Sinister: slow graffiti, etc.

[Youn Jong Noh]

On Sun, 13 Jun 1999, Robin Stout wrote:

> 	It's a bit disappointing if Slow Graffiti is really so 
> literal, although it goes to show how lucid Stuart's lyrics are I 
> suppose. I mean, even though the lyrics aren't;
> There's a bloke
> With a wife
> Who's been having up the bum sex
> With the bloke upstairs
> You can still understand the desperation of this chap's predicament. 
> I've been in two minds for a while whether I want to see The Acid 
> House but I don't think I will. I prefer my own version of events. It 
> involves dirty skylights and tiled floors and a sailor and is really 
> quite exciting. 

I always thought the first 2 stanzas of this song was a reference to the
opening of Araby but I reread it and the link isn't as strong as I had
thought. 

Here it is: "The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the
back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all
the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old
useless papers.  Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages
of which were curled and damp: The Abott, by Walter Scott, The Devout
Communicant and The Memoirs of Vidocq [I incorrectly remembered these
books as portraits.] ... One evening I went to the back drawing room in
which the priest had died.  It was a dark rainy evening and there was no
sound in the house ... I was thankful that I could see so little.  All my
senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about
to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they
trembled, murmuring: O love! O love! many times."  

In the margin, I have 'getting away from sensuality', which must have been
the interpretation I was given, either by my high school english teacher
or a self-consciously eccentric professor at Stanford.  Even if the song
was written for a book or film, Stuart must have had his own experience,
real or imagined, or other references to write from.  But I like the
specific things he mentions, and actually my mistaken original
interpretation of a mother caring for a child could be a deliberate
ambiguity, and he could be open to rude sailors as well.  (What does Robin
mean by dirty skylights?  What do they stand for?) I wonder what Stuart's
laughter sounds like. If he read Robin's LLPJ story, would he laugh?

Why are all nice boys made to be mothers?  Do they force it on themselves
or do others take advantage of them?
Why can't nice boys break away or satisfy the girls they are with?
Why can't Sebastian be a star and decide not to wait for Belle?

Is Lord Anthony a song about Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited?  (He
was played by Anthony Andrews, whom I believe is titled, and unfortunately
I watched it on television before reading the book, so all the visual
images dominate.) There's a scene in which he and the main character,
whose name I forget but who was played by Jeremy Irons, are sunbathing on
the roof and they're undressed and the shot is from the back and for me
this was always stuck with the line "and the sun shines out of our
behinds" in Hand in Glove, but I don't know the order of the two, i.e. if
it's even a possibility that Morrissey was writing about the same thing
(though highly unlikely).  Ailsa asked for a tape of "Reel Around the
Fountain".  So it was real! I don't know if the lyrics are right for Lord
Anthony as Sebastian Flyte because Anthony must be noble only in manner.
If I were a boy, I would feel especially keen to ask Stuart about it.
(What a compliment for a girl to be thought a boy.  Jaarko (sp?), Tim and
Let It Be, I think, are the best Replacements albums ... there's a song
"Androgynous" on Let It Be that is great, plus other songs appropriate for
young male bands ... their later albums tend to be mellower but they're
great, too.  The way in which the Replacements is good and Belle and
Sebastian is good, I think, is the crucial difference between American
and British culture.  (O when ~(my beloved) introduced himself on the
first day of class in a manner that I now recognize from some of your
posts, what the jocks in the back row found appropriate to call out!
The misunderstanding!  But there is American beauty, too ... elsewhere.))

Forgive me for this digression: What is the meaning, other than being
rushed, of addressing a person in a post?  I've decided that it's a better
policy to refer to people by name 'cos when other people do it, it sounds
nice (they do it so casually), and though I like to remain anonymous, it's
nice to read people singled out.  (The Replacements song "Here Comes a
Regular" is not just another version of the Cheers theme.)
There's also the fun of being permitted to overhear a conversation or if
you don't have enough to go on to address a person individually ... I am
glad Courtney has had a happy day.  Joseph, after watching The Dreamlife
of Angels, I can tell you that the way the French say cool is cool, even
for New Yorkers. (Joseph, do your friends say the Velvet Underground is
cool? they should, right? it's simpleminded of me to compare a single
chord to a simple chord progression, isn't it? some kinds of irony are
beyond me.)




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