Future Mythologies

A Textual Journey with Maxwell Von Bismarck

Sunday, January 04, 2004

 
Let's get to the point and make this quick.

2003 In Review

GOOD

Dizzie Rascal - "I Luv You". Yes, we heard it in 2002, but this song has just gotten better and taken on its true form in 2003. Incredible song that makes me feel at the edge of everything. Other songs on the album are good, but this song is the reason I don't dismiss the hype. I can't think of anything to say about it, really. Read the other stuff.

M. Ward - "Outta My Head", etc. "Vincent O'Brien" helped me make sense of a lot of my sadness this year, and "Outta My Head" is the one that always sounds great. The classic pop song you always knew but had never heard.

Outkast - "Hey Ya". It always takes me a long time to get my head around the latest hiphop, but for this one it was just a matter of hearing the record. The video looks cool, but the audience cheering covers up the melody, and its easy to forget that some of these cutting edge new hits have them. Anyway, the year's great genre-ignorer. Especially dig the synth bubbles.

Belle and Sebastian - "I'm a Cuckoo". One more year and I would have forgotten about them entirely. Lucky for me. I played this one over and over back to back, and I fucking hate that Thin Lizzy song.

Kill Bill, Part One - Anyone who says that this is inch-thin is missing the bloody point. And not about this movie, about all movies. I'm not a big fan of them, but this movie has more substance, feel, atmosphere, emotion, significance, importance than anything I've seen all year. Return of the King was all well and good. It looked incredible, but it was really just an illustration of a book. A work that was supposed to recreate a mythology for the Celts and Britons. Kill Bill is a movie that speaks to the consciousness of our time.

Finally Discovering 2002 Music - Especially the Streets. I can't think of any more 2003 songs to mention, although it was a fine year for music and I'm sure I'll get to it in time, but a year isn't about itself. Thank you Mike Skinner for enriching my 2003. It's the album I would have made if I were 20 times more on the ball, 20 times more talented, and 20 times more dedicated.

"Ask" - The Smiths song that I listened to all Spring. So important to the earlier months that I refuse to play it before the next thaw. More to come about "Ask", because there's volumes I have to say about it.

Marcello Carlin - A most inspiring recovery for a man I deeply admire and am deeply indebted to.

Regaining contact with estranged friends. - Totally rocks. Totally recommended.

Rite Aid, 7-11

John Coffee - I disagree with everything you say, but you enriched my life more than you'll ever know. OK, actually you were right about an awful lot of stuff, but you're very popular, and I think most people in your class take everything you say at wholesale, even if your only source is a rare out-of-print book that you lent to a student who never returned it.

Graduation - Magna Cum Laude BA. I never did find the tickets my family was supposed to use to get into Commencement.

Employment

The Blogosphere

www.ilxor.com




BAD

Being screwed by U-Haul

Being REALLY screwed by my former landlady.

Unemployment - Really hard on me.

No X-Mas album - Next year, true believers. But not until after the 2004 release of Teacozy.

The Agonizing Wait for Simon's book

Still Working for Temps (In America, no less.)

Oh yeah, America

Hopeless Laziness of myself - Like Coleridge without the poetry

Not Blogging enough





Thanks for putting up with me everybody. 2004 is going to be the year of Maxwell von Bismarck! How do I know? Well, I haven't made the claim before!




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