Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Wild Dogs of the Thunderbolt / 'They Cannot Lock Me Up... I Am Eternally Free...



'The album was recorded in a century old house  apparently bound for destruction.

"your bulldozers and wrecking ball can make match-sticks out of the rickety staircase and crookt/creaking floorboards---but they can't erase the recording that was made here."

As such, several sounds usually edited out of the recording process, including creaking floors, paper shuffling and outside noises, were left intact on the final album.

The most notable occurrence is that of a police car driving by with its siren blaring at the end of "Love Song for 15 Ontario"; the vehicle was later credited as a guest performer on the song.'

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Tom Waits - Pay me



"And though all roads will not lead you home my girl, 
all roads lead to the end of the world"

Friday, November 02, 2012

Your Guts are Like Mine / Polaroid


Set Fire to Flames is often considered a side project of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and the two musical ensembles share several members.

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Dirty Three Cover Arleta





or actually, her first performance of the song. Dirty Three intersect with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at Warren Ellis.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Painters suspended on cables of the the Brooklyn Bridge


"Painters suspended on cables of the the Brooklyn Bridge, on October 7, 1914. (Eugene de Salignac/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)".


Brooklyn Bridge painters at work high above the city, on December 3, 1915. (Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)


More here

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Evidence, directed by Godfrey Reggio with music from Philip Glass




"Evidence looks into the eyes of children watching television – in this case Walt Disney’s “Dumbo”. Though engaged in a daily routine, they appear drugged, retarded, like the patients of a mental hospital. Evidence is about the behaviour of children watching television – an activity whose physiological aspects have been overlooked in the current controversy surrounding television."

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Βίλλα / βίλλος : η λέξη αναφέρεται ηδη το β΄αιώνα μ.Χ. απο το γραμματικό Ηρωδιανό: "βίλλος το ανδρικόν αιδοίον, κοινώς βιλλίν".

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Kabbalah vs. Freud (or the Kabbalah without God)


"Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; [...] According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role." (more)

From the Kabbalah (more):
  • Nefesh (נפש): the lower part, or "animal part", of the soul. It is linked to instincts and bodily cravings.
  • Ruach (רוח): the middle soul, the "spirit". It contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish between good and evil.
  • Neshamah (נשמה): the higher soul, or "super-soul". This separates man from all other life-forms. It is related to the intellect and allows man to enjoy and benefit from the afterlife. This part of the soul is provided at birth and allows one to have some awareness of the existence and presence of God.

μαϊττάππι

απο το βουλγαρικο Майтапи = αστείο, φάρσα.

κάφκα

"Σχετικά με την (πολύ αστεία) ομοηχία της κυπριακής λέξης καύκα για την ερωμένη και του συγγραφέως Φραντς Κάφκα, στο βιβλίο του επιφανούς Σλάνγκου Ν. Σαραντάκου Λέξεις που χάνονται (2011, σ.125) υπάρχει το ανέκδοτο (η ιστορική αλήθεια του οποίου δεν είναι απολύτως σίγουρη) ότι «στην δεκαετία του 1970, όταν έφτασαν από Ελλάδα στην Κύπρο αντίτυπα της Δίκης του Κάφκα, που είχε παραγγείλει ένα βιβλιοπωλείο, ο τελωνειακός υπάλληλος απαγόρευσε την εισαγωγή, διότι βλέποντας στο εξώφυλλο Κάφκα σκέφτηκε την καύκα και νόμισε ότι ήταν άσεμνο το περιεχόμενο».

Ως προς την ετυμολογία της λέξης, ο Ν.Σ. θεωρεί πιθανή την σύνδεσή της με το μεσαιωνικό καύκος= ποτήρι (βλ. το «πάλιν τον καύκον έπιας, πάλιν τον νουν απώλεσας» για τον μέθυσο αυτοκράτορα Φωκά)."


apo http://www.slang.gr/lemma/show/apanthisma_Kupriakon_limmatoudion_9270

Friday, March 09, 2012

This gives new meaning to 'reading from the belly'

"When reading something aloud, it is best to read from the belly. Reading from one's mouth, one's voice will not endure." - from Hagakure, the book of the Samurai


From Hagakure, on Mistakes

When I was young, I kept a "Dairy of Regret" and tried to record my mistakes day by day, but there was never a day when I didn't have twenty or thirty entries. As there was no end to it, I gave up. Even today, when I think about the day's affairs after going to bed, there is never a day when I do not make some blunder in speaking or in some activity. Living without mistakes is truly impossible. But this is something that people who live by cleverness have no inclination to think about.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Semantic satiation

"Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who can only process the speech as repeated meaningless sounds."


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Astronomic Club

as a score by Air to the restored version of the 1902 film, Le voyage dans la lune.





Saturday, January 28, 2012

Kierkegaard and subjective time

In the ethical stage, repetition assumes the form of the universal norms of conduct: instead of chasing the elusive moments of esthetical pleasure, we rely upon the certitude of repetition. Repetition is a sign of maturity when the subject has learned to avoid the twin traps of impatient hope in the New and of nostalgic memory of the Old: we find satisfaction in the return of the Same, like the happy marital couple who has overcome the yearning for exotic adventures, yet is still able to avoid melancholic remembrance of past passions.

The deadlock which pushes Kierkegaard toward the next (religious) stage is of course the experience of how, at this stage too, repetition is impossible: the ideal point at which we overcome the futile yearning for the New without falling into a nostalgic backward-directed attitude, is never present as such. The structure of subjective time is such that, from hopeful expectations, from "too early," we are thrown all of a sudden into melancholic remembrance into "too late." In other words, the self-referential paradox consists in the fact that the ideal point between hope and memory is present precisely and only in the mode of hope or memory: in youthful zeal we hope to find peace in a beloved spouse one never gets tired of; in old age we remember the happy time fulfilled with the reliable rhythm of repetition.

from Zizek's Enjoy Your Symptom

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

a gentleman is

"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't."
― Mark Twain

Friday, January 20, 2012