American Football + TTNG live @ SWG3, Glasgow

A few pictures from the live show played by American Football and opened by This Town Needs Guns (TTNG) in Glasgow on 17/5/2015. The light was terrible (especially during AF - why oh why), so I tried.

There's no copyright on these photos; if you want to use them, please give credit to Claudia Viggiano or @thisiswater_ (both on Twitter and Instagram).

This Town Needs Guns

Mad Men: I won't have my heart broken

My favourite tv series of all time has just come to an end, and I thought it appropriate to bid my farewell to Mr Draper and the rest of the Mad Men (and Women).

There's lots I'd like to say, but first I think Erica Cantoni on Bright Wall/Dark Room said it best:

I have forgotten all the major stories, and yet I could carve in bone my memory of a dozen tiny, quiet scenes:

Betty, sitting in a late-day Roman glow, her hair whipped and molded into a European chignon. Looking so modern it was as if she alone dragged in the backdrop change, inventing the ’60s. As if she’d finally shed the kids like a dead skin or a fire and emerged, victoriously golden. Reborn. How the Italian men hit on her and insulted Don when he approached, as a stranger. Which was perfect, right? Because how long had it been since they’d known each other at all? I’d etch in how he fell back in love, madly so, with Betty for two days. With this restored, empowered version of her. All cold upper class beauty, all superiority, all linguistic-flexing power. Too good for him, which is the key to everything.

I’d etch the repose of Roger’s tired face when he calls Joan late at night, with Jane, the regrettable wife, passed out beside him.

Peggy’s hand on Don’s after Anna dies. This single brief touch a complete swelling orchestra composed to explain the depth of their bond and its tenuousness. How vital and still wildly vulnerable this tie is in the possession of a man so accustomed to scorching any tenderness entrusted to him.

Everything encompassed in the moments Don calls Betty “birdie.” The whole rattling film projection of their courtship and marriage and children and infidelities and lies and second tries and reheated dinners. And the end that Betty pretends comes with the bang of Dick Whitman’s betrayal, and not years of whimpers. Every aching sweetness remains in “birdie,” somehow fossilized and surviving but useless as a mate-less bull.

The literal restraint of the characters—their buttoned-up loneliness. The moments of elegant non-response and suffocated reaction. The things they do not tell each other, the fights they don’t finish, the slaps that aren’t delivered. The communicative release they never allow themselves (even as it might be their salvation).

Sometimes, I find myself watching  Mad Men through a sort of fantasy lens, as if it were an underwater ballet. A cold, slow-floating drift of Asian dance and sad, silent theater.

It’s hypnotizing.

There are a few more moments I could add to this carousel: Don and Peggy's slow dance in season 7, Roger's "you're okay" to Don the last time they meet in the series, Peggy's fierce and smug catwalk in season 7 as opposed to the Peggy carrying her box in season 1, not wanting to make a noise, to go unnoticed. And then there are the funny ones: Pete's exclamations ("Hell's bells, Trudy!", "Not great, Bob!"). Freddie playing Mozart with his trousers' zipper. "I'm Peggy Olson and I want to smoke some Marijuana." Bert's "She was born in 1898 in a barn. She died on the thirty-seventh floor of a skyscraper. She's an astronaut."

But really, the beauty of Mad Men comes down to this: it's more about what's not said. There is a distance - between the characters, and between you and the characters - a void you can never even imagine to fill, and that's where the unsaid and unwritten goes to settle and die (or does it ever?). It doesn't die, it lies there and stays suffocated, that "communicative release." You get it at times, you get a brief disruption every now and then, just like Don's breaking in tears in the very last episode, but that's not a change in character--it's rather a piece of the puzzle, where you get to see a side of something that, however, remains puzzling.

Don's distance is the most fascinating aspect of what makes his character what it is, and what makes it one of the best characters in the history of television. It's this distance that allows us to see beyond the contradictions encompassed in the character, and leads us to accept him as a man. Don is despicable, but it's because of his restraint that we can't really see him as such, because it's what makes him hover above all kind of judgement.

I have learnt to love despicable characters, but in the end I really wanted Walter White to die. Don, instead, lives on. Mad Men's "underwater ballet" continues, and it looks a bit like Bert Cooper's farewell dance.

Farewell.

The Twilight Sad live @ O2 ABC, Glasgow

These are some of the photos I took at The Twilight Sad's gig in Glasgow on 19/12/2014. I was standing right in the middle so I could only take decent pictures of James (the rest are shite, too dark).

It was beautiful and mesmerising and it only confirmed what I had previously said: Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave is the best record that came out this year.

Enjoy the pictures.

There's no copyright on these photos; however, if you want to use them, please give credits to Claudia Viggiano or @thisiswater_ (both on Twitter and Instagram).

Cheers!
Claudia

2014: my albums of the year

2014 has been a long year, but music has kept me company through productive, creative, stressful and lazy times. So I'll honour music my way.

This is my first ever end-of-the-year celebratory list. Twenty names, a few runners-up, a few absentees: it's a very subjective list, and it mostly reflects the genres I've listened to throughout 2014, so pardon me if there isn't much electronic music represented this year.

I'll also try to spend a few words on why I liked each album. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

1) The Twilight Sad - Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave

Because this album is a journey. Into darkness, gloomy Scottish landscapes and an existential angst that's not that of teenagers, but rather a "tired melancholy," as DiS suggests. It's a concept album, which is why I called it a 'journey', and therefore it should be taken as a whole: "it’s not until you assemble the whole thing, that the jaw-dropping brilliance of the album reveals itself."










2) Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots

Because there is a maturity to this album that I hadn't seen in Albarn before, and although it explores and deploys various genres it is in melancholic tracks that his voice and lyricism work best together; You and Me might be my favourite track of 2014.












3) Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else

Because Cloud Nothings know how to reach the perfect balance between noise, misanthropy and catchiness, and because this album sounds incredibly powerful live. 

















4) Pianos Become the Teeth - Keep You

  
Because they're exploring a different genre which suits them; more precisely, they're experimenting with a mixture of genres, and the result is a solid piece of work whose punk, emo, post-rock, post-punk, slowcore and shoegaze influences create 43 minutes of pure bliss.












5) Owen Pallett - In Conflict

  
Because everyone knows I've got a (ridiculously) soft spot for Mr Pallett, but also because experimenting with a band helped him broaden the scope of his music. Owen's music sounds like nothing you've heard before, and this album sounds like nothing Owen Pallett has ever done before.












6) Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lose

  
Because despite every track being different from the previous and the next one, there is a cohesion to this album that I can't quite explain. Still, this means that they can play (and play with) any genre they want and still demonstrate they're great at it.













7) Nothing - Guilty of Everything

  
Because can you really expect anything bad coming from a band called Nothing?! And because it's a troubled work that's the product of a troubled past and there was probably no better way to express that than by using noise and shoegaze.












8) Perfume Genius - Too Bright

  
Because it's a perfect album: it is technically perfect without sounding like he's trying too hard, BUT still manages to sound genuine, sentimental, and catchy.














9) Sun Kil Moon - Benji

  
Because this record is a novel, and one told by a bright and talented writer.
















10) We Were Promised Jetpacks - Unravelling  

Because WWPJ are one of those bands it's really hard to label, but easy to sing along to. That, and a very well-produced and cohesive album, full of instrumental crescendos and great imagery in the lyrics.













11) Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In the End

Because they're genuinely going back to the shack, and "rocking out like it's '94." Yet, the albums sounds so new: not because it's new, but because it's so different from the music that's around right now, it almost feels like something you haven't heard before.













12) Sharon Van Etten - Are We There

Because, as suggested by the title, this album is also a journey, a heartbreaking yet cathartic one, and because Van Etten is simply a great songwriter.














  
13) Royal Blood - Royal Blood

Because I didn't expect something so powerful coming from such a harmless-looking duo (yes, so much noise, but still a two-piece band!). It's a great debut album.















14) East India Youth - Total Strife Forever

Because this is another stunning debut album, with a character and elegance to it that show a maturity we wouldn't expect of a debut album.















15) Mogwai - Rave Tapes

Because Mogwai never disappoint, to be completely honest with you. And it sounds great live!
















16) Joyce Manor - Never Hungover Again

Because Joyce Manor make quality punk-rock, and because I like pretending I'm 17 inside.
















17) The Hotelier - Home, Like Noplace Is There

Because it's visceral, painful but never overly dramatic, and because look at that title!

















18) Johnny Foreigner - You Can Do Better

Because this albums sounds much more mature and cohesive than the previous ones, and they've been playing with a few more influences. You rock, Birmingham!
















19) Young Fathers - Dead!

Because Edinburgh rocks too. To be fair, there's a lot of Scotland in this playlist, even though Young Fathers are the least Scottish of the four. The album is powerful, it has character and it's never boring; it just sounds good from start to finish, and he Mercury Prize was well deserved.












20) Interpol - El Pintor

Because, however disappointing, an Interpol record is still an Interpol record. And to be honest this wasn't even disappointing; it's a good album, and you can tell there's an attempt to go back to their older sound while trying to get something new out of it.














Other albums I liked: 

• Swans - To Be Kind
• Real Estate - Atlas 
• Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
• Future Islands - Singles
• Kiasmos - Kiasmos
• A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Atomos
• Ronin - Adagio Furioso
• Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness
• Keaton Henson - Romantic Works
• Grouper - Ruins
• The Antlers - Familiars
• Fucked Up - Glass Boys

"I don't get what the fuss is all about" albums (I don't necessarily hate them):

• FKA Twigs - LP1
• Mac DeMarco - Salad Days
• Aphex Twin - Syro
• The War On Drugs - Lost in the Dream
• Ariel Pink - Pom Pom
• Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2
• EMA - Future's Void
• Taylor Swift - 1989 (oh yes I hate this one).

Finally, here's a Spotify playlist with my favourite tracks from 2014:

On Jonathan Franzen and the Everymen

My longstanding experience as a reader has taught me that good writing is when you can talk about nothing and still make that nothing interesting and fascinating.

Great talent is required to tell a small, unimportant, unnoticeable story, and Jonathan Franzen is a great talent. The world of literature is filled with great, unforgettable characters, heroes and epic climaxes. When your narrative encompasses lives, centuries and peoples, when you're telling something that needs to be told, that story becomes epic, and it ends up narrating itself. But what happens when you tell an everyman's story?

The theme of the Everyman is especially loud in postmodern literature and histerical realism, where the central character is the perfect antihero nobody would want to hear about. Novelists such as Roth or Wallace or Pynchon or DeLillo try to make sense of the human alienation in the postmodern era by picking and (almost literally) taking apart one of its protagonists: not the hero, not the president, not the terrorist, but rather the office clerk, the serially manufactured product of a corporation.

Franzen's Freedom does that, though without exploiting or exposing postmodernism more than it's necessary. So, Freedom is about a family, taken apart. In 700 pages. And it's never boring. And you never feel like you're wasting your time. So I asked myself: why do I like this so much? 

I think the answer lies not only in Franzen's ability to write in a witty, elegant, humorous and idiosyncratic way, but also in the fact that his Everymen are so scared, contradictory and complacent about their failures that they don't just seem real--they are real. They evolve throughout the years and - this is what struck me the most - in their smallness, they are that story that becomes epic. It's a journey for them and for us readers, and we struggle and change along with them.

Franzen's novel brings us back to that place where we are all real, individual human beings, and not just part of a system; this way, it tells us we're all worth happening.

“This wasn't the person he'd thought he was, or would have chosen to be if he'd been free to choose, but there was something comforting and liberating about being an actual definite someone, rather than a collection of contradictory potential someones.” 

“Each new thing he encountered in life impelled him in a direction that fully convinced him of its rightness, but then the next new thing loomed up and impelled him in the opposite direction, which also felt right. There was no controlling narrative: he seemed to himself a purely reactive pinball in a game whose only object was to stay alive for staying alive's sake.” 

Re: Confessions of a reformed grammar nazi

I came across this article while browsing Facebook this morning; the title - "confessions of a reformed grammar nazi" - instantly caught my attention. The article itself doesn't say much: the writer talks about her grammar nazi past and, having found redemption after she herself made a grammatical mistake and was 'castigated' by a friend, she goes on to claim that most grammar nazis are driven by one-upmanship, and that most of the time correcting a person's grammar or spelling is an act of snobbery rather than one with educational purposes.

Although I saw part of me reflected in the writer's words, I think the article doesn't go far enough as to make an actual stance against what grammar nazism really is, and how dangerous it could be to stick to certain 'rules.' Don't get me wrong - I do believe in correct usage of grammar and spelling and punctuation, but I also think that language is fluid, and that is what makes language beautiful and lets us be creative with it. Therefore, there are rules I agree with, and rules I don't agree with (hey prescriptivists, call me out for using a preposition at the end of the sentence, I dare you!).

Roughly, my stance on the matter is that it's not an error as long as there's no semantic change. 

I do believe that grammar should take a more central role in education - both in the English-speaking countries and in Italy. However, while it's not easy to overcome the shock of reading an Independent article where the author uses 'your' instead of 'you're' (unforgivable for a person who makes writing their job), there are positions on the matter of language that are obnoxious and that attempt to deny the natural evolution of language. When I say that grammar nazism can be dangerous, here's an example:

If you invite these four people to your party, you can use either the first or the second sentence: there's not semantic difference. If you, instead, mean that Stalin and JFK are strippers, as the second picture suggests, the sentence should read "We invited the strippers: JFK and Stalin." I don't believe in the necessity of the Oxford comma, because - at least in this case - its usage doesn't change the meaning. I do use the Oxford comma, but I use it to give rhythm to a text, especially when the list I've just made is pretty long. I also have flexible views on punctuation - which, again, I use more loosely and based on context. Someone recently called me out for using a comma instead of a semi-colon on an internet comment. On a community that uses acronyms such as "MRW" and "IDK" every other word, you should not be expected to write an essay, and I think it's perfectly acceptable to use less (!) commas in this context, especially when the meaning of your sentence doesn't change based on the punctuation you use; to summarise, as long as you know how to use it, you're good (and you can use it at your advantage and in more creative ways). For example:

"The party, was fantastic." -- this makes no sense.

"The party was fantastic, even Jane showed up." -- you should use a semi-colon here--does it make any difference, though?

What's ironic about how the Guardian article has been received is that most of the readers completely missed the point.

If we were talking mathematics you wouldn't be saying it was OK to occasionally make 2+2 = 5 now would you? And if you would, you're an idiot. [Facebook comment]

Yes, because language is a fixed system, and we all speak Old English; nothing has changed and nothing should. Chapeau.

No comma before though and write "regularly" for "on a regular basis". [article page]

This is how you change the world, eh? I highly recommend having a read at all the comments under the article, they're quite amusing.

Language evolves and it's okay if it does. Language changes when it's used because it's the users that create the language--Esperanto hasn't changed because it's an artificial language, and Latin hasn't changed because it's a dead language. As long as you know how the system works, and as long as you're in the right context to do so, it's okay to use slang words, skip fullstops, or speak African American English. On the other hand, it's okay to point out to a friend that they've just used a possessive pronoun instead of a verb, but acting like an arsehole won't help you make it through life.

PS: this is a post written by a non-native speaker of English. Just so you know before you start insulting. However, corrections are very welcome, and I'd like to hear what you think.