Joy Division – A Most Unreliable Narrator

…and zombies

#LisMentalHealth week is an initiative started by my good friend Cecily Walker and Kelly McElroy. You can follow along on Twitter, add resources to the Google doc, or check out the Storify of Monday’s chat. Please do not diagnosis yourself via the internet — if you are concerned about your mental health or someone else’s, see a professional immediately.

Dear Internet,
The last couple of posts discussed what was going on inside my head, some background on being bipolar and borderline, suicidal thoughts, and how that conflates in every day life. I want to excavate deeper into the every day life part because it’s necessary, important, and gives others a chance to know they are not feeling alone.
(Punctuated with GIFs from Pride and Prejudice & Zombies, Becoming Jane, and Pride and Prejudice (1995 AND 2005 editions). Because obviously.)
People with mental illness are bad ass mother fuckers.
As we stabilize, and start to integrate into regularized life, we have to still have to navigate all of the pitfalls of being mentally ill.
Alone.
Inside our head.
This is not to say we don’t have a support system, a good therapist on call, or even the wrong drugs. But those things can only do so much and we need to be prepared to handle the rest.
We’re fighters.

And when we’re in crisis, which does not always mean suicidal, we’re kind of straying off track of the fight. But give us a moment and we’re back into the ring, ready to do another battle.
Sometimes we are down on the mat, and the ref is counting. Sometimes we feel the only way to win is to die. But those who walk that path are still brave for they took their own life on their terms. It’s hard to digest, I know, but there are something bigger than us, all of us, that cannot always be beaten.
They are not cowards. Death is not shameful. They deserved to make that decision.
I’m not advocating for suicide. I’m not saying everyone who is mentally ill should go kill themselves. I refuse, however, to put on the facade that this wasn’t the person’s choice. It is their choice. They made this decision to end it on their terms, they should have the dignity for making that decision.
(Some of us just need something to keep us here. If you feel like you’re going through a rough time and you need help, call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1.800.273.8255.)

I know from my own experiences the line between wanting to fight and dying on my terms has been pretty blurred. What’s pulled me out of making the decision to die is my need to be a vengeful asshole and want to prove the world wrong.
I haven’t been suicidal in a very long time. I get into crisis mode which can be akin to waiting out a bad storm. I have too much to do in this world and like I said, I’m a vengeful asshole.
I wanted to die because I didn’t feel like anyone understood what I was going through. I wanted to die because I thought no one loved me. I wanted to die because I could not imaging going through life in this kind of pain.
It took a long time for me to accept people love me. People want to make sure I’m okay. When it looks like I’m going into crisis mode, people text/call me to make sure I’m okay or if I need anything. I know it will get better some day, so I let the tears out and the frustration, I take my drugs, I write in my journal, I meditate, and the sun starts to pinprick the clouds.
(And I’m a vengeful asshole, because fuck you non-believers of me.)
(My meditation guru, headspace, has this technique called noting. Instead of acting out on whatever (feeling, emotion, thought), you let the thing wander into your brain and you say to yourself, “oh. that’s just a feeling.” and the feeling, instead of overpowering, you acknowledge it which knocks it out of your way. I found that whenever a feeling / thought / emotion starts pushing its way forward, I note it, and it doesn’t feel so intense anymore. Headspace acknowledges that depression cannot be erased simply by noting, but it helps to better manage the symptoms.)

When I was 10? 11? 12? I wanted to write a book on suicide. Was I suicidal then? To be honest, I have no idea. I was sewing my fingers together and pulling out clumps of my hair, so who knows.
I went to the library constantly. Checked out books, memoirs, medical texts, anything I could find about suicide.
I was convinced they had it all wrong. No one knew what being suicidal was like. I knew. I could write this book.
Again, what does a middle schooler know about suicide? No one I knew had died by their own hand. Where did this come from? I cannot even guess.
I apparently thought I knew everything.
I have no idea what was going on through my mind. This was beyond writing a paper for school, there was this real big need to write a book.
No idea what happened to the papers or my thoughts on the matters.
But I did want you to know I’ve been there, it’s okay, and we can get through this together.

One of the big traits of being a borderline is our lack of self-image. What does that mean?
It means we cannot or have trouble with defining our own personalities. What we like. What we don’t like.
When you think of me, what do you think? My about page has a pretty good description of who I am and what I like. You follow me on Twitter or are a BFF on Facebook, my interests are pretty straight forward.
Every or nearly every day I think about what I like: James Bond, Doctor Who, Jane Austen, Vikings, MINI Coopers, Regency, Edwardian, and Medieval history, Caravaggio, knitting, England, Scotland, Wales, BBC, literature, graphic novels & comic books, Jazz Age, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Baroque art, technology, travel, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Downton Abbey, Italy, and West Ham Football Club.
These are just a few of my favorite things.

Why do I like these things?
You could argue a lot of people pick up traits of the people they are involved with, regardless of the intimacy level. We’re being introduced to new things and those things resonate with us, so we make them ours and explore them on our own terms. But with borderlines, we want to be like that person, so their things are now our favorite things, typically discarded when the relationship ends and we start all over again with the next person to get a whole another set of interests.
When I look at my main interests, listed above, some of them follow that described pattern. TheEx was heavily into F1, MINIs, West Ham United, James Bond, and knitting. Now they are my interests but if I’m honest with some of them I haven’t picked since we split nearly eight years ago. Some of them I follow half-heartedly. Others I keep with abandoning passion.

(That’s amazing thing about interests — spend a half-hour google searching and you can get up to date on that item real quick.)
I used to have a really hard time with music, television shows/movies, and anything else people find of interest. If you’ve been to any place I’ve lived, I’ve got a thousand and one things that look like I’m interested in, but in reality I’ve started and given up on most because I got bored or not everyone was doing the same thing anymore.
(Remember, we want to be loved so what you like, we like.)
It took a really long time for me to learn how to like something. I had to teach myself how to like something and honestly? I have a hard time moving beyond that thing.
Like music.
Music was a poultice to medicate, not to be enjoyed.
Bands like R.E.M, New Order, and The Smiths really resonated with me in high school, so I followed their careers obsessively for years and the cool kids I was desperate to join liked them. I also liked them because it was myself in their songs.
(I listened to industrial to drown out the crazy.)
I started paying attention to songs on the radio, in clubs, at friend’s houses. Why did I like this song? What could I like about this song, albums, band? I like the words. Okay, that’s good. I like the sound. Okay, even better. One plus one = two. Turn it into a logical equation and it’s easier to swallow.
I am really simplifying this as it’s not that straight forward.
A lot of you know I’m a big fan of Joy Division. I knew they were the precursor to New Order. The lead singer killed himself when he was 23. It was thought he was bipolar or at least depressed.
A man I could get behind.
I didn’t get into them until I was in my early 30s when I was researching something and came across Joy Division’s biography. Based upon what I found out and what I later learned, they became my band de jour.
My favorite song is not Love Will Tear Us Apart or Transmission but She’s Lost Control.

I could live a little better with the myths and the lies,
When the darkness broke in, I just broke down and cried.
I could live a little in a wider line,
When the change is gone, when the urge is gone,
To lose control. When here we come.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QVc29bYIvCM%26w%3D640%26h%3D360
Here was a band who released this single when I was 7 and they are as relevant to me today as they were over 30 years ago.
They have a distinct sound. I call it the Mancuian sound, music straight from Manchester, UK. Every band I have fallen in love with either emulates that sound (Interpol), is from that period (Factory Records), or is heavily influenced by Joy Division. Almost without fail, when I hear a new song on the radio and I like the song, they are 90% not only from Britain but from Manchester.
Everything from food, to clothes, to where I want to live — nearly every aspect of my life is thought out, ruminated, digested, and researched before I decide to like it or not.
And all of this is going on with rapid fire thought, subconsciously without fail, every second of every day.
Teaching myself to like something was a big step towards being whole. My interests listed above? Took me a long time to separate the interest from the thing associated with it and make it mine. Now when I meet someone, I have very clear boundaries on what I like, I have ideas what I don’t like, and it’s work to maintain this is me rather this is me being you.
I sound aspie, but it’s not about keeping to a pattern, it’s about discovering what it is that makes “you” you and making it your own. This also does not mean I’m not open to new experiences or adventures, but please understand that to even consider that thing, I’m making rapid fire decisions, a 1000 a second.
Now tie this in with being bipolar, the mania, the need to be an exhibitionist. You are HERE and you’re living in this moment. But do you like this moment? Can you trust this moment? I AM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. But do you like me to being the center? Can I be in your world?
You stabilize the brain with drugs, so the needs become less punishing. Yet it physically hurts to think sometimes, so much is going on in my head.
And people wonder why I’m chaotic neutral.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in LIsa-Universe: 2011, 2007, 2004, 2003, 1999

Collection of Cunning Curiosities – July 18, 2015

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A weekly compendium of things that delight my fancy.

Dear Internet, You can follow all mentioned items here and past on the Pinterest board. x0x0, lisa

Reading

♥ I’ve been plowing through my book list these last few weeks. I finished Goddess of Buttercups & Daisies, which was a fun read and The Devil’s Detective, which posits that terrible murders are happening in hell and Satan hires a detective to find out why. Yes, murders in hell, but go with it as the horror/mystery novel is able to pull it off quite well.
This last week I started research on a sekret project that involves learning as much as humanly possible about SEO, however, the current titles that are regarded are so terrible, I’m embarrassed to list them here. You can check out the list on Pinterest.
To wash out the bad books, I picked up Jane Goes Batty which is the second in a series that presents the idea: What if Jane Austen never died, but became a vampire (turned by Lord Byron no less) and was living in contemporary America, owning a bookshop? I know, AGAIN, another book where the summary sounds implausible but the series is quite fun and a quick read.

Fanciful Delights

♥ Did you know the word “awesome” has been in use since the late 16th century? Neither did I. The word usage in the 16th century was more along the lines of, “made you shiver in terror” rather than our current usage to mean, “things that fill you with awe.” This is why English language and it’s constant growth is awesome. (See what I did there?)
♥ Digital Manuscripts Library at the British Library recently wrote an article about one of the oldest papyrus’ found, which they nicknamed “Exit, Pursued by a Bear.” Regular readers of this journal may remember this journal is named after a scene from Shakespear’s The Winter’s Tale, It seems natural enough, then, that the article on the oldest known papyrus nicknamed the same would delight my fancy.
♥ To the delight of some, and annoyance to others, I refer to American soccer as football. But I have always wondered why we call it soccer when the rest of the world calls it football. Well wonder no more my friends, dictionary.com has the answer.
♥Having been a user of the Internet for a solid 20 years (!), I’ve always wondered what it look like mapped. The Optae Project answers that very question. “Since the Internet is basically a vast constellation of networks that somehow interconnect to provide the relatively seamless communication of data, it seemed logical one could draw lines from one point to another. The visualization is a collection of programs that collectively output an image of every relationship of every network on the Internet.” (Click on the image on the right to get a large image and other images created by this project.)
♥ I did not get into Joy Division until I was in my late ’20s or early ’30s, which is surprising since I was a huge New Order fan in high school. No matter, Joy Division remain one of my top five bands for the last decade and that more than likely will not change. What’s interesting about this revelation is the band released only two full albums and the lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide 35 years ago. Despite their small catalog, JoyDiv remains one of the most influential bands of the late 20th century. This even though the remaining members went on form New Order and other multi-album bands, and yet, yet, JoyDiv tops them all. Recently, The Guardian wrote up a piece on the 10 best Joy Division tracks, which prompted me to add them to to this weeks list. Below is the video for She’s Lost Control, one of my favorite Joy Division tracks, natch. Or you can open up Spotify to listen to their tracks.

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2014, 2012, 2011, 2003, 1999, 1998

Collection of Cunning Curiosities – May 30, 2015

A weekly compendium of things that delight my fancy.

Dear Internet, You can follow this collection on Pinterest. x0x0, lisa

Reading

♥I’ve been super lax on keeping my list updated but no more! I’ve added loads of new books as well as the comic serials I’ve been reading and finishing, so the list is mostly current now. The best book this year I’ve read is Genevieve Valentine’s The Girls of the Kingfisher Club, which I finished in one sitting. Valentine confirmed what I’ve known for quite some time: exquisite writing will be the convincer needed to get me to finish a book. Time is far too short to read bad books and I seemingly keep picking up bad books.

Links

♥Noon Pacific is a weekly mixtape of the best songs handpicked from the best music blogs, delivered to your inbox every Monday at Noon (Pacific Time). Definite pluses: You can listen via their app which you can grab from iTunes and Google Play. Lisa’s take: I was recently turned on to this via somewhere and the idea I can stream it on my phone/iPad as an independent app was a great appeal as well as the introduction to new music, curated weekly.
♥Neko Atsume is Animal Crossing sans annoying talking creatures but populated with cats. So what exactly do you do in this game? You buy some food, a few toys, put them in the garden and wait for the cats to show up. That’s it. The cats will come and go as they please but as a reward for keeping them fed and toyed, they will leave you trinkets of sardines to continue buying them food and toys. It’s the new obsession as illustrated here, here, and here. You can pick up Neko Atsume at iTunes and Android.
♥How to: Perfect Winged Eyeliner! is the best YouTube tutorial I’ve seen on how to do perfect winged eyeliner. Yes, I’m almost 43 years old and need help putting on make-up but this easy to follow tutorial with practical steps (make dots on your eyelids, connect the dots, viola! Perfect eyeliner) was a huge game changer for me. Seriously. I typically like to wear eyeliner + mascara as the sum of my make-up for the day but my lack of steady hand or unable to draw a straight line means my eyeliner is always just a bit off. First go around with this technique and my eyeliner was on point.
♥Ceremony (the band) is, according to Wikipedia, a punk band from California. I disagree with this, naturally, because they are post-punk and this is an important distinction. They are grittier than Interpol but still have that Joy Division sound, so of course I like them. Their single Separation from their most recent album, L-Shaped Man, was demoed on some place I forget and I loved that so much, I preordered the album. So if you’re into a Joy Division derivative with hints of She Wants Revenge and Sex Pistols, this is your band.
♥New authorized James Bond novel will resurect Pussy Galore.I’m super excited by this announcement as I’m a huge fan of the Bond movies AND books. Yes, yes, both media should be against my feminist leanings (misogyny is but one of the fallacies), but sometimes you have to just ignore things to enjoy something. I mean, Sean Connery – amirite? If you too are interested in the Bond universe, I highly recommend getting your hands on the Moneypenny Diaries, which can be had for dirt cheap on Amazon.

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2001

reviews: music: bloc party – intimacy

I take Bloc Party seriously.
By this I mean that they are one of the few bands I actually listen to and by listen to, I mean that I sit down and pay attention to the music and the lyrics. I like a lot of bands, but there are a scant few that I return to time and time again. Joy Division is one, R.E.M. is another, Elbow is definitely up there and Bloc Party most assuredly rounds out the set.
For me, and I will assume for a lot of people, music is a very personal thing. This is not to say that I do not enjoy my fluffy pop or my occasional foray into old school gangsta rap, I do. But this is to say, that when I love a band, I really take the band to heart. For those who know me, you know how constantly I refer to High Fidelity as a bible to my life — I AM the female Rob Gordon. (Complete with relationship problems, neuroses and other high jinks. But that is for another post.) And like Rob, who arranges his music automusicgraphically, I too also do the same. I can get from one band to another by telling you where I was, when I first heard it and what I was doing (or who I was doing).
If my choices seem a little chaotic at times, that is totally okay. Straight and narrow never won any interesting awards. But this is not really about me, per se, but more about Bloc Party and the release of their third album, Intimacy, a mere 18 months after A Weekend In The City. The album was released digitally at the end of August, with the physical release set for, in the U.K. and U.S., at the end of October. Word on the street is that the title tracks available on the physical release will differ from the digital download, but like the good little fan girl I am, I will have procured both. Silent Alarm, their first album with the stunning single Helicopters, came out kicking and squalling to the world in 2005. A Weekend In The City was their “falling in love” album in 2007 and I wasn’t too terribly surprised to find out that Intimacy is their “break-up” album of 2008. When the title track is entitled, “Ares,” and the song begins with “War! War! War!,” I got the feeling that Kele Okereke was stalking my life.
So, then, I must step back and do a bit of back story before I continue. Bloc Party, like a multitude of other bands over the years, is a band I heard of but never really got “in to,” until I met TheEx. TheEx and I have an interesting back story in that musically, we were perfect. We could, and often did, spend hours talking about music from producers to labels to motifs, sound, lyrics and design. Our joint collection neared nearly 2000 compact discs (60% his), dozens of vinyls (his) and over 100 gigs of digital music (mostly mine). We were concert whores who would travel hours for a good show, only to turn around and come back home that very night. With him, I found my perfect music man, someone who could discuss with me the nuances of music on a variety of different levels and not have to explain to him why I was found of the production values of X album over Y album or why I loved A band over B band.
TheEx was crazy about Silent Alarm and was eagerly waiting for A Weekend in the CIty, which came out in the very beginning of our relationship. And I’m not quite sure what it was about A Weekend in the City, but that became “my” album while Silent Alarm became his. To me, A Weekend in the City became the anthem of our relationship. Every song, every melody, every lyric no matter how distant somehow spoke to me, about us. I could see him in every song and certain songs became “our” songs. Every time I heard “Sunday,” with or without him near me, my heart would swell with love for him, because he would love me in the morning when I was hung over and strung out. And even though I knew that On was about doing coke, to me the lines, You make my tongue loose/I am hopeful and stutter free, was about how I felt around him. He made me feel hopeful and stutter free — I could (and did) tell him everything and anything, anytime and any place.
At the time, I felt that he made me an honest woman and with him, I was so much better off than without him. I like Silent Alarm, but A Weekend in the City had this energy that I responded to, a hunger if you will for living and for life. I liked the simplicity of Kele’s lyrics and the fact that he was able to lyrically say what he meant without going overboard with metaphor and unnecessary imagery. (I’m looking at you Radiohead and Coldplay — fucking wankers.) I adored the fact that every single time I heard the album, I heard something different and that everything about A Weekend in the City resonated with me emotionally and intellectually.
Like most intimate of relationships, TheEx and I did not end with a quiet whimper but with a huge, ferocious fuck-off bang. For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to reclaim my musical tastes but have found that in reality, I was hiding from it. I forewent listening to Pandora, XM and my CD collection on general to podcasts and NPR. I did not want to put myself through musical depression – even with bands that I claimed as mine were also his and by listening to said bands would conjure up all the feelings, the good with the bad.
When I found out Bloc Party had released a new album digitally, with the physical release forthcoming, I was surprised. I was, apparently, not the only one. Bloc Party has been touring almost non-stop since the release of A Weekend in the City, which was released in February 2007. Other than a single released last summer, the synth dance song “Flux,” there has been no talk or announcement of a new album. Shortly after the digital release at the end of August, reviews started showing up by the beginning of September, with a split vote on Intimacy.
People fell into several camps

That Intimacy was an attempt to return to the area that Silent Alarm began, failed with A Weekend in the City and was struggling to fill and was a mixed-bag.
That Intimacy not only returned to the horizon of Silent Alarm but surpassed it. A Weekend in the City? A blip and could be written off as their sophomoric disc (which it is).
That Intimacy failed on many levels, was absolute drek and that Bloc Party, as a whole, are a bunch of pretentious wankers.

For me, I’m apparently in the minority. I love A Weekend in the City more so over Silent Alarm (and thought it was one of the best albums of 2007) but Intimacy is growing on me. I was looking for, excuse the obvious, but the intimacy and the slowness of A Weekend in the City only to be greeted by dance pop and synth experiments hold over from their single, Flux, which at first annoyed me. But it is the lyrics, oh $deity, I love you Kele, the lyrics more than make up for the choppiness of the disc, the messiness that is “Zephyrus” and the overwhelming urge they have to experiment TOO much.
But it is with their weaknesses that they also have their biggest strengths — Bloc Party has no problem selling out arenas, have gained a fairly successful following in the U.S. and tour almost constantly. They have hit almost every major festival abroad and in the U.S. The fact that they have, somehow, managed to get into the studio to record a third album and not only record it but have the production completed in a relatively short time is almost mind boggling. And according to the interview with bassist Gordon Moakes on pitchfork, the band is just as surprised as their fans at the quick turnaround.
I don’t view the turnaround as a negative thing, rather again, I look to the lyrics for the answers. If A Weekend in the City was about falling in love, relationships and living life, Intimacy is about breaking-up and the obvious, almost debilitating aspects of separating from the one you love. From “Ares,” declaring war on the person who wronged you, to “Halo” about questioning the love, to “One Month Off,” at the anger of one’s partner after a long term relationship ends, to that remembrance of the good times in “Better Than Heaven,” to the pitiful, desperate plea of return to that love in “Ion Square.”
Every relationship counselor (and Cosmo issue) will tell you that separation after a break-up tends to follow the same rules of grief that the death of a loved one follows:

Denial. – “Mercury.” “Halo.” “Better Than Heaven.”
Anger. – “Ares.” “One Month Off.”
Bargaining. “Signs.” “Halo.” “Bilko.” “Trojan Horse.”
Depression. “Signs.” “Halo.”
Acceptance. “Zephyrus.” “Ion Square.”

Some songs resonate with better topics than others, but the point is still there. This is Kele’s exorcism against the end of a love that obviously broke his heart. And it is with this, with Kele’s lyrics and the buffing of the depressing themes with synth tunes and dubbeats that most will find to be a turn-off and thusly, a shite album. Some will claim that this is a desperate attempt to grab the glory they had with Silent Alarm and failing while others will claim they are attempting to parody their influences and are bilking too much of their popularity by riding on the coattails of Coldplay and Radiohead. I don’t think Intimacy is a great album, but I do think it is a good one. I do agree that there is, at times, too much going on at one time while at others, it seems almost perfect.
While I would recommend it, I would recommend it after listening to the first two albums — like most great bands, you need to get the scope of the band’s lineage before diving in several albums in. With several months between the digital and physical release, who is to say what the physical album will sound like? And as for me, I unfortunately saw too much of TheEx inside the lyrics after my first spin with the disc a few weeks ago. The beginning of Trojan Horse chilling reminds me of the rituals that TheEx performed before we too made love. Signs, also eerily like the lasting days of our relationship. And Ares and One Month Off remind me of me, in those “OHNOESHEDIDNOT” moods I would would sometimes (occasionally) cycle through. Despite my initial reservation, Intimacy is the tip of the catharsis to push me over the edge. It is not the time for a new love or to sign a new lease, but at least now, I know that one day there will be.