Nihilism #3

Nihilism #2 was devoted to a Richmond Fontaine song, how "Allison Johnson" was a perfect projection of the nihilist mind -- a mind unconscious of its own nihilism, yes; but nonetheless a beautiful expression of the essential nothingness of being.

Tonight, it's "Making It Back," the concluding song of what might be the finest Richmond Fontaine record, The Fitzgerald (2005):

3 AM and the bottles are lined up in rows on the floor again
'Summer in Siam' plays on repeat again we never get sick of it
Now that I'm home again
In the kitchen with you
There's no one else I can talk to
The lights are all covered and dim and there's nothing but a gentle ease here
'Summer in Siam' plays and you and me and our whole place, we're okay
Now that I'm in your arms again

This is a beautiful love song dedicated to the joys of being flat-out drunk wasted with your wife/lover/girlfriend/partner/woman listening in the secure comfort of the low-watt light of night's end to The Pogues. It is a wonderful feeling. I have experienced it. Willy Vlautin nails it. There is no doubt about it.

But once you have given up on romance and you live alone, "Making It Back" means making do with your self. This is nihilism. Strength is all there is. The strength of the self.

Or to quote from that heroic poem of the zenith of Grunge, Rollins Band's "Low Self Opinion":

The hatred you project
Does nothing to protect you
You leave yourself so exposed
You want to open up
When someone says
Lighten up
You find all your doors closed
Get yourself a break from self rejection
Try some introspection
And you just might find
It's not so bad and anyway
At the end of the day
All you have is yourself and your mind

The End of Silence (1992) was an album I listened to religiously when it was released, and I continued to listen to it throughout the 1990s. I don't know how much of its material was written prior to the murder of Rollins' buddy Joe Cole, but I always interpreted the record as a deconstruction of the tough guy "Search & Destroy" persona Rollins had assiduously developed and marketed.

I was wedded to the tough-guy myth throughout the 1990s. Street fighter, construction worker, independent scholar -- all the paperback fictions -- Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac. But the toughest tough guy is the one who takes apart the sacred idea of toughness.

Remember, it is Jacobi who coins the term "nihilism" in order to characterize Kant's critical philosophy, a system perpetually open, never able to be shut, forever overflowing with meaning produced by a striving, self-reflecting consciousness.

St. Patrick's Day Dash

This morning I completed for a third year in a row the St. Patrick's Day Dash. Though slower than last year, I made it in under 8-minute-per-mile pace (which based on my training runs was a pleasant surprise). I owe it all to a woman I followed the second half of the race. She mowed people down right and left while I followed after about a yard behind. I thanked her at the finish line.

There were lots of runners. Eighteen thousand participants the MC announced over the PA at the beginning of the race. Two things I noticed while I waited in the chill being bombarded by the MC's badinage: first, everyone, pretty much everyone, at least a clear majority, is completely tethered to his/her smart phone -- taking pictures, texting, setting chronometers, checking the news -- and this in running gear before a four-mile run; second, the foot glove fad seems to be petering out -- I didn't see one runner wearing them.

Waiting for the race to begin I enjoyed listening to the Rollins Band's "Hangin' Around" on my iPod: