I Am Trying Hard to Follow the Sound : Meditations on Accepting Typhoon ’ s Offerings
ing world , of the musical moments that first pulled us into wakefulness , now begin to calm us and take us away . They drone . They become more than mere sound . They repeat . They wash over us . We walk down a long hallway , open the door , and ... join the party . It is a surprise party�the only sort of party it could ever have been . A party already in progress . An afterparty for an after-life that is out of time and out of place . The old Typhoon sing-along moment that we fans have come to love over the years finally appears on the album as the community embraces us . And we learn how welcoming it will be to shed our selves and join everyone else in a place where talking , laughing , and even just being together is a form of music�the sort of music that John Cage perhaps told us about years before he , too , joined the river , the sort of music that transcends anything that a philosopher can elucidate further with a flurry of unsung words . From Plato to Sartre , we built our ivory towers , and we counted up all of our victories , but our strongest moments came when we were weakest , when we were together , when we didn ’ t look for reason to figure it all out coldly and solipsistically , but instead found a new way to be whole . And this is the end , this is the end , this is the way the world ends . Every album commands , Listen . Every life commands , Live . Every death commands ....
If Sisyphus had to push the finest indie rock up a hill each night , it would surely sound something like the offerings of Typhoon�mournful , knowing , yet unswervingly looking for hope even if unsure we deserve it . Perhaps the saddest thing about dying is leaving a world with such incredible� incredibly true and incredibly beautiful�works of art in it as Offerings . We are forever caught up in the absurdity of an existence that demands suffering and loss , but eternity may well yet smile on us all at the afterparty , after the long walk ,
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