The Infinite Sadness

Older and wiser, as they say. You know what the fastest selling debut in UK history is? The Arctic Monkey's Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, the band having accomplished the feat about a month ago. They also racked up three awards at Britain's NME Awards. They're touring with Oasis, with tickets sold out in Toronto, at least (and beyond what I could afford anyways). The frontman, Alex Turner, is 20 years old. I'm 24, but then I'm not a musician. My dad always jokes he should have forced me into some kind of sport; I think he'd have been better off making me take guitar lessons.

Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old, the same age I was when I bought the first manga-style volume in the comic series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. (O'Malley is 27.) I was living a similar kind of existence at the time, only I don't have a gay roommate and I was still in school. And I'm not in a band. And I've never lived in accommodations so poor. (Accommodations is a weird word, isn't it? That's the correct spelling, but it bothers me thoroughly.) What I mean to say is, Scott Pilgrim is a character I immediately identified with. He's finding his place in the world. The band he's in is called Sex Bob-Omb, which reflects the tone of the book - a coming-of-age romance within a Nintendo-world reality. Scott Pilgrim plays the guitar.

Game I've been playing a lot recently, especially multiplayer? Madden NFL 06 for XBox. Hah! Tricked you! Not that I don't love Guitar Hero, it's just that I've reached a plateau in my skill level - I never seem to get any better at it. If only I had gotten those guitar lessons.

I *do* have a computer science degree. Such things just got me a trip to Santa Barbara, California for a job interview. There was a technical evaluation - I got a problem they wanted a solution for, and I was to code it in C++ over the next few hours. Sadly, I was too rusty to complete the task in a way which satisfied me; too many tricks on what I could've done came to me over the next couple of days. But they paid for margarita pitchers, so even if they don't want me it wsn't a complete loss.

We meet Scott Pilgrim with the announcement "Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler!" It's a tempting situation at times, but almost always too transitory to be worth it. Pilgrim quickly moves on from the high schooler Knives Chau to the effervescent Ramona Flowers. Ramona and Scott confront each other's past loves not by talking it out with one another, but rather through Street Fighter-esque combat with the ex. The exemplar is the climactic battle of the first book between Scott and Matthew Patel, Ramona's seventh grade boyfriend. Ramona gets in on the act in the second book, and Scott takes on yet another ex-boyfriend. The next book is The Infinite Sadness. What's most sad about it? "Volume 3 is late. The team of artists here at Scott Pilgrim International are still hard at work drawing it and making it perfect for your reading pleasure. As soon as it is ready, we will give you a release date and an official picture of the cover." So what we have here is a touch of impatience from me - I don't want to wait for what has quickly become my favorite comic.

The focus behind Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is not cigarettes, as you would think from looking at the disc art, a black and white photograph of a large pile of cigarette butts. Nor is it the long titles labelling the songs on the album (The shortest being "Riot Van", the longest "You Probably Couldn't See For The Lights But You Were Staring Straight At Me". They tend towards the latter more than the former). Rather, it is an eminently danceable CD, a rough cacaphony where an Oasis or a Franz Ferdinand possesses a well manicured beat. There's nothing great on there, the closest probably being the single "I Bet You Look Good On the Dance Floor," but it is uniformly quite a pleasing album. It is become recommended.

What comes now is the waiting game: I should hear from the people in Santa Barbara by early next week. After that comes the decision making, although I already have an idea how that may go.

previously:
Teenage Punk Girls Like My Shoes - tequila, girls named Alison, dinner with a friend, and Louis XIV (the band, not the king)