Quote of the Day: Coventry Patmore

"The end of art is peace." Don't feel bad if you've never heard of Coventry Patmore because I hadn't heard of him until five minutes ago. (Thanks, Google.) I came across this quote this eekend in the liner notes of the CD "The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds." It made me glad that I still listen to CD's because I never would have found this wonderful quote on an iPod. Anyway, the notes were using this quote to liken Nick Cave to W.B. Yeats who actually popularized the saying; they were two restless souls who found some kind of peace by creating great art. Saturday night was my first attempt to systematically listen to Nick Cave's music and I have to say that I was blown away. It's really unlike anything else I've ever listened to before. Just think of the most melodramatic goth kid you can imagine using various Rock 'N' Roll traditions to create redemptive and sometimes even religious songs about the dark side of life. Obsession, murder, and death are among his favorite subjects. Listening to his songs was a pretty emotional experience that I intend to repeat soon. I think I shall buy "Murder Ballads" next.


I didn't do much this weekend in case you couldn't tell from the fact that I was listening to music on a Saturday night by myself. I did watch a lot of movies. I watched Tropic Thunder, Ghost Town, and Breathless. The first two were mildly amusing comedies made last year and they weren't completely awful ways to spend ninety minutes. Breathless is a classic French Noir film that is responsible for kicking off the New Wave film movement in the sixties. It was nice to look at but kind of cold overall. Director Jean Luc Godard answers the universal question about how man is supposed to live his by saying it doesn't matter how he does it as long as he looks cool doing it. So in essence, style replaces morality as a guide to life. It was quite nihilistic. It's always weird experiencing older influential pieces of art because they all seem so cliched now. I guess all we can do, until someone invents a time machine, is to keep reminding ourselves that they invented the cliche.


I also read the short story collection Drown by Junot Diaz. I'd been meaning to read it for a long time because his Pulitzer prize winning novel The Short Happy life of Oscar Wao was my favorite book of 2007. They're both about the experience of immigrants from the Dominica Republic. About half take place here in New York and the other half take place down there which makes sense considering that Junot Diaz was born there but his parents immigrated here when he was ten. These few stories were the perfect model of what a short story can and should be. In fact, it turns out that I had already read a lot of these stories in my short story classes at college. Definitely worth reading.


Last night, I realized that I have a favorite Charles Dickens novel (favorites are a rarity for me) and that I missed the first installment of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre adaption of Little Dorritt. I guess I'll catch it later on DVD. This novel is my favorite because Dickens wrote it when he was very depressed and it shows. It is his darkest and most modern novel even though it still ends happily. The happy ending seems more earned and satisfying though because of all the dreariness that has come before it. It also contain one his better drawn protagonists, or at least the one people can relate to the best. Most of his male protagonists are bright, young, handsome, righteous men who would be kind of annoying in real life. The protagonist this time is a burned out man approaching middle age who is still trying his best to be a good person most of the time despite a steady stream of personal and financial disappointments.


Last night I did something at a friend's house that I hadn't done in years. I played the board game Life. It was the updated version that I still think needs to be updated a little more. I think it needs spaces that say things like: "You defaulted on your sub-prime mortgage. Miss two turns." "In a populist rage, the government took away your bonus. Please pay all your money to the bank." Or, "You've ran one of the oldest financial institutions in American into the ground. Please collect all the money in the bank for your golden parachute."

Despite not being that realistic, the game did provide for some interesting exchanges.

"College is a scam."

"How do you win at this game?"
"Whoever has the most money at the end ... wins."
"So then it is just like real life."

"Do you get any money for your kids?"
"No."
"Then why have them in the first place?"
"Collin, you know how most of the time I can't tell if you're joking or not?"
"Yeah."
"This is one of those times."


All in all, that and the food made it a delightful evening.