Typing 'Signs and Symbols'

In literature, there is nothing worse than rewriting what has already been written. It's embarrassing, and it's a waste of time. Unless, of course, you do it consciously and your choice falls upon the greatest story ever conceived. 

Of which there are two, Nabokov's 'Signs and Symbols' and 'The Dead' by James Joyce. However, the latter is simply too transcendental to read, never mind type, so it seemed like Nabokov's short masterpiece was the perfect choice. After all, it wouldn't require that much effort, and time, and skill, and - let's be honest - ink.

I did it over the course of one evening in early January. I did it on Princess 100, a grey 50s typewriter from Augsburg, Germany. A New Year present, the kind that dreams are made of. At the point when I spread the short story before me, the machine had barely been used and looked as intact as it did in 1958. So it was a tingling sensation in the fingers, one that intensified with each sentence of the world's most perfect English. It's that physical joy of doing something of consequence: you hit the button, and the abstract is abstract no more. I guess this point is what makes Wim Wenders so nostalgic about those 80s Polaroid shots. 

Essentially, this was a ritual but it was also an insight into the mindset of a past writer. One who had no notion of technological bells and whistles that would at some point help him skip, and tinker, and erase. One who thought in sentences rather than words. One whose imagination was a great deal more brave and sincere. One who killed his darlings at a much higher cost. 

And then, when it was all ever, and I typed THE END (I had to, there was no getting around it), I was no closer to the genius of Vladimir Nabokov. I did not smoke my cigarette like some Willian Lee and start working on my first Interzone report. I just sat there, awe-struck by the freshly baked pages and the wonderful sensation that some things can never be repeated. 

But now the typewriter was with me, and I had a new idea, and a couple of days later I was off and running.

Album of the Month: VIRTUE by The Voidz

On its own, "QYURRYUS" is pure insanity. Some fucked-up Arabic chant set to nondescript guitar patterns and filled with the sort of autotune vocals you may have heard in your nightmares. The accompanying video is 80s at their most absurd, and evil. But listen to the same song in the context of this album, and you will see why Julian Casablancas is the Renaissance man of our times. 

Like Tyranny before it, Virtue sports a tasteless cover, seventy-five musical genres and your brain clutching at straws while trying to make sense of it all. Still, my advice would be to stick with it, because the songs are largely wonderful. In fact, there's a strong sense that Virtue sounds exactly the way Julian wanted it to sound. Sloppy and all over the place, but that's if you are not paying attention. 

I'm not going to pretend that everything works, and how could it ever. "All Wordz Are Made Up" (Julian's unhealthy infatuation with the letter 'z') is somewhat one-dimensional. "Pink Ocean" is somewhat boring. "We're Where We Were" is too much noise against too little substance. But even those few missteps have their saving graces, and picking on them when the goddamn thing features fifteen songs seems a bit petty.

Because "Leave It In My Dreams" is worthy of any Strokes single (listen to it back to back with "Under Cover Of Darkness"). "QYURRYUS" is what it is. "Pyramid Of Bones" has quite a tune underneath all the cheap metal sounds. "Wink" is like a superlative Beck song from the golden Odelay period. "Think Before You Drink" is not unlike Julian's solo record from 2009. "Lazy Boy" is just a good rock song. "Pointlessness" is not quite "Human Sadness", but it's close. 

And if someone tells you ah, but what are they trying to say with this record and does it actually make any remote sense, tell them Virtue is better than Is This It and then laugh in their face. 

Brixton Radio

My favourite mornings in Brixton included waking up on Sunday, on the second floor of a suburban house, to the sound of soft rain finger-tapping on the window panes. First thing I would do was grope, sleepily, for the banged up radio (which looked like England in the 80s to me) and switch on something like BBC6. Through the crackles too deep to fix there came the sounds of "Remote Control" and "Last Train To Clarksville" and everything else I may or may not have known at the time. Still, I was too greedy to listen and kept changing the channel.

This was of course years ago, but recently it has all come back to me in the form of Paul Westerberg's 49:00 album from 2008. Delirious pop snippets ("Thoroughbred", fifteen seconds; "You're My Girl", twenty-seven seconds), genre-hopping very much insane, timeless tunes too precious to interrupt ("Kentucky Rising", "Outta My System"), noises beautiful and totally uncalled for ("Goodnight, Sweet Prince" is so charming and yet so out of reach), all-time classics ("Short Cover Medley") and all sorts of random transitions ranging from glorious to abrupt.

Most importantly, though, Westerberg's record is the perfect sound of a Sunday morning. It's rough, it's beautiful and - with another spin of a Brixton radio - it could be anything.

travelling notes (lii)

While I've had my morning share of beautiful Camemberts and godlike Bolo Rainhas, I'd say the whole point of travelling is to avoid having breakfast at the hotel. It's about going outside at some point before noon and walking into the very ordinary looking cafe on the corner. All the magic in the world, all of it, will be there. 

Talk of the Town

You can get so much out of a short New Yorker article about a caviar sandwich. As I was reading one the other day, I realised my life would never be complete without learning of this totally random person eating a caviar sandwich every day before getting on the train. The New Yorker does them so well, these brief sketches with no reason but a lot of rhyme, coming out of nowhere, bristling with casual glimpses of New York. They are published each week in the 'Talk of the Town' section, and to me they are still the best part of the magazine.  

The realisation that came to me at some point into the article (which fired up the imagination a lot more than many of their recent short stories, so adult and so horribly mature), was that in the free age of YouTube and fake Spotify accounts, nothing can be sweeter than paying for things you like. 

Really, you could afford to download a Robert Forster record when there were still things you bought (like books, for instance, because you loved the sound of a fresh book). These days, I shudder at the idea of not investing anything into the brilliant Songs To Play. It's an ethical issue but also aesthetical. It's a chance to endow your life not with a beautiful sleeve but a certain kind of sense. To make it more meaningful, and complete. The same way that the life of a random person was made complete with a caviar sandwich by the train platform, on the way home.

Thus, I subscribed. Having read a short article which, in all damn fairness, is of no consequence at all.

travelling notes (li)

There is a hopelessly middle-aged Spanish gentleman by the bar counter and he is drinking one glass of red wine after another. The girl pouring the drinks is looking above him, at the German couple by the window speaking a language she does not understand. Each time the empty glass is shoved to her side, the girl utters the barely audible "Si, señor" and fills it up. I'm sitting in the corner, quietly observing the scene and wondering when the whole thing will end. And will it ever. Because the German couple have only just finished reading the menu and by the looks of it - they are enjoying themselves.

Bright Yellow Bright Orange

Certain albums are not so much out of time as lost in it. They exist alongside recognised masterpieces and primarily in the minds of admirers. They are great but you would have to listen. The Triffids' In The Pines is one such album, sitting ever so slightly between Born Sandy Devotional and Calenture. The Soft Parade by the Doors is another. They exist, these albums, but barely.

Bright Yellow Bright Orange was the last Go-Betweens LP I ever heard. 

You could not miss the big comeback Friends Of Rachel Worth with tunes as perfect as "He Lives My Life", "Magic In Here" and Forster's inimitable tribute to Patti Smith, "When She Sang About Angels". You could hardly miss the bittersweet (mostly bitter, of course) Oceans Apart which many consider their best. And initially, I walked past whatever happened in between. 

One record slipped past me, although in some perverted way it was all worth it. The pleasure of stumbling upon a 'new' Go-Betweens album, years later, was akin to finding out that David McComb had a solo career.

The album, released is 2003, may not have the immediate power of what came next, or before, but play it to an unsuspecting listener and they would probably tell you that "Caroline & I" is as good an opener as they have ever heard, "Make Her Day" is a perfect pop song and "In Her Diary" may just be the most beautiful thing in the world. And then watch them laugh hysterically during the timeless "Too Much Of One Thing" which has Grant and Robert sharing verses. And then it all ends with a two-minute song called "Unfinished Business".

Bright Yellow Bright Orange is such a modest triumph. For no apparent reason, it even has two of those l's back.