The death of the author is a theory by Roland Barthes that posits that the ultimate meaning of a book lies in the reader, not the writer.

I understand that you usually reflect yourself on media and choose it depending on how it speaks to you. So I half agree with Barthes but still feel the author holds the truth. Leaving everything to the reader is how we got to cultural illiteracy.

Apropos of this: circuital is a break up album. I don’t know if it’s the real intention of My Morning Jacket, but it’s an album that arrived when I was in the late stages of an intense relationship. I knew it was going to end badly and I had accepted that there wasn’t anything in my power that could stop what was coming.

My all time fave My Morning Jacket album is also the one that hurts me the most. I still can’t listen to Outta my system as it’s intrinsically embedded to the last days of that relationship. Perhaps I feel more like the sweet longing of wonderful (the way I feel), which I took as a 70s folk mellow piece that was heavy on the irony. I’d imagine I was in a movie, drinking a pint at the Ranmoor inn as the non-diagetic track bleeds through. I’d imagine myself writing what happened to get it out of my system. Eventually I did, and when I read what I wrote on those days, I understand but prefer to move onwards.

We are now just friends. And that’s the better ending.

-Sam J Valdés López