This song was recently mentioned on NPR's All Song's Considered, and while I tend (with exceptions) not to like rock music or any of its hyphenates, I loved hearing this. Go ahead and click on that first link to give it a listen. Thanks to KEXP's "Song of the Day" for posting that. It's downloadable too!
I haven't bought the album (yet), but I have previewed all of the tracks online, and it's interesting that this song, "Seer," is indicative of the band, not necessarily in terms of quantifiable music qualities (the album veers from the softly strummed folky sound of "June" to the rock sounds of "Seer" back to the ragtimey "I am my Body" and into the electronic feel of "God Damn"), but in terms of the atmosphere.
I was at first mystified by "Seer," since it was introduced (on NPR) as a song by a band that channels the spirit of the Pacific Northwest. "Seer" for me, does not channel that feeling. The opening guitar riff, coupled with the lyrical references to "the river" make me think that this song is a response to Paul Simon's "Peace Like a River." In the context of the album, however, I can feel that Pacific Northwesterly vibe, even though I've never been there.
And by the way, it's Motopony like a motorized pony, not Motopony like metonymy.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Regulars
It came to me, as I was shelving the kids' books at the store, that this isn't necessarily the place I would bring my children, if I had any, if I knew about the people who regularly frequent the bookstore. In the store at that moment was a rogues' gallery of people whose idiosyncrasies were not necessarily evident on the surface: Stephen* the Anarchist and his stripper girlfriend, Tom the washed-up philosopher and fan of 1960s bowling leagues, crazy Frances laughing uproariously at "something I was just thinking about," and bearded, backpack-toting, sometimes-drunk Isaac Newton.
It is normal to me to have these people around. There are plenty more people I could name and describe whose identifying characteristics sound like absurdist characters from a Beat poem or a Russian novella, yet they are the people I expect to see every day, whose coffee preferences I know--when they are well-off enough to buy coffee, which, for some of them, is not often.
Once we get too many of "the regulars" in the store we have to be wary. They are all ticking time bombs, each with their own issues that could require immediate individual attention, mostly so that we as a staff can preserve the illusion for our other customers that this is a normal, quiet, place of erudition, where the only noise might be the clacking of chess pieces or the occasional philosophical debate.
Isaac came up to the counter, rambling on about how everyone had missed me while I was away in England, but how Liz**, my co-worker, had been great, and I was practically obsolete. Liz gave me an "I'm a little creeped out with where all these compliments are going" look just as Isaac began comparing Liz to a powerful Amazon woman, gesturing to his chest to demonstrate that the Amazons cut off one breast to better wield their bows and arrows. Liz and I glanced at each other. Isaac's bus came, and he darted out the door.
"He is so close to being acceptable," I said, "but sometimes he just blows it big time."
I thought back to the time when Isaac had put me in the awkward position of having to throw him out for being rambunctiously drunk in the midst of a free, in-store concert. Not wanting to call the cops, knowing his past run-ins with them, I stationed myself near the shop door, and each of the five times he stumbled back, I turned him aside, reassuring him each time that he could come back when he was sober, but that there was no way I was letting him inside.
"I know, I know," said Liz. "They all are, and that's why it's so frustrating."
We thought of Isaac, reading and intelligently identifying with Don Quixote; of Frances, using her encyclopedic knowledge of 60s rock and folk artists to hold long discussions at the counter; of Stephen, reminding his anarchist friends (in the stacks, when he didn't know I was just around the corner) that "we can steal books from Barnes & Noble, 'cause they're corporate, but we don't steal from this place."
I don't really know what to do with all of this, except sneak people free coffees when I can and loan them bus money when I can and chastise them for panhandling when I can and listen to them when I can. Because I stand at the coffee counter for most of the day, it is the last one that I do most often. I don't really know how to make their lives better, or if they want their lives made better, or if I'm really just as crazy as any of "the regulars." Until I do know, I'm just going to keep an eye on them, to see if I can help them, but also to make sure that they don't cause a ruckus in the bookstore.
*I've changed all of the names, including Isaac Newton's, though Isaac does indeed go by the just-as-unbelievable name of another famous scientist.
** Liz's name hasn't been changed
It is normal to me to have these people around. There are plenty more people I could name and describe whose identifying characteristics sound like absurdist characters from a Beat poem or a Russian novella, yet they are the people I expect to see every day, whose coffee preferences I know--when they are well-off enough to buy coffee, which, for some of them, is not often.
Once we get too many of "the regulars" in the store we have to be wary. They are all ticking time bombs, each with their own issues that could require immediate individual attention, mostly so that we as a staff can preserve the illusion for our other customers that this is a normal, quiet, place of erudition, where the only noise might be the clacking of chess pieces or the occasional philosophical debate.
Isaac came up to the counter, rambling on about how everyone had missed me while I was away in England, but how Liz**, my co-worker, had been great, and I was practically obsolete. Liz gave me an "I'm a little creeped out with where all these compliments are going" look just as Isaac began comparing Liz to a powerful Amazon woman, gesturing to his chest to demonstrate that the Amazons cut off one breast to better wield their bows and arrows. Liz and I glanced at each other. Isaac's bus came, and he darted out the door.
"He is so close to being acceptable," I said, "but sometimes he just blows it big time."
I thought back to the time when Isaac had put me in the awkward position of having to throw him out for being rambunctiously drunk in the midst of a free, in-store concert. Not wanting to call the cops, knowing his past run-ins with them, I stationed myself near the shop door, and each of the five times he stumbled back, I turned him aside, reassuring him each time that he could come back when he was sober, but that there was no way I was letting him inside.
"I know, I know," said Liz. "They all are, and that's why it's so frustrating."
We thought of Isaac, reading and intelligently identifying with Don Quixote; of Frances, using her encyclopedic knowledge of 60s rock and folk artists to hold long discussions at the counter; of Stephen, reminding his anarchist friends (in the stacks, when he didn't know I was just around the corner) that "we can steal books from Barnes & Noble, 'cause they're corporate, but we don't steal from this place."
I don't really know what to do with all of this, except sneak people free coffees when I can and loan them bus money when I can and chastise them for panhandling when I can and listen to them when I can. Because I stand at the coffee counter for most of the day, it is the last one that I do most often. I don't really know how to make their lives better, or if they want their lives made better, or if I'm really just as crazy as any of "the regulars." Until I do know, I'm just going to keep an eye on them, to see if I can help them, but also to make sure that they don't cause a ruckus in the bookstore.
*I've changed all of the names, including Isaac Newton's, though Isaac does indeed go by the just-as-unbelievable name of another famous scientist.
** Liz's name hasn't been changed
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Packing Light
In about an hour, I set off for Iceland and England, asked by my hosts to pack light.
I was recently visited by my good friend Kristen, aka Gingersnap, who is through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Going on a gear run with her made me reassess both the contents of my apartment (not able to be carried on my back for a few months) and my packing for this trip. In short, I crammed all of my clothes into a compression sack, cinched it down, and will be flying to England with a daypack-sized backpack and my camera case.
The problem, of course, is the books. I bought, at the bookstore, for a mere 50 cents, a copy of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Long, interesting, critically acclaimed, and published in stubby mass-market paperback with a cover that makes it a dead ringer for The Da Vinci Code. That's the perfect airplane book. The other book was the problem: The Same Axe, Twice, by Howard Mansfield, problematic not only because of the unnecessary comma in its title, but also because I was halfway done with it when I packed. Bringing half of a book's worth of already-read pages would overfill my backpack.
I did the only thing I could do: plopped down on my parents' couch and steamrolled my way through the second half of the book. It is worth reading slowly, though it holds up very nicely when read fast.
I was recently visited by my good friend Kristen, aka Gingersnap, who is through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Going on a gear run with her made me reassess both the contents of my apartment (not able to be carried on my back for a few months) and my packing for this trip. In short, I crammed all of my clothes into a compression sack, cinched it down, and will be flying to England with a daypack-sized backpack and my camera case.
I did the only thing I could do: plopped down on my parents' couch and steamrolled my way through the second half of the book. It is worth reading slowly, though it holds up very nicely when read fast.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Messianic Children's Books
I've recently read two children's books whose tone can be described as "messianic." This is an esoteric word to use, particularly in describing children's literature. I will let my examples speak for themselves.
I) Surfman
First, the more obscure: The Coming of the Surfman, by Peter Collington. The book concerns a young skateboarder-turned-surfboarder caught between two rival gangs, and the intervention of the enigmatic Surfman, whose departure leaves the gangs back at each others' throats and the boy hoping against hope for the Surfman's return.
Such a summary minimizes the power of this book, and I have summarized it in a way to make the messianic imagery stand out. In fact, the illustrations veil the allegory to a satisfying degree, and it is their power that carries the story.
II) Maniac
The second book is more widely read, particularly here in Pennsylvania, the author's home state: Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli. The eponymous hero is the messianic figure, who bridges the racial, geographic, and soci-economic divides between the East End and the West End in the course of his own search for home and family.
The book's outstanding introduction is what brings me back to this book, casting what might otherwise be a good, run-of-the-mill children's book in the light of myth, legend, and redemptive change.
III) Messianic Narratives
Both of these books are very good, which makes me wonder two things: is the messianic narrative, one that I always consider to be an abstract, adult concept, present in more children's literature (please share suggested titles in the comments)? And, what about the messianic narrative applies to childhood.
Surfman's messianic narrative is one of waiting and hoping for the return of a good thing. Maniac's messianic narrative is one of miraculous action towards community change, and the community's reaction. That is putting them in socio-religious (abstract, adult) terminology. How would a child read these stories?
Not being a child, and without children myself, I can speculate that childhood is a time of waiting; of understanding that one's agency is limited and that change can only come from the return of the Surfman.
That said, childhood has also been cast as a time of timelessness; of the unselfconsciousness that we cast as the innocence of youth. Maniac Magee works in this light; the boy believing and doing the impossible, unlimited by the constraints of the adult world, yet effecting real change in that world.
IV) Conclusion
As a Christian, it is tempting for me to spin these observations into some neat reflection on the messianic narrative through which I view the world, but that would be doing both of these books a disservice. They tell different stories, and present true mysteries of the world in very different (yet similar) ways. Needless to say, it is my religious background that causes me to read them in this way, yet I suspect that someone without my biases would also find strong messianic imagery in these texts.
I leave you with the prompt from above: Is the messianic narrative more common in children's literature that we may have thought? Why do these stories seem to ring true with children, who might not grasp all of their complexities?
I) Surfman First, the more obscure: The Coming of the Surfman, by Peter Collington. The book concerns a young skateboarder-turned-surfboarder caught between two rival gangs, and the intervention of the enigmatic Surfman, whose departure leaves the gangs back at each others' throats and the boy hoping against hope for the Surfman's return.
Such a summary minimizes the power of this book, and I have summarized it in a way to make the messianic imagery stand out. In fact, the illustrations veil the allegory to a satisfying degree, and it is their power that carries the story.
II) Maniac
The second book is more widely read, particularly here in Pennsylvania, the author's home state: Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli. The eponymous hero is the messianic figure, who bridges the racial, geographic, and soci-economic divides between the East End and the West End in the course of his own search for home and family.
The book's outstanding introduction is what brings me back to this book, casting what might otherwise be a good, run-of-the-mill children's book in the light of myth, legend, and redemptive change.
III) Messianic Narratives
Both of these books are very good, which makes me wonder two things: is the messianic narrative, one that I always consider to be an abstract, adult concept, present in more children's literature (please share suggested titles in the comments)? And, what about the messianic narrative applies to childhood.
Surfman's messianic narrative is one of waiting and hoping for the return of a good thing. Maniac's messianic narrative is one of miraculous action towards community change, and the community's reaction. That is putting them in socio-religious (abstract, adult) terminology. How would a child read these stories?
Not being a child, and without children myself, I can speculate that childhood is a time of waiting; of understanding that one's agency is limited and that change can only come from the return of the Surfman.
That said, childhood has also been cast as a time of timelessness; of the unselfconsciousness that we cast as the innocence of youth. Maniac Magee works in this light; the boy believing and doing the impossible, unlimited by the constraints of the adult world, yet effecting real change in that world.
IV) Conclusion
As a Christian, it is tempting for me to spin these observations into some neat reflection on the messianic narrative through which I view the world, but that would be doing both of these books a disservice. They tell different stories, and present true mysteries of the world in very different (yet similar) ways. Needless to say, it is my religious background that causes me to read them in this way, yet I suspect that someone without my biases would also find strong messianic imagery in these texts.
I leave you with the prompt from above: Is the messianic narrative more common in children's literature that we may have thought? Why do these stories seem to ring true with children, who might not grasp all of their complexities?
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