Listening to Music to take Music to.

I stood in my natural habitat. Fluorescent light shone brightly, doing a good job approximating actual sunlight. Dub Reggae emanated from the speakers, giving the small room a tropical vibe. 

Each record I saw I explained to my friend standing next to me. Bizarrely, a few random people asked me for help, like I worked in the place. Having that small acknowledgment was nice, I’m happy to explain the joys of Slint’s Spiderland any day of the week. Everyone should learn about the alternative to the Seattle scene, the Louisville, KY scene in the early 90s. 

I wonder how much longer my musical addiction, affliction last for? I’ve seen all the movies that try to give me some sort of reasonable answer and I’m worried. None of those movies seem to depict me at all. There barely seems to be a movie based off of musical addictions occurring digitally. It always is focused on some record store or being in a band, etc. Physical stores aren’t things that really exist anymore, sorry “High Fidelity”. As cool as you appeared to be in the movies, most people don’t start record stores anymore. Excluding a few beautiful, lovely stores like Other Music, they largely have fallen by the wayside. 

Greenberg worries me a bit more. Rather than show musical addiction as something to be celebrated, like High Fidelity did, it shows the downside. Instead of connecting to others through his musical interests, Greenberg ends up getting lost inside his own head. Each time he makes a reference, nobody gets it. I tried explaining my worry about this happening to a friend and he told me “Don’t worry; I don’t get your references even now”. So thanks for that vote of confidence. 

Greenberg’s 40 and completely aimless. After breaking up his own band out of idealism, he can barely connect to those few people in his life that he should. Perhaps what happens after being so hopeful is an eventual burnout. It doesn’t happen instantly. Time passes and slowly joy for the new fades, like how Bedhead sings “But this year I think I’d rather be a relic/than part of the present”. I’ve often had rooftop discussions with those lamenting the better, older music, and how “nothing good happens anymore”. Lately I’m growing weary of the negativity to some degree, since I think music is one of my purest joys, unaltered by anything overwhelmingly awful. 

 When does that point come though, of pure musical weariness, of that yearning for the old? That ought to be something I can prepare for, like having an IPOD on you at all times in case of emergency. If you need to ask what sort of emergency, you’re probably not that big of a music snob. I should have some delicious, gross junk food near me for when that happens, like Pizza Combos or Lindt Dark Chocolate. 

There’s so much research to do for music too. Sure, it has become easier to read reviews, and compare various sites with one other, to get a better idea of who suits your interests. Entire sites equally divvy up amounts of “buzz”, trying to cool your interests hip and relevant. And before you say that “Oh, people just get a general idea from them” I’ve been to parties where people read Pitchfork so religiously that they know exactly what score each and every album got for the past year, even albums they never actually listened to. 

Finally, to give some sort of closure, I wonder about how people treat me. Am I just a curiosity, reeling off bands like a catalog, complete with blurbs for each, or am I a human being? Or am I slowly losing myself in the midst of so much sounds, so much music, that I become a musical Slothrop? That I constantly seek out that perfect album, that perfect music. That each morning I wake up, check Boomkat, check Pitchfork, check Tiny Mixtapes, and check various blogs, etc. looking for my 00000. People try to help me with this problem, with this search, trying to drag back into working, but I might just go down one of those creative routes, never to return. 

We’ll see, hopefully this will help those who wonder the same thing as they endlessly spew out musical references, sorting through the thousands upon thousands of songs, looking for that special one. Perhaps the same could be said for people too, you know, the whole “Special Someone” bit. 

But no matter what, Other Music, right near Cooper Union, you’ll always be forever loved in my heart.

An American Hero: Ghost Writer for the Situation's New Book

 

Ghostwriters are anonymous people, floating around, hoping to earn enough money to pay the rent for a while. Usually they are decent writers who are simply working on their own stuff which might be a harder (or longer sell). Just because they have been unable to achieve commercial success doesn’t mean that they are failures. Far from it, they are troopers, continuing to slog through the muck, even working on books they aren’t interested in, in order to make ends meet.

That brings us to the Ghost Writer at hand. “Here’s the Situation” a book supposedly written by the Situation, one Mike Sorrentino of “The Jersey Shore” fame, works better than most ghost written books. Besides just having an over-the-top main character basically bragging throughout 153 pages, there’s that irony. And it is the ghost writer’s complete distain and open mockery of the Situation that brings this book up beyond bathroom book reading.

Irony has been done to death in writing of late. Usually this may be in part to its easy use. By keeping an ironic distance between yourself and your subject matter, you can sort of say “Just Kidding” in case the effort fails. It is a vulnerable sort of technique. Here though, it shines like pure gold.

Above you can see the ridiculous sort of language used. This one is about fist pumping and it even is helpful enough to include diagrams, in case you were too stupid to figure out how fist pumping works. By using words like “corpuscle” and “Battle it, bro” the ghost writer allows us to be in on the joke of “this guy is a total douche bag, isn’t he?” while still making it good enough for the Situation to approve. 

Most likely, we’ll never know who wrote this intentionally hilarious book. Whenever there’s a ghost writer for a subject so vapid and devoid of anything resembling intelligence, a non-disclosure agreement is signed. That means the publisher knows that it is an ironic, stupid, tacky book, and you can giggle to yourself about it, but you can never let anyone know.

That’s perfectly OK though. Heavy irony works best with the only two groups likely to buy this book:

1.       People who truly love the Jersey Shore. These people don’t understand how truly sad they are, and why there are people “hating” on them for being so ridiculous. Usually these people live in some alternate universe where people like “The Situation” are revered like folk heroes.

2.       People who truly hate the Jersey Shore. They will purchase the book purely for ironic purposes. At parties, they’ll read it to groups of friends who are also in on the joke. Everybody will get a good laugh as they drink PBR and watch awful 80s films, like anything with Ernest. 

Going on Amazon or searching for the book, you already see the two sides lining up. Most of the internet consists of the latter group, so you’re more likely to see such things as “Signs of the Apocalypse” and “When will his fifteen minutes be up?” My favorite has to be the Amazon tag for this as “euthanasia”. 

The ghost writer is so good that he has answers for this lazy criticism: “Haters: It’s been more than 15 minutes. The apocalypse is a multi-step process, bitches.” So the ghost writer knows how important it is that this succeeds. It may or may not; depending on how much of the Situation’s fan base can read. Sometimes I wonder whether or not the Situation is self-aware about how ridiculous he is, like some sort of meta-Joaquin Phoenix kind of deal. Reading the Amazon description of the book doesn’t exactly allay my fears either:

“Here's how to get your situation up to the level of the Situation

Listen, dawg. You're probably hitting the gym, doing your tanning, and picking up fresh laundry every day. And maybe you've had some success beating up the beat and creeping on chicks in the club. But do you really think your situation is where it needs to be? Be honest with yourself, bro.

this book here will take your game to a level thought unattainable, given your physical limitations (because we can't all look like Rambo, pretty much, with our shirt off). We start with GTL-the bedrock of life itself. And then we hit the GTL Remix-the rules for getting your personal grooming did. From there it's my guide to the Jersey Shore, battle plans for the club, a primer on grenades and wingmen, and tips for ridding yourself of all levels of clinger. Then I look at the big picture: how to cook the perfect lasagna, how to find a life partner, and how to deal with being one of the most famous people on the planet-which is guaranteed if you follow my advice.

This is the bible for Situation Nation. Read it, live it, and crush it. ”

I feel that if the Ghost Writer is capable of such absolutely ridiculous statements that he might want to try his hand in writing some sort of updated version of “Catch 22” except instead of World War II it would be about the shallowness of modern life. Most of the book reads like some sort of high-minded satire against its very subject. 

Kudos ghost writer, you have made the world a better place. Perhaps in some future point you’ll finally publish that bizarre ultra-ironic story you’ve always dreamed of.

Book Review: Mason & Dixon **Warning Spoilers!**

Thomas Pynchon rightly earned the reputation of being one of America’s most bizarre authors. Among his other accomplishments includes avoiding photographs, interviews, book signings, indeed all those things that authors tend to subject themselves to. Reading his books, you don’t feel like the guy is a recluse, you get the feeling that he doesn’t care at all about those aspects. By focusing exclusively on research and insanely intricate plots, he allows his talents to flourish with virtually no outside interference.

                Mason & Dixon took me longer to read than any of his other books. Various deadlines kept on creeping me, asking me to meet them. I did, and the book suffered as a result. Also, since his prose tends to be extremely dense, it gives you a lot to ponder. Easily a page of his work might be an entire short story or novella for a less weird author. But Pynchon doesn’t work at being normal, he excels at being different, at being smart, at being able to graduate high school early and just dive deep into another universe it would seem.

                Uncharacteristically, he pays close attention to the character’s feelings and emotions. Mason and Dixon are better fleshed out than any other character he’d ever sketched before, whether it is Slothrop  or the Whole Sick Crew. You really feel for Mason’s melancholy, his inability to connect with his children. And you feel for Dixon and his sympathy for those downtrodden souls he constantly encounters. Paranoia and goofiness still loom large over the narrative (those are his calling cards) but they don’t overtake it. Rather, they form a nice background for these two very real individuals.

                I’m familiar with most of his work, but this has the feel of one of his greats, up there with both my adored V. and, of course, Gravity’s Rainbow. Reading his work always has this calming effect over me. When I first read his work, I started almost tearing up. Just the fact that you can write like this and it’s fully acceptable is so gratifying. Usually when I read something I have to keep in mind “Oh, it has to adhere to this rule or that rule, blah” With his work, I feel like it is purely free of almost any another concern, he writes it exactly how he wants and people try to get it. If they get it great, but usually people get burned out and fail before they finish. 

                Don’t stop with this book. Gain the strength to read it if you are one of those that always tries and fails to read it. What happens at the very end reflects a lot of the emotions Pynchon felt now that he had become a father. Mason becomes less melancholy and must cheer up his formerly bubbly colleague Dixon. After Dixon dies, Mason connects with his children in a way he worried he never would. The previous journeys mentioned earlier in the novel gain a yellowish, nostalgic hue. Mason passes away and his children take up his steed. It is such a satisfying ending, seeing the multiple perspectives upon perspectives that the story takes on. 

                Unlike most of his books, it feels like he really knew these characters or at least based it off of people he cared about. The characters work as fully fledged human beings, with worries and concerns. Seeing the end, you understand that it is probably the first time Pynchon has wanted us to see how (relatively) normal people go through life. Stencil was a weirdo. Slothrop went slowly insane, despite the help of all those around him. Mason and Dixon lived a strange life, filled to the brim with obscure geography, but lived as good people. As people you know, people you want to care about. Those who claim that Pynchon doesn’t care about his characters, that he’s too emotionally detached to his material, I’d point to this book, ask them to read, and then continue that line of argument. They couldn’t and that’s why you should read it too. Postmodernism does have a heart and this is easily the best of Pynchon's late work.