Farewell, David Foster Wallace

I am still trying to collect the ways that David Foster Wallace has changed my perspective on life and the way I approach my storytelling.  As he has been a rather recent discovery, I can't do justice, but all I know is that I can't remember a time that a figure whom I didn't know died that has left me so profoundly sad and unsettled.  He apparently hanged himself in his home.

The first writing of his I read was his May 21, 2005 Kenyon Commencement address.  I recently read his short story collection, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men and have been poking through his last published book, Oblivion, and his essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, since I received them through the mail last week.  It feels as though a conversation with someone stopped abruptly, like there was a pause mid-sentence and then he was dead.  But at least I can continue to read.  

In the short spurts of time I've had in front of the computer today, I've written a couple thousand words in an attempt at gratitude for his work, what it has meant to me, the understanding it has brought to me.  But thus far, it is jumbled, bloated and ineloquent.  Perhaps it is enough for now to say that I am sad, but it seems wrong to say when there are family and loved ones of his who no doubt feel a much greater loss.

An excerpt from the above commencement speech:

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually 

expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental 

that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot 

themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth 

is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull 

the trigger.  

And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal 

arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through 

your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, 

a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely,

 completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like 

hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that 

you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" 

really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American 

life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part 

involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older 

folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

The minor fall and the major lift

It's amazing what a song can do.  Music can accentuate joy, provide solace, express things which we are not able to do ourselves at the time.  Great art can provide empathy as well or better than any person, even the person who created it, is possible to give.  The great Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is a very well-documented example of this.  It is perhaps one of the most covered songs of the past twenty years, probably because of the way it moved the artists who later decided to give their own version a try.  Jeff Buckley has the definitive version, his angelic voice reigns over the religious/sexual themed lyrics as though he and the song were paired by fate.

I have loved this song for years now, but its cathartic nature became very real to me recently when the only thing I could do to get out of the way I was feeling was play this over and over on my housemate's nylon-stringed guitar that has to be retuned every five minutes.  It came out as a prayer and a plea and left me feeling more in touch with the nature of existence like nothing else at the time could do.  

Below are some of my favorite versions I've come across.  Along with Cohen and Buckley is a great one from David Bazan aka Pedro the Lion, a ukelele version from Zach Condon of Beirut, Regina Spektor accompanied by a cello and John Cale's great, emotive performance with his piano.  There's also a live Buckley version, which is different, longer, and of course, beautiful.

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

David Bazan - Hallelujah

Beirut - Hallelujah

Regina Spektor - Hallelujah

John Cale - Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah (live)

When the world collapses into the heat

Banks and financial giants are failing.  Everyone is worried about the price of oil and gasoline.  War is translated and morphed from gunfire to body counts over the span of thousands of miles.  Oh, and Andy Dick has been arrested again.

Seems like a good day for some music, literature and art.

 Pablo Picasso's La Vie can currently be seen at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ exhibit, "Monet to Picasso," which is definitely worth checking out if you're in the Hive.  That painting tore me down emotionally and then built me back up, completely refurbished, in the span of about fifteen minutes.

There is so much going on in the scene that has to do with grief, as though there is mourning on many different levels.  This resounded deeply within me because, in my most melancholic times, what keeps me from being engulfed by the harshness of the moment is this: the knowledge that I am a being, aware of the world, able to experience the full spectrum of existence.

Whether it be joy, sadness, anxiety, or feeling whole, there also comes solace and beauty from all things.  I may not understand in the moment, but ultimately I find gratitude that I am able to have a life of multivariate experience. That is what the painting brought to me.  

The scene shows a somber couple looking toward a woman holding a baby. Between the four are pictures of people grieving, like the young couple, in the nude.  This could represent generations of human suffering.   But the baby, so innocently unaware of the sadness around it, is the hope that even in the bleakest of moments, there is opportunity to start anew and experience life all over again.

It brought to mind a quote from Douglas Coupland's Life After God, which I recently reread for the first time since my summer after high school:

"Time ticks by; we grow older.  Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us.  To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy."  

To the music, then.

Download entire playlist here:

Songs for An Altered Existence

Or individually on the links:

Man Man - Von Halsing Boombox
Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You

Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band - Danny Callahan

Thao Nguyen & the Get Down Stay Downs - Feet Asleep

Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

Spoon - Believing Is Art

Beulah - Me and Jesus Don't Talk Anymore

Jolie Holland - Old Fashioned Morphine

Wilco - Theologins

White Williams - New Violence

The Dutchess & The Duke - You Can Tell The Truth, Now

King Khan & The Shrines - Welfare Bread

M. Ward - Sadie (Joanna Newsom song)

Two Poems: Joe Bolton

Last week I was introduced to an amazing poet named Joe Bolton.  He was from Kentucky and died at the age of 28.  His poems burrow themselves into my flesh and my soul, they are utterly overwhelming in their beauty and sadness.  I find that a lot of what makes the deepest impression on me in life is both sad and beautiful, so it's no surprise that I have been walking to my mailbox everyday in anxious hope that his posthumously published collection, Last Nostalgia:  Poems, 1982 - 1990, will make its way to my home.

A Sort of Praise

Some morning in my city, a woman
Sits putting make-up on, expecting
No one, separated by one white wall
From the landscape that needs her.

And I--risen from fear, letting
My loneliness dissolve into the sunlit
Bough of a pine--will step out
And enter the shadows of tall buildings:

The sky glazed blue & gold, the streets
Drawing me to her door, the places
My feet hit like stones sticking up
Through the surface of some wide river.

And when our eyes meet, it will be
In the hue that happens when light finds dark,
In the secret music of worlds spinning true,
That we will move toward a sort of praise.

Death In Orange County

It's in the way the waves fall like dull lead,
Water warmer by September but still cold,
The bougainvillea's crinoline, fresh blood,

The sky's blank face, the blank face of a child.
A skywriter spells SURRENDER. To what?
This ease? This difficulty? Of the mild

Astonishments of a Saturday night,
Not one survives—not her face, not her name,
Not her. And certainly not how the light

Spilled broken on the bay and made a game
Of whatever it was you were trying
To make clear between you there, over rum.

Sometimes you don't feel like doing anything.
Sometimes you're done before you even rise.
It's in the way the sun mutes everything,

The mist, the fog, the high latticed fences.
The girl on the plane was reading a book:
Death of a "Jewish American Princess."

Sometimes you don't know quite what you feel like.
You put on your favorite disc, Camelot, 
And walk around the house having the look.

A good part of the time, you feel like shit.
It's in the stylishness of restaurants,
In the sweet note of a single gunshot

Echoing off the glass of lit storefronts,
In the cool distances of these houses.
Nobody knows what anybody wants,

Or else knows all too well what those tan faces
Are trying hard not to show they don't feel.
And that's all that's left to you now are the traces:

House, stock, Jacuzzi, clothes, automobile.

More Joe Bolton at Identity Theory

Twilight Concert Series taking form

Summer is slowly and cautiously creeping its way into the shadows of the Wasatch Mountains and I'm ready.  One of my favorite things about summer in Salt Lake City is the Twilight Concert Series at the Gallivan Center located downtown.  I've been attending for eight or so years and each year the line-up gets better and better.   Last year, Calexico was the highlight for me.  The official line-up hasn't been announced yet, but one show has leaked its way out: Andrew Bird will playing on July 17th, apparently with Josh Ritter opening.

Anybody who knows me or reads this blog knows that I was blown away by Mr. Bird's show in L.A. last December - the fact that he'll be playing for free in Salt Lake gets me even more excited for my favorite month of the year to roll around in all its sultry glory.  Josh Ritter is a singer-songwriter with a folky-roots rock sound who is adored by the folks at NPR.  His excellent 2007 release, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter ended up on a lot of year-end top ten lists.

Take note and mark the date.  This will be a free show you will not want to miss.

Andrew Bird - Dark Matter (Live) from Fingerlings 3  

Andrew Bird - The Naming of Things from The Mysterious Production of Eggs

Andrew Bird - Plasticities from Armchair Apocrypha

Andrew Bird - Daytrotter Sessions link

Josh Ritter - Girl in the War from The Animal Years

Josh Ritter - Mind's Eye from The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter - The Temptation of Adam from The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter - Me & Jiggs from The Golden Age of Radio

The Regal Seagull - Utah's newest news source; plus, killer tunes

I'm back from a necessary and prolonged hiatus, but as always, bearing good news that will uplift and edify ... or the opposite.  

What prompted me to post again?  Well, spring semester finished, which gives me some actual free time, I now have a laptop that I want to make gentle prolonged love to and I'm going to pimp a new website that I'm involved with - The Regal Seagull.  From the website:

The Regal Seagull’s long and storied career began in the 19th century with Joseph Christensen Young Smith, a muckraker and saloon assistant manager. Joseph Christensen Young Smith, or “Bitch Tits” as he was known to friends, was a contemporary of Brigham Young’s. In a demonstration of his progressiveness, Joseph Christensen Young Smith founded The Regal Seagull in Utah in 1839, several years before the Mormon pioneers would arrive.

The Regal Seagull has played an integral part in history over the past 169 years. The Regal Seagull was the first to find the link between the sinking of the Titanic and Great Salt Lake. It was The Regal Seagull who brought The Beatles to America, by way of Utah. ‘Deep Throat’ in the Watergate scandal was none other than The Regal Seagull. The Regal Seagull also killed Jimmy Hoffa. Sorry.

The Regal Seagull ran for congress sometime back in the ’70’s, but was forced to drop out of the race due to a sex scandal involving a prostitute, a Doberman pinscher and a broken Jell-o mold. The Regal Seagull doesn’t really want to talk about it.

The Regal Seagull has won many awards and recognitions over the years, including being voted in 1983 “Most Likely to Become Pregnant and Drop Out of School.” It has also won five Pulitzers Prizes, two Peabody Awards, two Grammys, an NAACP Spirit Award and an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

The Regal Seagull now enjoys success as Utah’s #1 one news source in all of Utah.

Check it out, there are a lot of funny people involved.  The website launched on Monday and we have updates every Monday hereafter.  I wrote a few stories for the first edition and when the update goes up, I'll provide links to my stories.  Read, enjoy, and, hopefully, laugh.

Just to keep you around for a little bit, here are some songs from new albums that have been on heavy rotation around my parts lately.  Fleet Foxes hail from Seattle, combining the indie-poppiness of the Shins with the laid back harmonizing of Crosby, Stills and Nash.  She & Him are actress Zooey Daschanel and M. Ward - their album Volume 1 is a a daydream you won't want to come back to the real world from.  The Black Keys new album Attack and Release was deftly produced by Danger Mouse, keeping the Keys bluesy rust belt roots intact while adding some nice flourishes.  I was just recently turned on to the electropop of Australia's Cut Copy  and have been digging the duo's new album In Ghost Colours.  Frightened Rabbit hail from Scotland and after some hype at South By Southwest last year are making waves in the U.S. with their new album The Midnight Organ Fight.  I love everything Jack White touches and the new Raconteurs album does not disappoint.  Finally, the over-hyped but still immensely enjoyable Vampire Weekend, whose eponymous debut album is like a stripped down version of Paul Simon's Graceland.  Enjoy the songs and the beautiful weather out in Salt Lake.

Fleet Foxes - Ragged Wood

She & Him - You Really Got A Hold On Me

The Black Keys - All You Ever Wanted

Cut Copy - Strangers In The Wind

Frightened Rabbit - The Twist

The Raconteurs - Many Shades of Black

Vampire Weekend - M79

Sundance Installment Two - I.O.U.S.A. and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired - 4 out of 4 stars

I was somewhat reluctant to see this movie. While I am a fan of Polanski's work as a director, I thought it would turn out to be an apologist's love-letter to Polanski in the midst of a statutory rape of a 13 year-old girl in California in 1977, an event that led him to flee the country for refuge in Paris. When Polanski won a Best Director Oscar for 2002's The Pianist, he wasn't present to accept the award because he could face arrest for fleeing prosecution.

That's about all I knew about the case going into this film and upon viewing the screening I realized how sensationalized the story had become. The film deftly produces objectivity and factual reporting while providing both a biographical sketch of the French-born Polish director (his parents were killed in the Holocaust and the only stable relationship in his life - with his wife Sharon Tate - ended with her murder by Charles Manson's clan) and a compelling view of the court case that followed Polanski's police charges.

The court case involved the judge's love of media attention and it culminated in shady (and possibly illegal) attempts by the judge to compel both the defense and prosecutor involved in the case to help make him look good. He neglected recommendations by the legal system regarding sentencing, altered promises made to the defense and prosecution, ultimately Polanski's pre-sentencing flight from the country. The movie is both well-researched biography and compelling courtroom drama.


I.O.U.S.A. - 4 out of 4 stars

What's the biggest threat to our nation today - Terrorism? Illegal Immigrants? According to the sensible and persuasive United States Comptroller General David Walker, it's the nation's ballooning debt, which is $9.2 trillion dollars.

That's 9,200,000,000,000.

I.O.U.S.A. focuses on Walker and Robert Bixby, the Tab-swilling executive director of the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan group advocating responsible fiscal policy as they go on a nationwide Fiscal Wake-Up Tour to educate Americans about America's perilous financial situation. What could have been a rather dry, didactic sermon about the United States' debt and economic policies past and present is instead an urgent, fascinating call-to-arms for citizens to take the initiative in demanding responsible governmental spending and financial planning.

The film doesn't blame any single president or administration for the catastrophic way our nation has dealt with its federal debt since World War II. (Though during the current President Bush's two terms the debt has swelled from over $5 trillion to its current $9 trillion. I feel slightly vindicated in my exasperating confusion over how doling out corporate and individual tax cuts while boosting spending and paying for a war helps the country's economy in the long run.)

What the film does do is bring in well-educated officials from the financial arena, from Warren Buffett to Comptroller Walker to Robert Rubin to Ron Paul, to explain in a plain-spoken manner the way that the crisis could come (48% of our debt is held by foreign nationals; the debt issue is often buried in news coverage and on the campaign trail by sexier subjects; government entitlements need to be cut and taxes need to be raised). The film urges people to become informed and hold their elected officials responsible to help fix this problem. In the interest of education, see this movie and check out these web sites:

Government Accountability Office
The Concord Coalition
I.O.U.S.A. official site
Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis (the book that inspired the movie's director, Patrick Creadon)