Piano / Stuff I'm Sad I'm Missing / Fucking Martha

Just worked through the theme and first variation of Beethoven's Sonata 12. Part of the reason I love Beethoven so much is those "what the fuck" moments: "Stacked fifths over here?" "Stacked fourths over there!?" "How long must you wait before throwing in accidentals and why do they make so much sense?" "Ocatves of Eb to D, then E, then F, G, Ab...in Eb major?" "This chord contains the top three notes of the Schoenberg chord..." "Is that a d diminished flat 9 over F!?! Passing dissonances my ass!" And yet even after plunking through a few sight-reads, it all finds its context in place. Fun stuff, although I kind of wanted to try for the tempest...heheh.

Because of a really really cool solo daytrip up to Montreal to see the big OP on Feb 20th, and a following rather expensive ticket to see Muse on Mar 6th, and a trip with friends soon after, I can't really justify any new concerts until like midapril. Which sucks, because so many good acts are coming through, even to the 18+ shows that I'll be able to head to now:

1/15 - Drug Rug
1/17 - Camper van Beethoven
1/27 - Of Montreal
2/10-11 - Magnetic Fields
2/13 - Tegan and Sara
2/18 - Editors
3/11 - Balkan Beat Box
2/20 - Fucked Up
3/27 - Spoon
3/27 - Toro y Moi (for $9, I'd do it, guy was sick on the Islands tour)
3/31 - Japandroids
3/31 - Miike Snow
4/3 - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
4/4 - Wilco
4/10 - Xiu Xiu
4/17 - Kaki King (eep)

1963
Aaaand Coakley is ruining everything because Brown knows how to appeal to the 30- and 40-somethings who were barely alive when Kennedy got elected, never had a sense of legacy about the Kennedy family, and are more pissed about their lost job or home than anything else. Fuck me.

Listening to Arcade Fire is both a Euphamism and a Literal Truth

And I'm avoiding Funeral like the plague because I only listen to that once a year, and I might break down entirely if I hear it. So I'm going through Neon Bible, Us Kids Know EP, Christmas EP, just finished a Glastonbury show...I'll queue up the White Session and the early Demo, and then play my rather large and redundant b-sides playlist ("brazil!").

I'm partway through a lyrical analysis post, and I'm really behind on a bunch of mixtapes. Gotta keep up, Aly.

Content: what I condsider to be my Arcade Fire "discography" (I never could find those rarer Neighborhood tracks:

LPs:

Funeral
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
Une Annee Sans Lumiere
Neighborhood #3 (Power out)
Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)
Crown of Love
Wake Up
Haiti
Rebellion (Lies)
In the Backseat

Neon Bible
Black Mirror
Keep the Car Running
Neon Bible
Intervention
Black Wave/Bad Vibrations
Ocean of Noise
The Well and the Lighthouse
(Antichrist Television Blues)
Windowsill
No Cars Go
My Body is a Cage

EPs / Singles:

Us Kids Know
Old Flame
I'm Sleeping in a Submarine
No Cars Go
The Woodlands National Anthem
My Heart is an Apple
Headlights Look Like Diamonds
Vampire/Forest Fire

The Arcade Fire + LCD Soundsystem Tour 7"
Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son (Serge Gainsbourg cover)

Rebellion (Lies)
Rebellion (Lies)
Brazil

Neighborhood #3
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) (Album Version)
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) (Alternate Take)

Keep the Car Running
Keep the Car Running
Broken Window

Christmas EP
Chestnuts Roasting
Oh Holy Night
Jinglebell Rock
A Very Arcade Xmas
It Clouded Fully (Brendan)
The Spartans (Brendan)
In the Attic (Boston)
Asleep at the Wheel
Old Flame
Submarine
In the Backseat
Headlights

Older Demos

2001 Demo (Boston?)
Winter for a Year
My Mind is a Freeway
Accidents
Goodnight Boy
Asleep at the Wheel
In the Attic
Can't Let Go of You
You Tried to Turn Away my Fears
Instrumental
The Great Arcade Fire

Demo Tape
Sonata
The Flood
Winter for A Year

Soundtracks

Six Feet Under Sountrack
Cold Wind

Assorted Collections

B-Sides (Collection)
Brazil (Live)
Virgin Mary Highway (Live)
Burning Bridges, Breaking Hearts (Live)
Asleep at the Wheel
Surf City Eastern Block (Live)
Alligator Mine (Live)
William Pierce (Live)
Cars and Telephones
Intervention (Live)
Intervention (Studio)

Covers (Collection)
Maps (Live Lounge)(Live)
Age of Consent (New Order)(Live)
Born on a Train (Magnetic Fields)(Live)
Guns of Brixton
Five Years (Bowie)(Live)
State Trooper (Springsteen)(Live)
Naive Melody (Talking Heads)(studio)
Naive Melody (Talking Heads(live)
Heroes (Bowie)

Live Shows

Download Festival 2005 (Live '05)
Intro
Wake Up
Laika
No Cars Go
Haiti
I'm Sleeping in a Submarine
State Trooper
Crown of Love
Tunnels
Power Out
Rebellion (Lies)
In the Backseat

Emo's in Austin, Texas (Live in '05)
Wake Up
Laika
No Cars Go
Headlights Look Like Diamonds
Une Annee Sans Lumiere
Power Out
Rebellion (Lies)
Born on a Train (Magnetic Fields Cover)
7 Kettles
Crown of Love
Tunnels
Naive Melody
Haiti
In the Backseat

KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic ('05)
Intro
Wake Up
7 Kettles
Vampire/Forest Fire
(Interview)
Intervention
Born on a Train (Magnetic Fields Cover)
In the Back Seat
Outro

White Sessions ('05)
Intro
Wake Up
Laika
No Cars Go
Une Annee Sans Lumiere
Power out
Rebellion (Lies)
7 Kettles
Crown of Love
Tunnels
Outro

Live at the Orpheum Theater, Boston (Live in '07)
Black Mirror
No Cars Go
Haiti
In The Backseat
Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)
My Body Is A Cage
Windowsill
The Well and The Lighthouse
Ocean of Noise
Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)
(Antichrist Television Blues)
Keep The Car Running
Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)
Rebellion (Lies)
Intervention
Neon Bible

Live at T.T. the Bear's, Cambridge (Live in '04)
Wake Up
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
Une Annee Sans Lumiere
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) / Rebellion (Lies)
Naive Melody (Talking Heads)
Haiti
Headlights Look Like Diamonds
Burning Bridges, Breaking Hearts
Crown of Love
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
No Cars Go
In the Backseat

Missing

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnles)
My Buddy (Alvino Rey Orchestra)(also available on the single for Neighborhood #2)

Intervention B/W Ocean of Noise
Intervention
Ocean of Noise (Calexo)

No Cars Go
No Cars Go
Surf City Eastern Bloc

Live EP with Davoid Bowie (iTunes release)
...

The Box (score)

Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?
Neighborhood #5 (Hockey)

Concert Review: Amanda Palmer with the Boston Pops

Sappy Yew Beer, everybody. I spent last night at the Pops with my ladyfriend. Amanda had played a show there in the past which my friend David saw, and he said it was amazing. Having been one of the folks who had tickets to her cancelled House of Blues show, we got express notice and a place in the VIP party. So after traversing Boston trying to keep warm in the parades, we made our way to symphony hall. Hoorah!

It was fun enough just sitting in line, waiting for people. The draw that Amanda has is intense and so deliciously eclectic. The goth idiom, the victorian idiom, the steampunk idiom, the fuck-organized-society idiom, and the do-crazy-shit-and-be-beautiful-and-creative idiom all melded together smoothly. Thankfully people got dressed up this time (as was not the case at shows of the Onion Cellar, for example), and so it was nice looking at the crossdressers and the subtle cosplayers and the generally wild and expressive folks in semi-formal, semi-distorted attire (the only full tuxes I saw were on those of the female sex). And that was all just the public! Amanda had all sorts of crazy art acts hopping about, including a coin operated cabaret act, a crazy rock group or two, and others. There was a surprisingly number of the fur-coated regular concertgoers as well, and even more surprisingly, I think only a small number of them walked out in the end. All of this was covered in a healthy dosage of party hats, noisemakers, and general badassery.

Amanda played two ukulele songs with Miss Tess' band at the VIP thingie, which was great to see. Musically it wasn't mindblowing, but she's a fine player, and more importantly she was clearly far, far, FAR into the "let's have a joyous paaaaaarty!" kind of place of mind. So it served to get me pumped up.

Pops went on at 10. I didn't realize that "a night at the pops with amanda palmer" meant "40 minutes of the pops, a 10 minute film, and then an hour of amanda," but they did a fine job. I've always likened the pops to a very serious prostitute who thinks he's an artist; that being said, if they are a very skilled prostitute. Their renditions of "The Imperial March," "Mack the Knife," "All That Jazz," "A Fifth of Beethoven," 3 tunes from Carmen, and an absolutely impeccable and heart-wrenching rendition of Bjork's "Overture" (to Dancer in the Dark, and with lyrics called "New Day," but never "Selmasongs," Keith). And then it was done. The songs were festive in nature, had a bit of nice flourish, and functions just as the pre-show festivities had: riling up and entertaining.

At around 11:00, a film directed by Neil Gaiman (five feet away from whom I was twice that night...I love that he's dating Amanda, they're perfect) came on, Statuesque. It's under the "10 Minute Tales" name, and a bunch of "illegal" (read: unlicensed) copies are floating around the internet (to Amanda's joy) to see. A fine piece of filmwork, Amanda does as fine a job as she did in With The Needle That Sings In Her Heart (such a good fucking show: pics and stream) and some of the highest resolution jam I have ever seen. More than one of the folks in that crowd had done living statue work before, and the theme was all a part of the anarchic creativity of that night. Niel gave a really heartwarming New Years wish all about dangerous dreams and unexpected invention and ambitious creativity (as well as kindness and wisdom, ha...a few moments later I got called a fag by some ruffled fiftysomething). So we were all in our "WILD THOUGHTS AND URGE TO MAKE ORGIASTIC CREATION" mode when Amanda popped on.

Started with Missed Me, beginning with the orchestra building it (and everybody going nuts) while Amanda readied herself in the back. In the recording, after she finishes a vocal progression ("If you...that must mean...etc.") there's a high minor second before the piano and drums jolt back into action. On each and every one of those (and a few other moments), a musician from the crowd (trumpeter, violinist, guy with duck beak, trombonist in the first balcony, and then Keith Lockhart with a moocow) started chasing Amanda around, and then she started leading them on. It was all very very sexual, which I think was mostly for the good. Amanda knows the shock value of sexuality, and so she plays shoes essentially in her underwear; I wish she was more expressive with her view of her body than just shock, but it really gave the air a spark. Song continued, all around well done. Very good showwomanship, fine playing.

Amanda's been talking about her Tchaikovsky piece for the pops that she'd been planning, and I didn't expect her to add any theatrics. But she had some guy's cell phone ring, made him come up and pretend to me not in the know, and then hop into full swing while she danced around. The piece did make clear her musical limitations. She is not a subtle pianist. She is a highly expressive musician, but she doesn't seem to have very many shades between piano and forte. Nevertheless, she and her slightly inebriated self (there was a small table with wine glasses and champagne on it...a good running gag) did a fine job. Interestingly, I know the man who was going to teach her that piece, and who was going to be the man in the crowd.

The same entrance to "A Fifth of Beethoven" served as the entrance (again, to riotous applause) for Coin-Operated Boy. The arrangement felt a bit contrived, but the percussion was very very good, as it was the entire night (even if the slight echo of symphony hall wasn't made for hihats). Amanda and Keith were on good enough terms that she messed around with the cues for the hits at the end of the bridge: "I....want.........a, I!...........want a I want....a...I.....want.....a...................coin-operated boy." During the record skip part, she had Keith give her a glass of champagne. Mr. Lockhart really is the sanity of the pops, and only between his collaboration with Amanda did the energy keep going while the players, bemused, played their parts.

Gets fuzzy from here, but somewhere in the mix was Astronaut, Runs in the Family, Farewell (or some song or other from Cabaret), Hurt (an amazing NIN cover), Poker Face (aided by the ladies from The Slutcracker and mixed in with a poststructuralist academic discussion of the implications of the song: "Has Lady Gaga, in attempting to free herself from the ties to femininity and its requisite habits and presentation, trapped herself in the poststructuralist chains of fame and its necessities?"), a late night night countdown to We Are the Champions (with a touch of bombastically joyous irony...turns out the countdown was actually at 11:58, but nobody cared), and a pretty ok version of Leeds United. Everything was punctuated by Amanda's lack of clothing, lack of propriety, and lack of sobriety. Champagne was imbibed and the new year was described.

To sum up: faux-fur coats with fake baby heads whose eyes were fake baby heads whose eyes where pudgy baby hands. That was my night.

Heartland: Keep the Dog Quiet + Mt. Alpentine

A second part. Wooohahahah.

Keep The Dog Quiet

My body is a cage.
This union is cage about a cage about a cage.
And this, and this town too.
I'll see you once in a while but I can't be seen with you.

There are a few references here and there that I can pick up on, and a lot I can't, but if I don't know my Arcade Fire references then I shouldn't be writing in the first place. Perhaps another paralell: both albums' penultimate track is an energetic, cathartic, wild beautiful mess of a piece with strings by Owen Pallet and drums by Jeremy Gara, and the ultimate track is postmodern strangeness, the opinion on which varies with the listener. But that's neither there nor anywhere.

The subject can't be anything but Lewis' wife. Able to directly talk to her last time, he can only draw a reference to her and his misgivings. Think of Midnight Directives the grandest of all images and directions. It's the grandest of all tottering, delusional, wild images that a man thinks is enough to drive him to a purpose. It's a false image of the utmost grandeur, of resolution in a decision that Lewis doesn't even understand. This quiet address, weak and yet insistent, is Lewis' discussion on the darker and weaker parts of his will.

"The union" seems to be explicitly their marriage, and perhaps implicitly Lewis' ties to anything at all, the ties he's breaking by leaving (but of course, does not have the courage to burn bridges and run away). The 3 cages could be taken literally: Lewis' cage surrounded by his wife's cage surrounded by the requirement of their union, but it doesn't need to be that direct.

More importantly, Lewis is trying to assuage a feeling of personal entrapment in his life by blaming his marriage, and even "this town" and this life. It's not as pretty a lie as in Midnight Directives, but it certainly has its irony. A man leaves his hometown to find god and salvation? Lewis'll have varying feelings about a homeland, but we'll see that his idea of what is intolerable starts from his wife, to his marriage and town, to Spectrum, to the whole fucking world, and eventually to the creator of this world, the god-author Owen.

Back to textual stuff: "I'll see you once in a while but I can't be seen with you" It's fun to play with who Owen is hiding from here, and it's not exactly clear. Perhaps his "clerical life" has consequences of who he's trying to impress? A lot of his thought later in the album is about being public: "voic[ing] our satisfactions," "on the pitch of the Avenroe grasses / I will sing, sing, sing to the masses." But his purpose is between he and god...right? There's not some human authority he's trying to plead. I'd read that more as a desire to be viewed as complete: to have no one be able to say "this man is not symbolically whole." He wants to obey his purpose, and is only able to make secret compromises BECAUSE he has such a purpose, and wants to be seen as whole, unironic, and complete. There's also an element of active vs. passive: "I'll do this, but I can't have this done to me" would be an accurate paraphrase, implying that his future will be all action action action, un-capitulating. This fits with his violent persona.

This place is a narrative mess.
The floor a tangle of bedsheets and battered sundress.
The journey once was consequential,
Now: sequential, sequential, sequential, sequential.

This stanza is key, in that is shows the cracks in reality. I could see two possible meanings to the first line. The first relates to Lewis himself. As the narrator, he (ironically) is our view onto the world; he could be describing the chaos of his own view and his place in it. He could also be mentioning the cracks in his desperate attempt to put meaning into things. But the second interpretation relates to Lewis' dissatisfaction with the whole story itself, created by Owen. He wants to, possibly, escape or entirely reshape the structure of everything in his own image. We'll see that he does just that.

"This place" is exactly what Lewis is distancing himself from, so it's cool to look at what those nouns mean and represent about what he's escaping, and why. The basis of his life, "the floor" consists of tangled sheets and a worn-down sundress...implying sexual activity with his wife is bringing him down, with a slight play on "undress"? Or that fabric, the way we cover ourselves and protect ourselves, is in some way against what he wants to base his life on? (Lewis Takes Off His Shirt becomes an awesome parallel then) A sly and esoteric reference to "Shake, Rattle and Roll" ? His distance from summery femininity? And battered...as if there was some sort of inherent conflict in her wearing it, or that there was conflict in their relationship? Sundresses weren't common 1300s fare, and perhaps the point is to put a crack in the chronology of the period to show a breakdown of the whole story (happens so much at later points). Rather then untangle and clean up the stuff on the floor, is Lewis simply running from the more complicated problems and fleeing into his dreams? It's one of the most poetically evocative lines in the entire album, and the possibilities are endless.

The last two lines are a bit easier: "My purpose used to matter, and now it's predictable." I see two possible meanings in that. The first, that Lewis thought that by marrying and starting a farm he could create the convenient concept of a life to bear. But the second is more prescient: that the purpose I just declared is placing me in a totally expectable role. I am reacting exactly, totally, and unequivocally as one would expect my archetype to. I am trapped in a story.

When will you silence your hounds?
The eldest sons to the altar of the Eternal Sound.
Their blood is spilled at the dawn.

The earlier analysis focused on Lewis' wife as the subject, but these lines start to make reference to Owen. I'm of the mind that the subject shifts, representing Lewis' total unsureness about what the fuck he's fighting for/against. But in the end: "when will you silence your hounds"; when will the shouting stop, when will the noise stop? There's a possible reference to hounds of hell, but I see mainly in this line (and in the title) a desire to keep things in control, and keep the inevitable out of the way. "Keep the dog quiet"; keep that loyal beast of nature away from my dreaming, keep his bark away from my singing.

Lewis continues his questioning of the higher power with biblical allusions: the last plague of Moses, and the Passover. It's cool that Owen picks out of the old testament, filled with images of a highly anthropomorphic and patriarchal god. It's the power and masculinity that Owen wants in his life, something that he praises in "Psalm 21" in Tryst With Mephisopheles. But here, he thinks on the cruelty of it: they are sacrificed as bidding, not unknowingly like in Egypt, but in a sort of death march toward inevitability. Yeah, Lewis embraces Owen, but that kind of death march is exactly what Lewis does not want with his life, the inevitable "sequen[ce]."

The sun, represented here in the "dawn," is made reference to throughout the work, but it's most relevant against the night of Midnight Directives. If that night was exciting and made for plans and plots, the day is for harsh truth. A cool structural part of the album is that is oscillates over day and night, which gives a sense of (a) the grand cycle of nature eternally at work, and (b) the short time frame Lewis takes to become transformed.

"Eternal Sound" is an interesting turn of phrase, not a reference that I can tell. Owen uses a similar turn of phrase in Tryst with Mephistopheles, in the context of "great white noise," and makes references to "seven inches of echo" in Oh Heartland, Up Yours! Lewis Takes Off His Shirt (thanks Thomas) The theme relates to a musical motif in the album: what is music, what is sound, and what is noise? That in turn ties into what words are, and what they can mean, and what they can pretend to mean. Lewis is mostly comfortable in his sense of Owen (hence, "sound"), and his reverence and vision of him is still of being "eternal" (which changes later); but cracks are starting to appear, urges and views that conflict each other, brought out in the light of the day.

A nation bound to your will, still, the violin plays on.
Plays its devotional song.
Once it was, once it was so essential,
Now: sequential, sequential, sequential, sequential.

This is a bit tricky. But: "music praises you." If music and sound are distinct things, one being the method of the story (In the musical allusions, in the words, in the references to singing and playing, in the whole damn medium of the album; and notice how most of the songs are somewhat upbeat, as if there's a manic clinging to music as expression which peaks at Tryst With Mephistopheles and breaks down at What Do You Think Will Happen Now?), and the other being Owen himself...true and open expression is bound to the more conflicted concept of the author. Music willingly has itself under the authority of God, and Lewis does not like that. Even though Lewis had praised god before, over the course of this song his opinion seems to dwindle to Owen himself being the subject of past essentially, now sequentiality. It's not clear, but I hear Lewis as saying, over the course of this tune "The stuff around me is derivative and trite and controlled, the whole place is derivative and trite and controlled, God and life are derivative and trite and controlled."

Such praise to God, Lewis asks, is it worth it? Why must one praise God? Although Lewis' purpose was immediately "clerical," the next few tunes drag him back to a heightened sense of reality. He refuses to ask the question of God, because such a vision is contradictory (containing the destruction of the masculine ideal in the "first borns," or being labeled as "sound"). So he pushes it all away, and leaves all the forshadowing and contradictions behind in this dark and frightening tune. A string crescendo, perhaps mirroring Lewis' mental progression, builds, halts as if taking a breath, and then:

Mt. Alpentine

Lead on, oh horse of mine, we will climb the side of Alpentine.
Lead on, oh horse of mine, we will voice our satisfactions.
Karma is the concatenation of your actions.

The most important bit of analysis in this song is that it is short, shouted, and ANGRY AND WILD AND MINOR AS FUCKALL. It's a clusterfuck of a lot of strings, vocals which barely manage to get out, and some synthy thing echoing in the background. It's practically noise, interesting if we accept music vs. sound vs. noise as a theme (it's kind of a weak point, but I think if it's an album about stories, it can be a story about an album): to escape the consequences of Keep the Dog Quiet, Lewis shrouds himself in pure noise and purpose, putting one goal in front of him: climbing a hill.

The climb has other implications to it. The choice of "Alpentine" is a funny thing; it's a very derivative name for a mountain, derived from the adjective "alpine." Certain aspects of Spectrum, especially the place names (as manifest in Flare Gun) are deliberately derivative; Owen makes deliberate cliches in order to enforce his commentary on the nature of stories and of fantasy.

The horse comes back a few times in the album, and is called Blue Imelda in Lewis Takes Action. I'm not very well acquainted with Spectrum, 14th Century, and what's more it is not contained in the scope of the album; but neither are all the allusions, and in the grander depiction of spectrum, it helps to grab from varied sources. So, an abbreviated run to Blue Imelda off of Spectrum:

Blue Imelda, She's the saddest bitch in all of Spectrum
She can't rely on business to keep herself satisfied
For we are only farmers, and the love of a farmer
Has one hand on the headboard and the other hand in the soil

Oh Lord, I'm yours forever, I will never take a lover
I'll keep myself as pious as my body will allow
For I am just a farmer, and the body of a farmer
Has one eye on the pussy and the other on the plough

I bow, I bend deeply
I'm sheepish and barely
Able to say it from beginning to the end
(Your shirt is torn to ribbons)
Woman, can I take you as a friend?

Sex and animals. Farmers don't care about the women but they care about the sex, farmers have natural urges and natures. But Lewis is leaving his farmership, right? (as suggested earlier, and articulated in Red Sun No. 5) He's a friend and a partner, I guess. Point is: Lewis can't get as far away from femininity as he'd like, or as he claimed he wanted to do. He'll have this horse. Yeah. Enough of that.

In the context of Mt. Alpentine, Imelda matters little, only as an echo of a subverting femininity on Lewis that he can't even recognize. Instead, Lewis focuses on a direct and concrete task, and then applies another value to it: "we will voice our satisfactions." What matter they? But the way that Lewis speeds down and attacks in Lewis Takes Action, Lewis is finding a way to exact his influence, to shape his world. If voicing his desires means making an ultimatum at the entirety of Spectrum, it would be a way for him to control. "Satisfaction" shows up in Red Sun No. 5 too, so it's important to look at what it means and implies: Lewis wants to declare what is enough for him, what make sense and is complete for him. Farmership can't, and apparently god can't but Lewis doesn't want to totally recognize that. So, just like through violence, Lewis is finding a way to make things definite. And so he climbs the mountain because he is insecure.

"Concatenation" is a programming term meaning to link two string variables together, and general word for connecting ideas. Lewis sees karma as a connecting force in his life, a grander order and sense, the assumption that what he is doing will be generally repayed, in some way, in some lifetime. Lewis is praying to some grander sense of justification, because his actions don't make sense to him. Maybe. But it's "your actions." Whose? That pronoun gets thrown about in life. Maybe it's the audience, and the phrase is a cry to us to try and see the order in our lives, as we're watching Lewis' crumble away. Or it could be Owen. Owen's storytold reality must have order to it, right? We hope? So if I Take Action, or climb Alpentine, it'll be ok? Right? Right?

HEARTLAND JUST GOT LEAKED

OWEN PALLET'S NEW ALBUM WAS JUST POSTED FOR SALE ON ITUNES

FORGIVE ME OWEN

IF YOU'RE GETTING IT FROM TORRENTS PLEASE BE SURE TO BUY IT

Physics: Proving Neutrons Exist (or Why Chadwick Got his Nobel Prize) (1/9)

Back in the 30s, the Joliot-Curies discovered a very high-energy radiation from polonium-emitted alpha particles to beryllium. The radiation shot out protons in a proton-heavy substance, parrafin wax, and so they suspected it was a high energy photon. Chadwick calculated the photon would have 52 MeV or so. Verify that.

Eg1 + Ep1 = Eg2 + Ep2
Eg1 + mp = Eg2 + mp + KEp By E = m + KE
Eg1 = Eg2 + KEp
Eg1 = Eg2 + (mp)(γ- 1)

pg1 = pg2 + pc
pg1 + (-pg2) = pc
Eg1 + Eg2 = pc By E^2 = p^2 for photons
Eg1 + Eg2 = (mp)(v)(γ) by the definition for momentum

Eg1 = [(mp)(v)(γ) - Eg1] + (mp)(γ- 1)
Eg1 = (mp/2)[γ(v + 1) - 1 ]
Eg1 = 52.67 MeV , by my plugging in, based on given data

A photon with such energy would cause a 410 KeV recoil in nitrogen. Show it.

Eg1 + EN1 = Eg2 + EN2
(Eg1) + mN = Eg2 + mN + KEN
KEN = (Eg1) - Eg2

pg1 = pg2 + pN2
pg2 = pN2 + (-pg1)
Eg2 = pN2 - (Eg1)

KEN = (Eg1) - [pN2 - (Eg1)]
KEN = pN2 - (2Eg1)
KEN - (2Eg1) = ((EN2)^2 - (mN2)^2 )^-1/2
(KEN)^2 + [4(Eg1)^2] - 2(2Eg1)(KEN) = (mN2)^2 + (KEN)^2 + 2(KEN)(mN2) - (mN2)^2
[4(Eg1)^2] - 2(2Eg1)(KEN) = 2(KEN)(mN2)
2(KEN)(mN2) + 2(2Eg1)(KEN) = [4(Eg1)^2]
2KEN[mN2 + (2Eg1) ] = [4(Eg1)^2]
KEN = [2(Eg1)^2]/[mN2 + (2Eg1)]

The right side is all constants, and Eg1 = 52 MeV gets me about .41 MeV.

Heartland: Lyrical Analysis: Midnight Directives

Owen Pallet just announced that he's giving up the FF name, because squeenix finally made the ":/" face long enough to convince his label that continuing under that name would be "unwise," specially for the album's release in Japan. "My name is Owen Pallett." Yes it is.

I guess that might represent a new direction in his songwriting style. The lyrics for heartland have been released for ages, and they definitely show a distance away from some of his past themes. Has a Good Home and He Poos Clouds both had heavy fantasy influences while being starkly, often disturbingly, realist, but the later album, plus the 3 EPs since then (counting X) showed even more wild imagery while being even darker; yet the video game references have died away. Yeah, I shrieked when I heard the Link's Awakening in "He Poos Clouds," but the "Into the mouth of Final Fantasy" was the last direct reference I've heard and can decipher. He is a tricky man, quiet in an aggressive way.

Anyway, my purpose is to do a post by post lyrical analysis of Heartland, anticipating it's 2010 release. I'm happy to say I'm daytripping up to Montreal to catch the end of his release tour. I bet I could find a bridge to sleep under, but I'll find a 10 dollar hostel near the Outrement and stick around after the show. So to the lyrics: let's go line by line

Midnight Directives

Cross her off the shortlist.
My blood is a red-winged bird.
The way will be lit by the bridges we burn, oh.

A lot of the album's themes have to do with masculinity, in relation to violence and sexuality, and they start planting their seeds here. The "her" to remove, very likely Lewis' wife, floats in and out of the narrative, like a specter of conscience or the like. But just as in the narrative, the violence supersedes that femininity: you can imagine the sharp movement of the pencil (a la Death Note) cutting her off from his "shortlist," an odd choice of word that probably highlights the way he's objectifying her into a list in his life.

He sees his life as dull, grounded; only through cutting her off and steeping himself in violence ("red") can he obtain any sort of freedom ("bird"). Lewis' blood boils and takes flight away from her, like a grand adventure. There's a paradox in the third line: "by burning the path behind us, we light the path before us" or even more directly, "kill the past to open the future." Lewis is making huge gestures that isolate himself from what he has, going through some darkness (otherwise, what need is there for light?) on his wild purpose. Burning, killing, trying to create light in what he sees as a dark world.

And come, tornado!
Carry me away from the croft.
Ruffle my hair, bear my body aloft, oh.

Speaking of the world about, it's the 14th century land of Spectrum, and apparently there are...tornadoes. There are two kinds of violence in Lewis' world: that within him, and that without him. The call upon nature to bear him up and treat him personally is a prayer to nature, to a cosmic unity and sense. But the world is already dark, the world already has tornadoes in him; the cosmic order that Lewis wants is just as violent as he is. "Croft" is an enclosed field area, and it makes reference to Lewis' profession as a farmer, a life he's actively rejecting.

As the cutlass came down on a Saturday night,
Left an un-planted field, left my daughter and wife.
Called away into service, for a clerical life.
Left an un-planted field, left my daughter and wife.

The chorus (repeated once later) sets definitely the thematic stuff in the first verse. Feeling a sense of adventure and youthfulness from (a) romanticized violence in a cutlass, and (b) a romanticized "night" on the Saturday, Lewis abandons his responsibility at home, both to his work and his (female) family. Two interesting notes on that first line: there's no need for the cutlass to have a wielder, all that Lewis seeks is his adventure; and there are possible religious connotations in Saturday.

The repetition of the fourth line only amplifies the leaving as a consequence of what he calls a "clerical life." The God-figure in the rest of this story is named Owen, aptly. Lewis sees his violence, and the violence he's seeking, as ordained from God. It's a duty! There's a solipsism in that. The implications of Owen as god sorta stretch out over the entire work, but there's a little bit of a play on the nature of fantasy (as one who focused his first two LPs on, bore the name of, and seemed to have been influenced by, fantasy works).

Thought I was a sad-boy.
Now I know, I know, I know I was wrong.
Since you came along, I can see how content I had been.

Lewis rewrites his past. The quip about "saturday night" above, implying a sort of youthful debauchery, also implies that Lewis is returning to a previous lifestyle/mindset. You could call it regression, but the main point is that he's rewriting the past. The supposed grown-up development that made him settle down confined him, and he's finding release in something he had already surpassed, or so we think. He needs to repeat the "I know" just to keep the momentum going (or Owen just needs to fill a line...). The "you" can't be anything but Owen, the greater sense of cosmic violence that he's returning to. He calls his pat "content," as if his soul has calm and unity in destruction. That's a bit of a contradiction in itself, but it'll be contested. It's also kind of fun to think of Owen swooping Lewis up romantically, but the role of sexuality/human-to-human stuff comes later. Right now, Lewis is freeing himself from the present.

It'll drive a man crazy to age from the outside in.
But I have a plan, it's a trick with a prick of a pin.

"Age" and youthfulness, yeah. Think of "outside-in" aging as feeling your body crumble and decay, weaken, stiffen, and fade while your mind clings to a past ideal. It's...watching everything fade away from you as you're totally lucid, rather than "inside-out" ing, becoming sedentary in mind and then in body. The former is too much for a man who idolizes his youth, so he rebels not only against the life he's created, but from age itself.

The second line is a bit vague, but has some elements. Lewis' method is destruction and cutting ties with the past; what is the plan? What is his purpose? I see two possible answers: 1) Pain -> reality. I will place a pin through things, create pain to call back to the "real world." 2) Deflating and reducing. I will take a pin and reduce life down to its bare essentials and truths, away from all hot air (haaaa). 3) Gay sex. "Pin" has a long history, dating back to Shakespeare, of meaning the penis, and "prick" has one too. The distance from femininity, coupled with the sense of being swept away and a bit of knowledge beforehand that Owen is putting themes of his own sexuality into the work, all make it somewhat plausible that Lewis is finding his youth through some sort of interaction with a penis. The artistic implications of gay sex here aren't exactly clear, especially in the strange context of religious life; but it could symbolize a return to pure masculinity (think the Greeks).

For a man can be bought, and a man can be sold,
And the price of a hundred thousand unwatered souls
Is a bit of meat and a bit of coal.
It's a bit of meat and a bit of coal.
It's a little bit of meat and coal.

A "man" (always a man) can be reduce down to his barest elements and controlled by his fuel. Lewis recognizes, in some capacity, that his trip back to his past through god/Owen. Just as he made his wife into an item on a "shortlist," he's just an input/output machine. This part is a bit tricky, but the second line help. For those who are wilting and "unwatered," needing sustinance, give them the objects to fuel fires and animals. Lewis is becoming an animal, I guess. Or equating himself with one, because he sees no worth in man beyond this. Everything in his current life is stale and objectified; so in his escaping, there's an ironic element of becoming the ultimate animal or object. Again, a little bit of outside information: the last three lines are sung like flute trills, like a wild and giddy curse.



I'll try to finish this over break, to escape my grandmother.