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.

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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".

Angels...

...and their high opinion of the world, according to the Syrians if you can trust Voltaire.

Les Syriens imaginèrent que l'homme et la femme ayant été créés dans le quatrième ciel, ils s'avisèrent de manger d'une galette au lieu de l'ambroisie qui était leur mets naturel. L'ambroisie s'exhalait par les pores; mais, après avoir mangé de la galette, il fallait aller à la selle. L'homme et la femme prièrent un ange de leur enseigner où était la garde-robe. «Voyez-vous," leur dit l'ange, "cette petite planète, grande comme rien, qui est à quelque soixante millions de lieues d'ici, c'est là le privé de l'univers; allez-y au plus vite.» Ils y allèrent, on les y laissa; et c'est depuis ce temps que notre monde fut ce qu'il est.

From the "It's all good" (Bien (Tout est)) entry in the Dictionnaire Philosophique portatif, tome premier, the 1892 edition from the Oeuvres choisies de Voltaire edited by Georges Bengesco, pp. 65-66.

Myself, I'd be inclined to render it

The Syrians imagined that man and woman, having been created in the fourth heaven, decided to eat a pastry instead of the ambrosia that was their natural food. Whereas the ambrosia was exhaled through the pores, after eating the pastry they had to find a bathroom. The man and woman prayed an angel to tell them where to find the toilet. "You see," the angel said to them, "this tiny planet, hardly a speck, which is about sixty million miles from here, that is the privy of the universe; go there as quickly as possible." They went there; they were left there. And our world has been so ever since.

Having recently been rereading Dr. Dee's diaries from the 1580s, it seems some of his angels frequently had the same opinion of the Earth.

I confess, watching too much of the news these days, I begin to agree with them.