heard in episode 5 of "Ashes to Ashes", sounded like Annie Lennox, but turns out to be Yazoo.
Very 80's, and very nice. Gotta love synth loops!
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Michael Palin - Himalaya's Series
- Bhutan: trees with satin/silk webs
- Bhutan: breakfast: rice with spicy sauce
- Bhutanese bingo
- Dalai Llama: you are allowed to distract your opponent
- sticky rice: roll to clean hands, roll over garments. do not eat!
- "cynicism seems out of place where gross bruto happiness is the most important"
- Bangladesh: where ships come to die
- the divine madman
Samuel R. Delany - "Dhalgren"
I'll be honest, I don't understand this book. William Gibson writes in its introduction that he never felt it a book to be completely understood. This might be so, but it was, particularly at the beginning, difficult for me to keep going.
The language is jumbling through itself, interruptings are common, there's no logical sense it seems, so you have to trust your feelings.
Is it one big metaphor? For a writer? For life? For despair?
Bellona, a strange dystopian city is nowhere. It is abandoned, yet there is still food in cans and liquor stores to be plundered. People live there, people even travel there, in that autumnal city.
The end of life?
I have finished it without reading reviews but will definitely look for them in order to understand it better.
From my notes:
- time running backwards? sideways?
Yeah, time plays an important part. Bellona seems to stand alone in everything, space and time. - People look up to the Kid for writing his poems. Is it the power of written word? There are explanations why it is so important (only understandable when you have lived there, it could only have been written by someone who has lived there)
- "I have logic and laughter, but can trust neither my eyes nor my hands"
- "I am lonely, he thought, and the rest is bearable. And wondered why loneliness in him was almost always a sexual feeling.
From sites:
- Dislocations, discontinuties, and ontological entanglements are clearly central to Samuel R. Delany‘s design. The novel’s setting (and, arguably, main character) is a bombed-out Midwestern metropolis called Bellona – a spatial, temporal, and psychosexual labyrinth in which our Theseus, an amnesiac poet-adventurer known as Kid, will or won’t find himself. And as it embodies the instabilities of institutions, identities, and power relations, Bellona may be the metaphor par excellence for the 1960s.
[...]
Dhalgren generates a fair amount of suspense out of questions of “what really happened.” That answering those questions would compromise the book may not excuse the omission – at least, in the eyes of my friends who never finished. For those Dhalgrenites in the cafes and subways, however, the novel’s radical open-endedness seems to have been a virtue.
http://www.themillions.com/2010/06/difficult-books-dhalgren-by-samuel-r-delany.html - It was in many ways the culmination of science fiction's New Wave: where writers such as Aldiss, Ballard, Disch, Zelazny, and Delany himself had pushed the envelope, Dhalgren finally ripped it up and scattered the pieces. Mainstream critics, caught flat-footed, came up with the term "magical realism" in an attempt to link it to "respectable" if somewhat outré writers such as Borges and Garcia Marquez.
[...]
It is dense, with events, revelations, intuitions, insights, and a sensuality that is rare in fiction -- not merely sexual imagery, but a full range of sight, taste, smell, sound, a density of sensation that is sometimes almost overpowering.
[...]
In many ways I see it as a forerunner, perhaps even ancestor, of contemporary renegade "genres" such as slipstream. (There are many other possible antecedents, of course, going back to Philip K. Dick, Delany, J. G. Ballard and beyond.) Mostly, and it's ironic considering the thematic thrust of the novel toward searching for answers, it's because Delany, while rejecting consensus reality, or even the idea of consensus reality, doesn't explain anything of the context, which I've found to be characteristic of those writers generally considered "slipstream," such as Jonathan Lethem or Carol Emshwiller or Karen Joy Fowler. It's a phildickian worldview (sorry, but I've been dying to use that word ever since I discovered it), mordant, dark-edged, treading the edges of sanity, and it's just there and we have to deal with it, somehow.
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_delany_dhalgren.html - Dhalgren the book, the story, blurs the familiar territory-boundaries between author and book (here in the real world) and the fictional world created by that author and book, and the characters within that fiction, and their power over it. Early in the book Kid finds a used journal that someone has written in - on just one side of the pages - and he uses the blank pages to write down his own poetry and experiences in the city. But by the end you and he realize that he himself may have written those previous passages, or someone like him going through the same events. In fact, some passages appear to tell his story before it even happened.
By the last chapter of Dhalgren, it's clear that what you have in your hands is supposed to be that journal, after Kid has added to it (and maybe added to it again at a later/different time - or else someone like him going through a similar story?). You begin to wonder if the story relives or retells itself with a slightly different cast each time, as if the strange city is remixing the people (characters) and events over and over. You also begin to doubt which passages in the book are a truthful recounting of events (within the fiction), or where the characters may have written untruths or half-truths (maybe simply because they experienced events differently, noticed different details, paraphrased conversations later with more or less accuracy).
[...]
You can't trust what you have in your hand (Kid's journal, Delany's Dhalgren), and that messes with your expectations as a reader. It breaks a sort of implicit contract we have with authors, in a way that expands what literature can do. The story here affects the book, writes the book, which in turn presents the story. The characters are authored by the author, yet within the story they author the story, which is apparently authored before they are around, but not by Delany but someone within his fiction-city. It's a strange loop, a playful tangled hierarchy of ontology that turns an otherwise unnecessarily long and dense book into a fun, exciting, experimental read.
[...]
So maybe rather than seeing Dhalgren - and the notebook it represents - as showing a story relived over and over in slightly different remixes by the city, you can see it as one story that is transcribed and passed along in a somewhat jumbled, misremembered, imperfect state, and so we end up with these mysterious isomorphisms (the beginning and the end being the same events, but not quite the same) and these mixing of details across characters (the leg scratches and naming of characters).
James Dashner - "The Death Cure"
Third part in the "Mazerunner" Trilogy. Even worse than part 2.
You keep reading to finish the story, but that guy desperately needs an editor. Repeating actions, always the same description.
I started reading faster and faster just in order to finish the damn thing.
Found notes:
- HATE: the continuous hesitation, scared wondering, the fear of Thomas. So fucking indecisive.
- HATE: repetitive: his "longing" for Theresa while with Brenda.
Friday, 23 December 2011
Random albums - Luisterpaal
- PJ Harvey - "Let England Shake"
Ok, not blown away. Strange song "England" - Kurt Vile - "Smoke Ring For My Halo"
Lou Reed, not much difference in songs. Good background music, but nothing special - Destroyer - "Kaputt"
Melancholy, they call it. I guess that's kinda true, mostly because of his Belle & Sebastian voice. - Cold War Kids - "Mine Is Yours"
This rings a bell somewhere. Not for every day, but now and then, yes.
Saturday, 3 December 2011
The Lost Thing
Short on youtube. Beautifully made, amazing backdrops and visual character designs. Think of Brazil's dystopia with a Gorgelbeesten ending.
The story is simple but ok.
The voice-over seemed a bit too much at times. Not irritating or overwhelming, but simply not necessary. Maybe it is a personal preference to have as few spoken words as possible in a flic like this. The unspoken is more intense.
Still, beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbM4ffXX6M
The story is simple but ok.
The voice-over seemed a bit too much at times. Not irritating or overwhelming, but simply not necessary. Maybe it is a personal preference to have as few spoken words as possible in a flic like this. The unspoken is more intense.
Still, beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbM4ffXX6M
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Friday, 11 November 2011
Glitch Mob - "Bad Wings" (Drink The Sea)
instrumental, interesting electronic "slow-hop"
slophop?
shlop?
slophop?
shlop?
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Universal Hall Pass - "Sally's Song" (Subtle Things)
(nothing to do with the Nightmare Before Christmas)
Strange, girlish-singing in the style of Emiliana Torrini, but more electronic background, triphop'd.
Strange, girlish-singing in the style of Emiliana Torrini, but more electronic background, triphop'd.
Mono - "Life In Mono" (Formica Blues)
very ethereal voice, think Françoise Hardy, with electro sound and rhythms.
Definitely not for every moment, but nice at times.
Definitely not for every moment, but nice at times.
Tom Waits - "Watch Her Disappear" (Alice)
Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you
And from a window across the lawn I watched you undress
Wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair
That rose in strangled ebony curls
Moving in a yellow bedroom light
The air is wet with sound
The faraway yelping of a wounded dog
And the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak
Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat
A light goes on and the door opens
And a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall light and into the yard
A wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air
I hear your champagne laugh
You wear two lavender orchids
One in your hair and one on your hip
A string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk
Circling the lake with a slowly dipping halo
And I hear a banjo tango
And you dance into the shadow of a black poplar tree
And I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
And from a window across the lawn I watched you undress
Wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair
That rose in strangled ebony curls
Moving in a yellow bedroom light
The air is wet with sound
The faraway yelping of a wounded dog
And the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak
Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat
A light goes on and the door opens
And a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall light and into the yard
A wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air
I hear your champagne laugh
You wear two lavender orchids
One in your hair and one on your hip
A string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk
Circling the lake with a slowly dipping halo
And I hear a banjo tango
And you dance into the shadow of a black poplar tree
And I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
Tom Waits - "Watch Her Disappear" (Alice)
Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you
And from a window across the lawn I watched you undress
Wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair
That rose in strangled ebony curls
Moving in a yellow bedroom light
The air is wet with sound
The faraway yelping of a wounded dog
And the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak
Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat
A light goes on and the door opens
And a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall light and into the yard
A wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air
I hear your champagne laugh
You wear two lavender orchids
One in your hair and one on your hip
A string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk
Circling the lake with a slowly dipping halo
And I hear a banjo tango
And you dance into the shadow of a black poplar tree
And I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
And from a window across the lawn I watched you undress
Wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair
That rose in strangled ebony curls
Moving in a yellow bedroom light
The air is wet with sound
The faraway yelping of a wounded dog
And the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak
Your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat
A light goes on and the door opens
And a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall light and into the yard
A wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air
I hear your champagne laugh
You wear two lavender orchids
One in your hair and one on your hip
A string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk
Circling the lake with a slowly dipping halo
And I hear a banjo tango
And you dance into the shadow of a black poplar tree
And I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Misc music (vpro, luisterpaal)
- Oneohtrix Point - "Never" - electronic. In the beginning I was reminded of the "Beast" soundtrack, those woolly '80's synthesizer sounds. Ok, but nothing special
- Laura Veirs - "Tumble Bee" - folk, children's songs. Very non-intrusive music. Her rendition of "All the pretty little horses" didn't really do it for me.
- Laura Veirs - "Tumble Bee" - folk, children's songs. Very non-intrusive music. Her rendition of "All the pretty little horses" didn't really do it for me.
Darkness Falls - "Alive In Us"
dreamy, pop.
Music-wise it reminds me of Mark Lanegan & Isobel Campbell
* "Timeline" - electro-feel to it
* "Hey" - teremin!
* "Paradise Trilogy III" - drums, Western-whistling
Music-wise it reminds me of Mark Lanegan & Isobel Campbell
* "Timeline" - electro-feel to it
* "Hey" - teremin!
* "Paradise Trilogy III" - drums, Western-whistling
Bill Ryder-Jones - "If"
Bombastic, filmscore-ish. Supposedly an (the?) old The Coral guitarist. But what should that tell me?
Soft voice at times. Haven't listened to the words.
Lingering violins.
Soft voice at times. Haven't listened to the words.
Lingering violins.
Monday, 7 November 2011
Geike - "For The Beauty Of Confusion"
ex-Hooverphonic, luisterpaal says.
* "In Gold" - beat, long-stretched use of voice, familiar. nice
* "Icy" - slow, nothing special
* "Rope Dancer" - broken rhythm, catchy
* "Blinded" - pretty Hooverphonicy (sorry), and therefore pretty enjoyable
* "In Gold" - beat, long-stretched use of voice, familiar. nice
* "Icy" - slow, nothing special
* "Rope Dancer" - broken rhythm, catchy
* "Blinded" - pretty Hooverphonicy (sorry), and therefore pretty enjoyable
James Dashner - "Mazerunner"
A recommendation within the adolescent fantasy in Frisco's City Lights Bookstore.
No past. A maze to solve. Riddles...
It sounded quite fascinating. The story I liked a lot, but his editor must have been asleep because the writing is often abundant. Repetitive thoughts, hints that you already understood two pages back spelled out in the extreme...
For a while I wondered whether not being part of his audience might have been the reason, but Roald Dahl isn't repetitive, is he?
Again, the plot was interesting enough (we just did buy #2 and #3 of the trilogy, the latter in hardcover) but too bad about the writing.
7 at most.
No past. A maze to solve. Riddles...
It sounded quite fascinating. The story I liked a lot, but his editor must have been asleep because the writing is often abundant. Repetitive thoughts, hints that you already understood two pages back spelled out in the extreme...
For a while I wondered whether not being part of his audience might have been the reason, but Roald Dahl isn't repetitive, is he?
Again, the plot was interesting enough (we just did buy #2 and #3 of the trilogy, the latter in hardcover) but too bad about the writing.
7 at most.
James Dashner - "The Scorch Trials"
Not written better than #1, but the story was interesting enough, though basically they give away most of the mystery side of the plot within the first 50 pages.
Maybe that's a good thing. You cannot stretch something like this too long.
Maybe that's a good thing. You cannot stretch something like this too long.
Stephen Fry in America
Wonderful documentary (it is pretty difficult for me not to like anything he has done or written, and this is both written and presented by him) where in he traverses through the United States. Big cities, small moments, it is a random collection of this vast country.
It doesn't show everything, but how could it? It shows enough to love this country, to be mesmerized by its size, people and differences.
It doesn't show everything, but how could it? It shows enough to love this country, to be mesmerized by its size, people and differences.
Plus, of course, living here right now puts things in such a different light.
One more disc, three more episodes to go...
And every next disc as lovely as the previous.
Friday, 4 November 2011
Kirstin Hersh - "The Letter"
Can you hear me?
Don't forget that I'm alone when you're away
You make me act like other people do forgive me
Comfort me You comfort me You make me die
I'm gonna cry I won't go home
Don't kill the god of sadness
Just don't let her get you down
See the man inside this book I read can't handle his own head
So what the hell am I supposed to do ?
I wonder how he died
My hands are shaking don't you love me anymore
I only need a person, keep my shoulders
Stand around lie down move your hand above the floor
Gather me up because I'm lost
Or I'm back where I started from
I'm crawling on the floor rolling on the ground
I'm gonna cry you look for me
Don't forget that I'm alone when you're away
You make me act like other people do forgive me
Comfort me You comfort me You make me die
I'm gonna cry I won't go home
Don't kill the god of sadness
Just don't let her get you down
See the man inside this book I read can't handle his own head
So what the hell am I supposed to do ?
I wonder how he died
My hands are shaking don't you love me anymore
I only need a person, keep my shoulders
Stand around lie down move your hand above the floor
Gather me up because I'm lost
Or I'm back where I started from
I'm crawling on the floor rolling on the ground
I'm gonna cry you look for me
Jane Austen Argument - misc
* "Under The Rainbow" - sad, yet I don't like the wordless meanderings his voice picks up halfway through the song. Do really like the rest
* "Staying Single" - funny
* "Phoenix" - doesn't do much for me
* "Staying Single" - funny
* "Phoenix" - doesn't do much for me
Bill Bryson - "A Short History Of Nearly Everything"
Cool book, lots of facts, but more something you should not read in one go: too many factoids and stories jumbling together. This is not a fault of mr Bryson in my opinion, it is simply an overload of data.
- oxygen: used by white bloodcells to kill bacteria
- stromatolites: "living rock", emerged 3.5 billion years ago, still in existence today
- slime molds: single cell organisms when conditions are good. Group together into a slug when impoverished. Can become a plant, with a stalk and a fruiting body, full of spores for the single cell organisms
- opabinia: 5 eyes and snout with claws
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Monday, 31 October 2011
Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman
amazing evening in L.A.. Her songs I've heard before, but his reading live always is amazing. They're fun to see live together, though I must wonder how much of it is a trick.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
series "Once Upon A Time"
Snowwhite story with a twist: evil witch put a hex on fairyland and now everybody is living in a far worse world... ours. Without remembering anything... or don't they?
Graphically well done, though not quite original. Amusing story.
Graphically well done, though not quite original. Amusing story.
another misc music (preparing for Amanda Palmer)
Ronald Jenkees - "Clutter" (Ronald Jenkees)
Instrumental, slow heavy beat.
Ruckus Roboticus - "Never Play With Scratches" (Playing With Scratches)
Weird parlando dopey triphop.
Fiona Apple - "Sally's Song" (Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (Bonus Tracks Edition))"
beautiful
Rasputina - "If Your Kisses Can't Hold The Man You Love"
powerful, screeching violin and fast rhythm.
Lilly Allen - "Never Gonna Happen" (It's Not Me, It's You)
catchy
Vermillion Lies - "The Astronomer" (What's In The Box)
silly play on words, swinging, a violin, all very burlesque
Puppini Sisters - "Jilted" (The Rise & Fall Of Ruby Woo)
oldfashioned, funny, close-harmony
Amanda Palmer live at San Diego. 2100 to 0100! Amazing. Jane Austen Argument has some intriguing songs.
Instrumental, slow heavy beat.
Ruckus Roboticus - "Never Play With Scratches" (Playing With Scratches)
Weird parlando dopey triphop.
Fiona Apple - "Sally's Song" (Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (Bonus Tracks Edition))"
beautiful
Rasputina - "If Your Kisses Can't Hold The Man You Love"
powerful, screeching violin and fast rhythm.
Lilly Allen - "Never Gonna Happen" (It's Not Me, It's You)
catchy
Vermillion Lies - "The Astronomer" (What's In The Box)
silly play on words, swinging, a violin, all very burlesque
Puppini Sisters - "Jilted" (The Rise & Fall Of Ruby Woo)
oldfashioned, funny, close-harmony
Amanda Palmer live at San Diego. 2100 to 0100! Amazing. Jane Austen Argument has some intriguing songs.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Fratellis - "Whistle For The Choir" (Costello Music)
so happy, so swinging... "a girl like you is jussst irresssisstible"
Belle & Sebastian - "Another Sunny Day" (The Life Pursuit)
I didn't like Belle & Sebastian it was said. Must say I couldn't really remember. Sounds alright enough.
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
misc music, by friends and the such
* Placebo - "Meds" - this song has been running around in my head for quite a few days now. And I cannot explain why
* Sugarpill - dubstep / triphop, pretty intense
* Sugarpill - "Malefic Planet (Featuring Chris B)" - strange amalgaam of sounds
* Pink Martini - "Lilly" swinging
* Sugarpill - dubstep / triphop, pretty intense
* Sugarpill - "Malefic Planet (Featuring Chris B)" - strange amalgaam of sounds
* Pink Martini - "Lilly" swinging
Monday, 24 October 2011
Friday, 21 October 2011
misc music
* Cults - "the curse" - slow, twangy
Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright
* Dragon Fly - sad, the grey south of autumn. have I heard this before? It's amazing.
* While You Sleep - pretty hard, a bit DAAU ish
* Dried Sea - reminds me Beth Gibbons & Rustinman
* Ode To A Friend - her haunting voice is amazing here... I'm reminded of a sharp voice, but can't think of it.... A song that sounded like pure fear.
* Sound The Bells - fast, dynamic
And also: Wild Flag - "Wild Flag"
girl band, turned it off after the 2nd song. Not bad. Not good.
furthermore: Maybeshewill - "I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone"
instrumental postrock, continuous guitarriffs, fairly uptempo.
update 2011-11-04: Ode To A Friend: the song I was thinking of, is Kirstin Hersh' "The Letter"
Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright
* Dragon Fly - sad, the grey south of autumn. have I heard this before? It's amazing.
* While You Sleep - pretty hard, a bit DAAU ish
* Dried Sea - reminds me Beth Gibbons & Rustinman
* Ode To A Friend - her haunting voice is amazing here... I'm reminded of a sharp voice, but can't think of it.... A song that sounded like pure fear.
* Sound The Bells - fast, dynamic
And also: Wild Flag - "Wild Flag"
girl band, turned it off after the 2nd song. Not bad. Not good.
furthermore: Maybeshewill - "I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone"
instrumental postrock, continuous guitarriffs, fairly uptempo.
update 2011-11-04: Ode To A Friend: the song I was thinking of, is Kirstin Hersh' "The Letter"
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Thé Lau & Yasmine - "De Partisan"
An amazing rendering of "The Partisan", made famous by Leonard Cohen (but not written by him).
People say it reminds them of Ennio Morricone and it is easy to understand. The desolate soundscape, the tweaking, eternal tugging melodies in the background.
Beautiful.
Friday, 7 October 2011
China 9 Liberty 37
Western from Monty Hellman.
Gunman escapes hanging by accepting an assignment to kill a man (make way for the railroads). Starts to like the guy, doesn't want to kill him. Wife seduces him. Fight with husband, they run away. Haunted down, He escapes, she has to go back to her house where more railroads killers await them. Gunman helps them to kill them all, then leaves.
Amusing enough, though I certainly cannot see the "strange amalgamtion of Italian and American western". Characters well-developed? For a western, yes. In general, not particularly.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Coldcut - "Autumn Leaves"
it's that time of year.
But also, the original!
Yves Montand - "Les Feuilles Mortes"
Furthermore:
* Coldcut - "Mr Nicols"
* Coldcut - "Pan Opticon" - haunting
But also, the original!
Yves Montand - "Les Feuilles Mortes"
Furthermore:
* Coldcut - "Mr Nicols"
* Coldcut - "Pan Opticon" - haunting
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
pandora
* Tanita Tikaram - "Play Me Again" (Sentimental)
* Emiliana Torrini - "Today Has Beek OK" (Fisherman's Woman)
* Nina Simone - "Little Girl Blue" (Little Girl Blue)
* Emiliana Torrini - "Today Has Beek OK" (Fisherman's Woman)
* Nina Simone - "Little Girl Blue" (Little Girl Blue)
Chris Isaak - "Life Will Go On" (Always Got Tonight)
You need late-night music? Slow driving music, or drinking music, or writing music?
This is your song. One of many.
Hugo Claus - citaten
Het is een grimmige bundel geworden.
‘Vind je? Heb je niet een paar keer moeten giechelen? Kon er geen schamper lachje af? Mijn meesters zijn over het algemeen grimmig: ik houd van het proza van Evelyn Waugh en van de gedichten van de jonge Henri Michaux. Dramatische verzen, daar draaien we onze hand niet voor om. Maar om de lach te hanteren moet je van goeden huize komen.’
Ik heb gestreefd naar poëzie die krakkemikkig én lichtvoetig is. Dat is zowat het moeilijkste dat er is, je krijgt het niet in de schoot geworpen: om het lichte te ambiëren, moet je toch eerst de wereld en zijn hinderlagen een beetje gefrequenteerd hebben.
Is het de lichtheid van Mozart die je nastreeft of die van Satie?
‘Mozart – helaas. Ik geef toe: het is niet bijster origineel. Maar Satie is toch eerder sarcasme dan ironie. Ironie is van de geest, van de intelligentie. Sarcasme is gewoon pure razernij: hou me tegen! Als je die twee samenvoegt, krijg je misschien iets wat af en toe opdoemt in mijn bundel
Wat is je favoriete moment van de dag?
‘Drie of vier uur ’s ochtends. Ik herken dat bij Scott Fitzgerald: in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day. De wereld verandert van licht en van kleur. Je bent te opgewonden om in te slapen en te moe om te neuken, dat doe je straks wel. Je bereidt je voor op de verandering, maar ineens is het voorbij zonder dat je ingegrepen hebt. Je weet niet eens of je er wel bent. Een van de meest leesbare Franse filosofen vind ik Baudrillard, die beweert dat we niet bestaan: nous sommes des simulacres. Ik heb ooit eens een gesprek met hem gehad voor de televisie en ik had de neiging dat op zijn Chinees af te handelen, namelijk door hem een enorme klap te geven – dat leek mij de beste manier om erachter te komen of hij gelijk had.’
Waarom doet een mens zichzelf dat aan?
‘Ik weet het niet. Ik had natuurlijk al twintig jaar met twee callgirls in de zon kunnen liggen aan de Côte d’Azur. Word ik beter van mijn geschrijf? Wil ik echt, zoals Harry Mulisch, proberen de eeuwigheid te bereiken? Nee natuurlijk, want de essentie van de eeuwigheid is precies dat het nooit ophoudt. Niemand kan zo dwaas zijn te geloven dat hij over 322.000 jaren nog gelezen wordt. Forget it! Zou ik, zoals Harry, willen dat op de achterflap van een van mijn boeken een citaat uit The New York Times staat, waarin mijn wereldbeeld vergeleken wordt met dat van Aristoteles en Hegel? Ik héb niet eens een wereldbeeld. En ik word ook niet wanhopig door het feit dat ik zo hulpeloos ben, in dit stadium van mijn leven.’
Heb je wel eens vlagen van melancholie?
‘Nee. Daar ben ik toch teveel een kruidenier en een West-Vlaming voor: het is verloren tijd. Melancholie moet je beschouwen als een mooi instrument dat je als dichter ter beschikking staat, als een cello bijvoorbeeld. Maar je moet er niet in zwelgen. Het is een onbestemd gevoel, zoals de saudade in de Portugese fado, dat je naar believen kunt oproepen, in tegenstelling tot angst, die je overvalt en waar je niets over te zeggen hebt.’
Nogal wat schrijvers voelen zich gemankeerde componisten. Om met Jeroen Brouwers te spreken: ‘De muziek is de adelaar onder de kunsten, de literatuur de mus.’
‘De mus? De pinguïn zal hij bedoelen! Natuurlijk kan een gedicht niet zonder klank en ritme. Maar dat muziek de hoogste kunstvorm zou zijn, hoor ik al veertig jaar. Terwijl ik me net zo goed kan voorstellen dat een mathematicus in tranen uitbarst bij een wiskundige formule, gewoon omdat iets zo onweerlegbaar, zo onweerstaanbaar vastligt.’
Hoe stel je je de dood voor?
‘Als een meisje in zwart ondergoed? Er moet een beetje lol aan te beleven zijn. In ieder geval niet als een geraamte in pyjama, dat is iets voor symbolistische schilders. In mijn gedichten ondergaat hij nogal wat gedaanteverwisselingen. De dood is een kinderziekte natuurlijk, hij komt hoe dan ook altijd te vroeg. Maar het heeft weinig zin in een hoekje te staan blèren. In mijn bundel schrijf ik ergens: er zijn nog zoveel wachtenden voor u.’
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog, 2009, exec producer: David Lynch)
Curious film about a guy who murders his mother. After a trip to Peru, he starts to hear a voice in his head, a voice he must follow at all times. His behaviour turns stranger and stranger, a fixation for birds (ostriches, flamengo's ("eagles in drag")) a Greek tragedy in which he murders his mother again...
Told in flashbacks while the police surrounds his house in San Diego.
The acting is far from spectacular. It doesn't seem to be the point. All characters are fairly flat. It is the mood, the scene that the director seems interested in. Not very plot-driven, no "why did he do it"; though in script this is made clear time and again, it is the backdrop of a man who does what he must do, who goes his own, unpredictable, strange way, and that is what Herzog wants to paint for the viewer.
One could argue that the lack of depth in most characters and their absence of acting qualities was done on purpose. It is a painting and only the viewer is real but will start to doubt himself and the world at the same time.
I'm rambling. It is a slow picture and I enjoyed it. Not something I soon will watch again, but interesting enough. A good picture when you are thinking about stories, people, the world they inhabit.
Some quite interesting score-pieces from Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger, worth to take another look at.
Interviews and reviews describe it as a "character study" with a lot of poetic freedom and a love for the absurd. Everybody loves the "first-class actors", so am I too shallow in my description of them? My main problem was the absence of change, they all held steadfast to the kind of character in which they enter the film.
Ps: it seems that Michael Shannon also played in "Bug", which was of course amazing.
Even after reading a few interviews, I still miss the arc. He is never shown as a truly "loving son", why does Ingrid even fall in love with him? Lee, the theatre director is the only one who creates a personal arc of him by describing him as a very talented actor yet very problematic to work with.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
pandora "Vaya Con Dios" station
* Melody Gardot - "Our Love Is Easy" (My One And Only Thrill)
* Eleni Mandell - "No Good, No More" (Thrill)
* Vaya Con Dios - "Far Gone Now" (Night Owls)
* Holly Golightly - "Tell Me Now So I Know" (Truly She Is None Other)
* Carla Bruni - "Deranger Les Pierres" (Comme Si De Rien N'etait)
* Marina V - "I'll Be Alright" (Simple Magic)
* Mother Mother - "Love And Truth" (Touch Up)
on a different note:
* Firewater - "Three Legged Dog" (Bloodshot Records: Sampler)
* Eleni Mandell - "No Good, No More" (Thrill)
* Vaya Con Dios - "Far Gone Now" (Night Owls)
* Holly Golightly - "Tell Me Now So I Know" (Truly She Is None Other)
* Carla Bruni - "Deranger Les Pierres" (Comme Si De Rien N'etait)
* Marina V - "I'll Be Alright" (Simple Magic)
* Mother Mother - "Love And Truth" (Touch Up)
on a different note:
* Firewater - "Three Legged Dog" (Bloodshot Records: Sampler)
Monday, 3 October 2011
Crash (2005)
Only afterwards did I realise this was not the film about people getting off on car crashes. I've seen this film during a Pathé Oscar weekend, and remember being slightly disturbed by it.
Watching it again, things came back, but being in America, close to the neighbourhoods and streets of this film, brought a very uneasy tension to the surface.
Positively did not want to get into a car after watching it, but it must be said that the general mood before putting this film on, wasn't one with much happiness to start with.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Walt Whitman - "Facing West From California's Shores"
Facing west from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity,
the land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;
For starting westward from Hundustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south, from the flowery penunsulas and the spice islands,
Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,
Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,
(But where is what I started for so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?)
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity,
the land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;
For starting westward from Hundustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south, from the flowery penunsulas and the spice islands,
Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,
Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,
(But where is what I started for so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?)
Bukowksi; born into this
Amazing man. No metaphores. No glamour.
Fucked. Tough.
Writing, always writing.
read "average people", or whatever the title is.
Doctor: you take one more drink, you're dead.
Bukowski, years later: Doctors often lie to you.
Points at star in windowshield of his car. Girlfriend's heel did that. She thought we were about to die. We didn't. I like it. I like the design. It starts to look like me.
very intense man, amazingly intense poetry. I can never live the life he had, nor do I think I aspire to do so... but at times... at times...
Leftfield - "Original"
Sonically we're in control
We're the diamond in your soul
Images come thick and fast
From the future, from the past
The film starts, the film ends,
Nothing is said in between.
Just sudden moments from someone else's story,
Will it ever be the same again?
Hours filled with conversation, no attention paid.
Too distracting convention, no need for friends.
Will it ever be the same again?
Will it ever be the same again?
You're original, with your own path
You're original, got your own way
You're original, got your own way
Will it ever be the same again?
Will it ever be the same again?
I need to hear that again
Because a dream starts, and a dream must end.
My mother told me, don't ever change
You're original, in your own way
My mother told me, don't ever change
You're original, got your own path
You're original
You're original
Will it ever be the same again?
Will it ever be the same again?
I need to hear that again
Because a dream starts, and a dream must end.
You're original
You're original
You're original
You're original
You're original
We're the diamond in your soul
Images come thick and fast
From the future, from the past
The film starts, the film ends,
Nothing is said in between.
Just sudden moments from someone else's story,
Will it ever be the same again?
Hours filled with conversation, no attention paid.
Too distracting convention, no need for friends.
Will it ever be the same again?
Will it ever be the same again?
You're original, with your own path
You're original, got your own way
You're original, got your own way
Will it ever be the same again?
Will it ever be the same again?
I need to hear that again
Because a dream starts, and a dream must end.
My mother told me, don't ever change
You're original, in your own way
My mother told me, don't ever change
You're original, got your own path
You're original
You're original
Will it ever be the same again?
Will it ever be the same again?
I need to hear that again
Because a dream starts, and a dream must end.
You're original
You're original
You're original
You're original
You're original
Friday, 30 September 2011
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Squirrel Nut Zippers (misc)
* "Ghost of Stephen Foster" - fast, gypsy, a hotel...
* "You're Drivin' Me Crazy" - oldfashioned jig
* "Blue Angel" - waltz
* "La Grippe" - gypsy circus
* "You're Drivin' Me Crazy" - oldfashioned jig
* "Blue Angel" - waltz
* "La Grippe" - gypsy circus
Friday, 23 September 2011
DeVotchka - "Curse Your Little Heart" (Curse Your Little Heart)
Sad violins, his haunting voice. Slow Spanish guitar. Amazing stuff.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Red Sparowes - "a message of avarice rained down carried us away to false dreams of endless riches" (Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun)
instrumental. probably on GY!BE station (it's on shuffle station). Slow instrumental
red sparowes - "a message of avarice rained down carried us away to false dreams of endless riches" (Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun)
instrumental. probably on GY!BE station (it's on shuffle station). Slow instrumental
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Todd Snider - "Forty Five Miles" (Happy To Be Here)
Grungy, gritty, interesting.
Not all his songs I can appreciate as much though.
"Statisticians Blues" - funny!
Michael Ondaatje - "Coming Through Slaughter"
(author of "The English Patient")
A jarred, struggling style, sentences that burst open with colour, sound and smell with every word that hits your eyes. I had to think of Leonard Cohen's style, Nick Cave's... madness in words, madness in story, madness in man.
Loved it from the very first page. Loved it for its craziness, its originality, its story of a man, a time and a place of which I knew nothing.
The confusion of the sentences jumbling down the page are not done as an artistic effect, the rereading of the dialogues in which you figure out yourself who says what are not an intellectual game, but the everyday uncertainty of the story itself. You get it or you don't. You go with the flow or you sink under the weight of paperless thoughts.
blurb at the back: At the turn of the century, the Storyville distrcit of New Orleans had some 2,000 prostitutes, 70 professional gamblers, and 30 piano players. it had only one man who played the cornet like Buddy Bolden. By day he cut hair and purveyed gossip at N. Joseph's Shaving Parlor. At night he played jazz as though unleashing wild animals in a crowded room. At the age of thirty-one, Buddy Bolden went mad.
But here there is little recorded history, though tales of 'The Swamp' and 'Smoky Row', both notorious communities where about 100 black prostitutes from pre-puberty to their seventies would line the banquette to hustle, come down to us in fragments. Here the famous whore Bricktop Jackson carried a 15 inch knife and her lover John Miller had no left arm and wore a chain with an iron ball on the end to replace it - killed by Bricktop herself on December 7, 1861, because of his 'bestial habits and ferocious manners'. And here 'One-legged Duffy' (born Mary Rich) was stabbed by her boyfriend and had her head beaten in with her own wooden leg. 'And gamblers carrying cocaine to a game'.
The final stages of an evening's drunkenness would see her reaching into her suitcase to bring out her copies of Audubon drawings. Hardly able to talk around a slur now she'd interpret the damned birds, damned, as she saw them, for she was sure John James Audubon was attracted to psychologically neurotic creates. She showed him the drawing of the Purple Gallinule which seemed to lean over the water, its eyes closed, with thoughts of self-destruction. You don't know that! Shut up, Buddy! She showed him the Prophet Ibis, obviously paranoid, that built its nest high up before floods came, and the Cerulean Wood Warbler drunk on Spanish Mulberry, and her favourite - the Anhinga, the Water Turkey, which she said would sit in the tree tops till disturbed and then plummet down into the river leaving hardly a ripple and swim off with just its eyes and beak cresting water - or if disturbed further would hide by submerging completely and walk along the river bottom, forgetting to breathe, and so drown. That's how they catch water turkeys, she said, scare them under water and then net their bodies when they float up a few minutes later, did you know that? Bolden shook his head. You tell a good story Mrs Bass but I don't believe you, you crazy woman, you're drunk you know that - you crazy woman. A week later Mrs Bass went for a drive and never came back. After lunch Buddy and Nora set out walking. They found the Envictor two miles down the road. Mrs Bass was sitting at the wheel and had been strangled.
Webb had spoken to Bellocq and discovered nothing. Had spoken to Nora, Crawley, to Cornish, had met the children - Bernadine, Charlie. Their stories were like spokes on a rimless wheel ending in air. Buddy had lived a different life with every one of them.
This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning. The heat incredible, we go out and buy a bag of ice, crack it small in our mouths and spit it onto each other's bodies, her tongue slipping it under the skin of my cock me pushing it into her hot red fold. But we are already travelling on the morning bus tragic. Like the ice melting in the heat of us. Dripping wet on our chest and breasts we approach each other private and selfish and cold in the September heatwave. We give each other a performance, the wound of ice. We imagine audiences and the audiences are each other again and again in the future. 'We'll go crazy without each other you know.' The one lonely sentence, her voice against my hand as if to stop her saying it. We follow each other into the future, as if now, at the last moment we try to memorize the face a movement we will never want to forget. As if everything in the world is the history of ice.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Lauren Hoffman - "Out Of The Sky, Into The Sea" (Choreography)
A bit like Marike Jager, melodious to the point of swinging, tinged with a tear
Fariborz Lachini - "What Must Have Been" (Golden Autumn 2)
Piano, a kind of easy listening, but in minor
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Residents - "Two Lips" (Animal Lover)
Would you like to buy a tulip?
Would you like to buy a tulip?
Would you like to buy a tulip?
Beautiful craziness.
Would you like to buy a tulip?
Would you like to buy a tulip?
Beautiful craziness.
Saturday, 27 August 2011
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Deadmau5 - "Moar Ghosts N Stuff" (For Lack Of A Better Name)
Not exactly my kind of music, but nice enough.
Flobots - "Handlebars" (Fight With Tools)
Curious rap-y song, not a good singer (definitely a rapper) but an interesting sound. Trumpet like Cake. Strange lyrics.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Jill Tracy - "Evil Night Together" (Diabolical Streak)
Jazzy, feminine, luring...
Pandora says: similar to Happy Birthday Amy, Dresden Dolls (ah!), Vermillion Lies, Emma Wallace, Carrie Clark and the Lonesome Lovers
Kinky Friedman - "Elvis, Jesus, Coca Cola"
A few nice sentences, but way too many repetitions.
I simply couldn't care for the story. It wasn't even that it was dreadfully easy to foresee the end, I couldn't care to even try to care about what would happen next.
Combined with a writing style which is not my favourite, this was a mere so-so. At most.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Cake - "Showroom Of Compassion" (album)
Cake has a new album!
- teenage pregnancy: interesting classical beginning
Monday, 22 August 2011
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Woodkid - "Iron"
(French commercial-maker turned musician)
Musical wise very interesting. Drums, a very different feeling from the usual "europe" sound.
Musical wise very interesting. Drums, a very different feeling from the usual "europe" sound.
Friday, 12 August 2011
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"
"luxury cinema" : adjustable leather love-seats and a service-button!
Liked it. Particularly in the beginning they did not hasten the story, they did not flash-boom-bang you into everything again. They even slowly increased the volume so the end would be suitably boom-y.
the 3D worked well. Gritty images, and hardly any artifacts.
Acting and stuff: good enough, though Dumbledore (or his lines?) in the "trainstation" during Harry's death sounded very fake and silly. From the book I remember seriously "feeling" his death: there was no question about it that he was dead. In the film, it was obvious it was "just for now". A kind of deus ex machina, come to think of it, but perhaps the book did a better job of explaining it.
Music: not very interesting at all, but there were a few good soundeffects.
Any film that shows an army running across fields has a LotR feeling: they certainly set a standard.
No long ending stretching. Good.
Seriously enjoyed it. The bits I didn't enjoy, did definitely not ruin it.
But is it really never explained why Harry and Voldemort are arch-enemies? He killed his parents, yes, Harry carried part of Voldemort, yes, but why could Harry resist him? I cannot describe it, but an underlying, very deep motive or reason seems missing.
Liked it. Particularly in the beginning they did not hasten the story, they did not flash-boom-bang you into everything again. They even slowly increased the volume so the end would be suitably boom-y.
the 3D worked well. Gritty images, and hardly any artifacts.
Acting and stuff: good enough, though Dumbledore (or his lines?) in the "trainstation" during Harry's death sounded very fake and silly. From the book I remember seriously "feeling" his death: there was no question about it that he was dead. In the film, it was obvious it was "just for now". A kind of deus ex machina, come to think of it, but perhaps the book did a better job of explaining it.
Music: not very interesting at all, but there were a few good soundeffects.
Any film that shows an army running across fields has a LotR feeling: they certainly set a standard.
No long ending stretching. Good.
Seriously enjoyed it. The bits I didn't enjoy, did definitely not ruin it.
But is it really never explained why Harry and Voldemort are arch-enemies? He killed his parents, yes, Harry carried part of Voldemort, yes, but why could Harry resist him? I cannot describe it, but an underlying, very deep motive or reason seems missing.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Blockhead - "You've got Maelstrom"
Just the title is a plus. Fun triphop with samples.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo9VCnw35LY
Philip Wesley - "Racing against the sunset" (Dark Night Of The Soul)
Nice, too much Philip Wesley can twang your mind though.
"Breakfast At Tiffany's"
Fun to watch it (completely now!) but I won't be extremely excited about it. Should figure out why it's such a famous film.
Don't take me home before I'm quite drunk, mind you.
The setting, the Hollywood Forever cemetary, with about 4000+ people picknicking, the sky a molten yolk's yellow, was amazing though.
"This is Hollywood. This is L.A. I'm in California," I thought numerous times.
Baxter - "Love Again" (Baxter)
Triphopish. Melancholy. It made me think of "My Dear Friend" from Immortel Ad Vitam. That one is sung by Julie Delphy: maybe look up a bit more of her music.
- minimalistic at times.
- minimalistic at times.
Gotye - "Coming Back"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfV2iVJqwwU
Not as good as "Somebody that I used to know" but catchy and rhythmic for sure.
Arrogant phrase and I like it
In my universe, the existential angst of the dictionary is selfreferential in a recursive fashion.
There you have it. I'm proud of that one. Let the record show it was I, H, who coined this phrase. Let google show it, let wikipedia prove it.
Hooverphonic - "Dictionary" (Blue Wonder Power Milk)
I've never become as big a fan of Hooverphonic as I used to be, but this is a fun song, not in the least because of the lyrics.
Won't you be my dictionary
Won't you translate fun
Into something necessary
Inter uni sun
Won't you be my dictionary
Can't I be very necessary
Inter uni fun
Comes back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRQm92w2TO4
Wax Tailor ft Charlotte Savary - "Our Dance" (Tales of Forgotten Melodies)
I'm not sure I really like her voice, but in this estranged song it is curiously alluring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ACVtpokgU4&ob=av2e
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ACVtpokgU4&ob=av2e
David Mitchell - "The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet"
(author of that amazing book, "Cloud Atlas")
A Dutch clerk finds himself in Dejima, the only tradingpost of Japan with the outside world, just outside of Nagasaki. There he battles conspiracies, his love for the girl he left at home, the Japanese midwife who is imprisoned into a horror abby, an English dog of War and the very Japanese culture himself.
Again, amazingly written, with every character his own voice, a well-detailed background, an amazing rich narrative.
I wish I could compare it to James Clavell's "Shogun" or the like. Books that showed more of the Orient's thoughts and culture, but had less diverse and complicated characters.
A review of both this book and "Cloud Atlas" complained of the former that the many strange and difficult voices held the reader back from enjoying the story, but I disagree. It said about this book that it shows Mitchell's mastery, but that it is not yet his zenith.
We shall see. I do prefer "Cloud Atlas" to this; it was more diverse, richer and stranger, but those are all personal points of view. From a literary standpoint (whatever that might mean) they are both amazing.
Monday, 8 August 2011
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - part 1"
Amusing enough, but I had Lord of the Rings flashback (carrying the amulet darkens one's mood, the three of them hiding) and there seemed many internal inconsistencies. Maybe I don't remember the books well enough.
It was fun to watch, but I looked at it through popcorn-eating eyes, and for just that, it was a good film.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Monday, 1 August 2011
"Howl"
James Franco does a good job of portraying Ginsberg and his circle of friends. Reading "Trial on 'Howl'" before helped me tremendously to put things in context and background.
Good watch.
Friday, 29 July 2011
Bitter:Sweet
(oh, I did have a post about them)
Listening to a couple of songs on grooveshark. Pretty much the same, but good enough. Sexy voice, trippetyhoppety rhythms...
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Roger Zelazny - "Roadmarks"
blurb: The Road runs from the unimaginable past to the far future, and those who travel it have access to the turnoffs leading to all times and places - even to the alternate timestreams of histories that never happened.
Small pocketbook and one clearly distinguishes the ideas of Amber leaking through... I wrote, before checking dates. First print is 1979, which places it right in the middle, between the Corwin Cycle and the Merlin Cycle.
Is it original? Less so, when you know Amber, but still a really good read, a quick pocketbook for on the beach.
Monday, 18 July 2011
Vicky Christina Barcelona
Woody Allan, Scarlett Johannsen, Penelopé Cruz
Amusing enough, but not very good. 3 stars out of 5? At most.
The voice-over. Ugh. The voice itself wasn't very good, and what it told us grated against my good sense of filmmaking (whatever that is). It told us everything, it didn't show anything.
Now I know that "show, don't tell" is one of the ultimate film-credo's (they've got quite a few), but this film actually proved it by showing how not to do it. You were told how the characters were feeling while the scene progressed, which basically made the scene itself completely useless.
It felt lazy. "Tell the story and be over with it," Don't make it too difficult. Don't let the viewer guess or make up his own mind.
Penelopé Cruz got an Oscar for this one I think? She did play magnificently, but then again, her co-actors did not get much freedom in expressing themselves. "She dreaded the familiar feeling, but it was coming nonetheless, that this was not enough." but WHY, tell me WHY, instead of letting her stand in a kitchen apologetically holding her hands open to her sides.
not impressed.
Richard Yates - "Revolutionary Road"
Loved the book, but it got me down. Which might say more about me than about the book. It was beautifully written, too well-written actually, and the merciless view on the sadness of human beings living together was almost too palpable.
The first sentence of a paragraph usually is the most important one, in Yates' work. The story could have been folded into its first-sentence paragraphs and you would have a very concise story, yet of course without all the elements and details that makes it so incredible.
Long after the time had come for what the director called "really getting this thing off the ground; really making it happen," it remained a static, shapeless, inhumanly heavy weight; time and again they read the promise of failure in each other's eyes, in the apologetic nods and smiles of their parting and the spastic haste with which they broke for their cars and drove home to whatever older, less explicit promises of failure might lie in wait for them there.
... he had to admit that his appearance was not yet as accomplished as hers - his face was too plump and his mouth too bland, his pants too well pressed and his shirt too fussily Madison Avenue - but sometimes late at night when his throat had gone sore and his eyes hot from talking, when he hunched his shoulders and set his jaw and pulled his necktie loose and let it hang like a rope, he could glare at the window and see the brave beginnings of a personage.
"Now you've said it. The hopeless emptiness. Hell, plenty of people are on to the emptiness part; out where I used to work, on the Coast, that's all we ever talked about. We'd sit around talking about emptiness all night. Nobody ever said 'hopeless,' though; that's where we'd chicken out. Because maybe it does take a certain amount of guts to see the emptiness, but it takes a whole hell of a lot more to see the hopelessness. And I guess when you do see the hopelessness, that's when there's nothing to do but take off. If you can."
But he had begun to feel depressed in a way that couldn't be attributed to ordinary Sunday-evening sadness. This odd, exhilarating day was over, and now in the fading light he could see that it had only been a momentary respite from the tension that had harried him all week. He could feel the resumption of it now, despite the reassurance of her clinging at his back - a dread, a constricting heaviness of spirit, a foreboding of some imminent, unavoidable loss.
Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort.
"Synchronize watches at oh six hundred," says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled lieutenants finds a respite from fear in the act of bringing two tiny pointers into jeweled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian-looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels, looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything's happening right on time.
"I'm afraid I'm booked solid through the end of the month," says the executive, voluptuously nestling the phone at his cheek as he thumbs the leaves of his appointment calendar, and his mouth and eyes at that moment betray a sense of deep security. The crisp, plentiful, day-sized pages before him prove that nothing unforseen, no calamity of chance or fate can overtake him between now and the end of the month. Ruin and pestilence have been held at bay, and death itself will have to wait; he is booked solid.
"Oh, let me see now," says the ancient man, tilting his withered head to wince and blink at the sun in bewildered reminiscence, "my first wife passed away in the spring of -" and for a moment he is touched with terror. The spring of what? Past? Future? What is any spring but a mindless rearrangement of cells in the crust of the spinning earth as it floats in endless circuit of its sun? What is the sun itself but one of a billion insensible stars forever going nowhere into nothingness? Infinity! But soon the merciful valves and switches of his brain begin to do their tired work, and "The spring of Nineteen-Ought-Six," he is able to say. "Or no, wait -" and his blood runs cold again as the galaxies revolve. "Wait! Nineteen-Ought - Four." Now he is sure of it, and a restorative flood of well-being brings his hand involuntarily up to slap his thigh in satisfaction. He may have forgotten the shape of his first wife's smile and the sound of her voice in tears, but by imposing a set of numerals on her death he has imposed coherence on his own life, and on life itself. Now all the other years can fall obediently into place, each with its orderly contribution to the whole. Nineteen-Ten, Nineteen-twenty - Why, of course he remembers! - Nineteen-Thirty, Nineteen-Forty, right on up to the well-deserved peace of his present and on into the gentle promise of his future. The earth can safely resume its benevolent stillness - Smell that new grass! - and it's the same grand old sun that has hung there smiling on him all these years. "Yes sir," he can say with authority, "Nineteen-Ought-Four," and the stars tonight will please him as tokens of his ultimate heavenly rest. He has brought order out of chaos.
"I don't know what 'mature' means, either, and you could talk all night and I still wouldn't know. It's all just words to me, Frank. I watch you talking and I think: Isn't that amazing? He really does think that way; these words really do mean something to him. Sometimes it seems I've been watching people talk and thinking that all my life" - her voice has becoming unsteady - "and maybe it means there's something awful the matter with me, but it's true. Oh no, stay there. Please don't come and kiss me or anything, or we'll just end up in a big steaming heap and we won't get anything settled. Please stay sitting there, and let's just sort of try to talk. Okay?"
The first sentence of a paragraph usually is the most important one, in Yates' work. The story could have been folded into its first-sentence paragraphs and you would have a very concise story, yet of course without all the elements and details that makes it so incredible.
Long after the time had come for what the director called "really getting this thing off the ground; really making it happen," it remained a static, shapeless, inhumanly heavy weight; time and again they read the promise of failure in each other's eyes, in the apologetic nods and smiles of their parting and the spastic haste with which they broke for their cars and drove home to whatever older, less explicit promises of failure might lie in wait for them there.
... he had to admit that his appearance was not yet as accomplished as hers - his face was too plump and his mouth too bland, his pants too well pressed and his shirt too fussily Madison Avenue - but sometimes late at night when his throat had gone sore and his eyes hot from talking, when he hunched his shoulders and set his jaw and pulled his necktie loose and let it hang like a rope, he could glare at the window and see the brave beginnings of a personage.
"Now you've said it. The hopeless emptiness. Hell, plenty of people are on to the emptiness part; out where I used to work, on the Coast, that's all we ever talked about. We'd sit around talking about emptiness all night. Nobody ever said 'hopeless,' though; that's where we'd chicken out. Because maybe it does take a certain amount of guts to see the emptiness, but it takes a whole hell of a lot more to see the hopelessness. And I guess when you do see the hopelessness, that's when there's nothing to do but take off. If you can."
But he had begun to feel depressed in a way that couldn't be attributed to ordinary Sunday-evening sadness. This odd, exhilarating day was over, and now in the fading light he could see that it had only been a momentary respite from the tension that had harried him all week. He could feel the resumption of it now, despite the reassurance of her clinging at his back - a dread, a constricting heaviness of spirit, a foreboding of some imminent, unavoidable loss.
Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort.
"Synchronize watches at oh six hundred," says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled lieutenants finds a respite from fear in the act of bringing two tiny pointers into jeweled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian-looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels, looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything's happening right on time.
"I'm afraid I'm booked solid through the end of the month," says the executive, voluptuously nestling the phone at his cheek as he thumbs the leaves of his appointment calendar, and his mouth and eyes at that moment betray a sense of deep security. The crisp, plentiful, day-sized pages before him prove that nothing unforseen, no calamity of chance or fate can overtake him between now and the end of the month. Ruin and pestilence have been held at bay, and death itself will have to wait; he is booked solid.
"Oh, let me see now," says the ancient man, tilting his withered head to wince and blink at the sun in bewildered reminiscence, "my first wife passed away in the spring of -" and for a moment he is touched with terror. The spring of what? Past? Future? What is any spring but a mindless rearrangement of cells in the crust of the spinning earth as it floats in endless circuit of its sun? What is the sun itself but one of a billion insensible stars forever going nowhere into nothingness? Infinity! But soon the merciful valves and switches of his brain begin to do their tired work, and "The spring of Nineteen-Ought-Six," he is able to say. "Or no, wait -" and his blood runs cold again as the galaxies revolve. "Wait! Nineteen-Ought - Four." Now he is sure of it, and a restorative flood of well-being brings his hand involuntarily up to slap his thigh in satisfaction. He may have forgotten the shape of his first wife's smile and the sound of her voice in tears, but by imposing a set of numerals on her death he has imposed coherence on his own life, and on life itself. Now all the other years can fall obediently into place, each with its orderly contribution to the whole. Nineteen-Ten, Nineteen-twenty - Why, of course he remembers! - Nineteen-Thirty, Nineteen-Forty, right on up to the well-deserved peace of his present and on into the gentle promise of his future. The earth can safely resume its benevolent stillness - Smell that new grass! - and it's the same grand old sun that has hung there smiling on him all these years. "Yes sir," he can say with authority, "Nineteen-Ought-Four," and the stars tonight will please him as tokens of his ultimate heavenly rest. He has brought order out of chaos.
"I don't know what 'mature' means, either, and you could talk all night and I still wouldn't know. It's all just words to me, Frank. I watch you talking and I think: Isn't that amazing? He really does think that way; these words really do mean something to him. Sometimes it seems I've been watching people talk and thinking that all my life" - her voice has becoming unsteady - "and maybe it means there's something awful the matter with me, but it's true. Oh no, stay there. Please don't come and kiss me or anything, or we'll just end up in a big steaming heap and we won't get anything settled. Please stay sitting there, and let's just sort of try to talk. Okay?"
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Marina V - "I'll Be Alright" (Simple Magic)
Can't help but describe this as very Tori Amos. (glad nobody is reading this crap. Describing musicians solely through other musicians isn't exactly helpful nor flattering.)
'tis true though, she really sounds like her.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Eddie White - "The Cat Piano"
Long ago my city’s luminous heart, beat with the song of four thousand cats.
Crooners who shone in the moonlight mimicry of the spotlight.
Jazz singers. Hip cats that went ‘Scat!’
Buskers with open-mouthed hats hungry for a feed.
Parlours paraded purring glamorous songstresses.
Smoky hookahs and smoking hookers.
Strays strummed string and sung a cocktail of cat’s tails.
A decadent party of meowing sound.
A bohemian behemoth, post-midnight soiree.
Amongst the chorale ‘o tuneful ones was one fair queen who drew me from o’er the way.
Her fur, an amorous white and a voice that made all the angels of eternity sound tone deaf.
Blind with love at first sight, touched by the taste of her sound,
I longed to be the microphone she cradled near her breast.
‘Twas our Shang-ri-la of sound,
A paradise found where nothin’ could stop us.
Or so it seemed.
Singers began to vanish like sailors lost at sea.
Snatched from stage alley way
Shanghai’d from behind scarlet curtain.
Into thin air they disappeared without a single cry.
Police study the clues.
Foot-prints from human shoes.
So you’ve heard of every instrument but?
Torn from your history books is this pianola,
This harpsichord of harm.
The cruellest instrument to spawn from man’s grey cerebral soup.
The Cat Piano.
Confined were the cats in a row of cages.
With each note struck upon it’s ivory tusks,
A sharpened nail would pierce each cat’s tail,
Forcing a note from each pitch on the scale.
I ran my cursed writer’s run to tell her beware.
She wasn’t there.
My soul capsized.
Like a fish, paralysed.
On a chopping board, its spinal cord ripped forth from its body,
Her vocals the last the thief had needed,
A rare celestial pitch that would complete his collection.
The city in unrest.
Fights broke out in its sleep.
I couldn’t dream anymore.
There was a hole in my heart and everything fell out of it.
All music forbidden.
Keep your lullabies hidden.
And your A and E minors off the street after dark.
My town grew cold and bitter.
In icy hibernation was the once thumping heart.
Now seizing up.
Freezing up.
Katzenklavier.
The torturous worm of sound burrowed deep into my ears.
Le Piano du chat
I thought of Van Gogh.
Neko Piano.
I’d put an end to this incessant, inescapable drone.
Mao Gang Qin
I enlisted an army of the brave and I their general declared war.
Poised with tooth and fire in paw.
We would finally settle this musical score.
Eyes with fierce intent that glowed.
Through tempestuous waters we rowed.
Storming the shores,
Swarming in scores,
Scaling its walls with well-sharpened claws,
We invaded the tower through all its doors.
Up the winding stairs,
To meet him with blinding stares.
There he sat.
The organ grinder.
He turned, we pounced, we scratched and bit.
He stumbled.
Fell through the window.
Screaming into the indigo waters below.
We freed the chain gang from their jail.
Cremated the piano.
And for home we set sail.
The city had reclaimed its vestal muse.
It would live again.
Beat again.
Cats would sing in the street again.
And I in anonymity as I had been long before this soliloquy,
Could sit and listen from afar.
The Cat Piano, now a healed over wound.
And this ode its fading scar.
Crooners who shone in the moonlight mimicry of the spotlight.
Jazz singers. Hip cats that went ‘Scat!’
Buskers with open-mouthed hats hungry for a feed.
Parlours paraded purring glamorous songstresses.
Smoky hookahs and smoking hookers.
Strays strummed string and sung a cocktail of cat’s tails.
A decadent party of meowing sound.
A bohemian behemoth, post-midnight soiree.
Amongst the chorale ‘o tuneful ones was one fair queen who drew me from o’er the way.
Her fur, an amorous white and a voice that made all the angels of eternity sound tone deaf.
Blind with love at first sight, touched by the taste of her sound,
I longed to be the microphone she cradled near her breast.
‘Twas our Shang-ri-la of sound,
A paradise found where nothin’ could stop us.
Or so it seemed.
Singers began to vanish like sailors lost at sea.
Snatched from stage alley way
Shanghai’d from behind scarlet curtain.
Into thin air they disappeared without a single cry.
Police study the clues.
Foot-prints from human shoes.
So you’ve heard of every instrument but?
Torn from your history books is this pianola,
This harpsichord of harm.
The cruellest instrument to spawn from man’s grey cerebral soup.
The Cat Piano.
Confined were the cats in a row of cages.
With each note struck upon it’s ivory tusks,
A sharpened nail would pierce each cat’s tail,
Forcing a note from each pitch on the scale.
I ran my cursed writer’s run to tell her beware.
She wasn’t there.
My soul capsized.
Like a fish, paralysed.
On a chopping board, its spinal cord ripped forth from its body,
Her vocals the last the thief had needed,
A rare celestial pitch that would complete his collection.
The city in unrest.
Fights broke out in its sleep.
I couldn’t dream anymore.
There was a hole in my heart and everything fell out of it.
All music forbidden.
Keep your lullabies hidden.
And your A and E minors off the street after dark.
My town grew cold and bitter.
In icy hibernation was the once thumping heart.
Now seizing up.
Freezing up.
Katzenklavier.
The torturous worm of sound burrowed deep into my ears.
Le Piano du chat
I thought of Van Gogh.
Neko Piano.
I’d put an end to this incessant, inescapable drone.
Mao Gang Qin
I enlisted an army of the brave and I their general declared war.
Poised with tooth and fire in paw.
We would finally settle this musical score.
Eyes with fierce intent that glowed.
Through tempestuous waters we rowed.
Storming the shores,
Swarming in scores,
Scaling its walls with well-sharpened claws,
We invaded the tower through all its doors.
Up the winding stairs,
To meet him with blinding stares.
There he sat.
The organ grinder.
He turned, we pounced, we scratched and bit.
He stumbled.
Fell through the window.
Screaming into the indigo waters below.
We freed the chain gang from their jail.
Cremated the piano.
And for home we set sail.
The city had reclaimed its vestal muse.
It would live again.
Beat again.
Cats would sing in the street again.
And I in anonymity as I had been long before this soliloquy,
Could sit and listen from afar.
The Cat Piano, now a healed over wound.
And this ode its fading scar.
John Bennett - "Much Ado About Nothing"
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. The obsession with uniqueness is the one relentless constant in human evolution. We set ourselves apart and then corrode with loneliness. We invent a machine to spank our champion chess player and then fret ourselves into a frenzy. What does it mean to be human, we cry out, and being human, we're left without an answer.
Pure laughter is the highest form of intelligence. a computer will never laugh. Program one to do it and see how it makes you feel when the thing starts making its noise. Technology is how we mock ourselves.
Wanting to know yourself is the worst form of schizophrenia. You can't know what you are. You can only be what you are. Wishing to be God, we become nothing. It is, after all, as plain as the nose on your face.
Top of the morning and a tip of the hat to you, fine sir. Excuse me while I shuffle off to Buffalo in my baggy trousers. Down along the railroad tracks rusted with progress. Smelling roses and weeds with reckless indifference. Cloaked in secrets never meant to be accessed. Whistling, by God, like a bird on a wire packed tight and humming with a fast current of useless information supposed to pry my imagination. Face turned to the sun where everything is straightforward and warm.
There is no such thing as artificial insemination. A stallion mounting a mare in the greenness of a high mountain valley spawns ponies that cannot be cloned.
Joe Brainard - "Art"
Looking through a book of drawings by Holbein I realize several moments of truth. A nose (a line) so nose-like. So line-like. And then I think to myself "so what?" It's not going to solve any of my problems. And then I realize that at the vey moment of appreciation I had no problems. Then I decide that this is a pretty profound thought. And that I ought to write it down. This is what I have just done. But it doesn't sound so profound anymore. That's art for you.
Luis J. Rodriguez - "Rosalie Has Candles"
Rosalie has candles in a circle around her bed.
One night as I lay on a couch
in a tequila stupor,
she takes off my shoes and trousers,
pulls a cover over me and snips
two inches of hair from my head.
She places the hair in a glass
near the candles. I don't know why.
I don't know why she searches for me.
I don't know how she finds me in the bars.
I don't know why she ridicules the women I like
and uses me to meet men.
Rosalie usually finds solace in a glass
of whiskey. In my face she finds the same thing.
I don't know why. We argue too much.
We feign caring and then hurt each other
with indifference. With others we are tough
and mean. But in the quiet of darkness
we hold each other and caress like kittens.
She says she can only make love to someone
when she is drunk. She says she loves men
but has lesbian friends.
She loves being looked at. I want to hide.
She hates struggle. That's all I do.
She has Gods to pray to. I just curse.
I don't know what she sess in my face,
or hands for that matter. I only know
she needs me like whiskey.
One night as I lay on a couch
in a tequila stupor,
she takes off my shoes and trousers,
pulls a cover over me and snips
two inches of hair from my head.
She places the hair in a glass
near the candles. I don't know why.
I don't know why she searches for me.
I don't know how she finds me in the bars.
I don't know why she ridicules the women I like
and uses me to meet men.
Rosalie usually finds solace in a glass
of whiskey. In my face she finds the same thing.
I don't know why. We argue too much.
We feign caring and then hurt each other
with indifference. With others we are tough
and mean. But in the quiet of darkness
we hold each other and caress like kittens.
She says she can only make love to someone
when she is drunk. She says she loves men
but has lesbian friends.
She loves being looked at. I want to hide.
She hates struggle. That's all I do.
She has Gods to pray to. I just curse.
I don't know what she sess in my face,
or hands for that matter. I only know
she needs me like whiskey.
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg - "Sailor"
The girls go by in their sailor suits
They catch my eye in their sailor suits
Big or slight they all grin like brutes
In steam-ironed pants and buffed jet boots
They saunter right up my alley.
I study their easy, confident strides
Crew cuts and white hats capping decadent eyes
They shiver the pearl on nights oystery prize
They shiver me timbers, unbuckle me thighs
This alley was made for seething.
From the sweat of a street lamp or lap of the sea
A smooth sailor girl comes swimming to me
Says she wants it right now and she wants it for free
Clamps her palms to my shoulder, locks her knees
to my knees
This alley was made for cruising.
Her face is dark coffee, her head has no hair
Her cap shines like neon in the bristling night air
She pins her brass metals to my black brassiere
Tucks her teeth like bright trophies behind my left ear
This alley is very rewarding
She tosses her jacket and rolls up her sleeve
On her arm's a tattoo of an anchor at sea
She points to the anchor and whispers, "That's me."
And the wetter I get the more clearly I see
This alley was made for submersion.
Her fingers unbutton my 501's
This girl's fishing for trouble and for troubling fun
She slides off her gold rings and they glint like the sun
Then she smirks, rubs her knuckles and spits out her gum
This alley was made for swooning.
Now she's pushing her prow on my ocean's sponge wall
Uncorking my barnacle, breaking my fall
And there's pink champagne fizzling down my decks
and my hall
As she wrecks her great ship on my bright port-of-call
This alley was made for drowning.
Ron Padgett - "The Fortune Cookie Man"
Working for ten years now at the fortune cookie factory and I'm still not allowed to write any of the fortunes. I couldn't do any worse than they do, what with their You Will Find Success in the Entertainment Field mentality. I would like to tell someone that they will find a gorilla in their closet, brooding darkly over the shoes. And that that gorilla will roll his glassy, animal eyes as if to cry out to the heavens that are burning in bright orange and red and through which violent clouds are rolling, and open his beasts's mouth and issue a whimper that will fall on the shoes like a buffing rag hot with friction. But they say no. So if you don't find success in the entertainment field, don't blame me. I just work here.
Friday, 8 July 2011
Gotye - "Somebody That I Used To Know"
Amazing song. Love the clip.
Belgium guy, but raised in Australia.
Belgium guy, but raised in Australia.
Holly Golightly - "Tell Me Now So I Know" (Truly She Is None Other)
swinging, not exactly seductive, but with a teasing edge.
Pink Martini - "La Soledad" (Sympathique)
jazzy, Spanish, tango-ish, swinging in a late-night dimmed-lights nightclub way
Monday, 4 July 2011
Maxence Cyrin - "Where Is My Mind"
A soft piano version of the Pixie's classic.
I'm not even sure I like it, but somehow it can be the right song at the right time.
I'm not even sure I like it, but somehow it can be the right song at the right time.
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Muse - "Man Of Mystery" (B-Sides)
electrifying version of The Shadows' song?
Quite wonderful when driving the eternal interstate.
Quite wonderful when driving the eternal interstate.
Friday, 1 July 2011
Word - Unheimisch
amazing, never knew this
source: http://danielblochwitz.blogspot.com/2009/06/unheimisch.html
When I was searching for a term to describe my rather ambiguous relationship to a geographically, culturally and emotionally defined home, I came across the Dutch word unheimisch. Unheimisch makes me think of “uprooted” or “not at home”, but the Dutch adapted this word from my native language, mistakenly combining unheimlich (“eerie”) and heimisch (“native”, “domestic”, “[at] home”) to describe something as “uncanny”. And even though unheimisch would be such a beautiful and befitting word, it does not exist within the German vocabulary. It is a word that migrated from one language to another without ever having been at home in the former.
source: http://danielblochwitz.blogspot.com/2009/06/unheimisch.html
When I was searching for a term to describe my rather ambiguous relationship to a geographically, culturally and emotionally defined home, I came across the Dutch word unheimisch. Unheimisch makes me think of “uprooted” or “not at home”, but the Dutch adapted this word from my native language, mistakenly combining unheimlich (“eerie”) and heimisch (“native”, “domestic”, “[at] home”) to describe something as “uncanny”. And even though unheimisch would be such a beautiful and befitting word, it does not exist within the German vocabulary. It is a word that migrated from one language to another without ever having been at home in the former.
Jefferson Airplane - "Comin' Back"
beautiful first line
The summer had inhaled
And held its breath too long.
The winter looked the same,
As if it had never gone,
And through an open window,
Where no curtain hung,
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
One begins to read between
The pages of a look.
The sound of sleepy music,
And suddenly, you're hooked.
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
You came to stay and live my way,
Scatter my love like leaves in the wind.
You always say that you won't go away,
But I know what it always has been,
It always has been.
A transparent dream
Beneath an occasional sigh...
Most of the time,
I just let it go by.
Now I wish it hadn't begun.
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
Strolling the hill,
Overlooking the shore,
I realize I've been here before.
The shadow in the mist
Could have been anyone--
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
Small things like reasons
Are put in a jar.
Whatever happened to wishes,
Wished on a star?
Was it just something
That I made up for fun?
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
The summer had inhaled
And held its breath too long.
The winter looked the same,
As if it had never gone,
And through an open window,
Where no curtain hung,
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
One begins to read between
The pages of a look.
The sound of sleepy music,
And suddenly, you're hooked.
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
You came to stay and live my way,
Scatter my love like leaves in the wind.
You always say that you won't go away,
But I know what it always has been,
It always has been.
A transparent dream
Beneath an occasional sigh...
Most of the time,
I just let it go by.
Now I wish it hadn't begun.
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
Strolling the hill,
Overlooking the shore,
I realize I've been here before.
The shadow in the mist
Could have been anyone--
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
Small things like reasons
Are put in a jar.
Whatever happened to wishes,
Wished on a star?
Was it just something
That I made up for fun?
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Words - Various lovers
(origin: Merriam-Webster)
Pyrophile
Definition: one enthusiastic over fire or fireworks
About the Word: The prefix pyro- has an ancestor in the Greek pyr meaning "fire". Pyro- appears in dozens of terms, ranging from pyrotechnics (fireworks) to pyromania (an irresistible impulse to start fires).
Oenophile
Definition: lover or connoisseur of wine
About the Word: If oenophile – from the Greek oinos ("wine") + phile ("lover") – sounds too precious, alternatives include "wine wonk."
By the way, sommelier – the title of the wine steward at a restaurant – has humble origins. It comes from the Old French for "pack animal driver."
Ailurophile
Definition: cat fancier; lover of cats
About the Word: Ancient Egyptians loved cats and honored them by depicting gods and goddesses in feline form (for example, the goddess Bastet); still, the prefix ailur- (meaning "cat") crept into English as a gift from the Greeks.
Turophile
Definition: a lover of cheese; a cheese fancier
About the Word: This term – probably coined by an American radio host in 1938 – is far less commonly used than oenophile. Still, someone who passionately enjoys wine and cheese might be described as an oenophile turophile.
Cinephile
Definition: devotee of motion pictures; cineast
About the Word: Like bibliophile ("book lover"), cinephile was borrowed directly from French into English.
What's the difference between a cinephile and a "movie lover"? The distinction is vague, but cinephile – with its classical tone – suggests a scholarly interest.
Phonophile
Definition: collector or connoisseur of phonograph records
About the Word: Record lovers have long been coining terms for their passion. Gramophile comes from the Gramophone (phonograph) trademarked in the late 19th century.
Discophile dates to 1940. The similar audiophile (enthusiast of high-fidelity sound reproduction) appeared in 1951.
Astrophile
Definition: one fond of star lore; an amateur astronomer
About the Word: Astr, Latin for "star," turns up in the word disaster, which originally referred to "an unfavorable aspect of a star or planet."
Germanophile
Definition: one who approves or favors the German people and their institutions and customs
About the Word: Not surprisingly, other countries have their own admirers too: Anglophiles (England), Francophiles (France), Italophiles (Italy), Russophiles (Russia), Japanophiles (Japan), and Sinophiles (China).
Palaeophile
Definition: one fond of or informed about what is ancient
About the Word: Both palaios- and archaios- meant "ancient" in Greek, but while paleontologists study fossils, archaeologists study human artifacts. Of course, both paleontologists and archaeologists – and any lovers of antiquity – can be palaeophiles.
Xenophile
Definition: one attracted to foreign things (as manners, styles, or food)
About the Word: The Greek xenos means a stranger or guest; xenophobia ("fear of strangers") is more familiar than xenophilia.
However, xenophile makes an appearance in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Xenophilius Lovegood was interested in ideas far outside the mainstream wizarding world.
Zydepunks - "Angel Whiskey" (Finisterre)
I met her when I got to town
Killing time she'd never found
Dead men telling dead men's tales
Through dirty shades of gray
A who is you and where you at
A thousand words, a smile and dance
Ten shots of Jack for all my friends
Trembling at the hands
Angel Whiskey was her name
It's funny, it was all the same
Romancing in the Vieux Carré
Night turned into day
Eyes like starlight been and gone
A wicked laugh, forbidden song
My innocent caught up by sin
My Lucifer's true love
Angel Whiskey, my disgrace
I couldn't stare into your face
Your eyes stared cold and grey and true
Into an empty soul
Angel Whiskey, my disgrace
I couldn't stare into your face
Your eyes stared cold and grey and true
Into an empty soul
I curse the day I came to town
This dead man's dream, this widow's gown
This spirit from the devil's realm
Jealous to the end
The old folks in their drunken homes
The women roam like battered ghost
Hearts of men are turned to stone
Their children are the damned
In another city God forgot
I left my liver to the rot
Angel Whiskey, please don't leave me
To this fate of mine
Nighttime turning into day
No altar there for me to pray
Forgive me for a thousand nights
That I will never know
Life in dreary paradise
I lost my past but with a price
A wicked roll of the dice
Was all that it took
Gambling on another tab
Till break of dawn to pay them back
Testing fate in my Angel's lap
My sorry quest for love
Some say he took her from my side
Some say she left to kill my pride
With Whiskey as my only guide
You might guess that I was lost
When I stumbled in that wicked dawn
And I saw that she was gone
My heart sank like a tombstone
Into a lake of fire
Angel Whiskey, my disgrace
I couldn't stare into your face
Your eyes stared cold and grey and true
Into my empty soul
Nighttime turning into day
No altar there for me to pray
Forgive me for a thousand nights
That I will never know
Friday, 24 June 2011
Rebelution - "Too Rude" (Bright Side Of Life)
Nice reggae song.
Heard some other stuff by them today. It's pretty similar so maybe it'll get boring after a while, but good every now and then.
Imogen Heap - "Aha" (Ellipse)
First I thought this was Tori Amos, judging by her voice and the way she used it.
But there's a rickety-jumping-dancing quality to it that Tori Amos doesn't have.
Great song.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
G-Spliff - "Viego Abasto (Cobbled Street Mix)" (Frequent Flyer: Buenos Aires)
slow, triphop, accordeon, latin-influences, slightly jazzy
Lovage - "Stroker Ace" (Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By)
Monsieur Dan, can I come with you
As you both look awfully kind
Sadly he and me are through
Let me tell you what I've got in mind
I'll sing to you my mewing charm
Looks like you both could use a pet
And purr my purr all night long
I think a pussy's your best bet
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that, it's a start
Only for the wild at heart
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking's what it's all about
My tail alone could tell you tales
It's got a life all of its own
Watch it move just like a sail
Sail you to the twilight zone
I love to lap a spot cream
And I assure you that I'm neat
But you never know what you can expect
When the pussy is in heat
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that, it's a start
Only for the wild at heart
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking's what it's all about
I like to watch, if you don't mind
Every sphinx knows how to pass the time
Your little love nest suits me well
Let me show you how to cast a spell
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that it's a start
Only for the wild at heart
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking's what it's all about
As you both look awfully kind
Sadly he and me are through
Let me tell you what I've got in mind
I'll sing to you my mewing charm
Looks like you both could use a pet
And purr my purr all night long
I think a pussy's your best bet
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that, it's a start
Only for the wild at heart
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking's what it's all about
My tail alone could tell you tales
It's got a life all of its own
Watch it move just like a sail
Sail you to the twilight zone
I love to lap a spot cream
And I assure you that I'm neat
But you never know what you can expect
When the pussy is in heat
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that, it's a start
Only for the wild at heart
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking's what it's all about
I like to watch, if you don't mind
Every sphinx knows how to pass the time
Your little love nest suits me well
Let me show you how to cast a spell
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that it's a start
Only for the wild at heart
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking is the antidote
Stroke that shiny coat
Stroking's what it's all about
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Arcade Fire - "Deep Blue"
Here
Are my place and time
And here in my own skin
I can finally begin
Let the century pass me by
Standing under night sky
Tomorrow means nothing
Are my place and time
And here in my own skin
I can finally begin
Let the century pass me by
Standing under night sky
Tomorrow means nothing
[...]
Hey
Put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey
Put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me
Monday, 20 June 2011
Following (Chris Nolan, 1998)
Intriguing enough film, black and white, of a guy who starts following random people, and get caught up in a devious triangle of love, murder and break-and-enter (god I should be blurb-writer).
Not amazing, but fun enough.
Obvious sign there wasn't much money: common background noise, all the time.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - "Don't Come Around Here No More"
Amusing enough song, the clip (Alice In Wonderland style) is pretty ok.
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Simon & Garfunkel - "Sound Of Silence" (Sounds Of Silence)
(I thought this'd be the very first Simon & Garfunkel post, but the labels suggest I've written about them before. And suggested by Pandora, nonetheless. This must be the only radiostation where Radiohead is preceeded by Simon & Garfunkel)
Heard this on headphones, never realised their voices were completely on different sides of the spectrum.
And the song still works. The music, the words. People (the ones I tend to hang out with) might sniff at it, but fuck it, it works.
Friday, 17 June 2011
Josh Garrells - "Love & War & The Sea In Between" (album)
Supposedly hardcore Christian, but when using his music as backgroundmusic during work, it's quite alright. Bit singer-songwriter, sometimes rap-ish, then again some violins and orchestra-stuff...
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Tin Hat - album "The Sad Machinery Of Spring"
- Daisy Bell - sad, melancholy
- Intractable - instrumental, slow minorkey jazz
- Old World - instrumental, melancholy, beautiful
- Dionysus - ok
- the Secret Fluid of Dusk - love the title!
- The Book - haunting bassline (think of "War Of The Worlds")
- Blind Paper Dragon - it'd probably be described as "playful", but it bordering on nervosity
- Janissary Band - very much like real jazz, don't like this, too random
- ...
Leftfield - "Open Up"
Burn Hollywood burn, taking down Tinseltown
Burn Hollywood burn, burn down to the ground
Burn Hollywood burn, burn holywood burn
Take down Tinseltown, burn down to the ground
Burn Hollywood burn, burn down to the ground
Burn Hollywood burn, burn holywood burn
Take down Tinseltown, burn down to the ground
Kelly Link - "Magic For Beginners"
Beats me where I ever found this pdf with many short stories of her, but they are amazing.
Each story paints a sad, slightly confused world. Every description makes you frown and feel sadly strange about it, and she doesn't try to make it nicer in any way.
Good change of present and past time.
Tin Hat - "Old World" (The Sad Machinery Of Spring)
Amazing song by the people who became the Tin Hat Trio (well, that's an educated assumption).
Instrumental, slow, melancholy and very, very melodious.
Must look into more of their stuff, though I wonder if it will start to rasp my nerves when I'd listen to a full album of theirs.
Justin Cronin - "The Passage"
Government attempt at changing a vampire-ish virus into a weapon (bunkerbuster) goes horribly wrong. Little girl survives the tests, changed forever.
Nice easy pulp stuff. No, not exactly pulp, but I read it very fast. Why are so often things so thoroughly explained? So many words, so little meaning. And showing off with technical details that don't matter, too bad.
But it's not badly written. Just so-so.
I like the Californian references. Reading about Flagstaff, AZ. American details like that.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Intacto (2001)
As always, a gripping and amazing story.
Everything makes sense, the scenery and mood of every scene is amazing.
Show, don't tell. And create a fantastic story.
Paul Auster - "Man In The Dark" (read by Paul Auster)
Gripping from the very beginning, skipping back and forth in time- and storylines, this was a success from the very first second.
I must admit that after the tale of the "man with no memory", who ahd to kill the writer in order to stop the war (great idea) I gradually lost a bit of interest. Whether this was due to the story being less interesting, or the difficulty of listening for 6 or 7 hours, I cannot tell.
But definitely worth while. Should read the book, couple of years from now.
Heather Graham - "The Island" (read by Joyce Bean)
Only heard about 15 minutes.
Didn't like the sentences (too much repetition, too obvious, too cliche), didn't like the reading too much.
Why continue with all 8 discs?
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
16 Horsepower - "Flutter" (Folklore)
I hear the sound
The sound she's left me
I stood her ground
I hear the sound
The sound she's left me
The sound she's left me
I stood her ground
I hear the sound
The sound she's left me
beautiful
Monday, 6 June 2011
All India Radio - "Mixcola" (Echo Other)
pretty nice instrumental song, triphop-ish, Oriental influences.
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra - "Kiss The Sky"
not my channel (combination of UNKLE, Massive Attack, Portishead, DJ Shadow and some more) but a very nice mix.
Good latin-influenced song.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Crystal Method - "Smile?" (Divided By Night)
Getting often a bit tired of this band (featured a lot on the UNKLE channel) but this song is pretty nice.
Friday, 20 May 2011
Thursday, 12 May 2011
Laurent Voulzy - "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" (
Weird, hippety-hop ska-ish-but-no version...
Not exactly good, but fun.
Why am I thinking of the houseversion of this song?
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Andreas Linetzky & Ernest Romeo - "Sentimientos" (Latin Lounge (Putumavo))
Jazzy with beat. Might get irritating after a while, but fun enough for a song or two.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Walt Whitman - "A child said, What is the grass?"
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
Chris Black - "Pass Away" (Jericho)
dark, with alt-violin?
everything you know will pass away
everything you know will pass away
wo-ho-ho-ho
Friday, 6 May 2011
Worldwide Groove Coorporation - "Angel Eyes" (Chillodesiac Lounge Fever vol 1)
slow, triphop, female vocals, nice.
DJ T-Rock & Squashy Nice - "The Fugue" (Rock & Squash Techniques)
Parlando, hiphop, triphop, classical music.
Great song.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Edward Elgar - "Enigma Variations, For Orchestra, Op 36: Theme Andante" (Edgar Holst, the Planets)
This must be the song that inspired Rob D with his "Kurayamino, Clubbed to Death"
Short, but too similar to be a coincedence.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Modest Mouse - "Bukowski" (Good News For People Who Love Bad News)
Interesting song. Weird.
Well all that icing and all that cake
I can't make it to your wedding
But I'm sure I'll be at your wake
You were talk, talk, talk, talkin' in circles that day
When you get to the point
Make sure that I'm still awake, ok?
Went to bed and didn't see
Why every day turns out to be
A little bit more like Bukowski
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read
But God who'd wanna be?
God who'd wanna be such an asshole?
Monday, 2 May 2011
Ween - "The Argus" (Quebec (Explicit))
on the "Ween" channel, so not a strange choice, but the song is very un-Ween : slow, dreamlike. Not amazingly beautiful, but pretty amazing nonetheless.
Yesterday we lost our lives, tomorrow we were born
Fortune smiled upon us, sacrifice the Argus
All that he might help us see
Magna eyes the track for miles
Looking for disease
Puzzled by the mountains
Tricked by the sea
And the Argus is practiced compassion
With an eye on you, as one is on me
Will the god eye grant his forgiveness
And allow he that's lived a reason to see
Counting days and building walls, bells ring so to warn
All the signs that guide us, chosen by the Argus
Tell me he has chosen you
Led by form we’ll shed our soul
Trusting like a child
See the dark face that saved us
Drink from his empty eyes
And the Argus is practiced compassion
With an eye on you, as one is on me
Will the god eye grant his forgiveness
Letting droplets of light erupt from the sea
Lying in beds of garlic and orchids
He closes an eye, which closes another
And in sleep he dreams of watching and looking
And feather clouds dancing he curls up his lid and sleeps
Swirling with visions on man's confusion
All of the work done just to appease him
The Argus he cries, though love has it's place in the sun
It's only man's fear that carries him on
Friday, 29 April 2011
Alpha & Omega - "Dub Flute" (Sound System Dub)
Came by on the Ott radiostation.
Curious, since it's dub and definitely stands out inbetween the Shpongle's and Ott's.
Then again, Death Cab for Cutie came by as well.
Hurray For The Riff Raff - "Dance With Death" (It Don't Mean I Don't Love You)
On the GY!BE channel.
Sad ukelele, a drunken circus song sung by a velvety-rough girl.
update
found something on myspace, not overwhelming
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Christopher Marlowe - "Ignoto" (+/- 1564-1593)
I Love thee not for sacred chastity.
Who loves for that? nor for thy sprightly wit:
I love thee not for thy sweet modesty,
Which makes thee in perfection's throne to sit.
I love thee not for thy enchanting eye,
Thy beauty, ravishing perfection:
I love thee not for that my soul doth dance,
And leap with pleasure when those lips of thine,
Give musical and graceful utterance,
To some (by thee made happy) poet's line.
I love thee not for voice or slender small,
But wilt thou know wherefore? Fair sweet, for all.
'Faith, wench! I cannot court thy sprightly eyes,
With the base viol placed between my thighs:
I cannot lisp, nor to some fiddle sing,
Nor run upon a high stretching minikin.
I cannot whine in puling elegies.
Entombing Cupid with sad obsequies:
I am not fashioned for these amorous times,
To court thy beauty with lascivious rhymes:
I cannot dally, caper, dance and sing,
Oiling my saint with supple sonneting:
I cannot cross my arms, or sigh "Ah me,"
"Ah me forlorn!" egregious foppery!
I cannot buss thy fill, play with thy hair,
Swearing by Jove, "Thou art most debonnaire!"
Not I, by cock! but I shall tell thee roundly,
Hark in thine ear, zounds I can fuck thee soundly.
Sweet wench, I love thee; yet I will not sue,
Or show my love as musky courtiers do;
I'll not carouse a health to honour thee,
In this same bezzling drunken courtesy:
And when all's quaffed, eat up my bousinglass,
In glory that I am thy servile ass.
Nor will I wear a rotten Bourbon lock,
As some sworn peasant to a female mock.
Well-featured lass, thou know'st I love thee dear,
Yet for thy sake I will not bore mine ear,
To hang thy dirty silken shoe-tires there:
Not for thy love will I once gnash a brick,
Or some pied colours in my bonnet stick.
But by the chaps of hell, to do thee good,
I'll freely spend my thrice decocted blood.
Who loves for that? nor for thy sprightly wit:
I love thee not for thy sweet modesty,
Which makes thee in perfection's throne to sit.
I love thee not for thy enchanting eye,
Thy beauty, ravishing perfection:
I love thee not for that my soul doth dance,
And leap with pleasure when those lips of thine,
Give musical and graceful utterance,
To some (by thee made happy) poet's line.
I love thee not for voice or slender small,
But wilt thou know wherefore? Fair sweet, for all.
'Faith, wench! I cannot court thy sprightly eyes,
With the base viol placed between my thighs:
I cannot lisp, nor to some fiddle sing,
Nor run upon a high stretching minikin.
I cannot whine in puling elegies.
Entombing Cupid with sad obsequies:
I am not fashioned for these amorous times,
To court thy beauty with lascivious rhymes:
I cannot dally, caper, dance and sing,
Oiling my saint with supple sonneting:
I cannot cross my arms, or sigh "Ah me,"
"Ah me forlorn!" egregious foppery!
I cannot buss thy fill, play with thy hair,
Swearing by Jove, "Thou art most debonnaire!"
Not I, by cock! but I shall tell thee roundly,
Hark in thine ear, zounds I can fuck thee soundly.
Sweet wench, I love thee; yet I will not sue,
Or show my love as musky courtiers do;
I'll not carouse a health to honour thee,
In this same bezzling drunken courtesy:
And when all's quaffed, eat up my bousinglass,
In glory that I am thy servile ass.
Nor will I wear a rotten Bourbon lock,
As some sworn peasant to a female mock.
Well-featured lass, thou know'st I love thee dear,
Yet for thy sake I will not bore mine ear,
To hang thy dirty silken shoe-tires there:
Not for thy love will I once gnash a brick,
Or some pied colours in my bonnet stick.
But by the chaps of hell, to do thee good,
I'll freely spend my thrice decocted blood.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Overseer - "Meteorolgy" (Wreckage)
Violin- and orchestra-samples, spoken word, beats.
Bit bombastic, with beat.
update
the album is "harder", more breakbeat, some oldskool '90 samples
RJD2 - "Ghostwriter" (Deadringer)
Nice {tr|h}iphop
update
listening to album now
- Smoke and Mirrors: oldfashioned samples and voices, good
Monday, 25 April 2011
Der Baader-Meinhof Complex
Raw, rough.
The difficult openingsscene, in which protesting students are severely beaten, is just the start.
The film is gritty, and doesn't loose that when halfway it seems to become more of a documentary than a film: suddenly new people enter the story, and their importance or role isn't immediatly clear.
Good film, but not for an easy night
Micmacs à tire-larigot
"Innocent fun", but in a way, it starts to feel like a trick of mister Jean-Pierre "Amelie" Jeunet.
Still, at certain times, this would be a great film for its simplicity and fun
Friday, 22 April 2011
The National - "Mr. November"
I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November,
I'm Mr. November, I won't fuck us over,
I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November,
I'm Mr. November, I won't fuck us over,
I won't fuck us over, I won't fuck us over,
I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November,
I'm not a great The National fan, but this song, particularly these lines, sent chills down my spine during the concert.
I'm Mr. November, I won't fuck us over,
I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November,
I'm Mr. November, I won't fuck us over,
I won't fuck us over, I won't fuck us over,
I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November,
I'm not a great The National fan, but this song, particularly these lines, sent chills down my spine during the concert.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Mono - "Silicone" (Formica Blues)
The name is just Mono, not Mono Triphop, but I probably needed to distinguish?
It's catchy, triphop-y
Listening to the Formica Blues album now; it's good, but not overwhelming.
"High Life" is actually pretty horrible: 80's candy-pop.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Fluke - "O.K." (Oto)
On the Underworld (added variety: U.N.K.L.E.) channel.
Pretty nice trance-beat, slow.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Monday, 11 April 2011
Friday, 8 April 2011
Eric McFadden - "Ship Without A Dock" (Let's Die Forever... Together)
Dark low voice, dancing violins, quick waltz.
Party!
Bright Eyes - "First Day Of My Life" (I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning)
Very soft, very singer-songwriter, broken-heart-at-the-feet-of-flowergirl ish.
Yet... nice.
Elvis Perkins - "While You Were Sleeping" (Ash Wednesday)
Not sure what it is about this song that I like. Whenever I catch myself liking it, I frown and listen again: what is it? It is not the lyrics, though the guy is compared to Leonard Cohen amongst others.
Decemberists - "A Cautionary Song" (Castaways And Cutouts)
Funny, this one is played on the "Devotchka" (add variety: Arcade Fire) channel, not the Decemberists channel.
I can say for sure I do not like *every* Decemberists song, but the ones I like, I like really well.
This one, a sweet accordeon-polka, is good!
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Today Is The Day - "Temple Of The Morning Star" (Temple Of The Morning Star)
Curious, bit x-rated-ish.
Folk and tidbits of Godspeed, you! Black Emperor
Sonny Bono - "Pammie's On A Bummer" (Inner Views)
Another melancholy '60's singer-songwriter.
Very Cohen / Dylan-ish. Including tambourine!
Cat Stevens - "Lady D'Arbanville" (Box Set)
Always thought I never was a big Cat Stevens fan, but this song is pretty good.
Singer-songwriter, slightly melancholy.
Monday, 4 April 2011
Chronicles Of Riddick
Dunno why but this is one of those films I sometimes yearn to see.
Loved it again.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Reverend Horton Heat - "In Your Wildest Deams"
Love this band!
Supposedly almost as famous as the Cramps, with fantastic psychobilly songs.
Supposedly almost as famous as the Cramps, with fantastic psychobilly songs.
Friday, 1 April 2011
Rickie Lee Jones - "Have You Had Enough" (Have You Had Enough (Radio Single))
Jazzy, swinging.
In her biography she is compared to Joni Mitchell, which seems a bit strange to me.
It also says she did a lot of Beat-influenced spoken word monologues. And worked with James Newton Howard "for her slickets, most synth-driven outing to date."
Wax Tailer - "Our Dance" (Tales Of The Forgotten Melodies)
Haunting high-pitched girl voice and triphop beats
Thursday, 31 March 2011
The King's Speech
Loved it.
Yes, a crowdpleaser, but still.
Some good lines, not too corny.
I think I wanted to like it as well.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Mary Roach - "Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers"
[practising surgery on dead bodies] "For me, hands are hard. [...] Because you're holding this disconnected hand, and it's holding you back."
"To gibbet is to dip a corpse in tar and suspend it in a flat iron cage (the gibbet) in plain view of townsfolk while it rots and gets pecked apart by crows."
[after being shot] "Whether or not you collapse depends on your state of mind. Animals don't know what it means to be shot, and, accordingly, rarely exhibit the instant stop-and-drop. MacPherson points ou that deer shot through the heart often run off for forty or fifty yards before collapsing. 'The deer doesn't know anything about what's going on, so he just does his deer thing for ten seconds or so and then he can't do it anymore. An animal with a meaner disposition will use that ten seconds to come at you.'"
"A male heart, [...] is in fact slightly different from a female heart. A heart surgeon can tell one from the other by looking at the ECG, because the intervals are slightly different. When you put a femlae heart into a man, it will continue to beat like a female heart. And vice versa."
(China) Tai Bao capsules: made from abortus (fetuses) and placenta, and it is very good for the skin
mellified man: ... In Arabia there are men 70 to 80 years old who are willing to give their bodies to save others. The subject does not eat food, he only bathes and partakes of honey. After a month he only excretes honey (the urine and feces are entirely honey) and death follows. His fellow men place him in a stone coffin full of honey in which he macerates. The date is put upon the coffin giving the year and month. After a hundred years the seals are removed. A confection is formed which is used for the treatment of broken and wounded limbs. A small amount taken internally will immediatly cure the complaint.
[China] "Children, most often daughters-in-law, were obliged to demonstrate filial piety to ailing parents, most often mothers-in-law, by hacking off a piece of themselves and preparing it as a restorative elixer. The practise began in earnest during the Sung Dynasty (960-1126) and continued through the Ming Dynasty, and up to the early 1900s
David Eagleman - "Sum: forty stories about the afterlife"
Beautiful vignettes about possible afterlives.
Though some are not very afterlife-related, reading most them makes you wonder about your actions, your feelings and your thoughts right now.
An impressive feat.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
From living undergound, Simon and his 'bro' Kamina escape their world by drilling. Joining other humans in their fight against beastmen, the ultime battle is between Spiral (evolution) and Anti-Spiral, using their Spiral-power to create larger and lager mecha's.
"Who the hell do you think we are?!!!"
According to Anti-Spiral, the Spiral way of life will ultimately end the Universe: literally spiralling out of contol.
"To defeat rationality, to do the impossible to make the possible come true, that is the Team Gurren way!"
The idea, bigger and bigger fights, first "practical", then more and more abstract (Spiral vs Anti-Spiral) isn't new, but again, here it works. Somehow you aren't put off by the ever-increasing power of their minds and mecha's.
Is it because basically the fight is between mentalities (only taken to the extreme?) Hard to say, but a great watch.
Though those Japanese and their bouncy D-cup cleavages... one keeps wondering.
"Who the hell do you think we are?!!!"
According to Anti-Spiral, the Spiral way of life will ultimately end the Universe: literally spiralling out of contol.
"To defeat rationality, to do the impossible to make the possible come true, that is the Team Gurren way!"
The idea, bigger and bigger fights, first "practical", then more and more abstract (Spiral vs Anti-Spiral) isn't new, but again, here it works. Somehow you aren't put off by the ever-increasing power of their minds and mecha's.
Is it because basically the fight is between mentalities (only taken to the extreme?) Hard to say, but a great watch.
Though those Japanese and their bouncy D-cup cleavages... one keeps wondering.
Amy Hempel - "reasons to live"
Beautiful short stories, in which seldom eveything is made clear. Yet no pretence is made about what it means. There is a meaning. There is a thought. And it is yours.
If I am not mistaken, she belongs to a school of writes who abhor the (over)usage of adjectives, and their usage is minimal.
Stories to read over and over again.
If I am not mistaken, she belongs to a school of writes who abhor the (over)usage of adjectives, and their usage is minimal.
Stories to read over and over again.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Wumpscut - "Hang Him Higher (Instrumental)" (Preferential Tribe)
Catchy. Not as hard as "Wreath of Barbs"
But nice.
Clare Fader - "The Wine" (The Elephant's Baby)
hoompa-hoompa wine, old-fashioned, and about alcohol!
Monday, 28 March 2011
Hrsta - "Une Infinite De Trous En Forme D'Hommes" (Stem Stem In Electro)
Long-stretched violin-based soundscapes.
Good for writing.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Friday, 25 March 2011
Leonard Cohen - "Came So Far For Beauty" (Recent Songs)
I came so far for beauty left
So much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
I thought I'd be rewarded
For such a lonely choice
And surely she would answer
To such a very hopeless voice
I practiced all my sainthood
I gave to one and all
But the rumours of my virtue
They moved her not at all
I changed my style to silver
I changed my clothed to black
And where I would surrender
Now I would attack I stormed the old casino
For the money and the flesh and I myself decided
What was rotten and what was fresh
And men to do my bidding
And broken bones to teach
The value of my pardon
The shadow of my reach
But no, I could not touch her
With such a heavy hand
Her star beyond my order
Her nakedness unmanned
I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
So much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
I thought I'd be rewarded
For such a lonely choice
And surely she would answer
To such a very hopeless voice
I practiced all my sainthood
I gave to one and all
But the rumours of my virtue
They moved her not at all
I changed my style to silver
I changed my clothed to black
And where I would surrender
Now I would attack I stormed the old casino
For the money and the flesh and I myself decided
What was rotten and what was fresh
And men to do my bidding
And broken bones to teach
The value of my pardon
The shadow of my reach
But no, I could not touch her
With such a heavy hand
Her star beyond my order
Her nakedness unmanned
I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
Imogen Heap - "Aha" (Ellipse)
Heap, of Imogen Heap, was part of Frou Frou.
Song goes all over the (aural) place. Pretty nice. Think Kate Bush / Tori Amos
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Monday, 21 March 2011
Roy Blount Jr - "Alphabet Juice"
A mishmash of words and their meaning, their origin, their usage.
A lot is taken from the internet, particularly urbandictionary.com is quoted a lot, which is a bit silly.
Still, a nice lazy browsing book for words and their meanings, to meander through meanings and useless facts.
J.D. Salinger - "Fanny & Zooey" (half-finished)
Only read "Fanny", couldn't finish "Zooey", which is a separate story but writes to the Fanny character.
Amazing how he can set a mood by describing how people act, react and think.
Quite explicit at times; sometimes he seems to forego the "show don't tell" completely, but on a deeper level there's so much more (which is not "shown" directly).
Bill Morgan and Nancy J. Peters - "'Howl' on trial, the battle for free expression"
the Beats: Ginsberg, Gregorio Nunzio, Corsa, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Peter Orlovsky
- 1873 - Comstock Laws forbid anything that "has to do with sex" from being mailed
- 1954 - Ginsberg takes peyote and has vision of Moloch in the shape of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel and the Medical Arts building
- 1955 - "Howl" is published
- 1957 - Trial. Not convicted.
Justice Potter Stewart: "I cannot define 'obscenity', but I know it when I see it."
Ginsberg in letter: "Burroughs is getting fantastically dirty in his mss. but it is high art, but he doesn't shilly-shally, in fact he's been writing pornography with a vengeance lately, and my own work is full of orgies."
Ginsberg: "'Footnote to Howl' is too lovely and serious a joke to try to explain. The built-in rhythmic exercise should be clear, it's basically a repeat of the Moloch section. It's dedicated to my mother who died in the madhouse and it says I loved her anyway and that even in worst conditions life is holy."
"Poetry is what poets write, and not what other people think they should write."
chilicosm: may be defined as the interpenetration of many different levels of cosmic creation.
"... a word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."
honi soit que mal y pense: evil to him to evil thinks
"as it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence."
"San Francisco," said a cynic, "is getting too much like L.A. It's where neon goes when it dies"
"The birds have eaten the berries. Haven't I sent this latter before in another life? And haven't you received it?" (Alan Ginsberg to John Hollander, sept 7, 1958)
Ulysses: judge book in its entirety, not word by word!
"The Miscellaneous Man", a Berkeley magazine.
Joseph Conrad - "Heart Of Darkness"
(ouch, too long ago)
I liked the story, though some parts couldn't "catch me".
There was darkness in the writing, and I could easily imagined the darkness of that world, though whether he described it so perfectly, or whether I overlay my own dark times in days of travel, I cannot say.
update April 2014
Read it again while in Africa. Big change. Many sentences and words got to me.
"We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand, because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign and no memories."
"Well, you know, that was the worst of it - this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar."
"You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence."
"They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him - some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last - only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude - and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core... "
"but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares."
"It is his extremity that I seem to have lived through. True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference: perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible."
"I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance."
update 2019-07-22. Read the last part again when coming across this book in the grey house in Scotland, 6 miles south of Ullapool. The exact same part - "I found myself back in the sepulchral city" - spoke to me as strongly as it did then.
I liked the story, though some parts couldn't "catch me".
There was darkness in the writing, and I could easily imagined the darkness of that world, though whether he described it so perfectly, or whether I overlay my own dark times in days of travel, I cannot say.
update April 2014
Read it again while in Africa. Big change. Many sentences and words got to me.
"We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand, because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign and no memories."
"Well, you know, that was the worst of it - this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar."
"You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence."
"They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him - some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last - only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude - and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core... "
"but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares."
"It is his extremity that I seem to have lived through. True, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference: perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible."
"I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance."
update 2019-07-22. Read the last part again when coming across this book in the grey house in Scotland, 6 miles south of Ullapool. The exact same part - "I found myself back in the sepulchral city" - spoke to me as strongly as it did then.
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