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tricycles of iron
Nov. 21st, 2002 04:28 pmlistening to Sonic Youth (right now, i'm listening to Murray Street) while reading Jack Kerouac (and reading Big Sur) may possibly be the best combination, ever. the language of disaffectation, or rather, disenfranchisement speaks volumes in a hazy swirl of almost mystical synesthesia. perhaps it is really just that when i first read Kerouac (The Dharma Bums), years ago, i was probably listening to a combination of the Youth masterpiece Daydream Nation, The Mekons, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Yes, The Pixies, and Jimi Hendrix, all artists who, like Kerouac hisself, exemplified that teetering-over-the-edge style, crafting arrangements that at once seemed to both break apart and yet somehow come together, like opposing tidal waves of sound that crash against each other even as they merge nearly soundlessly underneath the surface into one vast living fluid; plasmatic like a fucking sunspot, man. beatific.
and this new Sonic Youth record is the best album i've heard, not just from them but from anyone, in years. not since Sun Ra, that great glorious freak who literally came to us from Outer Space to reveal his message to us over the course of numerous albums and live sets spanning decades (solar time) before going home again, has there been such an amalgamation of heaviness and pure, unadulterated (or purely adulterated, depending on yr point of view) catchy rhythm and melody. art-noise pop. back then, it was jazz... now it's (only) rock and roll. my head is swirling. in a good way.
warning: gross subject change!
it is no big secret that the words angst, anxious, anxiety, and anguish all come from the same latin root. it's all about torment; that backwards pitying of the human soul. i look forward (?) with nausea and disgust to the day, coming ever closer now, that millions will die under the fists of The Alpha Monkeys. the pit of my stomache churns and twists under the weight of this horrible feeling of history running backwards again... i'm telling you, there can be no good that comes from war. and why is it always the poor enlisted G.I. who fights headfirst in the fire? these men are brave to die for such terrible cowards. why not put those madmen up front? how many lives could be spared that way...? i say kill the head and let the body get some peace for once. i don't like to think any more about what the world is truly coming to... the course that evil dictators plot for us all... like two ship captains, fired up by their own testosterone-fueled braggadocio, eager to ram each other, even knowing full well that it will surely sink the rest of us. i fear we shall all die at the bottom of the ocean of our own horrible iniquities.
