January 2004 - Page 2 of 3 - Benjamin Wagner

I Want A TV Embrace

By admin | January 20, 2004 |

Here’s the problem with being a musician: you’re always wanting to make new records. Thing is, unless your at least Ryan Adams, a) you don’t have the budget and b) your audience doesn’t have the interest. Or perhaps you’d like to single-handedly finance my next record? See, I’m back on the iPod kick, and have…

Superhero Hype

By admin | January 19, 2004 |

I was dreaming about making a movie about superheroes and was surrounded by actual superheroes and I knew I was dreaming in the middle of the dream. It’s difficult to explain. It felt so real that, when I woke up, I thought I could walk to Blockbuster to rent the movie, my movie. But I…

Whole Lotta’ Hibernation Going On

By admin | January 17, 2004 |

I want to tell you something provocative, substantive, revealing — anything really. But the truth is, there’s just a whole lotta’ hibernation going on here. Yes, there’s a heat wave this morning. It’s 22 degrees (out of the wind). Didi I go running? No way. I got coffee, a coupla’ thank you notes at the…

Faraway (So Close)

By admin | January 15, 2004 |

Sometimes, something is so close, you can’t see anything at all. Like the arrow between the E and the X in Fed Ex. See it now? I’m not entirely sure how that applies to this post, but it seems to make sense. Like, how, sometimes everything’s fine, really good even, but the Big Drama overtakes…

The Music, Or The Melancholy

By admin | January 14, 2004 |

Which came first, the music or the melancholy? Do I listen to pop music because I’m melancholy? Or am I melancholy because I listen to pop music? It has been (lovingly, I hope) brought to my attention that The Daily Journal is rife with mentions of melancholy. I gave this some thought as I walked…

Want One

By admin | January 12, 2004 |

The guy behind the Starbucks counter at Christopher & West 4th always wears eye shadow, lipstick, and a smile. This morning he asked me how my weekend was. “Miraculous,” I replied. “Yours?” “Interesting,” he said. “I learned a lot of valuable lessons.” Me too. Saturday was one beautiful moment after another. My cousins Brian and…

By admin | January 10, 2004 |

In my dream, a television news helicopter is hovering over a newly opened marine air terminal. As the reporter explains the dynamics of oceanic takeoff, a departing plane flounders, and sinks. After a dramatic pause in reporter commentary, the plane resurfaces, its passengers drowned. The next flight is mine. I step into a new type…

On Winter & Frozen Pigeons

By admin | January 9, 2004 |

The countdown to 1980 is the first New Year’s I can remember. I was lying alone on a futon in the TV room of our Oak Park, IL, home, watching the ball drop, thinking, ‘This is significant. Nothing will ever be the same.’ A year later, my parents were separated. My mother, brother and I…

By admin | January 7, 2004 |

Why is love so often equated to fireworks? What is the quality of these celestial explosions, these ‘colored lights, smoke, and noise for sake of amusement’ that relates to the heart? Is it the temporal nature of fire and sky? The fleeting dynamism of explosions? Fierce beauty that sparkles and fades? Proximity to perceived danger?…

The New York City Skyline

By admin | January 6, 2004 |

It has been (lovingly, I hope) brought to my attention that I am, perhaps, obsessed with the phrase “New York City skyline,” and its variations. It is a key lyric in (duh) ‘New York,’ has appeared in at least three unreleased tracks (as far back as September 2001), and in multiple Daily Journal postings (ex:…