A Pretty Small Concern

I was in Soundscapes the other day, listening to Jim & Jennie's CD, River's Roll On By, which features a beautiful, notable cover of Dock Boggs' Red Rocking Chair.

There's another song on there, a nice bit called Mt. St. Helens. Beside the listening station, the store had posted the Pitchfork review of the album. It's a nice review and maybe I'm quibbling, but where is the harm in writing about something that has both a literal and a metaphoric meaning? It's been bugging me for days.

He writes,

Jim and Jennie split their time between stark ballads and rollicking, banjo-fueled stompers, both played with aplomb, and there's rarely a misstep. When there is, it's usually subtle-- for instance, the lyrics to "Mt. St. Helens" feel like they ought to be metaphorical, but they instead are literally about living on Mt. St. Helens, a topic that feels more random than apropos.

Mister Pitchfork calls it a pretty small concern, but I have a somewhat larger concern about the way Mister Pitchfork evaluates the art that comes his way. What did they teach him in highschool, one wonders, and why hasn't he forgotten it yet?








Here's Dock Boggs and a cat. I don't know why the image has been copied three times, but I like it. One might find a mind-blowing two layers of meaning in such a triple-image, but I doubt it. Joe Tangari can feel safe here, on this blog of solo meanings. It's from this site.

Oh but now that reminds me of a piece of graffiti I saw the other day near the railroad tracks above Queen Street west of Dufferin. They're my favourite streets there but I can't think of what they're called. A pair of L-shaped streets. The graffito went something like this:

The numerology of the heart is binary: All ones and nothings.