Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The Beauty of Contradiction





The lyrics articulate a truth wrapped in a contradiction tied in melody with a voice that makes the air feel crisp. Contradictions make the melodies edgy. Expectations and intuition will feel like counterpoint. The words are headed towards a cliff, right to the edge, and then, a lyrical U-turn. Somehow, these songs make the uncomfortable comfortable.
If feelings have expectations, these are syncopated (unexpected). 

(For Tracy Thorne) 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Getting (Un)Real




A series of posts create a virtual reality

A stream of consciousness enters the brain.

But is it real?

* * * 

Critically acclaimed but historically obscure...

..he studied under Tchaikovsky and taught Rachmaninov

But what makes him unknown yet someone else makes history?  

Celebrity?

Celebrities who were once Artists now have a new reality.

Today everyone’s a celebrity.

For more than 15 minutes

In virtual reality

* * * 

But what makes something real or more real

Does black and white instead of color?

Is it real life...outside of work or play

Or are we governed by illusions or only by what we remember

* * *

The dream factory continues to create.

If fiction fuels emotion more than reality - the unreal determines a lot.


So much of life is seen through songs, movies and novels

...inducing fictional aspirations


A thought is changed by a book

A picture in Instagram changes a look

Innovation was unreal before. 

So was anything unfelt

Without imagination


* * *

Sometimes I wonder if marketing folks ever get  "Vive la diffĂ©rence"

Yet they have a reality:  

Your product only has 1 audience  

Your product has only 1 taste. 

You can predict what that taste will do. 

A brand is a license to predict, conform and make uniform.


* * * 

Movies scenes of a familiar place are now in disguise.

Reality tv is stranger than fiction

A 1919 movie palace is now a bookstore 81 years later

* * *

Sports truly blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction.

It’s just game, they say.

A father pitches to his son after a steroids scandal.

But what is a scandal but for people who have no lives?

No one remembers Letterman’s sex

Today’s news is yesterday’s news.

Today is forgotten in one day 

What stays real – other than leaves that come and go.

* * * 

There is no Great Depression politicians say

Only unprecedented theft from Main Street to Wall Street. 

I woke up from a dream 

Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Was still in my head.

A stream of consciousness experiment derived from status reports.