The Lo-Fi

As soon as I get a house next year, I'm going to arrange a non-electricity party. It's basicly a party, but with no electricity, which means no lights, no music, no televison and no videogames. I imagine the reader scoffs at the very idea! However, there is a purity in not having any distractions, just enjoying the company of others into the wee hours, by candlelight.

So, no electricity, so what? It wouldn't be one of those rowdy, intoxicated parties, but instead a more laid-back, easy affair, like a gathering. With no electrics, it takes the body down to a simpler level, with candles for light, and fires to cook with, and simple instruments for entertainment.

It might be good, or it might be a waste of time. But, something new, eh?

You Know Nothing

Alice chases her rabbit down the rabbit hole. I see now that this bewilderment of sense which follows is just the analogy for the chaotic mess of the working, entropic mind. Understanding and knowledge are warrens for the conscious mind to chase concepts through; small portals from the surface which expand and grow in complexity the further down you go. The further you go, the more you realise the infinite nature of Human Comprehension, and therefore the futility of seeking “Complete Knowledge”.

I will be chasing my metaphorical rabbit for as long as I exist, and I will never catch it.

S/Cooke

In Rainbows

I bought the latest Radiohead album the previous week. Oh, the reviews which no doubt you've read by now will all tell you it is good. I'll take that opinion as granted.



In Rainbows is OK Computer, but matured. It is an album that is confident, is comfortable. It sounds like Radiohead, but not any other Radiohead. OK was young, ambitious, and brimming with that genius which make it so memorable, while Rainbows is the product of everything since then: the electric veins of Kid A, the skeleton-melodies and ambience of Amnesiac, and the reluctant return to the mainstream that Hail to the Thief was.

The more I listen to Rainbows, the more I think it is the only proper album since OK Computer. It is complete, and the tracks all share a warmth without sounding like clones of each other. Like OK, there are the instantly appealing tracks (Reckoner, Nude, Jigsaw Falling Into Place), and the ones which grow slowly in your opinion. Kid A never had this completeness, neither did Amnesiac or Hail to the Thief. True to the artwork, there is something in utero about this progression, a kind of reverse-birth.

There are fantastic tracks in themselves, regardless of the context. Reckoner and Nude are beautiful songs, 15 Step is the grandson of Kid A, House of Cards brings some touching emotional articulation to Radiohead, and then it ends with Videotape bringing a slow, modulating, creeping end.

There is no explicit experimentation on In Rainbows, but there doesn't need to be. There are none of the unexpected electronic assaults or the staccato melodies of previous Radiohead efforts, In Rainbows doesn't need these things to be as good as it is.

S/Cooke

Bored?

If you're reading this, I can think of three things more fun to be doing:

Firstly, Sprout. Non-standard gameplay is always fun, and this is a pretty, quaint game with a fairly original concept, and is a well-done "logic" game. As logical as playing a soy bean can be.


Second is "Gravity Pods". Infuriating, but great fun. Plus, you can make pretty patterns with the trails.

Third isn't a game as such. More of a sandbox, heh. It just eats time. Those seconds fall away in wonderfully apt way, don't you think?

S/Cooke

Zeitgiest

For a long time, I've wanted to be part of something new. I've wanted to sit on the edge of originality and stare out at the jagged, toothed sea of criticism without any kind of perversion or contamination from anything which has come before. I realise that by just wanting to be part of this, you're defeating yourself, so I give up this quest and hunt for something personal.

Of course, even if I WAS part of it, I wouldn't know until it was over. So, I wondered where the next big thing was, pre-empt it and hi-jack it for my own ends.

This blog is a pixel in the digital Zeitgiest. There are a thousand blogs like mine, each with some readership, unimportant on their own, but they are the picture of the internet's denizens, and the troughs for their (usually sparse) readership.

This internet should be something to be enjoyed! There is a thousand different websites out there with intelligent, funny, moving things to show you! As a medium, it is new, it is ephemeral, and it is free. There are no censors, and there is no money involved to sully things.

But, can it last? Can Hype Machine still distribute free music, and can the many blogs it searches stay on the edge of this provision for unknown tastes? I'd like to think this is the future of music journalism, or journalism itself: done out of enjoyment, without asking for money in return.

This freedom won't last forever. Those fantastic American record companies (land of freedom, eh?) have attacked the p2p market, and they can't stop there. The internet will not always be like this, it is inclined to change. Personally, I hope it changes for the better, but better judgement tells me it'll change for the worst.

S/Cooke

Why I'm Not Reading English Literature

To study English Literature is to be affront to it. More and more, I despise it, ever since those fateful days I closed that exam booklet having written for three hours.

Such a bold statement, so why do I say it? Well, studying something produced for art docks it of the entertainment, of the pleasure. Study is not the appreciation of something; I can appreciate a mars bar without having to analyse the production methods and ingredients.

Do books get better the second time you read them? You might assume that because of the sheer complexity of Othello, it warrants picking apart the speeches and poetry, but this furthers a myth that the deeper something is, the better.

What about immediate inclination? Read Vonnegut, he is easy. He is not hard to understand, but hard to stomach. He breaks every rule for writing fiction there is, and he tells you he does. There is immediate gratification by reading a book like Slaughterhouse Five. And there is very little hidden within that book, but it's still one of the most enjoyable books you can read, while still dealing with serious and profound concepts.

So, why must it be studied? Surley, by analysing it, you are breaking a sacrement between the author, the book and yourself. Don't turn something enjoyable and personal into something to be contaminated by others.


But if you must study art, so it goes.
S/Cooke