Music Banter - View Single Post - 100 Essays on 100 Albums: A Journey Through Music and Life

Davey Moore · 08-14-2009, 08:51 AM

'Perfect from Now On' by Built to Spill (1997)

All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. - William Faulkner

Few things are as effective at halting the creative flow than an obsessive pursuit of perfection. It's like a dog chasing it's own tail. The Ouroboros. The Monolith in '2001'. The green light in 'The Great Gatsby'.

I fancy myself to be a writer. At least, that's what I tell people at parties. My first novel will be called 'Dead Flowers', and I've got the majority of the chapters and ideas all lined up in my head, I have literally a fifty page biography for each of the main characters, these people are so real in my head, yet when I sit down and start writing I keep stalling after finishing the first chapter. See, I'm a perfectionist. Imagine my horror when I realized these things can't be edited after you submit them.

Werner Herzog is one of the most important German directors, being one of the primary figures in the German New Wave in the 1970s, with haunting films like 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God', shot in a tropical jungle and one of the greatest depictions of madness ever on film. The main character leads a doomed expedition up the Amazon river in search of the mythical city of Gold, El Dorado. El Dorado, one of the most fascinating legends of Human creation. Every civilization has their Holy Grail myth. A myth which is the concept of perfection. Whatever perfection is in one's mind, that is what the myth can represent.

To be human is to reject and simultaneously strive for perfection.

I'm tired of trying to be perfect. Most of us didn't ask to be born. I'm tired of trying to make love to the world with my writing and my ideas. Vonnegut once said if you try and do that, your writing will get pneumonia, so to speak. From now on I'll try and write about only what I find interesting and pleasing. I want to please one person. Me. And if people like what I write then that's great. Because that tells me that I'm not alone, I'm not as crazy as I thought. And the feeling of breaking away from isolation is a nice one.

However, being alone and crazy is a little comforting too. Because we were lied to. We aren't perfect, unique individuals. Mr. Rogers lied. And to be crazy and in isolation, means, as Orwell once said 'to be in a minority of one.' And it's nice to be unique.

Some things come really close to perfect. I'd say that Apocalypse Now comes pretty close to perfect. The Hollow Men and The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. They come pretty close. The Great Gatsby is probably the closest human endeavor that reaches the impossibility of perfection. The Sistine Chapel.

Now that I think about it, The Pyramids are pretty perfect, too. Maybe perfection exists only within the realm of mathematics and science. E=MC2. But Mathematics and Science, they are cold. Cold Perfection. They bring no emotion to them. Only enlightenment. Only understanding. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe, nothing emotional can be perfect because emotions are an imperfect and unpredictable thing.

To listen to the album is to be taken along on a ride that doesn't reach the perfection status, but it without a doubt reaches the masterpiece stage, and that's rare enough, so I'm thankful. It is a wonderland of guitars, rising and falling like the tides, with a grace reminiscent of the heavenly points of light which navigate the sky above us like galactic steamboats.

As I listen, I think Velvet Waltz may be my favorite song on the album. It is appropriately named, because it moves forwards beautifully, like a dance between two true loves. No, that can't be. That's too cliché of an image. To perfect. Too fitting. I reject it.

To use the terminology of the album, imagine a metal sphere, ten times the size of Jupiter, floating just a few yards past the Earth. Now, reality and physics would dictate that something ten times the size of Jupiter would have enough gravity to pull something puny like the Earth and the Moon in way before it got that close to actually pass us. But never mind. Appropriately, this is a colossal, ten times the size of Jupiter sort album. With only eight songs, it clocks in at just under 55 minutes.

Is perfection a uniquely human concept? Do alien cultures have the same concept? This album was recorded and rerecorded three times. The title is apt.

That eternal strive.

08-14-2009, 08:51 AM	#52 (permalink)
Davey Moore The Great Disappearer Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: URI Campus and Coventry, both in RI Posts: 462	'Perfect from Now On' by Built to Spill (1997) All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. - William Faulkner Few things are as effective at halting the creative flow than an obsessive pursuit of perfection. It's like a dog chasing it's own tail. The Ouroboros. The Monolith in '2001'. The green light in 'The Great Gatsby'. I fancy myself to be a writer. At least, that's what I tell people at parties. My first novel will be called 'Dead Flowers', and I've got the majority of the chapters and ideas all lined up in my head, I have literally a fifty page biography for each of the main characters, these people are so real in my head, yet when I sit down and start writing I keep stalling after finishing the first chapter. See, I'm a perfectionist. Imagine my horror when I realized these things can't be edited after you submit them. Werner Herzog is one of the most important German directors, being one of the primary figures in the German New Wave in the 1970s, with haunting films like 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God', shot in a tropical jungle and one of the greatest depictions of madness ever on film. The main character leads a doomed expedition up the Amazon river in search of the mythical city of Gold, El Dorado. El Dorado, one of the most fascinating legends of Human creation. Every civilization has their Holy Grail myth. A myth which is the concept of perfection. Whatever perfection is in one's mind, that is what the myth can represent. To be human is to reject and simultaneously strive for perfection. I'm tired of trying to be perfect. Most of us didn't ask to be born. I'm tired of trying to make love to the world with my writing and my ideas. Vonnegut once said if you try and do that, your writing will get pneumonia, so to speak. From now on I'll try and write about only what I find interesting and pleasing. I want to please one person. Me. And if people like what I write then that's great. Because that tells me that I'm not alone, I'm not as crazy as I thought. And the feeling of breaking away from isolation is a nice one. However, being alone and crazy is a little comforting too. Because we were lied to. We aren't perfect, unique individuals. Mr. Rogers lied. And to be crazy and in isolation, means, as Orwell once said 'to be in a minority of one.' And it's nice to be unique. Some things come really close to perfect. I'd say that Apocalypse Now comes pretty close to perfect. The Hollow Men and The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. They come pretty close. The Great Gatsby is probably the closest human endeavor that reaches the impossibility of perfection. The Sistine Chapel. Now that I think about it, The Pyramids are pretty perfect, too. Maybe perfection exists only within the realm of mathematics and science. E=MC2. But Mathematics and Science, they are cold. Cold Perfection. They bring no emotion to them. Only enlightenment. Only understanding. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe, nothing emotional can be perfect because emotions are an imperfect and unpredictable thing. To listen to the album is to be taken along on a ride that doesn't reach the perfection status, but it without a doubt reaches the masterpiece stage, and that's rare enough, so I'm thankful. It is a wonderland of guitars, rising and falling like the tides, with a grace reminiscent of the heavenly points of light which navigate the sky above us like galactic steamboats. As I listen, I think Velvet Waltz may be my favorite song on the album. It is appropriately named, because it moves forwards beautifully, like a dance between two true loves. No, that can't be. That's too cliché of an image. To perfect. Too fitting. I reject it. To use the terminology of the album, imagine a metal sphere, ten times the size of Jupiter, floating just a few yards past the Earth. Now, reality and physics would dictate that something ten times the size of Jupiter would have enough gravity to pull something puny like the Earth and the Moon in way before it got that close to actually pass us. But never mind. Appropriately, this is a colossal, ten times the size of Jupiter sort album. With only eight songs, it clocks in at just under 55 minutes. Is perfection a uniquely human concept? Do alien cultures have the same concept? This album was recorded and rerecorded three times. The title is apt. That eternal strive. __________________ The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.