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People used to call Eno's stuff "dinner music." On this Thanksgiving day, I'm greatly entertained by the vision of disorganization fetishist and Eno/Fripp disciple Daniel Lopatin soundtracking some dysfunctional family's holiday dinner. It wouldn't be a Fanny and Alexander thing with all the bad feelings under the surface and a lot of kinship and pleasantry, it would be people trying desperately not to explode in anger at one another so as to make the afternoon awkward for everyone else.
I picture it like this: Violet's estranged sister Patty has moved back to Arkansas after fifteen years away. After a lot of discussion with her husband, Violet has tentatively decided that it will make sense to do the gracious thing and invite Patty over for turkey and like that. She doesn't really expect Patty to show up or even to pay much attention to the mailed invite, computer printed on brown card stock. Years ago, Patty damaged her relationship with the rest of the family by committing a series of botched robberies while hard up for cash and attempting to use the living rooms of her siblings and parents as hiding places during the long but not long enough wait for the police to track her down. Not coincidentally, this was less than a year after Violet's current husband ceased to be Patty's lover of five years, Patty herself having cribbed the affections of Henry from another friend of hers in college.
Violet is expecting to keep her favorite holiday music going on the computer speakers, mounted just outside the kitchen, during the early food preparation but when Patty shows up, she appears to be mildly drugged up (so typical of her) and exchanges in a series of stilted, awkward conversations with everyone except Violet. No small-talk, no "thank you for inviting me to dinner," nothing! Patty, it turns out, is a big fan of the harder ambient shit like Tim Hecker and also frontier glitchy R&B act How to Dress Well. She's also brought the acclaimed new Oneohtrix Point Never album on her iPod Touch and attempts to engage teenage guests Roger and Alex in conversation about it, but they are into stuff like Arcade Fire and don't know what she's talking about. She responds to this grave injustice by unplugging Violet's computer speakers from her laptop and replacing it with her iPod Touch and letting Replica play in its entirety, while insisting to everyone with an increasingly crazed expression that this music is "disgusting" and "sleazy." When she excuses herself to smoke a cigarette, young niece Regina quietly adjusts the volume downward.
During track seven, "Submersible," dinner is served. Patty almost knocks over the chair she's elected to sit in, the one of course beside Henry. She asks Henry an awful lot of questions about how he's doing, and her enthusiasm in this activity only seems to increase when Violet lays down the turkey centerpiece and takes her position at the head of the table. Everyone says grace but the whole time, Patty and Violet gaze steely-eyed at one another, a laser glare you could put a knife through, their mutual disdain made finally explicit. No one else sees this and it's never mentioned. But it escapes the notice of no one that the after-dinner conversations, usually so languid and humorous and appreciative at Violet's all-encompassing Thanksgiving dinners, are cold and detached that night with long stretches of dead air. It's so unpleasant that someone other than Patty -- Violet, actually -- hits "repeat" on the iPod Touch when Replica finishes.
"The music is... interesting, isn't it?" she'd say, shaking her glass of scotch.
"Interesting?" Patty would wrinkle her nose. "It's not 'interesting,' sis. It's good. It's serious."
"Serious. Hmm. Yeah, I like it okay. I mean, I don't like it as well as the Christmas music but I guess it's kind of early for Christmas music."
"It is. Way too early."
"Yes."
"Mm."
"Doesn't really get you into the spirit though, does it?"
"The spirit?"
"The holiday spirit."
"Oh. No."
"No."
"Oh, well."
The sisters take little notice of the fact that this discussion has, if nothing else, gotten them to speak to one another.
The guests file out in silence eventually, the night ending as oddly and memorably as it began. Violet wonders if she can get away with not inviting Patty next year. The last song that plays is "Up," cut off somewhere in the middle just while it's getting really chaotic.
I'm sorry, it's late.
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