great ghosts.

I had my hopes of how I would be after living in exile,
After closing your eyes to me.
I even wrote scenes where I reemerged boldly,
Bearded, alive, with Eskimo eyes, new baby on my back,
But I didn’t count the fact that I have ghosts in my mind,
Stowed away, great ghosts of my life,
Great ghosts of old wives and their howling.
So I spent my wilderness time rolling on the ground,
Pulling my hair and wrestling them off,
Yelling at no one, punching snow.
I gathered ghosts and I gave them my lecture,
Bid them away, I pleaded and cried,
“There’s no room in my life for you, or your howling.
Let me undo these ropes and go on living without you,
Not just change where I live.
Go on, get,” I said.
I had my hopes of how I would be,
After sending them off, after getting set free,
But there’s no such thing as living without their prowling.
As you can see, having descended the hill,
I still look like me, I still wallow like Phil,
And forever will.
I’m teeming with ghosts and I’m still whining for wives,
Unknitting my brow, but now I’ve surrendered,
In fact I’ve joined in,
You can hear us howling.

“Great Ghosts” by The Microphones

Live in Japan, February 19th, 21st, and 22nd, 2003

stalking: part deux.

I seem to be obsessing over people a lot lately (probably because I have work I should be doing, but end up being bored instead). I feel like I'm on my way to making a "Greatest Hits of Elizabeth's Internet Stalking". I've moved on from Andy Rooney and on to Phil Elvrum, who I've been stalking steadily for over three years now. I'm a flip-flopper about which of his musical incarnation's is my favorite, starting with Mount Eerie, back to The Microphones, then back and forth again. I'm not really sure where I lay at the moment, but I do know way too much about Mr. Elverum. In the interest of sharing, I'm going to give you the highlights of my obscure Phil Elvrum knowledge.

Somehow I just found out that he made a ridiculous cartoon-a-day calendar in 2005, called Fancy People Adventures. I'm not sure if he still keeps making these cartoons or not, but let's just say that although Phil is a musical genius, comedy is not his forte. Some of the comics are pretty funny though. More than anything, they made me love him more just because most of them are horribly awkward, and that's something I can always appreciate.

As someone who would love to know Mr. Elvrum's favorite foods, books, or brands of toilet paper, it takes a lot for me to find something of his to be too obscure to appreciate. In my quest to know about every detail of his life, I found Headwaters. It's a book (you can download the pages) and CD (and songs) that Phil wrote/compiled as "an attempted explanation" of The Microphones album, Mount Eerie. The CD, which contains songs from which Elvrum found inspiration, was the most entertaining. Along side songs by Little Wings, Julie Doiron, and Neil Young, he includes not one, but two songs by Bubba Sparxx. Yeah. I don't even know. The whole thing is a little too self-important for me, and, to be perfectly honest, is pretty boring.

P.W. Elverum & Sun, ltd. is "a family-run poem printer/record label/souvenir vendor in Anacortes, Wash., U.S.A.", which is also the brain child of Mr. Elverum. Along with Mount Eerie, the label boasts Thanksgiving, Woelv (composed of Phil and Geneviève Castrée, his wife) and D+ (my favorite of his other musical endeavours). The site sells all of Mount Eerie's releases, as well as a few odds-and-ends, such as Mount Eerie pts. 6 & 7, a book of surprisingly artful photographs taken by Phil himself, or Dawn, a reproduction of his "Winter Journal" from time spent alone in a Norwegian cabin, and each book is accompanied with a CD of music specifically written for it. I can't lie, I want them both. The weirdest/coolest thing sold in the store is Fog Movies Live, which is essentially a "home-simulation" of a Mount Eerie concert. I want that too...

The only other Phil-related item that I really want/want to see is the documentary, Wise Old Little Boy. The film follows he and Kyle Field (of Little Wings) around on their 2002 tour. Other than that, I can't say I know a whole lot about it, except that I've heard it's kind of slow. That said, I still want/need to see it.

Okay, well, I don't really know that this post really had a point. I wrote it just so I could talk and obsess about Phil for an hour. Basically: kinda weird guy, really great music, I care too much.