waste it again

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (continued) {Christian TV Remix}

As much as I like the new Arcade Fire album - and I really like it a lot - every time I listen to it, it's with a measure of resignation. This is the album where I finally accept that they are going to be a great band, but not an astonishing band, not the band they once promised to be, or seemed to. It's a typical feeling, I know, and I can't expect any band to get come as close to perfection twice as they did with Funeral.



The Suburbs is a fine album, but of all their records, it means the least to me. Not just because I grew up in a small Irish town instead of a fading American suburb, but because I made the mistake of hoping for a bit more. The band has to escape the place they occupy in my musical scrapbook and start something new - and indeed, one of the finest songs on the album is the least typical thing they've ever done: 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)' is them forgetting what worked before and making everything anew, and it's stunning, and just enough to make me think that despite my overarching expectations, and despite the impossibly high standards of their debut, the band might well do it again, in a different life, freed of old expectations. This time, they've made the best record they could, and it's churlish to expect more than that.

down down down

WOOM - Quetzalcoatl's Ship

I recently moved home again. I've lived in more than ten places now, which is odd. I'm only now getting over that sense of new-place, being unsure about filling the space there, like trying to be careful with the words you put on a page.
It's by the sea, so the air is different - it'll rust you if you don't keep moving. So far I haven't stopped.
Anyway, this is a great seaside song. It's got the same push to keep moving carrying it along like a tide, sailing it through speakers and mouths with its repeated refrain.

{Buy}

everything you say has water under it

The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio

So, here we are! The signed vinyl is going to Daniel for his entry, 'overwrought'.

When I was younger, my dad would tell me bedtime stories. They always began: 'once upon a time in Edinburgh." We live in Canada, but for some reason, Edinburgh had stuck with my dad as the setting for these on-the-spot fairy tales he'd tell me each night. I don't remember most of them, and they've all kind of blurred together, sticking into one lump of witches and goblins, princes and princesses, but one story always stands out. It was the fist time I had ever heard the term overwrought, and he said it with such conviction, such force, that it drove itself into my subconscious and nestled there for quite some time. I didn't ask him what it meant, or why he used it, because I knew right away.

The princess had been turned to stone by the evil witch, who lived not off food, but other people's anguish. When the witch grew tired of watching the prince cry over the stone princess, she presented him with an alternative. She wanted to live forever, so she needed to make sure the prince was sad forever. She told him that she would turn the princess back into human form, but he could never speak to her again, he had to treat her with the total absence of love, indifference. when he finally agreed, the princess was transformed, and he ignored her. He left to live in a cave, outside of Edinburgh for the rest of his life. the witch lived as long as he was in sadness.

I asked my dad after he finished the story (which more often than not ended unhappily) why the prince didn't love the princess. He looked at me in the eyes and said "He loved her more than anything in the world. He was overwrought with love."

Then he proclaimed abruptly "lights out".

And I was left to sit there, in my bed, not knowing what the word meant, or why he had used it, but what this world I had been so carelessly thrown into meant after all.

Thanks everyone for writing in! Here's a selection of some of the best ones:

My favourite word is Caracal, a kind of wild cat from Africa and Iran. I read about one in a ghost story when I was a kid, and couldn't imagine what it looked like. It sounds exotic and feral, and at the same time reminds me of being a kid with a book of ghost stories meant for an older reader. So uh, Caracal.

My favourite word of late is "doughty". Meaning steadfastly courageous and resolute, it is not a commonly used word nowadays. It has entered my lexicon recently as it is the last name of Sir Arthur Doughty who is the most famous Dominion Archivist of Canada (well, as famous as a Dominion Archivist can get... which is not very... outside groups of Canadian Archivists). He is an interesting character, who left us some inspirational words on the value of archives to society, but also has a darker side: there are stories of a wife who just disappeared and, shortly after, he married his secretary. Intrigue in the archival world! His 150th birthday was celebrated by me and my nerdy friends (sesquicentennial is another word I am quite fond of) with a party, buttons were made, a "Sir Arthur Stouty" was brewed - so Doughty has been on our minds and doughty has been in our vocabulary.

My favorite word is trifling. It do not think it matters why...

My favourite word: Admonish. (No explanation with this one, but I do think it is a really nice word.)

My favourite word is 'surreptitious'. It sounds like a very dark golden syrup, which is sort of how I imagine deceit would look as a substance - sweet, entirely bad for you, and very very sticky.

My favorite word: lozenge. Just as a word, not as thing. It is the most awesome word to say AND hear. It just makes me smile.

My word is "fey". It means something that is whimsical, strange and quaint - which are a few of my other favorite words too! It's got other meanings as well, such as "fated to die", but I tend to ignore that definition. There's this old-fashioned charm about this word I like and it is also the surname of one of my favorite actors - Tina Fey.

Miasma - Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, defilement, from miainein to pollute
Date: 1665
1 : a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; also : a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere

2 : an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt.

My favourite word is Chysanthemum. I don't know why, but I love the way it rolls off my tongue.

Penetrative. Ridiculous but then seems to encapsulate most things. Penetrative. A beauty to get your gob around too.

Inkling is my favourite word. Not exactly sure why, but it has a rhythm to it and is in no way poncey. Also, it makes me think about baby inks, whatever they may be.

It's not a beautiful or a spectacular word but I'm French and I love The National since their very beginnings when they started with the french label "Talitres". I saw them grow up such as the band's audience.
The word "ribbon" echoes in my mind because of the lyrics of Matt Berninger ("I loved her to ribbons" on "Murder Me Rachael" and "So you can put a blue ribbon on my brain" on "Slow Show"). The lyrics get also mixed up with images of westerns I used to watch when I was young, in particular "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon"... but I don't like John Ford so much now !

Incorrigible is my favourite word. Just imagine Alan Rickman saying it. That is all.

England - because it's where I'm from and my second favourite song on the album!

I guess if I had to choose one word, it would have to be an Irish one. I've a bit of a 'grá' for the ol' Irish, like. 'Suaimhneas', which means peace, is a beautiful word. It's not particularly unique or different, but whenever I hear that word I think of my grandparents. Their house is called Suaimhneas and, seeing as I sort of grew up there, it really resonates with me. It's possibly the first Irish word I was ever properly exposed to, and for years I didn't even know what it meant, but it still amazed me.

My favorite word: glissade. When I was applying to college, I actually wrote one of my essays about this word. In mountaineering (a hobby of mine), a glissade is a fall. It is not some accident or crash but is a controlled fall, a fall guided by the use of ice axes. Glissade is, perhaps, the only word that describes a fall that is not just controlled but intentional, as a glissade is typically used to gain a positional advantage on the mountain. My love of the word, however, stems mostly from the parallels I find with the meaning of the word and my own life. As clichéd as it is, our greatest triumphs are those that come after our falls. The ability to control your metaphorical "falls," to turn them into glissades, is possibly the most important characteristic of a successful and happy person. My mother once gave me a set of coasters that read "Life is all about how you deal with Plan B." One never wants to lose ground while climbing the mountain of life, but glissading to Plan B in order to rise up higher is one of the traits I value the most.

My favourite word would probably be "lethargic". Even the soft "th" sounds tired...

My favourite word is calcareous. it is the best word of all the words, and I know several. It is onomatopoeic...mm calcareous; chalky and biting with crunch, in a good way.

Example sentences that use 'calcareous':

The dentist cut my fangs into new shapes, my teeth were gritted. I counted the fibreboard ceiling tiles through an anaesthetic haze, the calcareous grit of my eroding teeth traced small deposits across my tongue.

I am exhausted and hungover at the fourth annual convention of long-sighted cartographers. I spied the president-elect face down in the punchbowl, i turned to Maude; my plus-one "take these" she smiled and passed me two Paracetamol tablets and another glass of ginger wine. In my torpid stupor I struggled to swallow them down, the calcareous residue however, was quickly diffused by a caustic warmth.

A haiku:

Embellish, don't lie
Calcareous, as a word
Has limited use

Thanks again everyone, and thanks to Annette at 4AD for helping put this together. Hopefully we'll have more contests like this in the future.

Arcade Fire, 2003.

I apologise for the general lack of updates - I've just moved apartment, and it's all a little hectic. By way of compensation, I offer this video (found via UKK, of course) of Arcade Fire performing in Toronto in 2003, before Funeral. It's kind of stunning.

Stay tuned for the results of the High Violet competition this weekend.