sleeping in the sand

So many things about which to blog...

But I only want to talk about two things at the moment, and I only have time to talk about one. Perhaps it will hold no interest for you, dear readers, but, as it holds no interest for most of the people I know, and as you, dear readers, are a more or less free-but-captive audience (as in, you have no control over what I post, but don't have to read anything I write if you're bored, and I'm none the wiser), this is what's appearing today.

I post about this, I feel, fairly frequently, but I still can never say it enough: I love, I love, I love Conor Oberst. There are never words adequate to express how much. I can list plenty of reasons why (and I will), but underneath all the rationales lies something purely visceral and inexplicable, a reaction of mind, soul, heart and body to his music. Some people who share my faith look at me funny when I say that, but clearly they don't understand squat.

I love the power of his imagery. I've been told by people whose opinions remain ever high in my esteem that I wield metaphor and simile deftly. Conor wields them as though they were his hands and his feet -- not something he grips, but something he grips with. Every time I listen to his compositions I have to fight the temptation to close my eyes (because I'm usually driving) to savor the garroting beauty of his metaphors. Devastatingly lovely, mind-stoppingly brilliant. The one that nailed me to the wall last night was, "Stars are all inset like diamonds / on a gravity halo / eternity's wedding band," (from "Coat Check Dreamsong"). Fabulous rendering of the Milky Way. This morning's (which I have noticed many times before; it always strikes me afresh) was

Hey, hey, hey, mighty outer space
all that flying saucer terror made me lazy drinking lemonade
a waste
it just went to waste
like the freon cold out the hotel door
or the white rocket fade over Cape Canaveral...
(from "Cape Canaveral").

Oh, that simile, "like the freon cold out the hotel door." I lose my breath a little bit every time I hear that one.

I love his scratchy, throaty, chesty voice. It bears so much of his body in it -- such a physical voice. He conveys more emotion from the tenor of his voice than most people can with facial expressions, and I feel his music in every fiber of me.

I love his enunciation. I have almost never needed to check the lyrics of any of his songs, because his enunciation is nearly flawless. Every vowel, every consonant receives its just due from Conor's mouth, which adds power to his voice and his images. And since he makes masterful use of alliteration (the English language's best poetic asset) in lines such as, "All the peacock people left their plumes in a pile" (from "Get Well Cards" -- ahhh, brilliant line), and of assonance in lines such as, "I know that victory's sweet even deep in the cheap seats" (from "Cape Canaveral"), the devices' dependence on excellent pronunciation comes to utter satisfaction in Conor's reverent care. And his grammar is wonderful, too -- he knows about "lie/lay" and leaving out the "s" in "toward." This almost puts me over the edge of ecstasy. (Yes, I find good grammar wildly sexy.)

I love his spirituality. I love the passion that permeates everything he says, every tone, every chord, every instrument. Most of all I love the way in which this musician and lyricist, exceptionally sensitive to beauty and horror and all the ways they intersect, grapples with his deep and inescapable love for the God in whom he no longer believes.

When I'm too depressed for words, I listen to Conor. When I'm too happy to contain myself, I listen to Conor. When I'm content and at peace with the world, I listen to Conor. I feel closer to the oneness of the world, closer to God, with Conor's music surrounding me in my little car.

And, glory hallelujah, he's coming out with his next album in just over a week. Something told me to check (because Amazon loves to recommend to me books in which I have no interest and will never read, like everything Ambrose Bierce ever wrote or thought about writing, because I have bought books by A. S. Byatt, and apparently all Amazon needs are matching initials; meanwhile all of the music that sustains and enlivens and soothes my soul slides unnoticed beneath its recommending eye, leaving me to fend for myself based purely on an ESP sense of longing for my favorite artists), and now I wish it were a week from today so I could listen to it almost NOW.

I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait. It's summer: the time of the music spree. I feel moved to sing:

We should move to Sausalito
Livin's easy in a houseboat
Let the ocean rock us back and forth to sleep
In the morning see the sunrise
Look in the water see the blue skies
As if heaven has been laid there at our feet

So we remain between these waves
Sheltered for all our years
While bikers glide by highway shrines
Where pilgrims disappear

Where time takes icebergs
Where fields burn westward
Where pilgrims disappear

~ from "Sausalito"