(Friday Life #6) 7 December 2012

Up at my Dad's, trying to stay motivated and work hard for some money while I'm still waiting on unemployment results.

I slept in so late today!  Wow.  Ok, off to work :)

(A Look at the Week Ahead #9) 15 October 2012

Ok, applied for unemployment and an Oregon Trail Card.  Tomorrow I'm going by the dentist and setting up an appointment.  I need to get in touch with Jim about possibly borrowing some grocery money until my unemployment kicks in, and probably go and sign my exit papers on Friday.
Lots of reading and writing.  That's all for now.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Rumination (Saturday Life #9) 13 October 2012

Well, well, well.  Today is regroup.  JP #2 isn't happening.  Time to watch a little college football (non-Ducks) and just see where the day takes me.

I have been thinking about the Olivia situation a lot.  It's hard to believe we've been broken up for 6 years.  February - October of 2006.  I moved here in July of 2005.  I've lived in Eugene for over 7 years.  It's been a long time coming to be back on my game, and be back on it like never before.

Listening to all kinds of music and watching all kinds of movies, as always.

More on all of this later :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Denial (Friday Life #5) 12 October 2012

I have a keyboard (maybe 2?) again!

I'm about to head to trivia with my peeps.  Should be fun.  I'm thirsty and hungry!!

I'm listening to the new Converge.  It's very good.  It flows, it's a bit different from most Converge albums in that sense, and I really appreciate it.  I'm interested to find out about my unemployment and how that's going to work.  I need to apply for food stamps on Monday as well.  Going to take a few week vacation at least, focus on living, getting caught up on my manageable bills, and jogging, playing basketball, etc.  Looking forward to it.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:E 35th Pl,Eugene,United States

Oh Charlton (Film #7) 9 October 2012

Ben-Hur, Wyler, 1959, 6/10
I'm working my way through Ben-Hur, the William Wyler epic from 1959 that is all of 212 minutes.  I have to say that the music is pretty damn classic.  Miklos Rosza knows what he is doing, and there can be no doubt about that.  Overture opens on Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam (just their hands) and once the nativity scene is through, we get a more distanced view where you can see the cherubim and the figures of God and Adam much more fully.

To believe in a Christian god is tenuous.  The exact origin of the religious impulse is impossible to know, it seems, but if Christianity has been with use for about 2,012 years, it would be safe to say that we've practiced religion or its proto- form for at least 100, 000 (Blombos cave is 80,000 years old, for instance).  Another interesting red herring is the idea that Messala says to Sextus that god isn't in every man, only one man.  Obviously meaning the emperor, this implies that their society worships the emperor as a god and that conditions were worse for the everyman.  The subtle capitalist message here is humorous.  They then discuss how to "fight an idea," and Messala embodies Joseph Goebbels, Henry Ford, etc. in his answer: "With another idea."  Welcome to the information age.


The Last Films I've Seen
1. Lemmy, Olliver and Orshoski, 2010, 8/10.
Well, what can be said about the godfather of speed metal? He's a bit of a hoarder, he still drinks and does drugs like a crazy sob, but he has integrity and seems like a genuinely good soul. Highly recommended.
2. How to Steal a Million, Wyler, 1966, 6.2/10.
Audrey Hepburn. Peter O'toole. Recipe for success, right? Sort of. No real moral, message, or directorial flair. Video quality was ho-hum. Worth seeing.
3. River of Grass, Reichardt, 1994. Actually haven't finished this yet.
4. Dexter, Season 7, Episode 1, 2012, 10.0.
Not sure how they do it. Dead in the water, only to rise on the tides of Neptune. Or something. Seriously fucking brilliant, and more than makes up for the turd of episode 2.
5. The Avengers, Wheedon, 2012, 7.2/10.
The fanboys cum dumpster. Umm good but nothing revelatory. See below.
6. The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan, 9.4/10. Revelatory. See above. Terrorism, nuclear war, evil, good, human nature, pain, redemption, environment vs. genes, love, betrayal, consumerism, schadenfreude, and more. So much better than the dark night returns. Nolan taps into it in his piece de resistance.

Mense (Weekend Review #5) 14 October 2012

I wonder, when was the last time I played basketball? Certainly not for quite a while. It's nice for sure, although I am definitely dying.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:E 15th Ave,Eugene,United States

Jp2 (A Look at the Weekend #7) 11 October 2012

Hmm. Lost my job and couldn't feel better. Seems a bit strange that I feel this good but once I got suspended a part of me knew I couldn't go back.

Let the job hunt begin!!

But first...

Let the relaxation and projects begin!!

Good times. Trivia night Friday, bad hat Saturday, and brunch with Jim Sunday. Get my resume in order, get a keyboard, and get some scrumptious groceries.

Invent a Bunbury, do a lot of reading, and screw my head on even better.

"Few are the giants of soul who actually feel that the human race is their family circle." -Freya Stark


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Hilyard St,Eugene,United States

All Alone is All We Are (Music #9) 10 October 2012

Today I am going to write about an album that changed my life:
Nirvana: Unplugged.

Between this album and a high school friend, Dave, I came out of my shell. Granted, I was trapped within it, writhing because of such a sudden awakening, but without them both, who knows what horrors lay ahead?

That sounds so dramatic, but I am a sensitive person raised in a horribly insensitive world. It's even worse in small town America.

I had recently met Dave and we went to his house after a Lumberjack football game and he took a shower while I picked up his acoustic guitar and was strumming away.
(Brief guitar-playing history: I come from a musical family. I'd played viola since fifth-grade, I have recordings of my brother and I goofing around on my dad's guitar at the ripe age of 2. My brother, dad, mom, grandma, aunt, and stepdad all play. I knew relatively little about the technical aspects of what I was doing and the only song I knew was "house of the rising son," but for some reason I had been playing quite a bit lately)

Anyway, Dave saw I was curious, wrote out a few tab sheets, and I was on my way. This was the first album that I delved into. I haven't revisited it in its entirety in quite sometime, so here we go. "About a girl," "come as you are," "Jesus edoesn't want me for a sunbeam," "the man who sold the world," and "pennyroyal tea" have relatively low emotional resonance for me (tracks 1-5, respectively), but track 6 is when we start getting somewhere.

"Dumb" and "Polly" were both huge inspirations for learning chord changes quickly. So darkly beautiful and I have Dave to thank for introducing me to this stuff. My brother wouldn't have ever listened to this, so I quickly connected with my step-brother stylistically, and he was quick to introduce me to modest mouse, foo fighters, camper Von Beethoven, built to spill, and various other northwest, post-grunge bands. I couldn't stop listening to alice in chains and tool for the next three years, however, so a lot of his guidance was lost on me (sorry Alan).

It was strange listening to a band a couple of years after the impetus and person most directly responsible for their sound/aesthetic has committed suicide. It all brought a lot of rage, sadness, impotence, despair, fear, love, and many other things to the fore. I briefly flirted with suicide. It's laughable now.

After a few more songs with little emotional ties, the holy trifecta starts. Meat puppets' "lake of fire," my favorite nirvana song ("all apologies"), and leadbelly's "where did you sleep last night" round out the album. The sheer emotion of the final track is as epic as any iron maiden or old Metallica solo.
References
Music
- Unplugged, Nirvana, 1994.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Fox Hollow Rd,Eugene,United States

Back to work?? (A Look at the Weekend #7)

I have a few more things to do to get ready, and I should be back on track.  Reading Andrew Weil's The Marriage of the Sun and Moon and it's a damn fine book so far.  Most of his stuff is.

Had a really good chat with my buddy Ben about all of the music I have been listening to and how I'm really motivated to get back in the game.

Ducks play UW (currently ranked #23), no Bad Hat though :(

We Witness, We Suffer (Music #8)

Today I'm going to write about an album that changed my life:
The Sufferer and the Witness.

Rise Against has a long history with me.  First introduced to them by a current bandmate in around 2001 or '02, I simply liked their name.  At the time, I'd been playing guitar and singing for a metal/hardcore band for a bit, and though in retrospect it wasn't much, I had been overwhelmed, being introduced to more music then I could possibly ever assimilate.

Sitting here now in this fine 2012, with 10 years of acquaintance to their music/politics/ideas, and having seen them twice, along with a slough of bands from pretty much any genre you could imagine, things seem a lot different.  It could be the Bridgeport Witch Hunt that I'm drinking, or the fact that this album is currently blasting on my record player (yes, record player), but this is a critically under-appreciated band.  The one pitchfork review trounces them.  This is their major label debut though, so I can sort of understand.  Sort of.  Marc Hogan's writing here is sloppy and lacking much humor, however, despite his finest efforts otherwise.

I first heard Revolutions Per Minute upon release and was immediately drawn to the album.  I had a bit of a musical renaissance after playing in a ska band and a 'nu metal' type band, landing smack dab with some musicians who were into the misfits, black flag, minor threat, and many other real bands that I still listen to.  Anyway, this musical renaissance was brought on by bands like Opeth, In Flames, Thrice, Thursday, Strike Anywhere, Propagandhi, Coheed and Cambria, A Wilhelm Scream, friends in Countdown to Life, Death by Stereo, Boysetsfire, etc.  I was pretty heavy into jogging at the time, and I can't count how many times I was running to RPM.

Their next album was just a year later (they were blowing up fast), a major label release which was a step backward in my opinion.  I listened to it quite a lot still, but I was in major transition.  I had moved to Eugene to start school at the University of Oregon and our band, after having been together for 4 years or so, finally had to give up the ghost.  I lost track of a lot of music at that point.

"Down beyond those city streets through gutters filled with black debris..."  Starts the album.  Though released in 2006, I doubt I got into this album until early 2007, sometime after my rough breakup with Olivia.  To be honest, I think I listen to this album more now than I did in the oughts.

The lyrics are nice and socially conscious.  I think it's probably musically the most solid all-around Rise Against album.

"Deep inside these burning buildings voices die to be heard, years we spent teaching a lesson we ourselves have never learned," from Prayer of the Refugee.


References
Film

Literature/Websites
-Activism on band website
-Band Website here
-Review of "Siren Song of the Counter Culture" at Pitchfork
-Rise Against Youtube channel
-Sputnik Rise Against

Music
Rise Against Discography (Listed in chronological order)
-The Unraveling, Rise Against, 2001
-Revolutions Per Minute, Rise Against, 2003
-Siren Song of the Counter Culture, Rise Against, 2004
-The Sufferer and the Witness, Rise Against, 2006
-Appeal To Reason, Rise Against, 2008
-Endgame, Rise Against, 2011

Valhalla Rising (Film #6) 2 October 2012

Valhalla Rising, Refn, 2009, 7.7/10

"In the beginning there was
only man and nature

Men came bearing crosses
and drove the heathen

To the fringes of the earth"

So begins Valhalla Rising.
"I will lead this beast on a chain of flowers" - from "(A Shimmering Radiance) Diadem of 12 Stars"
Part I: Wrath.
One-Eye reaches the crest of a hill and sees a man bowed over a recent battlefield, smoke rising, a cross erected on a knoll at the edge of the scene.  He looks like Blondie, with the poncho draped over his shoulder.  He doesn't talk, not unlike the Vincenzoni character in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He just won his freedom by finding an arrowhead in a stream and massacring those who had recently taken him as thrall, despite being "Christian."  They'd planned on trading him from one chieftain to the other.  Their plans failed.  Finally the violence he is capable of inflicting - which seems like the reason for his movement - is enacted.

Interspersed through these simple beginnings are lengthy shots of the hills of Scotland, beautiful beyond words.  Despite all of its flaws, the movie evokes the seething chaos of a society in transition better than most.

Part II: Silent Warrior.
"The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak."

The scenes here are brutal.  We have the clashing of nomadic hunter gathers and "more civilized" Norsemen, though some have argued that this nomadic hunter gatherer (pre-Christian Norseman has more honor than his captors).  Dark grey clouds are salutary, the themes and characters put them to shame.  Human nature laid more bare than we are used to seeing.

As the pair - the boy who fed One-Eye has followed him cautiously, no longer having family - come over the hillock the crusaders ask if he is from the clans, and his partner, Are the boy,  answers, "no."  They have a cache of topless women off to the side.  Captives?  How Christian was that?  We see a pile of burning bodies, another element of pre-Christian Norsemen mixing with "God's own soldiers."

"Do you think he'll come back?" asks one Christian to the other: "If it's God's will," answers the other.

Part III: Men of God.
"We must be alert to the deeply ingrained capacity for murder that lurks inside us all." Buss, The Murderer Next Door

He has come back, like Jesus risen from the dead after three days.  Refn gives us no timescale, however.  The famous viking longship is boarded, the Christians, along with One-Eye and Are, are sailing to Jerusalem.  The boat ride is intensely quiet, heavily shrouded in fog.  There is attempted theft, murder, suspicion, schadenfreude, and a health dose of the absurd.  It's hard to understand, because nobody is rowing in the boat and nothing changes as they go along, until finally they arrive at...

Part IV: The Holy Land
North america, as most critics seem to agree, probably Newfoundland.  The trees and bushes don't differ much from our own back yard, here in Oregon.  The men spread out to search their new found land.  The camera work and scenery is beautiful.  They happen upon a Native American burial ground, which is speculated to be Beothuk.  They are clearly nowhere near Jerusalem, as they had planned to be.

They continue to bicker and suspect one another, clearly frustrated that they're in the wrong place and spent so much time and misery getting there.  They suspect one another, especially the most obvious outsider of the group, One-Eye.  Two of the elders discuss their plans as fog rolls in.  Fog plays a big part here, as everything is obscured.  Not only is the group lost, but perhaps we as viewers are meant to be as well.  Refn seems to be saying, it doesn't matter where they are, this was a fact of life for everyone at this time.  One man leaves the group and his sword behind, and goes wandering.

One of their men is hit with an arrow while they are exploring the waterways.

Part V: Hell
The elders hold the stone arrow point and marvel at it's lack of sophistication.  "Not iron."  They pass around a ceramic jug with a hallucinatory brew (probably fly agaric tea) used to prepare vikings for battle.  While One-Eye builds a cairn, perhaps for their recently fallen comrade, others pray, and one assails another (the one who we thought was dead) and roughly sodomizes him.  It seems he is left for dead.  The wandering member of the group is back now, covered in mud and scrawled runes.  They begin to exhibit mass frustration and quite a few of them die.  "Only men of faith deserve the riches of my new Jerusalem."

Part VI: Sacrifice
The leaders discuss the new Jerusalem.  The madman and the murderer.  We don't see what happens to the madman, but the leader is finally taken down with three arrows to the back.  Are and One-Eye continue on, a couple of stragglers behind them as well.  Finally they leave the other two behind and are making their way through the environment.  Beautiful shots of glades and lakes, as the two cross large river rock and foggy valleys.  The end is violent, but nowhere near as shocking as most of the violence in the film.

Issues with dress are there.  The movie is slow, it's odd at times, and it's flawed.  One-Eye has these bizarre visions, or is it the director?  Is it another way for us to see his future actions?  He's bathed in red light, and maybe it is just the blood of violence that has followed mankind since our days as protozoa.  Life feeds on life?  They all frustratingly speak English.  It would have been far more interesting if they'd all have spoken their native tongue, but most likely whichever tongue that is is a largely dead language.

References
Film
-The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Leone, 1966
-Valhalla Rising, Refn, 2009

Literature/Websites
-A Brief note on Fly Agaric used by Vikings here
-Beothuk natives @ Wikipedia
-The Murderer Next Door, Buss, 2006
-TIFF: 'Valhalla Rising Delivers Authentic Viking Experience, available here
-Valhalla Rising @ Wikipedia
-Valhalla Rising Review from here
-Viking raids

Music
-Diadem of 12 Stars, Wolves in the Throne Room, 2006

The Last Films I've seen
1. Double Indemnity, Wilder, 1944, 8.0/10.0
I've seen this movie 3 times now, and finally for the first time on a decent print.  I must say, it gets better each time I see it.  I've not read anything by Ernest Hemingway, except for excerpts from his writings, and his name is synonymous with economy in my mind, and that's what I think of when I think of Billy Wilder.  Double Indemnity is a film noir packed tightly into the economy of a Hemingway novel.
2. "Are you...?", Dexter, Season 7, Episode 1, 10/10
Quite possibly the best episode of one of my favorite television shows.  A show that casts a moral grey area (for some?), certainly makes me wonder.  If you knew someone was killing bad people, picking them off one by one, would you say anything about it?  How would you react?  What if you found out it was someone you were really close to?
3.  The Piano, Campion, 1995, 9.4/10.0
Brilliant tell that weaves folklore, murder, love, indigenous people vs. settlers, and many other things together to relate a tail that is almost unbelievable at times.  The way it concludes leaves no doubt of its gravitas, however.

(A Look at the Week #8) 1 October 2012

So it's October 1st.  October.  A new month.
Writing an essay on Nicolas Wending Refn's Valhall rising Tuesday, and I'm not sure which album I'll be reviewing Wednesday.  No real plans for the rest of the week.  Keep growing, keep writing.

Here are some of the things I have laid out for the week.
-Monday is soup and sandwich day, and I'm having grilled cheese and ham.  Small Side Salad.
-Tuesday is brenner.  We're going with waffles, bacon, and raspberries.
-Wednesday is Spanish night, so we're having broccoli, chicken, and pasta with Spanish spices like here
-Thursday is Italian night, and we're keeping with the broccoli/chicken/pasta theme by doing chicken, broccoli, and alfredo sauce from here.  Chicken alfredo!
-Moving on, Friday will be pizza and beer, and probably a salad.
-And finally, to end with our week, we'll have some form of rice/chicken/broccoli or perhaps dinner at Bad Hat's.

Sunday, as always, is open.

Work/Film/Music/Life (A Look at the Week Ahead #9)

Might go see Ted tomorrow night.  I'm a bit meh about it.  Similar feelings about Family Guy.  It's kinda funny, and has laugh out loud moments, but not enough to really get into it.  The animation is terrible too, completely unartistic.

I'm going to keep watching movies and try and turn out quality reviews, along with album reviews.

(Weekend Review #4) 30 September 2012

So the new Max Richter reworking of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is delectable.  I can't recommend it highly enough.  I am listening to all kinds of new music, and spurred on by Cascadian Black Metal, a nice genre of black metal coming out of the Cascade Mountains, a range that extends from BC to Northern Cali.

I downloaded a couple of Skagos albums from bandcamp, and I dig their one track album from 2012, "Anarchic."  It's a solid song.  I'm definitely going to be exploring this genre a ton more, as it lines up with my ethics almost seamlessly.

I'm about to go downtown and get groceries and get money for my landlady.  I have found a few sweet recipes that I'll share tomorrow.  Should be a fun week of experimentation.  I invited Lora over for dinner, and we'll see what she has to say about that.  I have so much work to do, and here I go.

No Lora, but more music.  Very excited to be alive right now.

"This bright thread so pure,
drawn through everything that is.."



I choose to live.  One day as a lion.

(Saturday Life #8) 29 September 2012

New layout and all kinds of edits.  Haven't really changed anything in the four years or so of this blog's existence, but I'm finding a new place in life, mentally and physically, and I've been due for a change.

I've listened to and reviewed about 20 albums in the last few days and I'm still stuck on the first minute of Jane Campion's The Piano.  I hope to watch a tad before I slink off to sleepyland.  I'm so stuck on black metal right now, and I think I will be for good.  Finally a genre that is depressive enough to allow me to fully express myself.  It would be a good substitute for religion.

(Friday Life #4) 28 September 2012

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when you were not: that gives us no concern. Why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? To die is only to be as we were before we were born. -William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)


I've been listening to a lot of music these last few days. I've uncovered a few amazing albums, including Sabaton's Carolus Rex and Agalloch's Faustian Echoes. It's been great to consciously listen to music again, and I've even been writing short reviews of each movie I've seen, with the impetus to become a better writer. I've been suspended for 6 days now, and it's very frustrating. It should end soon. Tomorrow I will overnight a letter to Portland to get it there by Monday.

(A Look at the Weekend #6) 27 September 2012

Hmm. Going to see a "Galician" neo-folk band at Ritval tattoo tomorrow night with Lora. They're named Sangre de Muergado. Should be pretty sweet.


I had better be back at work next week too, so that means I need to do laundry as well. Being off a whole week has done wonders for my writing, and my apartment is looking a bit better.

You Are a Daughter of Heaven (Music #7) 26 September 2012

"For me, hardcore is simply unapologetic music, free of rules. By that definition, we're a hardcore band."

Jacob Bannon of Converge, in interview here

Today I'm going to write about an album that changed my life:
Burzum.

This self-titled album by Burzum from 1992 is the first non-demo album by notorious Varg Vikernes, or "Count Grishnakh." It is widely considered to be the first atmospheric black metal album. It is shrill at times, evoking the poor production quality that was heralded by the Norwegian Black Metal (NBM) scene. It involves a lot of references that I'll try to include here, and it's part of a complex NBM mythology that is anti-Christian and anti-commercial.
I - Feeble Screams From Forests Unknown
I have to give Vikernes a lot of credit. He played this entire thing himself. He's clearly got a lot of talent, and you can tell some of the timing is off and his concepts of solos and other musical ideas come from a background where he can't choose which instrument he really wants to play. Perhaps that is part of the genius? Overall he creates a very dark mood here that you can't help but see as hugely influential. He has said crazy things, like:
What strikes me as crazy here might not to most. I'm more worried about the welcoming of catastrophe, and labeling the best amongst us.
"We saw what happened to ancient Greece and the Roman Empire when they started to let other cultures influence their own culture, and the same is happening to the rest of Europe today. On the other hand we cannot be so conservative that we want to keep inferior systems and ideas no matter what, if there are better alternatives. I think we should be open to everything that is in accordance with our blood and our collective meaning of life, and reject the rest. On the other hand, I have never heard a good idea from outside Europe (and by Europe I mean "the European [Nordic] race"), so I don't think this will be much of a problem to Europe.

Burzum means "darkness" and was originally first named "Kalishnikov" (after the inventor of the AK-47) and then Uruk-Hai (the name of Orcs from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series). Varg referred to himself as Count Grishnakh, an orc commander from the aforementioned series. So it's kinda goofy, right? Varg has also made mention of influence by lots of classical music as well. So maybe it's not so goofy? The album features shrieks that would have probably been chill-inducing in the early 90s. Track II is about Ea (Babylonian), or Enki (Sumerian), as he was originally known, a great God who (at least in Babylonian lore) took the shape of many twisted creatures.

Vikernes himself seems to be like this. Sometimes supporting racist music (Waffen SS) and claiming to be incredibly racist, and then an Enki-like maneuver to be as void of contact with them as possible, Vikernes is wearing whichever face seems to thrill best and then stripping himself of the facade in time to avoid consequences. I am fully aware that he served time in prison. It's possible that he should have served more, however. He was sentenced to 21 and spent almost 16.

"Ironically, the only thing that can save mankind is a stream of pandemics, natural disasters and other human catastrophes, wiping out most of us. In fact, I think the catastrophe is inevitable -- unless something drastic happens very soon -- , and to be honest I even welcome it. The sooner this world order collapses the better. We don't even need to do anything for it to collapse in chaos. The best and only thing we can do is to get away from the tidal wave, and make sure the best amongst us survive, along with our Pagan culture."

The concept of multiculturalism is just brain-dead crap, as one culture will eventually prevail at the expense of the other cultures in the same area, so if we wish to see our own culture survive we have to be intolerant and conservative, and reject - and even destroy -- alien influences."

That's about as racist as it gets, and sad. It's disappointing. I'm grateful for artists taking the quality parts of this and moving forward with it, but it begs for explanation, I feel. The music is metal, which is fairly multicultural, when you think of bands like Sepultura, Slayer, and Metallica, who have all had non-caucasian members. It continues to become more multicultural and diverse, a fact that must really irritate Varg, enabling him to belch out lines like, "The world's tragedy, is served at my feast!"

Still, this album doesn't really showcase his bizarre worldview. It's an album worth hearing, there can be no doubt about it.

References
Film
-Until the Light Takes Us, Aites and Ewell, 2008.

Literature/Websites
-Atmospheric black metal, from rateyourmusic.com
-Ea, article at wikipedia
-Lords of Chaos, Moynihan and Soderlind, 2003 (Updated version)
-Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
-On the Importance of Burzum, from burzum.com
-Time's Arrow: Show No Mercy - An Interview with Jacob Bannon of Converge, via Pitchfork here

 Music
-Burzum, Burzum, 1992.


Other things of interest. A new video for "Astral Body" by Between the Buried and Me off of their forthcoming Parallax part 2, new songs by Converge, "Aimless Arrow," which was made into a good music video, and a second mentioned by Stosuy in his recent Show No Mercy.

New Bob Dylan, new Swans, new Grizzly Bear, new Fiona Apple, new Max Richter, along with checking out notable releases this year of bands I'm not at all familiar with, like Tame Impala, and so much more that I still need to hear this year. I've listened to bits and pieces of all of those above, but I'm so focused on black metal right now that it's difficult to give them the amount of time they deserve. I am working on it.

 Speaking of black metal (and metal in general), I missed a couple of really good shows this last weekend and Monday, with bands like Yob, Ash Borer, and Menace Ruine. It makes me that much more desperate about making the Converge trip happen. To end it for this week, here's a fun new song by the fun stoner metal bad Red Fang, out of portland.

Removed Forms (Until the Light Takes Us Thoughts and Ideas - Film #5)

Until the Light Takes Us, Aites and Ewell, 2008, 9.2/10
"In our contemporary society, youth are pretty much lost.  They have no direction, nobody's telling them what to do.  That is, people are telling them what to do, but the youth have an instinct telling them this is wrong, you know?  People are telling them that Christianity is good, people are telling them that the USA is good, NATO is good, our democracy is good.  But we know if not intellectually, we know instinctively, that this is wrong."
Varg Vikernes, from Until the Light Takes Us
Cut to a series of advertisements and people engaging in consumer culture, and we have a pretty good context for the film.  But it's hard to define black metal with one voice, and so we have myriad ("myriads" as Fenriz puts it) others.

"Let's make one thing clear: The world you live in is hollow.  It is plain and simple and contains only matter that in itself does not possess anything of lasting value.  The only way to create something of dignity and true beauty in this world is by looking beyond its borders, to search outside of the mundane and to enter into connection with that which lies beyond the safety of established form.  To step into the realm of liberated wilderness, of untamed fire, and of that ancient chaos for which every true and potent artist has been a mouthpiece.  There is a great abyss between this world and that place.  An abyss which very few are ever able to cross.  But by means of magic and communication with the divine there are ways to penetrate to that vast darkness, to that which lies beyond.  To build bridges and open gateways to that terrible and wondrous place that lies outside the borders of the world.  This is the way we have chosen to look upon the spiritual characteristics of our work and this is why it is divine.  It acts as a mediator between high and low, a link between two worlds, and we have chosen to call it Watain."
From Opus Diaboli, A musical documentary of Watain
Music has always been like this to me, a holy thing, difficult to break down, assess, and analyze.  I somehow lasted a full year of music theory at college, but found way too much of the learning to be tedious.  I'm not sure if music is quite as arcane as Erik Danielsson is making it sound here, though.  More quotable phrases are interesting as well, but they begin to talk about silly concepts of death, corpses, drinking blood, showing bones, animal and human sacrifice, and all of the silly things that make up a lot of modern black metal, most recorded metal for that matter, and I quickly lose interest.

The same could be said about my attraction to the anti-religious nature of Black Metal.  I find it inspiring, especially as practiced by bands like Wolves in the Throne Room.  I'm just at the tip of the iceberg here, so I'm not going to elaborate too much, but this element of BM makes me sad when I think of all of the churches burned in the name of it, all of the violence enacted against Christians at the hands of devout followers of the music.  Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the violence that Christians wreaked upon countless cultures and continue to wreak upon minds of innocent children everywhere.  We must take a more intelligent approach to try and counteract this.  Violence will breed violence.

"People don't want to be European, they want to be Finnish, or Norweigian or whatever."
From Pagan Metal: A Documentary

Until the Light Takes Us raises some incredibly good points.  Is Christianity founded upon the myths of older mystical worldviews? Is trying to create an anti-commercial scene a valid goal? Should we strive to have integrity in our artistic endeavors? That is, should our lyrics match our actions? Are there any evolutionarily salient points made here? These questions and more are worth considering in relation to "Until the Light Takes Us" but also in relation to music itself, of course including metal music, Norwegian black metal, and contemporary American black metal, especially of the atmospheric kind.

References
Film
-Black Metal University by Fenriz, Aites and Ewell (Special Feature on Until the Light Takes Us), Available, respectively, in parts 1 and 2 via Youtube (here and here)
-Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, Dunn, McFadyen, and Wise, 2005
-Once Upon a Time in Norway, Aasdal and Ledang, 2007, via Youtube here
-Opus Diaboli, Documentary about the band Watain, 2012, via Youtube here
-Pagan Metal: A Documentary, Bill Zebub, 2011 via Youtube here
-True Norwegian Black Metal, a Vice Video, via Youtube here
-Until the Light Takes Us, Aites and Ewell, 2008

Literature/Websites
-CVLT Nation (http://www.cvltnation.com)
-Lords of Chaos (2nd Edition), Moynihan & Soderlind, 2003
-Music and Dance as a Coalition Signaling System (click for full text), Hagen & Bryant, 2001/2002.

Music
-Bathory, Bathory, 1984
-Black Metal, Venom, 1982
-A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Darkthrone, 1991
-Burzum, Burzum, 1992
-Celestial Lineage, Wolves in the Throne Room, 2011
-Dead As Dreams, Weakling, 2000
-Deathcrush, Mayhem, 1987
-Diadem of the 12 Stars, Wolves in the Throne Room, 2006
-Satanic Rites, Hellhammer, 1983
-Under the Sign of the Black Mark, Bathory, 1987


The Last Films I've Seen
1. Mrs. Miniver, Wyler, 1942, 4.8/10 (See Last Week's Review)
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, Herzog, 5.5/10
Nicholas Cage is a strange guy.  His acting goes from good to hammy to just plain bad.  This film has him at all stages.  The story is lacking, and if this ever becomes a franchise, I would lose yet more faith in humanity.  That being said, it's rather entertaining.

Anima Mundi (A Look At The Week Ahead #7)

No real plans.  Become more secure in myself.  Send off info for the renewal of my tech license, do laundry, end being suspended.  Watch film, and write a couple of great essays.

It starts tomorrow with my review of Until the Light Takes Us and continues with whichever album I choose to review on Wednesday.

(Weekend Review #3)

I got suspended from work Friday. I have had a pretty chill weekend so far. The only thing of note that I've done is watch the Ducks game with bad hat and his family. It was a great game against #22 ranked Arizona.
We won 49-0.

I am trying to write more in-depth film and album reviews.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

(Saturday Life #7)

The appropriate disposal of expired or unused medications is a significant issue both for the pharmacy and for society.
You think?
Haha that's the understatement of the year.

Going back on Sunday to add a bit more to this, due to the paltry nature of the original.

Some thoughts on football. It's a violent sport that will never be very safe, no matter how many regulations are added, but I love the game and any effort to help that aspect of the game should be adopted.

Vocab Practice (Friday Life #3)

When I was a junior in high school, I decided that I was going to be the smartest kid on my block, and I was going to be morally righteous.  I started examining everything I had once taken for granted and relearning how to live.  I grew up really religious (Baptist with a very southern flair) and had given up on it by my junior year.  I had sort of shut off inside and felt like I was hibernating inside.  I was bitter and had many unexamined feelings toward my upbringing and the community that I lived in.  I spent ages 11-16 dead inside, locked in a hiemal state.

"Hold your Light, 11, lead me through each gentle step, by step, by inch by loaded memory."

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." -Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1819-1891)

Nirvana and Alice in Chains were the 1st key, Tool was the 2nd key, Rage Against the Machine the 3rd. Let me elaborate. Tool gave me a voice with which to critique my upbringing, after Alice in Chains and Nirvana allowed me to confront and own the wall of depression I had built around myself. Rage Against the Machine proved I had to do something for the world at large.
I will write all about this at a later time, but for now, a bit of meandering. I became fascinated with words and their meaning. I read Huxley's Brave New World and Island (still my favorite book) and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment with a verve I'd not experienced since my early childhood conversion and acceptance of Jesus Christ into my heart. I had page after page of words and phrases I had never encountered before, which I dutifully defined, writing their meanings and where in the book I encountered them. My stepdad would quiz me with a list I brought him.

"Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone."-Czeslaw Milosz, poet and novelist (1911-2004)

The liberal dreams of immortality.

Anyway, where were we?
I've been suspended from work for a couple of days so I get more writing time.

"To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged". -Norman Mailer, author (1923-2007)

I've sniped all of these quotes from wordsmith, a daily email group that sends out an email every day with the word of the day, and it's a great way to wake up!

I vow to relive those days that have become marmoreal in hindsight. What positive memories don't? We cling to the banister, going down with the band, and only our memories of love avoid the mouldering of natural entropy. Even the dementia of old age is probably a result of this clamoring, this mendacity of mind that Robert Wright writes of.

"If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair. Despair is for those who expect to live forever. I no longer do." -Erica Jong, writer (b. 1942)

So says the writer, but I will never forget the psychologist I spoke to after being diagnosed with migraine-like symptoms. In lieu of having money to afford counseling, I was given some armchair advice over the phone: "remember, nothing goes farther in our sense of well-being than a healthy dose of denial." At the time, I couldn't express how ludicrous or true this turned out to be.

Our ability to tune out truths and lies is quite possibly the most important element of human nature.

On The Road Again (A Look At The Weekend #5)

"One scholar, Gordon Wasson (1957), has written a provocative account of the important role that widespread hallucinogenic mushrooms (the fungi of various forest trees such as the birch and fir) must have had in the development of supernatural beliefs in early man. Whether or not we agree with his thesis that the ubiquity of belief systems concerning the supernatural is due to man's primordial encounter with mind-altering plants, nonetheless the worlds of heaven and hell opened to man by the visionary content of such infusions may have played an important part in stimulating his
mythologies and legends concerning otherworldly lands and peoples, demons, devils, and the like." from Visionary Vine, pg. 30

Today I board the greyhound north to Salem, to re-sit for my national certification, which had lapsed in 2010. I am here, on the bus now, at 740am.
I work Saturday, ostensibly the last for a good while. The duck game is at 730 on Saturday, so I am hoping bad hat can come and get me for it and he will prepare us a tasty dish.
No trivia Friday night or any plans
Sunday, so it might make a great weekend to get caught up on things I have continually put off: laundry, cleaning, and organizing the chaos that is my studio apartment.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:E 10th Ave,Eugene,United States (On the greyhound headed to Salem

Adrift in the Ocean (Music #6)

Today I am going to write about an album that changed my life: Atma.

Yob seems cult (cvlt?). Not concerned with hooks or singles, accessibility or smooth production, they would rather chug and churn along, building steam with a grain of sulphur. Singer/guitarist Mike Scheidt is a smart (and extremely kind) individual who has Motown in him - granted it is the train that built the town, not the silky voices that ironically defined it, and far from the record execs whose early brand of disaster capitalism bred the m entality that later drove it off the cliff. All hail Ayn Rand!

Anyway, somehow Yob has become a bit of a critical darling, and I personally think that is awesome. Doom metal getting a decent amount of mainstream exposure. There was a bit of critical craze during the Victorian age that found works irrelevant if the artist lived in an unsavory manner. If he was known to be rude and deny attention, the critics would say the same of his work. Scheidt then, to make a roundabout point, would be a successful artist, even under the auspices of such a rule. The guy will talk to you endlessly.

Let's consider the music itself. Doom tends to be incredibly slow, dark, and with long song lengths. This is no different. Consider bands like Sleep, Boris, Candlemass, and Electric Wizard. There is some early influence in bands like Pentagram and of course Black Sabbath as well.

Atma is dark, it's dense, it's hard to take in one sitting. It's metal the way it should be. Metal should offend us. Great metal would have moments that would offend metalheads, and that might be the slight letdown here: it doesn't offend, if you already concede to your metalness.

I am a late arrival on the doom/stoner scene, having grown up on Kill 'Em All, Iron Maiden, and so on. Slow music came in the form of Alice in chains. Why would you throw gnarly distortion on a guitar and blast cymbals at a snail's pace? Well at the ripe age of 32 (almost 33) it begins to make sense and become clearer (more hazy for most, eh?). Different times call for different tempos. I would much rather drink a dark port, smoke a clove, and feel Yob's music in my belly than a speed, thrash, or power metal band.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States (Starbucks benches in Albertsons)

Before the Fight Takes Us - A Review of Mrs. Miniver (Film #4)

Mrs. Miniver, Wyler, 1943
The thing that stands out most to me about Mrs. Miniver is the sheer propagandist quality of the film. The last bit before Carol Beldon is killed in the car is appalling, though it probably seemed quite patriotic at the time. "Onward, Christian Soldiers," begins and I get an ache in my belly. Can tackiness cause soreness?
The propagandhi song that features it casts the song in a rightfully deplorable light. Don't get me wrong, the allies in WW2 fought in the last "good" war. That doesn't mean a film should be applauded for dragging them into it, especially not 70 years after the fact. Or should it?
Perhaps this film singlehandedly saved the lives of countless would-be victims, and should be heralded as one of the slickest, most effective Capra-esque pieces in the canon? Perhaps it is the opposite as well.
The acting in the film is superb, from the main actors, down to the little girl who tugs at our heartstrings, warms our cockles, add cliche, ad infinitem, ad nauseum.
The plot is stale now and couldn't have been much fresher then. I kept wondering what people saw in this? Killing Carol Beldon surprised me though, for sure.
For old war films, I still recommend Alan Crosland's 1918 film, The Unbeliever. See this to know your history, know your history to critique it.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Yob (A Look At The Week Ahead #6)

If this week is anything like the weekend, things are really picking up. Lora is pretty amazing and I think there is something here.

Tonight I am headed to High Priestess to see her get her calf worked on, should be fun :)

Other than the yob show on sunday, I have no other plans. Hopefully hanging with Lora again, and that's about it :)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Memories of underdevelopment (Saturday Life #6)

The once harmonious strings that bind the universe
Have been tuned to dischord

It's a good album, and expect a review of it and the show at the Wow at my next Wednesday music writing section.  

We've all been in love, right?  Maybe not the "Erich Fromm, Art of Loving" Love, but in some shape or form, the bug has all bitten us.  It's a huge part of our lives, our beliefs.  Sure, it's probably pretty Western in the monogamy-only, romantic sort of type, but it exists in its way in hunter gatherer societies as well.  The importance of romantic, monogamous love is difficult to explain, but I think trying is valid and potentially essential.  It's a Victorian concept, engrained, and Puritan torchbearers were not shy in invoking it's morality.  They still aren't.  Sadly, it's not an entirely natural social convention (statistics back this up, along with plenty of anthropological research), so it's adherence is a difficult, though rewarding goal.  

It's not only a wonderful thing, but in a naturalistic economy like capitalism, where we fully admit our inherent selfishness, it may be the most logical.  More on all of this later.  

If the doors of perceptions were cleansed (A Look At The Weekend #4)

Let's see. Friday night will be my last trivia night for a while, and is sandi's going away party. I barely know her, but she is a pretty rad chick. I imagine there will be a good amount of revelry and drinking involved. And rogue pizza and such.

Saturday the ducks take on Tennessee Tech, and Bad Hat and the fam and I will be watching at his place. No plans for the evening, but Sunday is mournful congregation at the wow hall. Looking forward to it for sure. A doom band from Adelaide, Australia, I have grown more and more into them. Amazing guitar tone, crawling songs that seep into the mind. All that I'd want from a slower-paced metal band. Meeting a new friend, Lora, there as well. Should be altogether great.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Strike everywhere (Music #5)

Today I am going to write about an album that changed my life: Merriweather Post Pavillion. An album written by the amorphous collective known as Animal Collective, this album singlehandedly allowed me to see modern pop music as an interesting venture. I had previously thought pop music was killed by grunge. The collection of sounds that come from this group is like a Godard film, snippets of noise like some collage of fiction, newspaper reel, stock footage and other 24fps lies built to convey something. Each part is important and difficult on its own though.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Chambers St,Eugene,United States

Mrs. Miniver (Film #3)

1. Krull, Yates, 1983, 5.7/10
I remember this movie from my childhood, and expected it to be horrible upon seeing it again.  I was wrong.. It certainly lacks in some ways, but many television shows have been written around a less complete cosmology.  The acting is solid, and it's still fun.  If I had children, I would show it to them.
2. Hurt Locker, Bigelow, 2008, 6.5/10
Decent movie, don't remember a whole lot about it, aside from it being tense.  I like tense movies, so I'd guess it would have left an impact, but it didn't.

Mournful Congregation (A Look At The Week Ahead #5)

I have a hang out with Shawnte Wednesday, and with Lora on Sunday, for Mournful Congregation. I can't wait until I am caught up in life and set up my weekly goals and ideas.

I am still reading Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic healing in the Peruvian Amazon. It's good, if a bit academic.


"Altered states of consciousness have various functions in human societies. Their ubiquitous presence in one form or another bears witness to their importance and their ability to satisfy both individual and social needs," from page 24.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Still budgeting (Weekend Review #2)

I created "A New Commitment" on March 21st, roughly 6.5 months ago - or 27 weeks ago, and I am just now on Weekend Review #2.  I could have written 20+ weekend reviews by now.  It's time to recommit.

It was a good weekend.  I studied with Jeff Friday night, and feel very motivated to understand the medicine that I am dispensing week in and week out.  From Chocolate to Morphine is a great starting point, and John loaned me The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon.  Many starting off points.  More on all of this later.  He made ribs and corn on the cob, and they were incredible.  Earlier that morning, I got  my flat tire fixed and met a girl I'd been texting off of OK Cupid, by the name of Shawnte.  We had a really good talk about family and psychology and other things.  Sunday has just been really chill, and I finally finished Lost Highway, review to come at some point.

Jane Doe (Music #4)

Converge's Jane Doe is considered by many a keystone: it catapulted Converge to the forefront of a genre they were sort of creating as they were going, along with well-known bands Botch and Dillinger Escape Plan (both of which released albums in 1999 that heralded Jane Doe).  The style is some sort of super frenetic hardcore punk variation, typically considered "mathcore" or "math metal."  I would argue that it's more hardcore (hence "core"), as it fits into the punk aesthetic, the "DIY" scene, and so on.

To understand Jane Doe, a little background info is important:
It's the first album in which singer/lyricist/artist Jacob Bannon truly came into his own as an artist.  Here's the cover to Jane Doe.  He has used this blend of medias in the artwork of several other bands, as well as each of the following releases, including this year's forthcoming "All That We Love We Leave Behind."  Bannon is vegetarian and straight edge.  He's said he likes small, intense venues over large ones.

2001 was a crazy year for artistic music, having releases by Tool ("Lateralus"), Opeth ("Blackwater Park"), Radiohead ("Amnesiac"), Bjork ("Vespertine"), The Strokes ("Is This It?"), Jay-Z ("The Blueprint") White Stripes ("White Blood Cells"), and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds ("No More Shall We Part"), among many other lesser-knowns (Unwound's "Leaves Turn Inside You", The Microphones' "The Glow, pt.2", Neurosis' "A Sun That Never Sets", Fugazi's "The Argument", Gillian Welch's "Time The Revelator", Stars of the Lid's "The Tired Sounds Of", Daft Punk's "Discovery", along with many, many others).

Personally, I'd been following Toolshed like a hawk, waiting for the newest release by Tool for the past several years.  Little did I know that I'd listen to the album non-stop for the better part of two years, before joining a ska band and creating a hardcore band of my own, events that would obliterate my music boundaries.  Needless to say, my first experience with Converge, outside of snippets I'd hear, here and there, was seeing them in concert in 2004 at the Meow Meow, in Portland's industrial SE side (it used to be the B Complex).  It was a show with Cave In and Between the Buried and Me, which I was more excited to see.  Converge completely blew me away though, I must say, and I've been a huge supporter ever since.  I don't listen to their music nearly as much as I'd like though, and I'm trying to rectify that.

Film #5 (Dead Freight / Part 2)

More on "Dead Freight."

Gun deaths of children in the US is perpetrated rarely, and typically by unbalanced peers, a la Kip Kinkel or someone of that ilk.  Sure child gangs exist in Brazil (City of God link) and other third world countries, but things don't get that out of hand in the U.S., do they?  

The most brilliant thing about Breaking Bad is the sense of morality blindness it causes.  It's not that it makes you forget that there is a right and wrong, but that layers so many possible outcomes/potential reactions/unforeseen wrinkles that, if pondered thoroughly, raise more questions than they could possibly answer.  It was very hard to buy into the show.  I watched the first episode several times before I finally decided to suspend my belief enough to accept Walt's chosen path.

Quoting from an imdb reviewer upon seeing the episode:

"I suppose I could just borrow from our very own Mr. M--- who, at approximately 10:07 last night, sent me a text that simply, yet eloquently, read, "FFFFUUUUCCCKKKK!!!!" Really, that's probably the best method of summing it all up, anyway."

Not sure if that's the proper precis, but it gets at some of the difficult ground covered here.  Another reviewer, talking about one of the main characters (Jesse):

"And despite the fact that he's committed his fair share of crimes, and has, just as the others, murdered, he still remains very much in touch with his moral center, and I find that to be quite the fascinating aspect of his character."

That's a good way of explaining the crux of the show.  The morality blindness it fosters makes us question our moral center.  I am reminded of the concept of Arthur Rimbaud systematically deranging his senses to make these synesthetic poems where everything is conveyed in an incredibly warped way.  Breaking Bad is, at its best, a Rimbaud poem, in which not our senses but our moral lens is warped to the point of confusion.  In the end, Walt is trying to help his family, but the relatedness of his every day actions becomes more and more strained and blurry.  Can he really justify these things he's doing?  His wife has grown to fear him incredibly, and so despite the fact that she's won his parental investment, her genetic fitness is nonetheless in jeopardy, as his choices may have huge ramifications for this.

More on all of this later.

No real weekend/Work 2/2 (Weekend Review #2)

"Langston Hughes put shanks in crews."

We passed their graves:
The dead men there,
Winners or losers,
Did not care.
In the dark
They could not see
Who had gained

The victory.

Climb those cemetery walls again; leave these flowers at your headstone.

These are a few of my favorite things.  I had a good night with Bad Hat tonight.  I'm sick of piddling around with this thing, and even though this is supposed to be a weekend report, it may wind up a bit bigger than all of that.  It's about 1230am.  For the hypertext-challenged, the following references are The Roots, Langston Hughes, and Defeater.  

So the republicans pulled Clint Eastwood out of their hat, eh?  Interesting.  Considering how much the average republican bitches about celebrities being liberal, this is quite humorous.  It's also flat-out embarrassing and miserable.  Gran Torino deserves another look (expect a review on Evolutionary Psychology and Film), and I had my misgivings from the start.  Ugh.  He's doddering, and well into his dotage.  Nobody said it better than Jon Stewart.  

Some people start early.  Douche patrol code red on Paul Ryan's lyin'.  

I'm really considering a vote for a third party this year.  I just don't feel right voting for the establishment.  I'm not sure any true campaign finance reform can be enacted with these two parties, and that's the only real chance that can lead to a change in this country.  Maybe Green Party this year?  I'm not sure.  I wish we were parliamentary like England and other countries, where it wasn't just X and Y, but again, corporate politics seem to help keep this alive.

Saturday life 5

This is the last day I will ever be late to work, he says as he rides the bus, late to work.

This is a problem, no? Says the manager for the 20th time. Yes, yes it is. He reaches for the triplicate "official" paper.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Hilyard St,Eugene,United States

Anathema

Catching the #28 home. Hard to believe that in less than two months I will have a car!

It has been a good while. I am also planning on a Seattle/Portland trip at the end of October to see converge both places. :). Very excited!

Hoping to hang with ep on Monday!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Olive St,Eugene,United States

Film #3: 6/12/12 film #4: 8/28/12

Weekly film reviews, installment #3. I am going to review certain show episodes as well, if they merit a bit of discussion.

New:
What a perfect segue into a few thoughts on last week's Breaking Bad episode: "Dead Freight."

"Amphetamines are more toxic than cocaine and, when abused, cause worse problems. The body has a great capacity to metabolize and eliminate cocaine: the liver can detoxify a lethal dose of cocaine every thirty minutes. It cannot handle amphetamines as efficiently."

Andrew Weil said it well. It's toxic. It's an impure, unholy mess. Nothing good comes of it except the 3am cleaning of an addict's apartment. I am from Washington and currently live in Oregon, two states riddled with
meth problems. Large manufactured housing businesses in the area who keep their homes up off the ground had people breaking into their lots and taking the copper piping off of the bottom of the houses to sell at metal scrapyards. A local business owned by acquaintances lost several thousand dollars worth of food when a burglar broke in and took the metal necessary for keeping the refrigerators cold for what are probably similar reasons. Finally pseudoephedrine requires a prescription (the necessary ingredient to manufacture the methylamine), but there is no doubt that the product has not fully dried up.

"Dead Freight" jumps right in on this, as it involves a young boy caught in the fray between Walter, Jesse, and Mike. Largely due to Walter's ego, he is unable to simply give up a job at the height of his power, and in so doing has found a grey area of psychological culture, in which the individual is driven to a point beyond narcissism in which the ego not only feels it is the center of everything but becomes a black hole, sucking in weaker objects and chewing them up or obliterating them. Like a fine (read: incredibly dangerous) military commander, Walter feels that his work is actually helping a majority of people.

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Sleep (Saturday Life #4)

At work blogging. Love the blogpress app. Now waiting for the bus. Listening to converge's Jane Doe. Shit is brutal. :). Heaven in her arms. Good stuff.

Running home for my bike and still planning laundry and flat repair tonight. Would like to get the record player going as well.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Work 1/2 (A Look At The Weekend #3)

Well I work tomorrow for the first of two consecutive weekends. I am really tired.

I am hoping to get my bike flat repaired tomorrow. Then laundry, then enjoy my lone weekend day. Plans? Not sure. Listen to Converge, Animal Collective, read some Evopsych, etc.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Music to grind your eyes out (music #3)

Listening to converge's Jane Doe, the music that inspired thousands of otherwise happily and gainfully employed serial killers to reconsider their career choices and opt for the difficult path of eternally touring, straight edge, vegan, sonic construction workers. Except for slipknot, who it no doubt inspired (I am pretty sure converge would rather this not be mentioned), who turned a relatively simple formula into a steaming pile of philosophical and musical masquerade mammon.

I am woefully ignorant in my knowledge of converge, despite a huge affinity for them. I am hoping to make it to Portland for their show 10/25.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Ferry St,Eugene,United States

Saturday Life #3

I've seen several "comedic" musicians.  Jello Biafra.  Even Sage Francis.  I've seen Penn and Teller in Vegas.  Friends went to Bill Cosby (which I didn't) and one of the greatest mistakes of my life thus far is not seeing George Carlin.  I love Bill Hicks, David Cross, Bill Maher, Lewis Black, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert.  Tonight, Weird Al.

I haven't been to the fair in ages.  I remember helping my dad sell homemade pine boxes with paintings on the side that my dad did at some fair in Washington.  :)

Oh Lost Weekend (A Look at the Weekend #3)

Definites (in chronological order):
1. Trivia night! (5 out of 6 Fridays)  With Jenny, Marie, Dylan, Nick, Sandi, and I'm not sure who else.
2. Weird Al Yankovic @ Lane County Fair.
3. Sunday night dinner with Donnelle.

Possibilities (in random order):
1. VSOP with Bad Hat.
2. Moonrise Kingdom with Nancy and/or Paula
3. Brunch with Jim.
4. Jiro Dreams of Sushi with Donnelle/The Raid with ???

More music (music #2)

On the bus. Going to have laughing planet with Donnelle today and I am looking forward to that.

I would like to write about some music right now. Lately, I've listened to a good deal of modern classical, such as Anton Webern, Morton Feldman, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and others. I also shuttled through King Crimson's
Red 1.5 times and am impressed at how Schoenbergesque it is ("Providence" especially). Rise Against has become my biking staple. I know the tattoo I want on my left arm. "We've been tearing up the nails that hold up everything you know.". This will be around a railspike with a tribute to Blake Donner.
I pepper this with crazy stuff like Converge, Gospel, Mare - political punk like Strike Anywhere, Refused, Marathon, old Thrice, Thursday (even classics like Minor Threat, Misfits, Black Flag, and Bad Brains) - and some jazz like Miles' Bitches Brew and Ornette's Shape of Jazz to Come.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Patterson St,Eugene,United States

Weekend Review #1

Chin-chin.
Let's begin our weekend review.
I found out today that Chris Marker passed away on July 29th.  Apparently he was sending film stock to Patricio Guzman to make his epic documentary, The Battle of Chile, thinking PG was crazy, but wanting to help him nonetheless.  The bonfire he started will burn on.
Friday night was trivia night and was a major blast.  Jenny, Marie, Nick, and Dylan all showed and we had a blast.  It's my way of cutting loose and has become a big part of my weeknd.  ;)
I walked home with Dylan and we had a good talk about meditation.  Be here now.  Focus.  Feel your existence in the most complete way possible.  We didn't evolved to consciously think, we evolved to act from the heart, and modern society has put a cage around that.  It is important to return to the well and recharge that part of our being.
Saturday morning, a new friend and I drove to the Three Sisters Wilderness in the central cascades and hiked to the Matthieu lakes.  It was incredible.  We had originally planned to continue on to Four-in-one cone, but I woke up late and it just didn't work out.  The lakes were both incredible though.  Wow, so beautiful and so warm.  I am a bit sunburned.  We finished it off at Sushi Ya.

What is to give light must endure burning. -Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997) 

A look at the week ahead #3

Well there's nothing on the agenda this week except cleaning. I hope to update this tonight after I have done a good deal of it. I need to categorize my movies, books, and records, make a list of what I need, and start organizing what I want.

No plans though. Even the weekend is going to be pretty simple, with trivia Friday and brunch Sunday. I've got to figure out the laundry situation ASAP.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Saturday Life #2

Who blogs on a Saturday?  I do.  This weekend is going to be intense.  Coffee with new friends at 2 and 630, the second of which will be during a show with my old pal, Paul Quillen.  It's a shame we never started Deuderonomy, dude, but I will have it with others somewhere down the road, and we will proselytize to him and he will come into the fold.

Maybe hanging with Dylan and Zul?

Sunday brunch with Jim, Meet up with John for some hanging, and watching the artist at the David Minor :)

Thursday a look at the weekend #2

"write these words back down, inside. That's where you'll need them the most."

Lunch with my friend rob at subway. The ritual continues. This weekend looks to be pretty busy. Coffee with a new friend, Paula at 2pm,


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

A look at the week ahead #2

Nothing too monumental going on. Tonight I need to do a bunch of organizing. I always need to do a bunch of organizing!
Time to stop writing betimes and start writing all the time. I need to work my way through all of Muriel and I need to start my second book on Woody Allen.
Maybe hoops? Reading, growing, learning. Make steps toward change. Mensch werden sit eine kunst.

"Sex here is sterile, breeding not life and fulfillment but disgust, accidia, and unanswerable questions. It is not easy today to accept the perpetuation and multiplication of life as ultimate ends.". Notes on The Waste Land, from T.S. Eliot, edited by Hugh Kenner.

Sadly, that is all life is. That's it. We breed and maintain. The sad element isn't that this is all that remains of value in life. the sad part is that this isn't enough to make life worth living for most people.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 18th Ave,Eugene,United States

Friday Life #2

Friday morning!  Trivia night #3, here we go.  The Billage People?  Yes.

Need to see Woody's To Rome With Love this weekend, do a bunch of cleaning and laundry Saturday morning.  :)  That's all that is on the list.

Film #3: 7/17/12

I am eking my way through Alain Resnais' Muriel.  It's incredibly good but very tough to follow.  :)

A Look at the Week Ahead #1

Cliff notes version:

Work.  New schedule lets me in at 1130 so it should be that much easier :)  New Film Quarterly to peruse on lunch and I have to take care of some Board of Pharmacy stuff.  Here we go!

Saturday Life #1

Ok, it's really Sunday morning, 3am, but I need to get this shit going, so here I go!

Going to meet a new lady for coffee at 9am.  Then I'm having breakfast with my friend Amy@The Vintage.  I need to crash, so that's what I'm going to do.

Music #1

Trying to make it a point to commit the discography of certain artists to my memory.  Here's a brief, hastily drawn list --

The Beatles

Beethoven

Bach

Bad Brains

Black Flag

Black Sabbath

Bob Dylan

The Clash

David Bowie

Frank Zappa

John Coltrane

Joy Division

King Crimson

Led Zeppelin

Louis Armstrong

Miles Davis

Minor Threat

Mozart

My Bloody Valentine

Neil Young

Nirvana

Ornette Coleman

Pink Floyd

Radiohead

The Rolling Stones

The Roots

Rush

The Velvet Underground

Film #2: 6/5/12

This is a bit older and should have been published, but here you go :)  I need to get caught up.
Last films viewed:

1. Cross of Iron, Peckinpah, 1977, 10.0

What more can be said? This film used high-tech editing and cutting before the ADHD generation snorted crushed-up oxycontin to it. James Coburn is amazing. It's hilarious, brutal, and masterful. It's the best war movie this humble movie reviewer has ever seen.

2. Breaking the Waves, von Trier, 1996, 7.6/10
Dark, obsessive, von Trier in so many ways.  I don't want to ruin anything about this film, but I highly recommend it to daring viewers.  The twisted positions that put us in a twisted mindset.

3. Suspiria, Argento, 1977, 6.2/10
Corny and over-the-top, complete with pre-80s music (I love the Goblin soundtrack actually), and neon blood.  

4. Fanny & Alexander, Bergman, 1982, 9.0/10
What to say?  For bringing us into a world which we will and could never know - especially in 21st century USA, we truly become enmeshed in this film.  The priest is chilling and the scene with him and the two brothers is after one viewing one of my favorite scenes in all of cinema.

Terxes

I's gettin me terxes done at zee larbouree.

And picking up new m83 vinyl (finally). On about 4 hours of sleep.

Good times.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Friday Life #1

At Eugene Coffee company before work. Woo. Had a pretty decent caramel latte. I am sick of flakes. Especially my own. I really need to start making some good entries in this thing.

Saturday life #1

Saturday morning cartoons, sleeping in after a long work week, nursing a hangover from an epic rager the night before.

None of those things really appease me. Especially since I started getting migraines, I feel terrible if I sleep in on Saturdays or Sundays. I need to be doing something productive. This weekend solved that fairly easily, as I am going to be wandering around town getting taxes done, and then working the second half of a shift at work. I haven't worked a Saturday at our pharmacy in quite some time. Also, my brother's band is in town and playing in Springfield. I missed them last night but tonight they rock the whiskey river saloon for the second straight night and I am going to try my best to catch them.

Now off to intercept some money being loaded to me. Thanks jmo!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 10th Ave,Eugene,United States

Film #1: 3/20/12

I've been watching a lot of film, like usual. Last films viewed:

1. The Long Goodbye, Altman, 1973, 8.2/10

Good movie. Watched most of it in a semi-lucid state, kinda dozing off, and then tackled it from start-to-finish the next day. Altman's movies should be taken as a sort of laid back critique of US bullshit, and I love him for it. Elliot Gould is fantastic as Philip Marlowe (Also good is Murder, My Sweet). I wasn't particularly taken by Mitchum's Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely. Simple, slow-developing (free of narrative at times) like a typical Robert Altman movie.

2. Killer Elite, Peckinpah, 1975, 5.0/10

Bland. Not quite terrible most of the time, but Peckinpah's film is a letdown here. I have never been a James Caan fan, and this is no different.

3. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Peckinpah, 1973, 6.0/10

Despite some great scenery and cinematography, solid acting, and a fairly unusual pacing, this film bogs down. Rumor has it that Peckinpah had studios hassling him non-stop and you get the feeling this film might have been different were that not the case. Kris Kristofferson looks like a baby with an oversized melon too.

4. Machete, Rodriguez, 2010, 7.3/10

Parts of me want to give this film a 10.0 for sheer pleasure. Awesome, stylized gore in the vein of mixing Tarantino (Rodriguez's muse) and troma films. Lloyd Kaufman would be proud. It also had a sort of Troma-like liberal plot which added to the enjoyment for me. Danny Trejo was good too.

5. Repo Man, Cox, 1984, 6.0/10

A for Effort for Cox in trying to shake things up a bit. The soundtrack is good. The plot/storyline was really disjointed, however, and seemed rather impromptu. Never been a big Emilio Estavez fan.

6. Gettysburg/Battle of Gettysburg, Maxwell/Hoffman, 1993/1955, 7.0-6.0/10

Well-told story about a commanding officer and his troops as they near the town of Gettysburg and prepare for battle. Battle scenes were pretty amazing and the acting superb. Not a lot of background was given in either the feature film or the documentary about what led our nation up to this point. Context would have given this film a 8-9.

7. Vagabond, Varda, 1985, 9.2/10

First realist movie I've seen in a bit. Great stuff. We follow a vagrant (by choice?) as she lives out her final days on the rough road of a solitary, female hitchhiker. Highly recommended!

8. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, Altman, 1976, 8.1/10

Pomp and circumstance. Buffalo Bill (Paul Newman) is a cocky westerner with his own variety show. The tents and mini-town created by Altman are fantastic and the sarcasm and cynicism is on point here. This will get better with repeated viewings as well.