Temporary Dismemberment of the ‘Beast’

Hey, all. I might as well make this the unofficial Andrew Bird newsletter. My music bias seems to dictate this blog. Nonetheless here’s a link to a Noble Beast track-by-track dissection, courtesy of Mr. Bird himself.

Anonanimal
“The Texas Salamander ekes out an isolated, eyeless existence in a cave in Mexico. Sea Anenomies, so liquid and malleable, take the shape of an enclosed space. Can we evolve within our own lifetimes certain appendages that help us do our jobs and get through the day? At what cost?”

“Authoritarianism in Translation”

Evan Osnos of the New Yorker files a piece on the progression of foreign translations in Chinese literary circles. The one-party system in China has a set of restrictions that prohibits certain economic appendages, making China’s seventeen firms involved in literary translations substantially alleviating (the translation firms have increased their share of GDP by ten percent). An excerpt from the article (if only I knew something about custom fields, I could insert a pull quote):

“I mention this not to argue that China is a literary paradise, but rather to point out how inventive and ambitious Chinese translators and publishers have been able to carve out viable space within the restrictions imposed by the one-party state. Go into any large Chinese bookstore and you are likely to see readers sitting in the aisles, scouring foreign books in translation, which they might not be able to afford. “

I’m currently reading ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound. I think he’d be proud to hear these factoids. I’m still not willing to read The Inferno in Italian but the man had a grasp on language that remains unfathomable to me. His collective translations still mean a lot to Chinese literary scholars. This newly discovered procreation is perhaps a product of that very 20th century contribution.

Andrew Bird In Philadelphia

Photo Credit: Chris Sikich

Notwithstanding near intolerable wintry weather, my Sunday night was as fantastic as the nights come. Walking in the cold amongst the 20-something guys and gals in newsboy drivers and knit berets, I smoked cigarette after cigarette in a ridiculous attempt to externalize the warmth I was feeling from “Anonanimal,” which was playing back in my head all day. Veronika, Lauren, and I scurried past bohemian hangouts and sidewalk cafes sounding acid jazz out its open doors; we scurried, like tourists lost in North Philly (but we were just cold), on and on till we came upon the old movie theater turned music venue, not far from Penn’s Landing, on 3rd and South.

If you like pizzicato and Sundance whistling documentaries and a low-key violinist turned man-of-revelry, then you’d thoroughly enjoy the likes of Mr. Bird and his band. I’ve been thinking about how to approach this entry, and have come to the conclusion it’s ineffable–I cannot describe, or in some cases induce one to enjoy, such unorthodox classical music that sounds more like East African gypsy than Mozart or Bach. I refuse to prattle, like a Rick Sanchez prototype on politics, about the joy of music that only selected people can relish. So I’ll give everyone the same run-down that I gave my friend Margaret.

____________________________________________________________

Title: you’re a lemon

The show was fantastic in so many ways. Firstly, Ra Ra Riot was highly impressive with their strings and all-around revelry. I would suggest seeing them, if you haven’t already. I’m glad Andrew provided this opportunity for them.

Now let me to indulge into the flair of last night. Andrew made it known from the beginning he was/is suffering from a low-grade fever, so he asked us to forbear our impatience, as this was the band’s first gig of the year. Mind you, he’s such a modest man, so it isn’t like impatience/disappointment would be a problem–his mannerly traits rub off on his fans, I think. But in any case, he opened up the set list with “Fitz and Dizzyspells” from the new record. Gah–so lovely! I’m biased towards that particular song, but what a rendition it was! Martin Dosh and co. are great at creating new sets for songs; but they’re so talented, I bet they could extemporize just as well. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing them all play on a whim, somewhere out on Andrew’s farm, just all ad lib. But anyway, this euphony continued on throughout the show, from the sweet hums of “The Privateers” to the more broad-sounding “Anonanimal” (my favorite off the new record by the way). All in all I couldn’t have been more sated.

I could prattle on for hours but I’ll spare you the time-burden. I don’t critique gigs for a living nor do I plan to; AND perhaps everything I just said IS in fact prattle–I don’t know. I simply know I enjoyed the show as much if not more than any other. It’s sometimes hard to categorize my obscure tastes in music, but when it comes to the manifold Mr. Bird provides, this is how I prefer to put it: there’s just something about a man playing music in his socks and making noises like a Japanese bird whistle that charms me. He’s an amazing musician/person and I’m so glad the indie pop horizons have accepted the music; with all its worldliness and idiosyncrasies it has, oddly enough, transpired for the best.

Reminiscence

During those dull, restless spring days in high school one can get pissed off at the world. In this case, a friend of mine, uncannily found abhorrence in the river. A story I wrote from a little over a year ago:

So when you’re eighteen and high school is purposeless beyond clamato juice, you like home-cooked French toast and fifty cent coffee, what do you do? You go to the Palace on Main Street. Going for breakfast isn’t just a reoccurring thing for my friends and I. To truant five periods of school, as a bookish but grass-smoking staunch freshman, I would of hands down been the ultimate T.V. show kind of rebel. Lately, that’s not the case. No one – not even the office secretaries – find the breakfast club, or us five wayfarers, and what we do, aberrant.

This morning began like all others. Sleeping in way past the 7:15 tardy bell, the orange dawn retired to a new sunny sky, I finally get up, shower, comb the curls on my head down (which inevitably puff again), start for the door, turn back to retrieve my brown paper bagged lunch, and plug my dad’s ‘94 Lumina down Herminie stretch.

Breakfast was normal. No Russian spies entered, nor Iranian militants, nor senior high arch-enemies, bugbears, or any hipster-challenged bête noire. I tipped, rather substantially, and left with four friends equally as feckless and lazy. The sun was out and she curled my hair even more, thus I had something between layered hair and a Jehri curl.

For whatever insufficient and heedless reason, we went to Crabapple park. The buds on the trees were booming, and pale pink thistles and dandelions were colonized all over. I stood above Sewickly Creek on a gray weathered bridge to think, reflect, console myself in what I call desperate spiritual enlightenment, and let my friends wander the pavilions. It was then I felt poetic, like I was truly a character from Tom and Viv, ready to start a verse. Realizing no paramour was nearby, or even existent at the time, I lost interest and quickly jogged up the trail to where my friends were. Two dogwoods on each side of the trail with violet long-tubed disc florets hemmed our path back.

Where the beauty of the story goes so wrong, where all the special belle parts are begirded by hideousness, and more unpoetical with less lyric than a swine bathing in the sun-warm mud, my buddy NoName says to us, “My ass is gonna get dirty, cause I have to shit.”

I made no reply. I made no ignorant guesswork as to where he might shit. I let him be, as the bee usually finds nectar. For NoName there was no nectar, no flowers in the garden basil. There was only a bridge above Sewickly Creek. My friend shit off that bridge this morning, between the rails, white ass extended out.

Next Friday I’ll be at the Palace, eating french toast and an English muffin and taking down a fifty-cent coffee. Next Friday I’ll be thinking about shitting, and as ill-luck so possesses me, there are no lavatories at the Palace… nor bridges.

The poet dives aimlessly in whiskey
Drowning, and seeing the shit in the creek
Before death shrivels him up.

Li Po Meets Megapuss

I normally wouldn’t post something so controversial (the name of this blog isn’t APOCRYPHA In Philadelphia or anything), but I stumbled upon a potentially tittilating poem written by Li Po:

“A Summer Day in the Mountains”

Flourishing a white-feather fan
lazily, I go naked in green forests.

Soon, I’ve hung my cap on a cliff,
set my hair loose among pipe winds.
set my hair loose among pipe winds.

It reminded me of the pictures I was looking at of Megapuss yesterday:
(Poor Ms. Portman, she might miss this erotic foreplay)

I don’t know if such images are allowed under WordPress blogs, and I’m posting this on a whim. And for whatever reason I can totally see Devendra meandering along in the Asian forests naked as a summer flower.

Halt of Prosecutions at Guantanamo

By order of the president, a halt to prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has been implemented, and the military commissions of the Bush Administration will be paused to provide an efficient review of the closing process.

Mr. Obama has said during the campaign the military commissions were a failure; if detainees were to be prosecuted, it would be at the hands of a true American justice system, not one that lacks basic protections and tortures detainees. Or as the Bush Administration referred to it, “enhanced interrogation methods.”

This doesn’t come as a surprise, and I’m happy the process has begun. To treat “war criminals” so barbarously truly disheartens me; to deprive them of sleep; to enact religious persecution; to drug them, to sexually degrade them; to apply extreme stressors such as extended solitary confinement; or whatever occurred–it’s ludicrous. Amnesty International said it “hopes that today’s announcement is a sign that the U.S. government will reject, once and for all, the past U.S. policies that have caused so much damage to human rights and the rule of law.” I hope our president can appease me and Amnesty and ban such ill-treatment. He would be doing humankind a great deed.

Yes, We Are

President Obama delivered a speech epical in every measure, with aplomb that America may rejoice upon a new dawn. We are one perfervid country, espousing one perfervid idea–that we shall not be harrowed, not ever.

“because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself”
-President Barack Obama

Rick Warren News/Daft Punk’s Commemoration of Obama

Unbelievably I just found out today Rev. Warren will be swearing in Mr. Obama next week. I’m reasonably au fait with the minister, including his opposition to same-sex couples; but I’m pleased he will not be making nods to a distinct creed. As Edward Bloom stated, “It’s not polite to talk about religion, because you never know who you’re gonna offend.” Even in America. Even at the presidential inauguration.

In other news……

Daft Punk vs. Adam Freeland:

The following is a mixed-media stop motion music video and celebration commemorating the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of these United States. Audibly showcasing Adam Freeland’s remix of Daft Punk’s “Aerodynamic”.

Gay but Equal?

A very well-wrought article by Mary Frances Berry in the New York Times canvasses the idea of a new commission that “would address the rights of many groups, including gays.” It’s true that the Commission on Civil Rights has divagated from an independent acumen to a self-appointed presidential agency. I’ve speculated this for years but I’m no political genius. The crux of the matter is that gay and lesbian peoples deserve a nod from President-elect Obama in the forthcoming months or years.

Mrs. Berry, the chairwoman of the Commission on Civil Rights from 1993 to 2004, is the author of “And Justice for All: The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Continuing Struggle for Freedom in America.”

The Thinking Man’s Sex Symbols

"M.I.A. is one of my favorite musicians right now. It would be so fun to travel the world with her, viewing life as one big art project."

I’m wondering if my blog has become stoney-faced in subject matter. Upon its creation my only intention was to have my own aperture to scream through; but I feel my subject has been curbed to antiquitous literary achievements and Andrew Bird headlines. Occasionally I insert a poem by Ezra Pound or the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup. Let’s face the music–Apocrypha In Philadelphia is an insipid, dried-up well.

Some of that insipidness changes tonight. I stumbled upon The Daily Beast’s “The Thinking Man’s Sex Symbols” while looking for book news in the New York Times. I don’t dare to say Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm would make my own top-10 catalog; but indeed M.I.A. possesses my heart’s red-letter and  Jhumpa Lahiri’s gaze sends me crooning to the heavens.