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Write The Future

Wanna know what’s better than the superbowl?

Watch it, then watch it again and get all the bits you missed. I’m all cool with selling my soul to Nike now, really.

Even the Australian brands are getting into it;

Edit: And while I’m at it, Dan alerted me to this advert, which accurately explains the coming weeks.

New Gospel, Homey (Inspiration for Your Essay, Dan)

So what if it happened two years ago, I’ve just discovered the video of Kanye and Daft Punk getting together to do Stronger, and I’ve been watching it a few times every day for the last week. I’ve also been writing essays. I also got a little bit sick and had weird dreams that seemed half real and half imagined, where essays seemed to invade everything I was doing, which was mainly blowing my nose.

Νυνὶ δὲ χωρὶς νόμου δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ πεφανέρωται, μαρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν, δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας: οὐ γάρ ἐστιν διαστολή: πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ, δικαιούμενοι δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ: ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ.

– Παυλος, προς Ρωμαιους

In a couple of thousand years, when we all speak Spanglishdarin, and no one writes anymore (“We do not know exactly what the ‘email’ and the ‘iPhone’ are, but we are led to believe that the death of writing occurred around the same they came to prominence”) they will ‘dig up’ this video of a diatribe from Mr. K. West and debate it’s meaning. Did Mr. K. West in fact say “I’d do anything for a blonde” or was the word dyke included on the end of the sentence? There is much attestation to the former, but the video shows it coming from the man’s own mouth. The addition of the word dyke does not make much sense at all–history tells us that ‘dyke’ comes from a Dutch word, and was used to refer to an artificial bank of earth used to regulate water levels. How can such a construction be blonde? But the harder reading of course should be preferred. We have omitted the word, but give it only a C rating, due to the copious amount of attestation (notably including the important SongMeanings.net and LyricWiki.com MSS), and the harder reading of the word dyke. And what did Mr. K. West mean by this statement? Was he saying that he would have done anything for a specific blonde (out of goodness or love or treaty?) which he has in mind? Or would he do anything to obtain a blonde? It is known that in a similar stage of history a number of race issues rose to prominence–was Mr. K. West making a statement about racial inequality, because he himself was black? And so it will go on.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is a great movie. It’s so gritty and real… Ahaha, just kidding, it sucks.

Imagine a world where George Bush’s stuttering and Obama’s cool sunglasses mean that the war film genre is given a whole new spin… oh right, you’ve imagined it, okay. The Hurt Locker tries so hard to be ‘real’ I kept expecting the characters to suddenly burst out with, “Oh my gosh, how gritty and forlorn is this non-CGI situation I’m in right now!”

I can’t give any spoilers, as nothing actually happens in the movie. It’s like it tried to be a documentary. But it wasn’t, it was fiction. It was a film, but not entertaining either. All it did was implore you to feel the awesome weight and burden and terror and futility of war–whatever that is when it comes to you from the silver screen.

Intensely boring.

Take This, Haters

Let’s get lost tonight
You can be my black Kate Moss tonight
Play secretary, I’m the boss tonight
And you don’t give a– what they all say, right?
Awesome, the Christian and the Christian Dior
Damn, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore
I ask, ’cause I’m not sure
Do anybody make real– anymore?
Bow in the presence of greatness
‘Cause right now thou hast forsaken us.

I don’t know if you got a man or not
If you made plans or not
But if God put me in your plans or not
I’m trippin’ this drink got me sayin’ a lot
But I know that God put you in front of me.

Let A Little Sunlight In

Last week I went and saw Epicure play their last gig in this town, on their farewell tour. It was way back in 2003 that I first heard Armies Against Me on the radio, and in 2004 I bought their second album, The Goodbye Girl. It was one of those albums that I would listen to consistently for over a year, despite the fact I was buying well over an album every week in that period of my life. It remains one of the best albums I have ever heard, and despite never quite reaching those dizzying heights again, Epicure are still one of my very favourite bands.

The aren’t the most amazing live band, but they were solid. And their music just blew me away. Sometimes, like what’s been happening recently, I go through phases where I do things like listening to Lady GaGa (a lot), but when Mr. Alban sung Goodbye Girl a capella during the encore I was again reminded of just where it’s at. After the gig I shook Mr. Alban’s hand and said thank you.

Listen to Epicure, they have an anthology out, but I’d recommend The Goodbye Girl.

Like a Kabuki Mask

I make a shortcut on my way to university. After exiting the train station, I go up a laneway, across a carpark, and up two more laneways, which halves the time it takes to get to the diagonally opposite end of the block. The shortcut provides a unique view of the businesses on the block, from behind, the side of each building that isn’t facing the street. The following buildings and businesses make up the block;

1. A police station. The officers stationed here only venture out to check that the cars in the carpark, of which there are about five, not including police vehicles, are displaying parking meter tickets on their dashboards
2. A courthouse
3. A coffee shop, where highly strung lawyer-types go to score weed under the counter to calm themselves down, which they smoke on the carpark-facing balconies of the courthouse, their skin stretched tight in the mornings and leathery under their makeup by the afternoons
4. A brothel. The brothel is an entirely pink two-storey house, with the front door boarded over, and no signage aside from an arrow pointing down the side of the building. The windows are always covered. the brothel sits in the middle of the block, not facing the main roads on any side
5. Some run-down apartment buildings
6. A gift shop. The gift shop has high priced giftware, sold by young Asian women. Their shop is small, and only faces a one-way laneway. There are no signs. The gift shop is clearly a front for some kind of money laundering operation, probably run by the fathers of the young ladies whose carved wooden kitchen trays I buy whenever my friends get maried
7. A Greek Orthodox church. The church is run entirely by two old brothers, one the priest and the other the gardener
8. A function centre. The function centre also opens onto the laneway, and isn’t signed. Although it looks like a function centre on the outside, the sides and higher windows are clearly that of warehouse space. It is in fact, a front (quite literally, as the front of the building only has been styled) for the large-scale distribution of some kind of illicit substance(s)
9. A series of small shops that sell illegally imported, obviously pirated, or foreign language movies.

There is also a small Asian woman in her late twenties, who walks in the opposite direction to me every day. We generally pass at, or within twenty metres of the parking meter. As I have just alighted the train, I am always there at the same time. She, presumably without such a means by which to time herself, has still never been more than forty-five seconds early or late on her daily walk. She always looks scared.

My Doctrine Oft Comes With A Bassline

So it turns out that gloating over the ignorance of liberals has been cool for a long time. The metaphysicals did it, and the dancefloors do still. And Jay-Z stays mum on the New Perspective.

Man, dreame no more of curious mysteries,
As what was here before the world was made,
The first Mans life, the state of Paradise,
Where heaven is, or hells eternal shade,
  For Gods works are like him, all infinite;
  And curious search, but craftie sinnes delight.

The Flood that did, and dreadful Fire that shall,
Drowne, and burne up the malice of the earth,
The divers tongues, and Babylons downe-fall,
Are nothing to the mans renewed birth;
  First, let the Law plough up thy wicked heart,
  That Christ may come, and all these types depart.

When thou hast swept the house that all is cleare,
When thou the dust hast shaken from thy feete,
When Gods All-might doth in thy flesh appeare,
Then Seas with streames above the skye doe meet;
  For Goodnesse onely doth God comprehend,
  Knowes what was first, and what shall be the end.

–Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, Sonnet 88, 1633

At the starting of the week
At summit talks you’ll hear them speak
It’s only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It’s sword and gun day

Tomorrow never comes until it’s too late

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It’s only Tuesday
You never thought we’d go to war
After all the things we saw
It’s April Fools’ day

Make tomorrow come I think it’s too late

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It’s only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?

–DJ Shadow, Six Days

Please don’t bow in my presence, how am I a legend?
I just got 10 number one albums, maybe now eleven
More hits than a Now! 11
That is no reason to treat me like I’m somehow from outta heaven
Heaven knows that I’ve made my mistakes
Thank God, what a guy, as I say my grace

–Jay-Z, Thank You

The Best Ever

I’m going to say this very matter-of-factly. If you ‘get it’, you’ll know how I’m feeling, if you don’t, you don’t.

Last night, I saw The Mountain Goats play.

John Darnielle was completely bug-eyed and insane, and clearly enjoying it a lot. He played a lot of songs from the latest album, a few from the Tallahassee and We Shall All Be Healed era, and a few earlier ones. It was awesome, even though of course not everyone could get the songs they wanted. The band left for a few songs, meaning we got a good variety of songs–some with Darnielle screaming and thrashing his acoustic guitar like the ‘old days’, some with him plonking away by himself on the piano, and some with the whole band making a racket.

I got a prime position, second row, with only two very short people in front of me. I was also right between the keyboard and the standing mic, which meant that no matter whether he was on keys or guitar he was no more than a metre or two away. I may have wet myself with excitement a couple of times. During the first encore they played Houseguest, a cover song that John clearly loves, and he got into it like he was singing along to his favourite song in his bedroom. Except that then he started leaning over into the crowd and sticking his face into other people’s faces, even at one point ‘serenading’ my girlfriend… is it getting warm in here? We had better move on.

Actually, I don’t know where to go from there.

Edit: Check out FasterLouder’s photos of the gig, and see if you can spot the excited kid.