It's nice to have energy. It's nice to work late.

Nice: Rilke's song of the idiot nice? Or sterile suburban nice? Nice tastes like metal in my mouth. Nice leaves it dry. Picky, picky, impossible to please.

At the 2:18 mark, little more than halfway through the Interpol song "Say Hello To the Angels," the driving percussive guitar beat breaks up into glittering archipelagos, and for a few seconds the song is changed utterly - is plaintive, pretty; like when they change the light patterns at a club and the world stops whirling. And then that driving beat starts up again.

I had wanted the song to be nothing but bridge. I had wanted my life to be a series of long walks in greenhouses, days spent reading and writing, driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula.

Today those things scare me a little, like a vacuum in which something might shatter.

say

1. mmm… valrhona!!!! so tempting…
   —    05.06.03, 7:41am    #
2. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of “Marquee Moon”?
   — wag    05.06.03, 12:11pm    #
3. oo, Marquee Moon – glittering archipelagos alright; and the central silence before the bass pulse returns, yum.
   
   The word nice of course used to mean something different. To Shakespeare it meant foolish, and not good foolish either. It meant a waste of time, as in, it’s nice to work late.
   — bhikku    05.06.03, 2:00pm    #
4. “Archipelago” comes from the Italian word for the Aegean sea. “Arpeggio” comes from the Italian word for the harp.
   
   And virtuosos… and tremolos… I can do it all.
   — Paul    05.06.03, 3:27pm    #
5. Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
   — Jim    05.06.03, 9:28pm    #
6. The 11th commandment: thou shalt not take my 2:18 in vain!
   — Mark    05.06.04, 10:09am    #
7. And Jesus replied to the people “Say hello to the Angels.”
   — Jim    05.06.04, 10:40am    #
8. omg, me too. reading, writing, no luggage, peninsula. and scared. sigh…
   — david    05.06.08, 9:00pm    #

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