First Lines of Tony Fletcher's "Perfect Circle"

 "Athens, GA, April 5th 1980.

All week long the word had been passed around town. Party this Saturday. Three live bands. Free beer.Now with thousands of people converging upon the old Episcopal Church on Oconee Street just around the corner from the University of Georgia, the Athens grapevine was proving unfailingly effective." 

- Tony Fletcher, Perfect Circle, the Story of R.E.M.

The two or three frequent readers of this blog know that I fall into musical obsessions. For the last few months, it's been rediscovering the genius of R.E.M., from my favorites Document and Murmur to listening to maligned Fables of the Reconstruction with new ears, it's been a joy to listen to it all. And so it was time to learn more - to dive into what the internet tells me is the best R.E.M. bio. And I agree: Fletcher exhaustively documents the birth, rise, and success of the band in a compelling and readable way. Fair warning tho -- he's done his research; it's a long book and contains all of the gigs and side projects details. As such, the book doesn't have a narrative flow as much as a propulsive push to get through it all. (To be fair, the ingrained structure of many rock books.) But the beat is smooth, Fletcher's writing moving cleanly from one event to another with no discordant notes. In fact, I hardly noticed the transitions from one album to the next, and it's a mark of his deep knowledge and empathy with the band that he's appropriately glowing about the amazing music that they produced while also calling them out on their missteps.

Not that they made many. R.E.M. is fascinating for many reasons: the great music, their interesting chemistry, their ability to have complete artistic control of their songs - but also their ability to become the biggest band in the world without major compromises or making enemies along the way. Hell, they don't even have any drug problems! Fletcher tells this admirable story while pointing out how their ability to "close ranks" when needed was an essential, if cold-hearted, element of their success (How they treated poor Peter Holsapple (an essential collaborator on Out of Time) is a rare misstep.) 

My only problem with the book is not Fletcher's fault: as R.E.M. became more and more famous, the narrative began to involve lists off high-profile gigs with other celebrities and long, drawn out recording sessions across several continents, with lots of talk of "overdubs" and "remixes." This, combined with my disinterest with the music they recorded after the amazing New Adventures in Hi-Fi, made the final portion of the book a bit of a slot. Despite this, a solid narrative of the group and I highly recommend for any fan of R.E.M.

First Lines of Timothy Morton's "Humankind"

 "A specter is haunting the specter of communism: the specter of the nonhuman." 

- Timothy Morton, Humankind: Solidarity with Non-Human People

I can't claim to understand everything that Morton argues in the first 10% of Humankind, as much of it relies on a command of philosophical lineage that’s beyond me (although my handy copy of The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained helps immensely). Having said that, I'm intrigued by their main premise, which is (put simply as I understand it) that when Kant posited that there were two worlds – the world of experience sensed by our bodies and the world as it is in itself – this involved two errors: 1) the impossibility of knowing “the world as it is in itself” and 2) the anthropocentric bias of “...sensed by our bodies” when the world can be perceived by non-human bodies as well. Mitchell claims that this “severing” divorced humans from anything that wasn't human; in his words “The alienation is a crack in social, psychic, and philosophical ties to the biosphere, a hyber-object teaming with trillions of component beings.” (loc 332). 

This is exciting because they're implying that we can expand the potentiality of existence by opening ourselves up to solidarity with the biosphere. While they haven't detailed how to do this yet, barriers include our Hegalian conditioning to our anthropocentric bias and that moving past it would involve moving past fashionable cynicism; “progress would look like a regression to the childishly passionate" (loc 327).

Fascinating. I feel that this approach could be a natural extension of our learning more about "thinking" amongst "non-sentient" organisms like trees. I'm really looking forward to reading more! 

Russian Man

I've always been fascinated by Russia - there's something about the image that the word evokes - the open wind-swept steppe, the gruff men with amazing beards and fantastic hats, the questing philosophical literature, the onion domed architecture. My impression is that it's a land of contradictions, especially now when it's led by a fascist strongman that you can't get a true sense of what it's people are like. I've read a few books and none of them give me a sense of what it's like: from Andrew Meier's Black Earth to Ian Frazer's Siberia or even Orlando Figes' Natasha's Dance they all pain fascinating pictures but nothing that gives me a sense of what it's like to be there. (Of course, with a country that size, it's probably impossible to summarize in the same sense that the United States contains many, many different "countries" within its borders.

Anyways, Russia's interesting and I'm sure i'll continue to capture pictures that I like when I see them. I don't remember when I saw this Russian Man but I like the beard and his world weary eyes.

Flowing Hair

 As a child, I fell in love with Robotech anime, in particular the Macross Saga and the adventures of Rick Hunter. The great art started an obsession with drawing chunky, flowing hair. This one from the early 2000s was a fun and I think successful attempt at keeping the spirit of the style in a realistic manner.

First Lines of Ali Smith's "Summer"

"Everybody said: so?

As in so what? As in shoulder shrug, or what do you expect me to do about it? Or I don’t really give a fuck, or actually I approve of it, it’s fine by me."

 

- Ali Smith, Summer

 

The final book of Ali Smith's seasonal quartet hasn't disappointed so far. I enjoy her impressionistic but powerful observed pictures of modern life. All four of the books are interconnected but in ways I'm afraid that I don't really remember from previous installments, but this doesn't take away from the fun I have reading her: she writes with a natural energy and flow that pulls you along. 

Related posts: 

First Lines of Ali Smith's Winter