everything, etc
i hereby resolve to stop waiting for something to write about, and just fill this thing with stupid shit.
I think I've said it already, but I'm too lazy to check past entries. I've moved back to Wakefield for the remainder of the summer. It's ok. I love Wakefield, but I'm not so hot on living at home. There's so much less independence - I can't just walk out to the car and drive without telling someone where I'm going (which, more often than not, is nowhere) and when Dad gets home at 5am (he's worked nights as long as I can remember) I get shit for being up that late. And I have 'chores' here instead of 'things I have to do to not live in a pigsty.' In Worcester I do laundry whenever I feel like the pile is too high. In Wakefield I do laundry when Mom says to. In Worcester I clean the kitchen when I feel like it's getting messy... well, OK, bad example. But around here we run the dishwasher and unload it every day, wash the table, keep the sink clean, etc. I don't mind doing these things, I just want to do them on my own schedule, which is not an option. Oh, and I'm stuck in a tiny twin bed in an immensely hot room, instead of my queen bed in Worcester with a very nice air conditioner.
That's the brunt of it, really. And I have a million little complaints - we've got a very nice coffee machine, but I have to grind my own beans. Grind my own? That doubles the amount of cleaning 'coffee' involves, dammit! Not to mention the psychological import of that coffee grinder - my alarm clock woke me up every morning in high school, but the screeching of that hellish little machine is really what wrought me from sleep. Every day. But anyway, that's why having an apartment is cool. You can do everything your own way (...it just costs money.)
I got my car inspected the other day (15 days after my sticker expired) and I failed because part of my suspension was messed up. This is weird because A) it's the same part (outside tie rod end) that was broken last year and B) there's a LOT of other things my car should have failed for. On the bright side, it's responsible for the disturbing CLUNK I get when shifting into/out of gear, I had feared it was the transmission or CV joint.
So I buy a new one, take off my wheel, knock the old one out of its socket (that's usually the hard part) and then start trying to unscrew the old one. Nothing. Two hours later I'm on the ground, forcing the tie rod out of its sleeve with my feet on the end of a two-foot monkey wrench, while Dad has inserted a number of vise grips and 2x4's to ensure I get proper leverage. I exert every goddamn ounce of strength in my body, only to have the friggin wrench spring back after I'm done. We've turned the whole friggin thing about 1/4 turn. Fanfuckingtastic.
That's one of the perks to living at home, btw - I have access to a near-unlimited number of tools and expertise. But those don't seem to do the trick right now.
Another reason moving back home was a bad idea, I had a very polished and romantic notion of what things would be like back here. Usually I had come back to see peoples' shows and for birthdays and whatnot, so I always fell in with a crowd and they were like "i love you geoff caton" (because who doesn't?) but that is not currently the case. I've gone out like twice since I got here, if that. It's getting to the point where I might have to take the initiative and round up some people for fun. How uncharacteristic. So if you're reading this, just say "geoff caton let's go clubbing!" or something and we'll hit up the town.
Hey, most of my friends are 21 now. Sweet. But let's not go clubbing, unless it's at the BBC's 13+ night.
Further complicating affairs is the fact that I am still insolvent, though not as bad as previously. There's not much work to be had at the Globe, so I might have to look elsewhere. But there's only a few weeks left in summer, and no one will hire a part-timer to work a month and a half, so if I do get a job it'll have to overlap with school (which does not sound like a brilliant idea.) I kinda want to work in a bookstore, so next time I'm in das Woo I'll probably hit up Tatnuck, Borders, and the like. There's also a cool antique books store downtown, although I doubt they're hiring.
I've been reading tons of Lovecraft lately, partly for my suff, partly for pleasure. People complain that all of his stories have the same plot, which is true to some extent. Part of the problem is that 'weird fiction' imposes restrictions which prevent his storylines from being at all explicit, and there's only so many ways to skirt the issue while still telling a story. I just finished reading 'the case of charles dexter ward' and 'the lurker at the threshold,' both of which have basically the same plot, and offhand I believe 'the thing on the doorstep' was in the same mold. It seems like a lot of Lovecraft's stories are variations on a form.
That being said, he's still my current (and probably all-time) favorite author. Even if he evokes the same atmosphere in every story, it's still a good goddamn atmosphere. And more to the point, he has an incredible scientific imagination. His monsters were originally supernatural creatures, but were gradually refined to be extra- or ultra-dimensional beings. There's clearly pseudoscience behind all of his later works - if there's a monster living in a character's closet, Lovecraft knows damn well how it got there and why he's crashing in some poor bastard's room.
His repeated use of the same adjectives is a little grating, but would be less conspicuous if his pet words weren't antiquated (I've never seen 'eldritch' used outside of his work.) It seems to be contagious, since his protege August Derleth had a fetish for 'manifest' as an adjective.
Also, the book I just read, 'the lurker at the threshold,' was co-authored with Derleth, which I didn't like so much. He doesn't seem to understand weird fiction as well as Lovecraft (the genre's friggin inventor.) One of its fundamental tenets is unknowability - knowing the underlying truth of the universe would drive a human insane with 'cosmic horror.' There are some things mortal man was not meant to learn. This theme manifests itself in the general ambience of the fiction, where everything is shrouded in mystery. Even the tiniest revelation is shockingly abhorrent, which is exactly why most Lovecraft stories are pretty small-scale affairs on a cosmic level - if we saw anything more than the tip of the iceberg we'd be driven mad. Pragmatically, it's because if Lovecraft's human imagination could concieve of an idea, then it was inherently petty - it's clearly not beyond the bounds of what man can know.
What I'm getting at is that Derleth doesn't understand this principle. Every Lovecraft story reveals only a tiny part of the Cosmic Truth, and it does so slowly and deliberately. Derleth, on the other hand, rattles off a bunch of 'forbidden secrets' like it were a laundry list. If you're actually reading at this point, and you've read the book in question, I'm referring specifically to the famous passage in the Necronomicon (that is not dead which can eternal lie / and with strange aeons, even death may die) that Derleth liberally expands to a list of forgotten gods and unknowable places. If these creatures are just boogeymen in some sort of humanly-comprehensible hierarchy, as he makes them out to be, then it's not cosmic horror, it's schlock horror. I'm not particularly pleased with his attempts to reconcile the Cthulhu Mythos with Christian dogma, either. Yeah, the idea of the Elder Gods casting down the Great Old Ones for offending them is neat, but when you explicitly point out the parallels to Lucifer's fall from grace it stops being clever. And when the Elder Gods periodically intervene to save humankind's ass, it COMPLETELY slaughters the core tenet of cosmic horror: the universe doesn't care about humanity, we're just useless ants with laughably limited capabilities and mercifully stunted perception.
I guess LJ cuts were invented for a reason, no? And by the way, the problem with me writing massive entries like these is that when I'm done writing I don't feel like editing or polishing any of the content.
So I'm done talking about things I've read. Let's go onto things I'm listening to: Chicago. Not the recent movie or its namesake musical, but Chicago the band. Um, songs you might have heard are '25 or 6 to 4,' 'Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,' 'Colour My World,' or 'Beginnings.' See, I downloaded their complete discography, and I'm working through their albums from oldest to newest. There's a lot of newer stuff, but a lot of people write it off as crap. I'm in no position to judge, though from what I do know of it they have a distinctly different sound than what they started out with, which is pretty plausible considering the length of their career.
The stuff I'm listening to - Chicago Transit Authority and Chicago II, the first two albums - are supposed to be jazz-rock fusion (this was what people called prog-rock in 1968, I guess) but it's basically just rock music with a brass section for a backbone. The big band sound is what I really like it for, so I get pissed off when the guitarist gets the whole spotlight. 'Liberation,' the last song on their first album, starts out sounding like the Blues Brothers, but then turns into a 15-minute jam session. I've never hit 'stop' so quickly. That's not even the worst of it, there's actually a separate track called 'Free Form Guitar' which consists of the guitarist alternately hitting his whammy bar and trying to sound like Jimi Hendrix. NEXT. Chicago II is a hell of a lot better, it consists of a few really incredible suites punctuated by singles. It starts out with a few standalone songs, which are mostly good but run too long. Then it breaks into the first 7-or-8 song suite, called 'ballet for a girl in buchanan,' which is unbefuckinglievable. Some of the best music I've ever heard; I can honestly say I'll enjoy it for the rest of my life. Then it goes into 'Fancy Colours,' which is just plain goofy, and then '25 or 6 to 4,' one of their all-time hits. Come to think of it, five or six of Chicago's best-known songs are on the first two albums. Not a bad start. Then another suite, completely instrumental until its capstone, 'Memories of Love.' This suite is well-constructed, I think, but hard to get excited about. It's basically an orchestral number with a flute lead. It leads right into the last suite, 'It Better End Soon,' about the Vietnam War. It rambles pretty badly, but has an improvised feel to it. On one hand, there's some charm to improvisation, but on the other hand it sounds kinda sloppy. And I'm tired of hearing about the Vietnam fucking War. It ends with 'Where Do We Go From Here,' very good but overshadowed by the earlier tracks.
I don't really like to talk about music, but the fact that I wrote all that stuff should convince you that I really like it.
I'm also listening to Meatloaf - Back Into Hell. Rock the fuck out.
Thursday nights are sweet. MXC on Spike, Reno 911 on Comedy Central, and Adult Swim airs new Family Guy episodes. Also, I need to re-read Contact, because it is an amazing book. And I need to buy the DVD of the movie. I also want UHF and the Reno 911 box set. Maybe Eternal Sunshine, American Beauty, and Garden State, depending upon how gay I feel.
...ok, done.
Jesus Christ! Get the Escalade, we're outta here.
I think I've said it already, but I'm too lazy to check past entries. I've moved back to Wakefield for the remainder of the summer. It's ok. I love Wakefield, but I'm not so hot on living at home. There's so much less independence - I can't just walk out to the car and drive without telling someone where I'm going (which, more often than not, is nowhere) and when Dad gets home at 5am (he's worked nights as long as I can remember) I get shit for being up that late. And I have 'chores' here instead of 'things I have to do to not live in a pigsty.' In Worcester I do laundry whenever I feel like the pile is too high. In Wakefield I do laundry when Mom says to. In Worcester I clean the kitchen when I feel like it's getting messy... well, OK, bad example. But around here we run the dishwasher and unload it every day, wash the table, keep the sink clean, etc. I don't mind doing these things, I just want to do them on my own schedule, which is not an option. Oh, and I'm stuck in a tiny twin bed in an immensely hot room, instead of my queen bed in Worcester with a very nice air conditioner.
That's the brunt of it, really. And I have a million little complaints - we've got a very nice coffee machine, but I have to grind my own beans. Grind my own? That doubles the amount of cleaning 'coffee' involves, dammit! Not to mention the psychological import of that coffee grinder - my alarm clock woke me up every morning in high school, but the screeching of that hellish little machine is really what wrought me from sleep. Every day. But anyway, that's why having an apartment is cool. You can do everything your own way (...it just costs money.)
I got my car inspected the other day (15 days after my sticker expired) and I failed because part of my suspension was messed up. This is weird because A) it's the same part (outside tie rod end) that was broken last year and B) there's a LOT of other things my car should have failed for. On the bright side, it's responsible for the disturbing CLUNK I get when shifting into/out of gear, I had feared it was the transmission or CV joint.
So I buy a new one, take off my wheel, knock the old one out of its socket (that's usually the hard part) and then start trying to unscrew the old one. Nothing. Two hours later I'm on the ground, forcing the tie rod out of its sleeve with my feet on the end of a two-foot monkey wrench, while Dad has inserted a number of vise grips and 2x4's to ensure I get proper leverage. I exert every goddamn ounce of strength in my body, only to have the friggin wrench spring back after I'm done. We've turned the whole friggin thing about 1/4 turn. Fanfuckingtastic.
That's one of the perks to living at home, btw - I have access to a near-unlimited number of tools and expertise. But those don't seem to do the trick right now.
Another reason moving back home was a bad idea, I had a very polished and romantic notion of what things would be like back here. Usually I had come back to see peoples' shows and for birthdays and whatnot, so I always fell in with a crowd and they were like "i love you geoff caton" (because who doesn't?) but that is not currently the case. I've gone out like twice since I got here, if that. It's getting to the point where I might have to take the initiative and round up some people for fun. How uncharacteristic. So if you're reading this, just say "geoff caton let's go clubbing!" or something and we'll hit up the town.
Hey, most of my friends are 21 now. Sweet. But let's not go clubbing, unless it's at the BBC's 13+ night.
Further complicating affairs is the fact that I am still insolvent, though not as bad as previously. There's not much work to be had at the Globe, so I might have to look elsewhere. But there's only a few weeks left in summer, and no one will hire a part-timer to work a month and a half, so if I do get a job it'll have to overlap with school (which does not sound like a brilliant idea.) I kinda want to work in a bookstore, so next time I'm in das Woo I'll probably hit up Tatnuck, Borders, and the like. There's also a cool antique books store downtown, although I doubt they're hiring.
I've been reading tons of Lovecraft lately, partly for my suff, partly for pleasure. People complain that all of his stories have the same plot, which is true to some extent. Part of the problem is that 'weird fiction' imposes restrictions which prevent his storylines from being at all explicit, and there's only so many ways to skirt the issue while still telling a story. I just finished reading 'the case of charles dexter ward' and 'the lurker at the threshold,' both of which have basically the same plot, and offhand I believe 'the thing on the doorstep' was in the same mold. It seems like a lot of Lovecraft's stories are variations on a form.
That being said, he's still my current (and probably all-time) favorite author. Even if he evokes the same atmosphere in every story, it's still a good goddamn atmosphere. And more to the point, he has an incredible scientific imagination. His monsters were originally supernatural creatures, but were gradually refined to be extra- or ultra-dimensional beings. There's clearly pseudoscience behind all of his later works - if there's a monster living in a character's closet, Lovecraft knows damn well how it got there and why he's crashing in some poor bastard's room.
His repeated use of the same adjectives is a little grating, but would be less conspicuous if his pet words weren't antiquated (I've never seen 'eldritch' used outside of his work.) It seems to be contagious, since his protege August Derleth had a fetish for 'manifest' as an adjective.
Also, the book I just read, 'the lurker at the threshold,' was co-authored with Derleth, which I didn't like so much. He doesn't seem to understand weird fiction as well as Lovecraft (the genre's friggin inventor.) One of its fundamental tenets is unknowability - knowing the underlying truth of the universe would drive a human insane with 'cosmic horror.' There are some things mortal man was not meant to learn. This theme manifests itself in the general ambience of the fiction, where everything is shrouded in mystery. Even the tiniest revelation is shockingly abhorrent, which is exactly why most Lovecraft stories are pretty small-scale affairs on a cosmic level - if we saw anything more than the tip of the iceberg we'd be driven mad. Pragmatically, it's because if Lovecraft's human imagination could concieve of an idea, then it was inherently petty - it's clearly not beyond the bounds of what man can know.
What I'm getting at is that Derleth doesn't understand this principle. Every Lovecraft story reveals only a tiny part of the Cosmic Truth, and it does so slowly and deliberately. Derleth, on the other hand, rattles off a bunch of 'forbidden secrets' like it were a laundry list. If you're actually reading at this point, and you've read the book in question, I'm referring specifically to the famous passage in the Necronomicon (that is not dead which can eternal lie / and with strange aeons, even death may die) that Derleth liberally expands to a list of forgotten gods and unknowable places. If these creatures are just boogeymen in some sort of humanly-comprehensible hierarchy, as he makes them out to be, then it's not cosmic horror, it's schlock horror. I'm not particularly pleased with his attempts to reconcile the Cthulhu Mythos with Christian dogma, either. Yeah, the idea of the Elder Gods casting down the Great Old Ones for offending them is neat, but when you explicitly point out the parallels to Lucifer's fall from grace it stops being clever. And when the Elder Gods periodically intervene to save humankind's ass, it COMPLETELY slaughters the core tenet of cosmic horror: the universe doesn't care about humanity, we're just useless ants with laughably limited capabilities and mercifully stunted perception.
I guess LJ cuts were invented for a reason, no? And by the way, the problem with me writing massive entries like these is that when I'm done writing I don't feel like editing or polishing any of the content.
So I'm done talking about things I've read. Let's go onto things I'm listening to: Chicago. Not the recent movie or its namesake musical, but Chicago the band. Um, songs you might have heard are '25 or 6 to 4,' 'Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,' 'Colour My World,' or 'Beginnings.' See, I downloaded their complete discography, and I'm working through their albums from oldest to newest. There's a lot of newer stuff, but a lot of people write it off as crap. I'm in no position to judge, though from what I do know of it they have a distinctly different sound than what they started out with, which is pretty plausible considering the length of their career.
The stuff I'm listening to - Chicago Transit Authority and Chicago II, the first two albums - are supposed to be jazz-rock fusion (this was what people called prog-rock in 1968, I guess) but it's basically just rock music with a brass section for a backbone. The big band sound is what I really like it for, so I get pissed off when the guitarist gets the whole spotlight. 'Liberation,' the last song on their first album, starts out sounding like the Blues Brothers, but then turns into a 15-minute jam session. I've never hit 'stop' so quickly. That's not even the worst of it, there's actually a separate track called 'Free Form Guitar' which consists of the guitarist alternately hitting his whammy bar and trying to sound like Jimi Hendrix. NEXT. Chicago II is a hell of a lot better, it consists of a few really incredible suites punctuated by singles. It starts out with a few standalone songs, which are mostly good but run too long. Then it breaks into the first 7-or-8 song suite, called 'ballet for a girl in buchanan,' which is unbefuckinglievable. Some of the best music I've ever heard; I can honestly say I'll enjoy it for the rest of my life. Then it goes into 'Fancy Colours,' which is just plain goofy, and then '25 or 6 to 4,' one of their all-time hits. Come to think of it, five or six of Chicago's best-known songs are on the first two albums. Not a bad start. Then another suite, completely instrumental until its capstone, 'Memories of Love.' This suite is well-constructed, I think, but hard to get excited about. It's basically an orchestral number with a flute lead. It leads right into the last suite, 'It Better End Soon,' about the Vietnam War. It rambles pretty badly, but has an improvised feel to it. On one hand, there's some charm to improvisation, but on the other hand it sounds kinda sloppy. And I'm tired of hearing about the Vietnam fucking War. It ends with 'Where Do We Go From Here,' very good but overshadowed by the earlier tracks.
I don't really like to talk about music, but the fact that I wrote all that stuff should convince you that I really like it.
I'm also listening to Meatloaf - Back Into Hell. Rock the fuck out.
Thursday nights are sweet. MXC on Spike, Reno 911 on Comedy Central, and Adult Swim airs new Family Guy episodes. Also, I need to re-read Contact, because it is an amazing book. And I need to buy the DVD of the movie. I also want UHF and the Reno 911 box set. Maybe Eternal Sunshine, American Beauty, and Garden State, depending upon how gay I feel.
...ok, done.
Jesus Christ! Get the Escalade, we're outta here.