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I came across Grizzly Bear, paradoxically I suppose, from Daniel Rossen’s other band, Department of Eagles.  This is strange, I guess, what with how big of a deal Grizzly Bear has become, opening for Radiohead, etc., but it was thanks to NPR that I even found Department of Eagles.  NPR had featured “No One Does It” as their song of the day quite some time ago.  I bought the album, In Ear Park, was a bit disappointed with it, but passed along the dark, doo wop-ish track to friends via seasonal mixes that I seem to always make and no one ever asks for, or talk about after the initial ‘thanks’. 

Let’s move forward now to Grizzly Bear’s song Ready, Able, and Allison Schulnik’s odd and incredible film set to music, formally called a music video. 

The video opens with what looks like a kneecap’s perspective of walking through a field and into a clearing.  There and then we see two multi-colored yeti-like creatures eyeing each other from across a river.  Engaged in what might be a staring contest, but probably something much more significant, one of the creatures deflates and melts into the river.  His colors begin to blend, but not in the way watercolors blend into a brown.  The colors retain their integrity for the most part as they become a part of the water. 

Did I mention that this is claymation, or some similar medium?  Did I mention that the remaining creature has three little creatures that he feeds to a fourth, iguana-like creature that then turns into something resembling a frilled lizard, or Dilophosaurus (if you prefer creatures from the Jurassic period)? 

The remaining yeti-like creature then appears to get abducted or dematerialized by an alien craft.  Similar then to what always happens following dematerialization by aliens, everything goes Technicolor.

I’m not sure what happens now, or in the two minutes that led up to now, but little heads of creatures (possibly the botched rematerialization of the larger creature) are shown on museum pedestals transforming their shapes and expressions.  These shots are mixed with clips of the same creature (maybe), (pre-abduction) and another, less yeti-like, more a sumo wrestler-like creature composed of the same genetic building blocks.

I don’t know what the video “means”.  I don’t know what the song is about, but the combination of the two elicits an emotion that feels like sadness but manifests as confusion.  This video and song stay with you.  What it is and what it means isn’t as important as what it feels like. 

It’s unfortunate that we experience things like this for the first time only the first time.  It’s difficult to process anything during the premiere.  The second time is corrupted by the experience of the first, like in Tom McCarthy’s novel, Remainder.  Reproducing something degrades it.  It never feels like it did the first time, and no amount of money or effort can change that.  A first kiss can keep you up all night contemplating levitation and other wonderfully unrealistic things.  The kiss you get at the end of the day fifteen years later is nice, but it isn’t filled with the wonder of what could be, or what could float.  Maybe it is, I don’t know.

Below is a link to the video on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puph1hejMQE

Below again is a link to an interview/performance from Grizzly Bear on NPR’s Sound Opinions

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=6349255

Grizzly Bear website: http://grizzly-bear.net/

Allison Schulnik’s website: http://www.allisonschulnik.com/