I USED TO SAY DUMB THINGS I GUESS I STILL DO

It was a disappointing sunset, only 'cause my hopes were much too high.
Harpo: Movie Star

Via Greil Marcus (again) via Simon Frith's Sound Effects via Roland Barthes: I wonder if part of what attracts me to Jens Lekman's wonderful Night Falls Over Kortedala (9.0 from this schmuck) is the sense of what Barthes called signifiance (not a typo). As Marcus puts it:

"Barthes argued that the thrill of music is not a result of one's consious or subliminal response to 'significance' (the rendering of an important idea, emotion, moment in time, or whatever -- think of how you've tried to make sense of your response to 'Like a Rolling Stone' or 'Gimmie Shelter'); rather, the thrill comes from one's response to signifiance. This odd and intriguing word has baffled Barthe's translators (some, as if to say the hell with it, have rendered it as'significance'), but Frith handles the word best: signifiance refers not to a sign but to 'the work of signification'-- not to meaning, but to 'the making of meanings'. We do not respond to symbols (doom in the dark chords and apocalyptic lyrics of 'Gimmie Shelter,' escape and release in the rising choruses of 'Like a Rolling Stone'), though we seize on such symbols and connect them to historical events or personal situations in order to explain our response; we respond to symbol creation."

Marcus/Frith go on to hold up Elvis Presley as the prime example; who the hell knows what he stood for, but sure as Memphis sits on the mighty Mississippi, Elvis stood for something: standing for something.


If we all decide that there are five pints in a quart, that's objectively true. (And a bargain!)
Jens Lekman: Interview in Paris

So if Elvis stood for signifiance, then maybe Lekman's album stands for the possibility that we can be in control of the process-- that we can make our own symbols, just as he shores these pop fragments against our 21st-century cultural ruins. I don't really have this all pinned down yet. See in the above interview (posted yesterday) how Lekman sort of makes a similar point to the one in my review-- he says the wealth of unedited music on the Web allows us all to edit out our own favorite tracks, decide for ourselves which matter, create our own Jens Lekmans and have them, Whopper-like, our way.

Side note: I love how on "Shirin", he sings, "I won't tell anyone," just as he is telling, um, everyone.

Something capable of revealing that point of access which provides a shortcut to the magical realm behind this spectacle.
Mainly Spaniards: That's What Friends Are For

Here's something worth getting political about. In Vanity Fair, Evgenia Peretz goes on at length about what the indefatigable Bob Somerby calls the press corps' two-year "War Against Gore": the one where the brightest, best-paid pundits at The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, and MSNBC-- not just FOX or crazy right-wingers-- falsely convinced you that Al Gore said he'd invented the Internet, claimed he personally discovered the infamous Love Canal toxic-waste site, invented that he and Tipper were the inspiration for the novel "Love Story" (the author has said they were), changed into "earth tones" at the behest of Naomi Wolf (Wolf has denied this, the original reports were based on speculation by disgraced former Clinton aide Dick Morris, and besides, who doesn't occasionally wear "earth tones"?), etc. etc. etc.

A sample of the kind of misconduct which, in any other profession, would get someone fired or possibly sued:

"MSNBC anchor Brian Williams went after Gore's clothes at least five times in one week. 'Here is a guy taking off his suits.… This is the casual sweater look—what's going on here?' … 'He would have been in a suit a month ago.' … 'He's wearing these polo shirts that don't always look natural on him.' Williams's frequent guest Newsweek's Howard Fineman later chimed in: 'I covered his last presidential campaign, in 1988. One day he was in the conservative blue suit, the next he was playing lumberjack at the V.F.W. hall in New Hampshire.'

"And Gore just kept going on about issues. Alluding to five speeches he made in two months on education, crime, the economy, faith-based organizations, and cancer research, [the Times's Katherine] Seelye wrote, 'Mr. Gore becomes almost indignant when asked if his avalanche of positions might overwhelm voters.' The Washington Post's David Broder later found Gore too focused in his convention speech on what he'd do as president. 'But, my, how he went on about what he wants to do as president,' wrote Broder. 'I almost nodded off.' As for the environment, while Gore was persuaded by his consultants not to talk about it as much as he would have liked, whenever he did, many in the media ignored it or treated it as comedy. Dowd wrote in one column that 'Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating.' In another, referring to his consideration of putting a Webcam in the Oval Office, she wrote, 'I have zero desire to see President Gore round the clock, putting comely interns to sleep with charts and lectures on gaseous reduction.'

"The trivial continued to dominate during the postmortem following Gore and Bush's first debate, on October 3, 2000. The television media were sure Gore won—at first. But then Republican operatives promptly spliced together a reel of Gore sighing, which was then sent to right-wing radio outlets. Eighteen hours later, the pundits could talk of little else. 'They could hear you audibly sighing or sounding exasperated as Governor Bush was answering questions,' Katie Couric scolded him the next day on the Today show. 'Do you think that's presidential behavior?' For the Times's Frank Bruni, the sighs weren't as galling as Gore's familiarity with the names of foreign leaders. 'It was not enough for Vice President Al Gore to venture a crisp pronunciation of Milosevic, as in Slobodan,' he wrote. 'Mr. Gore had to go a step further, volunteering the name of Mr. Milosevic's challenger Vojislav Kostunica.'"


These people are still among the most prominent, highest-paid people in my profession. They are responsible for George W. Bush. They are responsible for the Iraq war. They do not care about you. And they will not do their jobs (John Edwards has fancy haircuts! Rudy Giuliani is Mayor of America! Fred Thompson is hung like a mule!) unless we stand up to them.


Final thought: If anyone knows where to find the "dub" version of Shai's "If I Ever Fall in Love" that Diplo uses on this insanely awesome mix, please, for the love of Christ, hook a writer up.

WE HAVE A WORLD OF PLEASURE TO WIN, AND NOTHING TO LOSE BUT BOREDOM

Come as you are as a friend as I want you to be.
The Honeydrips: (Lack of) Love Will Tear Us Apart (feat. Hanna)

"[W]e commented from the outside looking in. And that's what a lot of people have difficulty doing nowadays. There is no longer an 'outside'. They have no idea what the outside is. Some people think the Gap is outside."
- Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, in the July issue of The Wire

Name one person who thinks the Gap is "outside".


We all gotta live with the fact that we aren't Bob Dylan.
Hot Chocolate: It Started With a Kiss

Better never than late: Chinese Democracy. Better late than never: your offnotes RIFFMARKET Status Ain't Hood Quarterly Report, mid-year albums edition (traxx list ideally finally arriving before my wedding date).

1. Deerhunter: Cryptograms/Fluorescent Grey double-LP


2. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver


3. Lil Wayne: Da Drought 3


4. The Tough Alliance: A New Chance


5. Josh Ritter: The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter


6. The Field: From Here We Go Sublime
7. Panda Bear: Person Pitch
8. Sally Shapiro: Disco Romance
9. Feist: The Reminder
10. Simian Mobile Disco: Attack Decay Sustain Release

11. Justice: †
12. Art Brut: It's a Bit Complicated
13. Battles: Mirrored
14. Los Campesinos!: Sticking Fingers Into Sockets
15. Various Artists: After Dark
16. The Good, the Bad, and the Queen: The Good, the Bad, and the Queen
17. Lucky Soul: The Great Unwanted
18. The Tough Alliance: New Waves EP
19. Air France: On Trade Winds EP
20. The Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters

PLUS:
A Sunny Day in Glasgow: Scribble Mural Comic Journal
The Clientele: God Save the Clientele
Dan Deacon: Spiderman of the Rings
Gruff Rhys: Candylion
Gui Boratto: Chromophobia
Dinosaur Jr.: Beyond
King Khan & the Shrines: What Is?!
The Postmarks: The Postmarks
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop Por Vous
The Crayon Fields: Animal Bells
Sakert!: Sakert!
Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Blitzen Trapper: Wild Mountain Nation
Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity
The National: Boxer
Electrelane: No Shouts, No Calls
The Studio: Yearbook 1
Okkervil River: The Stage Names (probably with a bullet)
Taken By Trees: Open Fields
Pantha Du Prince: This Bliss
David Torn: Prezens
Marnie Stern: In Advance of the Broken Arm
Bowerbirds: Hymns for a Dark Horse
Matthew Dear: Asa Breed
The Tuss: Rushup Edge EP
Lil Wayne: The Greatest Rapper Alive
The Manhattan Love Suicides: The Manhattan Love Suicides
Junior Boys: Dead Horse EP
Young Jeezy: The Inspiration
No Age: Weirdo Rippers
Klaxons: Klaxons
Kathy Diamond: Miss Diamond to You
The Capstan Shafts: Her Versus the Sad Cold Eventually
Liars: Liars
!!!: Myth Takes
No Age: Weirdo Rippers
Sea and Cake: Everybody
Frog Eyes: Tears of the Valedictorian
A-Trak: Dirty South Dance
Ne-Yo: Because of You
Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity
Grinderman: Grinderman
Nas: Hip-Hop Is Dead
Stars of the Lid: And Their Refinement of the Decline
Ricardo Villalobos: Fizheuer Zieheuer
Arctic Monkeys: Favourite Worst Nightmare
Amerie: Because I Love It
Swizz Beatz: One Man Band Man
Boris with Michio Kurihara: Rainbow


Want you to turn the lights off, me on.
Gorillaz vs. Men Without Hats: The Safety Dance

TOO SOON TO CALL:
Animal Collective, Super Furry Animals, all the stuff I really like that I forgot

THE CHAMP IS HERE

Justify all your phases.
Indeep: Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

The "Draft Alan Keyes" movement is totally on. From a right-wing mailing list to which I happen to subscribe:

Dear Friends of Alan Keyes,

Several times a week, we at RenewAmerica receive messages from moral conservatives and concerned citizens encouraging Alan Keyes to run for president in 2008 (messages we pass on to him).

Typically, these messages express dissatisfaction with the current field of candidates and ask Alan to enter the Republican primaries--the most wide-open presidential race in 60 years...

In response to these expressions of confidence in Alan, we've launched a new website--AlanKeyes.com--to rally support for Alan's possible candidacy.

Alan believes that the American people are the key to restoring and sustaining a renewal of the values that are essential to the future of our nation. He has therefore assured us that if enough grassroots support exists for him to run, he is prepared to run.

The bold and italics are both theirs. Music fans may remember Alan Keyes (who unsuccessfully ran against Barack Obama in his 2004 Senate bid) as the 2000 Republican presidential candidate who dove into a mosh pit at a Rage Against the Machine show. An even more conservative candidate, Gary Bauer, later criticized Keyes for supporting an "anti-family" and "pro-terrorist" band called "The Machine Rages On."

Good news for David Broder, would-be Xgau of all political pundits, who won't have to be bored anymore. But bad news, too, because the good Dean might have to wake up from his long multi-decade nap.

Plus: Wingnuts react!

FAITHLESS NOW, JUST GOT SOUL

Herds of nerds stubbornly compete to become king of a fantasy world.
Professor Brothers: History Lesson #1
(by Brad Neely, who also did this)


A reader recently e-mailed me with a smart question about my Pitchfork review of the great new Cub reissues.

READER: Just wondering what source you took the idea from for your conclusion on the Cub reissues review:

"It's been said that you can reason someone into believing in God, but you can't reason them out of it, and I wonder if it's the same way with true love: Once you've taken that leap of faith, does everything change?"

...[F]or some reason, the first part of your conclusion sent me off on some sort of mental/intellectual/odyssey thing...

I'd actually had a very specific piece in mind, and the e-mail caused me to go back and revisit it. I was thinking of a fantastic article by John Jeremiah Sullivan called "Upon This Rock", which appeared in GQ and was featured in Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2006. A lengthy feature on a Christian music festival, it includes the evocative passage below.

SULLIVAN: Belief and nonbelief are two giant planets, the orbits of which don't touch. Everything about Christianity can be justified within the context of Christian belief. That is, if you accept its terms. Once you do, your belief starts modifying the data (in ways that are themselves defensible, see?), until eventually the data begin to reinforce belief. The precise moment of illogic can never be isolated and may not exist. Like holding a magnifying glass at arm's length and bringing it toward your eye: Things are upside down, they're upside down, they're right side up. What lay between? If there was something, it passed too quickly to be observed. This is why you can never reason true Christians out of faith. It's not, as the adage has it, because they were never reasoned into it-- many were-- it's that faith is a logical door which locks behind you. What looks like a line of thought is steadily warping into a circle, one that closes with you inside. If this seems to imply that no apostate was ever a true Christian and that therefore, I was never one, I think I'd stand by both of those statements.

I hope I didn't just give away the ending.
Gui Boratto: Beautiful Life (cross-posted from Pitchfork)

Elsewhere:

Maureen Dowd on George Tenet: "If you have something deadly important to say, say it when it matters, or just shut up and slink off." Cool, but what if you've never had anything deadly important to say in an entire career as a professional political scrivener? Then you make up NASCAR-related quotes and call Democrats sissy girls. Dowd's not a misogynist, you see.

Fellow NYTer Frank Rich's Sunday column, "Earth to G.O.P.: The Gipper Is Dead" probably gets a pass from most of his readers because it bashes conservatives. Rich is playing for the right partisan team or whatever, but he's just so clearly unburdened by concepts like "truth" or "logic" that it's pretty hard to imagine what-- other than no doubt unparalleled social connections-- even qualifies the dude for his job. The Republican convention looks like a country club? Look at the Democratic candidates just eight years ago: white males only. Approving Matthew Dowd namedrop? Apparently, all supposedly cynical political journalists are required ignore the fact that a guy who changed from Democratic to Republican to work for now-President Bush might now, with Bush's poll numbers mired at Nixonian levels, have a professional motivation to turn on dear leader. Then there's Rich's bewildering construction on immigration.

RICH: The sole piece of compassionate conservatism that Mr. Bush has tried not to sacrifice to political expedience — nondraconian immigration reform — is also on the ropes, done in by a wave of xenophobia that he has failed to combat. Just how knee-jerk this strain has become could be seen in the MSNBC debate when Chris Matthews asked the candidates if they would consider a constitutional amendment to allow presidential runs by naturalized citizens like their party’s star governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger (an American since 1983), and its national chairman, Senator Mel Martinez of Florida. Seven out of 10 said no.

Um, so Republican presidential candidates wouldn't fulfill Chris Matthews' thigh-rubbing fantasies and tell him the muscular dude, not they, should be president. Why was he even asking this question, again? And does this really show "xenophobia"?

Ah, the true soul of your Washington press corps. David Broder, would-be Xgau of All Pundits, on one terrifying possibility of the upcoming Presidential primary schedule: "The time from February to Labor Day will be boring beyond belief." Priorities, priorities. (via Bob Somerby)


I've always dreamed of moving to Pakistan or India and becoming a cab driver.
Edwyn Collins and Paul Quinn: Pale Blue Eyes (Velvet Underground cover)


The New Republic's Clay Risen plays the role of a silly, logic-twisting political pundit: "Barack Obama is playing the role of the 'grassroots candidate'" he writes. "Obama plays the people's choice," Risen adds a graf later. In between, he cites the huge number of donors Obama boasts, indicating that the Illinois senator is, indeed, a candidate with grassroots support-- not just playing the role of one on TV. Oh no, some of the people who give to liberal Democrats are rich. Hedge fund managers, in fact. JOHN EDWARDS GETS EXPENSIVE HAIRCUTS! At one point, Risen even acknowledges that, in fact it's "somewhat inaccurate to lump [hedge fund managers] in with 'Wall Street,'" but two grafs later, he complains, "It's strange to see someone so young and so, well, liberal raking it in on the Street." Apparently, liberals are only allowed to get donations from poor people.

Meanwhile, TNR writer Thomas Edsall's report on the possibility Rudy Giuliani can not only win the Republican nomination, but reshape the party and win over Reagan Democrats is pretty terrifying to anybody concerned with civil rights and not going to additional misguided wars launched by complete fucking idiots. BTW, what's with Republicans and men who publicize their Viagra use?


Apparently "Mercury rising" is not a common expression everyone uses to indicate that they are going to get drinks and go clubbing.
Shop Boyz: Party Like a Rock Star (Tom Breihan's take)

Back at Pitchfork, Jess Harvell totally nails his assessments of two of the year's big albums, new LPs by Dan Deacon and Battles.

Woebot delivers a Panda Bear mix.

P.S. Anybody know how to keep the the blockquotes code in blogger from completely throwing off the font for the rest of a post?