though in one low period i may have turned to a base for a little support, never have i felt the need to investigate what crack is really all about nor do i know what Xanax is even for besides quick exits, and thanks to David Berman i think i have some inclination as to how it might feel to go that far without having to ever go that far. really though. American Water. what an album! nothing like a little Send in the Clouds...it's such a fine substitute for elbowing wooden doors and breaking plates for those of us belonging to the expressive-yet-lazy variety of dramatic humans.
a couple years ago when i dove into Silver Jews non-directionally (and really just because i read that incredible interview in Fader [summer...2004?]) i went full out and even bought actual air which i (whoops) haven't really gotten around to reading very much of still, but i really really like what i have read. i feel like a lot of his incredible lyrics kind of get lost in the awkward unfamiliar phrasing and a purposefully accentuated drawl of all the Silver Jews songs. not to mention when they are punched with a little Malkmus back-up. it can be very distracting.
here's a poem (is this illegal?):
Snow
David Berman
Walking through a field with my little brother Seth
I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.
He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.
Then we were on the roof of the lake,
The ice looked like a photograph of water.
Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.
I didn't know where I was going with this.
The were on his property, I said.
When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.
Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.
We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.
But why were they on his property, he asked.
- from actual air, 1999
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