Back to It

Well, the newly lobotomized [re]drive is slowly being repopulated, and I'm finally starting to feel the creative juices flowing again -- just long enough for me to stumble across this article by rock critic Denise Sullivan. In it, she expounds on the cliched nature of rock writing, most notably our over-reliance on words like seminal, countrified, and stripped down. Wait, not only do I have to try to describe something as ephemeral and personal and occasionally deeply moving as music, using the cudgel that is the English language, but I also have to avoid cliches while I'm doing it? It's enough to make you want to quit trying altogether.

Of course, she's absolutely right, and it's only going to get worse.

Not too long ago, I read this article, suggesting that we are all writers now. With everyone either blogging or tweeting or at least commenting on articles on websites, we use the written word more than ever. And although the 140-character limitations of Twitter offers a fascinating opportunity for people to convey thoughts wittily

The shift from crafted journalism, with its naggy editors making you use semicolons and cutting out all the swears and whatnot, to the blogosphere may mean that more people are typing their thoughts, but it isn't doing a lot for the act of writing. When I started talking to Herr Fresh about starting up this blog, one thing we both said was that eLarceny needed to be about writing above all -- you know an outlet for our creativity and teen angst and such. There are a few really good examples of people who are trying to do the impossible, trying to put art into words, but too many music blogs are like their political cousins. A couple sentences about how something sucks, and then a link. It keeps things moving, I guess, but it's not why I'm doing this. Writing needs to be a process that's about more than just getting words out. It needs a little sculpting, and it needs some degree of thoughtfulness. I may not always get there, and I may fall back on a few cliches from time to time, but you don't become a better writer by not writing (at least that's what I used to tell my students when I assigned them homework). So that's why I'm doing this.

Besides, it's not like anybody's reading this, right?

Anyway, happy birthday to Bruce Springsteen, who is 60 today. 60 is the new 40. I'm 40, which makes me either 20 or like 26.666, depending on how this new math works. So when Springsteen is 80, I'll be 60, but I'll really only be 40, unless Baby Boomers decide 80 is the new 40, in which case I'll still be 20. All of this may be a plot to keep me from buying beer. Here's the birthday boy doing a, uh, seminal version of "I Want You" by Bob Dylan, who is 45.333 by my reckoning.

I Want You.mp3