You thought i'd stopped didn't you? Maybe I did. But maybe everything's changed now. The first half of this was written quite a while ago; the second half - well, that was written right now.

finished my last exam about half an hour ago. you don't want to hear about it, but i don't think i've ever written 'Hot Sex!' in an exam before. Or, for that matter, capitalism without discretion is an ugly religion.

A strange thing happened on find some quiet the other day, where a guy posted the link to our humble student radio on some online community. long story short, we had over 1000 listeners at one point, on a radio station that usually draws about 14 at any one time.

now, i do a specialist show, which basically means i play what i like. i thought my personal politics on this topic were unwavering; but, alas, i found myself kind of trying to keep up the energy and adreneline of the previous show, to try and keep the listeners. of course, i was playing good stuff - beulah, apples in stereo, anathallo...but it was all basically pop. i had a lot of stuff with me, and to say 'it was not all pop' would be a gross understatement. i was disgusted with my pandering to the masses, considering that, right there on the show's page, we've got the motto - nothing is any good if other people like it (thanks, mr. stevens).

so, i played something different. which brings me onto the second half of this post - sorry, i don't think there's any mp3s today.

i played some woody allen, something i've been doing a lot of recently it was a segment of one of his shows in 64 or 65, or 68, where he was playing in little posh nightclubs. you can get the CD pretty cheap - it's almost identical to 'standup comic', but about a pound less.

but the point is that i tend to do this from time to time; embody a slightly different persona. this time it's been watching lots of woody allen films, listening to his standup, and reading freud..i'm not sure how that's connected, apart from the neurosis. i picked up a nice copy of freud's general introduction to psycho-analysis, and i'm getting into the dream section. there's also been a fixation on maths, infinity and forever. did you know that there are two types of infinity? infinitely big and infinitely small? and that fibonacci numbers (where the next term in a sequence is the sum of the two previous terms - 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etcetc) spring up all the time in nature? for example, a sunflower's seeds are set out in spirals, clockwise and anti-clockwise. the number of spirals going clockwise is always relative by fibonacci numbers to the amount of spirals going anti-clockwise - so, say there was 5 clockwise spirals, there would be either 3 or 8 anti-clockwise spirals.

i think the thing that attracts me is the way maths can be applied like this, to make it completely romanticised. did you know that as soon as you have been outside, as soon as you are visible from space, that your image will live on forever? think about how we see light from stars that died 50,000 years ago or whatever it is, it's the same principle. the light reflected off our bodies is now travelling through space, and will do so forever. far enough away and with sophisticated technology, someone could see us standing in a field long after we're physically dead, and long after the earth has been destroyed. it's quite comforting.

but.

i haven't forgotten about this blog, and i'm sure i'll pick up on it soon - it's just annoying that if i want to post any music, it'll have to be through yousendit. maybe next year, we'll have some kind of webspace from that broadband deal.

i have yet to come across a serious downside to all these upsides of living in a house with 11 people.

writing prompt number eleven

let's go for a writing prompt. sure, they're satirical, but a couple of them make your mechanisms start to hum.

11. Write a short scene in which one character reduces another to uncontrollable sobs without touching him or speaking.

i've got quite a few ideas for this one. but i'm not feeling too good tonight, so it's probably not best to realise them just yet. let's start with a short one.


a man buys a coke from a stall on the marine parade, the strip of road that seperates the endless line of arcades and amusements with the colourful beach gardens and, finally, the sand.

the man turns from the vender, watching the bubbles on the top of his drink, and looks up as he reaches the curb.

on the road, one car hits another, and the driver ejects from the windscreen of a blue vehicle, twisting violently as contact is made by the spine on the roof, and with the thigh on the spoiler. the body lays entirely motionless behind the car.

our man has gripped his coke; the cheap paper cup has split, his hand and legs will soon be sticky and ripe for wasps when the brown liquid dries.

the passenger of the blue car opens their door. the emerging lady is approaching middle age, and one of her legs is floppy and covered in blood; she was looking in the glove compartment when the cars connected, jolting forward and shattering her kneecap on the open compartment door. by this time, the driver of the other vehicle and his son have gotten out, and run and walked respectively to the body. the boy is rubbing his head, the father vomits at the sight of what he has done.

our man can't tell the difference between anger, fear and pain from this far away.

he sees the woman half-crawl over to the body, weakly holding the standing father's leg as she sobs.

the woman starts to grip slightly harder on the man's leg, at which he reacts with emotion (our man cannot tell which one from this far away), and kicks her off, eratically and violently.

the woman lands on her back and quickly steadies herself on her palms, level with the forceful driver's back door. the driver is moving quickly now, with purpose towards the front door, grabbing his son's hand. but the woman is alert now, and grabs the childs leg, ripping him from his father's grasp. she elevates herself onto one knee, and drives the boys head throgh the rear window, before pulling him back out and cracking his skull on the tarmac.

our man watches some shards of glass skid to his feet.

when he looks up again, he sees the driver's foot rise from the woman's head, before cradling his lost child. the driver is not crying, but shaking.

our man looks at the shards again. they get closer, as he falls to his knees, his palms onto the glass. the shards rip his conceptions as his processes what he has just seen. he realises that humankind is vengeful and merciless above all else, and starts to weep, for what he hopes will be forever, and everafter.

i think there's a few spelling mistakes in that, and i know there's grammatical errors. i'll correct it tomorrow, or after my exam on wednesday.

exams stress me the fuck out.

in the caves behind my house, i found a softer world.

i'm a reasonable man - i try to shower at least once every three days, i can speak in a way that is (at least) semi-understandable by most people, my handwriting, while leaving much to be desired, is legible. i have a carefully honed appreciation for music, a critical and creative eye for photography, as well as a vigourous appetite for the understanding of art. my regard of literature is the highest it has been in my life, and i am slightly drunk.

so why am i in love with joey comeau?

i draw a line - an incredibly thin line - between young talent and unjustified pretention. true, i have been known to be overly harsh; sometimes incredibly harsh, some would say. the equivalent of beating someones face into a sandbox laced with dogshit - this is a criticism i have heard of my...criticism. but, then, everyones a critic. they can say what they want.

anyway, it's fucking annoying. this guy, "joey", can do nothing wrong in my eyes. it's not my fault! i wish, oh, how i wish that i could change this. but everything he does - from a softer world, to over qualified, to his first novel, to his (not currently on sale) prints of a softer world comics, to the loose teeth publishing thing that he seems to be integral too. even his short stories, and his fucking math porn! i mean, MATH PORN, what am i doing?!? why am i just letting myself be sucked in by this prolific 'artist', when, were i at full-mast-arseholery, i would nail him to a cross of art school martyrs and burn his body with a satirical bottle of teenage angst.

i better post this before i change my mind. joey, you cunt. you better hope i don't start reading your lj, too.

(NOTE: i haven't started reading his lj yet, i promise. ok, so i read the story about his neighbours, big deal. don't stage an intervention or anything.)

Peter and the Wolf

i've become re-enamoured with peter and the wolf, and all things Red - the guy, you understand, rather than the colour. although, the colour is nice too. in fact, it's a pretty good word altogether: rolls of the tongue. rrrrrred. roll those r's.

anyway.

here's a couple available on the website, as well as a nice radio station idea - 'the phone in' seems to be where the music is literally phoned in...and as i'm writing this, i can sense that it's probably a very old concept, and i'm really, really behind the times. kind of scary, considering i'm 18. shouldn't i be on the cutting edge? is that right?

peter and the wolf - the fall


red hunter - couches by the sea

fuck it. i thought it was a cool idea. so, here's one of your phone ins, which i'm sure have gone out of fashion. the presenter has all the personality of a car crash, but i like the way they don't really care how shit the quality of the phone line is, and the way Red keeps checking to see if the phone has cut out. sorry, i can't remember which radio station this is from. in fact, i can't even remember how i found it. the wonders of those inner-nets.

peter and the wolf radio session

the fall is a song i will probably always love. you know those mixtapes you always imagine, the ones that contain all the perfect songs on? this would probably be on there. maybe i have bloghyperbolicitis, but i'm going to just go with it.

couches by the sea always swings me around, because it's got that 'is this really a good idea?' philosophy hanging around it. on the one hand, "here on the island/no one's gonna find us, darlin'/no one even sees us unless we want them to" sounds great, really great. "disappear with me" brings it into slightly more sinister territories, but really subtley - you wouldn't think there was anything dark about it unless you were thinking about it already. it is complete and utter solitude - of that much we are sure. but is it blissful solitude or ignorant bliss? 'disappear' is all too often used romantically; but it also reminds me excessively of film noir, something like cat people, where dissapearing into the shadows is all kinds of sinister. are they disappearing onto an island, or is the island just a representation of some 'other place'?

i have no idea what the couches signify, but the way they're just sitting there, "we will watch the moonlight from these couches", it always gives me the image of them sitting there, mouths open. not happy, not sad...in fact, completely emotionless, numb. "on these waves of blue", you've got some very light and free imagery, and while the lotus flower (mentioned slightly earlier in the song) is often associated with purity in body, speech, and mind (reaching towards enlightenment), it is also used, in buddist symbolism, to represent 'floating above the muddy waters of attachment,' which i immediately associate with milan kundera's (somewhat plagurised) idea of lightness and weight. it's important to get a balance rather than be totally weighed down, or be completely off in the clouds. the song is definitely a tightrope in similar ways to kundera's loose philosophy, and the beauty of the lyrics, guitar and vocals melodies is really offset, at least for me, by this idea of floating off, never to return. it's infinitely appealing, as well as a little scary.

wow. sorry, i really didn't mean to rip the song apart like that. it was just going to be a short thing, but i guess i've been thinking about it more than i realised.

is anti folk?

just woke up, and that layout looked hella disgusting. wow. you don't even want to know what it was. usually my judgment is best in the early hours, but it appears this was a...rare miss.

not sure if he's been covered by any other blogs, but i was really taken by kid harpoon. i'm afraid i'm going to have to direct you to his myspace page for some downloads - sorry about that. i don't know about you, but that place makes me feel a little ill...all the sticky floors and second hand smoke. make sure you listen to the colours demo, it's got some really chilling segments in it, where his voice matches the guitar perfectly. as well as downloading the others. its one of those artists that makes you think 'yeh, yeh, i can write a fucking song!' that's the kind of stuff i need at the moment, and i hope you do too.

this diane cluck song is all kinds of flawless. i love the way her voice overlaps itself in a way that, while not necessarily 'new' as such, always sends chills down my spine. especially when the voice and lyrics are as good as this.

this is probably my favourite of the tracks i'm posting today. there seems to be a feud on whether its dianne or diane, so i'm going to just go crazy and put one n. even if her name was double n, i'm sure she'll change it now. just for me.

diane cluck - easy to be around

by the way, all this stuff keeps being describes as anti-folk...even by some of the artists in the scene, which is kind of abnormal in terms of the way labels and genres opperate. i'm not really sure what it means, but if you're into that, make sure you get these guys.

last one is lupen crook, who we can probably go ahead and lump in the same bag. sorry, i have had little sleep - i'll be a lot less contrived in the future. anyway, he apparently comes from Victa, in the south east of england...which could be described as the same section i'm living in, but i've never heard of the place. i doubt i can even spell geography.

ok, so let's go ahead and say that lupen reminds me a little of an english, more lo-fi page france. there we are, how's that for your comparison table? i'll say no more, and just let you rip that parallel apart. go for it. make my day.

lupen crook - exactly ? the planet
(i'm not entirely sure what that question mark is going for)

lupen crook - urban fox hunting

that's a good idea, mike - start a new blog just as you start revision. maybe it will last only as long as your exam period, maybe it will keep on after that, maybe it'll lower your grades with the infinite distraction. whatever it does, i hope it doesn't continue to nurture this third-person-reference thing.

i'm thinking about eating a raw egg. just cracking it on the side, and emptying it into my mouth.

i'm not sure what will happen; if it will just slide straight down my throat, no questions asked...or if my body will tell me to chew it. i kind of have the feeling that before it even gets part way down my throat, i will convulsively throw it up - the whole egg texture isn't one i can see my throat loving. there's also the possibility that, if i do throw up, it will really hurt if i'm currently trying to chew. my throat will be spasming both ways - trying to force down with the swallow muscles and push up with the vomit muscles. you know what? they might be the same muscles, i'm not sure.

besides these points, it should be cool, simply for the fact that i've never done it before. and if someone else is in the kitchen...that would be a good reaction shot.

///

i thought i would mention these spin videos, originally found at some other blog...i can't remember which. (actually, better check that out...yes, it was thinktank.) you can just head over there and get them - notice how the violinist (is that even a word?) and guitarist from the clogs are sculking down the back there. yes, yes we see you, you musical whores. who is it, hey? are you with the books? or the national? maybe you should hang out at the state library, get yourself some national books.

wow. sorry about that. it's pretty early.

i'm not aware of the delicate intricasies (sp?) of spin magazine, but, apparently, it's part of their Spinhouse sessions. I have no idea what this means, but you can go right ahead and believe it.


as an aside...hi. it looks like i tried to avoid the whole 'well this is my new blog! hope you like it, hahahahaha, HAHAHA, ROOARRRR' monologues, and that's just fine with me. i used to have another blog, started a long time ago now, back when they were called 'weblogs' or the, frankly, cumbersome 'online diaries' (when i was moving from high school to college...that's something like...3 years ago, maybe? is that right?), but drownedinsound, the site it was hosted on, had a big 're'design (read: went for a big 'we want to look like pitchfork' design), and to cut a boring story even shorter, it took out all my line breaks from the weblog.

now, there is something you must understand.

i really like line breaks.

like, a lot.

so, i was crippled by this, and lacking the motivation to change it, it kind of faded into obscurity. which was a real shame, because i got some awesome comments about that thing. it even succeeded in breaking up a couple of relationships, and forging new ones. but, you don't want to hear about that.

at least, you shouldn't want to.


after i've had some fun with the template (meaning, when i've stolen an awesome template from somewhere else), i'll try and post regularly. who knows, maybe it'll turn into an mp3blog. they're always cool.

so, night. actually, 5am is the morning really, isn't it? here's a tip - if you're not too good at sleeping, don't get into a stagnant mood, drink, and fall asleep at 11. i paid for it by waking, wide-eyed and ready for the day...at 3am.

saturday tomorrow. i hear good things happen on saturdays.


tM*x