The Same But By Different Means

Week 23 - Yves Jarvis - The Same But By Different Means

Iorek Byrnison is an armored bear, and he hammered into existence that armor from the rock of a fallen star, and I wish he could lead us into the future. I’ve been feeling sort of… well, bleak about the state of things lately. I’m not thrilled about Biden, and hope that his days of weirdly smelling peoples’ hair are over, but Trump in the White House is so dangerous, that unless King Iorek emerges in our actual world, I’m voting Joe. I’ve been also just grasping at some kind of new way to engage with the “pro-America” people that isn’t becoming the thing that they were built to resist and to loathe, namely millennials with the nerve to give this tone-deaf, reactionary group the middle finger. I’m on board with stamping out racism wherever it pops up, and the problem with these pro-police etc groups is that they, in some cases, don’t quite understand the connection. I believe that every human being is a complex combination of nature, nurture, and what records you fell in love with in high school, but these folks seem so cut and dry, as if willing away nuance, or any ambiguity at all. To be “pro” America and not “pro” Americans doesn’t quite make sense to me, and I feel like this path, though it’s certainly followed by a lot of folks, is awfully sad. The idea that there is only one way to be “American” is reductive enough without digging into the multitude of worlds represented in this country; the countless ways to be oneself within these borders; the many identities that one person can embody truly.

This Yves Jarvis lp sort of called to me out of nowhere; it was on in the shop one day and amazed me in its refusal to be any one thing; it feels like every world at once. It feels like a hundred different accessible openings, each nestled within a warped and warbling landscape of whimsy and fantasy. Anyplace you step could hook you, and who’s to say when or where you’ll be. It makes me think of being in high school, taking home any piece of stereo equipment that I found at the dump or on a lawn with a free sign; I’d stack them against the wall, dreaming of somehow connecting them all into a workable system by which I could process all of the ideas and feelings that I felt were streaming out of me like rainbows from a prism. I’d imagine some future purpose, or perhaps someone on the Pacific, looking east for me, just as unsure of my existence. These songs seem ephemeral in the same way; think too hard and they’ll disappear through your fingers; every irregular chorus has the life of a midge, at once so mobile but hard to nail down. There is a whispering in this music, a close confidence that we’re taken into as listeners, offered a window into this human heart, perched somewhere in Montreal.

I remember sitting in the window of my bedroom, smoking a cigarette and looking into the night like a soldier in a trench, it wasn’t quite analogous, but you can blame Hemingway for that. At that time, my main occupation was longing; it was central to every book I had read, and it often rushed over me in the headphones from left to right like a passing truck. I longed for something undeniable, something that couldn’t be ignored, something sure that would be so obvious that I wouldn’t miss it. It often took the shape of a person, who would understand me and comfort me and help to forge me into an actual human being capable of doing real things separate from my dreaming. The high bells of the cicadas were rungs on which I could climb into any number of possible futures, but why didn’t any of those futures include serving the wild, violent ideals of this America? What made me reach for weirdness and love? I’ve been thinking about that, seeing younger white people with machine guns, stomping around like mercenaries, patrolling other American citizens who are very obviously crying out against an uncontrollable, angry force focused on preventing their pleas from gaining any ground. I know that I tend to simplify things, and I don’t mean to sound naive, but why can’t these folk just stop for a moment and consider that if everyone were free and the system were equitable, why would so many people be willing to put their lives on the line to say that enough is enough? I feel like these kids are having their alienation militarized by their parents’ fear. Some of this outdated insecurity comes from a misunderstood entitlement that has been passed down through over the years. At a certain point, manifest destiny poisoned the minds of a generation, selling them the idea that white America was ordained by god to spread out around the world taking whatever it needs without consideration, or even a hint of awareness with regard to entire civilizations. Anything this vacuum of culture found, it assimilated, destroyed, or stole. The people that Trump and his lackeys are trying to silence are the real Americans, the real culture that has been scoffed at, violated, diluted, disrespected, and disenfranchised. The people claiming to be saving the country are indeed destroying the bedrock on which our civilization relies, and if they ever succeed, they’ll find the ground beneath their feet will quickly give way.

This album is relatively new to me, and I chose it this week because it felt antithetical to the homogenized, white, cultureless garbage that some are passing off as patriotism. This music is bouquets of ideas and feelings, blossoming and dying in undulations of soundwaves, into a narrative both natural and unnatural. One minute it feels so organic and soulful, then digitized skipping creates and recreates a blipping rhythmic jag, but there is always a reaching and an opening, always this watery playful soothing. It speaks to my younger, dreaming self, on the edge of the evening, years ago, amidst stacks of stereos in various degrees of disrepair, building myself from scraps of songs, books, and movies, yearning for another disaffected explorer to reach out through the galaxy, directly into the folds of my brain. I wish that I could climb upon a great bear and race across the earth, with Yves Jarvis in the headphones, and a full capable heart; maybe I’ll see you out there some day.

Yves Jarvis - The Same But By Different Means

Saturday September 5th 2020, 7pm

Just put it on at your house using a stereo or the internet or whatever you want.