Music (and more) for narcotics

A while back — a long while back — I was introduced to various bits of ambient music: Harold Budd, Brian Eno, etc. Daniel’s doing.

Over the years, I’ve found bits and pieces here and there. Some Daniel Lanois, some random pieces from soundtracks. But the stuff that I really fall into is non-commercially viable. Not nearly enough people drive around at sunset and turn their stereos up to illegal volumes with wandering indie-film noodling in the CD player.

Go find either disc by Aurore Rien — TELESTHESIA or SEDATIVE FRO THE CELESTIAL BLUE. Follow with a healthy dose of Mono’s WALKING CLOUDS AND DEEP RED SKY, FLAG FLUTTERED AND THE SUN SHINED. Cap it off with TELEGRAPHS IN NEGATIVE – MOUTHS TRAPPED IN STATIC by Set Fire To Flames.

Enhance with a lovely 20 mg (adjust to taste) of your favorite pain killer.

If you haven’t imagined twenty perfect short films about nothing by the time you’re through, there’s no place for you on the festival circuit.

I think the best kind of history is that which is closed off to you. No going back. No fixing your wrongs. Point of no return. Death.

It’s certainly not the easiest history to deal with, to accept. It hurts like hell if it’s worth anything. You would give anything and everything to change things back to the way they were, to the way they could have been, to the way things should be.

But you can’t, and so you’re forced to learn. Two options: figure it out and don’t take that path again, should you be so lucky ever to have that option; or relive the pain, over and over.

Roll that rock, Sisyphus.

If the joys of the world don’t inspire you to move forward and reach out with everything you possess to gain what you desire, then you have no business ever having anything at all.

The only option for those who refuse to live is death — and what a waste is that?

Sometimes divining purpose and meaning is purpose and meaning enough, n’est ce pas?

Oh, fuck, I’m blogging a blog.

How to Save the World: “So how can we learn to broaden our thinking, to think differently? This is not just a matter of critical thinking, creative thinking, ‘outside the box’ thinking. It is about opening up our minds to the world and all its possibilities. This is one of the essences of the Four Practices of Open Space, (opening, inviting, making room, acting/realizing). But it is not at all easy. Our brain structures are actually formed as we grow, to reflect and accommodate the analytical and ‘one right answer’ thinking that constitutes most of what we are taught when we are young. Broadening our thinking therefore requires us to consciously will ourselves to think about things, and think in ways, that we are not comfortable or familiar with. It is counter-cultural, more of an unlearning than a learning process. It is kind of like the agony that runners who do not regularly do ‘loosening up’ exercises must go through to stretch the muscles that have tightened (shortened, atrophied) in response to the running routine.”

Today’s forecast: hazy with a chance of naught

And the world may be long for you, but he’ll
never belong to you. But on a motorbike, when
all the city lights blind your eyes tonight, are you
feeling better now?

-The Decemberists, Grace Cathedral Hill

And so the question today is whether the fact that you have to accept some things as being true means that you have to be okay with them.

And I think the answer, the natural real truth, is that you don’t.

Why?

Why do people get drunk when they feel down?

Why do people get drunk when they get lonely?

Me, getting drunk just makes those two things worse, amplified.

Sleep. And then extraction. Whee.