blonde redhead's magic mountain

bear with me in this interesting revelation i made last week, that is both nerdy and neat if you like the band blonde redhead.

on "misery is a butterfly" there is a semi-sad song called "magic mountain" (track #9) and being from california, i immediately had visions of roller coaster rides and roaming looney tunes characters. and so here i have been, for months now, under the impression that one of my favorite bands was singing about the 2nd happiest place on earth. kitschy, yes but good.

now last week, while discussing "8 1/2" in my italian cinema class we stumbled upon the topic of clarity/revelation in sickness (disease, creativity, madness, etc.) as it pertained in romantic and modern literature and film. this led to my professor asking if anyone had read "the magic mountain" by thomas mann, explaining that the sickness portrayed in the book (tuberculosis) was a good example of this. because i have not actually read the book and was only able to wikipedia it i'm trusting that the following is an accurate description of the book.

the main character goes to visit his cousin in a sanatorium nicknamed "magic mountain." the main characters own departure is postponed because of what initially seems to be a common cold then turns into symptoms of tuberculosis. he remains in the sanitorium for 7 years.

pretty cool, i know. and to wrap up this mini-research project of mine, i looked up the lyrics to the blonde redhead song and sure enough they are singing about the not-so-happy magic mountain.

"I live up on magic mountain
No one leaves magic mountain. . ."

which i find cool for a handful of reasons including, the most important, that the members of blonde redhead read. hooray for bands writing about things of substance when there are plenty others out there who aren't.

the end.