an album i would kill to hear get a Let It Be… Naked-style remaster. incidentally, this is the creepiest YouTube clip i’ve ever seen
@nickrkm
selected writings, 2012
'In the days that followed, I ventured further into the forest around the lake; under the cover of the tall trees there grew short grass, illuminated here and there by sheets of sunlight... I knew that I was dealing with baleful, unhappy, and cruel creatures; it was not among them that I would find love, or its possibility, nor any of the ideals that fueled the daydreams of our human predecessors; they were only the caricature-like residues of the worst tendencies of ordinary mankind, the kind that Daniel1 knew already, the one whose death he had wish for, planned, and to a large extent accomplished. I had further confirmation of this in the course of a sort of party organized a few days later by the savages... The chief presided over the meeting, in what resembled a sunken car seat. He was wearing an "Ibiza Beach" T-shirt and a pair of high boots; his legs and sexual organs were exposed.'
• Ask me anything
little souvenirs from a terrible year
selected writings, 2012
'In the days that followed, I ventured further into the forest around the lake; under the cover of the tall trees there grew short grass, illuminated here and there by sheets of sunlight... I knew that I was dealing with baleful, unhappy, and cruel creatures; it was not among them that I would find love, or its possibility, nor any of the ideals that fueled the daydreams of our human predecessors; they were only the caricature-like residues of the worst tendencies of ordinary mankind, the kind that Daniel1 knew already, the one whose death he had wish for, planned, and to a large extent accomplished. I had further confirmation of this in the course of a sort of party organized a few days later by the savages... The chief presided over the meeting, in what resembled a sunken car seat. He was wearing an "Ibiza Beach" T-shirt and a pair of high boots; his legs and sexual organs were exposed.'
• Ask me anything
little souvenirs from a terrible year
lyric sites
Some rare memoir: When I was in, I guess middle school, my favorite band was the Clash and my other favorite band was Radiohead. This might sound cooler than it was: I found out about the Clash because my Dad was a big fan and I forget how I found out about Radiohead, but I’m sure it was something equally unceremonious. Either way, neither of my parents liked the Beatles (particularly Paul), and the only song of theirs that I knew was “Yellow Submarine,” which was a particularly unbearable rest-of-the-bus sing along on the way home from certain jazz band competitions. And the Clash—in my favorite Clash song, no less—had confirmed my suspicions, calling Beatlemania phony and over.
As far as I can remember, there were two people who convinced me to give the Beatles a chance. The first was a user on Green Plastic Radiohead, on a thread dissing the Beatles, who explained that the structure of “Paranoid Android” was influenced by the structure of “Happiness is a Warm Gun”; the second (and more important) was a commenter on some lyrics site (I think one that pre-dated SongMeanings) who explained that no, the “phony Beatlemania” line was about the hype surrounding the Beatles, not the actual band, who made great records like the White Album and influenced the Clash. And so for the next however many months, I spent my Friday nights on Limewire, downloading the Beatles catalogue, starting with the White Album and moving out, one kilobyte at a time. Mostly because of a commenter on a lyric site.
Ten years later it’s another Friday night and I’m on a new computer in a new state downloading bluegrass covers of Paul songs at literally 100 times the old speed. Tomorrow I’m going to take a bus to another state and listen to them on the way.
I didn’t go to parties in high school, but I had friends who threw them and sometimes those friends would tell me how some of their guests—really one of their guests, who was somewhat notorious for this sort of thing—would come over and steal their stuff. The characters in the bling ring are at least two thefts removed my friends—as in, they would be the rich kids to theoretically rob for the rich kids who we would have theoretically robbed—but they’re still not happy. And why should they be? One thing you learn, living in New York, that no matter how much money a person comes from, they will always keep around someone who comes from a little bit more money only to shake their head at that person’s displays of class.
Bling Ring isn’t (really) about class so much as it’s about, for one, shopping. We learn this in the first line of the movie, when Emma Watson looks at the camera and says, “Let’s go shopping” and proceeds to grab all the shoes, dresses, and prescription drugs she can get her hands on, but as these four-plus high schoolers continue through the homes of Orlando Bloom, Lindsey Lohan, Rachel Bilson, and of course Paris Hilton, it becomes clear that the idea is less that the victims don’t deserve their possessions (surely no one has more respect for these people than the celebrity obsessed main characters) than that these possessions don’t deserve to spend the rest of their existence stuffing closets the size of apartments. They deserve to be worn, they deserve to be seen, they deserve to be bought, and they deserve to be stolen.
And so if there’s a turning point in the movie, it isn’t when Marc—the friendless boy whose willingness to say yes to anything Rebecca suggests is one of the truest parts of the movie—is arrested, it’s a few minutes before when we see him arranging his grift in his mom’s garage. It may only be a few boxes, but he has crossed over to the other side nonetheless— He might as well be Kane in his mansion, Odile’s aunt in Band of Outsiders, or Paris Hilton only an hour earlier. The fall is coming.
