Achtung Baby!

1998. Memory is my Enemy

Items that were on the floor of my apartment in May 1998.

"She said, "The art of longing's over and it's never coming back."
Leonard Cohen: Death of a Ladies' Man

I found one thing in you to praise and on this pebble I built my fortress of love.
-Death of a Lady's Man, Leonard Cohen

I know I am a fool, hoping dirt and glory are both a kind of luminous paint; the humiliations and exaltations that light us up. I see like a bug, everything too large, the pressure of infinity hammering at my head. But how else to live, vertical that I am, pressed down and pressing up simultaneously? I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other.

The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love.”
-Gut Symmetries, Jeanette Winterson

Songs that remind me of this precise time period, important to me for my own reasons: Pulp - Like a Friend , Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: I Let Love In ( live, from the "best of" bonus disc ), Tori Amos: Spark , Tori Amos: Siren.

I broke my promise not to suffer, and now
I have to start all over again to earn my solitude
-Death of a Lady's Man, Leonard Cohen

This has been Hardcore for a decade

PULP: "This Is Hardcore", released on March 31, 1998 in the U.S.
(yep, I'm a few months behind on this one)

"the sound of loneliness turned up to ten"
(Pulp - The Fear Live)

+ Pulp - This Is Hardcore (Live at Jools Holland '98)
+ Playing God - Pulp: This is Hardcore
+ EW Review: Cocker's voice variously recalls the playboy decadence of Bryan Ferry, the croaky deadpan of Leonard Cohen, or the high-strung edge of vintage David Bowie.
+ Wiki: "Like Different Class, the album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die."

[ This Is Hardcore (end of the line mix) ]

"Is it a kind of weakness
to miss someone so much? 

uk tv trailers

I consider both of these trailers brilliant. 
+ Skins Series 2 The Uncut Trailer (Nude by Radiohead).
+ Lost Season 1 UK Promo (Numb by Portishead)

Everyone's gone for the summer again

Rachael Yamagata - Loose Ends [via] Below is one of the songs from Loose Ends as performed on a radio appearance from 2005.

[  Rachael Yamagata: Parade (live) ]

+ Miss Yamagata also makes an appearance on Robin Danar's album "Altered States". From a review: Rachel Yamagata brilliantly carrying the Stones’ underrated 1967 gem "2000 Light Years From Home" firmly into the 21st century

My Sweetheart, the Drunk

Jeff Buckley, "Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk", Released May 26, 1998.

[ "I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted to Be)" ]

+ "Morning Theft" (live)
+ "The sky is a landfill" (live)
+ "Everybody Here Wants You" video
+ Salon: Sketches review
+ Morning Edition, May 29, 2007: Ten Years Gone, Jeff Buckley's Voice Lingers
+ "I Shall Be Released" Dylan cover

I just gotta let it go

+Priscilla Ahn: Red Cape
+ Priscilla Ahn: Dream
+ Vanity Fair: A Mash Note to Priscilla Ahn
+ Cute Picture of her playing the piano. You know my weakness for such things.
+ Art: Adam Huges

We're All On A Journey

Jena Malone + Zooey Deschanel = I'm sold on the movie already.

+ Must Watch: Trailer for Sundance Gem The Go-Getter
+ AFI Dallas Report: The Go-Getter Review

"I think I'm getting the fear."

Benicio Del Toro & Johnny Depp, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
Release Date: May 22nd 1998

Johnny Depp Soliloquy
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug-collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

+ The Rum Diary film is being made.
+ The only way to really own it: The Criterion Collection
+ Fear and Loathing in World 1-1
+ Also, Unreal came out on this same day.

I keep the wolf from the door

FABLES COVER COLLECTION

+ Radiohead: "Wolf At The Door", live @Dallas, TX - May 18, 2008
+ An amazing live version of "Nude", live @Dallas, TX - May 18, 2008

I do not believe in time

"I confess I do not believe in time.
I like to fold my magic carpet,
after use, in such a way
as to superimpose
one part of the pattern
upon another."
V. Nabokov

[ Ibrahim Ferrer - As Time Goes By (in Spanish) ]

+ I just like the title: Nabokov before Proust: The Paradox of Anticipatory Memory
+ Photo by Joannès Ceyrat