Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Zero hour minus 13.

I've got my Chinese 1501 final tomorrow. Once I'm done, I hope to use my winter break (from school, not work, naturally) productively, in a writerly sense. We shall see.

Let's just hope I don't forget a semester's worth of Chinese in three weeks and ruin my current academic respectability come springtime.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

"Barrows"

Barrows

We opened the tombs of
our ancestors, kings and heroes all,
only to find them empty,
quiet homes of dust and memory.
Our sacred myths founded on vacant architecture
and lies our great-grandfathers told
to keep the nighttime silence at bay.

No splendid treasure-hoards,
no bones to brighten the microscope's
eye, no spells to
ward off the other side's ravenous denizens,
only the tombs, hillside after hillside,
hewn stone mouths speaking
for nobody, nothing but the earth.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Thoughts on output.

I've been more prolific, in some ways, this past year than I have in a long while. One of my biggest problems with defining prolificity is the issue of length: have I written anything longer than a few hundred words, much less a proper short story or, even better, a novel? Not really. I've merely been amassing vignettes, poems, and fragments of ideas that if properly fleshed out could be seed material for longer works. I've also written a few episodes of the new iteration of Unheimlich, which if I haven't mentioned was revived by Andy Link in the form of a next-generation Xbox Live game. It's still in the daydreaming and scripting phase, but if it never gets past that, it's a better fate than its ancestor, Unheimlich the novel, faced.

So, despite being used to writing long-form works ("used to" being an increasingly inappropriate phrase, given my overall literary silence for some time), I'm faced with a plethora of short pieces that in the old days wouldn't amount to shit, but these days do. The sheer amount of small things I've cranked out lately- I've filled all but a few pages of a pocket notebook in seven months, whereas in the past it would've taken considerably longer to do so, and there are probably plenty of scribbles and vague textfiles floating around my house and hard drive- serves as the main metric by which I consider myself "prolific." There's something else to take into account, though, and that's whether producing a great deal of work counts for anything if said work isn't being pushed into publication.

I'm torn. Part of me, the much younger, militantly authorial, part, says "if you're not publishing, or trying to publish, then you're a dilettante," whereas another part of me- which the younger part understood, even back then, though it was hard to come to terms with- says "You're writing. That's all you've ever wanted. Stop beating yourself up about whether anyone reads it, much less pays you for it, and just write."

I tend to think the latter approach, which has always been the real reason for writing but is hard to stomach when you really want to make a career of writing, has the upper hand in my current inner debate about whether I'm writing a lot. I'm definitely enjoying writing for the hell of it, even if it I'm still frustrated that I can't seem to cough up anything longer than a page or two. I suppose that kind of dilemma's an intrinsic part of writing- not that it makes it any easier when you're up late at night wondering where all your ideas have gone and whether or not people will ever read something of yours that isn't maudlin, self-indulgent moaning.

Whatever. Fuck it. I'm happy with how much I'm writing, and I can see certain changes (for the better, I think) in how I write. I'm even posting more regularly to this web log, which I've missed dearly. Who cares if I'm not submitting work left and right or writing another novel?

Good enough. Good. Enough.

Happy Bodhi Day.

-DAS 12.8.09

Monday, December 07, 2009

"Field Recordings"

The sound of two-inch tape hisses and rustles in the weeds. Someone's forgotten they were supposed to be making field recordings, left their gear behind. That was 1971; since then kids have been discovering the machine and replaying the sounds the tape never captured. They don't know how it works- the batteries are corroded slugs- and they don't care. They press play, rewind, play again, fast forward, rewind, judging the permutations of blank soundscape. Nobody thinks to take the machine home, clean it up. It's been in the same empty lot forever, as much of a secret landmark as the curb behind the convenience store, the crucifix nailed upside down to that one tree in the woods. Silence, waiting for encroachment from a child's aeon ago.

(12.3.09- revisions 12.7.09)

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

D.A.'s Favorite Five Records of 2009

D.A.'s Favorite* Five Records** of 2009

It's close enough to the end of the year for me to make some assessments of the albums I acquired in 二零零九年, or as the Chinese say, deuce double ought nine. It's been a tough year for music, I think, mostly from a personal standpoint: I spent a quarter of the year unemployed and the rest of it saving as much money as I could to pay UH's insane tuition, so I lacked the usual discretionary record-buying funds my income prior to 11/08 allowed.

Not buying records on a near-weekly basis has left me out of the loop. It used to be that I knew what had come out in the recent past and what was coming out in the immediate future, so I could pass more informed judgments about the state of music (music that might interest me, that is) for any given year than I can at the moment. For example, a year or two ago the appearance of a new Nile record would not have caught me completely by surprise, and I would've been aware that Portal would be unleashing another disc of extraplanar death metal, but not this year. It's not just poverty that keeps me from being a record nerd, of course. Between work and school I have a lot less free time than I used to, and I turned 30 three months ago, which officially makes me old, befuddled, and out of touch with the hip kids, so I'm not pulling from as extensive a list as I normally would.

Now that the excuses and rationalizations are out of the way, here are some records I really dug this year. Even if your taste in music differs from mine (which it inevitably does; don't worry, I won't mock you too much), these are albums I'd recommend to anyone. Whether or not you'll like them is, of course, a decision for you alone to make; I hope you take the time to check them out and make that decision.


Current 93- Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain

Matt, my brother from another mother with the same last name, turned me on to Current 93 about ten years ago. I won't try to describe, much less explain, this band (which is one dude, David Tibet, and a revolving handful of comrades) here, other than to say that they make folk music if folk music were written by an English prophet/artist even more obscure than William Blake who was into children's rhymes and prog rock. Or some such shit; the point is that C93 is unique, and "Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain" is unique among their discography, mainly because it's a pretty heavy, electric guitar-oriented record. Part of me doesn't want to talk too much about it in the hopes that my silence intrigues you enough to hear it for yoursel-and because silence is sacred- but another part of me could spend a solid hour talking, and maybe two hours writing, about this album. "Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain" is probably the best record of the year in my book.

N.B. If it's worth anything, I bought this on CD and on vinyl. Side 4 of the double LP has all the album's lyrics put to a piece of music not included among the normal tracks, and it works really, really well. I also got hold of a copy of "Monohallucinatory Mountain," which is a mono mix of "Aleph at...", through questionable channels (read: downloading). I'm not an audiophile, but I can say the difference between the regular and mono mixes is noticeable, and changes the atmosphere of the album in a way worth hearing. Yes, I have this album in three different formats, and it's completely worth it.


Deströyer 666- Defiance

Long story short: this is a band I blew off for far too long because I didn't care for their name. In late '03 or early '04 I got my shit together and bought "Cold Steel For An Iron Age", their latest record at the time. They promptly became, and remain, one of my favorite metal bands, and they exemplify the widely recognized excellence and brutality of Australian heavy metal. "Defiance" is their first full-length in six years, and while it may initially not impress fans in the way their older work does, after a few spins there's no doubt that this is quality stuff, and by no means a slack effort. As an added bonus, it contains one of the best lyrics I've ever heard: "have the gods not failed enough that we must conjure more?". Take that, theists.

Mastodon- Crack the Skye

I almost didn't include this. I listened to "Crack the Skye" about a thousand times in the month after it came out, and I saw Mastodon play the entire album live three weeks ago, so I'm almost burned out. Luckily, I already wrote a review of it, which you can find here at this very web log. 'Nuff said.


Wolves in the Throne Room- Black Cascade

Definitely harder to get into than their last full-length, "Two Hunters," and I'm still not sure why. At some point I thought I'd figured it out, but I've forgotten what my theory was. No matter; this is yet another stellar release from one of the newest crop of American black metal bands. All of their albums are near-masterpieces, and their sound and ideology, both of which have been criticized for numerous reasons but to little lasting effect, are a logical extension of and welcome addition to the black metal scene. Perhaps it's their roots in Washington State, and/or their Thoreau-like appreciation of nature, but Wolves in the Throne Room strike me as an alternate universe Beat black metal outfit. I don't know if the band would appreciate that or not, but I don't care: as I see it, if Jack Kerouac grew up on Romantic poetry and heavy metal tales of pagan forests, he may well have tried (and knowing Kerouac, likely failed) to start a band like this. Listen to "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog," especially the last two and a half minutes, and maybe you'll see what I mean.


YTCracker- Chrono Nurga vol. 1

"High five for the Cat5, and a fat drive, and a quarter of weed."

That pretty much sums up YTCracker's attitude on this album. If you aren't familiar with nerdcore hip-hop, of which YTCracker is a progenitor, imagine hip-hop with geeky subject matter: in this dude's case, spamming, Nintendo games, programming, defunct sodas, and nerd life in general. "Chrono Nurga vol. 1" consists of raps laid down over beats lifted from the old RPG Chrono Trigger, which I'm ashamed to admit I have yet to play despite hearing nothing but good about the game. You'd think such a project would have little more than novelty value, but you'd be wrong. (Such an argument could be made for nerdcore as a whole, but again, you'd be wrong.) Peppered throughout the album's eight tracks are lines that strike a chord, and not only because part of me is somehow still surprised by poignancy in music like this. "Chrono Nurga vol. 1" doesn't have the range of "Nerd Life" or even "Nerdrap Entertainment System," but it's a solid album in its own right, lyrically and musically. YTCracker, despite all his bragadoccio, most certainly knows what it's like to be a nerd. Be prepared for obtuse references, crudeness, and the us-versus-you attitude that so many of us who've always felt at odds with our less intelligent but somehow socially superior fellows have adopted from time to time. Don't sweat it if you don't catch some of the references, because I didn't either. What matters is that a dude ganked some old Playstation beats, threw this thing together in a day, and did it with enough heart and wit to beat out albums that might otherwise have made this list.

"Show that nerd life off, never hide it."



* In no particular order.
**Not just records, but CDs, tapes, mp3s, whatever.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

(as of yet) untitled poem + a recommendation.

The song of harlots and saints
resounds in chambers without walls
or walls of bone, smooth curvature of bone.
The stars hide behind light and a hundred
wheels spin.
Children grit their teeth, prepare to fall,
as parents demand more. Young masks
tear at the edges when ten thousand
tomorrows arrive today.
But today
there is no today, only now,
the moment of noise and lines.

11.11.09
----

YTCracker's dropped a new one, chrono nurga vol. 1. Dig it. Nerd life.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Unsummary.

Iced tea and a cigarette. Geocities comes to an end, and with it the internet as so many of us knew it. The ego as time bomb. New YT Cracker release awaiting extraction from a .zip file. A day of rain. That cold-weather smell, not because it's that cold but because it's just cool enough for an extra layer. Abyssal power struggles. Locks in need of powdered graphite. Too many appliances. Pumpkins awaiting faces. Move along.

Friday, October 16, 2009

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

(tl;dr version: nice weather and skateboarding rule)

It's been a weird year for Houston, weather-wise. June was brutally hot. July was, to nobody's surprise, also hot. August was a little more mellow, but only in comparison to what it usually is. September sucked: the temperatures didn't seem to drop, and the humidity was awful. October, when most of us would agree that H-Town starts catching up with the seasonal rotation thing, has been a little more forgiving, though it's still been humid as shit. Today, however, Mother Nature has dropped a boon on my fair city in the form of mid-70s temperatures, clear skies, and steady breezes. This, my friends, is the way things should be. Like I told a buddy at the skatepark earlier today, I understand why people are willing to shell out the fat cash to live in SoCal, where days like this are routine.

Even better, it's my Saturday. I had a rad green smoothie for breakfast, then went to the skatepark to make the most of the weather and drop off some Tracker Fastracks for a buddy looking to set up a cruiser. I saw, for the first time in months, one of the guys who was a stalwart of the 8 AM scene when Jamail still opened that early and when I didn't work there. Threw down some increasingly solid feeble grinds on the curbs outside the park, and started plotting my conquest of a particular quarterpipe via backside rock n' rolls. Stopped at Half Price Books and walked out with a couple promising books, one of which is by Stephen Batchelor, who I can't recommend enough if you want a clear, meaningful, and modern approach to Buddhism. Came home, drank some Koenig Ludwig weissbier- 'cause it's that kind of day, dudes- and jammed some MC Frontalot and 3 Inches of Blood. Later, I'll probably go lay waste to some neighborhood curbs and/or do some/all of the following: take a nap, read, visit my brother, smoke cigarettes, go back to the skatepark, and maybe some things I haven't even thought about yet. Days like this are why we're put on earth.

Shout-outs to Aaron Estrada, War Master, Santa Monica Airlines, D, Daniel, Richard, tahini, cheap lighters, and West Alabama Street.


Impervious to fire, impervious to steel,
D.A.S.

Some words.

"Every waking moment is a footstep deeper into a labyrinth where the meaninglessness of life pursues us like a patient minotaur." -Lina Strade

Monday, May 11, 2009

Notes on the transportive function of music

(As always, the text below is not to be taken as fully fleshed out, or likely to be completed.)

Some pieces of music- riffs, melodies, whole songs- perform one of music's most potent functions, which for lack of better words I'll term the transportive function. This term can be broken down into specific types of transport, since not all music serves the same purpose, but I'm going to focus on temporal transport, i.e., the removal of the listener from the present into the past or future. Further subclassification is possible: there are riffs and songs to remind one of their actual past, free of whitewashing or embellishment; music that filters the listener's past through the lens of nostalgia; music that evokes a mythological past that never happened at all; or, looking forward, music that launches the listener to a future that may never be, or provides a more earthbound sense of the possibilities down the road. I'm not going to concern myself with examining each of these responses to music- too exhausting- but stick to musing on the general transportive function.

The right piece of music can cause the listener can enter into a state of mind similar to, perhaps almost identical to, one they've been in before. There are a number of variables that go into determining whether a given song or riff will do the trick, all of them personal and therefore outside the scope of this piece; besides, anyone who's serious about music is usually aware of why certain songs affect them the way they do. Anyway, the music producing this result need not have been heard previously; indeed, one of the most fascinating things about the transportive function is that it doesn't require familiarity, instead working as a sort of instantaneous, hands-free time machine. I can't say for sure if the first time one hears a piece of music is the most powerful in terms of the transportive function, but I lean toward a negative answer, based on personal experience and because engrossing oneself in a piece of music allows a listener to hear more deeply, which can make the transportive function either more effective or cause it to function differently. It should also be noted that specificity, in regard to precisely when in time a piece of music moves the listener, can be a non-issue. I'd hazard to guess that most people's experiences with the transportive function can be described more along the lines of "this takes me back to the fall of '04" or "that song is, like, what I imagine music will be like twenty years from now" than "January 12th, 1989, in my brother's room." Whether the music takes one to a vaguely or clearly-defined time isn't that important, although that could be argued.

One thing I'm unsure of, probably because it just occurred to me and I'm too impatient to stop and think about it, is whether the transportive function is completely involuntary or not. I don't think it is, because one can react to a song one way for X amount of time only to react differently later- e.g., one associates a song with a good (or bad) time in their life, only to reevaluate their feelings later and find that they loathe/love the song now. That said, people don't often actively change their response to music, for whatever reasons or lack thereof, and I suspect the transportive function has something to do with this. People like associating a song with a specific time and/or place, whether or not thinking about why that is would, in the long run, allow them to get more from the music. I'm as guilty of this as the next guy, and I'm not blaming anyone for anything.

That's all I've got for the time being. If I think of anything else to add, I'll try to remember to do so, but I'm already planning my next entry. It should be up within the week, if all goes well.

Zaijian!

-DAS

P.S. The song that got me thinking about the transportive function in the first place, and that has been listened to numerous times since I started writing this entry, is "Ghosts of Grace" by Nachtmystium. Where does it take me? I'm still trying to nail that down.

Friday, May 08, 2009

Run ragged.

Things I've done in the past couple weeks: started my new job at the skatepark, moved closer to finishing this semester's Chinese class, and absorbed a great amount of new music. What I haven't done: meditate. For the past eight or nine months I've been pretty strict about getting in 30 minutes to an hour a day on the ol' meditation cushion. It's been a useful habit, and when I miss more than the occasional session I notice a distinct difference in the way I perceive and react to things. It sucks.

My failure in the past week to meditate each day has been taking a toll on me. I don't think of myself as being particularly susceptible to stress, but just because I believe (or don't believe) something doesn't make it true; the confluence of recent events seems to be wearing me out, moreso mentally than physically- though that's a factor too, given that I'm standing around in the heat all day for a living now. On top of my non-diminishing to-do list, I've been listening to lots of new music, much of which is intricate, heavily textured, raw, and/or laden with textual and philosophical meaning. It's a lot to digest, and I've only begun cramming my mouth full and trying to chew. Alongside that comes a fair amount of reading about said music, via metal 'zines like Oaken Throne and Convivial Hermit, which expands the range of my thinking about what I've been hearing. Summa summarum, I've been overloading my mind and underutilizing the decompression tool of meditation, and it's no good. Interesting, maybe, but mostly exhausting.

This isn't a complaint, by the way, but rather an analysis. I'm aware of what's wrong and how to alleviate it, something I don't know that I could have done even a few years ago.

Good night.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

a quick note

Something I'll try to expand upon later:

One of the reasons I love heavy metal is that it is a channel for the expression of ideas and sentiments that are usually at odds with those professed by the majority of people. Not boring political issues, but metaphysical and philosophical concepts. It's good that metal is there to provide a framework for understanding my periodic nihilism and distaste for mankind, just as I'm glad that metal has provided such an extensive network of resources for delving into the esoteric, heretical, and left-handed.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Perils of Astral Projection in Late Imperial Russia

All right, here's some heavy metal musings at long last. Today's topic: Mastodon's latest record, Crack the Skye, which is a concept album of sorts. I'm not going to go too deeply into the details of the concept part, as such information is readily available online. Better yet, you could listen to the record and read the liner notes. The latter course of action is unquestionably the superior one, because as cool as it is to read that Crack the Skye deals with the accidental adventures of a paraplegic astral traveler who ends up in Rasputin's body just before Rasputin is offed by Yusupov and company, among other things, it's far more rewarding to absorb the songs and their lyrics as the band intended. Mastodon's graphic design is, as always, top notch, so the liner notes are an aesthetic treat unto themselves.

Blood Mountain, Mastodon's last record, didn't really do it for me, or at least I don't remember it doing much for me. It had its moments, but I seem to recall a lot of stuff that didn't strike my eardrums the right way. When I heard about Crack the Skye I decided to listen to Blood Mountain again to see what I thought of it a couple years later. To my dismay, I found the CD case but not the CD, so I said "fuck it" and went ahead and bought Crack the Skye. If my fears that the new album would be too much like the last came true, it wouldn't be the first time I was burned by giving a band another shot. (Note that Leviathan, the album prior to Blood Mountain, was fantastic, and after digging the hell out of it, I went back to my copy of Remission, which I hadn't cared for, and found that it was more to my liking the second time around.)

Crack the Skye marks the second time I've been pleasantly surprised- nay, fucking floored- by this band, and establishes, in my mind at least, a Star Trek-like one-good-one-bad pattern. The musicianship is incredible; it's expansive and intriguing without lapsing into wankery. It's got a great texture to it, which the production does an excellent job of emphasizing. It's heavy without being conventionally so, and no, that's not code for "downtuned," "lots of blast beats," or "merely heavier than what you'd hear on the radio." (It is the latter, but really, what isn't unless you're listening to KTRU?) Importantly, the heaviness is tempered by- or provides gravitational force to- a kind of ethereality that pervades the record, which is in keeping with its lyrical concept. Everything flows, too. While each song is very good on its own merits, they all work together exceptionally well to give form to that increasingly rare specimen, the album. Kudos for Mastodon for structuring things so well and promoting repeated, extended listening sessions; then again, if they hadn't done so, the record wouldn't work too well as a concept album.

One of the things that turned me off of Blood Mountain was the vocal work. It sounded like Mastodon, but not really. Crack the Skye continues in the same vocal direction, but this time the band has figured out what I imagine they were aiming for on their last release. There's a lot less harsh throatwork here than there was in the past, but it couldn't be otherwise; this is Mastodon's tribute to prog rock, and while there's certainly room for death metal vocals in such an approach (viz. Opeth), the material here requires the mostly clean melodicism found in the vocals. Some vocal effects are used, but they don't come out of nowhere or fail to make sense, keeping with the overall flow mentioned above.

When I first conceived of this little essay, I intended to spend half of it venting my spleen about the absurdity of autocracy, particularly in the form of czarism and even more specifically as personified by Nicholas II. I was also going to wax venomous about the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia's decision in 1981 to canonize the Romanovs as martyrs. I shit you not. These are the kind of mental tangents listening to Crack the Skye inspired. I doubt anyone else would end up thinking along those lines, but I'd say it's a testament to the album's power that it not only creates a fascinating universe of its own, but that said universe seeps out into the minds of those who encounter it by listening to the record. Even if one sets the lyrical content aside, there are all kinds of riffs and melodies here that will fasten themselves to your skull like tentacles. Just as further expeditions into the depths of Leviathan yielded new insights, spinning Crack the Skye several times will provide not only hours of entertainment, but a greater understanding of, among other things, the nature of heaviness and progressiveness- not to mention the precautions that should be taken when leaving one's body for the astral plane.

-DAS, 4.16.09

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Coming soon!

Hopefully within the next week- probably the next few days- I'll be writing about some records I've been diggin' as of late, and the satellite ideas I have about them.

The records:

Mastodon- Crack the Skye
Darkthrone- Dark Thrones and Black Flags
Wolves in the Throne Room- Two Hunters

Check 'em out for yourself in the meantime.

Friday, March 27, 2009

The perils of (non)alcohol.

Since I quit drinking last August I've taken to drinking non-alcoholic beer. I don't drink as much of it as I did real beer, but it's a decent analog- or so I thought. Last night I drank about four bottles of O'Doul's; several hours later, I woke up with nasty gut pains, which were as surprising as they were unpleasant since I rarely have gastrointestinal trouble. The pain continued through the night and into the next morning, finally easing up, for the most part, late this morning. By mid-afternoon, I felt more or less normal, though I was still clueless as to what caused the episode.

Tonight I had another couple NA beers, and within an hour I had both a slightly upset stomach and a sudden realization. Maybe it's just O'Doul's, but non-alcoholic beer looks like it ain't gonna sit well with me if I want to drink more than a couple over the course of an evening.

I just had another realization: I've hit a new low, whining about non-alcoholic beer. Jesus.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

tonight.

Wearing yesterday's (or day before's) socks, drinking from reused water battle sans cap, wallet empty, Tommy Guerrero and YT Cracker jams on the hard drive, hundreds of old skateboarding ads scrolling by. Floodlights and pretty smooth concrete over at Target sound like fun, but there's nobody to skate with now. Quitting cigarettes is harder than breaking up with girls. Coffee- sure, but man it's gonna fuck with the dreams.

I never stay up late anymore. I hated doing it when circumstances forced me to, but now I miss it. Huh.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Christ almighty!

It's been almost a year since I posted here. I forgot my password, had mail server problems getting it back when I realized (months after the fact) that I'd forgotten it, made an aborted attempt at another blog, lost my job (not because of the blog problems)... yeah, here we are again.

Let's see what happens.