fall flotations
during this past week, in the wake of the written exams, i’ve been on a consumingconsuming binge, grateful not to have to give any intellectual effort back in return: duck, pie, marzipan in my mouth, new dress on my back, atlas sound in my ears, romantic comedy on the eyes.
the premise of kate and leopold is pretty ridiculous: the duke of albany follows the not-mad-scientist into the future and falls in love with the scientist’s career ladder-climbing ex-girlfriend. the movie is predictable [kate follows him to the past; their reunion: “i love you!”, kiss, dance, end scene] but polished. it’s also infinitely readable — the policeman (the state) stepping in at the end, in a gesture to save kate from what seems to be her suicide but is actually her leap into the past [the state, whose presence is a reminder of the movie’s illogic, tears a rent into the movie’s world]. but what i really want to share is this moment, at the 4:45 mark, when leopold is taking in the wonders of his nyc some 130 years later:
hahaha: “are you suggesting madam there exists a law compelling gentlemen to lay hold of canine bowel movements?”
just ridiculous. and isn’t that the point?
–
atlas sound’s logos will keep me afloat, floating through the autumn quarter and maybe through winter. there’s an arc to this album, from the first track’s warm, sample-hugged arpeggio, through its pop-melodic middle tracks, to the bleep-bloops of its closing. the sonic arc holds together a collection of wanderings into spaces of loneliness (or fear of it?) that bradford cox is so good at rendering. the album is washed out and dreamy on the whole, insistent and sad when i need it to be, and otherwise just there, all melancholic background when my mind is somewhere else.
some of that jangly pop from the middle of the album:
–
this blog, said the gramophone, is one of those music blogs that lean indie pop. instead of passing judgement though, the tracks are accompanied by little narratives that have nothing to do explicitly with the songs but are rather in some “inspired by” relationship to them, like they’re meant to paint a visual, situational landscape alongside the aural experience. the songs aren’t always that interesting, but i like the reading/listening combo — soundtracks as you read, music that has just a slight, even tenuous connection to the text. if i wrote more and more seriously, i’d like to embark on a project of soundtracked short stories.