Me, the Butterfly, and Miley Cyrus

The other night I dreamt that I was a young girl. I was about 10 years old, give or take a year or two – old enough to be pretty, but too young to be sexy to all but the most prurient interests. And I was pretty.

This reminded me of a famous anecdote from the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi. I’ll quote it in whole here, since I don’t think Burton Watson (82 years old!) will be harmed at this point. For the sake of consistency I’ll take the liberty of using the pinyin spelling of Zhuangzi’s name.

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

What separates my experience from Zhuangzi’s is that when I was the little girl I had full recognition of myself as Jason. What I mean is that my mind was put in this little girl’s body, with all of my knowledge and experiences and none of hers. But I knew what I was and I knew what others perceived me as and acted accordingly. It was quite thrilling to behave in a way so contrary to my typical nature and demeanor, I must admit. I enjoyed being the girl.

But this has troubling implications for me. Whereas Zhuangzi was questioning the nature of experience and reality and a whole host of other things, my butterfly retained my identity. So I am either a little pixie who has quite psychotic fantasies of living 22 years as a lonely schlub, or I’m a 22 year old man less than 2 weeks away from graduating college who dreams of being a little girl. I am not sure which would be worse.

I’m going to segue here into a totally different, less interesting topic. But maybe it won’t seem totally different to you, I don’t know. I had the idea for this section the night of my dream, before I fell asleep. Interpret my own connection of them as you will.

I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time

I love the hell out of E=MC² so far. It sticks pretty closely to the blueprint of Mimi, but it’s far more consistent, with less irritating featured performances and more plain old Mariah pop songwriting. It might even be her best since Daydream, but since I don’t have copies of the older albums to refresh my memory I’m not going to make that claim.

 

But one thing I’ve noticed is that “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time” sounds exactly like an Amerie cut. This isn’t a bad thing, since it’s a great tune, but it’s surprising to me that Mariah would so openly ape a follower. Especially one who isn’t massively popular. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, as this is the only track with such a sound. I don’t know much about producer DJ Toomp.

 

The title track to Kid A might be the worst Radiohead song I’ve yet heard. That’s all I’m going to say at this point.

OK Computer

I love this album. I admit that I was wrong to dismiss Radiohead simply because of my distaste for their material in this decade.

To begin with, Pink Floyd comparisons are not fair, and that’s because OK Computer is way better than anything Pink Floyd ever did, not the other way around. I don’t like Pink Floyd, but unlike the case with my indifference to Radiohead I’m intimately familiar with all of Floyd’s major works. Unlike virtually everything Floyd did after Piper, Radiohead sounds like an actual band, with actual people writing actual songs together. There is a sense of realness in everything they do, no matter how abstract, that Pink Floyd could never touch, always feeling like the product of someone’s ego. It’s always seemed to me that almost all great bands are dominated by one or two geniuses, but that isn’t clearly the case at all with Radiohead, although Yorke and Greenwood get all the attention.

Now the songs. They’re all no less than good, and there are only two I can point out as being less than great – “Exit Music (For a Film)” and “The Tourist.” The former is an evolution of songs like “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” on The Bends, but worked out better than that, especially once the fuzz bass comes in. But overall it doesn’t fit the mood of the disc well, and I just don’t find Yorke very affecting here. “The Tourist” is a little boring in comparison to everything that comes before it, but I can’t deny that it makes an effective last song. In any case, like “Exit Music,” everything that could be squeezed out of the tune has been.

OK Computer begins with “Airbag,” a song that, with its lumbering Crimsonesque riff and meandering melody could have easily been no better than its predecessors on The Bends. But the cut up percussion samples and a clever (!) Yorke lyric work some magic with those traditional elements. Enough things have been said about “Paranoid Android” that I won’t even bother. “Subterranean Homesick Alien” is almost as good, with the first truly emotionally affecting Yorke performance and lyric. You’ll notice that’s a trend here – although there are still some dumb lines here and there, the lyrics have taken a massive step forward. “Let Down” is almost impossibly lush, and you know “Karma Police.” All I have to add is that the coda makes the song.

I’m not sure what to say about “Fitter Happier.” It’s short, and it’s not terribly annoying; the synthesized voice was a good move. I bet it makes a good concert intro piece. But its “be yourself” message is only marginally more sophisticated than the average Hannah Montana song. “Electioneering” is finally a full-blown rocker, and it comes at a perfect time. “Climbing Up the Walls” is another brilliant example of experimentation and artsiness used only to service the song, a common thread through OK Computer. And finally, “No Surprises” and “Lucky” aren’t very surprising, as it happens, but they’re very good nonetheless.

After really listening to OK Computer closely, I understand why Radiohead did what they did. This is such a meticulously written and arranged album that they had nowhere to go with this sound without repeating themselves. But, like I said above, it never sounds sterile. It’s just a beautiful piece of work, deserving of almost all the praise it gets. A couple of weaker tracks prevent me from calling it the best album ever, or even the best of its time, but I still feel comfortable saying that OK Computer is a 5 star album.

I’m moving on to Kid A next. I remember finding it decent but boring at the time, and not as revolutionary as claimed. That second statement is probably still true, but we’ll see how much I like it now. I hope it doesn’t disappoint me again. It’s going to be tough to get through the undoubtedly weaker Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief if I don’t like Kid A at all.

Dolly Parton and Idol

I know, I’ve been remiss in my Radiohead listening duties. I’ve been more busy than usual lately and it’s been harder for me to get deep into OK Computer and pay attention, as what’s clearly the best song is 2nd on the album (as opposed to “My Iron Lung” being the 8th song on The Bends).

 

Idol just finished a few minutes ago. No one did anything too fantastic, although David C. certainly gave his least reprehensible performance. Syesha, of course, picked “I Will Always Love You,” and mimicked Whitney Houston. But Dolly Parton was a mistake, I think. I like Dolly just fine, but she’s a good songwriter, not a great one. Most of these songs just aren’t very good when sung by other people. A boring night overall.