I’ve hated the name StereoTyping for a long time. When I started this blog, I envisioned a music blog – in the style of Nialler 9, egoeccentric or Off Her Rocker – and so the name StereoTyping was entirely appropriate. And, I thought, rather witty. You listen to music on a stereo and I was going to be typing about. StereoTyping. See? Hilarious.

But the idea of this blog quickly changed and for a long time the name hasn’t fit. I’m not saying all the problems with this blog – the inconsistencies, the absence of new posts for weeks at a time -  are directly down to the blog but I realised it plays a significant part. It embarrasses me and so I’m embarrassed by the blog itself, discouraging me from writing in it. Then when I do get around to writing something, it’s very often a self-indulgent, introspective rant about the nature of the blog. And I’ve had enough.

It’s time for a fresh start, a blank slate with a better name where I can do what I want without feeling like certain topics or themes don’t “fit”.

So from now on, you’ll find me here – I Bought A Little City.

Will I post more regularly now? I hope so. I like to think so. I have ideas to keep it going and I feel good about it. So we’ll see.

By the way, the name is a short-story written by Donald Barthelme. It’s not the greastest the story I’ve ever read (though it is pretty good) but there’s just something about that sentence that is just so pretty to me; perfect in it’s simplicity.

It should have come as little surprise then, having seen his television show, that it would become a hellish Disney meets Vegas version of Christmas. The pathway is lit by garish purple fairy lights – hundreds of them – casting an unhealthy glow on everyone walking through. Small elf houses litter the park as post-boxes for Santa while – inexplicably – Peter Pan and Tinkerbell run around entertaining (but usually scaring) children. Apparently they work for Santa, though I don’t remember that ever being mentioned in the book. Perhaps all the Santa costumes had already been hired. A machine, only barely hidden in the bare branches of one of the thin trees, sprays foam in a poor attempt at snow. But worst of all, speakers hanging from every tree blast out a playlist of only three songs on repeat. They sound as if they’ve been lifted from sub-Disney animated movies, sickeningly saccharine and bland in their Americanism. Only one is an actual Christmas song – a chipmunks (honest to god) and girl version of ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’. The other two are simply vapid songs about being nice. Or something. One can’t help but wonder what Christmas is like in his house.

Outside the park is a Christmas market with stalls of hot food and craft gifts. Out here it feels more like Christmas – the smells and sights are right: happy faces and tantalising aromas. But the muzak from the park pours out onto the street – an unwelcome intruder.

Then, as I’m eating my organic hot sausage in a roll, I look up and see some of the foam swirling in the breeze by the street light. Out here, away from the spewing machine, the ‘snow’ looks almost real – delicate and fleeting. And I try to block out the din for a minute and just look around me. At the young couple bumping into their friends, all smiles and handshakes. At the children in little Santa hats and their exasperated mother. At the really pretty girl with the dark hair and bright eyes sipping her hot chocolate.  Around them, slight flecks of snow-like foam whirl and I get a flush of that Christmassy feeling.

Because if you’re going to do Christmas saccharine, you don’t need purple lights and Peter Pan. But a little fake snow can help.

And so the conversation continues. Slowly. We talk about music and vanity. She’s doing her Leaving Cert, but got suspended today for not attending class. Guess what age she is. “18?” I offer. How did I know? “Well, I suppose the Leaving Cert was a bit of a giveaway,” I reply (not to mention a turn-off). She guesses – correctly – that I’m 23. Every few sentences, usually after I say something, she’ll nod while staring – unfocused – at some point near my feet. There’ll be a few moments where nothing but the blaring sounds of the pub pass between us, before one of us says something. Often, it’s her, telling me again… and again how hot I am, how good looking I am. Flattering, I know. But what the hell do you say to that? I shrug my shoulders and thank her again and again, my modesty only more endearing to her. After the fifth time, it starts to grate.

I punctuate the conversation with trips to the toilet or the bar, stopping off to talk to conveniently placed friends on the way. But the sight of her sitting there alone, waiting for me to return, makes me feel bad and so I do, to continue the charade. But after almost 45 minutes and a third “Guess what age I am!” (Well, one assumes it hasn’t changed in the last 10 minutes, so I’m going to say… 18?), my patience had run out. I made an excuse about my friend having an emergency and got the fuck out of Dodge.

So, in summation, I had a hot young girl, literally throwing herself at me and I ran away. I am crap at being single. In fairness though, she hadn’t even done her Leaving Cert. You’ve got to have standards.

Up close, Joseph’s hand is too big and his face has begun to peel. So too has Mary’s. Jesus stares out into the night, with big black empty eyes and a serene look on his face. He actually looks sinister and unsettling. They’re joined by sheep, with sprayed-white hay for wool and shapeless papier-mache heads. One stands on stool legs, the others lie – legless – in the hay and on the stone floor.

I have no compulsion to pray; those beliefs left a long time ago. But I think about the story of that family and wonder about the people who made this simple, stark nativity. I’m jolted from my thoughts by a drunk group behind me, laughing and singing, their voices echoing sharply around the cold square. I tighten my scarf and walk away.

But, when I started reading it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it all felt very familiar; as if I had read it before even though I knew I hadn’t. It wasn’t until maybe 60 pages in that I realised that Paul Howard had lifted the style of the book and applied it to Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. It made perfect sense: both worlds share that shallow, label-obsessed materialism. But for the next 50 pages, I couldn’t shake the image of Bateman just being Ross in a suit and living in late-80′s New York. Very distracting.

The other reason for taking so long though, was that in the middle of reading ‘American Psycho’ I picked up a book that had been lying around the house for a while, called ‘World War Z‘ by Max Brooks. It belongs to my cousin, on loan to my brother, who – months on – still hadn’t read it. Basically, it’s a series of around 40 interviews with people who lived through the massive zombie pandemic that drove humanity to the edge of extinction and 10 year war to reclaim the planet and destroy the zombie menace. I was pretty sceptical. Y’see, even though I try my best not to be, I tend to be a bit (a bit? hah!) of a snob; turning up my nose at certain genres – particularly chick-lit, fantasy, romance, Tom Clancyesque action/adventure and so on. And a book about zombies? I wasn’t expecting to get past the first five pages.

And I was wrong. It had me hooked. Even though the book is concerned with large, sweeping events like a world-wide collapse, the near-total disintegration of society and the economic, sociological and military ramifications as well as a global war, the interviews root the events in the personal experiences of the characters. He paints the picture of a political and human response that’s scarily familiar and each character is fantastically realised with emotional depth and individuality, which is what made it so compelling.

‘American Pyscho’ is considered a modern classic; a seminal work of post-modern literature, perfectly capturing a desensitised, amoral society of isolated materialists. ‘World War Z’ was, apparently, warmly received by the critics and while I wouldn’t make the claim that it’s a classic, I found it pretty interesting who these ‘critics’ were. Most of the reviews were from genre specific publications (scifi/gore-movie magazines) and smaller newspapers. It was pretty much ignored by the “establishment”, which doesn’t come as a surprise. But it wasn’t ignored because it’s a bad book – it’s not. It was ignored because it’s about zombies. They had the same reaction as I did: “Zombies? Lame!” And as hypocritical as it is, that annoys me. Perhaps I expect too much from the “literary establishment”, irritated that people much smarter and more experienced than me didn’t look past the cover to find a suprisingly good book underneath.

I suppose it boils down to not having much to say lately and being too lazy to come up with anything. I’ve also been pretty bad with keeping in contact with people these days, even for me. I suppose it’s some general malaise that I’m doing my best to shake out of now. So this week I have emails and texts to send and social networking sites to update and a personal aim of 5 blogposts by next Sunday.

Oh, Mr. Empty-promises-to-myself, you are so easy to make.

I’ve spent tonight in a small living room with 17 other people, watching CNN and waiting for what we wanted to hear. Unfortunately, I was in the taxi home when the channels called it but I raced upstairs, disturbing my parents sleep to see the reaction of a nation. I have hoped for this moment for well over a year and I’m so giddy now that it’s come.

During my entire lifetime, there has never been a president of the US that I could possibly call inspiring. Certainly, within the last 10 years – which is about how long I have been politically aware – I have never regarded the President of the US with anything but disdain. I certainly didn’t see anything inspiring in the politicians of this country in that time. But that’s changed in the last year.

I don’t have to explain how important this is. Obama is the voice of a younger generation, he is the voice of change. But that change won’t be instantaneous. This morning the air will not be cleaner, the world will not be cooler. The economy will not suddenly fix itself and the wars will not suddenly end. Race problems won’t suddenly disappear and the rumours of Obama’s terrorism and socialism won’t evaporate. I worry that because of the hype that surrounds him and his appearance as a symbol of hope, people forget that he’s just a man and a politician. He can’t create a utopia. There will be times when he disappoints us and all his promises may not be fulfilled. It’s something Americans and, indeed, the rest of us should prepare ourselves for that.

But those thoughts haven’t dampened my enthusiasm, my excitement and my happiness. For me though, it really does boil down to hope. Obama’s victory has done a lot to redeem America in my eyes and – I’d imagine – in the eyes of the rest of the world.  But more than that, it’s reassured me in a way that the world is not always the shitty place it so often seems to be. Every so often something does go right and that’s where the hope comes from.

I’m watching him speak now, as eloquently as he has throughout the campaign and my hairs are standing on end. Opponents and cynics have tried to criticise his words, as if such things have little power. The truth is, nothing has changed the world more profoundly than words. They say actions speak louder  but words last so much longer. The greatest of actions have been spurred by the simplest of words. Imagine what words such as his could achieve.

I’m scared though. The colour of his skin and his unusual name make him a target to people for whom I reserve the most burning hatred. I’m scared he won’t last the four years, or indeed eight. I’m afraid that misguided, under-educated, poor bigots will steal away a man who embodies hope more than anyone else for my generation.

But I’m not going to think about these things now. Now is the time to be happy and to celebrate. I go to bed and sleep a contented sleep.

Later, I met two of my best lady-friends both of whom were in the midst of personal crises, varying from the relatively minor to the significantly more major. Eventually, we retired to one of their houses and watched a chick-flick. I didn’t hate it as much as I expected, but it just made me think of Her. And now I have returned home, heart heavy and mind buzzing, unprepared yet to sleep. I turn to the internet for distraction, but find that others have also had a less than pleasing Monday. Must be something in the air.

I still miss Her, so very much. Some days are ok. Saturday was pretty good, but Monday wasn’t. Those are the days I miss Her most. I bought Lisa Hannigan’s Sea Sew today and looked forward to listening to it. But now I’m afraid because all I’ll hear is Her. But it should hurt, y’know? If it didn’t, what would the previous three years have meant? But, funnily enough, that’s not as comforting a thought as it should be. I’ll feel better in the morning, I know. I think then I’ll be able to listen to Lisa.

But for now, I’m just glad Monday’s over.

I’m on the left, Cian is on the right. We’re singing 57 by Biffy Clyro…with helium. You can hear Aoife in the background singing harmonies.

Actually, I find it very odd to watch how I move. I look like an idiot.

But I think part of the reason that this blog isn’t even more music-centric, part of the reason it’s not the next Nialler9 or Egoeccentric is because every once in a while I just get pissed off with the whole idea of writing about music. I have to stop reading the blogs and magazines now and again because something grates on me, gets under my skin. I think the root cause may be that I find myself thinking, deep down, that writing about music is futile. Irrelevant and perhaps even irreverent. I think someone may have once compared it to tap-dancing about architecture. They may, in fact, have been talking about something else entirely but the metaphor does fit.

To write about how fantastic and emotional and multi-faceted music at this moment would be hypocritical and unnecessary. It does not require explanation. In fact, I think it defies explanation. Which is of course, part of the problem. How can anyone be an authority on something so subjective, so varied, simultaneously so important and so throwaway? There is no such thing as good music and bad music. Everyone will tell you otherwise, but it’s not true. There’ll almost always be someone who likes something that everyone else considers to be lacking in any merit. Reviews of CD’s are pretty redundant in my opinion. Rarely, if ever nowadays, do I make a judgement on a CD based on reviews. It’s just the opinion of one person at one instance in one mood. That’s a very static and, perhaps, invalid judgement on a given piece of work.

Music magazines and blogs trade on the idea that the writer(s) are knowledgeable about music. That in some way, their tastes, their appreciation and their understanding of music must surpass those of the readers. Otherwise, why would anyone bother buying the magazine? But really, I don’t think the enjoyment of music comes down to experience. In fact, it always seems to me that the older someone is and the more experience they have, the less they enjoy new music. They see it as a shadow of music that has gone before. Why should I care what Dave Fanning thinks about MGMT? Of course he’s heard that sound before. But the 14, 15, 25 year olds listening to it might not have. For them it’s something new, fresh and interesting.

So I asked myself why do it? What’s the point? If it’s all subjective, if tastes vary wildly and everyone likes different music for entirely different reasons, why even bother writing about it? You probably know already why, but it was a little bit of a revelation to me (I’m having a slow week).

It’s because we love it. It’s because it is the beat in our heart and the blood in our veins. Music is our boyfriend. It’s one of those things people stay up all night discussing. It can make friendships and break them. When I hear a fantastic album, I give it to my friends or make sure they buy it, just so I have someone to whom I can talk about it. That’s the urge, that’s the motivation. Great music has such an effect, such an all-consuming power on you, that you need to let it out. The most obvious way is through writing, even if it is so painfully inept at articulating anything about the music. The point is, we try. None of us are authorities. None of us really have much of a clue at all and anyone who says they do, shouldn’t be listened to. We come up with genres and sub-categories to try and explain what we’re hearing. We talk about the mechanics of the music and the lyrics because it’s all we have to cling onto. But none of it comes close.  All we can do is try to convey what happens inside us when we hear a good song. I think maybe I should try to do it more often.