Noah and the Whale

Noah and the Whale caught my attention fully a few days ago, on Valentines, with the song 5 Years Time. From there I was fully caught, and since then I've probably listened to each of their two albums around ten or fifteen times each. I don't think I've listened to any other music in between now and then. Not only is the music consistently very beautiful and varied, but combined with the lyrics I think they convey a very important sentiment of our generation. A laid back, impersonal art-centric view of the world- almost a sense of disgust at the cult of celebrity and the deification of romantic love over all else. All we want is to be able to absorb beauty and relate to real people around us. This is where, I think, a lot of the appeal and drive of blogging comes from. Regular people taking a chance to undramatically relate to us, without any of the pain and drama  of two way relationships- the expectations of something ever deeper, the unintentional longing. The screen creates a barrier that prevents all of that. This is what I think Joe Harper saw in his idea for a tv show, a Truman-Show-esque lifestyle program just with regular people, playing you their music and having conversations with other regular people. Two way relationships have in a way become corrupted by the expectation instilled in us to have something deeper, stronger, more lasting. The more I listen to Noah and the Whale the more I get the sense that they understand that. This song is a preview of their new album, I recommend the older ones but they offered a cool embed feature so what're you gonna do.

Cherry

My personal, pre-emptive prejudice against cherries has, previously, prevented a proper appraisal of the berry. But, being at an orchard and about to pick them for days, perhaps weeks, I gave them a better chance, and how happy I am! I loved just about everything about them.

The initial burst of blood from the first bitemark. Ripping the flesh away as if off a bone from the pip. The soft concentrated innards, pregnant with juice and sweetness. And finally the last tear and chew, leaving the husk of stone and stem, still one, the eating evidenced only by my five reddened fingertips.

The way I eat them is so delicate and time-consuming it prevents me from ever tiring.

Novel- A Confederacy of Dunces

First of all I just wanna say I don't mean to be criticising Adele's present buying skills or anything- I wasn't expecting anything, and Penguin Classics are ALWAYS a good idea. But, sadly...

A Confederacy of Dunces is a novel populated by caricatures, stereotypes, and caricatures of stereotypes. The farce is too stupid to be funny, the characters uncharmingly unbelievable, and the descriptions clunky and jarring.

I did a quick search of the internet to find out what people actually liked about this book, and it seems that, unable to provide a flattering examination of its over-the-top characters, its unnatural, exaggerated prose or its faint, unconvincing message, people take refuge in the "comedy" of it. If people really did find it laugh out loud funny, well good for them, but... The lead up to any comic moment was painfully clear, the writing too clunky to surprise, or to render any potentially funny scene quickly enough. Anyone who liked this book would probably find Two And a Half Men, My Wife and Kids, or Everybody Loves Raymond just as rewarding.


The characters are basically just riding on old sixties stereotypes: the smoking, trash talking uneducated black guy, the naggy drunken maternal woman, the rich stressed exec, the clumsy police officer. You know from the start what O'Toole is going to do with every single one, and then you waste hours watching him do it badly.


The author does all this with a touch of arrogance that makes the whole thing just a wee bit offensive. While clearly farce, O'Toole sometimes seems to beg you to take the characters seriously, as if he really believes in them. He oversimplifies the ideas of '60s social activists just so he can make fun of them, but offers no alternative. At the end of the book he either doesn't bother resolving a character, or lets a few deux ex machinae handle it for him.


The novel is unrewarding, predictable from the the start. The only surprise is that it only took O'Toole's mother eleven years of nagging to get it published after the author killed himself.