An Eargasm Interlude

Firstly, I want to apologise for the lack of hilarious Imaginary Reviews recently. Admittedly, the quality has been high (if I do say so myself), but I haven’t been updating as regularly. This is due to a combination of things, including a minor traffic accident, work, and being hepped up on back pain medication. I am full of hope that this will be remedied shortly.

Secondly, I thought I’d explain my choices in the most recent Green Monkey Music Project, in which the lovely Barbara asked contributors to select six songs that give them ‘eargasms’. I decided to join in the fun, and blogger extraordinaire Splotchy has them on his rather excellent blog. Here, I’ll talk you through my selection.

1: Maybe Tenderness – Gintare
Eargasm moment: 1:37

Gintare is an eastern European singer whose voice is like a cross between Bjork, Enya and an opera singer. I received her album, Earthless, to review for my University newspaper, and was blown away. It is beautiful. Quite a bit of the album is very dancy, but the song I’ve chosen is slow and builds up nicely to a wonderful long note that always gives me shivers (around 1:37).

2: Untitled #3 – Sigur Ros
Eargasm moment: 4.48

This was the first song I thought of when I read the criteria for this mix. For me, this piece of music is one long wave of anticipation for the moment at 4:48 when the key changes. The song starts with wave noises, a piano emerges and slowly, slowly, other instruments join in, and just when everything seems to be there, the piano goes up. Amazing.

Southern Accents – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Eargasm moment: 2:20

My favourite song by my favourite band of all time. The eargasm moment is really for the lyrics, which always seem to get me. I could listen to this song forever.

Helicon 1 – Mogwai
Eargasm moment: 2:55

It was difficult to pick only one Mogwai song for this compilation, given that they’ve provided me with so many eargasm moments. For those unfamiliar with this band of Scottish post-rockers, their early stuff mostly consists of very quiet, repetitive guitar melodies that suddenly erupt into huge, loud cacophonies of noise. Helicon 1 is a good example of this, with the quietest opening ever and lovely loud part at 2:55. I have announced in the past that I would like this song to be played at my funeral.

Nandodemo – Dreams Come True
Eargasm moment: 2:52

Apologies for a song in Japanese, but this is the first song I really loved when I moved to Japan in 2004. The moment that gets me is when the chorus is sung two more times with different lyrics towards the end. It’s almost breathless and peps me up end. The entire song epitomises for me the very Japanese word ‘Ganbatte’: Fighting, striving, never giving up, no matter what.

Concerto De Aranjuez (Adagio) – Rodrigo
Eargasm moment: 9:15

This is my favourite piece of classical music. Again, a great crescendo, the highlight of which for me is the moment when everything rises, holds for a breath longer than I expect it to around 9:15, then carries on before fading out. Beautiful.

A Review of the Viral Story

Splotchy’s second viral story, started several weeks ago on the blog I, Splotchy, shows no sign of abating. The sheer length of column inches dedicated to the general phenomenon is growing, and the number of articles on the subject are too numerous to count, let alone discuss here. A few do stand out, however, and interested parties would be well advised to seek out Christopher Hitchens’ Splotchy’s Viral Story: A Game of Consequences for the Blogosphere (The Atlantic, May 2008, p 28-34). Also worth a look are John Searle’s article for the journal Mind, entitled Splotchy’s Viral Story as Evidence of Jungian Collective Unconscious (May 2008, p 3-7, with an opposing article by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett in the same issue, p 8-10), and Julie Birchill’s article for the May 18 Observer, No Vaccine Required: A Virus Worth Having. Given the multitude of writers commenting on the viral story as a whole, I thought I’d turn my attention to a particular offshoot, which I have entitled The Russian Story.

As with all versions of the story, we begin with the receipt of a mysterious package, as told by Splotchy himself. The address is smudged, and it appears to have been hand delivered. This is good; there is much scope for advancement of the story. As Christopher Wise writes in Diacritics, the basis for a well-realised viral story is open-endedness. Here, Splotchy has left a variety of readings available for the situation at hand (proof of this is to be found in the myriad of ways in which the story has been taken from these beginnings).

From here on in the story takes a variety of intriguing turns, involving a note from within the package, Russians and a trip to the airport that ends with our loner waking up, drugged, in the back of a cab. The caretakers of each avenue of the viral story – Bubs, Splotchy again, SamuraiFrog and Captain Incredible – have done a marvellous job in following on from where the previous author left off. There is cohesion, yet each voice remains intact, individual. Here lies another benefit of the viral story as an art form: The ability to write in numerous voices is much prized in today’s literary market, and what better way to achieve this than to have numerous writers? Sometimes, the best answer is the most obvious.

But all good things must come to an end, and, while the previous custodians of the story are to be applauded for their additions, they are sadly let down by the next bearer of the viral story torch. The Imaginary Reviewer, a blogger whose sole ability seems to be writing reviews of things that don’t exist, takes the baton from Captain Incredible, and, I regret to say, undoes all the good work done by his predecessors.

The Imaginary Reviewer’s section doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story’s aesthetic. Problems begin when the unnamed main character finds himself transported to an abandoned warehouse. For someone who seems to pride himself on their imagination, The IR has picked the most obvious and trite location possible! A train station, a suburban house, even a small café specialising in brunches would be more interesting than an abandoned warehouse! But no, The Imaginary Reviewer presumably has used up his imagination reviewing hats.

Next, The Imaginary Reviewer has his character tied to a chair – how original – and after a short wait introduces a new character, presumably the instigator of the whole affair. Things do start to improve here; it appears that the bad guy of the piece is a well-known children’s character called Desmond the Dinosaur (in actual fact a guy called Gerald in a large, fuzzy, green suit). Our hero knows nothing about Desmond, and has no idea why the TV ‘star’ has captured him. He asks about the package and the money, and it seems Desmond has no idea what our hero is talking about. Our character’s receipt of the package and his kidnapping would appear to be coincidental.

And so, with that, The Imaginary Reviewer allows the story to be carried on by someone else. I pity the poor soul who has been left with this detritus after such promising beginnings. (For his sins, Splotchy has been tagged again, but how he’ll manage to salvage anything from the Imaginary Reviewer’s mess is beyond me). I mean, the whole story has been ruined by the IR. The dinosaur character, while presumably added for levity, just looks like the writer is trying to claw back some interest from a story that he has spoiled beyond recognition. The coincidental element of the package arriving the same day a stranger plans a kidnapping is harder to swallow than a razorblade sandwich. All in all, I think the Imaginary Reviewer should be ashamed of himself for the injustice he has done to Splotchy’s story, and viral stories in general.

I would add a concluding comment here, but I’m just too damn upset.

We Interrupt These Reviews and Letters to Bring You a Viral Story

I was recently tagged by p0nk in a viral story meme by Splotchy. If that sentence made no sense to you, check out this link here for the dilly-o, then come back. The story so far is as follows:

***
I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words.
***
"Interesting", I thought to myself, "I don't know anybody named Ted Kaczynski." Unless it's going to clear this damn sinus infection in my head, I'll have to open it later.I set it on the kitchen table, and prepared my tincture of herbal tea remedies.
***
As I watched the lengthy glossop of honey slather into my tea I heard a rustling noise behind me. Having spent my childhood in a rotating house (due to some awkward foundations) I am quite adept at craning my neck and utilised this skill in the current situation, looking behind myself like a six-foot-tall owl.

The envelope - so stationary seconds before - had started to move, an event that I found somewhat odd, given that I was four days away from celebrating a year of sobriety. I picked up the nearest implement of swatting size without thinking, and slowly approached the bubble-wrapped delivery.

The envelope continued to shuffle and shake as I stood poised with the potato masher held in readiness over my head. A small bead of sweat edged down my temple, hitting the floor at the same time as a lump of congealed potato from my weapon. There was a tearing sound, and I froze, unable to move, as a disembodied hand broke through my mysterious delivery. I blinked, and the thumb and forefinger of the hand formed a mouth.

***
I will tag the following people to (hopefully) continue the story. I hope my contribution was worthwhile. Incidentally, every blog mentioned in this post is worth checking out. Please do so.

Jillian
Falwless
Mathdude