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 16, 2009
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.
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
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)
(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.
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.
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