carry on, carrion

i'm in the midst of my first brand new, life-altering experience since sex. it entails overuse of my lacrimal glands and underuse of my digestive system. oh my dear sense of humour. what shall i do without you?

if you wish for me to carry on
i will celebrate this carrion
if you wish for me to hide
i will abide
i will take this monumental mind
like an ancient cluster of boulders
gathered for an unknown purpose
and teetering on my desert shoulders

and i will... haven't figured that one out yet. something about stuffing it with stuff of some sort.

chang

i've cleaned my room thoroughly. i broke the cycle of imagined impediments and just went for it. yet i feel strangely unrewarded. but i digress. point: i shunned the chinese water torture of the music i've been wallowing in for months in favour of some sailor moon s episodes. i let them delight my peripheral vision as the japanese language softly penetrated my subconscious. after a few hours of pretty soldier ranting and shrieking, i had to face it: winamp won. but i wasn't about to play jethro tull again.

how about... vanessa carlton. i'd dubbed her unenticingly corny years ago, still i kept her be not nobody in my library, should the occasion [of me craving corny?] arise. and tonight i put it to good use. yes, drenched in gallons of undeniable corniness and plagued by annoying vocals, but streaked with a quaint sense of individuality and oozing melody. classical piano meets poppy swagger meets a natural inclination toward hooks that perpetuated the sailor moon vibe i didn't really want to lose, that something in the air i could probably locate within a musical spectrum if i knew my stuff. but that would kill it. refreshing. dreamy.

pop is indispensable to life on earth. corny is comfort. corny, corny, corny, corny, corny, corny, corny...

i'll tell it as i best know how, and that's the way it was told to me: two little boys, brothers, allegedly but doubtfully chinese. the cherished firstborn was called tiki-tiki-tembo-nosarembo-chari-bari-ruchi-pip-peri-pembo. the insignificant younger one was called chang. one day, chang fell into a well. tiki-tiki-[...] ran home and yelled: "chang fell into the well!". a swift and successful rescue ensued. the next day, tiki-tiki-[...] fell into the well. chang ran home and yelled: "tiki-tiki-tembo-nosarembo-chari-bari-ruchi-pip-peri-pembo... *gasp for air* fell into the well!". a not-so-swift and not-so-successful rescue ensued. hence, chinese names today are all short.

i spend half my time running from cliché, calling my affections a rabbit made of rags, my sexuality a dog ripping the meat from a bone, my thoughts fetuses in formalin jars, my fear a pharisaic crucifix, my sorrow the untreadable wake of a wretched blitzkrieg. i spend the other half hanging around the well just in case. in this day and age and place, we all mistake poetry for efficient self-expression. poetize this: cliché makes the world go round. for in this day and age and place, it is to cliché that we have reduced our very human nature, our instincts and pursuits.

heck. pretty baby, don't you leave me, i have been saving smiles for you; pretty baby, why can't you see, you're the one that i belong to... ^.^ pop-song no naka nara ieru... [see second line]

man-in-a-uniform

today is a tragic day for one of my absolute favourite posts. see for yourself, i don't wanna talk about it. i try to write each post as if to make this blog worth writing; i try to write each one as if to trigger some realization within myself, of this and that sweet nothing i've always wanted to share with whomever but couldn't pinpoint. yet that post was one of the better ones. the way those three songs came together to paint my picture of modern japanese music. the colours. the damn colours in the freeze-frames of the videos. everything. perfect. no more.

i'm a gotta-fear-a-man-in-a-uniform kind of girl: police, airport security, bus line check men, bodyguards at big-time gigs, officers guarding embassy buildings i pass by minding my own business and they theirs. they freak me out. even if and even though i've done nothing wrong. it's a phobia. of the symbols of authority, of the testosterone they parade, of their swift readiness to pounce. whether they be good-guy mechas imprinted with a paranoid if bona fide vigilance, or the all too human half-witted bully getting his glorified kicks. and i'm more authoritophobic by the minute. i've heard internet sharing has [finally?] been outlawed in romania. copyright infringement already sounds like an absurd yet spine-chillingly realistic catch-phrase from a dystopic novel. if by 2012, the growth in my musical taste slows to a trickle or i rot in jail, it's the only apocalyptic scenario i need. to quote gigolo joe: in this day and age, nothing costs more than information. getting there. curiously, the only type of man-in-a-uniform that doesn't scare me is the soldier.

but today is also a happy day. as they say, for every youtube video removed, another is miraculously reposted. this is the beta and sigma of my ani difranco. it was taken down shortly after the other one. yet here it is now, one of ani's best shots at melody, most colourfully delivered. enjoy it... while it lasts.

be a woman

i used to think joanna newsom was god's way of showing me how elevated and intellectually accomplished i'll never be.

1. i used to call her "eloquent elf". then i came across this interview. she had me at: i have trouble articulating feelings [...]. but i've found [...] that there's a sort of magical ability that the particular ideas i tend to fixate on have to fit within the form of a song. but outside of making songs, it's hard for me to put my ideas together sometimes. this and the dumb gaze. it made her human and worth believing, like there was more to her agenda than belittling every lyricist alive. it sent her rushing into my open heart.

2. i used to take mean comfort in her bad singing and rudimentary hooks. then she evolved with a vengeance. vocally [to where it's an enjoyable listen], lyrically [less hermetic yet more subtle], musically [melodic and rhythmic structures like whoa], and in terms of attitude [less of an elf, more elfish]. [play full songs for a better understanding.]

the horror:

the coolness:

1 and 2 combined, she skyrocketed from ear-shredding fling to larger-than-life influence, goddess of songcraft, big sister. she made me treat song as a friend rather than a slave. songwriting as a pleasant pastime rather than a draining exorcism. therapy still - but not as much by merely voicing feelings, as by making something nice out of them, for my aesthetic enjoyment. now i know. her love is my love and my love is her love - and it connects us through a cosmic wire, together with all the people who love words like we do.

and then i saw 20 too many photos. takes a lot of clicking, so just trust me: there is some smugness and sluttiness in there worthy of britney's circus. seasoned with corny i-want-to-marry-her and scary i-want-to-fuck-her type shouts. it's not the sexiness. that's part of being a woman, being a woman. and i'm not no common folk to condemn it. i condone it, as shown in the hall of infamy. and hell, i'd be in a beauty magazine if i could. it's the classless i-wanna-take-a-ride-on-your-disco-stick and/or you-ain't-got-shit-on-me look on her face.

this isn't really going to change how i feel about her, but the sweet eden of i have everything to learn from joanna newsom is a bit harder to conjure up now.

it's my blog and i bitch if i want to, bitch if i want to, bitch if i want to.

fun and games

why do we take it for granted that these two go together?

today, my guy had some friends over to play d&d. a geeky good time i had to decline in favour of chores i also then declined. at some point i called him. seeing as i could barely operate the new phone i'd just got, i found myself uhm-ing and erm-ing at a bunch of giggling people. then i found myself poking fairly witty fun at them and myself. i got out of it unruffled and well pleased that i was quick enough. but ultimately, it evoked the terror i used to feel towards games as a child.

i watched jeux d'enfants the other night [strange coincidence]. the narrator lists a few staple games in the beginning. none of which i played much in my junior years. i did have a penchant for snakes and ladders - you roll the dice and move the pawn accordingly, yup. and scrabble [for the love of words, indulge me a little non-lameness]. but that's it. card games? i'll never learn the rules to whist. computer games? mortal kombat, baby: kick, kick, more of that kick. sports? love swimming.

come adolescence and young adulthood, this translated into painfully bad flirting and poor people skills. which, to salvage whatever pride i had left, i chalked up to a "no games philosophy on life". hitting on someone, for instance, requires a kind of doublethink i despise [and causes adrenaline rushes i can't bear]. i just wanna tell it like it is [except that too causes adrenaline rushes i can't bear]. yet today, with the remembrance of terror came another memory - one i'd fed, like many others, naughty or nice, to my ogreish subconscious lest it swallow the whole of me. a memory now half-digested in its unrelinquishing bowels: when i actually bothered to try playing a game, sometimes i got it right. delightfully so. some ten years back, at a seaside bowling club, my baby bro and i finished a simpsons console game, with the aid of a one-time friend we'd co-opted for the specific purpose of giving it to mr. burns and his evil balloon. hell yeah. but this dirty old cliché "game of life"... i just don't know.

so ok. children play games to develop skills they'll need as adults. adults use those skills to compete for sexual, social, and professional gratification, all while exchanging sarcastic lines; and call it a game. that much i follow. still i need solid proof, other than my own constant stage fright, that games are indispensable to human existence. and then i will try. please.

...

minutes later, on that very same new phone i can barely operate, i'm lost in a frenzy of snake ex2, level 7, extreme mode. quick enough and well pleased. i mean, any day now i might need to know how to slither my way fast to some darned elusive eggs. ow, that sounded wrong.

on showpersonship

[gee, does my boyfriend have to be in the pic?]

he who sweetly fills the sandwich is alex kapranos of franz ferdinand. the picture dates back to july 3rd, same day as the klaxons anecdote. the man was all too effectively concealing his identity with those sunglasses, checking out ab4, one of the veteran prides and joys of our indie rock scene. why am i behind the camera and not in front of it? well. you see. i'm not a fan. there are enough real fans queuing to pounce on him and i've done enough rockstar bootlicking in my day to last me a lifetime of jaded concert-going.

who knew a short three hours later, struck by the inescapable virus of wow-that-band-i-saw-on-mtv[2]-is-really-on-that-stage-and-boy-is-the-frontman-hot, i'd make it my #1 life goal to produce industrial amounts of drool and scream myself deaf? yes, i fell hard and fast into franz ferdinand fandom. or rather: frantically, obliviously and irresponsibly in lust with the cavorting kapranos. i, as the whole crowd [girls and boys]. and if his grin of wild satisfaction was anything to go by, the idea was to make the whole crowd [boys and girls] fall frantically, obliviously and irresponsibly in lust.

strangely enough, the next morning i didn't wish i'd posed with the bloke or rush to download franz ferdinand's discography. i just drank my coffee quietly and, in between pleasurable flashbacks, took to questioning my showmanship. showwomanship, you know. showpersonship. am i, as joanna puts it, a sensitive bore? a poetic bonerkiller? could i ever be a true entertainer? make a festival crowd go rabid? could a woman do that unless she were katy perry? would i do that as a woman? i might feel objectified. could i do that as a woman? i sure hope so.

go kapranos.

now seriously

i was shirking chores, doing what's truly important. giving birth. or rather midwifing, if i am to be more exact about the merits of my craft, this here piece of wisdom:

[...]
they're still playing on the sinking ship
*
and postmodernism once reared
its ugly head
and pounded art till art bled
and now they both lie dead
while their offspring, inbred
grows untended and unfed
[insert fitting adjective] like visions of an acid trip

deformed, i was going to say. or malformed. or ill-formed. or something to do with form gone bad, 'cause that's the downside to postmodernism and lacking in genetic diversity. but hey, i've never done acid. at twenty-two. sad but true. boo hoo hoo. so how do i know what i'm saying? what if it makes you see the most flawless ballerinas draped in lettuce riding art nouveau furniture come to life? but i wasn't about to drop the trip rhyme that had so kindly been sent to me from idealand [i know what i do or don't want to drop]. and i wasn't dropping acid either: weed - too meh, hard drugs - too nope.

so i thought, why not call friend x. who's done acid and ask them how it is. maybe i can find a word that both describes an inbred baby and an acid trip. which would be ideal and is possible. it's why i love words. they make bite-sized ideals possible. and then it dawned on me.

now seriously: i've had a revelation. and it may make some go "duh!", but that's what makes it a revelation. and one that has suddenly and prodigiously cured and cleansed my songwriting mind of sick questions like: "am i a snob?", "am i stuck up?", "am i following blindly where joanna newsom's taking it too far?", "is she taking it too far?", "will i get laughed at if i'm funny?", "am i belittling my music if i crack a joke?". it was getting to me, 'cause my lyrical persona had used to be quite the ham and at some point she became jerky. pun unexpected but intended nonetheless. by its own inner dynamics. it's why i love words.

said revelation in bold so i never forget:
i should never take mySELF too seriously, but always treat my WORK with uncompromisingly if ludicrously thorough seriousness. jamie will be proud. now i'm going to call that friend.

p.s.:
that's what i'm talking about, pink floyd. when you go naming your song "san [and not saint] tropez". that's what i'm saying, regina. when you go naming your song "bon [and not bonne] idée". and thinking you'll get away with it. 'cause it's so hard to look it, pardon my french, the hèque up.

and that's where my writing songs in japanese comes in. in the zone where dictionaries aren't any real help very often.

but no, seriously.