http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obJKUWkr9RA
strange but cool in an estranged eerie carnavalesque way.
Friday, 5 August 2016
Monday, 1 August 2016
Gabriel Bruce - "Sleep Paralysis" (and more, maybe)
Slow, Czar-like singing, moody song.
via http://8tracks.com/mia-wallace/when-you-look-into-an-abyss-the-abyss-looks-into-you#
via http://8tracks.com/mia-wallace/when-you-look-into-an-abyss-the-abyss-looks-into-you#
- Show Time - "Camero Cat" - carnavalesque
- Yoav ft Emily Browning - "Where is my mind"
strange version, upbuilding in a creepy way
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
Craig Armstrong - "Rosa Morta"
Instrumental and amazing album, good for late nights, and coding and writing,...?
(later edit: upon listening to it again, it suddenly struck me: this is reminiscent of the wonderful "The Virgin Suicides" soundtrack)
(later edit: upon listening to it again, it suddenly struck me: this is reminiscent of the wonderful "The Virgin Suicides" soundtrack)
Wednesday, 13 July 2016
Henk (H.J.A.) Hofland (met hier en daar Jan Blokker, Harry Mulisch)
Wat is dat dan voor zenuw?
Blokker: Die waarvan we altijd denken dat Nederlanders hem niet hebben. Namelijk een aanleg voor waanzinnige hysterie.
Hofland: Wij hebben een capaciteit tot razernij waar de rest van de wereld nog jaloers op kan zijn.
Als je in een park liep, stond er om de tien meter een bord: "Laat niet als dank voor het aangenaam verpozen de eigenaar van dit park de schillen en de dozen". Er was nog een soort rare orde in dit land.
Mulisch: Iedereen had een ingebouwde politieagent.
Blokker: Precies.
Mulisch: En die is ontsnapt.
Hofland: In Nederland komt er nooit revolutie, want hier mag je niet op het gras lopen, zei Marx ooit. Onze generatie heeft een zeer verse herinnering aan die ingebouwde agent.
Mulisch: Het doet me denken aan toen Klinkenberg een boek over Bernard geschreven had. Met beschuldigingen over een SS-lidmaatschap en weet ik wat. Bernhard vertelde mij - dus het is waar - (imiteert een Duits accent): "Ik heb de minister-president gebeld, en gevraagd: heeft u dat boek van Klinkenberg gelezen? Van Agt zei nee. Nu, als dat alles waar is, wat in dat boek staat, moet u mij morgen laten fusilleren. Toen zei Dries: laat ik dat maar niet doen, koninklijke hoogheid, want dan gaat iederéén dat boek lezen."
interviewer: Hoe bevalt u het vooruitzicht om binnen tien jaar te zijn vergeten?
Blokker: Dat is een gedachte waarmee ik totaal geen relatie heb.
Mulisch: Als je dood bent, ben je in elk geval vergeten door jezelf. Hoe de omstanders reageren, dat zullen we nooit weten.
Hofland: Vrienden zijn eerder gestorven. het was niet zo slecht geweest als we hadden geruild. De onzin die je overkomt in de rest van je leven. Die weige Wiederkehr van alles, hebben jullie daar ook zo'n last van? Ik kom net terug uit Griekenland, vier weken een totaal andere omgeving en ik denk: verdomme de Amsterdamse tram en de gevels. Ze stáán er nog. het hangt me zo de kéél uit.
Hofland haalt adem, peinst anderhalve seconde en steekt van wal met een prettig klare samenvatting van een halve eeuw geschiedenis. 'Kijk: de Koude Oorlog was een goed geordend tijdvak. Twee wereldmachten die elkaar met de atoombom bedreigden en niet zo gek waren om die ook te gebruiken. Aan de zijlijn voerden ze een paar vergissingsoorlogen: Rusland in Afghanistan en Amerika in Vietnam. Voor de rest: de bondgenoten hielden zich rustig, iedereen wist zijn plaats. Het was in zekere mate een klassenmaatschappij en het was in zeker mate een verzorgingsstaat; het was werkelijk heel goed geordend. Goed, toen is de Muur gevallen en de wanorde begonnen. Eerst hebben we die illusie van eeuwigdurende zich alsmaar vergrotende welvaart gekregen, van de nieuwe economie, toen is de zeepbel van internet geploft, toen hebben we 9/11 gekregen, en daarna zijn we toch, globaal de kluts kwijtgeraakt. Een van de hoofdoorzaken daarvan is George W. Bush, met zijn grootheidswaanzin!'
Hofland: Eigenaardig, eigenaardig. Ik hoorde dat hij toen doodziek was en ik belde hem op. "Kousbroek," Ik zeg: "Rudy, ik hoor dat je ziek bent." Hij antwoordt: "Je wéét dat wij ruzie hebben. Courage!" En hij hing op Nou ja."
Een columnist die het moeilijk vindt om aan een onderwerp te komen, kan het bijltje er beter snel bij neerleggen. De onderwerpen staan bij mij meestal in de rij. Bij De Groene overleg ik eerst met hoofdredacteur Xandra Schutte waar ik over zal schrijven, bij de NRC pleur ik het er zo in.
Je kunt deze tijd niet met vroeger vergelijken. De crisis van de jaren dertig was anders. Het proletariaat van toen is in consumentisme ten onder gegaan. Consumentisme en rancune, dat tekent onze tijd. Het nieuwe digitale lompenproletariaat koestert zijn wrok. We zijn boos, schrijven ze. Met vijftien uitroeptekens.
Blokker: Die waarvan we altijd denken dat Nederlanders hem niet hebben. Namelijk een aanleg voor waanzinnige hysterie.
Hofland: Wij hebben een capaciteit tot razernij waar de rest van de wereld nog jaloers op kan zijn.
Als je in een park liep, stond er om de tien meter een bord: "Laat niet als dank voor het aangenaam verpozen de eigenaar van dit park de schillen en de dozen". Er was nog een soort rare orde in dit land.
Mulisch: Iedereen had een ingebouwde politieagent.
Blokker: Precies.
Mulisch: En die is ontsnapt.
Hofland: In Nederland komt er nooit revolutie, want hier mag je niet op het gras lopen, zei Marx ooit. Onze generatie heeft een zeer verse herinnering aan die ingebouwde agent.
Mulisch: Het doet me denken aan toen Klinkenberg een boek over Bernard geschreven had. Met beschuldigingen over een SS-lidmaatschap en weet ik wat. Bernhard vertelde mij - dus het is waar - (imiteert een Duits accent): "Ik heb de minister-president gebeld, en gevraagd: heeft u dat boek van Klinkenberg gelezen? Van Agt zei nee. Nu, als dat alles waar is, wat in dat boek staat, moet u mij morgen laten fusilleren. Toen zei Dries: laat ik dat maar niet doen, koninklijke hoogheid, want dan gaat iederéén dat boek lezen."
interviewer: Hoe bevalt u het vooruitzicht om binnen tien jaar te zijn vergeten?
Blokker: Dat is een gedachte waarmee ik totaal geen relatie heb.
Mulisch: Als je dood bent, ben je in elk geval vergeten door jezelf. Hoe de omstanders reageren, dat zullen we nooit weten.
Hofland: Vrienden zijn eerder gestorven. het was niet zo slecht geweest als we hadden geruild. De onzin die je overkomt in de rest van je leven. Die weige Wiederkehr van alles, hebben jullie daar ook zo'n last van? Ik kom net terug uit Griekenland, vier weken een totaal andere omgeving en ik denk: verdomme de Amsterdamse tram en de gevels. Ze stáán er nog. het hangt me zo de kéél uit.
Hofland haalt adem, peinst anderhalve seconde en steekt van wal met een prettig klare samenvatting van een halve eeuw geschiedenis. 'Kijk: de Koude Oorlog was een goed geordend tijdvak. Twee wereldmachten die elkaar met de atoombom bedreigden en niet zo gek waren om die ook te gebruiken. Aan de zijlijn voerden ze een paar vergissingsoorlogen: Rusland in Afghanistan en Amerika in Vietnam. Voor de rest: de bondgenoten hielden zich rustig, iedereen wist zijn plaats. Het was in zekere mate een klassenmaatschappij en het was in zeker mate een verzorgingsstaat; het was werkelijk heel goed geordend. Goed, toen is de Muur gevallen en de wanorde begonnen. Eerst hebben we die illusie van eeuwigdurende zich alsmaar vergrotende welvaart gekregen, van de nieuwe economie, toen is de zeepbel van internet geploft, toen hebben we 9/11 gekregen, en daarna zijn we toch, globaal de kluts kwijtgeraakt. Een van de hoofdoorzaken daarvan is George W. Bush, met zijn grootheidswaanzin!'
Hofland: Eigenaardig, eigenaardig. Ik hoorde dat hij toen doodziek was en ik belde hem op. "Kousbroek," Ik zeg: "Rudy, ik hoor dat je ziek bent." Hij antwoordt: "Je wéét dat wij ruzie hebben. Courage!" En hij hing op Nou ja."
Een columnist die het moeilijk vindt om aan een onderwerp te komen, kan het bijltje er beter snel bij neerleggen. De onderwerpen staan bij mij meestal in de rij. Bij De Groene overleg ik eerst met hoofdredacteur Xandra Schutte waar ik over zal schrijven, bij de NRC pleur ik het er zo in.
Je kunt deze tijd niet met vroeger vergelijken. De crisis van de jaren dertig was anders. Het proletariaat van toen is in consumentisme ten onder gegaan. Consumentisme en rancune, dat tekent onze tijd. Het nieuwe digitale lompenproletariaat koestert zijn wrok. We zijn boos, schrijven ze. Met vijftien uitroeptekens.
Matthew Beaumont - "Vagabonds, Crafty Bauds, and the Loyal Huzza: A History of London at Night"
(essay was an excerpt of his book)
The capital's slums also acquired a toxic reputation for being thieves' colonies. The most notorious of these during the early modern period was Whitefriars, the dangerously overcrowded area between Fleet Street and the Thames that, in a laconic reference to the territory fought over by France and Germany on the continent, was known as Alsatia.
The watchman was regularly guilty of malign or corrupt behaviour, or of acting from dubious motives, so he often collapses into his opposite. His nightwalking, his nightwatching, was often quite as nefarious as that of the itinerants and prostitutes he was supposed to apprehend. Required for official reasons to be suspicious of other people, the watch was also, in a more colloquial sense, suspicious - that is, suspect. Here is an early instance of that entanglement of the identities of detective and criminal that is characteristic of noir cinema and fiction in the mid twentieth century.
The capital's slums also acquired a toxic reputation for being thieves' colonies. The most notorious of these during the early modern period was Whitefriars, the dangerously overcrowded area between Fleet Street and the Thames that, in a laconic reference to the territory fought over by France and Germany on the continent, was known as Alsatia.
The watchman was regularly guilty of malign or corrupt behaviour, or of acting from dubious motives, so he often collapses into his opposite. His nightwalking, his nightwatching, was often quite as nefarious as that of the itinerants and prostitutes he was supposed to apprehend. Required for official reasons to be suspicious of other people, the watch was also, in a more colloquial sense, suspicious - that is, suspect. Here is an early instance of that entanglement of the identities of detective and criminal that is characteristic of noir cinema and fiction in the mid twentieth century.
Darwin Among the Machines (to the editor of the Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, 13 june, 1863)
Amazing letter by Darwin regarding machines.
If we revert to the earliest primordial types of mechanical life, to the lever, the wedge, the inclined plane, the screw and the pulley, or (for analogy would lead us one step further) to that one primordial type from which all the mechanical kingdom has been developed, we mean to the lever itself, and if we then examine the machinery of the Great Eastern, we find ourselves almost awestruck at the vast development of the mechanical world, at the gigantic strides with which it has advanced in comparison with the slow progress of the animal and vegetable kingdom. We shall find it impossible to refrain from asking ourselves what the end of this mighty movement is to be. In what direction is it tending? What will be its upshot?
We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical oranisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race.
If they die, for even these glorious animals will not be exempt from that necessary and universal consumption, they will immediately enter into a new phase of existence, for what machine dies entirely in every part at one and the same instant?
... man will have become to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man. He will continue to exist, nay even to improve, and will be probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of the machines than he is in his present wild state.
... there is nothing which our infatuated race would desire more than to see a fertile union between two stea engines, it is true that machinery is even at this present time employed in begetting machinery, in becoming the parent of machines often after its own kind, but the days of flirtation, courtship, and matrimony appear to be very remote, and indeed can hardly be realized by our feeble and imperfect imagination.
... but the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.
Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them.
If we revert to the earliest primordial types of mechanical life, to the lever, the wedge, the inclined plane, the screw and the pulley, or (for analogy would lead us one step further) to that one primordial type from which all the mechanical kingdom has been developed, we mean to the lever itself, and if we then examine the machinery of the Great Eastern, we find ourselves almost awestruck at the vast development of the mechanical world, at the gigantic strides with which it has advanced in comparison with the slow progress of the animal and vegetable kingdom. We shall find it impossible to refrain from asking ourselves what the end of this mighty movement is to be. In what direction is it tending? What will be its upshot?
We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical oranisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race.
If they die, for even these glorious animals will not be exempt from that necessary and universal consumption, they will immediately enter into a new phase of existence, for what machine dies entirely in every part at one and the same instant?
... man will have become to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man. He will continue to exist, nay even to improve, and will be probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of the machines than he is in his present wild state.
... there is nothing which our infatuated race would desire more than to see a fertile union between two stea engines, it is true that machinery is even at this present time employed in begetting machinery, in becoming the parent of machines often after its own kind, but the days of flirtation, courtship, and matrimony appear to be very remote, and indeed can hardly be realized by our feeble and imperfect imagination.
... but the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.
Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them.
David Mitchell - "Slade House"
good read. Finished it in one day. Strange day. It harks back to the Bone Clocks, and where that book fell short, this one was just right. It's a delicate balance, I guess. Just the right amount of repetition. Also, a lot shorter? But his Cloud Atlas was long and that was amazing...
Still a favourite author of mine.
Still a favourite author of mine.
Friday, 8 July 2016
Thursday, 7 July 2016
Chinawoman - "Partygirl" (Lovers are strangers)
Evanescencent, ungraspable. Late night, whiskey, a cigarette. Streets flanked by sad houses.
Monday, 4 July 2016
David Mitchell - "Death of the Pugilist, or the Famous Battle of Jacob Burke and Blindman McGraw" and "The Ecstacy of Alfred Russel Wallace"
Two grand shorts by David Mitchell. Amazing how a simple story is given so much depth through the thorough description of its character(s).
Watching from the crowds, admidst the cheers and curses, there's not a soul that day at Dead Rabbit's Heath that knows what Jacob Burke knows, that the fight is already over. For Blindman's standing and Blindman's fists are still up, and if he's slack in the lip no one can see from what Muscular Jacob Burke has done to his face. They'll know, in breaths they'll know and for years they'll talk about it, but in this half-second between Muscular's knowing and the crowd's knowing, it's as if Muscular has been left alone with a knowledge and an omnipotence only God should have.
Indeed, they said he had the naiveté of a child: too trusting, too awed by others' greatness to know that he deserved greatness himself. There were hours when he thought: I know nothing. And there were other hours, chiefly at night, waking from dreams he didn't remember, that a different thought came: the idea, that beautiful burning idea, that recasting and refiguring and resculpting of the world, that idea burst forth from me, and me alone.
Watching from the crowds, admidst the cheers and curses, there's not a soul that day at Dead Rabbit's Heath that knows what Jacob Burke knows, that the fight is already over. For Blindman's standing and Blindman's fists are still up, and if he's slack in the lip no one can see from what Muscular Jacob Burke has done to his face. They'll know, in breaths they'll know and for years they'll talk about it, but in this half-second between Muscular's knowing and the crowd's knowing, it's as if Muscular has been left alone with a knowledge and an omnipotence only God should have.
Indeed, they said he had the naiveté of a child: too trusting, too awed by others' greatness to know that he deserved greatness himself. There were hours when he thought: I know nothing. And there were other hours, chiefly at night, waking from dreams he didn't remember, that a different thought came: the idea, that beautiful burning idea, that recasting and refiguring and resculpting of the world, that idea burst forth from me, and me alone.
Descender
Amazing comics. The story is interesting (slightly reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica) but particularly the drawings are sometimes breathtaking. Can't wait for volume 3.
Kelly Link - "Pretty Monsters"
Another collection of short stories by Kelly Link. Still as strange and sometimes unnerving as "Magic for Beginners" but either I have gotten used to it or her style has become slightly too repetitive for me. I'm reading a story every now and then now, which seems to work best.
But his mother and Talis are quiet in different ways. Jeremy's mother is the kind of person who seems to be keeping something hidden, something secret. Whereas Talis just is a secret, Jeremy's mother could easily turn out to be a secret agent. But Talis is the death ray or the key to immortality or whatever it is that secret agents have to keep secret. Hangin out with Talis is like hanging out with a teenaged black hole.
"I won't tell Karl," Elizabeth said. She leaned forward and kissed Jeremy and then she wasn't kissing him. It was all very fast and surprising, but they didn't fall off the roof. Nobody falls off the roof in this story. "Talis likes you," Elizabeth said. "That's what Amy says. Maybe you like her back. I don't know. But I thought I should go ahead and kiss you now. Just in case I don't get to kiss you again."
"You can kiss me again," Jeremy said. "Talis probably doesn't like me."
"No," Elizabeth said. "I mean, let's not. I want to stay friends and it's hard enough to be friends, Germ. Look at you and Karl."
But his mother and Talis are quiet in different ways. Jeremy's mother is the kind of person who seems to be keeping something hidden, something secret. Whereas Talis just is a secret, Jeremy's mother could easily turn out to be a secret agent. But Talis is the death ray or the key to immortality or whatever it is that secret agents have to keep secret. Hangin out with Talis is like hanging out with a teenaged black hole.
"I won't tell Karl," Elizabeth said. She leaned forward and kissed Jeremy and then she wasn't kissing him. It was all very fast and surprising, but they didn't fall off the roof. Nobody falls off the roof in this story. "Talis likes you," Elizabeth said. "That's what Amy says. Maybe you like her back. I don't know. But I thought I should go ahead and kiss you now. Just in case I don't get to kiss you again."
"You can kiss me again," Jeremy said. "Talis probably doesn't like me."
"No," Elizabeth said. "I mean, let's not. I want to stay friends and it's hard enough to be friends, Germ. Look at you and Karl."
Friday, 24 June 2016
random 8track songs
http://8tracks.com/tekryon/road-to-nowhere
- Porter Robinson - "Goodbye to a world"
trip-hoppy, distorted voices, synths... should look into this
- Babbit - "Painting Greys"
not even sure I like it (vocoder... :| ) but still intrigued
- Jaymes Young - "Come Back For Me"
Bit Florence and the Machine, also she keeps singing "Don't Come Back for Me"
Saturday, 18 June 2016
Kelly Link - "magic for beginners"
Breathtakingly strange and unsetting, Kelly Link spins incredibly original stories. Can't believe I forgot to mention her.
Livia Llewellyn - "Furnace"
A gripping short story of a girl in a dying town, her grandfather showing her maps of the city, her mother chasing her...
Thought of Kelly Link's magic for beginners.
Thought of Kelly Link's magic for beginners.
Ernest Cline - "Ready Player One"
A thoroughly enjoyable book about a world fifty years in the future where everybody escapes into OASIS, a MMORG as well as... everything else. Creator, in his last will, tells about an easter egg. The one to find it, will inherit all the fortunes of Oasis. Wade, our young protagonist, is special...
It's dripping with 80s references, since the creator loved that period supposedly so much. Sometimes it's a bit much - he seemed to rave about anything - but all in all, although the plot is a bit shakey and predictable, a good fun read. Great escape. How ironic.
It's dripping with 80s references, since the creator loved that period supposedly so much. Sometimes it's a bit much - he seemed to rave about anything - but all in all, although the plot is a bit shakey and predictable, a good fun read. Great escape. How ironic.
Friday, 10 June 2016
those moments
- Dolly Parton - Jolene
- Jacques Brel - Dans le port d'Amsterdam
- R.E.M. - It's the end of the world as we know it
- Claude François - Comme d'habitude
- R.E.M. - "Leave" (alternative version)
- Krang - "Kraaien"
- Bende van Vier - "Drinklied"
Thursday, 9 June 2016
hebrew proverb - don't ask questions
אל תשאל שאלות
לא תשמע שקרים
Al Tishal she'elot Lo tishma shkarim
don't ask questions, you won't hear lies
(it's for a cheating husband situation imo but it works well for a lot of cases)
Al Tishal she'elot Lo tishma shkarim
don't ask questions, you won't hear lies
(it's for a cheating husband situation imo but it works well for a lot of cases)
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