Gratitude – 04/09/2009
Today, I am grateful for:
1. My cousin’s wedding. My cousin (and his new wife, just so’s we’re clear) just got back from the Dominican Republic, where they celebrated their wedding / honeymoon. I’ve seen a couple of pictures from the trip, and suddenly I find myself longing wistfully to be someplace warm and lazy.
2. The Hip. They just released their new album, which Amazon kindly delivered to me on the day of its release. I then spent yesterday afternoon listening to it as I worked, and felt reconnected with my homeland and the artistic community at large. Since Elizabeth got us tickets to see them here in New York in May, I felt it was important to become familiar with their new material prior to what promises to be a great and intimate show.
I had a moment’s panic when I first tossed the CD into my computer’s drive, and opened Windows Media Player. For some reason, Media Player decided to just start playing some of the random tracks that came bundled with the software, rather than the CD that I had just put in the freaking drive. As the lilting strains of someone I’d never heard of playing a song I did not care for filled the room, I wondered if perhaps my favourite band had gone off the deep end.
They had not, and contentment reigned throughout the house yesterday afternoon. Though the first song on the disc was a little more country than I had expected.
3. BioShock. Diggory and I are a little late to this party, since the game has been out for months, but we picked it up this week and have been enjoying it considerably. It’s a pretty tense, suspenseful game, with a surprisingly intelligent story line. BioShock is like something from Alfred Hitchock‘s mind, if he was channeling Jules Verne while going through a dieselpunk phase.
I have decided that I will not play this game if I am alone in the house.
I’m excited about this new Hip album, though I feel like I still haven’t really connected with ‘World Container’. That could be more my fault than that of the Hip — I’m aging, my lifestyle (kid one and kid two) no longer allows for quality time with an album, plus it’s the first Hip album that I don’t actually have a hard-copy of… I love iTunes, but it’s perhaps a little impersonal.
I wonder whether or not you agree with Ben Rayner’s assessment, in the Toronto Star, of this new album? Is ‘Coffee Girl’ the best new tune since ‘Poets’?
I agree, I still don’t think I’ve fully digested ‘World Container’ yet. Perhaps it’s a lifestyle change on my side, as well — being married, I now take fewer solo car rides with the CD player cranked. iTunes just isn’t quite the same when it comes to really savouring an album.
This album, like all Hip albums, will need to grow on me. With the exception of ‘The Last Recluse’, none of the songs leaped out and grabbed me like ‘Music@Work’ or ‘Nautical Disaster’, but I am appreciating them more with each listen through.
Personally, I didn’t really like ‘Poets’ that much, so I would say ‘Coffee Girl’ is the better track.
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