tUnE-yArDs: Real Live Flesh

Can/should music change the way I see the world? Does music or art provide enough brute force for the artist to alter the way the world operates?

I can't answer yes, but I don't want to say no.

My boyfriend says the art moment should have the ability to cause one to rethink the nature of reality.



I must be either numbing out to reality or I've seen too much art. Or the art isn't strong enough to break through the grayness of reality.

Reality has become too big and vague, too commercial, too narrow, over produced, repetitive, too predicable.

I haven't seen real life in years. I keep hearing about it through brief reports on NPR, but I need to see it face to face, on the street, on the job. I need to smell the smoke and the dead, see the waters rushing to high ground, taste the last bite of the most expensive dish of something I can't even pronounce.

But first I will have to leave my processed reality behind and risk losing for good what I know of life, like the sureness of my old car, my boyfriend's habitual silliness, my own habitual sadness and even the company of our old dog Sam with his fat, little ham butt.

Or I can just listen to tUnE-yArDs and get high off of the fantasy of leaving this over processed life. Music isn't strong enough to alter reality, but it keeps the world of the mind alive for another day.