Friday, December 10, 2010

Magic And Adventures (No, and Yes Respectively)

Wednesday, man. I nearly got into a fight and stabbed. There's more to the story, but none of it is quite so interesting or entirely mine to tell. Then, after not sleeping after that, I go to Dublin, have a pint of Guiness while my flight is delayed and head to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, in New York City, where I currently am.

I don't have full control of my schedule. Or: I don't know what I'm doing or where I'll be for sure from day to day this weekend. You've heard of playing it by ear, yes? I'm actually doing that. There's something exciting about that feeling of improvising the schedule that makes a city seem more real and somehow also more magical.

I don't believe in magic.

A Phonogram fanzine asked the question: When did I know music was magic? It's not. Or, it is, or can be. It is what you make it. Which is one of the actually deep things I've ever read and then repeated. It's music. It's just that. Phonogram made me do it, but Phonogram doesn't blind me. We call it magic because we don't have the backbone to admit it and do it ourselves more often. We mistake transportation mixed with inspiration for magic.

I'm reading Kraken now, which is festooned with actual, for real magic. (For the record: I haven't used the word festooned in a long time. Good word.) It is a book which could not exist without magic. Phonogram's is only gilded by it. The people's lives are kissed by magic but not consumed by it. Phonogram adds color.

But. Phonogram's magic is something that colors or enlivens, once you already know an area. There's a song, by Crime In Stereo called Barfight on Bedford Avenue. Having now seen Bedford, I now understand better the tenor of the song, having seen this place. It's about fake friends and superficial bullshit and having now stepped foot in that place, the song gains weight and specificity.

And that's magic. Well, sort of. It makes life interesting and more colorful. But that's not magic. That's doing things and existing and saying yes to things and not no. I don't view that as magical. But there's something new and exciting about saying yes to things. So much so that I'm staying somewhere else tonight and I'm willing to be uncomfortable to do it. Man: What am I doing?

I know what I'm doing: Adventures. I just don't have to believe they're magical.




Of course, I can't find Barfight on Bedford Ave, so here, have, a live version of Not Dead, which has some appropriate lyrics for the magical adventure: "It's in the west. The pacific sun descends. It's in your best friend's basement. It's in your head."

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