Blissed Out

I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.

-CS. Lewis

I've been listening to Remain in Light all day long. This album's sound and feel is so monstrous, you can disappear inside of it and pop up on the other side of the world. I'm stuck next to the astronomy section, not studying for Western Civ but reading my friend Rachel Goldberg's blog Godlilost! and watching the sunset, thinking I'm living and dying my days away in Southeast Asia near around wherever she is. What's taking me away isn't the French Revolution looming nearby, but the Talking Head's Remain in Light. Blowing my fucking mind. I've never really sat still ever listening to this album, because you honestly can't. Remain In Light will drum you to death. The first four tracks would absolutely plaster me, render me steamrolled if played full blast. But I'm listening to it now, throwing that same energy toward thinking and my imagination has lost myself a few times. It takes me far, even with a little discretion on my part. I'm holding back from going totally berzerk and running away with it, because that could totally happen in one quick flash. There once was no buffer, no speed one at all. I loved it. It was always all or barely something, never nothing. Still as death or the far outer limits. No foot tapping or head nodding. Either sleep or yell and run, nothing in between. I see now that you can't do that in the library. You can, but I can't right now. Deep breaths. There's a whole lot happening, but I'm keeping to Remain In Light and Goldilost. The two of them make for a pretty outrageous coupling, full of sweat and hot sticky weather, jungle temples, muddy cave chases, spice, bird noises, opium smoke, tucked away monasteries with a day's worth of stone steps to climb, iguanas sprawled out on tucked away beaches and the most beautiful sunsets ever. David Byrne's haunting discordant voice simply narrates and doesn't give two hoots how you're lost and just might die. The only thing left to do now is reckon with the facts. On your own, long gone far from home. Wide eyed, enlightened, and aware, wandering through some psychotrophic jungle where long lost tribes still dance endlessly to the perfect beat on the cliffs overlooking the lagoon, hidden by countless acres of shade and exposed by the full moon. The creative process is never boring, it's a grand struggle even on the most simplest terms (word to them who photo edit). Creation, invention, associations, unconscious insight, chance revelations, new ideas all act and react to show us windows into what we don't know but possibly could, if we could simply humble ourselves and vanquish the need to control reality and think well of oneself. The concept of Travel gets us halfway there, rendering us almost helpless the further we get away from out comfort zones and totally vulnerable to whatever direction Life may throw us in. Living life once step away from the edge of all sides nurtures the soul's creative process. But with enlightenment and excitedment so far away and midterms so nearby, Goldilost is worth living vicariously through for the meantime.