Centipede Hz

Centipede Hz

The new Animal Collective album is significantly different to Merriweather Post Pavilion. For a start, the four members of the Collective didn't collaborate from remote corners of the globe for this album (that's all wrong, isn't it, globes by definition are spherical and therefore absolutely do not have a single corner to speak of). They actually worked on the songs in the same room. Centipede Hz sounds less produced, more like Strawberry Jam and Sung Tongs. There's all the usual. Strong songs, full of ideas and tangents, enough out of the usual stuff going on to retain the avant garde pigeonhole for those that have to complete the 'genre' box in the iPod properties.

It was released only yesterday and I'm on my first listen. So far it sounds great. It'll get worn out on the car stereo tomorrow, as I'm going to be driving for most of the day.

Leaving Atocha Station

I had to put this down this morning to get dressed and go to work, and I'm itching to pick it up again. The narrator is away from home, out of his depth, trying desperately to remain on the course he's embarked upon, and to retain the stipend that goes with it, despite zero enthusiasm, dedication, will power, and aptitude.

That should ring some bells with most of us.

The early chapters are set in Spain, with the English speaking student failing to make much progress with his Spanish or his poetry, while managing to source all manner of chemicals to alter his state with, and supplementing these with liberal amounts of alcohol, tobacco and coffee. There's a poetry reading in front of his course director coming up. Should be interesting.

Law, or justice

A couple have been banged up for three days after shooting burglars, who had broken into their home. This wasn't the first time they'd been burgled. Serial victims. Maybe they should ask for the previous receiving end of offences to be taken into account.

After Tony Martin and the cricket bat bloke, all this was supposed to change.

In the 1957 book Fowler's End Gerald Kersh describes English police stations as designed to strike fear in to the hearts of the innocent, while making villans feel right at home.

It seems little has changed in the fifty five years since the book was published. I find the situation perverse. In the eggshell skull case, apparently, as a wrongdoer, you have to take your victim as you find him and face the consequences. I'm not sure on the civil / criminal aspects of this and whether the principle only applies in negligence cases or whatever, but it seems fair enough. Poke someone in the eye, and unless you know for sure that he's not already lost the sight in one eye, and you risk blinding him altogether. Rob a nutter with a gun and you might just get shot. That's the lottery you (break and) enter when you force your way into someone's home where you don't belong.