The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

I wrote this for class about Rainer Maria Rilke's book, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge:

I have been talking about this book to my friends the way I used to talk about the Bible, "You have to read this book. Right now.” It was a revelation of the power and beauty and possibility of metaphor in prose; the way the world can be so clearly evoked by describing it in a completely foreign way: death becomes an entity inside everyone or a coat they must put on; buildings and footsteps and take on a mysterious life of their own. Metaphor is almost too small a word for the things that Rilke writes in this book. The word metaphor reminds me of high school English classes, while Malte's metaphors take on a life of their own. They lend everything a surreal quality until Malte's world becomes a strange place full of secrets.

As I read this book I felt something between anger and astonishment, not at the book, but at all those who have read this book and neglected to tell me about it. But perhaps it would not have meant so much if I had read it earlier. This fall I turned 28, and moved to New York to begin, I hope, something like a career in writing, so when Malte writes "I think I should being to do some work, now that I am learning to see. I am twenty-eight years old, and I have done practically nothing," I felt the thrill of recognition. The beauty of his language and clarity of his thought never ceased to challenge and inspire me.

Dirty Projectors

I tried to resist. I kept hearing about the Dirty Projectors from the various blogs I read. But I knew that if I listened to them, and they were as good as everyone said they were, I wouldn't be able to resist buying their album. Now that I have started purchasing a lot of music digitally, it's just too easy. No money actually exchanges hands. I don't even have to hand anyone my credit card. I just click a button, and then a few days later my account tells me I'm over budget again. Easy.

But finally, I broke down and looked them up on youtube. The jumpy guitar sounds like something Kanya West might sample, the vocals somewhere between R&B and indie rock, and I'm kind of addicted.

My Late Last Year List

The problem with "Best of" lists is that for those of us with limited resources and time only listen/watch/read a small portion of stuff that's been produced this year. I've listened to all the All Songs Considered podcasts, I guess, but I haven't heard half the bands on the Pitchfork list of the best of 2009. So, instead, I'll give you a list of ten bands I loved. They're not the best of the year, but they are the ones I listened to over and over again, in no particular order.

Blind Pilot - 3 Rounds and a Sound

Sad, quiet, hard to resist good acoustic stuff. Makes me think of breakups and slow dances.

Volcano Choir

Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) teams up with Colletions of Colonies of Bees and makes this spectacular, buzzy, weird goodness. Makes me want to hear what else Justin Vernon can do.

Akron/Family - Set 'em wild, set 'em free

Wild, sing out loud, blissful folk weirdness. Listened a couple of these songs over and over and over again at the office, in the car, and in the subway.

Avett Brothers - I and Love and You

Just discovered this one recently. Sometimes lovely and sad, sometimes twangy, always great.

Benjamin Wesley - Geschichte

This guy works at my favorite coffee shop in Houston. Tuneful melodies and songs sometimes as raw as his voice. Saw him play two guitars at once at Cactus music, which was cool.

Wild Yaks - 10 Ships (Don't Die Yet)

Something about these guys yelling almost makes me want to cry. Saw this band in Brooklyn by accident. Heartfelt, barely in control, I love it.

Regina Spektor - Far Sometimes an album just fits a moment in your life. I listened to this over and over again until I couldn't anymore. One of the best storytellers out there writing songs.

Le Loup - Family

Not as experimental or as thrilling as their last album, the chorus of voices over banjos, guitars, and thumping drums is still worth a listen (or a bunch of listens).

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Why even bother writing about them. Everyone else is doing it. It's happy, brilliant fun.

Bon Iver - Blood Bank

Two Justin Vernon projects in one list, I know. But he's writing some of the best songs out there, if you like droopy, strummy, beautiful music. I do, and I can't get enough.

Pomplamoose

I'm debating whether or not to buy their CD, but I want to be their friend (which would probably entail buying their CD). Check out their youtube channel here, or their cover of Single Ladies below

I'm a Pop Culture Junkie

Some seriously bad stuff is happening in the world right now. Children are starving and women are oppressed and gay people can't get married in America. The ice caps are melting and there are two wars going on and millions of people are watching Glenn Beck on a regular basis.

Then why, when I am at home or have a few spare minutes at work, do I spend all my time writing and reading about Pop Culture. Shouldn't I be doing something about war and poverty and right wing nut jobs? Yes, I probably should, but instead I gravitate toward NPR music. I read the reviews of television episodes on avclub.com (television reviews?! Who reads television reviews? I do, guess). I go to the New York Times page, and unfailingly end up on the Movies page. What did the president say in his speech today? I don't' know, but Pitchfork gave the new Animal Collective album an 8.9!

Is this a problem? Am I a shallow human being?

Well, yes, probably. And I'm lazy. Keeping up with health care reform and climate change and whether Joe Lieberman is really as awful as he seems to be takes all this work. You have to worry about facts (unless you work for Fox News). When it comes to music and television and art it's almost all opinion. All of us are little pop-culture Glenn Becks, each with our own agendas and fake tears. Just like Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories, it's all in our head.

Now that the year is ending there are all these Best Of Lists everywhere. I have to admit, I love these lists. I've spent much more time than I'd like to admit pouring over these lists, agreeing, disagreeing, discovering new music and books. And with the 00's ending too, Best of the Decade Lists clogging the internet arteries with empty, pop-culture calories.

When it's pointed out to me that this might be a waste of time, or I begin to realize that these list makers might know a whole lot more about music or books or whatever than I do, I just remember that, well, it's just pop culture. It's really not important.

The Wild Yaks

Looking for this club in Brooklyn I came across a couple of guys who had just left the Yankees game, drunk, yelling up to a girl hanging out of her second floor window. They were asking directions to the same bar I was, somewhere on East 2nd St. It turned out we were on West 2nd St. I wandered down along the sticky asphalt of a newly paved street with these middle aged Yankees fans as they yelled at each other and stumbled around. "We're a little high," they explained.

We found the club, unmarked, and I looked for my friend as they tried to convince the bouncer to let them in despite the tar all over their shoes. We waited around for an hour for Suckers, the band we had come to hear. Suckers is a great band with big, jangly, sing-along choruses, but I got tired and left before they played. Fortunately, I did stick around long enough to hear The Wild Yaks.

I love bands that sound like they're just on the edge of losing it: all cracked voices and worn guitar stings. Some of these bands write quiet, acoustic songs, like Bon Iver, but still sound like they might break down at any moment under the weight of all that emotion. Then there are bands like The Wild Yaks, who half yell, half sing and strum their guitars as if they're barely in control of their limbs. I especially love River May Come. A drunken chorus of voices fills the the melancholy lyrics about mortality with that bar-closing sadness you feel after a fantastic night out with your buddies.

You can download it here.

Guerrilla Philanthropy

Sneaky, sneaky Children International. Guerrilla philanthropists. They are young and attractive and they stand there at 5th and Broadway acting like they know you. They have no clipboards, no flyers, nothing to warn you.

So now I'm sponsoring a kid in the Philippines.

Some girl, who looked confusingly like my girlfriend in a knit cap and scarf and wool coat, motioned me toward her. By the time I realized that I did not know this person I had given her my credit card so that they can send twenty two of my dollars (22! I thought she said ten!) to a poor kid.

There are worse ways to be suckered, I guess. I would have liked to do some research. Is sponsoring an individual child really the best way to change the world? What about community based activism? But who am I kidding, I never would have gotten around to it.

I received some stats on him with a picture. He has this terrified smile on his face, like someone has forced him to smile for the American. He's 11 and lives with his mother in a concrete house with one bed and a wood burning stove. They've got electicity and running water but their "sanitary facility" is an "open field." (This Slate article I read about a year ago convinced me that sanitation is a big deal).

So maybe my money can help this kid a little. But now I'm getting these cloying letters from Children International about being "part of the family" and they sent a paper photo stand that says "My sponsored child is someone special." They're encouraging me to visit him someday, implying that I'm in it for the long haul. And How could I stop giving him money? Seems like he'd notice. I'm afraid they'd take back the mattress or toilet or whatever they get him with the money I'm sending.

I'm nervous about the letters they're going to force this poor kid to send to me. Do I have to write him back? I want impersonal giving. Not guilt fueled philanthropy in which I have to practically adopt a kid. He doesn't need me, he just needs my money and someone who knows what to do with it. I'm ok with that.

When some girl in a green jacket motioned to me on the street I blurted "I"ve already sponsored a child!" It turned out she was with Greenpeace. "No, I do not have thirty seconds," I told her, imagining receiving a picture of my special sponsored squirrel in the mail, and took off running.