it is all interpretation

i constantly struggle with interpretation. i write this while reading a music blog this morning, and looking at the accompanying photos. hazy, double exposures, with blurry lines and a photo of the artist, sitting cross-legged in the photo, in the woods. instantly this tells me a lot. i can kind of know what to expect, or i think i can. reverby, folkish, mellow songs. i feel i know something about them. they are tea-drinkers, book readers, volvo drivers, or better yet, bicycle riders. they like the autumn more then any other season. want to live up north...blah blah blah... is any of that true?

do they live in new york.

this is something that strongly affects my interpretation of music/art/lit. etc. how i approach something creates this preconceived way of absorbing that i think is very important to enjoying things for me. i've thought about this alot lately because of the samamidon record, which i love. i heard this record and thought it sounded beautiful. then when i tried to research the guy i found all this vague info on him... his videos were weird, he has this strange history of traditional music. he just has this weird persona, one that, for me, is based strictly from the internet. but it's important for me in listening to his record. it was recorded in iceland. that affects my listening. all these little things make me approach listening to this record so much differently then as if i just heard it without the back story. alone it stands as a really beautiful record, simple. with the image i have in my head it is a magical record that is whispered like a secret into my ears. i know that most likely sam amidon is just some dude in brooklyn (true) that goes out for beers with his buddies and cracks fart jokes.

i've just lately backed away from a lot of music that i listen to and said "does this stand up without the back story?"

i find the same things with books. my favorite poet is Jaan Kaplinski, an estonian writer. his poetry is beautiful and puts me in a good place. at my cottage, in the winter, with the furnace humming away and the ice cracking out the window. it is helped along with the image of Kaplinski at his cottage outside of talinn, writing away and being isolated, in estonia, in the winter, waiting for the spring... so much of what he writes (and so many others) is helped along with the image i create in my head of him before i even open a book of his.
how overwhelming (or underwhelming) would it be for me to experience what he is writing in real-time? would i be dissapointed? would i even give it a chance if he was from scarborough?

is it right to create different personas inorder to make your art more effective?

does it matter?

if i was writing this blog from a shack in greenland, with only a candle to light my desk, would this be anymore interesting (boring)?