I Was Listening to Sonic Youth & Contemplating Buying
a Lee Ranaldo Solo Album
“If ever
there can be truly such a thing as a solo album.”
“I take it
you don’t subscribe to the auteur theory then.”
“Decadence.” A voice from the back of the lecture hall.
“I haven’t
subscribed to anything in years. I think
the last thing was something like Juxtapoz
or National Review.”
“Two people
(essentially) just talking until they arrive at the truth, or at least
something interesting.”
“Henry
Miller said that he wrote to find out what he was writing about.”
“I don’t
care what Henry Miller said.”
“I don’t
give a shit what Henry Rollins has to say.”
“Blasphemy.”
“Decadence.” The same voice? Who was that?
I peered into the writing needs editing as much as painting does.
“You’re
supposed to say ‘darkness.’”
“I don’t
know exactly what I expected when I first started listening to Sonic Youth, but
I certainly didn’t expect to become intimately acquainted with ‘the
scene.’ I’ve never been a part of any
scene and I don’t think I ever will.”
“Unless
some group of admirers gathers around you like they did around Blake in his
elder years.”
“In the
digital age? Don’t fool yourself. Those days are over.”
“Perhaps if
you were to actually meet some people—“
“My isolation
is complete. All the happy accidents
have already happened.”
“It’s all
luck.”
“It’s all
luck. The best thing I can do, the only
thing I can do, is to keep doing what I have been doing: spending every
available minute creating work that pleases me.
I must purge every remaining impulse to conform to standards of audience
appeal.”
“Branford
Marsalis won’t like it.” The voice; this
time closer, somewhere nearer the portable risers on which my fellow chorus
members and I stood.
“Your
references are dead. No one knows what
you’re talking about.”
“Kim Gordon
is available.”
“How many
female bass players named Kim?”
“No one
knows what you’re talking about.”
No
remembers a voice.
