Soundscape #10: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?

Robert Doisneau. Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville, 1950.

Congrats, Michelle and Zoli

There are many many evils that mankind's capable of. We are probably the biggest bane that Earth has ever known, leaving destruction and chaos everywhere but perhaps what has set us apart from mere animals is our potential to do the opposite as well. Funnily enough, with our heightened awareness honed from generations of self-centeredness, or perhaps in spite of it, we still can't see the irony of going out to war against our own kind and going home to our loved ones at the end of the day.

By all logic, man should not have been able to survive for this long but perhaps love, or rather, the notion of love, is the one thing saving us from self-annihilation. Despite all the evils that man does, he is also capable of doing good. I'm not going to expound on the vagaries of love nor its power since I'm neither a cynic nor a poet. But this week's soundscape (tries to) celebrate love and the life together that two individuals have vowed to forever keep.



Track Listing:
1. (0:00) Bright Eyes - First Day Of My Life (Buy I'm Awake It's Morning)
2. (3:02) The Arcade Fire - Crown Of Love (Buy Funeral)
3. (7:41) Saturday Looks Good To Me - Since You Stole My Heart (Buy Every Night)
4. (10:32) Bloc Party - So Here We Are (Buy Silent Alarm)
5. (14:21) Belle & Sebastian - If You Find Yourself Caught In Love (Buy Dear Catastophe Waitress)
6. (18:34) John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman - My One And Only Love (Buy S/T)
7. (23:34) Elliott Smith - Say Yes (Buy Either/Or)
8. (25:48) Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Follow You Into The Dark (Buy Plans)
9. (28:58) Yo La Tengo - You Can Have It All (Buy And Then Nothing Turns Itself Inside Out)
10. (33:35) Radiohead - True Love Waits (Buy I Might Be Wrong)
11. (38:42) Teenage Fanclub - Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From (Buy Songs From Northern Britain)
12. (42:10) The Magnetic Fields - It's Only Time (Buy I)

Soundscape #9: In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream

Damien Hirst. The Acquired Inability To Escape, 1992.

There's a printout tacked on my cubicle wall that says "Six Tips for Happiness"; my favourite is the one that says "give yourself permission to be human." It's a little new age-y no doubt but I guess when we reject what we feel (pissed off, sad, fucked up, angry) as immature or unimportant, or simply that "it will pass," you have to wonder which part of you is still "human."

Looking around my little cage, there are articles like "Breath and Stress Reduction" and "10 exercises to do at the computer," scribbled phone numbers to bookstores and music stores (read: escape routes) right above my phone, work/production schedules though my work calendar only has every Tuesday filled out... with the music releases for that week.

Whether we like it or not, cube life is increasingly becoming the standard OS. You can set the clock just by the things I do throughout the day. Granted the routine supposedly provides a stability for our lives so that we can take the time to venture "creatively" outside our comfort zones but I'm so fucking tired from the day-to-day that the routine has somehow become a crutch I keep tripping over. I find myself planning my entire life around work and often saying no to friends who want to meet up for dinner simply cos it's a weeknight and I'm just too fucking tired.



Track Listing:
1. (0:00) Tegan And Sara - Monday Monday Monday (Buy If It Was You)
2. (3:15) The Arcade Fire - Wake Up (Buy Funeral)
3. (8:50) Manic Street Preachers - La Tristesse Durer (Scream To A Sigh) (Buy Gold Against The Soul)
4. (12:57) British Sea Power - Something Wicked (Buy The Decline Of British Sea Power)
5. (15:69) Bedhead - Exramundane (Buy Transaction De Novo)
6. (18:73) The Decemberists - Everything I Try To Do, Nothing Seems To Turn Out Right (Buy Billy Liar EP)
7. (22:76) Jarvis Cocker - Cunts Are Still Running The World (Upcoming Solo Album)
8. (27:24) Radiohead - No Surprises (KROQ Breakfast Acoustic Session)
9. (30:83) Nine Inch Nails - Every Day Is Exactly The Same (Buy With Teeth)
10. (35:37) Secret Machines - Nowhere Again (Buy Now Here Is Nowhere)
11. (39:53) Bright Eyes - The Center Of The World (Buy Fevers And Mirrors)
12. (43:96) The Postal Service - Recycled Air (Buy Give Up)
13. (48:25) Radiohead - Fitter Happier (Buy Ok Computer)

Soundscape #8: Libraries Give Us Power

The Reading Room at the British Museum.

Dedicated to the memory of Jacques Derrida (July 15,1930-October 8, 2004).

The previous post about randomness got me thinking about its opposite, the ultimate in anal-retentiveness--the library and the dewey decimal system. If you think about it logically, do we really need libraries anymore? Everything we can possibly want to know is already online, google-able and copy-and-paste-able...is it not? But I doubt that will ever happen. There's a sense of permanence attached to libraries in general even as they are modernising themselves to keep up with the changing times. Even if you can look up the title on an online catalog and have the book delivered to your doorstep, it won't ever beat the very real feeling of looking up a catalog number yourself and walking the entire length of an aisle, or across the library floor, scouring the shelves and tilting your head just that little bit to the right, all the while chanting the Call Number to yourself, just in case you forget.

I love libraries, some more than others. It all depends on the vibe that it has; that's what gives it character. I love the tapping sound of shoes as their owners gingerly climb the old rickety staircase at Oldham Library and its dark shelves that are almost sagging under the weight of the books. I remember feeling enchanted by the gothic vibe at Manchester Library where you keep thinking that it's really dark along the aisles even though there is sufficient lighting, which makes you feel that you can somehow disappear into another world among its shelves. But even as there are libraries that embrace you for whoever you are, there are some that hold you at arm's length, with its über modern facilities and gallery-like spaces. The vibe here is clinical, professional and highly efficient no doubt but also very anal and rigid, as if someone is lying in wait for you to fuck up just so that they can tell you to leave the premises immediately.

My absolute favourite, however, is the Reading Room at the British Museum. To say that it's awe-inspiring just doesn't do it justice. I think it's pure unadulterated awe itself, to be able to stand in the middle of the world, time and history itself, all carefully catalogued for you to discover. I remember my heart skipping a beat as I try and process the timeless grandeur of the place where Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde and Gandhi once stood with probably the same jaw-dropping delight.



Track Listing:
1. (0:00) Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life (Buy Everything Must Go)
2. (4:16) Wolf Parade - I'll Believe In Anything (Buy Apologies To The Queen Mary)
3. (8:52) Margot & The Nuclear So And So's - Quiet As A Mouse (Buy The Dust Of Retreat)
4. (12:88) The Envy Corps - Sylvia [The Beekeeper] (Buy I Will Write You Love Letters If You Tell Me To)
5. (15:98) Belle & Sebastian - Wrapped Up In Books (Buy Dear Catastrophe Waitress)
6. (19:32) Death Cab For Cutie - Debate Exposes Doubt (Buy The Photo Album)
7. (23:68) We Are Scientists - Textbook (Buy With Love And Squalor)
8. (27:69) Matt Pond PA - Silence (Buy Green Fury)
9. (30:09) Pavement - Gold Sounds (Buy Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain)
10. (32:48) The Weakerthans - Our Retired Explorer (Buy Reconstruction Site)
11. (34:71) Radiohead - Stop Whispering (Buy Pablo Honey)
12. (39:96) Yo La Tengo - I Heard You Looking (Buy Painful)

Soundscape #7: "Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From? They Just Appear"

Damien Hirst. Opium, 2000.

Classic, classic line from Empire Records. It sounds retarded, sure, but I love the line, I love the movie. Was it really that good a movie though? I thought so when I first watched it. Maybe it's just easier to like something when you were younger and everything seems so new and fresh and exciting.

When we were younger, it seemed ok not to have everything make sense. Randomness was just another fact of life, a good thing even. But as we got older, somehow it seems harder to just let random stay random. Everything has got to mean something in the grand scheme of things somehow and everything has to be labelled or categorised. It's so stifling! This week's soundscape sticks a finger up at this dewey system of living one's life and celebrates randomness the way it's supposed to be: random.



Track Listing:
1. (0:00) Of Montreal - Disconnect The Dots (Buy Satanic Panic In The Attic)
2. (4:25) Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes (Buy Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production Of Eggs)
3. (6:77) Spoon - I Summon You (Buy Gimme Fiction)
4. (10:32) Bloc Party - Little Thoughts (Buy Little Thoughts/Tulips Single)
5. (13:62) Evan Dando - My Idea (Buy Baby I'm Bored)
6. (15:96) The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?? (Buy Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots)
7. (19:28) The Thermals - How We Know (Buy Fuckin A)
8. (22:46) The Go! Team - Feel Good By Numbers (Buy Thunder, Lightning, Strike)
9. (24:04) The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You (Buy I)
10. (27:44) The Strokes - Is This It? (Buy Is This It?)

You can also download the episode here.