"Immortality" by Seether Is a Cover

This is a skillful cover of "Immortality" by Pearl Jam. I like this song. I like the Pearl Jam version too. They're different but both good.

I'm featuring the Pearl Jam version in the sort of meditation soundtrack thingy to my novel. I'm not sure what purpose it will serve or how it will be executed but I'm compiling a soundtrack to my novel. I like music. It helps me think in pictures and I think that the poetry sometimes adds to the story. "Immortality" for instance is about the darker side of immortality, which is a major theme in my novel. I've decided to make Pearl Jam's "Immortality" the opening track of my novel's soundtrack--a decision I may rethink, but it's a good idea right now. This decision has led me to ask myself a few questions. First, is this too obvious a choice so that people will be tipped off about the whole rest of some of the more mysterious parts of the novel? Second, will anyone even notice ever? Third, does anyone ever think about this kind of stuff? I don't know.

Okay, yeah, go new year!

"Take Your Tyrant" by Týr

"Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden Is Politically Specific and Annoying

My little brother is asking whether the songs of the day are ever inspired by stuff that's going on in my life. They pretty much aren't, except sometimes, and that's rarely. Anyhow, here's "Run to the Hills," a politically specific song that speaks for Native Americans. Native Americans are a minority group sometimes over represented by the rock and roll community. The whole hippie movement tried to live in a Native American inspired way without understanding what that meant. This song always annoys me because Iron Maiden are white dudes. (Weird thing to say--Iron Maiden are white dudes. Heh. Grammar.) As far as I know none of them have any real relationship to any Native American group. I could be wrong, though. Politically preachy songs annoy me unless they can truthfully speak from the group for which they are appealing.

 

Good guitar riffs, though.

"Kali Yuga III" by Therion and the Truth in Scope

 

Updated my novel. This song has been playing in my head today.

 

So today I'm thinking about the advantages of partaking of literature far from the type of literature you are trying to produce. If you are writing a fantasy for disenfranchised teens, for instance, you might spend some time watching film noir from the '50s.

 

That's my situation. I feel driven to watch movies and read books that have little stylistic similarity to the books I'm writing. I'm writing a distinctly gothic fantasy, basically in the same style as The Crow with Brandon Lee and Underworld with Kate Beckinsale. I've watched those movies and I'll reference back to them periodically when I'm thinking of how mood and imagery mingle. I spend most of my research time on totally distant things, though. Like I've been reading poetry recently--Keats--and taking some cues from that. And I've been watching obscure and less obscure movies--noir flicks from the '50s, H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man and its sequel, Nosferatu, Brom Stoker's Dracula by Scorsese or whoever. It's all providing valuable contribution to what's feeling like a more complete whole, as a result. It feels like doing the right thing.

 

It is interesting.

"Even Flow" by Pearl Jam (This Particular One)

This is the song of the day--this particular album version. I like Eddie Vedder's yell at the beginning.

This version is less sculpted than the one off Ten. The one off Ten gets more radio play though.

"Only" by Nine Inch Nails Helps Me Appreciate Music

I've decided to try to be more conscious of what intention musicians seem to have. I'll try to listen to poetry and pay attention to lyrics and to the visuals musicians choose to include with the music they're making. There's more intention and meaning than I used to think, and I used to have a lot of respect for rock stars. It's all very interesting.

Yeah.

"Burden My Hand" by Soundgarden Is Part of Grunge

Yesterday I told my little brother that my favorite genre is grunge. He said that makes no sense, seeing as my favorite band is not a grunge band. I had trouble answering him, really.

Oh well.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana for Class

Just finished taking Cultural History of Rock and Roll at school. College is cool like that. We finished the class with a discussion of Seattle grunge and especially Nirvana. My teacher decided to end there because it's kind of the most recent big deal in rock and roll, the whole slacker scene and the celebration of depression and impotence and being able to get a kick out of life without any big ideas. It was profound. The last question posed in class was what's happened in the rock scene since the nineties? The class inspired two thoughts.

The first thought I'm thinking is an answer to what's happening in rock and roll since the nineties. It's a fair question. The easy answer is quite a lot. Bands are always appearing on the scene and ripping up the stage, feeding us the next new and hip thing, and sticking it to whichever man they've decided to lampoon. After the hardcore scene during the eighties, however, and the college rock grew from rock and rollers who weren't as angry--R.E.M. and such--and Seattle spawned grunge in the eighties, pretty much all boundaries broke. Nothing is sacred anymore and everything is fair game. Everything is in equal amounts shocking to someone, which makes everything, really, equally tame. Whatever your taste is, there is that kind of rock and roll somewhere. All you have to do is wade through everything else till you find it. One answer to "what's happening with rock and roll?": everything. Everything that was happening is now happening. Now, different than ever, it's all allowed. Kind of strange but true.

A nuance on this idea that everything goes is everything goes everywhere. Rock and roll, always a global thing, has mostly been produced in America. Britain tended to absorb and speed up and push the envelope for any new movement that arose--the spirit of fun in the early boogie rockers like Berry and Little Richard got tightened by the Beatles and the Stones, the punk of the Ramones and Patti Smith assumed the really active directed anger it always needed at the hands of the Sex Pistols and the Clash. As a result, we talked in class almost exclusively about the U.S. and England and only ever mentioned other countries as they related to the Americans and Brits who went there, except on very rare occasions--like when we talked about Bob Marley and Santana. Everyone in the world makes rock and roll, though. We never talked about J-rock, a whole scene that has done some of the best punk/glam meld of anyone, or the folk metal groups that are howling at the world from northern Europe, directly pulling from libraries of mythology and folklore creating strangely primordial hard metal. These are nuances on a theme and not really anything new. But they're good, and will be worth noting in the Cultural History of Rock and Roll class I will teach in twenty years.

The other thought that occurs to me is how strange it is to think about an album--Nevermind--released in 1992 as a piece of history. Twenty years ago. Holy sheet.

Enjoy.

"Nutmeg Phantasy" by Macy Grey, Ironic Fight Song

I'd like to see a fight scene staged to this song.

Speaking of which, updated my novel: http://lithnmark.blogspot.com/2011/12/chapter-two-part-three.html

First of many ironic fight scenes.

"Float on" by Modest Mouse Helps Explain Rock and Roll to Aliens

I have to think of ten songs that I'd give to an alien to answer the question, "What is rock and roll?" I think I'll start with some Human Abstract.

"Burn" by Three Days Grace on a Snowy Day

Today's literary concept: Irony. I know of irony that literary critics are impressed by good executions of it; I know that irony contributes to storytelling. I'm still exploring how. In order to do that, I'll try defining irony then start thinking about how it's used in literature.

Definition from the Oxford English Dictionry of "irony": A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt.

This definition would seem to imply that irony, as a literary tool, can be used to provide a critique of just about anything. Successful irony, it would seem, comes about when an author might spend a great deal of time seeming to praise something, like cannibalism, while demonstrating how horrible it is. Scathing social criticism comes about through successful irony.

Or, perhaps like my song of the day, irony can be used to complain about weather. It's snowing here. I have a song about fire on the mind. Ironic, perhaps. Perhaps not, though.

I shall revisit the concept of irony. Fear not.

 Heralds updated: http://lithnmark.blogspot.com/2011/12/chapter-two-part-one.html

"Lukin" by Pearl Jam AND Yesterday on Heralds

"Lukin" is such an odd song. Yeah...

Yesterday on Heralds (http://lithnmark.blogspot.com/2011/12/chapter-one-part-four.html):

Twig dscovered that his various stays that he relied on to guide his action compass, as it were, do not exist. His army, the Zombie Corps, is lost--the War has been over for years--his family wants nothing to do with him. All he has left is a granddaughter's wish that the cold world might be warmed, and he has a name to put to a faceless enemy: Ferryman. Ferryman is the god of death. Not that our hero finds that disouraging in the slightest.

This is a variation on the classic Call to Adventure portion in the Hero's Journey defined by Joseph Campbell. Campbell's observations of myth suggest that the hero ought to deny the call to adventure. I'm writing it so that Twig embraces adventure. He has been left in the cold, literally and figuratively, by the mightier-than-thou powers that be who would have called him to adventure. Left to his own devices, Twig decides his own adventure, Jason Bourne style.

Granola of the day: Cinnamon Raison.

Knot

I was just skateboarding while listening to "Tu Pauperum Refugium", a motet for four part chorus, by Josquin Des Prez--Franco-Flemmish composer of the Renaissance, apparently, thank you wikiworld--when I was wondering why the ground was getting closer to me. Then it hit me, that I am a mass of weird contradictions.

"I Just Wanna Have Something to Do", by The Ramones, came on my mp3 player as I stood up and knocked the grit out of my scratches. I got back on my skateboard and, as much as I enjoy the works of Des Prez, I decided that the tempo of The Ramones really does fit skateboarding better.

Random Shit Mix

Here it is, the last forty-one minutes of my birthday. I sit listening to the "Random Shit Mix" Abigail gave to me, gazing through the haze of conflicting stimulants at words made to make sense only through my intention. The uppers are fighting with the downers, and my system is exerting its perplexity-empowered self-drugging to maintain whatever fragile balance I'm meant to have. It's calming and energizing at the same time. I am in power, but I am not in any state to exert myself.

I woke this morning intending to write a judgment of the last year, or a "things I have learned", or a breathtaking tale of how I have changed in this year. The issue being I haven't changed. I maintain the same space, I have the same hair, and the same tastes. I intend the same ends, I believe in the same God. I find that comforting.

Last year, I distinctly remember thinking to myself that a year is an unthinkably long time. I remember thinking more than once over the course of this year that it has been passing with exceptional leisure. It has been taking its sweet time, and events haven't so much unfolded as grown like olive trees. It has been a slow, busy, educational and exceptional year. I also feel at this moment as if the time is over suddenly and without warning. Weird mind.

I think Buster Keaton said it best when he chose not to speak.

Good night, esteemed ideas. Take on clothing and walk like men.

Those greats, and these greats

I wonder which rock and rollers Mozart would listen to. I expect he'd like Queen, would Mozart. There's possibly enough musicallity in that stuff to entertain him. I bet Mozart would like the Stones as well; I bet he and Kieth would have a rip-roaring time. And the Stones have all the class. Pink Floyd: Mozart would love Pink Floyd.

Beethoven would probably listen to the Ramones. The Ramones are loud enough. Not just that, but Beethoven really got into this idea of revolution. He'd probably listen to the Sex Pistols too.... Beethoven probably wouldn't listen to a lot of different music, actually. Beethoven had the music in his head.

Charles Baudelaire would like Rob Zombie. I don't know too much about Baudelaire or Zombie, just a sort of attitude. They both seem nose-thumbingly pseudo-misanthropic enough, and thrilled enough at carnage, that probably Baudelaire would get all kinds of fun from Rob Zombie.

Queen Elizabeth I would listen to the Beatles, of course. She'd like them for being English. I expect she'd hate Elvis, or make fun of him anyway, just because the man wasn't that smart. I bet that Bess would listen to AC/DC too; turn it up loud and force everyone else to listen along. AC/DC is probably shocking enough for Queen Elizabeth.

Alexander the Great ought to listen to Steppenwolf. I think he'd do well with Steppenwolf, but I don't know a lot about the guy's mind so I ain't sure.

Fantasy Rock and Roll?

Of late, many of the science fiction ideas, characters, worlds, groups, whole stories, etc, that I've been making up have been characterized and defined, at least in part, by rock and roll. T. Volker and the Rough and Ready Corps, of Eve and Shenectady notoriety, for instance, are children of AC/DC, specifically "TNT" for Volker and "Dirty Deeds" for the Corps.

Right now I'm foraying into fantasy though. And I don't know what kind of music to listen to. Rock and roll speaks to my soul, somehow, and I believe there's rock and roll in my fantasies. I can't think at the moment, however, of any groups, songs, or eras that seem fitting to characters like Twig and situations like Finger searching for luck.

As I write this an ironic thought occurs to me. For a long time recently all of the rock and roll I've been listening to has been old, classic. Some of it has been dated, and all of it has been era defining or defined by its era, and all the eras have been markedly ancient, in a sense.

Right now I'm listening to "Girl's Not Grey" by AFI. It came out in 2003. And although it isn't really perfectly vibrating with ideas I have of fantastical ilk, it's closer to the right mood, better idea.

We think of science fiction, and at first blush we imagine the new, the shiny, the chrome, the cutting edge. First blush fantasy tends to evoke feelings of age and agelessness and the ancient. I'm finding it interesting, fascinating, and pretty peculiar that I'm identifying newness with fantasy and oldness with science fiction.

Another thought has just occurred to me, and that's the revolutionary qualities of a lot of the music that I listen to. The Beatles were almost the first people to do what they did; The Ramones invented an attitude; Hendrix revolutionized guitar; Thin Lizzy inspired practically everything; the Stones just went kablooie all over the place. The old rock and rollers were the inventors, the cutting edge musicians. They were the explorers, reaching for newness, not sure where they were headed and forced to create shiny exploration at every turn. But what have we got now? New kids inventing NOTHING. You read articles about the brand new shooting stars on the rock and roll scene and the article is just a list of names that these new kids remind us of--oh, yeah, Endeverafter is like Led Zeppelin with Thin Lizzy sprinkled all over the top. The revolution is over, and we are living in a time when rock and roll is old. Still magical, but not being discovered anymore: it's come, and it's old, and it has stuck and will not leave. This is where we live, in rock and roll world. The magicians of old have brought us to this point when young heroes are discovering dragons to battle and corporate mogul warlords to overthrow...

Random, Unanswerable Question #3

If a song is deemed "Classic Rock" because of when it was originally written and performed--say "Hotel California" by the Eagles--is it still technically classic rock if the Eagles perform it at their 2003 farewell tour?

Anansi the Movie

Mark Knopfler gets to write the sound track for Anansi's movie.

I'm thinking about three things in the context of the Anansi story--aside from the actual writing parts, three things. I'm thinking of what I'm going to change Anansi's name to. I think mentore made a good point when she pointed out that people, even if they didn't make a point to, would powerpointpresent/make connections between my Anansi and other Anansi depictions. The reason I chose that name originally was because I was introduced to stories of Anansi wherein he was most emphatically described as a storyteller, and I wanted to write a story about a storyteller. Thus far being a storyteller is a big part of Anansi's character, as I see him, and it plays on his decisions a great deal through the story as far as I've written it. However there hasn't been a lot of depiction of the storyteller aspect of his character.

I'm going to change his name. Until the end of this first draft, however, it'll stay the same. But I've started thinking about it. I'm thinking Diego at the moment.

I'm also thinking about the title of the story. Originally, the title of the story was Anansi the Fringe King, which, again, is a big part of Anansi's character in my head. But, again, not heavily depicted. Which was something, I don't know, but I must have thought of that early on since I changed the title to what it is now. But I keep saying the title and tripping over it. There's insufficient flowage. I think flowage has something to be said toward catchiness. I like catchy titles. But, again, I'm keeping the title how it is until I finish with the draft I'm on. I want something, eventually, that evokes claustrophobia, wanting to break out, and dampness, and darkness, and sadness, and hope, and glimmeringnessousness, and Graffiti's character at the same time.

The other thing that I'm thinking about is Anansi. I haven't put much of any physical description of him in the story so far. I have a pretty clear image of him in my mind, and because there haven't been, really, any complaints about me leaving out physical descriptions of him from any you pirates I suppose you folks must have an idea what he might look like as well. And I'm sort of curious how you do see him, because even if it doesn't really play into the plot, if you're totally going in the wrong direction with him then the next go-round I'll have to make something to see.

I'm hungry...

Born to Be Wild

"I like smokin' lightning,"--Not Mars Bonfire

So I used to not really know all the lyrics of the Steppenwolf song "Born to Be Wild". I knew most of them, and I knew most of the verbs and nouns, and almost all of the vowell sounds--more important, really, in the game of telephone I was playing with myself. That was enough for me, because what I ended up doing was extrapolating a new set of lyrics.

Here's how my thinking went: verse one is about getting out on the highway, and going fast.

So my verse two went:

I like smokin' lightning, [outrunning it]
Stay ahead of thunder,
Racin' with the wind,
And the pyramid I'm under. [I didn't and don't know what this line means. I thought maybe it was a reference to creating a draft by going really fast.]

If you look up the lyrics, you find they don't say this.

Yeah. Brains are strange. I kind of like my lyrics better. Although "Heavy Metal Thunder" would make a good band name...

Voice Screpency Restoration

Ah, Blue Oyster Cult. Equilibrium begins to be restored.