12/25/2014
frank o'hara - music
MUSIC
If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf's
and I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.
Close to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.
I have in my hands only 35¢, it's so meaningless to eat!
and gusts of water spray over the basins of leaves
like the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to you
to have lavender lips under the leaves of the world,
I must tighten my belt.
It's like a locomotive on the march, the season
of distress and clarity
and my door is open to the evenings of midwinter's
lightly falling snow over the newspapers.
Clasp me in your handkerchief like a tear, trumpet
of early afternoon! in the foggy autumn.
As they're putting, up the Christmas trees on Park Avenue
I shall see my daydreams walking by with dogs in blankets,
put to some use before all those coloured lights come on!
But no more fountains and no more rain,
and the stores stay open terribly late.
12/23/2014
anne carson - tv men: the sleeper
The sleeper, real and dear, is carved on the dark.
Minerals of sleep are travelling into him.
Travelling out of him.
Signal leaps in his wrist.
Caught to me, caught to my nerve.
Night kneels over the sleeper.
Where did his journey begin, where will
it burn through to?
And what does he swim for now.
Swim, sleeper, swim.
Your peace as an evangelist to me.
Your transformations unknown.
I study your sleeping form
at the bottom of the pool
like a house I could return to,
like a head to be cradled in the arms.
Unless you are asleep I cannot make my way
across the night
and through my isolation.
Your small hands lap at the wave.
And contradict everything here, your passion
a whole darkness swung against the kind of sleep we
know,
the stumbled-into sleep of lanterns clipped on four a tour of the mine.
You dove once
into your privatest presentiment
and stayed, face down in your black overcoat.
To my wonder.
Endlessness runs in you like leaves on the tree of night.
To live here one must forget much.
Minerals of sleep are travelling into him.
Travelling out of him.
Signal leaps in his wrist.
Caught to me, caught to my nerve.
Night kneels over the sleeper.
Where did his journey begin, where will
it burn through to?
And what does he swim for now.
Swim, sleeper, swim.
Your peace as an evangelist to me.
Your transformations unknown.
I study your sleeping form
at the bottom of the pool
like a house I could return to,
like a head to be cradled in the arms.
Unless you are asleep I cannot make my way
across the night
and through my isolation.
Your small hands lap at the wave.
And contradict everything here, your passion
a whole darkness swung against the kind of sleep we
know,
the stumbled-into sleep of lanterns clipped on four a tour of the mine.
You dove once
into your privatest presentiment
and stayed, face down in your black overcoat.
To my wonder.
Endlessness runs in you like leaves on the tree of night.
To live here one must forget much.
12/21/2014
rufus & chaka khan - tell me something good
this isn't rare or anything, but I always watch this again - real good performance
12/20/2014
12/19/2014
12/13/2014
12/09/2014
12/08/2014
the first thing reminded me of the second thing
Dans
quelques années, quand je t'aurai oublié et que d'autres histoires
comme celle-là, par la force encore de l'habitude, arriveront
encore, je me souviendrai de toi comme de l'oubli de l'amour même.
Je penserai à cette histoire comme à l'horreur de l'oubli ; je le
sais déjà.
- Hiroshima, Mon Amour
~
~
Death never mattered at those times - in the early days I even used to pray for it: the shattering annihilation that would prevent for ever the getting up, the putting on of clothes, the watching her torch trail across to the opposite side of the common like the tail-light of a low car driving away.
- The End of the Affair
12/06/2014
12/05/2014
12/04/2014
dostoevsky and the 20th century
from the last pages of Crime and Punishment....
He
lay in the hospital all through the end of Lent and Holy Week. As he
began to recover, he remembered his dreams from when he was still
lying in feverish delirium. In his illness, he had dreamed that the
whole world was doomed to fall victim to some terrible, as yet
unknown and unseen pestilence spreading to Europe from the depths of
Asia. Everyone was to perish except for a certain, very few, chosen
ones. Some new trichinae had appeared, microscopic creatures that
lodged themselves in men's bodies. But these creatures were spirits,
endowed with reason and will. Those who received them into themselves
immediately became possessed and mad. But never, never had people
considered themselves so intelligent and unshakable in the truth as
did these infected ones. Never had they thought their judgements,
their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions and beliefs
more unshakable. Entire settlements, entire cities and nations would
be infected and go mad. Everyone became anxious, and no one
understood anyone else; each thought the truth was contained in
himself alone, and suffered looking at others, beat his breast, wept
and wrung his hands. They did not know whom or how to judge, and
could not agree on what to regard as evil, what as good. They did not
know whom to accuse, whom to vindicate. People killed each other in
some sort of meaningless spite. They gathered into whole armies
against each other but, already on the march, the armies would
suddenly begin destroying themselves, the ranks would break up, the
soldiers would fall upon one another, stabbing and cutting, biting
and eating one another. In the cities the bells rang all day long:
everyone was being summoned, but no one knew who was summoning them
or why, and everyone felt anxious. The most ordinary trades ceased,
because everyone offered his own ideas, his own corrections, and no
one could agree. Agriculture ceased. Here and there people would band
together, agree among themselves to do something, swear never to
part--but immediately begin something completely different from what
they themselves had just suggested, begin accusing one another,
fighting, stabbing. Fires broke out; famine broke out. Everyone and
everything was perishing. The pestilence grew and spread further and
further. Only a few people in the whole world could be saved; they
were the pure and chosen, destined to begin a new generation of
people and new life, to renew and purify the earth; but no one had
seen these people anywhere, no one had heard their words or voices.
12/03/2014
12/01/2014
11/29/2014
11/27/2014
11/25/2014
11/24/2014
11/19/2014
11/18/2014
xu lizhi - on my deathbed (30 september 2014)
我想再看一眼大海，目睹我半生的泪水有多汪洋
I want to take another look at the ocean, behold the vastness of tears from half a lifetime
我想再爬一爬高高的山头，试着把丢失的灵魂喊回来
I want to climb another mountain, try to call back the soul that I’ve lost
我还想摸一摸天空，碰一碰那抹轻轻的蓝
I want to touch the sky, feel that blueness so light
可是这些我都办不到了，我就要离开这个世界了
But I can’t do any of this, so I’m leaving this world
所有听说过我的人们啊
Everyone who’s heard of me
不必为我的离开感到惊讶
Shouldn’t be surprised at my leaving
更不必叹息，或者悲伤
Even less should you sigh or grieve
我来时很好，去时，也很好
I was fine when I came, and fine when I left.
See the rest: https://libcom.org/blog/xulizhi-foxconn-suicide-poetry
I want to take another look at the ocean, behold the vastness of tears from half a lifetime
我想再爬一爬高高的山头，试着把丢失的灵魂喊回来
I want to climb another mountain, try to call back the soul that I’ve lost
我还想摸一摸天空，碰一碰那抹轻轻的蓝
I want to touch the sky, feel that blueness so light
可是这些我都办不到了，我就要离开这个世界了
But I can’t do any of this, so I’m leaving this world
所有听说过我的人们啊
Everyone who’s heard of me
不必为我的离开感到惊讶
Shouldn’t be surprised at my leaving
更不必叹息，或者悲伤
Even less should you sigh or grieve
我来时很好，去时，也很好
I was fine when I came, and fine when I left.
11/17/2014
11/15/2014
11/13/2014
aphex twin - rhubarb (orchestrated)
aphex twin recently released a new version of one of my favorite songs of his / one of my favorite songs in general, and i just couldn't be happier right now
11/10/2014
dwight sykes & jahari - situations
intimate bedroom soul from kalamazoo, michigan. such a touching video ~ dwight seems like a nice person
11/08/2014
11/07/2014
hiroshi yoshimura
a couple of albums that have been keeping me from worrying too much about things lately.
Green (1986)
Music For Nine Postcards (1982)
Green (1986)
Music For Nine Postcards (1982)
11/06/2014
11/04/2014
11/02/2014
10/31/2014
10/30/2014
10/29/2014
borges on procrastination
The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.
10/27/2014
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10/26/2014
an excerpt from malone dies
Or I might be able to catch one, a little girl for example, and half strangle her, three quarters, until she promises to give me my stick, give me soup, empty my pots, kiss me, fondle me, smile to me, give me my hat, stay with me, follow the hearse weeping into her handkerchief, that would be nice. I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it?
10/24/2014
10/23/2014
10/21/2014
10/19/2014
a excerpt from train dreams by denis johnson
But
they hushed, all at once and quite abruptly, when he stood still at
center stage, his arms straight out from his shoulders, and went
rigid, and began to tremble with a massive inner dynamism. Nobody
present had ever seen anyone stand so still and yet so strangely
mobile. He laid his head back until his scalp contacted his spine,
that far back, and opened his throat, and a sound rose in the
auditorium like a wind coming from all four directions, low and
terrifying, rumbling up from the ground beneath the floor, and it
gathered into a roar that sucked at the hearing itself, and coalesced
into a voice that penetrated into the sinuses and finally into the
very minds of those hearing it, taking itself higher and higher, more
and more awful and beautiful, the originating ideal of all such
sounds ever made, of the foghorn and the ship’s horn, the
locomotive’s lonesome whistle, of opera singing and the music of
flutes and the continuous moanmusic of bagpipes. And suddenly it all
went black. And that time was gone forever.
MV & EE with the Bummer Road - East Mountain Joint
"F R DOUBLE E"
From Green Blues (2007, Ecstatic Peace)
Very Jack: Jams Vol. 1
10/15/2014
alex g - unreleased/assorted/etc.
spent the past week scrumbling around youtube listening to as many of alex g's unreleased songs as i could find, and decided to put together a little compilation of my favorite ones + a couple other assorted tunes of his that are scattered across the internet + a few from his old band, the skin cells. enjoy!
download
they've all wormed their way into my head, but this one is just so special:
download
- Cards
- Skating
- Chinese Melodies
- Molly
- After Ur Gone (Acoustic Demo)
- Sarah
- Change My Mind
- Break
- Holy Fuck (Shooting Star) (The Skin Cells)
- Soaker
- You are Great
- Tie Me Down (The Skin Cells)
- Nintendo 64
- Not Anywhere
- Kara
- Space Beetles (The Skin Cells)
they've all wormed their way into my head, but this one is just so special:
10/13/2014
philip roth from american pastoral
You
fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at
people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or
hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and
machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them
unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with
your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals,
man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them
wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong
before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get
them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell
somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again.
Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is
really a dazzling illusion. ... The fact remains that getting people
right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong
that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on
careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know
we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget
being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But
if you can do that -- well, lucky you.
10/12/2014
10/11/2014
10/09/2014
julia brown - an abundance of strawberries
considering how big of an admirer i am of sam ray's work, from ricky eat acid to teen suicide to everything in between, it's funny how long it's taken me to listen to the latest thing from one of his in-between projects, julia brown. i suppose its release - an unassuming link to a dropbox download on facebook - was understated enough to keep me from rushing to give it a listen...the album had been hidden in some obscure folder on my computer for the past couple of months, and now, hearing it for the first time, it seems ridiculous that something this wonderful had been so close to me all this time. and that's the kind of music this is - comforting to have around, even when you're not listening to it. like an old friend you can share a quiet existence with. i think i'll be playing this often over the next little while.
download
download
10/08/2014
10/07/2014
10/06/2014
10/05/2014
moondog - high on a rocky ledge
You who are climbing breathless to see me and my love
Snow flowers growing fonder on Lover's Ledge above
If you've the yen to pluck, then pluck us both
for we who have lived as one, wish to die as one
Snow flowers growing fonder on Lover's Ledge above
If you've the yen to pluck, then pluck us both
for we who have lived as one, wish to die as one
djuna barnes - nightwood
"We swoon with the thickness of our own tongue when we say, 'I love you,' as in the eye of a child lost a long while will be found the contraction of that distance - a child going small in the claws of a beast, coming furiously up the furlongs of the iris. We are but skin about a wind, with muscles clenched against mortality. We sleep in a long reproachful dust against ourselves. We are full to the gorge with our own names for misery. Life, the pastures in which the night feeds and prunes the cud that nourishes us to despair. Life, the permission to know death. We were created that the earth might be made sensible of her inhuman taste; and love that the body might be so dear that even the earth should roar with it. Yes, we who are full to the gorge with misery should look well around, doubting everything seen, done, spoken, precisely because we have a word for it, and not its alchemy."
pavement - old to begin
When I was eleven
My sister started getting into cool music
She walked between her room and the bathroom
Singing the chorus to that song
It made sense later
My sister started getting into cool music
She walked between her room and the bathroom
Singing the chorus to that song
It made sense later
~
10/04/2014
10/02/2014
ingleton falls - champagne in mozambique
i've been waiting a few days to post this while i try to piece together the few bits of information i could gather about this little album...and i haven't found much...i know that these songs were self-released in 1993 by two guys named andy and that the limited run of tapes were hidden inside hollowed out books from the 'ingleton falls library,' which strikes me as a cool and interesting thing. i tend to fall for this mystique of obscure and dated tunes; a sort of nostalgia for pre-internet times where music could exist in these shadowy corners of the world and potentially remain there, lost forever! but i also love living here, in the present, where i was somehow able to find this twenty-year-old tape that someone decided upload to youtube. how wonderful! but this is all beside the point - the music itself is nice, specifically the two songs below: lush, hypnotic, drugged grooves that are nice to zone out to on a sunny autumnal afternoon like this one.
download
download
9/30/2014
9/25/2014
9/24/2014
what makes winters lonely
When the wind was fresh
On the hills
And the stars were new in the sky
And a lark was heard in the still
Where was I
On the hills
And the stars were new in the sky
And a lark was heard in the still
Where was I
clara rockmore - the swan
"Her classical training gave her an advantage over the many theremin performers who lacked this background. She possessed absolute pitch, helpful in playing an instrument that generates tones of any pitch throughout its range, not just those defined by equal temperament. She had extremely precise, rapid control of her movements, important in playing an instrument that depends on the performer's motion and proximity rather than touch. She also had the advantage of working directly with Léon Theremin from the early days of the instrument's commercial development in the United States."
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