Well, folks, the day finally arrived! Kristy had the baby! All apparently went incredibly smoothly, praise God, and the little guy’s name is Jameson, which I think is a cool idea for a dude’s name. Congratulations Kristy!
Moving on,
I logged onto some website late last night through the IMDb News Desk, eager to gobble up new information about Christopher Nolan’s next project, a sci fi thriller called “Inception.” Apparently, the entire rest of the world had found out that Leonardo DiCaprio signed on for the lead role, and Ellen Page was in talks. I totally missed this. Propelled by desperation to keep up with the flow of information, I started plowing through news articles linked on IMDb.
This led to my mind being supple, permeable, and willing to accept new information. This is, of course, a bad state to be in on April Fool’s day. So lo and behold, when an exceedingly clever “update” appeared informing me that “Inception” had been pushed in favor of the next Bat-flick, which would be called “Batman Redemption,” I totally freaking bought it.
Ah, the crushing weight of my realization, Dear Reader. You can scarcely imagine my sorrow! It took several hours of watching “The Dark Knight” and guzzling Coca Cola before I felt better. Ouch ouch ouch.
Moving right along,
I have recently acquired two new albums, as well as a whole smattering of ones I used to own and lost. Among the newbies is Radioehad’s “Kid A,” which I shamefully had never owned despite loving the band since 8th grade, as well as Bob Dylan’s “Bringing it All Back Home,” and again there is shame for the same reason. They’re both extraordinary, hitting me on first listen (which few albums do). I think “Home” will prove itself to be one of my favorite Dylan records, and “Kid A” is just my kind of experimental rock record: dense, dark, confusing, but layered and meaningful.
Of course, Bob comes through with the incredible lyrics. On “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream,” he tells a hypnotic parable about wandering aimlessly through a strange foreign land, encountering bizarre and mysterious creatures who beat him up, steal from him, seduce him, etc. At the end, he swears the place off and gets in his boat, but on his way out from shore, he bounces into Christopher Columbus, sailing towards the shore. As the listener comes to understand that he has been talking about modern day America the whole time, Bob remarks with a smirk that as he passed Columbus in his boat, he shouted out two words: “Good luck.”
Also high on my list is “Gates of Eden,” a wonderfully spooky poem about man’s relationship to the Garden of Eden since our exile from it. Each verse ends with a stanza that does not rhyme with its brothers, where the music noticably downshifts and Dylan whispers, “There are no kings inside the gates of Eden.” Later, he modifies it with the equally powerful, “There are no sins inside the gates of Eden,” and then finally, “There are no truths outside the gates of Eden.” Wow.
Radiohead’s “Kid A” is an album I’ve been hearing about since high school. A bizarre, experimental album produced right at the height of the band’s success as a more traditional art rock group, it is remembered more for how utterly confusing the first listen was than anything else. I’m not sure anyone loved the music, but they admired having the guts to actually make this thing. I, on the other hand, as someone with a fledgling love of avant garde electronic music, love it; it’s honestly pretty tame by the standards of what I normally listen to.
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