Journey to the Center of the Universe

I would like to write of some new albums I have gotten, but I haven't completely absorbed all of them as of yet. To whet your appetite: Canned Heat - Cookbook, Issac Hayes - Live at the Sahara Tahoe 1973, Interpol - Antics, Hot Snakes - Audit in Progress, Lakeside - Fantastic Voyage, Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender, Devendra Banhart - Nino Rojo, My Morning Jacket - Acoustic Citsuoca, The Arcade Fire - Funeral, Jack Rose - Raab Manifestos, Necrophagist - Epitaph, Sunn 0))) - White 2...

But now...

I recently watched High Fidelity, a wonderful movie. It is undoubtedly among my top 5 favorite films, if not number #1. It's not a movie that is extremely unique to look at (see Steven Frears' 2003 entry, Dirty Pretty Things), but it is an incredible story based on a book by Nick Hornsby. I have never read the book and I don't really intend to. I don't need to.

For those of you who have not seen the film High Fidelity is the story of a man, Rob Gordon (John Cusack) who finds himself destined to be rejected by women, time and again. He sets himself on a journey to discover exactly what the cause may be.

Ironically, the cause is there the whole time. Instead of acknowledging fault or accepting responsibility for failure, Rob skirts the issue--himself. Rob's story is one of the contemporary adult male's all too common solipsistic tendencies. Rob can never remember how a relationship ends, only that he is the one hurt--end of story. Rob views himself as the subject of the sad pop song, continually wronged. The clincher comes when, after asking Laura if she slept with Ian, he sleeps with Marie DeSalle and asks, "What did Laura mean by, 'I didn't sleep with Ian yet?'"

Rob's situation is not too hard to imagine. Any person that exists in a relationship occassionally puts the blinders on, only viewing themselves and their emotions. It takes a long time and, sometimes, a big moment to understand that there are two people: a relationship requires push and pull, give and take. I only hope I can be so lucky.