Album of the Month: HIPPOPOTAMUS by Sparks

Any argument about "Luciferian Towers" being the best album of the month stands no chance. It's a wonderful record no doubt, Godspeed's best since Yanqui U.X.O., but there's just no way those wily Canadians could come up with a song title as brilliant as "So Tell Me Mrs. Lincoln Aside From That How Was The Play?"  

I have to say - I didn't like the way it started. "Hippopotamus" was an ill-advised choice for the first single, the cover picture was no Passionoia, and 15 songs seemed far-fetched. But I needn't have worried. "Hippopotamus" works amazingly well in the context of the album. There's a real menace in the eyes of the beast. And, most crucially, I can't find one song here I would wish to cut out. 

Well, let's see. "Missionary Position" may be no Christopher Hitchens' book of the same name, but it's as good as anything on Kimono My House (the lyrics are phenomenal, of course). "Scandinavian Design" is "Norwegian Wood" for 2017. "Giddy Giddy" is both annoying and terrific and is one hell of an improvement over "Here Kitty". "Bummer" starts like "Perfume" and never lets go. "I Wish You Were Fun" is lightweight Sparks perfection. "When You're French Director" is a playful duet with Leos Carax. 

It's all fucking wonderful. Seriously, with the possible exception of the slightly underwhelming "Unaware", this is good, clean, deranged fun. Almost an hour of that. Hippopotamus has the best set of melodies you will hear all year (unless you count the Luke Haines solo anthology that has just been released). And you don't need more, do you?

travelling notes (xl)

In travelling as well as in life you should stick to memories, not pictures.

Icarus

There's a young man I will never write about. I do not quite understand why, but there are сlauses you'd rather not trigger. Places you'd rather not go. 

He works in a modern art gallery, like so many of them do, and I see him in places as different as Warsaw and Dublin. His job is to walk around the room with landscapes by Gabriele Münter and to make sure that no one gets too close. Or else his job is to sit on one of those basic chairs and stare blankly at the visitors.

The visitors say something, on occasion, like "her genius was underrated" or "wasn't her ambition a little bit too studied?" Sometimes they would even broach a wider issue and whisper: "Gauguin almost works for me, but doesn't" and "Cezanne almost doesn't work for me, but does". Most often, however, they settle on "My God this is awful". 

And through all of that, he looks bored but intelligent. Aloof yet self-confident. A man of mystery. 

But here's the funny thing: they do not notice the young man. Almost no one does. I try to cut him open with a sideways glance, but my knife is much too blunt. I can't get in, though not for want of trying. He's been here for days, weeks, months, in this tiny room overlooked by red cubes, black squares and disfigured farmers. To him, we are hopeless drifters. I think that in all this time surrounded by Kandinsky and Pollock... well, he must have learnt some underlying mystery, but his eyes give away so little.

There is, however, a chance that he knows no mystery. All these years in the sun are fake years, they taught him nothing beyond the fleeting backs of a million visitors.  

Either way, I can't write about him. For if I do, a story or perhaps a novel, something stretching beyond this brief sketch here, I'm afraid that I could accidentally find him out.

travelling notes (xxxix)

Paris is a great actor who chooses to get by on charm.

After that scream?

Imagine being a journalist. Imagine having to write about the Twin Peaks finale and trying to talk yourself into a new TV show that will - oh yes it will - come soon. With a new world crashing into your doorstep. With a new name. With new twists, characters, plot devices. You are so good at talking yourself into things.

Imagine living in a modern world. Switching onto something new every two seconds. Leaving everything behind. Always remembering, always forgetting. Making selfies instead of memories. Preferring orgasm to sex. Clicking every time you are bored. And then, suddenly hijacked into the world of Twin Peaks, imagine hearing that scream.

There must have been something about that time twenty-five years ago that made it possible - to show Twin Peaks populated by giants and dwarves and dancing Audreys. To show Twin Peaks without episode 18. The devastating part is that even David Lynch cannot pull it off, in 2017, a world undisturbed by gruesome reality and that scream. 

And after that scream? 

God knows. Probably nothing.