about music, and the woods, and about God

Sometimes the devil rips out tufts of your hair like a child in grass, or he plucks out your eyes. Occasionally he defiles prophets or writes poetry and science textbooks. Mine squats on a giant boulder pondering the fate of ants.

This massive stone, twice the size of an elephant and similarly colored, dominates a secret oasis of moisture and moss in the arid Colorado mountains. You need a dozen-yards’ perspective to take it in, and from there it is smooth and ovular—a colossal slinging stone fallen from David’s pouch. A delicate stream snakes underneath, wriggling alongside and writhing loose at the other end. With a little persistence campers can scramble up the backside. Viewed from the top, the water appears to bleed from the rock, as though the boulder were eternally wounded by Moses’ furious rod. Up there I am immortal.

The devil muses over ants on Tuesday. I met him the previous Sunday.

“Tarquin                 ,” he told me—a sandy-haired, scrawny pre-adolescent with a particularly malicious smirk. I didn’t know he was Lucifer yet.

“                ?” I echoed, with, I’ll admit, the slightest tone of distrust. After little Mike tells you his last name is Mike you lose faith in the innocence of children.

Tarquin’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, so?”

I glanced at my camper list. Sure enough, he wasn’t lying, though I suppose the devil can fashion for himself any title he likes. “So, uh . . . what are you excited about this week, Tarquin?” My Joel-Osteen smile crumbled after a few seconds of hostile silence. “. . . spectacular . . .” He’s a quick one—and perceptive children make life hellish. Leadership warned that surviving seventy hours straight with the undisciplined offspring of apathetic parents required constant prayer. After a few weeks I reconciled the suggested life of prayer with my own indulgence in the subtle cruelties that brighten a counselor’s week.

All twelve-year-old boys are wicked, but some are more malevolent than others, and at least one is the prince of darkness. A dull camper rebels out of habit, his tantrums predictable, uncreative, and easily redirected. His insolence is only the inherent ill will of human nature and has nothing to do with anyone in particular. Other people hardly exist to the slow grade-schooler. But shrewd brats plan, plot for maximum chaos, and their treachery cannot be ignored or overlooked. Worse, their sharp little minds recognize sarcasm and comprehend even the slyest spite.

The boulder. My treasure. Taking them to the boulder on Tuesday is almost cheating. It’s so easy there to get carried away by a Psalm and a corny prayer. Make them stand on God’s rock and face Him. After two days of Tarquin I needed a cheap trick.

He interrupted and disrupted deviously. I offered truth. He offered confusion. Tarquin dressed up nonsense to dishearten the other campers, and I spent most of my time fending off his assaults. He bewitched their undeveloped minds with blasphemy and graphic explanations of fornication. He killed ducklings.

All six of us contemplated the boulder and the trees and the stream. Two of us struggled for control of the other four campers, as we had since Sunday. I read a psalm. The devil paced the rock with hands clasped behind his back. I mandated five minutes of contemplation.

Tarquin squats on his haunches examining a trail of ants. The two of us silently consider this inexplicable trickle, a spiritual cousin of the wriggling water below. The path has no discernable purpose, running from one curving edge of the boulder to the other, from nowhere to nowhere. Tiny laborers clamber over peaks and through valleys of jagged rock, ignorant of the greater picture but steadfast in their toil. It seems fittingly biblical.

Tarquin stands, reaches out a foot, and annihilates a dozen creatures with one furious, smearing swipe. A pause, and then he murders another score.

“Stop!” I nearly shout. Stupid to keep boys from torturing insects, I know, but in Eden one has to try, and, though they are only ants, in the midst of my hallowed valley it is an abomination.

The other four campers’ heads whip around to see the confrontation unfold.

Tarquin looks up at me over his shoulder. “Fuck.” He says this slowly, shaping the word with his mouth so that his face is a snarl on the harsh final sound. “You.” Fire, triumph cover his face.

You rodent! I could break you with my thumbs. I could remove your innards with this hand. I could erase your life with one arm. I say nothing, choked. I lurch over to where Satan coolly waits for my response and consider hurling his prepubescent body into the trees.

Then I see his eyes, and I jolt awake in the hurricane. I see bubbling flesh and molten bone, souls roasting in agony. All around the six of us, chaos: trees snapping into spears, mountain lions torn in two, dust and ash, blood and viscera. The four campers, flickering already on the edges of my consciousness, are lifted up and whipped away into the mad collage. My mother in Tucson: out of the corner of my eye I see her of all people tumbling in the clouds beside the others. A trivial twig is a killing sword, and Tarquin’s curse is death and horror.

He draws me, and my head and shoulders give way. But my feet do not budge, planted on mossy skin. The hurricane falters and evaporates. My vision clears and, as I collapse into a squat even with his face . . . rage. I unleash fury only through scorched eyes. In these eyes the fire of your judgment burns. I smite him.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the most important of those who wrote the Book of Common Prayer, was found guilty of treason and heresy by the courts of Queen Mary for his opposition to the Roman Catholic Church. The last surviving document written in his hand was smuggled out during his trial. “I pray that God may grant that we may endure to the end!” he wrote of himself and his fellow Anglicans

His only respite from isolation before, during, and after his trial was interrogation. Though largely a broken man and unable to argue with his interrogators, he refused to recant or to admit to treachery or heresy. After more than two years of this, he was moved out of isolation and into a Dominican community where he was treated as a guest and debated with by Juan de Villagarcía, a priest and scholar. In this way Thomas Cranmer was led to recant. Under the new conditions, he soon offered partial recantations. Then, when the date of his execution was declared, he fully recanted. A few weeks later—just days before his execution—he made a broken and sweeping confession of sin.

All of this was widely publicized as a means of breaking the resistance of the Anglican Church. The day of his execution Cranmer gave a public address at a service at the University Church. In the copy of his address that he had submitted to his captors for approval, he would repeat his confessions and declare his loyalty to Rome and opposition to the Anglicans.

From the pulpit, however, Cranmer renounced his confessions and denounced Rome. He declared that his right hand, with which he recanted, would enter the fire first. He was dragged from the pulpit. He thrust his right hand into the heart of the fire as he was burned alive, crying “This hand hath offended.” His dying words were, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

It is with this martyr—and not with Henry VIII, to whom Cranmer protested the executions of both Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell—that the Anglican heritage truly begins.

I just finished it. You should probably watch it.  Especially if you like the idea of the military doing stuff on a regular basis, but even if you don't, you should watch it.  I didn't really see it as particularly slanted, though it's obviously from the perspective of an American.  I repeatedly thought "shoot the bastards" and then was horrified that I thought that and then glad I am not over there because I would probably want to shoot the bastards.

"I'm not a historian but I'd like literature to assume, consciously and in all seriousness, the function of a historical chronicle.  I don't want it to follow the example set by modern historians, cold fish by and large, who spent their lives in vanquished archives and write in an inhuman, ugly, wooden, bureaucratic language from which all poetry's been driven, a language flat as a wood louse and petty as the daily paper [...no offense].  I'd like it to return to earlier examples, maybe even Greek, to the ideal of the historian poet, a person who either has seen and experienced what he describes for himself, or has drawn upon a living oral tradition, his family's or his tribe's, who doesn't fear engagement and emotion, but who cares nonetheless about his story's thoughtfulness." -Adam Zagajewski

1. Read some more in Craig's Germany.
2. Read Bible.
3. Read Lukacs.
4. Study German (briefly).
5. Write something on my blog (count it).
6. Lift + brief cardio.
7. More job applications.
8. Wash my sheets. Thinking of you, Jared Toupin.

PS: Read and listen to this week's mid-week mix @ the Sad Bear.

Possibly the weirdest Dan Deacon music video yet.  Which is saying quite a lot.

The music starts at about 370 seconds in.  Just so you know.

I guess you can forget that thing about higher quality posts too.

Seeing as I'm now linked on the newly redesigned Sad Bear blog, I had better up the quality of my posts.  Starting with my next post.

PS: I forgot to mention.  Check out the collaborative 2009 albums post over there which I contributed to.  To which I contributed. ... No, the first one.

PPS: Mulling over another name change for the blog.  I like the current one, and I like that it's from Willa Cather.  But something about it is... I don't know.  "The woods"?  Who am I kidding?  Thoughts?  Suggestions?

In Freud’s invention of the subconscious (“sub” rather than “un”) “we may detect something very Germanic, the belief that anything ‘deeper’ is ‘truer.’ . . . our concern must be with the conscious mind: with what and how we, and other human beings, choose to think. And about that ‘how’ (instead of ‘what’ and ‘why’) Freud tells us nothing. It is not only that the ‘why’ is so often latent in the ‘how.’ It is that in the age of popular sovereignty our concern must be with how people think, how they choose to think, including how they are influenced or impressed to think and speak.”

I’ve mentioned something of this before. “Why” considers reasons for or against, employs logic and balancing evidence. These are important questions, of course, but if you really want to know why you must ask “how.” We rarely believe based on a series of propositions and counter-propositions. The foundations of our belief are historical in the broadest sense because opinions and thinking develop.

As most of us should know, winning arguments rarely translates to changing minds. In part this is because a better argument does not imply a truer one. But more fundamentally, the development of a person’s thinking matters more than the rationality of it.

We can ask why people eat McDonald’s on a daily basis when the reasons against—from personal health to questions of culture and civilization to environmental concerns—are potentially innumerable. The only reasonable response involves how. Peoples' thinking develops historically first and logically second.

Recognizing this is historical consciousness.

---

Here’s where I lose all self-respect and use an example from Star Trek. I watched Enterprise every so often when we got cable in high school, and I’ve seen the new movie. Star Trek and other sci-fi media often invent purely logical creatures—the computer/creature Data and the Romulans, for example. Such logicians approach every moment and decision by weighing the arguments for or against and making a coldly rational decision. These characters are stacked against humans who are portrayed as combining rational and emotional elements. But this misses the point, I think. (This is also, incidentally, where libertarian conceptions of self-interest fail to reflect human reality.) Yes, humans are both rational and emotional, but our reasons and our emotions are grounded in our history. The logicians live in a series of disconnected propositions, but humans live historically. To every moment in our lives we bring our history. This is why to know anyone or anything you must know his or her or its or their history. You must become a part of their history.

About a week ago I listened to President Obama’s Nobel speech on CSPAN. Despite more than one problematic statement, it was on the whole a remarkable defense of just war in pursuit of limited aims. He did unfortunately offer a progressive view of history, but that was something of an aside, and while he theorized about some future state where war was no longer necessary, he acknowledged that for us war is an unavoidable part of human nature, and we can’t govern based on how we wish people were. He also stated that we fight based on limited, achievable ends and not to make the world safe for democracy or to create a perfect world—aims that ensure a permanent state of war.  This being a much better approach to war than most of what came out of the previous administration, I began thinking about other things I see as an improvement from President Bush

I am pleased by the demilitarization of the White House. Obama recognizes that the role of Commander-in-Chief is Constitutionally minor and does not change the President’s status as a civilian.

Moreover, he rejects the dangerous idea that the American historical path is unique or specially ordained by Providence in a way that exempts her from the problems and weaknesses of other nations. He does believe American is unique, which is true of every nation. In his own words, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Lastly, he is anti-nationalist. That some pundits of the right seem unable to distinguish nationalism from patriotism and tend to call anyone who isn’t a rabid nationalist “un-American” says quite a bit about those pundits but not much about Obama.

Conservatives couldn’t find much to criticize about the Nobel speech itself—many of them are really progressives, so a mildly progressive view of history wouldn’t draw their attention—so instead Fox etc. found old speeches and drew out contradictions (mostly real, though some manufactured) between that speech and some of his pre-presidential utopianism. That complete dedication to negativity towards Obama seems pretty indistinguishable from the treatment Bush received from the left. This fits with the willingness of too many conservatives to embrace or at least overlook rabble-rousers like Ann Coulter—because she’s hating the right people, and, as I just wrote, hate unites.

---

Lest you think I am endorsing Obama in general or believing in change that I can believe in, I did not forget the many areas where I cannot agree with him. First, there’s abortion. Then there’s his aggressive statism, his socialism, and his desire to redistribute wealth. All of these reveal an unjustified faith in experts and central planning, as well as a radical commitment to create, artificially and through the power of the state, equal conditions at the expense of equality before the law.

But stacked against these criticisms is the question of whether there are any nationally significant Republicans who represent a legitimate counter-balance. Regarding abortion: as I’ve written before, I fear that most Republicans don’t give a damn about the issue except as a means of uniting conservatives and pulling in Catholic votes. On the other hand, lukewarm opposition is preferable to aggressive support, and that alone is enough to guarantee my vote against Obama in 2012. Regarding statism, socialism, and wealth redistribution: the degree of difference between Obama and Republicans is dramatic, but it does not necessarily imply a difference of kind. Our Republicans politicians are very much statists, only on different issues. If there was any effort under Bush to decentralize power or reduce the size of government, it was drowned out amidst the Patriot and NCLB Acts and the willingness of Republicans to spend spend spend. And while I am firmly against redistrubtion, etc., I’m just as against the libertarian dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself, market-is-God mentality.

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Gordon Craig on the role of German liberals in the Kulturkampf against Catholics in the 1870's: "...they blindly approved the same kind of persecution of individuals that they had fought, honourably if vainly, during the constitutional crisis in Prussia. In the name of freedom they underwrote laws that denied it, and placed their party, which pretended to maintain the cause of the individual against arbitrary authority, squarely behind a state that recognized no limits to its power. Even if Bismarck had not abandoned and broken them in 1879, it is doubtful whether they could have survived this betrayal of their own philosophy."

Which makes me think of Lukacs who criticizes some American conservatives for hating liberals more than they love liberty.

Previously: Favorite Songs and Favorite Videos.

Whimsy follows.

Very Good Albums I Could Not in Good Conscience Fail to Mention, But That Are Not Quite Best

•Know Better Learn Faster - Thao with the Get Down Stay Down

Hello band! They showed up for last year's We Brave Bee Stings and All, a great album, but it still was mostly Thao Nguyen and some guys. Here the Get Down Stay Down have their say, and it makes for a fuller album with more legs. It’s hugely enjoyable, even with depressing and jaded lyrics about sex and relationships. There’s flat-out pop on “Cool Yourself,” a dip into the Andrew-Bird-trick-bag on “Know Better, Learn Faster,” much prettiness on “The Give” and “Oh No,” and a dance song for sad people to close the album.

•Heavy Ghost - DM Stith

It mostly floats. Twice in the latter half he repeats a line over and over, building energy with each repetition. Out of context these two parts would be insignificant, but the album unfolds so gently that small shifts and slight builds become monumental.

•Royal City - Royal City

I thought it was nice that Asthmatic Kitty was releasing a Royal City B-sides album five years after they disbanded. In the intervening time, many of their collaborators have become relatively big names (Sufjan Stevens, Leslie Feist, Owen Pallett, etc.), and I wonder if they quit just a bit too soon. On the other hand, Royal City didn’t seem like the kind of band for a B-sides project. They only made three albums, and their best–the often brilliant Alone at the Microphone (2001)–is still a mixed success. So “pleasantly surprised” would be an understated way to describe my response to hearing the album. I’ve never been a huge fan of their toneless, crawling “palate cleansers,” and that hasn’t changed. Still, they do clear the way for the many highs of their bluegrass-influenced rock.

•Dark Was the Night - various

A trimmed version would be “Best.” As it is there’s just too much fluff and filler, though only the Decembrists’ eight-minute bore-fest is unlistenable. Nearly half of these songs waver between good and fantastic, which means there’s a full LP’s worth of good material in and among the refuse. And within that there are a handful of my favorite songs this year.

•Manners - Passion Pit

Passion Pit mixes pop, dance, and Michael Angelakos’ falsetto. Then they repeat. There’s not a ton of variety but this album doesn’t need that. Sure I could see a sophomore slump forthcoming, but then most people thought that their EP last year couldn’t translate into a full album. And the next album can wait.

•Welcome to Mali - Amadou et Mariam

The blind couple from Mali make some waves in the US and threaten to make world music cool. The last third becomes a bit mushy, else “Best.”

•Eskimo Snow - WHY?

On Alopecia, WHY? moved away from hip-hop. Here they drop it altogether in favor, largely, of pretty songs with piano, marimba, and other not-so-hip-hop sounds. What remains consistent is the descent into Yoni Wolf’s bizarre, tortured mind. As usual: the lyrics tend towards disconnected musings and image soup but effectively convey a splintered introspection focused mostly on sex and mortality, and most of the time you wish Yoni would keep a little more to himself. Even he knows that “saying all this in public should make me feel funny / but you gotta yell something out you’d never tell nobody.” And, if it’s disturbing (it is), it’s also poignant. One of the refrains from the same song (“Into the Shadows of my Embrace”): “Am I clean? Lord why me?” The more-or-less chorus of “Against Me”: “Oh am I too concerned with the burn of scrutiny?... / Will I gain weight in later life? / And then will someone swing a scythe against me?” The most striking moment comes near the end of the album, on “Blackest Purse,” when Wolf pleads repeatedly, “Mom, am I failing or worse?” Mom doesn’t answer, but I think we all know…

•Wilco (the Album) - Wilco

Wilco isn’t exploring uncharted territory here. Instead, they build on what they’ve already done. It doesn’t rank with their own or this year’s absolute best, but it is nevertheless a solid, enjoyable album front-to-back. If Nels Cline and Jeff Tweedy aren't quite Tweedy and Jay Bennett, that's not all bad. Don't underestimate consistency.

•Enemy Mine - Swan Lake

It’s not really a supergroup, but then supergroups are often disappointing. This is just a good band (that happens to be composed of people in Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, the New Pornographers, Destroyer, and Frog Eyes). Individually, the three have exceptionally distinctive voices: Dan Bejar’s melancholy, Casey Mercer’s gruff, and Spencer Krug’s yelp. Together they blend or play off each other. Each member contributes. The middle three tracks are mediocre, but they are sandwiched between six remarkable songs.

•Logos - Atlas Sound

Bradford Cox's albums take a while to digest. There are generally a few spots that immediately register (I’m thinking of “Nothing Ever Happened” on last year’s Deerhunter and, from Logos, “Shelia” and “Walkabout”). Those keep me listening. Then the whole album starts to open out while the catchiest parts stay just as strong. And though Logos is not a concept album like Microcastle, it can be nearly as immersive at times.

•Warm Heart of Africa - the Very Best

Another Africa-meets-West affair, this one with a neat meet-in-a-shop, plan-an-album-at-a-house-party story. Malawian Esau Mwamwaya and Euro-dance group Radioclit (Frenchman Etienne Tron and Swede Johan Karlberg) make up the Very Best. Warm Heart of Africa also features contributions from American Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and the Sri-Lankan MIA. The result is, if not unprecedented, more wide-ranging in its combinations and variety than anything else you would call world music. Amazingly, too, nothing is trivialized, cheapened, or bastardized.


Best Albums

17. Tarot Sport - Fuck Buttons

No one would call Tarot Sport a pop album, but by comparison with last year’s Street Horrrsing, things move along and the price of entry is not quite as steep. Repetition and elongation continue to be the theme—which, as I wrote last year, requires a different kind of listening, an appreciation for each element of the song. But things start happening in the second minute of the album (as opposed to five minutes in), and the first four tracks are, kindasortabycomparison, head-bobbers. “Phantom Limb” and “Space Mountain” are a little muddled and impenetrable, but the album closes on another solid track. The best listen for Street Horrrsing was a paralyzed fifty-minutes in an expanse of sound. Tarot Sport is actually exciting.

16. Only Built 4 Cuban Links Pt. II - Raekwon

OB4CLII is long and has plenty of sex, guns, and drugs. None of that is likely to endear me to a rap album. Still, while it’s not exactly The Wire, there is an element of restraint, realism, and reflection that makes it more tolerable than other crime-rap. And, oh yes, it’s good. The rhythms on “New Wu” and the energy of “House of Flying Daggers” are particularly astonishing, but there is no (or not much) filler.

15. It’s Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It’s Blitz is sexy—not sexual, not Serge-Gainsbourg-undress-you-with-my-voice sexy, and not in a sleazy half-compliment way. (By the way, does anyone else invariably think of Pepe Le Pew with more baritone when they hear Serge?). But I don’t know what else to call the killer electro sheen of the first two tracks, the guitars in “Dragon Queen,” and the croon in “Soft Shock” every time Karen O sings. The pleasant surprise is how well asides complement the album’s driving force. Despite reminding me of Coldplay, the BIC-lighter anthem of “Skeletons” works, while the sentimentalism in the closers “Hysteric” and “Little Shadow” somehow avoids kitsch. None of these change the general feel of the album. Cause did I mention it’s sexy?

14. Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors

The more I listen to this album, the more astonishingly intricate I realize it is—so precise and fragile that if any chord or voice changed slightly, the whole thing would come crashing down. Or so it seems. The attention to detail means that the album never wears out, but it also creates an antiseptic, almost inhumane experience that can be off-putting.

13. Fall Be Kind - Animal Collective

Charlie Gibson—yes, that one—introduces this album by saying that Animal Collective “might be the Beatles of the indie music scene.” I don’t know what that means.

12. Gather, Form & Fly - Megafaun

More folk and less freak than Bury the Square, and that is a good thing. Which is not to say they’ve become the Weepies (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Sound experimentation and unexpected twists still pepper Gather, Form & Fly. It’s just that now the quirks serve the music. Oddly, the title track and closer, while pretty, are also the two biggest yawners. There's one flat-out misfire, “Columns.” The rest of the album is fantastic.

11. Two Dancers - Wild Beasts

As with most glam rock, there’s a faint—and sometimes not so faint—goofiness to Two Dancers. But while a lot of other entries in the genre seem coated in sliminess a la Liz Lemon’s one commercial (looking at you, Of Montreal), Wild Beasts pulls it off. I’m convinced, for example, that my favorite track (“All the King’s Men”) is tongue-in-cheek on one level. The interplay of Tom Fleming’s base/baritone and Hayden Thorpe’s falsetto is enormously goofy, but it works, perhaps in part because of a big wink late in the song when Thorpe stops to catch his breath loudly after screeching “Watch me watch me!!” That self-awareness—and all that goes on behind the vocal absurdity makes the album.

10. The Ecstatic - Mos Def

Mos Def’s voice and his rhythms are smooth and addicting. The lyrics are intelligent and natural. The structure of the album is excellent: the first seven tracks are nearly flawless. “Quiet Dog,” in particular, shows how much you can do with voice and percussion. Seven weaker tracks follow, but even these are quite listenable. (One exception: “Roses” is awful). The last two are excellent. Funny moment: “Life in Marvelous Times” sounds like a let-me-tell-you-how-hot-my-babes/cars/jewels-are kind of track, but the self-proclaimed “epic” subject matter turns out to be 5th grade. Awesome.

9. Dragonslayer - Sunset Rubdown

The otherworldly, dream aesthetic of Shut Up without the plodding elements. The energy of Random Spirit Lover without the frenetic pace. The best Sunset Rubdown album yet. Surpassed only by Apologies in the Spencer Krug pantheon. I mean discography.

8. Popular Songs - Yo La Tengo

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast sounded a bit too much like Bird covering Bird. It’s a good album but a bit mediocre by the standards of his last two (with “Anonanimal” being a fantastic exception). On Popular Songs, Yo La Tengo also sound a lot like Yo La Tengo. After over two decades of evolution, there aren’t any huge surprises here (Pitchfork overplayed, in my opinion, the “otherness” of the opener “Here to Fall.” It is different, but a surprise? A little, I guess). When “your sound” includes epics, jazz-influenced pop, bee bop, and grinding rock, sticking to what you know isn’t much of a limit. The last three tracks amount to close to forty minutes. If you’re in the mood for the short version, “All Your Secrets” functions as a good closer. But more often than not, by the time that tenth track rolls along I am all-too-excited for that hazy forty minutes.

7. Hospice - the Antlers

You might be tempted to throw Hospice in the dime-a-dozen-pretty-reflective-album category (from 2009, see: the Avett Brothers, Great Lake Swimmers, the Low Anthem, Fanfarlo, Taken by Trees—each album a good listen, by the way). You should have noticed the name Hospice and some track titles: "Prologue" "Atrophy" "Wake" "Epilogue." Okay, some sort of concept album going on. And you hear that concept winding its way through the music, little codas and repetitions. You probably first caught how “Epilogue” almost serves as a “Bear” reprise. Then the lyrics catch your attention, and you realize the album’s grounded in something more than that well-spring of all human emotions, the fragile and ever-breakable Heart of the Singer-Songwriter. It is actually a fairly profound reflection on death, and not the narcissistic “my friends would be soooo sad if I died.” Because it’s someone else’s death, and of course there’s a back story. A tragic one, and a little heftier than a sad few months in the woods.

6. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix


They tried to make me hate “1901” and get sick of “Lisztomania” through over-saturation. After months of late-night-show performances, videos, fan videos, live performances for radio stations and artsy videographers, commercials, late-night performances, remixes, cross-promotions, late-night performances, late-night performances, and late night performances, I still like those two songs! What devilry is this? They still sound fresh! The two opening tracks get the most attention—and rightfully so—but the rest of the album is absolutely solid. Not a single misstep, start to finish.

5. The Life of the World to Come - the Mountain Goats

Often I will listen to music while I read a novel. Most of the time I'll interrupt my reading to appreciate a song or a moment, but this album defies multi-tasking. The melodies and music are deceptively simple, and that back half drags initially. But beneath that placid surface is–yes, you guessed it–a torrent. Stories in perfect lyrics, Scripture lurking behind, a subtle and periodic menace. And the tension between Scripture and story, between the lyrics and the gorgeous melody… it’s irresistible. I can’t do anything but listen.

4. Bromst - Dan Deacon

Deacon is something apart. He carves out his own music, applying electronic technology to traditional instruments in unique ways. At times his experimentation wavers into noise band, with elongated buzzes and endless repetition and vocals sunk into indiscernible sound-making, Sometimes I wonder whether what I’m listening to is the best or most obnoxious album of the year. Bromst wanders in the odd territory between Tarot Sport and Merriweather Post Pavilion, taking the best and most interesting elements of noise and adding in a two-edged catchiness.

3. Embryonic - the Flaming Lips

Embryonic is a two-disc album, which is convenient, because it’s a better listen in half-hour chunks. The full 70-minutes is overwhelming. On my first listen I went straight through and felt burned out by forty minutes in. It sounded like a mess, a wild mass of disorder. It is a mess—a blazing mess that’s alternately or even at the same time hypnotic and adrenaline-pumping. Embryonic is all loose ends, unfinished thoughts, contradictions. The first time it fully clicked was December 1, on the train to Nürnberg. I listened to just the second part, and I was “going nuts” as I wrote in my notebook. Obviously I haven’t had that much time to digest it. You might think that #3 is therefore too high, but it’s that limited time keeping it below the top 2.

2. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear

The knock on Grizzly Bear was that they were boring and repetitive. For the stubborn it’s still the knock—only now it’s utterly false, whereas before it was simply missing the point, like the people who claimed that Flannery didn’t accurate portray general Southern life. Well, yeah. She wasn't a historian, which is why Veckatimest is so good. It’s expansive, ambitious, and choral. There’s not a bad moment on the album, but what sets it apart from past projects is how alive it is, what with hooks and tempo changes and energy.

1. Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective

Part of Animal Collective’s genius comes from self-indulgence. Did they know they had an audience before MPP? Maybe? But with MPP they seem for the first time aware of people listening to them. There’s a new tightness and accessibility: eccentricities curbed, songs a little less unpredictable (“Brother Sport” an exception), and more straightforward pop. These sorts of developments often lead to watered-down mediocrity and artistic dead ends, but that obviously didn’t happen here. MPP marks a new level of brilliance, though it’s difficult to compare MPP to Feels or Sung Tongs (Strawberry Jam is another matter—a good, perhaps great, album that felt incomplete and seems transitional in hindsight). So perhaps this is simply a new kind of Animal Collective masterpiece.

Lukacs and Updike

A couple times this year there have been a few odd connections among myself, Lukacs, and Updike.

-Their first names are BOTH JOHN!!!! … Okay, that’s lame. Forget that one.

-On January 27 Eric gave me the then-current issue of The American Scholar because it included a long and excellent article by Lukacs. I noticed also a new short story by Updike in it. The story is only a few pages long, so I read that first. Later that afternoon I found out Updike had died that very morning. It was a little surreal.

-Yesterday I spent a few hours at my favorite coffee shop working on grad school applications and my year-end albums list (coming tomorrow!) and also reading. I was outside, and it was too warm for a jacket. I’m not missing Germany yet. German I miss.

The last two things I read were four chapters from Lukacs’ A Thread of Years covering 1924 through 1927 and a 40ish-page short story from Updike’s The Afterlife.

A Thread of Years is an odd book. Each chapter is a vignette, a fictional description of a person or people and a place somewhere during a specific year. The description or story is then followed by a conversation between Lukacs and, well, Lukacs—rather, between his fanciful self, given to generalization, and his sterner, more critical self. In any case, “1924” described an American couple buying an automobile in northern Italy. In the conversation following the vignette, Lukacs talks briefly about Mussolini—including the somewhat famous/infamous line about him making the trains run on time. “1927” describes two Irish-American priests, a German priest, and a German dentist at Hofbräuhaus in Munich—a famous restaurant/brewery/biergarten that I was at just last week. It also mentions the Frauenkirche, which I have also been to, and the Regensburg train station, which I was at two weeks ago. After the vignette Lukacs and Lukacs discuss the Irish as a people group, calling them a “peculiar people.”

The Updike story follows an American couple in Europe—a 60ish-year-old man and his 40ish-year-old third wife. The story is split into two parts. In the first part, the two are vacationing in northern Italy. They talk about Mussolini briefly. The husband mentions that Mussolini made the trains run on time. The second part is two years later. The couple are in Ireland this time. Much is made of how peculiar the Irish are.

On Letterman. Black Keys, Mos Def, and Jim Jones on this track for a killer performance of one of my (many) favorite songs of the year (Track 18 of Number Four). Seems like everything Mos Def does on late night is fantastic.



As Pitchfork notes, hearing Letterman say "Way to go, Jim" to Jim Jones is amusing.

Things got out of hand.

As before, I put them in playlists. The order of and within the playlists does not reflect a hierarchy.

If you’re interested, these do exist in .zip files. Facebook, email, comments section. I’d be thrilled.

Previously: Favorite Videos. Still to come: Best Albums.

Number One
1. “Quiet Dog” by Mos Def (the Ecstatic)
2. “Sleepyhead” by Passion Pit (Manners)
3. “Ambling Alp” by Yeasayer
4. “All the King’s Men” by Wild Beasts (Two Dancers)
5. “Canada” by Themselves & WHY?
6. “Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace” by the Mountain Goats (the Life of the World to Come)
7. “Heads Will Roll” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (It’s Blitz!)
8. “Woof Woof” by Dan Deacon (Bromst)
9. “House of Flying Daggers” [ft Inspector Deck, Ghostface, Method Man] by Raekwon (Only Built for Cuban Linx Pt. II)
10. “No Intention” by Dirty Projectors (Bitte Orca)
11. “My Girls” by Animal Collective (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
12. “Marrow” by St. Vincent (Actor)
13. “Strictly Game” by Harlem Shakes (Technicolor Health)
14. “New Wu” [ft Ghostface, Method Man] by Raekwon (Only Built for Cuban Linx Pt. II)
15. “Chalo” by the Very Best (Warm Heart of Africa)
16. “Greyest Love of All” by Taken by Trees (East of Eden)
17. “The Perfect Space” by the Avett Brothers (I and Love and You)
18. “Cool Yourself” by Thao with the Get Down Stay Down (Know Better Learn Faster)
19. “Epistemology” by M. Ward (Hold Time)
20. “Kiss my Name” by Antony and the Johnsons (the Crying Light)
21. “Dear God (sincerely M.O.F.) by Monsters of Folk (Monsters of Folk)
22. “Fire of Birds” by DM Stith (Heavy Ghost)

Number Two
1. “1901” by Phoenix (Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)
2. “Up, Up, and Away (The Wake and Bake Song)” by Kid Cudi (Man on the Moon: The End of the Day)
3. “Tightrope” by Yeasayer (Dark Was the Night)
4. “Paper Lace” by Swan Lake (Enemy Mine)
5. “Fangala” by Here We Go Magic (Here We Go Magic)
6. “O You with Your Skirt” by Royal City (Royal City)
7. “There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve” by A.C. Newman (Get Guilty)
8. “I Want Some More” by Dan Auerbach (Keep it Hid)
9. “Evil” by the Flaming Lips (Embryonic)
10. “Psalms 40:2” by the Mountain Goats (the Life of the World to Come)
11. “Fables” by the Dodos (Time to Die)
12. “Ready, Able” by Grizzly Bear (Veckatimest)
13. “Northern Lights” by Bowerbirds (Upper Air)
14. “Guns” by Megafaun (Gather, Form & Fly)
15. “BMB” by DM Stith (Heavy Ghost)
16. “You and I” by Wilco (Wilco (the album))
17. “Charlie Darwin” by the Low Anthem (Oh my God, Charlie Darwin)
18. “Into the Shadows of my Embrace” by WHY? (Eskimo Snow)
19. “Nothing to Hide” by Yo La Tengo (Popular Songs)
20. “People Got a Lot of Nerve” by Neko Case (Middle Cyclone)
21. “Two Weeks” by Grizzly Bear (Veckatimest)

Number Three
1. “Deuteronomy 2:10” by the Mountain Goats (the Life of the World to Come)
2. “Sour Milk / Sour Water” by Port O’Brien (Threadbare)
3. “The Nations Will Sing” by Royal City (Royal City)
4. “History” by Mos Def (the Ecstatic)
5. “You are the Blood” by Sufjan Stevens (Dark Was the Night)
6. “Brother Sport” by Animal Collective (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
7. “Sabali” by Amadou et Mariam (Welcome to Mali)
8. “Lisztomania” by Phoenix (Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)
9. “Another Saturday” by Stuart Murdoch (Dark Was the Night)
10. “Graze” by Animal Collective (Fall Be Kind)
11. “Nightingale / December Song” by Sunset Rubdown (Dragonslayer)
12. “Surf Solar (7” Edit)” by Fuck Buttons
13. “Walkabout” [ft Noah Lennox] by Atlas Sound (Logos)
14. “Kaufman’s Ballad” by Megafaun (Gather, Form & Fly)
15. “Useful Chamber” by the Dirty Projectors (Bitte Orca)
16. “Mind, Drips” by Neon Indian (Psychic Chasms)
17. “All Your Secrets” by Yo La Tengo (Popular Songs)
18. “You Can Have What You Want” by Papercuts (You Can Have What You Want)
19. “On a Highway” by Animal Collective (Fall Be Kind)
20. “Kettering” by the Antlers (Hospice)

Number Four
1. “Silver Trembling Hands” by the Flaming Lips (Embryonic)
2. “A Belly Was Made for Wine” by Royal City (Royal City)
3. “Logos” by Atlas Sound (Logos)
4. “Two” by the Antlers (Hospice)
5. “Blood” by the Middle East (the Recordings of the Middle East)
6. “So Far Around the Bend” by the National (Dark Was the Night)
7. “Strictly Rule” by Vetiver (Tight Knit)
8. “The Chorus in the Underground” by Great Lake Swimmers (Lost Channels)
9. “The Trapeze Swinger” by Iron & Wine (Around the Well)
10. “While You Wait for the Others” by Grizzly Bear (Veckatimest)
11. “Ce N’est Pas Bon” by Amadou et Mariam (Welcome to Mali)
12. “Summertime Clothes” by Animal Collective (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
13. “Watching the Planets Collide” [ft Karen O] by The Flaming Lips (Embryonic)
14. “You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)” by Sunset Rubdown (Dragonslayer)
15. “Bedside Regiments” by Ten and Six (Ten and Six)
16. “Anonanimal” by Andrew Bird (Noble Beast)
17. “I’ll Fight” by Wilco (Wilco (the album))
18. “Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo)” [ft Mos Def, Jim Jones] by Blakroc (Blakroc)
19. “All We Want Baby is Everything” by Handsome Furs (Face Control)
20. “Snookered” by Dan Deacon (Bromst)

1. Never pack a wheel of cheese in your carry-on. It does not look like cheese on the X-ray machines.

2. Don't stay longer than three months at any one time in Germany. This is illegal, and you will have to convince the German police that you were in Switzerland for a weekend--without any proof. German officials tend not to be flexible.

It's definitely end-of-year list season. Still to come: Best Albums and Favorite Songs.

Technically this is favorite music videos and/or live performances. And yes, there should be an "and/" there.

Bonus: You can't embed, so view it here.

12. "Lizstomania" by Phoenix [brat pack mashup]



11. "Why These Hands / January Twenty Something" by WHY?
(previously posted)


10. "Bedside Regiments" by Ten and Six
(previously posted)


9. "House of Flying Daggers" by Raekwon [ft. Inspectah Deck, GZA, Ghostface, Method Man]
Short warning: if gruesome animated violence isn't your thing, you might consider skipping this video. For example, if Kill Bill Vol. 1 wasn't your thing...


8. "Paddling Ghost" by Dan Deacon



7. "Quiet Dog" by Mos Def [on Letterman]
(previously posted)


6. "Heads Will Roll" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs



5. "On the Water" by the Walkmen [at the Guggenheim]
(previously posted, sort of)

4. "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" by Final Fantasy [at Hillside Festival]



3. "1901" by Phoenix [on SNL]



2. "Blood" by the Middle East
(previously posted)


1. "Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace" by the Mountain Goats
(previously posted)

So Mos Def has now put on a second excellent late night show performance. First he performed my favorite track off the Ecstatic on Letterman (thanks for the tip Jack), a great, stripped down performance. Now he + Talib Kweli + Amber Hoffman and Haley Dekle from the Dirty Projectors + the Roots perform "History," my second favorite track on the album, on Fallon. Also fantastic.

A really interesting double-video for the opening two tracks off the fantastic Eskimo Snow. The transition between the two songs is fantastic here.




In related news, I think we can, until further developments, stop calling Why? a hip-hop band, yes?