As previously lamented, I have not very much enjoyed a lot of the music released this year, most probably, I will admit, out of ignorance. I have been listening to a lot of the recommendations that my friend Brendan has given me over the last week or so, but I don't think I can draw a week of listening into a tops list. As well as this, I have not even seen enough good films released this year to populate a Top 5 list. I've seen how out of touch I have become with popular culture--aside from the inclination to create a tops list, of course--and from this consider myself to have found another New Year's resolution. Though that is doubtful.
So, let's see. Rather than attempt to collate a list from my slim pickings, I'm going to travel a decade backwards (1.21 Gigawatts) and give you my Top of the Tops list of the sweeter days of 1998. It was my transition into baggy jeans, skateboarding, and cutting my own hair. Some photos remain, but we are currentl tracking them down. But let's forget that and get to business.
Top 5 albums:
Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Finger Eleven, Tip
Project 86, Project 86
Pedro The Lion, It's Hard to Find a Friend
Refused, The Shape of Punk To Come
Top 5 Songs:
At The Drive-In, "Napoleon Solo"
Neutral Milk Hotel, "Oh Comely"
Mineral, "Unfinished"
The Gloria Record, "Torch Yourself"
Pedro The Lion, "Secret of the Easy Yoke"
Top 5 movies:
Saving Private Ryan
SLC Punk
The Truman Show
Can't Hardly Wait
The X-Files
Top 5 video games:
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Pokemon
NHL '99
Space Station Silicon Valley
Breath of Fire III
--
Now that was a good year. 2008, though, has been both the longest and the shortest I've had. Hmm. On we go, and into what we soon shall see.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
With the wind.
The wind can disregard you, diving through your many layers, through your very bones, and right out the other side. There has been such a wondrous cold of late that it and its factoring chill do so with ease and encouragement, cross your arms about yourself as you like.
During a perfect snowstorm I trudged across the tundra of nearby undeveloped land [you know, 'undeveloped' is an interesting and accurate word in more than the common sense--I remember a time when it was developed, moderately wild, though penned by roads, but has since been un-developed (hyphen, of course) to a vast, craggy wasteland] to purchase supplies. Soup supplies, that is, as in butternut squash and pears, as well as cinnamon sticks, and beneath my knitted hat while walking, I listened to and thought about 'building a still'. Now, still, and still I do. Stillness is a thing that I think can be brought about, but in a way that is not an interference with movement. Hmm.
Yes, then, that is what I will do: paint, write music, write stories. Make things that move by standing still. But we will still just wait for the winds to decompose. We must, for as long as we are walking they will bend us to corners.
--
At times I believe that things are simply clarifying a more valuable vision.
During a perfect snowstorm I trudged across the tundra of nearby undeveloped land [you know, 'undeveloped' is an interesting and accurate word in more than the common sense--I remember a time when it was developed, moderately wild, though penned by roads, but has since been un-developed (hyphen, of course) to a vast, craggy wasteland] to purchase supplies. Soup supplies, that is, as in butternut squash and pears, as well as cinnamon sticks, and beneath my knitted hat while walking, I listened to and thought about 'building a still'. Now, still, and still I do. Stillness is a thing that I think can be brought about, but in a way that is not an interference with movement. Hmm.
Yes, then, that is what I will do: paint, write music, write stories. Make things that move by standing still. But we will still just wait for the winds to decompose. We must, for as long as we are walking they will bend us to corners.
--
At times I believe that things are simply clarifying a more valuable vision.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
And a very rare species.
It is easiest to be taken away by long winds, down sleek tunnels, into questions of the weight of realness. Such ease there is, in slipping into a lack of light and lightness.
Now that I am (sort of) on holidays I have been, in the midst of organizing my room, my life, and its dark orange walls, flipping through the beginnings of a dozen books throughout the day. I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being a while ago, and flipped back to random passages within that book this afternoon. This, among the Watchmen, Pascal's Pensees, some Steinbeck, and more Levinas than is good for me. But Kundera's title pervades.
Anyhow, now, questions and realness. How interesting it is, that it works so well to imagine words coming from the mouths of others, words that do not yet exist and might not come to be, but will still affect an entire string of actions, paving them out of a striking fear or a slim hope. The weighted impression that the unreal, mere imaginations, such weightless brevity, can have on the real, the day, the things a person walks with. The unreal is keeping the real.
The same is in dreams. A person could wake from a bad dream with a terrible start, furrow their brow, and determine themselves to fall back to sleep and change that dream. Or to have one that is fresh and new from which they may inspire the day's real activities. But that might bring them, in returning to sleep, to a worsened state than was before, in an independent happening.
How dire, then, would the circumstance be if that person is unable even to sleep, prevented from such bad dreams for fear of them--perhaps a benefit, then. But is still stuck with imaginations that, like dreams, follow their own plots, and slip and stick in their muck. Muck, or an electric fence. At least there are plenty of books to read.
Now that I am (sort of) on holidays I have been, in the midst of organizing my room, my life, and its dark orange walls, flipping through the beginnings of a dozen books throughout the day. I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being a while ago, and flipped back to random passages within that book this afternoon. This, among the Watchmen, Pascal's Pensees, some Steinbeck, and more Levinas than is good for me. But Kundera's title pervades.
Anyhow, now, questions and realness. How interesting it is, that it works so well to imagine words coming from the mouths of others, words that do not yet exist and might not come to be, but will still affect an entire string of actions, paving them out of a striking fear or a slim hope. The weighted impression that the unreal, mere imaginations, such weightless brevity, can have on the real, the day, the things a person walks with. The unreal is keeping the real.
The same is in dreams. A person could wake from a bad dream with a terrible start, furrow their brow, and determine themselves to fall back to sleep and change that dream. Or to have one that is fresh and new from which they may inspire the day's real activities. But that might bring them, in returning to sleep, to a worsened state than was before, in an independent happening.
How dire, then, would the circumstance be if that person is unable even to sleep, prevented from such bad dreams for fear of them--perhaps a benefit, then. But is still stuck with imaginations that, like dreams, follow their own plots, and slip and stick in their muck. Muck, or an electric fence. At least there are plenty of books to read.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The snow goose need not bathe.
The other day I was telling someone I know about a thought I had. A couple Tuesdays or Wednesdays ago there was a really nice snowfall. I was watching it happen and thinking about this clean whiteness that stuck itself, clinging so quietly to the objects that it fell upon. I wondered what it must be like to be an evergreen or a fire hydrant, spending a few months under the mask of beauty. Just standing there, making other peoples' breath catch and slow when they look and notice. But you know, they know that it isn't themselves that is being looked at and admired, but is the glittering blanket that lay over them. Maybe those objects cling back, standing still as they can.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The best deals of the year on all 1985 model Toyotas.
I'm writing things that don't make sense.
Righting things that don't make sense.
Writing things that don't make cents.
Right in, thin, sat down, makes ends.
Write in things a town makes, ants.
Righting things at own expense.
Writing things at own expense.
Plutonium.
Righting things that don't make sense.
Writing things that don't make cents.
Right in, thin, sat down, makes ends.
Write in things a town makes, ants.
Righting things at own expense.
Writing things at own expense.
Plutonium.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Up a storm.
If I read over the last number of entries here, the first thought I have is: This needs to get more serious. So here we go.
When (if) I make it through all of these papers and into the Christmas break, I plan to learn how to cook or bake some wonderful new dishes.
So I am requesting for you to share with me your favourite recipes.
Here's one of mine:
Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder (or instant coffee ground into fineness)
1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together, and add the egg and vanilla.
3. Sift together the remaining dry ingredients, including the coffee powder. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix in chocolate chips.
4. Roll into balls. use your fingers to flatten onto a non-stick baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.
Makes 2 dozen cookies.
Who even needs meals if these exist?
When (if) I make it through all of these papers and into the Christmas break, I plan to learn how to cook or bake some wonderful new dishes.
So I am requesting for you to share with me your favourite recipes.
Here's one of mine:
Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder (or instant coffee ground into fineness)
1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together, and add the egg and vanilla.
3. Sift together the remaining dry ingredients, including the coffee powder. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix in chocolate chips.
4. Roll into balls. use your fingers to flatten onto a non-stick baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.
Makes 2 dozen cookies.
Who even needs meals if these exist?
Monday, November 17, 2008
Lights, he said.
"The joyful will stoop with sorrow, and when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion."
The beauty of the myth is that its characters are so large their qualities never change. They are forever illumined and are far enough away that you'll not stoop and your hair will not tangle, for those figures are miles beyond the earth.
But we are right here, you and I, separated from beauty by seeing the other's breath.
The beauty of the myth is that its characters are so large their qualities never change. They are forever illumined and are far enough away that you'll not stoop and your hair will not tangle, for those figures are miles beyond the earth.
But we are right here, you and I, separated from beauty by seeing the other's breath.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
