Youth Lagoon's Androgyny

The first part of "Montana" by Youth Lagoon (a.k.a., Trevor Powers) is unremarkable, but the second half is exemplary.

I was reading an uncharacteristically good column ("The Good Order: Routine, Creativity and President Obama’s U.N. Speech") by the loathsome David Brooks on the train ride home tonight when "Montana" came over my iPod ear buds. I should say the column starts off well, with Brooks discussing the the regimented lives of creative people, before clown-car crashing in the usual bang of shallow bombast that discerning readers have come to expect from the "thinking man's" conservative.

Brooks concludes the column conflating ISIS with Putin (calling, once again, the Russian president a "thug"), while hailing Obama as courageous leader of the indispensable, order-bestowing United States of America. But before he reaches that point he does have these fine opening paragraphs:

When she was writing, Maya Angelou would get up every morning at 5:30 and have coffee at 6. At 6:30, she would go off to a hotel room she kept — a small modest room with nothing but a bed, desk, Bible, dictionary, deck of cards and bottle of sherry. She would arrive at the room at 7 a.m. and write until 12:30 p.m. or 2 o’clock. 

John Cheever would get up, put on his only suit, ride the elevator in his apartment building down to a storage room in the basement. Then he’d take off his suit and sit in his boxers and write until noon. Then he’d put the suit back on and ride upstairs to lunch.

 Anthony Trollope would arrive at his writing table at 5:30 each morning. His servant would bring him the same cup of coffee at the same time. He would write 250 words every 15 minutes for two and a half hours every day. If he finished a novel without writing his daily 2,500 words, he would immediately start a new novel to complete his word allotment.

I was reminded of these routines by a book called “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work,” compiled by Mason Currey. 

The vignettes remind you how hard creative people work. Most dedicate their whole life to work. “I cannot imagine life without work as really comfortable,” Sigmund Freud wrote. 

But you’re primarily struck by the fact that creative people organize their lives according to repetitive, disciplined routines. They think like artists but work like accountants. “I know that to sustain these true moments of insight, one has to be highly disciplined, lead a disciplined life,” Henry Miller declared. 

“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition,” W.H. Auden observed.

"Montana" is a track on The Year of Hibernation (2011), Youth Lagoon's debut album.

I saw The Year of Hibernation on a favorites list posted on the Seattle Public Library web site. I checked it out; downloaded it to my iTunes; played it a several times; liked it well enough, but it never transported me. It came close, but it never quite got me there.

A song here and there will tap into the majesty of Beirut's March of the Zapotec/Holland (2009). But for the most part it never quite takes off. Except for the second half of "Montana."

Listening to The Year of Hibernation tonight what I am struck by is its tremendous androgyny.

Before I knew Youth Lagoon was a young guy I couldn't tell who was singing. Sometimes I was sure it was a young woman, depending on the song, sometimes a guy.