My First Story

A man woke up and realized something was wrong.

He talked it over with his best friend, and they came to the conclusion that the world and people were imperfect.

Upon finishing the conversation, the man said to his friend, "You know, Fred, if we solved this, we could make a lot of money"

Hymns

"I'm not actually a Christian with a capital C. I'm still asking questions. But I had this time when I found myself singing all these old hymns in my kitchen and I couldn't work out why I was doing it. Then one Sunday morning I got up, looked at my watch, and thought, 'I wonder if I could make it to a church service?' It was so welcoming. It just felt like you were coming home. Twelve years later, I've never left."

-Stuart Murdoch

Can't get enough.

This song is so damn good...





Inspired me to go look for news on the infamous rapper and, to my sweet surprise, discovered a live performance of one of his new song that samples Billy Joel's Movin' Out!

Bolano, you have revived literature for me, however briefly.

"For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace.  The journey may be long or short.  Then the Readers die one by one and the Work continues on alone, although a new Criticism and new Readers gradually fall into step with it along its path.  Then Criticism dies again and the Readers die again and the Work passes over a trail of bones on its journey toward solitude.  To come near the work, to sail in her wake, is a sign of certain death, but new Criticism and new Readers approach her tirelessly and relentlessly and are devoured by time and speed.  Finally the Work journeys irremediably alone in the Great Vastness.  And one day the Work dies, as all things must die and come to an end: the Sun and the Earth and the Solar System and the Galaxy and the farthest reaches of man's memory.  Everything that begins as comedy end as tragedy."

Gold from Robert Bolano's Savage Detectives.

'Hm, good point,' I thought from my comfortable coach in my safe, suburban home...

"There are people who trust in the infectious power of nonviolence: sooner or later it will be crowned with success.  In this belief, however, one can smell a bit too much of the sweet aroma of a suburban ideology, entertained often by people who are neither courageous nor honest enough to reflect on the implications of terror taking place right in the middle of their living rooms.  The rood of nonviolence in the world of violence often leads to suffering: one can sometimes break the cycle of violence only at the price of one's life, as the example of Jesus demonstrates.  If history is any guide, the prospects are good that nonviolence will fail to dislodge violence."

From Miroslav Volf's Exclusion & Embrace

Hope for Today -- The 1990s

The vision: A roller skating ring complete with fluorescent DJ lighting, smoke machines and the clatter, insecure, we circled endlessly; the heat and the noise, every moment the end and the beginning, an endless inner ache for god-knows-what, the invisible current, the revelation of rhythm and love, my mouth open wide to exhale and swallow.

Yes, you, Jocelyn Enriquez, gave us hope. 

Do You Miss Me (Music Video)

The Real McCoy

My dream is to meet all my friends on a group video chat and dance to this song on repeat till we all pass out.  As someone on youtube once said, "I met my wife @ a club dancing to this song."  Amen, brother.  The magic, the noise.

Exegesis of John Darnielle's Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton

The best ever death metal band out of denton
were a couple of guys, who'd been friends since grade school.
One was named cyrus, and the other was Jeff,
and they practiced twice a week in Jeff's bedroom.

The best ever death metal band out of denton
never settled on a name, but the top three contenders,
after weeks of debate,were Satan's Fingers,
and The Killers, and the Hospital Bombers.

Jeff and Cyrus believed in their hearts they were headed
for stage lights and leer jets, and fortune and fame.
So in script that made prominent use of a pentagram,
they stenciled their drumheads and guitars with their names.

This was how Cyrus got sent to the school
where they told him he'd never be famous,
and this was why Jeff,
in the letters he'd write to his friend,
helped develop a plan to get even.
when you punish a person for dreaming his dream,
don't expect him to thank or forgive you.
the best ever death metal band out of denton
will in time both outpace and outlive you.
Hail satan, hail satan tonight. Hail satan, hail hail.


I'm touched every time I hear this song.  In this simple tune, Darnielle manages to capture and preserve the elusive, hidden evil behind many modern tragedies, not a paranormal sightings of the mytho-symbolic Satan of the Christian tradition, but a Weight, the awful heaviness that arises after encounters with  senseless and needless physical and psychological violence.

In this case, the absurd situation arises from tragic misunderstanding.  Children, naively hailing the person/symbol of the 'Evil One,' act out maliciously in the name of the most infamous anti-hero of the West, attempting actualize and express their innermost vision and desire.  They collide with adults, who, instead of engaging with the children on the human plane, where healthy unpacking and analysis of emotional ad psychological needs can happen, engage on the symbolic and esoteric plane.  As a result the children are seen as possessed, abnormal, disturbed, and, perhaps, inhuman.


Presumably, the "plan to get even" refers to a plan to kill those who, by punishing them for their choice of symbols, traumatized the teens' internal constellation of emotions, desires and hopes.  The exact fears of the community, projected onto the teens, is realized in the teen's reaction.  As has been seen in the US, the results of such types of cases are, mildly put, tragic.  The hidden groan of man in his powerlessness appears veiled—"Hail Satan".