Back in the early part of the year I was contemplating an April return to Japan. Mostly because I thought I would like to see The Stone Roses again but also because April is the best time of year to go to Japan. I didn’t go for a handful of reasons but now I wish I had: I just found out there is a penis festival in April, which … seriously, who wouldn’t go to Japan just for that? (Well, and a side of ほうとう.)
I had been doing a lot of research into different things in Japan that might not have registered with me before – side trips and tours one could make to focus in on more niche things like Japan’s amazing pens, paper and denim obsession rather than just tourist traps, noodles and whatever.
In the end, I talked to my brother about going together, but it ended up being bad timing. I went on shorter trips – stuff like the PoPos and Czechia – will anyone ever get used to calling it that? And (little licks of – a term used just for London-based friend Karly!) London, which is never a delight, but sometimes necessary.
Mind clouded by Japan and penises now, I always forget that they have these strange fixations. Forgot checking out the VHS of In the Realm of the Senses from the public library as a teenager – probably not something they should have let a teenager have, but I don’t think the library staff was particularly familiar with the foreign language films. If I am not mistaken, the maniacal main character of the film cuts off the other main character’s penis; this is considerably more artful than, say, the made-for-tabloid-TV saga of John and Lorena Bobbitt.
The Good Goo of Random Gum: Darling Buds of May Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,/And summer’s lease hath all too short a date Shakespeare, sonnet 18
06 Arab Strap – “The First Big Weekend of 2016”
Sigh, here we go again, Mr Firewall. My heart always lies, cries and dies in Glasgow
07 Slowgold – “Korta sommar”
Surprise, surprise: Sweden; short summer (and this year, long winter… still snowing in May!)
08 Mount Eerie – “Real Death”…Though you clawed at the cliff you were sliding down/Being swallowed into a silence that’s bottomless and real…
Heartbreaking true story of loss; what remains in mortality’s aftermath. Feeling lucky. Could be a companion piece to the book Grief is the Thing with Feathers
09 Elvis Perkins – “My Kind”…I conjure you/And you produce me/An off-white heir/for my vanity…
Love for Catherine S, who recommended Perkins years ago
11 Leon Bridges – “River”
“Oh, I wanna come near and give you/Every part of me/But there’s blood on my hands/And my lips aren’t clean”
12 Merchandise – “Become What You Are”…But it don’t really matter what I say/You’re just going to twist it anyway…
“No I couldn’t bear the burden/So I threw it all away/I left my home and all my friends behind”
15 Yamasuki Singers – “Yokomo”
Something old that sounds new (predating my life at least), from the father of one of the Daft Punk dudes. I can’t get enough – this one is great for driving along winding country roads in the sun
16 Belle & Sebastian – “The Stars of Track and Field”…But when she’s on her back/She had the knowledge/To get her where she wanted…
Oh, yes, endless love affair with Glasgow & Scotland ❤
17 First Aid Kit – “Emmylou”…Oh the bitter winds are coming in/And I’m already missing the summer/Stockholm’s cold but I’ve been told/I was born to endure this kind of weather…
“I’ll be your Emmylou and I’ll be your June/If you’ll be my Gram and my Johnny too/No, I’m not asking much of you/Just sing little darling, sing with me”
18 Laura Gibson – “Not Harmless”…I’ll teach you to cry in a crowded room/I’ll teach you how to talk ’till your teeth come loose…
19 New Fast Automatic Daffodils – “Fishes Eyes”
Oh, the familiar sounds of the high school years. Here’s to long-lost Terra Firma.
22 Christopher Owens – “Another Loser Fuck Up”…Sometimes a song is like a photograph:/Everybody wants to figure it out/But you and I will see a different picture/And I don’t need to tell you what it’s about…
23 Gram Parsons – “Return of the Grievous Angel”
Escape from rehab hospital, take ten. For SD
24 Françoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc – “Amours toujours, tendresse, caresses”
One of those carefree-feeling-over-it kinds of songs. Of course, there must be quelque chose French
29 Martha Wainwright – “I Will Internalize”…I am wet and weak…
I’ve included this one in a mix years ago but it felt appropriate for now 30 Tele Novella – “Sacramento”…one day you’ll die going into the light/and you’ll find yourself right here/turn the doorknob without fear/you were always coming here/since the day your soul appeared…
Spending frustrating days secluded at home, left to my own devices. Love for J, fellow at-home worker
31 The Beau Brummels – “Laugh, Laugh”
Those times when your breath is taken away, and it hurts, to laugh so hard…
35 Feist, Jarvis Cocker – “Century”…I fought my feelings and got in the way/Could’ve been easier than a decade of days…
A vaguely PJ Harvey sound going on here but unmistakably Feist-style lyrics
36 Fruit Bats – “Flamingo”
“The last thing I’ll do before I call it quits/Is probably dream just a little bit/But nothing too hard on my sweet fadin’ mind ’cause everything is gonna be just fine”
50 The Modern Lovers – “Hospital”…I’ll seek out the places that must have been magic/To your little girl mind/Now as a little girl/You must have been magic…
“I still get jealous of your old boyfriends/In the suburbs sometimes/And when I walk down your street/Probably be tears in my eyes/I can’t stand what you do/Sometimes I can’t stand you/And it makes me think about me/That I’m involved with you/But I’m in love with this power that shows through in your eyes”
51 The Boomtown Rats – “Banana Republic”…Stab you in the back yeah laughin’ in your face/Glad to see the place again, it’s a pity nothing’s changed…
For Travis, for Angelika – the very few who can join me in loving the Rats
52 Juana Molina – “Cosoco” 53 Marvin Gaye – “It’s a Desperate Situation”
Got on a bit of a Marvin Gaye kick; this song fit the frame of mind (can’t shake the sense that certain urges are uncontrollable – the lyrics don’t really apply in the least!). For J
57 The Jones Girls – “You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else”
A reminder of the lovely visit from Travis and Billy and discussions on musical ‘guilty pleasures’
58 The Avalanches – “If I Was a Folkstar”
“And I’d like to see her every day/I know I can’t be gone every weekend/Let’s wake up side by side/Let’s sleep in till we die”. On the road visiting the PoPos (Portugal, Poland, not the police). For R
59 Sam Evian – “Sleep Easy”…chemicals and candy/don’t know what they do to me/but I know I got a song/to come home to…
60 Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians – “Raymond Chandler Evening”
Beloved Hitchcock. “There’s a body on the railing/that I can’t identify/and I’d like to reassure you but/I’m not that kind of guy”
61 The Radio Dept. – “Sloboda Narodu”…When out of patience/Is your constant state of mind…
65 Aztec Camera – “We Could Send Letters”…And now I’ve seen what you can’t understand /I’d try to lead you but I’d crush your hand…
Classic, brilliant song and more Glasgow-area/Scotland goodness. “So if we weaken, we can call it stress/You’ve got my trust, I’ve got your home address/And now the only chance that we could take/Is the chance that someone else won’t make it all come true”
66 Eleni Mandell – “Someone to Love Like You”…some people never stop trying…
68 Childbirth – “Siri, Open Tinder”
I marvel at this title that now makes perfect sense but would once have been nonsensical gibberish. And of course this comes from Seattle…
69 Nathan Fake – “The Sky was Pink”
The pink morning and evening skies on the homestead
70 Rivulets – “Ride On, Molina” …I feel a fever coming on…
J and those horribly feverish days
71 Dear Nora – “The Lonesome Border, Pt 1”
Border life, as usual. “And I know we’re gonna last a long time/But I can’t help but need to live from minute to minute/’Cause now it is said there’s a change/And I sense the change in me”
72 Emma Pollock – “Don’t Make Me Wait”…I’m just the one to mop it up/When someone overflows your cup/Sitting in the shadows till you blame me…
The anthem of this late part of spring… waiting for winter to end, even as we head into summer, always waiting for the next step, the next move. And of course – Glasgow Glasgow Glasgow ❤ “You’ll never ever make it on your own/what makes you think you’ll make it on your own?”
73 Gwenno – “Chwyldro”…Paid, paid anghofio fod dy galon yn y chwyldro…
Because who in her right might would not want to learn Welsh?
74 O – “Deepthroat Love”…But I fear you In an offhand way/Digging the back door/Slamming, my heart in a daze/And you like that/It’s a lot like God/But not close enough…
Mr L… “you got a lot goin’ on, don’t you babe? My deepthroat love…”
81 Marvin Gaye – “All My Life” 82 Robyn Hitchcock – “To Turn You On”
Love for J. “I would leave you as you were/If I wanted to/Then I wonder is it fair/Now you’re on your own/Who cares about you/Except me, God help me/When things go wrong/I’d do anything to turn you/Must phone me, you know me/When things go wrong/I’d do anything to turn you on”. Roxy Music cover
83 Pavo Pavo – “Ran Ran Run”…time is a hole in my waterbed/some kind of cardinal sin/tomorrow might be sleeping in…
86 Michael Kiwanuka – “Cold Little Heart”…I can’t stand myself…
“I’ve been losing you/one day at a time”. Wouldn’t have known the song were it not for the Big Little Lies miniseries, for which this was the theme – but both well worthwhile. Now I am well and truly terrified of Alexander Skarsgård
87 Charlie Hilton – “100 Million”
“I’m a fountain/you can throw yourself in me”
90 Cowboy Junkies – “You Will Be Loved Again”…Her cold eyes tell you that you’re not welcome/she tells lies, but you’ll take her back again…
“How can he take you in his arms, and help you to be free, then leave you forgotten?” “Someday you will feel a love so deep, and you’ll find someone not lost in sleep…”
Not entirely sure what to say because I have resorted to making these mixes with such frequency.
*Considering the ‘same airport, different man’ question – in how many different men and different (and same) airports have I experienced these greetings and departures? Meeting one in Copenhagen airport and later him greeting me at Paris CDG and later at Stockholm Arlanda? Or all the Oslo Oslo and more Oslo. Or arriving and departing Lyon. The endless hours in and out of Minneapolis-St Paul. And let’s not forget the old days of meeting-greeting-bidding adieu at Keflavik. Or the Sea-Tac of another life.
Tips and tricks of how these mixes are built: my favorite songs are usually at the beginning and the end – occasionally one I really like comes in the middle. There are always a few that are not good songs but are reminders of some moments in my life. This time is was a lot about sound – what sounds and transitions made the most sense to me and my ears? What appealed to me most as I walked through the hills or drove late at night through the city, lost in detours avoiding all the endless construction. Music carries you through most of all when you’re lost.
Many people have let me know they no longer have conventional CD players, so I am cutting back on mailing these by post. I also have the entire playlist freely available on Spotify if you want to see it (and you can follow me on Spotify to find all the lists, dating back to 2004). I have not yet found a better alternative where I can put all the lists and tracks that will make it easily accessible for everyone.
We were walking through Wrocław, a place he knew better than I did. It was only my first visit, but he had been living there part time, on and off, for months. During our walk, he grabbed my hand, with some urgency and purpose, less as a tender gesture and more as the take-charge guide, leading me to the next spot on the tour he had apparently planned and perfected.
“Poland,” he said authoritatively, “is a hidden gem.” I smiled but said nothing. Poland is a kind of hidden gem. I had no argument and nothing to add. It’s an especially bright gem once you start being able to pronounce the words. Say it with me: Wrocław. Could you do it? No? Give it time.
I didn’t tell him how much I had once dreamt of visiting Poland, at the apogee of my “Slavic/eastern-central-southern European studies” life. In fact I shared so little about myself because that was not the nature of things. This was not going to be one of those ‘confessional’ entanglements. Revelations about ourselves were doled out not as linear narratives but as footnotes to what we observed around us. Strolling past a courthouse, for example, he might comment, “It was total drudgery practicing law”, which would lead to a lecture on corruption in the legal system where he came from and the complete sense of helplessness and anger that arises from being unable to do anything but quit (which he did… and moved to Europe). But this was not deep or personal reflection on his vocation or life events that led him to or from it.
In this way, we knew each other incrementally, just as we came to know the city. Nothing of the roller-coaster arc on which most stories jaggedly rise and fall. Even more liberating, there was nothing of the “who-I-was” and “who-will-I-be”. No, there was only right now. Fortuitous, given that the “right now” of those moments filled quickly with the challenges of mastering the idiosyncrasies of basic Polish: dziękuję. Or most useful of all for two itinerant non-Poles wandering around together: nie mówię po polsku.
How foolish you can feel after everything is said and done. First that you let yourself walk down the path, however gingerly, with however much trepidation felt and caution you thought you exhibited, in the first place. Winding up steep hills, when suddenly, the path ends, and you’re lost and deep into the woods. It’s getting dark, and what shadows and figures you can faintly make out are unfamiliar. How can you not want to cry, get angry and overreact in frustration? It’s temporary, as all things are. Light will return. You will find your way back, the biggest, self-effacing wave crashes over you, leaving you feeling more foolish than ever for the overly emotional, panicked reaction. But how could it have been otherwise? It is as though, suddenly, you wandered off the safe, clear paths to which you were accustomed. The sense of adventure, openness to feeling new things, awakened. You were confident you could keep your footing, but a whirlwind of different circumstances conspired to… knock you on your ass. In hindsight the whole thing is embarrassing and laughable. Oh, the misguided, animated imagination, once aroused.
And how far away from these minor misadventures you can so quickly feel. One moment fretting and regretting, hot tears welling up as you ask yourself what you were thinking going up there, climbing deeper into the woods. The ground underfoot covered in damp moss, becoming increasingly swamplike. The very next moment, feet on the ground in cities new and old, concrete and cobblestone, breathing in the world of literature read long ago, reminiscing about people you once knew, tasting everything like it’s the first time – and sometimes it is. There are always the phantoms of the past haunting, keeping certain addictions flickering, but mostly faded into some archive of past transgressions. They return sometimes, and it is almost a relief in some way to feel the pounding familiarity push-push-pushing its way in. As if the past can breathe new life into the future, and push you on your way to the new.
But what of the limbo of the present moment? Or, as Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorians propose regarding time: it’s all happening at once in different dimensions: past, present, future, life, death.
It is within these present moments, when the mind still wanders back to what might have been (Kierkegaard’s ‘future you will never have’), when your guard should be up most of all, but isn’t. In one moment or another, roaming in the Baixa or Belém or Katowice or Kraków, dredging up images of the dreary recent past, only to live moments of Invisible Cities as though they were almost your own:
“But the special quality of this city for the man who arrives there on a September evening, is that he feels envy toward those who now believe they have once before lived an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time” … or more fitting, a “city where the foreigner hesitating between two (wo)men always encounters a third”.
The present opens and widens the world and its possibilities again, anew. You regain footing, and it is then that the possibilities present themselves.
All at once the winds of the past start whipping, frothing up a deposit of the beautiful debris of yesteryear. It’s blowing without warning, independent of forecast.
The man, steady, with whip in hand and discussions of ethics on the lips; the memory of yet another Creeley poem (which I had forgotten entirely in my Creeley hysteria a few weeks ago, despite “The Whip” long being a favorite), The Ukrainians and the frenzied sound of their Ukrainian-language Smiths’ covers.
And on the horizon, the PoPos – not slang for the police, but the “Po” countries: Poland and Portugal. And the UK, which I prefer to just call (Y)U(C)K.
