Radisson Agonistes
I'm listening to Warren Zevon's "Frank and Jesse James". I'm also drinking some scotch (Balvenie 12yr Doublewood) and sitting in a hotel room that is across the street from a riverboat casino, so I guess all that you need now is for me to tell you about how awesome the jambalaya and crawdads are, or list off the pharmacopoeia of drugs I'm toting around in my duffel bag, which, of course, also contains a ream of paper that has the shittily typed version of my magnum opus and contained the orange IBM Selectric typewrite upon which I will continue to bang out more words that will thrill, chill, entertain and make you think about your own mortality to boot. The problem with this situation is that is a cheap Hunter S Thompson/Lester Bangs/Barry Hannah cliche, and, of course, is complete bullshit.
Part of it isn't bullshit, that part being the first one and a half sentences. No, I'm not twisted on ether and going to troll the casino for cheap poon and leisure suits, however funny that sort of adventure might be. Right now I'm firmly in the pensive, staring-out-the-window mood. This is not to say that I'm sad and emo, in fact it is quite the opposite. I am happy here, and I'm not sure I want to leave, though I have a job and a life in Minneapolis.
The critical thing here is how amazed I am in the difference of one year. I know I've just mentioned this in another LJ post, but I can't help but marveling at it. The three years after I got out of grad school is largely a haze until 2010, which is not the year we make contact, but the year my shit got scrambled. I always tell students that at places like this, you should slow down and give the reader a scene that exemplifies the emotion you are trying to express instead of simply telling the reader how you/they should feel. Sometimes, I like to ignore my own advice. Welcome to the world of oblique references.
I've skipped ahead to the last track on this Zevon CD (the eponymous one, released 1976), "Desperadoes Under the Eaves". It's a sad, sardonic look at life and loneliness (apropos for Zevon) that ends in a a triumphant swell of piano, strings and backing vocals telling us to "Look away down Gower avenue", and thus into the sunset. If you think too hard about that image, it becomes almost laughably cliche and easy. That's the thing though- in the hands of a lesser artist it would, but when someone of Zevon's caliber sings such a lyric, it becomes profound; it is infused with the gravitas of the singer such that it becomes fresh, and lends the song a bittersweet triumph. This has happened before consider these last lines from one of W.B. Yeats' final poems, "Poltics"
But O, that I were young again
and held her in my arms.
It is a frivolous, throw-away emotion, but that Yeats wrote this (at the end of his life, no less) elevates the simple, common lust for youth and to be youthful to a level of profundity the lines themselves do not on the surface merit.
It's damp here. The river is wide open- no snow here. I have good whiskey and good books and another day to lounge about and await the next week and the additional travel it will bring. I'm reading blogs and books and staring out at that riverboat casino, and smiling at the ridiculous scene that must be going on inside that neon-topped eyesore. If I squint my eye and look west, I can see the green and red lights of a high bridge wink back at me.
So yeah... I like Warren Zevon. I like him on nights like this.
Part of it isn't bullshit, that part being the first one and a half sentences. No, I'm not twisted on ether and going to troll the casino for cheap poon and leisure suits, however funny that sort of adventure might be. Right now I'm firmly in the pensive, staring-out-the-window mood. This is not to say that I'm sad and emo, in fact it is quite the opposite. I am happy here, and I'm not sure I want to leave, though I have a job and a life in Minneapolis.
The critical thing here is how amazed I am in the difference of one year. I know I've just mentioned this in another LJ post, but I can't help but marveling at it. The three years after I got out of grad school is largely a haze until 2010, which is not the year we make contact, but the year my shit got scrambled. I always tell students that at places like this, you should slow down and give the reader a scene that exemplifies the emotion you are trying to express instead of simply telling the reader how you/they should feel. Sometimes, I like to ignore my own advice. Welcome to the world of oblique references.
I've skipped ahead to the last track on this Zevon CD (the eponymous one, released 1976), "Desperadoes Under the Eaves". It's a sad, sardonic look at life and loneliness (apropos for Zevon) that ends in a a triumphant swell of piano, strings and backing vocals telling us to "Look away down Gower avenue", and thus into the sunset. If you think too hard about that image, it becomes almost laughably cliche and easy. That's the thing though- in the hands of a lesser artist it would, but when someone of Zevon's caliber sings such a lyric, it becomes profound; it is infused with the gravitas of the singer such that it becomes fresh, and lends the song a bittersweet triumph. This has happened before consider these last lines from one of W.B. Yeats' final poems, "Poltics"
But O, that I were young again
and held her in my arms.
It is a frivolous, throw-away emotion, but that Yeats wrote this (at the end of his life, no less) elevates the simple, common lust for youth and to be youthful to a level of profundity the lines themselves do not on the surface merit.
It's damp here. The river is wide open- no snow here. I have good whiskey and good books and another day to lounge about and await the next week and the additional travel it will bring. I'm reading blogs and books and staring out at that riverboat casino, and smiling at the ridiculous scene that must be going on inside that neon-topped eyesore. If I squint my eye and look west, I can see the green and red lights of a high bridge wink back at me.
So yeah... I like Warren Zevon. I like him on nights like this.