Serene Falcon

To Combat With The Moore

Thursday, 7 August 2008 at 4:30 am (Art, Places, Self, Videos)

Puppetry over here was mainly confined to the rather dismal exploits of Punch and Judy. Over in Sicily though it was, and is, rather more swagger. A richer cultural life despite the poverty, and a stern tradition of memorising friends and neighbours for deathworthy offence, together with evergreen recollections of one of the major cultural enemies of Christendom — the Barbary states kept this alive until fairly recently by frequently removing Sicilians, and others as far as Ireland and points north, to become slaves in what was, mainly, all things considered, mainly a vast slave plantation just called Islam — made their pupi quite resplendent.

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Mors Et Vita Redoubled

Thursday, 31 July 2008 at 10:00 pm (Melancholy, Music, Poetry, The King of Terrors, Videos)

 
“UNDER the roots of the roses,
Down in the dark, rich mould,
The dust of my dear one reposes
Like a spark which night incloses
When the ashes of day are cold.”

“Under the awful wings
Which brood over land and sea,
And whose shadows nor lift nor flee, —
This is the order of things,
And hath been from of old:
First production,
And last destruction;
So the pendulum swings,
While cradles are rocked and bells are tolled.”

“Not under the roots of the roses,
But under the luminous wings
Of the King of kings
The soul of my love reposes,
With the light of morn in her eyes,
Where the Vision of Life discloses
Life that sleeps not nor dies.”

“Under or over the skies
What is it that never dies ?
Spirit — if such there be —
Whom no one hath seen nor heard,
We do not acknowledge thee;
For, spoken or written word,
Thou art but a dream, a breath;
Certain is nothing but Death !”

Richard Henry Stoddard : Mors et Vita

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Dark Ambient

Saturday, 19 July 2008 at 9:45 pm (Melancholy, Music, Videos)

 
Hi Miss Alice.
With glass eyes
What kind of a dream
Are you able to have ?
Are you entranced by ?
Again for me
My heart tears apart
And flows out
Memories
Pierce into
The mended crevice

Hi Miss Alice.
With a fruitful mouth
To whom are you
Throwing love at ?
Grieving love at ?
I’m already
Spinning words
The warmth of my tongue
Completely cools
And I can’t sing
The song that I adore

Still, you do not answer.

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What Lives In Vegas, Dies Out of Vegas

Thursday, 26 June 2008 at 1:00 am (Music, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The King of Terrors, Videos)

One thing the world admires in Americans is that, despite the mistrust and fearfulness innate on a personal level, they retain a basic confidence in the group and retain an idealism in all matters of faith. As a realist I could scarcely maintain that most ideals are barely removed from derangement, but they make people happy — and it is definitely preferable to be surrounded by optimists rather than equally delusional pessimists.

One aspect, faith in science and faith in government — during the twentieth century these were so interwined as to become indistinguishable — was exemplified by those so avid for entertainment and [ very ] momentary pleasure that they flocked from around the continent to ever-welcoming Las Vegas to stare at the mushroom clouds that blossomed in the 1950s. While this might seem to more critical minds the nadir of stupidity, I honestly have to confess that considering the loathliness of most activities that the city so famously offers it does seem an alternative — if only for a blink of an eye.

The late Mr. Carlin, who performed last there just 12 days back, happened to describe it as “… the most dispiriting, soul-deadening city on earth.” and a few years back expounded to the patrons watching his act there, “People who go to Las Vegas, you’ve got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That’s what I’m always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects.” which seems fair enough — and almost sedulous in avoiding empty flattery. Yet, although personally oblivious to the pleasure of gambling for money, the faded rat-pack type entertainment seems yet more repellent. Essentially this demonstrates one problem with absolute freedom and happiness: with all you will ever need, how does one use that freedom to maintain happiness ? We may futurely discover that in any of the heavens promised by various faith: on earth it appears to involve sitting in exquisitely awful hotels, listening to Cool singers, and regularly giving even larger sums than most religions demand in blind faith that it will be returned a thousandfold.

This is quite an interesting site, Essays On Deep Las Vegas Culture; and although my liking for Elvis is nearly as tepid as my liking for the city, I find the song ok for it’s remarkable vigour and structure — written naturally by someone who had not been there, and lived in poverty; unlike the criminals who built the place — and the fountain is tremendously pretty.

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The God That Knows How To Dance

Saturday, 3 May 2008 at 12:30 pm (Melancholy, Music, Other, Videos)

The Poem of Ecstasy is the Joy of Liberated Action. The Cosmos, i.e., Spirit, is Eternal Creation without External Motivation, a Divine Play of Worlds. The Creative Spirit, i.e., the Universe at Play, is not conscious of the Absoluteness of its creativeness, having subordinated itself to a Finality and made creativity a means toward an end. The stronger the pulse beat of life and the more rapid the precipitation of rhythms, the more clearly the awareness comes to the Spirit that it is consubstantial with creativity itself. When the Spirit has attained the supreme culmination of its activity and has been torn away from the embraces of teleology and relativity, when it has exhausted completely its substance and its liberated active energy, the Time of Ecstasy shall arrive.

Alexsandr Scriabin on his symphony Le Poème de l’extase

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The End Of Faustian Man

Thursday, 24 April 2008 at 10:00 pm (High Germany, Melancholy, Music, Self, Spengler, The Enemy, The King of Terrors, Videos, War)

The doom of our culture was already well upon it’s way by the time of the Second World War — or War of the Republics as I would prefer it to be known, since this was conducted entirely betwixt differing republican systems, all equally loathsome. Possibly not Japan, I guess, since it was at least nominally a monarchy, although cursory search indicates it was more of a constitutional monarchy. WWII may be summarized as that the nazis were detestable; the western allies despicable; and the communists disgusting.

The Russians had reverted to becoming savages by 1945: the Americans maintained their customary anthropological status as barbarians. Their especially barbaric political system of representative democracy had grave consequence as victors… The very first moralistic theatre was the judicial murder of General Anton Dostler, of which may be read here, written by the son of his American defense counsel. Essentially, 15 American soldiers were captured disguised as Italian civilians, and the — non-nazi — General referred the case to Kesselring, who ordered them to be executed. Admittedly Smiling Albert had enough to occupy his mind right then without giving this a great deal of thought, but under the laws of war this was a done deal anyway. It is pointless to object or blame soldiers for disguising; it is equally pointless to object to the consequence — which procedure is actually there to protect civilians. Thus although guiltless — neither prosecutor nor defence expected anything except acquittal — General Dostler was then sentenced to death after new instructions were handed down from Washington in response to the revelation that the prosecution would fail, that is that henceforth in these trials hearsay evidence would be admissible. This was to satisfy the voting constituents. Democracy is awesomely repellent not merely in practice, but still more so in idealist theory…

‘Hope to God we never lose a war.’ said the prosecutor.

 
Another version, shorter, but with a few more frames

Incidentally, this trial caused the innocent prosecutor to lose his faith in the Rule of Law forever…

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“Art Knows No Borders !”

Wednesday, 2 April 2008 at 9:00 pm (Generalia, Literature, Music, Self, To Know Know Know Him, Videos)

Temporary ill-health precludes any capacity for thought greater than that which lesser beings need for the selection for their choice of president ( something which in any case is more decided on the grossest sentiment rather than pure reason, of course: otherwise the leading Democrat candidates might not have the appearance of sinister liars, and the leading Republicans — as they were — that of shifty dolts ), therefore a short mélange of diverse items stored in draft without any unifying theme….

Thoughts Too Deep For Words Dept.:

A comment recently dropped on a computing blog:

I think christina aggulara is like more of the new version of veronica lake.She is realy insanely beautiful and i myself are doing a biography of Veronica lake.

 
Let Them Eat Cake:

Wedding Cake of the Gothic Crows

 
Eng Lit:

A blog with an amusing satire, Hometown

 
Music:

From the wiki on Turbo-Folk, that relentless mystical musical experience which expresses the yearning for the ideal life as perceived by the ordinary man:

However, turbo-folk was equally popular amongst the South Slavic nations during the brutal wars of the 1990s, reflecting perhaps the common cultural sentiments of the warring sides. When a Muslim market seller in Sarajevo was asked why in the midst of a Serb shelling of the city he illegally sold CDs by turbo-folk superstar Ceca, a wife of the notorious Serbian warlord Arkan, he offered a laconic retort: “Art knows no borders!”

Two by Atomik Harmonik — for frailer spirits, less is more is something particularly applicable to hearty polkas, but they go nuts on this in the Balkans.

 
Finally, to combat near delirium, amongst other discoveries of things unknown, I read up on Neodymium Magnets: which are very powerful for their size, and can disrupt floppy disks ( who the hell still uses floppy disks ? ), computer monitors, fingers, credit cards, and heart pacemakers. Jamie is conducting experiments with just one of these listed in unwitting conjunction with an elderly grouch of a neighbour.

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To Say Hello

Wednesday, 26 March 2008 at 3:30 am (Generalia, Self, Videos)

Spice and Wolf is a pleasant contrast to the run of anime, being set in a semi-mediaeval mittel-european world — think from Northern Italy going northwards, eg: the old Reich — although the mercantile element* leaves me a trifle cold; yet what more excellent girlfriend could the heart desire than a redhead who is in her spare time a wolf-goddess ?

From here, someone has transcribed the lyrics to the English sung end-song ( ED — opening songs are OPs )

The pronunciation of this ED is realy terriable. This is what I tried my best find out from the ED:
Seven apples on the witch’s tree
Seven seeds to plant inside of me
In spring time I grew a magic song
Thus keeping along
I sang the song to everyone
I looked up the world through apple eyes
And cut myself as slice of sunshine pie
I dance with the peanuts for the flies
Hear time when the town ring
To say hello forever goodbye
Songs and sugar’s ball
I’ll put them in the jar
And the wish around the world
All wish around the world
I’m a little lucida girl
You say: I’m off I’ve grown from June to May
Oh wish around the world
Makes wish around the world

Instead of any obligatory remark on Japanese ultra-weirdness, I’d prefer to offer that this is either a/ spirited satire on the average lyric-writer, or b/ some profound meanings are non-apparent to the cursory reader, but which reveal unearthly insights to anyone who has combined the right drugs; maybe a winsome combination of lsd and crack.

 
The 11 episodes of Spice and Wolf numbered 1 - 12 ( 7 is unavailable ) can be found here for now. Select the English Subtitled ones for greater clarity.

I have to say that Horo’s brilliant tail looks rather more like a fox to me, as do the ears: possibly something to do with the longstanding love-affair betwixt Japan and Fox-Fairies long predating anime, or manga, or furries.

*This thread has some details; and includes a fine youtube of Bird and Fortune ripping apart the pretensions of the Masters of the Universes responsible for the sub-prime latest debacle.

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Makes My Life Worthwhile

Sunday, 2 March 2008 at 12:00 pm (Music, Self, To Know Know Know Him, Videos)

The title of my desultory novel is, as is apparent, To Know, Know, Know Him, and is equally apparently, taken from the song here by the Teddy Bears, To Know Him Is To Love Him. Written by the engaging Phil Spector, the guitarist here on the original — who went on to create the Wall of Sound and much more — the title having been suggested by his father’s gravestone. Although grievously abused by many in the music world, he always struck me as a straight-shooting kind of guy.

 
To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
Just to see him smile, makes my life worthwhile
To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
And I do

I’ll be good to him, I’ll bring love to him
Everyone says there’ll come a day when I’ll walk alongside of him
Yes, just to know him is to love, love, love him
And I do

Why can’t he see, how blind can he be
Someday he’ll see that he was meant for me

To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
Just to see him smile, makes my life worthwhile
To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
And I do

Why can’t he see, how blind can he be
Someday he’ll see that he was meant for me

To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
Just to see him smile, makes my life worthwhile
To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
And I do

To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
Just to see him smile, makes my life worthwhile
To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him
And I do

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“You Are Beautiful, My Manufactured Love, But It Is Only Svengali Talking To Himself…”

Saturday, 1 March 2008 at 10:30 am (Literature, Melancholy, Self, Videos)

With the Fall of Stage6 the honours of providing elderly films through a much more cumbersome model fall to Veoh for the time being. [ Five minute previews are given, but to see all, the Veoh software has to be installed and then one either clicks to watch immediately via the application or downloads the video to watch later : this application makes it extremely easy to lose whatever one is viewing, enabling one to have to start over from the beginning and re-enjoy anything one had not missed --- besides which, .avis really are no match for .divx... ]

I have fairly strong feelings on the House of Barrymore, despite the fact they were/are undoubtedly perfectly pleasant people in private life; yet John of that Ilk is here far more restrained and more thoughtful than in his usual performances.. And indeed, more than any of his extended family.

Trilby has been underrated since the reaction to Victorianism in the 1920s — Michael Sadleir’s strictures in his preface to Murger’s Vie de la Boheme being particularly scathing — but it was of it’s slightly interesting time — mid-nineteenth century France — and it can be read simply as a tragedy for each individual fulfilling their destiny. There are wide differences between the book and film of course: in the first, it is Svengali actually singing through Trilby, and his love for her, although probable, is scarcely manifest; in the film he rather unlocks her singing through the same uncanny genius and loves her inordinately — yet vainly since she is merely his creation. Further in the novel, his death prostrates her to mortal illness, the psychic link of control having been shattered; whereas in this film, she merely passes as soon as humanly possible.

Having been privileged to read the especial UNEXPURGATED version, like all du Maurier’s work wistful tristeness is the overlaying key, which as a melancholic he carried out with exemplary zeal, I should say it’s rather like once popular music played on a barrel organ in a minor key in a pretty courtyard with flowers fading as autumn comes.

Actually, the word UNEXPURGATED was undoubtedly purposed to catch the eager unwary into hopes that it would be imbecile to imagine du Maurier could or would ever satisfy > it just meant that his rancorous portrayal of Jimmy Whistler as a youth was included.

Svengali — 1931

Some immensely varying, and in a way disturbingly so, visualisations of Marian Marsh’s interpretation of Trilby:

 
“Ich habe Geliebt und Gelebet ! *

***

Here are a couple of Tod Slaughters thrown in both with very poor quality:
The Face at the Window
Sweeney Todd : The Demon Barber of Fleet Street the sound is peculiarly misaligned, but with awful video and agonizing sound it still beats listening to Sondheim… Then again, what does not ?

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And This She Did By Her Singing Fair

Friday, 29 February 2008 at 10:35 am (High Germany, Melancholy, Music, Videos)

A notable instance of the futility of human judgement would be to blame Lorelei of the golden hair: she is how she is made, and her pitiless effects — if unfortunate — indicate no absence of a soul, nor malice; but rather the workings of mechanical fate and her inability to feel deeply. Of course, the forlorn sailors are equally blame-free — except perhaps for not suppressing feeling enough.

 
The first two are of the Heine text; the third is not.

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Love Was Too Plebeian

Tuesday, 19 February 2008 at 2:30 am (Melancholy, Music, Videos)

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Tuckin’ Down The Track

Tuesday, 12 February 2008 at 5:30 am (Music, Self, Videos)

It is merely a truism, commonly repeated — as frequently as the claim that we need more Gothic Lolitas on the streets — that One Way Ticket* has never been rendered with the relentless vigour and powerful delivery it demands, least of all by Eruption; however, this Hungarian version by Kati Kovács, with some terrifying dancing by — I think, the ever redoubtable Neoton Family — has some punch. It ends a trifle abruptly though…

Not to mention, how often do you see someone dancing with two astounded baby white rabbits ?

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Bouguereau, Wagner & Elsa

Saturday, 2 February 2008 at 5:35 pm (High Germany, Music, Self, Videos)

Following on from the Bouguereau in our last, the author of this video has merged Richard’s music with William-Adolphe’s paintings…

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Suitable Honky Tonk From A Bar-Room In An Annexe Of Hell — The Devil Allegedly Being A Gentleman, An’ All

Thursday, 24 January 2008 at 12:00 am (Melancholy, Music, Videos)

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For It’s True

Saturday, 19 January 2008 at 12:30 am (Music, Videos)

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Dismal Are The Mirrors Of A Wolf

Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 7:22 pm (Melancholy, Music, Videos)

A companion Addams Family video…

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I Wanna Tell You

Saturday, 12 January 2008 at 10:00 pm (Music, Videos)

The video is… [ 1980s worrying ] — but it had the best natural reverb *shrugs*

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During A Night Black As Raven Bounces

Wednesday, 9 January 2008 at 5:00 pm (Animals, Melancholy, Music, Odin, Videos)

Dutch metal neo-nazi band. Considering the general views of Germans, let alone nazis, in the Netherlands, it’s a great tribute to the unquenchable human spirit that they can produce their own…

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Takes Me Way Back When

Tuesday, 25 December 2007 at 11:00 pm (High Germany, Music, Self, Videos)

Crystal Gayle; the German song Karneval englished into One More Time; firstly in England, secondly in Holland.

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We Shall Hear Their Glory

Wednesday, 12 December 2007 at 10:00 pm (Music, Self, Videos)

A Cossack theme…

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Out In The Cold

Tuesday, 4 December 2007 at 8:00 pm (Music, Videos)

[ The singer died earlier this year... ]

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Ain’t Nothing But Mammals ( Or, When The Kissing Had To Stop )

Thursday, 29 November 2007 at 4:00 pm (Animals, Music, Self, Videos)

Careful nurturing saved me till now from much hearing of Der Voglertanz, a Swiss tune better known, and popular, in the U. S. as The Chicken Dance. I’m as fond of Om Pah as the next man ( although German, and particularly Bavarian, dancing leaves me as cold as native dances traditional in the British Isles, or indeed from anywhere ), but it’s fairly annoying.

* Begin in a large circle with everybody facing in toward the center of the ring.
* At the start of the music, shape a chicken beak with your hands. Open and close it four times, during the first four beats of the music.
* Make chicken wings with your arms. Flap your wings four times, during the next four beats of the music.
* Make a chicken’s tail feathers with your arms and hands. Wiggle downwards during the next four beats of the music.
* Clap four times during the next four beats of the music.
* Repeat this process four times.
* After the fourth time spin to the right for eight counts with your partner
* Switch directions and spin to the left with your partner for eight counts
* The dance repeats, progressively getting faster and faster, until the music stops.

As stately, if more intricate, than a pavanne, this description from Wiki adequately serves as an extended metaphor for the Cold War.

 
Those interested shall have to search elsewhere; instead here’s a superior sound…

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Liszt I

Thursday, 22 November 2007 at 6:35 am (Melancholy, Music, Videos)