E“Unsatisfied”\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E“Left Off The Dial”\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003E“Stuck In The Middle”\u003C\/i\u003E. I feel as if this inverted way of experiencing Paul Westerberg’s music is the correct way because it presents a more accurate depiction of his art.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHe's always been a confessional singer-songwriter. The first Replacements records were really a product of him feeling obligated to play hardcore punk because of his surroundings and his metalhead bandmates. The Replacements were known early on as a group of messy, nihilistic amateurs who didn’t give a fuck but Westerberg’s early-80s solo home demos, stripped of distortion and all the drunken references, revealed a romantic soul. It produced this wonderful gem called \u003Ci\u003E\"You're Getting Married One Night\"\u003C\/i\u003E, which guitarist Bob Stinson hated and dismissed rather prophetically: “save that for your solo album, Paul”:\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C7jrH6xKCtU\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWesterberg’s reluctant punk phase produced some great accidental music, which is the most impressive kind of great music. At their best, the Replacements sounded like Bruce Springsteen possessed by Johnny Rotten after like seven beers. Isn’t it mind-blowingly amazing in retrospect that some of the most iconic songs during the golden age of American underground music were written on the throes of a musical identity crisis?\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fl9KQ1Mub6Q\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut the rock critic establishment experienced all this in chronological sequence, so they’re less inclined to see how weird and unnatural it was and just consider it as groundbreaking canonical stuff. The narrative goes: the Replacements were important because they set the template for punk’s pop flexibility that made a spectrum of bands from the Lemonheads to Green Day possible, whereas Paul Westerberg’s solo career will always be a footnote as unremarkable as his plain rock n’ roll shtick. And because the current musical climate is more rock-crit-influenced than ever before, the industry growing increasingly referential and self-conscious and music becoming increasingly about music, Paul Westerberg will still be considered as a seminal drunken genius who sobered up and became just another dude with a guitar.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhich is complete utter bullshit.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sLNiOkMw1nA\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn a world where honest-to-goodness songsmanship is deemed more important than edginess or genre-bending acrobatics, Paul Westerberg will be regarded as the poet laureate of Generation X, our Bob Dylan, our Bruce Springsteen, the patron saint of slackers, underachievers, romantic losers, and the disillusioned who nonetheless carry on with dignity disguised as self-deprecation and earnest hope. He may not sell as many records as Zimmy and the Boss, but he would at least gain more critical attention than Elliott Smith, Will Oldham, Ryan Adams, and Bon Iver. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where These New Puritans is actually a thing.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAuthenticity, like coolness, is a slippery concept made more amorphous by the inherent fakeness in pop music. Chuck Klosterman once argued that David Bowie is the most authentic pop star in history because he was the most aware of pop music’s artificiality and the most skillful at creating art out of this awareness. I don’t agree. Because every time I listen to Paul Westerberg, I hear the sound of rock n’ roll’s closest approximation to real-life honesty.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo one knows more about artifice than a soulful singer-songwriter who once tried to be punk. Westerberg broke through the industry as a world-class poser and this experience informs much of his solo work. Where Bowie’s commentary on artifice was in itself a performance art, Westerberg’s is a continuous memoir whose own knowledge of fakeness makes it more authentic than anything Bowie has ever done.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EEm7pUwlGXQ\" width=\"560\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“It’s A Wonderful Lie”\u003C\/i\u003E is not only one of the greatest pop songs about the fraudulence of fame; it’s also one of the greatest pop songs about the inevitable honesty of aging. When Westerberg sings, \u003Ci\u003E“How am I looking? I don’t want the truth. What am I doing? I ain’t in my youth. I’m past my prime, or was that just a pose?”\u003C\/i\u003E he’s not only singing about his career, he’s singing about all of us who’ve spent our lives pretending to be someone else. Our lives are filled with wonderful lies and we all do “still get by on those.”\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s the greatest song in Paul Westerberg’s career filled with great songs. It ends on a sublimely spot-on note:\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“So don’t pin your hopes or pin your dreams\u003Cbr \/\u003Eto misanthropes, to guys like me\u003Cbr \/\u003Eand the truth is overrated, I suppose.\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s a wonderful lie, I still get by on those.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn one verse he’s able to describe his art as true and false at the same time and is therefore able to express the biggest truth of all: life is one big lie and it's all cool. What makes this song an all-time classic, apart from the songwriting, is how Westerberg’s guitar makes a detour from its snappy, sunshine-drenched path to slink down the darker road of the two-line chorus. It’s ho-hum but pained. It sounds exactly how growing old feels like.Westerberg’s guitar has aged with him. Like his heart, it started out restless, angry, and drunk. In The Replacement's landmark \u003Ci\u003ELet It Be\u003C\/i\u003E album, the alcohol had settled permanently in his veins and it felt right at home with \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ub75Sk1Wrcc\"\u003E“Unsatisfied”\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E. In his solo career, his guitar slowly lost its late-Replacements-era polish, and became as beautifully damaged as his voice. No other Paul Westerberg album showcases this best than \u003Ci\u003EStereo\u003C\/i\u003E, which also happens to be the best album of his career.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VqPNLzkWj04\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are records that I listen to for specific moods, whether it's depression, boredom, nervousness, self-pity, or just harmless introspection. Only \u003Ci\u003EStereo\u003C\/i\u003E manages to be applicable to all of these emotions and I really don’t have any explanation why other than it’s the album that sounds like my life the most. It’s generally okay and smooth like \u003Ci\u003E“Baby Learns To Crawl”\u003C\/i\u003E, rough and melancholic like \u003Ci\u003E“No Place For You”\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E“Dirt to Mud”\u003C\/i\u003E, defiantly exuberant like his shambolic rendition of \u003Ci\u003E“Postcards from Paradise”\u003C\/i\u003E, ambitious and defeated at the same time like \u003Ci\u003E“We May Be The Ones”\u003C\/i\u003E, and peacefully resigned like \u003Ci\u003E“Let The Bad Times Roll.”\u003C\/i\u003E It’s also technically imperfect and transcendently beautiful.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-jUiZp8veS0\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut no one mentions \u003Ci\u003EStereo\u003C\/i\u003E in the same breath as Elliot Smith’s \u003Ci\u003EEither\/Or\u003C\/i\u003E, Jeff Buckley’s \u003Ci\u003EGrace\u003C\/i\u003E, or classic albums by the living like Morrissey’s \u003Ci\u003EViva Hate\u003C\/i\u003E, Elvis Costello’s \u003Ci\u003EMy Aim Is True\u003C\/i\u003E, or even Daniel Johnston’s \u003Ci\u003ESongs Of Pain\u003C\/i\u003E. In fact, no one talks about it at all. And frankly, I don’t care anymore. I give up.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPaul Westerberg, the solo performer, will never be hip or influential or quirky or plangent or whatever the hell else standards are considered “important” these days. All he is, is the greatest male singer-songwriter of the past 20 years; better than Morrissey, better than Jeff Tweedy, and definitely better than Thom Yorke. His music is the beautiful sound of someone still trying after already failing and ceasing to care. It’s the kind of music that will always be important to me and I don’t need his death to remind me of this.\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/t1iJfgU4ApM\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/680197215551207326\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=680197215551207326","title":"4 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/680197215551207326"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/680197215551207326"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/eulogy-for-living-forgotten-paul.html","title":"Eulogy for the Living: The Forgotten Paul Westerberg"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-S6U6fjp8Sno\/Uc7frguz7aI\/AAAAAAAAA14\/WbsiVlx3Hpo\/s72-c\/westerberg_finger1.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"4"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-1503111419883344647"},"published":{"$t":"2013-03-11T11:34:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-21T15:32:07.754+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"consumer rant"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"television"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Then We All Suddenly Cared About Earnestness"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-833SfKT_ASs\/UTyFeohEXiI\/AAAAAAAAA0I\/8gP5FH_ccGU\/s1600\/vlcsnap-2013-03-10-21h03m09s47.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" \u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-833SfKT_ASs\/UTyFeohEXiI\/AAAAAAAAA0I\/8gP5FH_ccGU\/s320\/vlcsnap-2013-03-10-21h03m09s47.png\"HEIGHT=\"241\" WIDTH=\"430\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003EAs the highly acclaimed TV show \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E revealed its closing credits perhaps for the last time last week, the twitterverse – THE number one source of snark and irony – brimmed with elegiac rants on how the world is so unfair because no one watches this beautiful show while everyone seems to be talking about or whining about \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E, meanwhile \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E may not even get to see another season. Comedian Patton Oswalt, who is one of the kings of snark and irony on twitter, had nothing but deeply serious words and earnest praise for the show. \u003Ci\u003E“PLEASE watch the season finale of ENLIGHTENED this Sunday on HBO,”\u003C\/i\u003E he tweeted. \u003Ci\u003E“It’s such an amazing show. You’ll thank me. I’ll thank YOU.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’ve been following \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E for more than a year now so I know where all this transformation comes from: it’s Amy talking. All of us fans of the show who have defended \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E on social media over the past month have been so absorbed within its world that we have begun channelling the lead character’s earnestness and indignation. Like Laura Dern’s Amy Jellicoe, we can’t believe how fucked up the world is. Her shock at seeing people freaked out by her intensity has inspired our own disbelief over how very few people watch the show.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd like Amy, we were a part of this bullshit world before; but instead of going to Hawaii for treatment, we watched \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E. So now twitter has become the venue for our own chillingly voiced-over epiphanies, filtered down to 140 characters.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L66amVvWVdg\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEven if \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E doesn’t get renewed (and honestly, after that outpour of humanism all across the deconstructive universe of social media, I think it will) there is still no bigger casualty in all this than Lena Dunham and \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E. Everyone who developed a hyperbolic passion for \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E rode a momentum that inevitably carried them to an anti-\u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E sinkhole. It’s an easy enough target: it’s weary cynicism, hip detachment, and relative popularity is the perfect antithesis to Mike White’s meticulously unhip, unironic, deeply sentimental, and largely ignored TV series. Many of these crusaders have hated \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E way before they even knew \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E existed, but its opposition provided them with a new prism through which they can point out its flaws. \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E is the sun, and as it started to set, \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E cast a shadow large enough to make its true shape more apparent.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo here’s what we’ve learned over the past week: \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E is good, \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E is evil. \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E should be praised for its cleanly-structured writing and narrative, \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E should be condemned for its increasingly aimless pseudo-storytelling. \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E should have \u003Ci\u003EGirls’\u003C\/i\u003E audience and more because it’s redemptive whereas the latter is apathetic and generally whiny.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’m not gonna go there. I love \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E with all my heart and soul but it's a love that doesn't contradict \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/politics-of-art-great-oxymoron.html\"\u003Eany good thing I’ve ever said about \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. I have some incredible news for all of you: you can actually like both of them at the same time. They’re not really the opposite of each other, even if it certainly feels that way. They are, however, different stages of the same pursuit.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E is basically a redemption story that revolves around middle-aged characters. \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E isn’t actually more inconsequential, it just seems that way in comparison because it’s about a bunch of people who haven’t been hurt thoroughly yet, so they have no choice but to wallow in a limbo where “angst” has actual currency, adapted from fiction and post-modernism, because they have to identify the blahness of their existence with something. This is what it’s actually like being in your 20s. And \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E does a great job of capturing that.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E feels more powerful because it’s about characters who have accumulated too many mistakes to even remember what “angst” is. It portrays a point in one’s life when angst starts to look like a mere cute thing you find in movies and indie rock songs. You have to reach a certain age (it starts around the mid-to-late 30s mark) before you get hurt enough to realize what’s really at stake; and you find out it’s not about book deals or career choices or feeling merely “alone” – it’s about life and death, it’s about being too late for everything, for love, for justice, for hope. Any redemption story that can happen in \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E could only be provisional. For you to redeem anything of real value, you first must lose \u003Ci\u003Eeverything\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat endears me most towards Amy – more than her crusade against corporate greed – is her quest to reclaim who she is, whoever that person even was. Her scenes with her husband Levi are so incredibly touching because you hear in their voices, you see in their eyes, you feel in Levi’s defeatism and in the way he seems to weigh down Amy’s newfound optimism, that accrued mass of  your whole life being torn down and the ambiguous necessity of carrying on. In those scenes of them just being together, Mike White is able to convey the entire gravity of their history.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jpjekxtSucA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESitting in front of the TV to watch \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E is like sharing horror stories with a long lost friend who’s been through a lot, probably more than you have, and suddenly sifting through the debris feels a lot less lonely, even if it doesn’t get any less difficult. HBO can choose to let it go if it wants to and I’m not sure I’ll miss it. I can watch any of its 18 brilliant episodes and revisit all of those moments any day. A third season would be nice but it wouldn't be necessary.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAmy’s story actually feels so complete now that I suspect many of its fans aren’t really mad that there won’t be a third season; I think they’re mostly indignant that it was endangered at all. The main frustration, it seems, is that \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E is the one that captures the zeitgeist and not \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E. That \u003Ci\u003EGirls’\u003C\/i\u003E world is more our actual world – a world of status anxieties and cynicism. That our world has become so numbed that hope is now considered a novel concept for a TV series. And it took two seasons of that series for us to finally realize this.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’m not going to boycott \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E in an act of protest against HBO for choosing it over \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E (as Mike White \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/kateaurthur\/how-mike-white-turned-enlightened-into-the-best-and-most-ori\"\u003Ehimself suggested\u003C\/a\u003E might happen). There’s a sincerity to \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E that people ignore in favor of the usual tired complaints about the show \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.collegehumor.com\/article\/6874239\/if-people-talked-about-seinfeld-like-they-talk-about-girls\"\u003Ethat we could’ve easily said about \u003Ci\u003ESeinfeld\u003C\/i\u003E but never did\u003C\/a\u003E because the world is really still sexist but we keep forgetting. But Lena Dunham’s sincerity can only be limited to the things she feels right now, which are, in themselves, limited.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat’s great about \u003Ci\u003ELouie\u003C\/i\u003E – a show that \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E was compared to early on – is that it’s Louis CK’s own redemption story. He’s seen his film career, his marriage, and his early attempts at TV fail miserably. The comedy and anti-comedy in \u003Ci\u003ELouie\u003C\/i\u003E are informed by his frustrations, his pessimism, and as funny and as corny as this sounds – his wisdom. By dealing with his pain in the weirdest, most unconventional way possible, he is able to rise above the ashes. Yet, I do not find \u003Ci\u003ELouie\u003C\/i\u003E postmodernist at all. It doesn’t put itself out there the way \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E does, Amy-style, but it reveals its hopefulness once in a while in every scene with his daughters or with some random \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.avclub.com\/articles\/duckling,60824\/\"\u003Educkling\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003CP\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf \u003Ci\u003EEnlightened\u003C\/i\u003E doesn’t get the renewal it “deserves”, then it will only join the pantheon of great TV series that have died prematurely. And if, like the rest of that pantheon, it does become influential, then post-modernism may soon become obsolete and a sort of neo-romanticism, something more grounded in reality, may emerge. One can only hope. Or maybe this is just Amy talking.\u003CP\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-utRxNNOp0cw\/UTyaakwIhyI\/AAAAAAAAA0Y\/nmUbWePBOWI\/s1600\/vlcsnap-2013-03-10-22h27m01s159.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" \u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-utRxNNOp0cw\/UTyaakwIhyI\/AAAAAAAAA0Y\/nmUbWePBOWI\/s320\/vlcsnap-2013-03-10-22h27m01s159.png\"HEIGHT=\"241\" WIDTH=\"430\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1503111419883344647\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=1503111419883344647","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/1503111419883344647"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/1503111419883344647"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/03\/then-we-all-suddenly-cared-about.html","title":"Then We All Suddenly Cared About Earnestness"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-833SfKT_ASs\/UTyFeohEXiI\/AAAAAAAAA0I\/8gP5FH_ccGU\/s72-c\/vlcsnap-2013-03-10-21h03m09s47.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-9017104885774025538"},"published":{"$t":"2013-02-08T17:44:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-23T10:06:38.712+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"journal entries"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"My Fuzzy Valentine"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-16iurjfRJE4\/URTEX0xk8QI\/AAAAAAAAAzs\/04IHIiBH0k0\/s1600\/mbv%2Bstage.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"303\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-16iurjfRJE4\/URTEX0xk8QI\/AAAAAAAAAzs\/04IHIiBH0k0\/s400\/mbv%2Bstage.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003EOn the morning of February 3, a disruption in my personal space-time continuum burst into our reality with such force, I could still feel its disorienting effects this very minute.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy Bloody Valentine also released its first album in 22 years, the much-awaited-then-lost-any-hope-of-ever-hearing-but-was-once-again-greeted-with-great-ancticipation follow-up to their classic \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E album, but that’s only half the story. I wouldn’t actually listen to their new songs until five hours later that day. That morning’s experience was a phenomenon in and of itself; it deserves its own over-analysis.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo here’s what happened: I went over my twitter timeline that morning (backwards, like I normally do, so I can retain the natural chronology of everything I missed while I was sleeping) and was shocked to find out that the new My Bloody Valentine album finally had an actual release date, which happened to be that very day, February 2, 2013 (February 3 here in the Philippines). I could feel the build-up pulsating through my iPad: first there was the buzz, then the cover art reveal, and then the announcement that it had finally been released on the band’s website, which was followed by widespread panic over the now infamous “error 403”, and finally punctuated by an eerie silence of what I imagined to be everyone finally listening to the album and actually experiencing it rather than tweeting about it, an awestruck paralysis that only a long-time fan would recognize.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat whole sequence of events, manifesting itself to me through a tiny device that belied its actual immensity, was infinitely strange. I don’t even know where to begin to describe how unfathomable that morning was for me. But I’ll try. First, I have to go back 20 years, to a fuzzy radio recording of a couple of already intrinsically fuzzy songs. And one extremely loser-y Saturday night.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003EIn case this entire blog doesn’t make this obvious enough: I was never really cool at any point in my life. In high school, I spent all of my Saturday nights at home watching the \u003Ci\u003EFriday the 13th\u003C\/i\u003E series on RPN 9 (\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/lCcUY58lv5k\"\u003EI found the redhead heroine addictive to stare at\u003C\/a\u003E) and then listening to NU 107’s \u003Ci\u003ENot Radio\u003C\/i\u003E program before going to sleep. One night in 1993, \u003Ci\u003ENot Radio\u003C\/i\u003E had its Shoegazer Special that featured Curve, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, and other bands I can’t remember anymore. A couple of songs stood out that night – one was a searing clash of guitar white noise that drowned the soft female vocals into an unintelligible whisper and somehow coalesced into a thick and fuzzy pop confection, and the other was a languorous, hallucinatory mope song that sounded like The Cure on 50 different drugs, only it didn’t really sound sad but kind of uplifting. Both songs were by a band called My Bloody Valentine and it would take an extra year for me to find out that the former was entitled \u003Ci\u003E“To Here Knows When”\u003C\/i\u003E and another decade to learn that the latter was \u003Ci\u003E“Moon Song”\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p4klTCRxHCA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhile I was in my room completely flabbergasted listening to this mind-blowing spectacle, I knew that my big sister – apparently also a loser who spent Saturday nights at home listening to the radio – was in her room, recording selected songs because she doesn’t have enough tapes to record entire episodes of \u003Ci\u003ENot Radio\u003C\/i\u003E, and I remember thinking to myself: \u003Ci\u003E“Oh dear God, please tell me she got these.”\u003C\/i\u003E I checked with her the next day, just to make sure that I didn’t just dream those dreamlike songs, and surely enough she got them.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI had to make sure because, otherwise, those two songs will forever be lost in the ether of adolescence. That’s how precarious indie music was to an ordinary teenager in the early 90s. My first relationship with My Bloody Valentine was through a mix tape that was probably on its fifth overdub, playing a sonic facsimile of a couple of songs that I would play repeatedly for days, weeks, and months. It would take me another year before I finally owned \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E on CD.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is why the moments leading up to the release of \u003Ci\u003Em b v\u003C\/i\u003E were so strange to me on so many levels. I had multiple people telling me that it was about to be released and that they were so excited, “error 403” almost trended (or did it?), and that they were narrating everything, down to the progress rate of their download. And these were actual people – not radio DJs or music journalists or news services – people who I know, people who I used to work with, people who I follow because they were writers whose work I enjoy; all of whom I had no previous knowledge of their intense love for My Bloody Valentine.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe last time My Bloody Valentine had an album out, the world was a fucking wasteland. I didn’t have magazines then that had reviews of \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E. I’m sure they existed, I just didn’t have access to them – financially, geographically, and socially. Outside my brother and my sister, I just didn’t know any other people who listened to My Bloody Valentine. Being into indie music in 1993 in a third-world suburban-industrial district at age 15 was such a lonely affair.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe songs in \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E were the anthems of that loneliness. I would’ve said “soundtrack”, but that’s what The Sundays were for. \u003Ci\u003ELoveless\u003C\/i\u003E didn’t merely comfort or romanticize that loneliness – it decorated it with the prettiest, sweetest noise I will ever hear in my life. Kevin Shields’ guitars shredded the sameness, the boredom, the claustrophobic uneventfulness of my teenage years. It made the loud music of grunge at the time sound unfulfilling in comparison, for finally here was noise that was dense enough and spatial enough to fill my discontent with more than rage, but with a wordless sonic substance. And it was a secret. As far as I knew, My Bloody Valentine lived in my room.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E-cmeVcoRBA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELast Sunday, a new technology that allowed different people from different parts of the world – some of whom even share my third-world background – to simultaneously express my same excitement over My Bloody Valentine’s nearly-lost album demolished any remaining remnants of that secret. It never really was one. And it was a really strange feeling. It was sadness, euphoria, disappointment, comfort, snobbish dismay, happiness for My Bloody Valentine for having achieved pantheon-level cult status, and most of all, excitement. It was exciting that all of these things were inspiring all of these emotions, it was an excitement that flowed on top of the main one, which was just the elation of finally hearing new material from a band that forever changed my perception of sound. It was just layer upon layer of feelings that they almost felt like a multi-tracked fuzz. But nothing can be muddled and beautiful the way My Bloody Valentine’s music is and always was. It’s the kind of mess I prefer, because it’s the kind of mess that never confuses me. It only makes things clearer.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003EIn the movie \u003Ci\u003ECinema Paradiso\u003C\/i\u003E, a young Toto grew up sneaking inside a theater to watch movies that were censored by the local priest. Whenever an actress was about to kiss an actor, or was about to reveal some skin, or shed some clothes, the scene would instantly jump, causing people inside the theater to boo. Decades later, Toto – now an old, successful filmmaker – comes back to his hometown after the death of Alfredo, the town projectionist who also served as his father figure growing up. He has left Toto with one memento: a film reel, old, unmarked, and pregnant with promise. \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/TflvNm22cpk\"\u003EIn one of the most moving final sequences in film history\u003C\/a\u003E, we see Alfredo viewing the reel in utter speechless amazement that he cannot help but smile like a little kid and break down into tears – it is a montage of all the kissing scenes and nude scenes that Alfredo was ordered to cut, now spliced together and finally revealed.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’ve always loved that scene and imagined what it must feel like to be Toto in that very moment; not only to see vestiges of your cherished past, but to see the parts of it that you missed, the parts you’ve long given up on ever seeing at all. I may never find out what that feels like for as long as I live but listening to \u003Ci\u003Em b v\u003C\/i\u003E for the first time last Sunday is definitely the closest I’ve come so far.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis album is our generation’s \u003Ci\u003ESMiLE\u003C\/i\u003E, a lost classic that we all thought was lost forever in the inscrutable mind of an obsessive genius. But where Brian Wilson’s masterpiece could only be recreated from his memory that has become as flawed and damaged as his voice, \u003Ci\u003Em b v\u003C\/i\u003E comes in its fully realized form, the way Kevin Shields intended it to sound.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd so I listened to it, and suddenly it was 1993 again, and I don’t mean a recreation or a flashback, but a brand new extension that branches out into its own alternate universe with every anachronistic vocal styling and shoegazer shimmer. Only this isn’t shoegazer music anymore; My Bloody Valentine has long ceased to become that anyway, and this isn’t M83 anymore or Radio Dept. or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart or any music that “recalls” or yearns for a certain era, but \u003Ci\u003Eis\u003C\/i\u003E the era itself, reincarnated, uprooted through a wormhole and transplanted into our new reality, and there is no hint of nostalgia whatsoever, only the blissful unawareness of time. And this happens until now – every time I play the album, the sheer density of My Bloody Valentine’s music surrounds me with a wall that shelters me from the disorienting cacophony of the internet and social media. This is the sound of obliviousness towards the ways in which the world has changed. And it is so fucking beautiful.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe walls of sound that My Bloody Valentine continues to produce will always shape the four corners of my room, which I’ve never really left, and which I will never ever outgrow.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UUc5y1NljXI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E \u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/9017104885774025538\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=9017104885774025538","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/9017104885774025538"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/9017104885774025538"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/my-fuzzy-valentine.html","title":"My Fuzzy Valentine"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-16iurjfRJE4\/URTEX0xk8QI\/AAAAAAAAAzs\/04IHIiBH0k0\/s72-c\/mbv%2Bstage.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-6131734522319821087"},"published":{"$t":"2013-02-06T09:50:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-12-31T00:23:39.714+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"basketball"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"culture"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"sports"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Concrete Jungle Where Pipe Dreams Are Made Of"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-_vx6oORjdxs\/UQ5ndm9KdEI\/AAAAAAAAAww\/KU7o03zwbtM\/s1600\/tenenbaum%2Bhouse.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"169\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-_vx6oORjdxs\/UQ5ndm9KdEI\/AAAAAAAAAww\/KU7o03zwbtM\/s400\/tenenbaum%2Bhouse.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\"I thought of that old joke, you know? This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken.' The doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in?' The guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; you know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, but, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.\"\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003E- Alvy Singer\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Ci\u003E1st Quarter\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Knicks are in a permanent state of decline.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEvery long-time, true-blue, diehard Knicks fan knows this to be fundamentally true. We’re currently on a five game winning streak but none of us are fooled. All of those games were played at home, against teams we’re supposed to beat. Our team is finally healthy now and if we can’t pull together a string of wins against inferior teams at home, then we might as well pack it in. Don’t get me wrong, we’re glad this streak is happening; it’s just that this feels more like the pendulum merely gaining momentum to swing the other way. You can’t let your guard down when you’re a Knicks fan. Never.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhen this season started, we were supposed to be garbage. We let Jeremy Lin go and signed an overweight Raymond Felton and an over aged Jason Kidd in his stead. We built our back-up front line on the remnants of the 1999 Knicks frontline – Kurt Thomas and Marcus Camby – which would’ve been nice if 1999 didn’t happen 14 years ago. Then, we signed Rasheed fucking Wallace. Who retired two years ago.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo the shock of pretty much everyone, we started the season 6-0. We were hitting our threes, Carmelo Anthony was playing well coming off his stellar 2012 Olympics stint, and our Lin replacements – Felton and Kidd – were running the offense very well.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThen, Felton got injured and everything went straight to hell. Amar’e Stoudemire returned from injury to the chorus of everyone saying “holy shit, he's done.” We got blown out by Lin’s new team, the Houston Rockets, got beat by a dysfunctional Lakers team at a time when they couldn’t beat anyone, got beat twice by a Derrick Rose-less Chicago Bulls team, and got beat by an old, decrepit, your-wife-tastes-like-honey-nut-cheerios-desperate Boston Celtics team.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-4HSNb4p_ty0\/UQ5nwMjXwRI\/AAAAAAAAAw8\/SAxpndOL6lE\/s1600\/melo-stat.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"279\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-4HSNb4p_ty0\/UQ5nwMjXwRI\/AAAAAAAAAw8\/SAxpndOL6lE\/s400\/melo-stat.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd now the whole gang’s back together: Felton’s making the offense work again, Tyson Chandler is playing out of his mind, Iman Shumpert is back and giving us defense and athleticism at the backcourt, and Amar’e Stoudemire is playing like the best sixth man in the NBA right now, shooting something like 67% on post-ups, put-backs, and mid-range jumpers, AND playing well alongside Anthony and Chandler when every basketball expert on Earth said he wouldn’t. As of this writing, we’re a half game behind the Eastern Conference leaders, the Miami Heat.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd this – all of this – makes me very very nervous. Being a Knicks fan is a lot like being Sisyphus: the closer we push the boulder to the top of the mountain, the closer we get to watching it fall once again.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI already turned my back on this franchise this past off season (\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/my-breakup-letter-to-new-york-knicks.html\"\u003Eas well-chronicled in this blog\u003C\/a\u003E) after almost 20 years of heartbreak. I thought the last one was the final nail in the coffin, because it was self-inflicted, because our owner basically threw away the first organic feel-good story the franchise has seen since Pat Riley’s early 90s teams, and not to mention the greatest NBA underdog story in like forever. As the weeks went by, the anger never receded, yet I was faced with the realization that rooting for the Knicks ceased to become a choice that I could just redact. It was sort of depressing, actually, realizing that you’re stuck in an abusive relationship. Ridding myself of my fondness for Madison Square Garden; the Knicks logo; the orange, blue, and white of the uniforms; the sound of the MSG organ; the sound of Noo Yawkahs chanting “DEEE-FENSE” in unison; was like committing self-amputation. It was too painful, too grotesque, and too unnatural. And so here I am, stuck with the Knicks, in a perpetual state of decline.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PSCdq1s5ekI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI fell in love with the Knicks in 1993, not only because they gave the Chicago Bulls (who I hated) their toughest series, or because John Starks dunked on Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen, or because Anthony Mason and Charles Oakley could bully Chicago’s bigs like no other frontline in the league; but also because they were \u003Ci\u003ENew York’s team\u003C\/i\u003E. And in 1993, I was already in love with New York and decided it was my favorite city in the world and that I loved everything about it and wanted to love everything in it. Gustave Flaubert once wrote:\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“My native country is the country I love, meaning the one that makes me dream, that makes me feel well.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENew York is my native city. And I have yet to step foot in it.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cb\u003E2nd Quarter\u003C\/b\u003E \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENew York is in a permanent state of decline. That was the case in the 60s, when a financial, architectural, and cultural golden age in post-war New York City faded into an era of economic crises resulting in poverty within the inner boroughs and a spike in crime rate (see: \u003Ci\u003EMad Men\u003C\/i\u003E, AMC). That was the case in the druggy 70s, the crime-infested 80s, and even in the much-improved 90s of Giuliani’s New York, which was still widely considered to be a dump. The city has been declining for so long that it has become its default state.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo this day, the most enduring iconography of New York is not Frank Sinatra’s post-war Manhattan, nor is it the 60s bohemia of Greenwich Village – it is Woody Allen’s New York in decline, the late 70s iteration.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“Chapter One: He adored New York City. To him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture,”\u003C\/i\u003E Allen’s Isaac Davis loudly narrates in the breathtakingly simple opening sequence to \u003Ci\u003EManhattan\u003C\/i\u003E, which is basically a series of lock-cam shots of the city. \u003Ci\u003E“The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams…(trails off)…how hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage…(trails off again)…”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uyaj2P-dSi8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDiane Keaton’s Annie Hall is the anti-New York: she’s fresh, sprightly, naïve, and blissfully Midwestern. She meets Alvy Singer – the quintessential New York intellectual, liberal, neurotic Jew – and they drink wine at her terrace where concrete towers of urban decay engulf the entire skyline behind them and the image is so beautiful. Watching this scene again recently reminded me of Jeffrey Eugenides’ description of the Paris skyline in his novel \u003Ci\u003EThe Marriage Plot\u003C\/i\u003E: \u003Ci\u003E“The window gave onto a view of dove-gray roofs and balconies, each one containing the same cracked flowerpot and sleeping feline…the French ideal wasn't clearly delineated like the neatness and greenness of American lawns, but more of a picturesque disrepair. It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully.”\u003C\/i\u003E Conservatives may be right: New York \u003Ci\u003Eis\u003C\/i\u003E un-American.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnnie Hall eventually ditches Alvy and his pessimism and the car fumes-smoked concrete grimness of New York City for sunny California. \u003Ci\u003E“What’s so great about New York?”\u003C\/i\u003E, she says. \u003Ci\u003E“It’s a dying city.”\u003C\/i\u003E Woody Allen’s Los Angeles is perfect, but like the dumb couple Alvy approaches on the street back home, its shallowness is the secret behind its happiness. L.A. is antiseptic juxtaposed to New York’s dirty, more textured colors and stone buildings. Alvy comes back from his vain attempt at getting Annie back and walks along the Hudson River, with the skyscrapers on the background. The image feels more tactile. It feels like home.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0CwOik8dMX8\/UQ5qPu_BEgI\/AAAAAAAAAxM\/QVUWxRHU0fw\/s1600\/annie%2Bhall.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"215\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0CwOik8dMX8\/UQ5qPu_BEgI\/AAAAAAAAAxM\/QVUWxRHU0fw\/s400\/annie%2Bhall.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnnie Hall is universally considered as a romantic tragedy, yet the tragedy that stands out for me the most is Alvy’s doomed attempt at conquering Annie with his New Yorkness. Alvy is an intellectual who hates intellectuals; he finds them insufferable, pretentious, and obnoxious (in the words of Alvie quoting Groucho Marx, possibly quoting Sigmund Freud: he doesn’t want to belong to a club that would have someone like him as a member), yet he wants Annie to be more intellectual. There are so many levels of failure in their romance that it spans the realms of touching, funny, and heartbreaking.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Ci\u003EHalftime Analysis\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’ve always wanted to be more intellectual. My pop culture influences are mostly Britain and New York-heavy, but while the British music I was exposed to was generally faceless, New York constantly filled my canvas with its sophisticated imagery. In my mind, the cool world of the avant-garde held the dimensions of CBGBs, its dingy interiors reeking of punk history, and the seedy streets and alleys of The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth. Modern art was to be found in the walls and found objects of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The great writing I aspired to achieve was in The New Yorker, the poetry of Frank O’Hara, and the films of Woody Allen.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy self-New York-ification is still an ongoing process, and judging from my age, possibly a certified failure. I am filled with wants and aspirations that confuse me and disappoint me because, as much bullshit I have digested about New York being a “state of mind”, it is still ultimately a place, and a very far and inaccessible place at that. Manila and Quezon City have the urban decadence of New York, I assume, but its cosmopolitan spirit is confined within shopping malls that lack the organic otherness of New York’s virtual Italys, Parises, and Colombias. It still feels insular here most of the time but I’m aware that this is my own fault. My New York influences have set me up for this weird kind of alienation that didn’t require an expatriate, half-breed life to form. All it took was a cable subscription.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI adopted the Knicks at a time when New York was the undisputed capital of American TV comedy. In the age of \u003Ci\u003EFriends\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003ESeinfeld\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003ELate Night with Conan O’Brien\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EThe Late Show with David Letterman\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EMad About You\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003ECaroline in the City\u003C\/i\u003E it seemed like the funniest, most interesting lives were happening in New York City.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y74IBgLQF4Q\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt was also fast becoming Championship City. The Rangers won the Stanley Cup, while the Yankees won the World Series for the first time since the late 70s. Enter, the New York Knicks – a perennial loser for most of the 70s and the entire 80s, and now a growing championship contender, the heir apparent to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe gave them their toughest tests during their championship run. That’s what all Knicks fans proudly say to this day because that’s all we can really say in hindsight. At the time, though, it killed us. We couldn’t fucking beat the Bulls. We just couldn’t. Mason could intimidate the living crap out of Scottie Pippen like no other NBA player in history, Oakley could out-rebound Horace Grant and make him look useless, Ewing could regularly destroy Cartwright\/King\/Perdue, Starks could guard Jordan for as long as any human can possibly guard him, until he inevitably eats people alive in the final 5 minutes of any game. Jordan stepped on our ceiling: he was the great force of nature that prevented New York from ruling the world, or at least America, in the early 90s. He single-handedly stopped a New York renaissance that seemed primed to happen. He killed my dreams. Jordan fucking ruined my adolescence.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt was this same disappointment that fueled my Allenesque romanticization of the Knicks.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“He adored the New York Knicks. For him, they were a metaphor for the decay of modern NBA offenses.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe could play all-world defense, protect the paint historically well, pull down rebounds consistently, but man, were we terrible shooters. It was literally painful, watching the 90s Knicks try to score. Their attempts at breaking Phil Jackson’s signature full-court presses with Mason and Starks were recurring Greek tragedies. Their offensive sets were predictable and often ended in a difficult Ewing fade-away jumper, a Starks 25-footer, or Oakley flying into the stands, trying to save a loose ball. But there was a certain beauty to it all. Their struggles were almost poetic in their impossibilities. Jordan was Beethoven’s \u003Ci\u003EOde to Joy\u003C\/i\u003E – elegant, grandiose, and sublime. The Knicks were The Velvet Underground’s \u003Ci\u003EThe Black Angel’s Death Song\u003C\/i\u003E and Sonic Youth’s \u003Ci\u003ETitanium Expose\u003C\/i\u003E – shambolic and beautiful; while also as defiant and tough as Public Enemy’s \u003Ci\u003EFight the Power\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kj1r8smLOmM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI haven’t quite figured out how to “like” this current iteration of The Disappointing New York Knicks yet. Carmelo Anthony’s Knicks are failing in a way that’s too amorphous, it actually creates a new layer of disappointment over the ostensible one. The 90s Knicks had a certain concept album-like wholeness to them. I like how Ewing, Oakley, Mason, Harper, and Starks seem to be molded from the same New York street grime; they had a singular grubbiness and grit that looked symmetric as they walked together onto the court.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis current team still looks like a custom team that was auto-built by NBA 2K13. Jeremy Lin left town, taking with him an organic identity we could’ve latched on to and plastered over the albatross lavishness of Carmelo and Amar’e. The Chandler-Lin pick-and-roll of last season was like the punk movement rendered in internet time; it was too good, too real, too fast, multiplied by a hundred. Now we’re three months into the current season and I’m still grappling for something, anything. Our Chandler-Melo-Amar’e-Shumpert-Kidd-Felton core is now finally healthy and clicking. I should probably give them more time – along with Shumpert’s Kenny Skywalker\/Patrick Ewing 90s nostalgia of a high-top, Kidd’s sage-like aging, Amare’s pseudo-intellectual basketball goggles\/redemption story, and Melo’s messianic promise – to grow on me. What is romance, after all, if not the inevitable decay of truth within the avenues of our memories?\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne of my heroes of intellectualism, Jonathan Franzen, has a certain memory of New York that has shaped the ongoing lament on the deterioration of modern life palpable in his writings. In his essay collection \u003Ci\u003EFarther Away\u003C\/i\u003E, he talks of a New York that is \u003Ci\u003E“no urban, no rural…just a wasteland of shittily built neither-nor”\u003C\/i\u003E. He might as well have been talking about the 2013 Knicks.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHe’s nostalgic for the New York of his youth, specifically his first visit to the city in 1976 – one year before \u003Ci\u003EAnnie Hall\u003C\/i\u003E came out. \u003Ci\u003E“The first time I saw her (New York), I was blown away by how green and lush everything was,”\u003C\/i\u003E Franzen writes. \u003Ci\u003E“The Taconic Parkway, the Palisades Parkway, the Hutchinson River Parkway. It was like a fairy tale, with these beautiful old bridges and mile after mile of forest and parkland on either side.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-IBj4Oo94_gU\/UQ5sYvxaU4I\/AAAAAAAAAxk\/FW-nwsiMkHM\/s1600\/central%2Bpark.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"267\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-IBj4Oo94_gU\/UQ5sYvxaU4I\/AAAAAAAAAxk\/FW-nwsiMkHM\/s400\/central%2Bpark.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFranzen, a loud and proud tree-hugger, fell in love with the inner city as well, the same concrete lushness that hovered over Alvy Singer and Annie Hall when they first met. He writes:\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“The hazy blue-gray sky with big white clouds drifting over Central Park. And the buildings of stone and the doormen, and Fifth Avenue like a solid column of yellow cabs receding uptown into this bromine-brown pall of smog. The vast urbanity of it all…the self I felt myself to be that day was a self I recognized only because I’d longed for it so long. I met, in myself, on my first day in New York City, the person I wanted to become.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFranzen looks back at 70s New York and sees none of Woody Allen’s romantic decay. All he sees is the romance.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Ci\u003E3rd Quarter\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI still have vivid memories of Linsanity. At a glance, it seems like the classic modern, social media age sports miracle that was instantly infused with nostalgic hyperbole right as it was happening. I was there, and though it felt like it was being made up as it was transpiring, like it was being exaggerated by some lazy Hollywood scriptwriter, I was witnessing it in real time and actually saw a kid literally come out of nowhere and shred the Lakers for 38 points and hit game-winning shots like he’s been doing it for the past 10 NBA seasons and suddenly pump back life to a Knicks team that was becoming increasingly depressing, even by their own standards.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YPs3LejANx4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo when moronic Knicks owner James Dolan kicked Lin out of town, Knicks fans everywhere were ready to storm his office with torches and pitchforks. I wasn’t there of course, but social media made me feel like I was in Manhattan; I had complete total strangers from other countries replying to my angry tweets with their equally angry affirmations. Articles spread all over the internet of fans and writers coming to grips with this betrayal; others choosing to disavow the Knicks completely in exasperated dismay.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis was when I started to seriously contemplate switching my allegiances to Brooklyn. I knew I was done with the Knicks, but I also knew I wasn’t done with my love affair with New York. By rooting for the newly-relocated-but-still-too-recently-New-Jersey Nets, I figured I could tell myself that I never really left New York; only that treacherous Knicks organization. But weeks went by and I couldn’t bring myself to root for the Brooklyn Nets, which is basically a construction, much like hipsterized Brooklyn.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U35MvblI4og\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI got to know Brooklyn through Spike Lee’s \u003Ci\u003EDo the Right Thing\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003ECrooklyn\u003C\/i\u003E and through Jonathan Lethem’s novel \u003Ci\u003EThe Fortress of Solitude\u003C\/i\u003E. Their Brooklyn was the stuff of urban epic poetry filled with images of graffiti, boom boxes, thugs, brownstones, hip-hop, street games, and drugs. It was a Brooklyn teeming with danger, creativity, and anger that burgeoned in the neglect of the 70s and 80s. It was a Brooklyn that lacked morality, but didn’t lack character, or an integrity that can only be built in the face of moral (if not actual) bankruptcy. Today’s Brooklyn has vintage bikes. And cool cafés.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/--bbnRr7aW2g\/UQ5vg9kOt4I\/AAAAAAAAAyA\/eKFcBz_6ryw\/s1600\/girls%2Bin%2Bbrooklyn.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"225\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/--bbnRr7aW2g\/UQ5vg9kOt4I\/AAAAAAAAAyA\/eKFcBz_6ryw\/s400\/girls%2Bin%2Bbrooklyn.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHBO’s \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E is set in a Brooklyn that doesn’t quite feel like New York or at least the “New York” of my mediated memory. Everything looks so neat and folksy; as if all those hipsters transplanted little bits and pieces of Portland and Austin to create some sort of small town innocence where there previously was none.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECarmelo Anthony is from Red Hook, Brooklyn; the old Red Hook, Brooklyn, Spike Lee’s Brooklyn, pre-hipster takeover. He’s the real deal. So it’s infinitely weird that a New York fetishist like me who’s never even been to New York would feel detached from a Knicks star who grew up there. Outsiders like Mason, Oakley, Starks, and Lin feel more New York to me somehow. Melo’s from there but he doesn’t fit the myth. And from my view here in insulated Quezon City, all I can see is the myth and the romance. The truth feels more fabricated.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Ci\u003E4th Quarter\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELouis CK is really this generation’s Woody Allen. His TV series \u003Ci\u003ELouie\u003C\/i\u003E is the new New York romance ground zero that Allen’s films once were, and it’s just as gorgeously shot and neuroses-filled. Louis’ New York is still decaying and gives shape to his pessimism, yet it is captured by a cinematic beauty that becomes a source of hope, a warmth, and an enduring belief in humanity: the cabs, the old delis, the pizza places, the subway that houses the city’s filth and grandeur all at once.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELike the city, \u003Ci\u003ELouie\u003C\/i\u003E is defined by its extreme opposites. The series sways jarringly between hilarious absurdity and genuinely heartfelt pathos so frequently, it actually feels graceful now in its shifts. The constant co-existence of contradictions is a very New York thing indeed, but the comfort and normality that this co-existence has attained feel even more local post-9\/11.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tm2P0uUQs3o\/UQ5wWDCOlMI\/AAAAAAAAAyM\/NriBx_acHyQ\/s1600\/louie%2Bpizza%2Bplace.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"224\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tm2P0uUQs3o\/UQ5wWDCOlMI\/AAAAAAAAAyM\/NriBx_acHyQ\/s400\/louie%2Bpizza%2Bplace.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe 9\/11 tragedy was the worst thing that ever happened to actual, physical New York and the best thing that ever happened to its modern pop culture zeitgeist. Critics can whine about Millenial Irony all they want but the three most relevant New York-centric TV shows today – \u003Ci\u003ELouie\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EGirls\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003EMad Men\u003C\/i\u003E – are throbbing with a yearning sincerity totally absent in the New York comedy golden age of the 90s, a vain quest for meaning and authenticity that becomes all the more touching for its awareness of its own vainness.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“We watched the twin towers burn from here”\u003C\/i\u003E, fictional Louis CK says to a fictionally suicidal Doug Stanhope, narrating his memory of watching the horrible event with his then pregnant wife. When Stanhope tells him his plans of ending his life, Louis is incredulous. \u003Ci\u003E“It’s not your life; it’s LIFE!”\u003C\/i\u003E he says, gesturing outwardly towards the city, the blurred, defocused image of the Brooklyn Bridge behind them. \u003Ci\u003E“Life is bigger than you. Life isn’t something that you possess, it’s something that you take part in and you witness.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QYULHHAzXYY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe most New York moment in Louie has to be the scene of him alternating between appreciation and disgust at the sight of a violinist playing next to a homeless man taking a disgusting impromptu DIY “shower” on a subway station. In classic Louis CK fashion, he pushes an absurd, almost surreal, yet almost real image to bring out a fascinating observation: New York is always in decay and always beautiful. It is a city weighed down by its extremes but because the space in between is so vast, because there will always be people in between the hobo and the violinist, the Louis CKs and the Woody Allens, the streets and avenues of romance and myth will never run out, and there will always be people who will fall in love in them, and when they sing their love songs and write their love letters and film their odes, there will always be people like me watching.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E*     *     *\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Ci\u003ECrunch time\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis season, Melo is trying really really hard. On the heels of Lin’s departure, Carmelo Anthony was instantly vilified, portrayed in the media as a lazy, overrated, jealous, entitled asshole. This season, he has generally kept his mouth shut (save for the occasional Honey Nut Cheerios-related tirades), has shown a willingness to pass the ball and work hard on defense. Fans now have reasonable cause for optimism that maybe he’ll change, that maybe he’ll finally integrate a New York street toughness to his game, that maybe he’ll be the one to finally save us.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut let’s not kid ourselves, fellow Knicks fans: Melo is a gunner. He’s a scorer, one of the best in the league today. He’s not Charles Oakley and he doesn’t need to be. Our chance at a championship, at that glory that has eluded us for decades, the promised land that continues to be promising and continues to be broken rests on the shooting hands of Carmelo Anthony.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Qnb_x133PT4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI’ve watched Melo for years as a Denver Nugget, but I’ve never watched his game this closely and this regularly before. And now I’ve noticed something: he has a weird shooting stroke.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s not really so much a “stroke” as just a sudden, almost premature release. Patrick Ewing, our ex-would-be savior, had a nice looking flick of the wrist, an exaggerated follow-through that made his arms look like a crane as he suspended his hands in the air a few seconds longer than normal NBA jump shots, mainly for dramatic flair. It looked and felt fluid; as if by watching his hand movement I could already feel the ball rolling off his hand and swishing through the net. There was a transference of sensation then that I still feel whenever I catch one of those old 90s Knicks games on NBA’s Greatest Games. When it went in, it felt good, in a way that all pre-determined things happening as predicted felt good. When it didn’t go in – and it usually didn’t go in during the most critical times in the most critical games – it felt like a stunning betrayal.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMelo’s release feels more untenable. It doesn’t fill me with any false sense of security. It’s always as if he shoots the ball a second earlier than he should and he shoots it with an awkward flip that seems to leave the ball all alone and aimless in the air. I brace myself for the miss that seems inevitable, that when it goes in – and it usually goes in during the most critical times – it feels amazing, yet unrelated to the blunt heave I just saw, like an effect cut off from its cause.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELately, I’ve gotten more used to this phenomenon – Melo throws up a precarious-looking shot and it goes in. When he gets hot, and hits three straight 3-pointers or three straight pull-ups from the high post, I get lost in the sudden sureness of an unsure shot. It’s a shot that’s starting to look beautiful to me and makes me feel better about the 2013 New York Knicks that has nothing to do with their future success but has everything to do with how I want to feel about them.\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Knicks will continue to win and keep my hopes up and they will continue to lose and frustrate me. I will always be miserable but I’ve already decided that’s okay. That precious moment after Melo shoots the ball and before it meets its fate with either a swish or a clank, that very short moment when the ball is in mid-air, I feel alive.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-usDxOLOoXQI\/UQ5y-izMDII\/AAAAAAAAAyY\/3oBBItksvnk\/s1600\/alvy%2Band%2Bannie.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"225\" width=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-usDxOLOoXQI\/UQ5y-izMDII\/AAAAAAAAAyY\/3oBBItksvnk\/s400\/alvy%2Band%2Bannie.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6131734522319821087\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=6131734522319821087","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/6131734522319821087"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/6131734522319821087"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/concrete-jungle-where-pipe-dreams-are.html","title":"Concrete Jungle Where Pipe Dreams Are Made Of"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-_vx6oORjdxs\/UQ5ndm9KdEI\/AAAAAAAAAww\/KU7o03zwbtM\/s72-c\/tenenbaum%2Bhouse.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-2326655976494225261"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-23T09:41:00.002+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-27T09:27:10.352+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"20 Years Ago Today"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"20 Years Ago Today: The Sundays' \"Blind\""},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-SMp2gOmSTGY\/UIXt9BzXx7I\/AAAAAAAAAso\/JrEAoYSoq_k\/s1600\/Photo0195.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-SMp2gOmSTGY\/UIXt9BzXx7I\/AAAAAAAAAso\/JrEAoYSoq_k\/s400\/Photo0195.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThis is the fifth installment of my \"20 Years Ago Today\" series, where I write about a life-changing album on the exact date of its 20th anniversary (you can check out the previous ones \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/20%20Years%20Ago%20Today\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E). Since I've been insanely busy this past week, I'm a few days late on this one: 20 years ago this past Saturday, October 20, 1992, The Sundays released what turned out to be my number one favorite album of all time, \u003Cb\u003E“Blind”\u003C\/b\u003E.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI have now come to the most difficult point of my “20 Years Ago Today” series. For much of this retrospective gimmick, I have revisited the albums of my youth, which, save for Sonic Youth’s “Dirty” – an album I have listened to on and off for the last 20 years – have been largely gathering dust in my large cabinet at home. The thing about The Sundays’ “Blind” is that there never really was a prolonged period in the last two decades where I didn’t listen to it. It’s been in my regular rotation pretty much since I bought it in early 1994. I don’t know how to look back on it because I never really left it behind; it’s still, as far as I’m concerned, in the present.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFor the rest of my life, I will not love an album more than I love The Sundays' \"Blind\". I don't remember most of my first experiences with the albums I grew up loving, but I somehow remember every piece of random detail about this particular album: the wait (I ordered it through legendary import store Groove Nation; it took 4-6 weeks for orders to arrive then), the day it arrived, how I marveled at its solemn sleeve design and stared and smelled the first CD I've ever owned, how I listened to the whole album on loop that night until I fell asleep.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-zI90T3ep5Nk\/UIUMqKjVR9I\/AAAAAAAAAsQ\/DDMMqCHDg9k\/s1600\/sundays_black.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"250\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-zI90T3ep5Nk\/UIUMqKjVR9I\/AAAAAAAAAsQ\/DDMMqCHDg9k\/s400\/sundays_black.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI don't know what it says about me that The Sundays are my favorite band of all time. I suppose it means that I'm not cool, but that's not news anymore. I suppose it means that they perfected the confluence of two things I've loved about music since I was old enough to have consciousness: jangly British indie guitars and angelic female vocals. Or maybe it’s because the first full album of theirs that I listened to was also the most perfect album I’ve heard then and until now, and this is because my idea of perfection is anything that is sad and beautiful at the same time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom the first moments of “Blind”, where Harriet Wheeler sings, \u003Ci\u003E“I feel fine, don’t wake me up yet,”\u003C\/i\u003E your heart sinks from the sheer fragility of her high, tiny, and almost quivering voice, and the soft acoustic strumming that seems to echo from a distance. The album’s very first note pops in abruptly and simultaneously with its very first word: this is the sound of the rest of my life beginning. It was also serendipitous and somewhat prophetic that I was in bed at night the first time I listened to it because the album, to this day, sounds to me like a 42-minute lullaby, a comforting sonic presence that told me everything was going to be okay if I just closed my eyes and shut the rest of the world out.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mb9avze4e7g\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003E“I feel fine, don’t wake me up yet ‘cause I feel tired…and we don’t need to work anymore now, open the ground up and slip down.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI think the real reason why The Sundays are my favorite band of all time is because theirs have been the single most enduring influence in my life. Nothing has romanticized the comfort of loneliness more than Harriet Wheeler’s voice mixed with David Gavurin’s guitar.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy all-time favorite Sundays song is actually not in my all-time favorite Sundays album. It’s “You’re Not The Only One I Know” from their debut album “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic”. Because it’s my all-time favorite Sundays song, it’s also my all-time favorite song ever; it has the most sad-beautiful guitar sounds in the history of pop music and it features Harriet Wheeler at her level best: her voice soars, dips, curls, purrs, meanders in a virtual whisper, and then soars, dips, curls, purrs, and meanders all at the same fucking time near the end of the song. The first time I heard the song, I fell in love with it right away just from the way it sounded. It took me a while to finally understand what it was about. “You’re Not The Only One I Know” is an ode to loneliness, introverts, and socially-awkward people. \u003Ci\u003E“It’s perfectly fine to sleep in a chair from Monday ‘til Saturday,”\u003C\/i\u003E Harriet sings. \u003Ci\u003E“And what is so wrong with talking out loud when I’m all alone?”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1S_8u9F_y2o\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere’s a lot more of this fuck-the-world-isms in “Blind”. The song “On Earth” is about a “Sarah” who’s \u003Ci\u003E“walking on the edge of a knife…knows it’s the death of her.”\u003C\/i\u003E Harriet sings to this Sarah: \u003Ci\u003E“You live and you learn you’re invisible.”\u003C\/i\u003E At the end of the song, she offers some words of solace in classic Sundays fashion: \u003Ci\u003E“A Heaven on Earth is ours \/ but not now \/ I tell you when a Heaven on Earth is all ours \/ come on down.”\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe best song in the album is “Love”, which also happens to be its most misleadingly titled song. For months in 1993, I was singing along to its chorus (from my sister’s cassette recording of a “Not Radio” episode in NU 107) \u003Ci\u003E“Love, love, love…just love yourself, \u003Cb\u003Elove\u003C\/b\u003E no one else.”\u003C\/i\u003E When I finally got the CD, I skimmed through the lyrics sheet and found out it was actually \u003Ci\u003E“just love yourself \u003Cb\u003Elike\u003C\/b\u003E no one else.”\u003C\/i\u003E Even at that moment, I couldn’t believe it; I swore Harriet was singing \u003Ci\u003E“love no one else.”\u003C\/i\u003E The CD notes already corrected me, but I knew what I heard. The song that was burned in my brain was un-editable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mO6kaETAGSg\" width=\"480\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe most wonderful thing about adolescence is also simultaneously the most dangerous thing about it: the rush of discovery fools you into thinking \u003Ci\u003Ethis is the way things should be\u003C\/i\u003E. The Sundays’ musical aesthetic was beautiful and perfect, in my own definition of the word. I listened to it as an introverted high school student, silently proud of the fact that no one else in my class knew they even exist. But The Sundays were the toast of the U.K. music press when they came out and effectively made the musical landscape cushier for The Cranberries years later. They definitely weren’t “invisible.” But this hardly mattered; I still wanted to be.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s hard for me to take stock of “Blind” because I never really got tired of listening to it, and therefore it sort of aged with me. I don’t mean “dated”, because it never did; it’s just that, unlike say, “Our Time in Eden” by the 10,000 Maniacs, which was like a bottle of wine I stashed in the cellar for so long, “Blind” was always open, forever filling my cup, so the taste can never take me back in time because it’s still very familiar. My life over the last couple of decades has been consistently and evenly associated with “Blind” and I still find myself sometimes longing for that “Heaven on Earth” that lonesomeness seemed to promise years ago, although it sounds fainter now, lost in the jangle of David Gavurin’s guitar and Harriet Wheeler’s melodic cry. I suppose I still listen to it because I know that perfection can only exist in a CD, not in real life where sadness can easily contaminate beauty and can rarely co-exist. And if 12 songs are all that’s left of the beautiful sadness of perfection I used to yearn, then I’ll never stop listening to them for as long as I live.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S9Amq0qdGHc\" width=\"480\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E--\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 75%;\"\u003Eimage credits: \u003Cbr \/\u003Enolody.deviantart.com\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2326655976494225261\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=2326655976494225261","title":"14 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/2326655976494225261"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/2326655976494225261"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/20-years-ago-today-sundays-blind.html","title":"20 Years Ago Today: The Sundays' \"Blind\""}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-SMp2gOmSTGY\/UIXt9BzXx7I\/AAAAAAAAAso\/JrEAoYSoq_k\/s72-c\/Photo0195.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"14"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7820922827324130676.post-3266339024864641021"},"published":{"$t":"2012-09-29T12:01:00.000+08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-12-05T14:37:16.005+08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"20 Years Ago Today"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"tributes"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"20 Years Ago Today: 10,000 Maniacs' \"Our Time in Eden\""},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-qM5MlNyiHvE\/UGZtWs-ujpI\/AAAAAAAAArg\/XS_B6BXtR7M\/s1600\/DSC03859.JPG\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-qM5MlNyiHvE\/UGZtWs-ujpI\/AAAAAAAAArg\/XS_B6BXtR7M\/s400\/DSC03859.JPG\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThis is the fourth installment of my \"20 Years Ago Today\" series, where I write about a life-changing album on the exact date of its 20th anniversary (you can check out the previous ones \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/20%20Years%20Ago%20Today\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E). 20 years ago today, September 29, 1992, 10,000 Maniacs released what would be their last studio album, \u003Cb\u003E“Our Time in Eden”\u003C\/b\u003E.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf one could illustrate the geology of my psyche, it would resemble the Earth turned inside out. My surface is a melting cauldron, where everything that happens ends up dissolving into each other, and the fire never dies, leaving the skin permanently fluid and numbed. Beneath all these are plates, forever shifting and unstable. At the core are peaceful forests and rivers, an enclosed paradise trapped inside layers of evolution.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhenever I hear a 10,000 Maniacs song, I go back to that balled-up secret garden, my Eden, my paradise lost. We all lived in this virgin wilderness back in the late 80s to early 90s, a time and place where it was safe to make earnest, folk-based alternative rock. Back then, neo-hippie idealists like R.E.M., Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, Suzanne Vega, and 10,000 Maniacs roamed the Earth; with Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, and the aptly-named The Innocence Mission waiting in the wings.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-KjPR0dL_gW0\/UGZtnHEizOI\/AAAAAAAAArs\/ae7zniI6ywI\/s1600\/rolling%2Bstone.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"400\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-KjPR0dL_gW0\/UGZtnHEizOI\/AAAAAAAAArs\/ae7zniI6ywI\/s400\/rolling%2Bstone.jpg\" width=\"332\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E“In My Tribe” was my summer soundtrack in those years. Natalie Merchant’s nasal purr, the jangly-folky guitar sound, and the loose, hollow stomp of the snare drum fit perfectly in the hot, dirt road, sea breeze-infested air of those days. They always sounded like home, if home meant more than the house I grew up in, the streets that looked wider then, the air that seemed thinner; but also of that very specific kind of innocence, the one that has no real grasp of time, the innocence that has no choice but to assume everything lasts because it has yet to feel any kind of loss.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe announcement of a new 10,000 Maniacs album in 1992 came with the announcement that it would be their last. I remember being real bummed out about it. I just found out about them, a few years before, raising me and nurturing me through the heat of summer, the fearsome darkness of sleepless nights; and now they were breaking up right before my innocent eyes. What made it worse was that the first single, “These are Days”, was so hair-raisingly good.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z-HLxpWGCzc\" width=\"560\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI bought the tape, heard the rest of the album, and confirmed all of my fears: this was going to be a really bittersweet farewell. The album was so fucking good and dramatic. It had none of the blissful, carefree laziness of “In My Tribe”; what it had was a sort of bipolar mix of trumpet giddiness (“If You Intend”, “Candy Everybody Wants”) and piano melancholy (“Eden”, “How You’ve Grown”, “Jezebel”).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThose piano-tinged songs killed me the most. “Eden” had that intense, new-agey, life-is-so-beautiful-and-fragile-and-I-want-to-hug-you-in-my-warm-goddess-arms gravity that presaged “Surfacing”-era Sarah Mclachlan and that still felt so refreshing at the time. “But the clock is another demon,” sang Merchant, “that devours our time in Eden.”\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AejaNIOYcNs\" width=\"560\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E“How You’ve Grown” was the song that I fell in love with the most. This seems strange in retrospect – the idea that a 14-year-old kid can somehow forge a connection with a song that is essentially about the tragedy of aging. But I found the romance of it all attractive. I couldn’t relate to it, of course; but I was in love with the idea, my appreciation of the song was purely conceptual. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003EBecause we can’t make up for the time that we’ve lost\u003Cbr \/\u003EI must let these memories provide\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo little girl can stop the world to wait for me\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis was my orientation with pain, at a young age. It was something that was beautiful and poetic, and not yet real and actually painful. Growing up turned out to be a slow, inevitable reversal of this process.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ci\u003EEvery time we say goodbye\u003Cbr \/\u003EYou’re frozen in my mind as the child you never will be\u003Cbr \/\u003EYou never will be again\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs we grow older, as our ideas grow less and less poetic and our lives grow more and more prosaic, the songs of our youth begin to look like long lost friends, only these are the types that never grow old, they stay the same forever, and the one you end up not recognizing is yourself. Now when I listen to “Our Time in Eden” I feel as if Natalie Merchant is singing directly to me. The tragedy is no longer theoretical or conceptual, it’s real and sad, and it almost sounds as if Merchant is telling me “I told you so”.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWith every year that passes, the farther removed I become from the Eden of my core, my original self. It is the self with which I have developed a confusing relationship: it seems as much like a lie as it is a broken promise. Maybe we never do betray the children we will never be again, because our time in Eden was bound to be fleeting from the start. The minute we embrace the fact that nothing lasts forever, we become truly free.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-w2C5nlKlrQc\/UGZvp5rEY5I\/AAAAAAAAAr4\/TMT96NWx1oU\/s1600\/dressing%2Broom.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"317\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-w2C5nlKlrQc\/UGZvp5rEY5I\/AAAAAAAAAr4\/TMT96NWx1oU\/s400\/dressing%2Broom.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E--\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: 75%;\"\u003Eimage credits: \u003Cbr \/\u003ERolling stone cover - www.wolfgangsvault.com \u003Cbr \/\u003EDressing room picture – ear.fm \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3266339024864641021\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=7820922827324130676\u0026postID=3266339024864641021","title":"3 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/3266339024864641021"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/7820922827324130676\/posts\/default\/3266339024864641021"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/colonialmental.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/20-years-ago-today-10000-maniacs-our.html","title":"20 Years Ago Today: 10,000 Maniacs' \"Our Time in Eden\""}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Alex Almario"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/00302065564164893886"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-qM5MlNyiHvE\/UGZtWs-ujpI\/AAAAAAAAArg\/XS_B6BXtR7M\/s72-c\/DSC03859.JPG","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"3"}}]}});