SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“Girl, You’re So Weird” (2012).
2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album. Whether The Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid. Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album. Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.
This song is around 3 and a half minutes. It starts out crashingly loud with a catchy synth melody that will later be used for the vocal line. Then it quiets down to a sneaky/spooky synth melody. The vocals fit into the spooky sound in as it seems like Wayne is singing in a kind of strangled way. It’s possible that the lyrics weren’t made up on the spot. But who knows:
Girl, you’re so weird, your pain and your fear
Has paralyzed your mind, I wish you’d get high
You’re so tight, you’re always thinking right
Tonight, when it’s late, you should smile, masturbate
So, girl, you and me can watch each other pee
With holographic shirts we’ll shine under blacklights
Lights, lights, lights, lights, lights, lights
The guest on this is New Fumes. I don’t know anything about him except that he has played with the Lips in the past. This song feels like filler except that the sounds between verses are really cool.
It also feels pretty much like the end of a record. But there’s one more song to come
[READ: August 20, 2019] “The Story of Mats Israelson”
This story was enjoyable but sad. I had read the first six or so pages and then had to put it down for the night. I was looking forward to finishing it because the first few pages were so good. But the last couple pages really emphasized a sadness I did not expect.
The story is written as if it is from a long time ago. In this small Swedish village, people earned their spots–in church pews, or where to keep their horses. If you took that spot you were shunned.
This village is full of gossip. The gossip is my favorite part of the story.
Anders Bodén is the main character of this story. He is the manager of a sawmill and is seen as devout and charitable.
Gossip says that when Anders asked Gertrud to marry him, she laughed in his face. Gossip also says she reconsidered when the man she loved failed to live up to her expectations. Then she said yes. Their marriage proved to be satisfactory. They had two children.
I loved this description of Anders’ reaction to his wife.
Anders had learned to deal with his wife’s sarcasm by means of pedantry, by answering her questions as if they meant no more than the words they contained. This tended to annoy her further but for him it was a necessary protection.
So, when a new couple moved to town and he showed them around, Gertrud asked Anders why he wasn’t wearing a club button of the Swedish Tourism Union.
He replied, “Because I am not a member.”
This new couple was Axel and Barbro Lindwall, a newly married couple.
He told Gerturd that they seemed nice.
You like everybody”
“No, my love, I do not think that that is true.” He meant, for instance, that at the present moment he did not like her.
Every two weeks Anders would take the steamboat to inspect the seasoning sheds. On one of these trips Mrs. Liindwell was also aboard bound for a visit with her sister beyond Rättvik.
She was on the ship two weeks later as well and he told her all about the various buildings that they passed. He then apologized and said that he wife says he should be part of the tourism union. But she replied that she likes a man “to tell me what he knows.”
His wife wanted to know what he talked to Mrs Lindwell about–gossip had told her that he was seen talking to her. He said that she was from the city and knew nothing about the area or about lumber.
The next time, he told her everything he knew about lumber, every detail.
Then he told her the story of Mats Israelson. But she took it to be fantasy and then apologized saying “I have little imagination. I am interested only in what really happens.”
The story was important to him and he felt that perhaps he had not told it properly. He intended to memorize it and tell it to her again the next time he saw her.
That night Gertrud was angry. She said that she had at least earned his discretion when he met his mistress. He was angry with her. For indeed nothing of the sort had happened.
But gossip said otherwise. And maybe that put an idea in his head.
When Mrs Lindwell was not aboard the ship two weeks later, gossip noticed.
Gossip suggested that there had been a quarrel. Gossip counter-suggested that they had decided on concealment.
Gossip said that there had been no relations in the Bodén household since their second child was born. But then gossip heard the real reason she was not on the ship. She was pregnant.
And any ideas that Anders had entertained about Barbro were now over.
Barbro wasn’t sure how she felt about Anders. She enjoyed his knowledge, but otherwise she didn’t know. Until she became pregnant and realized that she would have to spend the rest of her life with her husband.
Barbro made sure that when ever she saw Anders, he was with Gertrud. She did not want to be alone with him. Soon they never saw each other.
Anders told her the story of Mats Israelson in his mind.
In 1719 a body was found on the shoreline. People recognized the body as that of Mats Israeson who had died in the mines forty years earlier. His body had been perfectly preserved because of the copper fumes in the mine. His identity was confirmed by an old crone who knew him forty years ago. She was supposed to be his wife and then he died.
As their children grew, Barbro was concerned that her daughter might marry Anders’ son. But that did not happen.
Some years later Barbro received a letter from Anders. He was in the hospital and hoped she would come and talk to him. She asked her husband if she should go.
He said, “Of course.”
He meant, of course you would–gossip always called you his mistress. I was never sure, but of course, I should have guessed.
She took the train to the hospital, feeling very guilty and spied upon. She felt the need justify her trip to everyone.
When she finally arrived, she assumed that he was dying but when he said he wasn’t she wondered just why he had called her up here. Especially when he knew she would need a hotel room.
I really didn’t expect the story to end the way it did.
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