New Age Bryan

I'm still sleeping. I must be still dreaming. I've got the Spree blaring on the computer, a pool outside my temporary back door, hours to be spent in the Four Seasons spa just around the corner, the hottest most coolest guy ever to maybe come over within the next few days, a new job to start Monday, extra shifts to pick up at my recent job, coffee going luke-warm. "On my way" and "hey it's the sun and it makes me shine".

Too bad i've still got rent to pay for a place I can't sleep or spend ten minuets in.

Damn heat. Beautiful sun.

And oh I want to write about you. Just how happy you make me.

And to shave my legs everyday. "Practice".

And this sound in my ears makes me want to dance or sing or smile or all three at the same time. But i'll keep it to sitting and closing my eyes, taking it all in, such ambience!!!

I'm going to go on a bike ride before it's too hot, which it already is, but i'm going to pretend it's not and send myself on a suicide mission.

Writing is for the birds. Plum wine is for us.

A word of advice – when you’re shopping on Amazon.com, and one of those “buy this and get this disc, too, for only…” scrolls past your eye, make sure you know what you’re buying before you click on it. I bought the newest Converge disc; it’s great. I also bought this disc by a group called From Autumn to Ashes, assuming that, hey, Amazon wouldn’t steer me wrong. Then I find out that my roommate was recommened the DVD about Pearl-Harbor after buying a VIDEO CARD – clearly, nothing is sacred.

i. OK, I've been reading sean o'brien and about o'brien. his criticism appears on the edge of brash surlyness. for example, in the poetry review he called keith tuma's "anthology..." 'cack'.

iia. I love the end of this ugly poem though - 'fiction and the reading public' - a character, dexter, asks for books to read on death row so his friends give him 'fonda's workout book' and 'how to be a sucker' with the comment:

"Here Dex, these ought to shut you up,
Pretentious little fucker."

iib. this rhymes with p*t*rs*n's minister in 'the alexandrian library pt. 2' (??): "For fuck's sake son, get real." though there's a wobbly ambivalence in the o'brien poem: almost as if the hard stomp of the line ('fucker' unbalancing, and pulling away from the line, the plank bridge laid across by the 'little' fulcrum) is some sort of judgement some sort of agreement. which I'm not having. I'm not sure he's having it either, to be honest. am I allowed to talk like this? is this OK?

iii. apparently he thinks poetry is 'post-imaginative'. I'm not really sure what this means though.

iv. 'Hitler, that flag-waving cunt' -> 'Imagine life with nothing left/But Verdi and a wank' -> :-O -> 'o'brien often can't end a poem except by throwing in some explosion of some kind.'

v. his poems seem very coarse in that inarticulably-bad way that someone like irvine welsh or duncan mcclean both write. I'm not sure I have a problem with that or this though.

vi. he edited an anthology of poetry in response to the tuma one called 'the firebox'. derrida coined a phrase I stole in 'the tongue of fire.' I stole it when I wrote about raking through the cinders of my last relationship as a 'vocabulary of arson.' I like the cut of this jib.

vii. 'o'brien has written the definitive arse poem.' (alan munton)

viiia. "Their present is nobody's business,/ So don't talk to them about nippers// Or fires in buckets, or windfalls:/ They go for your throat not your poems." !!!!!!!!!!

viiib. this is an allusion to a l*rk*n poem, 'toads'.

ix. !!!!! cf. viii.

ARMADILLO (NOV 23 - DEC 21)

You have a tendency to develop a tough exterior, but you are actually quite gentle and kind inside. A good evening for you? Old friends, a fire, some roots, fruit, worms, and insects.

You're not concerned with anything about today. You're almost prehistoric in your interests and behavior patterns. You probably want to marry another Armadillo, but a Possum is another somewhat kinky mating possibility.


CATFISH (JULY 24 - AUG 23)

Catfish are traditionalists in matters of the heart, although one's whiskers may cause problems for loved ones. You Catfish are never easy people to understand.

You run fast. You work and play hard. Even though you prefer the muddy bottoms to the clear surface of life, you are liked by most. Above all else, Catfish should stay away from Moon Pies.

The lecture theatre is off warm, a faint scent of natural gas pitched on the air. Some students doodling matrices of multiple Xs or stickmen sex on their note pads, some scripting every single word the lecturer says. On the black board are forgotten Shimura variations, faded Fullerine formula, and ‘The Russian Futurists’ in foot-high block capitals. The room is quiet out of a tacit fear of rejection, of looking like an idiot if you are actually to question what the lecturer is saying. In the middle of the hall, the middle of the lecture, a boy stands up and tears his shirt off, full-on Superman rip, on his chest is inscribed “Have you seen my dignity?” He begins to shout: “Equal rights does not include nudity! You are risking your life! Inhibitions? No! Exhibitions? Yes!” He looks an incredible fool. Standing up in the middle of the conforming mediocre shouting like a mug. Rowdy and lairy – mentally crossed-off the list of all the boys’ Prospective Best Men lists: ostracised.

So, to avoid the uncomfortable sit of fiction in a music review I have to tell you that this happened. In Baltimore. Some of the facts are loose – this is to protect my right of not doing proper research. But the substantive gist of the account is true. It should be apparent now that I’m sketching the backstop for a metaphor.

“... hold, bide, don’t go to sleep on the possibilities here.”

Alternative rock covets the scabrous; Andy Gill, guitar as shards of split electricity sound. Witnessed in the ascendancy of the Albini sound: the dirt and scree of scraped string and clipped chords. Albini - the name is almost ubiquitous in alt.rock circles. The rutting guitar-rape of Albini’s Shellac, avatars for the crunchy stopanstart fretlove of modern alt.rock, is the apotheothis of this trend. Though, actually, listen to the records and it’s hard to think of anything less structurally messy. Sure, the sounds are itchy and corrupted but they’re all placed just so. Left a bit, right a bit, there.

And the scrawny kid in the faded Battle of the Bands: 1981 tee-shirt and Don’t Mess With Texas badge shouting up the place with his crazy slogans?

Now, the Oxes’ studied insouciance. In a genre characterised by its own dour po-faced guitar-seriousness they are conspicuous. (Will Smith at Carlton’s private school in the Fresh Prince). All coquettish cheek and blank irreverence towards the formally accepted structures and institutions. The opening riff of "Boss Kitty" churns like a palm-muted buzzsaw – I can see them in black spandex suits, tongues thrust spastically deep under their bottom lip, heads high. [On their boxes.] The structures of the songs are phenomenal – the engineered cascade of momentum perfectly judged. The only equivalent reference point structurally may be the Delgados’ The Great Eastern – though the Delgados’ deconstruction of Conventional Song is not nearly as extreme, as perverse.

The lengths to which the Oxes push this disembodiment are obscene. If you completely disembowel the song then you re-cast structure – you can obliterate verse chorus verse. The first Oxes album achieved this annihilation but ironically it had no focus. It sprawled and songs chewed into others, grafts of guitar here, there etc. Say, for analogy, for boredom’s sake, album X is full of conventional songs (song A, B, C, etc) and A is made up of 1a, 2a, 3a; B of 1b, 2b, 3b etc. This Oxes album achieves over its prequel in its ability to successfully cheatsteal 1a, 2b, 4d, and 5n+1 for the making of just. one. song. Little fragments of rock, glimpses and gasps of heavy metal grafted onto percussion – to make one heaving tapestry of all out spizzazz.

At this point I lost my thread and was unable to write a further paragraph. So I passed the computer to my girlfriend. This is what she wrote:

Oxxxes is generally a great album; see above. However, although it is mostly killer, there is that tiny element of filler in the middle section of the album. And does it have an "And Giraffe Natural Enemies"? You decide.

Which is fair. The almost stringent adherence to non-repetition means that the songs can be disparate and disjointed, each section a different rhythm, riff, and momentum. The result being that, as they’re unable to hit a 100% great phrase rate, they inevitably stumble upon a rubbish theme.

They’re in stark relief to S, h, e, l, l, a, c (can’t bring yourself to say the name whole anymore) – they play the same music, differently, from a different philosophy . They’re unique, their sound taking its structures and riffs from math.rock and heavy metal. It’s an injustice that I have to explain them by pushing them out, in an oar-less boat, into shellacworld but I have to make a point, have to make my point. Not just another rock band having fun. A rock band that in their hyper self-conscious genre aren’t afraid to breach their dignity, to stand on boxes, to stalk through the crowd (wireless instruments are the fourth member of the band) rocking - “Excuse me, I’m in a band,” - to wear illuminous camouflage cargo pants and strip mid-stage. Why do I love the Oxes? They make me want to talk to strangers in the street, make friends with them; to look the idiot, ask the idiot question. They make me aware that I am risking my life.

Hope you like the tite, took all of 10 seconds to think up.

PROS: Barbara Morgenstern’s Nichts Muss; Bubba SparKISSKISSKISS!; that last verse of Jus’ A Rascal, voice almost getting away from body; Philip Sherburne’s ‘Needledrops’ AGAIN, a marriage proposal to everyone who reads; Ricardo Villalobos’ ‘Easy Lee’ not nearly long enough at 8 mins+; Closer Musik, Sascha Funke, Phantom/Ghost, Luciano, Komeit, Kaito, “Rough” Justus Kohncke; the Blue Nile in the Junior Boys’ ‘Birthday EP’, Aspera, and Coloma’s ‘Finery’; Blemish as redux of A Lover’s Discourse’ worst (absence, waiting, demons, I-love-you, madness, flaying, drama, &c); Matthew Ryan’s Concussion released in Britain; MEGO; laziness; the most melancholy song ever finally recorded, a mystery Roll Deep White Label (“I wish I didn’t think so much”); Lumidee ‘Never Leave You’; E. Crunk’s line about how listening to lots of Sean Paul is like being prodded at by aliens try na figure out feeling; being wrong quite often but who really cares?; the Superpitcher remixes of Jim O’Rourke’s back catalogue oh so worth looking forward to!; asking ‘who are Josef K?’; Scott Walker on my telly; Animal Collective; I Luv Poney!!!; Donae’O ‘Bounce’, ‘Farmer Yardie’; M. Ward; Sharkie Major ‘This Ain’t a Game’; Eve ‘Satisfaction’; OMG where was I when Enon?; Tara Jane O’Neill; Live - KaitO (light detonating inside glass), Liars, Melt Banana (WOWs and raw joy), Scatter; most things I love I haven’t written about; More Michael Mayer More More; (early) Simple Minds re-issues; Aztec Camera’s first for £1; Sticky feat. Lady Stush ‘Dollar $ign’; Wiley, obv.; Il Casio Immunitas; Don Paterson’s The Landing Light; !!! ‘Me & Giuliani...’; Rachel Stevens ‘Sweet Dreams My LA Ex’ (the first shuffletech-inflected pop song); Avril was 2003, right?; my friend Minna Sophie Wight; playing football with Sci-fi Stephen; Charlie ‘Space Woman’; Ken Laszlo ‘Hey Hey Guy’; all the paint stripped from her throat - Catherine Irwin’s voice; Ozu, Tarkovsky & Tati retros at the GFT; Isabelle Huppert (“the ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face!”); relentless unreasonable horribleness (Haneke’s Le Temps du Loup, Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1, which I’m still undecided on &c); F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night; discovering so many great writers (Charles Portis, Lorrie Moore, Donald Barthelme, W. G. Sebald, and finally reading Roland Barthes); learning my way around a sentence; ‘Cellular Minutes’, how could I forget?!; WHAT A BUSY YEAR!

CONS: Cat Powurgh; the Ratpure record - wtf?; Luomo songs that aren’t ‘Tessio’; Oldham, Callahan & Malkmus - Dead White Males; jokes I’ve made before; John Ritter & Elliot Smith RIP; MC Shystie ‘I Luv U’; no-one should ever feel this sad; where the hell are the Avalanches?; The Exploding Hearts : ( : ( : ( :( :(; Matmos; ILM; lack of Kodwo Eshun; missing INSTAL ‘03 at the Arches (Ryoji Ikeda, AMM, Merzbow, the Boredoms, Whitehouse); [that’s enough!]

1. I detest posing for photographs because I do not like to live a moment of my life as if in death.
2. The best cinema can awake, out of its death, life in the living.
3. That is, the world can seem laid fresh, instant, and novel, like an early evening’s descendent snow, but entire.
4. Interactions, the train ride home, paving stones, aware of everything like the whole world suddenly mapped onto a complaining nerve.
5. That won’t stop complaining.
6. And is brilliant.
7. An empty home is the analogue of a photograph.
8. The book on the table open at the page, the weathered lobster creel lending the kitchen authenticity, a hazard of lego pieces strewn across a brother’s floor.
9. All the elements of emptiness pull, in silent waiting for their referents (the reader, the judge, the builder), attempting to turn the lack inside out. Into ‘presence’.
10. Or the knowledge that referents do exist lends the emptiness no genius of its own, nothing but simple contingency.
11. Simple contingency.
12. The continuum isn’t real-fake but real-simple.
13. Rather, the continuum doesn’t need to be real-fake but can be real-simple.
14. The switch from real into simple is the same made from hypothesis into assumption.
15. Where questions firm up and slink away to become given answers.
16. Given answers and comfort.
17. The best cinema resets the simple, the quotidian, the permanent.
18. And all is real again.
19. All.
20. Or most.
21. I am an idealist.
22. And I do work very hard.
23. And I do take this all too seriously.
24. Because I care.
25. Woah. I said ‘less serious’, didn’t I?
26. And ‘less intense’.
27. Meep.
28. Has IP stopped sleeping with Bataille? If not then where are the soiled sheets, the half-remembered movements of the time instinct clashed with thought, the lines in the creases of his sentences, the anger, the damage, all the reckless nonsense of thinking, of thought? Has IP stopped sleeping with Bataille? No.
29. When I said I had an errant nerve after seeing some cinema. I wasn’t kidding.
30. Something stills the blood so the tick of raw animus (“the rage inside a dying head”) disappears for a second.
31. Once informed inner monologue with all its tics of prejudice and aesthetic, its leanings and overbearing doubts, its ‘seen’ and ‘had’, ‘been’ and ‘went’ - all of it, it all becomes outer dialogue where everything is negotiable and negotiating.
32. Re-defining.
33. The tenses here are important.
34. I hope I’m making sense.
35. I’m trying to make sense.
36. Orwell tells a singular anecdote of his time sniping during the Spanish Civil War: an enemy races along the length of a wall, clear in his sights and at the fatal moment George is unable to shoot him, his trousers hung loose ‘round his ankles.
37. Orwell was no idiot and even less a naif.
38. The mechanics of this moment, then, owe little to some notion of perceived humanity (an excess of eye white, (paradoxically) privacy as centripetal force, those shuffling feet) isolated in the weakness of the straggling soldier.
39. This is no simple angle of incidence analogy.
40. What is it then? Mercy? A glimpsed singularity? Gestalt?
41. I never liked Orwell either.
42. So many names, dropped.
43. “An empty home is the analogue of a photograph,” vs “in Photography I can never deny the thing has been there... the name of Photography’s noeme will therefore be: “That-has-been,” or again: the Intractable.”
44. An empty home without a “That-has-been” (i.e. a forever empty home, never a dwelling) is a house.
45. Do you believe in what Burnside calls “the beauty of things submerged”? And, therefore, the ‘loss’ in things newly found?
46. I really should stop reading. And writing.
47. Look at all these twatty aphorisms.
48. Consider apologies rendered.
49. These aren’t ‘truths’ or statements or assertions but (just) ‘brain-quakes’ or slips of the tongue or things that managed to escape when I was thinking out loud.
50. Just so you know.
51. Don’t take me seriously.
52. You’ll be in the majority.
53. With me.
54. Now let’s get more intense.
55. Woooooh!
56. Reading Barthes & Barthelme, it is now apparent to me what Paul Morley was buying when he mortgage his soul.
57. What a mortgage!
58. What sentences!
59. Woooooh!