Even though, I'm utterly convinced that Tara Moncure has her own unique weight as a satellite in this world; every time I go abroad I meet, bare minimum, another random acquaintance of the lovely Larchmont bred lass.
So, what of seeking out a fortune in a foreign land in the world of music?
While working the music at a friend's birthday party I was approached by a fellow from this band, Sonidoex:
Admittedly clownish stuff, but what are you supposed to do when the guy has a fuckin goober of hash sticking off his thumb and he's shoving it in your face, while half-assedly complimenting your rudimentary POS audio-digital signal converter while slowly backtracking when he notices the ounce and a half of bud chilling next to the laptop? He later rescinded his compliments, but was kind enough to call me a musician, which is really funny.
SO maybe there is room to make music in Europe; let's all hope so.
2009/02/16
2009/02/14
Febrew Airy
The Spaniards are big fans of this Carnaval thing. I don't know why, well maybe because they are encouraged to dress up and get savagely drunk. They seem to do that every day any way, so I don't see how February 18th will be all that different from today, St. Valentine's.
Single people flock to the bars, contented lovers feed eachother chocolate covered strawberries (a local specialty, somewhat ruined by the coldest winter in 50 years). Weird to think Isaac Hayes isn't around to wish us all a special St. Valentine's Day.
I just watched a recording of the Horace Silver Quintet at The Umbria Jazz Festival in 1976; wow, what a bunch of motherfuckers. Apparently the above track is based on a Japanese scale that they discovered in a book and wrote a melody over. In the live version, the drummer takes a long extended solo and just KILLS it.
Ok, everybody enjoy their day. I have to say goodbye to a special friend.
2009/02/11
Ramblethon
When I read a book like George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London" my brain shuts off for the subsequent hours while I process what it is I had been shoving in front of my eyes for a week straight. The basic premise is that our main man G.O. loses his two sources of income in Paris while plies his craft at becoming a writer, something he believes he was born to do. He then relies on his journal/wits to retell the interim period in which he was flat broke. The characters he unveils throughout his exasperating walks come, unsurprisingly, from the dregs of society.
If there are any takeaway lessons from the book, they might be;
-It's way iller to be poor in Paris than in London.
-You can definitely still go to jail for, to quote Richard Manuel of the Band, "the crime of having nowhere to go".
-Orwell believes that those "tramps" who skulk about the country side for fear of being locked up are divided in to two camps; 1)the educated who have fallen on hard times and 2)working stiffs whose services were no longer required at their prior line of work. In the case of the latter, he seems to claim that they lack two things; 1) something to keep their bodies, and therefore minds, occupied and 2) some kind of sexual activity. Orwell repeatedly mentions the rampant homosexuality among the wandering homeless/unemployed of Great Britain.
That's about it, also Simmons is doing a podcast about NBA trades, and....I'm listening.
If there are any takeaway lessons from the book, they might be;
-It's way iller to be poor in Paris than in London.
-You can definitely still go to jail for, to quote Richard Manuel of the Band, "the crime of having nowhere to go".
-Orwell believes that those "tramps" who skulk about the country side for fear of being locked up are divided in to two camps; 1)the educated who have fallen on hard times and 2)working stiffs whose services were no longer required at their prior line of work. In the case of the latter, he seems to claim that they lack two things; 1) something to keep their bodies, and therefore minds, occupied and 2) some kind of sexual activity. Orwell repeatedly mentions the rampant homosexuality among the wandering homeless/unemployed of Great Britain.
That's about it, also Simmons is doing a podcast about NBA trades, and....I'm listening.
Cantankerous Sores
It's sunny and 75, what the fuck Huelva? I love you.
This blog is a great little space to explore some things of interest:
Ben Baker-Smith just launched a new website; check it out here.
Joe Flaherty was in my dream the other night; check out his IMDB page here.
This video is a fucking disgrace, but kind of exactly the direction I'm headed in sonically.
This blog is a great little space to explore some things of interest:
Ben Baker-Smith just launched a new website; check it out here.
Joe Flaherty was in my dream the other night; check out his IMDB page here.
This video is a fucking disgrace, but kind of exactly the direction I'm headed in sonically.
Steak Fritters
I have noticed that, more often than not, people who work lower level security jobs or clerk positions here in Huelva do the absolute minimum required. If you give them money, they love you forever.
I have no problem giving this drop a second plug; nobody I know is working harder than Taka at making some original sounds.
Cancel my subscription to Spanish Elle Magazine; their christmas edition featured some of the most homoerotic photos of Pau Gasol I have EVER seen.
Why is it suddenly a big deal that MIA is Tamil?(Psych; read about some real shit) Fucking NYT missed the boat on that one like they were Elian Gonzalez's momma (RIP).
I have no problem giving this drop a second plug; nobody I know is working harder than Taka at making some original sounds.
Cancel my subscription to Spanish Elle Magazine; their christmas edition featured some of the most homoerotic photos of Pau Gasol I have EVER seen.
Why is it suddenly a big deal that MIA is Tamil?(Psych; read about some real shit) Fucking NYT missed the boat on that one like they were Elian Gonzalez's momma (RIP).
2009/02/10
hello potential backers
Have you read this blog? I suppose you should get on it post haste. You can currently view señor Baker-Smith's demo reel, which does feature a great shot of one Rafael Capo García Rodón being executed by one Georgie Schaefer and myself.
Also, a certain gem finally dropped from the vaults of my A-number one-favorito producer on the planet. So GET ON IT PEOPLE!
Also, a certain gem finally dropped from the vaults of my A-number one-favorito producer on the planet. So GET ON IT PEOPLE!
Things to discuss
The weather is fast improving here in buttfuck, España. I officially have a gig scheduled on February 27th at this kick ass bar called Lyceo; they have everything you expect of a solid Spanish bar, aka coffee and treats during the day and a decent beer list/wine/liquor when the sun goes down. The beard experiment of 2009 looks a little like this:
NSFW I suppose
Look at that handsome Italian to my left, the extremely talented Domenico Cecere. More to come on this hombre.
NSFW I suppose
Look at that handsome Italian to my left, the extremely talented Domenico Cecere. More to come on this hombre.
2009/02/09
2009/02/08
oily fingers
Yes, the hot stove that is A-Rod's positive steroid report doesn't really do much for the disinterested fan; baseball became much more boring when it became inextricably linked to Republican values. The same principles have already destroyed my fledgling NFl fandom (The Eagles high-wire-choke-artist act has also worn thinner than a vegan at the Beachcomber in St. Simon's Island, Georgia).
Everyone in Spain is quite content to stay in bed til the early afternoon on Sundays. Today I got up at 9:30, and felt like I'd overslept for days; I've been making a habit lately of going to be earlier and getting up earlier. Pelirroja and I decided that we are cyclical creatures of habit, so these things are to be expected from time to time. Hopefully we'll have a lovely picnic today; the sun's warmth manages to counteract the brisk winds (on a great day the wind's blowing out and Huelva becomes an olfactory hitter's park as the factory's smoke heads towards the eastern part of the province, rather than right towards us capital denizens). We've got a Tortilla de Patata, some red onions, some red pepper, some cream cheese, some bread, hopefully some fruits, and plenty of activities to keep entertained. Just yesterday, Red made it across the slack rope line 4 times; that's some impressive shit, as my greatest gains have been no more than 2 or three steps.
If a dog's urine was the colors of the rainbow, Huelva might be the prettiest place on earth. Sometimes you have to really turn things on their head to find positivity; everyone here is always complaining about one thing or another. On the daily I hear Spaniards cry out, to nobody in particular, "Ay, qué frio..."(Ugh, such cold). On a completely unrelated note, I never quite understood how I was supposed to read a book like "The Enormous Room" by e.e. cummings if I had never studied French, several credible sources had recommended it to me as a great reference point for comparing WWI-era international relations with the age of access we are now living in; then, I got about 100 pages deep in to "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell, and probably because I live with a french woman, and because I'm relating more and more to the story of the privileged poor, it seems to flow quite nicely with his interspersed French as it appears as dialogue. My original problem with Cummings was that he felt he had the liberty to switch between English and French with no particular rhythm; as if it was written by decoding from a third distinct language that cannot be translated exactly in to just English or French. Like I said, rainbow...Ronnie James Dio's first band.
Everyone in Spain is quite content to stay in bed til the early afternoon on Sundays. Today I got up at 9:30, and felt like I'd overslept for days; I've been making a habit lately of going to be earlier and getting up earlier. Pelirroja and I decided that we are cyclical creatures of habit, so these things are to be expected from time to time. Hopefully we'll have a lovely picnic today; the sun's warmth manages to counteract the brisk winds (on a great day the wind's blowing out and Huelva becomes an olfactory hitter's park as the factory's smoke heads towards the eastern part of the province, rather than right towards us capital denizens). We've got a Tortilla de Patata, some red onions, some red pepper, some cream cheese, some bread, hopefully some fruits, and plenty of activities to keep entertained. Just yesterday, Red made it across the slack rope line 4 times; that's some impressive shit, as my greatest gains have been no more than 2 or three steps.
If a dog's urine was the colors of the rainbow, Huelva might be the prettiest place on earth. Sometimes you have to really turn things on their head to find positivity; everyone here is always complaining about one thing or another. On the daily I hear Spaniards cry out, to nobody in particular, "Ay, qué frio..."(Ugh, such cold). On a completely unrelated note, I never quite understood how I was supposed to read a book like "The Enormous Room" by e.e. cummings if I had never studied French, several credible sources had recommended it to me as a great reference point for comparing WWI-era international relations with the age of access we are now living in; then, I got about 100 pages deep in to "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell, and probably because I live with a french woman, and because I'm relating more and more to the story of the privileged poor, it seems to flow quite nicely with his interspersed French as it appears as dialogue. My original problem with Cummings was that he felt he had the liberty to switch between English and French with no particular rhythm; as if it was written by decoding from a third distinct language that cannot be translated exactly in to just English or French. Like I said, rainbow...Ronnie James Dio's first band.
2009/02/07
Zoomers
Hey!
It's been an interesting 2009 so far; Republicans are aging in Dog Years (light years?), Democrats don't seem to have paid any attention to the 2 plus years of campaigning that led to November 4th, The Knicks are in playoff contention (outside of Washington, EVERYBODY is in contention in the Eastern Conference), Free Darko book ages like a fine wine, it's cold as hell in my shitty apartment that I will be hopefully moving out of in a couple of days in to a baller crib a block and a half away. Yes, there was a new drop; Pro-Fil-Lactix Gratuite finally came to fruition.
It's only February, but I am personally very excited for the ridiculousness that will ensue in the coming months/lifetime.
Hope all y'all gainfully employed people are thanking your lucky stars.
Hope ye unemployed, especially in DC, are not enjoying the recent lift on gun bans too much.
Jimmy Fallon gets his own late night show; maybe we'll be seeing more of Paul Barman. As was once told to me, "09 is mine" is MC Paul B's catchphrase; he will be competing with panic, mcdonald's and jeans with adjustable waistbands for America's heart.
It's been an interesting 2009 so far; Republicans are aging in Dog Years (light years?), Democrats don't seem to have paid any attention to the 2 plus years of campaigning that led to November 4th, The Knicks are in playoff contention (outside of Washington, EVERYBODY is in contention in the Eastern Conference), Free Darko book ages like a fine wine, it's cold as hell in my shitty apartment that I will be hopefully moving out of in a couple of days in to a baller crib a block and a half away. Yes, there was a new drop; Pro-Fil-Lactix Gratuite finally came to fruition.
It's only February, but I am personally very excited for the ridiculousness that will ensue in the coming months/lifetime.
Hope all y'all gainfully employed people are thanking your lucky stars.
Hope ye unemployed, especially in DC, are not enjoying the recent lift on gun bans too much.
Jimmy Fallon gets his own late night show; maybe we'll be seeing more of Paul Barman. As was once told to me, "09 is mine" is MC Paul B's catchphrase; he will be competing with panic, mcdonald's and jeans with adjustable waistbands for America's heart.
2009/02/06
Something to Ponder
Yes, I'm up early on my off day. Yes, I might have a gig in the future. Yes, I don't have my guitar with me to audition and it's missing the high E. None of these things really matter after I read this: Tyronn Lue is headed to the Orland Magic for Keith Bogans.
This basically puts two of the most inept, least athletically inclined, over the hill pg's in the league on the same team; I can imagine Ian Eagle haunting my sleep in the coming months with his lurid details of another late-season magic loss where they couldn't get the ball over the halfcourt line in the customary 8 seconds the referees (maybe not Donaghy) allow. Many of you know that this trade happened because Jameer Nelson tore his labrum recently; he was having a career year, and I'm a sucker for Naismith Award winners who don't suck (see teammate J.J. Reddick for the antithesis of Jameer Nelson). There could not be a more star-crossed pair of lovers in the Eastern Conference elite than former St. Joseph Hawks Delonte West and our man Jameer. This might sound strange the more I think about it, but it was really badass that he would bring his young son to games as a senior and then torch the other team for like 40 points; admittedly, I was watching on TV, but I did catch a live game against conference rivals Xavier (David West era) that was riveting.
So let's break this down, Meximan style, since you gotta sell what you know, and I know all about unathletic, undynamic distributors.
Before I get too salty, it's worth noting that Lue was one of the few free-agent pg's available with legit playoff experience (playing rotation minutes on a championship team is certainly respectable, and he did play quality defense against Iverson [except for the game 1 embarrassment] in 2001. There was talk in the off-season that former running mate, The Big Cactus (when you think about the line ask Kobe how my asshole taste juxtaposed to this desert nom-de-guerre, it's kind of funny, I guess...), Shaquille O'neal openly lobbied for him to sign with the Phoenix Suns; my guess is that Shaq saw Goran Dragic look like a poor man's Beno Udrih with no explosiveness.
Anthony Johnson is one of those NBA guys who just seems so fucking happy to be playing at all; this energy could be infectious if there was some dynamism to go along with it. Surely he is a capable ball-handler, but he lacks the quicks, the ups and the lateral range to defend a Mo Williams for 6 or 7 (likely 5 with the way things are going) games in a playoff series. I remember watching Johnson play under Byron Scott/Lawrence Frank with the Nets, and wondering where the hell Scoonie Penn or any other number of people who were good enough to play in the NBA were hiding. So, I don't dislike the guy at all, he just doesn't seem like an NBA player; I suppose, economically, someone who makes something near the veteran minimum is a great guy to have when he actually earns his salary.
So, maybe Turkoglu can continue his slashing big-man thing that he is slowly perfecting; minimal love from the Free Darko guys, which I never understood. Maybe Courtney Lee will outplay George Hill in the NBA finals. Maybe Dwight Howard still has no offensive game. Nonetheless, their point guard situation got solidifed with this trade; solidly terrible, that is.
On his way out to the frozen tundra of Milquetoast Milwaukee (The Good Land) is one of my favorite Kentucky alums, Keith Bogans. Dude became somewhat expendable with the signing of Pietrus in the off-season, but is a solid rotation guy; the sort of player that if you were ten rounds deep in a video game season draft, that you'd definitely pick him up and find a way to get him 8 shots a game. Without Michael Redd, the Bucks are in need of scoring; maybe it comes from Charlie Villanueva's breakout campaign, or Ramon Sessions will continue to hush the critics who say he isn't an NBA starter, maybe Luke Ridnour will come back from his most recent concussion and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Richard Jefferson will dive deeper in to his Keats anthology that VC slipped in to his bags when he was packing up after the trade. Joe Alexander, awkwardly peering over RJ's shoulder, will get a fresh back of the hand for his peeping tom ways.
FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK
This basically puts two of the most inept, least athletically inclined, over the hill pg's in the league on the same team; I can imagine Ian Eagle haunting my sleep in the coming months with his lurid details of another late-season magic loss where they couldn't get the ball over the halfcourt line in the customary 8 seconds the referees (maybe not Donaghy) allow. Many of you know that this trade happened because Jameer Nelson tore his labrum recently; he was having a career year, and I'm a sucker for Naismith Award winners who don't suck (see teammate J.J. Reddick for the antithesis of Jameer Nelson). There could not be a more star-crossed pair of lovers in the Eastern Conference elite than former St. Joseph Hawks Delonte West and our man Jameer. This might sound strange the more I think about it, but it was really badass that he would bring his young son to games as a senior and then torch the other team for like 40 points; admittedly, I was watching on TV, but I did catch a live game against conference rivals Xavier (David West era) that was riveting.
So let's break this down, Meximan style, since you gotta sell what you know, and I know all about unathletic, undynamic distributors.
Before I get too salty, it's worth noting that Lue was one of the few free-agent pg's available with legit playoff experience (playing rotation minutes on a championship team is certainly respectable, and he did play quality defense against Iverson [except for the game 1 embarrassment] in 2001. There was talk in the off-season that former running mate, The Big Cactus (when you think about the line ask Kobe how my asshole taste juxtaposed to this desert nom-de-guerre, it's kind of funny, I guess...), Shaquille O'neal openly lobbied for him to sign with the Phoenix Suns; my guess is that Shaq saw Goran Dragic look like a poor man's Beno Udrih with no explosiveness.
Anthony Johnson is one of those NBA guys who just seems so fucking happy to be playing at all; this energy could be infectious if there was some dynamism to go along with it. Surely he is a capable ball-handler, but he lacks the quicks, the ups and the lateral range to defend a Mo Williams for 6 or 7 (likely 5 with the way things are going) games in a playoff series. I remember watching Johnson play under Byron Scott/Lawrence Frank with the Nets, and wondering where the hell Scoonie Penn or any other number of people who were good enough to play in the NBA were hiding. So, I don't dislike the guy at all, he just doesn't seem like an NBA player; I suppose, economically, someone who makes something near the veteran minimum is a great guy to have when he actually earns his salary.
So, maybe Turkoglu can continue his slashing big-man thing that he is slowly perfecting; minimal love from the Free Darko guys, which I never understood. Maybe Courtney Lee will outplay George Hill in the NBA finals. Maybe Dwight Howard still has no offensive game. Nonetheless, their point guard situation got solidifed with this trade; solidly terrible, that is.
On his way out to the frozen tundra of Milquetoast Milwaukee (The Good Land) is one of my favorite Kentucky alums, Keith Bogans. Dude became somewhat expendable with the signing of Pietrus in the off-season, but is a solid rotation guy; the sort of player that if you were ten rounds deep in a video game season draft, that you'd definitely pick him up and find a way to get him 8 shots a game. Without Michael Redd, the Bucks are in need of scoring; maybe it comes from Charlie Villanueva's breakout campaign, or Ramon Sessions will continue to hush the critics who say he isn't an NBA starter, maybe Luke Ridnour will come back from his most recent concussion and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Richard Jefferson will dive deeper in to his Keats anthology that VC slipped in to his bags when he was packing up after the trade. Joe Alexander, awkwardly peering over RJ's shoulder, will get a fresh back of the hand for his peeping tom ways.
2009/02/05
I Read Mooney's blog
how else could i end up here?
Which reminded me of this other cool site, that they link to; ubu web that features the 365 days project, a must have for all those in the samples game.
Another great website for greedy asshole like me who don't want to pay for sounds is the free sound project. Started at IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis), freesound is like any other online forum, except that it is full of original noises and recordings created by the users. check it out here
Which reminded me of this other cool site, that they link to; ubu web that features the 365 days project, a must have for all those in the samples game.
Another great website for greedy asshole like me who don't want to pay for sounds is the free sound project. Started at IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis), freesound is like any other online forum, except that it is full of original noises and recordings created by the users. check it out here
The Wall and the Books
(via The Souther Cross Review)
By Jorge Luis Borges
(translation from Spanish and comments by Gaither Stewart)
He, whose long wall the wand’ring Tartar bounds …
Dunciad, II, 76. (1)
I read, in past days, that the man who ordered the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China was that First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who likewise ordered the burning of all the books before him. That the two gigantic operations—the five or six hundred leagues of stone to oppose the barbarians, the rigorous abolition of history, that is of the past—issued from one person and were in a certain sense his attributes, inexplicably satisfied me and, at the same time, disturbed me. The object of this note is to investigate the reasons for that emotion.
Historically there is no mystery in the two measures. A contemporary of the wars of Hannibal, Shih Huang Ti, King of Ch’in, conquered the Six Kingdoms and eliminated the feudal system; he built the wall because walls were defenses; he burned the books because the opposition invoked them in order to extol former emperors. Burning books and building fortifications is common task to emperors; the only thing singular about Shih Huang Ti was the scale on which he operated. So some Sinologists would have us understand, but I feel that the facts to which I referred are something more than an exaggeration or a hyperbole of trivial inclinations. To enclose an orchard or a garden is common; not to enclose an empire. That the most traditional of races renounced the memory of its past, mythical or true, is no small matter. The Chinese had three thousand years of chronology (in those years, the Yellow Emperor and Chuang Tzu and Confucius and Lao Tzu) when Shih Huang Ti ordered that history began with him.
Shih Huang Ti had banished his mother as a libertine; the orthodox saw only impiety in his severe justice; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to erase canonic books because they accused him; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to abolish the entire past in order to abolish one memory: the infamy of his mother. (Not unlike another king, in Judea, had all the children killed in order to kill one.) This conjecture is worth considering, but it tells us nothing about the wall, about the second facet of the myth. Shih Huang Ti, according to historians, forbade all mention of the word death and searched for the elixir of immortality and secluded himself in a figurative palace, which had as many rooms as the year has days; the data suggest that the wall in space and the fire in time were magic barriers intended to halt the advance of death. Everything persists in his being, wrote Baruch Spinoza; perhaps the Emperor and his sages believed that immortality was intrinsic and that corruption could not penetrate a closed sphere. Perhaps the Emperor hoped to recreate the beginning of time and called himself The First, in order to be truly the first, and he named himself Huang Ti in order to be in some way Huang Ti, the legendary emperor who invented writing and the compass. The latter, according to the Book of Rites, gave things their true names; equally Shih Huang Ti boasted, in enduring inscriptions, that all things in his empire had the name they merited. He dreamed of founding an immortal dynasty; he ordered that his heirs should be named Second Emperor, Third Emperor, Fourth Emperor, and so on to infinity … I spoke of a magic design; it would also be possible to suppose that constructing a wall and burning the books were not simultaneous acts. This (according to the order we choose) would give us the image of a king who began by destroying and afterwards resigned himself to conserving, or that of a disabused king who destroyed what he defended earlier. Both conjectures are dramatic but lack, as far as I know, in historical basis. Herbert Allen Giles (2) relates that those who concealed books were branded by a red-hot iron and condemned to build the outrageous wall until the day of their death. This information favors or tolerates another interpretation. Perhaps the wall was a metaphor, maybe Shih Huang Ti condemned those who worshipped the past to a work just as vast as the past, as stupid and useless. Perhaps the wall was a challenge and Shih Huang Ti thought: “Men love the past and I can do nothing against this love, nor can my executioners, but some time there will be a man who feels as I do, and he will destroy my wall, as I destroyed the books, and will erase my memory and will be my shadow and my mirror and will not be aware of it. Perhaps Shih Huang Ti walled in the empire because he knew it was fragile and he destroyed the books because he understood they were sacred books, or rather books that taught that which the entire universe teaches or the consciousness of every man. Maybe the burning of the libraries and the construction of the wall are operations that in a secret way cancel each other.
The tenacious wall that in this moment, and in all moments, projects its system of shadows across lands I will not see, is the shadow of a Caesar who ordered that the most reverent of nations burn its past; it is likely that the idea itself touches us by, over and above, the conjectures it allows. (Its virtue can be in the opposition to building and destroying, on an enormous scale.) Generalizing the earlier matter, we could infer that all practices have their virtue in themselves and not in some conjectural “content.” This would be in agreement with the thesis of Benedetto Croce (3); as already Pater (4), in 1877, contended that all the arts aspire to the condition of music, which is nothing but form. Music, state of happiness, mythology, faces shaped by time, certain twilights and certain places, try to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have lost, or want to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation, which does not happen, is, perhaps, the esthetic act.
1. Dunciad by Alexander Pope in which the poet referred to his many enemies as dunces. This satirical poem of 920 lines, in three books, describes the king of dunces and a nightmare world of universal darkness in Pope’s gigantic lampoon of writers, books and booksellers, attacking those who write for pay. At one point there is a sacrifice bonfire of the books. This sort of literary reference and source is used by Anglophile Borges throughout his work.
2. Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935), renowned British diplomat and Sinologist.
3. Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), Italian literary historian, critic, philosopher, wrote: “Art is not the addition of form to content, but expression, which does not mean communication but is a spiritual fact, and ethics is conceived as the expression of the universal will, of the spirit.”
4. Walter Pater (1839-94), English writer, essayist, aesthete and art historian, famous precisely because his life is so shrouded in mystery, whom Henry James called “the mask without the face” and the kind of literary source Borges plants in his strange tales. Here Borges quotes Pater that “all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music.” I found on line this anecdote which is revealing of the nature of Pater, and thus of one side of Borges:
In 1894, the last year of his life, Pater was invited to meet Mallarmé, who was then lecturing at Oxford. Mallarmé taught English in a lycée; Pater’s French was excellent; but the two connoisseurs of intimation apparently thought it too vulgar actually to speak. According to one account, they “regarded each other in silence, and were satisfied.”
Translator’s note: This typical Borges interpretative chronicle/ historical reflection (neither short story nor essay!) is included in Antología Personal (Personal Anthology), the version I have translated here, the first edition of which was published by Editorial Sur in 1961 and for which Borges wrote in the Prologue that his “preferences dictated this book.” It appeared again in English in Everything and Nothing, New Directions, 1999. I chose to translate this tale/account because it is shorter and, perhaps, less well-known than others; secondly because it is typical of Borges’ works in which he playfully drops unfamiliar names and references in his veiled recounting of people and place and times, which only at first appear obscure or meaningless; and thirdly because of the writer’s prologue to the volume.
As fate would have it and in Borges style, I saw in a May issue of the best of the “NY Times in Italian,” the article “Walls Raised Against the Enemy, A Long History,” which cites the first such wall as Shih Huang Ti’s Wall of China, an article intended to demonstrate that they never work, not in Berlin nor in Israel nor in Baghdad. Nor will it work on the US-Mexican border, I would add.
Tracing the references and my close reading of the Prologue is to elucidate to a limited degree the Borgesian world. If you try to pursue diligently all Borges’ literary pointers you have to be prepared to enter an infinite labyrinth in which one thing leads to another and then another, inexorably and without end, so that you do need the proverbial ball of string to find your way out. Though with contemporary web search engines this labyrinth is only a few clicks away, while I was clicking and longing to exit I imagined Borges instead in one of his libraries, finding, tracing and investigating such sources of inspiration by following his own instincts, pulling down tome after tome from the labyrinthine spaces filled with semi-illuminated shelves that he must have loved and hated.
Toward the end of this exercise, once the translation was finished and the names pinpointed, I returned to his Prologue to the book in which he refers to Benedetto Croce as he does in “The Wall and the Books.” Borges: “Croce opined that art is expression; from this exigency, or from the deformation of this exigency, derives the worst literature of our times…. I at times have also searched for expression; now I know that my gods no longer concede me anything but allusion or account.”
Creative writers can well understand him. On a similar tack Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) says that, “every work of art is a game played out at the worktable. Nothing is more harmful to creativity than the passion of inspiration. It’s the fable of bad romantics that fascinates bad poets and bad narrators. Art is a serious matter. Manzoni and Flaubert, Balzac and Stendhal wrote at the worktable. That means to construct, like an architect plans a building. Yet we prefer to believe that a novelist invents because he has a genius whispering into his ear.”
By Jorge Luis Borges
(translation from Spanish and comments by Gaither Stewart)
He, whose long wall the wand’ring Tartar bounds …
Dunciad, II, 76. (1)
I read, in past days, that the man who ordered the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China was that First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who likewise ordered the burning of all the books before him. That the two gigantic operations—the five or six hundred leagues of stone to oppose the barbarians, the rigorous abolition of history, that is of the past—issued from one person and were in a certain sense his attributes, inexplicably satisfied me and, at the same time, disturbed me. The object of this note is to investigate the reasons for that emotion.
Historically there is no mystery in the two measures. A contemporary of the wars of Hannibal, Shih Huang Ti, King of Ch’in, conquered the Six Kingdoms and eliminated the feudal system; he built the wall because walls were defenses; he burned the books because the opposition invoked them in order to extol former emperors. Burning books and building fortifications is common task to emperors; the only thing singular about Shih Huang Ti was the scale on which he operated. So some Sinologists would have us understand, but I feel that the facts to which I referred are something more than an exaggeration or a hyperbole of trivial inclinations. To enclose an orchard or a garden is common; not to enclose an empire. That the most traditional of races renounced the memory of its past, mythical or true, is no small matter. The Chinese had three thousand years of chronology (in those years, the Yellow Emperor and Chuang Tzu and Confucius and Lao Tzu) when Shih Huang Ti ordered that history began with him.
Shih Huang Ti had banished his mother as a libertine; the orthodox saw only impiety in his severe justice; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to erase canonic books because they accused him; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to abolish the entire past in order to abolish one memory: the infamy of his mother. (Not unlike another king, in Judea, had all the children killed in order to kill one.) This conjecture is worth considering, but it tells us nothing about the wall, about the second facet of the myth. Shih Huang Ti, according to historians, forbade all mention of the word death and searched for the elixir of immortality and secluded himself in a figurative palace, which had as many rooms as the year has days; the data suggest that the wall in space and the fire in time were magic barriers intended to halt the advance of death. Everything persists in his being, wrote Baruch Spinoza; perhaps the Emperor and his sages believed that immortality was intrinsic and that corruption could not penetrate a closed sphere. Perhaps the Emperor hoped to recreate the beginning of time and called himself The First, in order to be truly the first, and he named himself Huang Ti in order to be in some way Huang Ti, the legendary emperor who invented writing and the compass. The latter, according to the Book of Rites, gave things their true names; equally Shih Huang Ti boasted, in enduring inscriptions, that all things in his empire had the name they merited. He dreamed of founding an immortal dynasty; he ordered that his heirs should be named Second Emperor, Third Emperor, Fourth Emperor, and so on to infinity … I spoke of a magic design; it would also be possible to suppose that constructing a wall and burning the books were not simultaneous acts. This (according to the order we choose) would give us the image of a king who began by destroying and afterwards resigned himself to conserving, or that of a disabused king who destroyed what he defended earlier. Both conjectures are dramatic but lack, as far as I know, in historical basis. Herbert Allen Giles (2) relates that those who concealed books were branded by a red-hot iron and condemned to build the outrageous wall until the day of their death. This information favors or tolerates another interpretation. Perhaps the wall was a metaphor, maybe Shih Huang Ti condemned those who worshipped the past to a work just as vast as the past, as stupid and useless. Perhaps the wall was a challenge and Shih Huang Ti thought: “Men love the past and I can do nothing against this love, nor can my executioners, but some time there will be a man who feels as I do, and he will destroy my wall, as I destroyed the books, and will erase my memory and will be my shadow and my mirror and will not be aware of it. Perhaps Shih Huang Ti walled in the empire because he knew it was fragile and he destroyed the books because he understood they were sacred books, or rather books that taught that which the entire universe teaches or the consciousness of every man. Maybe the burning of the libraries and the construction of the wall are operations that in a secret way cancel each other.
The tenacious wall that in this moment, and in all moments, projects its system of shadows across lands I will not see, is the shadow of a Caesar who ordered that the most reverent of nations burn its past; it is likely that the idea itself touches us by, over and above, the conjectures it allows. (Its virtue can be in the opposition to building and destroying, on an enormous scale.) Generalizing the earlier matter, we could infer that all practices have their virtue in themselves and not in some conjectural “content.” This would be in agreement with the thesis of Benedetto Croce (3); as already Pater (4), in 1877, contended that all the arts aspire to the condition of music, which is nothing but form. Music, state of happiness, mythology, faces shaped by time, certain twilights and certain places, try to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have lost, or want to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation, which does not happen, is, perhaps, the esthetic act.
1. Dunciad by Alexander Pope in which the poet referred to his many enemies as dunces. This satirical poem of 920 lines, in three books, describes the king of dunces and a nightmare world of universal darkness in Pope’s gigantic lampoon of writers, books and booksellers, attacking those who write for pay. At one point there is a sacrifice bonfire of the books. This sort of literary reference and source is used by Anglophile Borges throughout his work.
2. Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935), renowned British diplomat and Sinologist.
3. Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), Italian literary historian, critic, philosopher, wrote: “Art is not the addition of form to content, but expression, which does not mean communication but is a spiritual fact, and ethics is conceived as the expression of the universal will, of the spirit.”
4. Walter Pater (1839-94), English writer, essayist, aesthete and art historian, famous precisely because his life is so shrouded in mystery, whom Henry James called “the mask without the face” and the kind of literary source Borges plants in his strange tales. Here Borges quotes Pater that “all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music.” I found on line this anecdote which is revealing of the nature of Pater, and thus of one side of Borges:
In 1894, the last year of his life, Pater was invited to meet Mallarmé, who was then lecturing at Oxford. Mallarmé taught English in a lycée; Pater’s French was excellent; but the two connoisseurs of intimation apparently thought it too vulgar actually to speak. According to one account, they “regarded each other in silence, and were satisfied.”
Translator’s note: This typical Borges interpretative chronicle/ historical reflection (neither short story nor essay!) is included in Antología Personal (Personal Anthology), the version I have translated here, the first edition of which was published by Editorial Sur in 1961 and for which Borges wrote in the Prologue that his “preferences dictated this book.” It appeared again in English in Everything and Nothing, New Directions, 1999. I chose to translate this tale/account because it is shorter and, perhaps, less well-known than others; secondly because it is typical of Borges’ works in which he playfully drops unfamiliar names and references in his veiled recounting of people and place and times, which only at first appear obscure or meaningless; and thirdly because of the writer’s prologue to the volume.
As fate would have it and in Borges style, I saw in a May issue of the best of the “NY Times in Italian,” the article “Walls Raised Against the Enemy, A Long History,” which cites the first such wall as Shih Huang Ti’s Wall of China, an article intended to demonstrate that they never work, not in Berlin nor in Israel nor in Baghdad. Nor will it work on the US-Mexican border, I would add.
Tracing the references and my close reading of the Prologue is to elucidate to a limited degree the Borgesian world. If you try to pursue diligently all Borges’ literary pointers you have to be prepared to enter an infinite labyrinth in which one thing leads to another and then another, inexorably and without end, so that you do need the proverbial ball of string to find your way out. Though with contemporary web search engines this labyrinth is only a few clicks away, while I was clicking and longing to exit I imagined Borges instead in one of his libraries, finding, tracing and investigating such sources of inspiration by following his own instincts, pulling down tome after tome from the labyrinthine spaces filled with semi-illuminated shelves that he must have loved and hated.
Toward the end of this exercise, once the translation was finished and the names pinpointed, I returned to his Prologue to the book in which he refers to Benedetto Croce as he does in “The Wall and the Books.” Borges: “Croce opined that art is expression; from this exigency, or from the deformation of this exigency, derives the worst literature of our times…. I at times have also searched for expression; now I know that my gods no longer concede me anything but allusion or account.”
Creative writers can well understand him. On a similar tack Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) says that, “every work of art is a game played out at the worktable. Nothing is more harmful to creativity than the passion of inspiration. It’s the fable of bad romantics that fascinates bad poets and bad narrators. Art is a serious matter. Manzoni and Flaubert, Balzac and Stendhal wrote at the worktable. That means to construct, like an architect plans a building. Yet we prefer to believe that a novelist invents because he has a genius whispering into his ear.”
La Muralla y los libros
Leí, días pasados, que el hombre que ordenó la edificación de la casi infinita muralla china fue aquel primer emperador, Shih Huang Ti, que asimismo dispuso que se quemaran todos los libros anteriores a él. Que las dos vastas operaciones –las quinientas a seiscientas leguas de piedra opuestas a los bárbaros, la rigurosa abolición de la historia, es decir del pasado– procedieran de una persona y fueran de algún modo sus atributos, inexplicablemente me satisfizo y, a la vez, me inquietó.
Indagar las razones de esa emoción es el fin de esta nota. Históricamente, no hay misterio en las dos medidas. Contemporáneo de las guerras de Aníbal, Shih Huang Ti, rey de Tsin, redujo a su poder los Seis Reinos y borró el sistema feudal: erigió la muralla, porque las murallas eran defensas; quemó los libros, porque la oposición los invocaba para alabar a los antiguos emperadores.
Quemar libros y erigir fortificaciones es tarea común de los príncipes; lo único singular en Shih Huang Ti fue la escala en que obró. Así lo dejan entender algunos sinólogos, pero yo siento que los hechos que he referido son algo más que una exageración o una hipérbole de disposiciones triviales.
Cercar un huerto o un jardín es común; no, cercar un imperio.
Tampoco es baladí pretender que la más tradicional de las razas renuncie a la memoria de su pasado, mítico o verdadero. Tres mil años de cronología tenían los chinos (y en esos años, el Emperador Amarillo y Chuang Tzu y Confucio y Lao Tzu), cuando Shih Huang Ti ordenó que la historia comenzara con él.
Shih Huang Ti había desterrado a su madre por libertina; en su dura justicia, los ortodoxos no vieron otra cosa que una impiedad; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso borrar los libros canónigos porque éstos lo acusaban; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso abolir todo el pasado para abolir un solo recuerdo; la infamia de su madre. (No de otra suerte un rey, en Judea, hizo matar a todos los niños para matar a uno.)
Esta conjetura es atendible, pero nada nos dice de la muralla, de la segunda cara del mito. Shih Huang Ti, según los historiadores, prohibió que se mencionara la muerte y buscó el elixir de la inmortalidad y se recluyó en un palacio figurativo, que constaba de tantas habitaciones como hay días en el año; estos datos sugieren que la muralla en el espacio y el incendio en el tiempo fueron barreras mágicas destinadas a detener la muerte.
* * *
Todas las cosas quieren persistir en su ser, ha escrito Baruch Spinoza; quizá el Emperador y sus magos creyeron que la inmortalidad es intrínseca y que la corrupción no puede entrar en un orbe cerrado.
Quizá el Emperador quiso recrear el principio del tiempo y se llamó Primero, para ser realmente primero, y se llamó Huang Ti, para ser de algún modo Huang Ti, el legendario emperador que inventó la escritura y la brújula.
Este, según el Libro de los ritos, dio su nombre verdadero a las cosas; parejamente Shih Huang Ti se jactó, en inscripciones que perduran, de que todas las cosas, bajo su imperio, tuvieran el nombre que les conviene.
Soñó fundar una dinastía inmortal; ordenó que sus herederos se llamaran Segundo Emperador, Tercer Emperador, Cuarto Emperador, y así hasta lo infinito...
He hablado de un propósito mágico; también cabría suponer que erigir la muralla y quemar los libros no fueron actos simultáneos.
Esto (según el orden que eligiéramos) nos daría la imagen de un rey que empezó por destruir y luego se resignó a conservar, o la de un rey desengañado que destruyó lo que antes defendía.
Ambas conjeturas son dramáticas, pero carecen, que yo sepa, de base histórica. Herbert Allen Giles cuenta que quienes ocultaron libros fueron marcados con un hierro candente y condenados a construir, hasta el día de su muerte, la desaforada muralla.
Esta noticia favorece o tolera otra interpretación. Acaso la muralla fue una metáfora, acaso Shih Huang Ti condenó a quienes adoraban el pasado a una obra tan vasta como el pasado, tan torpe y tan inútil.
* * *
Acaso la muralla fue un desafío y Shih Huang Ti pensó: “Los hombres aman el pasado y contra ese amor nada puedo, ni pueden mis verdugos, pero alguna vez habrá un hombre que sienta como yo, y ése destruirá mi muralla, como yo he destruido los libros, y ése borrará mi memoria y será mi sombra y mi espejo y no lo sabrá”.
Acaso Shih Huang Ti amuralló el imperio porque sabía que éste era deleznable y destruyó los libros por entender que eran libros sagrados, o sea libros que enseñan lo que enseña el universo entero o la conciencia de cada hombre.
Acaso el incendio de las bibliotecas y la edificación de la muralla son operaciones que de un modo secreto se anulan.
La muralla tenaz que en este momento, y en todos, proyecta sobre tierras que no veré su sistema de sombras es la sombra de un César que ordenó que la más reverente de las naciones quemara su pasado; es verosímil que la idea nos toque de por sí, fuera de las conjeturas que permite. (Su virtud puede estar en la oposición de construir y destruir, en enorme escala.)
Generalizando el caso anterior, podríamos inferir que todas las formas tienen su virtud en sí mismas y no en un “contenido” conjetural.
Eso concordaría con la tesis de Benedetto Croce; ya Pater, en 1877, afirmó que todas las artes aspiran a la condición de la música, que no es otra cosa que forma.
La música, los estados de la felicidad, la mitología, las caras trabajadas por el tiempo, ciertos crepúsculos y ciertos lugares, quieren decirnos algo, o algo dijeron que no hubiéramos debido perder, o están por decir algo; esta inminencia de una revelación, que no se produce, es, quizá, el hecho estético.
Por Jorge Luis Borges
Indagar las razones de esa emoción es el fin de esta nota. Históricamente, no hay misterio en las dos medidas. Contemporáneo de las guerras de Aníbal, Shih Huang Ti, rey de Tsin, redujo a su poder los Seis Reinos y borró el sistema feudal: erigió la muralla, porque las murallas eran defensas; quemó los libros, porque la oposición los invocaba para alabar a los antiguos emperadores.
Quemar libros y erigir fortificaciones es tarea común de los príncipes; lo único singular en Shih Huang Ti fue la escala en que obró. Así lo dejan entender algunos sinólogos, pero yo siento que los hechos que he referido son algo más que una exageración o una hipérbole de disposiciones triviales.
Cercar un huerto o un jardín es común; no, cercar un imperio.
Tampoco es baladí pretender que la más tradicional de las razas renuncie a la memoria de su pasado, mítico o verdadero. Tres mil años de cronología tenían los chinos (y en esos años, el Emperador Amarillo y Chuang Tzu y Confucio y Lao Tzu), cuando Shih Huang Ti ordenó que la historia comenzara con él.
Shih Huang Ti había desterrado a su madre por libertina; en su dura justicia, los ortodoxos no vieron otra cosa que una impiedad; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso borrar los libros canónigos porque éstos lo acusaban; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso abolir todo el pasado para abolir un solo recuerdo; la infamia de su madre. (No de otra suerte un rey, en Judea, hizo matar a todos los niños para matar a uno.)
Esta conjetura es atendible, pero nada nos dice de la muralla, de la segunda cara del mito. Shih Huang Ti, según los historiadores, prohibió que se mencionara la muerte y buscó el elixir de la inmortalidad y se recluyó en un palacio figurativo, que constaba de tantas habitaciones como hay días en el año; estos datos sugieren que la muralla en el espacio y el incendio en el tiempo fueron barreras mágicas destinadas a detener la muerte.
* * *
Todas las cosas quieren persistir en su ser, ha escrito Baruch Spinoza; quizá el Emperador y sus magos creyeron que la inmortalidad es intrínseca y que la corrupción no puede entrar en un orbe cerrado.
Quizá el Emperador quiso recrear el principio del tiempo y se llamó Primero, para ser realmente primero, y se llamó Huang Ti, para ser de algún modo Huang Ti, el legendario emperador que inventó la escritura y la brújula.
Este, según el Libro de los ritos, dio su nombre verdadero a las cosas; parejamente Shih Huang Ti se jactó, en inscripciones que perduran, de que todas las cosas, bajo su imperio, tuvieran el nombre que les conviene.
Soñó fundar una dinastía inmortal; ordenó que sus herederos se llamaran Segundo Emperador, Tercer Emperador, Cuarto Emperador, y así hasta lo infinito...
He hablado de un propósito mágico; también cabría suponer que erigir la muralla y quemar los libros no fueron actos simultáneos.
Esto (según el orden que eligiéramos) nos daría la imagen de un rey que empezó por destruir y luego se resignó a conservar, o la de un rey desengañado que destruyó lo que antes defendía.
Ambas conjeturas son dramáticas, pero carecen, que yo sepa, de base histórica. Herbert Allen Giles cuenta que quienes ocultaron libros fueron marcados con un hierro candente y condenados a construir, hasta el día de su muerte, la desaforada muralla.
Esta noticia favorece o tolera otra interpretación. Acaso la muralla fue una metáfora, acaso Shih Huang Ti condenó a quienes adoraban el pasado a una obra tan vasta como el pasado, tan torpe y tan inútil.
* * *
Acaso la muralla fue un desafío y Shih Huang Ti pensó: “Los hombres aman el pasado y contra ese amor nada puedo, ni pueden mis verdugos, pero alguna vez habrá un hombre que sienta como yo, y ése destruirá mi muralla, como yo he destruido los libros, y ése borrará mi memoria y será mi sombra y mi espejo y no lo sabrá”.
Acaso Shih Huang Ti amuralló el imperio porque sabía que éste era deleznable y destruyó los libros por entender que eran libros sagrados, o sea libros que enseñan lo que enseña el universo entero o la conciencia de cada hombre.
Acaso el incendio de las bibliotecas y la edificación de la muralla son operaciones que de un modo secreto se anulan.
La muralla tenaz que en este momento, y en todos, proyecta sobre tierras que no veré su sistema de sombras es la sombra de un César que ordenó que la más reverente de las naciones quemara su pasado; es verosímil que la idea nos toque de por sí, fuera de las conjeturas que permite. (Su virtud puede estar en la oposición de construir y destruir, en enorme escala.)
Generalizando el caso anterior, podríamos inferir que todas las formas tienen su virtud en sí mismas y no en un “contenido” conjetural.
Eso concordaría con la tesis de Benedetto Croce; ya Pater, en 1877, afirmó que todas las artes aspiran a la condición de la música, que no es otra cosa que forma.
La música, los estados de la felicidad, la mitología, las caras trabajadas por el tiempo, ciertos crepúsculos y ciertos lugares, quieren decirnos algo, o algo dijeron que no hubiéramos debido perder, o están por decir algo; esta inminencia de una revelación, que no se produce, es, quizá, el hecho estético.
Por Jorge Luis Borges
2009/02/04
An amusing charlatan
Brilliant non-fiction is difficult to get in sustainable doses; this might be why I feed at the river bed of the op-ed sections every morning. Brilliant fiction still has its moments from time to time; J.K. Rowling dealt with her book deal almost as brilliantly as Charles Dickens seems to by releasing the story chapter by chapter. The brightness of the light that shines from these kinds of pieces can often be so blinding, in the case of the potter books, that some find it harsh and, frankly, unbearable; read one choose your own adventure, you should probably have gotten the point (I must own dozens...).
The light that flickers between off and on in the bathroom where I'm forced to blog could be interpreted as a sign that no amount of petty, lazy thievery goes unpunished.
Continuity, a continuación, is a rare commodity in this day and age. You can't blame so many people for voting for 'Change' as their rallying cry; a tad more gallant than, "we're just not ready for a Black President." Hesitance is an intriguing part of the human condition, as intriguing as any other part, at least.
Does anyone else feel like we're all just sort of sitting and waiting to evolve?
The light that flickers between off and on in the bathroom where I'm forced to blog could be interpreted as a sign that no amount of petty, lazy thievery goes unpunished.
Continuity, a continuación, is a rare commodity in this day and age. You can't blame so many people for voting for 'Change' as their rallying cry; a tad more gallant than, "we're just not ready for a Black President." Hesitance is an intriguing part of the human condition, as intriguing as any other part, at least.
Does anyone else feel like we're all just sort of sitting and waiting to evolve?
Yowza
After some marathon work, I got the tracks for the highly-illegal, and highly awesome "Free Condoms" finished. I'm happy to report that I make a lot of non-traditional appearances on vocals, play a bunch of backwards guitar, sample the fuck out of my library, and just try to provide a good time for the kids.
PG-AR
Quick Diversion
For all those interested in the super-deluxe Ryan Welsh addition, drop me a line at alex.sugiura@gmail.com
Extra special thanks to Newhouse, Taka, Vladmir Nabokov, Fyodor Pavolovitch, Lewis Hyde, The Folks, Maximillian, Stepsel, Rosa, The Country of Italy, Finnish-American Ex-Pats, Virginia and the Sevilla crew, El Treviso, The World At Large.
In Other News, "Ryan Anderson and Brook Lopez were the first rookie tandem for the Nets to lead the team in scoring in the same game since Brian Scalabrine and Jason Collins scored 16 apiece at Toronto on April 14, 2002."-ESPN.go.com
If that can happen, then anything is truly possible.
PG-AR
Quick Diversion
For all those interested in the super-deluxe Ryan Welsh addition, drop me a line at alex.sugiura@gmail.com
Extra special thanks to Newhouse, Taka, Vladmir Nabokov, Fyodor Pavolovitch, Lewis Hyde, The Folks, Maximillian, Stepsel, Rosa, The Country of Italy, Finnish-American Ex-Pats, Virginia and the Sevilla crew, El Treviso, The World At Large.
In Other News, "Ryan Anderson and Brook Lopez were the first rookie tandem for the Nets to lead the team in scoring in the same game since Brian Scalabrine and Jason Collins scored 16 apiece at Toronto on April 14, 2002."-ESPN.go.com
If that can happen, then anything is truly possible.
2009/02/03
Rabbit Season! Duck Season!
Oh David! Feeling a tad saucy on this most recent op-ed piece about "Ward 3" folk. It seems he has crawled inside an intellectual nutshell and declared himself king of infinite space. Where the fuck was this kind of commentary for the last 4 years buddy?
A brief letter to David Brooks; Copy and paste this with your own thoughts, if you feel encouraged to do so as I am going to today.
Dear Mr. Brooks,
I am an avid reader of the NYT op-ed section and have been following yourself as well as several of your colleagues on a daily basis. I truly appreciate the service that you elite journalists provide on issues that people aren't necessarily talking about, or attempting to play Devil's Advocate against public sentiment/ignorance. For your more left-leaning counterparts, the last 8 years have been a painful deluge of plainly obvious American hubris and arrogance; it is chilling to contemplate how inert so many citizens felt, while watching a politics of fear spread throughout the land. In 2004 at Oberlin College, some, including myself, waited in line for 4+ hours just to vote, because they cared enough to respect the process. Now that Obama and the liberal grandeur that comes with this honeymoon 100 day period is upon us, I respect your wishes to play the gadfly, in fact, I'm thrilled that you have taken it upon yourself to try and see through the new smoke-screens and shining lights that the current administration attempt to draw our attention to while they try to get down to the real issues facing the administration. A culture of change is ESSENTIAL, with the implicit knowledge that history has a funny way of repeating itself; there will always be an elite "class" (in a world where we are being told class capitalism is the manner by which society is maintained, then we shall refer to ourselves on this basis), some distinction, some cleavage of society, that separates those in power and those who are having more "power" exerted on to them. SO PLEASE, do not take this opportunity to bely those in power for who they "really are", cut through the crap man, speak from the heart! There lies tremendous potential for those on the losing end of the 2008 election to see how much more we can get accomplished when dissention has a positive goal in mind. At least present the facts in a manner that don't have liberal readers closing the window three paragraphs in. Let's face it, after the election, even during, you seemed to phone in half of those articles, now more than ever you have to work harder at making a case for what you really think is at stake; amongst the elite, amongst the masses and perhaps, if time allows, a perspective on why you write in the first place.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and perhaps respond.
Sincerely,
Alex Sugiura
A brief letter to David Brooks; Copy and paste this with your own thoughts, if you feel encouraged to do so as I am going to today.
Dear Mr. Brooks,
I am an avid reader of the NYT op-ed section and have been following yourself as well as several of your colleagues on a daily basis. I truly appreciate the service that you elite journalists provide on issues that people aren't necessarily talking about, or attempting to play Devil's Advocate against public sentiment/ignorance. For your more left-leaning counterparts, the last 8 years have been a painful deluge of plainly obvious American hubris and arrogance; it is chilling to contemplate how inert so many citizens felt, while watching a politics of fear spread throughout the land. In 2004 at Oberlin College, some, including myself, waited in line for 4+ hours just to vote, because they cared enough to respect the process. Now that Obama and the liberal grandeur that comes with this honeymoon 100 day period is upon us, I respect your wishes to play the gadfly, in fact, I'm thrilled that you have taken it upon yourself to try and see through the new smoke-screens and shining lights that the current administration attempt to draw our attention to while they try to get down to the real issues facing the administration. A culture of change is ESSENTIAL, with the implicit knowledge that history has a funny way of repeating itself; there will always be an elite "class" (in a world where we are being told class capitalism is the manner by which society is maintained, then we shall refer to ourselves on this basis), some distinction, some cleavage of society, that separates those in power and those who are having more "power" exerted on to them. SO PLEASE, do not take this opportunity to bely those in power for who they "really are", cut through the crap man, speak from the heart! There lies tremendous potential for those on the losing end of the 2008 election to see how much more we can get accomplished when dissention has a positive goal in mind. At least present the facts in a manner that don't have liberal readers closing the window three paragraphs in. Let's face it, after the election, even during, you seemed to phone in half of those articles, now more than ever you have to work harder at making a case for what you really think is at stake; amongst the elite, amongst the masses and perhaps, if time allows, a perspective on why you write in the first place.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and perhaps respond.
Sincerely,
Alex Sugiura
2009/02/02
Brown Sauce
In not so many words, partisan douchebaggery is, unsurprisingly, at an all-time high.
In other news, The WMG (Warner Music Group) is accomplishing a similar feat of dickheadedness by pulling any youtube video that falls under their copyright protection.
Here's their official website
Fuck it.
In other news, The WMG (Warner Music Group) is accomplishing a similar feat of dickheadedness by pulling any youtube video that falls under their copyright protection.
Here's their official website
Fuck it.
2009/01/30
Sleep experiments
I have a big, big day ahead of me, and I'm really stoned. It's just high time to celebrate and get organized, perhaps a mixture of the two. Grand. Oh. Grand.
So, Gerald Wallace got hurt again, I thought about shedding a tear or two; he goes like the Dodo it seems, another victim of expectations that he never asked for.
better when read with your own music on.
So, Gerald Wallace got hurt again, I thought about shedding a tear or two; he goes like the Dodo it seems, another victim of expectations that he never asked for.
better when read with your own music on.
2009/01/28
Making a case for Imus
Don Imus makes up a rap about 'nappy headed-hos' and everybody goes crazy; somewhat rightfully so. John Corzine got so worked up, that he crashed his whip on the highway; then fixed the budget, sort of. Anyhoo, this most recent daily show has a great segment where Larry King sounds like, well, Larry King; heinously outdated. This is followed by one of the funniest Daily Show graphics I've ever seen, and I've been watching since Kilborn unveiled the, "It's Thursday and I just wanna DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!" bit, from which I've never stopped laughing.
Watch Here 4 free (but you knew that)
Watch Here 4 free (but you knew that)
Making a case for Mccartney
I finally finished Trickster Makes This World today; my god, anyone who cares about mythology, the process of life (some might call this artistic one, but I lack the authority to do so), buffoonery (the importance of Fyodor Pavlovtich), Negative Space, or the Neil Young classic "Pocahontas" should acquire this tome IMMEDIATELY!
Things that blew my simple mind:
-Hermaphrodite: Hermes + Aphrodite.
-The overlap in the mythology of so many disparate and unique cultures.
-The social parallels that accompany such mythology.
-Elk liver as fake labia.
-Eshu
-Bognesh (Admittedly not in the book, but I've been listening to a lot of Ween recently)
-Loki turning in to a mare, then giving birth to an 8-legged horse.
So, it seems that in the same way James Defronzo describes many notable revolutions of history (that revolution paves the way for reform, and along the way creates a stronger state), so too functions the role of the trickster in society. To quote someone's facebook status I recently saw; Iggy Pop is selling auto insurance, Johnny Rotten's selling butter, what the fuck? The gadfly doesn't want to burn the mother down, because in reality it knows it can do little more than give a jolt of life and awareness to the sedentary cow and will probably get swatted for doing so.
To me this book can be extrapolated in to the realm of Pop music, in particular the epitome of Pop, The Beatles. It is noted by many critics, allmusic.com being my primary source, that Paul Mccartney penned many send-ups through his tenure with the group; the most explicit examples being "Back in The USSR"'s Brian Wilson inspired harmonies/satirical lyrics towards those early days Beach Boys hits and "Got To Get You Into My Life" featuring a very Stax record like horn section/some indulgent lead vocal work on the part of the previously mentioned. Basically the dude is a huge goofball with serious chops.
Many people look at Paul's immediate post-Beatles solo work as the weakest contribution of the three songwriters in the group. Perhaps, then, it's no coincidence that he produced his own album while Lennon and Harrison opted for 'Let it Be' producer Phil Spector/his 'wrecking crew' to handle production duties. Subsequent interviews concerning the Let it Be sessions have Paul speak in disappointed tones as to how "The Long and Winding Road" lost all of its meaning and power when presented in "Wall of Sound" fashion; it's abundantly clear that Paul would get 'his' way with the releases of the sprawling 'anthology' compilation and the somewhat bizarre, somewhat beautiful remixing 'Let it Be Naked'; the latter being a rather blatant send up to the over the top production employed by the king of Mono.
(Quick Aside: You learn something new everyday, check out Yoko's take on Paul's contributions, followed by this great cut off of 'Imagine')
(Just turn up your sound and read this shit instead of watching this youtube montage)
It's abundantly clear Paul, just like John and George, let his egomania manifest in an occasionally brusque manner; it's just that, unlike the other two, he elected to use his songs as a vehicle for expressing this. This has led to numerous conversations, as early as high school, where people have expressed distaste for the bass-playing pretty boy; every music fan I've ever talked to has at least one 'what if' concerning the fab 4 (a real misnomer when you consider Sir George Martin's contributions, let alone those of the late, great Billy Preston).
This relates to Lewis Hyde's excellent book on several potential levels, but here I think it is best to express the notion of shame or, perhaps better, embarrassment. By making such blatant send-ups; by stealing the 'fire' of a stax horn stab or rearranging the opening lead guitar part of Bob Dylan's '4th Time Around' on 'She's Leaving Home', he's, on some level, reenacting Prometheus' journey to the lair of the gods.
Making bajillions of dollars and doing whatever you want with your life isn't quite the same outcomes as having a freshly grown liver violently plucked out by an Eagle everyday while you lay paralyzed (this is what I'm talking about with the DeFronzo corrolary; Paul made bank of being a bastard, and helped usher in a new status quo), but I digress; these pastiches serve to remind us that brilliant pop music does not arrive out of thin air. They also add transparency to the artistic process itself, and as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
In the case of Phil Spector, Mccartney's blatant distaste and disagreements over how to convey a message do nothing but increase the chances that someone who hadn't heard a Phil Spector produced song, an impossibility, will then seek one out. By attempting to bring shame to his name, he is, in a way, helping to raise Spector's work on other projects by comparison. Paul's clownish façade serves as an intriguing foil to the emotional, personal opuses that Spector had a filthy hand or two in creating.
The same goes for the seriousness in which Lennon seemed to regard his artistic contributions, for this reason, when he goofed around it was always funnier than Paul could ever try. Similarly for George Harrison, who took full advantage of his artistic freedom and never seemed to get too mired down in his previous post as the youngest one who could play guitar and sing real nice.
All this said, all the blathering nonsense I could get out before I go shoot around on this lovely January afternoon, it's not surprising that Paul wrote the words to a border-line gothic number like 'Eleanor Rigby'; the complexities of such prolific songwriters cannot be distilled in a single post, rather, I thought this was an interesting way to explore some points brought up in Hyde's book about why Tricksters are so important, and how Mccartney has strong elements of tricksterdom in his works.
Things that blew my simple mind:
-Hermaphrodite: Hermes + Aphrodite.
-The overlap in the mythology of so many disparate and unique cultures.
-The social parallels that accompany such mythology.
-Elk liver as fake labia.
-Eshu
-Bognesh (Admittedly not in the book, but I've been listening to a lot of Ween recently)
-Loki turning in to a mare, then giving birth to an 8-legged horse.
So, it seems that in the same way James Defronzo describes many notable revolutions of history (that revolution paves the way for reform, and along the way creates a stronger state), so too functions the role of the trickster in society. To quote someone's facebook status I recently saw; Iggy Pop is selling auto insurance, Johnny Rotten's selling butter, what the fuck? The gadfly doesn't want to burn the mother down, because in reality it knows it can do little more than give a jolt of life and awareness to the sedentary cow and will probably get swatted for doing so.
To me this book can be extrapolated in to the realm of Pop music, in particular the epitome of Pop, The Beatles. It is noted by many critics, allmusic.com being my primary source, that Paul Mccartney penned many send-ups through his tenure with the group; the most explicit examples being "Back in The USSR"'s Brian Wilson inspired harmonies/satirical lyrics towards those early days Beach Boys hits and "Got To Get You Into My Life" featuring a very Stax record like horn section/some indulgent lead vocal work on the part of the previously mentioned. Basically the dude is a huge goofball with serious chops.
Many people look at Paul's immediate post-Beatles solo work as the weakest contribution of the three songwriters in the group. Perhaps, then, it's no coincidence that he produced his own album while Lennon and Harrison opted for 'Let it Be' producer Phil Spector/his 'wrecking crew' to handle production duties. Subsequent interviews concerning the Let it Be sessions have Paul speak in disappointed tones as to how "The Long and Winding Road" lost all of its meaning and power when presented in "Wall of Sound" fashion; it's abundantly clear that Paul would get 'his' way with the releases of the sprawling 'anthology' compilation and the somewhat bizarre, somewhat beautiful remixing 'Let it Be Naked'; the latter being a rather blatant send up to the over the top production employed by the king of Mono.
(Quick Aside: You learn something new everyday, check out Yoko's take on Paul's contributions, followed by this great cut off of 'Imagine')
(Just turn up your sound and read this shit instead of watching this youtube montage)
It's abundantly clear Paul, just like John and George, let his egomania manifest in an occasionally brusque manner; it's just that, unlike the other two, he elected to use his songs as a vehicle for expressing this. This has led to numerous conversations, as early as high school, where people have expressed distaste for the bass-playing pretty boy; every music fan I've ever talked to has at least one 'what if' concerning the fab 4 (a real misnomer when you consider Sir George Martin's contributions, let alone those of the late, great Billy Preston).
This relates to Lewis Hyde's excellent book on several potential levels, but here I think it is best to express the notion of shame or, perhaps better, embarrassment. By making such blatant send-ups; by stealing the 'fire' of a stax horn stab or rearranging the opening lead guitar part of Bob Dylan's '4th Time Around' on 'She's Leaving Home', he's, on some level, reenacting Prometheus' journey to the lair of the gods.
Making bajillions of dollars and doing whatever you want with your life isn't quite the same outcomes as having a freshly grown liver violently plucked out by an Eagle everyday while you lay paralyzed (this is what I'm talking about with the DeFronzo corrolary; Paul made bank of being a bastard, and helped usher in a new status quo), but I digress; these pastiches serve to remind us that brilliant pop music does not arrive out of thin air. They also add transparency to the artistic process itself, and as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
In the case of Phil Spector, Mccartney's blatant distaste and disagreements over how to convey a message do nothing but increase the chances that someone who hadn't heard a Phil Spector produced song, an impossibility, will then seek one out. By attempting to bring shame to his name, he is, in a way, helping to raise Spector's work on other projects by comparison. Paul's clownish façade serves as an intriguing foil to the emotional, personal opuses that Spector had a filthy hand or two in creating.
The same goes for the seriousness in which Lennon seemed to regard his artistic contributions, for this reason, when he goofed around it was always funnier than Paul could ever try. Similarly for George Harrison, who took full advantage of his artistic freedom and never seemed to get too mired down in his previous post as the youngest one who could play guitar and sing real nice.
All this said, all the blathering nonsense I could get out before I go shoot around on this lovely January afternoon, it's not surprising that Paul wrote the words to a border-line gothic number like 'Eleanor Rigby'; the complexities of such prolific songwriters cannot be distilled in a single post, rather, I thought this was an interesting way to explore some points brought up in Hyde's book about why Tricksters are so important, and how Mccartney has strong elements of tricksterdom in his works.
2009/01/27
Crazyness
For a second today, I was afraid to write on the blurgomatic here. I think the fear crept up as I read other blogs that seem so full of content and information, whereas I have offered up so precious little to you the expectant reader/viewer. Then I remembered that I never offered up too much in the past, and so since nothing has really changed, that it doesn't matter what I'm ranting and rambling about as long as things stay consistent in some degree.
Sometimes I think this is how Ryan Gomes feels everyday playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I remember watching some Big East matchups back in the day where Gomes would simply take over games for the Provdience Fryars; they also loved to doing puff pieces on him whenever he took on Jim Calhoun's UConn Huskies, one such piece on CBS labeled Gomes the most prolific Connecticut native to not play for the in-state power. Superlatives aside, Gomes is a middle of the road, tweener SF/PF with no skills that translate in to visibility and recognition for what he does do well; bring consistent energy and mid-range shooting to every game.
He was one of the many throwaway youngins included in the KG "trade" that also included current wastes of life Sebastian Telfair and Gerald Green (Al Jefferson has improved by leaps and bounds, and people cannot stop lobbying for his inclusion in the All-Star game). Nobody every talks about him, like ever; no puff pieces, no "he's a professional" Hubie Brown kind of kind gestures, nothing.
It's funny to think that we are in an age now where there are definitive blog posts about all 450 players in the Association. Also, that a independent researchers discovered this. I no longer wonder why you girls seem to get so much heavier after "going abroad"; unless you go/went to the third world, where you come for the karma and stay for the organic colonoscopy.
Every time I read articles about problems that professional sports are having on the field/court in Phildelphia, there's always a quick aside that the Phillies won the World Series, and it always brings warmth to my aching heart.
Sometimes I think this is how Ryan Gomes feels everyday playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I remember watching some Big East matchups back in the day where Gomes would simply take over games for the Provdience Fryars; they also loved to doing puff pieces on him whenever he took on Jim Calhoun's UConn Huskies, one such piece on CBS labeled Gomes the most prolific Connecticut native to not play for the in-state power. Superlatives aside, Gomes is a middle of the road, tweener SF/PF with no skills that translate in to visibility and recognition for what he does do well; bring consistent energy and mid-range shooting to every game.
He was one of the many throwaway youngins included in the KG "trade" that also included current wastes of life Sebastian Telfair and Gerald Green (Al Jefferson has improved by leaps and bounds, and people cannot stop lobbying for his inclusion in the All-Star game). Nobody every talks about him, like ever; no puff pieces, no "he's a professional" Hubie Brown kind of kind gestures, nothing.
It's funny to think that we are in an age now where there are definitive blog posts about all 450 players in the Association. Also, that a independent researchers discovered this. I no longer wonder why you girls seem to get so much heavier after "going abroad"; unless you go/went to the third world, where you come for the karma and stay for the organic colonoscopy.
Every time I read articles about problems that professional sports are having on the field/court in Phildelphia, there's always a quick aside that the Phillies won the World Series, and it always brings warmth to my aching heart.
2009/01/26
John Stewart makes a face
That one will not soon forget.
I think I'm gonna bleach my hair when it gets to shoulder length and learn to dance like Axl Rose.
Manic Depressive Sword Crossing Apoplectic Simulacrum Blues
I was trying to manage
my expectations
erstwhile some sage
sent invitations
for a masquerade
Cool hands, lukewarm
giblet gravy boat
gelatinous form
forms a quick coat
on my dinner plate
You fucking turkeys
you fucking swine
God Bless
the dressed
to impress
To hell with
the divine
my expectations
erstwhile some sage
sent invitations
for a masquerade
Cool hands, lukewarm
giblet gravy boat
gelatinous form
forms a quick coat
on my dinner plate
You fucking turkeys
you fucking swine
God Bless
the dressed
to impress
To hell with
the divine
Phucket
Andy Williams sure could belt out a tune, but Audrey Hepburn was FABULOUS.
Who doesn't like the shit that Henry Mancini (and his orchestra) put together over the years? What buttfucking snot nosed band kid didn't play some mediocre rendition of "Theme from the Pink Panther"? (This one sure as hell did)
Today, when explaining Princeton, New Jersey to a classroom of fifth graders, the first question to get the ball rolling was, "Do you worry often about shark attacks?" Incredible.
The big plan to get "free condoms" distributed by tomorrow has fallen flat on its fat face. So, bear with me while I figure out if anything I've been working on will ever in fact be released.
What a moron fuck drunk weekend it was, thanks for being my friend y'alls.
Who doesn't like the shit that Henry Mancini (and his orchestra) put together over the years? What buttfucking snot nosed band kid didn't play some mediocre rendition of "Theme from the Pink Panther"? (This one sure as hell did)
Today, when explaining Princeton, New Jersey to a classroom of fifth graders, the first question to get the ball rolling was, "Do you worry often about shark attacks?" Incredible.
The big plan to get "free condoms" distributed by tomorrow has fallen flat on its fat face. So, bear with me while I figure out if anything I've been working on will ever in fact be released.
What a moron fuck drunk weekend it was, thanks for being my friend y'alls.
2009/01/25
Album Of The Year
Tim Kasher and co. circa 2005 on what appears to be a German morning talk show. A decidedly different take on the vocals and rhythm guitar from the LP version, this song just continues to speak straight to the heart. Somehow, despite some lines teetering on groaner status "She said she'd never seen someone so lost/I said I never felt so found" it all just feels so fucking honest; drunk men do think like this ladies, so pay attention and enjoy!
2009/01/24
RIP Kay Yow
If you were to ask me which sport I gave the least of a fuck about that gets significant funding to prosper and grow, I'd probably say women's basketball; it just feels like such an exercise in futility to me. Yes I said it, but that said, when someone gives a damn about their job and what they do does more good than harm, and when the harm is essentially harmless because it manifests from skewed perspectives like my own, they deserve recognition.
In the curious case of Kay Yow, a long, impressive career came to a close as she was taken by a notably long-winded battle with breast cancer. My heart goes out to all those personally affected by this. ESPN pays people to do this so, you might want to officially read about her accomplishments before I start ranting about my own grandmother.
Bea Borenstein was a caring and loving woman who I only really know through black and white pictures inside dusty frames. I can remember the texture, but not the taste of the matzoh ball soup that she so kindly stewed for me at the age of 4. I remember her sympathetic hands and face. Her personal struggle with breast cancer was not the stuff of myth; she was just a human being living, dying, day by day with a disease that hadn't the mind to consider that there were to sides to the battle.
Mom and Dad used to tell me how much time and effort both my mother's parents had put in to help raising us. How much they must have given before I was old enough to realize what was what. I kind of feel the same way about Otis Redding; we're constantly left thinking what could have come if that flight had made it through Wisconsin.
My father told me a story once, that at his grandmother's funeral (or in the case of the Japanese a cremation) his family showed him the ashes and bones that were left and told him, "when you die, this is it, nothing more,"; besides probably scaring the bejesus out of him at the time, it served an interesting lesson. I've never met a man who had more love to give to his family and friends in such a faithful manner than the man whose balls I once resided in.
So, I've got time today to reflect on how lucky I am, even if superficial things like being broke and having no friends around are trying to drag me down. Free Condoms!
In the curious case of Kay Yow, a long, impressive career came to a close as she was taken by a notably long-winded battle with breast cancer. My heart goes out to all those personally affected by this. ESPN pays people to do this so, you might want to officially read about her accomplishments before I start ranting about my own grandmother.
Bea Borenstein was a caring and loving woman who I only really know through black and white pictures inside dusty frames. I can remember the texture, but not the taste of the matzoh ball soup that she so kindly stewed for me at the age of 4. I remember her sympathetic hands and face. Her personal struggle with breast cancer was not the stuff of myth; she was just a human being living, dying, day by day with a disease that hadn't the mind to consider that there were to sides to the battle.
Mom and Dad used to tell me how much time and effort both my mother's parents had put in to help raising us. How much they must have given before I was old enough to realize what was what. I kind of feel the same way about Otis Redding; we're constantly left thinking what could have come if that flight had made it through Wisconsin.
My father told me a story once, that at his grandmother's funeral (or in the case of the Japanese a cremation) his family showed him the ashes and bones that were left and told him, "when you die, this is it, nothing more,"; besides probably scaring the bejesus out of him at the time, it served an interesting lesson. I've never met a man who had more love to give to his family and friends in such a faithful manner than the man whose balls I once resided in.
So, I've got time today to reflect on how lucky I am, even if superficial things like being broke and having no friends around are trying to drag me down. Free Condoms!
LBJ
Corey Maggette has been making this face since he bounced from the comfy confines of the Cameron Crazies.
Goofballs
Hello Malaysian Mogwai fans!
I'm up at 9:30 in the morning here on a Saturday, thanks in large part to a 2 am bedtime coupled with a freezing apartment that does not allow me to sleep for long.
We're almost 2 months in to the no shave game on my face and the results are somewhat horrifying.
That makes two Michael J. Fox references in one month!
I hope everyone is getting as excited as I am about "Pro-Fi-Lactix Gratuite".
Bad Credit? No Credit? Come on down to Big Al Sugiero's used car lot!
The cryptic link titles on the blog should not stop any of you from clicking through! So, check this, this andthis man.
I've been reading up on the band Faith No More and their two different lead singers, Chuck Moseley/Mike Patton so you don't have to. Kind of interesting stuff for a kid who bought Limp Bizkit CD's from Sam Goody with a gift certificate at the brilliant decision making age of 13; I would literally go straight to the best seller aisle and grab what was in the top ten that didn't totally suck (haha! I got jokes too...).
Ok, everybody have a great day!
I'm up at 9:30 in the morning here on a Saturday, thanks in large part to a 2 am bedtime coupled with a freezing apartment that does not allow me to sleep for long.
We're almost 2 months in to the no shave game on my face and the results are somewhat horrifying.
That makes two Michael J. Fox references in one month!
I hope everyone is getting as excited as I am about "Pro-Fi-Lactix Gratuite".
Bad Credit? No Credit? Come on down to Big Al Sugiero's used car lot!
The cryptic link titles on the blog should not stop any of you from clicking through! So, check this, this andthis man.
I've been reading up on the band Faith No More and their two different lead singers, Chuck Moseley/Mike Patton so you don't have to. Kind of interesting stuff for a kid who bought Limp Bizkit CD's from Sam Goody with a gift certificate at the brilliant decision making age of 13; I would literally go straight to the best seller aisle and grab what was in the top ten that didn't totally suck (haha! I got jokes too...).
Ok, everybody have a great day!
2009/01/23
Pendulum Swings
Super Clásico of 2006: River Plate upsets first place Boca Juniors on a myriad of unimpressive goals 3-2.
Cantankerous old men jostle for position in the limited accommodations of the local watering hole. Younger, more virile, locals know that their place is in the street; that as long as there is a view, they can drink, standing, in peace. Then there's the table with the beaming bright faces of four drunk Americans ordering pasta that may or may not have been microwaved minutes before it was brought to them with their liter bottle beers.
Malouva was a stones throw from the dormitory's door, so I knew it wouldn't matter when I rose from my chambers. The clamoring was feverish; almost every passing torso was painted in white with a red strpe or a blueish yellow, quickly it began blurring together and coalesced in to a tornado of Camel blue cigarette smoke and incessant chanting. No, I don't recall the songs they sang, there was no clear way to be prepared for this event.
Each time the ball crossed the goal-line, an eruption on each adjacent corner flowed up to the sky. When one looks at the flags of Uruguay and Argentina, you get to know sky blue; same goes for city living in Buenos Aires, when the dull, greyness of the July wintertime fades, the sky somehow feels closer to the ground. With that blue comes so many other beautiful colors; the jacaranda flowers in Plaza de Mayo, the brilliant ebullience of rose bushes, the savory insides of a fresh empanada, even the projectile vomit of an oversized half-Asian American student has a certain freshness to it.
Like all great man-made inventions, the first division of Argentine professional football was ingrained in to the Sunday of seemingly every citizen. While standing and staring at the screen through the window, I found myself losing ground to the booze hounds who were sniffing around for a better view. Frankly, my disinterest grew as it became revealed to me that there couldn't be less at stake for me other than the overdue work that I had neglected like a tamagochi pet in the corner of the den of filth that I farted and fucked around in a little too much.
There was no time for dialogue amongst these men, women and children; songs were sang, glasses were chimed, but minds eyes' were fixed on one thing alone. Maybe that's why I was happy to walk away with plenty of time for some late game heroics and contemplate how to best enjoy the weather, knowing damn well that Ohio was not going to change it's ways come January's wintry term. As the throng of fanatics again crescendoed their discontentment, a failed opportunity in football is a passing thing it seems, the now growing distance brought a certain warmth back.
Cantankerous old men jostle for position in the limited accommodations of the local watering hole. Younger, more virile, locals know that their place is in the street; that as long as there is a view, they can drink, standing, in peace. Then there's the table with the beaming bright faces of four drunk Americans ordering pasta that may or may not have been microwaved minutes before it was brought to them with their liter bottle beers.
Malouva was a stones throw from the dormitory's door, so I knew it wouldn't matter when I rose from my chambers. The clamoring was feverish; almost every passing torso was painted in white with a red strpe or a blueish yellow, quickly it began blurring together and coalesced in to a tornado of Camel blue cigarette smoke and incessant chanting. No, I don't recall the songs they sang, there was no clear way to be prepared for this event.
Each time the ball crossed the goal-line, an eruption on each adjacent corner flowed up to the sky. When one looks at the flags of Uruguay and Argentina, you get to know sky blue; same goes for city living in Buenos Aires, when the dull, greyness of the July wintertime fades, the sky somehow feels closer to the ground. With that blue comes so many other beautiful colors; the jacaranda flowers in Plaza de Mayo, the brilliant ebullience of rose bushes, the savory insides of a fresh empanada, even the projectile vomit of an oversized half-Asian American student has a certain freshness to it.
Like all great man-made inventions, the first division of Argentine professional football was ingrained in to the Sunday of seemingly every citizen. While standing and staring at the screen through the window, I found myself losing ground to the booze hounds who were sniffing around for a better view. Frankly, my disinterest grew as it became revealed to me that there couldn't be less at stake for me other than the overdue work that I had neglected like a tamagochi pet in the corner of the den of filth that I farted and fucked around in a little too much.
There was no time for dialogue amongst these men, women and children; songs were sang, glasses were chimed, but minds eyes' were fixed on one thing alone. Maybe that's why I was happy to walk away with plenty of time for some late game heroics and contemplate how to best enjoy the weather, knowing damn well that Ohio was not going to change it's ways come January's wintry term. As the throng of fanatics again crescendoed their discontentment, a failed opportunity in football is a passing thing it seems, the now growing distance brought a certain warmth back.
I can't get to you, from your garden gate, 'cause it's always locked by the magistrate
Everyone is either in Granada or Portugal. My poor friend in London got a stomach virus and had to bail on our plans to frolic through the streets of Sevilla this fair weekend. I've got nothing but my thoughts, 1 functioning maraca, my midi controller, a tortilla de patata (con cebolla), a loaf of bread, some fizzy-bubbly, and this macbook pro for the next 72 hours; let's see what happens...
Personally, I'm not a big advocate of the ballyhoo we fans create around NBA all-star weekend. The dunk contest, despite never really losing relevance, gets declared dead every couple of years or so until someone with transcendent athleticism and control comes along to cheer us up. Jason Richardson's explosiveness during his two-year reign as dunk contest champ was so ridiculous, but nobody really cared because nothing he did came close to VC in 2000. There is so much history with the dunk; it's social importance starting at the earliest possible age (teenage boys, and the occasional teenage girl, get a boner just from grabbing the rim without any help from props) coupled with the crushing shame from being tall and unable to perform this task, usually manifesting in the form of, "Man, if I had your length I would be playing D-1 ball."
Other items on the itinerary in Phoenix this February:
-Skills Competition: I don't see why they can't incorporate more absurd elements in to this to, bare minimum add a little zest to this event. It is so unfair that anyone has to compete against Chris Paul in an on court challenge of speed and coordination (dude is on another fucking level altogether).
-Rookie vs. Sophomore Game: I've been seeing some people pointing and waving their finger at this event as a silly way of making the youngin's feel some sense of entitlement. They, like all sentient beings it seems, take their cue from the older heads running the big show on Sunday and throw concepts like defense completely out the window. Here's my question; if we're gonna get incensed over this, why not the eight bajillion showcase events for high school athletes that are blatantly sponsored by the biggest companies in the country? Why did I know about O.J. Mayo when he was in 8th grade? Why do I know that Mouth-of-Wilson, Virginia is a real place?(Former stomping grounds of Carmelo Anthony, Josh Smith, Michael Beasley, Ron Mercer, Desagna Diop, among many others) Also, when is Ibrahim Jabber gonna get his shine in the NBA? I'm starting the campaign to have the Nets drop Keyon Dooling in favor of the greatest Ivy League guard I've ever had the pleasure of playing against.
-Celebrity Game: Ok, now I will openly admit that my greatest desire in life is to become famous only so I can milk that fame to get to play in celebrity basketball games. This is the only thing that keeps me going everyday when I think about how little I have going for myself.
-There are other events, like that one where they have an NBA player, a WNBA player and a retired great from a team shoot from a bunch of spots on the floor...zzzzzzzz...what huh? oh man what a fucking stupid weekend...
Personally, I'm not a big advocate of the ballyhoo we fans create around NBA all-star weekend. The dunk contest, despite never really losing relevance, gets declared dead every couple of years or so until someone with transcendent athleticism and control comes along to cheer us up. Jason Richardson's explosiveness during his two-year reign as dunk contest champ was so ridiculous, but nobody really cared because nothing he did came close to VC in 2000. There is so much history with the dunk; it's social importance starting at the earliest possible age (teenage boys, and the occasional teenage girl, get a boner just from grabbing the rim without any help from props) coupled with the crushing shame from being tall and unable to perform this task, usually manifesting in the form of, "Man, if I had your length I would be playing D-1 ball."
Other items on the itinerary in Phoenix this February:
-Skills Competition: I don't see why they can't incorporate more absurd elements in to this to, bare minimum add a little zest to this event. It is so unfair that anyone has to compete against Chris Paul in an on court challenge of speed and coordination (dude is on another fucking level altogether).
-Rookie vs. Sophomore Game: I've been seeing some people pointing and waving their finger at this event as a silly way of making the youngin's feel some sense of entitlement. They, like all sentient beings it seems, take their cue from the older heads running the big show on Sunday and throw concepts like defense completely out the window. Here's my question; if we're gonna get incensed over this, why not the eight bajillion showcase events for high school athletes that are blatantly sponsored by the biggest companies in the country? Why did I know about O.J. Mayo when he was in 8th grade? Why do I know that Mouth-of-Wilson, Virginia is a real place?(Former stomping grounds of Carmelo Anthony, Josh Smith, Michael Beasley, Ron Mercer, Desagna Diop, among many others) Also, when is Ibrahim Jabber gonna get his shine in the NBA? I'm starting the campaign to have the Nets drop Keyon Dooling in favor of the greatest Ivy League guard I've ever had the pleasure of playing against.
-Celebrity Game: Ok, now I will openly admit that my greatest desire in life is to become famous only so I can milk that fame to get to play in celebrity basketball games. This is the only thing that keeps me going everyday when I think about how little I have going for myself.
-There are other events, like that one where they have an NBA player, a WNBA player and a retired great from a team shoot from a bunch of spots on the floor...zzzzzzzz...what huh? oh man what a fucking stupid weekend...
Blarg
After much discussion with my older brother, I've finally settled on a title for a new release that should be dropping next week; Pro-Fil-Lactix Gratuite. Basically the idea is that I will be fucking you 6 (or more) ways to Sunday but there's a roughly 83% chance you won't get pregnant (all at no cost to you, the listener, other than sparing a few passing moments of your computer time). So please, stay tuned and entertain yourselves with the following videos:
Fuck Joe Budden's lazy production team on "Pump it Up"
Goonie Goo Goo
Fuck Joe Budden's lazy production team on "Pump it Up"
Goonie Goo Goo
Oh shit there's a bear!
"Worms like Conficker not only ricochet around the Internet at lightning speed, they harness infected computers into unified systems called botnets, which can then accept programming instructions from their clandestine masters. “If you’re looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships steaming toward us on the horizon,” said Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer security consulting firm based in San Francisco."
Article; here.
This doesn't even make any fucking sense. The world is crazy, go read a book you beautiful babies. If not, at least read this.
Article; here.
This doesn't even make any fucking sense. The world is crazy, go read a book you beautiful babies. If not, at least read this.
Calvin, where art thou?
One of the true gems of the Last Waltz; even if Rick Danko is too coked out to remember the words to this, or any other song; if you have a copy of the deluxe 4 disc rerelease, check out the version "This Wheel's On Fire", Danko totally butchers the 3rd verse and it just doesn't matter.
This video is terrible in the same way Hagar is Horrible (also known as not quite as much as you thought as a child). That said, George Mcrae has got something to say, in a bad way.
2009/01/22
That's Some Shit
Pretty much everyone who writes on the interweb has commented on the absurdity of Rick Reilly's ridiculously fat paycheck from the Worldwide Leader; $17 million to do sportswriting over any period of time is pretty unfucking believable. His output since signing the deal hasn't exactly justified the price tag; I read somewhere that his per word average salary is even higher than how much Jerome James earns per minute played this season (FYI, JJ, who is playing out the final year of a $21 million dollar deal, played 10 minutes before shutting it down with season ending surgeery). I usually abhorr puff pieces or special interest stories, but this piece about the super bowl really tugged at my heart strings, read ithere, maybe, because i have a soft spot for Larry Fitzgerald in general (favorite non-Eagle/Pitt alum fittingly had to be the guy who absolutely torched the iggles in the NFC championship), maybe we can forgive the "beer pong" exposé that is only about 7 years too late; what fucking parent hasn't heard of that shit by now? Deadspin.com had a beer pong table sponsor years ago, and they've only been around since Reilly was only making $1 millie a year!
So, in summary, the entire Fitzgerald family has my utmost respect for their true professionalism and their loyalty to themselves.
Also, does anyone who read this notice how many grammatical errors I make? It's somewhat horrifying...
So, in summary, the entire Fitzgerald family has my utmost respect for their true professionalism and their loyalty to themselves.
Also, does anyone who read this notice how many grammatical errors I make? It's somewhat horrifying...
2009/01/21
Hunting like a fox!
Chuck Klosterman did a podcast with Bill Simmons recently; of course I listened to it in its entirety. I got turned on to Klosterman somewhat recently, thanks to my good friend John Bennum; at first I thought CK’s style of prose was a tad too personal, he didn’t seem to be speaking to me as the reader as much as he was enjoying how the light bulb was going off above his head. As I’ve read more and more and more of his stuff, I’ve somewhat fallen for the same things that at first had me wincing.
As someone whose personal cultural memory is one of my few sources of entertainment, I really love it when CK sounds off on the world of sports; he had Rodney Rogers near and dear to his heart long before the recent tragedy befell my favorite former Net besides Aaron Williams.
Simmons, at the 31 minute mark (roughly), asks about a movie called Bigger, Stronger, Faster, which is not about Daft Punk/Kanye/Edwin Birdsong. He also refers to Sean Merriman as ‘Sean Marion’, that, or his Beantown accent has thrown me off, or worse, my perception of the English language is getting swallowed up as I become slightly more acclimated to the Spanish language.
They don’t discuss music very much, despite references to Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, Peter Frampton’s “Frampton…Comes Alive” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”.
They DO talk about Carmelo Anthony dropping serious buckets on the Minnesota Timberwolves and how it is a Herculean feat. Then they start talking about Kobe’s 81, CK says 80 cause he’s allowed to make silly slip-ups. Simmons says, “Nobody liked Kareem:” begins reminiscing about how Wilt “The Stilt”, fan favorite if there ever was one (groupie love!), was not so thrilled that Kareem took his scoring title away from him. I don’t agree that 33 points in a quarter is the equivalent of a perfect game, but I am not sold; think about the time it takes to accomplish the perfect game, and consider the hot streak that people can go on in 12 minutes (obviously it’s still impressive and on par with some of the best basketball that has ever been played).
Then they start rambling about Obama and College Football Playoff system; borefest 2009. I can’t listen to Simmons talk about Obama, I say that, but I am listening; Obama is a great politician. CK says, “he’s in a good position, because it seems like his most rapid follower will believe anything he does,” but same went for Dubya, so try again their Chuckie, any successful politician must secure a base. Then Simmons makes an NBA analogy to the Elton Brand offseason signing; I don’t buy that, Brand completely through the Clips for a loop, and was unable to get acclimated to his new teammates successfully in the first run pre-injury. If we’re gonna do some kind of NBA analogue, I gotta give it up for Bill Bradley, perhaps too obvious a choice, but I am now happy to say that cross-racial comparisons are kosher.
The mood then shifts to great sports bust, with Webber’s love for Obama serving as a segue in to Webber’s ‘failed’ career. They talk about Kenny Anderson and say he is a serious bust; they don’t start talking about a certain other Georgia Tech alum. Then CK hits up the Ron Dayne reference; more yards than anyone, Heisman winner, but a huge NFL bust with those unreal expectations. Simmons starts to shred C Webb, then CK comes along and kind of shits all over Simmons. Then, while backtracking, he maintains his disgust of the distance between C Webb’s announcer persona and his style of play. CK makes a great point; not all analysis has to be based on personal experience, in fact some level of objectivity is required. That said, C Webb is the all time worst rapping finesse forwards ever. If anyone can unearth the Kurupt/C Webb track “Gangsta Gangsta” you will have free tapas for life.
Finally the music reference comes out; Motley Crue’s “Dr. Feelgood” vis-à-vis GnR’s “Appetite for Destruction” compared with Patrick Ewing vs. Hakeem Olajuwon. Simmons, who is a basketball genius and hopefully will release his NBA book soon, makes a great point about Pitino’s full-court press affecting the career arc of a guy with knees as sensitive as Ewing’s. Then they start talking about Jordan and Drexler; basically, a well-worn point, that Jordan being the ultimate competitor to a fault, is always revered. Simmons refers to him as “Almost homicidal” and “Pathologically competitive”; then he says he doesn’t know if, “Lebron has that gene”. I don’t think it’s genetic; I think Jordan was the right guy at the right time. Also, consider how ridiculous the supposedly self-imposed retirement for 2 years led to him coming back and absolutely destroying the league for three more titles. CK thinks Lebron can be better than Jordan because he’s bigger and a better passer; I think Adande put this shit to bed when he wrote his Lebron vs. Kobe piece and said there is a lot more Magic/Bird going on than heir to his airness. They have a quick caveat about the “incestuous” nature of the NBA fraternity and the lack of “hate” among professional athletes, as in there will never be another Bill Laimbeer beating the fuck out of anyone else on the other team. They say that hate can only manifest in this day and age from unpaid debts and adulterous actions; they must not watch the way Matt Barnes carries himself, or Darko Milicic who could start a metal band and I would officially be a fan.
CK asks all the tough questions to Simmons and I fucking love it; how much do you bet on. Gambling on sports is always going to be controversial; Klosterman says that, according to “The Last Boyscout”, that the purpose of injury reports is for the purposes of gambling.
Some self-deprecating humor, and a quick plug for Klosterman’s most recent book “Downtown Owl”. Then Klosterman plugs a new book of essays coming out next year; pure pop culture writing, and it’s all new. Also, CK is getting married, and Simmons almost sounds condescending in his congratulations. Klosterman and Simmons talk about solitary confinement, writing and the nature of people who spend their time writing; they both claim to enjoy being alone for extended periods of time. Then, right at the end, Klosterman talks about how he has some kind of amnesia about his novel; something that he obsessed over for such a long period of time, he now has moved past it in a way that somewhat disturbs him.
I guess you didn’t need me to write a synopsis, but I don’t know how many of you have the time like I do to listen to a 79 minute podcast featuring two extremely regional accents that slowly turn to nails on a chalkboard played backwards on a feedback loop. So, sorry if reading this was a huge waste of your time, but I know only those who actually cared would have read this all the way through.
As someone whose personal cultural memory is one of my few sources of entertainment, I really love it when CK sounds off on the world of sports; he had Rodney Rogers near and dear to his heart long before the recent tragedy befell my favorite former Net besides Aaron Williams.
Simmons, at the 31 minute mark (roughly), asks about a movie called Bigger, Stronger, Faster, which is not about Daft Punk/Kanye/Edwin Birdsong. He also refers to Sean Merriman as ‘Sean Marion’, that, or his Beantown accent has thrown me off, or worse, my perception of the English language is getting swallowed up as I become slightly more acclimated to the Spanish language.
They don’t discuss music very much, despite references to Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, Peter Frampton’s “Frampton…Comes Alive” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”.
They DO talk about Carmelo Anthony dropping serious buckets on the Minnesota Timberwolves and how it is a Herculean feat. Then they start talking about Kobe’s 81, CK says 80 cause he’s allowed to make silly slip-ups. Simmons says, “Nobody liked Kareem:” begins reminiscing about how Wilt “The Stilt”, fan favorite if there ever was one (groupie love!), was not so thrilled that Kareem took his scoring title away from him. I don’t agree that 33 points in a quarter is the equivalent of a perfect game, but I am not sold; think about the time it takes to accomplish the perfect game, and consider the hot streak that people can go on in 12 minutes (obviously it’s still impressive and on par with some of the best basketball that has ever been played).
Then they start rambling about Obama and College Football Playoff system; borefest 2009. I can’t listen to Simmons talk about Obama, I say that, but I am listening; Obama is a great politician. CK says, “he’s in a good position, because it seems like his most rapid follower will believe anything he does,” but same went for Dubya, so try again their Chuckie, any successful politician must secure a base. Then Simmons makes an NBA analogy to the Elton Brand offseason signing; I don’t buy that, Brand completely through the Clips for a loop, and was unable to get acclimated to his new teammates successfully in the first run pre-injury. If we’re gonna do some kind of NBA analogue, I gotta give it up for Bill Bradley, perhaps too obvious a choice, but I am now happy to say that cross-racial comparisons are kosher.
The mood then shifts to great sports bust, with Webber’s love for Obama serving as a segue in to Webber’s ‘failed’ career. They talk about Kenny Anderson and say he is a serious bust; they don’t start talking about a certain other Georgia Tech alum. Then CK hits up the Ron Dayne reference; more yards than anyone, Heisman winner, but a huge NFL bust with those unreal expectations. Simmons starts to shred C Webb, then CK comes along and kind of shits all over Simmons. Then, while backtracking, he maintains his disgust of the distance between C Webb’s announcer persona and his style of play. CK makes a great point; not all analysis has to be based on personal experience, in fact some level of objectivity is required. That said, C Webb is the all time worst rapping finesse forwards ever. If anyone can unearth the Kurupt/C Webb track “Gangsta Gangsta” you will have free tapas for life.
Finally the music reference comes out; Motley Crue’s “Dr. Feelgood” vis-à-vis GnR’s “Appetite for Destruction” compared with Patrick Ewing vs. Hakeem Olajuwon. Simmons, who is a basketball genius and hopefully will release his NBA book soon, makes a great point about Pitino’s full-court press affecting the career arc of a guy with knees as sensitive as Ewing’s. Then they start talking about Jordan and Drexler; basically, a well-worn point, that Jordan being the ultimate competitor to a fault, is always revered. Simmons refers to him as “Almost homicidal” and “Pathologically competitive”; then he says he doesn’t know if, “Lebron has that gene”. I don’t think it’s genetic; I think Jordan was the right guy at the right time. Also, consider how ridiculous the supposedly self-imposed retirement for 2 years led to him coming back and absolutely destroying the league for three more titles. CK thinks Lebron can be better than Jordan because he’s bigger and a better passer; I think Adande put this shit to bed when he wrote his Lebron vs. Kobe piece and said there is a lot more Magic/Bird going on than heir to his airness. They have a quick caveat about the “incestuous” nature of the NBA fraternity and the lack of “hate” among professional athletes, as in there will never be another Bill Laimbeer beating the fuck out of anyone else on the other team. They say that hate can only manifest in this day and age from unpaid debts and adulterous actions; they must not watch the way Matt Barnes carries himself, or Darko Milicic who could start a metal band and I would officially be a fan.
CK asks all the tough questions to Simmons and I fucking love it; how much do you bet on. Gambling on sports is always going to be controversial; Klosterman says that, according to “The Last Boyscout”, that the purpose of injury reports is for the purposes of gambling.
Some self-deprecating humor, and a quick plug for Klosterman’s most recent book “Downtown Owl”. Then Klosterman plugs a new book of essays coming out next year; pure pop culture writing, and it’s all new. Also, CK is getting married, and Simmons almost sounds condescending in his congratulations. Klosterman and Simmons talk about solitary confinement, writing and the nature of people who spend their time writing; they both claim to enjoy being alone for extended periods of time. Then, right at the end, Klosterman talks about how he has some kind of amnesia about his novel; something that he obsessed over for such a long period of time, he now has moved past it in a way that somewhat disturbs him.
I guess you didn’t need me to write a synopsis, but I don’t know how many of you have the time like I do to listen to a 79 minute podcast featuring two extremely regional accents that slowly turn to nails on a chalkboard played backwards on a feedback loop. So, sorry if reading this was a huge waste of your time, but I know only those who actually cared would have read this all the way through.
Bebop (DA smokes pop)
(Photo Courtesy of Google Image Search/Realityrant.blogspot.com)
I can't pinpoint the exact moment top 40 radio's spell faded for me. Maybe it was when Martin started giving me mix cd's, maybe it was freshman year before basketball practice when Phil would enlighten me with Elephant 6 recordings, perhaps Sophomore year of college when one couldn't help but be knee deep in WOBC's at first overwhelming vaults (I wasn't an official member till way late in the game anyways). In contrast, I can't seem to pinpoint what makes top 40 stuff so popular these days; when your musical preferences are the social equivalent of living in a van down by the river, it should come as no surprise.
As far as casting music in to genres there are several other categories that confuse me to no end:
-Jazz: I've always been taught, whether from a musical or historical standpoint, that the essential element of Jazz is improvisation. What springs forth from "standards" is the virtuosic capacity to approach the same sheet music in an idiosyncratic manner that allows the listener to say, "Oh, this is a Wes Montgomery take on Green Dolphin Street," without sounding as clownish as I JUST DID! As an occasional bass player whose minimal musical literacy/Jew rhythmic skills has faded faster than David Arquette as a leading man, who was cast to utter perfection in Hamlet II, I have never felt a particular inclination towards playing Jazz, mainly because those who do tend to be rather passionate about it. There is an essence to Jazz that once obeyed the old color line of American race relations; there's a reason the old white lady, who plays Happy Gilmore's grandma, says in the O'Dweeds commerical, "I used to smoke this while listening to the Negro Jazz Music." That said, Benny Goodman was making the big band swing just as hard as any of his contemporaries; the clarinet is such a Jewish instrument it ought to come with a coupon for a free bottle of Gefilte fish.
-Folk: Most kids I know, who grew up in the US of A, learned to sing songs like "Oh Susannah" and "She'll be Coming 'round the Mountain" in school as youngin's. I am not exactly sure what the point was, other than being simple melodies and progressions by which to slowly develop the voices of disinterested, snot-nose brats who generally yelp them out with no regard for technique or form. I suppose that's exactly the point of folk music; it's all about the simplicity in delivering the message. That said, the Acoustic guitar does not connote folk music, yet time and time again I am seeing people call themselves some derivative of the folk genre; folk-rocker, indie-folk (huh?), etc. It's not like it really matters, but you can't be an American in the age of access and legitimately claim to play folk music (unless you're Bob Dylan, and no you are not Bob Dylan, yes I'm talking to you Cate Blanchett!).
-Tribute: The ABSOLUTE worst thing that happened to Darfur is the reckless carnage that has ensued, somewhat uninterrupted, for what feels like an eternity. In a close second place is that compilation of John Lennon covers that they tried to hawk to "raise money for Darfur"; first of all, what the fuck does that even mean? No apologies to anyone here, fuck Green Day, fuck U2, fuck everybody who claims to care, but doesn't do anything. Also, band-specific cover bands are such a travesty that I have to stop typing in fear that I will destroy my lovely computer.
It's really too bad they couldn't get the clearance to blatantly rip-off stairway, but as the old saying on Wayne's World went:
Why is Tia Carrere going gaga over three single coil pickups and a whammy bar; she's the frontwoman/bassist for an up and coming joan jett/asia carrera throwback band and she's excited about features that come standard on basically every strat ever? At least Mike makes a nice showing with the Pre-CBS banter...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
