Appropriate the greatness of your youth

and twiddle the lens until your trouble is out of focus.

Do not sit in a fogged-out room

Rolling your legs and arms in anguish.

Do not so soon seize the blossoms of your youth

until their ripe flavor is everywhere you cannot taste it,

nor should you plant them with too fearless a thumb

they become like kudzu and take over your world.

Do not be like the Donkey

who pulls carts all day with a tarnished face.

Do not be like the Dog

who comes when he is called by the human race.

Do not be like the Wasp

who stings in a frenzy with no regrets.

Be human kind

You are not pests

You are not pets.

Do not seek for yourself a bad reputation

Among the denizens of the iron-grey underworld

Nor seek for yourself a good reputation

Among those who wish to do you harm.

For just the other day

I had a vision of my friend drizzling his teeth

and charging at me with lumps of muscled heartache.

And if you destroy people

Black or Asian or White or Jew

Or anything else under the sun

Remember, they have friends too.

Even I who have few friends

Can seek solace in a wise word

Or in a wise person.

And though for now you can afford to be absurd

Do not believe everything you have heard.

Peace.

The Tales of Genji  is considered the first novel of human society. Set in the 11th century of the Heian period in Japan, the author, Lady Murasaki Shikibu, presents to us a delightful insight to the daily lives of the Japanese in her times. This book is almost an eyewitness account of the Heian period’s court life. The book I read is  an unabridged version, translated by Arthur Waley, and it’s over a thousand pages long. Took me a while to finish that, and I would suggest reading a few shortened versions first, and gauge for yourself how much you like it.

I like the book a lot, though. This book is a romance story, continued from Prince Genji to his grandson, Niou, and his “son”, Kaoru. I put quotation marks on the word son, because Kaoru isn’t actually Genji’s son, and…Well, I wouldn’t ruin the story for you. Anyways, the book is about a whole series of love affairs—intriguing, but sometimes shockful and unimaginable to people nowadays. Genji is really a “womanizer”, as someone from our Bamboozled group termed it, and you really have to agree.

Reading it can be sometimes tedious, too. There is a lot of verses and poems in there, as it is a common way for the court people to communicate back then. Lots of wordplays and implied meaning in there, too. However, I don not regret reading it. It is an enjoyable experience, and I hope you will like it too!

P.S. If you like the Tales of Genji, and would like to read more, Murasaki Shikibu has leaved behind another imprint on history: her diary.

but you let the grass slice your tongue

to make me smile. you have no claim to rationality,

only a better speaking style.

I kissed roses and ignored your letters,

I was a bastard, I wanted to dwell in the blank

half-page after the end of a chapter. the creamy reflections.

you sent the queen of hearts in the mail

which, i placed in my wallet instead of a picture

because your face never secured a place in my dreams.

you tugged at my navel, i wanted the small of your back

forever. the texts never penetrated my narration.

too literary to live. i never wrote you a poem.

on purpose, because my ache was always intellectual.

no translation necessary. we needed to fight

but instead I was vitamin numb and water cold

my guilty paper cuts until finally, finally

I could hate you, just a little bit.

you drew charts and wrote lists

to file us away as a learning experience

you have a talent for losing your way

i have a talent for avoiding intuition

i hope you tracked every lost mile,

because i could trace the contours of your breast

but not remember any moment that you treasured

before the open kitchen, with its soap and hysteria.

Templar Knights and Treasure

Templar Knights are the Christian protectors of pligrims during the Middle Ages, considered to be the most “pure” of the knights of the crusade. Legend has it that they possesd two great treasure: the Holy Grail, and the Shroud of Turin.

-The Grail is either not in existence, or it was lost through time. The Grail itself is said to be a cup (or plate) used by Jesus at the Last Supper.

-The Shroud of Turin now exist in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. It is said to be the cloth with which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus in. There is a picture of a cruxified man on the cloth, and scientists are not sure whether the picture is a real likeness to Jesus.

Roanoke Island Colony: Gone?

In 1584, a group of England settlers settle on the coast of Roanoke Island, Virginia. The leader of the group, John White, went back to England for help after a conflict with the Native Americans, and when he came back (which is a long time, because of the conflicts between English and Spanish),he [[FOUND]] the whole colony gone, with only the word “Croatoan” carved on some trees and doors. Croatoan was one of the tribe who lived on the island.

Stonehenge: What is its Use?

Built by the Neolithic people who inhabited  the Salisbury Plain in Southern England, this monument has survived countless centuries of wind and rain. But what is its use? Why did those people built them? The fact that this monument was built only with stone tools and hands, without animal labor…..impressive.

Jack the Ripper…Murder

In this one of the oldest unsolved murder case that took place between August and November, 1888, 5 prostitutes were murdered (some say 4, some say 9, but generally it’s known as 5 victims) by an unknown person. This mysterious fear affects not only Londoners, but the rest of the United Kingdom as well. From then on, Jack the Ripper became a symbol of the poverty, crime, and all the evil of Victorian England.

The Ark of the Covenant :Real or Myth?

This Ark,mentioned in the Bible in Exodus 25, is made of acacia wood covered by gold, and two cherubs sat atop it, with their wings covering what is called the Mercy Seat. It is said to contain the two stone tablets of the ten commandments, the Rod of Aaron, and a golden pot of Manna. It is supposedly contained in the Temple of Solomon until the temple was destroyed by Babylonians in 586  A.D. The Ark was never seen again.

-The Rod of Aaron: The rod hold by Moses’ brother, Aaron.

-Manna: The food sent by God to the Israelites during their fourty year living in the desert after their escape from slavery in Egypt.

The Priory of Sion:

To every Dan Brown’s fan, the term should be a familiar one. It is said to be the pagan goddess worship cult. Supposedly founded by a French King in 1099 who charged them with keeping his secrets, this club have as its members some of the most prominent people of history, including Da Vinci and Victor Hugo. Some people say its a fraud, but the myth is still popular.

Jimmy Hoffa: Disappeared

This US trade union leader disappeared on July 30, 1975 while on his way to meet two Maffia leaders. The popular myth is that he was buried under the Giant stadium. No trace had ever been found of him, though.

Steve Fossett: Gone

American business man, aviator, sailor. First man to fly around the world in airballoon non-stop, solo. He disappeared on September 3, 2007, while flying over the Nevada desert….not a good place to crash. No trace has been found yet.

The End

P.S. To all those people who hate history, I hope you can see how fun history can be after reading this.

Beasts: birds can never smell the fresh earth
as close as us.
Never to feel the rushing water tickles the feet,
because birds will be swept away.
Never to have the fun of climbing trees.
What do we need of sky?
Birds reply: And what do we need of earth?

Birds and beasts argue, which turn into a fight.
Birds attack the beasts,
and fly away.
Beasts shook the trees
and the eggs of the birds
fall down and break.
The war last a century.
Until one day…

…the humans came.
They dominate over the earth,
cutting trees, damming
rivers.
They master the sky,
flying in their airplanes
and gliders.
Birds are forced into cages,
beasts hunted and collared.
Both parties dream
of the day that humans can be overthrown.
Alas, they had yet to overcome their
differences, to work
together.
Therefore, they remained chained,
only able to dream of the past
and the future.

spamboozled!

scamboozled!

damnboozled!

i have my eye on this.

there is a war against everything.

there is a war against bamboozled.

it’s different this time.

the comedian. the comediatrice.

roses wrapped around my finger.

Warpaint against my groin–

Lord! Why do you let me be!

He struck me down

lia

lyinca

lycanthropophagy

in silence

This pornographic war is over.

They fought a fight

in grim silence

with red flags bounting over the paramounts

and my love for a young man

whose name cannot be pronounced.

I should be a chef except…

I don’t know how to cook.

a look into my life

a book, a distant book

brown paper puppet in a brown paper sock

rest on the hand of god

in a nurseryrhyme

the table cloth comes clean

and the wine becomes obscene

and we sit

gables

in silence

they are attacking bamboozled!

sickle-claws, rhino-forced

young brave men in green

women and children

and out the window they throw copies of

Shakespeare’s Troilus & Cressida

and Caesar

out the window they throw copies of

Salinger and Flaubert and Nabokov

and books on the Pax Romana

We rose from the ashes of a library.

We had been shielding ourselves with copies of Birds of America

and toilet paper.

The armies of censorship beetlelike bear

down on us in flames

and one man smiles in sation

and says “WE CAN DO THIS!”

he takes the forces

back to station number nine

where he lights them on fire with a stainless steel blowtorch.

The subways were safe.

Near Mission Creek

there was a man who took in survivors.

His books had been burned, too.

His parents feared books

and had taken his copy of Watchmen.

They had taken his free speech

And free speech had taken his parents.

He made his survivors tea mixed with vitamins

and got them back on his feet again

But even he was raising an army of soldiers.

He had millions.

The seahorse went flying

Into the Los Angeles sky.

The hipsters went flying

Into the Los Angeles sky.

The coffee-shops were bombed.

Telegraph Hill went down in a haze of gray smoke.

Shells bounced down Hippie Hill.

Jacob and Jesse were there.

And in the spirit of community

they kissed and were blew away by a bomb

and in the spirit of

“nothing left”

there was a brief moment of utopia before the apocalypse

Sons kissed their mothers

And fathers hugged their daughters

and I returned the bicycle

to Michael

who I had stolen it from many years ago

like in anime we live our lives like we are all best friends

under the halo of an armageddon sunset

and debris falls but never hits us

as in hats we burn and burn but feel no pain

and our tears vaporize

as the swim like free catfish through the embers

the others survive in unison

working together to raise pillars

and pinnacles

monuments to the fallen children of America

the Bamboozled

who had survived under a rock they had held up on stilts.

what mothers will be left to look out in the distance

what mothers will be left to look on Aswan

and say “what happened here?”

Barbed wire and bulletholes everywhere

Yet once was found

a serene shelf of water

near San Andreas

a clamshell in the midst of the desert

and where they believed at Area 51

were aliens

there was actually a spring of water

a melody of melancholy,

of truths and lies.

Rain is falling, and our Earth hears,

but can do nothing more,

though how much she yearns.

Rain is falling, bitter weeping,

as Earth looks on,

and weeps her own tears.

Rain is falling, so hauntingly,

a song of revenge,

but so wearily, so forlornly, so mournfully….

1.) Brutalisation
You are herded together naked, you wear the same clothes, with your head shaved. You lose your sense of individuality. Every day it’s violent trainings, until you start to accept the violence as part of your normal life. Some even start to take pride in killing.

2.) Classical conditioning
Soldiers were told to kill someone, usually a prisoner. His friends cheer him on, and afterward he is treated to good meals, and fun entertainment. He associate killing with pleasure.

3.) Operant conditioning
A stimulus-responsive training. Soldiers were train to shoot at men-shape shadow on the field, and the shadow will fall down. On the real battle field, the soldiers will shoot without a thought, even if they are terrified or nervous.

Here’s the URL for the article:

http://istopviolence.org/Article—Stop-Teaching-Our-Kids-To-Kill.php

c. Tri Angle Records, 2011

I like to focus mainly on the actual music on an album or EP when I write about it, but it’s hard to ignore the cover of Warn-U, the debut EP by the Senegal-born, Kuwait-raised singer born Fatima Al Qadiri.  Simultaneously eerie and eye-watering, the image shows a woman, face obscured by a white veil, bathing in an aquamarine, computer-generated pool of water.  Garish, stylized Arabic writing zooms out of the peach-pink background and forms a halo around the bathing figure.  The picture hits you in the face, but the sense of exotic mystery and the indeterminate identity of the figure makes the image seem bizarre and alien, like an advertisement on some street in Dubai 50 years in the future.

Though there’s nothing commercial about Ayshay’s music, these songs ooze mystery, exoticism, and religion.  Three out of four tracks are interpretations of Islamic worship songs with which Al Qadiri presumably grew up, arranged for intensely manipulated voice.  Al Qadiri layers her voice at different pitches, sometimes chipmunking them and other times dropping them to sub-Barry White levels, while keeping an unaffected vocal track in the center to hold it all together.  When free of effects, Al Qadiri’s voice is eerie and mysterious but not quite “ghostly” or “unearthly”–she sounds thoroughly like a human, albeit one enrapt by the power of God.

If anyone is thinking of Julianna Barwick, the Christian church singer who released the brilliant The Magic Place earlier this year, it’s not an unreasonable comparison.  Both are fascinated with their respective faiths’ religious vocal music and use their own voices to interpret them impressionistically.  Yet there are two key differences between Barwick and Ayshay, both of which contribute to the latter’s music becoming significantly less effective than that of the former.  Firstly, Barwick does not process her vocals–even the most alien and animal-sounding shrieks on The Magic Place are nothing more than Barwick in the raw.  Secondly, while Barwick’s compositions have clear form and structure (usually building up to a musical climax), Ayshay’s are more free-form and can thus be very difficult to follow.

The songs on Warn-U are more or less shapeless, drifting through the listener’s consciousness without finding a place to settle.  Though this only heightens the inherent mystery present in Ayshay’s music, it may also distract from its enjoyability to listeners that are not well-versed in music as avant-garde as this.  In addition, many people familiar with the works released on Tri Angle Records will be surprised.  Tri Angle is best known for fostering the microgenre known as witch house or drag, which is essentially instrumental crunk with goth and shoegaze influences.  There isn’t much beat on Warn-U, save for what sounds like beatboxing on the title track.

That’s where L.A. production duo Nguzunguzu comes in.  The album’s final track is their 12-minute megamix of the other three songs on the EP, with beats and instruments added in to support Al Qadiri’s layers of vocals.  It’s certainly the place in which the album is most accessible–there is a solid form to Nguzunguzu’s mix, and there’s no shortage of rhythm.  Yet with Al Qadiri’s vocals regulated to the background, the qualities that make the other songs so intriguing disappear.  The religion is gone, as is much of the exotic allure.  All that’s left is a twelve-minute groove that might be more effective did it not contrast so dramatically in both style and feel from the rest of the EP.  Despite this split between the original material and the Nguzunguzu mix (which takes up over half the EP), there is something to be found in both.  Though the songs may be difficult to follow, they are nonetheless memorable and consistently interesting.  Anyone interested in experimental music with an international sensibility should consider taking a listen.

But recently, my nightly homework and facebook chat routine has had a predictable soundtrack. “Cosmic Love.” “What the Water Gave Me.” “Shake it out.”

All of these are the product of Florence+The Machine, which consists of Florence Welsh, a woman described by The Sunday Times as ”the latest in a line of great English pop eccentrics”, and whatever lovely people are backing her at the given moment.

Welsh’s peculiarities certainly add to my appreciation. Her fashion sense is more Virginia Woolf/Anne of Green Gables playing dress up than the glitter trash of Gaga or Ke$ha or even Adele’s regal gowns. In music videos, she almost always ends up in contorted, emotive dancing. Her voice sounds as pure as a young folk singer even through the typical layers and additions of a pop song.

Perhaps it is that honest vocal quality that makes labels like soul or r&b feel like necessary qualifiers to her top 40 pop (at least in Britain) status. Perhaps it is that her songs are amazingly catchy and melodic, but her voice sounds ready to veer just a bit off course. (This seems least evident in the overplayed “Dog Days Are Over”, one of a few reasons it’s not on my personal list of favorites).

But I think my favorite aspect of Florence+The Machine is that Welsh never attempts to be a girl. She sounds like a woman, and her lyrics don’t contradict that. Welsh is only a few years older than Taylor Swift, whose persona and music leave her seeming like a teenager. Katy Perry is several years older, yet her songs focus on partying and “Teenage Dreams”.

You could argue that it’s an unfair comparison to make. Adele, Amy Winehouse, and Kate Nash are more properly her peers, and English female pop imports seem to avoid the girlish pitfalls of their American raised counterparts. However, it’s Welsh’s songs, with allusions to Greek Mythology, Vrginia Woolf’s suicide, and Shakespeare, that set her apart for me. Whether I crave the rebirth of “Shake it Out”, the mystic turmoil of “What the Water Gave Me”, or the disturbingly pep of “Kiss with a Fist”, Florence+The Machine is the perfect combination of clever and commercial.

*Disclaimer” I don’t know anything about music. I don’t buy records at Amoeba. I don’t go to very many concerts. Please don’t kill me.