Jack Kemp died.

Back when I was 18 and didn’t know any better than voting conservatively (growing up a fundamentalist in Alabama affects you in certain ways, and it takes some time to grow out of) I cast my first presidential ballot in favor of the Dole/Kemp ticket.  Around 10 years later I met Jack Kemp for the first time at the Vice President’s Residence at the Naval Observatory.  I was there assisting the VP’s photographer. I remember Kemp bounding across the room to where I was standing, and as he reaches me he stuck out his hand assertively and with great volume and force of character said, “HI.  I’M JACK KEMP!” He shook my hand heartily, nearly loosening my arm from its socket, and then wished me a Merry Christmas with a pat on the shoulder as he continued to work the room.

I thought that was special.

Its been a while since Joe or I posted anything about music. Its not cuz we arent listening, or havent both been absolutely bowled over by Wovenhand’s most recent record (as well as his entire back catalog) or enjoyed the latest from M. Ward and Beirut, or had Vetiver’s “Tight Knit,” Neko Case’s “Middle Cyclone” and the Great Lake Swimmer’s “Lost Channels” on continual repeat. Cuz we have. But the real record that seems to do it for me – and I think for Joe, too – is Elvis Perkins in Dearland. A few years ago Erin gave me Elvis’ first record, and it stands as a sort of marker for the beginning of our relationship. Therefore, it – and he – has a special place. That special place gets personified in the new record – its big and complicated and wonderful. Its happy and sad, triumphant and tragic, and is soaked with an atmosphere that begins at the first chirp of the recorded Cicadas on track 1 and ebbs and flows until the trundling, rumbling final track that asks “how’s forever been, baby?” Regardless of the question, the feeling, the weather, Perkins’ answer to it all in song is always beautiful.

Joe and I are currently working on collages in hopes that they’ll find their way into making a successful poster for Perkins’ upcoming show at Bottletree in May. They are the hardest posters to make, the ones for bands we admire so greatly, whose music inspires us so much that it becomes hard to articulate a proper response. But what a great gift to have – sounds that are so soundly they turn you mute.

Hear more straight from the source on this NPR INTERVIEW.

ADDENDUM, Sat. Apr 25: “Doomsday,” one of the standout trax from the record, is about 9/11. Its the best 9/11 song I’ve heard, and it should be listened to while reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” The two go together like pb+j on warm bread eaten at a picnic where you sit in an ant bed after the canoe sank and you lost your frisbee. But you still have an ok time because its a beautifully crisp, bright Tuesday in Sept., and no matter what bad stuff happens, you’re alive and living and able to picnic.

I just found the following, something I wrote one afternoon to my girl a long time ago.  How things like this endeared her to me is a mystery and a miracle…

Last night I went to radio shack to buy some headphones.  Not headphones for permanent use, but some that would do until I can get to best buy or wherever one might go to purchase overly expensive personal technology that is used to close oneself out from the social and civilized world.  I originally typed “civilized” with an S instead of a Z, but the auto spelling keeps on changing it.  I don’t like that.  I much prefer the British manner of spelling in this instance.  And in spelling color with an U.  Colour.  Strange that the autospelling doesn’t change “colour” to color.  So, anyway, radioshack.  For ten bucks I got radioshack brand headphones, and I must say they are the worst headphones I’ve ever tried listening to music through, and that includes the headphones that came with my Nintendo gameboy back in the early 90′s.  My favorite game was maybe ‘metroid’ and my brother’s favorite was ‘paperboy’.  In metroid, you were an alien that crawled through a labirynth of tunnels on a planet in a distant galaxy, gathering objects and fighting evil monsters that threatened to mutate and take over the universe.  In paperboy, you played a boy who rode on his bicycle and threw newspapers at houses in suburbia.  The more windows you busted and dogs you hit, the more points you would receive.  The difference in our favorite gameboy games is a perfect representation of mine and my brother’s diametrically opposed personalities.  Cover your mouth, then try singing clearly through the fleshiest part, then run across the room and try listening to what you just sang and you might, just might, get a sense of what its like listening to paleo or pearl jam or andrew bird or bach on these headphones.  I need some good headphones because if I don’t I will go crazy because I wont be able to drawn out the voices in this room.  I am avoiding mentioning the voices in my head because to actually mention them would only be a cliché or petty joke that’s been made too many times before.  Dan is eating peanuts a few desks over and he spills some with every handful he throws into his mouth.  I wonder what number soda he is on at this hour.  4? 5? 6? I had one today with lunch, and I really want another but I am denying it, knowing that if I do it could contribute to my early death or at least another pound of jiggly flesh I do not need.  I’ve never been able to drink diet soda or be able to reconcile drinking it for its lower calorie and faux sugar benefits.

Hope you’re having a nice day.

On a side note, our blog is pretty much busted.  Thanks, web host.  Joey says he has to fix some stuff on the “back end,” and wow is it hard to not make dirty jokes whenever he says so.  Also: the new Andrew Bird record is great.

how can the wolves tiptoe
ever so slightly through the dim
through the slips and the curtains
find me at the door i lost my key

sways and sways the fall has been
scrapes along the tracks of trials
the air swoops up to stab my face
from deep below the black hole well

a dollar a wish and free for the rich
tiptoe songs behind the trees
hiding trails from where i came
overgrown willows and figs and fog

the last leaf drifts and dances down
while the morning sticky leaves
the hands i hold are heavier now
still sweeter still worth the while

clearings and clutter and times of rain
put roses to bed for winter sting
the ones i love remain near still
and nearer i pray they’ll stay

Marvelous Joey made a marvelous trip to D.C. this weekend. We went to the National Gallery of Art.

This is Joey looking at Jackson Pollock’s Lavender Mist:

This is Joey looking at Jasper John’s Target:

This is Joey looking at a Mark Rothko:

This is Joey inside the Alexander Calder room:

‘Effing Barnett Newman:

This is Joey looking at a Frank Stella:

This is Joey looking at an Andy Warhol, his favorite:

This is Joey looking at a Chuck Close, closely:

This is Joey looking at an Anselm Kiefer:

Following the making of this photograph, Joey turned to me and said, “Marv, I truly believe that Kiefer wonderfully expresses the psychological landscape of post-war Germany with an aplomb physicality, vis a vis a textural weight and minimal palette that when presented on such grand scale becomes pregnant with an explosive power that is matched only by its elegiac tone.”

I agreed.

Please leaf through Taschen’s latest multi-volume set on Peter Beard, enjoy it, and then pack it on your sleigh on Dec. 24. I’d very much like to have a copy. Even though you are a creation of Western/European culture and you probably skip over the Dark Continent on your Christmas Eve ride, I’m pretty sure you know about Mr. Beard (but in case you don’t, I’ve pasted some of his works after the “jump”). And I bet Bono has told you all about Africa. Its kind of a big mess right now. Even Bill Clinton thinks so. I went to Africa once, too. I saw some giraffes and some dead people. Anyway, there is something about Beard’s collages, despite mostly being made in the 60′s and 70′s, that speaks to the current situation of the world and the crisis in Africa via the collision of images of overt sexuality, mass media and mass extinction.

Merry Christmas,

Marv

P.S. When you come to my house I will have cookies and milk for you. I know you already know, but just as a reminder – my stocking is on the right side of the fireplace. I have been a good boy this year, I promise.

(more…)

I sometimes wear my cactus coat
When I fear the people around me
Are about to get all sweet and kind
And extravert all over me.
I know how to hump my shoulders
And bend my head
keep my hands in my pocket
And examine cracks in the sidewalk
I am really good at it.
Sometimes, I am too good.
My act elicits sympathy
And a kind and curious word is hurled toward me.

If I am not quick to dodge it
I can get splattered
And the kindness gets stuck in my coat
Like warm, chewed bubblegum in a metal hair brush.
It is awful, just plain awful.
So I have to be careful, really careful
If you know what I mean.

—clothes make the man—

What a throng of people in front of the White House tonight. In one moment, it felt special – a raw, emotional outpouring of thousands of young people exuberant upon their victory, jubilant in seeing that they had successfully made their mark on history and democracy. At another moment, it felt like a complete fabrication and spectacle, all of us looking around at each other wondering if the reality of the moment actually matched what we’ve come to expect from TV scripts. And then there was the threat of debauchery, that herd behavior that brings out the most base of actions – a girl is hoisted up, and for a moment, just a moment, everyone forgets that they are supposed to be celebrating a hopeful new zeitgeist in front of the People’s House and instead expects her to lift her shirt and stick out her tongue. But she doesn’t, and the random stranger next to you looks over and theres something in the air that just makes you want to hug him, or at least smile and laugh, acknowledging that whatever it is thats happening is actually something special, something real, and something worth celebrating.

Joe and I pull images for our posters from a number of sources, but there is none that I use more than Google image search. As we work on a poster, we will enter certain keywords to bring up variety of images in hopes of finding just the right – and often bizarre – picture. In doing so, we come across some really wonderful things. Today, while working on a poster for Phosphorescent, I found a site with the following text:

I once fasted for seven days straight. There was another time when I tried to run up and down the four mountains in the Aspen area. When I was 19, I spent three weeks continuously traveling – every night, for twenty-one days, I found myself in an entirely different bed. As though that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t even recall the last time I’d had a conversation that wasn’t in broken Spanish. 38 days without relief. Three days of altitude sickness in the Andes. 24 hours of Moab. 30 minutes under the hands of Shirlee Platjes, with fingers capable of creating the feeling of femurs snapping, muscles ripping, I want to cry but know I can’t. About the fast…there was mishap with an imitation Pop Tart on the fifth day.

And one of the many pictures of the author that accompanied the story:

Here are four illustrations to be published in a devotional book by my friend, Paul Kelly, based on scripture meditations from the book of Proverbs. Each week starts with a collage, as every week should.