Commonplace Book: John Milton, “Comus”

From Comus, or A Mask Presented at Ludlow-Castle, 1634, John Milton [1637/45]

THE LADY:
If every man that now pines with want
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly-pamper’d Luxury
Now heaps upon som few with vast excess,
Natures full blessings would be well dispenc’t
In unsuperfluous even proportion,
And she no whit encomber’d with her store,
And then the giver would be better thank’t,
His praise due paid, for swinish gluttony
Ne’re looks to Heav’n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude
Crams, and blasphemes his feeder. (ll.767-78)

A timely couple of lines about the nature of excess. The virtuous Lady, captured by the debauched Comus, derides her captor for his luxurious living. I can’t help but think of Goldman Sachs here, of the growing divide in this country between the have’s and the have-not’s, and what all of that excess does to those that have. It’s a rare moment of true Miltonic populism.

The accusation which the Lady levels against Comus is not just that he eats too much, drinks too much, parties too much, but that engaging in that excessive consumption keeps his eyes turned downward. It seems a cliché at this point, but the man immersed in luxury can’t see beyond the boundaries of his own consumption — he’s bound up in what he has and what he wants. I’m secularizing the passage a bit, since the “feeder” Milton alludes to is divine, the god who permits Comus to have more than his share, but I think the general sentiment — that of self-obsessive, self-blinded over-consumption — still works without it.

The Long Mixtape: The Envy Corps, “Rhinemaidens”

The Envy Corps
“Rhinemaidens”
I Will Write You Love Letters If You Tell Me To
Self-released, 2006

Back at the start of my first year in Madison, Ms. Bridges — who is much, much cooler than me (or anybody else I know) — gave me a couple of albums. One was Beartrap Island by Division Day. Another was Lanzafame by Tap Tap. And the last one was an EP by a band that has become my favorite disappearing act. I hadn’t heard a thing about The Envy Corps before that and, except for googling them just now, I haven’t heard a thing about them afterwards, and I like to think that I keep an ear to the ground, music-wise. Are the Envy Corps a one-hit wonder, then? Well, it certainly seems that way.

But what a one-hit wonder. I Will Write You Love Letters If You Tell Me To is catchy from the get-go, thanks to its eminently listenable lead track. The rest of the EP — which at seven tracks is almost an album unto itself — is pretty solid but lacks the magnificent hookiness of “Rhinemaidens.” There’s nothing terribly groundbreaking about the track, when you get down to it. It follows the indie pop-rock playbook: the slow build then sudden-upshift intro; the usual verse-chorus-verse-chorus modulations; the swell in intensity just past the midpoint of the song; that kind of stuff. The lyrics are passable, maybe even touching, but certainly not profound, and they’re sung in a voice that almost tips over into that annoying nasal pitch to which some middling indie rock troubadours fall prey.

But what it offers is a near flawless execution of that playbook. It’s a song that moves, that carries you along in the effortless sweep of its melodies. For me, it’s a particularly satisfying piece of music: it makes no great demands but offers something simple and deep, a little kernel of, I don’t know, joy or contentment. It’s one of those songs that just shimmers from the very first listen, and that’s a particularly rare bird. It’s polished without being vacuous, elegant without being overwrought. But judge for yourself.

[Embedding has been disabled, it seems, so head over to YouTube using this.]

Tasty Town

You know what’s delicious? Shallots cooked in butter. More specifically, chopped shallots sweated in unsalted butter (i.e. cooked over very low heat until the shallots absorb most of the butter and almost disintegrate). I did this, then cranked up the heat a bit and sauteed some shrimp with fresh parsley. I plated this up with basmati rice, chopped spinach (initially frozen but remarkably tasty), and some homemade cheese sauce (roue + milk + grated aged cheddar and parmesan + tons of pepper). In doing so, I think I inadvertently cooked the best meal I’ve eaten all semester. Thanks go out to the pompous PBS cooking show Avec Erik, which comes on here at 1:00 a.m. most nights (and which strikes me as a strange time to offer a cooking show). If you hadn’t taught me how to sweat shallots, my ridiculously French-sounding amie, I would never have had that ten minutes of bliss in an otherwise hellish day.

Well, back to the grind…

Music for the Apocalypse

For me, finals time is always a prime time for hunting down new music. It provides a nice break from the usual mental grind (term papers + grading + grading = oh, the heaviness), insofar as it switches me from one part of my brain to another. I like that. I need that. The end of the fall semester is always particularly good, because I get to start cross-referencing the Internet’s Best Of… lists for the year. (NPR and the Onion A.V. Club are my usual standbys.) And then I scour the usual Internet music places. In case the RIAA is watching, I purchase this new music. Yes. Yes I do.

As far as I’m concerned, this has been a pretty great year for new music. Andrew Bird put out another, well, phenomenal album (Noble Beast), 4AD cobbled together one of the best compilation albums I’ve ever laid my hands on (Dark Was The Night), Amadou & Mariam cranked out a ballin’ afro-pop album (Welcome to Mali), Coldplay released a legitimately good remix album (Prospekt’s March), and a couple of perennial favorites (Metric, Sunset Rubdown, My Morning Jacket, et. al.) put another notch in their respective musical belts. Oh, and did I mention that Phoenix kicked the collective musical establishment in the face? Because Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix did just that. If you don’t have that album, your life is about two shades drabber than mine.

But that’s all stuff from, like, months ago. It’s good news but it’s old news. No, I’m here to tell you about the new stuff I gots.

How My Life Is Like a Poe Story

My bedtime reading hit a bit of a crisis point this semester. I managed to exhaust my usual standbys: I’ve now read all the Murakami novels I own, I’ve made my way through Borges’ collected short fiction twice (even the less-than-stellar super-short stuff), and I’ve knocked out all the Umberto Eco novels worth reading. I’ve contemplated re-reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but I think I’ll give it another year or two before I head back to it. It may just be my favorite book at this time — magic! intellectual elites! social drama! otherness! — so I’ll let it fade a bit more before pulling it off the shelf.

Reading-wise, I had two pretty epic failures this semester. I bitched out on Dave Eggers’ incredible (but also incredibly heavy) What is the What after reading through the first 150 pages, not in the least because it had the net effect of keeping me up rather than helping me drift into sleep. The problem is that the story is (a) outlandishly compelling, (b) horrific, and (c) provocative (on an emotional and intellectual level). So I’m leaving that off until I get some vacation time to put it away, i.e. Christmas. My other failure is on the other end of the spectrum. I bought a massive — and, it would turn out, massively dull — academic biography of Shakespeare that just beat me, pure and simple. I won’t name names here, but Lord, it was tedious. And Shakespeare’s life and times were not a particularly tedious affair. Eric promises that Bill Bryson’s short bio is one of the best he’s read, so I’ll give it a spin, I think.

But in the last week, I found a perfect book to occupy my time until I buy the remaining Murakami novels I want: The Complete Stories of Edgar Allen Poe. Bam!

Commonplace Book: Seneca, “On Providence”

From “On Providence,” Seneca [ca. 50 c.e.]

Let every time, every place teach you how easy it is to reject the claims of Nature and to throw her gift back in her face; in the very midst of altars and the customary rites of sacrifice, as you make your prayers for life, acquaint yourself fully with death. The fatted bodies of bulls fall from a slight wound, and creatures of great strength are felled by a blow from one man’s hand; a thin blade severs the sutures of the neck, and when that joint which links head and neck has been cut, all that great mass collapses.

The soul does not lie hidden in a deep recess, no knife at all is needed to root it out; no wound must be planted deep to search for the vital parts: death is close at hand. I have set no definite place for these mortal blows: anywhere you wish, the way lies open. That very thing which is called dying, the soul’s departure from the body, is so brief that its swiftness cannot be perceived: whether a knot strangles your throat, or water stops you breathing, or you fall to the hard ground below and it crushes your skull, or flame you inhale cuts off the process of breathing: whatever it is, your end comes fast. Are you not blushing with shame? For so long you have dreaded what happens in a moment!

Commonplace Book: Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors

From Act II, Scene ii, ll.212-16, in The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare [1592/4]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE [aside]:
Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? Mad or well advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
I’ll say as they say, and persever so,
And in this mist at all adventures go.

Five Week Gym Challenge: Week 3 & 4 Recap

I forgot last week’s recap, in part because it was a fairly dull, somewhat disappointing week. I hate to say it, but Week 3 was technically only 5 days of meaningful exercise. I had to take one day off to deal with my horrific allergies (I probably sneezed more than 300 times in one day…and that’s no hyperbole) and another to help Erinn move into her apartment. That moving day kinda sorta counts as a workout, I think, not in the least because I did a fair amount of heavy lifting (both loading and unloading the truck) and running stuff up and down the three sets of stairs to Erinn’s second-floor apartment. I sweated through a shirt in the process, so I might just chalk that one up to being a 75% workout.

Commonplace Book: Hobbes, Leviathan

From “The Introduction” in Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes [1651]

“But there is another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce teipsum, Read thy self: which was not meant, as it is now used, to countenance, either the barbarous state of men in power, towards their inferiors; or to encourage men of low degree, to a sawcie behaviour towards their betters; But to teach us, that for the similitude of the thoughts, and Passions of one man, to the thoughts, and Passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth, when he does think, opine, reason, hope, feare, &c, and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions. I say the similitude of Passions, which are the same in all men, desire, feare, hope, &c; not the similitude of the objects of the Passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, &c: for these the constitution individuall, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easie to be kept from our knolwedge, that the characters of mans heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible onely to him that searcheth hearts. And though by mens actions wee do discover their designe sometimes; yet to do it without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances, by which the case may come to be altered, is to decypher without a key, and be for the most part deceived, by too much trust, or by too much diffidence; as he that reads, is himself a good or evil man.”

Five Week Gym Challenge: Week 2 Recap

Week 2 was something of a strange bird. The weather was so nice on Tuesday and Wednesday that I couldn’t bear to bring myself to spend my workouts indoors, so I took to the neighborhood soccer field as a change of pace. My day at the soccer fields on Tuesday was fantastic: I did some light jogging, stretched out, did a good half-hour of juggling (I got up to 120-something using just my feet), and capped it all off with some push-up/sit-up/tricep-lift circuits that left me pleasantly burnt out.