Best Vinyl Art 2009

Art Vinyl has posted their nominees for the best album art 2009. Unlike fiction, where I often find myself removing hardcover book jackets to avoid being influenced, I am forever drawn to album art for vinyl.

Half of these albums I doubt I'd ever listen to, but I wouldn't be surprised if I picked them up because the covers looked so great.

So, based on Art Vinyl's nominees, here are my top ten picks (click to see art):

1. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
2. The Mars Volta - Octahedron
3. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
4. Volcano Choir - Unmap
5. Biffy Clyro - Only Revolutions
6. Skunk Anansie - Smashes Trashes
7. Baroness - Blue Record
8. Teeth of the Sea - Orphaned by the Ocean
9. Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom
10. Kelpe - Microscope Contents

Advice to Writers: Read Poetry

I've been told over and over, if you want to be a great writer--not good, but bloody great--you have to read poetry. Or at least sit close to poets every now and then. So, I try.

Case in point: an evening with Aislinn Hunter and Miranda Pearson where each launched a new book. Great readings, but I would need several hours to write on both. So I'm only going to tackle one.

Aislinn's latest, A Peepshow with Views of the Interior: Paratext, is a diverse, thoughtful collection of essays on our understanding of and relationship to objects in the material world.

For the record, I don't think I've ever conversed with a more intelligent person than Aislinn. Her ability to listen and respond in a sincere, informed way often leaves me breathless--if not a little intimidated. And this is evident in her new book.

A Peepshow... displays her wealth of knowledge, her understanding of philosophy and how it pertains to the world around us. Experimental in its forms--using everything from poetry to footnotes as a creative medium, but never lacking clarity--I consider the essays imperative for every writer, or artist for that matter.

A quote from the book:

Few of us have the stomach for obliteration. We want some semblance of our having-been to reel out behind us. Want to see oneself seen. This is the conundrum of the rock garden: raking the stones to erase our footsteps but taking comfort in the tracks of the rake. How it takes a storm to come and shuttle the stones into a place that bears no trace of us. Truth of the matter is we cannot begin to say something from the void of nothing. That was the first lie: In the beginning was the word. No: In the beginning was Form. An utterance needs a body to speak to or speak from. As for the dead, they become formless, but leave a trail of pebbles behind them.

Another item worth noting--and a testament to both Aislinn's and Miranda's apparent sincerity-- a few of their students also came forward and read from their own works. My good friend, Nelia Botelho, and a fellow student Kistie Singh were among the readers, and both were in great form.

Nelia and Kistie each compiled related poems from their own collections into respective chapbooks. Great-looking books with impressive poetry within. Nelia in particular (not to take away from Kistie) impressed me greatly. A poem from her chapbook, Undone:

Autumn

Autumn reveals itself
In the skins of split fruits,
the burden of berries,
in the crackle of cornhusk
gilded in senescent light
the dry curled hollows of a husk unfurl
as scrolls before a great revelation

Autumn defines itself
in the silhouettes of crows
perched on pumpkins' thick ginger hulls,
whose sable feathers fold
like pious hands,

and in the stitched burlap
of a scarecrow's lips,
the vigilant eyes.

I think Nelia has a few chapbooks left if someone wants to purchase one. $7 (includes shipping), if you email her at: neliabotelho(at)shaw.ca

Miranda Pearson's latest is called, Harbour, and focuses on a person's drive to create territory in whatever space available. Look for it.

Remembrance Day 2009

At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them.


Also, check here for war poems written by combatants and their families. Many from WWI and WWII.

Music For Muse - Hans Werner Henze

In conversation with a professor several years ago, I found him difficult to believe when he said he wrote most of his work(s) with music playing in the background. Was that not a distraction? Quite the opposite, he had explained. It was muse and colour, texture and nuance. Music affected his writing in unexplainable ways. This said to a young protege who wrote most of his half-assed stories in complete silence.

Years later, as I gather my notes together to begin a large, hopefully successful project, the gravity of the discussion is not lost on me. Writing in silence is important. The mind needs to clear, to rid itself of the immense amount of bullshit it collects and filters and stores. This must be why the first hour or so of writing heaps up in the trash--that necessary, humbling process that finds its yield in the pages to follow. But silence, much like music, elicits a certain response--one that is not always what the author is looking for.

So, in part an experiment and in part a need to pursue a particular character to his true, basic depths, I have been playing music while I work. Not raging metal (God bless it) or even my usual fare of acoustic protest songs, but unusual compositions that wind and unwind, spread desolate and forlorn across the floor of my kitchen, and settle at my feet. Enter Hans Werner Henze, and his Guitar Music Volume 1 (samples).

Henze is an interesting chap--still alive, I believe. Of German descent, but now living in Italy as his politics and social viewpoints were not popular at the time of his post-WWII departure (1953), he is a man at odds. His upbringing also carries complex variables (check the link above to find out). In return, at least to my limited perception, his music reflects the same complexity: madness, apathy (atonal), longing...and on. Things I also equate with some of Benjamin Britten's work. But I'm a hack when it comes to music, so what the hell do I know?

What I know is whenever I'm working or thinking of the main character in my next project, I find Henze to be his soundtrack--at least the Guitar Music CD of his I have. And I fondly think of my conversations with that old professor, whose wisdom chastises me to this day, a gentle but relentless pressure to progress.

Such is the artifice of art? One cannot escape their life's influences through the process of creation. But one can draw from the bones of another's skeleton and, in mimicry, fashion themselves fiction.

Climate Cover-Up

Those of you who haven't visited DeSmogBlog.com should do so. A great site that works with diligence to source out and debunk the host of lobbyist-funded climate change skeptics causing confusion in the world of media.

Chances are you've come across a host of them. If you're at all skeptical about climate change, you've been suckered in. Any and all climate scientists will tell you that dramatic change is happening to our climate, and we have something to do with it.

Anything else is carefully-planned confusion by big energy groups who stand to lose a ton of money.

A new book called, Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming by James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore, exposes the global-warming denial campaign in vicious, irrefutable fashion. This book isn't some silly bit of finger-waving by activists, but a concise, well-researched (thanks in large part to my friend, Kevin Grandia) piece of journalism by people who have been immersed in the PR industry for decades.

These people are qualified to call shit...well, shit.

Here's a quote from a review of Climate Cover-Up in The Vancouver Sun:

"Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming is a remarkable deconstruction of what he (Hoggan) argues is a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign whose goal is to set the agenda in climate policy by discrediting legitimate science and manipulating public perceptions of the scientific evidence.

This isn't a book about the science behind global warming scenarios, it's an analysis by a well-informed insider of how the debate was skilfully framed by public relations experts to call that science into question, exploit the media's weakness for a good controversy and ultimately to sow confusion and doubt in the public's mind."

The Passionate Eye

The date rolled by this year without so much as a second thought from me. The horror of what happened on Sept. 11/2001 now displaced amongst news blurbs, the shitty "9/11" pseudo-pun, the massive amount of conspiracy speculation. Kind of bothers me how my weariness of rhetoric also makes me callous.

Last night, 102 Minutes That Changed the World (also known as 102 Minutes That Changed America) played on CBC's The Passionate Eye. If ever there is a reason to keep CBC alive, it's The Passionate Eye. That and Rick Mercer.

The "102 Minute..." documentary covered the events of Sept. 11 from the impact of the first jet into the World Trade Center, to the collapse of the last remaining tower--almost entirely from raw footage gathered from over 100 sources. No commentary from imbecilic news reporters, no manipulative agenda (that I could see). Just the events cobbled together from personal videos, phone videos, sound bites, phone calls, CB radio between firefighters and central hubs etc.

Watching it I felt like I was being repeatedly kicked in the balls. The footage (some not seen anywhere else) made me queasy: a mother behind the camera, telling her kids to go lie down in the other room while her and her husband watch out their windows, as the buildings fall a few miles away. Young adults--about the same distance away, though in a different direction--musing at what we know to be people leaping to their deaths from 80 odd floors up. They could be chairs, they must be chairs. And then, mid-sentence, the second jet hits, windows rattle, the people in the apartment scream, the camera's scope fills with fire.

Another moment--this one a sound clip--has a dispatch operator telling a lady who's managed to get through on her cell phone to stay put. Help is coming, don't go down the stairs, they may not be safe. The woman, so close to panic but trying to stay positive, talks of injured people, smoke. Break a window if you have to, she's told.

The entire time I watched, and listened, I thought any other context and this shit would be entertainment, right? I mean, we'd pay money to watch a movie like this, its drama and horror and unresolved pathos. Yet because I know this actually happened, two months after I got married, and my first day back to college after 4 years--the irony is weighed down with a certain gravity--which may be nothing more than proximity, really. A crude form of self-concern? How odd.

Review: Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way to Blue

Preface:
Grade 10 and a schoolmate hands me a cassette tape--one of the new, clear kinds that allow you the benign pleasure of watching the ribbon unwind from one spool and load up another. Facelift by Alice in Chains. I played that bastard until the tape warped. By the time Dirt came out, they were my faves and all subsequent releases only solidified this. Why? Their dirge-like power chords, the sorrowful harmonies, the fucking wretched sick that was Staley's voice. How often does one get to listen to a band where the singer's voice actually physically embodies the misery he sings about?

Staley's Death:
Expected but tragic nonetheless. I remember phoning my wife at work when it happened, just to talk. I was gutted, feeling like I lost some of my own identity with music--silly as that sounds. Spent the day playing the old albums quietly and writing. I remembered when John Lennon was shot and the hush that came over the parents of my friends. Wondered if my own petty responses were of the same ilk.

The New Album:
When I heard mutterings this was going to happen I thought I couldn't listen to it. No reason to. But I caught clips of the music from time to time, the fat hooks, the familiar harmonies. I got excited about it all and now, CD in hand, I've cruised through the tracks on Black Gives Way to Blue twice.

It's good, really good. Ethereal, gliding, moody as hell. Beautiful sound, outstanding harmonies. Parts of the album border on greatness--especially the ones where all you can do is imagine Layne's voice singing, as if the melodies are rightfully his (which they are not, of course). It's a bit tragic, really, and I think this is a significant, though understandable, problem.

William Duvall has a good voice; good control, nice range. But it doesn't always come out on this CD. The vocal tracks often sound over-produced, I suspect in an attempt to try and re-create a Staley-esque type of aesthetic. The whole album isn't like this, only a few tracks. Perhaps it makes sense, as this is a segue album to a potentially new era for the band. But on the other hand, it's unnecessary.

Cantrell has always written most of the songs, the band really being more a product of his talents than Layne's--and I say this not to downplay Staley, whose voice was and is the most haunting and beautiful thing I've ever heard. But I don't think his death necessitates the end of the band's sound, nor do I think they need to try too hard to recreate it on their new albums. Cantrell's song writing brings out the familiar AIC sound. Duvall's voice should be new and inviting--which it often is. But not always.

I will say this: Duvall is the right replacement. His voice is congruous with the music, works with it, sounds professional without any bombast.

I can't remember the last time I ventured into a music store with the excitement only brought to a person who knows exactly why they've walked through the door--and for what. All the shit I hear on the radio today--my sad recognition that I'm no longer on the up and up when it comes to current music. Today is different. A nostalgic grail, the sounds of the greatest era of music for my generation, the kind that puts an ache in my chest--just a little.

Did I mention I also purchased a new flannel shirt?