It's Moving! It's ALIVE!

I FINALLY STARTED MY DISSERTATION!!! IT EXISTS!!! ! (I still need to do so much work on it though)

Secondly, I was watching a music video on Youtube, and some commenter was discussing the whole "X bought me here" comments you see under music videos (apparently this Little Dragon song had been included in one of the FIFA games).

(S)he  said:

Come on people, explore unpromptedly and spontaneously, not _just_ by some particular source of recommendation or shit like that. Just stagnates n shit... Same goes for any type of obsessing and getting stuck to "sources" for new music, be it a random blog, pitchfork or Uncut. Just a thought. :o (signed by a freak who just today spent 3 hours on flea market bins for cheesy n weird looking jazz-fusion twelwe-inches...)

Isn't it refreshing to just check something out cos it looks or sounds interesting. Personally i think it's dope.

Which made me think what a pretentious comment. There is literally nothing wrong with content filters. Personally I don't use review sites or blogs. I find new music through Last FM/Spotify/Friend's recommendations. But it's essentially the same thing: it's just a way to filter and find new content. Even if you went to some cool indie  flea market and looked through jazz-fusion 12" all day, you are still filtering your content. The shop doesn't stock everything, and you still only look at the things that you think you may like. For every undiscovered gem there are a trillion forgettable and justifiably-forgotten outfits. Taking the time to go through them all doesn't make you a better or worse person it just means you spend more of your own time looking for stuff..

That's why I like sampling in Music. It's like a hyperlink to something that was good that has been forgotten, that you wouldn't find otherwise. Anyway........... back to work.........

2 months

faaackin' ell it's been over two months since I last posted here! Man, it's just getting harder and harder, what with my course actually providing enough work to keep me busy nowadays

So, quick update: Laptop broke and deleted all of my files, so I have an entire dissertation to write now, I went to BUCS XC last weekend, and did averagely, Exam results next week and... that's pretty much it. Oh, and I'm pretty set on becoming a chef after I leave. Also will try to post more.

NYE 2012

It's NYE and I'm alone. You may think it's weird, being NYE an all, but I've decided I would rather be listening to music and playing games than in some noisy bar or club, or anywhere with other people. Later I'm going to make Stir Fry and then I think I'm going to watch Tokyo Story. I haven't seen it before.

Another dream

From what I can make out, in this dream I was at a reunion for people who went to my sixth form. I was there with one of my friends and for some reason we were tripping mushrooms. I remember it was really socially awkward being talking to people who wanted to find out how my life had gone since sixth form and tripping balls at the same time. Then I made a social faux-pas when I thought I recognised one of the asian girls who went to our school, but it turned out it was another asian girl (there were a lot of asians at my school.

The reunion finished around 10pm and for a kick I thought I would take my old 279 bus route back to my old house in Enfield. On the way to the bus stop, still tripping, I saw a gang of kids, and it reminded me of how shit that area was. I got on the bus, but before it could drive off, the kids came on with guns and said they were taking the bus hostage. Then they started shooting people who they didn't like the look of. And the bus had to drive really fat down the A10. The situation reminded me of the movie Speed (with Keanu Reeves).

The gang asked me who I was and what I was doing here. I think it was the mushrooms because instead of replying like a normal person I said I was "a student of history" The kids were like WTF then they shot me in the abdomen. I had seen a lot of action films so I knew that I needed to keep pressure on the wound, which I did. I think we were just past the Cinema on the corner of the roundabout when the police came. They pulled up alongside the speeding bus and jumped in through the windows. Then they killed all the bad guys and the bus was bought to a stop. The paramedics who arrived were actually my parents. Instead of taking me to hospital immediately they spent the whole time arguing. I think one of the asian girls (it might have been the one whose identity I mistook.. I can't remember) drove me to the hospital in her car. Then I woke up.

I've been having weird dreams lately. Also, it's been raining lots. And I'm only updating this blog because I have ESSAYS TO WRITE.... I really need to do that..

Illness

I'm ill again. This makes me sad. I had to miss out on athletics training yesterday, and will probably have to do the same tomorrow. Fucking immune system.

Dream

I've recently been trying to write down some of my dreams. This involves scrawling random words on the back of hands, envelopes, desks,etc. in the early morning, while you are still in the half-asleep-half-awake stage. Last night I had a crazy dream. So, before I forget about it, here it is.

I was taking the first class of a photography module. Although I think it was actually a sixth-form class, because there were thirty-odd people in the class. For some reason, the teacher (female) left, and we started fucking around with the equipment, taking pictures, photoshopping, printing, and so on. I don't know who did it or how, but someone broke one of the expensive SLRs. We decided to write a letter to say that it was malfunctioning to get a replacement. We wrote the letter, but for it to work we needed a stamped sealed envelope. We didn't have the stamp, but we found another envelope that had been opened with the seal on it. One of my friends in the class started copying the seal onto our envelope with ink. I suggested we should use our new photography skills to photoshop a new stamp. We did. The teacher came back and everything was fine.

This must have been a boarding school, because after class we were sent to bed in a dormitory in a wing of the school. The dormitory was huge. There were thousands of multidecked bunk beds. I found my bed in the middle somewhere, and as I lay down I saw goblins on rollerskates handing out pieces of root bark. I took one and ate it. After this point, I don't know if I was having a seperate dream, or perhaps the root bark induced a dream-within-a-dream.

I woke up on a beach. My friend who I had helped with the sealed envelope was there, telling me to follow him up the cliffside. He said we were going to Sainsbury's. When we got to the top, I realised that Sainsbury's was the codename for the compound on top of the cliff on the Island we were on. In the middle of the compound, thousands of people in scuba diving gear were gathered, listening to the leader give a speech. Apparently, we were a few miles from the coast of Chile. Noel Edmonds was the tyrant king of Chile now, having taken over from Pinochet. Apparently we were attacking his compound later today today.

It must have been in the evening or the early morning because the sky was bright pink. Thousands of special forces scuba divers were lined up on the cliff. We jumped into the sea and started swimming the mile or so it was to the coast.

Only a few hundred meters away from Edmonds' compound, there was a commotion. The word came that our covert mission had been compromised. From all sides, Noel Edmonds' squadron of Orcas attacked us. Some of us tried to fight back with harpoon guns, but it was useless. We swam as fast as we could towards the compound while all around us scubamen were being picked off by giant killer whales. We made it, but with heavy casualties. With what was left of the scubamen, we battled our way across the compound to Noel Edmonds' command centre.

We kicked open the door to Edmonds' room, to find... a real estate agent, showing us around a house. I say house, it was more of a mansion. It had eight floors, underfloor heating, a giant living room with a beer fridge (where the remaining scubamen made themselves at home), a swimming pool, bridges, staircases. It was very Escher-esque. We walked out of the house (leaving our scuba-friends behind) and discussed what we thought of it. My housemates said they liked it, but that £77 per person per month was too much for them. We visited a few more houses and settled for normal student accomodation. I remember I was quite annoyed about that. Then I woke up.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Blade Runner is probably my favourite film ever. It's pretty much perfect. I love that it blends film noir with sci fi. I love the atmosphere, the themes, the visuals. I love the acting and obviously that music. I love that everything about it is understated and subdued, that there are no "answers". And who could forget that ending monologue. OK I think I've bummed it enough. Seriously, though, its an astonishing artistic achievement. But for some reason (probably because I hate reading) I never felt compelled to read the book it is based on.

Well I finally finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the third Dick book in my collection, and I gotta say, it was fucking sick. I won't bother comparing it to the film. There are a lot of similarities, and a lot of differences. The biggest one is the inclusion of a religion called Mercerism in the book, and the whole post-apocalyptic lifestyle is described in more detail than it is in the film, such as Animal-ownership, 'Kipple' (junk) and Empathy-boxes. There are a few other minor ones, like Roy having a wife, JF Sebastian becoms JR Isidore, and a few more.

But what really matters is the emotional impact both film and book have on me. They both perfectly convey that sense of... I can't even describe it. It's like despair, decay, confusion, emptiness, pointlessness, absurdity, inhumanity, all rolled up into one.


This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of the music will be destroyed in one way or another; finally the name Mozart will vanish and the dust will have won. If not on this planet then another. We can evade it awhile. As the andys can evade me and exist a finite stretch longer. But I get them or some other bounty hunter gets them. In a way, he realized, I’m part of the form destroying process of entropy. The Rosen Association makes and I unmake. Or anyhow so it must seem to them.

Vibes