Day 9: Interesting Results

I got out my Ariel Pink records last night and seriously considered throwing them in the trash. It had just been reported that Pink and his friend John Maus had attended the Trump "Save America" rally for some reason. Were they there out of genuine support, ironic participation, morbid curiosity? They didn't bother to clear things up, which in a moment demanding zero ambiguity, is not good enough for me (or, apparently, his record label). Can you separate art from the artist? I won't try and debate that here. I'll just choose to remember better days, like the boundless joy and possibility of "Interesting Results," which I first heard in 2005 back before I had any idea who the artist was. It contains a wall of jangly guitars and what sounded like a percussive whip, with ecstatic lyrics celebrating the joy of creating as well as the thrill of giving up. I may be done with Ariel Rosenberg, but the glorious low-fi promise of Haunted Graffiti will not so easily wash off.