why the fuck are people still going to bp stations?

If I hadn't read this myself, I wouldn't have believed it. BP has hired the very people put out of business (fishermen and shrimpers) by its mess to clean up its mess -- and the protective clothing they've received doesn't include respirators.

(I'm still hopeful that President Obama will do the proper, but politically unpopular, thing and permanently ban future construction of offshore drilling platforms.)

Environmentalists and fishing groups in Louisiana say prolonged exposure to the oil, in the form of tiny airborne particles as well as dispersants, could be wreaking devastating damage on public health.

They also accuse BP of threatening to sack workers who try to turn up for clean-up duty wearing protective respirators, and the Obama administration of refusing to release results of air and water quality tests that would show the impact of crude oil and dispersants on the environment.

Wilma Subra, a chemist who has served as a consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency, said there was growing anecdotal evidence that locals were falling ill after exposure to tiny airborne particles of crude. Air quality data released earlier by the EPA suggested the presence of chemicals that – while still within legal limits – could be dangerous. But Subra complained that the EPA was not releasing all data it had gathered from BP.

"Every time the wind blows from the south-east to the shore, people are being made sick," she said. "It causes severe headaches, nausea, respiratory problems, burning eyes and sore throats." Long-term health effects include neurological disorders and cancer.

Subra said there was even greater concern for those recruited to lay booms and skim crude off the water, since they were in closer proximity to the oil and the chemical dispersants.

Clint Guidry, of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, has accused BP of threatening to sack workers who turn up wearing respirators. The oil firm said it was not aware of any workers being turned away, but noted that it was the responsibility of the Obama administration to decide whether such protective gear was warranted.

Hugh Kaufman, chief investigator for the EPA's ombudsman, said he encountered similar worker safety policies after 9/11. "If people are wearing respirators, it scares people because they realise how toxic it is," he said "The administration is down-playing the problem because it saves them money down the line. It was the same at Ground Zero."

EPA tests indicate that the combined effect of dispersants and crude oil are even more toxic than individually. "There are dispersants being applied by aeroplane and by boat, and these people on the water are being sprayed over and over again," Subra said.

Five offshore rigs have been shut down since the spill after workers fell ill. Seven workers on a boat trying to scrub the oil from Breton Sound were taken to hospital on Wednesday, complaining of burning eyes, headaches, nausea, dizziness and chest pains. Five were treated and released.

Administration officials suggested in a conference call with reporters that the workers could be suffering from sunstroke in the hot Louisiana temperatures.

They also said the workers recruited for the clean-up – fishermen and shrimpers put out of work because of the spill – had received training and wore protective gear. However, the protective clothing does not include respirators, which environmental activists say violates safety regulations for workers exposed to dangerous chemicals.

None of the workers pictured raking up oil from the beaches of Grand Isle Louisiana in photographs released by the Deepwater command centre today was wearing a mask or respirator.

And there's more...

BP has challenged widespread scientific claims that vast plumes of oil are spreading underwater from its blown-out rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The denial comes as the oil giant prepares for a new operation to put an end to the worst oil spill in US history – which could see the leak get worse before it gets better.

The company's challenge to several scientific studies is likely to put it further at odds with an increasingly angry Obama administration, which has accused it of playing down the size of the leak in an effort to limit possible fines.

BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, said it had no evidence of underwater oil clouds. "The oil is on the surface," he said. "Oil has a specific gravity that's about half that of water. It wants to get to the surface because of the difference in specific gravity."

Hayward's assertion flies in the face of studies by scientists at universities in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, among other institutions, who say they have detected huge underwater plumes of oil, including one 120 metres (400ft) deep about 50 miles from the destroyed rig.

. . . .

The Politico website reported that the Obama team was incensed that the company failed to inform it for a day and a half after suspending the failed "top kill" operation to plug the spill using rubber tyres and mud.

The dispute comes as the company readies its latest effort to contain the flow of oil in to the sea, following the failure of top kill. The new plan involves an intricate operation to cut the top off the damaged riser that brought oil to the surface of the destroyed rig. The intention is to create a flat surface to which to attach a valve that would divert the oil into a pipe and on to a ship.

But slicing the top off the damaged pipe may result in oil flowing into the sea at a faster rate until the new valve is fitted. Even if successful, the operation would only limit, not entirely stop, oil from flowing into the sea. If this measure failed, BP's best hope of halting the oil would remain the drilling of a relief well that would ease the pressure on the damaged one. But the US government has warned that the spill could continue into August.

The attempts to stop the oil flow have been given added urgency by the start of the hurricane season tomorrow.

Forecasters are predicting an unusually high number of storms over the next six months. If the oil is still spread across the sea, a hurricane is likely to disperse it over a much wider area and push it deeper into marshlands and other inland areas, making the environmental disaster even worse.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting between eight and 14 hurricanes this season, with perhaps a similar number of smaller storms.

The US military has ruled out taking charge of the operation to stem the flow of oil from the blown-out BP rig. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, today said that military chiefs had looked at the available equipment and concluded that "the best technology in the world, with respect to that, exists in the oil industry".

A day earlier, the former US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said the military should step in because the crisis was now "beyond the capacity" of BP to stop.

must read

From today's New York Times:

Documents Show Early Worries About Safety of Rig
By IAN URBINA
Published: May 29, 2010

WASHINGTON — Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week.

The problems involved the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster on the rig.

The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.

On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure.

“This would certainly be a worst-case scenario,” Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warned in an internal report. “However, I have seen it happen so know it can occur.”

The company went ahead with the casing, but only after getting special permission from BP colleagues because it violated the company’s safety policies and design standards. The internal reports do not explain why the company allowed for an exception. BP documents released last week to The Times revealed that company officials knew the casing was the riskier of two options.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

classic cross

I put this up on my Facebook, but nobody commented or cared, so I thought I would post it here, where no one will care or comment. It's still funny, though. It's off David's latest album, Bigger and Blackerer.

another gem

My High Violet love-fest was interrupted Tuesday morning when, in a Klonopin-induced haze, I discovered on eMusic Damien Jurado’s latest (released on May 25), the somber Saint Bartlett. It’s a beautiful album, comprised of twelve mainly acoustic guitar-driven songs (tag: folk rock). Surrounding his guitar are sublime string arrangements ("Cloudy Shoes," "Throwing Your Voice," and the sorrowful "The Falling Snow") and sparse drum and percussion rhythms (although "Arkansas" bumps from the speakers like a long lost Phil Spector tune from the early '60s). Pearly pianos and dependable bass lines don't accompany the songs so much as they console the lost souls wandering throughout Saint Bartlett. Not that these musical elements are unimportant, but they all revolve around Jurado's egg-shell voice. An avalanche of sadness slowly builds in "The Falling Snow," and you expect his voice to crack from the weight, especially when he pleads "Come down from your mountain/You've been gone too long/If you will then you should say so/Don't leave me hanging on/Out from my open window/We could hear you breathing/Hold on but it does not hold on/Every mountain falls" Whether he's channeling Neil Young ("Wallingford") or nakedly confronting mortality and its aftermath in "Kalama" ("Mother is it easy/Knowing that I will die soon/Will you keep me as ashes/placed on the mantel or thrown out?"), Jurado's voice strikes your heart in its subtlety and honesty, which you would expect from a folk-rock musician, but few artists convey their vision as beautifully as Jurado.

If I had to compare this record to another, it would be Cat Power’s You Are Free. Like You Are Free, Saint Bartlett struggles to soar just over our heads, skimming the treetops and street lights. As you watch its beautiful but troubled flight, you’re concerned that its wings won’t be strong enough to reach its destination, but its struggle is a beautiful endeavor, beautiful because the will to survive is glorioius in its incomprehensibility. Some survive. Others die. And some struggle to maintain the balance between those two animations. Jurado, like Cat Power, gives those unfortunate souls a name, a face. And the faces are always dimly lit -- we don’t need to see the color of their eyes or the contours of their cheeks. Why? Because we know these people; we’ve worked with them; we’ve held their hands; we’ve kissed their crusted lips. Saint Bartlett gently forces us to confront those dimly lit faces and illuminate them. Those faces are our own.

-+-WVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWV-+-

Damien Jurado begins his tour this Saturday in Seattle. He visits The Bishop in Bloomington on June 13.

Free mp3s courtesy of Jurado's label, the magnificently terrific (and Bloomington's own) Secretly Canadian:
"Arkansas" and "Cloudy Shoes"

xx

short: the wheel

Strange dreams lately. Last night I awoke at 2AM with the taste of county fair cotton candy on my lips. The taste of sugary cobwebs lit a memory, a moment when I was eight years old.

My father and I were at the county fair. Swallowing my hand was my father’s hand, a hand I remember well: it was worn and weathered, like an old baseball mitt, and the dried calluses that canvassed his flesh felt old and alien. Corn dogs and elephant ears saturated the dirty air, and greasy pedophiles and hair spray-stained beauty queens wandered aimlessly. The flashing lights and spinning machines dazzled my eyes. I wanted to escape the rusting anchor of my father’s hand, but his hold was strong; his stride, however, was weighted, slowed by the cancer digesting his brain.

Three months before that night at the fair I realized something was wrong with my father. He was tending our overgrown garden, and I was out there, with him, fascinated by the massive lapping leaves of a cabbage, when I heard him yelp – a sound I had never heard from my father – and collapse. Invisible forces were jolting his body, and I yelled, “Mommy!”

I yelled, “Mommy!”

And I yelled, “Something’s wrong with daddy!”

I ran from the wild overgrowth.

I ran from my father’s convulsing body.

I ran for help because something was wrong.

After the ambulance driver removed my father’s body from the garden, my mother told me, “Daddy’s sick.” The white-washed walls and sterilized smell of hospital corridors would become very familiar after that day in the garden.

Away from the garden and hospitals, my father and I roamed the fairgrounds. We approached a balloon-and-dart game, and my father, pointing to the prize board, asked me which one I wanted. “I want the giant penguin!” I responded excitedly. My father would have to pop eight balloons with ten darts to claim the prize. He exchanged four tickets for ten darts, of which only two would strike their target. A plastic dinosaur was his consolation prize.

Whenever I think about that balloon-and-dart game I become angry. Angry because I feel as though the game was rigged, fixed to take advantage of my dying father. Other times that anger turns to my father, because, aware of the advanced stage of his disease, I don’t know why he chose a game dependent on hand-eye coordination. I’ll never know how badly he wanted to win that penguin for me, but I know his failed attempt haunted him. For him, that giant penguin represented something greater than a token from the county fair – it was a closing verdict on his fatherhood. He failed to come through for his son = he failed as a father.

We turned our backs on the penguin and walked toward the looming Ferris wheel. All day my father had promised me a ride on the giant machine. He spoke of it as if it were some miraculous apparatus built by the gods of the universe. In those passenger cars were his ghosts, memories of his childhood, memories of his father, memories of a life that was slowly crawling away from his weakening grasp.

Six tickets bought us a ride, and inside that rickety carriage we sat, the rotating wheel making circles, endless circles. Each time we climbed to the top my breath would shorten, my pupils would dilate, and I would try to swallow as much of the panorama as possible. I saw street lamps burning in foreign towns. Glowing billboards selling the promise of American dreams. I saw stars and distant galaxies. I saw everything from that carriage.

The spinning wheel began to slow. The passenger cars began to empty. And I looked to my father. Tiny beads of tears rested in the crevices of his eye sockets. “What’s wrong, Daddy?” I asked.

No answer.

Again, “What’s wrong, Daddy.”

One of those weathered mitts patted my lap. He couldn’t look at me. Couldn’t speak. If he had tried, he would’ve fallen apart. I saw his chin tremble. I looked away. I tried to find a distant billboard that promised to cure my father’s sickness. I couldn’t see one.

“It’s slowing because the ride is over,” he managed to mutter.

Two weeks later, away from the garden, away from the hospitals and away from the giant wheel, my father lay in a bed inside a room that I cannot remember. I was bedside, watching him as though I were waiting for some miracle to wash over his flesh and erase all the bad things from the past few months. Through the cracks of his eyelids, a flame struggled to remain lit. I wanted to believe that behind those eyelids was the flickering picture of a Ferris wheel, decorated with a million multi-colored light bulbs, all blinking, flashing. All this as his heart fluttered. All this as there were circles. Endless circles. And in those circles we sat, overlooking the creeps and queens, the wild weeds of overgrown gardens, the seeds of our failings, the roots of our glories, all the ghosts and colors of our existence.

The cracks of his eyelids narrowed. The rise and fall of my father’s chest slowed. It’s slowing because the ride is over.

Strange dreams lately.

xx

delicate details of violet

High Violet by The National was officially released last Tuesday. If "official" release dates are still relevant, of course. Thanks to illegal leaks and pre-release streams (The New York Times streamed High Violet two weeks prior to its release), an album's street date is as useless as dial-up internet access. And that's unfortunate. Generation X'ers, remember those Monday night midnight sales? It was a special time: not only could you be one of the first to hear the newest record by your favorite band, but, while waiting in line outside the record store, you could engage in face-to-face interactions with other fans and discuss your favorite song, your favorite album and your favorite concert. The last midnight sale I recall attending was way back in June 2001, and the band was Radiohead, the album, Amnesiac. Now, new releases slowly bleed onto the Internet, making the pomp and circumstance of a new release a rare event.

Awaiting High Violet's arrival conjured many memories of a music scene long beyond the point of resuscitation. (Which is strange, because it took me nearly two years to fully appreciate The National's previous album, Boxer. I now cherish that record. Boxer is certainly a favored album from the previous decade – and yes, it rivals and, depending my mood, surpasses another fav from that decade, Kid A.) How did High Violet stir such antique memories? The National's songs remind me of those old wooden boxes you sometimes see on Antique Road Show. Like those valuable relics, each song etched into High Violet's mantel is intricately shaped – it's an old-world craftsmanship, a world in which songwriting was a cherished talent, a time when a band like Sleigh Bells and an album like Treats would be justly treated as a throwaway trinket from a 25¢ vending machine. The National's sound is subtle yet deliberate; each sound you hear (from Matt Berninger's sigh in the closing seconds of "Lemonworld" to the sneaking strings of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks") is purposely carved into its surrounding environment, and it's this detail that sets the band apart from the current flavor-of-the-month band spewed forth by the Internet Hype Machine. Also, how about High Violet's running time? In 2010, who releases an album that clocks in at nearly forty-eight minutes? Indeed, with their latest effort, The National present everything that's good about indie-rock music, which, unfortunately, or perhaps justly, clashes with everything that is popular about indie rock right now.

In typical dour fashion, the band opens High Violet with "Terrible Love" and follows with "Sorrow," in which Berninger pleads "Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water," then admits "'Cos I don't wanna get over you." "Anyone's Ghost" follows, and with the chorus "Didn't want to be anyone's ghost/But I don't want anyone else," High Violet's sentiment is secured. It's the inability to release the memory of everything lost to the tides of time that stains the album so beautifully. Berninger, whose rusty baritone could console the most piteous souls among us, sings/speaks with the confident drawl of a drunken professor and reminds us, simply through the sound of his voice, that we all struggle with the necessity of release.

In a 2007 interview with The Onion's A.V. Club, Berninger spoke about the significance of keeping the meanings of his lyrics a "little bit blurry," which is fitting because since Boxer, The National's sound has drifted in the hazy mass of a fog. Or maybe it's a ghost. High Violet quivers on the edge of your mind, haunting the periphery, but just when you attempt to reach out and consider its density, it all becomes "blurry," lost in the beauty of subtlety. It's in that vast expanse that High Violet is allowed to flutter and breathe, defying absolute definition.

Unlike many "it" bands, acts who feel the need to expose every crevice of their aural bodies in every second of their songs, The National make restraint an art form. So much of our culture is based on "turning it up to 11." This idiom guides popular music, radio and television programs and advertisements; High Violet counteracts this senseless noise by hiding itself inside skillfully written songs. Are talented artists still appreciated in 2010? No. Everything's gone to hell. Wars, government uprisings, global warming, capitalism's clowns, oil in the Gulf. "There's no saving anything/Now we're swallowing the shine of the summer" Berninger speaks, more breath than words, in "Runaway." But the ghosts of High Violet will console us: "I won't be no runaway/Cause I won't run."

xx

angry

I'll be visiting hometown tomorrow. It's a trip I'm not anticipating. I should be eager to see mom, considering the last time I saw her was in a fifth floor hospital room, but I'm not. Am I angry? Not exactly. Am I disappointed? Yes. That disappointment tends to express itself in mild strains of anger. These sour feelings are shared with dad. Why? A few weeks ago, sister, her husband and her daughter were forced to move from their home. Actually, they weren't forced to move – they couldn't afford to make rent. See, the previous six months were rent free because the home they moved into needed a lot of work – it was trashed, basically. Sister and husband cleaned up the place. One would assume that, while occupying the home rent free, they would save some dough and have little trouble making the first month's rent payment. But no. Sister's husband works in some dusty factory, and he works plenty of overtime. So, where is all that money going? Drugs, probably. Anyway, dad, for some fucked up reason, allowed the three of them to move into his house. Guess what happens? Dad discovers a week ago that $200 – money he had stashed, locked in the trunk of his car, apparently – is missing. He issues some ultimatum, her husband moves out, and earlier this evening, sister was assessed at some drug-treatment facility. But not accepted. Sister is still living with dad, and dad told her that if she steals again, he'll call the cops and she'll no longer call his small two-bedroom house home, it'll be a jail cell. So why am I disappointed/angry with dad? Because he has never been a man to stand his position. He's known for years that sister stole from mom – hell, she stole from him long before the $200 incident. I understand that she is his daughter, and within that bond is a love that I don't understand, but when dealing with a liar there is little confusion – a liar practices deceit, yet preaches promises and good faith. I'm pissed at dad for being weak. I'm pissed at mom for not taking care of herself. I want to cut ties with everyone. I'm so disgusted with all of them. I don't expect them to be flawless characters; that, obviously, would be a ridiculous expectation, but what I do expect is behavior, a philosophy of life, that is guided by logic, a habit of existence that doesn't hinge on the suspension of life's rudimentary concepts, among those being the active pursuit of finding the cause of a recurring sickness (which mom failed to do) and appropriate skepticism when dealing with those who have proven themselves to be devious (which dad is unable to do).

Do I love my parents? Yes, of course. But as I age, I see them more as adults, people stained by age and time, then as relational beings. I'm sure other 31-year-olds share this experience, and I'm sure some find it disconcerting. But I don't. It's life. In an earlier post I wrote that our friends and families are associations by accident only. When those associates do wrong, we shouldn't absolve them of their errors, especially egregious mistakes, simply because the bond of blood or experience is common with our own. We should aid them, attempt to pull them from their ills (which, I feel, I have tried to do with mom, dad and sister). But what if our words or will isn't strong enough? Do we provide aid and comfort for their foibles? Or do we deny the ugly parts and act as if on some distant stage of temporary disbelief? What do we do?

xx

last night at rachel's

As blogged previously, electro-rock duo Phantogram came to Bloomington last night and rocked it. DJ duo Remnant opened the night up, kicking out some classic, old school-hip hop jams, which properly infused the atmosphere for Phantogram's "street beat, psyche pop."

Great show. Great band (on and off the stage). Check 'em out if you get the chance. (And be sure to pick up a dope Phantogram tee from their merch table. I did. Sexy modeling pics coming soon.)

xx

my experience with at&t

For thirty-eight hours I had no Internet access; hence, fuck AT&T. In 1974, the US Department of Justice broke up the multi conglomerate based on the company's monopolization of the telecomm industry. The time has come again.

Wednesday evening at 7PM I spoke to an AT&T customer specialist (clearly working inside one of those megaplex call centers in India). After 15 minutes of unsuccessfully attempting several troubleshooting techniques, I was told, "Oh, I see there is an outage in your area." I was told to call back in four hours, which, foolishly, I did.

At 11PM and I call and, for 15 minutes, hear more of the same: restart the modem, check your cables and connections. "Nothing's changed?" he asked. "Um, no," I replied. "OK, let me run a few tests." Said tests took about five minutes to complete. The tests came back negative, apparently. His response - seriously, this was his response: "There appears to be an outage in your area. If you don't receive an Internet signal by 7PM THE FOLLOWING EVENING, please call us back." If a supposed "outage" was the culprit, why did he spend 15 minutes feeding me diagnostic info and troubleshitting techniques (info that's easily found on AT&T's site) and then, after those useless tips and fuck-off test, tell me an "outage" may be impacting my area?

I was up Thursday morning at 9AM. Still no 'Net. This is bullshit, I thought. Why did others throughout my complex still have Internet if some crippling outage had occurred? I called again –angry – and flat out demanded a service tech ASAP. This asshole made me run through the same troubleshooting techniques as I had done the previous night. "I've done them. I'm not going to do them again." "Well, sir, if I can't run these troubleshooting techniques, I can't help you." "OK," I responded (as I contemplated a mass-shooting spree) "let's do it!" (sarcastic enthusiasm). We did it. He then ran a test. The test determined that the most likely cause of the problem was based on a line – OUTSIDE MY HOME. A service tech was then scheduled to visit my home between 8AM and 12noon – the following day.

Two hours after that phone call I received a prerecorded message from AT&T stating that the issue had been resolved – it hadn't. I was then transferred to a live customer service rep who claimed that the order to send a service tech to my home may not have been processed. (Can you fucking believe this!) He made a few clicks, "Oh, it's OK. He will be there. He's scheduled to be at your address between 8AM and 12noon Friday. I may be able to get someone to your area tonight? Like me to check?" he offered. "Sure, that'd be great!" (real enthusiasm). "Oh, I'm sorry. Nothing is available for tonight. Guess it will have to be tomorrow morning at 8AM."

"Yeah, thanks Mr. Stephen Hawking, you fuck."

The following morning a service tech visited my apartment and guess what? The problem wasn't a line outside my home – it was my modem. It was a problem that should have been identified by that "fuck-off test" performed Wednesday night. According to my roommate, who was home during the tech's visit, the tech was "surprised" she was able to get the new replacement modem working. Unbelievable. AT&T will probably charge me $60 for the service visit. That's $60 AT&T will never see. I'll take those thickheaded fucks to Judge Judy if I have to.

Fuck AT&T. Disband AT&T. (We have a "socialist" president, right?)

If you've had a pleasurable experience with AT&T (the pleasure of hanging up on them doesn't count), please let me know. Also, please include the mind-altering substances you consumed during your pleasurable conversation.

xx

prediction: the new christopher nolan film will melt your face

Will Inception be the love child of The Matrix and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

soundtrack at dusk

Remember that Nick Drake-Volkswagen commercial from a few years back? Yeah, well, a couple Thursday evenings ago I experienced the real thing, only I wasn't driving a Cabrio and "Pink Moon" wasn't playing on my car stereo. Instead, I was driving an xB and listening to The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth. (Twenty-seven year-old Swede Kristian Matsson is The Tallest Man on Earth, and The Wild Hunt is his second album.) Don't get me wrong, it's a little early in Matsson's career to make such a lofty comparison, but like Drake, his voice and guitar strike the purest of pitches, which is not a sound, but an emotion, a feeling that reminds us of life's common yet strange experience.

And this is music that will bind experience to memory. Somewhere, a young couple will fall in love, and this album, years later, will be their document of that summer romance. For me, I will forever remember my first experience with The Wild Hunt on that aforementioned Thursday. Countless stars were beginning to shine through the embers of a dusk-lit sky. Under the panorama, I was driving by swatches of farm land, driving to be by the side of the lady I love. With the malty taste of a Taddy Porter on my tongue, I heard a man, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar, sing about sighing senoritas, a blind man who'll drink his water when it rains, and the hope that someplace exists where troubles will be gone. The sounds coming out of my stereo seemed to wrap my surroundings in an aural glow that was, well, perfect.

It's easy to pin The Wild Hunt on the music map: his Dylan-esque howl makes him a folk singer straight out of central casting, but dismissing The Tallest Man as "just another folk revivalist" would be a mistake. The Wild Hunt proves that a modern troubadour doesn't have to pen stabbing songs about war and lost love to be memorable; sometimes it isn't about conveying a message – it's about transmitting a feeling. "There's a palace a fallin'/There's a smoke in the sky/There's a boy running downhill to the lowlands tonight/And he's catching the train to where he's heard you have been/He's a fool now among us, a dreamer within" he sings in the delicate "A Lion's Heart." The wild imagery of Matsson's songs evokes a fairy-tale land based not in fantasy but in plausibility, because unlike a fairy tale, the hero is flawed, haunted by things we cannot see. "The dark in what I've always been, it will never go/No it will not ever go" he sings in "Thousand Ways." Like a storm cloud ripped open, Matsson's words burst from within. To say he "sings" wouldn't be accurate; instead, he delivers his words with a raw immediacy that seemingly acknowledges the impermanence of the moment (listen to "Love is All" and note how Matsson delivers the line "Here come the tears"). A camera is limited by what it can capture, and a songwriter is limited by what he can record – Matsson utilizes every second of The Wild Hunt to leave his raw, unrefined mark.

In Chronicles, Volume One, Bob Dylan wrote that "most other [folk] performers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn't care about doing that. With me, it was about putting the song across." For The Tallest Man on Earth, it's about putting the ineffable peculiarity of the human experience across – and it's a wild hunt worth experiencing, even if the hero doesn't always win. After all, the best heroes are the ones with whom we can share our imperfect experience, raw and unrefined.

xx

The Tallest Man On Earth will play The Dome House in Bloomington on May 26. (Don't ask me about The Dome House because I've no idea where it is!)

mangum plays five-song set

Last night Jeff Mangum played the Chris Knox benefit at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC 05/06/10

Setlist:
“Oh Comely”
“A Baby for Pree”
“Two Headed Boy Pt. 2″
“In the Aeroplane over the Sea”
—
“Engine”

Videos, pics and witness accounts:

Stereogum --- Consequence of Sound --- The Village Voice --- Radio Exile

Via the terrific Radio Exile review, I found a fascinating 2002 interview Mangum did with Marci Fierman at Pitchfork. I don't know how it slipped by me, but I'm glad I found it. Definitely recommended reading.

sun. eve.

I'm relieved that this weekend is coming to a close. Most of Friday and Saturday were spent moving PB's stuff into the new apartment. Last night and today have been spent battling an anxiety-triggered delirium, which has been made worse due to a crippling cold/flu-like sickness. (Good news came yesterday: mom is back home and out of hospital.) In about six weeks I'll be joining PB, and that near-future reality has certainly made me anxious. The last seven years have expired in the same town; transplanting my roots to a foreign town is a jarring experience because I know practically nothing of this place. The street names, the faces, the atmosphere – it's all unsettling because it's all unknown. However, it's not as if I fully integrated myself into the fabric of Bloomington, so, theoretically, leaving it and landing elsewhere shouldn't been too difficult. But it's more than simply learning locations and names. There's a paranoia, a fear that this new place will refuse me, reject me like a transplanted skin graft. Whether it is a party or a new town, I always try to assimilate myself into it – the new and the unknown – but after a few brief moments I realize that it's a useless effort because I'll never achieve the degree of acceptance that I anticipate, that I need. It's strange, because when I do confront someone who won't reject me, who might even accept me, my tendency is to push him or her away. A few times this weekend I have wondered, Just who is this woman I'll be living with in six weeks? Have I made a mistake?

Pardon me, but that skin of unreality is tightening itself around my bones. Sitting in this living room I feel as if I myself am not typing these words. I am witnessing someone else type; I'm a bystander watching a stranger's life unfurl. Unknown motives pulsate him through the strange circus of life. Remember the pale blue dot photo? What the fuck are we doing here? We construct a system of beliefs and, influenced by those strange motives, fabricate an existence. I say fabricate an existence because this, this is not who we are – we are a product of (attempted) assimilation. We've become a system of creatures whose goal seems to be the accumulation of things: artificial moments of cohesion disguised as "real experiences" and wealth (objects, money).

(I ignorantly etched a mark of anger. That anger arises from a deeply rooted frustration that is so old, so primal that I will never be able to uncover and inspect its fossil. It is the same frustration that brought babbling anger to my father's lips. And I don't want to be him, not because I am ashamed of him, which I am not, but because I don't want to consider the terrifying possibility that this life, this sole experience – my experience – is unremarkable. I cannot understand this agonizing paradox: a man who wants to do good, to be good is constantly crippled by his anger and anxiety. "But I'm a good person!" the man, on his knees, pleads as those around him desert him.)

Have I lost you?

xx