Is This It?

We no longer think The Iliad and The Odyssey were composed by a single poet. We have identified several different strains of authorship in The Bible. The attribution of a collection of 38 plays to a certain William Shakespeare is often disputed... Why should we then think that forth coming album Phrazes for the Young is the work of a single man, a single Julian Casablancas? It is not so much a question of whether Julian Casablancas exists, but rather what constitutes that existence... I have compared the songwriting of Is This It to Room on Fire to First Impressions of Earth and it does not seem that the same person wrote those songs. Granted these songs have all found epigensis in the same organic process known as The Strokes, but I know the DNA is not the same...If one is familiar with Borges, as I am, one must immediately think of the story Tlon, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius, in which a secret organization over the period of a few hundred years creates a series of encyclopedias detailing in minutia the workings of an apocryphal planet. Could some secret organization be behind the songs of The Strokes and now Phrazes for the Young? Could it be the same organization that has existed since The Greeks, that has taken the form of Homer, the J Writer, and Shakespeare? Is JC simply the manifestation of some greater world order propagating the literature of the ages, age by age... ever evolving, without a single form, without a face, without that long pale face we have so often seen but never felt. It is a possibility we must consider, a skepticism we must endure. 1

1. Let us not think for a moment that the songs of Albert Hammond Jr. deserve the same scrutiny. They are certainly the work of one man, one curlyhairedmongrel asshole.

The End Has No End

Does one suspect that our dream starts are no more than the waking states of some higher being, ever present in the fabric of creation? It is not that I fully doubt the wholeness of my own conscious, it is only that I suspect that there is some linkage between my thoughts and the beingness of the universe... Does this verge on solipsism? I hardly know... One must hold off these thoughts as long as one can... It is is difficult- can it be a coincidence that not long after one starts a blog about Julian Casablancas that Julian Casablancas releases a solo album, that Julian Casablancas begins to grant interviews, be seen... work on a forth The Strokes album... Should I in my most lonely of moments not suspect that I have created this or that this has created me. Can there be any doubt that somehow I am pulled into the dark orbit of Julian's conscious, or that he is pulled into mine? Does this blog follow him, or does he follow this blog... Yes there are countless bloggers writing about him, looking for him, dreaming about him...yet... I cannot believe that they feel as connected to him as I do... Are these other bloggers even real, or do they exist perhaps, only in the imagination of this blog, which is my mind, which may be the mind of Julian. Are we bloggers nothing more than his collective unconscious, his thoughts upon waking... his forgotten dreams?

Room on Fire

The spread of information is viral, and I suspect Mimetic. Should we not then expect that even the the most subtle twitter about JC would unfold across the internet like some giant squid wrapping it's liquid tentacles around the whole of the universe. Should it come as a surprise that after Stereogum claimed to have access to him that NME would soon follow... NME that bastion of British intellectual thought, that exemplar of journalistic restraint and good taste- I do not take myself for some scurvy ridden asthmatic dunderhead and I expect no less of you, my loyal readers.
Before you read the quotation I am about to share with you, I expect all of you to excercise the greatest skepticism in relation to it's verity, for I suspect that is nothing more than the fluffiest sillyness that has ever been presented to the internet as fact. It concerns JC's tour plans as if he was some ordinary musician trying to spread awareness of his creation, as if this awareness was not everpresent in all of us at once,

"I'm in the process of figuring out what kind of show it's going to be," he said. "It's like anything, it's starting out probably a little bit too ambitious so we've got to figure out what we can and can't do and that will dictate how much touring happens. Ideally, I'm going to try to put on some over-the-top, amazing, Disney shows. Not Disney, but you know how they have some amazing rides where you feel like you're in a weird world, like the Epcot Centre or something? I'm not thinking of the big Goofy costume but I was thinking of how those rides make you feel with lots of set changes and stuff. But that might not happen and we'll do straight shows, I haven't quite figured it out yet, it's the next thing to do."

You Talk Way Too Much

http://stereogum.com/archives/video/julian-casablancas-first-oncamera-interview-in-three-years_083491.html

Sartre said it is up to us to interpret the signs. There is a video, there is a man, but beyond that I know not what it means. Are we supposed to believe that Julian would condescend to speak with Stereogum just because he wanted to promote his album? One must ask why Julian would need to do so when there are so many bloggers who will spread the music amongst themselves. There is much in the shadows of this half moon world that I dare not believe I see, and this, which is so obvious, so clear, some simple, is it not the darkest of those shadows? Is not Stereogum just as desperate as we are? One should not imagine that they are beyond the propagation of lies and misinformation- What is good for the individual is not always in the best interest of these conglomerations that care only for the existential lifeblood of profit. Does not the cave of irreality flicker with the image of these bastardized forms, these false Julians who appear to be nothing more than shaggy haired wagtails hired off the street. If we bloggers are to assume any nobility, we must reject the lies that are fed to us by these systems, these Stereogums, these Pitchfork Medias, these Brooklyn Vegans who, in their faceless inhumanity care nothing for the truth that is the good. If JC, who in the darkest harness of my soul still flickers, exists-he exists not for the easy consummation of the indie rock community, he exists not for the casual fans or the people who are looking for something to fill up the time that lingers inbetween Albert Hammond Jr's abomitable solo albums... He exists for us, the bloggers, his followers, those who seek the truth in all things, those who stand outside of the cave and see the beingness that is his pure form.

12:51

I woke up tonight unsure if the news of JC's solo album was a dream. I immediately checked my blog roll and discovered it was not. One cannot be sure whereinfact reality lies. I must also apologize for my last blog post, it is, as one cannot help but notice, written by a very lonely person who had, for the first time in a long, while received a bit of good news.

Phrazes for the Young

Oh Julian my darling, my beloved, my naughty cousin in the bathroom at Christmas, thank you for this, the most brilliant and effervescent of your gifts, Phrazes for the Young. I have often thought, though I have dared not express it, that you, the most lovely, the most gifted, the most charming of the The Strokes would be better off alone, better off without that mongrel Albert Hammond Jr., that porpoise Nick Valensi, that glitter tooth Fabrizio Moretti, that charletan Nikolai Fraiture. Oh how you surprise me, tickle me, touch me with your release which you have so lovingly hidden from me, your loving follower, your blogger, who has followed you and loved you, and hoped to see you, to touch you, to know you, oh Julian I can hardly contain myself for the juice boxes within my soul are overflowing with the sap of your budding solo career. One in my position must in a situation like this give up all claims to professionalism and decorum and open ones heart. Do not forsake me, do not leave me again- I have composed a poem for thee

The ambrosial cup spills into the
fragmented moonbone of your glowing thighs,
the half heard cry of the four forgotten
men, oh pluck thyself from their flower and
sing with Apollos golden lyric charm,
up now into the pantheon of dreams.

Meet Me in the Bathroom

I returned to the bar from last week, or what I thought was last week, hoping to find Nikolai Fraiture's assistant. This time I was careful not to talk to the bloggers who sat in the back- I did not feel in danger of being discovered by them as they were utterly absorbed in their work. As a blogger, I know that when blogging one forgets the time of day, one hardly looks up, one hardly eats or drinks. I have heard, though it may have been from an apocryphal twitter, that a blogger once died from the sheer exhaustion of reading and responding to all his comments.
I was careful to set up my Macbook in the far corner of the bar, to the left of the door, and I was surprised to notice that there were far more Macbooks than last time I had been there, in fact the bar had been transformed into a hive of luminescent screens. My table, oddly enough, was made to the dimensions of my Macbook and allowed room for nothing else. I signaled for the waitress, who was thin, almost waifish, with sallow cheeks and stringy blond hair.
"I would like to order a drink," I said, "but there is no room on my table for my laptop and a glass."
"Well that has been a problem for us ever since you blogged about Nikolai Fraiture's assistant coming here, we've had to exchange all of our tables for these efficient squares in order to accomodate our new patrons. You really shouldn't have done that you know. We already had enough bloggers before you came here, but now we have to turn people away. You were lucky to have fought your way inside, most are left to wander around the building looking for alternative ways in."
"I imagine that would be good for business."
"Oh no," she exclaimed, "Nikolai Fraiture's assistant doesn't come here anymore, for obvious reasons- she can't have a drink without being twittered... Of course you bloggers will hardly admit that she's gone for good, even the slightest possibility is enough to bring you here. It's ruining our business- no one orders drinks and we have to pay for all the electricity being used by these Macbooks. I haven't managed to update my own blog for days because I haven't had my usual income from tips."
"I'm sorry if I have caused you so much trouble but one can hardly blame me for trouble caused by my readers."
"Readers!" The waitress laughed cruelly, "Why do you bloggers think you have readers! That is not the case at all. The blogosphere just has bloggers who blog about blogging and the whole thing generates these horribly destructive movements. You should have known that just name Nikolai Fraiture would cause an uproar. His guitar tech's intern's groupie would have been enough, but to mention that his assistant frequents this bar..."
"One can hardly blame me for blogging about the assistant, it is the bars job to protect their patron's privacy, it is the bloggers job to report what he finds. My blog, like any other blog is just trying to amass reader comments-"
"Reader comments are more of an absurdity than readers! You bloggers just create alternative screennames and write your own comments."
"Perhaps if I could meet Nikolai Fraiture's assistant that would not be as much of a necessity." I said and the waitress did not respond for a moment. I felt resigned and looked down at my screen. One must imagine my shame in having been so forward.
"Well, if you must know," the waitress leaned close to my ear, "We are in the same yoga class." She pulled away and smiled at me and I thought she had a look of certain desperation. I must confess I found myself, sometime soon after, with her on the floor of the men's bathroom, twittering and kissing, tearing away each other's clothing and sobbing with desire.