The Married Monk - "Bird on board" (The Belgian Kick)

Came across this band because of member Etienne Jaumet.

This song is parlando, long stretches of music with a woman's voice half-speaking half-whispering. Quite cool.

Darkside - "Paper Trails"

Impressive long instrumental guitar+synths+sequencers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAAUqBghiVo

Etienne Jaumet

synths and a saxophone. Pretty amazing.

Wolf playlist

http://8tracks.com/hinatashouyou/wolf-and-i

Some songs that are borderline horrible yet okay

• Oh Land - Wolf & I
• First Aid Kit - Wolf

Oldboy (2003)

Have I ever seen it? Cannot remember. Hard, impressive film. Should watch it again, but not too soon.

Paranoia (2014)

Ugh. Not a good cyber thriller, not a good thriller, not a good anything.

the Family Crest - "Beneath the Brine"

Amazing song, but mostly because of the Coachella clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoIbqjsTxJY&feature=youtu.be

Guardians of the Galaxy

Fun film. Good combination of 80's with scifi. They must've really considered how to put these together.

Under the skin

Scarlet Johannsen.. strange movie. Alien in Scotland. She seduces men. Amazing scenes where they walk into ink black water and drown while she is walking on the water without a ripple.

There is a story idea there.

Ending not too strong, but impressive how this movie was made without an obvious Hollywood touch.

Hoffmaestro - "Hoffmaestro"

Crazy punky Swedish "skank-a-troncpunkadelica"

Crazy fun. Good stuffs.

Poppy Ackroyd - "Feathers"

Instrumental, violins, strings and piano.

A bit light. Quite good.

Pye Corner Audio - "Black Mill Tapes vol 1"

Good electronic soundscapes.

Flug 8 - "Mr. Ito"

Strange electro music with whoob whoob effects. Good for writing? Who knows.

Forbrydelsen (The Killing)

Now in season 3. Season 1 was cool but a bit too long with 20 episodes. Season 2 was great with only 10, kept the pace and us on the edge of our seat. Three seems just as promising.

Interstellar (2014)

First half was impressive and beautiful, with some beautifully harsh moments, both in acting as well as in music and scenes.

The part where he leaves her behind, to fall into the event horizon... well, the fact he does so, is fine. It would make for a good ending (his daughter always angry even though he saved humanity, &etc). But that tesseract 5D part? The ending? Fleb flep.

Man From The South - "Paeonia"

singer-songwriter, but darker, sad. Minor chords.

This is his second album. Should look for his first as well. Pretty bloody beautiful.

Mike Oldfield - "Nuclear"

A strange search into MSG trailers and teasers brought this forth... I kinda like it.

Good ol' Snake. Still making it happen.

Garbage - "Not Your Kind Of People"

Have I heard this before? I doubt it. Definitely the kind of song I'd remember.

Theatrical. Quite like it.

Pauw - EP

"Abyss" is pretty cool. Bit mystical.

Pro-di-gi! Pro-di-gi! demo and dirtchamber sessions

Liam Howlett demo tape (side A)
http://grooveshark.com/album/Liam+Howlett+Demo+Tape+Side+A/7010950

Dirtchamber sessions volume 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSYVPCrM4GQ

Vitalic - "Second Lives" (Flashmob)

Reading the name I was sure I had heard it before. It has hints of 90s house because of the strings and composition. Fun listen.

Aufgang - "Barock"

Finally found an album on grooveshark. Good stuff.

Kvinden i buret (literally: the woman in the cage, english title: the Keeper of Lost Causes) 2013

Fun enough Danish whodunnit. Nothing special. The flashback, the car turning, crashing, is good and yes, watching somebody pull out their tooth with pincers isn't easy but... nothing truly special.

Radiohead - "I Will" (Hail To The Thief)

Have I ever listened enough to this song?

Like "Exit Music (For A Film)" without the crescendo in lyrics and music.

John Crowley - "Love and Sleep"

Second book in the "Ægypt" series. It is taking me a long time to read, but suddenly, this morning, I got back into it again.

Still the amazing cut off sentences, the wandering sentences that do not trail on paper but in your mind.

Finally finished it. The gaps in reading were not out of disinterest, as happened with the first book, but life interrupting. Really want to keep on reading the next volume.

All India Radio - "Four Three" (Echo Other)

violins, alternative guitar sounds reminiscent - far far far away - of swamp... curious kinda triphop-y sound

Cees Nooteboom - "Rituelen"

Een mooi boek. Het is een prachtig voorbeeld van een verhaal waarin eigenlijk weinig gebeurt, waarin de hoofdpersoon zich er bijna op laat voorstaan niets te doen, geen doel te hebben, en dat toch interessant blijft.

Eén van de dingen waardoor dit misschien komt, is bijvoorbeeld de ontmoeting (de drie doodzondes) van Inni met het dienstertje met de groene ogen en de grote borsten die zijn tante Thérèsa bedient. Plotseling wordt hij wakker uit zijn stupor en voelt waar hij de rest van zijn leven achteraan zal jagen.

[duif]

[vrouwen?]

Padre

Impressive short about an old daughter taking care of her military "wrong side" dad.

Making of: http://vimeo.com/88605096

The story telling was impressive (how every time she went into his bedroom with food, the camera followed her a bit more) the emotions intense (her starting the clock, the many dying birds, imagined or not)... quite impressive.

The Flaming Lips - "With A Litlte Help From My Fwends"

Beatles covers with other artist. Quite amusing. Not something you'd listen often to, though.

Röyksopp - "The Inevitable End"

Last and forever last album. Still as good and enjoyable as their previous work.

• "Rong" - what the fuck is wrong with you... what the fuck is wrong with you...

Ayn Rand - "Anthem"

Aym Ramd
Anthem

I am. I Think. I Will.

My Hand... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of mine...

What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.

I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wisehd to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wisehd to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and th eharing of my ears gives its song to wthe world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. it is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.

many words have been gratned me, and some are wise, and some are fasle, but only three are holy: "I will it!"

Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.

I know not if this eart on which  I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the menas to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel beofre!

I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my though, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

I am neither foe nor friend to my brother, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wwish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

I shall choose my friends among men, but neither slaves not masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but niether command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.

For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.

The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to sstone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is tyhe word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by whcih the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, ifI am but to bow, to agree and to obey?

But I am done with this creed of corruption.

I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.

This god, this one word:

"I."

Nils Frahm - "Spaces"

Minimalistic and quite amazing build ups at some point.

Check "Says" : amazing.


Other albums: "Felt", acoustic piano. A bit too minimal / boring for my current (coding) taste

7Fingers: better, more electronic again. Some quiet songs, but good stuff. For good cut-up strings droply beats and effects, check "Duktus".

Stromae

Yes, I had heard his music before, but I either rediscovered it just now, or am more aware of the intensity of his music and lyrics (perhaps thanks to College Tour)

• Formidable
  also check the video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_xH7noaqTA
• Papaoutai
  again, check the sad clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiKj0Z_Xnjc

Games - old arcade games in your browser

Beyond awesome:
https://archive.org/details/internetarcade

Harold van Lennep - "Liberation"

Beats, piano, parlando, a hippety sax (base-sax?)

Nice. Not for too long, but nice.

Fun Boy Three - "The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum"

Brilliant Halloween song.

and "Tunnel Of Love" from "Waiting" is also pretty amazing.

the Wolf of Wall Street

Amusing enough film with Leonardo DiCaprio, but focusing way too much and long on the bacchanals. Yes, we got it. He parties with drugs and whores...okay, move on!

Story wise, too long, but still a good enough watch.

The Smoke Eaters

old riffs, surf, and old television fragments. Sounds pretty gnarly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JVjtIRkEc8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5FDBNn5-nU

sometimes a lot more electronic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoT0xOHq_ac

montaigne

"Ik wil dat de dood me vindt als ik kool aan het planten ben... en dat ik me niets van haar aantrek."

sauve qui peut

Sauve qui peut is defined as French for a rush to escape. The phrase is French and literally means "save himself who can" and has come to mean "every man for himself."

Cees Nooteboom - "'s Nachts komen de vossen"

De eerste paar verhalen waren aardig, niet veel meer dan dat. Heinz is mooi en zwaar.

Uiteindelijk: niet elk verhaal heeft me evenveel gedaan, en sommigen zijn bijna depressief in hun leegheid (die ze te goed omschrijven), maar mooi.


Heinz

"Lunch, daarvoor waren we uitgenodigd, mijn vorige en ik."

"... een groep van intieme vrienden? Heb ik eigenlijk niet. Ik heb hier en daar in de wereld mensen, man/vrouw, die het zout van mijn bestaan uitmaken, laat ik het zo maar noemen. ... Mensen om wie je rouwt als ze doodgaan, maar ook, en daar gaat het om, voor dat fatale afscheid, wezens om wie je al kunt rouwen terwijl je nog om ze lacht."

"De whisky was duur, de wijn plonk uit de supermarkt, troep die na verloop van tijd de stoel onder je hersens uit trekt."

"Ooit heb ik gedacht dat ik een dichter was, maar dat ben ik alleen maar als ik lees. het duurt even eer je daarachter bent. Mijn eerste bundel verdronk in de vloedgolf van de vijftigers, pas daarna heb ik mijn roeping gevonden: ik werd de noodzakelijke aanvulling voor elke dichter, een lezer. Daar zijn er niet veel van, niet van poëzie. Lezer is een beroep, maar daar zullen we het nu niet over hebben. Van schrijven leef ik. Hout maakt geen bed, zegt Aristoteles, en bedoelt daarmee dat je de dingen uit elkaar moet houden. Hij heeft gelijk, zoals altijd."

"Hij wist iets over zichzelf, en het kon hem niets schelen, of lieer, hij kon zichzelf niets schelen. Dat is grammaticaal onjuist, maar het klopt wel."

"Zij was, zei hij, zo ontzettend verdwenen, zoals alleen maar iemand verdwijnen kan van wie je eigenlijk nooit iets geweten hebt. Heinz was met haar aangekomen maar had haar niet gecirculeerd, zo'n soort woord gebruikte hij. Het viel me op omdat het zo'n raar woord was - circuleren heeft tenslotte geen lijdend voorwerp - maar vooral ook omdat er een postuum verwijt mee uitgedrukt werd."


Paula

We kwamen uit een film, ik geloof dat ik er vol van was, en toen zei jij ineens volminachting: net echt. Alles is altijd een kopie van iets anders, het is nauwelijks de moeite om te leven als een ander er een film van twee uur van kan maken, of een boek dat je in twee dagen uit hebt. Iedereen zijn eigen roman, en dan ook nog veel te lang. Allemaal imitatie. ... Je zei nog iets over ingedukte tijd en dat voelde ik bijna lijfelijk.. We gingen van het Leidseplein in de richting Vondelpark, en toen we daar over dat gruispad liepen werd dat beeld letterlijk, die stappen die in het echte leven gewoon net zo lang duren als een stap nu eenmaal duurt kregen door die opmerking iets hatelijks, alsof ze in elkaar geschoven moesten worden tot een filmbeeld of de bladzij van een boek dat zou lijken op anderen boeken of andere films.

2562 - "The New Today"

Strange clic-n-plop album. Quite minimal and echoing.

No Man's Valley - "The Wolves Are Coming"

The eponymous first song is bluesy, jumpy and fun. Woohooh.

• Moon: madness, screaching

Brunettes Shoot Blondes - "knock knock"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC_0NzJ2mWA

The second decade version of "Wolf and Pig"...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmkLlVzUBn4

The Typewriter, Rifle, and Movie Camera

A documentary on Sam Fuller, by Tim Robbins, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino, including Martin Scorcese.

Intense man with the gift and wish for story telling.

Should watch "Pickup on South Street" perhaps... it was used a lot as footage. Also "Steel Helmet", and 'Shockproof'

Charles Bukowski - "90 minutes of hell"

Readings of some of his stuff.

"Coffee hot enough to know your tongue is still there"

"Now I am up and, as the novelist would say, drunk."

Morcheeba - "Fragments Of Freedom"

Mostly instrumental, few vocals and voice samples. A flute reminiscing about stairways to heaven.

Paul White - "Honey Cats" (2014)

Strange but very musical music. Lots of long drawn out vocals and semi-close harmony, but also dark jazz rhythms and echoing voices.

Gemma Ray - "The Wheel" (2014)

Voice-wise a duet quite similar to Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell. Hints of swamp.

It is a weird mix of styles. From almost poppy to slightly electronic to the symphonic "Rubbing Out Your Name".

"Runaway", an older song, sounds quite promising with a ominous base guitar and surf guitar, then suddenly turns all poppy during the chorus. A shame.

Hadewych Minis & Mike Boddé - Schubert & U2

Amazing. Literally breathtaking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afeVP8NxTK4

Siouxsie / The Creatures and John Cale - "Murdering Mouth"

Her of Siouxsie and the Banshees, but post Banshees and currently "The Creatures" period: great duet with John Cale in Paradiso while performing "Murdering Mouth"

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Odd ball dystopian "ultimate violence" race of five cars, with David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, in a "post-economic" America with a dictator ruling from China. Funny cars with teeth and blades, points for killing women, children and babies.

Nothing spectacular but fun.

"But we like the violence! Violence! Violence! Violence!"

The Lost Boys (1987)

Quite bad but, for a tired Sunday evening, funny enough film about a gang of teenage-punks-slash-vampires, with a young Kiefer Sutherlands.

Monomyth - "Further"

Interesting 4-track album, soundscapes, drums, guitars, organ like..

Camera - "Remember I Was Carbon Dioxicde"

psych, ambient (space- and krautrock, 3voor12 calls it)

Pretty amazing. Instrumental, varied.

• Haeata - slow soundscape, amazing

Soap&Skin

interesting minimalist, mostly instrumental, mix of electronica.

Soap&Skin intrigued. How about these song names:

• janitor of lunacy
• turbine womb
• Thanatos - sounds vaguely familiar. Poppier than the rest.

http://8tracks.com/atruma/spies-hackers

Bobby Blue Bland - "Ask Me 'Bout Nothing But The Blues"

Old fashioned blues, quite good.

La habitación de Fermat

Fun film about four math wizards getting lured into a room that slowly crunches them. Not spectacular, but a fun watch.

Valeria Luiselli - "Sidewalks"

Amazing collection of short essays, vignettes, to be read and reread constantly. If you need to get inspired by a place, a city, any city, read this.

Tom Lanoye - "Gelukkig slagen"

Leuk om te lezen en mooie zinnen en omschrijvingen, maar het verhaal zelf deed me niet heel veel.

Beth Hard and Joe Bonamassa - "If I Tell You I Love You"

On "Tito & Tarantula", very Vaya Con Dios.

Bell Orchestre - "Elephants" (As Seen Through Windows)

Strange instrumental music.

zerO One - "rOcketship" (sOnar)

beats, with 80's strings. Nice.

Swans - "The Seer Returns"

hard to define this kind of music. Gritty, audio landscape, mesmerizing.

I guess "southern gothic" could apply as well.

http://8tracks.com/helen-bennett-7528/something-deep-and-dark

The Wytches - "Annabel Dream Reader"

psycho surf, aka "evil surf doom".

Crazy voices. Power. Aggressive.

Metallica - "Master of Puppets" (Master of Puppets)

That guitar solo in the middle is still the pits...

Kees Torn - "Drinklied"

Moet zeker bij de verzameling alcoholica.

(ugly translation)

Drinklied

Laat het heffen van de glazen
het klinken en het proosten
en de borrelpraat maar zitten
want daar gaat het mij niet om

Als ik met mijn rum of whisky
of cognac of jonge klare
maar een beetje comfortabel
aan mijn promillage kom

Ruk nog maar een paar karaffen
of een kratje beugelflesjes
of een literfles of blikjes
of kartonnen pakken aan

Rol de fusten maar naar binnen
en de tonnen en de vaten
en de kannen en de kruiken
Laat de tap maar open staan

Ik giet mezelf maar vol
zet mijn hersens op sterk water
totdat de boel verdoofd is
en volkomen lam gelegd

Want denken aan het heden
het verleden en aan later
is voor mijn hart en zenuwstelsel
honderd keer zo slecht

Als je perse wil genieten
of een beetje helder blijven
als je drinken wil met mate
nou dan ga je maar je gang

Maar laat mij mezelf bedwelmen
wijs me niet op de gevaren
hou die tegelspreuken voor je
want die ken ik echt al lang

En wat zou ik me verzetten
ik ben toch allang verloren
ik ben allang verslagen
ik heb alles al verspeeld

Geef me liever wat te drinken
om dat niet te hoeven voelen
en de wonden te ontsmetten
die de tijd nooit krijgt geheeld

Om niet aan wat mislukt is
en teloorgegaan te denken
en aan de dingen die ik
allemaal heb fout gedaan

Laat mij nou maar die
alcoholica naar binnen tanken
Dus trek nog maar wat open
sla nog maar een vaatje aan

En ik hoef ook geen gezelschap
van zo’n drinkebroer te hebben
om gezellig mee te lallen
in een vrolijk drinkgelag

Morgen zien we wel weer verder
als ik opsta met een kater
en ik hoef geen aspirientje
want ik leef van dag tot dag

En ik hoef ook niet te weten
of het Ierse is of Schotse
heerlijk helder of mousserend
of rosé of rood of wit

Puur ambachtelijk gebrouwen
ongefilterd, koud gelagerd
het kan mij alleen maar schelen
of er alcohol in zit

Blijf de bekers en de kroezen
en vooral de pullen vullen
want ik kan me nog bewegen
dus doe mij nog maar een pint

Om de algehele wanhoop
om de spijt en om de leegte
om mijn eigen onvermogen
en om wie ik heb bemind

Ik weet wel dat mijn alcohol-
consumptie excessief is
en dat je daar je lever
en je nieren mee vergalt

Maar zoals drank nu eenmaal
meer kapot maakt dan je lief is
maakt liefde meer kapot
dan tegenop te drinken valt

Drinking song

Leave the rising of the glasses

the toasting and the clinking

and the small talk, just leave it

that's not what I care about

As long as with my rum or whiskey

or cognac or oude klare (like Ketel)

just get comfortably

to my permillage

Bring a few more carafs

or a crate of bottles

or a litre or cans

or carton boxes

Roll the fusts inside

and the barrels and the casks

and the jugs and the pitchers

and leave the tap open

I keep filling myself up

put my brains on "strong water" (the kind of liquid you use to conserve something)

until everything is numb

and completely paralyzed

Because thinking about the present

the past and the future

is for my heart and nerves

as hundred times as bad

If you really want to enjoy

or stay a little bit sober

if you want to drink moderately

well just go ahead

But let me intoxicate myself

don't point out the dangers

keep those wise proverbs to yourself

I've known them for too long

and why would I resist

I am lost beyond redemption

I have been defeated,

I've gambled and lost it all

So give me something to drink

so I don't have to feel that

and I can disinfect the wounds

that time never heals

To prevent thinking of all that

has failed or has been destroyed

and all the things

that I have done wrong

Let me tank that 

alcoholica inside me

Open something more

Break open another cask

And I don't need no compagnions

of another drunken brother

to sing with a double tongue

in some drinking bout

Tomorrow we will see again

when I get up with a hangover

and I don't need no aspirin

because I live from day to day

And I don't need to know

whether it is Irish or Scottish

beautifully red or with bubbles

or rose or red or white

Pure artisan brewery,

unfiltered, cold stoked

I only care if it

does contain some alcohol

Keep them glasses and cups

and goblets full

because I can still move

so give me another pint

Because of general despair

regret and the emptiness

and my own incapability

and whom I have loved

Oh I know my alcohol 

consumption is excessive

and that you kill your liver

and your kidneys just as well

But as drinking wrecks

more than you know,

love wrecks more

than can be drank away

Vi Hart - numbers

Kees Torn - cabaretier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hdDIBrGco

King Britt - "New World In My View"

Intriguing parlando. James Brown kind of voice.

Stephen King - "On Writing"

Paperback. Fast read. Enjoyable enough for a few nuts 'n bolts, but nothing special. Not a book I'll quickly return to.

strange playlist: Floral Canary Sludge

http://8tracks.com/thelizardking/floral-canary-sludge

• The Grass Roots - "Let's Live for Today" - extremely flower power and yet I liked it. There was a haunting feeling to it
• Emily Wells - "Let Your Guard Down" - high wailed voice, but interesting. Sad. Should look her up.

Ctenoid

"Ctenoid” means “having an edge with projections like the teeth of a comb.” It could refer to rooster combs or the scales of certain fish.

Anosognosia

Anosognosia is a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability

scotoma

scotoma, a blind spot in our field of vision that we are unaware of

Dunning-Kruger effect

our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence

If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/

Dunning:

The notion of unknown unknowns really does resonate with me, and perhaps the idea would resonate with other people if they knew that it originally came from the world of design and engineering rather than Rumsfeld.
If I were given carte blanche to write about any topic I could, it would be about how much our ignorance, in general, shapes our lives in ways we do not know about. Put simply, people tend to do what they know and fail to do that which they have no conception of. In that way, ignorance profoundly channels the course we take in life. And unknown unknowns constitute a grand swath of everybody’s field of ignorance. 

To me, unknown unknowns enter at two different levels. The first is at the level of risk and problem. Many tasks in life contain uncertainties that are known — so-called “known unknowns.” These are potential problems for any venture, but they at least are problems that people can be vigilant about, prepare for, take insurance on, and often head off at the pass. Unknown unknown risks, on the other hand, are problems that people do not know they are vulnerable to.
Unknown unknowns also exist at the level of solutions. People often come up with answers to problems that are o.k., but are not the best solutions. The reason they don’t come up with those solutions is that they are simply not aware of them. Stefan Fatsis, in his book “Word Freak,” talks about this when comparing everyday Scrabble players to professional ones. As he says: “In a way, the living-room player is lucky . . . He has no idea how miserably he fails with almost every turn, how many possible words or optimal plays slip by unnoticed. The idea of Scrabble greatness doesn’t exist for him.” (p. 128)
Unknown unknown solutions haunt the mediocre without their knowledge. The average detective does not realize the clues he or she neglects. The mediocre doctor is not aware of the diagnostic possibilities or treatments never considered. The run-of-the-mill lawyer fails to recognize the winning legal argument that is out there. People fail to reach their potential as professionals, lovers, parents and people simply because they are not aware of the possible. This is one of the reasons I often urge my student advisees to find out who the smart professors are, and to get themselves in front of those professors so they can see what smart looks like. 

 

Is an “unknown unknown” beyond anything I can imagine? Or am I confusing the “unknown unknowns” with the “unknowable unknowns?” Are we constituted in such a way that there are things we cannot know? Perhaps because we cannot even frame the questions we need to ask?

 

Hunter S. Thompson - "Hell's Angels - A strange and terrible saga"

"The girls stood quietly in a group, wearing tight slacks, kerchiefs and sleeveless blouses or sweaters, with boots and dark glasses, uplift bras, bright lipstick and the wary expressions of half- bright souls turned mean and nervous from too much bitter wisdom in too few years."

After just 30 pages it is already a wonderful read, clearly showing his markmanship. Yes, people will always remember him as a crazy dope fiend, but he had 100% journalist blood running through his veins. He disects the media circus and the events in a wonderful way.

"There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the kind of random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency."

"But in a society with no central motivation, so far adrift and puzzled with itself that its President feels called upon to appoint a Committee on National Goals, a sense of alientaion is likely to be very popular - especially among people young enough to shrug off the ugilt they're supposed to feel for devaiting from a goal or purpose they never understood in the first place. Let the old people wallow in the shame of having failed. The laws they made to preserve a myth are no longer pertinent; the so-called American Way begins to seem like a dike made of cheap cement, with many more leaks than the law has fingers to plug. America has been breeding mass anomie since the ned of World War II. It is not a political thing, but the sence of new realities, of urgency, anger and sometimes desperation in a society where even the highest authorities seem to grasping at straws."

"But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right… and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely  see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it… howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica… letting off now, watching for cops, but onlyuntil the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge… The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The other - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions."

An amazing read, because the intensity of his voice works so well to power the story, to bring you the intensity of those moments that us citizens never get to experience. 

psych guitars

http://8tracks.com/james-holroyd/ride-the-highway

• Cian Nugent & The Cosmos - "Double Horse"
  reminds me of The Doors, the slow buildup, the hints of a melody percolating through

Chris Forsyth - "Paranoid Cat"

long spinning audioscapes based on guitar and moderate strings & rhythm.

Quite cool while coding.

http://familyvineyard.bandcamp.com/album/paranoid-cat

"Front street drone" is a bit screechy...

"Heavy Metal" (1981)

Crazy animated film consisted of four or five sequences in which the "ultimate evil" incarnated in a green sphere is showed. Lots of violence and sex, best enjoyed with a few good beers.

Jeanette Winterson - "The Daylight Gate"

Based on the true events of the most famous Lancaster Witch trials (August Assize) this short novel follows the noble woman Alice Nutter who was tried and hanged for witchcraft together with a group of poor women.

Though not so in her usual style, still captivating and beautiful. Less poetic? Still intense language. Short simple sentences with depth.

Charles Bukowski - "the bluebird"

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be sad.

then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Charles Bukowski - "the word"

there was Auden, I don't remember
which small room I first read him
in
and there was Spender and I don't
know which small room
either
and then there was Ezra
and I remember that room
there was a torn screen
that the flies came through
and it was Los Angeles
and the woman said to me,
"Jesus Christ, you reading those
Cantos again!"
she liked e. e. cummings, though,
she thought he was really
good and she was
right.

I remember when I read Turgenev,
though, I had just come out of the
drunk tank and I was living
alone
and I thought he was really a
subtle and funny son of a
bitch.

Hemingway I read everywhere,
sometimes a few times over
and he made me feel brave
and tough
until one day
it all just stopped cold for me
and worse than that,
Ernie became an
irritant.

My Jeffers period was sometime
in Los Angeles, some room, some
job,
the same woman was back
and she said,
"Jesus, how can you read this
crap?"
one time when she was gone
I found many magazines
under the bed.
I pulled them out
and found that the contents were
all about murder
and it was all about women
who were tortured, killed,
dismembered and so
forth with the
lurid photos
in black and
white.
that stuff wasn't for
me.

my first encounter with Henry
Miller was via paperback
on a bus through Arizona.
he was great when he stuck
to reality
but when he got ethereal
when he got to philosophizing
he got as dry and boring as
the passing
landscape.
I left him in the men's crapper
at a hamburger
stop.

I got hold of Celine's Journey
and read it straight through
while in bed eating crackers.
I kept reading, eating the
crackers and reading, reading,
laughing out loud,
thinking, at last I've met a man
who writes better than
I.
I finished the book and then
drank much water.
the crackers swelled up
inside of me
and I got the worst
god damned stomach
ache of my
life.

I was living with my first
wife.
she worked for the L.A.
Sheriff's Dept.
and she came in to
find me doubled up
and moaning.

"Oh, what happened?"

"I've just read the world's
greatest
writers!"

"But you said you were."

"I'm second, baby . . ."

I read F. D.'s Notes from the
Underground
in a small El Paso
library
after sleeping the night
on a park bench
during a sand
storm.
after reading that book
I knew I had a long way
to go as a
writer.

I don't know where I read
T. S. Eliot.
he made a small dent
which soon ironed
out.

there were many rooms,
many books,
D. H. Lawrence, Gorky,
A. Huxley, Sherwood
Anderson, Sinclair Lewis,
James Thurber, Dos Passos,
etc
Kafka.
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
Rabelais.
Hamsun.

as a very young man
I worked as a shipping clerk,
made the bars at night,
came into the roominghouse,
went to bed
and read the
books.
 I had 3 or 4 of them in
bed with me (what a
man!) and then I would
sleep.

my landlady finally told
me, "You know, you read those
books in bed and about every
hour or so one of them will
fall to the floor.
You are keeping everybody
awake!"

(I was on the 3rd floor.)

what days and nights those
were.

now I can't read anything,
not even the newspaper.
and, of course, I can't watch
tv except for the boxing
matches.
I do hear some news
on the car radio
while driving the freeway
and waiting for the
traffic
reports.

but you know, by former
life as a bibliophile, it
possibly kept me from
murdering somebody,
myself
included.
it kept me from being an
industrialist.
it allowed me to endure
some women
that most men would never
be able to live
with.
it gave me space, a
pause.
it helped me to write
this.

(in this room,
like the other rooms)

perhaps for some young man
now
needing
to laugh at the
impossibilities
which are here
always
after we are
not.

Platoon (1986)

Another impressive war film, Oliver Stone, Charlie Sheen, a very tiny role for Johnny Depp.

The madness? It is there.
The ruthless Hollywood optimism? Also, slightly so, but I must admit I feel like mr Stone added that because he desperately wants to believe in it. Like the soldier almost going home, three days before R&R, has a bad feeling, thus was this film to him.

What is it with me and war movies lately? I still want to watch Full Metal Jacket (again). And feel like watching Apocalypse Now over and over again. Platoon was good, but it does not match up to Coppola's masterpiece. Is it the intensity of the madness? The plunge? Too slick?

Night Beats - "Puppet on a String" (Night Beats)

A very Cramps psycho/rockabilly 60's sound, but this album is actually from 2011.

Natalia Kills - "Problem"

Not my kind of song, bit like Britney Spears' "Toxic" but kinda fun.

Perhaps just because of the line "don't you want to save this dirty little damsel"

Aymara language and the idea of time

Linguistic and gestural analysis by Núñez and Sweetser also asserts that the Aymara have an apparently unique, or at least very rare, understanding of time, and Aymara is, with Quechua, one of very few languages where speakers seem to represent the past as in front of them and the future as behind them. Their argument is situated mainly within the framework of conceptual metaphor, which recognizes in general two subtypes of the metaphor "the passage of time is motion": one is "time passing is motion over a landscape" (or "moving-ego"), and the other is "time passing is a moving object" ("moving-events"). The latter metaphor does not explicitly involve the individual/speaker; events are in a queue, with prior events towards the front of the line. The individual may be facing the queue, or it may be moving from left to right in front of him/her.
The claims regarding Aymara involve the moving-ego metaphor. Most languages conceptualize the ego as moving forward into the future, with ego's back to the past. The English sentences prepare for what lies before us and we are facing a prosperous future exemplify this metaphor. In contrast, Aymara seems to encode the past as in front of individuals, and the future in back; this is typologically a rare phenomenon.
The fact that English has words like before and after that are (currently or archaically) polysemous between 'front/earlier' or 'back/later' may seem to refute the claims regarding Aymara uniqueness. However, these words relate events to other events, i.e., are part of the moving-events metaphor. In fact, when before means in front of ego, it can only mean future. For instance, our future is laid out before us while our past is behind us. Parallel Aymara examples describe future days as "qhipa uru", literally 'back days', and these are sometimes accompanied by gestures to behind the speaker. The same applies to Quechua speakers, whose expression "qhipa p'unchaw" corresponds directly to Aymara "qhipa uru". Possibly, the metaphor is that the past is visible to us (in front of our eyes), while the future is not.

Lawless (2012)

Amazing film about a family - the Bondurants - defying law and all when brewing and selling moonshine all over the Franklin county and beyond. Harsh, in your face, an amazing soundtrack, and a cool story.

Good acting. Good writing, most of all.

Beck & Warby Parker presents "Song Reader"

Score album by Beck, sung by various people.

• Heaven's Ladder: definitely should listen to this one again
• The Last Polka
• Old Shanghai
• Why Did You Make Me Care
• Americ Here's My Boy
• We All Wear Cloaks - must be Jack Black, very theatrical
• Do We We Do - folk

Valeria Luiselli - "Sidewalks"

"If there is an infinite aspect to space," writes Joseph Brodsky, "it is not its expansion, but its reduction. If only because the reduction of space, oddly enough, is always more coheren. It's better structured and has more names: a cell, a closet, a grave." 

The outcome of a long-awaited first meeting is often disappointing. The same is true of an encounter with a dead person, except that there's no need to hide the disappointment: in that sense, a dead person is always more agreeable than a living one."

It is a thin, amazing book of essays. Very well suited when travelling or walking through a city, even one so familiar. Do not read it fast. Take your time. Stare out of the window. Read a few more sentences. Read them again, your thoughts wandered the last six words or so. I don't agree with every observation she makes, but most are breath taking.

the Grand Budapest Hotel

As per usual, a wonderful tale by Wes Anderson. Slapstick humour - in the best way - and fairytale visuals with a light, dancing story.

Watching his films makes me want to write. Nothing deep, nothing dark, simply butterfly feet and raindrop moments.

Inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig. Will have to look him up.

Digital Daggers - "The Devil Within"

The chorus is a bit too processed and stuffed, but the mood inbetween is cool.

Blair Crimmins - "A Demon Like Me"

swinging, sassy, New Orleans.

Repetition in rethorics

A diacope is a rethoric term meaning repetition: "my horse, my horse, a kingdom for my horse," or simply "Bond, James Bond"

An epizeuxis is the repetition of a word or phrase in immedate repetition: O horror, horror, horror [Macbeth]

tmesis: interruption of a word or phrase by another word or phrase: unbe-fucking-lievable

Waterfalls - "What is French for Oswald"

Instrumental, folk influences along with ambient trip guitars.

Heard in some neuroscience "what is science" film on Aeon Films. Currently only on bandcamp it seems.

peroration

the concluding part of a speech, typically intended to inspire enthusiasm in the audience.

John Crowley - "Ægypt"

"When he was very small he had been told the story of the man who was caught in a rainstorm and sought shelter in an old barn. He fell asleep in the hayloft, and when he woke it was deep midnight. He saw, walking on the rafters of the barn, a clowder of cats; they would walk the rafters and meet, and seem to pass a message. Then two cats met on a rafter very near where he lay hidden, and he heard one say to the other: "Tell Dildrum that Doldrum is dead." And so they parted. When the man got home that day, he told his wife what had happened, and what he had heard the cats say: "Tell Dildrum that Doldrum is dead." And on hearing that, their old family cat, dozing by the fire, leaped up with a shriek and cried out: "Then I'm to be king of the cats!" And it shot up the chimney, and was never seen again.
That story had made him shiver and wonder, and ponder for days; not the story that had been told, but the secret story within it that had not been told: the story about the cats, the secret story that had been going on all along and that no one knew but they."

Crowley has a manner of interrupting the thoughts of his characters as if he is literally following their thoughts. Also, probably related, he does not fear to repeat words and sentences. Cool technique.

The premise, or one of its premises; how outside our thoughts, our dreams, the layers of our myths, lies the cold, real world. A world bereft of dreams and thoughts. How perhaps these two worlds, ours and the physical world, are not so different after all. The universe: a safe with a combination lock, the combination hidden inside itself. But aren't we part of the universe's dust. Isn't the combination inside us, inside our stories, and the stories hiding underneath our stories?

"Renaissance ... all their scholarship, all their learning, was bent towards re-creating as best they could the past in the present, because the past had necessarily been better, wiser, less decayed than the present. And so the older an old manuscript was, the older the knowledge it contained, the better it must turn out to be, once it had been cleansed of the accretions and errors of later times: the closer to the old Golden Age."

from the introduction: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." [LP Hartley's novel "The Go-Between"]

"'It seems ... that what grants meaning in folktales and legendary narratives ... is not logical development so much as thematic repetition, the same idea or events or even the same objects recurring in different circumstances, or different objects contained in similar circumstances. ... A hero sets out ... to find a atreasure, or to free his beloved, or to capture a castle or find a garden. Every incident, every adventure that befalls him as he searches is the treasure or the beloved, the castle or the garden, repeated in different forms, like a set of nesting boxes - each of them however just as large, or no smaller, than all the others. The interpolated stories he is made to listen to only tell him his own story in another form. The pattern continues until a kind of certainty arises, a satisfaction that the story has been told often enough to seem at last to have been really told. ... Plot, logical development, conclusions prepared for by introductions, or inherent in a story's premises - logical completion as a vehicle of meaning - all that is later, not necessarily later in time, but belonging to a later, more sophisticated kind of literature. There are some interesting half-way kind of works, like  The Fairy Queene, which set up for themselves a titanic plot, an almost mathematical symmetry of structure, and never finish it: never need to finish it, because they are at heart works of the older kind, and the pattern has already arisne satisfyingly within them, the flavor is already there.'"

Bill Bryson - "the mother tongue - english and how it got that way"

The Cree Indian language has a special that [for] things just gone out of sight, while Ilocano, a tongue of the Philippines, has three words for this referring to a visible object, a fourth for things not in view and a fifth for things that no longer exist.
[The Story of Language]

"An earlier meaning of prove was to test, which makes "the exception proves the rule" suddenly make sense."

"The names of Britain's 70.000 or so pubs cover a broad range, running from the inspired to the imporbable, from the deft ot the daft. Almost any name will do so long as it is at least faintly absurd, unconnected with the name of the owner, and entirely lacking in any suggestion of drinking, conversing, and enjoying oneself. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners - this is a basic requirement of most British institutions - and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal. ... the present quirky system dates mostly from the Middle Ages, when it was deemed necessary to provide travelers, most of them illiterate, with some sort of instantly recognizable symbol."

It's a fun book, but entire chapters are dedicated to summing up examples of something strange or illogical, groundless claims are based (the Dutch preferring their "almost invariably palpably inferior" shows to British shows... Maybe, but can we have some sort of example that shows how Dutch shows are invariably palpably inferior?

onomastics: the study of names.

Ludovico Einaudi - "Uno"

A haunting sound of classical piano and soft electronic accents.

via http://8tracks.com/cephalopodface/a-future-prometheus

The Caretaker - "Patience (After Sebald)"

Instrumental, the hiss of old records, dulled piano sounds, ambient noises.

Interesting.

Maybeshewill - "Not For Want Of Trying"

typical post rock song but with a cool rant right in the middle.

Mirel Wagner - "No Death"

Found in a "Southern Gothic and swamp" playlist on 8tracks. Definitely suitable girl-with-guitar. Dark and slow and jaundiced voice.

Bersarin Quartett

Very slow, mellow, electronic soundscapes, strings. Good for writing and/or coding?

Mumford and Sons - "Broken Crown" (Babel)

I make it a juvenile point not to like any Mumford song, but this one has a certain appeal that of course I will be refusing to admit anytime.

Quotes (and something about the em dash)

"The erotic apparition of two blind children, their sockets are hollow and seem to have been filtered through with blue, the one, bigger, is holding the other by the shoulder, and they charge through the crowd with savagery, they must have terrible secrets."

from The Mausoleum of Lovers, the notebooks of Hervé Guibert (trans. Nathanael, published by Nightboat)

"Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do not take the exact amount. The exact amount is no use to me."

from Antonio Porchia’s Voices, translated by W.S. Merwin

"Literary dilettantes can be recognized by their desire to connect everything. Their products hook sentences together with logical connectives even though the logical relationship asserted by those connectives does not hold. To the person who cannot truly conceive anything as a unit, anything that suggests disintegration or discontinuity is unbearable; only a person who can grasp totality can understand caesuras. But the dash provides instruction in them. In the dash, thoughts becomes aware of its fragmentary character. It is no accident that in the era of the progressive degeneration of language, this mark of punctuation is neglected precisely insofar as it fulfills its function: when it separates things that feign a connection. All the dash claims to do now is to prepare us in a foolish way for surprises that by that very token are no longer surprising."

Adorno on the em dash

"There is a ‘black wind,’ the beshabar, a dry melancholy wind that blows northeasterly out of the Caucasus. Even such winds as these have their own merit… the clouds brandish great masses of shadow.”

Robert Louis Stevenson, as quoted by Alexander Theroux in the essay, “Black”

Walking, morphing guy animation

Strange and at times eerily scary animation of a walking guy / vertex skin, slow morphing and changing.
http://vimeo.com/85596568

Darkside - "Beats Or Pills"

Reminds me of Wax Tailor; slow, triphop like beats. Lots of sampled voices, with strange little 'stories'. Classical influences and jazz notes.

Strange and eerie places

http://butdoesitfloat.com/I-suddenly-forget-What-space-is-like-and-time-Instead-of-horizontal

Hannibal (series, season 1 & 2)

Immense and beautiful take on the characters from Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon"

The dialogues are intricate, the reversal of roles and positions really beautiful. At some point a bit too much eye candy depicting a mental state, but it never got out of hand

J. Slavenburg - "De geheime woorden - een ontdekkingstocht door vijfentwintig eeuwen gnosis"

"Ongelovige Thomas had gnosis (het Griekse woord voor kennis, inzicht) van de onzichtbare, verborgen dingen, en hoefde daarom niet te geloven. Hij wist."

"Parallelen kabbala en joodse merkawamystiek: mysticus ervaart de weg die de ziel moet gaan om Gods Troonwagen (merkawa) te aanschouwen. Dit schouwen van het goddelijke vindt pas plaats na doorgang door de zeven hemelen en een toch langs de zeven peilszalen (heikhaloth), waar wachters de opstijgende ziel de doorgang proberen te beletten. De ziel kan deze slechts dan passeren als zij de juiste antwoorden weet. Door het uitspreken van bezwerend formules (wachtwoorden) en uiterst moeilijk namen voor iedere paleiszaal, kan men tot aanschouwing van het allerhoogste komen."

namen & wachtwoorden: denk aan de trance van het opnoemen van lettergrepen van God's naam in steeds wisselende vorm?

Volgens Philo van Alexandrië: "De eerste emanatie (uitstroming) van God is de logos, hier opgevat als 'het woord van God'. Vanuit de logos zijn er ook weer vele emanaties, die tussen het goddelijk en het aardse in zweven en aangeduid worden met 'engelen'."

"We zien Wijsheid hier als hypostase (verzelfstandiging) van een kracht van God. Dit is van essentieel belang voor een beter begrip van de gnosis. Niet God zelf schiep de wereld, maar een uit hem voortvloeiende kracht, hier 'wijsheid' genoemd."

Geest heeft in zichzelf de potentie van God-de-Vader en God-De-Moeder. Uit dit krachtenveld ontstaat de Zoon, soms ook aangeduid met Christos, met logos of met nous. Het is nu deze Zoonskracht die volgens de gnostici indaalde in de mens Jezus van Nazareth tijdens zijn doop. Daar werd Jezus tot Christus (gezalfde van het licht), tot logos (de intelligentie van de Vader/Moeder), tot nous (het bewustzijn van de Geest.

De gnosis van de Rozenkruisers is niet door de laatste Karthaar (de Kartharen noemden zichzelf de "pure" christenen) aan de eerste Rozenkruiser doorgegeven. Titel "Rozenkruisers": uit een geschrift uit 1406, ene Christian Rosenkreuz, zou geleefd hebben van 1378 tot 1484 en vanaf 1406 een reis naar het Midden-Oosten hebben gemakt waar hij bij Damascus, op dezelfde plaats waar Paulus zijn visioen kreeg, een soortgelijk verschijnsel heeft meegemaakt.
Geschrift uit 1459 verhandelt zijn "(al)chemische bruiloft"), dichtvorm, vol symboliek verhaalt van een reis van zeven dagen naar de alchemische bruiloft waar de Steen der Wijzen gevonden wordt. "wortels ver terug in de oudheid liggen en omschreven kan worden als de westerse occulte traditie" schrijft Christopher McIntosh. Wellicht wilde de Duitse Johann Valentin met zijn vrienden een mythe in het leven roepen. Geheime genootschappen zijn in die tijd in Duitsland zeer geliefd.
Francis Bacon wordt er nog al eens mee in verband gebracht.

Vrijmetselarij: herkomst lopen de meningen zeer uiteen. In 1376 duikt de naam voor het eerst op, mogelijk een samentrekking van "freestone mason", de bouwgildes.
Oude handschriften wijzen uit dat al rond 1390 voor de metselaarsgilden statuten bestonden. Deze openden met een aanroep van God, werden gevolgd door rijke historische legenden die bedoeld waren het vak meer aanzien te geven, vervolgden dan met de plicthen van de vakman en de voorschriften op zedelijk terrein en sloten met een kort dankgebed aan de "Opperste Bouwmeester van het Heelal".
24 juni 1717 wordt vaak als stichtingsdatum genoemd: op die dag verenigden zich in Londen vier loges tot een grootloge.

In de 18e eeuw bestaat de geschiedenis van de vrijmetselarij en d die van het Rozenkruis uit een soms onontwarbare kluwen van genootschappen, verenigingen en broederschappen die op diverse niveaus met elkaar gelieerd waren.

Theosofie: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky wordt in het algemeen als de grondlegster van de tehosofische leer beschouwd. Zeer omstreden figuur, maar de door haar geïnitieerde theosofische beweging heeft een nauwelijks te overschatten invloed gehad op de cultuur van de late negentiende en de vroege twintigste eeuw. Vergelijkt zeer veel: gigantische hoeveelheid woord- en beggripsvergelijkingen, een overrompelende hoeveelheid oude en nieuwe bronnen. Zowel bij Velntinus als in de metafysica van de Hebreeën als in de kabbala is de allerhoogste "ongestaltig". Philo noemt de schepper, de logos, de tweede God. Kabbalisten neomen de hoogste kracht Ain-Soph, dat "niets" betekent.
De kerkvaders hebben volgens HPB deze gnostische leringen proberen af te zwakken om daarvoor in de plaats christelijke dogma's op te bouwen die de waarheid geweld aandedn. Het allerlaatste redmiddel wat hen openstond was "vervalsing".
Volgens HPB: De duivel is een uitvinding van de kerkvaders die uit de gewone "schaduwzijde" het principe van de kwade kracht vormden en deze tot een gestalte maakten. Datzelfde geldt voor de slang. In plaats van vuige verleider is dit altijd het symbool voor wijsheid geweest.
De "eeuwige wet," stelt HPB, ontvouwt alles volgens een zevenvoudig beginsel.
Een van die mysteriën, schrijft HPB, is dat van de goddelijke hermafrodiet. Dit beeld komen we in vele culturen tegen en staat, volgens HPB, voor het diepe besef dat er voor de splitsing in mannelijk en vrouwelijk sprake moest zijn van een androgyne eenhoud: een God-de-Vader/God-de-Moeder. in die zin zou Adam ook niet als mannelijk persoon zijn bedoeld maar representatief zijn voor de totale mensheid. Jehova zag Blavatsky als een samengestelde naam die mannelijk leven en vrouwelijk leven betekent. Vanuit de androgyniteit ontstaan de geslachten. Volgens het boek Henoch is Adam nog androgyn. Het was Enos, de soon van Seth, die volgens HPB het eerste Ras was dat op de "huidige gebruikelijke manier is geboren uit man en vrouw". Volgelingen spraken graag over Christus als een avatar, maar de Oostenrijkse theosoof Rudolf Steiner had andere gedachten: de Christusindaling was eenmalig en uniek. Deze kwestie (de "kwestie Krishnamurti" was de definitieve breuk en vanaf die tijd heette de beweging van Steiner en diens volgelingen de Anthroposophie.
Vanuit de theosofische beweging een kerkelijke tak: de Vrij katholieke kerk.

Venetian Snares - "My Love Is a Bulldozer"

Strange mix of rock, strings, then suddenly leaping head first into mad crazy dubstep chaos. The word gothic comes to mind.

random swamp songs

8tracks:
http://8tracks.com/romancek/the-road-had-turned-to-mud

Hiss Golden Messenger - "Jesus Shot me in the head" : cool
Manchester Orchestra - "Virgin" : awesome! film score, choir, punky

Dead Man's Bones - "Lose your soul" : not a must-look-into, with its child choir, but still nice rhythm and good speed.

The Handsome Family again: "The Bottomless Hole" : bit too many uplifting chords, quite country, still ok.

Danny Schmidt - "This Too Shall Pass"

Folk. Heard on the Nightvale podcast. Pretty good, with the minor chords.

Not everything is as good, but "Two Timing Bank Robber's Lament" and "Firestorm", both from the "instead the forest rose to sing" album are good.

Thé Lau - "Platina Blues"

Mooie plaat, vooral de trillende stemmen in pt 2, met het strakke ritme van de contrabas.

Pollyanna hypothesis

The idea that people tend to use positive words more often the negative ones is now known as the Pollyanna hypothesis, after a 1913 novel by Eleanor Porter about a girl who tries to find something to be glad about in every situation. But although widely known, attempts to confirm the hypothesis have all been relatively small studies and so have never been thought conclusive.

Now a group of researchers at Computational Story Lab at the University of Vermont have repeated this work on a corpus of 100,000 words from 24 languages representing different cultures around the world. They first measured the frequency of words in each language and then paid native speakers to rate how they felt about each word on a scale ranging from the most negative or sad to the most positive or happy. The results reveal that all the languages show a clear bias towards positive words with Spanish topping the list, followed by Portuguese and then English. Chinese props up the rankings as the least happy. They go on to use these findings as a 'lens' through which to evaluate how the emotional polarity changes in novels in various languages and have set up a website where anybody can explore novels in this way . The finding that human language has universal positive bias could have a significant impact on the relatively new science of sentiment analysis on social media sites such as Twitter. If there is a strong bias towards positive language in the first place, and this changes from one language to another, then that is obviously an important factor to take into account.

(I wonder though; have they taken into account people prefer to write & read about positive things?)

George Ezra - "Wanted On Voyage"

A Jack Johnson style of singing and music, but more upbeat, and some fun yodely ("Cassy 'O") songs. "Budapest" sounded very familiar, or I have listened more often to this album than I realize.

"Spectacular Rival" has some great strings / film score moments.

Peter Matthew Bauer - "Istanbul Field Recording" (Liberation!)

Strange haunting piano play, with outside sounds and noises.

The rest of the album does not do that much to me, but this is eerie.

kinetic typography

in a rush again..


Of course, Lover's Walk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyuleKKSgyE

Taylor Mali
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VESBAhrzdwI

Krampfhaft - "Before We Leave"

Strange, clicksy music. Support of Gaslamp Killer by the way. Many nature sounds. Thinking of that Pogo? song which rehashed Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Woodkid & Metropole Orchestra

Awesome concert of Woodkid with the Metropole Orchestra. Isn't he featured on soundtracks yet?

Particularly the moment when the floor started to vibrate, and when the audience kept singing, pulling them along in the song, were magnificent.

London Grammar - "Nightcall (LG re-edit)"

Pretty ok cover of Kavinsky.

John Legend - "Who Did That To You?"

Rough. Typical of Quentin Tarantino to use this in Django Unchained.

Riziero Ortolani - "I Giorni Dell'ira"

Enjoyable western music. Perhaps not for long, but one song.

Ragtime and jazz

Cakewalk (early 1800s) originally by the blacks on the plantations, imitating and ridiculing their masters.

Games of cakewalk: young men start walking towards the cake. The one who cakewalks the best, "that takes the cake"

Ragtime =~ syncopation
Jazz =~ syncopation and improvisation

Rachmaninov's Prelude in C sharp minor: "ragtimed" : "Nice melody, but the rhythm is all wrong"
original: http://grooveshark.com/s/Pr+lude+In+C+Sharp+Minor+Op+3/3KW0S9?src=5
ragtime: http://grooveshark.com/s/Russian+Rag/2M3MRc?src=5

New Orleans Jazz ~~ (classic?) Dixieland
During cakewalk: the winner was the "chezzboll" (?), chezz being chair or throne. Slowly changed into jazz?

New Orleans funeral: sad when moving to the graveyard. At the grave side, hysteria, turning into 'happy' music on the way back. All quite scripted, up to the hystery.

This Dixieland already existed in the 1890s. Why suddenly move East in 1917?

The marines in New Orleans often had trouble getting back to their ships in time. Presidential verdict was issued, closing down storyville. Suddenly hundreds of jazz musicians were out of a job, and spread out over the United States.

Swing existed long before it was named that way. In the 20s and 30s, that music style was called big band jazz. But when the song "you ain't got a thing if you ain't got that swing" became popular, so did the phrase. Suddenly, "canary" didn't just mean a yellow bird, but a female singer. A "cat" wasn't just a feline animal, but a swing musician. "Corny," from the farm, was oldfashioned, while "groovy" - the needle being in the groove of the record, meant hip.

In the 30s, swing was big business. Bebop / bop came from a longing to a more austere, serious approach. It was intentionally made difficult to keep the 'easy' lazy players out.

Then, in the 50s, cool jazz emerged, from a wish to be more relaxed as compared to bop. It was soft, it was perfect to read out loud or recite poetry over. It was the music of the beatniks.

Also, in the 50s: modern jazz. Both a generic and a specific phrase.

Fusion jazz; is jazz-rock. Started with Miles Davis' album "Bitches Brew" from 1969. Some of the people he worked with, left him the following year to start a group called Weather Report which made a very successfull album in 1971: I Sing The Body Electric.

Soul jazz: in every jazz era, when musicians went back to their roots, they came back to blues. Soul jazz is just that: blues chords.

In Dixieland times, when there were no microphones, the bass - as an instrument - could not be heard, and a tuba was used. This faded out when things became electric.

Murder by Death - "Comin' Home"

Hints of Nick Cave, of Americana and Johnny Cash.

to search for on 8tracks or grooveshark: dark americana , southern gothic

Richard Misrach

Amazing photography. Inspired the opening sequence of True Detective.

http://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/petrochemical-america

Manon Uphoff - "De Vanger | De Bastaard"

Goede verhalen. Niet enorm aangrijpend, maar leuk om te lezen. Bookclub met schrijfster was fantastisch. Ze gaf aan hoe in de Vanger het werkelijke hoofdpersonage de relatie was, en niet de twee mensen. Had ik niet beseft.

True Detective

Amazing series, swamp, dark, enticing. Can't wait for the next season.

Great build up of characters and their personal issues compared to the big cases.

Bearfoot - "Doors And Window"

Soft, hinting at girl-with-guitar ++

Had this tagged as 'must look into', but most of her stuff is the suave country girl-with-guitar that doesn't do much for.

Handsome Family - "Far From Any Road"

openings song of True Detective, haunting, americana

Also great "the White Dog" from "Twilight", quite slow.

Sarah Slean - "When Another Midnight"

Curious mix of alt-folk and Shivaree swavy singing

Her rendition of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" is wrong though, very wrong.

semicompatibilism

Semicompatibilism is the doctrine that causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility, even if casual determinism rules out freedom to do otherwise.

humans an accidental victim of bacteria

Amazing read about how bacteria often don't target us, just accidently might infect us. We are young bystanders in a war of a million years old.

http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/bacteria-kill-us-by-accident/

David Gilbert - "Here's the story"

A short in the New Yorker and pretty amazing at that. Man and woman, each for their own reasons in a bad relationship, meet, twice, and a spark flies. 85% of the story is a side by side of their lives, almost never touching. Simple and beautiful. Elegant story telling.

Alex Banks - "Illuminate"

Deep house + glitch-hop, poppy... says 3voor12. okay.
Not bad. "Phosporus" sounds a bit like the cut-up of Disney's Alice in Wonderland by that P-... guy (one word)

Throwing Snow - "Mosaic"

Electronica, dubstep (?), it doesn't feel like techno. Haunting female voices, but no careful music.

Rival Sons - "Great Western Valkyrie"

Classic rock, 60's and 70's influences, with the screaming guitars and twisted voices.

Melancholy: "Rich and the Poor"

Muse - "The 2nd Law Isolated System"

Haven't heard this in ages. Nice.

John Murphy - "1-2-3-4" (single)

Very film score.

Beaty Heart - "Seafood"

3voor12 describes them as light psychedelic, poppy.

"Seafood" could go straight into a Pixar short.

playlist 8tracks, electronic

http://8tracks.com/allenwalker/4067373

Quite good.

recapping older posts

Simon & Garfunkel - "Dangling Conversation", beautiful lyrics, so sad.

Nits - "Adieu Sweet Bahnhof", amazingly sad and beautiful dance.

Nine Inch Nails @ HMH

Pretty awesome, both the music and the show.

word: salmon

UK-specific?

To be a salmon: to commute against the major direction.

Tom Waits - "Ol' 55"

Alain de Botton - "De architectuur van het geluk"

"Wellicht moeten we een onuitwisbare smet op ons leven hebbben geworpen, met de verkeerde persoon zijn getrouwd, een dierbare hebben verloren of tot op middelbare leeftijd hebben volhard in een onbevredigende carrière voordat architectuur merkbaar vat op ons kan krijgen; want als we zeggen dat we worden 'geraakt' door een gebouw, zinspleen we op een bitterzoet besef van het contrast tussen de hoogstaande kwaliteiten die in dat bouwwerk besloten liggen en de triestere, grotere werkelijkheid waarin het zich onmiskenbaar bevindt. We krijgen bij de aanblik van schoonheid een brok in de keel door het impliciete inzicht dat het geluk waarop die schoonheid zinspeelt de uitzondering is."

Volstrekt nog niet uitgelezen. Was niet al te makkelijk / aantrekkelijk om er doorheen te komen. Wordt vervolgd.

Mark Lanegan - "Autumn Leaves"

He has a good voice for this song, but it is a bit too stringy filmish. Should be a bit more introvert, in my opinion.

Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Emmylou Harris - "So You'll Aim Towards the Sky" (Lawless OST)

It says "the bootleggers featuring Emmylou Harris", but isn't it Nick Cave & Warren Ellis.

Oh hell, label them all, slap a sticker on the disk and send it off.

Erin Morgenstern - "The Night Circus"

A style like "Mechanique", hints of Daniel Mason. Presetn time writing, where often in a paragraph time flows fast and people are described by their actions, or actions put upon them. The end of chapters or half chapters are often one or two-liners, not exactly twisting the story line, but emphasizing an unexpected element, negating something one might have assumed.

Now finished... I liked it a lot. There's some comments on story, but hardly anything that matters. Cool book. Go read.

Room 237

"I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter."

Amazing documentary about people seeing the craziest of things in "The Shining." From the native American Indians to WW II, to subliminal sensual imagery.

"The elevator is spewing forth the blood of indians"

I'm not quoting correctly, but still. Amazing watch. Don't forget your tin foil hat.

Laura Marling - "What He Wrote" (I Speak Because I can)

Singersongwriter. Soft, close harmony.

I know her already??

Dark Dark Dark - "Who Needs Who" (Who Needs Who)

Found through pandora's Woodkid station, though I do not remember which song.

Intriguing music. Pop. Jazzy. Saxophone-ish.

Graeme Revell - "Aeon Flux OST"

Him of the rejected Troy score.... This OST is a good mix of fast beats and slow string instruments. An eerie edge to it, as an insane violist.

Röyksopp & Robyn - "Do It Again" (single)

Catchy enough.

The National - "The Rains of Castamere" (The Rains Of Castamere (single))

Game of Thrones thing.

I might have skipped this by name, but it's nice. Slow. Filmish.

The Dustbowl Revival - "Western Passage" (The Dustbowl Revival)

Gypsy with a hint of mariachi. Particularly the beginning is rather filmish.

Zach Lupetin & the Dustbowl Revival - "Devil" (You Can't Go Back To The Garden Of Eden)

Swinging, inbetween Jewish and gypsy.

All Is Lost (2013)

Almost silent film with Robert Redford as an unfortunate sea farer whose boat hits a container. Then things get worse.

Sound was very good: sometimes cutting the wind or rain or water sounds off. Partly due to a half defective headphones, but still.

Quite impressive.

misc (Mirel Wagner)

Listening because of notes on this blog.

• Mirel Wagner - "To the Bone" - indeed american gothic

James Holden - "Idiot" (the idiots are winning)

Electronic bleeps. Think Philip Glass on speed.

Etienne Jaumet - "Repeat Again After Me (original mix)"

Droning beat and saxophone, dark evening and a club.

Malcolm Middleton - "Autumn" (Into The Woods)

Singersong writer. Nice.

Half of Arab Strap?

Le Masque - "L'Uomo Felice"

Surprisingly enough, found on youtube. Just thought it prudent to make a note of Le Masque in my list of music.

Aesop Rock - "No City"

Hiphop. So-so.

Haxan Cloak - (misc)

- Consumed
- The Drop (ok)

Ok enough drone, nothing crazy or amazing. Minor chords.

Hunter S. Thompson - "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream"

"My blood is too thick for California: I have never been able to properly explain myself in this climate. Not with the soaking sweats... wild red eyeballs and trembling hands."

"Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive lik a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas. To relax, as it were, in the womb of the desert sun. Just roll the roof back and screw it on, grease the face with white tanning butter and move out with the music at top volume, and at least a pint of ether."

"But our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country - but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that."

The Pussywarmers & Réka - "I Saw Them Leaving"

Surfpop, psychfolk, blues, from Switserland.

It's crazy but pretty nice. Has a bit of a surf vibe, but not much.

Lydia Davis - "A Double Negative"

At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.



(not all shorts in the collection are as good)

We Are What We Are (2013)

Based on the film "Somos lo que hay".

As an old family tradition, the wife or eldest daugther has been killing a girl/woman to eat once per year.

Pretty good, grim American gothic horror story. Staying original while understanding the genre. The montage of the flashback to 1782 with current times was really well done. Interesting ending. No dragging it out, either.

Diverse Artiesten - "De Doe Maar Remixen"

Niet slecht, maar het toont vooral hoe sterk de originele nummers nog altijd zijn.

Wu Xia (Dragon Swordsmen, 2013)

Gentle house father turns out to be a martial expert. Nice "silly looking fight" between him and two goofs is later revealed to be all planned out by him. Strange rhythm of telling, slow and fast, not in the usual style.

Fun enough, not amazing.

Nicholas Hooper - "In noctem"

Very filmish music, think Danny Elfman Christmas twinkling, choir based.

The Machine (2013)

Scientist tries to recreate human nature in cyborgs while working for the Ministry of Defense, ultimately trying to find / create a program that will save his daughter's life.

Tones of Blade Runner (particularly in the music) and Terminator of course. Stylistic not extremely new but well done, the 'red hum' of her internals humming through her body while dancing was well done.

Enjoyed it.

fordite / detroit agate

Fordite, also known as Detroit agate, is old automobile paint which has hardened sufficiently to be cut and polished.^[1] It was formed from the build up of layers of enamel paint slag on tracks and skids on which cars were hand spray-painted (a now automated process), which have been baked numerous times.^[2] In recent times the material has been recycled as eco-friendly jewelry

Revelations 9:6

And in those days shall men seek death,

and shall not find it;

and shall desire to die;

and death shall flee from them.

Book of Revelations 9:6

Shiny Toy Guns - "Major Tom"

2000s California group but sounds 80s. Fun enough.

Röyksopp ft Jamie Irrepressible - "Something in my heart"

Ok. Voice of Jamie Irrepressible (formerly Jamie McDermott) reminds me of Antony.

Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld - "Mi Scusi" and "Alone with the Moon"

Teho Teardo and Blixa Bargeld (latter ex-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds & Einstürzende Neubauten frontman (both??)

Particularly "Mi Scusi" is beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXzcBpIGKas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQhMiiHowCg

shibumi

the ability to exercise authority without domination and to know the exquisite refinement that can lay beneath mundane appearance.

postprandial (followed by noun)

happening immediately after a meal

Top of the Lake (season 1) (2013)

(fortunately, there seems to be no season 2. It would not make sense.)

I thought - I was sure - I wrote about this. Anyway. Good 12 ep series. Keeps you captivated up to the very end. Pretty harsh and in your face, in a - strangely enough - gentle way.

Shirley Jackson - "The Lottery"

Famous short story (in America). Don't understand why I have not logged this before.

Since it's so famous, you can guess where it ends up, but it is still phenomenally written.

ten good ("the best") sentences

Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”

This sentence is near the end of the novel, a buildup to its more famous conclusion. It begins with something we can “see,” vanished trees. There is a quick tension between the natural order and the artificial one, a kind of exploitation of the land that is as much part of our cultural heritage as the Myth of the West and Manifest Destiny. “Vanished” is a great word. “The Great Gatsby” sounds like the name of a magician, and he at times vanishes from sight, especially after the narrator sees him for the first time gazing out at Daisy’s dock. What amazes me about this sentence is how abstract it is. Long sentences don’t usually hold together under the weight of abstractions, but this one sets a clear path to the most important phrase, planted firmly at the end, “his capacity for wonder.”

I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
—James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”

This sentence also comes near the end of the novel, but is not the very end. It has the feel of an anthem, a secular credo, coming from Stephen Dedalus, who, in imitation of Joyce himself, feels the need to leave Ireland to find his true soul. The poet is a maker, of course, like a blacksmith, and the mythological character Dedalus is a craftsman who built the labyrinth and constructed a set of wings for his son Icarus. The wax in those wings melted when Icarus flew too close to the sun.  He plunged into the sea to his death.  This is where the magic of a single word comes into play:  “forge.”  For the narrator it means to strengthen metal in fire.  But it also means to fake, to counterfeit, perhaps a gentle tug at Stephen’s hubris.

This private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees—partly because they believed that if the Americans came back, they would bomb only buildings; partly because the foliage seemed a center of coolness and life, and the estate’s exquisitely precise rock gardens, with their quiet pools and arching bridges, were very Japanese, normal, secure; and also partly (according to some who were there) because of an irresistible, atavistic urge to hide under leaves.
—John Hersey, “Hiroshima”

Great writers fear not the long sentence, and here is proof.  If a short sentence speaks a gospel truth, then a long one takes us on a kind of journey.  This is best done when subject and verb come at the beginning, as in this example, with the subordinate elements branching to the right.  There is room here for an inventory of Japanese cultural preferences, but the real target is that final phrase, an “atavistic urge to hide under leaves,” even in the shadow of the most destructive technology ever created, the atomic bomb.

It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.
—Toni Morrison, “Sula”

I did not know this sentence, but I love it.  It expresses a kind of synesthesia, a mixing of the senses, in which a sound can also be experienced as a shape.  Add to this effect the alliteration of “loud” and “long,” and the concentric movement of sound in “circles and circles of sorrow,” and we have something truly memorable.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”

Who could not admire a sentence with such a clear demarcation beginning, middle, and end?  Thank you, commas. Only a single word – “neighbor” – has more than one syllable.  Austen gives us 19 words that add up to 66 letters, an astonishing efficiency of fewer than four letters per word.  But this math is invisible to the meaning. She begins by asking what at first seems like a metaphysical question: “for what do we live.” The social commentary that follows brings us crashing down to earth in a phrase, and carries us home with a delicious sense of revenge, a kind of sophisticated punch line.

It was the United States of America in the cold late spring of 1967, and the market was steady and the G.N.P. high and a great many articulate people seemed to have a sense of high social purpose and it might have been a spring of brave hopes and national promise, but it was not, and more and more people had the uneasy apprehension that it was not.

—Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”

Didion wrote a New Yorker essay on Hemingway that included a brilliant close reading of the first paragraph of A Farewell to Arms.  There is something suggestive of that passage here, a march of time constructed from the repetition of the smallest words:  the, it, and.  Then comes a wonderful dropping off, as in a steep waterfall, as meaning flows down a stream of optimism with phrases like “sense of high social purpose” and “spring of brave hopes and national promise,” only to fall off the edge and crash upon the boulders of “it was not.”  Not once but twice.

Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation.—Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”

Donald Murray used to preach the 2-3-1 rule of emphasis.  Place the least emphatic words in the middle.  The second most important go at the beginning.  The most important nails the meaning at the end.  Hemingway offers a version of that here. A metaphor of flowing water is framed by two abstractions Anger and Obligation.  That fact that the metaphor is drawn from the action of the narrative makes it more effective.

There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.
—Charles Dickens, ”Nicholas Nickleby”

Older sentences feel more ornate.  Long gone from our diction is the “euphuistic” style of long intricately balanced sentences that showed off the brilliance of the writer, but asked too much of the reader. But in Dickens the sentence as argument feels just right.  In short, it says that poor men cannot hope for justice.  It does so by an act of civic demythology, hitting the target again with the memorable final phrase “the furniture of their pockets.”

In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor.
—Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried”
Again we see how a longer sentence can flow from the work done near the beginning: “he was like America itself.”  Such a simile always evokes an instant question from the reader:  “How was he like America itself?”  (How hot is it, Johnny?)  The answer combines description and allegory.  He is a living microcosm of American strength and weakness.  In an unusual turn, the most interesting element rests in the middle with “a roll of fat jiggling at his belly.”

There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child.
—Vladimir Nabokov, “Lolita”

This sentence has the ring of familiarity to it, perhaps Nabokov’s riff on King Lear: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” Lolita may have more “best sentences” than any work on this list, but I’m not sure this is one of them. I worry about any sentence that uses an adverb for a crutch. “Cruel” is not enough for Humbert Humbert. He must magnify the cruelty with a word – atrociously — that denotes wickedness and cruelty.  It’s not the child’s fault she is adored and yet this makes her an atrocity.  Now that I have thought it through, it sounds exactly like Humber’s self-delusions after all.  Perfect.

Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.
—Truman Capote, ”In Cold Blood”

We used to call this a “periodic” sentence, that is, one in which the main action occurs at the period.  The Brits have a better name for that mark of punctuation:  the full stop. Any word that comes right before it gets special attention.  That effect is magnified by the boxcar alignment of those opening similes, along with the shift from things we can see to something more abstract – drama.  Which never stopped there, of course.  Until it did.

Bob Wayne - "20 Miles To Juarez"

Country. Not always, perhaps not too catchy, but some nice songs.

• "20 Miles To Juarez" : duet? ok.
• "Dope Train": ok

... until "ACAB", which sounds sadly WASPy.

Her

Wonderful film about a man falling in love with his A.I. OS. Beautiful storytelling.

Arcade Fire did the soundtrack, or parts of it.

Elysium

Bad. Illogical script, bad acting (Jodie Foster!), stupid computer logic.

Buy the ticket, take the ride

Good documentary on the good doctor.

Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision

Ralph Steadman is the guy who drew the amazing pictures for Thompson's articles.

Cool documentary. Had seen it before, in CA, but still rings true.

Eels - "The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett"

New album is so so, but the slow doom-laden "Dead Reckoning" does hit a nerve.

A.M. Homes - "This book will save your life"

So-so. The few L.A., Santa Monica and Escondido references were amusing to read. Nothing really good though.

A.M. Homes - "The End of Alice"

Haunting book through its subject, intriguing story telling. Liked it a lot.

Turns out the guy is, in a way, not as evil as he seems / pretends to be: he cannot have done the same thing to other girls: he was captured immediately after Alice.

Joseph Conrad - "Victory"

Read soon after Heart of Darkness, and still in Africa, so the idea of reading his Russian story did not appeal. Liked it, though it lacked - for me - the enticing darkness of his masterpiece.


"The islands are very quiet. One sees them lying about, clothed in their dark garments of leaves, in a great hush of silver and azure, where the sea without murmurs meets the sky in a ring of magic stillness. A sort of smiling somnolence broods over them, the very voices of their people are soft and subdued, as if afraid to break some protecting spell."

"But there is an unholy fascination in systematic noise. [...] The Zangiacomo band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of violence; and that impression was so strong that it seemed marvellous to see the people sitting so quietly on their chairs, drinking so calmly out of their glasses, and giving no signs of distress, anger, or fear."

"For the use of reason is to justify the obscure desires that move our conduct, impulses, passons, prejudices, and follies, and also our fears."

"For every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end."

"Man on this earth is an unforeseen accident which does not stand close investigation."

"He was really a decent fellow, he was quite unfitted for this world, he was a failure, a good man cornered - a sight for the gods, for no decent mortal cares to look at that sort."

"A woman in a problem is an incalculable quantity, even if you have something to go upon in forming your guess."
 

Peter Biddlecombe - "French Lessons in Africa"

"The heat is intense. You're struck by the desolation, the misery and horror of the place. For this is Ouidah, the once notorious lave capital of the world, which supplied all the men for the mines and plantations of Brazil, Haiti and the Southern States. Scratch a Brazilian, they say, and you will find Ouidah, the Portuguese for help, written on his soul. Ouidah is an African Auschwitz."

the crazy system of French banks and how they, long after 'releasing' their colonies, still hold a grasp over francophone Africa by means of its currency.

"Everybody in French Africa loves a Peugeot; Peugeots can take the most punishing roads, often at fairly high speeds and - this will come as a surprise to devotees of the Land Rover - with the airconditioning working beautifully. Gone are the days when you saw British cars all oer French Africa. An old Range Rover, abandoned in the centre of Lomé, stayed there for three years before it was finally taken away by the authorities. In all that time, nobody touched it; nobody took the wheels, or anything out of the engine. Nobody wants British cars. They are not built for the roads, not even Land Rovers, never mind Range Rovers. They are as uncomfortable as hell and the air-conditioning never works."

"It was a genuine African conversation, a cross between a union negotiation and a diplomatic two-step. You ask a question or make a proposal. The African disagrees or is uncertain, but doesn't want to offend you so he agrees. But it's a formality, he uses symbol words or codes. Like a diplomat saying yes when he means perhaps and perhaps when he means no. He has observed the rules of courtesy, but has conveyed his true feelings. The problem, of course, is interpreting the signals. But in spite of what many people say, this is not a particularly African approach. Cynical Europeans will always tell you, 'Ask an African if he can arrange for the sun to rise in the south and he will say, No problem. How can you deal with people like that?' Invariably they are the people who say 'We must have lunch some time' and do not mean it, or 'The cheque is in the post'. When the Japanese do it we say they are inscrutable. When the Arabs do it we go into raptures about their courtesy and hospitality. Why should the Africans be criticised so much for saying things they don't mean?"

His continuous phonetic writing of somebody's German accent in the Cameroon section is irritating, as well as the never ceasing literal french translations.

"Baoule, like all the tribes along the Coast, are hooked on gold. But as far as I can gather they are the only ones who value gold dust more than nuggets, ingots or whatever. They even developed their own elaborate system of weighing the dust with special scales they balanced on their fingers and different weights for different transactions. Female weights were used for uying or lending money; Male weights, which were a little heavier, for sellin or repaying a loan. The difference between the two weights was, of course, the profit or interest on a loan. Then they had 'royal wights' which were heavier still. Here the difference was, in effect, a tax levied by the chief on the tribe.
The weights were based on animals or fish and each had a different meaning depending on who was using it. A weight shaped like a cock meant 'He might look proud, but he has still started life as an egg.' This was generally used by moneylenders as a reminder to clients that they still owed them money which might well have some connection which the Mafia's habit of stuffing their victims' mouths with baby chicks. An elephant weight meant, 'Follow in the footsteps of the elephant and you won't get soaked by the dew.' In other words, I suppose, stick with the boss and he will look after you. A crocodile weight meant, 'If you're in the middle of a river you don't insult the crocodile.' Two crocodiles, however, meant, 'Every man can swallow but we only have one stomach,' which sounds like a nice way of sayin don't rock the boat or you're going to get eaten."