It was definitely murder — but was it art?

Greetings Earthlings! Guess what I've started listening to... Ah, but no, I'm not quite ready to tell you about that just yet. I've barely come in from Outside. Which brings me to the reason I'm back again so soon. At this time I'm pleased to bring you a Bowie Project first: a Special Guest Post by my longtime friend and self-confessed music geek, Dave Miner. Dave and I agree that Outside deserves a little extra special treatment. So without further delay, give it up for Dave! 

*****

It was definitely murder — but was it art? 

Special Guest Post by Dave Miner (@daveophonic)

Please forgive me if this post is long and self-indulgent.  Given the topic, such structure might at least be considered thematically appropriate.

I want to tell you about David Bowie's "Outside", because I kind of want to tell everybody about David Bowie's "Outside".  It's a long-standing favourite.  It's one of my desert island discs.  But it's also an under-appreciated and divisive album - Allmusic's tepid 3-star review hails it as Bowie's "most satisfying and adventurous album since Let's Dance", but also calls it "severely flawed", where standout tracks are "buried under the weight of the mediocre material".

The album is seconds shy of the 75-minute mark.  It flirts with the abrasive textures of industrial music.  It intersperses songs with soundscapes and narrative interludes.  It's a concept album that explores art as murder, and is the first and only episode of a seemingly abandoned trilogy.  The story is therefore all setup and no payoff, and plot details within the lyrics and liner notes are scant and cryptic. 

I can understand why people wouldn't like this record, particularly from the David Bowie who gave us "Young Americans" and "Life on Mars".  Did that audience want an industrial concept album  from The Thin White Duke?  (Let me please be clear - I don't mean that in a dismissive "you just don't get it, man" way.)  This album was a risk, even if you listen back and hear the seeds of it on "Black Tie, White Noise" or "Tin Machine".  

Bowie has always been one of my very favourite artists.  I love work from all his phases, from early folkish jangle through Ziggy Stardust-era bombast, from the Berlin trilogy through his electronic/industrial/jungle phase, and even through to today.  I suspect many of his fans appreciate his gift for experimentation and reinvention.  In that regard, I think the album can be considered a tremendous success:  this doesn't seem like a contrived attempt by an established artist to reach a Gen-X audience or experiment with trendy new sounds.  There's an integrity to the album that has kept me hooked from the first listen.  I just happen to dig nasty guitars and electronic textures.  Mix in Bowie's vocals and songwriting?  Yes, please.

There were spans of months where I would listen to the album, end-to-end, at least twice a day.  I wanted to pull out its secrets and solve its mysteries, and most of all, I wanted to lose myself in those songs and sounds.

Here's the background:

The full name is technically "1.  Outside", but the rumoured followup albums - "2.  Contamination"  and "3.  Afrikaans" - never materialized.  However, an extra 20 hours of recording were evidently created during the Outside sessions that could yield the building blocks necessary to create the trilogy.  I would love to think a project like that might coincide with the album's upcoming 20th anniversary, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

If you're interested in learning a bit more of how the record was created, I recommend reading "A Year With Swollen Appendices:  Brian Eno's Diary", which talks a bit about his role in the project, and the strategies he used to try and help the musicians get into a headspace to fully explore this new creative direction.  ("You are the disgruntled member of a South African rock band. Play the notes that were suppressed.")

For the completionists, there are also some bonus tracks available on international versions of the album.  I'm aware of  "Nothing to be Desired" and "Get Real", which you can check out here.

Here's what I think I know about the story:  Detective Professor Nathan Adler is assigned to investigate the murder of 14-year-old Baby Grace Blue, and rule if her death and the exhibition of her body is legally acceptable as art.  Leon Blank is accused of the murder, but may have been manipulated by Ramona A. Stone, his ex-lover, while the real killer (The Artist/Minotaur) continues his work.  

And now we begin. 

The album commences with "Leon Takes Us Outside", a soundscape where fragments of dialog - years, months, dates - bubble up from waves of synthesizer and Reeves Gabrels' meandering guitar.  The bass drops, and we segue perfectly into the title track.

"Outside" invites you into the album - it's a classic Bowie croon with gentle harmonies and those perfect swells.  I don't want to say it's a safe song, but I think no Bowie fan of any vintage would have been surprised to hear him release this song in 1995.  Then "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" hits, and everything changes.

There were several points of pop-culture entry into this album.  "Hallo Spaceboy" may be better known from its Pet Shop Boys remix than for the original album cut.  A version of "I Have Not Been to Oxford Town" was covered for the soundtrack of Starship Troopers, Paul Veroeven's 1997 adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein novel.  "I'm Deranged" played over the credits of David Lynch's film "Lost Highway".  But I first heard the music of "Outside" during the closing credits of Se7en, when "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" provided a perfect accompaniment to the scratched text slithering down the screen in the wrong direction.  

Whereas "Outside" sounded like updated Bowie, "Filthy Lesson" sounds like new Bowie - jagged guitar lines streaking the skies above pulsing bass and a insistent drum loop, creating a palpable air of menace.  When the song pauses to ask "Paddy - who's been wearing Miranda's clothes?", something implies the answer will be terrible. A piano comes in not as orchestral grandeur but as a blunt instrument, percussively slamming out low-register runs.  Even the instrumentation, we learn, will be warped and perverted and used in ways we don't expect.  Nothing is sacred.  The song seems to gasp for air before we lurch into the home stretch, with Bowie's vocal majesty, concluding with the ominous admission:  "Oh Paddy - I think I've lost my way."  The song fades out with the repeated observation: "What a fantastic death abyss - tell the others."  Is this a reaction to the terrible exhibit of what is left of Baby Grace?

We then move into "A Small Plot of Land".  Rapid cascades of piano notes might distract from a steady two-note pattern in the background around which the rest of the instruments collect and congeal as Bowie tells the story of a poor soul who learns that "prayer can't travel so far these days" - a haunting line that I think perfectly captures the fin-de-siecle anxieties Bowie so deftly tapped on this album.  Reeves Gabrels' frantic solo on this album is one of my favourite things that has ever been done with a guitar.  The song builds and builds and builds until you're almost claustrophobic, caught in the sheer density of sound, and then it's time to meet Baby Grace Blue.

"Segue:  Baby Grace [A Horrid Cassette]" is the first of several narrative sections, with each character voiced by Bowie with some combination of processing to help the characters stand out.  Bowie gives a great pitch-shifted performance, tripping over words as Baby Grace records what are possibly the final words of her short, unhappy life.

"Hallo Spaceboy" begins with an explosion, a lull, and then another explosion of drums and guitars as we launch into the song proper.  The song would serve as a fitting soundtrack for a dance party at the end of civilization, but its bombast stands in stark contrast to "The Motel", which follows.  Sung from Leon's perspective, it's a slow, ethereal dirge that muses "there is no hell like an old hell". Beautiful, virtuosic piano runs build to a euphoric crescendo with titanic slashes of electric guitar and a gentle fade.

"I Have Not Been to Oxford Town" bubbles and bounces, but the playful music belies the grave lyrics:  "Baby Grace was the victim.  She was 14 years of age.  And the wheels are turning, turning, for the finger points at me."  Imprisoned, is Leon trying to establish an alibi?  Prove his innocence?  Or trying to remember what happened in the first place?  "Outside" can be a frustrating puzzle, since most of the pieces are missing, buried in unwritten chapters.  With that in mind, it's almost comforting that the characters themselves are confused and powerless, which suggest's Leon's innocence.  After all, we have yet to hear from the Minotaur.  And, as Leon runs down the ways in which he wishes his life was different, we realize that we still have yet to meet the mysterious Ramona A. Stone.

"No Control" seems like a variation on the same theme, but presented with a driving, urgent menace.  Bewildered by the crimes he's investigating, Adler feels powerless in the face of a deranged world.  As I write this, I wonder if the music tells us something else - simple and cheerful, "Oxford Town" might underscore Leon as a hapless victim of a machination he doesn't understand.  He is powerless and wastes away while hoping somebody will help him.  Nathan gets it - he sees the horror and knows he must act, yet feels powerless because he understands the scale of the madness he faces, and the scope of challenging it.

The theme of powerlessness continues with our second vignette, "Segue: Algeria Touchshriek".  Algeria is a seller of curiosities of seemingly questionable legality.  He is also a broken man, rejected by the world.  Desperate for company, he tells us he's considering leasing a room above his store to another broken man.  We don't hear from Algeria again, but the next song is sung from the perspective of The Artist/Minotaur, suggesting Algeria's lodger will be the worst possible tenant.

"The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)" begins with a pleasant cycle of guitar, and a gentle vocal refrain.  "Turn and turn again", sings Bowie, which seems like an innocuous lyrical confection, but the words are recast in the second verse as Mintoaur tells us "The screw is a tightening atrocity; I shake for the reeking flesh is as romantic as hell".  It seems as though we've found our killer, as he assembles his exhibition before calling it a day.

And now, it's time for us to meet Ramona.  She delivers a short, seething rant, and although her connection to the other characters is not quite clear, there's something in the way that she says "We'll creep together, you and I" that suggests she is the axis around which the entire affair turns.  Ramona and her acoyltes then sing "I Am With Name", which is more chant than song.  

"Wishful Beginnings" shifts back to the Minotaur's perspective as he works, apologizing to his victim all the while.  The song is a modern dirge, punctuated by slow, deliberate kick drums and a synthetic accent that sounds eerily like a dead laugh.  The arrangement is sparse and the low end is crucial.  Notice how the bass elements drop out in the middle, and the strange catharsis when they come back in, repeating over and over again.  He stops apologizing.  All that is left is the work.  This is the album at its darkest.

"We Prick You" is sung from the perspective of the Members of the Court of Justice; presumably we're at Leon's trial as the administration tries to get the confession they want, seemingly by any means necessary.  Next is a segue from Nathan, explaining how some of the pieces fit together.  "Oh wait," he says.  "I"m getting ahead of myself.  Let me take you back to where it all began."

We go back to The Minotaur for "I'm Deranged", and a seeming freely-associated stream-of-consciousness admission that may reveal nothing about the killer except as a callback to Nathan's "No Control" - Nathan is right, and the killer is completely insane.

Up to now, the album may have been a dark, difficult listen, and I must admit that it's at this point that I've almost completely lost the plot.  I'm only tentatively sure of the arc to this point, but I'm not sure how to put the final songs in context.  However, whether you're invested in the narrative or not, the album concludes with two of my absolute favourite Bowie songs ever.  "Thru' These Architects Eyes" is sung from Leon's perspective, and it's tempting to explore the architect metaphor.  Has Leon been freed?  Was Nathan able to convince the Court of Justice that Leon was a pawn of Ramona?  Is she the architect whose designs Leon can now understand?  Or is it possible that, now freed, he can admit that he played a greater role in the fate of Baby Grace Blue than his jailhouse prayers would have us believe?

Musically speaking, I love this song, and if you've never taken a time to notice how much a bass guitar can enrich a song, then I urge you to please pay attention to Gail Ann Dorsey's brilliant playing here.  Instead of simply holding down the root notes of the chords, she contributes melody after melody that support and enhance the song.  Such elements are all over this album, and are testament to the gifted musicians with whom Bowie surrounds himself, but I find it's most evident here.

Adler interjects with a segue before the final song, revealing to us that evidently Ramona and Leon were lovers, and that Ramona had broken off an engagement.  Why?  And what is the significance?  For the answer, we'll have to hope that the "Outside" project is resurrected.

The only hint is the beautiful "Strangers When We Meet", which closes the album.  Sung once again from Leon's perspective, it seems like a post-breakup song, with Leon seemingly relieved that he and Ramona are truly nothing to one another anymore.  

The liner notes for the album (AKA "The Diary of Nathan Adler, or, The Art-Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue") ask "It was definitely murder - but was it art?"  This kicks off the album's narrative arc, and is an interesting question to ask as the 20th century dies and we seem to grow increasingly numb.  What does it take to shock us?  What does it take to inspire us?  

It's also an appropriate question to ask of the album itself.  By reinventing himself yet again as an industrial/electronic experimenter (which Bowie would successfully continue on his excellent follow-up album, 1997's "Earthling") Bowie arguably killed many pre-existing conceptions of how his music did and should sound.  To judge his success - is it art? - is subjective.  I can only say that I think he came sincerely to the genre and created a compelling album that can appeal to fans of both classic Bowie and new electronic music.  Certainly, reinvention is Bowie's game, and we all love those ch-ch-ch-changes.

It's not a perfect album.  There's a case to be made that it's too long, too jagged, too dark, too unfocussed, too far removed from Bowie's most iconic material.  If, like me, you want to know how the story ends, you might share my frustration upon reading a page at the recent "David Bowie Is…" exhibit which suggested the narrative was never intended to be clarified, and was deliberately left vague to inspire interpretation.  Still, I love this album because it tries something bold.  I love it for its many successes, for inspiring my curiosity and wonder, and for giving me some of my favourite songs ever.  I hope you might be inspired to give it a listen, either for the first time or with new ears.  The music, after all, is outside.

Anxiety descending.

A popup art gallery has blown into town with the autumn wind. Art "galleryvanting" is one of my favourite pastimes, and a popup installation is too alluring to pass up, even if I know nothing about the artist or the exhibit, save the title: Millennium Fetish. The details of this particular event have been shrouded in secrecy, despite the twitter campaign that brought me to the gallery's front door.

It's a blustery October evening, and the gallery is located on a quietish street in a not-great part of town, among low-rent apartment buildings and cafes that have been shuttered up for business.  About half of the streetlights are burned out or flickering their final breaths.

A sign on the door says that the gallery doesn't open until 7:00pm - that's sundown at this time of year in this part of the world. My phone tells me it's 7:08. I'm the only one here, so I'm kind of getting a creepy vibe about this thing. Just as my inner voice tells me "I've got a bad feeling about this", other people begin showing up. A small crowd of curious art fiends forms on the sidewalk in front of the old picture framing shop, its faded sign an indication that it may have been years since the last time anyone did business here. The lights are still off in the shop and we're becoming restless, wondering if we should call 7:30 as official "ah, fuck it" time.

Just then, the lights inside flick on, and a man in his 20's who looks like he's lived (and suffered) for a hundred years opens the door. He welcomes us inside and tells us the artist will be with us in a moment, but we are free to begin exploring the gallery. As we file past him, he offers each of us a complementary glass of champagne, which I finish almost immediately after taking the flute into my hand. I always drink champagne too quickly.

Tiptoeing into the main gallery hall among the other patrons, the first thing I notice isn't the array of canvases hanging on the walls or the sculptures arranged around the room, but the smell. It's the odour of flesh and blood, fresh and stale, combined with the scent of paint and glue, like the smell of humanity, dismantled and reassembled. What is the source of this unsettling aroma? How can I be expected to enjoy this exhibit if I'm forced to endure something so repugnant and distracting? 

By the looks on the faces of the others, I can see they're having the same thought. But no one is leaving, and I decide that there might still be very well something worth seeing, so I move toward the wall on my right. Most people go left, don't they? I prefer to avoid the pack, so I begin my journey through the room at the wrong end.

My eyes drink in an enormous, deeply hued palette knife-driven mural of a cityscape by moonlight. Reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry Night, this viscerally affecting pastiche of blues and blacks and purples  with shocks of white and grey where the yellow should be gives me the disquieting sensation of insignificance as I shrink from the sheer size and magnitude of it. The number 9 swirls and looms repeatedly in the construction of the cityscape's imposing buildings. Nine's as big as houses. On the knoll next to the largest of the nines is a tiny void of a flower wearing a diminutive 6. The flower wilts with inferiority while gazing up at the skyscrapers with disdain, envy, fear. I am that flower; I am the six.

Backing away from the mural, I bump into an older gentleman dressed in a houndstooth suit with matching trilby. The poor soul gasps and cowers away from me, taking the hat from his head and holding it to his chest, sniveling a breathless string of apologies for being in my way. I assure him he need not apologize, it was my own fault for not watching my step. He smiles meekly at my assurance, and he introduces himself.

Mr. Touchshriek's near-nonsensical ramblings make me slightly nervous and worried that he might not be all right in the head, but there is nothing overtly menacing about him, so I shake his hand and excuse myself to view the nearest work of art in my vicinity.

I'm not alone in my slack-jawed shock as I stare at the grotesque statue: a monstrous creature constructed from the bones of many other creatures set in shiny polished metal. A housecat's skull resides in the chest where the heart should be. The tail is constructed from what looks like a human spinal column. Surely it is made of plaster, but the staining from blood and tissue looks authentic.

The monster is adorned with unusual jewellery and clothing... earrings in the form of a shining pair of blue iris-ed eye balls set in resin; a shirt woven from what looks like human hair in various shades of blonde, brown, ginger, black, and even grey and white; a brooch on that vest made from the teeth of various once-living things, painted ironically in cheerful colours; and the piece de resistance, a beautifully crafted handbag of an unidentified leather in a disturbingly familiar pink flesh tone. I swallow hard and wonder if this is partially where that gruesome smell is coming from.

I move away from the gory sculpture and find myself called toward a wonderfully realistic hand-drawn rendering of an adolescent girl drawn entirely in hues of red, rust, and brown. The lines of the drawing are so fine and perfect that it looks as though the girl could step right into the room off the canvas. Looking into her face, it appears as though that is exactly what she wants to do, as if something in her two dimensional world is terrorizing her, tormenting her both physically and emotionally. The scars on her half dressed body express terrible pain, and the wideness of her wet eyes, the only part of the piece painted  a cold lake blue, display a horrid fear.

I want to save this girl from the unspeakable fate she is clearly anticipating. I read the card next to the piece to find it titled Baby Grace, Age 14, after interest drugs. (Whatever those are.) Subject's blood on canvas. (Come again?)

The sick feeling in my stomach is telling me that I've seen enough. I define good art by its ability to make me feel something, whether that feeling is joy, sorrow, loathing or fear, and as such the pieces in this gallery qualify for that distinction; however, it also feels utterly wrong, as if I've stumbled into something horrifyingly real, and definitely illegal. Something in me wants to tell the cops about it, just in case.

Then from out of nowhere, Mr. Touchshriek appears next to me. He tells me he knew Grace. Her family lives in his neighbourhood, old Oxford Town. He used to see her walking to and from school every day. Then one day he saw her talking to someone through the window of a van. She got in, and was never seen again. I ask him if he reported it to the police, but Mr. Touchshriek simply removes his hat again and holds it over his heart, never taking his eyes from Baby Grace's dark blues.

That's it, I'm out of here. As I start to make my way to the door, the man who let us in takes the centre of the gallery. He introduces himself as Leon, and announces that the artist will be making her appearance shortly, and she's willing to answer any and all of our questions. I decide that it might be worth it to stay for a bit, maybe get a bit more information on the obviously deranged person responsible for this horrendous display. Then I'll go to the police.

The artist blusters into the room like a woman possessed. Dressed in leather and clanking with heavy metal jewellery with black hair all askew as if caught in a permanent windstorm, Ramona A. Stone is in her 50's and is doing her damndest to cover it up. She jangles her way to Leon, kisses him with wildly visible tongue and dispatches him with an expression and a gesture filled with a palpable hatred.

She smirks as she judges us silently from her pedestal. Before she can speak, the questions from her audience begin. Who is Baby Grace Blue? Is she alive? Did you really draw her portrait with her own blood? Finally, Ramona speaks.

Suddenly, a raucous thunderstorm begins, releasing a torrent of rain, ear splitting thunderclaps, and blinding lightning. The power goes out and the spectators begin shrieking and gasping as we bump into one another and into the works of art as we clamour to find our way to the door. A terrible cry pierces my ears - I recognize the voice as Mr. Touchshriek's. Another cry, this time from a young woman. What the fuck is going on? I slip on a puddle of something and land on the floor. That smell. I know this smell. I smelled it when I came in.

The lights come on, and as expected, I'm laying on the floor in a puddle of someone's blood. The young woman who cried out - she's on the floor next to me, cut from groin to throat, her guts spilled out onto the floor between us. I vomit convulsively onto the floor, my tears dropping daintily into the pool of blood.

Mr. Touchshriek offers his hand to help me up, a ragged gash visible on his arm. He asks if I'm alright and I scream that I'm not fucking alright, none of this is alright, we need to call the police!

As if on cue, a man comes bursting through the door, introducing himself as Detective Nathan Adler. He informs us that Baby Grace Blue's body, or what's left of it anyway, has been found and he's got it on good authority that the culprit is inside this gallery at this very moment in time.

There's been another murder just now! I blurt out, and point to the young woman on the floor, as if Detective Adler wasn't keen enough pick up on it himself. Unfortunately, my frantic outburst draws the detective in my direction and he begins his line of questioning with me. Have I ever been to Oxford town?

I feel faint. This can't be happening. I just wanted to go to an art show.

Old Mr. Touchshriek approaches in his typical skittish way, and he tells Detective Adler that he was a witness to Grace's abduction and he's not entirely sure who has done the killing, but he suspects it's the artist whose gallery we're visiting, or maybe she's gotten her hapless boyfriend Leon to do her dirty work. Detective Adler thinks aloud.

Ramona and Leon emerge from out of nowhere and begin an bombastic, unnatural looking dance in the centre of the room to a song with a rigid, jackhammer beat and otherworldly lyrics. As they move about the room, their total disconnect from each other seems almost choreographed. Ramona stops to take polaroid photos of the pool of the fresh victim's blood mixed with my vomit and tears. She tacks each polaroid to the wall as she continues her strange dance. 

I'm astonished at Detective Adler's inaction. Then, out of the blue, he begins to applaud. He's being ironic. I get it. Except... a number of spectators begin to applaud as well. Mr. Touchshriek is clapping away like a man who doesn't have an oozing wound on his forearm. And the poor girl with her entrails all askew suddenly rouses, and stands with help from Detective Adler, and she starts clapping. And then a girl resembling the unfortunate girl in the portrait enters from the back, clapping wildly,

It's all been a vast creation - more than a show, a ghastly, dramatic piece of performance art. Incredible. Ramona thanks us for attending. As we can see, no one has really been murdered in the name of art tonight, have they?

Leon throws his arms out in the direction of Ramona, encouraging us all to give her one last round of applause. This time I participate. Leon bows and says that he hopes that this performance has given us a new perspective on the definition of art.  Ramona glares at him with utter loathing for only a second before blowing us all a kiss and bidding us goodnight.

*****

Outside couldn't have come to me at a better time if I had actually planned it this way. Mid-October, the spookiest time of the year, is the perfect backdrop for a concentrated listening of this creepy-as-fuck album. Outside is art in its purest form, and it demands to be listened to as such. If you go in expecting something you can put on at your 39th birthday party surrounded by family, you're going to have a bad time. And everyone is going to leave. Which is okay, because then you can listen to it properly, and really enjoy the fuck out of it.

I advise against listening to it in the bathtub when you're home alone on a windy night in the weeks approaching Hallowe'en. By the time you get to Wishful Beginnings, you will be rocking yourself in the tub going "what was that?!" every time you hear your cat do something downstairs. It was the cat, wasn't it? Please tell me it was the cat.

I like when Bowie does concept albums. For me, Outside is like Nine Inch Nails fucked Twin Peaks and then Twin Peaks gave the baby up for adoption and it was raised by Sin City. It definitely contains some of the most disturbing ideas to come from Bowie's brain up to this point, aka, murder in the name of art during a time of social decay, rapidly advancing technology, and a future unknown. I have to say that despite my initial misgivings, this album is a masterpiece that really defines who David Bowie is as an Artist with a capital A. No doubt he is also a phenomenal pop star and songwriter in general, but Outside takes it to a whole other level.

It should be noted that I omitted some of the album's tracks from my story and shuffled the ones I did include to go with the narrative flow. To really get it, this album deserves to be listened to as a whole. The story contained within Outside is a bit abstract, as with previous concept albums in Bowie's catalogue. He doesn't spell it out for you. You need to listen, and you need to connect the dots, interpret it like you would a painting, and then you need to just chill the fuck out when you realize that there is no resolution. Make that part of the experience.

So without further adieu, here it is.

Someone should really organize an art gallery "showing" of Outside, don't you think?

Post Script - This post is dedicated to my friend Dave M.

I have a confession to make. There was a time when I ignorantly rejected not only this album but David Bowie as an artist. I recall a conversation with Dave (who, incidentally, I will be introducing you to shortly via a special guest post!) sometime in the mid-90's in which he told me I would really like Bowie, and I noped so hard I think I nearly gave him whiplash. I'm ashamed that it took me this long to open my mind and see just how wrong I was, but I'm happy that now I get to share my appreciation for Bowie's work with my dear friend. You planted a seed, Dave. It just took a really long time to take root and grow.

Post Post Script - If you're wondering wtf? about the nines and sixes I described in the cityscape mural, watch The Boy with the Incredible Brain. You won't regret it.

Down on my knees in suburbia.

I'm feeling a little flat this morning. As I open my eyes to the day, I immediately notice a compressed, two dimensional appearance to the bedroom. My bed faces a mirrored closet, and as I sit up to look into it, I see a cartoonish world reflected back... thick black lines outlining the edges of everything, including me; vibrant colour all over what is normally a neutrally toned room. I'm peach coloured with yellow hair, sky blue eyes, and strawberry candy pink lips. As I get out of bed, the polka dot pattern on my pyjamas doesn't fold and move the way it should; it kind of just stays put, despite my movements. This is going to be a weird day.

To be honest, I'm craving a bit of weirdness, since moving house a little over a month ago.  I've traded the colourful idiosyncrasy of city life for the comfortable homogeneity of the suburbs. I've adapted spectacularly well, which is something I didn't expect. I grieved deeply the morning we relocated our belongings from the 416 to the 905. Now that I'm here, I'm relishing the comfort, cocooning myself in the house when I'm not at work.

But I've got some errands to run today, and I'm curious how the world outside looks in cartoon format, so I ready myself to go out. Hilariously, when I open my closet I see that hanging inside it is not my normal selection of clothing, but the same outfit on every hanger. My cartoon uniform... you know, the outfit that cartoon characters never change out of? Shaggy's green shirt and brown cords... Lisa Simpson's red dress and pearls... April O'Neil's yellow jumpsuit thing... you get the idea. The fact that I don't even get to pick mine is a bit frustrating, if kind of telling. So I dress myself in rolled up blue jeans, a black tunic, a brightly coloured beaded necklace, a pair of mary janes, and of course my tortoiseshell glasses, which are apparently so deeply apart of my actual persona that I actually woke up wearing them.

Wanting to be in the house for not a minute longer, I swoop down the stairs and exit hastily via the front door. Alighting on the front porch, I stop for a moment to survey my street. Yes, it looks the same, except in cartoon format. There is a kid, a boy of about 8 years old, swinging on the tree swing in my yard, just like any normal day. I wonder if the kid is seeing everything this way too? I decide not to ask, just in case he thinks I'm crazy and tells the other neighbourhood kids and then they egg the house on Hallowe'en.

Before fully embarking upon my errands, I decide to go to the Italian bakery up on the corner and get a coffee to put into me. I live in a distinctly Italian neighbourhood now, which pleases me. I grew up with Italians, back in my hometown, and I find them comforting, friendly, wholesome. Maybe a bit too wholesome. The Roman Catholic church on the opposite corner is a reminder of this. Families dressed in their Sunday best file in to the church like the dutiful, fearful Christians that they are. Hate to remind them what they had to do to make those beautiful, shining babies in their arms.

In true cartoon fashion, the sun shines yellowly over the church, with sweetly singing blue birds swooping above,  while a dark thundercloud forms over my head and the rain begins pouring down on me, my own personal lightning bolt zapping me over and over as I wait to cross the street. Even in the cartoon version of the world, I am judged. The light turns green and I dash across into the bakery. Unfortunately, the rain cloud follows me in, and a bakery employee tells me "you can't come in here with that".  I make a deal with the cloud - it can wait for me outside if it just lets me get a coffee first. It agrees, and floats out the open window.

The bakery smells divine. I get into the queue - probably for the first time in my life I'm more than happy to wait in line for something. Looking around me, I see that the bakery is filled with people wearing what I've learned is the local uniform - the young men in sweat pants, t-shirts, gold chains, and addidas; the old men in dress pants, undershirts, and socks with plastic sandals; the young women with big hair, giant hoop earrings, bold makeup, high heels, short jackets, and yoga pants...  just like the old women. These are my neighbours.

I get my coffee. It smells good but looks like a hopeless brown liquid here in cartoonland. I take a sip and it burns my mouth. I blow the inky black steam swirls away and enjoy the next sip. I was hoping to spend a few minutes sitting down with it, but the tables are full. Back outside I go, with my own personal raincloud waiting for me like a loyal puppy.

I've had quite enough of this nonsense. I shake my fist at the rain cloud, spilling hot coffee everywhere. Miraculously, the cloud dissipates, and I can finally enjoy my morning errand stroll. Except fuck errands. I need to get out of the 'burbs and take a visit to the city, where I belong. Luckily, a zone-crossing bus is pulling up behind me, so I board it with the relief that I will soon be back in my old neighbourhood, flipping through records in the shops, among the other city dwellers.

As the bus zooms toward the 416, I take notice of the suburban environment. It's totally devoid of any character. The restaurants don't serve food I want to eat. The shops don't sell things I want to buy. It's a total clash of values.  I don't belong here at all. Why, oh why have I moved out here? Sigh... the things you do for love.

The city isn't perfect - it's expensive and crowded and you can never get ahead. But when you're there, you know that. You accept it. Everyone is in the same boat. How do you describe that feeling of being out on your own downtown and yet feeling like you are a part of something great, surrounded by strangers who are like friends, friends who are like strangers...? It's a whole other different kind of comfort, being alone amongst the many.

Finally, I arrive downtown at my favourite record store and begin flipping through the racks. I like the record store in cartoon format. It's like art on steroids. Already so vibrant in the real world, the cartoon version of the record store is a feast for the eyes, not just the ears. Like a bitmap image that has been converted to a vector, the depth is lost, and yet somehow the truth is revealed.

Out of the corner of my eye I spot a friend I haven't seen in ages. Our friendship goes back a long time, and there is every reason to suspect that seizing this moment to say hello will bring hugs and laughter and perhaps a fun-filled day of shenanigans in the city. But something is holding me back. I can't tell if he's seen me, and I am suddenly hesitant to interrupt him. Then he looks up, right at me. There we are, looking at each other, knowing full well that we have about 10 seconds to say something before we officially become strangers ...9... 8...

Let him confirm that he sees me.

7...6...

Okay, well maybe just move one aisle closer.

5...4...

He's coming over. We're still friends. Yay!

3...2...1...

And he just walks right past me, out the door.

Damn. That smarts. But maybe I should have expected it. I remember telling him a while back that I was moving out of the city and he seemed sort of... well... done with me. Those words were never said, but I had definitely picked up a "nice knowing you" vibe. Maybe he took it personally. Or maybe we've just outgrown each other.

Sadly, my return to the city hasn't turned out to be all that I hoped it would be. I remember it so differently. I desperately want to feel the way it used to make me feel. But maybe it's true what they say. Maybe you can never really go back. And maybe I never really understood the whole "home is where your heart is" thing until now. At the moment, my heart is broken, and home is where my stuff is. And I kind of miss my stuff.

*****

This album didn't really take me on fantastic voyage (ha, see what I did there?), but that doesn't mean I disliked listening to it. Strangely, the album kept me in the present as it sort of relates to current events in my life, if a little abstractly. This album serves as a soundtrack to the BBC 4-part television series The Buddha of Suburbia, which is based on the book by Hanif Kureishi. My life in no way resembles that of the main character, but that's the cool thing about art. The creator could have completely different thoughts, ideas, intentions while making it, but you get to take from it whatever you want, relate to it however you can.

Having said that, I didn't write this in such a way that the songs directly relate to the story. Instead, this was inspired by the overall feeling and messages received from the album as a whole. Yeah, I've just moved from the city to the suburbs, a move with which I'm struggling on the inside. Though geographically speaking I'm only a few streets north of the city I love, the feeling of having turned my back on it, of having left my friends behind, and of having relinquished a way of life that I cherish is a lot like walking around with a dark cloud over my head. Everything in my new neighbourhood feels flat, shallow, and deceptive. Is it all bad? Of course not. But within me, there is a great resistance to getting used to it. My values are under attack, and I'd like to think that I would stand and defend them, if I wasn't so damn comfy.

Obviously, this is a ponderous time for me, and I can't even begin to guess what my perceptions will be one year from now. I will say that it's been lovely listening to an album that feels like it was written for me at this very moment in time, even if in reality that is not even remotely true. One thing is for certain: The Buddha of Suburbia is going to bookmark this time in my mind forever.