She's Just A Freak

I was in the Bay, me-thinks. We went to some high-class pizza restaurant, and they were fucking with us. First it seemed like they forgot to bring me and one other person our food, pizzas we had specially designed ourselves. Then when we started complaining about it, they told us we were being too loud and threatened to throw us out. We had been sitting in an alley that supposedly was next to residential homes of people trying to sleep, or something. We all had to move to the other side of the table. I think I tried to get into the kitchen to find out what had happened with our pizzas, got thrown out. Lost my nice big kitchen knife in the process (I don't know why I had it with me in the first place). Then I went out to complain to the manager out front, and there were a bunch of construction workers there, waiting to do some work or something. When they heard about my grievances, they threatened to strike, which flummoxed the manager.

In various other parts, scary ass ants appeared. Once it was a whole colony of tiny red ants, another time it was one huge white ant that kept biting my feet.

What Is Missing From War

The Captains expressed their pleasure, but it was difficult to see much of it on Lawrence's shy, embarrassed face, and the name of Hornet struck all cheerfulness from Jack's. However, he assumed a decent appearance of cordiality and in spite of their protests called for coffee and sweet biscuits -- 'or cookies, as I should say', looking at Lawrence with a smile. He liked the look of him, a big, open-faced man in a white coat, a man with a modest, well-bred air, and obviously a sailor. Lawrence returned the smile -- there was clearly a mutual liking in spite of the awkwardness of the situation -- and said, 'A little while ago, sir, I had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant Mowett of your service, and he particularly desired me to wait on you, to bring his respects, to ask how you did, and to tell you he was coming along very well in hospital at New York.'

Waka Waka!

Droppin' Bombs

I had a weird dream earlier tonite. I don't remember it in all of its entirety, but: It had something to do with the Kennedys. The class I'm talking on Kennedy politics has really imprinted itself upon my mind. The dream took place in my apartment. It was dark, even though things were going on. The strongest thing I can remember is that we were cooking fish, but the way that we cooked the fish was that a woman ingested a raw fish (whole I think) and the cooked product was birthed from her later. I woke up before this happened, but I imagine the fish would have looked like one of the whole fried fish I've seen on television sometimes. I woke because some ghost (of a Kennedy, I believe) frightened me. For a few moments I believed the ghost was out in my kitchen waiting for me.

O City God, both of us have duties to perform in this county: resisting disasters that may occur, offering protection in times of trouble, such things are inn the City God's spiritual realm and are part of the official's responsibilities. This year, while the workers were out in the fields but the grain had not yet matured, the eggs that had been laid by last year's locusts hatched out in the soil, causing almost half the wheat crops in the countryside to suffer this affliction. In The last days yet more locusts have come from our neighboring area to the southwest: their trembling wings stretch in unbroken lines, they fill in the furrows and cover the ridges of the fields. The people scurry and wail, as if the end of the world were come.

We have already prayed to the City God, but he did not destroy the locusts. Could this possibly have been because it was too hard for him to save us from this natural calamity? Or because the Ch'ing-ming festival was near at hand? If not for those reasons, then was it because the officials had failed in their duties, and lacked the sincerity to reach the underworld? The people could not repel this calamity, so they appealed to the officials for help. The officials could not repel this calamity for the people, so they pray to the City God. The City God is majestic on high;could He not transmit these prayers from the people and from their officials, and petition the Lord of All? The people think that the spread of this disaster is unavoidable, for as the locusts advance they cover an area of over a thousand li, in the midst of which T'an-ch'eng is but a tiny spot, so how could they be chased away just from here? They say this because they have no remedy if they use human means. But that is not true of the City God. From his vantage point he can anticipate the needs of the people and officials, and feel sorrow for their sufferings.

O God, drive them away quickly! Do not let them destroy our crops of grain! Do not let them lay their eggs in our fields! Then will the people have an autumn harvest. God grant this. God heed our request.

There Goes My Everything

From The New York Review Of Books:

To understand the full extent of the constraints that the abyss places on life, consider the black seadevil. It's a somber, grapefruit-sized globe of a fish--seemingly all fangs and gape--with a "fishing rod" affixed between its eyes whose luminescent bait jerks above the trap-life mouth. Clearly, food is a priority for this creature, for it can swallow a victim nearly as large as itself. But that is only half the story, for this description pertains solely to the female: the male is a minnow-like being content to feed on specks in the sea--until, that is, he encounters his sexual partner.
The first time that a male black seadevil meets his much larger mate, he bites her and never lets go. over time, his veins and arteries grow together with hers, until he becomes a fetus-like dependent who receives from his mate's blood all the food, oxygen, and hormones he requires to exist. The cost of this utter dependence is a loss of function in all of his organs except his testicles, but even these, it seems, are stimulated to action solely at the pleasure of the engulfing female. When she has had her way with him, the male simply vanishes, having been completely absorbed and dissipated into the flesh of his paramour, leaving her free to seek another mate. Not even Dante imagined such a fate.

Rise

I've been meaning to make a post about how a couple songs have deeply influenced how I look at love and whether this is good, but I'll put that off 'til later and instead talk about the show I went to Saturday night at the 119 Gallery.

I originally decided to go because Crank Sturgeon was playing, and I hadn't seen him in a good long while. The kid who had set up the show had also gotten a shit-load of other outfits that were performing and I figured that I'd see at least a couple other ones that I enjoyed. The last noise-show I'd been to (I think) was Grunt in November. Although Grunt didn't impress me that much that night, the night was still really fun. Me, Russell and Davenport went. Brian brought a 30-Rack for me and him.

The first act (sorry, but I don't remember most of the groups names, if I even knew them in the first place) was this guy who rolled around in the corner with a couple of pedals and a contact mic on a section of one of those pipes that drain water down from the gutters. I don't really remember anything that specifically stood out from his set, except that Andy (the kid who set the show together) and Walter (the guy who runs the 119) kept fiddling with the sound levels.

Next, was Andy and some other guy. Just messing around with pedals and vocals. Again, I wasn't overly impressed. They weren't bad, and any live noise is fun in my book, but it was nothing that really stood out.

I can't be sure, but I think that Halflings performed next. I wasn't expecting them to be there, 'cause I had seen the bill and I thought I would remember their name being on it. They, in my opinion at least, were the best act that night. Very, very powerful PE-ish stuff. They also performed for a pretty long time (at least, I thought), which was nice. What struck me the most about their performance was that they seemed to be in total control of their gear. A lot of noise outfits will just fiddle with knobs and scream into mics, and it sometimes seems like what they are doing is not effecting the actual sound AT ALL. When one of the Halflings would twist a knobs or tap a button, you could hear the change in the sound. A+ set.

Of the other people that performed, the only other one that really struck me was the people that played immediately after Halflings. It was almost black-metal-y, and the singer (who did his best deep guttural, Satan influenced vocals) was very drunk; but I still found their set pretty interesting.

Damn, I almost forgot, the other outfit that impressed me was Ted (from Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck) and Nate (something or other; I've seen him perform with Jessica Rylan before). Nice PE-ish stuff again, with really strong vocals from Ted. Afterwards I got to talking with them (and sharing beers from the 30), and I need to somehow get that video of the Sluts last St. Patrick's Day to Ted.

Crank's set was okay, but I was kind of distracted because Davenport had gotten pretty drunk and then disappeared, saying he wasn't feeling that good. His sets are fun, but they border too closely on performance art to really enjoy sonic-ly.

All in all, though, it was a really fun night in Lowell. The largest crowd I'd seen at the 119 since two Halloweens ago when I saw Capital Hemorrhage. The angry PE stuff really made me feel good, and made me realize how much pent-up anger and sadness I have inside me right now.