(no subject)
I wonder if there are any recorded instances of psychotic breaks due to Microsoft Office products? I can't imagine it's an isolated phenomenon, seeing as they operate according to no discernible rules of logic. Anyway.
1. Johnny Cash - Five Feet High and Rising
2. M. Ward - Poor Boy, Minor Key
3. Belle & Sebastian - Beyond the Sunrise
4. Eels - Understanding Salesmen
5. Les Savy Fav - Reformat (Dramatic Reading)
6. The New Pornographers - The Jessica Numbers
7. Jerome Patrick Holan/Chuck Berry - You Never Can Tell (Pulp Fiction soundtrack)
8. Hank Williams - I'll Have a New Body (I'll Have a New Life)
9. Doves - Lost Souls
10. Tricky - Overcome
I guess my favorite here right now is the New Pornographers. I've been listening to only upbeat happy(ish) music while I finish my paper, to keep the Withering Despair at bay, and this is one of the few albums I have that fits the bill. Seriously though, how much happy-but-also-intelligent music can you think of? Or perhaps more accurately, happy-but-not-vapid. Least favorite? I don't actually dislike any of these.
There is a fascinating article in this month's Wired about the nature of creativity and artistic output ("What Kind of Genius Are You?" by Daniel H. Pink). Theories created by an economist, no less. I love it when stuff comes out of left field like that.
I wonder about the article's characterization of Sylvia Plath as one of the "conceptualists,"--someone whose genius exploded at a young age. I don't think she lived long enough to make that judgment, for one thing. Yes, the underlying idea does matter in her work, but her words are definitely not "mere execution." She was as meticulous and careful about her craft as any of the experimentalists; her knowledge of literature was deep and thorough, encompassing the concepts and the nuances as well. She certainly built her work upon the backs of the literature that had come before her.
I wonder if it was perhaps only her illness and her dramatic relationship with her husband that inflamed her work with the fervor that the article attributes to the early geniuses. Certainly they provided plenty of subject matter. Would that passion have continued if she had lived; maybe divorced, relieved her depression? I don't know. It's not very nice to think about--that depression was what made her mind work as a poet, and that without it she'd have been just another dissatisfied housewife. I just think that she had the skill and the drive and the vision to be a great poet for as long as she chose to keep writing, and that her work would have become even richer as she aged.
1. Johnny Cash - Five Feet High and Rising
2. M. Ward - Poor Boy, Minor Key
3. Belle & Sebastian - Beyond the Sunrise
4. Eels - Understanding Salesmen
5. Les Savy Fav - Reformat (Dramatic Reading)
6. The New Pornographers - The Jessica Numbers
7. Jerome Patrick Holan/Chuck Berry - You Never Can Tell (Pulp Fiction soundtrack)
8. Hank Williams - I'll Have a New Body (I'll Have a New Life)
9. Doves - Lost Souls
10. Tricky - Overcome
I guess my favorite here right now is the New Pornographers. I've been listening to only upbeat happy(ish) music while I finish my paper, to keep the Withering Despair at bay, and this is one of the few albums I have that fits the bill. Seriously though, how much happy-but-also-intelligent music can you think of? Or perhaps more accurately, happy-but-not-vapid. Least favorite? I don't actually dislike any of these.
There is a fascinating article in this month's Wired about the nature of creativity and artistic output ("What Kind of Genius Are You?" by Daniel H. Pink). Theories created by an economist, no less. I love it when stuff comes out of left field like that.
I wonder about the article's characterization of Sylvia Plath as one of the "conceptualists,"--someone whose genius exploded at a young age. I don't think she lived long enough to make that judgment, for one thing. Yes, the underlying idea does matter in her work, but her words are definitely not "mere execution." She was as meticulous and careful about her craft as any of the experimentalists; her knowledge of literature was deep and thorough, encompassing the concepts and the nuances as well. She certainly built her work upon the backs of the literature that had come before her.
I wonder if it was perhaps only her illness and her dramatic relationship with her husband that inflamed her work with the fervor that the article attributes to the early geniuses. Certainly they provided plenty of subject matter. Would that passion have continued if she had lived; maybe divorced, relieved her depression? I don't know. It's not very nice to think about--that depression was what made her mind work as a poet, and that without it she'd have been just another dissatisfied housewife. I just think that she had the skill and the drive and the vision to be a great poet for as long as she chose to keep writing, and that her work would have become even richer as she aged.