in darnielle, even the most down and out get mythologies, growling, over boom-box static, SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT, CHROME TAILPIPE SHINING BRIGHT AS SPUN GOLD. have you ever woken up as a badass? have you ever woken up as a nasty badass thing with a swollen eye and taken a drink and spilled out onto unfriendly streets? have you ever reached that end--the end when all of the sudden, the idea of you as a ragged and pathetic and nasty, badass thing makes you invincible? i recall nights as a mean dude--a close friend once said, "it's not that you're a drunk, it's that when you're a drunk, you're a self-glorifying one."
and that's what's at work in "jaipur": cruising into atlanta, something a little less than india, starting to imagine yourself as a holy being, looking like absolute shit, feeling a storm gathering on the horizon (the horizon being somewhere right behind your eyes with a brain full of angry mush). and it's one of the reasons i always come back to john darnielle: the self-mythologizing voice of the absolute mess.
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"Make me young again - make me well!"
See see i disagree. I think what's at work in "Jaipur" is not a self-image of a holy being. It is a self-mythologizing voice, for the same reason that Darnielle's characters are always such solipsists - but here it's a voice pleading for redemption. The chariot to the higher ground has to swing low for this character, he is no self-glorifying mess. He just wants to have a second chance, not that he makes any hint of what he's to do with it.
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