"ontario," from full force galesburg

imagine yourself standing in a square with four sides:

"MY FAVORITE RECORDS"

"MY FAVORITE BOOKS"

"THE PEOPLE I LOVE"

"THE PEOPLE I ALMOST LOVE"

it's rare that you get characters in darnielle's songs who actually sound content; in "ontario," for once, the scenario is frank, simple. but contentment is an ambivalent thing, and the narrator's ultimately a depressive by trade: " i thought i knew what my weaknesses were anyway, and then the orange tree blossomed last saturday--there was nothing in it but pain for me."

looking out on my room, my favorite records, my favorite books, etc., i'm struck with a terrible feeling this morning--terrible! wonderful!--that this is basically as good as it gets. to want anything more is greedy, to buck the fact that orange trees and their ilk--in my case, my big black-flowered fuschia, hanging over my bed, sagging with bulbs--are pretty much always going to make me crumble for obtuse poetic reasons is, well, a spit in the face of something much larger, much more inert, and much wiser than me.

"ontario" is 2:30 long; i bent the rules this morning, and i apologize for that.