BMOWP Classic Album - Do You Know Who You Are?
September 24, 2008
Do You Know Who You Are? by Texas is the Reason
You can’t go back again.
You hear it over and over again. You simply can’t go back again. The past is the past, you have to let it go. Nothing in the world will recapture the times you’ve lost – no amount of memorializing and nostalgia tripping can deliver the same richness and spontaneity as that distant memory you’re struggling to keep alive.
But sometimes, you can get close.
For me, it happens every time Texas is the Reason’s sole full-length, Do You Know Who You Are?, comes on. Any song. Any lyric. Hell, just seeing the cover. It’s 1996 all over again. And there I am, standing outside the Pomp Room, waiting in the cold, anticipating another show by another band that I’m totally in love with.
I identified, like many who grew to love music during the post-hardcore pre-emo stage of melodic indie rock, with Texas is the Reason’s attitude. Music to play music, breaking free of the typical stereotypes and rocking without abandon. Texas is the Reason was the cool kid in school who didn’t try to be cool. He was just real. You know. Real cool.
It was emo (at least, the last 90s version of the word, before it became the asshattery it is now) and hardcore. It was mainstream and indie. They were courted by major labels, held up as one of the best of the underground. They put out just a handful of songs – one four-song EP, one full-length, two 7” splits – and nothing was bad.
Do You Know Who You Are? was the peak of the genre. It was also a high-water time in my life, with the emotions of being in a band, of being recognizable for the first time, of falling in love with music in a way I’ve never overcome. It was where I formed my first true opinions, where I started to gain direction on what I enjoyed and would drive to become. I stopped eating meat. I had my heart broken twice, using it to fuel a new love: writing. It felt like I was living. Like life had finally woken up. Like I finally had an identity.
I went to college the next year. A new songbook opened. It was 1997. My tastes began to hone themselves. But Do You Know Who You Are? still spoke to me. Stronger than ever.
And then, just like that, it was over. The players split, moving to other bands, none of which recaptured the spirit outside of drummer Chris Daly’s Jets to Brazil. Hundreds tried to replicate the feeling – thousands of garage rockers, searching for inspiration, looking to recapture the energy. The band even got back together, nearly ten years later, for one night. Thanksgiving. 2006. New York City.
I’m sure a lot of the people in attendance tonight felt an electricity in the air. I’m sure some exclaimed that it was the best they had ever heard. A few new fans might have been made, a few old friends impressed, a few lives touched by music that had lasted longer than the band. Music that transcended the scene. Music that just rocked, without pretensions, without classification.
But for the most part, I’m guessing everyone was given a peek into the past. They realized that things weren’t as perfect as they are now made out to be. They saw their broken hearts, their scars long healed over, and made peace with the idea of reliving that time. They watched Texas is the Reason, for most certainly the last time, and moved on.
With the music still playing, you can look at it with new ears. As if you were hearing it again for the first time, without the pretenses of nostalgia clouding the sound. It still sounds good. No. It still sounds great.
And that’s why, long after the memories of 1996 have passed, the album will still live on in select circles. It’s an amazing album that managed to break through the typical tired sound. It has aged well.
It’s a testament to what most bands hope to accomplish. To still be known, to still be loved, long after the melody of nostalgia has finally escaped.
“I’ve sung the same song/I’ve sang it for way too long/And now the melody is finally escaping me.”
“There’s No Way I’m Talking Myself Out Of This One Tonight (The Drinking Song)” - Texas is the Reason
New domains
July 31, 2008
It’s been busy around the office and at home, and it doesn’t look like things are letting up.
With that, a quick note. I have been sitting on two domains - mrvilhauer.com and coreyvilhauer.com - for a few months now. I’ve finally gotten around to activating them and sending them here.
So go ahead. Now you have three ways to get a hold of me! HOORAY!
More real BMOWP goodness to come. Eventually. I think.
Swallowing small amounts of saliva
June 23, 2008
“The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.” – George Carlin
Some comedians depend on physical humor. Some search for political twists or pop culture foibles. Some just try to be cute.
George Carlin was simply real.
He took the inconsistencies of language and turned them upside-down. He made logical and crucial observations on life in our country and made us realize that, at times, no jokes were needed – at times our country could be screwed up enough as it was.
He made words funny. Not jokes. But words. A linguist, a talker, a thinker. He was smart before it was cool, counter culture before it became a way of life. You could tell that he spent every minute of every day thinking. Thinking about life. Thinking about words. Thinking.
Imagine that – a comedian that made you think.
It was more than the seven that got him arrested. Every word was genius, every thought well-crafted. From tame to curmudgeon, he was the best voice on the comedy stage. And, in his own words, he lived by the creed that it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
I’d say we’d miss him. But his words and his personality transcend his death. His influence on million – including myself – lives on even in his absence. And best of all, he’s left us enough material to last us decades.
Goodbye, Rufus. Good luck crossing that final line.
“By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.” – George Carlin
Fresh baked
June 14, 2008
Just a quick gush.
Queen City Bakery in downtown Sioux Falls has some of the best baked goods you can imagine. Using fresh fruit and veggies from Warner’s (where we get our CSA) and a healthy dollop of butter, they’re heavenly. Seriously.
And as if that wasn’t enough, they’re in this great little loft-style bakery next to Latitude 44 - a classy, rustic looking downtown building filled with great food. It’s like a little bit of big city bakery mistakingly dropped into the middle of Sioux Falls.
The best part? They’re doing well. There was a sizable line the last time we went. Which is refreshing. If you’re in the Sioux Falls area, you owe it to yourself to visit. And tell Mitch hello.
Of course, our pear muffins and lemon-citrus scones and asparagus quiche from Queen City weren’t the only baked goods we ingested. On a day where we wondered how we could use our super-healthy CSA share, we spent more time devouring delicious pastries and donuts.
Donuts? Not from Queen City - from across the state: Wall, SD. Specifically, Wall Drug. They’re about as tasty as you can get. I suggest the maple frosted donuts.
(And yes, the Wall Drug donut mention is really an excuse to post some pictures I took with our new Canon. I love food porn.)
WIBR Tournament – Round 2, Bracket 3 & 4
April 25, 2008
After today, the road to the Final Four is just one win away. We’ve got some heavy hitting match-ups, ladies and gents.
Click here for the entire bracket.
Bracket Three:
vs.
Rabbit Angstrom - John Updike
It’s a pity that Travels with Charley was in this bracket. Though let’s be honest – it made it a round further than I had expected. The simple fact is, at the time of writing, I am still trying to figure out if Rabbit Angstrom or The Road will make the Final Four.
Which, I guess, writes Travels with Charley out before it even had a chance.
That’s too bad. Travels with Charley might be the perfect sunny day camping book. While reading Rabbit Angstrom would require an entire month of sunny camping trips.
The Winner: Rabbit Angstrom – John Updike
vs.
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Dave Eggers, your cuteness fails you.
McSweeney’s is great, and this book was good, but none of it seems to have any social impact. You never quite grasp the idea that a book can be powerful without throwing yourself into it.
The main character of your life doesn’t need to be the main character of your books.
With A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, it was okay. It was a great plot device, and it was a touching book. It’s your best, and the only one I’d read again.
With What is the What, you never failed to mention your involvement in the book, and while you never physically showed up in the story, you were always there, floating above the story, reminding us of your worth.
But the worst was with You Shall Know Our Velocity. A great story, marred by your infernal meddling. You just had to butt in, throw a wrench in anything we had believed at the time, breaking down the fourth wall and wandering into our engaging fiction novel.
Cormac McCarthy would never do that. He’d just kill the entire nation for our pleasure.
The Winner: The Road – Cormac McCarthy
vs.
Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (ELIC) was read with rapt attention. Then We Came to the End (TWCE) was read quickly, devoured in just three days.
ELIC is multi-layered, featuring touching relationships and a three-tiered historical set of characters. TWCE is about advertising.
ELIC is filled with beautiful imagery, a tragic story and clever typography. TWCE is written in the simple and expressive style of a copywriter.
ELIC and TWCE could be on separate ends of the spectrum, yet both had a feeling of lightheartedness, though ELIC’s lightheartedness hid a sleeping remorse. TWCE’s lightheartedness didn’t hide anything but a good time.
That’s all fine and good.
What really matters is that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a great book with great characters. But Then We Came to the End is a book I can relate to. And laugh with. Over and over again.
I guess that wins, right?
The Winner: Then We Came to the End – Joshua Ferris
vs.
Like Life - Lorrie Moore
I feel like I’ve already reviewed this match-up. Except in slightly different circumstances, I guess.
Lorrie Moore, in the grand scheme of writers, is not Jorge Luis Borge. Of course, neither is David Mitchell – it wasn’t the quality of the stories that knocked Mirror of Ink out, but the impact and length.
Still, David Mitchell’s short story collection resonated with me because it was joined together to form a perfect novel-like progression of total dork to nearly accepted cool kid. It felt good to me, like all of us total dorks had been somehow vindicated through Mitchell’s stories.
And, if I remember correctly, I chose Like Life to win because…
I just liked Lorrie Moore better.
No real reason. It’s hard to explain. Maybe I’m just a sucker for stories set in New York City. Maybe I like a slice of city life more than I like a slice of trailer park trash.
Or maybe I just liked it better. Let’s go with that.
Nothing against Lorrie Moore, who’s one of my favorites in the short story genre (if you’re curious, you’ve got to read “People Like That are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk” from Birds of America) but Black Swan Green has stuck with me a lot better.
The Winner: Black Swan Green – David Mitchell
Tags: Books, Literature, Random, What I've Been Reading |
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WIBR Tournament – Round 2, Bracket 1 & 2
April 23, 2008
Sixteen books have been knocked out already, with fifteen more yet to be served their “go home” papers. Some heavy hitters have already been sent away: The Grapes of Wrath, Gilead and White Teeth all had aspirations of going far into the tourney.
Now, we’re paring down to the final eight. Who else will be going home early?
Click here for the entire bracket.
Bracket One:
vs.
Housekeeping - Marilynn Robinson
Hey, I love sports as much as the next guy, and Michael Lewis is one of the best at writing about sports in a way that appeals to the semi-casual fan – those people who are passionate about one sport and casual about the rest of them, who can spout off the important statistics yet aren’t bogged down by a weighted knowledge of irrelevant information.
Die-hards might find him too pandering and general. Non-fans find him boring and tedious (though he has a way of reaching out to those non-fans with a personal side to every story). But everyone in between – which is to say most of us – probably have a hard time finding much fault.
That’s really all I can say, though. When you boil everything down, Moneyball is a sports book – suffering two horrible strikes against it; it’s a non-fiction book (which I tend to draw away from) and it’s a sports book (which throws it into the novelty pile) – while Housekeeping is a beautiful masterpiece that I read, in part, while rocking my beautiful two-week old daughter to sleep. The choice is pretty easy.
The Winner: Housekeeping – Marilynn Robinson
vs.
Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth - Chris Ware
I look at these two books and I can’t help but be drawn to Jimmy Corrigan.
Why is that?
I won’t lie. When I started matching the brackets up, I didn’t expect Ware’s graphic novel to make it past the first round, let alone take on two great novels like White Teeth and Fortress of Solitude.
But the more I think about it, the more endearing Jimmy Corrigan becomes. I keep reminding myself of how wonderful it is. One of the saddest things I’ve ever read, but wonderful all the same.
Maybe Fortress of Solitude – a 2008 completion – hasn’t quite sunk in as a modern classic. Or maybe Jimmy Corrigan really is as good as I keep thinking.
Either way, Ware’s moving on.
The Winner: Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth – Chris Ware
vs.
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
I’ve met Ivan Doig. He’s a very nice man – an older, patient man who admittedly came up with the name of his novel The Whistling Season before he had come up with any part of the story. He was humble and well spoken. He wasn’t at all what I expected, which was a welcome surprise.
I’ve never met Antoine de Saint Exupéry. But Kerrie’s grandfather has, during World War II. Both were pilots, and while I am unsure of the exact meeting place or circumstances, I know that the two did indeed meet. It’s the reason we found a special edition copy of The Little Prince for Kerrie’s grandfather during our honeymoon in New Orleans, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to read The Little Prince to embryonic Sierra.
Yes, I mentioned before that The Little Prince holds a trump card over many of the books in this competition – the “I read this to my baby when she was yet to be born.” But there’s something that has been mentioned twice already that pokes a hole in The Little Prince’s armor – there are books I read during those first few weeks that hold the same emotional tug.
I once wrote a post about how location and context can be just as important as content. It’s true. I remember where I was when I read Housekeeping, or Then We Came to the End – I was spending my first few weeks with Sierra, rocking her to sleep, reading with the aid of a night light (back in the days when rocking Sierra to sleep could be paired with another productive exercise). The Whistling Season was one of those books.
(A quick aside. Just to get the record straight, the books I read during those few weeks were very good – don’t think they’re getting a pass just because Sierra was present; remember, the surprisingly below-average The Sportswriter was read during that time as well.)
What it comes down to is that no matter what nostalgic slant I put on The Little Prince – no matter how many times Sierra will hear it, no matter how emotionally attached I am to its story, no matter what paternal urges tug me in its direction, no matter what physical connection I’ve had with the author – I can’t deny that, after all, it’s a children’s story. And while it may have made more of an emotional connection, The Whistling Season can make many of the same claims.
Taking the books at face value, for their content instead of their context, I find myself choosing The Whistling Season every time.
The Winner: The Whistling Season – Ivan Doig
vs.
Feet on the Street: Ramblings Around New Orleans - Roy Blount, Jr.
This one really isn’t even fair. Sorry, Roy. You snuck through one round. You had to have expected to lose here.
The Winner: East of Eden – John Steinbeck
Tags: Books, Literature, Random, What I've Been Reading |
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That’s hot(dish)
April 23, 2008
Last night was a very special night. I For the first time in my life, I made tater tot hotdish. After years of living in two of the country’s casserole hotbeds, I’ve finally given in to their charm.
It was a special recipe for Chili Cheese Potato Tot Casserole. I substituted Morningstar Griller Crumbles for the hamburger and made my own chili mix. Either way, it was pretty awesome and probably not very good for me.
From now on, I shall dub this dish Hatten Tot Hotdish.
That’s all. It was kind of an important day in my life. I love tater tots. And I love this hot dish.
Well, what are you staring at? Carry on!
About
Black Marks on Wood Pulp has been commenting on life and everything associated with it since February 2005. He's also photoblogging at Much More Sure and writing about advertising and marketing at Post Haste. Everything you've ever wanted to know about Black Marks on Wood Pulp and Corey Vilhauer is located here, on the About Page.
Posts
- Reading the coffee leaves
- For the love of the wounded
- Pepsi’s new logo
- Winter neglect
- Hope.
- Election night special
- What I’ve Been Reading - October 2008
- Not alone in looking for change
- Goodbye to Gigglebees
- Less is more
Comments
- karen on Blake Schwarzenbach Day: "i completely agree, glad i could stumble upon this post and i hope you may have already heard the good news. blake is starting a new band. the name is..."
- Corey Vilhauer on For the love of the wounded: "@m!les No doubt. Or - is it a clever ruse? @jg Thankfully Sierra isn’t old enough to enjoy movies. Though she does love WonderPets. But there..."
- jg on For the love of the wounded: "I’ve become the same way. Maybe not so much that I change the channel on the wireless ad. I did take the daughter to see American Girl. It was a fine..."
- m!les on For the love of the wounded: "I hope, for your sake, that you never acquire an arch-enemy, because this is EXACTLY the kind of post they would print out and pass around at “Destroy..."
- Amie Van Overmeer on Election night special: "For me, election night IS my Super Bowl. Sadly, it’s only every four years. Since I’ve been able to vote, this was my first presidential..."
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