Sand Through A Screen

I have come to recognize that many of the institutions and experiences in my life are not ones that I need. In many cases they have even become undesirable to me. I'm excited and concerned by the tribulations that will inevitably come from changing everything.

I cast this message into the digital ocean as a token to remind me that taking step is often as simple as intent.

This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.
Harrison Birtwistle

Modern Slang
Kumarajiva himself would be speechless
I am searching for a idiom to repress
The meaninglessness more perfectly

The translation's flawless fidelity
like the root of the Bodhi tree
from my mind to those not me
can be strived for but not attained
unlocked but not unchained.

Today's a music post.

Earlier this week, mysteriously my hard drive (yet unnamed) lost all of it's music, and thus so did I. So after burning every CD in reach, I set out to undergo the Herculean labor of reconstruction the rest from torrents. The day I began, Demonoid, my preferred service went down for maintenance (which may or may not be code for 'the Swiss are sueing us') and the depth of my task took on further magnitude.

Luckily, a reliable source was not as difficult to find as I had originally imagined it would be. Which left, for the first phase, only the cataloging of past library from the circumstantial evidence of a rarely used last.fm account and and studied recollections of several afternoons.

When this was accomplished I began the yet-incomplete Phase Two; actual downloading from this list of compiled music.

A task that could not be done in a silence lacking lyrics and rhythm (in fact many facets of life I encounter are like this). For the interrem, I investigated a bit, and concluded that downloading Songbird would be acceptable. So far it has been. I acquire small bits of music at a time (500 MB is small now!) and then transfer them into a folder that Songbird recursively scans.

This has meant that (despite many crashes as Songbirds library doubles or triples in size) I have been confined to listening to a few artists. The ones at the top of the list. The one I remember most fondly. Often...the ones I haven't listened to much recently.

Come with me as I experience the nostalgia and excellence that's sustaining me through this Reconstruction Era.

Gregg Gillis blows me away. I can actually lose myself dancing to him. I can't tell you how reliving that is. His music lets me to, paraphrase Joseph Campbell, " hear the music as poetry instead of in terms of prose", as it were. Wasteland defeated.

Hot Fuss changed my life. It was one of the first albums of modern music, one specifically I discovered independently that connected to me on innumerable levels. Consequently the sounds that came with it introduced me to a whole new side of rock. Don't worry though, not a The Killer's cheerleader, and they're not the next Springsteen.

M.Ward describes the mythic struggle of fear against freedom and the inevitable victory of maturity. This song shakes me with both sorrow and hope.

"And I said
What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart
and how can a man like me remain in the light
and if life is really as short as they say
then why is the night so long
and then the sun went down
and he sang for me this song

See I once was a young fool like you
afraid to do the things
that I knew I had to do
So I played an escapade just like you
I played an escapade just like you"

Float On is an anthem of our era. "Shit happens, but that's okay." Historians will discuss this song's importance. To me it's important that it's chord progression marched my ears straight to Heaven.

More later.

Short post.

I am at Dave's, rending my less wiling to write. I've been reading today the thoughts of Hoderlin and Thoreough, and Celan. Especially Celane. "

"Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends."
"It is time the stone made an effort to flowe,/time unrest had a beating heart"

It's a sentiment that reminds us that decay can be endured, and even embraced of as part of a cycle and a call to
arms to let destiny and the zeitgeist of the time flow naturally.

I consider this logo to be all that current art could be if it could Wright itself.

Apollo/Vostok Blues no. 1
all the cosmonauts are dying
the bleached skeleton of a flag
will be that remains of the Space Age
can you feel the boil of rage
that that brings to the surface of my skin?
can you comprehend why when i begin
to perceive the graveyard of destiny
I get testy?
_______________________

Few things bother me more than the false sophistication we pretend to, as if the warmth of the lie of cultural progress that we tell ourselves can ever make up the cold night that I fear may make up our future. What would Socrates think of The Office? It is not to say that I do not enjoy the culture I am in; Michael Scott makes me laugh too, but critically let's be honest with ourselves.

It bothers me that no great art is being made. It bothers me that the Space Program is relegated to a novelty. It bothers me that the global middle class is shrinking and with them the incentive to become educated. It bothers me that the very nature of our growing global culture threatens the ability of external forces to reverse this trend of tepidity.

It also bothers me when someone cuts me off in traffic (I don't drive), and before you get the idea that all of my pet peeves are so intellectual I am currently in fact bothered that my Internet is being tormented by inconsistency.

I'm just a regular guy after all. Who wonders...

What bothers you (and why does my router suffer so)?

"Ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked.
The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher awareness: Sand through a screen, he nodded.
"We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans."
- Dune


Let's be straight. I am not a man of Zen. I am not a follower of the Existentialists. I am not a Communist. I am not a martyr. Worst of all, I perceive few to be my peers.

If after those confessions, you still want to hear my thoughts, you are a welcome guest.