Archives : all posts by Dan

Future of the Left - "New Adventures"

Newton runs to catch the number Nine, his shoe coming open at the toe, the wet sidewalk smacking underfoot. When it roars away, with him on it, it looks like he might just be on time for once. He squeezes past obstinate handbags and points meekly to a seat, behind the heavy door of a fat man's knees. He sits hunched and happy in his cloudy window seat, a crossword in his head and one sock damp like stepping untimely on the bathmat.

A phone rings, loudly. Latin Loop. He looks, the fat man is holding it out in front of him, staring at it. He looks confused, perhaps deaf. "You're phone is ringing," Newton points and gives that look of surprise reserved for strangers and babies. The fat man stares back, his clothes smell like unwashed hair, "It's not for me."

A commotion from the front of the number Nine, a stop between stops, and a loud yell of "Get out!" from the driver. A scuffle, obstinate handbags cowering in fear, epithets galore, and that animal kind of fighting that connects us in a dark and unexamined way. The bus has stopped and isn't continuing.

Newtown gets out and is walking along a muddy ditch, much faster than the rest of the bus' patrons. There is still the chance of getting to work on time, if only an hour late. But Newton needs a ride. He squints into the clouds, and acts like a hitchhiker, thumb confidently raised as if saying both "I need a ride" and "you're alright". A mail truck stops, Newton hops in the back.

He rides on the pile of letters like a hard paper bed. Unbagged, unsorted, just a giant pile of cards and envelopes. In the bouncing dullness of his unwindowed ride, Newton begins reading by the glow of his cell phone, the addresses. Perhaps some will be for his office, he could make up for his tardiness by bringing in the mail. They are all addressed to the same place. 4141 Lankashire, and all addressed to the same person: "The Mailman". The truck rumbles to a stop and the door rattles up like the end of a prison term, Newton shields his sensitive eyes. "Aren't you going to open any of these letters?" The mailman, tall with a strident voice, said "They're not for me." A different mailman, thought Newton, perhaps his brother. He bounced out onto the street, "Wait, where are we?" "Lankashire." "But I need to get to Bettingham!" "Oops," and the door rattles shut, the letters to continue their sentence.

Newton, muddy to his knees, his open-toed shoe looking like a mud-eating creature, wanders empty Lankashire streets, hungry and lost. He sees an old hotel, that says "Lunch" in low letters, and goes inside. All the tables are served with food, save one, so he sits down there. A gaunt and tired waiter is also the chef is also the owner. Newton smiles, everyone at least gets a smile, and says, "I'll take whatever's good." The guant tired waiter becomes the chef and puts on some eggs. He looks ready to faint when he serves the salad and tea. "Why don't you join me? There's plenty of food," Newton gestures to the tables, empty of people but with steaming fresh plates. "Mm," humphs the chef, apron-stained, looking over his shoulder at the cloudy Lankashire streets, "It's not for me."

After lunch and a taxi too pricy to mention, Newton arrives at work, six hours late. The third floor is buzzing, not yet winding down, and he comes to his desk to find chaos. Untended articles piled six inches high, riddled with typos like a pair of dead gangsters. His muddy clothes feel both rugged and silly, the caked mud an unusual weight in this carpeted place. He sighs and sits down, wondering how long it has been since Armando has checked, how far could he fudge his lateness? Could he say four hours? could he say three? "Six hours late," Armando's voice from behind, Newton spins sickly around to see. "That's a new record," Armando has a face like a half-sleeping rat; his lids belie his craft. "Do you even like this job, Newton?" Newton's phone starts to ring, Mum n Dad says the screen ID, and Newton looks up at Armando, holding coffee and court, "It probably isn't for me."

[Buy from Xtra Mile]

Nina Simone - "Mississippi Goddam"

The stage is set with tents. A safe space for women. A First-Aid tent. A kitchen tent. A lending library. A logistics tent. Some tents need to be transparent. They extend into the audience. The seats that are under tents still must be sold. Christmas lights. A church tower to the side. A meeting place in the middle. A cloudy drizzle, constantly falling. Low, tepid drumming. Scattered painted bristol board. A dancer, with a whispy waistband, prances by holding a piece of cardboard.

A thick man wearing thick layers (long underwear, cotton pants and shirt, keffiyeh, toque, hoodie, spats, Sorels, Chucks, silk suit, track suit, jumpsuit, parka) comes center stage, points finger forward, asks audience why they fuck they are there.

[buy]

(image from Jon Rafman's astounding 9 eyes collection)

Chrome Pony - "Sonic Waves"

There are some things you think, that, once you think them you can't stop thinking them until they're somehow expunged from your mind's crowded corkboard. SHERYL CROW FUCKS TEENAGE OASIS. Like pornography, or animal meat, or like a horrifying imaginary thing, it sticks there, waiting for a cue to exit, a loud and singular signal. SHERYL CROW FUCKS TEENAGE OASIS. It's not horrifying, it's only slightly pornographic, and it doesn't need something to die. It's actually kind of nice. Like in the pleather back seat of a classic car, in the 90s, or in a place without time altogether. SHERYL CROW FUCKS TEENAGE OASIS. Maybe I need to go there, to dream it fully out, to run with lit flares towards it shouting, to interrupt it, to see it break, maybe that will get rid of it. Or maybe it won't ever leave, maybe it's something like the shape of my skull or the sound of my voice, it will sit like a watermark on my vision, play on loop in my ears until it fades along with every other sense. And I might not mind that.

[Free download of the truly wonderful Illegal Smiles]

--

The Fatty Acids - "Memory Banks"

I overheard a couple of indeterminate age having this exchange on a long bus ride. It seemed to be a game, the rules of which I couldn't discern. "Fatty Acids," he said. She replied with, "Fat Acid Heads." He pursed his lips, "Hallucinating Hobbits." She bit right back, "Juggalo Baggins!" He laughed, and said, "Bilbo Baguette." She thought for a long time before, "Beret Charles." "The Blind Chaplain." Tapped her fingers, tasted the full long answer, "Counselor Geordi Troi La Forge." "Hm," he said, and looked out the window. But outside all there were were dark black trees. "New Enterprises, Old Psychics." She thought, and looked up like she were silly for not seeing it right away, "Memory Banks." "Ha," he said, "more like Memory Credit Unions." "Yes," she said, pulling the arm rest between them, "but that wouldn't make sense."

[PWYC for Leftover Monsterface]

(autographed photo of Marina Sirtis)

Blackout Beach - "Be Forewarned, the Night Has Come"

In April of 1988, the planet slowly unzipped itself. It began beneath the ocean and ran up the frozen beaches of the New Siberian Islands. It ran slowly across Russia (then the USSR) and no one even noticed until it neared the border of Kazakhstan. It continued through Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, right through Mali, and cut Brazil in half. Many took the opportunity to panic, many to celebrate. There were lovers separated and families permanently cleft. There was even a movie theatre in Cairo, showing a screening of Tootsie, that was unzipped right down the middle, and patrons continued to watch the movie until the very end, believing the government censors had cut off half the frame for ethical reasons. The world has healed over today, of course, and we don't even really talk about that time anymore. [Buy]

(image source unknown)

Himalayan Bear - "How Could Death Contend"

Ah, the lonely hunter. His territory marked, allotted to his charge. An oblong on the map, a flag of equal shape, a crest of cresting hill, raised up each windless dawn. And in the eve, be it lake-sparkled sunset, or swaying cloudy cough, crank it down, crank it down, crank it down. The hunter's only love is the first meal from a catch, he'll howl a song or tell a tale, the only ears the trees. If he doesn't use his tongue, it will dry up, turn to stone. Be at peace, be at peace, be at peace. A tale was once re-answered, by a voice amidst the green, the hunter's ear tuned quiet, balked at noise so clear. The voice said, "The hunt has ended, the territory's sold." The hunter struck the voice, between the ribs and guts, reap the news, reap the news, reap the news. A head of warning raised on the flagpole, grinned in laughing twist. The hunter guards his borders, his thinking mind at rest. [order from Absolutely Kosher]

Black Widow - "Come to the Sabbat"

I often dream of Leopold Carter and his many-spired brow. Leopold Carter was my grandfather's night nurse in the last years of his illness. My parents were social diplomats, integral to the massive machinery of international politesse, and thus were often away. I, still a boy, would be the only family to stay with grandfather in these stretches; weeks at times. During the day I would go to catechism and at night I'd boil grandfather's food to a brown reduction. I would go to sleep around nine or ten, and then I would hear the door open, the steady shuffle of shoes to slippers, and I knew it was Leopold Carter come calling. I would hear the sloshing swish of a flask, I'd smell his odour pass by. The walls were thin and I could hear them conversing. I think they shared drinks most of the night. But Leopold Carter made a point of never speaking to me. Whether he thought it unseemly or he simply didn't want to talk to anything that could move away from him on its own, we never exchanged a word. And this, for me, as a boy, made him terrifying. Half-asleep during his nightly patters down the hall, and his murmurs through the walls, they came all the more dream-like to me in my memory, they came all the more distorted, horrifying, grotesque. I remember his face as the front of a castle, his drawbridge mouth and his bubonic beard. His earlobes hung like chains, his hair like black and rotten straw. His nose the swollen fulcrum of his downturned half-lids, his eyes like condemned doors, missing their handle, missing their function. His brows were spindly, like spires that seemed to climb upward to his sagging forehead, his surrendered mind. I only once expressed this disfavour to my father, who became quiet and gritted his teeth, "Grandfather likes him, just pretend he's not there." Advice that proved only the truth of it's opposite; pretending the monster you see isn't there is far worse than fearing the one you know isn't. [Buy]

(image is of The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment, an installation dear to my heart, by Ilya Kabakov)

--

RENAISSANCE MAN: part 1

The Renaissance Man. lutist. blind dirtbiker.
A lovely and wondrous little documentary about learning to do something impossible. I could talk at length about how well-made this is; simple, honest footage cut superbly and with pitch-perfect tone. I could talk about how in 12.5 minutes they've created two full characters that I can't wait to see more of, I could talk about the first emotionally visionary use of a helmet cam I've ever seen. But I'll simply mention those things and you can do your own expounding. Enjoy.

Parenthetical Girls - "Sympathy For Spastics"

You need to hang up your rain coat after you get home from walking in the rain. If you don't, it will develop an odourous thin slime in the folds and places where it rubs together.

I was walking in the rain, and it was cold, and outside were all the talkings of the world, the constant chatter of idealess and idealist and defeatist prattle. The words and slogans and ideas slid somehow under my stepping feet, before I could lay the next one down, and I would stumble, splashing my pant leg. They would slide like chunks of firewood, soggy and full of spiders, beneath my armpits, inside my clothes. Little ones would go up my fingernails. The sound of the rain was so loud, it rapped against the sides of my vinyl hood, and it seemed like it was trying to beat me at something. Beat me at a competition that, while ongoing and inescapable, I wasn't aware I had entered, nor aware of any of the rules, goals, or how many others were involved. And most certainly I was beaten, despite a desperate attempt to cheat my way out, once I realized I was losing. I stole ideas from wherever I saw fit, I stole them right out of the mouths of friends, the minds of thinkers whose taste and quality matched the things I wished I had. I joined the chatter, ignored the things repeated and the lack of firm foundation. I grasped, cold-knuckled at whatever would hold my weight, and climbed as high as I could, thinking I could turn the rain off at its source. But climbing and overstepping was simply that, the route of a maze that wasn't the finish, and I found myself standing high atop a pile of meaningless ends, meanless old friends. So when I got home, I didn't hang up my rain coat, I simply threw it in a heap, and now there is an odourous thin slime in the folds and places where it rubbed together. [buy]

Kourosh Yaghmaei - "Ghad Boland"

I would describe this: WEDDING AS WARNING. [buy Back From the Brink]

(photo by Alek Gruszczynski)

Chin Yi - "Foulou Obemi, Fouloum De Daar"

Chin Yi perform exclusively in the fictitious language never invented by Genoese pirates called Tabarcan or Nova Tabarcan. It originates, and is limited only to, the late 18th Century on the Island of Nova Tabarca off the coast of Spain. Genoese pirates shipwrecked there escaping from Spain and simply settled. Fearing the onset of spies from the mainland, they created their own language, one extremely unique for its time. It combines gestures and words necessarily, the language cannot be understood without their union. For instance, facing west while speaking meant the statement was earnestly felt (politicians or professions of love), facing north meant the statement required a response (non-rhetorical questions and military orders needing confirmation). Looking skyward at the beginning of a sentence meant it was not of any importance, looking skyward at the end of a sentence meant it was only of importance to a few people. It was quite an acrobatic generation that began Nova Tabarcan, so they would include difficult or inconvenient maneuvers to prevent newcomers from easily mimicking. For example, standing on one's tip toes, like a ballerina's point, meant the sentence's intended meaning was the opposite of its stated meaning, while standing on one's head meant that the statement was intended for the ears of a married or betrothed man. Perhaps the most fascinating Tabarcan lingual gestures are the 'flicked finger' and the 'wiped upper lip'. When a statement is given the flicked finger, as it would be in the phrase foulou obemi, meaning, loosely, 'a sated noble', the statement takes on the added meaning that 'this will be important later', it gives the foreboding quality of a clue or premonition. And the wiped upper lip, used in a phrase like fouloum de daar, meaning 'satisfied by just one meal', gives the phrase another layer of meaning that "this will not always be true and there is danger afoot."

And musically, I'm sure there is a touch of irony in the choice of melody, since the Tabarcan language, despite its acrobatic forefathers, had no word for 'circus'. The closest possibility would be velentou which, directly translated, means 'silly police'. [PWYC on Bandcamp]

Alligator Indian - "Honey Eye Bee Leave Ewe"

This song is a 'level complete' screen. It's a Friday goof-off. It's a tush notification. It's a baritone baby, and a light-up sandwich, and something I can only describe as a cat sidewalk. It starts and ends with phones ringing, but in the middle there are hands wringing, and ears ringing, and arms winging. [PWYC on Bandcamp]

(photo is of Tabarca and its roads)