One of my favorite essayists
David Foster Wallace passed tonight.
He was found dead in his home by his wife. Hanged himself. I really don't know what to say.
His own words:
"[L]earning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger."
Flashy postmodern smartass writers are dime a dozen, but he's a rare contemporary author with heart to temper sophistication. The world lost a beautiful mind.
2008年9月14日 星期日
2008年8月11日 星期一
Radiohead @ APW Festival
Thom Yorke, after inheriting the Blue Comet stage from Kings of Leon: "the next song is for Kings of Leon. We'd be friends with them if we were that good looking."
Clau remarked that Yorke was "surprisingly douchey," as befitting Scott Tenorman's favorite band. No Surprises there -- this is the original '90s British sick cats, masters of aestheticized ressentiment who said bitterly that "no one likes a smartass but we all like stars" (incidentally this was also my high school yearbook quote because I was -- I'm not proud to admit -- one of those abhorrently, pathologically sarky kids). He also fronts a band that every magazine has conspired to make canonical beyond reproach. Though I think Yorke himself realizes the absurdity of there being a Rock Music Canon agreed upon by smarmy pedantic white music nerds.
(To be honest I think a certain English prof at my alma mater looks like a pudgy suburban version of Thomas Yorke; same accent, same facial expressions, same acidic sense of humor.)
The concert was all In Rainbows alright. The stage setup was a citadel of acid-electric phantasmagoria, a vertible crystal castle of refracting glass spikes. They played most of the songs I was looking to hear (15 Step, Reckoner, There There, No Surprises, Bodysnatchers). Everyone juggled instruments, Jonny on guitar, Thom Yorke on drums, etc. and every once in a while Yorke broke out into his best writhing dance interpretation of a headless chicken. Truly bizarre.
By all means this is the most high-profile act I've seen. The festival itself was poorly organized and manned by the most anal retentive staff ever, but all the same. I think this will be one of those bands that when our children romanticize about the super retro-cool era of the 2000's, they'd wonder what Radiohead was like live and I could say oh they were pretty mindblowing alright.
Close up video of The Bends.
Next was Bodysnatchers I think. They basically played the entire songlist of In Rainbows. The red bar above the stage worried me a little. It looked like the eye of the disco ray monster machines from War of the Worlds come to vaporize us all. I was not in a mood to be harvested.
As to expected at a major festival, the whole crowd was pretty much bubbling with geysers of smoke. From afar, it looks geothermic.
Also, Animal Collective was MINDBLOWINGLY WEIRD. I think I would need Martian logic to process what I heard from them yesterday. I'm just gonna go ahead and pretend I didn't hear anything.
2008年8月3日 星期日
Kingda Ka
Beware when tigers try to sell you anything.
Sometimes they sell you cereal.
Other times they sell oil.
And on rare occasions they even sell you overpriced colleges.
We were at the NJ Six Flags for Du's birthday and a tiger sold me a ride on the Kingda Ka, the world's tallest and fastest rollercoaster. It stands at 456 feet (45 stories -- tall enough to be an aviation safety concern) and accelerates from 0-128 miles per hour in less than four seconds. Du and I were at the front row seat. Here's what it looks like:
Amusement parks and rollercoasters are pretty bizarre ideas when you think about them. They package our fear of injury/death and sell it back to us as happyfunptime joy rides. You know we as a species have evolved to be a pretty fucked up breed of monkeys when we build huge town-sized settlements in New Jersey devoted to making the fear of dying a fun experience.
No exaggeration. It was like simulated death. I opened my mouth during the coaster and swallowed gallons of air, couldn't even hear myself scream. My heart considered abandoning my ribcage and eloping with my lungs. At one point over the ride's peak, the view was just me, the curved horizon and the dirt below. Then the whole giant angry apparatus slammed us towards the ground.
There were stages of recovery from the ride. We played it cool immediately after the ride (1st Stage: Denial), but I think at some point later in the afternoon we all gradually acknowledged that it was what we'd categorize as a traumatic experience (2nd Stage: Recognition). We were violated and I will have nightmares about rollercoasters forever. And then of course the whole experience gets recuperated as a funny story the next day (3rd Stage: Denial again). But serious, I'd actually recommend an hour-long repeated ride session as a sort of lite alternative to Guantanamo.
Afterward I was pretty much depleted of a week's worth of adrenaline, so we moved on to gentler slopes. Namely Du's favorite rollercoaster -- Nitro, which (when viewed in profile) resembles the hospitable curves of the A/C/E subway map. I think I was too drained to enjoy it properly.
Sometimes they sell you cereal.
Other times they sell oil.
And on rare occasions they even sell you overpriced colleges.
We were at the NJ Six Flags for Du's birthday and a tiger sold me a ride on the Kingda Ka, the world's tallest and fastest rollercoaster. It stands at 456 feet (45 stories -- tall enough to be an aviation safety concern) and accelerates from 0-128 miles per hour in less than four seconds. Du and I were at the front row seat. Here's what it looks like:
Amusement parks and rollercoasters are pretty bizarre ideas when you think about them. They package our fear of injury/death and sell it back to us as happyfunptime joy rides. You know we as a species have evolved to be a pretty fucked up breed of monkeys when we build huge town-sized settlements in New Jersey devoted to making the fear of dying a fun experience.
No exaggeration. It was like simulated death. I opened my mouth during the coaster and swallowed gallons of air, couldn't even hear myself scream. My heart considered abandoning my ribcage and eloping with my lungs. At one point over the ride's peak, the view was just me, the curved horizon and the dirt below. Then the whole giant angry apparatus slammed us towards the ground.
There were stages of recovery from the ride. We played it cool immediately after the ride (1st Stage: Denial), but I think at some point later in the afternoon we all gradually acknowledged that it was what we'd categorize as a traumatic experience (2nd Stage: Recognition). We were violated and I will have nightmares about rollercoasters forever. And then of course the whole experience gets recuperated as a funny story the next day (3rd Stage: Denial again). But serious, I'd actually recommend an hour-long repeated ride session as a sort of lite alternative to Guantanamo.
Afterward I was pretty much depleted of a week's worth of adrenaline, so we moved on to gentler slopes. Namely Du's favorite rollercoaster -- Nitro, which (when viewed in profile) resembles the hospitable curves of the A/C/E subway map. I think I was too drained to enjoy it properly.
2008年7月26日 星期六
Regime Change
This year will mark the last Formoz Music Festival as well as the last Campo Art Party in Taipei, both due to the pulling of government funding and "new zoning regulations" at Yuanshan. I wonder what the new government has to do with this.
2008年7月21日 星期一
"Whiny Guitar Music"
No credits to Danker for summing up everything I ever listen to in three words.
Went to a $8 open bar + Ninjasonik concert in South Williamsburg on Friday night. Travis started a mosh pit in front of the stage. Couple that with a malfunctioning AC, temperature in the 90's and you get the idea. For one night, I was a swamp beast.
All in all, these were not the best ways to prep for a huge music festival.
Travis and his roomies were planning to barbecue on his roof around noon and head to the Village Voice Siren Music Festival together. When I called them at 5PM they had just woken up. As with many things I do in the city, I went alone.
The crowds were not too bad. I've seen much were at the Hohaiyan festival in Taiwan. I went in time to see Helio Sequence, who's a better live act than I'd expected, especially for a two-piece band.
Then Broken Social Scene took the stage. Highlights:
-I was at the pisser when they played Fire Eye'd Boy. Tremendously mistimed.
-Stephen Malkmus' performance was scheduled for the same hour at another stage. Kevin Drew was pissed off too.
-They didn't play Superconnected, Swimmer, Almost Crime or Lover's Spit, which were the songs I looked forward to the most... does this count as a highlight? I guess I'm not entitled to complaints since it was a free concert.
-Some random girl in the audience went onstage and sang Feist's part in 7/4 (Shoreline) because those she was (as usual) absent from the tour lineup. The girl did a dece rendition, though she sounded way nervous.
-Kevin Drew hearts Obama, of course.
-Someone rocked a little too hard and had to be ambulanced away.
Went to a $8 open bar + Ninjasonik concert in South Williamsburg on Friday night. Travis started a mosh pit in front of the stage. Couple that with a malfunctioning AC, temperature in the 90's and you get the idea. For one night, I was a swamp beast.
All in all, these were not the best ways to prep for a huge music festival.
Travis and his roomies were planning to barbecue on his roof around noon and head to the Village Voice Siren Music Festival together. When I called them at 5PM they had just woken up. As with many things I do in the city, I went alone.
The crowds were not too bad. I've seen much were at the Hohaiyan festival in Taiwan. I went in time to see Helio Sequence, who's a better live act than I'd expected, especially for a two-piece band.
Then Broken Social Scene took the stage. Highlights:
-I was at the pisser when they played Fire Eye'd Boy. Tremendously mistimed.
-Stephen Malkmus' performance was scheduled for the same hour at another stage. Kevin Drew was pissed off too.
-They didn't play Superconnected, Swimmer, Almost Crime or Lover's Spit, which were the songs I looked forward to the most... does this count as a highlight? I guess I'm not entitled to complaints since it was a free concert.
-Some random girl in the audience went onstage and sang Feist's part in 7/4 (Shoreline) because those she was (as usual) absent from the tour lineup. The girl did a dece rendition, though she sounded way nervous.
-Kevin Drew hearts Obama, of course.
-Someone rocked a little too hard and had to be ambulanced away.
2008年7月13日 星期日
The Brackish Atlantic
I was talking to some buddies about why all of us agreed to move to New York City instead of, say, somewhere clean, friendly and beautiful. Like an island in the Pacific where we can all be marine biologists, doing field research in the day and hanging out at a beach-side bar at night. But of course we all know that English majors don't live near beaches. That's what southern Californians do, duuude.
One favorite adages from elementary school in Taiwan was 仁者樂山，智者樂水 -- which roughly translates into "the virtuous enjoy the mountains; the wise delight in the water/sea." I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but I always preferred the sea when growing up, so that's as good of an excuse for self-flattery as any. It helped that we were a stone's throw away from South East Asian beach countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Palau, etc.
So after spending a lot of Friday night floundering in Midtown and blowing serious cash, I needed some sunshine to clear my mind. So I brought along The Savage Detective and my sketchbook and hopped the A train to the Rockaway beaches. It did me immense good, I think.
Solitude is easy to find in even the most crowded places of New York, but true privacy is miles away. Even at the beach, I had to walk a solid couple of miles to get away from the volleyball crowds, hot dog grills, boom boxes and neon plastic toys. I was looking for a windswept dune where I can lie in the sand, read and nap alone. Should've known that beaches during summertime were garish places. Anyway, the above view is the closest I got to that. I think I'm gonna check out Robert Moses island/state park next time.
I also listened to a lot of beach-appropriate music (Oasis, 929樂團), which made me unreasonably happy.
Yeah, anyway, I miss the sea. Maybe I should go live in Australia or something.
AWWWSTRAYLIAH! Dingows ayte mai baybeees!
2008年7月7日 星期一
David Foster Wallace's Commencement Speech
“This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship –- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally lower you into your grave. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear talked about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving. . .”
-This is what we needed to hear for commencement (entire speech).
Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship –- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally lower you into your grave. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear talked about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving. . .”
-This is what we needed to hear for commencement (entire speech).
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