Thursday, December 25, 2008

I love the nightlife.

The last line says it all.



Photo by Paul Constant.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Another World

The not-so-new Antony track and title of his new EP is a fantastic expression of fiction. The song comes across as a quiet, but seriously powerful spell, an incantation brought into being through the repetition of phrasing, verbal and musical and the listing of objects. The song starts gently and calmly, the fingers on the piano are sure and confident. We hear almost immediately beneath and behind the clear chords the sound of a whining feedback which runs alongside and counter to the beauty of the struck notes, an alien thing beneath the human made. He sings: "I need another place" and once the speaker decides to speak, to sing, there is no way away from his words and what they unleash. The speaker must carry it through to the end. The need for this new place (hopefully peaceful) has transformed his world and he cannot go back. The need for this safety overrides regret. He lists all the things he loved (the sea, the snow, the animals, the bees, the birds, the wind) and in naming them gives life to them briefly one more time. The words fall away and the little creatures fade. He seemingly moves forward, and again that whistling, whining wind, (the [absent] lover he was kissing "so long") rises up and sweeps his previous position away, leaving only the vanishing world and the wind and the silence all around it. I think about The Nothing in the Neverending Story. The Infinite Sadness. The song never falters. Step by step, chord by chord it advances through the fear and into something completely new and hopefully better.

As a counterpoint: "Asleep," by the Smiths and lovingly covered by Xiu Xiu. "There is another world / There is a better world / Well, there must be" The desire stated in this song is for vanishing of the self, for something more than and beyond sleep, more than waking up alone, again, day after day. The idea that the speaker is incomplete never being allowed gladness and joy and how much that makes one a faliure. The quietness of failure and what terrible solitude there is in not being able to escape failure.

Language, Pleasure and Disfiguration

"No object is in a constant relationship with pleasure (Lacan, apropos of Sade). For the writer, however, this object exists: it is not the language, it is the mother tongue. The writer is someone who plays with his mother's body (I refer to Pleynet on Lautréamont and Matisse): in order to glorify it, to embellish it, or in order to dismember it, to take it to the limit of what can be known about the body: I would go so far as to take bliss in a disfiguration of the language, and opinion will strenously object, since it opposes 'disfiguring nature.'"

"What is significance? It is meaning, insofar as it is sensually produced."

Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Personal Short #3

I said why don't you set the table and you said why don't you set it? I said I'm opening the wine and you said I'll do it. I'll do both things.

Personal Short #2

I found my pen in your drawer. I asked you if you had seen it and you told me no. It was in your drawer but I don't know if you knew it was there or not or even if you knew what pen I meant.

Personal Short #1

I wanted you to eat them, for the good of you. I said, they're seeds. They're just seeds. But you wouldn't do it even though it was the only way. You wouldn't do it because you found it disgusting. I didn't but you did. I said, this is the only thing separating us. You wouldn't look at me and I couldn't say anything. Everything was wrong so I left.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Notes for Liner Notes for "Age of Iron and Bronze" (Draft One)



1. At the beginning: the meditation, the invocation of the muse. An opening into the possibilities of dream, of transformation. "We won't notice when we're dead." A hint of what will come at the end, sleep falling away with the music. Hero luxuriating in self-made (god-made) world. Rough (unformed) state.

2. Upon waking, another dream. Unmoving, mechanical pulse. City life. Unflinching ("this city's not for sleeping"). The necessities of the human form. "Actions turn to feelings."

3. Introduction of Hero. Crude synths, squalling voice. Foolishness. Reveling in.

4. State of youth. "Live for no Rules." Idea that youth is temporary, but sustainable.

5. Entry into Perversion. (Trial by Fag.) Recounting of "harder, cruder times." The Picaresque. Emergence of "greater, more potent" masculinity. The Swagger of Youth. Trial of Arrogance. (Note the buried "Genius of Love" sample.

6. Trial of Abjection. Temptation into and of death. "Born to suffer, born only to die." "A dog will rut its way into Harm, when let off the Leash."

7. The plea for the Gods' assistance. Lowest of the low. The Plea for and granting of strength. Urgency and Wildness. Hips moving. Ecstatic ritual of dancing and handclapping.

8. Trial of God's voice. Chiming of bells. Hero becomes the vessel and the Hammer. Awakening from dream. "My Heart is pounding, waiting for--"

9. Awakening and Transformation. The Hero Becomes the Hero. "No telling who I will have to be again."

10. The Hero becomes the Independent Self. "She would step into their car." Awareness of power.

11. Sweet Sixteen. "And Leather Boots."

12. "Love it when they live it." "Run, run sonny." Experience.

13. "I'm only 17, but my love is for real."

14. The 2nd Vision. Red Pill or Blue Pill? A choice, or perhaps just a way of seeing. "Poison or Remedy?" "Hey DJ, bring that back!" Dancing is Dangerous.

15. Free Fall. "Me vendo cara." Suggestions of Booty Bass, ecstatic dance.

16. What one was at an early state. The re-imagining of one's history. Youth remembers his youth.

17. Hero is wistful at her "mark" setting her apart from others. The understanding that those who may travel worlds cannot safely bring others with them. (See also: the Little Mermaid, attempts to study deep-sea creatures, "Lipgloss")

18. Trial by Beauty.

19. "At the Disco trying to feel better." "and all the animals are fighting over who's gonna get the last. . ." "he gave her a handful of love" (anna oxygen) Forgetting self through dancing. [See: Dancing is Dangerous.]

20. Ditto. But regaining control. Triumph and conquer (through Dancing.)

21. Return to the city. "Understand the time has come to say goodbye."

22. Perhaps: I don't want to perish like a fading Horse. (Trial by Ponies.)

23. The Origins of the Bambi Party. Desire for and adoration of the state of being twitterpated. Springtime. Love in the air, state of youth, the young in the sunlight being young.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Hours of Work


For the Upcoming Bambi XX-Travaganza I am asking that attendees bring a small plate or large platter of goodies, either sweet or savory. Hopefully these will be finger ready, one bite bitlets. Creativity encouraged! Sweet or Savory little cocktail nibbly preciousness. Sign up in the comments what yr. bringing so there won't be overlap. I will make some things also, just not quite sure what yet.

XOXO
Bambs.