{"id":8460,"date":"2014-06-13T12:11:15","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T16:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=8460"},"modified":"2014-06-13T12:11:15","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T16:11:15","slug":"music-of-the-trilobites-im-in-amspec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2014\/06\/music-of-the-trilobites-im-in-amspec.html","title":{"rendered":"“Music of the Trilobites”: I’m in AmSpec"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

on music, drinking, and John Darnielle\u2019s novel Master of Reality<\/em>. You can read it now even if you don\u2019t subscribe:<\/p>\n

I read John Darnielle\u2019s 2011 novel Master of Reality<\/em> under the unfamiliar constellations of Australia\u2014which was fitting, since the slender book is about being both physically and spiritually far from home. Master of Reality<\/em> is an entry in Continuum\u2019s \u201c33 1\/3\u201d series of books about pop or rock albums. (The other books in the series tend to be straightforward critical studies.) I\u2019ve never listened to Black Sabbath\u2019s Master of Reality<\/em>, but Darnielle\u2019s diary of a 1980s teenager locked in a residential psychiatric treatment facility, pleading with his counselor to get his Walkman and Black Sabbath tapes back, captured some of the deeper and darker currents in my own relationship to music.<\/p>\n

Darnielle is the man behind the Mountain Goats, an indie band I stumbled across in 2010. I fell for them hard and fast, and for about two years I listened to them constantly. Then I quit drinking. Since January 2012 I\u2019ve only listened to Darnielle\u2019s music twice, right around Holy Week, always with a faint shudder of longing and fear. I have to be careful about opening the door in my head that leads backward in time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

on music, drinking, and John Darnielle\u2019s novel Master of Reality. You can read it now even if you don\u2019t subscribe: I read John Darnielle\u2019s 2011 novel Master of Reality under the unfamiliar constellations of Australia\u2014which was fitting, since the slender book is about being both physically and spiritually far from home. Master of Reality is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10,177],"tags":[54,132,52,104,55,1265],"class_list":["post-8460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-self-obsessed","category-too-much-is-never-enough","tag-how-to-stop-time","tag-i-should-be-drinking-a-toast-to-absent-friends-instead-of-these-comedians","tag-if-whiskey-were-a-woman-id-be-married-for-sure","tag-mountain-goats","tag-prayers-to-ven-matt-talbot","tag-self-obsessed"],"yoast_head":"\n"Music of the Trilobites": I'm in AmSpec<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"on music, drinking, and John Darnielle's novel Master of Reality. 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