and my status is that I am homeless and broken around the heart area. Whilst EITHER/OR/BORED goes on a little break why not follow my adventures on the Glaswegian Death Trip which I will be updating from a feature phone and the post-via-email setting.
Category: society & culture
A friend of mine and his band have a new album out and it’s a skullthumping mix of mad piano and darkwave synthy beatiness.
Now, when I say friend I mean “guy i know through facebook through a guy I used to know in Cardiff” – but we’ve had some cool conversations so I’m definitely leaning more towards friend than acquaintance. Still, it’s not like we hang out playing GTA and getting wasted. For starters, with him in London and me in the darklands of Scotland, the commute would be a motherfucker.
To celebrate the new album they’ve made their first two releases pay-what-you-like on bandcamp. Why not go grab yourself a download link? Also, if you like their page on facebook absolutely nothing of consequence will happen, although it does make it easier to keep up with their antics.
The album isn’t actually released till the 28th of June but it’s available to stream right now on bandcamp and I’m really quite fond of it. The lyrics and vocals avoid the cliches of darkwave (Deathboy, I’m looking at you) and the piano work keeps things fresh and manic. Its official release will be followed by a UK tour which promises such mad hedonism that entire town centers may be closed down in a state of emergency. You may well be seeing his face, makeup streaked with sweat and blood, on a forthcoming episode of Crime Watch.
Don’t believe what the powers that be tell you. He’s really a lovely guy.
Concerning the tour: The Nottingham date will be at The Maze, not at the Britannia Boat Club.
I am interested in the phenomenon of ‘seeing’ because it
encapsulates the mystery of meaning. The moment of recognition
happens as if by magic; and yet, when we reflect on it, we see- its
very name tells us this-that it is impossible without prior
experience. What becomes puzzling then is the phenomenon
of insight, the creation (apparently) of new meaning. Here, we
forget that to recognize can mean to re-think, as in think through
differently. It need not always signify mere repetition of a former
cognition. We say in such cases not only that we recognize x (as Y),
but that we realize x is Y.
encapsulates the mystery of meaning. The moment of recognition
happens as if by magic; and yet, when we reflect on it, we see- its
very name tells us this-that it is impossible without prior
experience. What becomes puzzling then is the phenomenon
of insight, the creation (apparently) of new meaning. Here, we
forget that to recognize can mean to re-think, as in think through
differently. It need not always signify mere repetition of a former
cognition. We say in such cases not only that we recognize x (as Y),
but that we realize x is Y.
In fact, we almost never use the word ‘recognize’ -even in the
most straightforward cases of identification or recall – unless there
is some problem: we don’t see her face clearly, or she has changed,
or we met only briefly years ago. That is, ‘recognition’, even in
apparently straightforward cases, involves re-organization of
experience- an act of contextualization, a sensing of connexions
between aspects of immediate experience and other experiences.
Thus, the experiences of seeing how an assemblage of parts must
go together, recognizing an old friend in an unfamiliar setting, and
understanding a metaphor are species of the same phenomenon.
They all involve insight, understood as re-cognition; a gestalt shift.
And this is the original of meaning.
— Jan Zwicky, Wisdom & Metaphor
Metaphors on Vision is a collection of writings by non-narrative film-maker Stan Brakhage particularly concerned with his personal approach to film. His work is beautiful and striking and his influence on the cinematic avant-garde should not be underestimated. I thoroughly recommend clicking through to the book and also checking out some of his work.
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I’ve been developing a character at the back of my head, possibly for a series of short stories, possibly for a novel. Thought I’d share some of the vague things I’ve begun noting down.
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He wanted to make them doubt, bleed them dry. It all came down to morality. A construct, stitched together as it was from the abuses of empathy by another figment of humanity – The Social Construct.
Like a pathological nest of russian dolls; one construction vomiting out the next, ad nauseum. Each one subsuming the last.
If you go back far enough though there was a common root for everything mankind had created.
There was no escaping it; all of us slaves, whether we admitted it or not. Beneath everything they writhed, just one lifeform of many that made human biology their home. One which, unlike the others, was not just a mere passenger. It rode up front and whispered in your ear. Guided your hand. Stroked your pleasure centres.
Fuck me, there’s a lot of music on EITHER/OR/BORED today.
Steve Mason, formerly of the beta band, has a new album out: Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time
Here be the first single off it. Fight Them Back.
Be sure to check out the interview with him in the march issue of The Skinny where he accuses David Cameron of trying to turn Britain into some kind of wasteland.
