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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 5, 2016 1:17:28 GMT -5
ACT III (continued)
Fall-Winter 2003/04
Commiserating with each other in their rivalry over Charlemagne, Mary and Jesse develop a kind of hostile friendship ("sick together" [212M], "friend" [YLHF]).
Mary confronts Charlemagne about getting with Jesse; he denies it, recriminating with her instead [YLHF].
Jesse takes advantage of a show played by a favorite band to let Charlemagne see that she's doing drugs with the music boys again, but wakes up alone and sadder than before [40B].
Jesse and Charlemagne meet to listen to records in her room again [WCGT]; she was all cheerful innocence when they did this back in the summer [HH], but now that "pure and simple love" doesn't sound so simple to her any more. For his part he sees that it's heaven; still he can't let go of his thing with Mary.
Spring 2004
Charlemagne is still stuck on Mary, and a year and a half or so after the events of Chips Ahoy! is still trying to figure out if she feels anything ("Diane Lane kept me sane through the spring" [ABlues]).
Jesse's angry now, but neither she nor Charlemagne can quit the situation [BCig]; she threatens to leave for New York without him [Magazines], but won't actually go. It's clear to him that she's going to go back to the boys in the harbor bars for real this coming summer [HJ].
Last summer, Charlemagne and Jesse used to be able to go to parties and pretend that they'd never met [Smidge]. Now they're a known item, and boys are dissing him on her message machine [Magazines]. (It won't be long before she gets a visit from the Skins, when they're looking for him [CF].)
Jesse begins to get involved with Charlemagne's dealing in the restaurant ("She's got a bandolero belt filled with Kamikaze shooters / She touches every table in a total eclipse" [Smidge], "She's the pistol at the party" [BCig]). Again, he sees that things are taking a bad turn; something's got to give.
Mary, deeply unhappy with the situation with Charlemagne, has a vision of him speaking to her after the crucifixion which she's foreseen; in the vision, he needs her and thanks her for saving his life, but he also calls her "Sapphire" [YS]. Whether it's because these visions of him are actual episodes of long-range precognition, or because they lead her to get "confused about the truth" [SN], the name "Sapphire" foreshadows the fact that she won't be simply "Mary" in that future.
Mary and Jesse drag the Narrator and Charlemagne out to a party; when they get there, Mary wants to head straight for the room in the back where the heavy drugs are, and she and the Narrator end up having a fight about it [MPADJs, RP]. Unlike in past fights [HM, CSunrise], this time he says something that she hears and remembers --- namely, that by passively getting high and watching her visions ("records and tapes" [R&T]), she's living the life of a DJ; but it's her life, and she needs to take the risk of making her own music. It's a conversation that plants a seed for later, when she finally decides what to do about the impending crucifixion [R&T].
NOTES ON DATES -----------------------------
The Spring 2004 timeframe is mentioned in Ascension Blues ("through the spring"); it's at the end of the spring, we're told, that Mary finally takes action to get out in front of the crucifixion that's coming in summer 2004. There are a few crises leading to that point that have to happen not long before [MPADJs, RP, YS]; the events of Hurricane J and "now"-era Smidge also clearly take place in the runup to summer 2004, and the angry episodes described in Magazines/BCig seem to belong to the same late stage.
Everything else that comes after the baseline of summer 2003 but isn't clearly as far along as the crises of spring 2004 I've dumped in the "Fall/Winter 2003-04" timeframe, which simply covers the gap between them.
More timeline tomorrow. Thanks in the meantime for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 5, 2016 2:42:28 GMT -5
If it's satisfying to you making the timeline, it's even more satisfying reading it. You've given us a massive amount of information the past couple of weeks, and to see it organised in a timeline is really great.
Just one thing about the time between Chips Ahoy! and Weekenders: I kind of read that quote from Craig in a more literal way. When Heaven Is Whenever arrived, it was almost four years since Boys And Girls In America. And even though both could be right, I get the feeling that he's referring to the gap between the two songs rather than the events in them.
In this story, I feel the two pairs Chips Ahoy!/Weekenders and Sweet Payne/The Ambassador carries a bit more weight than a lot of the other songs. As far as I can tell, those are the only songs Craig have been really explicit about linking together. I even think he called both of the latter ones follow-up or sequel.
I think I need to rewind in this thread to read some (or all) of this again, but just one quick question: Whose body is found in the garbage in Stevie Nix? Was it Holly? I've always thought it was, but the rest of the song seems to be about Mary (17/33 forever, confused about the truth, all that). The body isn't necessarily related to the final part of the song, but it sure feels like it is. And is the theater "the guys" find the body behind the same theater as the one in Banging Camp and Almost Everything? As I said, I might as well go back and read stuff, but if you don't mind I throw the question out here.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 6, 2016 0:39:07 GMT -5
Oh man, you're right ... taking his words literally, he's talking about the characters, but now that you point it out, the four years between albums makes it much more likely that that's what he's referring to. Good catch. So then I have to go back to saying that we don't know exactly when Chips Ahoy! takes place. I do still think it must be some time before Jesse shows up; Charlemagne must be totally in love with Mary by that point, or he would have just left town with Jesse (he's only sticking around because of Mary). I'll go back and edit that in the timeline soon. No worries about Stevie Nix, I didn't really give an answer on that point earlier. And I'm glad for a chance to clear things up, especially after having had to work out so much of this on the fly. (Again, just for context: Holly is the POV character in the song; "you" is Gideon; "she" is Mary.) My reading of the verse about the garbage dump is that Mary, the speaker in that verse, goes through this progression: -> she hears the guys on the front lawn making a Stevie Nicks joke about Gideon (because of the magician cape) -> she tells him "you don't remind me of Stevie Nicks so much as Rod Stewart" (passion, etc.) -> she adds "actually, Rod Stewart had an urban myth attached to him, too," then her eyes get wide, the same way the music gets weird, and she says the line about the garbage dump, with the implication that there's an urban myth attached to Gideon also. (Remember, too, Craig's 2005 MAGNET interview line about Stevie Nix in which he explicitly links "urban myth" to something that happens "magically," which brings the connection full circle; we are meant to understand that Gideon's authorship [CSTLN, BBreathing, etc.] of the urban myth of Charlemagne's crucifixion is one of his magic tricks.) Early on I had understood this to refer to a generic urban myth about a murder. Now, realizing that there really was a body at the crucifixion, I see it rather as a specific allusion to the "theater" in Slapped Actress --- that is, the party pit, where Gideon projected the film of Charlemagne's Ghost onto the screen of the fence (and then killed himself, in Charlemagne's body). As for "garbage dump" ... maybe that's poetic license in Mary's vision, or maybe there really was a dumpster under the water tower back in the day, but if there's a real-world referent for it I'm missing it. (It's true too that Craig needed something that rhymed with "stomach pump" ...) This is another place where we're left to doubt, knowing what we know from the end of the story, whether this was really precognition on Mary's part, or just a vision without any necessary connection to the future. After all, it was she who years later brought Charlemagne to Gideon ("she gave him a ride to some kid's house in Cleveland" [OftC]), so that he could use his magician's skills to help stage the crucifixion as she'd seen it. In other words, it was all done at her prompting. Was it destined to happen anyway, or was it all a product of her actions? Does that make sense? -------- ACT III (continued)May 5, 2004Gideon is taken to the hospital (probably Methodist) by some unspecified "they" and forced to detox [HSL, RH]; he finally comes back to himself for the first time since being jumped in at the metal bar, almost eight years prior. End Spring 2004Standing by the window of her room in the Ambassador in the still hours of the morning, Mary finally decides that she has to take the situation into her own hands [R&T]. The "records and tapes" framing makes it sound as if her decision is connected to the Narrator's plea in MPADJs, but whether that's true or not, she resolves to try to save Charlemagne by deliberately staging the crucifixion scene from her vision ("right song at the right time"), even if doing so means her own death ("Self Destruction" [RH]). The next day, Mary calls up Charlemagne and asks to meet him back Uptown [ABlues]. Wanting to let him feel the power of what she sees, she takes him to a Pentecostal "dirty storefront church" [YLHF] and, while the congregation rolls on the floor in holy frenzy, tells him for the first time about the crucifixion, and her vision of him as Christ [ABlues]. From her comments at the end of the song, and the events that follow in RH, it's implied that she tells him of her plan to save him as well. This seems to take place on a Sunday (church scene), not that we're likely to be able to pinpoint which one. NOTES ON DATES ----------------------------- Working backward from the crucifixion to the spring of 2004: The crucifixion happens on a Saturday night [NS, CSTLN, HSL] in summer 2004 [CSummer, BBreathing, SS, JaJ] (just to repeat, after going through all the songs and thinking through the weather implications, I now think "summer" is literal and "Easter" is metaphoric, not the other way around). It comes after fifteen days [SS, TL] of running around in disguise with the Skins, which in turn follows "two weeks" [OftC] hiding out in Gideon's apartment on Columbus. That means that RH takes place 29 days before the crucifixion. RH in turn refers to a few earlier events with date implications: one, a period of "running" in which Charlemagne describes visiting "doctors" with Mary to get stitches for her hands; two, Gideon's "touchdown" at the hospital. HSL states that Gideon's "touchdown" occurred on the "Cinco de Mayo," which looks like a literal reference to May 5. As for Charlemagne and Mary, there's a short period after ABlues and before RH that we don't know much about, except for the running and the stitches. Prior to that, we're explicitly told that ABlues takes place after the end of spring. Finally, ABlues seems to describe Mary acting immediately on the plan she formulated in R&T. That wires everything up from springtime to the crucifixion. I have the feeling I've forgotten some constraints, so let me just leave it at that for now; I'm not sure we can do much better than to file it all under Spring or Summer 2004 anyway. More tomorrow. Thanks again for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 7, 2016 4:39:58 GMT -5
ACT III (continued)
Summer 2004 - Gideon's apartment
Mary, desperate about the coming crucifixion [R&T] and deeply jealous of Jesse [ABlues], drops a dime on Charlemagne to both the cops and the Skins ("someone must have said something" [RH]). Both come looking for him, forcing him to run.
Mary gives Charlemagne a ride to Gideon's apartment on Columbus [OftC]. He tells Gideon what Mary has told him, and asks for his help [RH].
Mary returns to the Ambassador (implicit from the Narrator's account in The Ambassador, as well as from the combination of CF and ABlues; see notes on timeline below).
Gideon talks with Charlemagne about leaving the Twin Cities ("tried to duck out" [RH]), but he can't/won't abandon Jesse to the harbor bars ("cause the kids at the shows / they'll have kids of their own" [SPositive]; implicit also in the SBS allusion "stuck / like a sneaker in the Mississippi mud" [RH]).
Gideon comes up with the idea of using the Pepper's Ghost trick to fake Charlemagne's death [BBreathing, Ambassador].
On Wednesday night (the first during his two-week stay there; see notes below), Charlemagne goes out looking for Mary; he checks the Uptown church where they met a few days earlier [ABlues]; later Jesse sees him driving around down in St. Paul, in a car (Mary's) which she knows has a gun in the glovebox ("Walter" [CF]; see notes below).
The Narrator joins Charlemagne and Gideon at the apartment on Columbus. He tells Charlemagne where Mary is, and proposes taking war to the Skins with an violent assault on the Ambassador [Ambassador, see also HSL]. Gideon reveals that he has a non-violent solution in mind, and convinces them to follow his lead instead [Ambassador, BBreathing, CSTLN, CatCT, HSL].
Gideon films Charlemagne, camouflaged like a townie in sweatpants [ABlues, SS] and dancing, for the Pepper's Ghost sequence in the crucifixion [SS]. The sequence ends with Charlemagne saying "I still love you Judas" [BCrosses], then kneeling [ABlues] with his arms out like Christ [SS].
Gideon shaves both Charlemagne's head and his own [RH, SS, HSL], so that they look alike, and Charlemagne disguises himself as Gideon.
The cops show up at the door of Gideon's apartment, but don't find Charlemagne; they think he went out the window in the back [CF].
On another night, the Skins come by the restaurant and ask Jesse where Charlemagne is [CF].
The next day, the cops stop by while Jesse is opening up the restaurant, and tell her about Charlemagne's disappearance [CF]. She wants to get together with him, to get their stories straight, but that's not going to happen --- from a distance, Charlemagne thinks, "Angel, i didn't say goodbye but i'm already gone" [Smidge] --- and her threat to leave will come true [CF]. Like her, though, he fervently hopes she's all right [Smidge].
The friends spend their days and nights working on the projector [Ambassador] and a ladder for the water tower in the Party Pit [CSummer].
Mary joins them (implicit from BCamp, etc.). Charlemagne takes her to the "doctors" to get her stigmata stitched up [RH], which will help her pass herself off as Holly without getting caught (see notes below). She disguises herself as Holly, among other things by wearing a cross necklace [BCamp].
Charlemagne and Holly, with the Narrator in tow, meet in the theater to prepare for joining the Skins: getting in character, reviewing the Skins' way of doing things, practicing their slang [BCamp]. He also coaches her for the eventual investigation which they expect to follow, after they pull off the staged murder: "If they ask about Charlemagne / Be polite, and say something vague" etc. [KParties].
NOTES ON TIMELINE --------------------------------
From CF, we know that Jesse saw Charlemagne for the last time driving around on "Wednesday night," and that the cops tell her that he's gone later that same week.
We also know that the crucifixion takes place on a Saturday [NS, CSTLN, HSL], and that Charlemagne and the others were with the Skins for a period of sixteen nights [TL] / fifteen days [SS]; that means they joined the Skins on Friday night.
If we assume that Charlemagne's disappearance is the same day he joined the Skins, then a ton of things have to happen between Wednesday night and Friday morning (see the discussion of constraints below); the nights and days of preparation described in Ambassador and CSummer make that impossible, I think.
So either "Wednesday night" really means "last Wednesday night," or else Charlemagne shaved his head and so disappeared as much as a week before he joined the Skins, giving him and the others plenty of time to prepare. The latter account is preferable, and that's what I'm going with above.
------
I hit a knotty problem in this section; what's written above reflects the solution, but it involves a correction to something I said earlier, so I'll include the details in my notes here. The problem involves a few moving pieces:
1) We know that Charlemagne spends two weeks at Gideon's apartment before the cops show up and he disappears [OftC, CF]. This is a short window. We know that it ends with Charlemagne (head shaved, disguised as Gideon) and Mary (hands stitched and bandaged, disguised as Holly) attaching themselves to the Skins [BCamp, SS, AHfA, etc].
2) Right before Charlemagne shows up at Gideon's apartment, he and Mary visit "the doctors," who doubt what he says about the blood, until they see the stigmata [RH]. Given that we see her in disguise with her stigmata stitched up just two weeks later, the obvious implication would be that she's there getting stitches.
3) Right after Charlemagne goes into hiding at Gideon's apartment, Jesse sees him driving around (apparently in Mary's car; maybe she left it parked up on Hennepin?) with "Walter" (the "gun in the glovebox" mentioned a few weeks later in [CiS]; they refer to it as "Walter" either because it's an actual Walther PPK or P99, or because it's named jokingly after, say, Bond's gun) "looking for" something [CF]. Charlemagne's description of himself as "searching in a dirty storefront church" [YLHF] must refer to this same "looking for" something. In fact, it was in that "dirty storefront church" that Mary, a few days earlier, told him "now you know you can't know where I live" [ABlues]. The very strong implication is that it's Mary he's looking for.
4) This is also the time that he, the Narrator, and Gideon are debating whether or not to settle things violently with the Skins [Ambassador, BBreathing, HSL, CatCT, CSTLN]. In The Ambassador, this debate about a violent response is explicitly set in Gideon's apartment, and explicitly set against a backdrop of Mary's "pretty much living in" the Ambassador.
5) This entire chain of events was set in motion by Mary's decision, when down in the Ambassador, that she had to break the pattern [R&T]; when she arranges to meet Charlemagne in the "dirty storefront church" she tells him explicitly that "she's sick of all the sucking up" [ABlues], that is, sick of "pretty much living in" the Ambassador.
Points (3) and (4) are entirely consistent with each other, except for the weird detail that Charlemagne doesn't know where Mary lives ("you can't know where I live" [ABlues]); that seems hard to believe in its own right, plus the Narrator knows that she's "living in" the Ambassador [Ambassador]. But it's the same word, "live" versus "living in," perfectly explicit. In fact, the Narrator is talking to Charlemagne when he says this, informing him of something which he apparently didn't know. So maybe we take that at face value.
Points (3+4) can be reconciled with (5) easily enough; Mary could be sick of the sucking up and still be living there, especially in view of her meth dependency [R&T, etc.]. There is no evidence that she herself is present in Gideon's apartment; she drops Charlemagne off there [OftC], and then the next we see of her is when she meets him and the Narrator in the theater right before they join the Skins [BCamp]. So far, no problem.
But if we want to throw (2) in with (3+4+5), now we have a problem. The stitches are needed for the Holly disguise ("keep your bandages clean" [SS, see also AHfA, etc.]) precisely because the Skins know Mary very well --- her "living" down there is all about getting high, fucking, and bleeding ("blood on the bed" [SPayne], "She was pretty much crashing there / The space between the skin and all her blood" [Ambassador]). So she can't get stitches and then go back to the Ambassador.
I've been looking at this from all different angles to try to figure out which constraint can be lifted, and I think the best answer is to point to the deliberate ambiguity of the RH evidence and conclude that the doctor visit actually comes late in the two weeks, right before Mary's BCamp reappearance, and therefore after she finally leaves the Ambassador for good. This seems consistent with the descriptions of "running" in RH, some of which clearly include Gideon (POV character of RH), and therefore also belong to the two-week window.
Sorry to clutter the timeline by hashing this all out in public --- if I hadn't committed to the misstep earlier I could have just presented the consistent reading without comment. But it's only by forcing myself to write this down that I'm finding the problems in the first place ...
More timeline tomorrow, in any case. Thanks for reading, and for thinking about Still Alive Carl.
EDITS ----- added HSL ("cutting off all my hair") as evidence of Gideon shaving his/Charlemagne's heads in the apartment added note about filming Charlemagne for the Pepper's Ghost trick [ABlues, SS, BCrosses] added SPositive ("kids of their own") as evidence of Charlemagne going through with the plan for Jesse's sake added note about Charlemagne's "angel i didn't say goodbye but i'm already gone" [Smidge] added note about Charlemagne's coaching for the eventual investigation that they expect to follow the staged death [KParties]
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 7, 2016 21:02:46 GMT -5
Working out the finer points of the timeline last night took forever, and I forgot to put in the filming, the coaching "if they ask about Charlemagne," "Angel I didn't say goodbye" ... adding all of those now. In general I'm going to be touching up all the timeline pieces as I remember things.
ACT III (continued)
Summer 2004 - Saddle Shop
On Friday evening, fifteen days before the crucifixion (see notes on timeline): Charlemagne, disguised as Gideon, and Mary, disguised as Holly, "rejoin" the Skins after a supposed interval of seven years, bringing with them the Narrator, disguised as the "new kid" [BCrosses]. Their plan is to wait [Smidge] until the Skins go down to the Party Pit again, so that they can go along and stage the crucifixion; in the meantime it's a terrifying, but effective, place for Charlemagne to hide from the Skins [AHfA].
When they meet with the Skins, they try to arrange to stay in Mary's room at the Ambassador [SS], but end up sleeping at the saddle shop near Lyndale and Lake instead [SS, GoaH].
The real Gideon joins them at the Saddle Shop, in order to be on hand when everyone heads downtown. He and doppelgaenger Charlemagne avoid detection by sleeping in shifts; this leads to the impression that Gideon is "always awake" [R&T, see also Knuckles, MPADJs, TL].
Avoiding detection is a full-time job. Even with the stitches [SS], Mary's hands are a constant threat to give them away; both the Narrator ("keep your bandages clean" [SS], "tell her we need sterile gauze" [AHfA]) and Charlemagne ("bleaching out the bloodstains" [GLS]) have to keep after the bandages. Charlemagne and Mary (sleeping together as Gideon and Holly; the Narrator is sleeping on the couch [AHfA]) sleep on navy sheets [NS] to avoid visible stains; Mary's strict no-touching rule is in effect, leading to a galactic case of blue balls ("everybody's coming onto navy sheets" [NS]).
Life with the Skins proves to be an insane roller-coaster of drugs and trafficking and street fights; by the time the fifteen days are up, the Narrator is a wreck, "throwing up" from the drugs and "almost [dead]" from the violence [AHfA, SS]. Like in RP, Mary loses patience with the Narrator's complaining about getting the life he's chosen ("Now Holly won't say hi to me" [AHfA]).
As was the case back in the summer of 1996 [BBreathing, SPayne], the Skins come out of these fights the worse for wear [LA; probably HH also].
After a particularly bad street defeat, Shepard shows up [LA, SS] and leads the whole gang downtown on the crosstown Lake street bus to the Party Pit. Charlemagne, Mary, and the Narrator ride along on the bus [LA]; the real Gideon drives down ahead of them in Mary's car, and is seen (dressed like Charlemagne in the film) by the Narrator in the parking lot above the Pit [SS].
NOTES ON TIMELINE -----------------------------
For once the timeline is really simple. The time they spend with the Skins is specified as sixteen nights [TL], or the intervening fifteen days [SS], between the Friday night they join up and the Saturday night of the crucifixion [NS, CSTLN, HSL]; see also "A couple motels and a couple saloons / They can eat a couple of weeks up" [GoaH].
Everything that happens is either a specific event at the beginning or the end of that period, or else a description of the general state of things during the duration.
Going to get some sleep tonight; will start blocking out the crucifixion timeline tomorrow. Thanks for reading this far and for thinking of Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 8, 2016 22:59:21 GMT -5
ACT III (continued)Summer 2004 - Saturday night, crucifixionThings kick off early when they get down to the Party Pit [LA]. As usual, there's drugs and the sound of music coming down from the Ambassador above [OftC]; in fact, Charlemagne and the others are counting on the effect of the drugs and alcohol to dull the Skins' critical faculties, and so to help sell their performance ("pass out," "blackout" [OftC], "blacked out" [SS]). There's dancing [SS, HSL, arguably SiM]. The party continues until darkess falls. From on top of the water tower, Gideon turns on the projector. Charlemagne's Ghost appears at the fenced edge of the clearing [HM, SPayne], eerily lit [BBreathing], dancing [SS]. Mary, still disguised as Holly, walks up to Charlemagne's Ghost at the fence. He stops. The Narrator-as-new-kid runs up and begs, "Don't do it!" [BCrosses] She leans into the fence and kisses Charlemagne's Ghost [SPayne, BCrosses]. In the silence, the clicking and hissing of the projector can be heard [SBS, FN; by comparison, Citrus]. Charlemagne's Ghost says, "I still love you, Judas" [BCrosses]. The real Charlemagne, disguised as Gideon, runs at the Ghost with his knife drawn. The Ghost drops to his knees, arms out like Christ [SS]. The Narrator is all wrapped up in the show when he hears Mary (disguised as Holly) say, "I love you too" [HaRRF]. Charlemagne-as-Gideon slashes at Charlemagne's Ghost, releasing a hidden bladder of blood from his jacket sleeve as he drives the knife home ("She saw him gushing blood right before he got cut" [BCrosses]; "except for that blood on his jacket" [OftC]). From above comes Gideon's voice: "Hey hey, Providence: you gotta fall in love with whoever you can!" [SK] The projector runs out of film, bathing the actors below in bright light [HSL, SS]. Charlemagne-as-Gideon, the Narrator-as-the-new-kid, and the rest of the Skins fall backward in terror [R&T, ABlues, metaphor of the Apostle Paul in CSTLN]. Mary (still disguised as Holly) remains standing, her stitched and bandaged hands pointing up to the light, bleeding [BCrosses, AE, SS]. On this night, Gideon, the magician, performs several related tricks: the special-effects projection of Charlemagne's Ghost is one, and the publication of the urban-myth gospel of Charlemagne is another (see Craig's comments about urban myth and magic, and Spectres' opening "projectionists and publicists" --- "spectres" being ghosts). Now he performs a third, the trick of Gideon's Conversion: he switches his body for Charlemagne's [HSL, CSTLN, KP], so that Charlemagne, standing in the bright light of the projector, really finds his soul in Gideon's body, and Gideon, on top of the water tower, is really in Charlemagne's body. Holly, gone for seven years since her death at Gideon's hands during her baptism, comes to in Mary's body [SN, CC, HaRRF, CSTLN]. This may be another of Gideon's magic tricks, or it may just be that Mary is "confused about the truth" [SN]; uncertainty about this point will persist until the very end of the story [Weekenders, etc.]. The implication is that Mary, 33 years old [SN], bleeding from holes in her hands under the light of the projector cross [BCrosses, AE], dies for Charlemagne's sins [A&H, ABlues]. Gideon, in Charlemagne's body, stabs himself and falls from the top of the water tower to the ground, dead. Only Holly sees him fall; he leaves the knife behind him. (See "Falling on the floor just like Saul on his sword" [R&T], "he burned a hole in me eventually" [A&H], "we thought John Berryman could fly / but he didn't so he died" [SBS], "she cried, and she told us about Jesus" [FN], "when one townie falls in the forest, does anyone notice?" [OftC], "they can't find the weapon" [OftC], and "drop dead Fred" [Knuckles].) He too, having "climbed up on that cross" [A&H], and having taken his own life with "the sword in his side" [BCrosses, see A&H], dies for Charlemagne's sins; without a body, the rumor of his death would never have been believed ("she said words alone never could save us" [FN], "words won't save your life" [SBS], etc.). Tomorrow, the timeline of the car ride. Thank you as always for reading, and for remembering Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 9, 2016 22:48:39 GMT -5
ACT III (continued)
Summer 2004 - Saturday night, car ride
The Narrator (disguised as the new kid), Holly ("come to" in Mary's body), and Charlemagne (now in Gideon's body) flee the scene of the crucifixion for the parking lot. Holly jumps into the driver's seat of Mary's car ("she stole it fast" [MoC]), while the Narrator and Charlemagne pile in from the sides [BCrosses]; they drive out into Lowertown [MoC] and from there onto the parkways [foreseen in OftC].
Holly's initial pleasure at finding herself resurrected ("climbed the cross and found she liked the view") quickly gives way to an urgent question: where's Gideon ("an old connection") to take up their old trade of sex ("wrapped her mouth around" and "real soft girl") for some meth ("what would you prescribe") [CC]?
Holly disposes of the crucifix [MoC] to open the way for Gideon, her "vampire" supplier.
Then the clusterfuck: Holly sees Gideon in the car with her, just as Charlemagne sees Mary, who he's been waiting years to get with. They come together with "legs wide open" [NS] from her part and "sure do kiss" [SK] from his --- only to discover, each of them, that the other is somebody else: Mary's body is inhabited by Holly's soul, and Gideon's body is inhabited by Charlemagne's soul. (The fact that there's a separate body and soul for each gives us the "boys and girls" theme, plural; she is "seeing double" [CatCT], "kicking it with chemists" [SK]; he's "kicking it with cousins" [HSL], and so on.)
Charlemagne is horrified to discover that Holly suddenly wants him ("funny bit of chemistry / how a cool car makes a guy seem that much cooler" [MoC]), but that it's pure pavlovian drug-seeking on her part ("I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere" [Citrus]).
Holly is horrified to discover that she has no leverage over Charlemagne to get what she wants ("you know they're already taken" [FN]), that in fact he's going to deliberately withhold speed from her until she comes down ("friends from going through the program with me" [CatCT], "diamonds in the drain" [A&H], "speed shooters coming down and driving around" [CiS], and his later attempt to take it back "we'll hook it all up / there's fields of speed ..." [DLME], etc.).
Charlemagne's discovery that it's Holly he's with turns into a real search for Mary ("trying for a vision quest / we opened up three buttons" [MoC], "looking around for something that just died" [MoC], "deacon's hopeful eulogy" [MoC]); among other intoxicants that aren't speed, he gives her Feminax [MoC] and apparently peyote ("buttons" [MoC], "serotonin" [A&H]), but the main thing he gives her is wine ("Sonoma" [MoC], "drunk" [SBS], "bottles" [SK], "drinking" [HSL], "drink some more" [PP], "alcohol" [A&H], "wine" [R&T]), because --- ironically --- wine is what Mary always drinks/drank [MM, YGD, MN, LID, SPotC, Spinners, R&T] in anticipation of this moment as the "Wedding at Cana" between Mary Magdalene and Jesus [R&T].
Holly, realizing that the Gideon in front of her is really Charlemagne, realizes too that the boy who died falling from the water tower cross was Gideon, and tells the others so ("she cried and she told us about Jesus" [FN], "same kooks can't fly" [SK], see later "one townie falls" [OftC]).
Seizing the wheel again in a despairing detox spiral, Holly takes them on an insane ride ("a few hours circling the city" [MoC], "wrong way down 169" [HH], "trying to hook up with an entrance/exit ramp" [CiS]) that ends at the HarMar mall in suburban St. Paul [CSTLN liner notes, PP], one of the malls where Gideon sold meth once upon a time [SN]; "running out on residue" [CC], she crashes the car into the entrance of the mall ("crashing through the vestibule" [CC], "crashed into the Easter mass / with her hair done up in broken glass" [HaRRF], "made a scene by the revolving door" [PP], etc.).
Amazing how much detail there is even in these short episodes, now that I boil it down to a "short" summary. I'll do a timeline of the aftermath of the crash, arrests, and interrogation tomorrow. Thanks for reading and for thinking of Still Alive Carl.
EDITS ------- Added mention of Charlemagne's penitent promise to "hook it all up" during the trial [DLME] as evidence of his deliberately withholding speed during the car ride.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 10, 2016 21:10:07 GMT -5
ACT III (continued)
Summer 2004 - Sunday after crash
Holly (in Mary's body, which in turn is still disguised as "Holly" for the benefit of the Skins) stumbles out of the wrecked car and into the mall ("walking through the crystal court" [PP], "found me in a florist" [SK]). She has shattered glass in her hair and broken heels [HaRRF]; she gets blood on the stereo [BBlues] and on the sidewalk ("Sunday morning, sidewalks splattered" [NS]). But the fact that she doesn't get taken to the hospital immediately shows that she's not injured; the blood is from her stigmata. When the cops arrive, they find her in a florist [SK].
The Narrator gets out of the car and follows her into the mall ("saw her walking through the crystal court" [PP]), then gets arrested with her (shown by the fact that they are taken to the station for questioning together).
Charlemagne also leaves the car, but rather than following the others, flees the scene. (The others learn of his departure when they hear from the cops that the car was found empty: "I guess we met a couple bona fide angels" [NS] announcing that Jesus has left the tomb [John 20:12].) While fleeing, he is stopped by the cops ("I got stopped by the cops and they found it in my socks" [YLHF]); having found the drugs hidden in his socks [YLHF, CiS], they pick him up and bring him into the station also.
At the police station, Holly-in-Mary and the Narrator are sequestered, that is, placed in separate rooms, for questioning [SiM, CSTLN]. The cops are tired from parading "every townie in town through the station" [OftC] since the "murder" last night, and wired from the cigarettes [CSTLN] and coffee [SK]. They ask the Narrator what kind of car she drove ("a new Mustang" [SiM]); this may have been the tipoff that Charlemagne had left the car by the time the cops arrived [NS].
Despite being separated, the Narrator and Mary (still present somewhere deep inside her body) make a "connection" [AE] that lets them get through the "sessions" [AE] without slipping up; they are cleared for release.
They are booked, and mug shots ("a couple photographs" [CatCT]) are taken. This might have happened at the time they were brought in, before the interrogations; but it seems that Holly-in-Mary crosses paths with Charlemagne-in-Gideon during the booking ("it was those two same kooks from that one stupid photo shoot" [SK]), which would suggest that it happens after they learn that he wasn't in the car when the cops arrived [NS]. It may also be that she identifies him ("it was those two same kooks") at this time; he's brought into the station on the simple grounds of having been holding something in his socks, but by the end of the session, they've identified him as Gideon, and have charged him with murder.
At any rate, Charlemagne-in-Gideon is also questioned [HSL] and attempts to bluff his way through the interrogation ("this is the end of the session" [HSL]); but, "bleeding from the holes in his story" [HM], he ends up being arraigned for murder, and is held pending trial. This happens before Holly-in-Mary and the Narrator leave the station, since Holly (as his former associate) is subpoenaed to appear to testify at the trial [SiM].
Holly-in-Mary and the Narrator "walk on back" [HaRRF] from suburban St. Paul down Larpenteur to Hennepin and over the Grain Belt bridge, where Holly sees "bright new Minneapolis" [PP] for the first time since 1997. The Narrator seizes the moment for one last attempt to get through to Mary, and kisses her [PP]; but from the response he gets ("don't turn me on again" [HaRRF], "I think that all those things I did / were just momentum from the Party Pit" [PP]), he can't tell if he's being put off by Holly or Mary ("And I'm pretty sure we kissed" [PP]), and he gives up.
Finally, maybe with a stop by their place on Hennepin along the way, the Narrator gets her to Methodist Hospital [AE, FN]; they check in together, but (after maxing out his medicine) only he checks out; she stays in to get cleaned up [AE].
NOTES -----------
I'm an idiot, ha. The image of the forking road on the cover of Separation Sunday album always made me think of "Separation" as Charlemagne fleeing the car wreck and abandoning Mary for good. But I just realized that there's another "separation" on this same Sunday that is *explicitly called* a separation, namely, the sequestration of Mary and the Narrator in their respective interrogations: "they tried to separate our girls from our guys" [CSTLN]. Obviously Craig could be referring ambiguously to both events with the album title. But the sequestration is a much stronger identification.
This is just another example of something I've experienced over and over while unpacking this story. It's like feeling your way through a huge dark room full of furniture; even when you figure out that there's a table in one corner, you have to keep coming back over and over to figure out what's on the table, how many chairs there are, whether there's a chandelier above it, etc. Every single detail is a chance to get something wrong. And there have been hundreds, literally, of these details that all have to be sorted through one by one. It leaves me in this weird position of having a lot of confidence about the analysis in general, and at the same time being certain that there are still plenty of things, like this, that I've just missed. It's exciting as hell to see something you've been blind to, but holy shit is it a lot of work to get there.
Tomorrow, the trial. Thanks for reading along, and for remembering Still Alive Carl.
EDITS ------ Added note that, at the time of the crash, Holly is in Mary's body, but Mary's body is still disguised as "Holly"
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 11, 2016 22:59:45 GMT -5
ACT III (continued)
Summer 2004 - Trial
The trial of "Gideon" (actually Charlemagne, in Gideon's body) for the murder of Charlemagne begins.
Trial day 1 - testimony of "Holly"
Our first view of the trial comes while Holly (in Mary's body, but still disguised outwardly as Holly in order to answer her subpoena [SiM]) is on the witness stand. The prosecutor asks her about her travels with Gideon [DLME], while Charlemagne silently prays to her not to say something that will convict him ("don't let me blow up" [DLME]). Finally the prosecutor asks what happened to Charlemagne, and to his relief she gives a noncommittal answer [DLME], just as he'd asked Mary to do some weeks before [KP].
On the way out of the courthouse, Holly (with the Narrator, who is no longer disguised as the new kid, in tow) is confronted by Jesse, who's trying to find out what happened to Charlemagne [212M]. Holly "[doesn't] say a thing ... just [wipes] at her nose and she [winks]" [212M], deliberately avoiding speaking, and continues on her way [212M]. The Narrator stays after to apologize for her behavior, and to explain to Jesse who she is [HaRRF]. He uses Holly as an object lesson to drive home Charlemagne's warning about the St. Paul hoodrat life [compare HaRRF liner notes with CSongs]. When Jesse mentions that Holly looks like Mary, he tells her she's crazy [SPayne]. This is the last we ever see of the outward appearance of Holly.
Trial day 2 - testimony of "Mary"
In the interval between the first and second day of the trial, Holly (in Mary's body) does away with the Holly disguise and, looking like Mary again, contacts Mary's family. Returning to court with the protection of Mary's father's lawyers [OftC], dressed "immaculately" in Keds and a turtleneck sweater to cover her neck tat [OftC, HM, by implication in YLHF], she "takes the stand and she swears she was with him" [OftC]. With that, Charlemagne is acquitted.
Outside the courtroom, as before, she meets Jesse, who (thinking she's Mary) asks her what happened to Charlemagne, if "Gideon" didn't kill him [212M]. Under the implied influence of Mary, still present deep inside her own body, which is after all Mary's ("one drop of blood" [OftC]), Holly replies, jealous and misleading, that she believes Charlemagne is really dead [212M]. She tells Jesse to go to New York, and to leave a message for her there when she and "Gideon" will supposedly be coming through town [212M].
Outside the courthouse, Holly smokes and thinks bitterly of the real Gideon, falling dead from the water tower, unnoticed and hardly mourned [OftC].
Later
Still in Minneapolis, Holly (always in Mary's body, with Mary's voice) receives a phone call from Jesse [212M]; she advises Jesse to get back out there, to go drink and fall in love [212M, Spinners].
Tomorrow, the aftermath. Thanks for reading, and for thinking of Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 13, 2016 1:54:04 GMT -5
ACT III (end)
Summer-Fall 2004
Jesse, following the advice she got from "Mary" (really Holly in Mary's body [212M]) moves, finally, to New York City (see notes).
Fall-Winter 2004
Holly (in Mary's body) begins to experience precognitive visions of things right before they happen, and also nighttime visions of Charlemagne as Christ [BCrosses].
Christmas 2004
Holly, in Mary's body, goes home to Mary's house (her own aunt and uncle's house [BBlues, MINTS, HSL]) for Christmas; she seemed distant and different [OftC].
Winter 2004/05 - Spring 2005
Holly, wearing a crucifix again, is sleeping in a storage space by the airport, and no longer talks about anything except her visions [TOT].
Spring - Summer 2005
Holly sells her crucifix and moves into a house on the south side with "new friends" from the drug-dealing gang world [LID].
The Narrator moves out to New York City [CSTLN]. With his (new) band, he begins to spread the gospel of Charlemagne, as it was brought to him by Gideon [CSTLN].
Summer-Fall 2006
Two years after leaving the Twin Cities for NYC, Jesse still can't settle into a new relationship; she's still feeling "phantom pains" for Charlemagne, and fear of the boys in the bars who she thinks murdered him (Skins = the other "spinners").
2006?
Holly (in Mary's body), still talking only about her visions, calls up Charlemagne (in Gideon's body) and asks him to come see her; despite his doubt whether the crucifixion was ever necessary in the first place, and despite having a pretty good idea where it's going to lead ("In the end I bet no one learns a lesson"), he agrees [Weekenders].
Christmas, 200X
The Narrator returns to the Twin Cities after some years, bringing a new girlfriend home for Christmas, and has an encounter with Shepard and the Skins [IHTWTDFY].
Years later
A girl named Sarah leaves the Narrator (if indeed it is the Narrator) after a long relationship [Oaks].
Jesse's still in NYC, much older, still alone, and still hung up on Charlemagne [JaJ].
NOTES ON DATES ---------------------------
From Spinners, we know that Jesse's in the "big city" with "inbound trains" (namely NYC, where she's always wanted to go [Magazines]) two years after leaving the Twin Cities ("she's two years off some prairie town"). It seems clear that she left soon after the trial ended in 2004, which sets the events of Spinners in 2006.
Holly begins to experience Mary's visions at some point after the trial; within the year, according to TOT ("it got bad around March or April, then I thought it got better" [TOT]), this leads to an advanced state of dysfunction, in which she's sleeping in a storage space and no longer talking about anything except her visions. Her visit to Mary's house for Christmas [OftC] must take place before this progression is too far along.
Holly's move from the storage space by the airport [TOT] to the house on the south side [LID] takes place before the Narrator moves out to NYC, but the move to NYC was not so long after the crucifixion that he couldn't plausibly fudge the date later ("I'd already moved out to New York City" [CSTLN]). This last point seems to place all these events within a year of the crucifixion.
A 2006 date for the Weekenders phone call still feels about right, regardless of when the Chips Ahoy! outing takes place (see the earlier discussion about a possible "4 years or so" interval between the two). But without a fixed interval between those two events, that date is just a guess.
I'm going to go over these timeline posts and make edits/improvements as needed, but otherwise the timeline's now done. There are definitely a few loose ends still to tie up, but let me have a look at that with a fresh eye tomorrow. Thanks for reading along, and for thinking of Still Alive Carl.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 14, 2016 0:44:02 GMT -5
I promised to look at some leftover lines, open questions, songs that mention familiar themes but don't seem to be connected to the story ... Names: Jesse and Halleluiah
Early in this thread I connected the identification of Mary with Mary Queen of Heaven, and the two important prayers addressed to her: the Ave Regina Caelorum (Hail, Queen of Heaven) and the Regina Caeli (Queen of Heaven). The Ave Regina Caelorum ( wikipedia) "is said ... through Wednesday of Holy Week," and begins: The Regina Caeli or Regina Coeli ( wikipedia) "is sung or recited ... during the Easter season, from Holy Saturday through the Saturday after Pentecost," and begins: The fact that the one opens with Queen of Heaven ... Jesse ... and the other with Queen of Heaven ... Halleluiah ... seems very unlikely to be a coincidence. The use of the masculine name "Jesse" (as opposed to the feminine name "Jessie") for a girl is very unusual; after "Gideon" and "Mary" the natural thing to do is to try to explain this by reference to the Biblical figure of Jesse, but there's almost nothing to work with there. These prayers, on the other hand, let us connect both Jesse and Holly to Mary as the central character of the story, which is after all what she is. The times when these prayers are sung seem to be significant, too: The Ave Regina Caelorum ("Queen of Heaven ... Jesse") is sung through Wednesday of Holy Week; the last time Jesse sees Charlemagne is in fact "Wednesday night" [CF] shortly before "Easter" [HaRRF, BCrosses]. The Regina Caeli ("Queen of Heaven ... Halleluiah") is sung beginning on Holy Saturday; Holly reappears on the Saturday night [NS, CSTLN, HSL] on which the "Easter mass" [HaRRF, BCrosses] takes place. In general, "Halleluiah" is the chant before the proclaiming of the Gospel, and is also especially used after Easter/before Pentecost. The allusions in the names "Gideon" and "Mary" are so crisp that I'm inclined to think I'm missing something more for Jesse and Halleluiah (true for Charlemagne, too). But having brought them in under Mary's queenship and connected them both to Easter is a good start. So I'll leave it at that. Holly's contagionLong back we noted how the "did a couple favors for some guys who looked like Tusken Raiders" line at the end of The Swish implies that Holly picked up an STD blowing gangsters for money. I didn't realize until recently that there are actually three references to contracting STDs on AKM: - "scabby sores" [PJ]: suggests herpes - "tangled up in crabs" [Knuckles]: suggests crabs - "Tusken Raiders" [Swish]: suggests warts, i.e. gonorrhea The fact that Swish ends on a note of foreboding makes it sound like something more than crabs, anyway; but the ambiguity is there, and it's pretty sharp. Nice touch. HaRRF lines There are a bunch of lines here and there that I don't think I ever went back and covered, but the ones that stick in my mind as really deserving a comment are two from HaRRF: The priest just kinda laughed, the deacon caught a draft The priest is Gideon, presiding over the crucifixion / Easter mass from the water tower. There are a few ways to argue that "just kinda laughed" fits Gideon's style, following his last words "Hey hey, Providence," etc. As in MoC, the deacon is the Narrator. Per wikipedia, the ministry of the Catholic deacon involves proclaiming the Gospel (Deacon of the Word) [CSTLN]; the deacon may also preside at funeral rites not involving a Mass ("we heard the deacon's hopeful eulogy" [MoC]). This is another view of the Narrator as Peter, who caught a draft on Pentecost and then led the proclaiming of the gospel (Acts 2:1-31). St. Louis had enslaved me, I guess Santa Ana saved me, St. Peter had me on the queue, the St. Paul saints they waved me through - "St. Louis had enslaved me": a reference to St Louis Park, just west of Uptown, where Methodist Hospital (with the clinic for "maxing out on medicine" [SPayne]) and the Cityscape Apartments are located. - "I guess Santa Ana saved me": as written [liner notes], I think a reference to the Santa Ana winds (Didion writes about them too), suggesting the same "mighty wind" of Pentecost that the deacon caught, above. - "St. Peter had me on the queue": a reference to the fact that her admission to heaven was delayed, pending her resurrection. - "the St. Paul saints they waved me through": there's the baseball ref to the St. Paul Saints, with the third base coach waving her through to home; w/r/t the story, it's her friends down in the St. Paul party pit who've brought her back. Open questions
There are a million questions that are still open, of which the following are almost a random selection --- they're things that I happened to jot down along the way. - I've said that I'm sure "took a couple photographs" [CatCT] refers to Holly's booking, with mug shots, after the crash; but what's "and carved them into wood reliefs" about? Carving wood reliefs goes nicely with "going through the program" [CatCT] in the previous line, but it seems like there ought to be a story reference as well. - What's the exact meaning of "Hey hey, Providence, you gotta fall in love with whoever you can" [SK]? Gideon says this to Mary right after she declares her love for Charlemagne, and right before he switches Charlemagne's body with his own; probably, then, it's an allusion to the fact that he's about to make the physical body she loves disappear forever (though the real Charlemagne will still be there, inside a new body). I could be happy with this reading, but would like to be more certain that I'm not missing something else. - There's muzzle's question about the meaning of "That dude from your crew, who was always awake / I'm pretty sure I know how he did that" [R&T], since it's clear that the Narrator can't know how he (Gideon) did the body-switching trick. Again, I don't have a slam-dunk answer for this, but it could after all just refer to the thing that was named in the first half of the sentence, namely Gideon's apparent feat of staying up for 16 days in a row with no sleep [Knuckles, R&T, TL; also SS, GoaH]. (It was done by having two "Gideons," Charlemagne and the real Gideon, both looking like Gideon and sleeping in shifts for two-plus weeks.) - Many of the song names are carefully chosen, with important meanings or big aha's attached to them (212-Margarita, The Swish, Banging Camp, Stevie Nix, Spinners, etc.). But there are several names that I absolutely don't have a clue about: Chips Ahoy!, Saddle Shoes, Criminal Fingers (a Revelation Records reference?), 40 Bucks (yes, "two twenties from her dresser," but why elevate this to the name of the song?). I'm sure there are satisfying things to unlock here, I just don't know what. For that matter, why is Stevie Nix spelled "Nix" and not "Nicks"? I don't believe Craig wastes opportunities, or does things randomly ... Other songs
Instead of a thorough breakdown of the leftover songs, here's a smattering of observations: For Boston
Early on I wondered if the townie with the diamond in the dishtowel was Charlemagne, before he left Lynn with Holly. But "she lost her new phone" [FB] puts paid to that idea; Jesse's still using a "message machine" [Magazines] by the time we get to the tail end of the main story in 2004. (There were cellphones in 2004, and the Narrator metaphorically describes Charlemagne after the crucifixion as a kid who "just can't find his phone" [AE]. But Charlemagne left Lynn in 1993; definitely no cellphones back then.) Separate VacationsCharlemagne's a royal name, he's from the east coast, he pulls street corner scams, he's working in a restaurant and bar down by the harbor, and we know that Jesse regards herself as his daughter [CF]; so "some blue blood dude down at the harbor / He called me his brother, he tried to sell me his daughter / These east coast kids are such tricky talkers" sounds an awful lot like him. "These guys with no shirts" would seem to be the Skins, too (see wikipedia "Shirts and skins," link). But none of what's actually described as happening here is recognizable from the story we know. TouchlessThe whole idea of going "touchless" seems to take inspiration from Mary and the Noli Me Tangere ("don't touch me") theme; "You gotta watch what you wish for." Teenage LiberationThe things that happen at the different ages (if indeed the numbers 17/19/23/29 are ages) all appear to be about Charlemagne ("He took one good swipe at his wrist but he missed so he lived" would be Charlemagne taking a swipe at Charlemagne's Ghost, for example). And the girls of the choruses all sound like Mary ("These senior class chicks, they're the easiest to kiss / They got nothing to lose and they know it" would be an ambiguous description of her at prom on the one hand, and at the crucifixion on the other). But the ages don't correlate at all with the actual story. Girls Like StatusGLS is a very strange song which is full of lines that could be understood to apply to either Holly or Mary, on the one hand, and to either Charlemagne or Gideon, on the other. Probably of all these songs this one most deserves a line-by-line breakdown (not least in order to pay proper respect to the astonishing Krokus/Locust rhyme), but there doesn't really seem to be any new information about the story in it, so I'm going to leave it aside for now. Two Handed Handshake
The line "girls, you gotta try to be nice to one another" appears to be owed to Willy Vlautin's novel The Free, see the 2015 Flood interview with Craig ( link): Spectres
Spectres is an incredible song. There's a lot there that sounds like it's coming from the Narrator remembering an earlier life in the Twin Cities, maybe the crucifixion in particular ("this fantastic opportunity / to let the light shine down on me"), and grieving for his dead friends ("let us grieve for dead celebrities"). Even if the song isn't about the characters of the story, "Projectionists and publicists" is some kind of homage to Gideon, the projectionist of Charlemagne's Ghost and publicist of his Gospel. "The ragers and the clever kids" could describe the Skins ("theirs was a rage" [OftC]) and Charlemagne's friends ("clever kids screwing with some new device" [NS]). "Found dead on dirty mattresses, bleeding through the bandages" sounds darkly like a final end for Holly/Mary. "All we really want / is to be in magazines" describes Jesse [SM, Magazines]. "I guess we all got pretty close to the roles we chose to play" is obviously an accurate description of their experience at the crucifixion itself. There are two tantalizing lines in the song that I don't quite understand. One is "I guess we all got pretty close, I swear I saw him right by 7A"; what is 7A? And "they're covering the carcass, they're bleeding and remembering"; are the "office girls" somehow connected to Holly/Mary? What do these lines mean? --------------- There are lots of questions left, and things to improve, and details to pore over. But I think I've finished what I set out to do here. We saw Still Alive Carl just last night, and he's still alive. I don't want to jinx it or screw with it or say anything else about it, good or bad. But he's still alive, and that's a big statement. Writing up this whole thing really did end up being easily 10 times the work I thought it was going to be; working on it every single day (mostly late at night instead of sleeping) has been exhausting, and writing the thing at the end to ask for him has been difficult to do in a way that is hard to explain. But I think the work really is finished, and so I can stop writing now. (The rule about listening still holds, but that I can do.) I'll still come back to the timeline posts and try to make those as solid as possible, if I think of anything I've missed. And I'm happy to talk about other people's ideas, or to answer questions about anything I wrote that wasn't clear. If I have another good aha-moment I'll add it on. But I believe I'm done with the compulsory part of the thing I've been doing here. Sincerely, thanks to everyone who's been reading this all along (and to anyone who finds and reads through it later, for that matter). This'll be the last ask, but I'll still be very grateful for any positive thoughts or prayers for Still Alive Carl. Thanks very much for the support up to this point. Looking forward to catching a Hold Steady show one of these days too.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 14, 2016 12:55:48 GMT -5
There are lots of questions left, and things to improve, and details to pore over. But I think I've finished what I set out to do here. We saw Still Alive Carl just last night, and he's still alive. I don't want to jinx it or screw with it or say anything else about it, good or bad. But he's still alive, and that's a big statement. Writing up this whole thing really did end up being easily 10 times the work I thought it was going to be; working on it every single day (mostly late at night instead of sleeping) has been exhausting, and writing the thing at the end to ask for him has been difficult to do in a way that is hard to explain. But I think the work really is finished, and so I can stop writing now. (The rule about listening still holds, but that I can do.) I'll still come back to the timeline posts and try to make those as solid as possible, if I think of anything I've missed. And I'm happy to talk about other people's ideas, or to answer questions about anything I wrote that wasn't clear. If I have another good aha-moment I'll add it on. But I believe I'm done with the compulsory part of the thing I've been doing here. Sincerely, thanks to everyone who's been reading this all along (and to anyone who finds and reads through it later, for that matter). This'll be the last ask, but I'll still be very grateful for any positive thoughts or prayers for Still Alive Carl. Thanks very much for the support up to this point. Looking forward to catching a Hold Steady show one of these days too. A big, big thank you right back at you. I've read every single word of this. Every morning, somewhere between five and seven, I've gotten up with my kid, checking in if the daily dive into the story is out yet. For what it's worth, you have made my mornings a lot better than they could have been. Not only that, but you have renewed my interest in Hold Steady in general. It's been fantastic revisiting the material with you observations and analysis fresh in mind. I can't really express how thrilled this entire thing has made me. If you ever come to my country, or if I ever visit wherever you're living, I'll be more than happy to buy you a couple of rounds and to have a talk. Good to hear that Carl is still alive. Fingers crossed that he'll get well! I guess I have a lot of questions, objections and maybe even some fresh thoughts, but I think I need to re-read the whole thing to sort things out. Mostly it's small stuff. Your reading of the entire story seems pretty tight, though. And whether you're right or not - as in your interpretations match up with what Craig actually meant, or if he had such a air tight vision at all - is besides the point. Your work has a great value of its own.
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Post by kayfaberaven on Apr 16, 2016 21:20:13 GMT -5
Thanks for all of this. It's been a fun read, and I intend to go over it again in detail some time later. Also, further to my half-joking assertion on a previous page that you may actually be Craig, I'm considering making it a life goal to ensure that Craig reads it and then tells me what's what.
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Post by nardling on Apr 18, 2016 8:22:00 GMT -5
This post absolutely blew my mind. Excellent detective work. I found an interesting tidbit when looking into Swede Hollow. That bridge on 7th street was a railroad bridge before it became a road, so maybe this is the bridge from Hoodrat? There's a bus stop there too. It never made a ton of sense to me that there would be a bus stop under a railroad bridge.
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Post by skepticatfirst on May 3, 2016 20:13:13 GMT -5
Took a much-needed break, and come back to find that we may be getting a tour! All right! Man, thanks very much for all your feedback along the way, it was great to know that you were reading that closely and that you enjoyed it that much. (Apologies for not responding earlier --- once I finally put this thing down I needed a vacation to really get it behind me.) If I get over to Norway, or to a THS show in northern Europe, I'll definitely try to get in touch; it could actually happen. And definitely, if you make it over to New York or Boston, let me know. For the questions, if you go back through the thread and find you want to dig more into something, just let me know. Thanks very much, seriously. About Craig, I can't imagine he would give you an answer, but it would be cool if he sees it at some point. I mean, on the one hand, he's thrown a world-class no-look pass here, and that probably meant deciding from the start not to watch what happens to the ball. But I have to think he'd be curious about it, too. So, maybe some satisfaction for him, if in fact I've got a reasonable amount of it right (and I believe my theory, FWIW). If you do go over it again and find anything on rereading that needs clarification, let me know. Nice find!! With the bus stop, that pretty much has to be right. Even if it wasn't a railroad bridge in historical times, there's a similar throwback with "work at the mill until you die" [CSummer], where "the mill" refers to the fact that Hamm's Brewery (of which the water tower is a part) was originally a flour mill, as well as a brewery. Very cool. I feel like there's a lot of stuff like this still to be worked out. And who knows, maybe we get a new single or two with the tour, if there's going to be a tour? I remembered another thing I never wrote up, about the Runner's High line Prancing all around like some Kansas City clown. At first I thought this might be part of another city metaphor, but there weren't any other KC references in the songs, and this one by itself didn't give a whole lot to go on. Then it occurred to me that the KC Royals are in the AL Central with Craig's beloved Twins, and that "Kansas City clown" might be trash talk, especially with the Royals coming back into their own at the same time that the Twins were slumping. On Sept. 16, 2013 (Teeth Dreams was recorded in 2013) Royals fan Jimmy Faseler became a brief national celebrity for his victory dance in the Kansas City stands, and I'm pretty sure this is what Craig's referring to. I won't copy the animated gif here but it's worth seeing; I've included a few links below, in case some of them disappear over time. sports.yahoo.com/news/royals-superfan-jimmy-faseler-jiggles-his-way-into-america-s-heart-as-team-inches-closer-to-playoffs-064548150.html#www.kmbc.com/news/watch-have-you-seen-this-kansas-city-royals-fans-belly-dance/21984170uproxx.com/sports/kansas-city-royals-fan-gif-hypnotic/kckingdom.com/2013/09/16/dancing-kansas-city-royals-fan/
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Post by somuchjoy on May 5, 2016 9:40:30 GMT -5
This whole thread is fucking insane.
Well done.
My vote is still for Holly with a metal bar in the vestibule.
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Post by vegetron on Jun 18, 2016 12:19:30 GMT -5
This thread has gripped me for the last couple of weeks. I already loved THS back catalogue enough on a surface level but had never even considered how much lyrical depth there was until I read this. Craig Finn is a genius for putting it all together and so are you for unraveling it! It is amazing how you can relate to so many lyrics as if they were just about life in general yet there are so many layers underneath, not to mention the rocking music on top! I will be listening to every album and enjoying them even more thanks to you.
Fingers crossed for Carl.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 15, 2016 3:48:14 GMT -5
Wild guess: The new song The Most Important Thing will have some connection to The Only Thing.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Nov 19, 2016 0:25:44 GMT -5
Hey, it's been a while. I'm still in a holding pattern here, which is a good thing; but I was pretty psyched to get the AKM/SS releases on Monday. Not just new music, but new narrative in The Most Important Thing! First, to catch up: Shoulda taken Al Green with the swizzlestick in the kitchenette! But seriously, I mentioned this earlier, and I'll say again for the record: it was your discovery of 1976's Hurricane Holly that made me first realize that the THS narrative wasn't arbitrary, that Craig was in total control of what he's doing. (Plus that's the linchpin of half the dates in the timeline.) I don't know how you figured that out, but it was a big moment for me personally. Hats off to you. Back to The Most Important Thing ... Lyrically, most of the song has an early draft vibe; it's like Craig's "rewriting ... always thinking of what I can fit in" has a lot fewer layers than usual. (Some of the metaphors --- fish, baby birds, bookshelf --- are barely blended in.) But there's still plenty to dig through. First off, we get some geographic detail that's really nice to have. That's the thing about Charlemagne. He got all washed up in the amber waves of grain. Rubbed up on the bars on the bluff. This confirms that the Payne Avenue metal bar where Charlemagne was beaten is on the lip of the Party Pit: "the bluff" is Dayton's Bluff ( wikipedia), which forms the rocky wall around the eastern end of Swede Hollow. A St. Paul government document about the Dayton's Bluff district notes that it has a strong border on the east "where the Swede Hollow ravine and and the edge of the bluff form natural boundaries" ( link). Here's a Google Maps image of the Dayton's Bluff district, which encompasses the eastern end of Swede Hollow: We also learn a little more about the night of the beatdown: It was so so sad with Charlie in his sick bed He looked like hell and smelled like chemicals Maxing out on medicine and feeling all invincible ICU at Regions Hospital. We could have guessed that the hospital where Charlemagne was taken after the beating was close to Payne Avenue, but now it's confirmed: the ER of Stevie Nix is the ER of Regions Hospital. (Love the scribbled "Regents?" in the margin of the liner notes; Craig wasn't sure of the correct transcription from Minnesotan to English.) Here again a Google Maps image: Gotta say it was fun as hell to go scrolling through the map, like old times. There are lots of other things going on in the song, too: When the band played Sally Cinnamon. It felt like 1991 again. I didn't get into them too early in But I still got into them. Right now that seems like it's the most important thing. Muzzle speculated above that The Most Important Thing would have something to do with The Only Thing, and it looks like that's right: the song is sung from the point of view of the Narrator, and Sally Cinnamon ("Sugar and spice / And all things nice," see lyrics to the Stone Roses song here) is pretty clearly a reference to Mary ("she came off kind of spicy" [BBlues] & "I'm nice and I'm spicy" [212M]). There's allusions to dreams and the Unity of the scene further down, too. I love this verse, by the way. The song as a whole is pretty uneven, but these opening lines are great. The Narrator was away at school in 1991; I don't think that's a reference to a particular event so much as to the power of music to transport you back to a certain time or feeling (a la "Sing along to the Southern Girls / Rip me out of my little world" [RP]), and of course it's a few years after the actual "Sally Cinnamon" came out in 1987. The Narrator met Mary late, after she'd already "met" Charlemagne. But he still got into her ("I'm still pretty into you" [AE]), and that's the important thing. (I'm going to guess 1991 is when Craig himself got into the song. That's a totally different thing of course, but it sounds true like that.) That's the thing about Gideon. He knows just a little bit about so many things. Knows too much about certain things. Knows some guys who know some Latin Kings. Right now that seems like it's pretty much the only thing. We're baby birds with broken wings and we sing. I feel like "He knows just a little bit about so many things" should remind me of something, but I can't think what ("up to then I only knew it was a movement of the people" [CatCT] doesn't seem to get us far). The "Latin Kings" get stood up next to the "Disciples" [YGD] as another elliptical reference to the Cityscape Skins under the names of real-world gangs. Has an echo of "The kings were just like Solomon / He smoked those camel filter kings" in MM too. We sing unity songs but the scene's still splintered. "Splintered" is a meth reference; "I could see the silver splinter in your eyes" [R&T]. We're stretched thin and we're stressed at the seams and we dream. We dream like screens but it's still out of focus. The mood and music are completely different, but in the words I'm hearing an echo of Same Kooks ("out of focus") crossed with Oaks: Our minds are the windows. Our bodies are screens. We scratch We scrape. And we dream. I don't think this has any particular relevance to the events of the story, but I'm intrigued to see that Craig's been working over this image for a long time. Then he doubles down with So we know it's just show biz, still it seems to surprise us. which strongly echoes Slapped Actress, and maybe Spectres. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage ... He got all washed up in the amber waves of grain This made me hear something I'd missed before, namely that "amber waves of grain" is particularly associated with Charlemagne, as an image of the wholesome midwestern America he thought he was going to find when he skipped the east coast with Holly. (See also "we heard about this place called the United States" [KP].) Of course the amber waves turned out to have their own rocks: "I guess there's fields of speed where there's fields of grain" [DLME], or as Craig himself says, "Baltimore has heroin. The Midwest has speed" ( link). Rubbed up on the bars on the bluff. Echoes "But we rubbed up pretty close to some rock and roll promoters" [SM], confirming that the Sketchy Metal line refers to the Narrator's recollection of the basement-show-cum-metal-bar-incident. Got tangled up in the double dutch. Echoes "my one friend got two girls in a twist" [YGD], "I was kicking it with cousins" [HSL], etc.; this is Charlemagne getting mixed up with Holly in Mary's body in the car, after the crucifixion. You know he drank too much. He never really ate enough. Reinforces the idea that all the verses in Teenage Liberation are about Charlemagne, since until now these were some of the weaker connections: "a cartoon kid who sits and drinks on his porch / And gets pissed"; "He mostly ate all his meals in his car" [TL]. For "He looked like hell" compare "What'd you let them do to you?" [SG]. The description of Charlemagne in the ICU "feeling all invincible" echoes "Holly's not invincible, in fact she's in the hospital" [FN], and makes it pretty clear that the feeling of invincibility isn't an effect of youth, as "We were all invincible" [JAJ] might suggest; it's an effect of speed. "ICU in Regions Hospital" is a case of pun intended: I see you! It felt so cool with Holly at the bus stop. Nardling got this one --- it's the bus stop at the 7th Avenue entrance to the Party Pit. Running low on energy and nodding off in revelry. I hear "running out on residue and crashing through the vestibule" every time I hear this line. Faded blues of Memphis Tennessee. Mississippi River always holds it all together. Mary (from Graceland) in blue jeans in the weeks before the crucifixion, I think. That's the timeframe of "Besides, it ties her outfit all together" [BCamp], too. Then she blows blasts of static into music from the big pink. "Music from Big Pink" is of course the Band's first studio album, but I don't really know how to read this ("My name's Rick Dango / Robbie Robertson" [Swish]?). "Static" pretty much has to be a reference to the stuck-between-stations clicks and hisses of Charlemagne and Mary's failed kiss. OftC tells us there's music coming down into the Pit from the metal bar on the night of the crucifixion; is "big pink" here a reference to the bar? Grasping at straws ... Stumbled into the foyer and pulled the bookshelf over. And we were drowning in the literature. Bram Stoker bit your neck (Craig actually sings "hit your head" ) Ginsberg hit your dick. A big black Bible hit your head. And that's how we got born again. This looks like a reference to Holly's party: Gideon is waiting by the coat check [Weekenders] (foyer) with the vampire spider gang tattoo [HF] ("Bram Stoker bit your neck"), where Holly blew him ("hit your dick") and "got born again in the Sugar Mountain Pines" [MM] ("got born again"), while Charlemagne compares it both to the Beats ("Jack Kerouac is dead" [HF], compare Ginsberg) and the Bible ("you in the corner with a good-looking drifter" etc. [CatCT]). But these could also just be descriptions of things going bad for the kids generally. What really made me laugh was "foyer". Craig now has songs which explicitly reference a foyer [TMIT] vestibule [CC, HSL, RH] doorway [SM] entrance [CiS] entry [BBreathing] porch [TL] portal [HSL] and that's just in the Hold Steady canon! I should really take a closer look at these, but at first blush it's funny as hell what he's done with them. Up next: antechamber, lobby, narthex. I've noticed a few things in the last few months that I missed the first time around; I was planning to write those up tonight, but I'd forgotten how long the writing takes, so it'll have to be another time. I'll try to add them soon though.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Nov 19, 2016 15:58:42 GMT -5
Great to get a few pieces of information from The Most Important Thing. After (trying to) transcribing the lyrics, one of the first things I did was googling "Regent's Hospital" - appears that wasn't such a bad guess after all. I got chills when I saw the proximity to Swede Hollow. And that bluff thing makes things even clearer.
I was actually going to post something in this thread about a week ago. I was listening through Craig's Newmyers Roof EP for the first time since reading this thread, which have made me more sensible to certain phrases and images. And even though Craig's solo universe is not a part of this thing, and you either way won't be able to fully dwell into it, I have to quote the first few lines of Extras:
The building up and the tearing down. Another laser show, another scratched up prairie town Listen to the windshield wipers Back and forth against the summer rain Take comfort in the rituals. The repetition in the waves of the grain
I'm not sure what those lines means, or if they have any relevance here, but I think it serves as context. With the repetitions of familiar images like "prairie town" (Jesse) and "waves of grain" (Charlemagne), you could argue that these descriptions isn't tied to a character, but is just the way Craig portraits Midwest and/or Twin Cities in general. Then again, the addition of "laser shows" makes a case for studying some of the solo lyrics as if they were connected to the THS universe. Anyway, since I though about those lines a week ago, and then heard about those amber waves of grain in The Most Important Thing, I just had to mention it.
(By the way, when we talk about that EP, and the foyer/vestibule/entrance: The first lines of the title track Newmyer's Roof has "lobby"! It has bloodsucking creatures as well. "There were those same bloodsuckers in the lobby again/ and when they called my name, I waved, I though they might be my old friends" (actually, he repeats the image in another song on the same EP: "There was Bloodsucker Blues in the lobby at dusk"). I think I have mentioned this before, but Newmyer's Roof (the song) holds some significance to me, being a song where Craig explicitly tells us as listeners "listen up, now I'm telling you something true" - as opposed to every other lyric, where he isn't. "All these told tales, and one single truth/ I saw the towers go down from up on Newmyer's roof". Digressions, but still)
That thing about Sally Cinnamon and Mary seems right. So that gives us more or less new information about almost every character in the universe, bar Jesse. That's not bad for a throwaway b-side.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Nov 21, 2016 5:25:04 GMT -5
It's not really important to the story itself, but have you tried to compare the timeline of The Narrator with the timeline of the real life Craig Finn? There are at least a few places where their paths are crossing:
* The Narrator "went away to school" in 1989. I would guess that's when Craig left Minneapolis for Boston * He comes back in 1993 "to start a band". Craig returned in 1993, and started up Lifter Puller almost right away. Their first 7" was released that year * The both move to New York City, where they start new bands * You could easily draw a line between The Narrators mission of spreading the gospel of Charlemagne with his new band, and... well, you know. Craig actually spreading the same gospel in every song he writes * Even the "when I brought you back here for christmas" part could fit the timelines. Craig met his now-girlfriend in 2006. I don't know where she's from, but it's likely that she visited MPLS for the first time during a christmas visit. I would like to thing that Craig's past life in Twin Cities wasn't quite as crazy as The Narrator's, but everything in IHTWTDFY could be a metaphor for the past he's showing her * And of course, there's everything about The Unified Scene, which applies both how The Narrator is envisioning the future, and the real-life thing Craig has built with The Hold Steady
This is barely breaking in any way, but we've been over the blurred lines between the narrative and Craig talking to a real Hold Steady audience. It's fair to say that The Narrator have some of Craig in him, but it would be fun to closer examining their timelines.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Nov 25, 2016 16:08:15 GMT -5
Thinking more about the first verse of TMIT: "Sally Cinnamon" is a story, whose narrator has fallen hard for a girl, only to learn that she's already fallen for somebody else. In that light, the 1991 date mentioned in TMIT actually does fit the Hold Steady timeline: the THS Narrator relates to the "Sally Cinnamon" song at that time because he'd had an identical experience with Mary back in 1989, and still isn't over it. (You can read his "getting into" Sally Cinnamon as a reference either to falling for Mary in the first place, or else to relating to the song because of having once fallen for her; having thought about it more I think it's another one of those Craig double meanings that we're supposed to take both ways.**) I'm going to give it a few more days, but unless I find a reason to back away from this I'll add it to the timeline, together with the new info about Regions hospital, etc.
The "baby birds" image comes up in Chillout Tent too: in both places it's applied to kids who've gotten a little too into the drugs and are now helpless (here, the Narrator says that they've become dependent on the stuff from the guys Gideon knows).
I see that the updated Earl show poster with all the musical references (the one available with the BAGIA reissue) has #65 THE DRIFTERS ... The Most Important Thing. Would be curious to know what that is.
There's definitely some broader context here, but that could just be the context already present in common American English. Both expressions are stereotypes of the Midwest:
- A "prairie town" is a typical phrase (do a Google search and see all the "Prairie Town" book/song titles) for any of a million small places on the American or Canadian prairie: the implication is that they're all the same, a few buildings on main street and nothing of interest going on. In Spinners, "some prairie town" is the dismissive New York perspective on where Jesse comes from, the assumption that her Twin Cities past was nondescript and forgettable, when in reality it was nothing of the kind --- the whole point is that she can't forget it, that it completely overshadows her experience of New York. The line in Extras sounds like it's also leaning on that all-the-same stereotype, but in a different way; yeah, there's a lot of hardship in these towns, one after another ("another scratched-up prairie town"), but there's a comfort deep inside that repetition, too.
- Not being an American you may know this or not, so apologies if I'm mentioning something obvious, but "amber waves of grain" is a line from "America the Beautiful," a patriotic song that every American child sings in school and knows by heart ("purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain," used in A&H, is from the same song). In the line from Extras, it sounds like the speaker, Craig or an in-song character, is kind of backing into this image in the opposite way from Charlemagne --- digging deep to remember his/her love for the ideal Midwest, in spite of the sadness there, whereas Charlemagne starts out believing it's paradise, only to discover the unhappiness later. But the image is the same: it's the Midwest people think of when envisioning the ideal America.
There's absolutely a case for treating them as connected as far as lyrics, themes and images are concerned --- you dug up all sorts of stuff from Lifter Puller way upthread, starting with I Like The Lights, that's clearly illuminating to the THS narrative. Or look at Chillout Tent: nothing from the main story, but valuable confirmation about the definition of "pinned," "kicking it," the "baby birds" image, etc. (And life lessons too: Tuesday on the way to school I got to explain to my daughter that there's a difference between "jail" and "prison." Thanks Craig!)
Maybe I should just look at the Lifter Puller and solo lyrics; I only haven't done it because it seems so weird to read instead of listen to them. I haven't bought the solo stuff yet either, and I have to do that just as an act of support anyway. Let me figure that out.
OK, that's excellent. This looks like it's filling out the idea of the lobby/vestibule/doorway as that particular place at a show or party where dealers do their business:
- Gideon was in the vestibule [HSL], in the corner [CatCT] by the coat check [Weekenders] at Holly's party, parked there by Mary [SN] to hawk his "party favors" [MM] until she brings Holly back around to make the Deal with him [MM, SN, etc.].
- When Holly (in Mary's body) crashes the car into the entrance of the HarMar Mall --- "crashing through the vestibule" [CC] and "ma[king] a scene by the revolving door" [PP] --- she's specifically described as "driving 'round and coming down and trying to hook up with an entrance ramp" [CiS], emphasis on entrance. So maybe it's not just that the Skins "mostly sold it on the malls" [SN] generically; maybe they mostly sold it in the *entrances* of the malls. (Southtown Girls paints a slightly different picture --- "right in front of the Rainbow Foods / right in front of the Party City" --- but there could be reasons for that. Anyway, as a provisional idea this is pretty good.)
No kidding. Wish we could get more. There are supposed to be something like eight tracks that never made it on to Stay Positive, right?
I'll respond to your other post soon, too.
** Like the description of Holly making porn flicks in Curves and Nerves. She really did go to California and get into porn, but the descriptions of her films are also descriptions of the metal bar beatdown (North Dallas Foursome) and the crucifixion (Revenge of the Pervs).
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Post by muzzleofbees on Dec 9, 2016 14:20:49 GMT -5
Ah, thanks for the "amber waves of grain" clearup. Did not know that.
Seems to be a few different lyrics on the demos on the Boys And Girls reissue as well. Interesting stuff. No "Hey hey" here, but "first there was providence, then there was prudence, you gotta fall in love with whoever you can". A heavily reworked version of Girls Like Status (which you kind of can tell being rewritten a few times, the final version being so damn perfect lyrically). A "magic" stuck into the "there was..." list in Arms And Hearts. And maybe the best of all: What seems like a totally new lyric over the music of Chillout Tent, with mentions of the Cityscape Skins, references to a "she" looking "completely different" and more. Plenty of good stuff to discover.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Dec 24, 2016 20:32:23 GMT -5
I've been wanting to get back to this for weeks now, but have been absolutely flat out at work and haven't had time even to follow what's been posted since the Brooklyn shows. Things will slow down, and I've got a backlog of things to add when they do. But I started this thread on Christmas Eve last year, and I wanted to make a point of revisiting it today, even if it's just to catch up a little.
That is huge. I didn't order the LP because I don't have a turntable, and then got too busy to go get the downloads when they were released, but obviously I will now. The "prudence" thing sharpens the focus of "you gotta fall in love with whoever you can" in a big way; I want to think about it some more, but I'll come back to it.
Listening to the demos on the reissued SS really made clear to me how intense Craig's rewriting is. I mean, he's said that he's constantly rewriting (I quoted him about that somewhere upthread), and superficially that's easy to imagine. But when you hear the raw quality of the early cuts (like the CatCT "violent red visions" line without "violent red visions"), you realize just how much rework must have gone into producing the incredibly honed final versions of these songs.
Of course this is the guy who knocked off You Can Make Him Like You in 45 minutes, so it's not like he can't do amazing stuff in short order. ("You can cover yourself like a bruise" is easily the equal of the best lines Dylan ever wrote.) But he's not dodging the hard work of improvement, either.
Shit! I will get to this, I promise.
Back to your other post, which I've been thinking about:
Like you say, we talked about this some upthread, and I still think "alter ego" is a useful way of thinking about this. The Narrator became a heavy drug addict [SM, AE], while Craig never was, etc. But to your point it's probably possible to dig in and try to map out what's Craig and what's fiction more closely.
For the most part, though, I prefer to err on the side of not doing this. There are still some more or less impersonal things about Craig's bio that I'd like to know, like where he lived in Edina, since that might shine some light on a secondary meaning of "Indian fringes" (talked about this somewhere upthread). But personal stuff like relationships etc. opens the door to an interpretive swamp. I mean, it's obvious that the Narrator's capacity for suffering has some real-life analogue, and a motivated biographer could try to put a construction on that. But what interests me isn't so much the world as Craig found it, it's the world he built. And there are so many ways to rework the former into the latter, that it's probably best on principle to leave the former alone. Even my little speculation about Sally Cinnamon and 1991 turned out to be hasty --- I should have just taken a few more days to think about the line from the Narrator's perspective. And besides, I get the impression that the thing with the girl in IHTWTDFY wasn't set to work out so well. :-)
Time for dinner so I'll stop there, but with a final note about the original purpose that brought me here.
Still Alive Carl is still alive, and I'm still observing the terms of my deal. Things were going very badly a year ago when I started this thread; chemotherapy had failed badly and they were talking about a couple of months to live. Then he started an experimental treatment, and since then, very much against odds, he has been what his sister, in a recent friends-and-family email, called "holding steady" (!). Now, in the last month or so, his tests have been coming back with some numbers that aren't so great. I'm kind of beyond looking at cause and effect at this point, but I feel like I need to ask again, as a one-off: if you happen still to be reading and getting some happiness from this thing, and have a moment for some good thoughts for Still Alive Carl, I'd be very, very grateful for that.
Thanks, and more on The Most Important Thing soon, I hope.
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Post by fontaine on Dec 28, 2016 10:01:43 GMT -5
I can only second that. This is a great and sometimes eye-opening read, even if you do not agree with every conjecture.
Thanks so much for sharing this, skepticatfirst. And all the best to Still Alive Carl.
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