05.30.2002 – collectors, old people and animals, desaperecidos
orignially written 05.30.2002
soundtrack: butterfly, the last track on what is still weezer’s best record. well, the book i’m reading now isn’t exactly like the song, but it is about a working-class guy who collects butterflies and who comes into a fortune and kidnaps a young art student with whom he becomes obsessed. the first half of the book is his account of the kidnapping and his obsession. the second half is the victim’s diary. i’m talking about the collector by j. fowles which i picked up last night on recommendation from tim. it’s a good book. interesting and engaging at least. i’m more than half way through it and i’ve only had it for one evening. as i said, the book is interesting, it doesn’t really blow me away, but i like it. the cool thing, and also the thing that keeps it from wowing you, is that the kidnapper is, well, boring. he’s maniacal, but without the cold intelligence to be evil. he’s clinical. the closest thing i can think of to describe how i perceive the character is billy bob thorton’s performance in the man who wasn’t there. you can’t like the character, and you can’t loath him either. you just sort of observe him. perplexed, intrigued. the second half of the book is perhaps more interesting, because you get a more human perspective on the affair, and perhaps one that i can identify more with. what’s interesting though, is how often the girl’s account diverges from her captivity and focusses on her outside life. her art, her relationships. it’s good stuff actually. makes her more of a character. the author seems to use her to make some comments on british art, and british class, which i find intriguing. i’ve read a lot of british lit. recently. from harding to d.h. lawrence to rushdie, and the thing that strikes me is how they cannot escape reflecting or offering some commentary on britishness in their writing. i don’t think i’ve ever read any american author who has been so influenced or tormented by his americanness. sure, authors like twain or faulkner are distinclty american and they capture an american experience, but it’s just that – an america, not the america. it seems like there’s some essential essence to being british that the british cannot cast aside. if they rebel or denounce, it is always within the context of their britishness. despite their class, they are aware of the british class heirarchy, be it in contempt or in yearning. similarly with their nationalism. it seems to permeate everything. i just don’t have that feeling as an american. i don’t know if that’s good or bad.
passed an old man today on my street. he was looking through a window smiling and gesticulating towards the cat that always sleeps in the window of that flat. oblivious to the passing world. just him and someone else’s cat.
was accosted by a little dog today, though it was quite cute. i think it might even have been the same breed that my ex-girlfriend’s parents used to have, but without the stupid haircut that made me think of those dogs as hell-beasts. i was most worried about tripping over the little white dog (it could have been snowy from the tin-tin books) and crushing it as it jumped and weaved, fearless, between my legs. the old lady who was the owner of the dog tried to call it off – half embarrased, mostly amused. i think that if i was rob, i would have probably kicked the dog. that kid hates dogs. i have no idea why, but it’s a pretty deep loathing. it’s really funny. the best thing ever was when this dog tried to steal our football in the park and rob confused it by putting the ball in the bag. he then did this rad impression that was in like a scooby-doo voice and he was just like “where did it go? where did it go? i’m just a stupid dog. i can’t find the ball”. hirarious.
listening to desaparecidos, i remember my time in omaha. don’t remember much of it actually. been there twice – debate tournaments both times. good pizza restaurants where i played quarter basketball against debate-coach dave and where varu made a pizza frankenstein, bad bar and grilles, boyer talking rap icons, and adam from creighton’s cool card cutting web site. icy and cold as fsck. can’t imagine a show scene there. well, i guess the kids must do something when they’re waiting out those long winter months. the record is good. i really like it. is it a new record? if so, it fills the void left in the plain-state rock scene left by the get up kids with their new record. this is a stupid thing to write about rock records, but i don’t know how else to put it. i don’t think of there being adults in places like kansas or nebraska. i think of there as being kids waiting to get out, and old people who will never leave until they die. old get up kids records sound like the former, and the new stuff sounds like music that is made by people who live in big exciting cities and only go back to their old hometowns for remeniscence sake. the music lacks that urgency, that discontentment. also perhaps the naievity, the hyperbole, but that’s part of the charm. at least for me being 21 years old and knowing that i shouldn’t be feeling comfortable in some place. that i should still want to escape away from the columbuses and omahas of the world. or, bitch and moan or fsck stuff up while i’m still there. without even really listening to the lyrics of the desaparecidos record, that’s the impression that i get. when i read the lyrics to tracks like greater omaha, mall of america, and $$$$ i think my initial suspicions are pretty spot-on. this whole record seems to rail against corporate culture, but not in the black-block way, that’s too urban. this is in the way that only someone who has seen the rural landscape stripped down even further and replaced by flat, dull, steel and glass can be angry. to see development, to see the birth of a metropolis and then see it slowly mature into an ugly, bratty, dull child. as a youth, you paint pictures in the small towns and you take photos in the city. in the small towns and country there’s nothing there. you build up your visions on a virtually blank canvas. in the city there’s too much. it’s too hard to have some kind of niche, some mastery of your place in the world. but what happens when the golden arches start springing up next to the walmart in the corn field is that your canvas has been slashed and burned. it’s not the same angst as in the city where all you realize is that someone has already staked their claim to your vision and designed it in a manner more masterful than you. what it is, is a feeling that you’ve been cheated. that you can’t even create. that what little you’ve been given hasn’t just been stolen – it’s been destroyed. i’m rambling. i really don’t want to study comptuer architecture right now. i like the desaparecidos record.