This is the new shit

I am awash in a sea of media. My only fear is that at some point I will exhaust media which is conceptually new to me, left to sift among the imitators of what I read, view, and hear. My senses have no conceptual framework for that which has not been produced. Even nature seems incomplete without an author but the impossibility of God assures that there remains a blind howling senselessness to that which has not been transmitted to me consciously. I accept this position as receptor, black hole of meaning-making among seas of minds. Here's what I've been pulling into my mind like a vast information eating kraken.

OM- Pilgrimage- This album is Om's latest, who are the former rhythm section of legendary stoner metal band Sleep. Each of their albums to date has been a reduction and simplification of the formula elaborated by Sleep's Dopesmoker, itself a reductive and singular album. The feel of this music is ascetic, evoking a religious singularity. Rather than being the unviewable, the religious ecstasy of Om is brought to the fore, the music like wearing special sunglasses that allow you to see what's in the Ark of the Covenant. The album opens and closes with a meditative undistorted processional, a leadup to the ecstatic, gnostic power of the distorted ritual at the albums center. It sets a mood evocative of holy men ascending a mountain for a direct communion with God. After 'Pilgrimage', the opener, a rhythmic delay-pedal part kicks in, which seems to be the unveiling of some brilliantly strange object of worship. And then the bass drops as the cymbals and drums clatter powerfully, like the ripping open to the doors of some ecstatic eastern heaven, and the formula Om has refined so well comes to the fore. Hypnotic, irresistable, the singular power of bass and drums locked into a groove so deep they are one compels the listener to a sense of sending, of a spiritual journey. Al Cisneros' vocals chant and intone gnostic prophetic knowledge and the sense of satisfaction in heaviness is complete. The song fades out, and another powerful riff comes in, atonally reminding the listener that the truth is only rhythm. The drums come in and lock in to a song which obliterates the feeling of 'songness' to the point where the music is background for the feeling it evokes, union. In nodding my head, I become part of the same rhythm of which Cisneros and Hakius are merely conduits, priests of a heavy reverberation at the center of the galaxy. The album closes with a reprise of Pilgrimage, the procession back down the mountain, and we are left to meditate on the powerful religious wisdom we've just recieved. So as you can see, I like it. Highly recommended, especially if you like to get stoned, but the cosmic reverberations can be felt any time, as with any truly great heavy album.

William Burroughs- Junky- I haven't finished with it yet, but looking forward to the wilder works of Burroughs this seems prosaic. It's a book about junk, yes, and being a deadbeat, a no-good, a yegg, but what makes it real is its prosaicness. It's not romantic about dope, nor is it a cautionary tale, it's written as I assume only a junky can do, in the total matter of factness of addiction- a certain economy and pragmatism is needed to really be addicted. He writes of dope as a business venture, a fact as natural as keeping warm in winter or eating. It's certainly not nothing to him, but the times when dope is available are fine and when it's not its bad. What could be more simple? One needs it and if one is truly a junky, it's just another natural body need to be regulated. Not a lot here in my opinion, but it's commendable for that. Burroughs goes into the real paranoid metaphysics of dope later but in this book he's laying out the pure economy and physiology of it, which is worth something.

Jean Baudrillard- America- Now this! This is why I feel compelled to write this post in such a masturbatory style- Baudrillard is a master of obfuscating intellectual superiority, and why not? His style here is wild and uncontrolled abstraction of the American character into what he believes it to be- explodedly unpragmatic, excessive, and simulatory. For Baudrillard, the soul of America is in the desert, and the simple and elemental terms of that desolation define the endless struggle in America away from such straightforward landscapes and thoughtscapes. America does not know its soul is the desert, does not embrace this. America is obsessed with creating itself without attempting to see if anything was there already. I can't do it justice but it certainly makes me want to write.

Anyway, all three pieces of media come recommended, the Burroughs a little less so, but I am an absolute fiend for media when I get a good slug of it at once. Don't let your meat loaf!

ups and downs of many kinds

So... a bunch of weird and somewhat harrowing shit has been happening that made me write a really mopey post on here earlier that I took down A) because the circumstances surrounding both shit and mopeyness have changed significantly and B) because it violated my promise not to just mope it up and turn this into a mope-log instead of a blog. So now I'm shifting gears to a important topic- Alter Bridge. I saw an advertisement that billed them thusly, "The most appealing portions of Creed survive in Alter Bridge." Appealing portions of Creed? Who's that? Or maybe they're just referring to the instruments Creed played, or the Christian rocker kid who roadied for them and was actually really nice and never tried to proselytize or anything, or all the organs they could give those in need or what? I think the most appealing 'portion' might be a trick question because there is only one actual portion, and that is by default the most appealing. They wrote a grand total of one song, transposed it to different keys, and changed the lyrics! That's one 'portion'. Also, how blatant can a band be? Alter Bridge write songs by writing the same songs, and then they alter the bridge! Actually to be honest I don't know that's how they write songs but I'm trying to avoid getting the surface of my brain dirty so hopefully I never find out.
I'm glad no one reads this so no one saw me wig out on here earlier today. Hopefully I don't have an epiphany about how much I like Alter Bridge and take this down.

a lot of dilbert cartoons i think you'll enjoy

So I started this blog a few months back with the intention of writing in it, and I didn't. Now, it's back for real. I basically need a space where I can write whatever which is casual and free of format, yet which is published and not a diary, which kind of makes me feel like I'm a 14 year old girl. I guess this is the diary of the 21st century. It's not wholly dissimilar since I think there's a subconscious urge people have for others to read their diaries and really understand, to have a secret space they can go which if revealed, turns out to confirm that they're normal, that they're good people, that their problems the same things others have gone through. Which is of course the bad thing about diaries, that they're supposedly intensely personal, yet they seem to have this universal quality which means that you've read what they're about before you've read them- today I felt weird about that thing where I lent Shirelle that book, today I was afraid about talking to some people who intimidate me, today I got mad at my roommate. And they're frequently so cathartic in negativity. A blog, on the other hand, suggests an awareness that others will read it and is performative, yet delimiting- there are no requirements for publication or length or quality aside from consideration of an audience- an open letter which can be in any format. I think it's what I need now, to hail those who take an interest and show them what I write given their attention.

As many things I like as I can possibly think of

Jokes about Dads which are divorced from the actual familial meaning of the word Dad.
pictures of people smoking as many cigarettes as they can at once
babies laughing
the idea of someone's grandpa being left alone to run a nuclear power plant
4 beers in the fridge coming from nowhere and you knowing they are from the aether, or ghosts or some shit and drinking them in the afternoon and then going to the park
cheap sunglasses
the ZZ Top song cheap sunglasses
ZZ Top's continuing existence and devotion to the douchebag party lifestyle
thrash metal
people who really understand what it is to party
people who understand what it really is to party
people who understand what it is to really party
getting deep enough into dense text it all starts making real sense
beautiful mountains
national parks
bears
sheep
jokey hats with fake shit on them
googly eyes
friendly dogs
hot beats
dixie dave collins
huge southern riffs
being able to make my boner 'talk'
$7 machete
bikes
no sleeves
sweaters
free/super cheap espresso
drink tickets for being the underage drummer of an opening band
playin' th' heavy
heshing
girls who like riffing
girls who like metal and aren't nutjobs
being naked in woods except a headband and some boots smoking a big bowl of hash with your dog
feeling like you know how to really TCB
face tattoo jokes
bands that make you want to roll on the floor screaming and tearing your clothes spasmodically
bands that make you want your hips to do things physically impossible
being a hot-shit casanova on the dance floor
huge beats
falling asleep on the couch the exact amount of time you have to do so and feeling like you missed nothing from the world
porch-sitting
summer shirtlessness
being high at the public pool
skinny dipping
music that sounds dirty and makes you want to party and not worry about spilling anything on your math book
not having to do shit today
breaking up drugs on top of your fundamentals of management book to celebrate getting an A without ever opening said book
driving long distances and having fun doing it
feeling like an inspired back to the land forest folk at a national park
knowing where you came from is cooler than where you are
fresh haircut
not washing your hair and it looking better than ever
making up retarded songs to the tune of the laverne and shirley theme song while you do the dishes
blast beats
grindcore
sleep
black fucking sabbath
satanic metal being awesome
corpse paint
guitar harmonies that aren't lame swedish bullshit
going completely off the fucking wall bonkers nuts listening to manowar or king diamond with your best friends
hesh-vests
runnin' shit
having a party with 200 people in your apartment and nothing gets broken except for some ash on your pillow from gangster kids locking you out of your room to smoke weed, compensated by forgetting about weed on your dresser
continuing to evade jail, thank fuck
pretending to trip in front of a big bunch of people on a hill, falling and rolling down the whole hill
salsa
guacamole
mole
banh fucking mi
being faster than the train on your bike
summer
spring (fuck off fall and winter)
public parks
beaches
zoos
friends all over the midwest
hats
looking like a scumbag, being mr. nice
new socks that haven't worn out at all
frisbees
free artisan bread
the sandwich hookup
liking everyone you work with
drinking beer with your manager after a long shift
taking a big ol' dump
having enough sex in a night your unit's kind of sore
listening to prince
knowing and being glad just how over high school really is
incredibly good sketch comedy
lone star lake
clinton lake
lake michigan
breezes
manual labor
making enough money you can get the best sandwich the place makes
girls wearing girly shit like skirts and high heels again
people who are 'over it' but not so 'over it' they're 'over' anything different than the stuff they're 'over'
people who don't have any life plans
having an actual work ethic appear from seemingly nowhere in your mind
mama's cooking
my cooking
bananas fried in butter on waffles
chorizo
a good firm clap on the back
gentle, old fashioned anglophilia
linguistics
people interested in the words they speak
slang from everywhere
accents
jorge luis borges
trashy horror films
halloween decorations
free candy
not having to document and simulacrize every important moment
syncretism
running a chainsaw being really satisfying
building stuff
the ol' john hancock getting sloppier and shittier by the day
bad production
enjoying your friends bands
table tennis
badminton
dog kisses
the miraculous lack of a hangover the day you have to get up for lunch with your grandparents
selective grandparent blindness
hannukah AND christmas
the episcopalian tendency to love flowery language
the jewish tendency to love to riff on corny jokes
sunlight streaming in while you sit at a kitchen table drinking coffee
dice
cards
dungeons and dragons
wizards
hands
the opposable thumb
remembering terrifying dreams and thinking how cool they were
the sound of a bathtub filling from another room
physical media
virtual media
scars
warm bed
wood stoves
apes and monkeys of all kinds
pelicans
boulders
the feeling of getting home after a trip
the feeling of mountains getting bigger in view
sitting backwards in an old station wagon
the canada i've constructed in my mind by watching strange brew and trailer park boys
reading in bed
people thinking i'm heavy shit on the train for some reason
establishing a rapport with the world
OED
patches
turning the party fun and energetic through sheer applied will
conjecturing what the most ludicrous sentence my parents have ever said is
the ability to go with the flow
heat included in the rent (and a lot of it, so i can walk around in my underwear)
having the good sense to be thankful i have all my senses and limbs and no debilitating conditions
seeing people my age be horrible shithead kids and being able to reassure myself i'm not one of them
having gotten over my fear of bodies of water i can't see all the way through
people who want to go swimming/sledding/biking on the spur of the moment
picnic-ability
people who say "yeah sure i can hang out now, lets meet up"
hunger and its alleviation
that i've grown to like vegetables
the small possibility you must account for as a rational person that kooks, weirdos, and nuts might be right
the invention of distortion for the electric guitar
rock and roll
the feeling a mic'ed bass drum makes in your chest


I'm sure I'll think of more.