C'mon and bring the Illinoise by Stufjan Stevens

C'mon and bring the Illinoise by Stufjan Stevens
Growing up I clung to an idea. "Since I was not born in my hometown, I am not limited by it." It seems silly now, but it was very important to me at the time. Momence was not an inspiring place growing up. One of my elementary field trips was to the hog processing plant. Yes...a hog plant. I felt out of place. The down slump the town was going through seemed to drag everyone with it. The town was dying, or so it seemed to my over dramatic youthful self.
Older and wiser, I now see being born in Kankakee county does not curse one to be small town. My mantra was a way of dealing with the pain from an awkward adolescence. I was teased by my class mates. I did not fit in. It hurt. Hurt a lot. Focusing on my outsider birth place allowed me to deal with being an outsider at my school.
-Jason Arcand
www.littleenandbigen.com

Handcream For A New Generation by Cornershop

Handcream For A New Generation by Cornershop

There is no past. There is no future. There is only the present. What happened yesterday is occuring at the same time as what is happening now as what will happen tommorrow. Time is not a direction but a blanket upon which the world is spread. An idea I encountered more than once in my travels through esoterica, philosophy, and scientific theory. Truth be told, it was a tough nut to swallow.
The biggest problem for me when it comes to new ideas is how to visulize them. New ideas need to be rendered into a pattern I can work with. So how do you cognize that past and present are merely an illusion. If I am seeing time wrong how do I see it right? Maybe it is all like an album. Fourty to sixty minutes of music exist in one solid state CD. When we open the CD case we exist outside the album's timeline. We are hyperdimensional onlookers as far as the music is concerned. Do the songs know they are on a CD. No, they only know to play from start to finish. They are bound to a timeline. When we play the album we leave our vantage point and enter the CD's timeline. We are now bound by the constraints of the songs: start, middle, finish. As songs play a past develops. As long as more songs are left to play a future exists.
-Jason Arcand
www.littleenandbigen.com

Tales From Turnpike House by Saint Etienne

Tales From Turnpike House by Saint Etienne

"Everyone should have a reason to believe, so I believe that lightning could strike twice for me."
from the song Lightning Strikes Twice

I grew up with a bipolar father. I also spent three years working in a Treatment Center for juvenile sex offenders. I learned much from watching their struggles. No where have I heard what I learned been put so poetically. What I think is my choice. Bad thoughts only last till I think of some thing else. My life is the result of what I think most.
-Jason
www.littleenandbigen.com

Tepid Pepermint Wonderland by the Brian Jonestown Massacre

Tepid Pepermint Wonderland by the Brian Jonestown Massacre
I was never into the Brian Jonestown MAssacre. The Dandy Warhols always nailed psychodelia more to my liking. I recently heard this CD again, and it was like I heard it for the first time. I immediately added it to my music library. This not the first time I have experienced hearing an album again for the first time. I believe an album speaks differently to us at different times in our live.
-Jason
www.littleenandbigen.com

Neon Bible by Arcade Fire

Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
I was disapointed. Not because the album was bad, but because it was not great. Black Mirror is a great song, but none of the following songs match its lead. The album felt slower and more morose as it progressed. Still, I am glad I purchased it.
-Jason
www.littleenandbigen.com