Issa's Untidy Hut: Arctic Monkeys

Sunday, June 19, 2011

I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor: Issa's Sunday Service, #106

This is a day for rocking out, if delayed by a week. Here's the 2nd appearance of the pop/rock band with as many hooks per album as your average fly fisherwoman has in her tackle box: the Arctic Monkeys. At first listening, it would seem there is an allusion to Orwell's "1984" but, upon closer inspection, this seems spurious - I'm not remembering too many robots in that lit classic, especially dancing to electro-pop. However, as I was about to abandon all hope, up popped the line "Oh, there ain't no love, no Montagues or Capulets" ... and, though this may seem a bit like "Newsflash: Generalissimo Francisco Franco, Still Dead," it'll do.

So, what about these robots and electro-pop and dance floors? Well, maybe it's not a lit allusion in the Arctic Monkey's song, but perhaps pop citing pop:

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This week's poems come from Lilliput Review, #87, April 1997. They came back to back on pages 5 and 6 of this issue and have an interesting kinship. Enjoy.

On Padre Island
   Alone on the beach
   watching the waves dissolve your name
   remembering

   Single gull dives
   impressing on the sand grains
   a fleeting shadow

Barbara Tieken

Dad
   He's the one told me
   "Never write your name
   in the sand; the sea
   will come and take it away
   and what would we call you
   after that

   B. Kim Meyer

my dead mother--
every time I see the ocean
every time..

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Sunday, January 9, 2011

A Certain Romance: Issa's Sunday Service, #85

Photo by Johann "nojhan" Dréo

The songs that comprise the Issa's Sunday Service list need to contain a direct reference to some element which most people would agree is literary in nature. Some bands, whose subject matter is literary in tone or style, don't necessarily base their work on a literary precursor or make direct allusion to something literary and so don't make the list. On occasion decidedly un-artsy bands make the list because of a specific allusion to some well-known literary fact.

Today's entry is at once literate and un-artsy. Among recent bands, Arctic Monkeys definitely have a way with words and, if not strictly literary in tone, they are most definitely sharp. They manage to be smart and pop-ish at the same time, no mean feat. Today's song,"A Certain Romance," contains a simple name drop: Sherlock Holmes, one my favorite literary characters. So the song's in. Enjoy.

And, oh, yeah, as a live band they bring it. Watch.

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This week two poems come from Lilliput Review, #131 (an issue featured twice previously), which shared the same page since they riffed on a particular image or, more precisely, a particular portion of the visible spectrum. Ah-hem.

Issa, too, has something to say about it. Enjoy.