Looking out his front door that cold winter afternoon he found himself lost in the fields just across the road. They must belong to someone, he thought, but to whom? He hadn't a clue. There were times he'd taken a fancy to calling them his own, seeing as how his family had shared the house for most of his 55 years. But the livestock that grazed the dry Oklahoma "cold-weather grass" didn't belong to him, nor did the wild animals and feral cats which lived nocturnally in those woods.
He wished he owned horses. Equine beasts would make good companions for the cows and a particularly large bull penned in behind cheap farmer's wire line. Barbed wire kept them from escaping their universe...his universe...the one where his father raised a beautiful black mare and a shetland pony someone had named Trigger.
It dawned on him, perhaps for the first time, that he never knew who had named the small horse. It didn't seem like the kind of name that would come from the imagination of the same person behind Tootsie (the well groomed female) and Penny (the foal, only recently born and still a tad wobbly in the legs). "Trigger" had to have been from the mind of a child.
Who knows? he thought. It could have been me that named her.
It may well have been, or more likely from his father's favorite, his brother that the moniker had been fitted for the animal, although it must be noted that Trigger's overall sluggish demeanor never merited the kind of vigorous nature you'd expect from Roy Rogers' steed. Heavy odds would pay off for any gambler who made a bet on Mr. Rogers being the sole inspiration...the only triggers he and his brother had ever known of were clutched between the fingers of heroes like Marshall Dillon, the Rifleman, the Cartwright family on the Ponderosa (and just what does the word "Bonanza" even mean???)...Have gun will travel, it was a strange saying to their pacifist ears, unfamiliar with violence.
Though he preferred the Sunday afternoon Monster Movie on Mystery Theater he would sometimes hold back pestering his old man long enough so that the part-time cowboy could finish watching a western. Somewhere along the line he'd picked up a taste for them, though he could not recall when it had happened or over which overwrought melodrama the conversion was experienced. He came to relish the time spent with his father and grew to love the look that came over the bearded face when the bad guy hit the ground.
And the horses. Of course. All the cowboys seemed to have been assigned a horse to convey them across desserts and plains, like indestructable automobiles that seemed awfully fun to ride. In those younger days he couldn't conceive of the downside, the saddle soreness, the need to be groomed, not to mention fed and watered...those responsibilities did not come across well on the cheap black and white television his mother had bought at an OTASCO store.
Fact is he may not have loved horses so much if he'd paid attention to his father's burden in caring for them and less about Hollywood cowboys. Like Dracula and Frankenstein those horses were nothing like real life. Real horses can cause heartbreak and despair just as easily as they can win events in races and rodeos.
The "pacifist cowboy" had grown up. He continued staring at the pasture land. Even now, knowing full well the investment of a good, healthy beast, he persisted in his self-inflicted ennui.
He must have a horse!
I could take care of at least a couple now, his train of thought obsessed with the idea. At last he caved in to a memory that reminded him why it had taken most of his life to even consider owning one.
He was perhaps seven or eight years old. He measured the age by how long his family lived in the Morgan road house subtracted from how many years since the move to the west side of town. He knew that anything that happened before that migration would place him at no older than nine at the very most. The horses had to be sacrificed in that move because the house his parents had bought shared no adjacent pasture land. It surely broke his dad's heart to lose those animals...knowing him, he probably cried...
He knew he was awfully young and this was one of his oldest recollections...
A black and white photo of him astride the pony was further evidence that it took place "at the old house". Apparently Trigger had been tamed when that picture was taken...
Or perhaps it was taken just before...
On that hot summer afternoon he spooked the horse. Maybe he accidentally kicked him, he never knew what enraged the Shetland but most definitely something had.
Bucking like the most fierce bronco in the Pro Rodeo circuit he took off running as if ponies were somehow capable of winning the Kentucky Derby and the Remington Park Annual race in one fell swoop. His rear end rose from the saddle involuntarily.
He screamed but held on to the reins for as long as he could. Now that the memory had lost much of it's sheen he would not be able to tell you just how far he'd flown before being rescued by gravity. Lucky, however, that he didn't break his neck, it was an extremely young age to have cheated the Reaper but only now did he think of it in those macabre terms.
How his father must have worried. How his mother must have yelled at him for letting "the kids" get on those horses in the first place, obviously they were too young. But his father wouldn't hear of it. He'd been forced at a very young age, by a death in the family, to work the Arkansas farm land from whence his family migrated to Oklahoma. He had a lot of expectations for his own offspring but lacked the education to understand what his mother saw so clearly...they had not raised cowboys. They were bringing up rock stars and you know what that means: a latent inability to recognize responsibility in favor of the dream that never comes true.
Trigger had his revenge, that was for sure, and he continued daydreaming about the scene, playing it backwards and forwards in his mind. He chopped it into a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle and relished each piece he found that fit into what he'd been able to retain...
His father, calling out his name, leaving his brother and the horses free to escape the pasture to run towards the inert body. The fear that would have been inescapable and easy to detect in his face...one of those bad TV westerns turned all too real... The sense of relief he must have felt like a wave when it was obvious there was no serious damage here, only a few bruises and a miracle.
Father was gone now and he came to one last realization. It wasn't the horses he'd wanted to roam in those woods across the old highway. It was the memory of the times shared with the rough handed full-time cowboy who gave it up to raise his children.
The dream wasn't even his, it belonged to dad who had already proven he could more than hold his own with the best equine breeds in local rodeos and in parades through town on Festival day... A man who made a name for himself not just as a working man, which is exactly what he was, but as a friend to many and well beloved. To be respected like that, yes, that's what he hoped he'd inherited from the man.
He turned away from the fogged pane of glass which had become a time machine and looked at his wife sitting in his favorite chair quietly darning her worn socks. He felt a wave of love rush over him so much like a tsunami that he was compelled to walk across the room and surprise her with a kiss. No particular reason.
She accepted it with a smile and a look in her eyes he recognized as true love. Closing his eyes he said a silent prayer for guidance and strength. Before he reached the Amen one last image of his own father broke through and he couldn't help but interrupt the communion with a sincere, heartfelt sentiment...
"Thank you, dad".
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Unfinished brainstorming
Relax, everyone, we are currently departing. If you are uncomfortable floating in space may I suggest that you close the window next to you, find something with which to distract yourself and settle in. You will be acclimated soon enough at which point, no doubt, you will be amazed with the journey along with all the others on board.
We've set out for Telomere. It is that universe's sonic waves which guide us for the moment. Into another realm, a different paradigm, a place which doesn't require time and space to define it. Without a sound that our human ears can recognize there are frequencies that pass us by...what you wish to know is...what's on those frequencies? Could be aliens for all we know, reading their sacred otherworldly scriptures, whispering them chapter and verse into my ear, completely unconscious of the whole thing.
Kenneth, what are those frequencies? Or better, what's on them? Can you translate for me, Ken?
And Kenneth says, "Translate them for yourself because they mean only what you want them to mean, they are the almighty AFFIRMATIVE. If you can accept this then do and live as if you do, let those unfamiliar sounds inspire you to create."
"Create", I say, dumbfounded. "I haven't felt as if creating would do me any good. What's it all for? To look back on someday and lament that I didn't shoot the moon?"
"But you did shoot the moon."
"I shot at the moon, but I missed. That's the part that keeps me from taking it all on faith that there isn't some kind of dire warning mixed in with the positive thinking."
"Ah, but perhaps you're right," Kenneth says and then asks if I'd ever heard of the Ghost of the Moon. I tell him I hadn't and he rips into this legend about how the brilliant orb we see in the heavens when midnight comes was once brighter than our own sun. The alien culture at the time found a way, accidently of course, to blow that thing up just to see what might happen. What happened was that we have not just a moon but what is in actuality the Ghost of a sun which we now call a moon, hence the Ghost of the Moon or something like that. It's said to have extremely wonderful powers to those who put their faith in it's ability to transform. You should pray to the Ghost of the Moon when you're feeling really down and blue. It might help."
"Kenneth," I addressed the young man, "You are a stone cold fool, all this stuff about ghosts."
He conceded. "Perhaps you're right. Might not be anything to it."
I was surprised by how quickly he'd conceded but wasn't in the mood to quibble about something so inconsequential.
Our starship moves with a beautiful grace, dancing with the waves of starlight that crash up against her. Telomere in our rear view mirror we rushed on to our next destination: a banana shaped planet in the center of Hoioto Galaxy. The Hoioto tribunal having petitioned us to investigate a conspiracy theory known simply as "Thousand Stars". Armed with cheap Acer laptops we had accepted that challenge and now we're 9/10ths of the way into debunking it. That's a lot of work done in a short amount of time.
But let's try to make some sense here. Let's not do as we have been, writing something for the sake of simply practicing typing. Deleting everything in disgust and despair that I just can't do it like before.
We've set out for Telomere. It is that universe's sonic waves which guide us for the moment. Into another realm, a different paradigm, a place which doesn't require time and space to define it. Without a sound that our human ears can recognize there are frequencies that pass us by...what you wish to know is...what's on those frequencies? Could be aliens for all we know, reading their sacred otherworldly scriptures, whispering them chapter and verse into my ear, completely unconscious of the whole thing.
Kenneth, what are those frequencies? Or better, what's on them? Can you translate for me, Ken?
And Kenneth says, "Translate them for yourself because they mean only what you want them to mean, they are the almighty AFFIRMATIVE. If you can accept this then do and live as if you do, let those unfamiliar sounds inspire you to create."
"Create", I say, dumbfounded. "I haven't felt as if creating would do me any good. What's it all for? To look back on someday and lament that I didn't shoot the moon?"
"But you did shoot the moon."
"I shot at the moon, but I missed. That's the part that keeps me from taking it all on faith that there isn't some kind of dire warning mixed in with the positive thinking."
"Ah, but perhaps you're right," Kenneth says and then asks if I'd ever heard of the Ghost of the Moon. I tell him I hadn't and he rips into this legend about how the brilliant orb we see in the heavens when midnight comes was once brighter than our own sun. The alien culture at the time found a way, accidently of course, to blow that thing up just to see what might happen. What happened was that we have not just a moon but what is in actuality the Ghost of a sun which we now call a moon, hence the Ghost of the Moon or something like that. It's said to have extremely wonderful powers to those who put their faith in it's ability to transform. You should pray to the Ghost of the Moon when you're feeling really down and blue. It might help."
"Kenneth," I addressed the young man, "You are a stone cold fool, all this stuff about ghosts."
He conceded. "Perhaps you're right. Might not be anything to it."
I was surprised by how quickly he'd conceded but wasn't in the mood to quibble about something so inconsequential.
Our starship moves with a beautiful grace, dancing with the waves of starlight that crash up against her. Telomere in our rear view mirror we rushed on to our next destination: a banana shaped planet in the center of Hoioto Galaxy. The Hoioto tribunal having petitioned us to investigate a conspiracy theory known simply as "Thousand Stars". Armed with cheap Acer laptops we had accepted that challenge and now we're 9/10ths of the way into debunking it. That's a lot of work done in a short amount of time.
But let's try to make some sense here. Let's not do as we have been, writing something for the sake of simply practicing typing. Deleting everything in disgust and despair that I just can't do it like before.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Bill Hunky's Terminal Kleptomania (Chapter One)
Bill Hunky's terminal kleptomania manifested at a very early age when, as an exuberant and naughty five year old he snatched a few pieces of bubblegum from the candy rack at the grocery store where his parents had been shopping. Not surprisingly he was found out by his mother when he took a few pieces from his hidden pocket and she spotted him putting something in his mouth. A time-hardened glob of Super Bubble gave little Bill away and his mother was furious. She gave him a quarter and made him go inside, pay the cashier for what he'd stolen and apologize for the felonious theft.
His mother had hoped that by doing this he would forever remember the humiliation of the task he'd been given, perhaps it would prevent him in the future from doing it again if he recalled the shame and embarrassment, the disappointed look in the store manager's eye, the whole sad affair...and it may have...for awhile.
But not too many years afterwards...in his pubescent years, he went on a shoplifting spree that would have made seasoned pros jealous. The jig went a little something like this...
Bill and his two early childhood pals, Kevin and David, were transported across the small town every day in a school bus because the cafeteria/lunch room were in different buildings than the classrooms. Alas, it was easy walking distance if a student had a mind to forsake the bus ride provided. These were the days before yearly mass shootings in public schools plus the relative naiveté of a small town community perhaps gave them a sense of security then which would seem less than secure now.
Which is to explain how Bill, Kev and Dave were able to gain access to not one, but two different stores five days a week as they trudged, early 70s gangsta thugesque, from their lunch back to afternoon classes.
No one knows from whom came the suggestion, but one of the boys decided it would be fun to stop at Hershey's Variety and steal candy from the rack while the cashier wasn't looking...which was often enough seeing as how they got away with it for two weeks and would have kept the streak alive if the lady at the SECOND store they stopped at on the way hadn't suspected, correctly mind you, that they were doing the same thing there.
Every single day of the school week they did this, loading pockets with all manner of sweet vittles, until the aforementioned incident in which the old lady who procured the Round House market thought she saw one of them in the act of stealing. She let the trio of crooks walk out the door but followed them this time and spoke up...about what you'd expect she'd say:
"'xcuse me, boys, but did one of you walk out of the store without paying for something?" That's what she said. See, I told you it was predictable. What wasn't predictable was Bill Hunky's response.
Boldly, if perhaps stupidly, he opened his coat and showed her the bounty, "No, ma'am, we got this stuff from Hershey's."
It's doubtful the elder lady was so unwise as to take Hunky at his word but Kev and Dave, not wanting to miss a role in the comedy playing out in front of them persistently insisted, "No, ma'am, we wouldn't do that", "You don't sell this brand of candy, we got it all from old lady Hershey".
The woman told the kids not to come back, which was wasted words because they'd all three made the decision to carry that request out without being asked. The fear of God had been put in them, their Junior High school career in thievery was nipped in the bud. Just as well because between the three of them they had enough surplus stolen candy to rot their teeth before graduating high school.
The trio would look back, in days to come, on this commandment shattering work they'd done in early days with amazement in how they weren't afraid a bit of being caught. Kevin would say it was reckless stupidity and Dave would chuckle and agree...but Bill Hunky would say he had the time of his life and would do it all again if he could go back in time. He didn't realize it then but by now he's come to recognize this as the terminal kleptomania I spoke of earlier...he lived to steal again...many, many times.
His mother had hoped that by doing this he would forever remember the humiliation of the task he'd been given, perhaps it would prevent him in the future from doing it again if he recalled the shame and embarrassment, the disappointed look in the store manager's eye, the whole sad affair...and it may have...for awhile.
But not too many years afterwards...in his pubescent years, he went on a shoplifting spree that would have made seasoned pros jealous. The jig went a little something like this...
Bill and his two early childhood pals, Kevin and David, were transported across the small town every day in a school bus because the cafeteria/lunch room were in different buildings than the classrooms. Alas, it was easy walking distance if a student had a mind to forsake the bus ride provided. These were the days before yearly mass shootings in public schools plus the relative naiveté of a small town community perhaps gave them a sense of security then which would seem less than secure now.
Which is to explain how Bill, Kev and Dave were able to gain access to not one, but two different stores five days a week as they trudged, early 70s gangsta thugesque, from their lunch back to afternoon classes.
No one knows from whom came the suggestion, but one of the boys decided it would be fun to stop at Hershey's Variety and steal candy from the rack while the cashier wasn't looking...which was often enough seeing as how they got away with it for two weeks and would have kept the streak alive if the lady at the SECOND store they stopped at on the way hadn't suspected, correctly mind you, that they were doing the same thing there.
Every single day of the school week they did this, loading pockets with all manner of sweet vittles, until the aforementioned incident in which the old lady who procured the Round House market thought she saw one of them in the act of stealing. She let the trio of crooks walk out the door but followed them this time and spoke up...about what you'd expect she'd say:
"'xcuse me, boys, but did one of you walk out of the store without paying for something?" That's what she said. See, I told you it was predictable. What wasn't predictable was Bill Hunky's response.
Boldly, if perhaps stupidly, he opened his coat and showed her the bounty, "No, ma'am, we got this stuff from Hershey's."
It's doubtful the elder lady was so unwise as to take Hunky at his word but Kev and Dave, not wanting to miss a role in the comedy playing out in front of them persistently insisted, "No, ma'am, we wouldn't do that", "You don't sell this brand of candy, we got it all from old lady Hershey".
The woman told the kids not to come back, which was wasted words because they'd all three made the decision to carry that request out without being asked. The fear of God had been put in them, their Junior High school career in thievery was nipped in the bud. Just as well because between the three of them they had enough surplus stolen candy to rot their teeth before graduating high school.
The trio would look back, in days to come, on this commandment shattering work they'd done in early days with amazement in how they weren't afraid a bit of being caught. Kevin would say it was reckless stupidity and Dave would chuckle and agree...but Bill Hunky would say he had the time of his life and would do it all again if he could go back in time. He didn't realize it then but by now he's come to recognize this as the terminal kleptomania I spoke of earlier...he lived to steal again...many, many times.
Friday, October 25, 2019
An autobiographical memoir
Sorry I took so long getting this to you, Don. It’s verrrry long (19 pages) so please don’t feel obligated to read all or any of it. The only reason I think it might be of any interest to you is because of the nature of Internet friendship and how it’s confining aspect often prevents people from “knowing” someone on a deeper level than simply shared interests and opinions. I’m pretty sure you created that Bared Souls board with at least a slightly similar idea in mind. I never posted there because I wasn’t comfortable being quite so open when there was no way of knowing if the person reading it would turn out to be friend or foe. Those kind of details can be used against one, especially somebody like me who treated the whole thing as a fun diversion. I put out a lot of disinformation both on RS and Castaways because I wanted/needed that ballast against trolls, SheRocks, RocDoc, I’m sure you know the list of my detractors. The nature of facebook is very different, what with the privacy controls available, so I went into that venture almost 10 years ago with the goal of being more transparent, of being James Casey instead of JACkory (wouldn’t Plokoon be proud to know the stupid moniker he gave me, which I took up, like a thrown gauntlet, as username practically everywhere on the Internet I’ve been to, is still haunting me to this day?). So far so good, I suppose, barring a few blocked addys (Melonius Thunk ring a bell?). Anyway, I added quite a bit of new material before sending to you. It wasn’t quite finished and had stalled on what most surely was not a “happy ending”. So I took care of that. Take care, my friend. I really wish we had been running buddies back in the late 70s/early 80s. You, Me and Holzman would have been a force to be reckoned with.
1985. Though I was only 23 I had been married for 3 years. Happily married, to be sure, as evidenced by the fact that my wife was pregnant and we were both ready and willing to be parents. The situation was as solid as one could hope for. I was employed at a quartz manufacturing plant which was probably the best job to be had in the small town where we lived. In my leisure time I'd put together a good little band and hoped to make some money on the side with it. I would have been thrilled to see that group take off so I could play music full time but didn't expect it to really happen. I was content to stay at the quartz company, beveling small crystals to specified frequencies for the government contracts that kept the plant open.
The biggest problem I had with the job was Alan, my supervisor. He was absolutely brilliant when it came to the specifics of the job but he was a strange sort, practically anti-social when outside of the workplace environment he was used to. He was a follower of Herbert W Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God (you may recall the old Plain Truth magazine...in reality they were much more of a cult than a true church). Everyone who worked at this place was involved in church, in fact the manager even told me during my pre-employment interview that they ONLY hired people who were active in church. Not any specific denomination, just so long as they were members of a local congregation. As for me, I had been attending the United Methodist Church for the past five years. I'd left the Baptists for two reasons: 1. they had run off a great pastor and replaced him with a fat dude who channeled the spirit and ideology of Jerry Falwell and 2. my girlfriend/future wife was a Methodist. We also had a great pastor there who was to become very influential in my religious life.
Alan, despite his affiliation with what he would say was the only TRUE Christian church, had a bit of a mean streak. He was ALWAYS talking about religion; his was the real deal, of course, and everyone else's was bogus. He had an insatiable desire to evangelize Armstrongism but he went about it by trying to tear apart the beliefs and teachings of every other stripe of the faith, of course mine included. In fact he seemed to inordinately relish dogging what I believed, perhaps because he didn't think I was solid enough in it's doctrines to put up much of a fight (and in hindsight, at that point in my life he was probably right). Basically he liked to see me squirm and clearly enjoyed pushing me as far as he could.
Then one day he pushed too hard. I can't remember the exact words or reason this time was different...perhaps it was just because I wasn't as strong on that day as usual... It must have been something, though, because even though I knew I was making a stupid mistake nevertheless I walked off the jobsite in the middle of a shift and vowed I'd never go back. I can still remember what it felt like walking home through the municipal park with all the anger and worry about what I was going to do next swirling through my head. I never had a back-up plan. Of course I'd have to find another job but for various reasons this was easier said than done. Not the least of which the fact that we were living in Ronald Reagan's America and a recession that had made it practically impossible to find a good job in the area.
...and more importantly, what was my wife going to say about it?
So here I am, 23 years old, wife and baby on the way...Bella (not her real name) had been working part-time so we could afford to live a little better but it wasn't enough to support even the two of us, let alone a child. I worked on getting publicity for the band in hopes of putting us on a circuit and trying to make ends meet that way. But it was no use. I didn't have the window of opportunity I needed. I had to do something and do it quickly...that baby wasn't going to wait for me to get my house in order before popping into our lives.
For reasons that I won't detail, for fear of making this even longer than it looks like it's going to be, I wound up joining the Navy. It's a testament to how desperate I was because even I knew that military service was the last place I needed to be. My personality type was almost antithetical to that of your typical successful serviceman or woman. I had seen the programs on television that detailed the brutal boot camp process. It was very obvious to me that I simply wasn't cut out for that kind of training. I had to act quickly, though, so I bit the bullet and decided I would do whatever it took to make it through. Since it was peace time I wasn't worried about potentially going into combat (kind of shows you what kind of soldier I would have been, terrified of going into battle...I don't feel that way anymore).
Besides, Bella was very proud of me for choosing the military route. Her father was a retired Air Force Master Sergeant who'd served in Vietnam (albeit not in a combat role). He was a tough son of a bitch and I suppose it made me feel good to know that he was proud of my decision, that he supported it and the status of our father-in-law/son-in-law relationship would improve incrementally. I don't think he liked anyone and that included me, perhaps a military career was my ticket into his good graces. Would have been nice.
If there's one thing about this entire memory that baffles me more than potentially being a Naval seaman it's that I failed to realize just how difficult it was going to be separated from my wife and our unborn child. The gulf between basic training in Orlando, FL and my hometown was 1017 miles by air, 1243 miles by land. I had never been so far from home in my entire life. This is a good part of why I didn't make it one week through boot camp. Not the only one but significant.
On the heels of a strange and mostly forgotten incident one night I found myself in what I later learned was the 4th Floor Psych Ward of the Naval Hospital. I'll gloss over most of the details surrounding this turn of events. Suffice to say they were strange days indeed. Troubling, frightening, confusing...and at the heart of it all the weight of missing my wife, worrying about our child. She wrote me a letter every single day but I was so disoriented, they weren't nearly enough to pacify. I wanted nothing less than to have her by my side.
I had no idea what was wrong with me. It took the doctors a long while to settle on a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. During that time they had put me on some serious hardcore medications...stuff that you don't see prescribed for bipolar these days because it's just too strong and the side effects are so prominent/prevalent. Thorazine. Melloril. Haldol. It's no stretch to admit that I was incapacitated during the months when I was on those medications (which they told me I would have to take for the rest of my life or else face serious *insinuate 'fatal'* consequences). You've heard of the "Thorazine shuffle", perhaps? It's all true.
I had gone numb except for the sadness I felt being so far from those I loved. I would sit in the hallway staring at a picture of my wife, her senior class picture, for so long that her facial features seemed to move, making the image appear "alive" (an optical "trick"). I guess that effect could have been attributed to the medication or something along those lines, I never even gave it a second thought.
There was no way of knowing how long I was going to be there. Obviously Uncle Sam had a contract to keep me for the next four years but surely it wouldn't take so long to get me fixed up. Since it was a mental illness that sidelined me I wouldn't even be eligible to continue in the Navy. I didn't think it would be TOO long; I hoped to detach with an honorable discharge (not even a possibility in my circumstances, it would be a general discharge).
I certainly didn't still expect to be in the Naval Hospital for four months but when my daughter was born in August that's exactly where I was. I can't begin to describe the combination of joy and agony I experienced when the call came and a corpsman delivered the news. Thrilled to know that the delivery was a smooth one, my little girl was healthy, Bella had been so strong. What I wouldn't have given to be there with them. This wondrous occasion, far from lifting my spirits as it should have, only drove home the fact that they were halfway across the country and I might as well have been in prison. The only hope it brought was being discharged from the hospital sooner rather than later...
...a misguided hope, it turns out. I stayed in the hospital for another 2 months. I suppose it's a testament to the strength of Haldol that I made it through that last 1/3rd of my committal. It really dumbed me down. So much so that I was actually surprised when I finally got discharged. Six months in hell is a bit too hyperbolic but not by much.
The Navy psychiatrists eventually came to a diagnosis. I was suffering with bipolar disorder. Manic Depressive syndrome, as it was once referred to. A chemical imbalance in the brain, it was explained to me as I was not familiar with any of it. A mental illness for which there is not a cure. The best I could hope for would be to manage it with medication and counseling. I was much less disheartened by the diagnosis than I was with the prospect of spending the rest of my life in a medication induced stupor.
Six months after I'd left for Florida with the intent of serving in the armed forces they put me on a plane and sent me home. There was a layover in Atlanta and to this day I'm still amazed that I was able to make the connections necessary to return home in the shape I was in. The jet airliner landed, the passengers departed and we were met by a huge crowd. Initially, looking out on the gathering, I thought there would be no way I would ever spot my wife in that throng.
But I was wrong.
There she was, such a vision of beauty, rivalled only by the blanketed bundle she held in her arms. For a short time I was seized by such a wave of joy I could barely contain it. If I hadn't been so emptied by the psychiatric medications I might not have had room in my soul to accommodate it. We hugged. We kissed. Then she showed me our daughter. I understand this kind of thing happens to military personnel all the time, being away, not seeing their children until long after they're born. I feel for them, I honestly do. It's one of the most bittersweet experiences you can live through, with eyes to the future but regretting lost time one can never retrieve. She was a sight for the sorest eyes.
The general discharge meant that I would receive no assistance from the Navy after separation and what I was being paid didn't amount to enough to remain in the house we'd been in for the last few years. I couldn't wrap my head around how devastating being uprooted like that would be.
The original plan was for us to stay with my mother until we could get back up on our feet. She and my dad had been divorced for 8 years and she'd not only remarried but had a daughter with the guy. I'm guessing she was probably 3 or 4 years old by then. Of course mom fawned over her first granddaughter. Unfortunately her husband, a tall, lanky, exceedingly ugly dude with a wicked jealous streak, decided that she was paying too much attention to my daughter at the expense of time and attention he felt was owed to their own. We were asked to leave.
A generous couple from our church had some extra space in their large house in the country and they let us stay with them for awhile. That lasted probably a month.
I'm trying to be thorough in chronicling the main points of the six months after I left the hospital but it's difficult because my brain was so cluttered by the medication I was on. I remember we found a place to stay in a city located about 60 miles from the house we'd rented in my hometown. This was a college town and even though I could barely focus on a page in a book I decided I wanted to take advantage of the University's Vocational Rehabilitation program, hopefully go back to school the following semester.
In the meantime it was obvious that I would have to secure some kind of employment. I had some experience working behind a cash register which helped land a job at a huge travel stop on the Interstate just outside of the city. It surprises me to this day that I was able to hold that job for the few days I did before being let go. The medication had slowed me down, I'm sure my drawer counts were off. The managers could tell there was something wrong with me. They called me to the office, said it wasn't working out but they would be happy to provide a good reference for future employment elsewhere. I didn't ask for specific reasons, didn't even care. I didn't think about what it meant to have failed, what my wife would say or what we would do.
We were no longer able to afford the upstairs level of the duplex we'd barely settled in. The plan to attend college was still at the forefront of my mind. In a grand example of putting the cart before the horse we moved into an apartment across the street from the University. A very short walking distance, which was essential because we had only one vehicle. It was a dank place that constantly reeked of some unknown foreign cuisine one of the residents was always cooking.
When I did speak to the counselor from Vocational Rehab I was told that they could probably help me out. What was I hoping to major in? I told them English, specifically English education, I would be a teacher. No, they said. That was out of the question. It would have to be a course of study which would immediately pay off, something more in the line of engineering and such. I had never had any desire to do those things. Certain of failure I declined their assistance. A real letdown and a serious setback.
The next few weeks I was expected to secure employment. The apartment, in addition to being close to the college, was also in walking distance of the main strip, with it's fast food joints and small businesses. Bella expected me to beat the pavement and find a job there. Of course she did, it was the only thing to do, our financial situation had come down to the wire. And I did go out a few times...but I never stopped anywhere. The experience at the travel stop had convinced me that I was too messed up to hold a job. If you had only spent some time with me back then you would have agreed. No doubt Bella saw it as a lack of responsibility, which I suppose it was but there was no convincing her that I had come to the point where I simply and honestly could not do it. No matter how much I wanted to rise above my circumstances it was no use. I had way too much going against me.
On top of that, her schedule and my inability to watch over our daughter by myself meant that my in-laws had to be conscripted to watch over her. For days in a row my little girl was 60 miles away from her parents...the same little girl who was already two months old before I ever got to see her. Bella missed her so badly she was in agony. I will never forget the night she broke down crying, wailing "I miss my baby". And me? So doped I couldn't feel a thing. I judge myself, in retrospect, very severely for the apathy that was surely like an aura surrounding my frame. But I try to cut myself some slack because as I saw it, this wasn't me. It really wasn't. I don't know where *I* went off to for that time and I'm thankful *I* eventually found my way back but no, this unfeeling golem was certainly not me.
It all came to a head one afternoon in April, 1986. I should remember much more about it than I actually do. An educated guess would be that it started as a small spat about the "responsibility" I spoke of earlier. We'd had a few disagreements during the four years we were married but always managed to resolve them before anything drastic transpired. That being the case it was even more bizarre and hard to believe that these harsh words resulted in my telling her I was leaving. I called my dad and asked him to bring his pickup truck and we loaded what I considered to be my stuff into the back. We drove back to his house and I piled my crap into my old bedroom.
I don't remember it at all but it's most likely my father spent a good deal of time that night telling me I'd made a mistake, that I would be a fool to walk away from his daughter-in-law, who he loved very much, which would almost certainly mean losing my daughter. I was certainly in no condition to care for her. No judge in his right mind would award custody of an infant child to a zombie, even if he was her father.
We might have even fought about it, though I would have made for a very weak opponent. Regardless, I came to my senses. I never really wanted for us to break up, it was frustration and anger which pushed me over the line. I made a point to see Bella the next afternoon, tell her how sorry I was and hoped she would forgive me. Surely we could work something out. Once again I cannot recall the specifics but if I know me I probably convinced myself she would accept my apology. Reluctantly, perhaps, because she was bound to still be upset and angry at me. But we had, I thought, a solid relationship. I felt sure she wouldn't want to mess with that.
I was in for a rude awakening.
She had gone to her parents' house the day before so I went there, knocked on the door and her mother answered. I asked if I could speak to Bella and she let me in. I don't think she even looked at me when I walked into the room. I told her I was sorry. Everything you'd expect me to say, I said. I don't know if she could tell, through the medication induced mumble, that I was sincere. I was. If ever I had been before, I certainly was now.
But it all fell on deaf ears. She heard what I was saying but it was as if she'd thrown up a wall between us that prevented her from caring.
She never said a single word.
Not a word, and it was obvious, through her gestures and body language, that she wanted me to know she didn't plan on speaking to me, now or ever again. Who knows how long I tried. It could have been just a few moments before I realized it was useless. It might have been 15 minutes. It would not have mattered if I had stayed there until sunset, it was over. In her heart, I suppose, I had become anathema.
As for me, coming to terms with it was a slow, torturous process teased by hopes of a reunion that were pathetic under the circumstance. Sometime in the next days she moved to a location unknown to me, taking our daughter with her. With all the emotional turmoil and upheaval I suppose it's not surprising that the following months are a confused, mixed up jumble of blunted memories. She served me with divorce papers which gave her full custody and, for some reason I still have not fathomed, did not stipulate terms of child support.
I didn't see her again for 26 years, in 2012 when she and her husband attended the high school graduation ceremony of her niece and my son. She was seated a long way from where we were but I have no doubt she saw me. We never made eye contact and there was no way I was going to place myself in the awkward position of bumping into her.
One thing I'll never forget was the sense of pride that swelled in me as my son gave his speech as Salutatorian. I'm not sure I can explain this sense of "See what I did? This intelligent, articulate kid is MY legacy, he's the successful product of MY parenting (though my wife gets the greater share of credit for that).
*****You gave up on me, you didn't have what it took to cling to your vows and stick with me through sickness and health, you thought I would be too far gone forever...well look at this. You were wrong. You loved me, I know you did, and I don't bear any ill will against you for the choice you made but you shouldn't have given up, you didn't have to sacrifice that to your fear of potentially spending your life with me in the condition I was in. You should have had more faith in me, you should not have written me off as if I consciously WANTED to be a loafer and not provide. I don't know how you got that idea unless it was from your hardline father (which I've always suspected but then again, it was your decision to make). You left, married a man who treats you like shit (or so I've been told by an extremely reliable source) but worse than that you placed our daughter in the position of having such a person come into her life as his stepdaughter. I know more that situation than you could possibly imagine and these days I resent more you doing that than the fact you left me. Look down here again from your seat in the upper bleachers...see that woman with me? We've been married for almost 20 years. She knew what she was getting into when she accepted my marriage proposal...has she seen some hard times as a result? Of course she, it's part of the deal. But those difficult times are only a fraction of the life we've lived together and she's strong. I loved you, Bella, I really did. With all my heart and soul. But we were husband and wife in name only. You kind of aborted the potential growth to that stage when you cut me out of your (and my daughter's) life. Still, I don't begrudge your inability to cope with the situation because if I put myself in your shoes I can't say I wouldn't have reacted the same way. Bipolar Disorder (and the poison medications used to manage it) came into our lives and no one was thinking clearly, I suppose. But don't listen to me. Listen to that tall young man with the cap and gown standing at the podium, waxing wise well beyond his years. Take a good look, then look down to the floor and see the proud woman sitting beside me...and then you'll understand why through it all I can now say, well aware of the dripping irony, 'Thank you for leaving me.'"
******During the 20+ years between the separation and October 2010 I periodically performed an Internet search for the names of my ex-wife and daughter. The former out of curiosity, the latter out of a desire to find out where my daughter lived. Those searches were always fruitless, as I knew they were bound to be, because I didn't have a surname to work with (assuming my daughter had taken her "stepfather"'s).
Looking through the local small town newspaper one day I noticed my ex-Mother in Law had passed away. That was sad because not only did I always like her, she seemed to go to bat for me in the days when the separation was going down. I read the obituary not even thinking that the answer to my search question was right there at the bottom: Bella's last name was Simon (not real name) and my daughter had gotten married to a guy named Truman (not real name). I also learned I have both a grandson AND a granddaughter!
Armed with that information I went to Myspace (which, at the time, was more popular than Facebook), typed in her name and BOOM! First try! There she was, a very beautiful young woman who I really almost recognized from the photo, even though I hadn't seen her in years (I had a couple of photographs from when she was in grade school, procured and delivered by her grandmother). I sent an e-mail and crossed my fingers.
I got a response the next day and we began to catch up with each others' lives via a few telephone calls and e-mail messages that weren't quite as long as this has turned out to be, but very lengthy and detailed nonetheless. We took that process fairly slowly but by December of the next year we'd arranged for my family and myself to reunite with her and to meet her husband at a steakhouse in Tulsa. I feared it might turn awkward at some point but actually the dinner and conversation was very free and easy. Everyone had a wonderful time, photographs were taken to commemorate the event and a new chapter in my life had begun. I felt like the luckiest person alive, as I honestly had lost hope of ever finding her. We got along just fantastically and I really liked her husband...although unfortunately they are no longer married.
A few months later we made plans for me to visit them in their home and to meet my grandchildren. Maybe just a liiiittttle more awkward than the grown-ups meeting but not so bad as all that. I think they took to me well enough, though it had to be difficult for them to process how this stranger had come into their lives who, they were told, was their grandfather. We'd decided at the time it would be better to have them call me by my name, which felt kind of weird to me but I'm sure it was easier for the kids.
Of course we are still in touch, albeit not as regularly as we would prefer. Speaking of "awkward", I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when she told Bella that we had reunited and had resumed our familial relationship.
I heard she took it as well as can be expected.
1985. Though I was only 23 I had been married for 3 years. Happily married, to be sure, as evidenced by the fact that my wife was pregnant and we were both ready and willing to be parents. The situation was as solid as one could hope for. I was employed at a quartz manufacturing plant which was probably the best job to be had in the small town where we lived. In my leisure time I'd put together a good little band and hoped to make some money on the side with it. I would have been thrilled to see that group take off so I could play music full time but didn't expect it to really happen. I was content to stay at the quartz company, beveling small crystals to specified frequencies for the government contracts that kept the plant open.
The biggest problem I had with the job was Alan, my supervisor. He was absolutely brilliant when it came to the specifics of the job but he was a strange sort, practically anti-social when outside of the workplace environment he was used to. He was a follower of Herbert W Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God (you may recall the old Plain Truth magazine...in reality they were much more of a cult than a true church). Everyone who worked at this place was involved in church, in fact the manager even told me during my pre-employment interview that they ONLY hired people who were active in church. Not any specific denomination, just so long as they were members of a local congregation. As for me, I had been attending the United Methodist Church for the past five years. I'd left the Baptists for two reasons: 1. they had run off a great pastor and replaced him with a fat dude who channeled the spirit and ideology of Jerry Falwell and 2. my girlfriend/future wife was a Methodist. We also had a great pastor there who was to become very influential in my religious life.
Alan, despite his affiliation with what he would say was the only TRUE Christian church, had a bit of a mean streak. He was ALWAYS talking about religion; his was the real deal, of course, and everyone else's was bogus. He had an insatiable desire to evangelize Armstrongism but he went about it by trying to tear apart the beliefs and teachings of every other stripe of the faith, of course mine included. In fact he seemed to inordinately relish dogging what I believed, perhaps because he didn't think I was solid enough in it's doctrines to put up much of a fight (and in hindsight, at that point in my life he was probably right). Basically he liked to see me squirm and clearly enjoyed pushing me as far as he could.
Then one day he pushed too hard. I can't remember the exact words or reason this time was different...perhaps it was just because I wasn't as strong on that day as usual... It must have been something, though, because even though I knew I was making a stupid mistake nevertheless I walked off the jobsite in the middle of a shift and vowed I'd never go back. I can still remember what it felt like walking home through the municipal park with all the anger and worry about what I was going to do next swirling through my head. I never had a back-up plan. Of course I'd have to find another job but for various reasons this was easier said than done. Not the least of which the fact that we were living in Ronald Reagan's America and a recession that had made it practically impossible to find a good job in the area.
...and more importantly, what was my wife going to say about it?
So here I am, 23 years old, wife and baby on the way...Bella (not her real name) had been working part-time so we could afford to live a little better but it wasn't enough to support even the two of us, let alone a child. I worked on getting publicity for the band in hopes of putting us on a circuit and trying to make ends meet that way. But it was no use. I didn't have the window of opportunity I needed. I had to do something and do it quickly...that baby wasn't going to wait for me to get my house in order before popping into our lives.
For reasons that I won't detail, for fear of making this even longer than it looks like it's going to be, I wound up joining the Navy. It's a testament to how desperate I was because even I knew that military service was the last place I needed to be. My personality type was almost antithetical to that of your typical successful serviceman or woman. I had seen the programs on television that detailed the brutal boot camp process. It was very obvious to me that I simply wasn't cut out for that kind of training. I had to act quickly, though, so I bit the bullet and decided I would do whatever it took to make it through. Since it was peace time I wasn't worried about potentially going into combat (kind of shows you what kind of soldier I would have been, terrified of going into battle...I don't feel that way anymore).
Besides, Bella was very proud of me for choosing the military route. Her father was a retired Air Force Master Sergeant who'd served in Vietnam (albeit not in a combat role). He was a tough son of a bitch and I suppose it made me feel good to know that he was proud of my decision, that he supported it and the status of our father-in-law/son-in-law relationship would improve incrementally. I don't think he liked anyone and that included me, perhaps a military career was my ticket into his good graces. Would have been nice.
If there's one thing about this entire memory that baffles me more than potentially being a Naval seaman it's that I failed to realize just how difficult it was going to be separated from my wife and our unborn child. The gulf between basic training in Orlando, FL and my hometown was 1017 miles by air, 1243 miles by land. I had never been so far from home in my entire life. This is a good part of why I didn't make it one week through boot camp. Not the only one but significant.
On the heels of a strange and mostly forgotten incident one night I found myself in what I later learned was the 4th Floor Psych Ward of the Naval Hospital. I'll gloss over most of the details surrounding this turn of events. Suffice to say they were strange days indeed. Troubling, frightening, confusing...and at the heart of it all the weight of missing my wife, worrying about our child. She wrote me a letter every single day but I was so disoriented, they weren't nearly enough to pacify. I wanted nothing less than to have her by my side.
I had no idea what was wrong with me. It took the doctors a long while to settle on a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. During that time they had put me on some serious hardcore medications...stuff that you don't see prescribed for bipolar these days because it's just too strong and the side effects are so prominent/prevalent. Thorazine. Melloril. Haldol. It's no stretch to admit that I was incapacitated during the months when I was on those medications (which they told me I would have to take for the rest of my life or else face serious *insinuate 'fatal'* consequences). You've heard of the "Thorazine shuffle", perhaps? It's all true.
I had gone numb except for the sadness I felt being so far from those I loved. I would sit in the hallway staring at a picture of my wife, her senior class picture, for so long that her facial features seemed to move, making the image appear "alive" (an optical "trick"). I guess that effect could have been attributed to the medication or something along those lines, I never even gave it a second thought.
There was no way of knowing how long I was going to be there. Obviously Uncle Sam had a contract to keep me for the next four years but surely it wouldn't take so long to get me fixed up. Since it was a mental illness that sidelined me I wouldn't even be eligible to continue in the Navy. I didn't think it would be TOO long; I hoped to detach with an honorable discharge (not even a possibility in my circumstances, it would be a general discharge).
I certainly didn't still expect to be in the Naval Hospital for four months but when my daughter was born in August that's exactly where I was. I can't begin to describe the combination of joy and agony I experienced when the call came and a corpsman delivered the news. Thrilled to know that the delivery was a smooth one, my little girl was healthy, Bella had been so strong. What I wouldn't have given to be there with them. This wondrous occasion, far from lifting my spirits as it should have, only drove home the fact that they were halfway across the country and I might as well have been in prison. The only hope it brought was being discharged from the hospital sooner rather than later...
...a misguided hope, it turns out. I stayed in the hospital for another 2 months. I suppose it's a testament to the strength of Haldol that I made it through that last 1/3rd of my committal. It really dumbed me down. So much so that I was actually surprised when I finally got discharged. Six months in hell is a bit too hyperbolic but not by much.
The Navy psychiatrists eventually came to a diagnosis. I was suffering with bipolar disorder. Manic Depressive syndrome, as it was once referred to. A chemical imbalance in the brain, it was explained to me as I was not familiar with any of it. A mental illness for which there is not a cure. The best I could hope for would be to manage it with medication and counseling. I was much less disheartened by the diagnosis than I was with the prospect of spending the rest of my life in a medication induced stupor.
Six months after I'd left for Florida with the intent of serving in the armed forces they put me on a plane and sent me home. There was a layover in Atlanta and to this day I'm still amazed that I was able to make the connections necessary to return home in the shape I was in. The jet airliner landed, the passengers departed and we were met by a huge crowd. Initially, looking out on the gathering, I thought there would be no way I would ever spot my wife in that throng.
But I was wrong.
There she was, such a vision of beauty, rivalled only by the blanketed bundle she held in her arms. For a short time I was seized by such a wave of joy I could barely contain it. If I hadn't been so emptied by the psychiatric medications I might not have had room in my soul to accommodate it. We hugged. We kissed. Then she showed me our daughter. I understand this kind of thing happens to military personnel all the time, being away, not seeing their children until long after they're born. I feel for them, I honestly do. It's one of the most bittersweet experiences you can live through, with eyes to the future but regretting lost time one can never retrieve. She was a sight for the sorest eyes.
The general discharge meant that I would receive no assistance from the Navy after separation and what I was being paid didn't amount to enough to remain in the house we'd been in for the last few years. I couldn't wrap my head around how devastating being uprooted like that would be.
The original plan was for us to stay with my mother until we could get back up on our feet. She and my dad had been divorced for 8 years and she'd not only remarried but had a daughter with the guy. I'm guessing she was probably 3 or 4 years old by then. Of course mom fawned over her first granddaughter. Unfortunately her husband, a tall, lanky, exceedingly ugly dude with a wicked jealous streak, decided that she was paying too much attention to my daughter at the expense of time and attention he felt was owed to their own. We were asked to leave.
A generous couple from our church had some extra space in their large house in the country and they let us stay with them for awhile. That lasted probably a month.
I'm trying to be thorough in chronicling the main points of the six months after I left the hospital but it's difficult because my brain was so cluttered by the medication I was on. I remember we found a place to stay in a city located about 60 miles from the house we'd rented in my hometown. This was a college town and even though I could barely focus on a page in a book I decided I wanted to take advantage of the University's Vocational Rehabilitation program, hopefully go back to school the following semester.
In the meantime it was obvious that I would have to secure some kind of employment. I had some experience working behind a cash register which helped land a job at a huge travel stop on the Interstate just outside of the city. It surprises me to this day that I was able to hold that job for the few days I did before being let go. The medication had slowed me down, I'm sure my drawer counts were off. The managers could tell there was something wrong with me. They called me to the office, said it wasn't working out but they would be happy to provide a good reference for future employment elsewhere. I didn't ask for specific reasons, didn't even care. I didn't think about what it meant to have failed, what my wife would say or what we would do.
We were no longer able to afford the upstairs level of the duplex we'd barely settled in. The plan to attend college was still at the forefront of my mind. In a grand example of putting the cart before the horse we moved into an apartment across the street from the University. A very short walking distance, which was essential because we had only one vehicle. It was a dank place that constantly reeked of some unknown foreign cuisine one of the residents was always cooking.
When I did speak to the counselor from Vocational Rehab I was told that they could probably help me out. What was I hoping to major in? I told them English, specifically English education, I would be a teacher. No, they said. That was out of the question. It would have to be a course of study which would immediately pay off, something more in the line of engineering and such. I had never had any desire to do those things. Certain of failure I declined their assistance. A real letdown and a serious setback.
The next few weeks I was expected to secure employment. The apartment, in addition to being close to the college, was also in walking distance of the main strip, with it's fast food joints and small businesses. Bella expected me to beat the pavement and find a job there. Of course she did, it was the only thing to do, our financial situation had come down to the wire. And I did go out a few times...but I never stopped anywhere. The experience at the travel stop had convinced me that I was too messed up to hold a job. If you had only spent some time with me back then you would have agreed. No doubt Bella saw it as a lack of responsibility, which I suppose it was but there was no convincing her that I had come to the point where I simply and honestly could not do it. No matter how much I wanted to rise above my circumstances it was no use. I had way too much going against me.
On top of that, her schedule and my inability to watch over our daughter by myself meant that my in-laws had to be conscripted to watch over her. For days in a row my little girl was 60 miles away from her parents...the same little girl who was already two months old before I ever got to see her. Bella missed her so badly she was in agony. I will never forget the night she broke down crying, wailing "I miss my baby". And me? So doped I couldn't feel a thing. I judge myself, in retrospect, very severely for the apathy that was surely like an aura surrounding my frame. But I try to cut myself some slack because as I saw it, this wasn't me. It really wasn't. I don't know where *I* went off to for that time and I'm thankful *I* eventually found my way back but no, this unfeeling golem was certainly not me.
It all came to a head one afternoon in April, 1986. I should remember much more about it than I actually do. An educated guess would be that it started as a small spat about the "responsibility" I spoke of earlier. We'd had a few disagreements during the four years we were married but always managed to resolve them before anything drastic transpired. That being the case it was even more bizarre and hard to believe that these harsh words resulted in my telling her I was leaving. I called my dad and asked him to bring his pickup truck and we loaded what I considered to be my stuff into the back. We drove back to his house and I piled my crap into my old bedroom.
I don't remember it at all but it's most likely my father spent a good deal of time that night telling me I'd made a mistake, that I would be a fool to walk away from his daughter-in-law, who he loved very much, which would almost certainly mean losing my daughter. I was certainly in no condition to care for her. No judge in his right mind would award custody of an infant child to a zombie, even if he was her father.
We might have even fought about it, though I would have made for a very weak opponent. Regardless, I came to my senses. I never really wanted for us to break up, it was frustration and anger which pushed me over the line. I made a point to see Bella the next afternoon, tell her how sorry I was and hoped she would forgive me. Surely we could work something out. Once again I cannot recall the specifics but if I know me I probably convinced myself she would accept my apology. Reluctantly, perhaps, because she was bound to still be upset and angry at me. But we had, I thought, a solid relationship. I felt sure she wouldn't want to mess with that.
I was in for a rude awakening.
She had gone to her parents' house the day before so I went there, knocked on the door and her mother answered. I asked if I could speak to Bella and she let me in. I don't think she even looked at me when I walked into the room. I told her I was sorry. Everything you'd expect me to say, I said. I don't know if she could tell, through the medication induced mumble, that I was sincere. I was. If ever I had been before, I certainly was now.
But it all fell on deaf ears. She heard what I was saying but it was as if she'd thrown up a wall between us that prevented her from caring.
She never said a single word.
Not a word, and it was obvious, through her gestures and body language, that she wanted me to know she didn't plan on speaking to me, now or ever again. Who knows how long I tried. It could have been just a few moments before I realized it was useless. It might have been 15 minutes. It would not have mattered if I had stayed there until sunset, it was over. In her heart, I suppose, I had become anathema.
As for me, coming to terms with it was a slow, torturous process teased by hopes of a reunion that were pathetic under the circumstance. Sometime in the next days she moved to a location unknown to me, taking our daughter with her. With all the emotional turmoil and upheaval I suppose it's not surprising that the following months are a confused, mixed up jumble of blunted memories. She served me with divorce papers which gave her full custody and, for some reason I still have not fathomed, did not stipulate terms of child support.
I didn't see her again for 26 years, in 2012 when she and her husband attended the high school graduation ceremony of her niece and my son. She was seated a long way from where we were but I have no doubt she saw me. We never made eye contact and there was no way I was going to place myself in the awkward position of bumping into her.
One thing I'll never forget was the sense of pride that swelled in me as my son gave his speech as Salutatorian. I'm not sure I can explain this sense of "See what I did? This intelligent, articulate kid is MY legacy, he's the successful product of MY parenting (though my wife gets the greater share of credit for that).
*****You gave up on me, you didn't have what it took to cling to your vows and stick with me through sickness and health, you thought I would be too far gone forever...well look at this. You were wrong. You loved me, I know you did, and I don't bear any ill will against you for the choice you made but you shouldn't have given up, you didn't have to sacrifice that to your fear of potentially spending your life with me in the condition I was in. You should have had more faith in me, you should not have written me off as if I consciously WANTED to be a loafer and not provide. I don't know how you got that idea unless it was from your hardline father (which I've always suspected but then again, it was your decision to make). You left, married a man who treats you like shit (or so I've been told by an extremely reliable source) but worse than that you placed our daughter in the position of having such a person come into her life as his stepdaughter. I know more that situation than you could possibly imagine and these days I resent more you doing that than the fact you left me. Look down here again from your seat in the upper bleachers...see that woman with me? We've been married for almost 20 years. She knew what she was getting into when she accepted my marriage proposal...has she seen some hard times as a result? Of course she, it's part of the deal. But those difficult times are only a fraction of the life we've lived together and she's strong. I loved you, Bella, I really did. With all my heart and soul. But we were husband and wife in name only. You kind of aborted the potential growth to that stage when you cut me out of your (and my daughter's) life. Still, I don't begrudge your inability to cope with the situation because if I put myself in your shoes I can't say I wouldn't have reacted the same way. Bipolar Disorder (and the poison medications used to manage it) came into our lives and no one was thinking clearly, I suppose. But don't listen to me. Listen to that tall young man with the cap and gown standing at the podium, waxing wise well beyond his years. Take a good look, then look down to the floor and see the proud woman sitting beside me...and then you'll understand why through it all I can now say, well aware of the dripping irony, 'Thank you for leaving me.'"
******During the 20+ years between the separation and October 2010 I periodically performed an Internet search for the names of my ex-wife and daughter. The former out of curiosity, the latter out of a desire to find out where my daughter lived. Those searches were always fruitless, as I knew they were bound to be, because I didn't have a surname to work with (assuming my daughter had taken her "stepfather"'s).
Looking through the local small town newspaper one day I noticed my ex-Mother in Law had passed away. That was sad because not only did I always like her, she seemed to go to bat for me in the days when the separation was going down. I read the obituary not even thinking that the answer to my search question was right there at the bottom: Bella's last name was Simon (not real name) and my daughter had gotten married to a guy named Truman (not real name). I also learned I have both a grandson AND a granddaughter!
Armed with that information I went to Myspace (which, at the time, was more popular than Facebook), typed in her name and BOOM! First try! There she was, a very beautiful young woman who I really almost recognized from the photo, even though I hadn't seen her in years (I had a couple of photographs from when she was in grade school, procured and delivered by her grandmother). I sent an e-mail and crossed my fingers.
I got a response the next day and we began to catch up with each others' lives via a few telephone calls and e-mail messages that weren't quite as long as this has turned out to be, but very lengthy and detailed nonetheless. We took that process fairly slowly but by December of the next year we'd arranged for my family and myself to reunite with her and to meet her husband at a steakhouse in Tulsa. I feared it might turn awkward at some point but actually the dinner and conversation was very free and easy. Everyone had a wonderful time, photographs were taken to commemorate the event and a new chapter in my life had begun. I felt like the luckiest person alive, as I honestly had lost hope of ever finding her. We got along just fantastically and I really liked her husband...although unfortunately they are no longer married.
A few months later we made plans for me to visit them in their home and to meet my grandchildren. Maybe just a liiiittttle more awkward than the grown-ups meeting but not so bad as all that. I think they took to me well enough, though it had to be difficult for them to process how this stranger had come into their lives who, they were told, was their grandfather. We'd decided at the time it would be better to have them call me by my name, which felt kind of weird to me but I'm sure it was easier for the kids.
Of course we are still in touch, albeit not as regularly as we would prefer. Speaking of "awkward", I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when she told Bella that we had reunited and had resumed our familial relationship.
I heard she took it as well as can be expected.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Confessions of a MIddle-Aged Sigur Ros Obsessive (a memoir w/reviews)
CONFESSIONS OF A MIDDLE-AGED SIGUR ROS OBSESSIVE
(source material)
"I'll be Heima for Christmas"
I received my Christmas present early this year. Though I still want that sweet pair of Bose headphones I saw at Target a few months ago, I am more than content to wait for those. For now I am just overjoyed to have gotten the Sigur Ros DVD "Heima". This is something I've wanted BADLY since first learning of it. Just about everything Sigur Ros has ever released is at the top of my list of "greatest music EVER". "Heima" is, for me, a must-have kind of thing.
I got it on Saturday and I haven't even watched the main documentary that gives the film it's title. Why not? Well, I found out when I bought it that there was a second disc included with over 2 hours of performances!!! Some are standard live shows ("Glosoli", "Se Lest", an absolutely stunning version of "Olsen Olsen", etc.) but there are also scenes of the band playing in the studio, in an open field, in an empty auditorium, etc.. All of the songs are interspersed with gorgeous shots of Iceland, it's people, it's locales,, it's uniqueness, it's beauty. It's a good variety.
I would have liked a typical set of on-stage concert performances but in the long run I think I'll come to appreciate what they've done here moreso. It will probably hold up to repeated viewings better than the usual, plus it shows just how "one-of-a-kind" this band is and always has been. There are just enough of the "concert" scenes to satisfy. The version here of "Se Lest" is amazing, with a small marching band showing up toward the end, emerging from behind the stage, marching into the audience and on out of the hall, it's relative cacaphony giving way to the light, airy soundscape of the string quartet, who continue to play the fragile strains the band so brusquely disrupted. I've already mentioned "Olsen Olsen", which is quickly becomming one of my all-time favorite Sigur Ros songs. They play it at an outdoor show with a few hunded in the audience, sitting on the grass. Jonsi handles the vocals very nicely. At the part towards the end when the music changes from mysterious to joyful he launches into some unexpected high notes that send shivers down the spine. You can tell that he's immersed in the music to the point where there is nothing else.
And get this...NO "SVEN-G-ENGLAR"!!!! It's not that I don't like that song enough...I do...but it's just been used too much, in films (it added a nice touch to "VanillaSky") , tv shows (though I don't watch tv enough to give examples of which shows, but seem to recall hearing it as I channel surfed one day) and the like. It suffers from overexposure. It's a damned good song and one that put them on the map stateside, but the group has gone on to make music that it so much better (IMHO).
Today I shall very likely watch the film, "Heima".
There is absolutely no chance that I will be disappointed in it. (Update, 12.19.07...the film "Heima" is incredible. It would be an ideal introduction to the band for anyone who hasn't heard them.)
Call me a hardcore fan, I guess that's what I am. But if a 45 year old man is going to be a fan of any band, I'd say I do well to love Sigur Ros so much. I've always believed that music IS art. Of course I still beleive that. But Sigur Ros are making art on several more levels than most music. Those words coming, admittedly, from a "hardcore fan". And it is very true that Sigur Ros is a "love 'em or hate 'em" musical experience. I have one friend who says "I just can't get into it." "The kind of music you write and play," says another, "I just don't see how you can like them so much." My wife says she thinks Jonsi sounds like a "dog dying" (though I'm pretty sure she likes the band a little bit). I've always told her that the main obstacle people seem to have in enjoying their music is Jonsi's voice. Some people just can't past all the high notes...
That's okay. It doesn't matter to me. I find his voice to have an ethereal quality that cuts straight through to the heart and soul. I don't understand a single word the man is singing, and yet I feel like I comprehend the songs meanings even so. Maybe not intellectually, but emotionally. Spiritually. And I also have friends who feel the same way as I do about the band. I went on a road trip to Colorado with three of them, to see a Sigur Ros concert (and that's a LONG drive to watch a show and then come back early the next morning). Every person in that theatre was enraptured. At one point between songs the crowd was entranced to the point where there was no applause, just a reverent silence. About a minute into it some guy in the front of the room yelled "Fuckin' INCREDIBLE!!!" At that point the audience broke into a nice mix of raucous applause and laughter.
I don't reccomend "Heima" to everyone. But if you already like Sigur Ros you will definately enjoy "Heima" (what am I saying? If you like Sigur Ros there's about a 95% chance you already HAVE "Heima"). If you don't like Sigur Ros, obviously this won't be your cup of tea. Nothing revelatory here. Nothing that's going to change your mind (which is exactly what most critics said about their last couple of albums...they're probably right about that). If you have not heard the band, or maybe have only heard "Sven-G-Englar" in some foreign context somewhere, get on the internet and find some of their music. It's not hard to do - you can go to Pandora, make a "Sigur Ros Radio Station" and surf your way to a few of their songs there. But open your mind and take a listen. You'll know pretty quick if you're gonna fall in the "love 'em" camp or the "hate 'em" camp. And if you do find yourself in that former lot, you would do well to put all of their albums on the top of your list of things to get..
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Time to love on Sigur Ros.
It's about that time...I haven't praised Sigur Ros to the high heavens in a few weeks, I would be remiss if I didn't correct the situation.
This time I'm responding to a member of the online community of which I am a citizen. I know him as Melon, and he has long contended that "Se Lest" is the best song on "Takk".
His initial comment:
Hey JAC,
Glosoli is great but Se' Lest takes my breath away every time I hear it. Not too many songs can pull that off.
I understand how the song could take the breath away from any living creature. But here is my response:
Melon,
I think "Se Lest" is a beautiful song. Especially like the way Jonsi's tape-looped voice that floats throughout. The backing vocals are nice, too. The chorus sounds very symphonic to me, and that's not just because of the string section. The piano, like a music box, is sweet and I love the way the vibraphone takes over and eases the listener into the next section of the song. If there's one thing I don't care for in "Se Lest", it's the oom-pah band at the end, but even that sounds pretty cool when Jonsi's voice comes in...talk about a contrast. I suppose the oom-pah band is thrown in for humor value. At least they don't blow on and on. The fade-out, with the orchestral flourishes, is cool.
"Se Lest" is enchanting, but it's not the best song on the album, IMO. I tend to like the ones that slowly build to a full-on climax, or that do the old soft-loud-soft-loud bit. Not every band can pull that off successfully, but Sigur Ros has always been good at it.
"Glosoli" is probably my favorite track here. So atmospheric...once again, the atmosphere is generated by the multi-tracking of Jonsi's voice, tape loops and backwards masking. He sounds vulnerable, almost fragile, a little boy reaching for heaven, still young enough to believe it's possible. 4 & 1/2 minutes into the song the band crashes in and beneath the swirling, rising chaos, if you listen close, you can hear that boy caught up in all of it, and he sounds like he's arrived at his destination. The last 2 minutes of "Glosoli" is, without a doubt, some of the most exhilerating, spine-tingling music that has ever been recorded.
It took me a while to appreciate "Hoppipolla", because it's just too damn cheery. Beach Boys cheery, if you may. I like the darker landscaped these guys are so good at...not that much of "Takk" is all that "dark", but compared to this song the rest of the album might as well have been Joy Division. I eventually came around to it. Now I enjoy it quite a bit. But I think part of the reason I like it now is because it sets up the next piece, "Meo Blodnasir", which sounds like "Hoppipolla" played backwards with the band using that as a template for a whole new song. Kind of reminds me of the Stone Roses' track "Waterfall", in which they pull off a similar trick coming out of "Elephant Stone".
"Saeglopur" is a perfect example of how Sigur Ros handles the soft-loud-soft-loud approach. Only here it's more like a soft-loud-loud-louder. Then it winds down into feather pillow territory again.
At this point words begin to fail me... I didn't set out to write a song-by-song apologetic, and I don't think I ever have with this album. Because how many times can you say "beautiful" without becoming redundant? And that is the main word that perfectly describes the bulk of "Takk". I suppose these terms could also be used:
Breath-taking.
Awe inspiring.
Heartbreaking.
Intense.
Angelic, esoteric.
Beyond.
Innocence screaming.
Floating.
Stargazing, celestial noise.
Embryonic.
Chaotic peace.
Peaceful chaos.
Visceral.
A temporary hiding place for the mind.
An infinite abode for the soul.
The spark of a childhood memory.
The flame of experienced passion.
The merging of the sexes into the negation of gender.
Poetic glossolalia.
Okay, enough of that, before it gets out of hand...oh, wait...it's already out of hand. Oh well, such is the difficulty in trying to convey, through the use of words and language, the brilliance and bliss that is "Takk" (and basically everything else that Sigur Ros has ever recorded). Not too long ago I read a comment about one of their videos on YouTube that said, "Their music pulls at every fibre of my soul." I thought that was the perfect description of the effect they have on me.
And still, I can understand how some people might hate the band. Jonsi's voice may be a turn-off for some, especially those who think a male singer should sing like a man, by God. Or maybe some are of the opinion that a grown man should have the voice of an adult, not one that sounds like an experienced child. It's got to be Jonsi's voice, because the only ones who might fail to appreciate the music alone would have to be heavy metal fanatics who think every other genre is shit or country fans with a similar close minded attitude (nothing against metal or country, I like 'em both, but hey, this is Sigur Ros I'm talkin' 'bout here).
So be it. There are enough of us who love Jonsi and Sigur Ros. It's a given that they will release a new album every now and again. Not counting the debut, "Von", they have put out 3 exceptionally great records. I really don't think they're capable of putting out substandard work.
So, it looks as if I've left off commenting on "Takk" at about the halfway mark. I'll just say that the best songs from that point on are "Milano", "Andvari" and "Svo Hljott".
Can you believe it? Two years after it's release and I'm still raving about it.
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Sigur Ros: Takk...Grateful Noises
Takk opens with an ambient piece that gently sets the stage for the ethereal music that follows. Conspicuously absent is the center-piece of Sigur Ros' otherworldly soundscapes, the voice of Jonsi Birgisson. Not to worry, though, as that high-pitched wailing glissando permeates the rest of the album.
It wasn't until I saw the band play live that I realized just how many of the unfamiliar sounds that fill their songs are actually Birgisson's vocal mannerisms. For some reason this made me appreciate their craft even more.
Those angelic utterances shimmer and shine in the background of most of these 11 songs and they turn into a most beautifully expressive musical instrument (even more so in light of the fact that the words are sung in a half-made up language, which would be difficult enough to comprehend if the 'real' language were English, but of course it's NOT...Icelandic, which is not exactly a required language course in most curriculums). So it doesn't matter what the lyrics may be about, it's sheer emotive force that propels these songs into the subconscious where they adhere as if super-glued to it...
In fact, I see that they are this very evening playing in Vancouver and if there were a way...if I were a wealthy man with lots of time on my hands...I'd like nothing more than to be there.
My initial curiosity in Sigur Ros was peaked by a Vanity Fair blurb that told of enraptured listeners captivated by the band's sounds to the point where they were actually fainting en masse...I didn't see that happen at the Denver, Colorado show I drove across three states to see, but the crowd was unanimous in the consensus that the performance was incredible.
If you have never heard Sigur Ros, may I please suggest that you click on THIS LINK and watch the video for the second track on the album, "Glosoli". I just watched it for the first time several moments ago and it's wonderous images are still resonating within. I don't normally like to associate a song with a video, but this one is so brilliant and well-conceived that it may stick for quite awhile.
The song itself blooms from minimalistic beginnings into the sound of light penetrating the darkness. Bright glockenspiel melodies give a music-box feel to the sustained wail of a bow drawn across the strings of a highly amplified electric guitar. Jonsi almost sounds as if he's weeping at times, singing at castrato pitch that noone over the age of 12 is going to be able to pull off...I don't know how he does it.
Of course, you're left clueless as to what he's actually saying, what sublime words that could be understood by mortal minds could produce such gut-wrenching vocal gymnastics. It soon ceases to matter, as you are assaulted by a wall-of-guitars that sound like the ghost of Kevin Shields paid a visit. With Jonsi's esoteric chanting repeating at the core the guitars reach for Nirvana but fall just short of heaven.
This is not yer typical Aerosmith kind of rockin', but it nevertheless IS rock, and the driving wind-up of "Glosolio" is made even more powerful and "rockin'" by the steadiness of the rhythm section.
Brian Wilson's muse, the one that gave him Pet Sounds and all those beautiful melodies, came out of retirement and inspired Sigur Ros to write some harmony lines in "Hoppipolla" that trump even the classic Beach Boys. A step up from the string quartet they used to excellent effect on their last album, ( ), "Hoppipolla" and other portions of Takk use a full orchestra, with even more majestic results.
Still the most jaw-dropping aspect of "Hoppipolla" and "Meo Blodnasir" is the way almost each "instrument" in the mix is Birgisson's voice, processed to various degrees, making up almost every sound heard in the track (besides drums, bass & glockenspiel). This is what I'd hoped for when I'd heard that Bjork's last album was going to be made up of only the voice. I wasn't all that impressed, though I don't guess I gave it a proper chance. Need to rectify that.
"Se Lest" has a children's lullaby quality to it that I confess I hear in much of their work. That's okay with me, as long as the results are this enchanting. I particularly like how at the end of the song the glock and vibraphones make way for the entrance of a brass band that is playing root chords that sound like a funeral dirge extracted from the life-affirming squeals that proceeded it. Then the brass sections transforms it into an "oom-pah" type "happy polka", decorated with flourishes from the orchestra. Even so, the sound of Jonsi's voice returns to usher us back into the last moment of the song before the brass came along, stretching it to the point of exhaustion, before dissolving into the lone strains of the orchestra aural lace...
A percussive rhythm made up of noises that sound like insects being crushed by marching boots is our first impression of track number 6, "Saeglopur" (gonna have to get used to individual song titles, having become lazy with the last album's untitled fare). The band rocks again midway through this song, and the snake-like bowed guitar dances with another etheral chanting session Jonsi has going on, to good effect. At some point you notice that the bowed guitar has morphed into that full orchestra that's been popping up on a batch of these songs. What this all leads up to is one of the most cathartic sections of music ever recorded in the digital medium. Once again it matters not a bit that you can't understand a bleedin' word, as the power of the music alone has excused any need for words to complement it. A rare event these days, but one that takes place every five minutes on this album.
The other day an internet community friend made the comment that a friend had told him he thought Sigur Ros sounded like the soundtrack to whale sex. My friend made sure he let it be known that he "loves Sigur Ros", but that he had to admit it was funny. I must say it is mildly humourous, but my response read like this: "Whale sex must be the most awesome thing on the planet". I believed that before I heard Takk, and I'm even more convinced now.
The lullaby quality returns full force in "Milano", so much so that if you close your eyes you can almost picture yourself walking into a young child's room, tip-toeing around her furniture so as not to waken her. The essence of child-like innocence permeates the air in this sound world, something about those pretty bells, how they chime, drifts my mind back to a memory from within the womb, happy as a clam, still in constant communion with my guardian angel who sings these prayers over my soul, ready to experience the world (again?)...
My inner child metamorphisizes into a slobbering, blubbering, crying fool when he hears these hope-filled songs. They remind him of things he's long forgotten, and he enjoys remeniscing. "Milano" takes it's time building into a powerful climax not once but twice (though I don't think such a thing is theoretically possible, since "climax" implies finality)...oh well, you know what I mean, and yeah, the second one is a little more powerful than the first (only just enough to notice). And by the time the whole thing winds down the greedy little inner child bastard is sated, assuming the fetal position and as happy as if he'd been given back the pacifier that he was so dependent upon as a baby...Good work, Sigur Ros. Another successful therapy session. I feel better already.
The mood takes on a slightly more ominous tone in "Gong", as a string quartet plays a Shostakovich-esque piece before the guitars join, all leading into the grand entrance of a steady drum pattern. More guitar-heavy than the previous songs, "Gong" casts a shadow upon the more optimistic sounds of the first seven.
Do you remember that beautiful theme song from Twin Peaks that was sung by Julee Cruise with music by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti? It was called "Falling". The introduction to the 9th and possibly most beautiful song on the album, "Andvari", is vaguely remeniscent of that haunting production.
"Andvari" utilyzes he orchestra to a greater, possible even more effective degree in this song, as goose-bump raising as any composed by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, et. al. Imagine the chords to the "Teenage Wasteland" section of the Who's "Baba O'Reilly" transmutated into strings, slowed down to an elegant crawl and all just bubbling under a surface marked off by the sound of violins milking that high note for every ounce of pathos it can get...
And it gets milked for a long, long time. If the first 5 minutes of the song hadn't been so rapturously hypnotizing we might not be as ready for the 3 minutes of repetition that ease us rather slowly out of the song.
And how do you follow that?
"Shushljott" attempts to do so by presenting a contrast to the peaceful parting strains of "Andvari". The tension builds until the music, for whatever reason, has to drop out for a few seconds before coming back in with the force of a tsunami wave. All the while Jonsi substituting Krishna's mantra with what sounds like a simple "You" and getting closer to bliss that way...
"Heysatan" concludes the album, with the return of the brass band, blowing solid chords to hang from the notes being played by guitar, bass and even a stray trombone from the brass section...A subdued finale, to be sure, kept interesting by the final series of vocal expressions inserted for surprise sake throughout. Somehow the melancholy sound that threatens to creep into the final strains of this wonderful album is barely staved off and you're left wanting to hear it all over again.
And trust me, this is an ALBUM, much more so than a "collection of songs" (though I think it works better as such here than it did on the last album)...for sure the individual songs have their own signature sounds, but the whole experience is so much more fullfilling when listened to as a whole.
That said, the "Glosolia" video I saw proved that this song can certainly stand up on it's own. No doubt all of them can, but I can't get used to the thought of hearing just a certain couple of songs off of the record...If I'm going to hear it, I want to hear it all, or at least as much of it as time permits.
Hate to jump the gun and proclaim Takk Sigur Ros best album yet...but...truth be told...it IS their best album yet.
I submit, for your enjoyment, this excerpt from a review of Takk written by another internet community friend who goes by the name of Maarts. He operates a music/CD store in Australia and trust me when I tell you that he has impeccable taste in music.
I can re-emphasise what JAC's sentimants are in regards to Takk by Sigur Ros...as this album spins yet again in my player, dissolving more of its intricate beauties and whirling it onto me, confirming my strong belief that this band is the band of the new millennium.
If Von was the sound of the echoes and the underground, Agaetis Byrjun the sound of the forest and air, ( ) the sound of water, fog and mist, then Takk is the river, the earth, nature and all the areas that yield growth and life. Takk's built around the same building materials as its three predecessors but the overall sounds are heavy with the sweet aroma of life- the raingiving clouds of strings surrounding the beds of percussion. Even those earlier mentioned 'humping' whales are represented in Jonsi's little shrieks amongst the dense textural patterns of wavelike music, if you will. Using a full complement of percussion (glockenspiel), guitars and piano, strings and ethereal loops/keys, it's the richest tapestry of sound the band has ever used.
I am simply unable to stop listening to this.
The thematic quality of these songs just is so grand, so big. With simple loops the band creates lullabies, to go on into Godspeed-built material that just is so symphonic, so cathedral-like constructed (Glosoli). Heart-tugging melancholical melodies (Svo Hljott) ripped open by feedbacked guitar, reaching for heavens undiscovered. The cri-de-coeur from Milano that is an epic in itself. Heysatan with its little brassband, playing at the corner giving you this homely feeling. Or Andvari that floats away on a sea of strings, to a clear blue and green sea, shimmering like a dream, taking you away, far, far away....
What really is impressive is how Sigur Ros not only builds the songs up but finishes them off with such delicacy that every track is like a three-course meal, every flavour so poised for a full and total satisfactory experience. No loose threads to be found.
This is their Pet Sounds. Now lets hope people will discover its value well before it's being classified as a masterpiece.
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Warning: Monthly Sigur Ros adoration located within this post
I have GOT to get away from this computer. That's all there is to it.
I received a comment from a kind soul who has also been doing the MySpace Karaoke thing...this anonymous poster let me know that there is a key change option on the recorder. You may recall that I was bitching and moaning about so many of the songs being out of my range. I looked and looked and still could not find a key changer. Finally I spotted it. I had been under the impression that the slide bar on the far right was a music level fader. But lo and behold, it was the ever elusive key changer. So, thank you to whoever it was that clued me in.
Using that handy function I was able to throw down a nice version of the Stone's "Brown Sugar". That one was a lot of fun to do and it doesn't sound half bad...at least in regards to the music/vocal mix. I put in a little quip about how the song is not the most "politically correct" number that Mick Jagger ever wrote. And then, at the end, there's a part about how Jagger is a "chick magnet", and how I can't figure that out, seeing as how "he's not exactly one of the most attractive people in the world." The website is a ton of fun, but it's unbelievable how fast the hours pass when you're on it.
The rest of this day has been spent doing a re-mix of Sigur Ros' "Glosoli" on the Acid 7.0 Music Studio. I had the idea a few months back to merge some of their songs into one...that concept flopped, as it should have been apparent that the time signatures and keys would likely not fit together. The project I'm working on now utilyzes my voice to add slight harmony aspects and ambience to the song. I know that a lot of what the band does is a variation of the same thing, ie. Jonsi's voice is used as an instrument not only in the way you'd expect from a singer, but also in other unorthodox styles, using loops, sequencing, pitch shifting and other methods. I thought perhaps I could work up something that would add to the over-all ethereal quality of the song. So far I'm really happy with it, though it looks like it will turn into a long-term project. It wouldn't be the first time a random idea grew into a time-eating monster.
Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way I could let the band hear it? Maybe see what they think? Oh, I know...that's much too much to wish for. But I'll say this...I would be proud to show it to them. I think I do a good job on it because their music has become a part of me. Just yesterday I was watching the performance of "Untitled 8" from the "Heima" disc. I've heard that song at least a hundred times, and yet it still blows me away. The live version is simply incredible, with the string quartet's sustained notes providing a gorgeous backdrop to the electricity of the band.
Having spent so much time with "Heima" I must say that I am truly impressed with Amiina, the string quartet who have been playing with Sigur Ros for the past few years. They have a couple of albums available, and they are both in prominent postitions on my "wish list".
And I also realized, hearing the seamless merging of strings and electric instruments that these guys have produced sonething that can truly be likened to classical music in all it's grace and subtlety. I have always been a fan of prog-rock and what has always been known as "classical rock"...but when you put all that stuff up against what Sigur Ros is doing you quickly realize that the most it has ever done is try to fuse some generally accepted understanding of what classical music is with the trappings of a rock sound. The result rarely sounds anything like classical music OR rock. Sigur Ros, on the other hand, aren't trying to combine anything. Yet the music they make succeeds in conjuring a classical sensiblility. I could cite several examples here, but I'd rather let you buy the albums and see for yourself (if, that is, you care for such things).
In short, they make the most beautiful music I have ever heard in my 45 years (46 here in about a week).
Okay, that's my monthly Sigur Ros adoration rant.
I wound up not going to OKC last night. The reason I gave Redd was that I couldn't afford the gas to get there. And that is the truth. But I just didn't feel up to the journey. I was tired. I got up too early and by the time 5:00 o'clock came around I didn't have it in me to make the trip. Then he told me that Bobo had cancelled, too. Lisle probably wouldn't be there, either, because he was nursing a banged-up knee. Big D had already renigged, and it was a good bet that the Big Man wouldn't show. I guess we all bailed...and I do feel bad about that...it seems like every time we plan to congregate a few from the old Festive crew, something comes up and the whole thing goes straight down the toilet.
I would really enjoy a full-on Festives reunion. Warty, Redd, Capital, Big D, the Big Man, T-Bone, Gunner, Jack...aww, man, that would be one helluva party, let me assure you of that. But the odds of that happening in any of our lifetimes are as slim as they get. But, oh, the memories. What a phenomenally cool bunch of guys to call friends (did you notice that they all have nicknames? Just like some kind of grade school boys club. Mine, by the way, is Jimbo).
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "All of This and Nothing" by the Psychedelic Furs. It's one of the best career retrospectives that has ever been released. Of course, they only had a couple of big hits, but whoever assembled this album had a good understanding of what they were about and what songs best conveyed it. I've loved the Furs since the first album...actually, since the first single, which I bought as an import. It came out before the American release of their self-titled debut. "We Love You" b/w "Pulse". I thought both of those songs were awesome. I immediately bought the album when it came out. Every song is great. I liked the way vocalist Richard Butler sounded like a cross between David Bowie and Johnny Rotten. And I also loved the way Duncan Kilburn's alto saxophone set it apart from just about any other band doing this sort of music. I was so disappointed when Kilburn left the band...I really didn't think they had much of a future after that. But they wound up making a couple more excellent albums. For months after "Talk Talk Talk" came out you could see me driving around town in my dad's yellow Ford Maverick singing along to that record from start to finish (then over again). That car didn't even have a stereo in it. I toted a boombox around for the sole purpose of listening to music on the road. There wasn't a single song on that whole album that I didn't love. Especially the side closers, "She Is Mine" and "All of This and Nothing". Those songs alone made it worth all the time and trouble it took to record the vinyl LP onto a TDK cassette tape so I could cruise with it.
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Jonsi: "GO"
I don't know if I mentioned it Monday, but I got my digital copy of "Go", a day earlier than the US disc release. It is the first album I've ever pre-ordered. Set me back just a bit over 40 bucks, what with shipping and handling. For the extra cash I got the digital copy, a 3 song download a couple of weeks before release, a short live acoustic video, a "Go Quiet" trailer and right around the time of my birthday I'll get the actual CD as well as the "Go Quiet" DVD. Seemed like a good deal, and I'm positive it will prove to be just that.
What do I think of it...of course, I am extremely biased. Jonsi is the only contemporary musical artist I give a shit about anymore. His voice has tunneled it's way into a precious place in my soul. It goes without saying (if you read this blog or know me personally) that I am a hardcore Sigur Ros fanatic. That band and his contributions to it have transported me to a blissful place so many times, I could not count them. His voice, and what he is able to do with it, raises goosebumps with incredible consistency. If I could sustain the feeling it gives me on a continual basis I would truly believe I'd died and gone to heaven. If I have a guardian angel, he sounds like Jonsi.
So, jeez, how can you expect me to have an objective opinion? "Go" is an incredible album that shimmers with originality. The arrangements are remarkably complex, but never come off as cluttered. Instead they are intriguing. They make you want to go deeper into the music. And when you do you'll find even more to appreciate. I don't know if this album is one that non-fans are going to "get" with only one or two listens. It's not possible, unless you're already familiar with the man's methods. Even if you ARE a Sigur Ros fan you may have to get over not having a proper SR record, because there is very little of their sonic style exhibited here. But once you spend a little time with it you will likely be singing it's praises, too. If you like the same-old same-old (and there's nothing wrong with that) you may become disoriented with the out-of-the-ordinary soundscapes...then there are those who can't stand his voice. I can see that. I've got a good friend who has tried and tried to get into Sigur Ros because he knows how highly I think of them. He can't do it. It's not the music, he says. It's the singer. I understand completely. The vocals have been a point of division amongst fans and non-fans ever since "Sven-g-Englar" found it's way into so many film soundtracks (including an excellent placing in "Vanilla Sky"). So I can't say, "Everybody get out there and buy this album!" There's gonna be a lot of folks pissed off at me after they've spent their cash. It's trite to say "it's not for everyone". Oh, well. It's got to be said.
(Note: I'm listening to the album as I write this and I had to stop everything, close my eyes and float as the refrain from "Grow Till Tall" played. I couldn't help it. If I could only describe the way it feels. It rises up from the gut. It feels like it gets stuck in the head. It feels like it wants/needs to just burst out and into the world. The back of my upper palate constricts. I feel like I could very well start crying, but won't let it out. It keeps pushing upwards. You have heard of the Third Eye, the all seeing all knowing Eye? It feels like it's trying to pry it open. I won't let it. Why not? Because I'm afraid of what I might see? My chest tightens exactly like it did on the day I first fell in love. Is it any wonder I want to keep it for my own? I can feel my brain throbbing. It's ceased to be music. It's transfigured into something much, much more. It is an atmosphere of dripping clouds to fly into. Or a velvet ocean to sink into and drown. Only 4 notes floating over 4 chords, over and over and over for 2 solid minutes and when those moments are over you have to find a way to come back down to earth. Maybe it would eventually prove tedious if it were on a loop and you were only "hearing" it. But if you follow the emotions it draws out of you, if you lose yourself in it's sound world, you may find yourself wishing it would never end.)
They say Sigur Ros is on "indefinite hiatus" at the moment. A lot of people read "indefinite hiatus" as "the band has broken up". I really, really hope not, because I don't think they've exhausted their creative possibilities. Yet there is a part of me that says I can accept that, if it happens. They have released a series of albums that are timeless (especially "Takk"). They will stand. Neil Young said it: "It's better to burn out than it is to rust". With "We Sing Endlessly" they will have left without having released a bad record. Who knows if Jonsi will turn out to be the "substitute" for fans wanting a Sigur Ros fix. That's certainly not what he's shooting for, as is obvious in the songs on "Go". As much as I like "Go" I would definitely like to see him do another record of dreamy post-rock and majestic sonic landscapes.
Truth be told, though, I just want to hear more from the guy. Whatever direction he takes will be interesting. Perhaps a guest appearance with TOOL? Or Vampire Weekend? Or Jay-Z? Or Kenny Chesney? Or Bruce Springsteen? The role of Voltan in Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung cycle (there's an inside joke for Jonsi fans who happen to like opera as well)? All that sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? I don't think any of it would actually work, but do you know what? I wouldn't put it past him to TRY. A lot of folks don't know that a couple of his favorite bands are Smashing Pumpkins and...brace yourself...Iron Maiden. Don't let his pixie mannerisms fool you.
I really should try to write a proper review of "Go". I'll keep putting it off until I feel like it's too late. I never gave "We Sing Endlessly" an actual review, though I said I would. Maybe I could do it justice, now that I have every song on the album memorized. Someday. Same with Jonsi's album. I want to take it all in before I try to definitively lay my opinion on the line. That, plus the fact that it's quite difficult to describe what it does for me (see above note).
So for now I will only remind you of the precious place in my soul that I wrote about earlier in this piece. "Go" is rattling the walls in there right now.
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Sigur Ros: "Hvorf/Heim"
It took 6 months, but I finally procured a copy of "Hvorf/Heim".
I don't want to say I'm "underwhelmed", because there are so many good performances here. But the fact is that I've heard pretty much all of it. The second disc is culled completely from the "Heima" soundtrack, so it shouldn't surprise you that I'm more than familiar with these versions. And they are very good...interesting...unique departures from the originals sonically if in no other way. But I've NEVER been a fan of what I call "Unplugged" projects. A couple of songs work very well in this format. "Heysatan" is great, the open soundscape giving the horn section more room to breathe. "Vaka" works well on the strength of the vulnerability in Jonsi's voice during the end section. On "()" it's padded with a beautiful counterpoint, but it's naked to the world here (it took me some time to get used to this rendition after I heard it on "Heima", but it really grows on you). Amiina, the string section, are integral to the overall feel of these acoustic versions. I've said it somewhere else, but I think it would be cool if Amiina and Sigur Ros simply merged into one mammoth 8-piece band (I guess that's more or less what's happened the last few years, but I don't want to see them split). The "chord organ" (I'll call it, since I don't know it's proper name and since it sounds just like those Magnum chord organs I used to play with when I was young) is a staple in these songs, and though it sounds pretty neat at first, it gets a little tiresome when it's used in so many songs.
One thing that truly disappoints me about the acoustic disc is that they did not include the song "Heima". I cannot, for the life of me, understand why not. It would have been the only "new" song in the lot...it would have upped the too-short duration of the disc by about 5 minutes (barely pushing it out of EP territory into a short LP)...and it would have tilted the scale of songs I really like, as opposed to songs I just KINDA like, 4/3. "Heima" is certainly as good as anything here, perhaps even better than most of these tracks.
As for the "Hvorf" disc, the songs are very good, at least as good as outtakes usually are in relation to released material. Most of it has been available for a long time as free downloads from the Sigur Ros website. In other words, there's very little, if any, new stuff here. It's the kind of disc that critics say is "essential for the fans but not a good place to start for those who are merely curious". And it is that, but as I said, it's been available for several years, so the hardcore devotee likely already has it. The only advantage in an official release is that the sound quality might be a tiny bit better.
That said, there are some stellar tracks on this "electric" disc (sidenote...when I surf the performances on "Heima" I seem to always gravitate, with a couple of exceptions, to the electric material). "Hljómalind" is wonderful, a very slight tweaking of the band's signature sound. "I Gaer" is kick ass heavy, a swirling mass of distortion that conceals the chordal structure. You have to dig through all the chaos to find the beauty. Sort of the same way you need to listen to My Bloody Valentine (though they sound nothing alike). All the folks who might complain about the glockenspiels and toy boxes that seemed to permeate "Takk" will find "I Gaer" most satisfying. It would have fit quite nicely on "()". Then there's the legendary "song where the bass player uses a drumstick", "Hafsól". That's another good 'un, but hey, I'd bet it's been one of the most popular downloads on the website...
I only wish there had been something NEW on "Hvorf/Heim".. Just one song on each disc, and we've already established that "Heima" should have been included on "Heim".
Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to come off as if I'm complaining. It doesn't bother me that neither of the discs last much longer than 35 minutes. I suspect that the brevity is beneficial to the overall concept. I don't so much mind the regurgitation of older material, seeing as how most of it is so good. Even "Sigur Ros Unplugged" sounds 100 times better to me than the typical "let's strip down our studio enhanced songs so we could play them in a boring coffee shop if we weren't so famous" routine.
But it isn't much of a teaser for the new album they're working on right now. An album, one can only hope, that will find them laying down the acoustic instruments to experiment with sound in the manner of which they have become so adept for so long. Their recording studio is a refurbished swimming pool, so perhaps it's ambiance, as opposed to the lush greenery of the Icelandic countryside, will provide the atmosphere for a more esoteric approach.
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Sigur Ros ( )
The needle falls down on the record, a thump deep in the bass, the speaker cone shakes and the sound ocean floods from my Serwin-Vegas...That alien who stepped out of the saucer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind decides to speak to Dreyfuss, and this is what it sounds like. This is the language of his planet, on the other side of a black hole in the Gamma region.
A murder of crows, cold in the snow, muttering low, squeaking and squealing. Love taking on flesh and blood, suffocated by skin, now let's let the service begin. They sing their gut-hungry praises then flitter away.
Signifying nothing.
The priest places the wafer on the infidel's tongue. He lifts the cup to the liar's lips. A subtle glow emitted from a place slightly behind his head. He intones the Mass and tries to empty himself to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him as he ministers in the name of Jesus Christ to his congregation. The Spirit lifts up his voice to the sky and intercedes for my weak soul.
These chants are ancient, as old as the book of Genesis. These are the languages of the Mishraites or the Zareathites or the Eshtaulites. These are the tongues spoken by Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. A language taught to them by their slave ancestors, excommunicated from the clans of Sarah, mother of the promised. A language used by Abraham himself, when he beckoned Isaac to the land of Moriah, making him carry the sacrificial knife soon held to his throat.
The procession moves forward, each recieving the body and blood in turn, enriched and better for recieving it. They walk like slaves submitting to a kind master they love to serve back to their seats in the cathedral, to wait, to get lost in the sacred relics and the sacred art scattered throughout this beautiful sanctuary.
And surely the Lord is in this place, for all that is good is from the Lord and this music is exceptionally good.
The chanting continues, now sung in the language of Baal-Zephon, where the king went after the Israelites, translated: "Wasn't there enough room in Egypt to bury us? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert? Why did you bring us out of Egypt, anyway? While we were there didn't we tell you to leave us alone? We had rather be slaves in Egypt than die in this desert!..."
These tone poems, written in the days of the Exodus, have a modern sound to them that is uncanny. Aliens who landed on earth in 897 BC bestowed gifts of prophecy and tongues to the individual members of Sigur Ros, and they are merely tools at the disposal of the leader of the aliens in their attempts to express themselves to the earthlings. No, there's no way any of us not from their planet could ever understand their language, borrowed as it was from the priests, Zadok and Abiathar in a meeting held on Mount Calvary the last time they landed on earth. The chord progressions are subliminally tainted with commands to relax, encourage a sense of floating, drift off with the thoughts that interest you most.
A looping tribal dance, recorded on site at a Buddhist monastary where the monks would mumble polyphonic OMs and the tourists would catapult their spirits through a needle's eye just to show that it can be done... Are they praying for rain? Or is it a rich harvest they petition the Great Spirit for today, their knees to the ground? The dance turns into an orgy, bodies tangled up misplaced pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
They kill the whale, and so we mourn.
They fester hate like a sore that won't go away, so we sing this lamentation. Translation: "The Son wants you...Hear things in the music that aren't there, only in your hammer struck head. Ring the living bell, ring the living bell, shine the living light, shine the living light...
They incite aggression, so we back off.
They treat the blind man with scorn and contempt, so we judge them.
They are good for nothing but fighting your wars, their stone hardened hearts too far gone to notice each life snuffed out under orders from ground patrol. So we pray for conflict. We petition the Lord for strife and dischord. Exterminate these burned-out husks of men before their 4 years are up.
They lay hands upon the genius and lock him in institutions with people who pull steak knives on strangers. They are afraid of him, so they put him away, in sweat-stinking padded cells or wrapped up nice and tight in a straight, mornings woke and hustled to the breakfast line. They extricate his confidence, thought pattern by thought pattern, and curb the flow of his intellect. They leave us to sing a funeral song for the postmodern society on the day when common sense is evenly distributed amongst individuals and Moral Law is accepted as fact by each and all. A dirge for each time you've ever been hurt by someone's words or actions. Our common denominator of heartache and sorrow. Divided about all other things, by necessity united by tears, wailing, howling at the moon, primal scream therapy and insomnia.
And now the church is empty. Angels lingering to usher the Spirit from the echoing halls. Silence and stillness brutal proof of God. Music from the other side of this life. Welcoming songs played at St. Peter's Gate. Stubborn prayers from those passed over, coaxing us through, waiting with scissors at the ready to slice the mortal coil. Believers bellys full of the body and blood of the Lord, digesting it at this very moment, letting the body do it's digestive work, preparing it for re-birth.
This music is a hand reaching out and over the chasm of being to grab and pull you into another reality for a few moments. For a few moments you will experience the world from the viewpoint of Jonsi. It is an exhilirating sensation, coveted by all.
This music is the voice of Thor, the cries of Aphrodite, the sins of Baal, the dreams of Pontius Pilate, the sound of coyotes cuddled in a cave, wailing at the moon. This music is the war of the worlds. It's release. Orgasm. A little death. Afterglow then off to sleep. Waking to Philip Glass, inspired to listen to him by Sigur Ros.
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From the RS.com Castaways:
I hold off listening to the new Sigur Ros until I got that disc in my hands! It is a headphone-experience for sure and I'm not sure the podcast will do it justice. - maarts
In response...
That was my policy as well, but I changed it at the last minute for two reasons:
1. I just couldn’t restrain myself. They’d already teased me with the “Gobbledegook” download and I was unable to resist hearing what the rest of the album might sound like following such a radical departure as that.
2. I figured they would play a few of these songs at the concert Thursday night and I wanted to be somewhat familiar with them. I don’t like hearing a song for the first time at a concert, so I figured I would burn the stream onto a CD and get comfortable with it.
I think you’re right insomuch that it will be a headphone experience. The mono stream leaves a bit to be desired, though the songs certainly stand up regardless. But I don’t think it will be the same kind of “headphone experience” as the other albums were. These songs, with an exception of one or maybe two, don’t have the same “atmospheric feel”. They are the slightest bit more “traditional” (for lack of a better word). After the release of “Heima” the band expressed a desire to explore a more acoustic oriented approach. They’ve done that here to a great degree. But it’s nothing like “Sigur Ros Unplugged”. The sounds they’re known for are sprinkled throughout. Even without Jonsi’s one-of-a-kind voice you’d still be able to tell who it was you’re listening to by the music alone
Speaking of Jonsi’s voice…it seems more prominent on this album than it has been in the past. Not that it hasn’t been mixed well upfront in the earlier records, it seems like it’s even more so here. Which is not a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. Maybe it’s just his enunciation. Though I don’t know for certain, it sounds like almost all of the lyrics are Icelandic. I don’t think there’s much of the vocalizing which has been given the hopelessly stupid name of “hopelandic” (have you seen that NPR interview? Jon really despises that term, preferring to call the made-up enunciations “bullshit”. Ha!). Plus, there’s the closing number, “All Alright”, which is sung entirely in English. I hope I’ll be able to understand the lyrics before too long . :)
Despite what I said yesterday, Now that I’ve heard the record in it’s entirety I don’t think it’s going to win too many new fans. But long-time devotees are going to love it.
Finally, even though I have been listening to this mono stream burn for the last couple of days, I am positive that it’s going to be a whole new ballgame when the headphones go on. Some of these songs are taking a little while to grow on me, and I’d bet that by the 24th I’ll be so enamored of the album that it will blow me away.
There is one thing I don’t like about the record.
THE TITLE!!!
Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Huh??? How am I supposed to refer to it with a moniker like that?
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Jonsi and Alex: "Riceboy Sleeps"
Though I liked it enough on the first listen, I think Jonsi & Alex's "Riceboy Sleeps" is going to be one that will have to grow on me. Now that I kind of know what to expect I'll wait until I'm in the mood for some "space music" before playing it again. And make no mistake, that's basically what this is...not quite ambient but too subtle and delicate to be much more. Aural wallpaper is a good way to look at it, if you can get past the negative connotations that might be associated with that term. After all, there's nothing wrong with wallpaper, especially if it's pretty.
Jonsi has always maintained that he uses his (awesome) voice as if it were an instrument in a band. This is a key to unlocking the charms of his work with Sigur Ros. But where he uses it as a lead instrument in that band, it is employed in a much more subtle manner in this project (in which he collaborates with his boyfriend, Alex Somers). Like a haunting background synth only much more organic (even if it IS processed). You're 25 minutes into the album before he comes to the fore and lays down some trademark Jonsi sounds. Then, after a moment or two, he returns to the ethereal waxing and waning in back of the mix.
There seem to be quite a few "found sounds" in the album. Not knowing exactly what it is you're hearing is pretty cool. But the lack of structure throughout the entire record is frustrating. At least, I should say, it was during this first listening. In the future I'll surrender myself to whatever direction it wants to take me. I'm sure I'll have a sweet trip and a "safe journey, space fans" "Hearts of Space" experience then.
And speaking of "trip". I have no doubt in my mind, none whatsoever, that "Riceboy Sleeps" is a perfect accompaniment to a session with the hallucinogenic drug of your choice. I hope to find out for myself soon. (he he)
Are Sigur Ros fans going to like it? We'll just have to wait and see. Not that it matters much, since the band is in the studio at this very minute recording tracks for an album due out next year. "Riceboy Sleeps" may be a pleasant blip on their radar. Hardcore fans are going to really get into it, while the more casual listeners, expecting something else, will dismiss it. Isn't that the way it always is, though?
I am, beyond the shadow of a doubt, one of those hardcore fans, and for me it's just fascinating to hear these sounds that come from Jonsi & Alex's head.
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A new Sigur Ros music video has just been released for “inní mér syngur vitleysingur”. An "OFFICIAL one at that. It's on their MySpace page right now.
I hate to admit it but I don't care for the video at all. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE the song. It's one of my favorites on an album that has several songs that will go down on my all-time favorite list.
But the video is one of those jobs where the studio version of the song is drafted on to performance footage. This technique which, as far as I know, began with Bruce Springsteen's clip for "Born in the USA", is obviously an attempt to bypass any and every performance detail in order to take advantage of what's been accomplished in the studio.
Sometimes the synchronization works fine...you can't tell Georgi and Orri's playing isn't exactly the same as what you're hearing. But the effect is ruined by the obvious inability of the editors to get a good lock on Jonsi's lip movements and then it becomes apparent that this is no performance video. Which is really too bad. I can attest that these guys play “inní mér syngur vitleysingur” in concert almost as good as the record. So why not just the performance? It bopggles the mind. I mean, there at the end (the build-up section) they either don't show Jonsi or his facial features are obscured by a bright green stage light that shines just behind his head.
The best thing about it (other than just seeing the guys on a stage) is how you can almost catch a glimpse of Kjartan'd waxed mustache. He wears it well!
This new video notwithstanding, I would really like it if Sigur Ros record company could pull together a few performances and package it with all their other incredible videos (one of the things that disappointed me about the “inní mér syngur vitleysingur” clip was how the band was FINALLY in the video, and yet that was ruined by the audio-sync technique). Their "Reverb" show would be included, as well as the more recent show they did at the MOMA. I think I've seen at least one full concert chopped and uploaded onto YouTube, that would be good to have on DVD. I've pretty much watched all the performances on the "Heima" special features disc so many times that I'm ready for something different (although I must say that they bear the test or repeated listening, I only wish there were more of the "traditional rock show" stuff. I like what they're doing with acoustic instruments throughout that disc, but I want more concert settings).
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Actually I didn’t get around to reading at all. It proved to be more trouble than I expected with all the movement in the car. I might take it up again later, but for now I’m enjoying the scenery. We arrived in Kansas not too long ago (I didn’t check for the time). The roads are awfully rough.
Decided to eat lunch in a city called Iola, at a Pizza Hut. It was probably the nicest Pizza Hut I’ve ever been to, as far as the restaurant itself. But the buffet was kind of small. Surely they must bring stuff out on a regular basis because the place was fairly crowded and there were, at most, 4 or 5 pizzas to choose from.
The sky is very slightly overcast, and it is a bit humid. I hope it doesn’t rain, or if it does, that it won’t begin until after the doors open at the Uptown.
From what I’ve seen on the internet, the venue appears to be relatively small. Smaller the better, I say.
There IS a chance of thunderstorms tonight, so says the Kansas City Star newspaper. Once again, that’s fine with me as long as I’m in the theater and the show goes on…
Back on the road, I think I’ll lay this down and gawk out the window some more.
TRIVIAL ASIDE: I had to go back to the new glasses for now. The old ones are better for reading, but they are quite scratched up = I don’t know how they got that way. With a little effort I can make the new ones work – hell, I’ve been doing it for the last 9 months. So what if I wind yup with a headache and tired eyes? Maybe it will be okay. I should probably stop worrying, eh?
2:05 pm
We’re about 30 miles from Kansas City and I am pretty much ready to abet out of this car. Bryan’s bored shitless. There’s nothing much to seed on this last stretch of highway until we reach our destination. I’m wanting to swing by the theater so I can see what it looks like. I’m thinking our hotel check in time is 3:00 pm, so we should have plenty of time to do it. It all depends on the driver.
4:30 pm
We arrived at the hotel right at 3:00 o’clock. Didn’t get to swing by the theater. Oh, well.
The motel seems nice. Our room is okay. Bryan and I went down to the swimming pool (our room is on the 4th floor). It was actually very small. 5 feet at it’s deepest (update: it was the same at the next hotel, so that may be the standard…I wouldn’t know because I have stayed in so few hotels). That was a little disappointing, but we made the best of it. Bryan had a good time and it was relaxing for me. Especially the spa. Quite invigorating to go from the heat of the spa to the cold water in the pool.
From the reports on the TV it would appear that there are a few tornadoes in the area. I don’t know how far away from us they are, but it doesn’t look too bad out the window.
Stacie is parked in front of the TV. She always watches the severe storm reports any time they are on. She knows more about meteorology than most people from watching all the severe weather bulletins.
The guy who is doing the report is very calm, compared to the ones in Oklahoma. Especially Mike Morgan.
11:15 pm
Boy, did I underestimate how soon that line would form. It stretched back for two blocks when we got there a little past 6:00 pm. I was discouraged, thinking we wouldn’t get good seats. But I guess the theater was much bigger than I thought it would be, because we were able to sit exactly where I had wanted.
Fact is, we could have gone on the floor and still been halfway into the crowd from the stage. I knew it would be excessively loud down there, so I’d planned on something in the center of the bottom floor about 4 rows back.
A little after 8:00 pm the trombone player from Sigur Ros horn section played a solo set of his own songs (not on trombone – guitar and organ…I’m sorry but I didn’t catch his name…one of those unpronounceable Icelandic monikers). He was quite good, but his set was too long. Then the intermission was much too long. The band finally took the stage at 9:00 o’clock.
They kicked off with a nice version of “Sven-G-Englar”, which I enjoyed even though it was the only one I didn’t care to hear (update: it’s a good song, it’s just been played out).
Next was “Vaka”. I suppose it will become repetitious here for me to say “it was great”, but it was.
I had hoped they would play “Glosoli”, but they didn’t. They did, however, do the other song I really wanted to hear – “Hoppipolla/Meo Blodnasir”. As expected, it was exuberant. It’s one of the few Sigur Ros songs Bryan knows well enough to call a favorite. He enjoyed it.
I don’t know the names of most of the new songs, so when they played one next I kind of lost track of the song order (update: In other words, I had hoped to remember each song in the list in order, but the new ones threw me off because I don’t know their names).
I WILL say this – ALL of the new ones were fantastic. I’m glad I familiarized myself with them, but I think I’d have enjoyed them even if I hadn’t. I doubt the band has performed these songs very many times. Maybe it was because they were fresh, but they were solid.
The other “standards” they did were “Olsen Olsen”, “Se Lest” and “Heysatan”. That last one was especially nice. A real funeral dirge. Jonsi screwed up a vocal entrance, but recovered nicely.
The biggest surprise of the night was the last song before the encore, the new single “Gobbledigook”. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how that one would translate into a live setting. It was SO good! They had the string quartet banging on bass drums and the horn section exhorting the crowd to clap along. Exhilarating (update: At the time I didn’t Amiina was the string section for this show, but the reviews I read said it was. I couldn’t tell from where I was sitting).
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Sigur Ros: "Kveikur" 5/5
I am not a music critic. I wish I was. Rating and reviewing records has always been something I wanted to do...and to an extent, I guess, I have done so. Ridiculously amateurish Christgau-esque blurbs for the junior college newspaper...Lester Bangs-influenced rants on my blog...I even wrote four or five feature reviews for a mainstream classic rock website, paid with the CDs I wrote about...
...but even those were submitted with a sense of uncertainty and trepidition, a paranoid sense that somehow, no matter how much I thought they were decent pieces, they weren't good enough. I felt like the guy who solicited them wasn't nearly as pleased as he said he was. Of course if I was wrong, and most likely I was since people don't ask you to write more after publishing your first, I was only sabotaging my own prospects.
No matter. I still maintain that I am no music critic. I know this is a fact for one reason and one alone: Sigur Ros.
First off there aren't enough positive/complimentary words in my vocabulary with which I could use to describe their music and it's effects on me. Believe me, I've tried. Not only have I tried to describe these things, I've already admitted to not having adequate terminology...more than once! I seem to be stuck. I have come to the point where I'm totally unable to be objective about this band. Now one could make a good argument that there is no such thing as a record review that is actually objective. Art doesn't allow for it. Music eludes it. Always has and always will. But my devotion to Sigur Ros has crossed the boundaries into a place where they can absolutely do no wrong.
So it's hard for me to do what an album review should really do, which is to share the feelings, emotions, etc. the music stirs up within the author as he/she listens to and contemplates the material. I do want to share those things, but as I already said, words fail me. They always will when it comes to Sigur Ros. To make things worse a tendency I've accepted as fact that Sigur Ros is a "love 'em or hate 'em" proposition. I don't know that I would be able to change the mind of a hater. The music may well do that over time...case in point, I have a strong suspicion that "Brennistein", from the new LP "Kveikur", will convince those without a propensity for angelic voices that these guys really do have a much more abrasive side that will appeal. "Isjaki" and "Raufstraumer" pack some incredibly catchy melodic lines that in another universe only slightly different than ours might be considered as "pop music". All the while avoiding the "balloons in the sky, nature movie soundtrack" sweetness of "Hoppipolla". Certainly far removed from just about anything vocalist Jonsi unleashed in his solo run during the band's hiatus (which is not to dismiss that music).
The least a record review should do is be able to describe the music, even if only in the most general terms. Once again Sigur Ros make it difficult with the new album. Their sound and style vary (I don't want to say "progress") so thoroughly that you can't even say, "Well, it sounds a lot like 'Takk'" or "I think it shares a lot in common with 'Valtari'" because not only do the comparisons fail, they wind up sounding ridiculous. The only common denominator between the individual albums in their catalog, that is consistently present, as I see it, is the otherworldly, innocent, gut-wrenching, sometimes heartbreaking sound of Jonsi's voice. It is that voice, I have to admit, even though I hold the other musicians contributions in equal esttem, it's that voice that sucked me in, that held me firm, that brought me back and that will keep me until the day I die and if there's a good God out there I'll hear it even after.
There's a lot of ambient noise scattered throughout "Kveikur". It's almost as if they've recruited Einsterzende Neubauten to take the place of the string section that seems less utilized here than on previous works. Huge German radios with broken speakers, blaring with such volume that even white noise becomes distorted. The title track especially trudges it's way through the cacophony and turns into one of the heaviest Sigur Ros performance this side "Popplagid". When the band play this song in concert there is, projected on a huge screen behind them, archival film footage of pre-Hiroshima a-bomb tests...nuclear wind blowing back a line of trees like an Oklahoma tornado. These are the images that I can't help but think of when I hear "Kveikur" and though the rest of the album isn't as...what?...metallic...there is a feeling of "Phoenix rising from the ashes"...it's just that the ashes are fallout and the Phoenix is the hope of beauty's surviving, the redefining of innocence by necessity...it's the need to consign memories to a new oral tradition so that they aren't lost on the other side of the holocaust...
Oh and look just how pretentious I've become! That's "rockcrit speak". It may well mean a lot to me, or better I should say it likely makes sense to me but someone else? "What the hell are you talking about?" Right? Of course I'm right. Which is further evidence that I am no music critic. At least not past "The Beatles were awesome" and "Sadly Justin Beiber has not come into his own and by all accounts he won't during the course of his lifetime". Both of those, I would assume, are "Duh" statements. Everyone loves the Beatles. If you don't like the Beatles, even if it's just a song or two, I want nothing to do with you. You were born without a soul and you frighten me. Then again, if you flat out tell me, "I don't like the Beatles" I will naturally assume you are a liar and so it will be okay to socialize with you (to the extent that I want to socialize with liars, that is). And if you're one of those hipster jackasses who wants to be first in line at Starbucks every morning and you try to tell me that "nobody likes the Beatles anymore", or "oh, they had their day in the sun, but that's long past"...mister, you're a fool. Moreover you're WORSE than a liar because you obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about. Then again I should expect no less from someone who wears a dark orange t-shirt with the Reeses's Peanut Butter Cup logo emblazoned across the chest. In. Public. Trying to act like you don't care if people think it's "cute". It is "cute". But I don't think "cute" is what you were shooting for, was it, Hoss?
But I digress. I'm only harping on about the Beatles here to make a point about why I can never review a Sigur Ros record (though I try...obviously, I try). In my mind, and I am as convinced of this as I am you'll never see Slayer on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Between the two Sigur Ros is the better band. Although I should probably say that I do consider the Beatles more of a "band". I'm certainly not taking away from what is undeniably the art of the Beatles' music, Sigur Ros, to me, are much more "artistic collective" than "band". I suppose that's what puts them ahead, in my estimation. I don't know if they're conscious of this combination of "artist" and "band"...they have more than once claimed in interviews that they're only in it to make the music, and I believe them. I also believe that this is what makes them even more purely creative on that artistic level. It just happens. I honestly don't think they "make it happen". It happens. And when that's the case, when IT is in charge... That's where I want to be...
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Sigur Ros: "Valtari"
I remember when Sigur Ros' last studio album came out. I debated long and hard whether I should listen to the full-length stream of "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" or wait another week until the official release. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I spent considerable time with the low-quality stream. I recall being hesitant at first because the record was so much different from it's successor, "Takk".
"Takk" is, in my humble opinion, probably the best record ever made. Sounds like lunatic hyperbole, doesn't it? I don't expect anyone to jump on the bandwagon...Even now I can hear the choruses of "are you crazy?" So be it. There's a spirit about their 4th album that moves me every single time I hear it (and trust me I've listened to it countless times). There's not a single moment on the entire album that fails to impress. It flows seamlessly from song to song, an hour passes and you wonder where it went off to. Even so, the songs stand on their own every bit as successfully. It's easy to get lost in "Takk". It's epic. There's not an album like it. There will never be another album like it.
So why did so many people expect "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" to be anything like "Takk" or any of their other records, for that matter? Why were so many disappointed? To my credit it didn't take long for me to integrate this observation into my expectations of the music. Okay, so getting used to the first single, "Gobbledigook", was a whole 'nother story, but I won't go into that, other than to say that I still sort of have to mentally disengage that song from the rest of the album before I can appreciate it totally.
I confess I didn't quite "get" "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" on the first few tries either. A couple of songs really stood out for me initially. "Gódan daginn" and the title track, for instance, sounded like exactly what I believed Sigur Ros should sound like. "Ára bátur" showed a lot of promise, but I figured it would take some time to find the right state of mind to appreciate it fully. "All Alright" is such a fragile song that it's hard to listen to even after all this time, though I've toughened up my Inner Child since then to the point where I can actually hear without feeling too unfomfortable. "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur" and "Vid spilum endalaust" were so far out of the expected mold that I thought for sure I wouldn't cotton to them. But guess what? They are a couple of my favorite Sigur Ros tracks now! I don't know how many other people who bought the record and felt let down eventually came around, but I can honestly say that "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" is right up there with "Takk" on my list of best Sigur Ros albums.
It's been three years since all that...three years with Sigur Ros on "hiatus" while Jonsi donned a bird outfit, wrote a slew of really good pop songs and toured the world with a show that was a real life-changing experience...though I wouldn't know that personally, since I was unable to arrange a trip to Laurence, Kansas. My life remains, at least in that aspect, unchanged. Jonsi was relatively "everywhere" last year, from a television ad (???????), a slew of talk shows, even composing the complete score for "We Bought a Zoo". Seeing as how 99% of all Sigur Ros fans love Jonsi and are on board with practically everything he does, one could be forgiven for suspecting a distinct possibility that the next Sigur Ros album ("please, Lord, let there BE a 'next' Sigur Ros album") might just contain some pop elements. After all, there were indeed a few songs he was playing that could well have been proper Sigur Ros numbers ("Tornado" & "Grow Till Tall", for instance).
Three years gone. Prayers are answered. And no, there will be no "Takk" sequel. Not even a ""Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" " sequel. No "( )" sequel and no "Ágætis byrjun" sequel. Nothing that bears any resemblance whatsoever to Jonsi's "Go" stuff. Instead...
"Valtari". Not since "Von" has there been a Sigur Ros album so challenging, so demanding of your complete and total attention. If I may speak only for myself, it's a DIFFICULT album. Perhaps some of the difficulty is the afore-mentioned process of trying to seperate "Sigur Ros A" from "Sigur Ros B". But it's hard because you really do have to LISTEN to get the desired effected. You can't hit the "play" button, settle back and read a good book. Not to say that a couple of the songs in the second half don't make beautiful ambient music. They certainly do. But unless you're concentrating on the sounds as they come out of the air, following without trying to comprehend them, you won't get pulled quite as deep into the experience.
I've read a few reviews of the record and for the most part I don't think they've given it the credit it deserves. That's not to say that the opinions haven't been favorable. I guess 3 1/2 out of 5 stars in Rolling Stone is nothing to scoff at, seeing as how a lot of REALLY good albums pull "only" 3. Spin gives "Valtari" 7 out of 10, which seems more realistic but their website doesn't show the actual review so I don't know what their writer is judging. Pitchfork has even less love, with only a 6.1. Even so, such rankings are nothing to be ashamed of. Still I don't think the disc has been received in the way it should have been.
And this is why...
I saw a reviewer on YouTube give his take on the album. Somewhere lost in the typical "record review jargon" the reviewer was spurting he said, and to paraphrase only slightly, "'Valtari' isn't my favorite album in Sigur Ros' catalog"... I thought, "Dude! The record just came out two weeks ago!" The guy struck me as being a fan and since he spoke in terms of "favorites" I assumed that he had the band's other discs ranked in some semblance of preference. Who knows, maybe his initial instincts will serve him faithfully and it won't become an album that, in his opinion, won't hold it's own with their earlier work.
But, and I've probably said it here already, "Valtari" is not the kind of record you're going to "get" in just a few listens. Though it may not be apparent to many who primarily listen to "popular music", "Valtari" holds a lot in common with modern symphonic music. I can't describe exactly what I mean by that, only to say that the more you listen, the DEEPER you listen, the more you appreciate (ugh! I KNOW I've already said that more than once!!!). Take a symphony by Gustav Mahler. The second one, for instance, aka "Resurrection". It's length is staggering. It violently pulls you into it's world with one of it's primary motifs. Then you practically drown in all the different melodies, textures, etc. until by the end of the piece you're not really sure exactly what you've been through. But you know that there's something, some "things" you've missed. Pieces of a puzzle which, when put together, will make the the artistic vision a bit clearer and the listening experience more fulfilling. With Mahler (and practically all classical music in general) there are a LOT of puzzle pieces. And it's not so much that the pieces "complete" the symphony. You'll eventually learn that the symphony can NEVER be complete. Because it's dependent upon the listener to determine HOW the puzzle pieces fit together. It's an interactive process in which the brain is given free reign to assemble and dissemble sounds and melodies at it's pleasure, at it's whim even. It cannot be complete, but the more you listen the more you are familiar with the possibilities, having noticed or used them before in some combination or another.
This is how I listen to "Valtari". It's no less challenging, in it's way, than Mahler's second. Ian Cohen, in Pitchfork's review, speaks of the album as "leaving you to fashion highlights out of relativity". Maybe I'm just looking for something different in the music I generally listen to but WOW that sounds like it would be AWESOME!!! Isn't that what postmodernism is all about? He describes the music as "work, a trudge, asking for too much by way of demanding nothing concrete." This demand, he feels, is "due to Sigur Ros' unwillingness to exert any sort of artistic will on the listener".
Mr. Cohen, I can understand how you might feel that way, though the assertion that the band is artistically lazy gets under my skin. And I won't insist that "Valtari" is a "maximalist version of "( )'", even though you think we hardcore Sigur Ros fans might use it as an excuse. I'm surprised you compare it to "( )" after all. Not that you're the only one, but I suppose it's difficult/impossible to find a point of comparison for something like "Valtari" in the entire SR catalog.
There IS NO point of comparison. Listening to "Valtari" IS work, though I would add that it's only a "trudge" for those who think they've already got a firm grip on what this band is all about. Which is not meant to suggest that they haven't crafted a recognizable style and sound in the past. I only mean that if you think you're going to pigeonhole them and put them in a box, you'll be confused when they fly out and you probably won't recognize them anymore. That's the point when you'll have to decide if it's the band you're running with or just the songs. Not to say that it's a bad thing to be "all about the songs". But that's something that hardcore fans of Sigur Ros, and most other bands as well, have gone beyond.
It's at that point when people will say to you, "Oh, well, you'll just like anything that band does, whether it's good or not". On one point that is a correct assessment. Yes, I admit I will like anything Sigur Ros does. They'll put out an album that sounds like death metal cum Partridge Family and I will listen so hard and so deep and with such respect for what they are capable of that, yes, I'll likely find a lot that appeals to me, even in a record like that!
Okay, so...the reason I'm writing all this is because a friend of mine asked me to. Well, that's not quite true...he asked me what I thought of the album. There's no false humility in claiming that my opinion was especially important to him. I was the one who introduced Sigur Ros to him. He happened to be one of the lucky ones who walked into the store while I was playing "Aegetis Byrjun" on the stereo. He fell in love with the band there and then and has since seen them several times (a fact which has never failed to rankle me, as I've only seen them twice). Since then he's asked for my take on every new Sigur Ros album that's come around the bend. He said he was slightly underwhelmed with "Valtari". Or at least his first impressions weren't as favorable as they had been with previous records.
Of the "Sigur-Ros-Can-Do-No-Wrong" fan type, I had the primal urge to defend it...even though I was somewhat underwhelmed myself. That's where all this "give it a few listens before you judge" comes from, I'm sure. I've said it, I've repeated it, I've implied it...the plea "don't give up on it so quickly" is all I can offer, but I think it's valid. I believe this album will reveal itself slowly, as the band members themselves have said.
Having been almost a month now since hearing the LP in it's entirety, the question is "Well? How did it hold up for you? Was it worth the time and effort to sit through the whole thing as many times as you have?"
Yes, it has. Although I don't think I've even broken the surface of what it has to offer I have nevertheless found myself in a place where I'm comfortable and, how should I say it? Prepared for where it will lead through the days to come. At first it sounded almost unfinished. Now I can appreciate a sense of sparseness for the sounds to float within, seldom anchored by gravity. There are still a couple of things about the record that disappoint. The mixing/production quality on "Varúð" is, to my ears, atrocious. It is possible that Alex Somers & the band did this on purpose, but this detracts significantly from the song, IMO. There are other places that the production could be, once again IMO, improved. Nothing that would completely ruin the overall experience, though. Also it just doesn't feel right to me for the last three songs to be completely devoid of a "proper" vocal part. "Proper" as opposed to the voice being used as an effect, which is all very nice, but one primary reason I love Sigur Ros is Jonsi's voice so I was kind of hoping it would put in at least one more appearance before the album's finish.
As for the individual songs... "Valtari" rises out of the mist with a song that translates as "I Breathe". "Ég anda" sounds like a house filled with ghosts. Disembodied voices floating in a large, dark room. I don't usually think of music in terms of "thought pictures" (for lack of a better term), but I can't help but envision these wraiths trapped in time and space, for some reason tethered to the world, unable to slink into eternity where they belong. The lead vocal comes in and I imagine it's an incantation chanted over the spirits, a spell to melt the cord and usher them from a prison they've almost grown used to. "Ég anda" is one of three songs that I immediately enjoyed, that only took a couple of listens before they hit.
"Ekki Múkk" is one of the three, though it had a head start, being the first song to leak from the album. As with it's predecessor, "Ekki Múkk" rises up from silence with an eerie feel. There is a similarity, for me at least, to the material on Jonsi and Alex's "Riceboy Sleeps" album, which is perfectly fine with me, since that one has grown on me to a marvelous degree since it's release. The "ace in the hole" for this song are the chilling string arrangements from Amina. Jonsi shows off his ability to hold a musical note until cows come home. Such an awesome song, I don't know that I'll cotton to any of the others as I have this one.
There's really not much to the next track, "Varúð", other than a nice three note chorus from what sounds like a boys choir. It builds and builds and builds but inevitably reaches an anti-climax. I keep expecting Orri to kick into a heavy duty full drum assault but all I get is the pounding of what sounds like a tribal war drum. Nothing wrong with war drums and the such...I hear them more as "build up" and not "climax" (haha). Its not the main reason I'm ultimately dissatisfied with the song, which is the production. Since I've already commented on it I will move on..
Next up is the other song that I immediately loved. A truly beautiful piece of music, "Rembihnútur" spends it's initial half gathering up the sounds and snatches of melody that will eventually dominate the song. Jonsi sings a soft lullaby and then it all erupts into one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard from him. The harmonies and multi-tracking only sweeten the sound. Maybe it is those harmonies that remind me, for some inconceivable reason, of the Beach Boys, with their tight vocal interaction. I felt the same way about "Hoppípolla" when I first heard it. Once again, I have no idea why I make the mental connection, as I am not not a fan of the Beach Boys. I do, however, acknowledge the awesome quality of their combined voices.
I don't have the vinyl version of "Valtari" (as I have not owned a turntable in decades), but it's easy for me to hear the dividing line of side A and side B on the CD. As such I have had a difficult time getting past "side A". That's not to say that the last four songs are inferior to the first in any way. Still, I feel kind of drained by the time I get to "Dauðalogn", which is not a good thing seeing as how powerful the song is. It doesn't help either that I can't shake a melodic resemblance to "All Alright" that makes me suspect lazy recycling. I know Sigur Ros has far too much integrity to have ever done something like that so I have done my best to separate the lines and have paid more attention to the expressive qualities of the vocal. Using this approach it's easy for me to hear "Dauðalogn" as one of their best songs, able to hold it's own with just about anything they've done.
Before the album came out the band licensed the CW Network show "Vampire Diaries" a portion of "Dauðalogn". It was used in a scene where a two people are seen in a car underwater, having obviously just crashed into it. There are long shots of a woman, bubbles slowly exiting mouth and nose, sitting resigned to her fate with a look in her eye that is chilling. And there in the background is Jonsi singing, Icelandic or glossolia God only knows, and it just goes so well with the images I can't help but be impressed. I watched that and I kept repeating to myself, "DON'T think of this every time you hear the song!" I hate to have a video producer's vision provide the soundtrack to any song I listen to. But it's been hard to keep from it. The fact that it's a CW show makes it even worse. But what's done is done. I've found a way to mentally evict the offensive elements while still keeping the elegiac sense that was so awesome in the juxtaposition of song and drama.
"Varðeldur", one of the last three tracks, all basically instrumental, sounds to me like little more than a lengthy epilogue of it's predecessor. It took a few spins of the entire CD before I realized that's not what it actually is. On it's own merits the song is just this side of ambient, something you'd find on a Brian Eno album. The same holds true of "Valtari", the album's namesake which translates into "Steam Roller". Not exactly "steam roller" as you'd expect with a metal album, still there does seem to be a slow, lumbering motion that gives the unlikely title credibility.
Bringing it all back home is an experimental number called "Fjögur píanó". "Four Pianos". The idea of the song was for each individual musician to play an uncomplicated piano part to a simple loop. None of them would be in the same room at the same time and none would hear the parts that were played by each other. When the four completed this process they mixed the parts together and the result is "Fjögur píanó". Knowing that gives a much deeper appreciation to what they've attempted with the experiment. I could go into my whole spiritual mumbo jumbo about the source of inspiration and how it might work itself out in a situation like this but I'll spare you. Suffice to say it's a very enjoyable number and a successful outcome for the test. The pianos fade into a last spill of ambiance that eases the listener out of "Valtari" back into the mists from which it came.
And there it goes. Like the snake eating it's own tail, drawing you, beckoning you to play it again. To travel full circle again, finding bits and pieces of sonic bliss you missed the last time around. Worth the trip. Yes, I say it's well worth the round trip.
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Sigur Ros…Inni
Sigur Ros “Inni” announces itself in jarring fashion. Sustained guitar noise, processed, strummed not with hands but a violin bow. Overtones hover in the air and explode into shards of distortion that doesn’t so much break the silence as crash into it. The untrained ear can only process it as “noise”. And I suppose it is, in its way. It’s chaotic, without a direction. A numbing monotone were it not for harmonics which rise and fall, ebb and flow, morph into others like colors on an artist’s palette left out in the rain. Those colors bleed, each retaining its singular tone even as they drip into others to breed a new one.
Yet the image on the screen is in blunt black and white. As if the filmmaker expects his audience to provide the hues based on their individual responses to the music.
Wait, did I say “music”? Ah, so I did. And so it is, in a sense, depending upon how traditional your definition of music is. If your rules are strict, limited to Bach, the Beatles and practically everyone else working within the Western tradition, then no. It’s not even close to being “music”. You might as well go to a construction site and listen to a jack hammer for 10 minutes. On the other hand if you appreciate the works of Stockhausen, John Cage and Einsterzende Neubauten you probably understand exactly what I’m talking about in describing the intensely LOUD sound that assaults you when the curtains are drawn on “Inni”.
The white shapes that coalesce on the black screen turn out to be vocalist/guitarist Jonsi, sawing his way through the introduction of “Ny Batteri”. Bent and bowed (no pun intended) he seems a man possessed. encased within a whirlwind of sound. A sonic tornado blowing over him with such force that he would be knocked over if he weren’t hunkered down. He hears every overtone, every harmonic…or does he? No, he’s as lost in it as everyone in the theater. It’s practically out of his control. All he’s doing is opening a door. The only power he has is the ability to close it by twirling the volume knob on his guitar down to “0”. Something which he does not appear to be willing to do.
When he does, when he puts the bow down and turns it over to nature, there is a sense of relief. Hard work, to be sure, but fulfilling. We’ve made it through the blast, through the fire to the other side. Georgi smoothly eases into the mix with a bass line that is, for lack of a more proper term, “serious”. Haunting, maybe. Grave. Something to bring us back and ground us in tonal music. Joined momentarily by Kjartan, playing an organ that’s straight out of an old horror movie. Eerie. Ghostly, even. Together he and Georgi lay down the chordal template of the song.
At this point Jonsi sings the first vocal note of the film. Which only means that now the show has progressed from intense to incredible. Would I be a Sigur Ros fan if Jonsi weren’t in the band? No. Not ashamed to say it, absolutely not. Then again, the band would not be Sigur Ros without him. And I don’t mean that as disparaging to the other members. More than many other bands currently recording and touring, Sigur Ros is reliant not upon individual talent but on the rapport, interaction…yes, the chemistry between Jonsi, Kjartan, Georgi & Orri.
This is the theme of “Inni”. It’s the guiding force that helps raise it above the typical “concert film”. The concentration evident in facial expressions seeming to provide some kind of ethereal understanding of, and a window into, how they translate these songs. Songs which seem so bound to the studio, re-animated into living documents.You can see the strain on Jonsi’s face as he shoots for one of the impossibly high notes, then holds it. Georgi stands stock still, almost a mannequin, intensely concentrating on keeping the whole thing anchored. Kjartan looks like the consummate musician, fine with the idea of remaining in the background, fully aware that his contributions are essential. Orri pummels his drum set with wild abandon, looking almost visibly shaken after the songs final down beat.
Together they create a sound that seems untethered to time or space.
What they’re doing has evolved past the point of mere music making into the realms of art. Into the crown chakra space of high art. They wouldn’t admit it. No false modesty within the ranks of Sigur Ros. Who is to say that they even realize it? That they even comprehend how good they are? As obvious as it is to their devoted fans, one gets the sense that all four of these musicians are a humble lot, appreciating their success, unconcerned with validation. Pretentious? Ah, the “P” word. Some people would likely think so, after all it does seem kind of gimmicky for a band to have a guitarist who wields a violin bow and sing many of their songs in a language that does not exist. Still, the true believer understands. He realizes that the bow draws out a sound that swells in a manner that fingers or picks could never produce. That the “language” is nothing more than Jonsi sculpting the sonics of a completely unique tool of expression. Turning his voice into nothing less than an ambient musical instrument. Every song that is sung in “Hopelandic” is an instrumental song. When you can grasp that you will find that there is no novelty to it. Yes, its been used as a selling point for the band and that obviously makes it seem hoaky. But you need look no further than an interview they gave on NPR, easily found on YouTube, to realize just how apathetic they are to the hype. Not only apathetic, but actually annoyed.
That particular video clip is shown in “Inni”, along with several others shot at different stages of the band’s existence. They provide a dash of color and lightness to the foreboding darkness of the film itself. One clip is especially interesting: a camcorder trained on the small stage of what must be a very small, cramped club. Four young men shuffle into their respective positions …teenagers, from the looks of ’em, who vaguely resemble the four men in Sigur Ros.
Of course, its the hypothetical mustard seed of Sigur Ros. They take their places and for what seems like hours we’re treated to the sight of Jonsi bent down twiddling the knobs of the guitar effects pedal at his feet. On and on and on, it must be an especially difficult setting he’s meticulously shooting for. But eventually he does find it and the group begins the set. Kjartan playing guitar in this particular song, he softly picks a melody…
At which point, depending upon the level of devotion you feel for the band, you will be amazed that the song he’s playing, ringing out in this claustrophobic Icelandic pub who knows how many years before their breakthrough record was released, is “Popplagið”. Also known as “The Pop Song”, this 13 minute catharsis was the endpiece of their third album, “()”, an album that helped weed out the people who just wanted to hear “that song from ‘Vanilla Sky” and threw out the bait for the ones who would eventually really “get it”. Sigur Ros has always been a “you’ll either love ’em or you’ll hate ’em” kind of band, and “()” went a long way towards sorting those two extremes. “Popplagið” is the thundering orgasm of “()”. It’s sense of sturm un drang is rivalled only by the jaw dropping power of its build-up. The band’s critically acclaimed film “Heima” is capped by this rocket blast of a song. And rightly so. It’s not my favorite Sigur Ros song (that would be “Glossoli”) but I would have to concede that most people would find it to be their most intense. So it’s a revelation to learn that this kind of musical alchemy has been practiced by the band from the very start.
Perhaps obviously then, “Popplagið” sends off “Inni” in grand cacaphonous style. Truncated a slight bit it nevertheless retains it’s power. It’s one of the absolute best versions of the song I have ever heard. Jonsi’s vocal prowess here, and throughout the film, is so well-developed it is a force of nature. He does little things, small tonal variations, an extra consonant here or one less there to make it fresh. I really don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a thing of pure innocence and beauty. The juxtaposition of those qualities with the rumble of the music is quite something to behold.
What, did I say “rumble of the music”? Yes, and quite literally at these “Inni” screenings. They’ve bussed in a huge sound system to compliment the film. Loud. Loud. Loud. Personally I can do without all the decimals, but that’s just me. My hearing ain’t what it once was, you know. Maybe sheer volume helps drive home the intensity of the music for some people…as for me, it’s not necessary, especially with Sigur Ros.
The experiences tucked between “Ny Batteri” and “Popplagið” are every bit as worthy. Musically and visually. Perhaps the highlight of the set is a version of “Festival” that should be impressive to even those who don’t care for the band’s music. It’s a mood piece in two parts, the first being almost a solemn prayer and the second all out jubilation. The recorded version has a few really nice vocal sketches weaving through the break, playing off of one another, complimenting counterpoint. It add’s quite a lot to the song, but in every live performance I’ve heard they have not used it…most likely it’s not something they can replicate in a live setting, what with all the overdubs. No matter, this “Inni” version almost makes up for its absence. Jonsi one again genuinely wows, sustaining one note for at LEAST a full minute, if not longer. He sings, 15 seconds pass, the audience applauds, the sound subsides, the 45 second point arrives and he’s still holding that note, the audience really goes wild, the whoops, hollers & applause hold steady for another 5-10 seconds until they realize he’s not stopping any sooner than anyone would dare think was possible and when he finally DOES let the note die, well sir, you’d be a fool not to join in with the crowd. It’s so mind-blowing that the audience in the theater where I saw the screening actually began to applaud.
Conspicuously absent from “Heima”, Sigur Ros’ first really big “hit” is a centerpiece of the film. “Sven-G-Englar” was the introduction most people had to the band. It’s a good representation of their overall style, though I personally have grown weary of it. Overkill, yes it’s possible even with Sigur Ros. Nevertheless the rendition of the song in “Inni” is so impassioned and inspired that it’s hard for me to dismiss it as “just another song I’m burned out on”.
“Vid Spilum Endalaust”, along with the YouTube bits, cuts the edge and inserts a joyous feel into what is otherwise a serious affair. Ethereal and angelic, yes. But undeniably serious. “Vid Spilum Endalaust” tosses the gravitas out the window with a rousing sing along and the uplifting strains of a brass horn section. This particular sequence shows not only the rapport of the musicians but the camaraderie as well. So many bands are cursed with bad feelings between members. Some actually come to hate each other over the course of years. One gets the feeling, watching the way Jonsi, Georgi, Kjartin & Orri interact, that they have been best friends since day one and, even better, will remain so until the sad and terrible day they call it quits.
“Inni” in the theater is an awesome experience. To share it with a room full of total strangers is a unique exercise. The “bigger than life” quality is always good. But I have a feeling that it will hit it’s target in the home theater as well. I won’t say “better” but I’m confident it will be every bit as good to see and hear on your own system. It was recently released in DVD format as part of a package that also contains 2 CDs of the material along with other tracks. Maybe it’s a good introduction to the band. I wouldn’t want to go out on a limb and say yea or nay on that one. Personally I think “Heima” is probably better for that purpose, or even just a good hearing of “Takk”. Right or wrong on that front I nevertheless CAN pronounce “Inni” as worthy of being in the Sigur Ros catalog. More than “Sigur Ros finally got around to putting out a live album”.
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