Four Lessons In Human Nature From MySpace

1. Everyone is trying to sell you something
Bands, camwhores, Nigerian schemers, "models"... the only wholly innocent, agenda-free people on the Internet are those occasional blessed South Americans genuinely seeking random intercontinental friendship. Also Filipinos and Malaysians looking to polish their English with friendly foreigners. Everyone else can go to hell.

2. The greater the freedom, the greater the tastelessness
Songs that automatically load despite the fact that viewers are more often than not listening to their own music, creating cacophony. Stupid glittery animated graphics that take forever to load while serving as nothing but markers of tastelessness. Ostentatious backgrounds that wound the eyes. This is what happens when people are given the freedom to modify their own pages. I've said it before and I'll say it again: freedom isn't all it's cracked up to be.

3. Fat girls take pictures at angles to expressly hide their fat
Why is this? If you're that unhappy with your appearance change it. This is what the modern age has come to: people would rather change their pose than change themselves. We all recognize that oblique angle, that blowfish pose. Stop it, you're embarrassing yourself.

4. "No one needs anyone, they don't even just pretend."
Very few people actually go on MySpace for its supposed purpose of meeting people with similar interests. Very few people even have interests. They parade themselves. The contradiction of social networking sites is that they are actually anti-social: they provide a platform for people to post and pose for themselves. Mutual masturbatory alliances with other posters and posers is about the extent of the social networking that goes on.

Analogy Of The Day

"Like the Bible, the Necronomicon is an ancient work, steeped in mystery and filled with horrors, that describes the compact imposed upon human beings by enormously powerful otherworldly beings, a compact that may not be in humanity's best interests."
- Luc Sante

Inside The Europe Of 1936

One of my favourite historical eras to read about is the interbellum between World War I and II, so I was happy to find tucked away a 1936 book entitled Inside Europe by John Gunther. It presents a journalist's perspective of the Europe of the time, coloured by the looming clouds of war. Some predictions are a little off: Hitler apparently won't seize Danzig because he can't afford to break his treaty with Poland, and future Vichy France leader Marshal Petain is described as " no longer a force either in military affairs or politics. His enemies say that he is gaga." For the most part, however, Inside Europe is an entertaining, prescient and enlightening read. I've transcribed some of my favourite passages for my own and anyone else's amusement:

On Hitler's powers of analogy:
"Some time ago, before signing the friendship pact with Poland, he [Hitler] received a well-known American publicist and editor. He did ask a question: What the American would think if, for example, Mexico were Poland and Texas were cut off from the United States by a 'corridor' in Mexico. The American replied, 'The answer to that is that Canada is not France.' Hitler had intended the question rhetorically, and he was so shocked and upset by the little interruption that it took him some time to get in full voice again." - pg. 2

On the loneliness of Hitler:
"By a man's friends ye may know him. But Hitler has none." - pg. 5

On the obviously well-researched, highly scientific anti-Semitism of Hitler:
"Long before he became chancellor, Hitler would not allow himself to speak to a Jew even on the telephone. A publicist as well known as Walter Lippmann, a statesman as eminent as Lord Reading, would not be received at the Brown House. An interesting point arises. Has Hitler, in maturity, actually ever been in the company of a Jew, ever once talked to one? Probably not." - pg. 11

On the reason Hitler was able outwit the aristocrats in office:
"When Hitler finally became chancellor, the Old Man [Hindenburg]--watching the immense parade of Nazi storm-troops celebrating the occasion--carefully unhinged his old knees to sit down and said to Oskar, 'Son, I did not know we had captured quite so many Russian prisoners.'" - pg. 32

On the farce of the Reichstag Fire trial:
". . . Dimitrov, if only because he is the only man in recorded history to have made Goering turn publicly red in the neck, contributed deeply to the pure joy of living. When a witness could not be found, he asked: 'Have you looked for him in a concentration camp?' When the judge rebuked him for making communist propaganda, Dimitrov pointed to Goering--on the witness-stand--and said with a subtle combination of impudence and perfect courtesy: 'But he's making National Socialist propaganda!' No one who saw him will forget Dimitrov pointing to Lubbe and exclaiming, in his picturesque Balkan German: 'This miserable Faust! Who is his Mephistopheles?' Nor the climax to his final speech when, imperturbable as ever with the executioner's ax or Goering's private vengeance facing him, he demanded of the court 'compensation for his wasted time!'" - pg. 45

On the Christ-like humility of Hermann Goering:
"His [Goering's] ambition as well as his vanity is enormous. On March 6, 1933, exactly one day after the elections which confirmed Hitler's acession to office, he ordered his portrait painted--with a book in his lap conspicuously titled Life of Napoleon. His pets are lion cubs. All of them, male or female, are named Caesar." - pg. 62

On the Aryan beauty of Joseph Goebelles:
"Goebelles is not a Jew, but his appearance is un-Aryan, to say the least. His enemies in the party have often pointedly but in circumlocutory fashion referred to the dangerous racial aspects of lame or deformed men, those with club feet in particular. Goebelles' reply was a minor masterpiece. He found an anthropologist who invented a classification in Aryan ethnology to apply to himself alone--Nachgedunkelte Schrumpfgermaner. This is hard to translate. An approximate rendition: 'A dwarf-like German who grew dark.'" - pg. 68

On the Goering-like humility of Walther Darré:
". . . a few months after taking office, he [Darré] causd a monument to be erected to himself at Wiesbaden, marked 'Blood and Soil,' and himself made a speech at its dedication." - pg. 75

On the absolute reasonability of a French riot:
"A riot in France is one of the most remarkable things in the world. . . Communists, royalists, Fascists, socialists, fought shoulder to shoulder under both red flag and tricolor against the police and Garde Mobile. The fighting stopped on the stroke of twelve, because the Paris Metro stops running at twelve-thirty, and no one wanted to walk all the way home. Bloody, bandaged, fighters and police jostled their way into the trains together. Promptly at seven-thirty next morning the fighting started again." - pg. 145-6

On the Spaniard swagger of Alejandro Lerroux:
"An indignant mob once stormed the offices of La Publicitat, his [Lerroux's] newspaper in Barcelona. 'Where's Lerroux? Bring him out!' men shouted. And the caudillo stepped on the balcony, blue shirt open on the black hairy chest. 'Here I am,' he called back, 'and what of it?'" - pg. 165

On the builds of the dictators:
"Mussolini is built like a steel spring. (Stalin is a rock of sleepy granite, by comparison, and Hitler a blob of ectoplasm.)" - pg. 178

On the likes and dislikes of Mussolini:
"The things that Mussolini hates most are Hitler, aristocrats, money, cats, and old age. . . The things that Mussolini loves most are the city of Rome, his daughter Edda, peasants, books, airplanes, and speed." - pg. 181

On the grand opera of Fascism:
"My colleague F.A. Voigt has noted that only the countries where grand opera flourishes have produced Fascism." - pg. 182

On the mineral richness of Abyssinia:
"The Duce was not alarmed by the pessimistic reports of the geologists in Abyssinia. He knew what its chief crop was--glory." - pg. 201

On the valiant attempts to halt an Austrian coup in progress:
"At one-fifty-five a Heimwehr lieutenant arrived, unarmed and alone, and smashed his fists against the door, shouting with quixotic magnificence, 'I give you five minutes to open the door, or I will blow it up.' This gesture accomplished, he went away and was not seen again." - pg. 304

On the romantic quagmire of Jugoslavia:
"Jugoslavia is more or less in the position of a hitherto faithful husband, and a husky young fellow too, happily married to La Belle France--who now looks northward to the big blonde German maiden, wondering if divorce and remarriage might not be a good idea if his wife persists in flirting with that dark, unscrupulous, Italian adventurer in international amour." - pg. 369

See also: Roger Sandall on John Gunther

Rhyming Couplet Of The Day

Alive it is a loathsome beast,
But dead provides a toothsome feast.
- Former British Minister of Agriculture Walter Elliot, "Ode to the Pig"

Twenty Uplifting Song Titles From Current 93

Current 93

20. "Calling For Vanished Faces"
19. "The Great, Bloody And Bruised Veil Of This World"
18. "A Sadness Song"
17. "The Blue Gates Of Death (Before And Beyond Them)"
16. "Alone Into The Alone"
15. "The Birds Have Stopped Singing"
14. "How The Great Satanic Glory Faded"
13. "Twilight Twilight Nihil Nihil"
12. "The Bloodbells Chime"
11. "Anyway, People Die"
10. "Black Flowers Please (Do Dead Gods Smell)"
9. "The Signs And The Sighs of Emptiness"
8. "All The Stars Are Dead Now"
7. "From Broken Cross, Locusts"
6. "Black Ships Ate The Sky"
5. "Christ's First Howling"
4. "Happy Birthday Pigface Christus"
3. "Falling Back In Fields Of Rape"
2. "The Seahorse Rears To Oblivion"
1. "Into The Bloody Hole I Go"

Honorable Mention: "God is Love"

Illustrated Verse Of The Day

Alim Khan, Biggie of the Orient

[I love it when you call me big pop-pa]
Throw your hands in the air, if youse a true player
[I love it when you call me big pop-pa]
To the honies gettin money playin niggaz like dummies
[I love it when you call me big pop-pa]
If you got a gun up in your waist please don't shoot up the place
Cause I see some ladies tonight who should be havin my baby
Bay-bee
- Notorious B.I.G.

The Melancholy Sea

"Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe."
- Henri-Frédéric Amiel

British New Assyria: The Province That Wasn't

"Appearing before the King-Crane commission in August 1919, the Chaldean patriarch requested a European-protected state for Chaldeans, Nestorians, and Syrian-Jacobites in the area of Mesopotomia and the Jezira. However the British showed no enthusiasm for this proposal. Some British spokesmen actually raised the idea of repatriating the Assyrians to Canada rather than fantasizing about a return to the Hakkiari Mountains."

- Minorities in the Middle East by Mordechai Nisan, page 163

Russian Neo-Fascist Girls Are Cute

Sorry, it's true! I just want to make little mischlings with her!

A Slave To "You"

"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."
- Cho Seung-hui

Upon seeing the "video confessions" of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-hui, a question came to mind: Shouldn't a Creative Writing major be more creative? Not to excuse or defend the Columbine killers, but at least their high school-level motivations for killing have the excuse that they were in fact in high school. I'd expect a university killer to at least display the rudiments of a university education in stating his reasons for killing. Instead we get the usual tired hokum of "You don't know my pain" and "You caused this" and "You have blood on your hands." Who is this abstract "you?" There are a lot of individual groups and people to be mad at in this world, but "you?" "You" could be anyone, "you" is therefore as good as no one. How about some proper names and places? How about at least a poem or an aphorism or some final words of whatever you consider wisdom? How about anything except the trite and tired accusations of a venal man-child with nothing more to say in death than in life?

The killer reveals his own fundamental problem in his confessions. And it's HIS own fundamental problem. That problem being that he is a slave to the abstract notion he calls "You." He can't even take responsibility for his one claim to infamy, instead giving credit to the anonymous "rich kids," whoever they are. If you really hated rich kids that much Cho, well, you're in college, become a Marxist. Distill your anger into a jargon-ridden dissertation no one will read. Or visit your ancestral brother-country North Korea and see that there are worse things in life than rich kids enjoying "vodka and cognac." Frankly, Cho, I don't think Creative Writing was the right discipline for you. Maybe History could have taught you that there are bigger things to focus on outside your own petty solipsist sphere. Maybe Psychology could have taught you that it's possible to understand and thus learn to change the faulty parts of your mind. But Creative Writing should be for people who have something creative to express, and by all accounts you had nothing.

Because Cho uses such a general term as "You" while brandishing accusations I feel a need to defend myself as one of these anonymous "yous." I do know pain. I've just found better ways to express it than you. I guess I have something in common with you in that I express some of my pain through writing, but I try to aim for something above third-rate Kill Bill knockoff screenplays. I'm also prone to solipsism which is why I constantly try to look beyond myself and remind myself that the world owes me nothing. It's up to you to earn your right to supposed uniqueness, supposed worth. And you failed. Even in your last desperate grasp at a calling you still refused to look yourself in the eye and acknowledge yourself as an "I." You died an unperson, a question mark, a tool in thrall to the supposed perceptions and judgements of mysterious if not non-existent others. You took the perceived values of those around you--debauchery, wealth, popularity--and died to spite them rather than overcoming them and establishing your own. Sorry Cho, but "You" wins again.

Interpol Live FEATURING Technical Difficulties

I saw Interpol in concert on Monday. The opening band, called Lynx and something-or-other consisted of a spastic woman playing keyboards and singing offkey while a pretentious-looking aggro-nerd played guitar and scowled. He also occasionally sang, although it would have been better if he didn't. I appreciated the passionate dancing of the lady singer, recycled Joy Divisionisms aside, but ultimately the repetitive electroclash was grating. The crowd cheered when she announced their last song, which made me feel a little bad and a lot relieved. Interpol came out after a long, long delay and were quite good, with lots of flashing lights to boot. The mustache and on-stage cigarette-smoking of the guitarist was a little too New York hipster, but all was well until... TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Though I didn't hear any technical difficulties, the band said their thank yous and goodnights and left. After a long wait they finally came back to play a few more songs. Then they left, and the crowd starting chanting "Encore," "Encore"... but they didn't come back. Rock n' roll!

Song Of The Day

If this song doesn't inspire you, you can go right to hell. Let the optimism slide over you like the well-oiled body of a muscled-up Jesus. Fucker does a cartwheel on stage! Clap you bastard! Mustache! Even jaded goths and biker toughs nod their heads. Siouxsie and Andrew Eldritch and Lemmy are grooving. I was going to kill myself till I saw this video. Shades off you slicked-back East German goons! Come on stand up and dance!

Opus - Live Is Life

Nanananana
Nanananana (Armageddon now!)
Nanananana
Nanananana

Life (nanananana)
Life is life (nanananana)
Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)
Liiiiiiiife (nanananana)

When we all give the power
We all give the best
Every minute of an hour
Don't think about the rest
And you all get the power
You all get the best
When everyone give everything
And every song, everybody sings

Life is life (nanananana)
Life is life (nanananana)
Life is life (nanananana)
Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)

Life is life, when we all feel the power
Life is life, come on stand up and dance
Life is life, when the feelings of the people
Life is life, is the feeling of the band
Yeah!

When we all give the power
We all give the best
Every minute of an hour
Don't think about the rest
Then you all get the power
You all get the best
When everyone gives everything
And every song, everybody sings

Life is life (nanananana)
Life is life (nanananana)
Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)
Life is life (nanananana)

Life
(nanananana)
(nanananana)
(nanananana)

Life is life (nanananana)
Life is life (nanananana)
Labadab dab dab life (nanananana)
Life is life (nanananana)

And you call when it's over
You call it should last
Every minute of the future
Is a memory of the past
Cause we all gave the power
We all gave the best
And everyone gave everything
And every song, everybody sang

Life is life!

Paroxysms Of Truth

I found the following quote describing the music of David Tibet's Current 93: "he sings his songs for the end of time, inviting us to feel more deeply than is fashionable." To feel more deeply than is fashionable: that phrase struck me. It's uncomfortable to feel too deeply in common company. Remarks have to be covered in some veneer of distance, irony, cynicism, banality: the hijabs of the soul. I'm also reminded of this line from a Manic Street Preachers song: "We don't talk about love, we only want to get drunk... as we are told that this is the end." A similar link is drawn there, between feeling deeply and the concept of the end. It's hard not to feel deeply if we remain conscious that in some sense, if I can quote a Doors song everyone knows, "the future is uncertain and the end is always near." And that's another song about drinking! Drinking to forget an uncertain future, deep unfashionable ever-present facts like love and death. People don't want to be told or discuss these things, unless in the most intimate circumstances and roundabout terms. They'd rather talk about television and sports, denominators as equally common as death and love but much more approachable in casual conversation.

Now there is a place for television and sports, and certainly there is a place for drinking. Nor am I advocating this shallow sexist rhetoric of men needing to "get in touch with their feelings." This is not about gender, and "feelings" do not in and of themselves represent any depth. Petty feelings of jealousy and envy and spite are not worth getting in touch with, unless as a ritual of emotional exorcism. I guess I reveal my own nature and philosophical direction to say I'm more interested in existential questions, existential feelings, the foundation rather than some thirteenth floor of illusory concerns. Back to drinking, I've found drinking can be greatly conducive to vital, passionate, real conversations about such foundational issues, and this can be done still while eating wings and watching football if that is your wont. Same with drugs, although there is a simple test to see if the means have taken the place of the end: if you take drugs to talk about drugs, you're going in circles to avoid moving forward. While I'm sympathetic to the argument that drugs can be a form of mind expansion, it's best to remember that the mind can be expanded in the wrong directions. A mind that was thin to begin with is bound to break when stretched even thinner.

I feel more deeply than is fashionable. I know this, so I try to balance it with humour and self-effacement. Not to say that this is a put-on, but that monodimensional people are grating no matter their specific dimension. I'd be grating to myself let alone other people if I was constantly acting the part of a character from a Thomas Mann novel. Feeling more deeply than is fashionable should not be incompatible with taking the piss. Ideally the two would be the yin-yang of my inner cosmological order. The balance is difficult to maintain, however, and no matter how many shallow celebrity confessions dominate magazine covers, feeling too deeply is still forced to the edge of popular discourse. Between the suffocating omni-irony of hipsterdom and the saccharine over-earnestness of pop pablum there is little space for André Breton's notion that "Beauty will be convulsive or not at all." Convulsive beauty is uncomfortable, it is not going to win America's Next Top Model and it is not going to be a topic of watercooler conversation. This is why creation--the ultimate sublimation of feeling more deeply than is fashionable--tends to be a solitary process, an act of isolation. Creation must be motivated by the knowledge, deeply felt, that the end is always present. And thus flow the ugly, beautiful, unfashionable, uncomfortable but spine-shiveringly delectable paroxysms of truth.

The Apocalypse In Jest

"It seems to me that ancient Rome perished because its emperors in all their marble magnificence failed to realize how ridiculous they were. If they had got themselves some jesters in time (you must hear the truth, if only from a fool), they might have lasted a little longer. But they just went on hoping that the geese would save Rome, and then barbarians came and destroyed Rome, the emperors and its geese."
- Fazil Iskander, The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules

Positive Disillusionment

The most valuable lesson I've learned is disillusionment. Disillusionment carries a negative connotation, which is fitting oftentimes, but it can also be a form of liberation. The piercing of illusions will pierce your self-confidence until you learn not to attach your self-confidence to illusions. Then all the little disappointments are retroactively transformed into building blocks for a consciousness impervious to little disappointments. All of which is to say that while I've had bad experiences, I can't look upon them with complete bitterness because they've led to something positive. And in a roundabout way that something positive is a loss of bitterness. Cynicism is just the ruins of a collapsed optimism, and thus is still based on optimism's foundations: unrealistic expectation. Less unrealistic expectations of institutions, society, romance and people means less self-negating reliance on them: that's the value of positive disillusionment.

It's impossible not to be reliant on anything. The point is to make sure it's a conscious and considered reliance. Choose your friends, choose your surroundings, choose your thoughts: because even if you don't consciously choose you've still made a decision. And the great thing about consciously choosing what you care about is that you get to relegate everything else to that never-land of no-worries. Not bitterness, not cynicism: just not caring. A great weight lifts, the burden of trying to please what isn't worth pleasing. I'm being abstract because I don't want to rehash former bitterness. I can't blame people for disillusioning me because I'd also have to thank them: and the blame and gratitude cancel each other out leaving indifference. Indifference, like disillusionment, gets a lot of bad press: a lot of it deserved. But we can't live without a certain level of indifference. We can't love everyone, we can't care about everything, we can't be everyone's friend. It's a simple truism that if you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one. Respect loses value if it's given too freely.

You lose your self in illusions. You drift from one to the other without ever feeling on solid ground. It takes the peeling away of those illusions to discover your core reality or, if you'd like, the illusions you can't live without. Then you impose those illusions on the world around you rather than letting foreign illusions be imposed by default. Not being conscious of this affected my past choices of people and surroundings. I accepted the default without making any conscious decision to do so. I was disappointed when happiness and peace of mind didn't automatically fall into place without questioning why they should. So a variety of small-scale disillusionments led to a large-scale disillusionment that came more as an epiphany. Care less in quantity and more in quality. Embrace your status as permanent minority. Stop expecting from others what you don't demand from yourself. Don't assume other people think like you do or that common sense develops at birth. Cynicism is corrosive, so simple disillusionment isn't enough. It has to be positive disillusionment, and it has to be taken not as deflation but liberation.

Song Of The Day

Einstürzende Knutbauten - Hallo Knut Der Kleine Eisbär

Hallo Knut!
Silence!
Generalmobilmachung!
Zwecks Dekonditionierung aller!
HEADCLEANER!
Nehmt Aufstellung!
Achtung! Unberechenbar ab Marsch!
Neue Wunder, neue Schrecken
Tornado fuer die Bindungen an Konvention
Fuer die Windungen
im Schaedel, Wirbelsturm
als HEADCLEANER!
Kratzbuerstend das Modergewuerm!
Geronnene Gedanken, gefrorene taut auf
mit HEADCLEANER!
Hinter uns das All
mit uns die Gemeinheit
gegen die Allgemeinheit
ist jedes Mittel recht
und billig nur das Mittelmass
Aufmarsch der geschlossenen Abteilung
Allen voran die drueberen Asketen
vollgepumpt
mit HEADCLEANER!
Es folgt das wilde Fussvolk
im kopf nur:
HEADCLEANER!
Die haelfte meiner traeume ist kahlgeschoren
gewalt
warten
das erste treten gegen die tuer
oder
der erste von offizieller seite
mit fragen
ein streichholz quer in meinem hals
kein satz
durch meine kehle
der nicht
brandsatz waere
nicht warten
komme ungeschoren davon
soweit die traeume
Ein Lied zwo, drei:
All you need is HEADCLEANER!
Das Recht zu kontrollierten Rasereien,
ein Spaehtrupp, mit kosmischer Verruchtheit,
nimmt es fuer sich ein.
Er traenkt die Disziplin
im HEADCLEANER!
Letzte Windmaschine vor der Schlacht!
Hier fegt die Sturmabteilung aus
mit Hurrican
Tiefenreinigung - Auf Wiedersehen!
Zwischen grauen Zellen und in den Ecken
Wo immer Fungi sich verstecken
Sie machen Garaus
Es ist zu spaet
Es wird Salve gegruesst und niedergemaeht
mit HEADCLEANER!
TABULA RASA!
TABULA RASA!
TABULA RASA!
HEADCLEANER!
dieses steht in flammen, jenes ist
zusammengestuerzt.
heftiger und dichter aschenregen
aufgeloest in rauch und nebel.
es wird hell, was aber nicht der tag,
sondern herannahendes feuer; bleibt in der
entfernung: die finsternis kommt wieder.
die sonne kommt, truebe sonnenfinsternis.
alle gegenstaende sind mit asche, wie mit
schnee bedeckt.
wir aber, die jetzt die gefahr kennen,
und solcher gegenwaertig sind, koennen uns
auch jetzt nicht entschliessen...
Hallo Knut!

Sinful Shawarma

I have sinned. Since I am not Catholic this will be my confessional. The night was Saturday and the time was just after the bars closed, so roughly 2:15 AM. A friend and I went to the local shawarma establishment to purchase post-drink shwarmas, as is our wont. I was very drunk and so especially drawn to the sloppy Levantine charms of a spicy chicken concoction. As we were approaching said shawarma joint, run by Kurds from what I remember from drunkenly asking once, I somehow spotted a wallet on the ground. I have learned to maintain my good observational skills while drunk through the trial and error process of experience. At any rate, I picked up this wallet and in it found what was probably 15 to 20 dollars. My friend encouraged me to use the money to buy our shawarmas, and so I did, returning the wallet itself to the ground. Now, I was drunk and under peer pressure certainly, but I take full responsibility for my actions. My logic at the time, deduced through a stuporous fog was that A: fate was finally throwing me a bone, B: I like free shawarma, C: if I don't take it some crackhead will (this is Hamilton) and D: people deserve what they get. This last rationale relates to my somewhat recent revelation that people in general suck and one is much happier expecting nothing positive from them. I wouldn't go out of my way to steal, but if money practically falls into my lap I'm not one to resist. Particularly since I've had money stolen from me before and everyone knows two wrongs makes a right. I don't particularly regret my decision, though I'm not proud of it either. I washed my sin down with a spot-hitting late night shawarma and slept like a baby before the Fall. Once a believer in Kantian ethics, I have lapsed into post-nihilist transvaluation. And it tastes like shawarma.

Today's Used Book Haul

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank


The Americas and Civilization by Darcy Ribeiro


The Assault on Tony's by John O'Brien


A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes


Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung


The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton


The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism by Doron Mendels


The Romantic Agony by Mario Praz

I WANT MORE SISTERS OF MERCY!

While most "groups" might hold back and say "no, that would be gay" or "no, that would pretentious" Sisters of Mercy say GOD YES MORE! MORE CHORUSES, MORE CHOIRS SINGING BACKUP, I WANT MORE! Life is short and love is always over in the morning! It's not enough to have a six minute song called "Dominion" we need to add another three minutes with another chorus and call it "Mother Russia"! Why? Because we're Sisters of Fucking Mercy! We're going to hire Jim Steinman and dare to out-Meatloaf Meatloaf! Why? Because we wear sunglasses and pose on hilltops in leather jackets with gothic whores hired for the sole purpose of looking menacing on album covers. Why? Because we're Sisters of fucking Mercy, the group that says MORE! More drum machine, more "Hey now hey now now," more CORROSION! Because we're Sisters of fucking Mercy! We dedicate albums to offhand remarks by George Bush Senior! We write at least half our ouvre to spite former bandmates! We name ourselves things like Andrew Eldritch! GOD I LOVE IT! I WANT MORE! Vocals by Yeminite-Israeli songstress Ofra Haza! MORE MORE MORE! Piano, keyboards, drum machines, atmospheric synths, heavy metal guitar! MORE MORE MORE! References to methedrine and falling empires! AAAAAARGH! FLOOOOOOD I! AAAAAARGH! FLOOOOOOD II! The world needs you Sisters, like the world needs love and laughter and rape and murder. Whither Flood III?

Bloodsport In Overtime

There is a Maple Leafs-Canadiens match this evening that will be gripping the hockey world, a world which Canada sits astride like a moose in heat. Like my Brazilian friend who doesn't like soccer, however, I am a countryman apart. It's not that I have anything against hockey, I'm just not particularly interested. I respect the fact that violence is an integral part of the game and that it represents the last bastion of Nordic aggression, an Eleusian mystery rite for the repressed social democracies. I respect the fact that it elevates underrated virtues like masculine grace, toothlessness and bashing skill to the realm of polar god-kings. Yet my preferred bloodsport still remains geopolitics studied to the tune of "Bloodsport" by Killing Joke while muttering obscenities.

I like all the accoutrements associated with hockey. Communal intoxication is a particular favourite of mine, I just don't feel the need for an excuse to live it out. Why not just watch images of Emmanuel Goldstein while being injected with shots of adrenaline and nitroglycerine? That's my kind of getting-pumped-up experience. The merchants could make money selling Eurasia and Oceania jerseys, though keeping consistent records might be a problem. As for riots, why not just schedule Guns N' Roses shows with the explicit, rather than implicit guarantee that the band won't show up? Then everybody's happy, as only the people who came for the violence will get to experience it. Again, to the tune of "Bloodsport" by Killing Joke because without a soundtrack violence isn't Fanonian performance art, it's just nihilistic Algerian-on-Algerian aggression.

I don't mind watching hockey once in a while. It's just the whole keeping up with the narrative, knowing the statistics and team loyalty business that loses me. This makes me a bad person and a poor patriot. To some it is also a sign of gender disloyalty. Men with nothing else in common inevitably turn to sports as the common denominator to stave off womenly talk of emotions and relationships. Don't get me wrong, I don't like talking about emotions or relationships either, it's just that sports talk isn't the ideal replacement for me. I'm of the opinion that being interested in history, politics and philosophy is just as manly a pursuit as sports minutia, if for nothing else then the simple reason that most women aren't interested in those things either. Plus the rivalries are way more vicious. I'm a born-and-raised Eurasia fan and death to anyone who disagrees.

THE TODAY SHOW

Wake up too early.
Read.
Go back to sleep.
Wake up.
Eat muffins and cottage cheese.
Read and listen to music.
Watch "300."
Read and listen to music.
Eat chicken w/ broccolli, esparagus and kugel.
Read and listen to music.
Pet friend's dog.
Toke in darkness.
Watch "Death Wish."
Drink at dive bar.
Drink at Irish pub.
Eat shawarma.
Walk home.
Write this list.
Sleep (?).
Death (!?).
....
Day's Rating: 6.7/10

Song Of The Day

Besides the great self-help advice, what made me love this song even more was that it was supposed to be on the Judge Dredd film soundtrack but was rejected for being too harsh in tone. That about sealed the fate of that exercise in cinematic dreck, as instead of including meditations on the nature of judgement and the dichotomy between the Christ-like and Dionysian elements in human nature, Hollywood used the avatar of future justice as a mid-level action vehicle for a fading Sylvester Stallone. For shame! A Judge Dredd film should be like a mix between A Clockwork Orange and Brazil, not Cyborg and Gattaca. Whither the ultraviolence? If I ever get a chance to remake it as the post-apocalyptic Nietzsche-meets-Bronson bizarro nightmare it should've been, this song will certainly be given a place of pride on the soundtrack.

Manic Street Preachers - Judge Yr'self

Blessed be the blade
Blessed be the scythe
Dionysus against the crucified

Find your truth
Face your truth
Speak your truth
And be your truth...

Clean your flesh and mock your fears
The brightest sun is the purest gun

Heal yr'self
Hurt yr'self
Judge yr'self...

Blessed be the blade
Blessed be the scythe
Dionysus against the crucified

Find your truth
Face your truth
Speak your truth
And be your truth...

Clean your flesh and mock your fears
The brightest sun is the purest gun

Heal yr'self
Hurt yr'self
Judge yr'self...

Kiss your wounds and mock your fears
The brightest sun is the purest gun

Heal yr'self
Hurt yr'self
Judge yr'self...

A War Is A War By Any Other Name

I've long admired the gumption of Southerners calling the Civil War "The War of Northern Aggression." To be fair, the victors do write the history books, so here are some examples of what would happen if say, drunken lemurs did instead:

Expulsion from Eden = War of Serpentine Aggression
Invasion of Attila the Hun = War of Non-Hunnic Aggression
Islamic Conquests = Wars of Infidel Aggression
The Crusades = War of Heathen Aggression
Children's Crusade = War of Toddler Aggression
Mongol Invasions = Wars of Non-Mongol Aggression
Spanish Conquest of Peru = War of Inca Aggression
War of 1812 = War of Canadian Aggression
Opium Wars = Wars of Junkie Aggression
World War I = War of Belgian Aggression
Armenian Genocide = War of Armo Aggression
Holodomor = War of Kulak Aggression
Italo-Abyssinian War = War of Ethiopian Aggression
World War II = War of Polish Aggression
Holocaust = War of Semitic Aggression
Falklands War = War of Sheepish Aggression
Gulf War = War of Kuwaiti Aggression
Rwandan Genocide = War of Tutsi Aggression
Gulf War II = War of Nuclear Aggression

I Don't Have Interests, I Have Obsessions

Here are some of the things that get me through the day:

Bands
5. Course of Empire
4. Modest Mouse
3. Joy Division
2. Killing Joke
1. Jane's Addiction

Collections
5. Images
4. Mp3s
3. Maps
2. CDs
1. Books

Eras
5. Post-Apocalyptic (Very soon)
4. Interbellum (1918 to 1939)
3. Age of Romanticism (late 18th century to late 19th century)
2. Age of Discovery (15th century to 17th century)
1. Fin de Siècle (1890 to 1914)

Food
5. Kishka
4. Sag Paneer on Naan
3. Steak
2. Montreal smoked meat sandwiches
1. Fresh bread from the oven

Genres
5. Grunge
4. Indie Rock
3. Industrial Rock
2. Early Alternative
1. Post-Punk

Goals
5. Permanent Revolution
4. Revelation
3. World Conquest
2. Self-Overcoming
1. Redemption

Historical Figures
5. Lev Nussimbaum
4. Sabbatai Zevi
3. Gabriele D'Annunzio
2. Simon Bolivar
1. Sir Richard Francis Burton

Ideologies
5. Menefreghismo
4. Personalism
3. Situationism
2. Futurism
1. Anarcho-Monarchism

Imaginations
5. Alan Moore
4. H.P. Lovecraft
3. Mervyn Peake
2. Franz Kafka
1. Jorge Luis Borges

Intellectuals
5. Miguel de Unamuno
4. Søren Kierkegaard
3. José Ortega y Gasset
2. Friedrich Nietzsche
1. Albert Camus

Nations
5. Russia
4. Paraguay
3. Ethiopia
2. Brazil
1. Greenland

Nostalgia
5. Lego
4. Action Figures
3. Fighting Fantasy Books
2. Sierra Games
1. NES

Philosophies
5. Transcendentalism
4. Romanticism
3. Aristocratic Radicalism
2. Ratio-Vitalism
1. Existentialism

Regions
5. Caucasus
4. Levant
3. Eurasia
2. Mediterranean
1. Terra Incognito

Studies
5. Esoterica
4. Literature
3. Geopolitics
2. History
1. Philosophy

Sublimation
5. Biking
4. Gym
3. List-making
2. Drinking
1. Writing

*Honourable Mention
1. Charles Bronson