fall from grace

In 2011, Future Islands came out with an album, On The Water, that hit me like a crashing wave.  It was deep and warm and wise, a broken man talking others through heartbreak, over time, emerging safe and whole again on the other side.  Then last year, playing scrabble in Tanzania with their new album spinning, I looked up, distracted, “is the guy from Future Islands… screaming?”  He was.  It felt a bit like David Foster Wallace taking his own life, after all his attempts to counsel us from his pain through our own, to show us the beauty, all the reasons why it’s worth it.  He wanted to help us survive, and in the end it ate him up just the same.  The guy from Future Islands is screaming.  It is dark, and sad, and beautiful.

“Please pardon my reflection
in the mirror at your feet
before you go, please tell me
was it all inside of me?”