I’m talking about the gap between believeing or knowing of when something is on the way and when it arrives. I think the most obvious example would be an album or a film. Why I would argue it is an art to wait for something - art being a blend of skill and joy - is because in general the way it is presently there is much less patience in waiting for the arrival of something; the constant availability of information and bombardment of other distracting forms means that to patiently anticipate the arrival has become rarer and unfortunately so. Or is it a tedious, waste of time, irrational even if there is no definite guarantee of the waiting being worth it? This requires some flesh.
I’ll use an “open” example (and maybe a more extreme one at that), the characteristically elusive and sentient Boards of Canada. It has been four years since they have released anything, the Trans-Canada Highway EP. The longest gap between album releases they have had till now was three and a half years: Feb, 2002 Geogaddi to Oct, 2005 The Campfire Headphase. There has been word that a new album has been in the works for at least two years but yet there has been no official indication whatsoever as to what to expect, if to expect at all. Various sources have dropped word (reportedly reliable) on BOC fan sites that there is indeed an album due in 2010 (and maybe even two releases in the works). A dedicated BOC wiki page http://bocpages.org/wiki/About has not featured news since June, 2009 and even at that the news was generally not significant. There are thousands and thousands of BOC fans worldwide who are keen to hear of what if anything is happening but there is but scrappy morsels to feed from. I even saw on one of their forums that many have become disilluisoned with BOC and have given up waiting. So is this a symptom of the impatience people have today? Is it regrettable? Or is it sensible? Are BOC playing this out intentionally or are they just lazy in informing their fans of what’s going on? Personally I think they owe nothing to impatience. They avoid the flaw of setting release dates and then falling behind them. There’s even the (possibly intentional) irony that there is an official BOC twitter page! The void of feedback we get from them in the meantime means it’s still a surprise, or else there is nothing to wait for (yet). And so be it, because if someone is upset by all this waiting they need to look at themselves and critique their own entitlement complex. [TANGENT]Musicians (and writers, filmmakers, etc.) have no obligation to produce a piece of work for consumers. There may be a vague and unwritten deal not to destroy the name/integrity of an act (see: endless “Al is a Cunt” prongs debates) but an artist cannot be forced to give the greedy fuckers something just because they happen to like the act and want more.[/TANGENT]
But back to topic. Is waiting an art in itself, and how so? Has anyone ever found themselves salivating (figuratively or literally) in expectation of the arrival of an album/book/film/woman? It’s a skill to wait for the arrival and not to be consumed by it. Yet waiting for something that is coming can be joyous and gets the imaginative juices flowing. It can be sexy waiting for sex but the waiting for sex should not be too long of a wait. To concentrate more on the waiting for an album, the wait is usually a year or so from when the release date is announced or aluded to and when it actually arrives. In the past I’ve usually brightened when I see/hear an album is on the way, Animositisomina for example was great to wait for as I had spent the previous four years trawling back through, and growing to love, the back catalogue. When I saw it in the shop, Feb 2003, I got a woody, picked up a copy and walked awkwardly to the checkout. Now this hasn’t happened since; whether this was just a symptom of that age or whether it’s because nowadays there is a far greater supply of content from artists and a seemingly greater amount of artists one is less inclined to appreciate individual releases. I think the greater expectancy upon artists from fans (and maybe from themselves) to churn shit out regularly becomes regrettable, JKB alluded to this in a recent interview. If we have greater supply we need to more than ever check ourselves and not let it get out of hand, to avoid diminished appreciation of what an album should be.
Or else an album is a fucking album and why should we care so much. Well, when people frequently disappoint and you can’t be in your ideal environment you have to have something to work your tastes and satiate desires.