As is usually the case on Thursdays, I got off work fairly early. I've spent the last couple hours reading Infinite Jest, which I'm almost done with. I started nodding off, so I figured I'd go to bed, but of course I didn't, opting to fuck around online and listen to Burzum. The combination of the two has been productive, albeit in a not-actually-productive, fucked-up way.

Burzum is a seminal Norwegian black metal band made up of one man, Varg Vikernes. I won't bother going into details about Varg, as any internet search for his name and/or Burzum will reveal plenty of gory details and I don't feel like rehashing the ideological issues that inevitably come up whenever Burzum is discussed. That said, listening to Burzum made me pay a visit to burzum.com, which in the past was a repository of various Varg/Burzum-related material. Now it's just a forum for white nationalists und so weiter, a fact which was not unknown to me, but since I'd never visited the site since it made the transition.

If you're not immediately repelled by the thought of reading stuff written by heathen national socialists (not to say that I enjoy such things, but then again, there's not a lot I'm not willing to look into, my curiosity being what it is), I'd recommend checking ol' burzum.com out. It's definitely worth a laugh if you want to read about doomed notions like the "Assyrian National Socialist Party."

A quick thought, though, regarding art (specifically music in this case) and ideology. I listen to music composed by, in no particular order, convicted murderers (Dissection), homophobes (shitloads of metal bands), homosexuals (Rob Halford), communists (numerous punk rock outfits, depending on the perjorative-ness of the term 'communist'), pseudo-gnostics (High on Fire), Satanists (more metal bands), arsonists (several black metal bands), Christians (Johnny Cash), misanthropes (too many to name), poseurs (Avril Lavigne), militant vegans (Conflict), ecoterrorists (Velvet Cacoon), NRA spokesmen (the Nuge), occultists (see former metal band comments), drug addicts (Thin Lizzy), alcoholics (Shane Macgowan), conservatives (Zakk Wylde), anarchists (Crass), multiculturalists (Dead Can Dance), nationalists/culturalists (Death In June), pagans (Cruachan), etc. etc.

Fuck. I had a legitimate ending to this post, but Blogger ate it even before I'd tried to publish it. Suffice to say that ideology matters insofar as it gives me something to think about, but it doesn't matter enough to override the music attached to it.

I'm going to bed. Good night, kameraden.