panoptiphobia

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Ruth Langmore rules

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And I need to remain undetected Now I'm sitting in traffic, in a hurry To see a girl from back home Who I swear that I feel like I've known for a century But she lives six hours away And it's been two weeks And every day we speak For an hour at least There's no way My mind makes up these scenarios And crams the future full like a storage unit And when I get there, it's the same malaise I'm eating and sleeping and pacing And the cycle repeats and the fantasy seeps Through the cracks and the strain in inertia With a pit in my stomach, sitting in traffic The spontaneous magician of the mundane But she lives six hours away And it's been two weeks And every day we speak For an hour at least There's no way

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Light in the dark

The cashier at our local Trader Joe’s was from WI. We talked about how things were going in the homeland. I reverted to my accent and it was the warmest I’ve felt in weeks. 

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Dissertating in the COVID-19 void

There are many lessons to be crossexamined with the current crisis and the moment I’m covering in my first dissertation chapter (South Korea immediately following the surrender of Japan in 1945):  Chaos is not a vacuum. The power relations that existed before remain in each atomized individual. Difficulty in charting the shifting and rapidly changing situation does not constitute an absence, only a reshuffling. Power will retain an inertia into the ruptures and leave its tentacles extended to latch onto whatever new formation proceeds the current crisis. 

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From a great anthemic track, “Headfirst”

Did you care that I was left here? Did you care that you're still gone? I'm so tired of waiting around to find something I've already got Time will let you down

Dogleg’s “Melee” is great

From the Pitchfork review: “The Gen-Z members of Dogleg use Melee as a synopsis of guitar music made in their short lifetime from bands whose aggression appeared completely at odds with prevailing tastes. In their sound are bands like …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead and At the Drive In who served as the violent wing of the New Rock Revolution; Cloud Nothings’ Attack on Memory and Japandroids’ Celebration Rock’s referendum on chillwave; an entire decade of Midwestern emo raging against cosmopolitan lifestyle-indie. Melee effectively advocates for a binary of taste: There is rock music that slaps and rock music that does not, the latter of which should not be given any attention.“ 

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dogleg-melee/

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Dogleg’s “Melee” is great

From the Pitchfork review: “The Gen-Z members of Dogleg use Melee as a synopsis of guitar music made in their short lifetime from bands whose aggression appeared completely at odds with prevailing tastes. In their sound are bands like ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead and At the Drive In who served as the violent wing of the New Rock Revolution; Cloud Nothings’ Attack on Memory and Japandroids’ Celebration Rock’s referendum on chillwave; an entire decade of Midwestern emo raging against cosmopolitan lifestyle-indie. Melee effectively advocates for a binary of taste: There is rock music that slaps and rock music that does not, the latter of which should not be given any attention.“ 

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dogleg-melee/

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Sleep and melatonin

I recently told a friend that sleep on melatonin was like hitting a switch and waking up fully rested, a dreamless sleep. That’s only partially true. I woke up from a nightmare, or a stress dream is a more accurate descriptor. In this dream I was trying to leave Korea in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis (how long will this generation have nightmares about Covid? How long did our grandparents have nightmares of war and hunger after the great depression and WWII? Did I ever have a SINGLE dream about 9/11?). In the dream I was leaving Korea, but also waiting to go into a courtroom to defend a friend (I can’t see their face) for a gun-related charge in a place with no right to firearms. Has this replaced my recurring nightmare of needing to catch the bus but being constantly called back into my high school lobby, only for the interior to change with each new opening of the doors? How long will we dream of covid? 

I woke up feeling lost and worried for my friend, but fully rested. Maybe she was the one I would defend in court. 

I don’t know if I will continue taking melatonin. 

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Midwest Emo’s obsession with “the backyard” and other lyrical themes.

Given the state of things I want to write something trivial. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about. The lyrical content of a lot of bands making up the resurgence of the Midwest emo (with and/or without twinkly math riffs) sound have some recurring themes that seem to pinpoint a certain experience of suburban upbringing in the 90s-2010s. And that upbringing would not have been complete without a backyard. Sometimes a pool. Definitely not an in-ground pool. 

There is something to be resuscitated in the working class identity of math rock, the spirit of that second story window from American Football’s LP. The lyrical themes and the melancholy sound itself revolve around a Midwestern working class identity most of us fled when we went to university. It lives on in the dreary sound of those descending sketches of notes and solemn-- but somehow sunny-- key changes. 

 If we could construct a sketch of the math rock kid, I imagine he/she works in the gig economy, or tends bar, or serves coffee, working in spaces deemed “hipster” while not quite having the money to enjoy all the frills of the social life that label entails. They wear double denim, carhart, and boots, but mostly because that’s what working people they grew up with wore around them. You can swap in certain items as makes sense with the weather. They drink craft beers but are just as comfortable with the $3 PBRs at the math shows in question. The Math Kid is apolitical but is stoked to vote for Bernie. Come to think of it they were actually quite politically minded while attending a Big Ten state school, but gig economy wore them down into reading political blogs. Maybe they listen to Democracy Now!, but NPR will do. Their book shelves are full of radical literature, but their politics are of the Punknews.org/OrgCore variety: drink brews and go to shows with your buds, cause damn the man. I love Math Kid, in case you were wondering. Math Kid is me, if I hadn’t moved to such an expensive city. Math kid lives in old houses with wood floors, house plants and bicycles. Math Kid will learn around 25 that he should drink sparkling water, run, and do yoga. Wait, that’s Surfgaze Kid.  Math kid is my ideal version of my 20s if I had stayed in the Midwest. But he’s so so sad and hates the snow, doesn’t he? I digress. 

 I want to say that understanding the political messaging buried in the Math/Midwest Emo resurgence means finding the messages of alienation hidden in sappy lyrical content. It means finding the political in the cries of liberation that come with youthful yawps at the changing of the leaves. Most people will eye-roll their way out. But this is for Math Kid: 

What I want to say is that math rock and midwest emo/twinkly math riff indie rock, punk etc. Elides a working class sensibility. Of course the lyrical content circles around the basic punk/emo-inspired themes of failed romances, house parties with friends, and the like--but the frequency of mentions of house parties and backyards reveals a kind of working class sentiment about leisure and the work lives of math rock kids.

Think about this example from American Beauty’s “The Gang Gets Emo” off their self-titled January, 2020 EP: 

I fell asleep in your backyard all alone. I can’t help falling in love with you. 

Now look at this example from Charmer, a band from Michigan who put out this banger of a preview to their upcoming album, “Ivy” (Expected April, 2020). The dudes in Charmer are really fixated on the backyard. The track, “Slumber” contains several of the lyrical themes comprising what I’d put forth as the working-to-middle class ethos of the math-aligned punk sub-genres: 

I've been thinking about grad school Maybe I should talk to you Drowning in your heated pool Somewhere between death and missing you.

Slumber in the summer

Enjoy your Ivy League hell Wonder when I was younger Where I thought I'd be now Will you last the cold? Cherish the raindrops on your window I'll learn to let this go Until I fall.

In this I read our Math Kid hero’s disdain for the one that got away--got away to go off to an Ivy league school. No longer are the days of summer in her comparatively wealthy parents’ heated pool. Math Kid can’t go to Harvard, he’s barely passing his creative writing class in community college. 

 From Charmer’s self-titled 2018 album, the track “Roy’s Our Boy” has some of the same themes regarding 

1) the front/backyard: 

You know where I hide my keys on my front porch to my front door I'm passed out on my trampoline Just wishing things were like they were before.

2) attending or dropping out of higher education: 

Just look at the dead leaves Crumbling beneath our feet And that first semester wasn't good for me I get nervous so I bite the sides of my cheeks I won't notice 'til my mouth begins to bleed

The academic calendar of the North American university system is a frequent topic of emo revival lyrics. Maybe it has something to do with the immense emotional weight of the privilege of going to college: one should go discover exactly what type of interesting person they should become. At least 80% of Charmer songs reference university in some fashion. College is the place to fall in and out of love with other big fish from small ponds. There’s at least one requisite college breakup buoying all middle class sensitive people’s entire personality. “The best four years of your life.” College was great, and twinkly passages definitely send my mind back to walking home from class on Fall days, and walking home (alone) from parties. But sometimes you weren’t alone, and that’s the gist of this midwest emo spirit. 

From American Beauty’s first album, the track “Fake Weddings”:

“In the backseat of your car was the best night of my life I fell in love in a small bed in a New Brunswick dorm.”

 It’s also something to be disdained and endured, apparently. An entire track off the self-titled album is titled “Pretty Over College.” My guess is it’s not the curriculum, housing, or the dining facilities that are bumming him out.  

There also seems to be a problem for Math Kids coping with the loss of love interests coming and going from their respective campuses. There’s a lot of “Turkey Dump” type anxiety and the time spent over Spring Breaks is a time of reflection over that first year and the feasibility of LDR’s.

 From Charmer’s “Nurse Joy”:

Are you having fun? Spending your spring break at home for a month? You never told anyone

The college life is a big emotional hurdle, and people in their early 30s are still writing and twinkling over lyrics about it. This is not to trivialize, but more to celebrate the shared (albeit, privileged) experiences of growing into adults through college life. 

Now let’s talk about transportation: 

American Beauty has a whole host of lines about traveling from one part of the East Coast to another: 

Carolina, are you here for good? Have you given up passing out in subway cars? I've endured your words every night since then. I’m just hoping you’re still in love with me.

There is something so satisfying about hearing Math Kid scream the name of an interstate in anthemic wail. Again from “The Gang Gets Emo,”: 

Long drives down I-95. 200 miles of your favorite songs. Train rides up to Boston, but the ride back is always so long.

From Charmer’s “Nurse Joy” again: 

So I slept the whole ride home To a playlist of high school songs I know you'll leave so what's the use

I’ve driven some people to and from college. Some to airports. Some to international fights. LDR’s, I’ve had one that turned into my happy marriage. But man, some long drives with partners in a shaky situation are brutal. Definitely something to wail a chorus over. 

These are my crazy quarantine ramblings over Midwest emo (with twinkling math riffs) lyrical themes. 

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“Do you remember all the nights spent in your room? 'Cause I remember falling asleep with you watching It's Always Sunny“

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Social Distancing

Grim times, indeed. It is very convenient (and I’m not pushing any conspiracy theory here) that the COVID-19 scare comes at the exact moment of one of the largest and most energetic movements to elect a socialist president. This also comes at a time in local Los Angeles politics when there have been significant actions by housed neighbors to protect their unhoused neighbors in places like Echo Park and MacArthur Park. The already timid yuppie with a good heart may be turned back away from helping this marginal population that will be hit hard by an infectious disease. It need not be said, that the homeless were already treated as a disease, so this is a particularly cruel joke of history. There are many lessons to be had in the works of our favorite social theorists, but we will wait out our anxiety. 

The virus spreads at a pace that cannot match the spread of fear. Being the more anxious type, I am overcautious but optimistic. If we can’t handle this, how were we going to handle the collapse under any other terms? I am called to my former anarchist teachings to relish in the collapse - in the way things were, and look forward to what they might have been. That is, after things get over an initial Purge/Mad Max phase? That could the ideology talking. 

The monoculture rung in the 2010s with calls for social connectivity. When that proved dangerous to the status quo, they were gifted a miracle of nature, an organism like so many before it, that slowed, never halting the human species’ domination of the planet. Now we will conduct social life as the tech giants dreamed it, from our cells, if we’re lucky to have one, and with premiums attached. 

No upshot, no upside. But again, I am still hopeful. 

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a movie: *has one scene with neon lights*

me:

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No more Forever War

Escalating further conflict with Iran will be stupid and costly--not only for American life but for countless people in Iran, Iraq and the rest of the region. “I don’t want my children to inherit a war that I don’t even believe in.” Red City Radio wrote that in 2010. It’s 2020. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOKJwZ_GmYA

I don't want my children to inherit a war that I don't even believe in But when I hear the sound of the bombs on the ground I feel a little bit discouraged in a world full of hate If this is the last song I ever recorded If these are the last words I ever spoke Let it be known my intention was to bring you home Hope for a better tomorrow Cease-fire when bullets aren't silent a peaceful progression denied I don't think they can see there's a better way There's a better way to survive It goes in one ear and out the other ear You don't know what I know It goes in one ear and out the other ear You don't know what I know We stand here You never listen If this is the last song I ever recorded If these are the last words I ever spoke Let it be known my intention was to bring you home All I want to do is bring you home It's the irony of being an American Support your troops so we can piss on a veteran Repeats itself the history There's a beauty in irony Shots ring out in a heated crowd Brothers and sisters are crying aloud Because their mothers and their fathers are nowhere to be found In the chaos that is this world It goes in one ear and out the other ear You don't know what I know It goes in one ear and out the other ear You don't know what I know We stand here You never listen

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Review: Origami Angel’s “Somewhere City” (2019)

I’ll be reviewing some Math rock, Midwest emo, and twinkly math riff-y records I liked in 2019 when I get the chance. 

Origami Angel, Somewhere City

Origami Angel are a rad D.C. duo playing a brand of midwest emo, mixing poppy vocals, blast beats, breakdowns and an all-around cheery dose of pure shred. 

The lyrical content of this album makes it somewhat of a concept album, inviting listeners to the fictional locale of the titular Somewhere City, a place that, you’ll come to learn, was in your head all along. Lyrical themes include struggling with and overcoming depression as well as calling on your friends (and really the city itself to) cheer you up. Citizens of Somewhere City are apparently big fans of late night McDonald’s drive-thru runs, the middle-era Pokemon games, and roller coasters. The intro track welcomes us to the city limits offering warmth, but also a punch to combat the inevitable melancholy that always lurks beneath the surface in the midwest emo sound. 

When I feel so lost, without a plan or a purpose, a cent or a dollar or even a cause I know where I need to go to feel better, Somewhere that I know that I'll always belong Finally I know that I'm not alone here Finally I feel like I have a home here

This is simultaneously a very heavy and poppy record, and the mix of the two all ties together wonderfully. Tracks like “666 Flags” and “Doctor Whomst” will have your air-guitar fingers a-twiddling (complete with blast beats) and sooth you with a warm guitar tone and wholesome lyrics. “24 Hr Drive-Thru” feels like the most straightforward poppy-rock song on the album, and then at the half-way mark it takes off into the math rock stratosphere. 

i'll text you when i'm on my way i'll do anything that it takes, drive-thru the thunder and rain so we can fill up both of our water cups with Dr. Pepper and then act like we paid it'll be okay

I love the production on this record--They really fill a beautiful soundscape with just drums and a guitar. Recent videos of their sets on tour demonstrate that none of that energy is lost in the live setting. 

This was hands-down my favorite album of the year despite coming in late with it’s November release. It really made an impact in the early winter. Somewhere City really helped fight the first round of seasonal depression and I’ll definitely keep it in the arsenal. 

“There’s just something in the air up here....”

For fans of: Jank, Commander Salamander, Pokemon 

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Tour de France, 1934

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I'm loving this continual trend of me seeing couples going to Ari Aster movies as date nights thinking they're standard spooky horror movies

The uncomfortable atmosphere is so palpable I love it