bryan ferry - "i thought" (from the frantic lp, available for purchase here.)

right, music stuff first. frantic is possibly bryan ferry's greatest album; it will almost certainly be the best lost album of this decade. it's also only the second song to feature the writing credit of "ferry / eno" since the latter left roxy music some thirty years ago. from the v. start, one hears eno, figuratively & literally, in the rinky-dink casio pattern that starts the song. many people who might have thought this tactic brilliant in 1973 probably left screaming "judas!" before getting to ferry's vocal. i can understand the feeling but i'm also a sucker for things like this, cf. the clanging of glasses and the din of inane chatter drowning out stephin merritt. it's a bit like stumbling into a bar and hearing a shitty karaoke track or blueshammer-esque blooze band, only then to hear someone singing out their fucking life for all to hear.

oh, but the casio disappears so quickly! if only they'd hung in there. it's swallowed whole by a whole bunch of eno effects and overwhelmed by bryan ferry. lyrically, it's as if every ferry song since 1972 was thrown into a blender and this is what emerged. thing is, ferry himself fell in too and the old boy sounds, well, not diced & pureed, but shaken & stirred more so than usual. spatter the whole b&w thing onto a large screen w/ red velvet curtains and serve before a moviehouse at full capacity.

now, to the personal. i've realized today why i've shied away from "personal" in the past, i.e. i'm having serious second thoughts. why? b/c, although "people" or even the stiff "persons" is accepted as standard pluralization, "personal," too, almost invariably involves another person as well. i thought that these postings might be doing that other person well as well; i had what i thought were solid intimations that this was the case. of course, i thought wrong.

i've always felt kinship to bryan ferry, even though i'm probably more of a brian eno. i bet he really knows how to treat a lady. what i also like a/b bryan ferry is that he was dumped by jerry hall in favor of mick jagger, so i'm sure he knows what heartache is like. & i'm sure he never shines more than when he says goodbye. i thought i could do that too, b/c, my, do i write a great valedictory email!

but i never know when to quit. oh, this might be true of the great screen stars, too. maybe rick ditches capt. renault and chases after ilsa in a lost reel of casablanca. maybe he wanted to, at least, but that bit got edited out. yes, editing! what a tool. i would like to apply judicious editing to my behavior over the last couple of weeks, which is far less heroic and much more beastly than any of you reading might have thought. i would particularly like to rewrite many of my exit lines--and there have been many, to my lasting shame. (i suppose by not writing about all of the many lows on here, i have achieved the dream of editing by omission.) there is a competing discourse, from which none of these acts are absent, one w/ many valid points to make. remember what barthes said a/b only the other being able to write one's love story.

if she's reading this--i wonder why she's reading this after what has passed. human curiosity? it must be, although i once mistook that for something more. what was i to think, w/o having heard anything directly? (answer : i thought what i wanted to think.)

retake : if you're reading this, i'm sorry. i wish there was another way. i wish we could talk this out. i wish & wish & wish so much, i so desire a land of make believe, that i should be up on the silver screen, making my busby berkeley dreams come true. but, really, i don't think i have the adam's apple for the work; and i don't think i have the heart to keep this up much longer. last take, then ...

EXT. SIDE ROAD -- NIGHT

FRED (chucking her chin) : here's looking at you, kid.

fred exits in his beat-up car, receding into the night, the lights of his car indistinguishable at this distance from any other.