I’ve listened to every version of Radiohead’s “Climbing Up the Walls” that I could find the past couple days. The lyrics are really beautiful.
I am the key to the lock in your house, that keeps your toys in the basement.
And if you get too far inside, you’ll only see my reflection.
It’s always best when the light’s off. I am the pick in the ice.
Do not cry out or hit the alarm, you know we’re friends till we die.
And either way you turn, I’ll be there. Open up your skull,
I’ll be there. Climbing up the walls.
It’s always best when the light’s off; it’s always better on the outside.
Fifteen blows to the back of my head, fifteen blows to your mind.
So tuck the kids in safe tonight, shut the eyes in the cupboard.
So not cry out or hit the alarm, you’ll get the loneliest feeling.
That either way you turn, I’ll be there. Open up your skull,
I’ll be there. Climbing up the walls.
Climbing up the walls. Climb up the walls.
The best things and the worst things in life haunt. I realize that’s the nature of things. But it’s comforting to know all haunting things haunt all people. I’m not unique or alone in that or anything else, no matter how good or bad I hurt. And ultimitely we all die before we understand why that matters. Like Clarence Darrow said, “We know life is futile. And a man who considers that his life is of very wonderful importance is awfully close to a padded cell.”
I realize Darrow defended teenage sociopaths. He still had a good point about the ultimite futility of everything.
And so I’ve been letting myself sit down in the sun sometimes at Stanford, even when I’m busy and should keep moving. And I don’t really appreciate the beauty and the warmth of it, but I don’t feel guilty for sitting nonetheless. I’ve come to realize that I take almost everything for granted. Sitting on a giant sphere, flukishly able to move and think and feel, among millions of other flukish accidents of the universe. Free in the world and trapped in the inability to process all of it. Climbing up the walls. But I’m thinking that my inability to appreciate things like the sun and the gift of life is just a part of my humanity. If I walked around with a true appreciation of how everything functioned, I’d never be able to deal. I’d be sitting on the ground, humbled and curled up in a ball, all of the time. And that wouldn’t work.
I’m reading a lot, busy with LSA-related work and ideas, but also back to Ginsberg and Lu Xun and, recently, Thom Yorke.
Speaking of Yorke, here’s what he said about that song:
“This is about the unspeakable. Literally skull-crushing. I used to work in a mental hospital around the time that Care in the Community started, and we all just knew what was going to happen. And it’s one of the scariest things to happen in this country, because a lot of them weren’t just harmless… It was hailing violently when we recorded this. It seemed to add to the mood. Some people can’t sleep with the curtains open in case they see the eyes they imagine in their heads every night burning through the glass. Lots of people have panic buttons fitted in their bedrooms so they can reach over and set the alarm off without disturbing the intruder. This song is about the cupboard monster”.
I wonder if a panic button on the bed is comforting or discomforting. Fear is a funny thing. I feel like I have a lot less of it lately. I feel myself becoming more fearless and wreckless. I’m not sure if I’m moving forwards or backwards in that way, so it must be that I’m moving in circles. Do people ever really change?
Back to the banal: I have pictures from the weekend I meant to post but just didn’t because I’ve been too busy sitting on steps, not appreciating the sun.
I’ll be less emo next post. Promise.
