AND ON

The meeting with the other editor went really well, and provided the project rolls along as he envisions, I'm in. He liked my story and only had one suggestion, which I heartily agreed with. It was a part that felt a little too convenient for me, and he was right to call me on it. There's nothing to say it wouldn't have gotten fixed when the actual script was written, but no harm in having that be a goal from the get-go. He brought up a good point, too, relating to why he had noticed it. He said anytime he reads a pitch and the words "of course" appear amidst a description of action, it is like a bell ringing. If it's so obvious to the author, one must ask if it will be obvious to the reader. It's generally an alternative to using the word "coincidentally." There are only so many coincidences one is allowed to get away with in a story, and even then, you need to work to mask those, to make them acceptable. Sometimes I think Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut dream world is the best option, because then you don’t have to worry about if Tom Cruise would really be able to encounter so many things relating to his personal thematic crisis in one night. (I always considered the final third of Cut My Hair to be a bit similar to that. I usually referred to that bit as "Mason Goes To Hell," and generally looked at it as a journey where I had to pile the bad shit on, and it meant, sure, he ran into a lot of different things, but it was sort of necessary for the overload.)

Both anthology stories have an artist attached now, too. Both really exceptional artists, that I am very shocked and pleased to have agree to draw my scribbles. I'll, of course, promote the hell out of these things when they are getting nailed down.

Finally, Jake at Tokyopop says the reaction to Ai Yori Aoshi has been really positive, that everyone really likes the adaptation. I think this is my best work since Wish when it comes to sticking close to the original while still making it more jazzy.

Current Soundtrack: Yaz, Upstairs At Eric's

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

"ALL WRITERS ARE CHILDREN. 50% OF THEM ARE DRUNKS."

The first part of the comic strip I did with Patrick Scherberger, "Chance Meetings," is now online and free to read. There are three installments in all. For a little more on the project, you can also go here.

I also turned in Ai Yori Aoshi five yesterday. My next Tokyopop assignment is something a little different, but can't be discussed, as it is still being ironed out.

Finally, I have been invited to contribute to two different comics anthologies. I have one pitch turned in and accepted, so I need to sort out the art. I am going to meet with the editor of the other later this week. I was actually pretty pleased with my interaction with the second editor, as he was worried about me bending to the genre and not delivering something that would be representative of me. I said I'd like to avoid my pigeon holes of punk rockers and teen angst, and he responded that he'd never stick me in those boxes, but he was hoping I'd bring the emotion I bring to my own work, which would set my story apart from most of the others. I thought that was a rather insightful bit of direction.

My weekend movie viewing brought together two films with interesting similarities. Bombay Talkie from the Merchant Ivory team, and The Last Tycoon, an adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel by director Elia Kazan and screenwriter/playwrite Harold Pinter. Though set in different times and in different movie capitols, both advance complex metaphors centered around moviemaking and the dream builders whose lives have become tangled in the fiction they create.

Made in the early '70s, Bombay Talkie uses the Indian film industry (commonly known as Bollywood) as a backdrop for a love triangle involving the frustrated poet/screenwriter, the handsome cinema star, and the American romance novelist they are both pursuing. Taking their plot both from the colorfully emotional Indian films the two men have a hand in and the modern bodice-rippers the woman writes, the story is familiar (though, frankly, the supposed satirical elements seem to me to be the weakest parts of the film, lacking either the smoldering lust or the abandon of the material Merchant Ivory claim to be sending-up). What sets Bombay Talkie apart is how life and narrative intersect.

Interestingly, Bombay Talkie doesn't play coy with its images, choosing instead to just lay them out for the audience. The first time we are introduced to the theme is when Lucia Lane (the writer, as played by Jennifer Kendal) steps onto the Bollywood set. The actor, Vikram (Kendal's real-life husband and Bollywood heartthrob Shashi Kapoor), is involved in a dance number that takes place atop a giant typewriter. The director informs her that this is meant to represent how we dictate the course of our lives, the dance across the keys typing out our own biography. Presumably, the scene was created by Hari, the screenwriter (Zia Mohyeddin).

Hari immediately makes his intentions clear, even going so far as to invite Lucia out for a poetry reading (har!). But once she has decided on Vikram, she too is going to lay out her own plan, revealing to all that she has been inspired to start a new novel about a foreign woman in India who meets a sensual Indian man. The implication by her following actions is that she is going to go one step beyond typing her life out--she is going to bring her fiction into reality.

The two men fall into Lucia's plot outline. For his part, Vikram's life only works when he follows the script he was originally given. When he strays from wife and career to suffer at Lucia's whim, his world begins to crumble. By the time he chooses to reassert control, it's too late. Additionally, he is wrecked by his own shallowness of feeling. Too long has he lived his emotional life in front of a camera, and his poor choices indicate he never developed it for real.

On the flipside is Hari, who feels too much. He likes to speak of doomed poets, and he certainly brings that to bear. But he is also caught up in the lurid world of the movies, and in a sense, the personal tragedy he seeks is shoved aside for the macho heroics of an over-the-top, filmic romance. He was given a knife by Vikram that Hari claims once belonged to another poet, who killed himself with it; however, Hari ends up murdering Vikram after the actor has spurned Lucia, succumbing to the more traditional movie action while at the same time trying to kill the embodiment of said movies.

The Last Tycoon takes place in depression-era Hollywood. Robert DeNiro is Monroe Stahr, a movie mogul modeled after Irving Thalberg. Stahr is a genius, single-handedly propelling his studio to success through his dogged belief in the power of film. He has an uncanny instinct to shape a story, to know what a picture needs to make it work, and he often does so without thought for the bottom line. At one point, the board of directors wants to know why he would insist on making a movie where the budget is twice as much as he hopes to recoup at the box office. He simply tells them that it has to be done for the good of humanity, for the art of moviemaking itself, to give something back.

But Stahr represents an old Hollywood, one that is being washed away like the props afloat on an artificial flood early in the film. His golden age of making movies for the sake of it has died, much like the famous actress that was the love of his life has died. When he sees a girl who looks exactly like her (herself riding one of those drifting props), he tries to recapture what he had, turn back the clock, but it all explodes in his face.

There is a crucial scene where Stahr is instructing a writer about writing a good screenplay by acting out a sequence all by himself, setting the scene. It's an intriguing scenario, brought to life by a charismatic DeNiro, that ultimately leads the writer to ask what happens next. Stahr simply says that he does not know, he's just making pictures. This is Stahr boiled down to one sentence. He is just making movies, that's all he is. He is a function. When we revisit the moment at the end, Stahr has either lost everything he holds dear or is about to. This time, the viewer is his audience, as he once again runs through his story--but this time also cross-cut with the girl, performing a portion of it in his mind, showing us the parallels of Stahr's fact and fiction. At one point, the girl makes mention of him living alone in a giant house watching movies by himself--but really, he is alone in the giant narrative he has created, the movie of his life. When last we see Stahr, he walks away from us, swallowed by an empty soundstage.

I suppose some may be getting bored with me droning on and on about narrative and the layers of storytelling, but I can't shake my fascination with it. It keeps popping up, whether I expect it to or not. When it does, I can't resist peeling it back and looking inside.

It may come back, too, given that I am currently reading Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a self-conscious pseudo-memoir. Thirty or so pages of metafictional exposition precede the actual start of the novel, and it was actually pretty tough work getting through it. Eggers was coming off as a little too pleased with himself. But once I started reading the story of how he, as the narrator, came to live with his little brother, Toph, I started to get into it. I like the flow of the writing. There is a naturalness to it, and he somehow manages to be very repetitive with his word choices while maintaining a vibrancy. By his own warning in that troublesome preamble, I turn each page with fear it's all going to go wrong again, though, so I am reserving final judgment.

Hell, I almost expect we'll discover Toph doesn't exist at all. At one point, a conversation between the two sees the ten-year-old boy essentially turn into Eggers's doppelganger, deconstructing the pages that preceded (and even calling Eggers out for the bits that frustrated me). So, we shall see...

Current Soundtrack: Martin L. Gore, "Loverman" EP; The La's, The La's

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

LOOK AT THE STATE OF YOU, YOU'RE ALL FINGERS AND THUMBS

Sunday brought a little over 2,500 words in the book. Not a bad run at it for an afternoon, especially since some time was spent reading over the section I was in. This actually inches the amount of pages written in a straight line (that is, from the beginning on) to now over 100 typed pages. Makes it a little easier to assess how far I've gotten if I'm not jumping around as much, if I can start sewing the pieces together.

Lars Von Trier's latest film, Dogville, is an arty headrush of ideas. Having just finished the three-hour tour de force, part of me wants to simply start the film over and watch it again, and the other part of me (which is winning) wants me to sit down and let my reactions fall out. NOTE: This film is not going to be out for a bit still in North America, so there may be plot points spoiled ahead of here. In fact, this film may be best entered with zero expectations. The filmmakers seem to be doing a good job of keeping some of the elements under wraps. The trailer is a fascinating piece of work in itself, giving zero indication of what the film is actually like.

The plot of the film is simple. Nicole Kidman plays Grace, a woman on the run from something. Her character's name is an obvious symbol. One need only read the many definitions of the word to get it. She is meant to embody all these things, a blonde figure from the city coming into the very brown town of Dogville--an American mountain community that we're told by the ads is "a quiet town not far from here." It's set during the Depression, so the people are dirt poor, and except for the one man who isn't originally from Dogville and the other who transports goods in and out of it, they don't know much of the world Grace is coming from. They don't even know really what is going on down the hill, as they turn off the radio anytime the music stops and information follows.

Dogville is parable. It's meant to be unreal, meant to be representative. The very first thing we see is an explanation that the story will be told in nine parts plus a prologue. Each chapter is preceded by a description telling us what is actually going to happen in the section that follows, almost like directions in a script book. There is an omniscient narrator who explains things to us as we go, who will make no bones about who is feeling what and maybe even tell us what a specific happening means. It's a fascinating technique for a film that ultimately tells us not to ask what the meaning of the story is, and suggests that to do so is dangerous?only slightly less so than actually attempting the answer. An artful conceit, one that is immediately confounded by the closing credits--a collage of images of poverty set to David Bowie's "Young Americans." It's impossible to, at that point, not ask, "What the hell did I just see?"

There are a couple of different levels that Dogville immediately works on. It could be religious allegory, with Grace as a stand-in for Christ. She certainly represents an example of purity and human dignity that ultimately makes those that surround her feel lesser by example--to the point they eventually turn on her, turn on their own sense of right and wrong. This interpretation makes Grace's eventual decision to give up on them all the more exciting and perplexing. Or perhaps we should dig deeper back into the Bible and consider the case of Noah and the Flood, when God decided His people had ruined his precious gifts and perhaps the planet was better without them.

Or, given the closing credits, maybe it's more of a political allegory. Is the Danish Von Trier considering the case of class in America? Is he reversing the roles, putting a privileged member of society in the hands of the underprivileged, putting her in their care, only for them to abuse her much as they have been abused? That doesn't end up being a very generous view of the lower classes, though, so it may be better to not lay that trip on Von Trier. Rather, I would lend more weight to the film's discussions of power and humanity, and say it's more an indictment of our species as a whole, which is ultimately selfish. We live in Dogville because we are no more than animals--though, even there, Von Trier confounds us. There is a dog in the film. He is named Moses, and as his name suggests, his function is to point the way for the lost people that surround him. In reality, he is the only one whom Grace has committed a grievance against, the only one who could rightfully have quarrel with her, but none of the humans can see that, too concerned with their own selfishness, what they can gain.

I say there is a dog in the film, but that's not entirely true. The dog for the most part appears as a chalk outline, and the word "Dog" appearing next to him--an idea of a dog, not the physical thing. This is just one part of an abstract soundstage set that has more in common with theatre than film. The only walls that exist in Dogville are ones needed so that props may be hung upon them. The rest of the space is open, with doors and other elements existing only through pantomime. In fact, we often see the town through aerial shots, where every street, dwelling, and essential prop can be seen as drawn out on the soundstage floor, clearly demarcated and labeled. As one of the men behind the invention of the Dogme school of filmmaking, at one point Von Trier advocated a "more natural" approach to motion pictures, using only natural light and a minimum of camera trickery (though, the more, um, dogmatic of the group insisted on only natural camera movement, as well). It was an attempt to remove artifice from moviemaking, and in some ways, Von Trier is still adhering to that by taking it to another logical extreme. Here he drops artifice in favor of the abstract, sure, but by removing all the elements that might otherwise get in the way of what is central: drama. Rather than replicating the reality of our world, he creates his own, the reality of story. (Truthfully, this is his most stylized film since The Element of Crime.)

Kidman is fantastic as Grace. It's a tough role, requiring a lot of restraint and compassion. There aren?t a lot of moments to show off, and it requires more reaction than action at times. The cast that surrounds her is so phenomenal, that it's even a more laudable feat that she manages to do so much with so little when surrounded by such exceptional people as Patricia Clarkson, Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazarra, Jeremy Davies, Chloe Sevigny, Philip Baker Hall, and Stellan Skarsgard. Hell, you know it must be some kind of film when an actor like Udo Kier signs on for a three-line role.

Though meant as parable, Dogville doesn't have the obvious meanings often associated with the form. It's more a riddle, a spool of storytelling thread to unravel. I'll be curious to see the reaction to the film upon its release. I am sure it's going to inspire just as much hatred as it will love.

Current Soundtrack: The Simpsons

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

JUST TRAVELLING THROUGH

I still keep returning to the Pet Shop Boys' PopArt collection. I have the two main discs as one big file on my MP3 player, and there isn't a clunker in the bunch. Listening today while walking down to see Eyes Without A Face, I noticed for the first time the symmetry of starting with "Go West" (a Village People cover) and ending with "Somewhere" (from West Side Story). Each is a song about someplace other than where we are at, someplace where lovers can be free to love as they choose unencumbered by societal pressures. Now, most pop bands would probably decide to reverse that order, so that it ends with the fantasy, with the picture of a utopia that exists rather than merely the hope that there might be one (and, indeed, the first time "Go West" appeared on an album, it was at the end). However, that would not only subvert the Pop and the Art layout of the discs, but also go against the Pet Shop Boys' overriding feeling of needing to escape, but not yet having the perfection to escape to. "Somewhere" is more romantic in its cynicism, more real (and their mix even has police sirens on either side of the song). "Go West" is a set up for the fantasy, the statement that this is the dream, this is where we travel from, rather than to. The choice of a second track on the Pop disc is "Suburbia," naturally enough. Looking at the freedom in the boring moment, the sinister and violent turns that "normal" can take. Tennant and Lowe are too intelligent to leave their summation at a spot where, essentially, they have nowhere left to go. It's not an image they can honestly sell. Rather, despite the leaps and bounds they have made in exploring the life of the heart (and sometimes the mind), there are still miles to go before they can sleep.

Snow continues to plague us. I'm calling it a silent conspiracy. They hide it from us by having Portland's slogan be "The City That Works," but it's not true. Everything is set up so that we will shut down at the slightest breeze. Seriously. They've even painted the lines on the road with this white paint that disappears at night when the streets get wet. I swear you can't see 'em.

The new thing to watch for in the streets is now that the ice is melting, the sewer is filling and the drains are being clogged. This happens every fall when it first rains, and every street corner fills up with leaves. The drains are at that spot in the sidewalk that slopes for pedestrians, so you actually have to walk around these giant puddles to get across the intersection. But with the snow, the puddles are hiding under these chunks of slush, and sometimes you can't see how deep it really is.

I did manage to tinker around some on The Everlasting before going out to the film, though. Just a random bit that came to me, a three-page sequence that may not make the final cut. Who knows, though, with Lance Scott intended to be my Rabbit (Updike, not Eminem), my continuing protagonist in my Glass family, all these bits and bobs that may end up in a cutting room folder could be useful someday somewhere else.

Current Soundtrack: The Thrills, So Much For the City

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

GIRLS BOYS ART PLEASURE

Three days snowed in. The problem here is that it snows and lays down a powder. Then, the next day, it rains, and the rain freezes. It even melts a little of the powder, and that freezes too, creating a hard layer of ice on top of everything. Or, worse, under everything, where you can’t see it, which is particularly dangerous for the roads. Alternately, when the snow isn't hard as a rock, it's brittle and cracks and you drop into it unaware. It just took one shoe full of snow for me to dig my old boots out of the closet. Not like I keep snow gear around, so it's back to the old punk fashion.

So, it's been a lot of movies. Pale Flower, an obtuse, existential Yakuza movie; Mulholland Drive, which I hated the first time I saw it, and after some time and some reading, loved it this second time around; Le Trou, a Jacques Becker prison break picture, full of some great twists and palpable atmosphere. I'll probably round things off with some more Fellini, a little Nights of Cabiria. Crime in the afternoons, women searching for something in the evenings.

Also am getting busy on Ai Yori Aoshi volume 5. Need to get in the swing of things. This has become a pretty natural book for me, along with Gravitation. By this point, all hands involved are in a groove. The translations get better, so I get better--we simply are more familiar with the components of the book than when we started. Tokyopop is also dangling other assignments in front of me, but not sure what will actually come to fruition yet. A surprise script dropped in my lap yesterday was taken out of it today. Crazy.

Need to do some comics brainstorming, too. There are a couple of possible pitches in my future for some short and long work. Also, expect an announcement soon about when "Chance Meeting" by myself and Patrick Scherberger will actually go online. The snow has kept the Oni brains from being put together, and I actually haven't heard back from the colorist since Monday, so it isn't going to hit this Sunday like we thought might be possible.

Hmmm...and is that The Everlasting waving at me from over there?

Current Soundtrack: Pet Shop Boys, Bilingual remaster, disc 2

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT

We had snow here today. Portland isn't quite equipped for this weather, and it's actually the worst storm the city has had in a decade. I think they predicted six inches, and given that the town shuts down at the barest hint of powder on concrete, pretty much everything ground to a halt. I look at it as a gift to those of us who had a winter break that was busier than expected. It was nice to laze about with the cat and watch DVDs (The Ben Stiller Show and Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West).

I spent a lot of my time off with a vehicle, which meant that my reading took a hit (getting most of my reading done on the bus these days). I chose a slim volume out of the stack I received for Christmas: Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice, part of the 33 1/3 series, where an author takes a record that was influential to them and writes a 100-page treatise on it. Pernice (himself a musician, part of the Pernice Bros.) took the approach of writing a book of fiction, a confessional narrative about a young boy in a dull town and his fumbling for identity, his liberation through music. For the most part, it's pretty good. It may have been a little light on its actual discussion of the Smiths' record, but it managed to avoid being too precious about it when it did. Perhaps my only complaint was that I think Pernice stretched a little too hard to show he was a writer, pushing a simile to breaking point or choosing a word out of his thesaurus when just the basic one would do.

On the flipside, CLAMP's Shirahime-Syo tries to say as little as possible, instead working its manga magic with a subtle finesse that is quite effective. Published by Tokyopop in a gorgeous hardcover edition, this decade-old graphic novel has three separate stories about the Snow Goddess' influence on three separate lives (generally, doomed romantics), wrapped in a framing device that drives home a larger point about humanity. It's reminiscent of the film Kwaidan and, in turn, the graphic novel it inspired, Scott Morse’s Visitations.

Having gotten so used to reading the more light-hearted material from CLAMP, due to my rewriting a lot of it, it was refreshing to sit down with something different from the studio. Shirahime-Syo is full of gorgeous brush work and subtle storytelling. Why show a killing, for instance, when a simple splash of blood on the white snow will do?

Movie-wise, Fellini's ! Vitelloni (the exclamation point is supposed to be upside-down, but that's too advanced for me; it can also be referred to as I Vitelloni) is currently doing the art house circuit. Kino has done a new print that is at times a little soft, but generally crisp. The story is about a quintet of Italian boys in the mid-'50s who are stuck in an aimless life in a nowhere town. Fellini plays with the sort of archetypes typical of the teen movie genre, showing the different personalities of the group (the lothario, the artist, the intellectual, the man's man, the dreamer) and using each to show different options a life can take. The ending reminded me of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, a big influence on me.

But perhaps what stuck with me the most after ! Vitelloni was the narrative device. There is a voiceover by an unseen character who insinuates himself into the social circle. He refers to the boys as "we," yet himself never appears on screen. He could be a sixth member, or he could just be an authorial voice, a conceit. I wonder if anyone has ever done this in prose?

Current Soundtrack: Bruce Springsteen The Essential... disc 1

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

AND THE BIRDS SING FOR YOU

I had never checked to see if Cut My Hair was available at amazon.co.uk, but had needed a small version of the cover for my sig on the Oni board (Amazon.com not having said thumbnail, due to the Look Inside program). Sure enough, it was there, as well as a cool little review posted just recently.

I've noticed a spate of Cut My Hair reviews on Amazon in the last couple of months, actually. It's kind of cool. The book keeps finding people, despite no real marketing push for quite some time. It has a life of its own, the little monster.

Current Soundtrack: Suede, Singles

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

CONFIDE IN ME

Okay, the holidays have passed, and it's time someone makes a confession to Confessions. Last summer, some unknown person bought a copy of Joy Division's Heart & Soul from my Amazon Wish List. I saw it in the purchased area. But then it never arrived, so I e-mailed Amazon. They said they could not tell me who ordered it, and that the person had it shipped to a different address, possibly to deliver the package in person. No one ever did. It's been several months, and folks who I thought it might be have denied it. So, who was it? You don't have to give it to me. Whatever I did to piss you off and decide not to, 's cool. This is for my own rapidly declining peace of mind.

Current Soundtrack: The Coral, Skeleton Key EP

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

LIFE Vs. THE LIFELESS: THE TOP MUSIC OF 2003 (according to me)

I do this every year. Sure, it's follwing the herd, since who doesn't do an end of the year recap, right? But, I do because I like it. I like keeping lists, I like tracking things. Music is about the only area, though, I feel I can do such a thing, since I can follow it with a much more comprehensive passion than I can, say, movies, prose, or even comics. You'll likely disagree with a lot, but then, you'll have to start your own blog, won't you?

Albums

1. Black Box Recorder - Passionoia/ Luke Haines & the Auteurs - Das Capital: The year belonged to Luke Haines. The popmaster simultaneously dug into his back catalogue, re-envisioning the cream of the crop from his first two bands as orchestral pomp and circumstance, lending a classical backdrop to his misanthropic world view. And on Black Box Recorder's third album, he dug deeper into the psyche of a hormonal music fiends, lending a sultry and slightly dangerous air to Bacharach-styled ditties. Long may he rave.

2. Blur - Think Tank: People love to count this band out, and with guitar god Graham Coxon finally disappearing up his own ass, the remaining trio decided to explore theirs without him. What they discovered were some new rhythms, a little bit of freedom, and a record that smashed the art into pop (it's usually the other way around) and started to rediscover their fire. Underrated, as per usual, Blur triumphed.

3. The Coral - The Coral/Magic & Medicine: Channeling the Animals and Pretty Things through an anarcho punk spirit, these British boys spit their debut out stateside just before serving up their sophomore effort in the UK. This meant a double dose of freakbeat for the dedicated. Sure, they have handfuls of sloppy flaws, but that's what makes The Coral work. Only a band who doesn't give two fucks would put two of their best songs--"Not The Girl" and "Like a Leaf to a Tree"--on their b-sides. Righteous.

4. Erasure - Other People's Songs/ Martin Gore - Counterfeit2/ Mandy Moore - Coverage: Something must be wrong if three of my favorite records in a given year are collections of covers. Erasure leant a high-gloss techno feel to classics from Phil Spector, Elvis, and Peter Gabriel, and did so with a surprisingly un-ironic lisp. Martin Gore, on the other hand, was a bit more earnest, ferreting out the dark parts of Nick Cave, Julee Cruise, and Lou Reed songs and casting them in deep, electronic suits. Finally, Mandy Moore, the pop princess nearly least likely to, dug up Blondie, XTC, and Elton John, and did so just for the sheer joy of song. If nothing else, this proves music needs a few more visionaries.

5. Lost in Translation - Original Soundtrack (with music by Kevin Shields): Sofia Coppola and I could have been mates in high school, it seems. We probably had a lot of the same records. Revisiting the otherworldly sounds of "shoegazing" provided the perfect film soundtrack for the other world that is Tokyo, and with my headphones wrapped around my ears, it transports me out of mine.

6. Mya - Moodring: Pop R&B with a positively pro-femme attitude. Not afraid to be spunky and fun, a bit bawdy, and even get a little sentimental (songs called "You" can be pretty tough; Mya's rates). Points off for containing the obligatory appearance from Sean Paul, but regained for getting Missy Elliott's best production this year, the single "My Love is Like...Wo."

7. Spiritualized - Complete Works Vol. 1/Amazing Grace: While I generally leave compilations off my list (and this year, there were a ton of great ones; just see below), the first Spiritualized collection was just too damn good. Collecting every stray track released on singles around the first two albums, it shows a band full of ideas and an unrelenting will to refine them. As a great counterpoint, Amazing Grace is a rough-hewn effort, recorded with a straight-ahead passion. 2003 saw both sides of Spiritualized--the sacred and the profane--and it was damn good.

8. Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance: Timbaland wins the hiphop prize this year, transforming his also-ran white boy rapper into a true MC, giving him a catchy landscape where country & western samples are plowed next to heavy beats, harvested for a cash crop of banging tunes. It's actually harder to stay prejudiced against this record than to give in and admit it has the most clever and inventive production for the year. There but for the souls bared above, this would be on top. As it is, it dominates its genre, having several hundred pounds and a big pair of overalls more than the competition.

9. Kylie Minogue - Body Language: Oh, Kylie! Was it that you thought the party was a little crowded, and you decided to make a record to scare some of the Johnny-come-latelies away? Or was it that you wanted to teach them that no, it's really okay to dance? Because Body Language follows up your massive hit of two years ago by taking a challenging route down electric avenue. Every song here, from the snake-like slinkiness of the opener, "Slow," to the innuendo-laden "Chocolate," and resting back at the beginning with the raise-your-hands-jump-up-and-down anthem "After Dark," eschews shiny pop for futuristic sparkle--with you recasting yourself as a breathy Brigitte Bardot. Some people can't seem to dig it, but we never invited them anyway, did we?

10. Faye Wong - To Love: The Chinese chanteuse has more albums in her back catalogue than just about anyone here, but she sounds just as fresh as the day she started. Continuing an unbeatable track record that has seen her edge ever closer to a creative zenith in the last several years, To Love balances techno adventures against emotional ballads with an ease that only an artist that knows exactly what she is doing is capable of. It doesn't matter that she sings in another language, you're going to feel every syllable. This is Bjork if she were as cute as you really wanted, mixed with the elegance of a classic cinema star--and all merely a vessel for a smooth and beautiful croon.

11. The Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love: You know that bit at the beginning of "Be My Baby," that Phil Spector drumbeat that makes you sit up and listen whenever it creeps through the speakers on your car radio when you're listening to the oldies station? This is an entire album of that! Fuuuuuuuuck!

12. Alicia Keys - The Diary of Alicia Keys: I've only had a short time to go over Alicia's confessions, as it was one of the last records released this year. But since she put it in my hands, I haven't wanted to let go of it. This is soulful and funky and sensual--all the things Prince used to be, but without the pomp and circumstance, without hiding behind his freaky persona or wishing he were a rock god. Her debut was a simple affair, not overdone; this disc ups the ante and shows she knows how to turn a meal into a banquet and not cook too much. Bless.

13. Britney Spears - In The Zone: Also known as the album I will get the most shit for having on my list, even more so than the record that follows it (and sometimes, I am sure, because of the record that follows it--for how dare I place Britney ahead of Chris!). But you can all piss right off. This record is fantastic. While Kylie beats the youngster to dance record of the year, when was the last time we had two great albums from disco divas in one twelve-month span? True, you need to skip the first two tracks and replace them with "Answer" and "Don't Hang Up" (available only on various import versions), but when you do, get ready for a CD of many moods. There are the bangers ("Toxic"), the chill out ("Early Mornin'," produced by Moby ("sell out!" they cry, "again!")), the string drenched ballads ("Shadow," "Everytime"), a new wave rocker ("Brave New Girl"), and even an ode to masturbation ("Touch of My Hand")! Now you can whack off to Britney listening to her talk about whacking off, and possibly imagining that she is doing it, too, by imagining some fan doing it while listening to that song. Or is that just me?

14. Dashboard Confessional - A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar: If I gave an award for most pretentious title, this album would get it; same, though, if I gave an award for the disc I didn't expect to be here. Frequent Confessions readers will be aware of my recent conversion, my conquering of prejudices against this band--and this here is the proof I meant it. Your preconceived notions really no longer apply. This is a rocking album that, yes, will wear its heart on its black-clad sleeve, but the music is smooth and catchy, with Carrabba's voice soaring where it needs to and getting gravel-scarred and sad on the next go-around. And when it's done, I want to hear it again.

15. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Master & Everyone: Will Oldham is pretty hit and miss for me, and he seems to only really hit under the Bonnie "Prince" moniker. His music is a sparse form of backwoods country, obsessed with sex, death, and religion, and how the three inevitably mix. This album has a lot of songs about relationships. They may be of many kinds, but somehow it all sounds like love when Oldham's gruff whisper is the messenger. His lyrics are hard-won and deeply felt, and when he strikes a chord, it stays struck.

16. David Bowie - Reality: What can I say? The guy still has it. Since the release of Outside over half a decade ago, Bowie has been on a real roll. Cast in the same vein as Heathen, Bowie's post-Gabrels period shows a new love for rocking songcraft. "New Killer Star" is his best single in ages, and he turns out fantastic covers by George Harrison and Modern Lovers (easily topping the original there, which normally I wouldn't give the time of day). The man loves what he does, and it shows.

17. Relaxed Muscle - A Heavy Night With...: Pulp's Jarvis Cocker steps back from the high-shine of his brilliant band to do something a little more dirty, a little more twisted. Sporting an early Wax Trax influence, he takes the piss out of the current state of macho music, and manages to put a spring in the step at the same time.

18. Elvis Costello - North: I recently traded e-mails with a friend and we talked about how neither of us could get into Robyn Hitchcock. I called him Sub-Costello, part of a British school that was impressed by its own cleverness, but unlike their sensei, never got past that point. Elvis has more emotional latitude than the legions he spawned, something this gorgeous collection of quiet, romantic ballads illustrates perfectly.

19. Tricky - Vulnerable: Tricky visits some dark places, and sometimes he get lost, but he always is following his own muse--or at least searching for it. You have to respect that. Teaming up with the first vocalist since Martina to really deserve her microphone stand, Tricky once again sounds like he did when he debuted a decade ago. Full of piss, vinegar, and the occasional flight of fancy. His beats are heavy, and his backdrops are stark. Like Costello for the electronic age, many try to imitate him, but none of them can. (Features amazing covers of XTC and The Cure, as well, keeping in with the theme of 2003.)

20. Kelis - Tasty: While Kelis' albums are usually a bit bottom heavy and begin to lose steam by the end, Tasty does the best of any of beating that. Which, yes, is damning with feint praise, but really, I'm just trying to say she's figuring it out. This works 95% of the time, and you gotta love an album that goes from telling guys to cut the sexual gossip ("Keep It Down") to ordering them to indulge their wildest exhibitionist fantasy ("In Public") and is brazen enough to put the songs back-to-back--all the while keeping it funky and smooth. "Milkshake" was easily the sexiest video of the year, too, beating out a lot of pop tarts.

*

It should be noted that this year, there were perhaps more excellent compilations than any other in recent memory. And more often than not, they were souped-up packages with extra discs, DVDs, or some kind of cool booklet. Ones I couldn't stop listening to came from artists like the Pet Shop Boys (they had two!), Suede, Inspiral Carpets, No Doubt, Primal Scream, R.E.M., Chemical Brothers, Erasure, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Weller, and Ride (the awesome colletion of BBC sessions, Waves).

Noteable for the worst album of the year was Madonna. Her American Life travesty was pompous and, worse, flaccid. Her recently released EP Remixed & Revisited showed how off base she was from a production standpoint by allowing three of the album's cuts to be remixed by artists with more of a pulse left (though, "American Life" itself was proven irredeemable). Sad to have seen someone that was once so good become so self-important. And here I was all ready to give this position to The Strokes or Black Rebel Motorcyle Club.

*

Singles

1. Kelis - "Milkshake": The Neptunes have always seen something special in Kelis, and while previous efforts have gotten close, this is where the genius really shines through. A raunchy bounce propels the year's most suggestive vocal performance into the groin of every man, woman, and child in earshot. They just wanna love our brains, and if we dance in the meantime, that's excellent, too.

2. The Coral - "Dreaming of You": A throwback, to be sure. To the Mersey Beat scene, to Eric Burdon and the Yardbirds in Blow Up--but damn, does this song capture something. Coming in under three minutes, it doesn't waste any time on any sound that doesn't count. Right to the heart of pop.

3. Suede - "Attitude": Sadly, the band's swan song. Double sadly, it shows them getting groovy, experimenting with rhythm, and taking their sound in directions they've been promising for a couple of years now. As an epitaph, this can't be beat. Lyrically, it's Suede to a T--a little bit of attitude, a little bit of something rude, a little bit tacky, too. A decade on a 45.

4. Relaxed Muscle - "Billy Jack": Absolutely absurd, and fantastic as a result. Cocker does little more than summarize the '70s vigilante movie over a disco line-dance shuffle. Brilliant.

5. Kylie Minogue - "Slow": Where Kelis pushes you against the wall and shoves her tongue down your throat, Kylie twists you up in satin sheets and rolls over you, back and forth, nice and...slow.

6. Black Box Recorder - "These Are the Things": Arty disco ticking off life's mundane moments, and how they lead into, perhaps, the less mundane aspects of interpersonal relationships. Cold, yet sexy; pop, yet brainy.

7. Blur - "Out of Time": The ache of a breaking heart sets an acoustic guitar vibrating, and the result is soothing, tender, and just a tad bit painful. Blur can be lovely when they want to. We tend to forget that, and perhaps that's what occasionally makes them so sad. I guess good on us, then, eh?

8. Dashboard Confessional - "Hands Down": When your heart is done breaking, you can remember what it was like when you first fell in love, the rush that made it worth it. Purists may prefer Chris Carrabba's acoustic original, but the electric guitars are the perfect vehicle for the explosive feelings, the charge that leads to elation, and taking a skip off the front porch of your original romance.

9. Bubba Sparxxx - "Deliverance": A rap song distinctive for its acoustic guitar and melodic hook, Timbaland inches his protege towards something new with more honest lyrics and a scope free of the bling-bling limitations of the mainstream.

10. Oasis - "Songbird": The Beatles? Yes. But why not?

11. Erasure - "Solsbury Hill": If Peter Gabriel ever sounded this carefree when he recorded his own stuff, I might actually buy his records.

12. Saint Etienne - "Soft Like Me": Classic Etienne with a groove that bubbles just under placid, quiet whispers from Sarah Cracknell, and a spoken word/rap guest spot that matches the trio's measured cool. An amorphous single that is breezy in the spring, sunny in the summer, wistful in autumn, and crisp in winter.

13. Timbaland & Magoo/Missy Elliott - "Cop That Shit": Knicking a beat from the Neptunes that sounds like someone pounding their fists on a broken Casio, this hiphop trio rails against a thieving musical culture that bites styles and bootlegs tracks, simultaneously warning them to get out of the way while taking their followers with them.

14. The Coral - "Don't Think You're The First" - As odd as "Dreaming of You" was catchy. This is a kiss-off, a wake-up call, and it's more slithery than their propulsive rock stuff. Thinner, so it can slide in under the door and slice your ears. Pop always had a superiority complex.

15. Robbie Williams - "Come Undone": Robbie has the best sense of humor in pop, and when he turns it on himself, it's positively wicked. A look at the dark side of fame, with Mr. Williams narrating what it's like for the rich and bratty to let loose, and how much they might regret it come morning. Though, really, the sound of falling apart is far more memorable than actually being part any day.

16. Mya - "My Love is Like...Wo": Fun, sassy, and unashamed. Missy lays down the beat, Mya picks it up and celebrates herself.

17. King Adora - "Kamikaze/Nothing To Lose": Trashier than Placebo, more tart than Xtina, less cash-flush than The Strokes, these lipsticked boys keep their tunes cramped and sweaty, and wield chainsaw guitars that cut a jagged path out of your speakers.

18. David Bowie - "New Killer Star": "Ready, set, go!" he said, and then he did. This could fit in easily with Ziggy-era rockers on the inevitable future greatest hits repackage.

19. Justin Timberlake - "Rock Your Body": Oh, right. Like you didn't sing the falsetto bits every damn time it was on. Liar!

20. Pet Shop Boys - "Miracles": Narrowly defeating Placebo's sugar push of glamtastic paranoia, "This Picture," this anthem of atmospheric dance pop is the second song on the list to be a throwaway from a greatest hits collection--proving some bands' rubbish is another's dream 45.

*

Winner of my award for great single that tumbled down my chart faster than any other is Outkast's Andre 3000 and "Hey Ya." Only Beyonce was more ubiquitous this year, and her "Crazy In Love" had the same problem as "Hey Ya," but not nearly as bad. These songs are all middle. They always allude to where they are going, but never arrive. Beyonce at least changes up the hooks, but Andre 3000 sticks on the same line and never wavers, and eventually you realize that "Hey Ya" is a wisp of a song, not really there at all. See him perform it live a couple of times, and you realize it further, as he does the exact same thing he does in the video--every time. Somebody needs to put Outkast back together again, for not just their sake's, but ours.

All in all, it feels like a pretty odd year. A lot of what stood out were throwbacks, either to rock or to disco, with covers nearly ruling the roost (and one soundtrack looking at a non-movement that stopped moving ages ago). Doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad year, as a lot of stuff I wanted to write about had to be left off the list. But the critics have been pulling their "something is around the corner now that pop/rap-rock/whathaveyou is dead" for some time now. If they're right, it ain't here yet; if they're wrong, then maybe were just settling in to letting music be music and not worrying about the rest of it.

(Pssst! If you want to read what I thought last year, then check here. Interesting to note that the Neptunes didn't rack up as much for me this year (though 2 1/2 singles is pretty good), and Missy Elliott's album, This Is Not a Test, was in the low 20s and thus missed the list.)

Current Soundtrack: The Beautiful South, Gaze

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

DENIGRATE OR SPECULATE ON WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH

Updating clearly went off the rails for a few days there. I wish I had been busier working, but really it was a lot of getting caught in the maelstrom of Christmas. Early parties this year to accommodate travelers, etc. I have had several things that I have wanted to upload here, but just finding the stray moments to focus on it has been elusive. I did finish Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, & Emo, and I liked it a lot. The final section moves away from the music and looks at online communities, taking the DIY aesthetic to its extreme, with sites like this one giving any kid who so desires a voice. Nice stuff. I posted a review on Amazon, which goes thusly:

As a writer myself, and one often accused of being too obscure with his musical references, I had no choice but to enter NOTHING FEELS GOOD with a bit of an open mind, knowing that Andy Greenwald faced a challenge with me and that I had to extend him the same courtesy I would want extended to me. Greenwald was writing about bands I couldn't care less about, and some I openly hate. I didn't own a single record by any of the groups featured. He had a tough job ahead of him.

So, it's a real testament to Greenwald's abilities as a writer that I was completely sucked in. A foreknowledge of bands like Jawbreaker or Thursday is not required, because Greenwald is going to explain them to you. He is going to tell you what the music is like and contextualize it, put it in a framework that will hip you to why these bands have so many devoted fans. Sure, you can hem and haw about the name "emo"--but the author does too. It's a term for a subculture that doesn't want to be tagged or codified, and it's a subject that is wrestled with by this book. And once we get past that, Greenwald cracks it open and unveils the positives of a movement that often gets derided, revealing why it works for the people it works for and its place in our modern age.

If there is anything to complain about when it comes to NOTHING FEELS GOOD, it's that Greenwald does his job TOO well. He made me think every one of the bands discussed wasy fantastic. Sadly, I sampled a lot of it, and for the most part, it failed to live up to the wonderful images Greenwald created in my head. However, his electrifying portrait of Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba was quite seductive, and I couldn't shake it. It pushed me to approach the material fresh, and now I am a fan and have sought out whatever I could find by the band.

And isn't that the sort of reaction music writing should inspire?

In addition to writing freebies for a huge website conglomerate, I've been pounding away at the second volume of a manga I still can't talk about, and trying out for a gig that is an extension of the manga thing. So, it's not all been champagne and Fiddle Faddle.

Once I finished Andy's book, I went straight into a critical study on Wong Kar-Wai that James bought me for Christmas last year. Simply titled Wong Kar-Wai, it features three essays on his films (though it was published before In The Mood For Love), each taking a different approach at dissecting his style, finding what makes him stand apart from the other Hong Kong directors and why it works. Perhaps the most interesting theory advanced was that Kar-Wai's films seem jumpy and a non-linear because his storytelling is in a constant state of revolt. Common moments are always attempting to subvert the mechanics of plot, and images are always trying to express themselves as they are, as opposed to what they might be made into. When you add all of his films up, Kar-Wai has only been making one movie all along, each an additional piece of a larger whole. Hence, despite the sequel to Days of Being Wild never being made, we do get the main character from that sequel invading the film's final scenes.

That's about the only theory the filmmaker himself seems to agree with. Wong Kar-Wai is rounded out with an interview with the man where he bats away any attempts at scholarly context on the part of the interviewer, and reveals himself as an unassuming artist who relies more on instinct and personal feeling than any grand scheme. He is also a true maverick in a film industry obsessed with the bottom line, bucking the idea that one flop should end your career. It's also refreshing to hear someone doesn't want to work in Hollywood.

My only complaint about the book is that, despite some nice, sturdy printing and a picture-laden layout, the proofreading was terrible. There was an inconsistency to grammar style and laziness in typesetting that seemed rather daft given the rather haughty approach of the work itself.

I have many new books that have come as a result of this Christmas, but most of them are more nonfiction pieces, and I have a yen to get a little fiction in me. So, I've started rereading Breakfast At Tiffany's. Ah, how I've missed Ms Golightly...

[It took me three days to write this post, if that tells you anything about my fractured mind.]

Current Soundtrack: No Doubt, Boom Box: Everything In Time (B-sides, Rarities, Remixes)

golightly@confessions123.com *
The Website

THE MOON AT THAT MOMENT

My Faye Wong article got shot down. The reason given was the music section is full. Dunno. It's always hard as a freelancer to not forget what it's like to be an editor, and every time I get turned down for stuff, I want to say, "No, really. What was it? Are you just being diplomatic?" I mean, good on them for being fair and I don't wish them grief. I am behind their need to do their job smoothly; it's my own cynicism from sitting in that chair. You, kids...you have no idea.

So, anyway, here is the article I was writing. I never found the ending. You can just imagine that, I suppose. Perhaps me in a fiery car wreck, dead dead good.

Faye, looking at a copy of Cut My Hair smirks, "Really? People pay for this?"

I have many sensory memories of my trip to Beijing. The sweet and tangy smell of sliced onions, the sourness of sugared apples on a stick, the smarting cold of the ice when I slipped and landed on my ass. There is also the stinging in my eyes from the countless dusty shops we went into, looking at bootlegs of CDs and DVDs. The most pointed element of that memory, though, was approaching the wall of Faye Wong to claim some of her albums as my very own.

Despite the fact that the Chinese actress/singer is one of the biggest stars in Asia, most of you are probably wondering who the hell Faye Wong is. A portion of you probably know who she is and don't realize it. You ever see Chungking Express? You remember the girl who used to sneak into police officer Tony Leung's place and alternate between secretly cleaning his apartment and playing with his airplane toy while listening to "California Dreaming"? That was Faye Wong. She also sang the Cantonese Cranberries cover that appeared on the soundtrack.

Or you 4AD Goths might have heard her on one of your Cocteau Twins records if you're obsessive enough to have tracked down the Asian release of Milk & Kisses. That's not Elizabeth Fraser singing alone on "Serpentskirt." That other voice, that's Faye Wong.

The Beijing trip was a fortuitous one for me and my desire to learn about Faye. I had only discovered Wong Kar-Wai the previous summer, through the Criterion DVD release of his brilliant 2000 film, In The Mood For Love. It became a movie I instantly started recommending and passing on. I even bought a copy for an artist friend, and she returned the favor by sending me a copy of Chungking Express. Just as I had been an instant Wong Kar-Wai convert with In The Mood For Love, I completely fell in love with Faye Wong in Chungking. Kar-Wai must have known that he had achieved that perfect intersection of casting and script. Why else give the character the same name? What he captured on film was like an X-ray revealing the soul of the actress. Like Billy Wilder capturing Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, or Kate Hudson embodying Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. We had gone beyond what could be written and photographed, into things that can't conventionally be expressed.

From what I can gather on the internet, Faye Wong became a pop star at an early age, but what wasn't exactly happy with how her career was being handled. Given the moniker "Shirley Wong" by her label, she was stuck in the usual young singer's conundrum--she had a desire to create art, but had sold her soul into a business. Unable to choose her own material or the direction of said material, she took her first chance to break away and moved to New York. There, she recharged her energies before returning to her native land to take control of her music and go on to superstardom. While her popularity in China has wained since the start of the new century, she has achieved new fame in Japan and signed a massive deal with Sony. Her first album in that deal, To Love, was released in November.

The accuracy of these internet legends is unknown to me. I have seen several conflicting bios, and this is my own distillation of it, the Faye Wong crash course of international myth.

The first Shirley album.

My speedy education in popular Chinese music occurred, for the most part, in the backs of taxi cabs. The bulk of the tunes I heard were ballads, and it seemed that the men in particular had a thing for wringing the maximum emotion out of every song, and not usually for the better. We're talking schmaltz. While many of the female singers had this problem, as well, I noticed that there was more variety to the production styles, including electronic sounds and moods akin to trip hop.

Unfortunately, when searching for a Chinese artist's material, it was a bit hard to make heads or tails of what was available. As I said earlier, when I had made up my mind to buy some Faye CDs, I was faced with an entire wall of them.

The best fan site online for Faye Wong is Josh's Fayevourite Faye Wong Page. Josh, a fan living in Toronto, keeps exhaustive databases of news, releases, and translated lyrics. According to his discography, there are 46 official Faye Wong albums, including numerous compilations. None of what I initially bought myself in Beijing, outside of a VCD of her Budokan concert, was an actual release, but dubiously compiled bootlegs. Something I was unaware of at the time.

Listening to music in a foreign language is a little like looking at abstract paintings. It's a whole different level of artist-to-audience communication. You're not going to get it exactly on the first glance, and even once you think you've figured it out, you're relying on instinct, on educated guesses, and most importantly, how it makes you feel. In that sense, singers could arguably find their best audience in countries that speak an entirely different language. Ever see a video of Duran Duran playing someplace like Italy, where girls with hairy armpits sang along to every word of "Save a Prayer" as if their lives depended on it? Chances are, they didn't have any idea what Simon Le Bon was talking about in a literal sense, but they knew for damn sure how their bodies were reacting to the music. Isn't that really more pure of a listening experience than being hung up on what exactly a particular line means?

So it is with Faye Wong and me. She and her collaborators may be the greatest poets who've ever lived, but I wouldn't have any idea. The closest I get to what she is actually singing is occasionally browsing fan translations, which can often be as dubious as the English subtitles on a Hong Kong film or the text of electronics manuals.

My favorite Faye Wong song is "The Moon at that Moment," off of her 1999 album Lovers & Strangers. An acoustic guitar leads a full string section. There are no drums or beat. Faye's voice is often in a higher register on the track than on her poppier numbers, or on her bolder ballads. There is a calmness to her performance, her voice sounding both resigned to her fate and wistful, as if her current situation is a fait accompli and she's okay with it. Listening to the song, I feel a sense of longing, of loneliness, and of heartache. I get the impression of being by myself, of the night. Yet I also feel twinges of hope, and the sense that there is a romance at the heart of it all, that it may pass or might already have done so, yet the memory of it lingers.

Sure, I could have it wrong. "The Moon at that Moment" could be about a pirate who has to fix a hole in his boat and does so by the light of a full moon, but does it matter? Isn't it more important that every time I hear that song, it stops me in my tracks, brings a hint of tears to my eyes, and stirs up a complex whirlpool of emotions in my chest? Do I need to know anything more than

Faye's voice is like a tractor beam. It has a warm, magnetic quality to it. I'd hate to say it's like honey, even if it is apt. There is a thickness to it, and a sweetness. It coats your ears. Her tones are different than we are used to, different than an English singer's. More right angles.

Lovers & Strangers

There are many sides to Faye Wong, just like any singer, just like any artist. Current album To Love is a good representation of where her music has evolved to, featuring an equal selection of techno pieces, big production ballads, and softer melodies. Culturally, one could argue she straddles a line between history and modernity, equally at home singing traditional Chinese numbers and futuristic dance music. It's a contradiction that reminds me a lot of Bjork, a comparison that begins to hold more water when you consider Wong's ever-evolving image and bold fashion statements. (In her Budokan concert, she spends much of her time wrapped in a plush, stuffed swan; the opening track of To Love sounds a tad like "Army of Me.") She's also been known to cover Western artists, largely other female signers, including Tori Amos, Karen White, Sophie Zelmani, and Sinead O'Connor. She even did a rather ballsy cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on her 1999 tour. You haven't understood grief until you've heard Faye Wong sing "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all."

Or consider the case of 2000's Fable. A twelve song narrative composed of two parts, full of luscious orchestral swashes interwoven with squelches of electronic atmosphere. The epic allows Faye to show off, moving across the vocal register as the story hits its peaks and valleys, al the while spinning a tale of love forbidden, funneled through lyrics working with the best imagery of Asian poetry (fireflies, lanterns, princes, etc.), encompassing the dawn of time, Cinderella, and filmmaker Zhang Yimou.

Fable

If you'd like to see all the false starts and random noodling that this article went under before we got to what you see here, follow this link.

Current Soundtrack: Kelis, Tasty; Dashboard Confessional, A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

COMMUNICATION LET ME DOWN

Astute readers will have noticed the new e-mail address last time, but it's fucking up, so don't use it yet, stick to cut_my_hair@hotmail.com. If you sent me something and I did not reply--any of you--to my confessions123 addy, I didn't get it. It's been frustrating, as the mail protocol is picking and choosing what messages I actually see, while apparently the server log lists them all as delivered. Fuck the internet. Fuck it in the ear.

Last night I watched A Taste of Cherry, an Iranian film in the Cracketerion Collection. It was an interesting surprise, an existential meditation focusing on a man who wants to kill himself, and is driving around looking for someone to come in the morning and fill in the hole he is going to lay down and die in. It was one of those movies where it's a lot of nothing, really, from a plot standpoint--but yet 90 minutes goes by before you know it (plot is for suckers). I was a bit nonplussed by the ending, where a fourth-wall breaking coda was tacked on for reasons I have yet to discern--but still, recommended.

Current Soundtrack: Simon & Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning, 3AM

MY HEART STARTS MISSING A BEAT--EVERY TIME

For my reading, I am sticking with nonfiction for the time being. Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, & Emo by cutie-pie boy author Andy Greenwald. I am about a quarter in, just getting through the first section. But Andy gets some of the highest compliments I can pay a writer: reading his work makes me wish I could write better about music; and I couldn't care less about the bands he is writing about, yet I want to keep reading. In fact, I actively despise some of them (Sunny Day Real Estate? Puh-leaze!). Yet, I am still finding the subject matter fascinating. He even got me to snag a copy of Pinkerton off of my office mate.

The thing that roots the book is the fact that he is writing more about a subculture, what makes up this society of music and music fans, than he is about The Promise Ring or whoever else. A knowledge of the music isn't necessary to get what he is talking about, because what he is talking about is bigger than each individual band or song. Plus, Andy contextualizes each aspect enough that as an outsider, I can get it. It also helps that the emotions expressed by emo, the things that its fans find in the music, are pretty basic and universal. I have already lost count of how many times an interview subject has said, "It sounded like that record was recorded specifically for me." And what music fan hasn't experienced this sensation?

In fact, some of his interviewee confessions reminded me of my own past, as a teenager and a college student, struggling through insecurity and indecision. My first internship, right out of my first year at university, was interning in the ad writing department at Warner Bros. Records. My boss was a nice woman, but often very detached. I didn't know what to make of her. On one side, she was this cool lady who had gotten her first kiss as a young girl from Bill Wyman backstage at a Rolling Stones concert; on the other, I spent many days trying to get her drunk mother off the phone, because I was forbidden from putting her calls through. At 19, I had already been estranged from my own mother for several years, but was ill prepared for an old woman raving, "I've bought a bottle of sour mash and you tell her I'm going to drink it all, and she knows what will happen." (Perhaps, I think for the first time, this inspired Mason's mother's alcoholism in Cut My Hair?) On my last day there, the company had a luncheon for the interns who were leaving, and each intern was accompanied by his or her supervisor. I sat with my boss, and we talked and ended up on the subject of why I had been picked for the assignment, and that related to music. She told me how her troubled teen years were spent hiding at night in her room with a radio, tuning in stations from out of town to hear Bob Dylan. Not unlike myself trying to get my hands on Morrissey twelve-inches. It was something I wish had occurred earlier in the work session, because it might have made us both able to enjoy my being there more.

Anyway, the prose of Nothing Feels Good is extremely conversational. Andy isn't getting bogged down in being overly scholarly, and instead comes off as if he is simply explaining these things to you over drinks--and he does so without being pretentious or cloying about it. Which isn't to say his writing isn't inventive. His equation of online chatrooms to rock concerts is actually quite brilliant.

Who wouldn't want to make out with Andy Greenwald? (I hope he quotes me on his next book. "Who wouldn't want to make out with Andy Greenwald" -- Jamie S. Rich, currently homeless author of Cut My Hair [this is in the future when I am a spectacular failure])

It amused me that reading on the bus this morning, getting the lowdown on how kids discover Dashboard Confessional, I was listening to the new Pet Shop Boys three-disc collection, Pop Art. Pet Shop Boys couldn't be further from emo. Everything about their sound is synthesized, and their lyrics are rarely as bald-faced as seems to be the norm for this subgenre. And Neil Tennant has staked his claim as the most unemotional singer in pop music. He sings every word as plainly as possible--which actually allows him to create a blank canvas for his listener, to find the feeling for themselves. The fantastic part of that is, it can change depending on your own disposition at the time. Consider their cover of "Always On My Mind." Depending on your ears at the moment, it could be an emphatic insistence, or a sorrowful lament. He could be stating his case to his spurned lover or simply confessing to a martini. This style is entirely unique to him, and if there is any justice, will make him one of the more important vocalists of the final decades of the 20th century. I can't think of anyone else who takes such a dispassionate, disconnected approach, at least not with the same effect. Nico, maybe, but I don't think she can ever really remove the sorrow from her voice. Lou Reed, at times, particularly in the '80s and '90s, but his seems more of a storytelling affect and a lot of times it's hard to term what he does as singing. Plus, I think for both of them, it is a sign of their vocal limitations, whereas Tennant is using his instrument with deftness and skill.

I must say, though, now that Andy has hipped me to the band Rite of Spring, it could add another meaning to the Pet Shop lyric, "I feel like taking all my clothes off, and dancing to the Rite of Spring" (from "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing"), if one were so inclined.

In one my last posts, I ticked off a list of things I needed to do. They were all done by noon on Monday. I can really motor when I put my mind to it. Unfortunately, the rest of the week has been taken up in Christmas-related buggery. I finished my required shopping on Tuesday, and will make final decisions for people on my "maybe" list today. And tomorrow may be my last Christmas party--people are getting them out of the way early this year.

Thanks and joys of cheer to the folks who have bought stuff through my Amazon links, too. There have been some interesting books purchased through my site, and one copy of Finding Nemo on DVD. It doesn't tell me who bought what, so it's sort of fascinating to see what kind of random things show up.

And since I haven't said it enough lately, Kelly Sue DeConnick rocks. She is like my Babe Paley.

Current Soundtrack: The Coral b-sides; Muse, Absolution

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website