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May 19, 2005
History Involved Itself
In the past twenty-four hours:
1) My "kid" cousin became a mother.
2) My best friend/ex-girlfriend (makes for a weird combination, at least at the time) from high school got engaged.
3) I sat in a British lecture hall, writing for three hours straight on Jewish Nationalism before 1933.
I can faintly hear the voice of my life screaming ADULTHOOD, ADULTHOOD, ADULTHOOD over and over, but I'll resist. I counter back with graduate school or travel or I give up. Either way, tonight I'll drown myself in Dooku, sit with the Sith and admire Amidala, somehow hoping science-fiction can transmit into non-fiction.
So, I went to a David Sedaris reading a few nights back. While I can't say I reclaimed the intercontinentall thumbwrestling ring (not belt) from Mr. Huggins, I did indeed inspire him to draw me a horse.
In other news, I will be back in Jackson on May 30, hanging around that general vicinity, sans a daytrip to Oxford, until Friday, June 3. I'd love to see your smiling faces (or, in Drew's case, frowning) before I carry on to Alanta for the rest of the summer.
Posted by houch at 04:09 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
May 15, 2005
A, e, i, o, u
It was pointed out to me today - for the first time in my life - that my name "PALMER HOUCHINS" contains all of the vowels of the alphabet, only once. I am in perfect symbiosis with the alphabet.
I challenge you to bring forth another name that does likewise. I can't think of any. But then again, I haven't tried because I like to delude myself with the splendors of my own phonetical existence.
Posted by houch at 11:48 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
May 14, 2005
East Coast Children Do Too Much
So, I had a beer and a nice chat with this man earlier tonight. Brother Danielson was doing well. Daniel Smith is not nearly the lunatic his music might portray him to be.
His live show was unbelievable, full of stomping, jingling bells, shrieking, snapalongs, clapalongs and singalongs. And the tree of united fruits (which at certain points during his songs was manipulated to creak like Treebeard).
I'll leave you with some wise words I once read about Daniel Smith...
[SS:] Daniel is an odd ball. I love him, but I don’t always understand him. This is what I like about this project. He’s put all these songs on their heads. He’s put them all out there wearing lederhosen. What he brings to the table is a cutting board and a bread knife. He cuts away all excess. I have a tendency to over-arrange. I fill the spaces, I think in terms of multiple voices, multiple lines, lots of contrapuntal melodies shrieking for attention. This is to distract the listener from me. Daniel has no patience for this. He pinpoints the real deal and puts it dead center.
It was a lot of fun to work with him. The whole time, he was constantly saying no and I was constantly saying yes. Or vice versa. For example, I would record a vocal line start to finish and then listen back and say, “This is not going to sell millions of records.” I was very demanding; I wanted to fix everything. He said, “No, it’s perfect the way it is. It sounds awesome. We’re keeping it. Stop sulking and sit up straight, young man!”
Posted by houch at 11:56 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
May 13, 2005
The Politics of Memory
About four hours ago, sitting in the Great Hall (the name is deceiving...) of the University of Nottingham, my arm started quivering. My brain essentially shut down. "CLR James saw the Negro question as a risk....as a deflection....as a distraction....wait, a retract...I risk deflecting the distraction for my retraction!"
I've sat for several hours today, on this very campus, writing about American Studies. Seemingly, though, there wasn't much America about it. A Caribbean intellectual, an Indian emigre, a Haitian novel, a Danish pyschologist and a sex-crazed fan of the blood consciousness with a sincere Oedipus complex. (That's right, I'm looking at you, D.H. Lawrence!)
I just downed a doner kebab whose nutritional facts would turn the food pyramid into the mayonnaise masoleum. Nevertheless, I'm hear with my 99 pence coffee mug. And some headphones.
I read this fascinating book on memory and the Holocaust not too long ago. "The Holocaust and American Life" by Robert Novick. He eschews a lot of Freudian psychoanalysis, instead focusing on the idea (and reality) of collective memory. I've since realized that my memory has become a collective memory, different parts I don't want to concede but are indeed, "me." I begrudgingly them accept as first-person memories.
Now, as my iTunes plays stinging vignette after dripping nostalgia, I'm reminded - however painfully - why I stopped remembering and started being and changing.
That summer when I put 6,000 miles on my Volkswagen in two months, not leaving a five-state radius. Well, someone wanted me to remember:
Ben Folds Five: Two years young, I stood behind the fence. The motorcycles were there.
David Gray: After catfish on a dock, I drove to Antioch to see Turin Brakes, saw you instead. Went to Murfreesboro afterwards.
Eisley: I chased you to Texas to make friends with your dad.
Song after song is a story of me going. And going. And going. I want to stop going and start doing.
Posted by houch at 10:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 12, 2005
The Zombie Scenario Survivor Test
| Official Survivor Congratulations! You scored 75%! |
| Whether through ferocity or quickness, you made it out. You made the right choice most of the time, but you probably screwed up somewhere. Nobody's perfect, at least you're alive. |
 |
My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Zombie Scenario Survivor Test written by ci8db4uok on OkCupid Free Online Dating |
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Also, in keeping the mindless Internet activities, if you are a member of www.thefacebook.com, I urge you to join:
THE DAVID THE NOAM CHOMSKY FAN CLUB
Posted by houch at 01:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 11, 2005
Charred From the Fire
Monday, May 9 - Arcade Fire - London Astoria
5:53 PM: In the coach, traveling through outskirts of North London, notice a man wearing a motorcycle helmet as he walks across his front porch INTO his house. Please Lord, let this be foreshadowing, if not only for the concert I'm about to see, but also to give my life that literary pang it needs.
6:18: Pass library with quotes written all over the exterior. Get excited and start scribbling. "Culture is man's cry in the face of destiny." - Albert Camus. What am I?
6:52: Walk through Victoria Coach Station to Blink-182 playing. Feeling literary edge just wiped away. Insert Hollywood cheese soundtrack.
7:17: Meet British Zara, never met before. A friend of a friend. Credit: Dirtyphil. Walk to pub.
7:25: Awkwardly order food as she just gets drink.
7:39: We realize that had been in the same place at the same time TWICE. Her parents live in Hattiesburg. Been to an AA*LW Soulshine show and a small Christmas party at QiD household. Scolding my sense of recognition and recollection
8:15: Leave Zara for show. No sign of Maureen / Laura.
8:19: Still no sign of Maureen / Laura. Calls to cell phone go straight to voice mail. Text messaging furiously, to no reply.
8:21: Plane must be delayed. Where are they? Hearing the opener, must get inside. What to do with their tickets that are in my possession? No rock to leave under.
8:23: Ticket lady agrees to hold them. Scribble names on back.
8:25: Walk up literally 23 flights of stairs. Am at absolute rear of venue. Reward self with beer.
8:27: Walk down 23 flights of stair. Elbow way through British people, at least to mid-center of the floor.
8:37: Still standing. Maybe the 8th text message to them will be trick. No reply.
8:39: Why the hell is there no in-between set music? This is indeed travesty.
8:43: Cue Arcade Fire entrance. Rollicking into "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)."
8:44: Jumping, teary-eyed.
8:45: There's the helmet on his head. Foreshadowing, indeed!
8:46: Wait, where's the helmet gone? Damn you, literary ethos!
8:48: Begin song 2, "Haiti."
8:49: At moment of pure enjoyment, fear-stricken. Do they know the tickets at the box office? Could their plane have crashed? Would their inability to get into the show lead to a sudden spiral of street-living and disbelief in hope?
8:54: Text message: "WERE OUTSIDE ASTORIA." To leave, risk losing spot, or not to leave? Not to leave. Assume they get in.
9:05: London crowd getting more into it, but as presumed, more sentiment of, "Who is this North American hype machine?" Need less of that, more dance my ass off.
9:11: "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)." Screaming. Jumping. Must get closer to stage. Please, couple to my right, stop squeezing and start screaming.
9:13: 40-year-old-men row behind dancing. Me dancing.
9:27: Richard Reed Parry gives hope to loser like me. Becomes semi-hero.
9:43 - Thank you, goodnight.
9:51: Cue encore.
9:55: Win Butler into crowd. Standing on people's shoulders, believes he's singing. However, microphone cord has come out. Moment of epiphany.
10:11: This can't be it? Somewhat cheated. Hype was there. Was hype achieved?
10:17: Faith in music still intact, reaffirmed if anything.
10:19: Standing in line to exit. Take a seat to let clear out. Notice Win Butler hop from backstage into where everyone is filing out. Without tie, no one recognizes.
10:20: What to say? "So, was that a guitar you were playing?" "How does it feel to have the independent music world on your shoulders?" "Your wife is pretty sexy when she sings, don't you think?" These things are always so awkward.
10:21: "Thanks, that was excellent." Nods his head. "Thank you." Hulking figure. "Glad you enjoyed it," between sips of beer. Autograph seeker cuts in front of me.
10:22: Exit, front door right.
10:24: Greatest concert experience of my life, as predicted by others? Not close. Great, but not greatest. Upper echelon of Flaming Lips, Radiohead and Sigur Ros not broached.
Needed more of this:
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Postscript: “It takes a band like Arcade Fire to remind you that we are all custodians of our innocence and that we let it die at our peril.” -- Robert Everett-Green, Toronto Globe & Mail
Posted by houch at 12:18 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 08, 2005
Living with Music
This afternoon in the library, about halfway through the second verse of "Jacksonville" on the new Sufjan record, I stumbled onto this quote...
For all exalt life in rhythm and melody; all add to its significance. Perhaps in the swift change of American society in which the meanings of one's origin are so quickly lost, one of the chief values of living with music lies in its power to give us an orientation in time. In doing so, it gives significance to all those indefinable aspects of experience which nevertheless help to make us what we are. In the swift whirl of time music is a constant, reminding us of what we were and of that toward which we aspired.
- Ralph Ellison, "Living with Music"
How apt? Frankly, I find it ironic that the only thing getting me through this laborious paper on Mr. Ellison is the thought of living with music tomorrow night. In fact, I'll spend tomorrow night with these guys in London...
Posted by houch at 05:55 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
May 07, 2005
The Persuaders
What you don't want to find out on the weekend when you need to be penning a few thousand words, is that an individual whom you consider one of the brightest minds in America put out a new documentary last fall - that you missed - but can watch in its entirety online...
Douglas Rushkoff is an author, professor, filmmaker, journalist, etc. He's a one-man machine. He's probably most adept with media studies, but I'm pretty sure he wrote a book on orthodox Judaism a year or two back. Anyway, he did this documentary for PBS Frontline called The Merchants of Cool, which if you haven't seen, you pretty much need to watch, in its entirety, this moment. It will take you 50 minutes.
Douglas Rushkoff
I heard Rushkoff lecture last summer when I was at NYU, after he had just released a graphic novel of his own, of all things. Anyway, he came to the lecture at the Barnes & Noble in the West Village without having prepared a single thing. Talked for two hours straight, not in some long-winded, rambling banter, but was precise and engaging. It was one of those moments where you realize that you are in the presence of someone so much smarter than you, it is a bit awe-inspiring.
I can only compare the experience to when I heard Cornel West speak. Now, Rushkoff is no Cornel. There's a special place in heaven for someone like Cornel West - who after graduating magna cum laude from Princeton in three years - gets pulled back and forth between his alma mater and Harvard to chair some department, seemingly yearly - but can speak, and really speak, (Cornel West makes Martin Luther King seem shy) about anything from The Roots to Jesus. He's put out a series of rap CDs, too. The man is amazing.
Cornel West
Anyway, I forgot what this last paragraph was going to be about. Probably about how I'm a lazy ass and won't just write this damn paper. Oh yes, Rushkoff is also in a band called Psychic TV (who's founding member is named Genesis P-Orridge, which itself is enough goading for me to lend my support).
Posted by houch at 10:02 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 06, 2005
Glory and Amen
Taking a break from composing an essay the other evening, I read an essay about Annie Dilliard's essays, which in turn prompted me to take my own essay outside. What they don't tell you about Britain is that even though the winter brings to mind what being a soldier in Napoleon's ranks would have felt like when he decided it would be a good idea to just take the trek into the Russian winter (not sure how he felt when his 600,000+ force was dwindled down to just two percent of that number), spring is a payoff.
In principle, I'm an environmentalist. In practice, I buy organic cereal and recycle up to three times yearly (though I will openly provoke conversation about the pros and cons of organic farming and the fair trade movement.) On a normal day, I would probably say I'm an environmentalist, but having read at lunch yesterday an obituary about the man who founded Greenpeace (putting his life in jeopardy seemingly on a monthly basis to stop things like a seal hunting ship) my perspective is, for once, in alignment.
The fact remains that I spend more time behind a computer screen and toeing pavement each week than I spend in nature in a year. But taking a pen and paper into the middle of the downs on campus was almost exhilarating. Nevermind the fact that it got cloudy as soon as I sat down or the fact that I was constantly in danger of being barraged with errant frisbees, products of the woefully unskilled frisbee-"throwing" British populace.
I think a certain bit of my affection was identifiably nostalgia. There was a breath of warmth in the air, a salient signal of home. On top of that, a pigeon was bathing in a stagnant puddle of water that had leaked from a nearby dumpster. Two doves were sparring their feathers in a dogwood tree. A black banana peel was lying next to me in the grass.
But that's the thing with nature - it's always paradoxically affirming. In its disgust, affirming beauty. In its death, affirming life. Eventually, I returned inside. But not before marching down the trail to my hall, mindful to "take huge steps, trying to feel the planet's roundness arc between your feet," meditating on Dilliard's other words:
"I go my way, and my left foot says Glory and my right foot says Amen: in and out of Shadow Creek, upstream and down, exultant, in a daze, dancing, to the twin silver trumpets of praise."
Posted by houch at 12:02 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
May 04, 2005
The Prairie State
Posted by houch at 05:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 03, 2005
Channeling anticipation
So, as it stands now, in a two week span during my time in Atlanta, I will have a chance to see - in the flesh - Aimee Mann, Garrison Keillor, and Eisley.
These things are my Rushmore, so to speak.
Posted by houch at 09:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Party people
The following comes from an article about Paris Hilton...
...she commands anywhere from $150,000 to $200,000 to appear at a party for 20 minutes, she said. "If it's in Japan I get more," she said.
WTF?, mates. What has it all come to? Where have we fallen? As the human race I feel like our integrity has been robbed. Next the man takes our souls.
Posted by houch at 06:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 02, 2005
Pope to Poland
"I want to be to Christianity what Gretzky was to hockey, what Beckham is to soccer, what Jordan was to basketball, what Martin Luther King was to African-American rights, what the Pope was to Poland. I want to be that to Christianity."
- an evangelical minister quoted in this article
Does anyone else think that saying that is, at its core, antithetical to Christian teaching?
Posted by houch at 07:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack