Album of the Month: A STEADY DRIP, DRIP, DRIP by Sparks

Sparks have a history of recording annoying songs. As of late, "Giddy Giddy" from Hippopotamus and "Here Kitty" from Hello Young Lovers are two excellent examples of the sort of schtick that will drive you insane. But then it was that way from the start. Come to think of it, even Sparks' eponymous debut had a piece called "Biology 2" which, it seems, was recorded specifically for the purpose of annoying you (I actually enjoy "Biology 2", but that is neither here nor there). In a way, being mildly irritating is something the Mael brothers get off on.

And yet "Left Out In The Cold", the new addition to the lengthy catalogue of annoying songs by Sparks, is something I have no stomach for. I am not here to tell you that it is their lowest point (certainly not with a discography that includes albums like Interior Design and Music That You Can Dance To), but it almost single-handedly made me turn to Woods' Strange To Explain as the best album of the month. God, what utter abomination. Those tacky high-pitched 'aaaahhh's from Russell are the stuff of nightmares. Should have been left out in the cold, if you'll excuse the obvious pun.

Thankfully, the rest of the album is good. Not as good as Hippopotamus, of course, and I would have preferred some editing, but Ron Mael is such a brilliant and inventive songwriter. Biggest highlights this time include the anthemic opener "All That", the piano-based drama of "Pacific Standard Time" and the repetitive synth-pop classic "One For The Ages". Mind you, there are many annoying songs here, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. "Lawnmower" could have been on Hello Young Lovers, and "iPhone" is wonderfully entertaining. Having said that, the closing ballad "Please Don't Fuck Up My World" is no "Never Turn Your Back To Mother Earth". 

A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip (not their best album title) is an engaging record, and there is so much to discover on further listens - both lyrically and musically. It is of course quite astonishing that they manage to sound so invigorating 50 (fifty!) years after their first album. The operatic "Stravinsky's Only Hit", for instance, features more ideas than most young bands would produce over a whole album. Granted, some of those ideas may be questionable - but to still see them make such playful, endlessly creative records in 2020 does bring a smile to my face. Speaking of which - please note that people with no sense of humour do not like Sparks. Something I have seen proven time and time again.


MAY ROUNDUP:

Perfume Genius - Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
The Magnetic Fields - Quickies
Mark Lanegan - Straight Songs of Sorrow
Sparks - A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip
Willie Nile - New York at Night
Woods - Strange to Explain
Einstürzende Neubauten - Alles in Allem

Monthly Observations. Lulu.

Once, five or six years ago, I woke up with a discomforting thought: if they arrest me for life or else I get hit by a bus, I might never watch The Godfather. I remember strolling outside my house that day, walking an imaginary dog and thinking I have to do something about it. Obviously, the easiest thing was to buy a bottle of red wine and watch The Godfather and The Godfather II in one sitting. Which is exactly what I did next. The experience was intoxicating. In fact, I was fully prepared to take on The Godfather III in the early hours of dawn. Something I never did.

Thoughts like that have appeared throughout my life with depressing frequency, and each time I felt a mixture of guilt and excitement that made me drop everything and rush to doing it. La Strada. Hopscotch. Einstein on the Beach. Etc. etc. Sometimes, however, the intoxication was wearing thin, and thrill gave way to boredom. Much of the culture that my life had to contain (or so I believed) was not worth waking up to in the middle of the night.

An obvious thought, of course, but you need to come to it. You do not just overthrow those cultural imperatives - you have to live them down. There is no question that they contain millions of fantastic discoveries, and Infinite Jest might be worth it in the end (who is there to find out, anyway?), but equally, there could be more sense in rereading a childhood favourite you had long forgotten. Just the other day, I thought of Lulu, that hopelessly maligned last album by Lou Reed I had never heard. I logged onto my Spotify account, but something distracted me, and next thing you know - I was crying to "Heavenly Arms". Again. 

In other words, fuck the bus. Yes, sure, once in a while I still wake up with a thought that I might never watch Lawrence of Arabia. But the thing is - that thought is no longer discomforting.

Unpopular Opinions. Lolita.

Lolita is Kubrick's greatest film.


I have an uneasy relationship with Stanley Kubrick. Which is not that surprising if you consider that my first Kubrick experience was a scene at the beginning of Eyes Wide Shut in which Nicole Kidman's character is sitting on the toilet bowl. For someone who was no more than ten years of age at the time (and who was deifying Kidman after the nail-biting escape in Bangkok Hilton), this was too much to take. That scene, however, was just the start of Eyes Wide Shut, the film that traumatised my virginity way before the first sexual encounter. 

To me, Kubrick was unsettling, and A Clockwork Orange did little to alleviate the sense of discomfort from having the Kubrick Stare permanently fixed on me (Malcolm McDowell is one evil actor). I found Kubrick's adaptation overly theatrical and deeply unpleasant - but equally, I thought he came up with a better ending than Burgess, and there was just no getting away from the sense of witnessing a true visionary at work. The scope was overwhelming. The style, too, was a whale's kiss. 

Respect, then, and not much love. I could extol the virtues of Barry Lyndon and Full Metal Jacket all you want, but there was never any emotional connection. The Shining is genius but its genius is cold and calculated. Spartacus is a fine spectacle but is it even a Kubrick movie?.. I found the Dr. Strangelove satire too smug (while certainly enjoyable), and I do believe that 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the most overrated films of all time. Aside from the opening scenes, it does not hold up well. This is not about dated technologies of 1968, mind you. I have recently watched Tarkovsky's Solaris again and found it as mesmerising as ever. A Space Odyssey, however, is style over substance, and boredom sets in very quickly.

Of the ones that are left, I am quite partial to Kubrick's two mid-50s noir stylisations (Killer's Kiss and The Killing), his powerful anti-war classic (Paths of Glory) and, yes, the notorious adaptation of Lolita. To me, the latter has the kind of warmth and humour I do not find in any of his other works. It was, I believe, a stroke of true genius not to do a serious take on Nabokov's novel and create something playful instead. Knowing the writer's hatred of cinema, I believe Nabokov's politeness about the movie was not sincere. Having said that, I cannot imagine a better adaptation. Lolita has the lightness of touch while being subtle and mildly seductive (this was 1962, remember). It is a different work of art, granted, but that is the power of Stanley Kubrick's vision. It could never be contained.

travelling notes (cxxiii)

It is quite fascinating, really, that there is but one source of regret after years of travelling: things you did not do. Because when it comes to things that you did do - well, they may have been horrible and they may have been disgusting, but they were all worth it in the end.

Скетчи про Минск. Лестницы и ступеньки.

Дьявол в деталях. Если бы меня спросили, что я больше всего не люблю в Минске, я бы назвал ступеньки в парке перед Театром оперы и балета (для всех скучных людей: нет, это не самая ужасная вещь в Минске). Они ведут вниз, в левый угол парка, если стоять спиной ко входу в театр. Их не так много. Они выложены тоскливой белорусской плиткой. И они вызывают у меня приступ ненависти к миру. Думаю, любой, кто хоть раз поднимался по ним в сторону театра или спускался вниз, к дороге, понимает меня. Если нет, то дело вот в чем: шаг любого взрослого человека, чей рост меньше трех метров, должен дважды оказаться на одной ступеньке. Таким образом, если ты начинаешь свой спуск с левой ноги, то на каждую новую ступеньку ты сначала будешь ставить именно левую ногу. Эффект от спуска такой, что в лучшем случае ты почувствуешь себя идиотом, а в худшем - хромым идиотом. И нет, я не придираюсь. Я просто бываю там слишком часто. 

Ну а вообще я люблю городские ступеньки, и мне так сильно не хватает их в этом городе. Мне кажется, на ступеньках и лестницах с нами происходят самые интересные вещи (у Александра Житинского есть незабываемая повесть "Лестница"). Город обретает интригу, а в голову приходят хорошие мысли. Мне не хватает чего-то наподобие 237 ступеней, ведущих к базилике Сакре-Кер (я закрываю глаза на толпы африканцев, продающих зонтики и брелки Эйфелевой башни), или знаменитой Испанской лестницы (я стараюсь не замечать пакистанцев с холодной водой и красными розами с острыми шипами). А еще высоких ступенек, ведущих к какому-нибудь британскому музею, где ко мне подсаживается мужчина средних лет с безумными глазами и начинает рассказывать о том, со сколькими женщинами он переспал. Там столько жизни, на этих лестницах и ступеньках мира, что остается только смотреть и слушать. Помню, как в Одессе я несколько раз прошел Потемкинскую лестницу, неустанно проигрывая в голове знаменитую сцену с коляской из фильма Эйзенштейна. 

Но говоря об интересных лестницах Минска, я могу вспомнить лишь несколько. Любимые среди них - это ступеньки на Музыкальном переулке, которые, правда, немного обесценились от изменений внизу этого самого переулка; лестница, ведущая к костелу Св. Роха, которая неизменно сбивает мое дыхание предчувствием прекрасного вида; и, конечно, ступеньки на Немиге, по обеим сторонам проспекта, ведущие к площади Свободы и улице Революционной. Эти последние ступеньки, те, что ведут к Галерее Савицкого, я любил еще в детстве - и был ужасно расстроен, когда любимое дерево спилили, и под ним оказались скамейки с шумными компаниями пьяных людей, которые лишали все это прежней интриги. А еще ступеньки Академии музыки неподалеку, где три или четыре года назад я дожидался друга, и мне в голову пришла идея того, как изменить мир. Ну или что-то вроде этого.