The things people put on Youtube...

Ignore the bald thing in the lower left—

This night last year, NYC.

de Tranquillitate Animi (turbulenti)

A lovely piece from Baudelaire, Petits Poèmes en Prose, edition of 1869, no. 33, "Enivrez-vous".

Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.

Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront: "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer! Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."

Oddly enough, Vanity Fair, of all places, published a translation of it by Aleister Crowley in their December 1915 issue (vol. V, no. 4, p. 51), perhaps as it goes admirably well with certain elements of his own philosophy (compare, for instance, his various commentaries on Liber AL, I.61, "drunkenness of the innermost sense").

While I'm unsure of the author of this particular translation, I offer it instead of Crowley's as it seems to me slightly more correct, and certainly forasmuch as it includes one line near the end that Crowley's version curiously omitted:

Get Drunk

One should always be drunk. That's it: the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time weighing in on your shoulders and bowing you to the earth, you should be constantly drunk.

But with what? Wine, poetry or virtue, whatever you like. But get drunk.

And if sometimes you should happen to wake, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, and find your drunkenness ebbing or already fled, ask the wind and the wave, ask star, bird or clock, ask everything that flies, everything that moans, everything that flows, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask them the time; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird and the clock will all reply: "It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be unceasingly drunk! On wine, poetry, or virtue, as you please."

To me, it also recalls to mind Seneca, de Tranquillitate Animi ("On the tranquility of the mind"), XVII.8–11:

Indulgendum est animo dandumque subinde otium, quod alimenti ac uirium loco sit. Et in ambulationibus apertis uagandum, ut cælo libero et multo spiritu augeat attollatque se animus; aliquando uectatio iterque et mutata regio uigorem dabunt, conuictusque et liberalior potio. Nonnumquam et usque ad ebrietatem ueniendum, non ut mergat nos, sed ut deprimat: eluit enim curas et ab imo animum mouet et, ut morbis quibusdam, ita tristitiæ medetur, Liberque non ob licentiam linguæ dictus est inuentor uini, sed quia liberat seruitio curarum animum et asserit uegetatque et audaciorem in omnes conatus facit. Sed, ut libertatis, ita uini salubris moderatio est. Solonem Arcesilanque indulsisse uino eredunt; Catoni ebrietas obiecta est: facilius efficient crimen honestum quam turpem Catonem. Sed nec sæpe faciendum est, ne animus malam consuetudinem ducat, et aliquando tamen in exsultationem libertatemque extrahendus tristisque sobrietas remouenda paulisper. Nam, siue græco pœtæ credimus, "aliquando et insanire iucundum est"; siue Platoni, "frustra pœticas fores compos sui pepulit"; siue Aristoteli, "nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit". Non potest grande aliquid et super ceteros loqui nisi mota mens. Cum uulgaria et solita contempsit instinctuque sacro surrexit excelsior, tunc demum aliquid cecinit grandius ore mortali. Non potest sublime quicquam et in arduo positum contingere, quamdiu apud se est: desciscat oportet a solito et efferatur et mordeat frenos et rectorem rapiat suum, eoque ferat quo per se timuisset escendere.

---

We must treat the mind kindly and frequently give it rest, which serves the purpose of food and strength: and we must indulge in outdoor rambles, that the mind may become stronger and be elevated under the open sky and in the fresh air. Sometimes riding, travel, a change of country, a social meal and more liberal drinking will give us strength; sometimes we ought to come even to the point of drunkenness, not for the purpose of drowning ourselves, but of sublimating ourselves deep in wine. For it washes away cares and raises our spirits from the lowest depths, and is a remedy for sadness as also for certain diseases. The inventor of wine is called Liber, not because of the freedom of speaking which comes through him, but because he frees the soul from the servitude of cares, releases it from slavery, quickens it, and makes it bolder for all undertakings. But moderation is wholesome both in freedom and in wine. Men believe that Solon and Arcesilaus were addicted to wine. Drunkenness is charged to Cato: yet whoever shall reproach him with this will more easily prove that this crime is honorable than that Cato was base. But it must not be done often lest the mind contract a bad habit, and yet sometimes it ought to be drawn into exultation and freedom, and gloomy sobriety ought to be case aside for a short time. For whether we believe the Greek poet, 'it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad,' or Plato, 'he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry;' or Aristotle, 'there is no great genius without a mixture of madness;' the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. When it despises the common and the customary, and with sacred inspiration rises higher, then at length it sings something grander than that which can come from mortal lips. It cannot attain anything sublime and lofty so long as it is sane: it must depart from the customary, swing itself aloft, take the bit in its teeth, carry away its rider and bear him to a height whither he would have feared to ascend alone.

On a somewhat less salutary note, I find myself reminded too of a bit of Hesse I translated a while ago, from his Wanderung: Aufzeichnungen (1920), “Regenwetter”, p. 71:

Dagegen ist kein Kraut gewachsen. Du kannst nicht ein Vagabund und Künstler, und daneben auch noch ein Bürger und wohlanständiger Gesunder sein. Du willst den Rausch haben, so habe auch den Katzenjammer! Sagst du Ja zum Sonnenschein und den holden Phantasten/Phantasien, so sage auch Ja zum Schmutz und Ekel! Alles das ist in dir, Gold und Dreck, Lust und Pein, Kinderlachen und Todesangst. Sag Ja zu allem, drücke dich um nichts, suche nichts hinwegzulügen! Du bist kein Bürger, du bist auch kein Grieche, du bist nicht harmonisch und Herr deiner selbst, du bist ein Vogel im Sturm. Laß stürmen! Laß dich treiben! Wie viel hast du gelogen! Wie tausendmal hast du, auch in deinen Gedichten und Büchern, den Harmonischen und Weisen gespielt, den Glücklichen, den Abgeklärten! So haben sie im Krieg beim Angriff die Helden gespielt, während die Eingeweide zuckten! Herrgott, was für ein armer Äff und Spiegelfechter ist der Mensch—zumal der Künstler—zumal der Dichter—zumal ich!

---

By contrast, there’s no cure for it. You can’t be a vagabond and artist and still be a wholesome, respectable citizen. You want the intoxication, you have to take the hangover. You say Yes to the sunshine and sweet fantasies, you also say Yes to the filth and disgust! All of it is in you: gold and muck, pleasure and pain, childhood laughter and the fear of death. Say Yes to everything, give up nothing, lie about nothing! You’re not a good citizen, you’re also not a Stoic, you’re not balanced and master of yourself, you’re a bird in a storm. Let it storm! Let it guide you! How much you’ve lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you’ve played the well-adjusted and wise man, the happy and contented man! The same way men in war played heroes while their stomachs churned! My god, what a pathetic ape and mirror-fencer man is—especially the artist—especially the poet—especially me!

But I should wrap up; consulting with my calendar, I find this is Saturday night, and asking my clock the time, you'll never guess what it replied...

Perhaps tomorrow the reading can be Proverbs, XXXI.6,

תנו־שכר לאובד ויין למרי נפש׃

---

Give liquor to the broken, give wine to the sad at heart.

...instead of the Luke XXIV passage Nick Cave never stops singing about in my player.

---

Listening to: Mark Lanegan, "Borracho"

2011

Sitting here one-eyed, post yesterday's eye surgery, it's hard not to reflect on just how much this year has sucked to date.

I have already attended six funerals this year alone, three of which were for people younger than myself, and two for family. For others, I have been to hospitals in three states (here, Tennessee and Alabama)—including my brother, who had a heart attack, and my mother who collapsed on the floor in front of me, her own heart precariously close to stopping—and for my father, whose health continues to wane, hospitals and VA centers in three states (here, Indiana, Illinois), and for myself have been to four doctors in three cities, facing the unsettling threat of blindness, which I yet have hope of avoiding, though hope and I have little reason to be acquainted these days.

I have seen the end of two of my largest contracts, thanks to this lovely economy, and have found myself in the unhappy position of having to sell a product I neither endorse nor enjoy, as it's myself, finding it damned awkward and frustrating trying to write copy for the blurb and portfolio site.

Friends have been lost, hospitalized, some diagnosed with dreadful things like brain tumors, and I've had no idea what to do for anyone. I've never been good at consolation, or much else apparently, but especially that. Only yesterday I was informed—though I was unable to read it until far later due to the surgery—that a friend apparently attempted suicide the night before and has been hospitalized as a danger to herself. She'd been texting me and I failed to notice the signs.

And now the mail's brought the mockery of my long overdue passport renewal finally arriving. If only these things were the worst this year has brought. There's little left that matters and I'm tired of all of this. I'm tired ot waiting to see which part of my life I can screw up next. "Und das Andere an mir ist / abgetragen und alt und trist; / warum zögert Gott, auf den Mist / alles das hinzulegen." (Rilke)

A friend in Thessaly recently reminded me of Cavafy, which reminded me of a piece of his which I published in May a few years ago. It seems no less apropos now, and I will close this pointless mess with its quotation:

Είπες· «Θα πάγω σ’ άλλη γη, θα πάγω σ’ άλλη θάλασσα.
Μια πόλις άλλη θα βρεθεί καλλίτερη από αυτή.
Κάθε προσπάθεια μου μια καταδίκη είναι γραφτή·
κ’ είν’ η καρδιά μου—σαν νεκρός—θαμμένη.
Ο νους μου ως πότε μες στον μαρασμόν αυτόν θα μένει.
Όπου το μάτι μου γυρίσω, όπου κι αν δω
ερείπια μαύρα της ζωής μου βλέπω εδώ,
που τόσα χρόνια πέρασα και ρήμαξα και χάλασα.»

Καινούριους τόπους δεν θα βρεις, δεν θά βρεις άλλες θάλασσες.
Η πόλις θα σε ακολουθεί. Στους δρόμους θα γυρνάς
τους ίδιους. Και στες γειτονιές τες ίδιες θα γερνάς·
και μες στα ίδια σπίτια αυτά θ’ ασπρίζεις.
Πάντα στην πόλι αυτή θα φθάνεις. Για τα αλλού—μη ελπίζεις—
δεν έχει πλοίο για σε, δεν έχει οδό.
Έτσι που τη ζωή σου ρήμαξες εδώ
στην κώχη τούτη την μικρή, σ’ όλην την γη την χάλασες.

—Κ.Π. Καβάφης, "Η Πόλις" (1894) από τα Ποιήματα.

You said, “I’ll go to another land, another sea;
I can find another city that’s better than this.
Here, my every effort is doomed to fail,
and my heart, like a corpse, lies buried.
My mind, how long will it linger in this stagnation?
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I look here
I see the black ruins of my life,
whose many years I spent, spoiled and ruined.”

New places you will not find, nor other seas.
The city will follow you. The roads you take will be
the same. And you’ll age in these same neighborhoods;
and in these same houses you’ll go grey.
You’ll always arrive at this city. For another, do not hope—
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
You have so ruined your life here
in this small place, you’ve spoiled it in all the world.

—C.P. Cavafy, "The City" (1894), from The Poems.

“He laughed, glad to be out of that place. People never did anything with their lives. Born there, schooled there, married there and died there was the usual, banal legacy. They all missed out on life, missed out on new ideas and ambitions. The doctor slapped them at birth and, from that point on, their lives just curled up like dead spiders.”

—Richard Christian Matheson, Dystopia, “Third Wind”

---

5pm, Edited to add: day's not out and there's another funeral. Lovely.

Ἥβα μοι, φίλε θυμέ· τάχ´ αὖ τινες άλλες
   γῠναῖκες, ἐγὼ δὲ θανὼν γαῖα μέλαιν´ ἔσομαι.

...with apologies to Theognis.

Damned numbers, redux; or, a last[ing] gift for Gaby

A few days ago I did a bit of drive-by blogging to lodge a mild complaint against my occasional arithmomania. At the time, my goal was eluding me and the problem seemed altogether intractable, thus my irritation.

I have since, however, succeeded. (Yes, I know, it surprises me, too, but miracles happen sometimes!)

Pretending for a moment that Adler was incorrect in the earlier quotation, I will attempt briefly to explain what I've done. At the most basic, I've discovered a new prime; technically, a "titanic prime". Well, perhaps not "new", as surely the number existed in some abstract sense before any of us were aware of it, but it has never before been known in the literature or records, and it's a peculiar beast in its own right.

One of the things that makes it so is its sheer size: written out, the number is 7,993-digits long! While there is an infinity of primes, according to the database of largest known prime numbers, there are only 5,383 known prime numbers larger than this; and while 5,383 might seem a large amount, considering there are millions of known primes, it's a relatively tiny fraction.

Adding to the oddments, this is a star-congruent prime. What that means is that if you write the digits out in the positions and shape of the 37th star number (with the index, 37, itself being a star number, and chosen as, unfortunately, it will be my age next October), the seemingly random jumble of digits comprising this number reveal obvious, unmistakable patterns.

Specifically, it will be seen that the number takes on the shape of a hexagram (for Siouxsie and JJ), and spiraling around the center is the number 2011, the current year. If you go out from there, you'll find 1988, then 3, then 11—the date, 11-3-1988. While already a meaningful date, in terms of primes it has even another meaning in that November 3rd is the anniversary of the discovery of the first titanic prime in 1961. Moving farther out, we find the number 22, the current age in 2011 of someone born on that 11-3-1988 date. And going to the outermost edge of the figure, we find the whole surrounded by the number 7—chosen as the seventh letter of the alphabet is "G", an initial. The rest of the star is filled with zeroes.

The figure is too large to demonstrate within the constraints of blogger, but as seeing it makes it far more understandable than reading about it, I have a temporary presentation available here. I will flesh out the page later into something more presentable and move it to a more public URL, as Dr. Pickover has already asked about publishing and linking to it. Once the formal primality proof certificate is completed, it will also turn up on the prime number database's Prime Curios page.

"So what do acorporeals do, instead?"

Yann sat up and leaned against the side of the bed. "All the other things the embodied do. Give gifts. Show affection. Be attentive."

"What kind of gifts?"

"Art. Music. Theorems."

"Original theorems?"

"If you're serious."

Tchicaya was impressed. Mathematics was a vast territory, far more challenging and intricate than physical space. Reaching a theorem no one had proved before was a remarkable feat. "That's positively... chivalric," he said. "Like a knight riding off to the edge of the world, to bring back a dragon's egg. And you've done that, yourself?"

"Yes."

—Greg Egan, Schild's Ladder, chapter 8.

Sorry, yes, I'm a "bit" of a geek.

Consecutive vowels?

I'm not at all sure I buy today's XKCD theory. I mean, I say things like euouae, Aissaoua, Guauaenok, egueiite and homoiousia all the time, and that never happens to me—and all he has to say is "queue"? Maybe he just uses some form of Couéism.

Damned numbers

In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.

—Alfred Adler

I suppose that explains a lot.

Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us goes mad.

—J. E. Littlewood

Though perhaps that explains more.

Hipsters! Argh!

Rilke, "On Love - and other difficulties"

I am of the opinion that "marriage" (partnership, union, etc.) as such does not deserve as much emphasis as it has acquired through the conventional development of its nature. It does not occur to anyone to expect a single person to be "happy,"—but if he marries, people are much surprised if he isn't! [...] Union is, in many respects, a simplification of one's way of life, and the union naturally combines the forces and wills of two people so that, together, they seem to reach farther into the future than before.—Only, those are sensations by which one cannot live. Above all, a partnership is a new task and a new seriousness,—a new challenge to and questioning of the strength and generosity of each partner and a great new danger for both.

It is a question in union, to my feeling, not of creating a quick community of spirit by tearing down and destroying all boundaries, but rather a good partnership is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude, and shows him this confidence, this trust, the greatest in his power to bestow. A togetherness between two people is an impossibility, and where it seems, nevertheless, to exist, it is a narrowing, a reciprocal agreement which robs either one party or both of his fullest freedom and development. All companionship can consist only in the strengthening of two neighboring solitudes, whereas everything that one is wont to call "giving oneself" is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to come close to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling. So, there is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another. That it is work, daily labor, God knows. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. But, once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky!

Therefore this too must be the standard for rejection or choice: whether one is willing to stand guard over the solitude of a person and whether one is inclined to set this same person at the gate of one's own solitude, of which he learns only through that which steps, festively clothed, out of the great darkness.

[...]

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

[...]

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation...

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter to Emanuel von Bodman, Aug 17, 1901 (while Rilke was 26).

Shawshank Epictetus

οὐκ οἶδας, ὅτι καὶ νόσος καὶ θάνατος καταλαβεῖν ἡμᾶς ὀφείλουσίν τί ποτε ποιοῦντας; τὸν γεωργὸν γεωργοῦντα καταλαμβάνουσι, τὸν ναυτικὸν πλέοντα. σὺ τί θέλεις ποιῶν καταληφθῆναι; τί ποτε μὲν γὰρ ποιοῦντά σε δεῖ καταληφθῆναι. εἴ τι ἔχεις τούτου κρεῖσσον ποιῶν καταληφθῆναι, ποίει ἐκεῖνο.

—Ἐπίκτητος, Αρριανου των Επικτητου Διατριβων, III.5, "Πρὸς τοὺς διὰ νόσον ἀπαλλαττομένους".

Don't you know that both sickness and death must eventually surprise us, no matter what we're doing? They'll surprise the farmer in his field, the sailor at sea. What do you want to be doing when they come for you? For make no mistake, you will be overtaken. If you have anything better to do before then, get to work on that.

—Epictetus, Discourses, book III, letter 5.

Or, to use the paraphrase from Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

In honor of...

...all the bullshit astrological talk in the news of late, I present these classic descriptions of sign and type! They were originally published in the June, 1973 issue of McCalls Magazine as "Horoscopes for Other People (Who Aren't Nearly as Nice as We Are)" by Barbara Holland.

I didn't come here to argue about whether astrology is honest-to-goodness and cross-your-heart for real. [...] What really bothers me now is all that sweetness and light out there in horoscope land.

I mean, it's all very well for you and me; we're like our horoscopes say we are. Artistic, sympathetic, intelligent, sensitive, charming, brave and lovely. But what about crotchety old Aunt Clara? How do you explain her, and that creep in Cost Accounting, and the Boston Strangler? Were they born at some dateless moment, slipped in under some never-mentioned sign reserved for those utterly without redeeming graces? Or are the kindly stargazers hiding something from us? Is it possible that there are actually stinkers born under certain signs of the zodiac (although, of course, not our signs)?

What we need is a zodiacal guide to stinkers, a horoscope pointing out the horrid truth under all that astrological optimism. And even if some few teensy, endearing little faults do accidentally apply to you and me—well, perhaps the truth, like stewed prunes and dental surgery, is good for a person. So, after exhaustive research in the annals of history, I have come up with the following rundown.

Clearly, as she says, these aren't meant to describe our own signs—though maybe she has something there with that "Four hours is the ideal length of time to know a Libra."

Elephants

He seems to be right. Tonight, this elephant wants the same.

tristia

nec tamen, ut lauder, uigilo curamque futuri
nominis, utilius quod latuisset, ago.
detineo studiis animum falloque dolores,
experior curis et dare uerba meis.
quid potius facam desertis solus in urbe,
quamue malis aliam quærere coner opem?

—Ovid, Tristia, V. vii. 39–40.

I wish I had some such study tonight to drive myself to like distraction, that I would not now be sitting here brooding as I am, under full sway of this sad, sorrowful season's selection of spectres. This flu business hardly helps.

Last night, I lost myself in music, or my fumbling attempts thereat. As they did not turn out well—they seldom do—I do not wish to pursue the same fruitless path tonight. The goal, as with Ovid, is to forget my frustrations, not encourage them. Yet running through my options now, I'm coming to a dreary conclusion: everything I know how to do is an equal frustration.

Writing, art, music, any of it, all of it—equally flawed, equally disappointing. I'm tired of this; I need a new outlet.

Fazer uma obra e reconhecê-la má depois de feita é uma das tragédias da alma. Sobretudo é grande quando se reconhece que essa obra é a melhor que se podia fazer. Mas ao ir escrever uma obra, saber de antemão que ela tem de ser imperfeita e falhada; ao está-la escrevendo estar vendo que ela é imperfeita e falhada—isto é o máximo da tortura e da humilhação do espírito. Não se os versos que escrevo sinto que me não satisfazem, mas sei que os versos que estou para escrever me não satisfarão, também.

Por que escrevo então? [...] Tenho de escrever como cumprindo um castigo. E o maior castigo é o de saber que o que escrevo resulta inteiramente fútil, falhado e incerto.

—Pessoa, Livro do desassossego, 231

As it's said that "the truth is established" by "two witnesses", these two botcheries of last night's effort will be mine.

Ein Waltzer fis-Moll

The basic study of the intended melody, meant to be a throw-away piece, though it's perhaps the better of the two in the end.

Black Keys

A more elaborate work on the same melodic material, passing through a number of modulations into other tonal areas than the basic F# minor of the original, though beginning and ending with it.

Further work and revision has—perhaps, or hopefully—improved this latter work, so I have removed the earlier recording; the new incarnation has been premiered on the Facebook "fan" page, under the title "A Waltz in Winter".

He cometido el peor de los pecados
que un hombre puede cometer. No he sido
feliz. [...] Mi mente
se aplicó a las simétricas porfías
del arte, que entreteje naderías.
No me abandona. Siempre está a mi lado
la sombra de haber sido un desdichado.

—Borges, "El remordimiento"

“Der Gedanke an den Selbstmord ist ein starkes Trostmittel: mit ihm kommt man gut über manche böse Nacht hinweg.” — F. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft, Viertes Hauptstück: Sprüche und Zwischenspiele, 157.

Significance

Happy birthday... to me!

In case you've ever wondered what sort of cake I'd like... now you know.

Tagged, pt II

Tagged by Rob, while idling in a waiting area, I thought I'd give this a shot. The rules:

Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.



So, where to begin?

• Dead Can Dance, The Serpent's Egg (MP3)

• Stu Hamm, Radio Free Albemuth

  I could, I suppose, just as easily list one of the two albums Randy Coven released through Guitar Magazine's label, or the release of Sheehan's The Talas Years in that same time period, as I discovered each of these around the same time period, all of which served to completely redo my conception of the possibilities of the electric bass, which has in turn had a long lasting effect on my own music with that instrument.

• Leonard Cohen, either Songs or Songs of Love & Hate

• Bauhaus, Swing the Heartache: The BBC Sessions

• David Bowie, Hunky Dory (MP3)

• Massive Attack, Mezzanine (MP3)

• Muddy Waters, King of the Electric Blues

• Lustmord, Metavoid

• Shearwater, Thieves (MP3)

• Edward Ka-Spel, Tanith & The Lion Tree (MP3 only)

• Current 93, Dogs Blood Rising (MP3), & Thunder, Perfect Mind (MP3)

• Coil, Horse Rotorvator

• Nick Cave, The Boatman's Call, No More Shall We Part (MP3)

• Swans, White Light from the Mouth of Infinity (MP3)

• Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Evocation of the Spirit

One caveat about this list: these shouldn't be considered my favorite albums, for while some are among them, several are not and simply represent discs that are very memorable to me for one reason or another. To take the last entry, the Shaw disc, as an example: there are some pieces on it that I don't care for at all, likewise for some of its composers. And yet that disc represents my first encounter with the works of Arvo Pärt and as such stands out strongly in my mind, for exposure to Pärt almost twenty years ago still exerts a major influence on my own compositions.

The original rules do suggest I tag others to do this as well—but I've never been much good at following rules, so I'll simply say this: if you're reading and wish to do it, consider yourself tagged.

---

Related: Tagged

Korean Language Lesson

"From this point on, little children and pregnant women should not watch—because it won't be good for their education."

A book for all children

Just discovered this and had to share the marvel:

τετελεσται

Borges, "El laberinto" y "El suicida"

Zeus no podría desatar las redes
de piedra que me cercan. He olvidado
los hombres que antes fui; [...]
Sé que en la sombra hay Otro, cuya suerte
es fatigar las largas soledades
que tejen y destejen este Hades
y ansiar mi sangre y devorar mi muerte.
Nos buscamos los dos. Ojalá fuera
éste el último día de la espera.

No quedará en la noche una estrella.
No quedará la noche.
Moriré y conmigo la suma
Del intolerable universo.
Borraré las pirámides, las medallas,
Los continentes y las caras.
Borraré la acumulación del pasado.
Haré polvo la historia, polvo el polvo.
Estoy mirando el último poniente.
Oigo el último pájaro.
Lego la nada a nadie.

A fragment, inspired by the preceding Borges and named "Nada a Nadie" for the last line, which I once meant to complete. I no longer have such expectations and present here only the surviving trifle, so truly lego la "Nada a Nadie".