Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 21:09:29 -0500 From: Jeremy L Orr Subject: 9ixies fool the world Ummm...well, after Andrew Norman's flattering remarks about _Trompe Le Monde_ over the last week or two, I finally remembered to drag it out for a listen two nights ago, and it's been lodged firmly in the CD player ever since. It really is a great album! It definitely needs more Kim Deal, and there are a couple of songs I could live without, but man...the first four tracks really show the band at their "well-oiled rock machine" best! "U-Mass" (hilarious..."and stupid stuff, it makes us shout...and here's the last five"), "Motorway to Roswell", "Space (I Believe In)", and "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons" are also brilliant. Not to beat a dead horse, but they could've easily fit another half-dozen songs onto the first CD of _Death to the Pixies_ alone...why only two selections from _TLM_ then? Gotta have room for those bonus songs on fifteen copies, I guess. What a crock. ANYWAY...I've often wondered what the song is that Black Francis is singing about in the title track. "We went to the store and bought something great which samples this song from Washington state...(and then there's some little melody played on a keyboard)...it is named by some guy named Joe (Santiago?) and the words are the letters of the words said - electrically played - for outer space and those of they who paid". And so on... Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 16:14:14 -0800 From: Jens Alfke (jens@MOOSEYARD.COM) Subject: Re: beating a dead pixie - trompe le monde Scott Davies asks: >Does anyone know what "trompe le monde" means? Is this an idiomatic phrase >in France or utter gibberish from the pen of Frankie? It's French for "Fool the world". (Attn. JT Milhoan -- FAQ alert!!) >I tought it might be a play on "tromp d'oeil" - sort of a musical >slight of hand... "Trompe l'oeil" means "Fool the eye", and it refers to visual effects in paintings that cause optical illusions or cause you to think something in the painting is a real object. Salvador Dali used this a lot. My favorite example is the painted ceiling of a church in Rome that, from the right vantage point, looks exactly as though the church has a dome (with angels in it.) >I think perhaps the album artist had >"tromp d'oeil" in mind when he festooned the artwork with eyeballs. Simon Larbalestier definitely had Surrealism in mind, particular the 1923(?) Bunuel/Dali short film "Un Chien d'Andalou" which features a shot of an eyeball being sliced in half. Black Francis is clearly a big fan of this film as the song "Debaser" is all about it. Larbalestier's photography on "Doolittle" is also pretty strongly influenced by other Surrealists such as Man Ray, and the sculptor who constructed the fur-covered teacup ... I can never remember her name. Have I mentioned before that Larbalestier has written a nice book on "The Art & Craft Of Collage"? Well, he has. Very profusely illustrated (although most of the work shown is not his own) and the text is a good introduction to various collage techniques ranging from cut-ups through photocopying.