Acquired quite a taste, for a well made mistake

I have always been fascinated with mistakes and how we come to rework our stances on previously held positions. There is not a steady plodding progress, marching through deduction after deduction until we piece together a new viewpoint. There is always a moment of revelation, where things spontaneously appear in a new way, and the cord that connects you to the person to believed differently just a few minutes ago is severed irrevocably - a kind of death you can never see coming. The important decisions are just means of marshalling your latent psychological inertia, getting it out of the way so the leaps forward that spring out of the genius (the slightly ajar basement door of the mind, to expound on Emerson's analogy for that particular faculty).

My freshman year at Whitman, I took my first course from the professor that would end up shaping my philosophical interests and career; one of the books we read on aesthetics was On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry, who centers the book on an experience she had regarding palm fronds. Never liking the look of palm fronds, she found herself underneath one on vacation and suddenly had an experience that required her to scrap a conviction she was once quite sure about.

I had something similar earlier this week when I listened to Fiona Apple's When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King... I had always believed that I disliked Fiona Apple. While I tend to be a sucker for female vocalists, I had never liked a certain group of singer/songwriters who I thought were more into lyric writing than interesting music. As much as I like the themes to be found in Alanis Morissette or Ani Defranco's work, I found their music to be bland, off-putting, whatever. A few songs were ok (and I really like a few songs by Tori Amos, but the rest are just ok). But I had lumped Fiona Apple in with this group, mainly just because of peripheral knowledge I had about her. I have definitely heard Fiona Apple songs before, but I've never really listened to any of her stuff before. So I was very surprised when a listening to her album found me ensnared, and while I don't think that Tidal is nearly as musically interesting, I am eager to listen to more of her stuff. Sometimes you look up so fast your preconceived notions don't have a chance to catch up with your eyes.

(Side Note 1: I think that a lot of the tendency to knee-jerkily dismiss FA is rooted in the old sexist hysteria assumptions...because she has been occasionally inconsistent on a few points, and had one stage breakdown, and admitted that she had therapy when she was young (because she was raped at 12 - shocking that she'd need some help after that!), people were very eager to be critical of her. But those same traits on a male receive very different reactions...)

(Side Note 2: The full name of the album is: When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight And He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land And If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right. I didn't say she wasn't quirky.)

This made me realize something else - like a boxer who discards roll after roll of disgusting flab (would this be a post without a gratuitous Simpsons reference?) - I don't need the Album du jour format anymore. My intent with that was to force myself to listen to music that I had but hadn't fully taken time to appreciate...and it worked. In fact, I found that I was suddenly spending my time listening to albums by folks like Islands, Junior Boys (thanks to a question by Nicole), Iggy Pop, etc., in lieu of doing the random shuffle thing. And Fiona Apple was the nail in the coffin - if I'm going to go out of my way to find and write about music anyways, then I don't need a gimmick to keep me going at that.

In other thoughts:
- Heroes finale, pretty bad compared to the rest of the season. Lost finale, pretty good compared to the rest of the season.

- In an interview with the avclub, Nic Offer of !!! talks about how he made up a "running on ecstasy" move the other night - which, was at the show they did at Boston! I remember that.

- Oh, and in a major coup, the Portland Trailblazers manage to snag the top pick of the 2007 NBA draft, which means they land either franchise center Greg Oden or mega-super-star in the making Kevin Durant. I personally hope they go for Durant, but either way....Portland's back on the NBA map in a big way, and it is very exciting. For a second I felt bad that the Celtics got shafted, since their future is so bleak at the moment...but then I remembered that Boston folks had the Pats and Sox to keep them going, and Portland has nothing else!