things in my head

1.     The 2009 album by Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson, which I then proclaimed to be one of the best things to have ever come into music, is still an undisputed classic to my ears-the latter, a vacant but servicable mainstream actress, has a voice that is deep with feeling but is best constrained to short verses, and Yorn puts this into context with an album of very fast-paced songs (save the cover of I am the Cosmos, wherein Scar Jo whines for what seems is a full hour on a too-slow ballad void of art), as the lyrics mull about his then recent break-up on lines simple but comprehensive-“This feeling will not survive”, he sings on the closing track ‘Someday’, words alone have become sufficient for an album structured solely to convey the otherwise complex grief and misery associated to a Break-Up.

2.     The JD Salinger book, Franny and Zooey, when the latter lays a speech that provokes the former to tears, his lecture on ego and its toxic properties, it’s a long and one-sided conversation wherein Zooey, one of my most beloved literary characters-a handsome, tormented but deeply wise Hollywood actor-picks apart her sister’s seemingly harmless despise for her lecturer, phony people and things generally any twenty-something would be prone to disapprove of. It captures how we’ve formed a hatred and dislike for so many things, and we are so liberal to decry others for their actions and behaviors-and how this quickly progresses into a personal criticism of things and people, how it festers and feeds into one’s ego and person.