The Pessimism of Ryan Ross

In his song, "Build God, Then We'll Talk", songwriter Ryan Ross truly outdid himself with satirical brilliance. Shortly before the album was written, he had discovered that his girlfriend was cheating on him, and as such, much of the album's content is a sort of emotional retaliation. Out of all the songs, however, "Build God" is by far the most elegant.

The song itself is quite tragic. The only character with any sort of decency is the narrator, who bitterly laments the darkness of humanity- yet is unable to change anything. The rest of the cast includes an ex-Catholic woman, an unscrupulous lawyer, the wife who feigns ignorance, the constable who discovers the affair, and the resulting child who is given no choice in the matter of existence.

It's these substandard motels on the corner of 4th and Freemont Street
Appealing, only 'cause they're just that un-appealing
Any practiced Catholic would cross themselves upon entering
The rooms have a hint of asbestos and maybe just a dash of formaldehyde
And the habit of decomposing right before your very eyes
Along with the people inside

What a wonderful caracature of intimacy
Inside, what a wonderful caracature of intimacy

Tonight's tenants range from: a lawyer and a virgin
Accessorizing with a rosary tucked inside her lingerie
She's getting a job at the firm come Monday
The Mrs. will stay with the cheating attorney
Moonlighting aside, she really needs his money
Oh, wonderful caricature of intimacy

And not to mention the constable, and his proposition for that "virgin"
Yes, the one the lawyer met with on "strictly business"
As he said to the Mrs: Well only hours before,
After he had left, as she was fixing her face in a compact
There was a terrible crash (there was a terrible crash)
Between her and the badge, she spilled her purse and her bag
And held the "purse" of a different kind-
The one with the people inside

What a wonderful caricature of intimacy
Inside, what a wonderful caricature of intimacy

There are no...
Raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses
It's sleeping with roaches and taking best guesses
The shade of the sheets and before all the stains
And a few more of your least favorite things

As it's fairly obvious what the song is about, I won't bother going into much detail with interpretation. Because of certain lines in the lyrics, it's likely the young woman needed money to support her drug addiction (most notable in this line: "between her and the badge, she spilled her purse and her bag"), but the point is debatable. The best part of the song is, of course, the climax, which beautifully sums up the fall of innocence- by (mis)quoting The Sound of Music, no less.

Yet underlying the story is a tragic theme of defeatism: "It doesn't matter what you do in the end, because you're screwed either way." This is all very well in the name of Art, but is end-all pessimism a thing we should encourage? Are we sure that Art is enough removed from Reality (and vice versa) that it will not taint our opinions of the world?

As a chronic pessimist, I feel partially at blame by encouraging (even admiring!) this type of artistic negativity. However, some hope may be taken in quotes such as this:

"Art does not give real things or imitations of real things. The thing that art gives is strained first through the artist's selections and judgments, and then through the specific techniques with he used to present them. If you are to enjoy an art, you must first accept its terms." -Thomas Hart Benton

Hush, Moon

Came across this song ("You Are the Moon") by The Hush Sound a few days ago. Beautiful imagery...

Shadows all around you
As you surface from the dark
Emerging from the gentle grip
Of night's unfolding arms
Darkness, darkness everywhere,
Do you feel alone?
The subtle grace of gravity,
The heavy weight of stone
You don't see what you possess,
A beauty calm and clear
It floods the sky and blurs the darkness
Like a chandelier
All the light that you possess
Is skewed by lakes and seas
The shattered surface, so imperfect,
Is all that you believe

I will bring a mirror,
So silver, so exact,
So precise and so pristine,
A perfect pane of glass
I will set the mirror up
To face the blackened sky
You will see your beauty every
Moment that you rise

Realising Reality

While skimming through some recent mod picks, I came across this short story. Its interesting plot and use of unreliable narration makes it one of the better shorts I've read in a while. The bit about the psychologist's report reminds me of the movie "Shutter Island". Lunatic or genious? There seems to be quite a fine line between the two...

Quiet Things

A couple days ago, I downloaded Brand New's "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" after hearing it in a mashup song with Dashboard Confessional. Already, it's become one of my all-time favorites... and I have a feeling that some of the band's other songs are soon to follow. Here are the lyrics:

We saw the western coast
I saw the hospital
Nursed the shoreline like a wound
Reports of lover's tryst
Were neither clear nor descript
We kept it safe and slow
The quiet things that no one ever knows

So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
Today's the day it gets tired
Today's the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals

I contemplate the day we wed
Your friends are boring me to death
Your veil is ruined in the rain
By then it's you I can do without
There's nothing new to talk about
And though our kids are blessed
Their parents let them shoulder all the blame

So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
Today's the day it gets tired
Today's the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals

I lie for only you
And I lie well...
Hallelu...

I've heard a lot of different interpretations for this particular song, and each of them are powerful and moving in its own way. Brand New really displays songwriting brilliance in this song. To me, it means something along these lines:

"We saw the western coast. I saw the hospital; nursed the shoreline like a wound." The first line is a metaphor about the end of a couple's relationship. He's known for a while that their marriage was hanging by a thread, but he kept trying to 'nurse it back to health'. Now, he realizes that it's over for good, and he starts to reminisce over the time they spent together.

In the beginning of their relationship, the young couple made some bad desicions and she conceived before they were married. "Reports of lover's tryst were neither clear nor descript" refers to the rumors that had begun to circulate about it, while the next line, "we kept it safe and slow" is their adamant refusal to confirm these rumors to anyone. "The quiet things that no one ever knows" contradicts the previous (false) statement, and is the underlying theme in the song. The narrator is sadly remembering his early mistakes, and the suffering he had to face by keeping them a secret.

"I contemplate the day we wed." Self-explanatory: he now recalls their wedding day. "Your friends are boring me to death." By this time, he had already begun to fall out of love with her, but he had to go through with the rushed wedding anyway, in order to cover up their mistakes. "Your veil is ruined by the rain" is an omen of the trouble that was to come.

The miserable years of their marriage scrape along slowly. "By then, it's you I can do without. There is nothing new to talk about." It is clear that there is no longer any love in their relationship. "Though our kids are blessed" (with the gift of life), "their parents let them shoulder all the blame." The parents blame the kids for their forced marriage and the resulting unhappiness.

The chorus seems to be a note he's left for his wife, telling her that he's finally leaving. "So keep the blood in your head, and keep your feet on the ground" is him telling her to stay calm and not flip out over the announcement. (It could also mean that he's asking her to avoid committing suicide, in which case they were going through a rockier time than the song lets on.) "Today's the day it gets tired; today's the day we drop out." He's just become emotionally drained, and is finally calling it quits. "Gave up my body and bed all for an empty hotel." Instead of filing an official divorce claim, he's decided to just leave. He's giving up his body (wife) and bed (home), and is going to wait things out at some lonely hotel room while he figures out the rest of his life. "Wasting words on lower cases and capitals" is his guilt at writing all of this stuff down in a note, instead of telling his wife how he feels. It was this evasive nature that caused them trouble in the begining, and yet even now he can't bring himself to break the lifelong habit.

"I lie for only you. And I lie well. Hallelu." Most of all, he wants her to know that the reason he put up with it for so long was for her sake. He managed to convince everyone else that their facade of a happy marriage was true-- and now he regrets those lies. The sarcastic "hallelu" is his bitter conclusion to the story.

This song evokes so much emotion, and is so beautifully written. Brand New performs emo music at its best: no suicidal screaming, no manical bashing of mics into walls, just a few guys singing about the struggles of life. In the end, that's what the genre is really about.

I Heart Algebra

Ahh. It's my first day back in dear, sweet Algebra, and I've already realized why I missed it so much. Unlike geometry, it's practical. Sure, I can see where geometry would be useful to a surveyor, architect, pool player, or some other such geometrically-inclined professional, but Algebra is actually applicable to me, now.

For instance, take this supposedly illogical math problem:

x = x + 1

Wait just a second! you say. At first glance, this problem looks impossible. It doesn't take a math whiz to realize that any number plus one will no longer equal itself. Oh, but wait. Herein lies the beauty of math.

To demonstrate the problem in its application, let's pretend we are going to create a simple text-based computer game using visual basic. To beat the game, you have to answer three questions correctly in a row. "X" is defined as the number of correctly answered questions. At the beginning of the game, the player has zero correct answers.

x = 0

The player launches the game, and he or she is presented with one of various pre-defined randomly selected questions. In this example, the first question is "What is the capital of Djibouti?" The correct answer is Djibouti. The code for this particular question would look something like this:

answer = inputbox("What is the capital of Djibouti?")
       if answer = "Djibouti" then
       AddScore()
             else
       Reset()

If the answer is anything other than "Djibouti" (aka if the answer is wrong), the player is sent to the function Reset(). In this case, Reset() consists of little more than x = 0. This (gasp!) resets the player's score to 0, no matter what. Reset() then sends the player back to the questionaire function.

If the answer is correct, the player is sent to AddScore(), which contains that tricky little math problem we discussed at the beginning of this post.

x = x + 1

This is read as "the value of x is equal to the previous value of x plus one". Remember, x was set to 0 at the launch of the game. The script will therefore interpret the problem as follows:

x = 0 + 1 (or) x = 1

In our game, AddScore() also checks if three questions have been correctly answered in a row.

if x = 3 then
       WinGame()
             else
       Questionaire()

If the number of correctly answered questions is equal to three, a congratulating message will appear. If not, the game loops back to the question function. In our case, the value of x is only equal to one, so we must ask the player more questions.

Pretend the player answers the next question correctly. The code in function AddScore() still reads x = x + 1, but now the program interprets it as:

x = 1 + 1 (or) x = 2

Because x does not equal three, the function loops back to Questionaire() and asks another question. If the player answers the next question incorrectly, x resets to 0 and he or she must start from scratch. In this case, we'll pretend that the player has answered their third question correctly. x = x + 1 is now interpreted as:

x = 2 + 1 (or) x = 3

X is now equal to three, so the player wins! This is a rough example of how an algebraic problem can be applied in a computer program, but you get the general idea.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. I'm a total, complete dork. I won't deny that. And I won't stop loving Algebra. <3

Hello, World

Basically, this post is supposed to introduce my blog and such. I could do that, but there are so many interesting, random things I could be posting instead. So I've decided to keep this short.

This is my random life, my random interests, my not-so-random beliefs. Welcome to Teenage Randomity.