No Line on the Horizon

I recently downloaded U2's latest album, 'No Line on the Horizon.' I'm not sure what convinced me to do it. Based on the initial single, 'Get on Your Boots', and my overall disappointment with their last two albums, I was not too excited about this one.

But, I got it. And, I think it's good. Really good. The best thing they've done in years. I like it far better than their last two. The songs stick with me. The sound is rich and interesting. I felt like the last two albums were considered 'good' (or even 'great') based too much on nostalgia. "Wow, the guitars chime again! Wow, Bono is yearning again instead of being ironic! Wow, I remember 1989!" No one wanted to talk about how the songs themselves just didn't have nearly the emotional or aesthetic force of anything from 'Joshua Tree' or 'Achtung Baby.' Put more simply, where were the pretty melodies to go with all that pretty U2 chiming and Bono yearning? Just...not quite there.

Now, this is one man's opinion. I think many people genuinely loved those albums. So, maybe it is a matter of taste. But, I also think that the overall sound of the latest album is a marked improvement. There's interesting, satisfying, 'meaty' things going on. 'All That You Can't Leave Behind,' I finally realized, just always struck me as artificial sounding. And not in the good 'Achtung Baby' or 'Zooropa' sort of artificiality, where it was intended, where they were creating this bizarre carnival world. More like the artificiality of vending machine food for dinner. It was a shell, a casing. The sound was just flat. Same, or similar, problem with 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.' Don't get me wrong, stripped down can sound great. There's nothing like the acoustic guitars on 'The Bends' for instance. But, ATYCLB was stripped down not to the nourishing core of a song--real, acoustic sounds and raw voices--but to a few electronic tinklings lacking texture. I'm putting it harshly. But, that encapsulates my problem with the record.

The newest album does not suffer from that. The fills, the flourishes, the textures are great and actually stick with you as much as anything in the songs. The melodies are good, too. The title track alone has a catchier melody, in my opinion, than anything in the last two albums.

This is not a great album like 'Joshua Tree' or 'Achtung Baby.' I realize that. But...it's much closer than this great band has been in a long time. And I'm happy to see them back near the summit.

I should probably be watching more TV

When's the last time you heard someone say that? But, it's true. There are so many good shows I hear about, but I only really watch a few comedies. For starters, I don't get HBO. Or any cable channels. I could netflix, though. (Which is another cultural phenomenon I'm missing out on.)

It's not just cable, though. There's a lot of good, creative work going on out there. Or, so I surmise from other people's conversation. One of these days, I need to do a 'Sopranos' marathon or something. Er, maybe something that had a shorter run. Deadwood, perhaps? I do like Ian McShane in 'Kings' (a network show I only ended up watching b/c a friend of a friend worked on it. Too bad it's likely not to survive.)

But, yeah. I watched way too much TV as a kid. Then, I mostly gave it up after college. Then, TV went and got good. The good thing now, though, is that the internet and netflix allow you to more carefully pick and choose what you watch. I appreciate that.

what's the point of short stories?

I wonder this more and more. I grew up writing them--spontaneously. I just sort of expressed myself that way. These were mostly adventure tales then. In college, I took writing classes. At Iowa, no less. (I grew up in Iowa, that's why I went there. It also happens to have one of the most mythologized MFA programs in the country). They teach you to write short stories there.

So...I have a bunch of stories I've written. Some are, in my opinion, not bad. Even good. I have recently, finally put some effort into trying to publish these. The results so far are not encouraging.

But...a bigger question. What's the point? Who reads short stories? Who reads these literary journals aside from people who also want to get published in them, because they also went to a school like Iowa for undergrad or for their MFA? If the stories I'd written were good enough to publish, then why not? But...it's clear I'd have to put a lot more work into getting better at this genre. Is it worth the labor? Might I be better off writing something easier, that more people would appreciate? Like...stand-up? Like, TV comedy (if I could get into it). Songs? Plays? Novels? Comic books? And, yes, blogs. That's partially why I'm writing this blog entry.

I don't know. Maybe I just need to keep trying to get hired at 'The Onion.'

rejection

Rejection hurts. Everyone knows this, but I don't think we're really prepared for it until it happens. It always comes with a lot of force. You can tell yourself over and over before you get socked in the gut, "This is going to hurt, this is going to hurt, but it's not going to kill you," but when the hit comes, it always surprises you.

Personal rejection is like this, of course. Professional. Romantic. That one, perhaps, hurts the most. Except, if you have any such inclinations, artistic rejection. That affects your whole, carefully guarded identity. Well...that's what rejection does in general: it defines you. It takes away your identity from you. I think what you learn to do, hopefully, with maturity, is to minimize that period. Maybe more mature people than me make it go away entirely, I don't know. I'm certainly not a paragon of maturity.

So, here's the prompt for the foregoing: I've finally started putting some effort into getting a story published. In all these years that I've been (sporadically) writing stories, I thought it was my best. Well...if it's not good enough...Ok, I won't elide the depressing thought. If it's not good enough, then I'm fooling myself about being 'a writer.' I never have been one. So, what have I been doing all these years? Pretending? Yikes. What a lot of wasted time.

But, that's the depressing thought. The redemption--rejection is the stony path to success. Maybe not even that. Getting rejected is what writers, what artists, what human beings, what men do. At least, perhaps, it will stop me from deluding myself that my half-assed efforts are good enough. Because they haven't been.