back, unrest

i'm listening to the original recording of philip glass' 'einstein on the beach' days before having to leave my current living situation. i've moved most of my stuff to my mom's garage and have retained a bed, some clothing, a chair, and a stripped down stereo with some choice records. the minimal setup is nice, as i often feel as if i have too much stuff. my old roommate ethan was an ideal in this regard--his room was so ascetic. he even stripped out the carpet in favor of bare floorboards.

but then i go to get rid of stuff, and i'm all, but maybe i'll read this book again someday. and and, even though i haven't listened to this cd in years, i might get really into that sort of music again.

'einstein on the beach,' though, is a keeper. i have a long history with this piece of music. my dad purchased the 1993 rerecording a couple years after it came out from the blockbuster music that used to be up the street. i remember their display of pink floyd's 'pulse' with the eerily blinking lights on the spines. i would put the first disc of einstein on and think, i think i like this, but not really know what to think. like, it's an opera, but, like, there's no narrative? i was probably 12.

12, say, years later, i had been getting into philip glass again with my roommates adam and lee. i decided i needed to have a copy of einstein, but i wanted the original, and on vinyl. the cd was prohibitively expensive. and the original used REAL farfisa organs instead of korg representations of a farfisa organ, etc. the sound of the philip glass ensemble was so fat and heavy back then! the 1993 recording may have been more definitive as far as the composition goes, but as a record, i had a theory that the original would be better.

i was on the hunt for what felt like a year. i told ben, the vinyl guy at twist & shout (where i worked), to keep an eye out for it for me. it eventually came in. i bought it that day. after work, i went to my girlfriend-at-the-time bekki's house. we listened to about 3/4ths of this 4 record set while cooking and eating dinner and hanging out. it was everything i hoped it would be. we enjoyed it. i think we ate pasta. and probably got high.

it is an album that i have consistently returned to. i don't think i've ever sat down and listened to the whole thing straight through, but i'll often pick a few sides and put them on and enjoy. oh. and when i was in brooklyn en route to berlin a month ago, i stopped by p.s.1 and scoped their exhibition of performance and video art. they had a tv looping a grainy film of a european performance of einstein. i plugged in headphones, sat on the floor, and soaked it in for awhile. very nice to finally SEE the visual aspect of this opera--wish i coulda been there.

but one thing i really enjoy is the texts. there are two kinds:

1. solfege syllables and counting. a chorus will sing the beat numbers as the rhythmic structure goes through additive and subtractive processes, like "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (pause) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8." or, they'll say the names of the notes they're singing in solfege, like "do si fa si do si fa si." it's such a simple, almost stupid idea. but i really enjoy it. you could say that it's a metamusical comment, and it probably is, but i also enjoy it on a sensual level.

2. recitations of strange texts that are no more plot-propulsive than the previous type of text. many of them written by an autistic poet named christopher knowles, like this excerpt: "Mr. Bojangles / If you see any of those / Baggy pants / It was huge." or the bizarre text that stuck in my preteen mind about being in a prematurely air-conditioned supermarket. that one is by lucinda childs.

and then there's that incredible chord progression that acts as a sort of 'chorus' in a pop music sense. fuck! ya know, the one that reappears throughout, the one part of this opera that actually has harmonic changes (even if just one sequence repeated ad infinitum with slight changes).

so. i got carried away on the philip glass trip. it was supposed to be briefer and tie in more with the opening and personal life stuff. this record is a comfort in what is, for me, an uncertain time. i'm exhausted after a week of moving, which directly followed 3 weeks of traveling/aushanging in a foreign country and will be followed by a week of trying to make a little money and figuring out a place to live in july, then 2 weeks of oblio's arrow tour. i'm having those weird post-traveling feelings of, 'but i don't wanna be back,' and wondering how to process the trip and how, now, i fit in back home. but also, things are awesome. i mean, i'm traveling, playing music with great people (thanks oblio's arrow and aaron and yuzo/zay/pink hawks and doo/pee pee and &c.), meeting people with common interests, all that good stuff.