A Season In Hell

I recently read "A season in hell" by Arthur Rimbaud. Here are my favorite parts.

- Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself...

- I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand & blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, & dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness.

- I pass you these few foul pages from the diary of a Damned Soul.

- From [the Gauls], I inherit: idolatry, & love of sacrelige – oh! all sorts of vice, anger, lechery, -terrific stuff, lechery;- lying, above all, & laziness.

- I wait gluttionously for God. I have been of an inferior race for ever & ever.

- (...) burdened with my vice, that vice that sings the age of reason has driven roots of suffering into my side – that towers to heavens, beats me, hurls me down, drags me on.

- In the morning my eyes were so vacant & my face so dead, that the people I met may not even have seen me.

- No doubt, perversion is stupid, vice is stupid; rottenness must always be cast away. but the clock must learn to strike more than hours of pure pain! Am I to be carried away like a child, to play in paradise, forgetting all this misery!

- Does this farce have no end? My innocence is enough to make me cry. Life is the farce we must all play.

- Besides, I could never imagine him with anybody else: we all have eyes for our own Dark Angel, never other people’s Angels – at least I think so. I lived in his soul as if it were a palace that had been cleared out so that the most unworthy person in it would be you: that’s all. Ah! Really I used to depend on him terribly. But what did he want with my dull, my cowardly existence? He couldn’t improve me, though he never managed to kill me! i get so sad & disappointed; sometimes I say to him: “I understand you”. He just shrugs his shoulders.

- & so my heartaches kept growing & growing, & I saw myself going more & more to pieces - & everyone else would have seen it, too, if I hadn’t been so miserable that no one even looked at me anymore!

- & in that instant I could feel myself, with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness: into death. I made him promise that he would never leave me. & he promised, 20 times, promised like a lover. It was as meaningless as my saying to him: “I understand you”.

- I have waited so long
That at length I forget;
& leave unto heaven
My fear & regret
A sick thirst
Darkens my veins

- O my eternal soul,
Hold fast to desire
In spite of the night
& the day on fire

- The fire within you
Soft silken embers
Is our whole duty
But no one remembers

- I had been damned by the rainbow. Felicity was my doom, my gnawing remorse, my worm: my life

- O seasons, O chateaus!
Were is the flawless soul?

- My life is worn out. Well, let’s pretend, let’s do nothing! Oh pitiful! & we will exist, & amuse ourselves, dreaming of monstrous loves & fantastic worlds, complaining & quarrelling with the appearences of the world, acrobat, beggar, artist, bandit, priest!

Stereo Mood

My friend Guillaume recommended this website, it looks interesting http://www.stereomood.com/ "behind every song there's always an emotion. we don't know why but maybe that's why we love music. so we've created a way to suggest songs that follow your feelings: stereomood is the emotional internet radio, providing music that best suits your mood and your activities. how do i feel? what am i doing now?"

Useful vocabulary: Flake

flake
n. An unreliable person; someone who agrees to do something, but never follows through.

Some selections from the other definitions provided:

a person, friend, or lover that calls, texts, emails, tells you that they want to hang out & alas they never meet you or get back to you on the reason of their absence (...) a flake will find reasons to ditch a friend whenever that person wants to do something that is not on the flake's agenda (...) when questioned about their behavior, a Flake just gives up on the relationship & moves on to another person

From UrbanDictionary

"Cool scene", The Dandy Warhols

♫ I'm just not making your scene... ♫

Stinkin thinkin

Kiss me for old time's sake
Kiss me for making you wait
Kiss me for old time's sake
Kiss me for making you wait

Kiss me for screwing everything in sight
Kiss me for never getting it right
Kiss me goodnight

I've got to pick out what's in the pocket
So I can leave those pockets clean

An' I know that I will always want you
But there's not much that I can do
I'm sweet, will always have to do
Rewind and give me a good clue

An' I know just how your mind works
Open your eyes and watch the roadworks
Come on out it can't get much worse
Sit right down quench your big thirst

I'm tied down with stinkin' thinkin'
Stinkin' thinkin' gets you nowhere
I'm weighed down with stinkin' thinkin'
Stinkin' thinkin' comes from somewhere

Is that what you really want, hey?
Would you like to see me living that way?
The living dead don't get a holiday
Open your eyes, see the real world

Come on down, can't get much worse
Come right down quench your big thirst
Lie around drink your night, nurse

Steady job in a small town
Guaranteed to bring me right down
Guaranteed to take me nowhere
Guaranteed to make me lose my hair

Kiss me for old times sake
Kiss me for making a big mistake
Kiss me for always being late
Kiss me for making you wait

Kiss me for making you wait
Kiss me for screwing everything in sight
Kiss me for not getting it right
Kiss me goodnight

-"Stinkin thinkin", The Happy Mondays

A related post I wrote a little over a year ago

Telephonophobia

I hate talking on the phone. Most of the time.

This wasn't always the case. During senior year in high school, for example, I talked on the phone a lot. I knew numbers by heart. I called people, people called me. Nowadays, I avoid it when possible. Before making a call, I usually get kind of nervous/ uncomfortable. It's silly & senseless, but it just is. I just don't like it. It makes me feel WEIRD & AWKWARD.

Again, I'm speaking in general terms. When on the other end is someone I feel reeeaaallly comfortable with, it's possible that I don't feel any of this & that calls are ok. Sometimes I'll see someone's name on the ID screen of my cel, get all excited & answer like OMGGG HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. Only sometimes, though.

I always thought this made me a little weird. Then I came across this quote

“Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it” - Jack Kerouac

& thought OMG TOTALLY.

Then today on my Facebook Newsfeed, I saw that Courtney had posted the link to an NYTimes article: Don't call me, I won't call you. & WOW HEY I GUESS I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE!

"Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, AKA Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people.” Though the beast has been somewhat tamed by voice mail and caller ID, the phone caller still insists, Ms. Martin explained, “that we should drop whatever we’re doing and listen to me. ”
EXACTLY. That's EXACTLY why I don't like calling people...& I avoid it unless it's something that can't wait &/or they aren't answering my texts &/or they don't have credit. &/or unless they are such good friends that I'm pretty sure I won't be an annoyance & if I am, it will be ok : P

I was a little surprised to read the author state that "teenagers gave up the phone call eons ago". Maybe it depends on the person? Bc I know TONS of kids who still talk on the phone A LOT, I can think of people who call as opposed to text & who tend to phone without what the article refers to as a "warning".

One of the people interviewed says "I just can’t think of anyone else who’d want to talk to me [apart from his mom]. Then again, he doesn’t want to be called, either. “I’ve learned not to press ‘ignore’ on my cellphone because then people know that you’re there”.

- "Whereas people once received and made calls with friends on a regular basis, we now coordinate such events via e-mail or text".

- "Receiving calls on the cellphone can be a particular annoyance. First, there’s the assumption that you’re carrying the thing at all times. For those in homes with stairs, the cellphone siren can send a person scrambling up and down flights of steps in desperate pursuit".

- "But heaven forbid you actually have to listen — especially to voice mail. The standard “let the audience know this person is a loser” scene in movies where the forlorn heroine returns from a night of cat-sitting to an answering machine that bleats “you have no messages” would cause confusion with contemporary viewers. Who doesn’t heave a huge sigh of relief to find there’s no voice mail? Is it worth punching in a protracted series of codes and passwords to listen to some three-hour-old voice say, “call me” when you could glance at caller ID and return the call — or better yet, e-mail back instead?"
TOTALLY.

So...pls text or email me instead : )



- "Don't call home", The Breeders
- "Call me", Blondie
- "Hanging on the telephone", Blondie
- "Ring, ring, ring", De La Soul
- "Hello it's me", Todd Rundgren

What is a Stan?

Expressions, slang & netspeak. I love them. One of my current favorites is STAN. It basically means “an overzealous maniacal fan for any celebrity or athlete”.

Where does it come from? Remember when Eminem was really popular? One of his singles was about an obsessive admirer named Stan who wrote letters to his idol, Slim Shady. Stan was obviously going through a lot of pain & ends up killing himself. According to Wikipedia, “the song is perhaps Eminem's most critically acclaimed song and has been called a "cultural milestone".

So now if you are an obsessive fan of someone, you are a stan. It’s also a verb. “To stan for Britney Spears” for example. Oh yeah, the term is mostly used for fans of ppl like Britney, Lady Gaga, Beyonce. Allegedly they’re the most rabid kind of followers & are always engaging in epic, passionate fights on the internet (defending their idol, ripping apart the competition). There’s a whole site dedicated to that, stan-wars.com. However I'm pretty sure a lot (most? all?) of artists have people like this in their fanbase. & there are always rivalries. The old fans, the new fans, the collectors, the groupies...

For a while I’ve been meaning to do a post on hero worship, which has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. But stanning is a specific kind of hero worship. So in that respect I think it’s only possible to affirm that I have really been a stan for Hanson (1997-1999), silverchair/ Daniel Johns (1999-2002/3) & the Manic Street Preachers/ Richey Edwards (2009-present). Very close runners-up would be Incubus/ Brandon Boyd & Rufus Wainwright. Alas there is a huge gap in time between silverchair & the Manics. During those years, I continued to love, look up to, think/ dream/ obsess/ read about several artists. But I recall the feeling of being TOTALLY OBSESSED over a significant period of time...was faraway. I wondered if maybe it had been a teenage phase. Then I got super into the Manics & it was like GUESS NOT LOL

Welcome to Stan-Wars.com, a comprehensive guide to worshipping people you don't know, who live a lifestyle you can't afford, supported by an industry you don't understand.

On a related note, it makes me LOL when people call Christian Bale "Jesus Bale".
See How Christian Bale Turned Into Jesus Bale

Tori Amos: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Recently I read an article about Tori Amos fans. Essi from Finland, who I have known online for a long time, had posted it on Facebook. Around those days, at some party in a 17-room squat, around 3am I conversed with a guy who was a fan. It was an exceptional occurrence: I don’t recall having ever met a Tori Amos fan in Argentina before. I’m not saying there are none, just that I’d never come across any. Nor do I recall how the topic of Tori Amos came up. They were playing Justice at the party, so I doubt the music had led us in her direction. Lastly, on my FB newsfeed I saw Luciana -another old friend- had posted “Happy Phantom” (which I also posted about recently) with the comment “Soundtrack of my depressive adolescence”. But it’s such a cheerful song!

Personally I listened to her a lot in High School too. Music on the internet wasn’t so big so I actually had to buy some of her albums just to be able to hear her music, after having read so much about it. Alyssa, an online friend (I wonder where she is now, we were so close. She's impossible 2 find though as her last name is as common as "Smith") copied the rest for me. Until “To venus & back” which was the latest release @ the time.

Anyways. I enjoyed the article, Birth of the Uncool, & will proceed to share some excerpts.



- Amos defined her music, from the outset of her career, around feelings of social ostracism and the expression of a complex inner self that had trouble finding acceptance (...) But though it could easily have turned into a paean to self-pity and victimization, Little Earthquakes was also full of defiance, as well as assertions that being true to oneself was its own reward. And then there was the implicit message of the music itself: All of this happened, and I’m still here.

- (...) her fans loved the combination of public hurt and defiance. The story of the wounded ugly duckling turned rock-star swan spoke to women. It spoke to social outcasts. It spoke to survivors of sexual violence or abuse. And it spoke to LGBT people, especially young gay men, who had particular reason to connect with Amos’s recurring themes of religious repression and sexual shame, and who still constitute a large part of her fan base.

- (...) Amos appealed to plenty of boys and men who wanted to cast her as their personal Manic Pixie Dream Girl. But as time went on, the deeply gendered narrative of the obsessive, hyper-emotional weirdo took over.

- To go to a Tori Amos concert was to seek catharsis. Her performances were known for being unpredictable and hugely expressive. There were lots of tears, there was lots of screaming, and sometimes both of them were coming from the stage. To some degree, the passion around Amos was disquieting because her performances asked the audience to surrender control, to commit themselves to experiencing huge, sometimes scary emotions, to leave the realm of rational thought behind and make intuitive connections between the words, the noises, and the sheer physicality of the woman on the stage, who might be grinding herself orgasmically against her piano bench or angrily clawing herself. Of course it made people uncomfortable; it was about leaving comfort zones behind, about surrendering inhibitions.

- In the NME article that described her fans as “oddities,” Amos estimated that “one in three women who comes to my shows [has been] raped or sexually abused.” Her numbers didn’t come from a formal study, but formal study apparently supports them: London School of Economics gender studies scholar Deborah Finding, who surveyed more than 2,000 Amos fans for her 2009 PhD thesis, found that the rate of sexual assault in Amos’s fanbase was “enough to support the statistic that one in four women has suffered sexual violence,” and that “98% of the respondents said that they used her music as a means of emotional support.”

- A song in which a little girl talked to an icicle could turn very quickly into a song about masturbation; a song about a miscarriage could contain lyrics about mermaids.

- pro wrestler Mick Foley recalls hugging Amos, writing, “I felt like an innocent child in the arms of an angel.”

- As a society, we encourage girls and women to be emotionally accessible, and in touch with their feelings; we say that it’s an innately feminine trait. We say it, that is, until they have feelings that make us uncomfortable, at which point we recast them as melodramatic harpies, shrieking banshees, and basket cases.