I don't ever want to be stagnant when it comes to awesomesauce, so every few months I like to reconsider my definition of 'perfection."
Well, today's the day. And luckily, I stumbled onto Franz Ferdinand's cover of LCD Soundsystem song "All My Friends."
Whew. I did not want to go the Sam Shepard well again, let me tell you. Not that I object, but you know. A girl doesn't want to seem repetitive.
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An interesting Q&A with Elaine Showalter, author of A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers From Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (published with Knopf). The book is a chronicle of women writers starting waaaaaay back in Colonial America, right up until Gertrude Stein and beyond (who, hilariously enough, she finds overrated. HA!). The whole thing is worth reading, but one slice in particular caught my imagination. The most interesting bit I've excerpted here (emphasis mine):
Q. What is distinctly American in this tradition [of women's writings]?
From the beginning, women writers were interested in the interactions of race and culture — romance with Native Americans, abolition, and slavery. And more than male writers, they engaged with those issues in terms of their everyday lives: What did it mean — for domestic life, for children, for relationships — to live at the juncture of cultures?
There's also a real difference from the British literary tradition that I wrote about some time ago. There, the women writers had servants or some kind of household help. In the United States, women did the housework, or at least they were expected to know how it should be done. That gets transformed into questions about how the house imprisons women. And you get complaints. American women hated housework.
I imagine that, given that many of the concerns articulated in these novels would eventually drip down to be relegated to the proud, if limping banner of Harlequin romances (or worse-- chick lit), this little observation becomes downright fascinating. Making an affair with a Native into a profound social commentary on cultural interactions in the New World is one of those unflaggingly academic habits which I use pretty much everyday. FOR FUNSIES! Observe.
EXHIBIT A:
Ah, is that the musical stylings of Franz Ferdinand I hear? Or is the echo of the mod sounds of the long ago 1960s, richly informed with the gentle irony and hispter chic of the Millenniasl? This ego-pop retro feel is boldly evocative of a post-war German aesthetic to transform into a modern day fairy tale about the myriad tangles of living in a postmodern world. See also: Kapranos, Alex; dreamboat.
EXHIBIT B:
Gossip Girl is not simply a trashy show with story lines that threaten plausibility and devalue mature reactions to what are essentially adolescent situations. It's a stirring re-imagining of the drawing room morality tales of Edith Wharton, touching on the same eternal concerns that have always plagued the rich, the beautiful and the young. Can I marry for love? Will money truly grant me happiness? And now that leggings are back in, can I pull them off without everyone thinking I'm just being trendy?
EXHIBIT C:
Much more than a simple dance fable, Footloose proves a poignant coming of age tale that draws on a classically structured hero myth as well as Biblical allusions to revive the importance of self-expression (in this case, through dance). To watch Ren's final plea to the Town Council is to see a young man's conviction to boogie solidifying into a moral center, with the growing acceptance that life is rarely as finite as the dance floor.
What does this mean? Maybe "specialized generalizations" (TM me 2009!) like these are best only if they're entertaining. But let's not think about that. Instead, in the honor of our subject, let's watch Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen read aloud to us from some choice Harlequin passages:
Skip to 3:54 for the good stuff. Oh, Paul Rudd. Where did you come from, and are there more of your kind there?
When I saw them in concert, four towers bearing each of these pictures were unveiled as they played the first chords of "Take Me Out." My heart has never recovered.
Today is the happiest day. Why? A simple reason: the new Franz Ferdinand album is currently dropping on my ears, and will continue every time I have a spare moment. True story: I’m going to buy and devour every Franz record until they stop making them or I die, whichever comes first—though, in an ideal world, that would be the same calendar day in history, for one surely leads to the other!
Franz Ferdinand is the one and only band that I love, with fever and circumstance. If they had an existential newsletter, I bet I would be treasurer!
Reasons to Love Franz Ferdinand
[a compelling bullet point list!]
1. They are the frontrunners of ego pop—a bizarre hybrid of post-war German aesthetic, postmodern pouting and sixties-centric musical landing strips. If the music of Franz Ferdinand were to walk into a room, it would be wearing a fabulous red sequin suit and have a beautiful woman on each arm. And have a corncob pipe filled with bubblegum sex hunger!
2. They are from Glasgow—the third dirtiest city in Europe! It's not literally dirty--well, it is that too, but it's more so a spiritual uncleanliness, like clothing left on a stranger's bedroom floor overnight. Glasgow, though dirtier, seedier and generally sketchier than its Edinburgh sibling, is the better of the two! You can trust a man from Glasgow…but mostly, just to be be sketchy and awesome and oddly sexy (see: Kapranos, Alex).
3. They, too, are fascinated by boys and girls. JUST LIKE YOU AND ME!
4. When asked about perfectly normal things like where their name comes from, they say things like this:
"[Archduke Franz Ferdinand] was an incredible figure as well," continues Alex. "His life, or at least the ending of it, was the catalyst for the complete transformation of the world ... he was a pivot for history. But I don't want to over-intellectualize the name thing. Basically a name should just sound good ... like music."
6. They are secretly brilliant lyricists—akin to coolest kid, sitting in the back of class, who was studying all along and gets the best grade on the test (but of course, this a faulty analogy: in actual fact, they are too cool for school).
8. Their hearts still remember the exquisite heartbreak of playground love.
9. Who else would make a music video detailing their efforts to enact a GLOBAL SEX MANIA?
10.Why did they want to make music? To "make girls dance or something."
11. They are time travelers from the ultra mod future, here to aid our funk-fusions for years to come. They want only to cushion our timid steps into the musical revolution! I think they were sent back to make me happy, and help me in my Bad News Quest---omg, does that make me like, the John Connor of the ultra-mod futurescape?
Basically, I am sucked into their groovatational pull. They are the soundtrack to three-cigarette nights in the lives of hip, hopeless young things.
Here’s the first single off their glorious third album, Tonight: “Ulysses.” At the :40, I think my lungs stopped breathing for a good ten seconds.
I just want to live in the world Franz Ferdinand sings about. That is all.
