Friday, 20 March 2015
A Reminiscent Drive - "Smokey Mountains" (Ambrosia)
Amazing instrumental song with a wandering saxophone, strange discordant notes and a slow build up.
Daft Punk - "Giurgio by Moroder" (Random Access Memory)
Listening to some Daft Punk this morning, I realized I'm not a big fan of their biggest hits. At all. Their work on Tron is great, and I did like this song as well. Should try the whole album.
Thursday, 19 March 2015
Italo Calvino - "Cosmicomics"
"actually, this was the first opportunity I had had to think something; or I should say: to think something had never been possible, first because there were no things to think about, and second because signs to think of them by were lacking, but from the moment there was that sign, it was possible for something thinking to think of a sign, and therefore that one, in the sense that the sign was the thing you could think about and also the sign of the thing thought, namely, itself."
"Our father's cry 'We're hitting something!' a meaningless expression (since before then nothing had ever hit anything, you can be sure), but one that took on meaning at the very moment it was uttered,"
"to think something had never been possible... and also the sign of the thing though, namely itself"... where a thought of something *is* that very something.
Sunday, 15 March 2015
Rurôni Kenshin: Meiji kenkaku roman tan ("Rurouni Kenshin") (2012)
Not anime, this is the first of three life action films of the anime of the same name.
Quite good. The main character is believable, lots of details (his running, his talking, his shy, open nearly silly attitude when not fighting) are copied quite well from the anime. Good fights, too.
The only thing I missed was the analyzing of fighting styles during the fighting. They probably feared it'd put all but the true fans off.
Quite good. The main character is believable, lots of details (his running, his talking, his shy, open nearly silly attitude when not fighting) are copied quite well from the anime. Good fights, too.
The only thing I missed was the analyzing of fighting styles during the fighting. They probably feared it'd put all but the true fans off.
Gary Lutz - "The sentence is a lonely place"
Lecture delivered by the short-story writer Gary Lutz to the students of Columbia University's writing program in New York on September 25, 2008. (From believermag.com)
"... a word is matter, that it exists in tactual materiality, that is has a cubic bulk. Only on the page is it flat and undensified. In the mouth and in the mind it is three-dimensional, and there are parts that shoot out from it or sink into its syntactic surround."
"the sort of sentence that, even when liberated from its receiving context, impresses itself upon the eye and the ear as a totality, an omnitude, unto itself."
"... that the words inside the sentence must behave as if they were destined to belong together - as if their separation from each other would deprive the parent story or novel, as well as the readerly world, of something life-bearing and essential. ... The words in the sentence must bear some physical and sonic resemblance to each other ... The sentence feels filled in from end to end; there are no vacant segments along its length, no pockets of unperforming or underperforming verbal matter."
"You might come to realize that a single vowel already present in the sentence should be released to run through the consonantal frameworks of certain other prominent words in the sentence, or you might realize that the consonantal infrastructure of one word should be duplicated in another word, but with a different vowel impounded in each structure."
[analysis of "acutely felt, clearly flat" of Christine Schutt.]
[analysis of "Here is the house at night, lit up tall and tallowey" by Christine Schutt.]
[analysis of "An accident isn't necessarily ever over." by Diane Williams]
"Make sure that the stressed syllables in a sentence outnumber the unstressed syllables as in Don DeLillo's "He did not direct a remark that was hard and sharp." or Christine Schutt's "None of what kept time once works."
"we need not shy away from composing an occasional sentence entirely of monosyllabic words, as Barry Hannah's "I roam in the past for my best mind" and "He's been long on my list of shits in the world," and as Ben Marcus does in "They were hot there, and cold there, and some had been born there, and most had died."
"Unless you have good reason not to do so, end your sentence with the wham and bang of a stressed syllable."
"Give force to your sentences by stationing the subject at the very beginning instead of delaying the subject until an introductory phrase of a dependend clause has first had its dribbling say."
"Avail yourself of alliteration - as long as it remains ungimmicky, unobtrusive, even subliminal. Such repetition can be soothing and stabilizing, especially in a sentence whose content and emotional gusts are anything but."
"Take advantage of assonance. Keeping a single vowel in circulation through most of the conspicuous words will give a sentence another kind of sonic consummation ... as Sam Lipsyte does with three short u's in 'You could touch for a couple of bucks'"
"You can even divide a sentence into two or more acoustical zones and let a single vowel prevail in each zone. Here is a three-zone sentence by Don DeLillo: 'There were evening streaks in the white of the eye, a sense of blood sun.'"
"Press one part of speech into service as another, as Don DeLillo does in 'She was always maybeing' (and adverb has been recruited for duty as a verb) and as Barry Hannah does in 'Westy is colding off like the planet' (an adjective has been enlisted for verbified purpose as well). A variation is to take an intransitive verb (the sort of verb that can't abide a direct object) and put it in motion as a transitive verb (whose very nature it is to enclasp a direct object). That is what Fiona Maazel is up to with the verb collide, which abandoned all transitive use ages ago, in her sentence 'Often, at the close of a recovery meeting, as we make a circle and join hands, I'll note the odds of these people finding each other in this gropu; our sundry pasts and principles; the entropy that collides addicts like so many molecules.'"
"... a word is matter, that it exists in tactual materiality, that is has a cubic bulk. Only on the page is it flat and undensified. In the mouth and in the mind it is three-dimensional, and there are parts that shoot out from it or sink into its syntactic surround."
"the sort of sentence that, even when liberated from its receiving context, impresses itself upon the eye and the ear as a totality, an omnitude, unto itself."
"... that the words inside the sentence must behave as if they were destined to belong together - as if their separation from each other would deprive the parent story or novel, as well as the readerly world, of something life-bearing and essential. ... The words in the sentence must bear some physical and sonic resemblance to each other ... The sentence feels filled in from end to end; there are no vacant segments along its length, no pockets of unperforming or underperforming verbal matter."
"You might come to realize that a single vowel already present in the sentence should be released to run through the consonantal frameworks of certain other prominent words in the sentence, or you might realize that the consonantal infrastructure of one word should be duplicated in another word, but with a different vowel impounded in each structure."
[analysis of "acutely felt, clearly flat" of Christine Schutt.]
[analysis of "Here is the house at night, lit up tall and tallowey" by Christine Schutt.]
[analysis of "An accident isn't necessarily ever over." by Diane Williams]
"Make sure that the stressed syllables in a sentence outnumber the unstressed syllables as in Don DeLillo's "He did not direct a remark that was hard and sharp." or Christine Schutt's "None of what kept time once works."
"we need not shy away from composing an occasional sentence entirely of monosyllabic words, as Barry Hannah's "I roam in the past for my best mind" and "He's been long on my list of shits in the world," and as Ben Marcus does in "They were hot there, and cold there, and some had been born there, and most had died."
"Unless you have good reason not to do so, end your sentence with the wham and bang of a stressed syllable."
"Give force to your sentences by stationing the subject at the very beginning instead of delaying the subject until an introductory phrase of a dependend clause has first had its dribbling say."
"Avail yourself of alliteration - as long as it remains ungimmicky, unobtrusive, even subliminal. Such repetition can be soothing and stabilizing, especially in a sentence whose content and emotional gusts are anything but."
"Take advantage of assonance. Keeping a single vowel in circulation through most of the conspicuous words will give a sentence another kind of sonic consummation ... as Sam Lipsyte does with three short u's in 'You could touch for a couple of bucks'"
"You can even divide a sentence into two or more acoustical zones and let a single vowel prevail in each zone. Here is a three-zone sentence by Don DeLillo: 'There were evening streaks in the white of the eye, a sense of blood sun.'"
"Press one part of speech into service as another, as Don DeLillo does in 'She was always maybeing' (and adverb has been recruited for duty as a verb) and as Barry Hannah does in 'Westy is colding off like the planet' (an adjective has been enlisted for verbified purpose as well). A variation is to take an intransitive verb (the sort of verb that can't abide a direct object) and put it in motion as a transitive verb (whose very nature it is to enclasp a direct object). That is what Fiona Maazel is up to with the verb collide, which abandoned all transitive use ages ago, in her sentence 'Often, at the close of a recovery meeting, as we make a circle and join hands, I'll note the odds of these people finding each other in this gropu; our sundry pasts and principles; the entropy that collides addicts like so many molecules.'"
Saturday, 14 March 2015
Diff - "Second" (EP)
Wonderful country noir, sometimes reminiscent of The Murder Ballads. Gentlier, more singer-songwriter. Beautiful songs.
- Jealousy - more uptown country
- The Rider of Love: great great
Steven Hendricks - "little is left to tell"
A strange tale with many tales, in which a man with dementia recounts, or rather, still thinks, his son, to whom he told many stories, is home again.. or still? Stories in stories, with many a famous legend glued in.
Hart Crane. Fin. The boat. The airship. Mother Rabbit and her dead son, Eldest. Yasha. The three bears....
It was sometimes difficult to get through; hardly anything is explained and I think I missed many connections and references, but a very unique book and still a good read.
What story / legend is the spider "working away in the eye of the God"? Anansi?
Houses, bodies, physical constructs, morphing into each other. Stones, words, not to keep going, but structure...
"He saw himself ready to walk out the door and walk and walk and carry himself right out of life, but somehow in his rage, his how-dare-he, he saw himself in the days to come, the days that never really came, saw himself watch his weak little son cry and struggle and break down, lose all his anger, lose all his, yes, lose all his independence, and need him, give in. He saw it as the natural centrifugal process of detachment, break nd reattach again and again, until the child spins off into adulthood. If I died, if I went to war, if I left them all, if I never spoke again, if I became a statue, if I refused to hear him, if I emptied his room and throw out his clothes, if I threw out my clothes, if I changed my name, if I told him he wasn't mine. One side of a father's love is absence, the favor of disappearing, not needing and not being needed. And so it is, he thought, we enter the broken world."
"Tired chair, tired flesh, when all the books have been read."
Hart Crane. Fin. The boat. The airship. Mother Rabbit and her dead son, Eldest. Yasha. The three bears....
It was sometimes difficult to get through; hardly anything is explained and I think I missed many connections and references, but a very unique book and still a good read.
What story / legend is the spider "working away in the eye of the God"? Anansi?
Houses, bodies, physical constructs, morphing into each other. Stones, words, not to keep going, but structure...
"He saw himself ready to walk out the door and walk and walk and carry himself right out of life, but somehow in his rage, his how-dare-he, he saw himself in the days to come, the days that never really came, saw himself watch his weak little son cry and struggle and break down, lose all his anger, lose all his, yes, lose all his independence, and need him, give in. He saw it as the natural centrifugal process of detachment, break nd reattach again and again, until the child spins off into adulthood. If I died, if I went to war, if I left them all, if I never spoke again, if I became a statue, if I refused to hear him, if I emptied his room and throw out his clothes, if I threw out my clothes, if I changed my name, if I told him he wasn't mine. One side of a father's love is absence, the favor of disappearing, not needing and not being needed. And so it is, he thought, we enter the broken world."
"Tired chair, tired flesh, when all the books have been read."
Thursday, 12 March 2015
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Johnny Dowd - "That's Your Wife On The Back Of My Horse"
Very weird music. Sometimes reminds me a bit of those Crazy Clown songs by David Lynch. Less strange. Less intriguing though.
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Ebbo Kraan - "Aletta" (EP)
Mix of electronica, ambient and hiphop. Very different tracks. Cool stuff.
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Purity Ring - "Another Eternity"
Electropop, with some modern traits I'm not too fond of, but still, this is an enjoyable album. No specific songs to note.
Monday, 23 February 2015
Strange Weather
First heard David Byrne & Anna Calvi's version on KCRW, found out it is a cover of Keren Ann. And not of Marianne Faithfull's "Strange Weather", which is beautiful too...
David Byrne & Anna Calvi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylBZmqY0Oag
Marianne Faithfull:
http://grooveshark.com/s/Strange+Weather+Live/3jrLql?src=5
Keren Ann:
http://grooveshark.com/s/Strange+Weather/4MC1o4?src=5
David Byrne & Anna Calvi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylBZmqY0Oag
Marianne Faithfull:
http://grooveshark.com/s/Strange+Weather+Live/3jrLql?src=5
Keren Ann:
http://grooveshark.com/s/Strange+Weather/4MC1o4?src=5
Sunday, 22 February 2015
Michael Ondaatje - "Anil's Ghost"
"Coomaraswamy points out that before eyes are painted there is just a lump of metal or stone. But after this act, "it is thenceforward A God." ... There is a ceremony to prepare the arficer during the night before he paints. You realize, he is brought in only to paint the eyes on the Buddha image. The eyes must be painted in the morning, at five. The hour the Budha attained enlightment. The ceremonies therefore begin the night before, with recitations and decorations in the temples.
"Without the eyes there is not just blindness, there is nothing. There is no existence. The artificer brings to life sight and truth and presence. Later he will be honoured with gifts. Lands or oxen. He enters the temple doors. He is dressed like a prince, with jewellery, a sword at his waist, lace over his head. He moves forward accompanied by a second man, who carries brushes, black paint and a metal mirror.
"He climbs a ladder in front of the statue. The man with him climbs too. This has taken place for centrueis, you realize, there are records of this since the ninth century. The painter dips a brush into the paint and turns his back to the statue, so it looks as if he is about to be enfolded in the great arms. The paint is wet on the brush. The other man, facing him, holds up the mirror, and the artificer puts the brush over his shoulder and paints in the eyes without looking directly at the face. He uses just the reflection to guide him - so only the mirror receives the direct image of the glance being created. No human eye can meet the Buddha's during the process of creation. Around him the mantras continue. May thou become possessed of the fruits of deed... May there be an increase on earth and length of days... Hail, eyes!"
"His work can take an hour or less than a minute, depending on the essential state of the artist. He never looks at the eyes directly. He can only see the gaze in the mirror."
Wonderful book. Dream like, at times, though its subject is at times horrifying. High up the general reading list, and definitely high up the reading-for-writing list. The momentum that was lost, was due to my own fault of reading too many things simultaneously.
"Without the eyes there is not just blindness, there is nothing. There is no existence. The artificer brings to life sight and truth and presence. Later he will be honoured with gifts. Lands or oxen. He enters the temple doors. He is dressed like a prince, with jewellery, a sword at his waist, lace over his head. He moves forward accompanied by a second man, who carries brushes, black paint and a metal mirror.
"He climbs a ladder in front of the statue. The man with him climbs too. This has taken place for centrueis, you realize, there are records of this since the ninth century. The painter dips a brush into the paint and turns his back to the statue, so it looks as if he is about to be enfolded in the great arms. The paint is wet on the brush. The other man, facing him, holds up the mirror, and the artificer puts the brush over his shoulder and paints in the eyes without looking directly at the face. He uses just the reflection to guide him - so only the mirror receives the direct image of the glance being created. No human eye can meet the Buddha's during the process of creation. Around him the mantras continue. May thou become possessed of the fruits of deed... May there be an increase on earth and length of days... Hail, eyes!"
"His work can take an hour or less than a minute, depending on the essential state of the artist. He never looks at the eyes directly. He can only see the gaze in the mirror."
Wonderful book. Dream like, at times, though its subject is at times horrifying. High up the general reading list, and definitely high up the reading-for-writing list. The momentum that was lost, was due to my own fault of reading too many things simultaneously.
Into the Wild (2007)
Finally watched it. Very impressive film about a guy following Thoreau's advice.
Friday, 20 February 2015
Tuesday, 17 February 2015
FilosofischeStilte - "Munch Palace vol. 1"
Wonky plonk electro, some instrumental, some with hiphop-ish voices. The latter less suitable for work. From the Hague.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
The Road (2009)
Gripping film about a Man and a Boy trying to survive a post-apocalyptic dying earth. Yes, the ending is slightly Hollywood but I didn't mind that much (only... why is it not explained they were followed but never contacted? And the missing thumbs?)
Dark, desolate.
Dark, desolate.
Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Rone - "Creatures"
Good instrumental electronic sounds. Good for closing off.
- "Quitter la ville": with lyrics, sung by François Marry), cool build-up
Saturday, 7 February 2015
Stoker (2013)
Great film. Nicole Kidman a killer role as usual. Must look into the soundtrack. Must play piano. Must learn how to tell a story.
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