Saturday, August 9, 2014

Coda: There Oughta Be a Plan for the Night, a Plan That Involves Speed, Delight, and You By My Side, or: We Were All Chasing Nothing Which Left No Choice but to Intensify the Chase





New Pere Ubu. Holy the fuck. Favorite band ever for, what, thirty-six years? Carnival of Souls, out in a month, I've only heard four songs so far, as !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as ever (and they've always). Knowing that playing at devotion is futile is fine, I will shed my devotions in the order I choose. COME BACK TO DC! 





  • Yes, first version posted last night, I couldn't wait to post the song. First version gone: few read, no one commented. Everything below this sentence is new.
  • Music from Bryce's show yesterday tomorrow, or not.
  • Hey, that's me:

We have become the innocuous, pliable inhabitants of global urban societies. Even in the absence of any direct compulsion, we choose to do what we are told to do; we allow the management of our bodies, our ideas, our entertainment, and all our imaginary needs to be externally imposed. We buy products that have been recommended to us through the monitoring of our electronic lives, and then we voluntarily leave feedback for others about what we have purchased. We are the compliant subject who submits to all manner of biometric and surveillance intrusion, and who ingests toxic food and water and lives near nuclear reactors without complaint. The absolute abdication of responsibility for living is indicated by the titles of the many bestselling guides that tell us, with a grim fatality, the 1,000 movies to see before we die, the 100 tourist destinations to visit before we die, the 500 books to read before we die
.


     - Jonathan Crary, 24/7.







ROMANTICISM 101

Dean Young

Then I realized I hadn’t secured the boat.
Then I realized my friend had lied to me.
Then I realized my dog was gone
no matter how much I called in the rain.
All was change.
Then I realized I was surrounded by aliens
disguised as orthodontists having a convention
at the hotel breakfast bar.
Then I could see into the life of things,
that systems seek only to reproduce
the conditions of their own reproduction.
If I had to pick between shadows
and essences, I’d pick shadows.
They’re better dancers.
They always sing their telegrams.
Their old gods do not die.
Then I realized the very futility was salvation
in this greeny entanglement of  breaths.
Yeah, as if.
Then I realized even when you catch the mechanism,
the trick still works.
Then I came to in Texas
and realized rockabilly would never go away.
Then I realized I’d been drugged.
We were all chasing nothing
which left no choice but to intensify the chase.
I came to handcuffed and gagged.
I came to intubated and packed in some kind of foam.
This too is how ash moves through water.
And all this time the side doors unlocked.
Then I realized repetition could be an ending.
Then I realized repetition could be an ending.



1 comment:

  1. I like the contrast between today's excerpt from 24/7 and my little navelgaze. It really seems at times that most people's happiness or disappointment with contemporary existence comes merely from opinions on the choices on offer without consideration that it would be possible to create new choices...

    ReplyDelete