FoeWeel !!! ???

Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything...

I understand for one’s progression in life, one should reflect back on the past, but to actually relive it is a different hallucinatory experience altogether. I know that with this blog I am constantly preaching the aspects of music that makes it so personal for the individual, especially me, without divulging too much personal information myself, but a series of strange coincidences that I did not tie together until this morning have left me feeling as if I have been somehow transported back in time, some 20 years. Where to start ?

I am currently studying for a standardized exam which is in 2 weeks. An exam similar to the required regurgitation of worthless information that one usually takes in the high school era of their life. Similar to any of my schooling years, I have tried to do everything to procrastinate from this inevitable brain drain of information, like write this blog entry. Do I truly need to know that “potable” means drinkable, or that Community Property Laws are based on Spanish law shaped by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ? I mean, thanks for that Scrabble word and that tour of history, but how is that information going to help me to become the Thumb Wrestling World Champion. Besides the schooling aspect of my mysterious time travels, my social life has reverted back to that transitional 80′s to 90′s period as well.

The mall. A place of undeniable fluorescent beauty that became the new town center of any suburban oasis. Apart from Skateland, this is where teenage relationships formed and dissolved, sometimes both, in a matter of hours. Vans, Jams, OP shorts, Parachute pants, Z cavarichi’s, Girbaud Jeans and Rolling up your jeans were just some of mistaken forms of identity during this era. The family wood paneled wagon was there to transport you to this neatly packaged digestable form of culture. The center of any mall was, and still is the food court. So, a few weeks back I went to a mall in the outskirts of San Francisco, as parking would be easier, to purchase a black tie for a wedding. I figure I needed a black tie anyway, and considering the fine line between a wedding and a funeral, the function fell in nicely with the form.

At the mall, after purchasing my symbol of life and death, I went into the Apple store which is another strange coincidence for other reasons, but also the fact that Apple, for me brings me back to my teenage years, because it’s always been the main computer of use in my life, even before email and the internet. At the Apple store, I met someone and after a brief tutorial on the Mac for the both of us, we had lunch in the food court. Maybe I should elaborate on how I got this person to actually have lunch with me, a stranger, but I can’t divulge everything, and it’s always up to the female to decide, for whatever reason. Maybe I just said the two magic words, “food court” and her eyes lit up like a newly plugged-in Lite-Brite. I don’t think she was as concerned for the fact that we live in SF and that we were having a meal in the food court, at the mall, but I just couldn’t get over it. Unfortunately, there was no Sbarro Pizza, or TCBY Frozen Yogurt, but I guess it just proves that you meet people in the most unlikely of places. What impact does this person hold in my life could make this story even stranger, but for now, I kind of do feel as if I was a rejuvenated senior in high school with all of the anticipation and energy to explore the many possibilities of life, and the world.

Here are two songs from that so-called critical period of my life and two songs from my period of life, now.

Bjork – Sun In My Mouth (Recomposed by Ensemble) – from an E.E. Cummings poem, on her, in my opinion, best album. subtle, delicate and full of incredibly textured emotional songs.

Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eyrum (With A Buzz In Our Ears) – this song has that sweeping soundscape Sigur Ros is known for, but with that tribal quality. One of the best albums I have heard in quite a long time.

The Replacements – Within Your Reach – the Mats’ Pleased To Meet Me was a fixture in my car radio senior year in high school. There was something ironic about driving my parent’s car, dressed in jacket and tie, going to a Jesuit prep school and blaring music that had just become part of a big corporatation, but was still somewhat rooted in ethos of punk rock. This song was on a previous release, but I had found it on the Say Anything… soundtrack, which is another seminal high school movie for me.

The Cure – Closedown – this song has a close rhythmic pattern to the Sigur Ros song above. Another moody piece from another album full of sweeping sounds from the late 80′s.

Church Street Series, 2008

It’s a great thing to meet people who inspire you to be a better person. A muse, on life……….

Bebel Gilberto & Vinicius Cantuaria – Batucada - From the Next Stop Wonderland movie starring Hope Davis with a minor role for Philip Seymour Hoffman. It has a great Bossa Nova soundtrack as well as score from Mark Isham.

Bonobo – In Between The Lines (Nostalgia 77 Remix) (Alternate Unreleased Mix ) – A modern take on some old favor which can never taste bad. I picture the dark smokey club where seedy characters are making deals and this house band is going off.

John Lee Hooker – Annie Mae – If you are ever in San Francisco, please visit the Boom Boom room which is owned by the late God himself. Despair and longing never sounded so sweet.

Sigur Ros – Gobbledigook – The first single from Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, their new album. They’ve tweaked their sound a bit, but it’s still an incredible album that has all of the majestic soundscapes of their previous efforts with a more direct presentation.

Sigur Ros, Still from Heima

I finally got around to seeing some movies that have been in the cue, and not the online cue, but the local video store one. Not that I have anything against online rentals, but I’d like to prevent a 4th nail salon and 5th kid clothing consignment store from popping up on my 6 block central area. The first off was Heima, the tour documentary of Sigur Ros. They are from Iceland and make some of the most comforting music that I’d like to refer to as womb-like music. Similar to the land from which they all originate from, their music can be sparse with a lot of open spaces while still being grand and unlike anything else you’ve ever witnessed before. The movie centers on the band going from town to town to play free concerts in areas where they hardly ever get to see live music and in settings that show off the beauty and natural surroundings of Iceland. The visual settings are a perfect match for the music.

I got to see Darjeeling Limited and Margot At The Wedding which were somewhat expected disappointments. Noah Baumbach’s Kicking And Screaming and Wes Anderson’s Rushmore are two of my favorite movies, but after the above mentioned movies, it seems like a steady downward fall into mediocrity is the course of their careers. I couldn’t even finish Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding. The overly neurotic, completely self absorbed nature of each character made me want to turn off the movie, as my sudden kill would be the only way to give these characters any type of self respect. Darjeeling was better than Anderson’s Life Aquatic…, which I saw in the theaters and thought was a complete waste of my time. And that movie was written by Anderson and Baumbach. I guess you need to take each offering as-is and you can’t always rely on the reputation of the director, similar to music. I know Paul Thomas Anderson, like Radiohead (except the first album) have never failed to disappoint.

The last movie which I’ve known about for awhile now, and for whatever reason have been avoiding is Once. Well…..what a movie. A story told mainly through music, and how the music can connect people without words. A musical, yes, but a story first with music as the primary source of feeding the story. There were great songs throughout the movie and I particularly liked how the movie was set in an imagination that was more real than the fairy tale ones usually seen in movies today. There were many gray areas left up to the viewer. Things aren’t always perfect and endings are never definite, but the movie somehow communicates a feeling that life goes on.

Sigur Ros – Hoppipolla (Ehteral)

Sigur Ros – Staralfur (Etheral) – from the Heim release for Heima.