Can it be any coincidence that within mere days of the release of one of longest-anticipated albums of all time by one of the most enigmatic songwriters of the modern era, a group of mathematicians hit upon the largest prime number yet found? The universe works in mysterious codes.
As this week has worn on and we’ve begun to really settle in with mbv (or m b v, if you prefer) -- the new twenty-one-years-in-the-making My Bloody Valentine album -- two questions have never strayed far from our minds.
1) How is it going to feel when we’re creeping into our fifties and the next My Bloody Valentine album comes out?
2) Why are all those song titles so oddly vague?
 |
| A tunesmith and a wordsmith |
Regarding the second question (only sweet and merciful fate can answer the first!), our initial thought was that Kevin Shields was naming the tunes using the same approach he takes to building them: detaching them from traditional structural constraints and expectations. With names like “is this and yes” and “she found now,” Shields evokes the half-remembered speech fragments of dreams, rendering the English language formless and hazy. The emphasis is on communicating ephemeral feelings and ambience, not putting forth anything as earthly as a specific idea.
On second thought, though, we realized what was really going on: a secret word puzzle! Obviously, the words were intended to be rearranged into a different order, revealing a vital clue to a wondrous mystery. We’re not entirely certain we have the right answer yet, but we suspect we're getting close...
You wonder if who she sees tomorrow is only another new way. “Yes, and now this is found in you." I am nothing.
 |
| Lee always preferred Isn't Anything to Loveless |
We have also deduced that the ‘2’ in the final song, “Wonder 2,” coming at the end as it does, is not actually a part of the word puzzle, but is a clue to where the lines come from: the long lost second novel of Harper Lee. Appropriately, inasmuch as it relates to the mbv saga, that novel was supposedly going to be titled The Long Goodbye.
Chances are, once we have deciphered everything that Bilinda Butcher sings on the album, that will lead us to the exact spot where the novel is hidden, right down to the very brick in the giant fireplace we have to push to open the hidden vault.
The Long Goodbye, of course, is also (because, as any movie fan can tell you: that is how art works) one big secret code to something else...a map to the center of the Earth. Which is where they are going to hold ATP 2017. The journey is on!
 |
| Future site of ATP 2017 |
