Poppies in October

Fuses

2012-02-12T15:17:00.001-08:00

Ten$ion

2012-02-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

From an interview with Vice from 2 years ago.

That may be true sir, but nobody from South Africa ever really makes it overseas. You do realise that?
Ninja: Ja, check it, but it’s like the long distance runners from Ethiopia—they always come to the Olympics and fuck everyone up heavy! Now why is that possible my blaar? It’s ‘cos in Ethiopia the air is fucking thin. There’s like fuck-all air there basically, so when they come to the levels of the Olympics they’ve got like super oxygenated lungs and fuck everyone up ten-nil. So that’s basically how I’m feeling about this; South Africa’s the fucking shit. All my inspiration, all my funk, all my flavour is from here but also we’re training at minimum oxygen levels, so I’m basically like a Ethiopian runner just waiting for the fucking Olympics. Give me the mic, give me the baton and we’ll see whose gonna take these motherfuckers out. I’m feeling that shit, I’ve got fucking goosebumps my bru.
Yo-Landi: Mmm, these pickled onions are very nice
Ninja: Ja these onions are pumping.

New album streaming here.

Rain in England

2012-02-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

Lil B's acoustic album... ambient, freeform verse.

what?

2012-02-01T17:38:00.001-08:00

This makes no sense.

Bjork backwards

2012-01-30T22:14:00.001-08:00

unearthly.

Family haircut fa la la

2012-01-29T23:49:00.001-08:00

Saw Austin duo Agent Ribbons at the Uptown the other night and they rocked it so hard. They had so much emotional range, I'm pretty sure it wasn't intoxication that made me want to cry during their set. Lyrics are powerful and poetic too. Proof you don't need a lot of people in a band to deliver a full sound.

Their recordings don't do them justice. Much too smoothed over and soft. I found a live set you need to listen to: here.

K-Holes

2012-01-27T13:03:00.000-08:00

K-HOLES//SWAMP FIRES from Emily Denton on Vimeo.

Here to ruin your beautiful day, K-HOLES’ debut the 4th video off their debut LP for “The Gutter.”

We're going to this.

2012-01-26T21:58:00.001-08:00

Sylvia Plath, Love Poem

2012-01-26T01:48:00.000-08:00

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.

This youtube trend

2012-01-25T03:28:00.000-08:00

best one.

uh oh, i've done that humming thing reading the second sex. some parts are really good though! somewhere around the csa kale chips part i was like wait a minute fuck this. it's a joke though, i know... problemzz will hash out later

How to appreciate Damien Hirst:

2012-01-25T01:25:00.000-08:00

Get really high.

Minutes passed and giddiness ebbed and so did that initial, familiar choke-up of Hirst-induced vomit. I waited for the dizzying, perception-altering sensations almost all art critics mentioned mid-rant last week. There they kind of were. Each dot sprouted a thin, jittery aura, begging for order. My eyes played Whack-a-Mole, looking for the reddest, the greenest, all the red, all the pink as the rest vibrated eclipsed in black, the lightest dissolved away, the darkest charred holes and the pattern blistered with an electric shadow of itself. It was sharp, like a knife, stabbing the squeaky white halls until varied-colored dots bled out, uniformly. They looked just like peeling stickers, sliding off the canvas edge, which was particularly dangerous for the giant, me-sized dots on the canvas behind me. I sailed to the back and the dots didn’t get bigger — I got smaller. I don’t know if Hirst had consciously pre-programmed this brain-play. Maybe? Being exhibited together in a gallery — like in a kind of two-dimensional alien zoo — the spot paintings did gain something in comparison to each other. Something or other.

from Marina Galperina's review in Animal New York

Flavorwire agrees!

Ugh

2012-01-24T22:50:00.000-08:00

Mark Zuckerberg is so annoying. I think this is sort of great though, I wonder how much they are paying him.

Angry

2012-01-21T01:30:00.000-08:00

I feel really angry and I'm not sure why. I think it's partly my current sedentary lifestyle... All I seem to do is look at blogs and stupid art and shit on tumblr and I get tired of looking at nice things and listening to nice music. I feel a strong destructive urge, like I want to be in a mosh pit going deaf, getting bruises. I want art that is ugly and wrong and doesn't make sense. I want something shocking, what is left? I understand people need craftsmanship and aesthetics because it soothes them, how else can value be judged?

I started reading the Second Sex. I suspect this will not make me less angry. I've learned to be suspicious of "value" in art that comes from notions about mastery. I think maybe beauty is bullshit. That sounds cynical. But really, how can someone else (chances are the someone is a man, also known as patriarchy) tell you what beauty is? Hard to say what relation art even has to beauty now.

what if i try to listen to all versions of this song

2012-01-19T23:57:00.000-08:00

THERE ARE SO MANY

Bees

2012-01-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

The bass kills it in this song.

This is kinda becoming a music blog, huh.

I have SO much new music

2012-01-11T03:19:00.000-08:00

And these comp albums have the best names!
A sampling:

Waking Up Scheherazade: Arabian Psych Nuggets
Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru
World Psychedelic Classics, Vol. 3: Love's a Real Thing
Project Blue Vol 2-Psychedelights 1966-70
Pepperisms: Around the Globe
Persian Underground: Garage Rock, Beat and Psychedelic Sounds from The Iranian 60's & 70's Scene

Thinking about having a world psych/funk/garage radio show next time around... Started writing a piece about this for the WBAR zine. I am ravenous for this music IT'S ALL SO GOOD.

Just look at these guys! El Diablos Rojos... they are fuckin GROOVIN, god.

HOLY SHIT

2012-01-11T00:18:00.000-08:00

UM CAN IT BE SUMMER NOW?

WTF this album is SO GOOD. And there's a second volume. AAAHHH

Mm

2012-01-03T22:39:00.001-08:00

Bardo Pond

2012-01-02T16:56:00.001-08:00

How am I this lucky?

2012-01-01T23:36:00.000-08:00

So much uncertainty in my life right now, but I'm starting to believe this happiness is real. So much newness, I feel like I am finally letting myself be totally free. It's like toeing the edge of a precipice and this is the moment I am jumping in. I've never felt this way in my life, everything I know is about to crack open.

Chuck Gibson

There's no feeling like a city night after rain. Everything is slick and clean and gleaming with light. Here's to 2012. May it be even better than 2011. May it be the best yet.

I just know I'm gonna dream again tonight, doc

2011-12-24T03:09:00.001-08:00

I do not recommend watching Twin Peaks in the middle of the night.

solstice

2011-12-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

winter

2011-12-23T15:59:00.000-08:00

already the bright days
dim to plum by four
sky—what have I done to so tire
the long muscles of your face
the darkness cloys at my hem
following me to sleep
under thick down

from this vantage
I can feel the globe
swiveling, grandiose as that may seem
sun straining south
dipping farther
into the ocean’s endless water

I take the scent that rises
from dead leaves underfoot
tuck it deep into my lungs
a spectacular ruin of summer’s excess

my skin itches under wool
bark filling in around scars
eyes layering thick pith

this may be how my heart loves
burnishing to a dark red
tragic in its optimism
holding close the last fruit
a persimmon among frozen branches

Jenna is the best

2011-12-22T23:42:00.001-08:00

I am away from the library, returning on Monday, January 3, when the
college reopens. If you need anything between now and 12/23, please
call 212.854.3953.

If automatic response messages drive you crazy, please think about
people with real problems.

Jenna

crying

2011-12-15T14:58:00.001-08:00