#MASS FUNERAL EVOCATION

[onlyhurtforaminute]

LIK-SERUM 141

[teoriasparaliticas]

TOYA SHIGEO: YEARNINGS OF THE SILVER FOREST

As published in A*Desk

If a whitish light settled on your forest, rivers of a silver milky light would be created in its filtrations, of a singular brightness as if it were on a watercourse. Dreams are made of this particular brilliance.

From his youth in Ogawa the most visible marks have been those that have remained in relation to light and nature. A theater where subtlety, temperance and strategy itself are staged: the ancestry of thought.

Influenced by the work of Medardo Rosso, he saw in his beginnings a field of possibilities, of experimentation in the aura evoked in those works where a funereal ambiguity overlapped with the naturalness of his characters, like an infinite veil of rawness and sincerity. In the Italian artist he found perhaps the tip of the iceberg that would define his most mature style.

Ecce puer (Behold the Child), 1906.  Courtesy of Sculpturemagazine.Art

Parallel to Rosso, this veil which was presented in painting, had no relationship with the wet cloth technique, but rather was a boundary between the raw material and the sculptural fact, where the works mutate between the natural landscape and the portrait.

In this way, his early work will be mainly characterized by a gloomy naturalism that he will use as a field of action, denouncing the Vietnam War. Thus, at the beginning of the 70s, he made a series of portraits, among which Container III (1973) stands out, where the artist represents himself and his impotence in the form of a young man standing on a symbolic representation of the japanese flag, in a pose that evokes the proverb ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’.

Lying Man, 1971

It will be in turn in these years his encounter with the Mono-Ha movement that will frame his style in ways of contemporary art and abstraction mainly, with works such as Hypothetical Sculpture II, where he will pose manufactured wooden structures on trees, paradoxically confronting the symbolic dimensions of the same material in the encounter between nature and culture.

Even though his main medium is sculpture, the planning of the sketch is very important to Shigeo, the work of the line and the form in these, give account of two essential elements from this moment on: in the first instance it is the influence that Western art has had, mainly the school inaugurated by Rodin in his work and training: a centripetal figuration; eccentric; free; even a little baroque.

Works like Trunk III (1982) as well as Lying Man (1971) carry a structuring of the body that responds to the classical western canons (mainly Renaissance). Figuration from which he will move further and further from that moment on.

In the sketches of more current works, on the contrary, a very marked journey throughout his career in the definition of his style will be clearly seen, as well as the mass of lines with which he devised the reverse sides of Cave III (2010): the guidelines of the bodies; the hint of pose and form; the emotional evocation, will remind a treatment of the shapes and contours that we can find in sketches both in Rodin and in Da Vinci.

Trunk III, 1982

In this way, works such as Pompei II (1974) will inaugurate a new stage of total non-figurative where the forms will oscillate between the denial of figure and bio-cosmology, unified in the history of art. With a compelling and attractive abstraction, his sculptures refer us to the grammars of dreams, mainly to the reconstruction of oneiric, measured and regular forests: neo-romantic and fictional.

Having chosen wood as the primary material – together with plaster and iron – his work will be characterized by tearing, marking and carving on its surface with an electric saw, where the final sculpture will then be rubbed with the ashes of the remains of wood. of said carvings, covering these organic bodies and giving them a characteristic silvery hue.

Body Of The Gaze -Scatter, 1991. Photo: Tadasu Yamamoto. Courtesy of Ichihara Lakeside Museum

His sculptures will return repeatedly to the ideal of the cluster, a concept that he will relate to the social structure and will have a profound relationship with his interest in the anthropological field. Putting it in relation to nature, it will be reflected in the construction of sculptures as an amalgamation of minimal units where the subject becomes a pole, a tree, a rope, a milestone, a tomb.

His pieces will work from atomization to amalgamation, his sculptural universes metastasize in this very thing: the organic and inorganic particle simultaneously joins and separates, reforms, reorganizes, creates new forms and replicates them. Their bodies will form uniform as well as distinguishable masses, the lines will dissolve in the shadows and exalt in the light. Thus the dream will be once more ambiguous and nature will mutate into tekne.

Deus ex machina these measures, and regularity transform the forest into a cemetery: silver monoliths, carved, and arranged as schematically as possible will perhaps evoke new spirits.

Woods IV, 1991

It introduces us to a dream forest where space is multiple. If we allow ourselves to enter his universe, we will discover that it works like a tesseract, where the top is the bottom, the left the right, the front can be the back and the kata the ana.[1]

Its underwater roots take us to the landscape of the bottom of a river that turns towards the surface, where we wander without horizons or directions, and where geography makes us dreamy but confusing and we enter the thicket.

Thus, the gloom settles on the forest, as Toya Shigeo used to observe in his youth it did on the mountains of Ogawa. And perhaps in this forest his words will resonate in our ears

“I learned a lot by thinking about sculpture from the perspective of how strange it is that sculpture, which has no practical value whatsoever, did not exist at the outset but emerged along with human emotions.”[2]

But this forest and necropolis is autonomous and the thicket whispers over its mouth, within us, in the heart of what slips between our ears, and in said gloom the forest desires us.

_____________________________________________________________

[1] kata” (Greek for “down”) and “ana” (Greek for “up”) to describe the two opposite directions in the fourth dimension, equivalent to right-left, up-down, and front-back.

[2] Toya Shigeo on Yoshimoto Takaaki in “The Incomprehensibility of Sculpture” – original title: Chōkoku no wakaranasa – from the exhibition catalogue, interview with Sahara Shiori, Suzuki Yohino and Hirano Itaru.

[queenlucythevaliant]

russian opera recs???? please??????? I want to broaden my horizons

I am so excited that you're interested!!! You are in for such a treat. 

I did a write-up of my favorite Russian operas yesterday evening, which is here. I gushed a whole bunch about my faves and recommended a handful of specific tracks on Spotify to get a feel for things. So definitely check that out.

Buuuuut since you've given me another opportunity here-- let's talk about the New Russian School. This is the music of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky-- what they and their characters listened to. 

The New Russian School was a 19th century movement among composers to create a distinctly Russian style of music. It was spearheaded by the Mighty Five, a group of five composers including my beloved Modest Mussorgsky (my top two on the opera post are his work). But they didn't just write operas! They also wrote parlor songs, symphonies, ballets, marches-- you name it. If you want to get a real feel for Russian music, this is where you start. Some highlights:

- All of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is wonderful, but “The Great Gate of Kiev” is just grand and magnificent and magical in all the best ways. I swear, it makes me want to weep for joy.

- "The Field Marshall," part of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, is sung from the perspective of Death riding through a battlefield after a battle. It's everything you want from that evocative premise.

- "Russia," Mily Balakirev is a symphonic piece that's meant to try and encapsulate the Russian identity. It's beautiful: moody in places, sprightly in others, dramatic, languid, mercurial. Surprisingly good study music, somehow? 

- “Islamey” from Balakirev’s Oriental Fantasy is reasonably well known in the West, but it’s so much fun. That’s all I’ve got to say about it. It totally slaps. 

- “The Lark” from A Farewell to Petersburg (also Balakirev) is just so sweet and sad and delicate. It settles my heart so wonderfully.

- Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Overture is just glorious. It's the sort of music that grows in beauty and hope from its first strains. It's sunrise on Easter and everyone waking up and getting dressed and going to church. It's mounting excitement of Easter morning and the joy of celebrating the Resurrection.

- Parlor music! You know how in Tolstoy novels a character (or several) will sing something at a private party or gathering? That’s this stuff. Alexander Dargomyzhsky’s is some of the best. I quite like “Enchant Me, Enchant” because I can so easily imagine Natasha singing it. “The Old Corporal” is quite good too. Full disclosure, I mostly listen to Dargomyzhsky while thinking about Tolstoy novels ;)

- A wonderful cello nocturn by Alexander Borodin. Mournful, but with moments of joy and lightness. Perfectly balanced. My mom really likes this one.

Oh goodness, Cesar Cui is the last member of the Mighty Five and I can’t think of anything of his that I really love off the top of my head. So sorry Cesar! I should listen to more of your stuff.

-Tchaikovsky came after the Mighty Five, but was definitely a product of the New Russian School and I need to talk about his Sixth Symphony. His Sixth Symphony (called Pathetique) is popular in the West, but not many know the story and significance behind it. Tchaikovsky was coming to the end of his life and old St. Petersburg was coming to the end of its. Pathetique quotes from the Russian Orthodox funeral service. Its last movement incorporates De Profundis, a prayer for the dead. The Symphony is beautiful and mournful and, when it premiered, the curtain fell not to applause but to weeping. The Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich ran up to Tchaikovsky crying "What have you done? It's a requiem, a requiem!" Ya know that scene in the movie Amadeus where Mozart writes his own death mass in bed and then dies? Yeah. Except in a way, this was a requiem for the Russia that died with the revolution as well. Tchaikovsky was a lot like Akhmatova in that he looked at Old Russia with nostalgia before it was even gone.

Bonus: I like bombast. Here's Glinka's Patriotic Song. Glinka predates all these other guys, but he's wonderful and really deserves to be better known in the West. In Russia, he's like their Mozart.

Between this and the opera post, I hope I haven’t overwhelmed anyone. During quarantine, I used to go for drives with my mom and sister basically every day. Occasionally, I played my Russians and my mom’s response was “this makes the pandemic feel a lot more epic, doesn’t it?” 

[sputnikaguya]

Into the psyche of Toshio Matsumoto

One of the most seminal Japanese visual artists of the 20th century, Toshio Matsumoto(1932-2017), pioneered the 60s avant-garde experimental filmmaking and multimedia. Matsumoto’s wild and visionary work went on to heavily influence Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”. Subversive and radical in his approach- he presented a body of work that, infused with surrealist strategies, made a discordance not only artistically groundbreaking but politically charged. 

Shortly after graduating, Matsumoto worked on his first short called Ginrin (1955), an experimental PR film. Ginrin was made at Shin-Riken Film Company, in collaboration with the members of Jikken Kōbō, an artist group of the post-war collective, consisting of composers and artists like Shozo Kitadai and Katsushiru Yamaguchi, who would later work on the Godzilla series. 

A contemporary to the post-war creative elements of Japan like Shuji Terayama and Yukio Mishima, Matsumoto's work remains strikingly relevant to this day. Ahead of his time, Matsumoto’s avant-garde collides tradition with pop culture. In an interview with Tate, he alludes to pop culture’s stimulatory effect on him, “At the time, we understood pop art as a new movement which was represented by artists such as Warhol, Lichtenstein, or Wesselmann. There were discussions about the boundaries between pop art and concept art or kitsch; however, I have never heard of any other term being used.” 

His 1973 short film, Mona Lisa, fuses those boundaries by deriving direct references from Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol. Using the mass famous mysterious image of the inner subjective life of Mona Lisa, Matsumoto experiments with a litany of colors, evocative and bright, constantly changing, applied to Mona Lisa- the sole still element of the film. 

Matsumoto developed in the 1960s, what he called ‘neo-documentarism’, a documentary type that was rejecting its traditional objective nature for one and confronting the subjectivities of an echoed, internal life. Made around the same time as Chris Marker’s La Jetee- a monumental feat in changing the course of cinema from being a medium of moving images to stillness- a sci-fi tale in a series of images; Matsumoto’s The Song of Stone (1963) too, weaves an abstract collection of still images into an experimental epiphany. 

The idea of stonecutters carving into stone,  breathing life into the inanimate- juxtaposed against the stillness of the images, almost as still as its stony subject, pushes the boundaries of the film as a medium. Strikingly sublime, The Song of Stone attempts at changing the discourse of how cinema can be perceived. 

This exploration of mediums to convey a euphoric and provocative stream of ideology is important to Matsumoto’s art. Featured on Tate, MoMA, New York, and London, his art paves the way to the frenetic psychedelia that he endorsed, amidst the still objectivity that life offers. Responsive to the unconventional and unspoken, his films always narrate a structurally adventurous tale. In his most famous film Bara no Soretsu (Funeral Parade of Roses), Matsumoto retells the myth of Oedipus featuring a transvestite trying to move up their way through the euphoric nightlife of Tokyo hostess clubs. 

In art exhibitions of Hong Kong's Everything Visible is Empty, and the Japanese Expanded Cinema Revisited at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, he presented a dynamic hyper-sensory stream of projections culminating his electric video synthesizer pieces like Metastasis (1971) and Mona Lisa (1973) with a post-war culture that stands in direct contrast with them. Matsumoto’s key works such as Atman (1975), Engram (1987), Phantom (1975) is an examination of his psyche, that reaches far beyond the realm of normality and offers captivating chaos. 

Toshio Matsumoto experimented in an array of genres ranging from iconography and architecture to political undertones in pop culture. Aiming at creating more than flicker films, his robust immersive work with a distinct sound influenced forever the normal sense of psychosomatic rigidity.

[littleeyesofpallas]

I forgot what I was calling the series on zanpakutou names...

...but this one’s been sitting in drafts for a while.

Yamamoto[山本]: Mountain + Root, meaning the “Foot of [a] mountain”

Genryuusai[元柳斎]: BeginningTime/Original + WillowTree + Holy/Pure

Shigekuni[重國]: Chief/Main/Important + Country/Nation

“Ancient Holy Willow, from the Mountain base, of the Chief Nation”

I did this once before going over character names specifically, but I figured it was worth repeating:  The personal name Genryuusai is a direct play on his character design; the old kungfu master style eyebrows mirroring the hanging leaves of a weeping willow.  The family name is straight forward and locational, but combined with the given name paints a little picture of a tree at the foot of a mountain.

And the 3rd name(?) seems to be like an epithet more than a name; he is Yamamoto Genryuusai “of the Chief Nation,” presumably referring to Soul Society itself as said nation.  This becomes more meaningful once we learn that he is the leader of the original Gotei 13, before they were a military organization, and when they were just a gang of 13 powerful shinigami.  It seems to imply that he’s not just a chief representative of Soul Society, he’s so named because he helped found Soul Society.

Ryuujin[流刃]: School/Style/Way + Sword

Jyakka[若火]: Young/New/Premature + Fire

“Sword Style, Young Fire“

The irony of course being that Yamamoto is old as dirt, but his sword -the reflection of his innermost self- is explicitly youthful.

And then there’s his bankai,

Zanka no Tachi[残火の太刀]: Remain(s) + Fire + Thick + Sword

Zanka[残火]: “Embers”

Tachi[太刀]: a “tachi” is a specific kind of sword, often compared to the western Long Sword

“Tachi of [the] Ember(s)”

Most Bankai don’t really change names, they add extra titles to the shikai name.  But a few have wordplay that break that trend, and this is one of them...

Yamamoto’s here swaps “young fire” for “fire remains,” jumping from the start point of a fire to the end point of one.  The only shared kanji being ka[火] for “fire.”  It also changes out the “sword style” as subject, for a singular sword.  Although, chi[刀] is the same root kanji in [刃] meaning “sword”/”blade” which was an obviously intentional choice to further the parallel between names.  But because they’re pronounced totally differently, without the kanji present, it doesn’t come across in an English translation at all.

Higashi, Kyokujitsujin["東": 旭日刃]: “East,” RisingSun + Blade

[旭日]: Rising + Sun, not that this translates any differently, but it is the term for THE Japanese Rising Sun symbol, and not just the literal two words in proximity.  So while there's the obvious "sun rise" and "East" tied together, it's also got a distinct nationalist flare to it.

“Rising Sun Blade”

This one’s really pretty straight forward, but it plays into the overarching theme...

Nishi, Zanjitsu Gokui["西": 残日獄衣]: “West,” Remainder + Day + PrisonUniform

Gokui[獄衣]: Prison/Jail + Clothes, the term for a “Prison Uniform”

“[The] Day(s) that are Left Prison Uniform”

For some baffling reason the Viz translation for this was “Sunset Hell Robe” which is just wildly off base.  This seems evocative of prisoner watching the sun fall on the last day of a sentence; but whether that’s the last day before release or the last day before execution, isn't by itself clear.  Given the rest of the names here, though, I assume execution.

I actually feel like this is a scene from an old jidaigeki film but I can’t remember which... (it was the plot of an episode of Samurai Champloo, and a random plot for a dungeon in Wild Arms 5, so it might just be a general trope, but I’m positive there’s a singular core film it references.  Is it Hashire! Melos I’m thinking of? I thought I remembered it being a Japanese period piece though...)

Minami, Kaka Juumanokushi Daisoujin["南": 火火十万億死大葬陣]: “South,” FireSquad + TenTrillion + Death(s) + Big + Funeral + Formation/(military)Camp

English translation Viz went with was “Trillion Flame Great Corpse Formation” which, I can sort of see the logic in trying to make sense of an otherwise really tricky collection of kanji, but is once again pretty far off base...

So, I was super confused by why he’d used the construction kaka[火火] which is just “fire” twice, when A) that’s not any kind of a special compound word, and B) [炎] is the kanji for “blaze”/”flame” and the attack name was written vertically, which seems to clearly be a kind of word play here, but I couldn’t figure out what the other side of it was.  But I think I figured it out...

The Ritsuryou was the Chinese influenced law system in Japan during the 700s, and it borrowed a lot of Confucian bureaucratic systems, which included elaborate systems of measurement for uniform inventory of people and assets, many of which are no longer in use.  One such unit of measurement is a ka[火] which is a military squad consisting of 10 soldiers, and is in fact a homonym with ka[火] which just means “fire.”

kaka[火火]: Fire + (military)Squad

Juu-mon-oku-shi[十万億]: 10 + 10thousand + 100million, which is 10,000,000,000,000(ten trillion)

Another little aside, but Japanese has different major units than English does.  juu[十]:10, hyaku[百]:100, chi[千]: 1,000 all line up with English pretty simply in multiples of 10, but then mon[万]: 10,000 has its own designation rather than the compound of "ten + thousand;"

What we call "hundred thousand(s) are written juu-mon[十万]: "10 × 10,000"; and "million" is actually a compound, written as hyaku-mon[百万]: "100 × 10,000" instead of getting its own unit;

oku[億]: is the unit for "100,000,000"/"hundred million(s)" like it's being used here; and then there is also chou[兆]: "10,000,000,000,000"/"ten trillion" which Kubo seems to have avoided using (probably just for the sake of sounding more dramatic) and kyou[京]: "10,000,000,000,000,000"/"ten quadrillion."

“Fire Squad, TenTrillion Deaths, Big Funeral Formation”

So, to be clear...  (military)Formation is the core subject here.

Who’s in formation?  The Fire Squad

What kind of formation? Funeral formation

What kind of Funeral? Big

How Big?  10 trillion

A military squad equipped with fire starting weapons, carrying out a mass military burial, of ten trillion corpses; all of which is pretty literally reflected in how it raises a bunch of skeletons of dead warriors.  That is just a preposterously high death toll though, and it honestly reminds me of the stupid meme shirt, "BORN TO DIE, WORLD IS A FUCK... 410,757,864,530 DEAD COPS."

I do want to clarify that [葬] means "funeral"/"entombment"/"burial"/”interment” etc... and is explicitly about the dead and frequently (although not exclusively) about whole body burial...  I am super confused why the biggest bestest most powerful fire sword doesn't seem to CREMATE people...

but I also want to clarify that together [葬陣] does NOT refer to something like a "concentration camp."  Also "interment" as in to put a body in the ground, is not the same word as "internment..."  The Japanese words for something like an internment camp, or specifically the Nazi concentration camps are [捕虜収容所]: "Prisoner of war housing site" and [強制収容所]: "Forced housing site" respectively.

Kita, Tenchi Kaijin["北": 天地灰尽]: "North,” The World/Universe + Ash + Last day of the month/End

Tenchi[天地]: Heaven + Earth, very literally “Heaven & Earth” but in that it refers to “all creation” or “the whole world” or “the universe.“ 

I'm assuming this uses [尽] to mean "Last Day..." because of the rest of the names' theme of the passing of time.

“The Last Day... The World is Ash“

“The World Reduced to Ashes” was the Viz translation, which at least has the same general imagery as the intended meaning, but it misses the specificity of “The Last Day” and how that plays into the cycle from East to West, South to North in the different forms.  Also, in English it’s a little clunky, but I feel like it evokes two phrases, “The (Whole) World [is] Ash” and “[Your] Last Day [on] Earth” simultaneously.  The whole thing has a distinctly apocalyptic tone to it.

So, his bankai starts at dawn, gets to sundown of the final day, he's brought out to the execution/burial grounds, and then all that's left in the end is ash.  It tells a neat little story, and Kubo clearly had to fiddle with this for a while to get some of these names to come out right, so that's neat to see at work.  It's a shame this fight was so anti-climactic.

[naturecpw]

Every good dog deserves a musical tribute

Hector, dog of dogs, is the most glorious companion. Simon Tiffin reveals how he came to commission a piece of music that would evoke his spirit when he finally departs this world

Simon Tiffin Sun 28 Nov 2021

One of the earliest signs of spring in my garden is a ring of snowdrops and winter acconites that encircles the trunk of a medlar tree outside the greenhouse. This yellow-and-white display was planted to complement a collection of elegantly engraved, moss-covered mini-headstones that mark the resting places of the previous owner’s dogs. Each of these markers has a simple but evocative dedication: “Medlar, beloved Border Terrier”; “Otter, a little treasure. Sister of Medlar”; “Skip, grandson of Genghis. Sweet eccentric.” Every time I see this pet cemetery I am reminded that, despite a complex denial structure that involves a sneaking suspicion that he is immortal, there will come a time when I have to face the death of Hector, dog of dogs.

Hector is a cockapoo and not ashamed to admit it. He sneers at terms such as “designer dog” and “hybrid” and is rightly proud of his spaniel/poodle heritage. Although many people have an origin myth of how their pet chose them, in Hector’s case it is true. When I went with my wife Alexa to see a friend whose working cocker had recently given birth, a blind, chocolate-brown caterpillar of a pup freed himself from the wriggling furry mass of his siblings and crawled his way towards us. Bonding was instant and, on our side, unconditional.

Eight years later, Hector is my companion, confidant and friend. Our relationship is uncomplicated; we don’t argue, we are always pleased to see each other and I never go to bed angry with him (even if he is taking up half of the duvet). Hector’s antics have, at times, astonished me: at the funeral of Marion, an aunt whose life had been dedicated to loving, breeding and showing poodles, Hector, like the dogs of Antioch at the fall of the Roman Empire, threw his head back and released a lupine call at the exact moment the celebrant released Marion’s ashes to the wind; an action he has never repeated. (A friend recently recommended reading Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, by the renowned biochemist Rupert Sheldrake, who studies phenomena that conventional science cannot explain, to shed light on Hector’s more baffling behaviour.)

While many of my friends understand and even identify with the depth of feeling I have for Hector, others see it as mawkish. How can a relatively sane and intelligent person invest such emotion in an animal? I have seen this attitude expressed when others who have lost a much-loved dog have been grief stricken. “We dismiss and don’t legitimise people’s grief for a dog,” says Julia Samuel, psychotherapist and author of Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving. “It is as if people have more value and those that make a fuss about a pet are somehow trivial. As our relationships, however, can be more straightforward with our dogs than with family members or friends, we can invest huge amounts of love and time in our pets. We have no right to begrudge or dismiss people’s grief at the loss of a dog. Indeed, it can be very important to have a ritual or a physical reminder to mark the death of a pet.”

Short of enacting a reverse Greyfriars Bobby, I am pushed to come up with a suitable memento for such a special beast as Hector. Cloning? Too Silicon Valley nutter. Taxidermy? Too mad cat lady. Brian Sewell, in his wonderful autobiography Sleeping With Dogs, suggests planting a tree, but bemoans that he won’t be around to see the Sequoia sempervirens reach its full potential in 200 years’ time, a sentiment I cannot help sharing.

As a more immediate memorial, I consider having Hector sit for a portrait and contact the artist Sally Muir, whose work always manages to capture the innate doggishness of her sitters. “I have been obsessed with dogs all my life,” she says, “and I also love how so many artists have portrayed them. I am particularly fond of Hogarth’s pug paintings and Freud’s whippets. He was much more sympathetic to his canine sitters than his human ones.”

“I do work from photographs,” Muir says, “but ideally I like to meet my subjects and look them in the eye. If you are going to have your dog painted as a memorial, wait until he is quite old. Like people, as dogs age they become an extreme version of themselves; there is a dignity to old dogs.” A portrait would be a fine way to remember Hector and, looking at Sally’s work, I know she would be able to produce a painting that would capture everything but his bark. There is, however, something a little too static, too frozen in time about an image that does not quite get Hector’s delight in being Hector. He is a true energy and like all his kind, simply can’t help living in the moment.

Several years ago, Laurie Anderson composed and performed music intended only for dogs. Performed in a low frequency perfectly adapted to its canine audience’s sense of hearing, this piece complemented her film Heart of a Dog, a work inspired by the bardo – the Tibetan concept of transitioning into the afterlife. It was Anderson’s idea of combining Tibetan mysticism, dogs and music that inspired my final choice of a suitable memorial for Hector: a piece of music composed to celebrate his life and death.

I did not, however, want this to be any mass of the dead in the tradition of Brahms, Fauré or Mozart, but more an uplifting anthem evoking the exuberance, joy and chaos Hector brings to life. Not a Requiem but a Hequiem. Although I have always suspected Hector of being a rock fan due to his resemblance to Robert Plant when he is overdue a groom, for the Hequiem I took my starting point to be works that brought to life big landscapes, freedom and hope, such as Vaughan Williams’s Lark, the Scherzo: Molto Vivace from Dvořák’s 9th and the “Open Prairie” from Aaron Copeland’s Billy the Kid Suite.

My search for the right composer began with a conversation with William Mival, head of composition at the Royal College of Music. “A good composer will write to order and provide what a client wants,” says Mival. “Mozart did exactly the same. Indeed, his commission for the Requiem was from a client who wanted to pass the music off as his own. As I was attacked by a dog as a child, however, I am not your man, but I can think of a number of Royal College students who would be thrilled with this idea.”

After discussing Hector’s personality and my ideas for the piece I was put in touch with dog lover, composer and recent graduate from the Royal College, Nahum Strickland. Making his own music since the age of three, Nahum is something of a prodigy and was featured in a Guardian piece on child composers in 2004. His approach to composition is also remarkable. “When I watch a video or look at scenery or an image, the music appears to me fully orchestrated, already complete,” he says. “It is just there and if I don’t write it down it disappears – I’ll never get it back again.”

So Nahum can get as good an idea as possible of Hector’s nature, I send numerous videos of him charging through the countryside, playing with his dog walking pack and sleeping in his bed. We talk of his loves: playing ball (endlessly), guarding; and his hates: his nemesis the cocker spaniel who taunts him from the back of a quad bike – and being ignored, cyclists.

For Nahum, the Hequiem presented a welcome challenge. “In composition you usually start with an arc – a beginning, middle and end – but Hector is always charging around. He seems to find it hard to concentrate on one thing and I get the idea he will always do what he feels like; he is a very immediate dog. So I got this very fast-moving time and this piece became more of a progression and odyssey. The piece builds to something a little bit bombastic – like Hector.”

Not only is Nahum’s assessment of Hector’s character spot on but also the piece he produces – from the acerbic timbre of the opening oboe solo that captures Hector’s playful nature to the climax that immediately brings to my mind the sight of Hector charging after a ball or a rabbit – is sublime. I can imagine myself weeping uncontrollably at his grave side.

Hector, however, remaining blissfully unaware of his mortality, appears unmoved and gives me a look that reminds that it is time for supper.

🐶 🐶🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩 🐶 🐶🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/nov/28/every-dog-deserves-a-musical-tribute-simon-tiffin-pet-hector-gets-a-hequiem

🐶 🐶🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩 🐶 🐶🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩

Every contribution, however big or small, powers our journalism and sustains our future. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. https://support.theguardian.com/us/contribute 🐶 🐶🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩 🐶 🐶🐕🦮🐕‍🦺🐩

[darkelfshadow]

Session Summary - 110

AKA “Escape From Phlan”

Adventures in Taggriell

Session 110  (Date: 28th May 2021)

Players Present:

- Bob (Known as “Sir Krondor) Dwarf Male.

- Paul (Known as “Labarett”) Elf Male.

- Travis (Known as “Trenchant”) Human Male.

- Arthur (Known as “Gim”) Dwarf Male.

Absent Players

- John (Known as “Ragnar”) Dwarf Male.  <Played by Bob>

- Rob (Known as “Varis”) Elf Male. <Played by Paul>

NPC

- (Known as “Naillae”) Elf Female. <Controlled by Travis>

Summary

- Moonday, 8th Sarenith in the year 815 (Second Era). Late Summer.

- The party begin this session, still underground the captured city of Phlan.

- Captain Greycastle shows the party the secret exit to the Valhingen Graveyards and then goes back to retrieve the refugees to get ready for their evacuation, hoping the party can make a clear way ahead before Vorgansharax destroys the city. 

- The party enter one of the secret doors and follow a long passageway that goes under the river to eventually exit out via a set of stone steps into the Valhingen Graveyard; the muddy footsteps of the Black Knight visible the whole way. Exiting to the outside and sneaking through the Graveyard, the party ignore the set of muddy footprints left by the Black Knight and instead proceed towards a pair of metal gates in the tall metal fence that the party will need to breach for the refugees to escape.

- As they are sneaking through the silent graveyard, a creature appears from an open mausoleum. Its grey skin barely conceals bones as an ancient faded robe drapes over it. The red intelligent eyes lock onto the party with malice, “More intruders I shall have to deal with.”

- Before the Crypt Thing can do more, Ragnar raises his holy symbol of Truesilver and commands the undead creature back. Rays of light shine forth from the symbol and the Crypt Thing is forced back.

- The party push their advantage against the now cowering Crypt Thing but their situation becomes dire when hordes of undead Cursed Skeletons start running towards them from two entrances on a nearby Funeral Building.

- The party are forcing their way their through to one of the closed fence gates but the appearance of a group of Mummies from a cluster of small mausoleums throw the party’s plans into chaos. The gaze of Mummies is strong and eventually Varis is paralysed by Mummy Fear.

- The Crypt Thing, unable to overcome the power of Ragnar’s Turning is brought down and dispatched by the party.

- The Skeleton horde does not relent and the party are becoming desperate for what to do. Sir Krondor yells at Sir Zern to follow him and protect his back, whilst the Dwarf Knight runs towards a pair of Crypt Buildings that the muddy footprints of the Black Knight lead to.

- Trenchant yells at the Knight to come back and hold the line, but Sir Krondor is intent on getting to those buildings and finding out why the Black Knight went there. He knocks aside a pair of Skeletons in his way, as Sir Zern batters away a Skeleton coming from the side.

- The party are in peril. Varis is unable to move, paralysed with fear. Gim is wounded badly and fighting single handedly against a group of Skeletons and Mummies intent on bringing him down. Trenchant is firing arrows into the Horde from afar, perched a top one of the mausoleums. Ragnar is firing spells and cleaving with his Sun Blade whilst he calls down upon his God for assistance, turning some of the Mummies away. Naillae is sneaking into the battle, ducking in and out of buildings, trying to pick off foes one by one. Labarett is slowly striking down enemies but his longsword “Anarchic” is unable to deliver its full potential, the undead foes resisting the necrotic damage.

- Sir Krondor and Sir Zern leave the sounds of the frantic battle behind them as they enter into one Crypt Buildings trying to figure out how to block off the entrances the Skeletons are using. Sir Zern looks inside an open coffin, where the muddy footprints lead up to, and sees a glowing Pendant of Sarenrae, Goddess of The Eternal Light and the Healing Flame. The Half-Orc Knight picks up the pendant and a voice like clear crystal fills his head, “Strike forth my champion, bring forth the light!”

- This must have been what the Black Knight used to get through the Graveyard.

- Sir Zern places the pendant around his neck and then moves over to an adjacent room with a similar but closed coffin and begins to open it. After Sir Krondor fails to close a metal portcullis with a rusty and broken lever, the Dwarf Knight runs and leaps up to the portcullis and forces it downward with a slam as a group of Skeletons runs towards the now closed gate, bony fingers clawing at the metal bars. One of the ways for the Skeletal Horde is now closed. 

- Sir Zern shouts to Sir Krondor, “My Banner Lord, catch, I found another pendant!”

- Sir Krondor grabs hold of the pendant of Sarenrae in the air and also hears the same voice, “Strike forth my champion, bring forth the light!”

- The two Knights start running back towards the party, now each glowing with a radiant light. The undead all shy away from the pair, unable to stand the light. The Knights begin carving down foes with ease. Sir Krondor yells out, “Someone needs to close the other door or else all is lost!”

- As Gim begins to falter, surrounded by a mass of Undead, he yells out to Naillae, “Get to the other door now!”

- Naillae bolts out from her hiding spot, tumbles past a pair of Skeletons and dives into the entrance of the front of the other Crypt Building. She looks at an inner open archway and can hear Skeletons running her way. She pulls the lever next to the archway but it breaks off. She can see the Skeletons now, running towards her. She pulls out her Thieves tools with deft and skilled hands, and begins to pry and cut behind the lever, manipulating the mechanism. Just before the Skeletons reach her, with a click, she activates the portcullis on this archway and it falls down hard with a loud bang. 

- Both entries are now closed and no further Skeletons can arrive. With no further undead reinforcements coming, and the two Knights now wielding glowing weapons blessed by Sarenrae, the battle is finally won.

- The party see the city behind them begin to collapse as the magic thicket around it starts to crush it. Vorgansharax is flying above the city in circles howling in anger. The Black Knight must have succeeded in killing her two foes. Captain Greycastle runs out from the stone stairs, a mass of scared people behind her, shouting “We need to get these people out now!”

- Naillae runs up to one of the external fence gates and prepares to pick a rusty lock, when Sir Krondor walks past her and strikes the padlock with his climbing hook, smashing it apart. The gate swings open as the refugees of Phlan begin to run out to the open grasslands outside of the city.

- The magic thicket is ripping buildings apart and the weight of the rubble is starting to collapse down into some areas underneath the city.

- Eventually Vorgansharax turns and flies to the west, and as the Dragon does so, the thicket dissolves into dust. Phlan is badly damaged, most of the buildings are destroyed, except for the larger ones that are somewhat in tact.

- The two thousand refugees are glad to have survived and plan to restart and rebuild Phlan, as has happened before. The people of Phlan are a resilient and capable lot, and used to tragedy.

- The party leave with Madame Freona, Captain Greycastle and the Lord Sage and three days later arrive at the Frostskimmr where it is anchored further south down the coast. 

- After reuniting with the relived crew, Captain Lerustah orders the ship to set sail back to Crescent Moon. 

- The six day voyage is uneventful except for Madame Freona taking over the ship’s galley. She now insists on cooking all the meals for the heroes that saved her and she joins the ship’s crew. After eating her meals, no one complains.

- Wealday, 17th Sarenith in the year 815 (Second Era). Late Summer.

- The party arrive back at Crescent Moon, unloading the Lord Sage and Captain Greycastle. Not wishing to waste any time, the party head directly to the Royal Palace and speak to one of the Council members, Marshall Ulder Ravengard, of the Halfling Golden Regiment Army of Singbury. 

- The Marshall advises the party a force of about one hundred Cultists comprising Enforcers, Red Wizards and mercenaries, was spotted headed towards the Halfling village of Xonthal nearly two months ago. The Marshall was organising sending his soldiers to liberate the village, until a letter was received that changed things. The message is written by someone called Iskander and claims that he is with the Cult but has now had a change of heart. A group of Cultists and Wizards has the Blue Dragon Mask and is examining it at Xonthal’s Tower, an ancient Wizard’s tower hidden and protected by an arcane hedge maze near the village of Xonthal. Iskander claims he wants to defect and give the mask over to the Alliance. Along with the letter was a half pendant, that Iskander stated the party would know it is him, as he holds the other half. The Marshall believes an incursion by a small well skilled force, such as the party, will have the best chance of obtaining the Mask before the Cult can fly it away.

- The party speak to another Council member, the Archmage Tallous, to learn what they can about Xonthal Tower and the hedge maze. The Wizard Xonthal has not been seen for many centuries and no one knows what happened to him. He was researching and exploring conjuration and elemental evocation, so he had many elementals and genies around for company. The arcane hedge maze is very powerful, designed to keep people away from Xonthal’s Tower.

- The party immediately leave Crescent Moon, transported as passengers on the Wyverns of the Royal Scouts of Crescent Moon, lead by Captain Zahes who saved the party after they crashed Skyreach Castle into the ground. The start their eight day flight towards the Hafling Kingdom of Sinbury and the village of Tealeaf, the nearest settlement to Xonthal.

- Oathday, 4th Erastus in the year 815 (Second Era). Late Summer.

- The party arrive at the heavily defended Halfling village of Tealeaf. With a population of around a thousand, and with a Golden Regiment Military Post here of around two hundred soldiers, the village has many services.

- Captain Ricric Longbarrel, the Officer In Charge that the party were advised to contact, is not here but out on remote inspections of the forward boundary Watch Towers in the region and is not due back for five or six days. When the party complain about his absence they are reminded that the message was sent to the Council two months ago.

- Instead the party speak to Sergeant Tarwan, the Second In Charge. Whilst speaking to him, the party notice the Halfling soldiers on the defence walls and towers watching intently with spy glasses towards the north east. Sergeant Tarwan will not reveal what they are looking for, except two important people they have been requested to assist in anyway with their travels. When the Sergeant won’t speak further of the matter, as he insists it has nothing to do with the party’s current mission, Trenchant uses a Detect Thoughts spell to read the Sergeant’s mind, to learn that he does not know who these two people are either, as he is only following the orders given to him by the Captain, to pay very high respect to two well dressed Human strangers, and give them any assistance with gear or transport to help them on their way to the Halfling Capital.

- The party also speak to the local Cleric, Samia Lightwater Cleric of Yondalla, and purchase some magic scrolls from her.

- Gim drinks in the local, the Wayfarer’s Inn, and learns some information from the female Halfling Innkeeper, Paeni Havenbluff. She overheard the Captain say something about two special people will be coming through Tealeaf, royalty or something.

- The party commission some riding ponies and small carts, and a young Halfling stable boy, Esme, to look after feeding and caring for the ponies.  

<And as the party prepare their gear and themselves for the two day journey to Xonthal village, unsure of what dire fate has befallen the people of Xonthal, that is the end of the session.>

XP Allocation

Group - Combined (This is equally divided by the number of players who were involved)

Quests (Only quests that are completed or rendered undoable, during this session, are shown here)

- “From The Ashes” - Free The Refugees Of Phlan = 5000 XP

- Quest Milestone - Commence Quest Capture The Blue Dragon Mask = 500 XP 

Creatures Overcome

> XP Allocated (Note: Sir Zern now as a Follower does not count towards XP)

- Crypt Thing = 700 XP

- Mummies = 4200 XP

- Cursed Skeletons = 3400 XP

Individual (This is only given to that person and is not divided amongst all players)

Special Bonus (Outstanding Role Playing)

Nil

XP Levels and Player Allocations

Player : Start +  Received = Total  (Notes)

Rob : 155883 + 1478 = 157361

Arthur : 125846 +1971 = 127817

John : 120086 + 1478 = 121564

Travis : 142689 + 1971 = 144660

Paul : 132172 + 2464 = 134636

Bob : 145707 + 2464 = 148171

NPC (Naillae) : + (986)

[bandstolookup]

freddie gibbs

hop along

vulfpeck

annie mac

sean buckley

the dryes

robbie jude

nghtmre

broken social scene

gojira

blind guardian

Courtney love

children of bodom

misery falls

dissection

as I lay dying

no body count

maleviolent creation

carnifex

tori Amos

the growlers

angelcorpse

piglet

at the gates

necrophobic

monstrosity

Royal blood

thrice

stone sour

Chris Cornell

I prevail

ORVNGE

backyard babies

baest

belzebubs

beneath the massacre

bewitcher

black crown initiate

bleed from within

blood incantation

body count

bombus

bonded

black cross

borknagar

buckcherry

caliban

coroner

dark fortress

dark funeral

dark tranquility

dead lord

death alley

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deez nuts

deicide

demons & wizards

deserted fear

dr living dead!

dream evil

entombed a.d.

eskimo callboy

ether coven

finntroll

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four seconds ago

fozzy

frozen soul

gemini syndrome

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gost

grave

grave pleasures

hank von hell

havok

heaven shall burn

hideous divinity

horisont

iced earth

ignite

imperial triumphant

implore

insomnium

jeff loomis

jon schaffer's purgatory

krisiun

lacuna coil

like a storm

lorna shore

lucifer

mad sin

malevolent creation

man with a mission

marduk

martyrdöd

mass worship

misasmal

monuments

moonsorrow

morgoth

naglfar

nasty

necrophobic

nevermore

new years day

night demon

oceans of slumber

omnium gatherum

orphaned land

painted wives

periphery

queensryche

radio moscow

radkey

red death

rogers

sanctuary

savage messiah

sick of it all

skeletal remains

soulburn

spirit adrfit

stitched up heart

street dogs

svart crown

swallow the sun

the alligator wine

the haunted

the lurking fear

the offering

the picturebooks

tribulation

triptykon

triumph of death

tronos

turisas

ultha

unanimated

vampire

vildhjarta

vitriol

voivod

warrel dane

watain

wiegedood

wilderun

wilson

witchery

witherfall

witherscape

wolf

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9electric

amulet

angel dust

arkaea

armageddon

awaken the empire

barren earth

black temple

blessed by a broken heart

bloodbath

celtic frost

ceremonial oath

chaosbreed

cronian

crowbar

cryptopsy

daath

darkest hour

dead soul

death wolf

demolition hammer

despised icon

devian

devil sold his soul

diecast

earth crisis

enabler

evocation

extol

ghosts of the sun

eyes of eden

fear my thoughts

flowing tears

fu manchu

girl on fire

god forbid

gorguts

grand supreme blood court

hang the bastard

heart of a coward

hellhammer

high on fire

himsa

i am heresy

impaled

in this moment

ingested

insidious disease

into eternity

the flood

intronaut

ion dissonance

jag panzer

jasta

death won't hold

dread engine

karyn crisis' gospel of the witches

denzel curry

goody grace

father john misty

atimera

chase atlantic

vonne

rhye

saib.

starset

nothing more

converge

trivium

dying fetus

tom's story

body count

zeal & ardor

power trip

leprous

the contortionist

lunatic soul

soen

ne obliviscartis

the word alive

pallbearer

code orange

immolation

tye Trujillo

stone temple pilots

him

the Dillinger escape plan

decapitated

10 years

frenzal rhomb

afi

gone is gone

Royal thunder

bell witch

reynols

enslaved

blackfield

fredo santana

underøath

black anvil

black widow

kda

black witchery

the xcerts

black tongue

the faim

petrol girls

joan Jett and the blackhearts

flea

trophy eyes

bicep live

meat loaf

royal republic

Scott sapp

vesperteen

Whitney Houston

black marble

slash

la dispute

Roseanne Barr

kölsch

lord belial

the quill

testament

eleventh hour

arch enemy

destruction

solitude aeturnus

damnocracy

biohazard

rock star supernova

elderbrook

lou reed

contraband

l.a. guns

vixen

pride & glory

slash's snakepit

Alice in chains

the cult

another animal

ugly kid joe

against all will

puddle of mudd

shadow child

superheavy

Mick Jagger

joss stone

Damian Marley

brides of destruction

amen

tinted windows

Hanson

sepultura

the cardigans

melvins

ulver

type o negative

tenacious d

ond tro

paal nilssen-love's brazil funk improv

silencer

shining

Rob halford

Maria brink

lizzy hale

women of Rock

yuto miyazawa

Aidan fisher

brian lindsay

dead cross

machine head

ben harper & the innocent criminals

ray lamontagne

george clinton & parliament funkadelic

snarky puppy

kasey chambers

st. paul & the broken bones

nahko and medicine for the people

tommy emanuel

colin hay

arlo guthrie

keb' mo'

tex perkins

richard clapton

russell morris

kurt vile & the violators

vintage trouble

the black sorrows

the california honeydrops

trevor hall

i'm with her

larkin poe

irish mythen

elephant sessions

[dustedmagazine]

Jeremy Cunningham — The Weather Up There (Northern Spy)

“There was just so much loss everywhere… If you don’t keep yourself together, you break apart” — “Elegy”  

How does one even begin to process the sudden loss of a loved one to the seismic shock of gun violence? Jeremy Cunningham’s brother, Andrew, was shot and killed during a home invasion robbery in 2008, and The Weather Up There reckons with this tragedy in surprisingly poignant ways. Rather than attempt to match the raw force of grief with a musical primal scream, Cunningham has transmuted his sadness and confusion into an elegant, affecting record.

Drawing upon the diverse talents of Chicago luminaries such as Jeff Parker (guitar and production), John McEntire (recording) and Makaya McCraven (drums), it’s no surprise that Weather sounds deep and nuanced, with excellent performances throughout. As a drummer and composer, Cunningham knows when to drive a song and when to sit back; there’s nothing showy or superfluous about his playing. His fluidity at the kit sets much of the music firmly in the expansive zone, creating a reflective mood befitting Weather’s challenging subject matter.  

Having said that, the drumming does switch gears when required. On “All I Know” and “Elegy,” the massed “Chicago Drum Choir” (Cunningham, McCraven, Mikel Patrick Avery and Mike Reed) provides a tumbling percussive backdrop to voice recordings of Andrew’s loved ones recounting their experiences of the tragedy. While these spoken word elements enrich the music, such expressions of grief and disbelief can prove confronting, especially during repeat listens. But perhaps that’s part of the point — it’s important to face confronting art, even if it shows us things we don’t want to see. The pain endures for all those affected by gun violence, and their words deserve to be heard.  

Aside from the tracks that feature voice recordings (“Sleep,” “All I Know” and “Elegy”), the other voice on the album is that of Ben LaMar Gay on “Return These Tides.” Atop a funereal beat and Jeff Parker’s measured guitar phrases, Gay carefully intones Cunningham’s words, speaking vividly of the depths of his loss: “I can’t pretend that I’m whole any more… I’ve got to find a way to turn the tides.” (There’s an alternate version of the song exclusive to the vinyl that has Cunningham reciting his words underneath Gay’s vocals, which proves even more potent.)  

As much as the voice recordings and lyrics provide context for the story behind the album, the music itself is strikingly evocative. On opener “Sleep,” as the voice recording speaks of emerging from a dream, glimmering synthesizer and alto saxophone create a soft-focus, pillowy atmosphere. This leads into “1985,” presumably commemorating the year of Andrew’s birth, where Jeff Parker leads the charge with some strident guitar lines. Early highlight “It’s Nothing” features a deeply melancholic saxophone melody that brings to mind Jaga Jazzist at their most subdued. And the easy-going swing of “Hike” shines a welcome ray of optimism midway through the album.

The Weather Up There concludes with two of its most moving compositions. The title track’s tip-toeing keyboard figure is skilfully shadowed by Cunningham’s drum patterns before breaking out into a satisfyingly scribbly guitar solo. And closer “He Pushed Up” is devastatingly beautiful, its slow, deliberate pace a seemingly Sisyphean trudge up a mountain of sorrow, the stormy tremolo guitar and tape effects in the final third suggesting eventual liberation from grief’s insistent gravity.  

Tim Clarke

[amnimon]

Hello, this is the best death metal band in this very world. Thank you

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 304: Mazzo

Though most of the attention was given to Sacred Bones’ loving reissue of Mother Earth’s Plantasia, there was another release this year also focused on using soothing sonics to help plants grow and gardens flourish: Mazzo’s Sound for Gardening. Released on Doom Chakra Tapes Worldwide, this cassette sees 3D artist, virtual sculptor, and musical producer Mazzo combining stargazing new age and paradise dancefloor magic while employing a conceptual split across two sides of tape. On the A-side, seaside house anthems, airy electro vibe outs, and slow motion boogie cruisers intermingle with spiritual ocean sonics…resulting in a truly transcendent stretch of balearic beat. Then on the B-side, Mazzo gives over fully to cosmic aquatic mesmerism, letting ambient Italo dream textures intermingle with Berlin school sequences amidst immersive starscapes of kosmische synthesis. There are moments throughout the tape where it feels as if the soul is afloat in some etheric ocean, wherein rainbow currents eddy around coral crystals and sparkles of gold cause mirage-like hallucinations. Other times it’s like being transported to some fantasy 90s dancefloor…a mass of bodies moving in spiritual ecstasy beneath a shimmering canopy of stars. And threaded through every moment are atmospheres of harmony, peace, and universal love, with the music functioning not just as a balm for plant-based beings, but also for the human spirit.

Mazzo - Sound for Gardening (Doom Chakra Tapes Worldwide, 2019) In “Cloud Mattress,” spiritual choirs sing from a sea of deepest blue…their voices rising to the clouds. Balmy chords float the soul and sea-crystal melodics flutter up above as the track glides on sparse percussion in the style of Sth. Notional’s “Yawn Yawn Yawn,” and during sparse rhythmic drops, pianos move between echoing chords and starbeam descents. The three-dimensional bass pulses of “Purple Waves” lead a reverential house body groove, with kick, hats, and snare locked into a four-to-the-floor jack pattern while claps and electro-toms morph through the spectrum. Dolphin tracers and immersive pad layers fade in as we ascend towards anthemic brass chord fanfares, which give Mazzo’s balearic beats a glowing aura of disco soul sensuality. Tom fills rocket through the stereo field and introduce a virtual marimba solo, with melodies splashing through tidepools in a way not dissimilar to A Vision of Panorama and Miskotom, and everything breaths through a paradise haze, as ethereal currents of light sparkle and the titular purple waves carry the spirit towards beachside dancefloor transcendence. Tambourines echo and ambient pads flow through pooling liquids in “Water Based,” with claps cracking through the layers of cinematic majesty. Island breeze hand percussion spreads across the mix as it generates a gaseous jazz bop while music box melodies dance alongside spiritual pan-pipe enchantments. Elsewhere, the mystical sea spirits from “Cloud Mattress” resume their harmonious choral drift…their voices suffused by golden string warmth…and after a quiet pause, the track rushes back to life with a more defined structure, now seeing glowing arps of ocean glass ascending into reverberating dream textures and fusion synths bending into whalesong psychedelia over a kick drum heart throb.

Despite it’s name, “Mowing Machine” evokes for me some refreshing sailboat cruise across sparkling blue waters…a seaside boogie glide rendered in slow motion with synthfunk basslines and swinging machine drums holding down a sensual body groove. Syncopated toms blast through the stereo field and pan-pipes are repurposed into jazz scats as cosmic oscillations swirl, carrying with them visages of dancing butterflies. The sensual, almost clavinet-esque bassfunk motions are spectacularly tracked by sparkling xylophones…like splashes of equatorial light descending in tandem with the liquid groove. After a glorious stretch of beatless ocean ambiance, featuring aqueous voices intertwining with synthetic hues of blue, the groove rushes back in, now with ultra-chilled fusion solos swimming through a sunset sky. And so it goes for the rest of the track, with Mazzo alternating between blissed out solo synthesis and deep sea dives into mermaid choir mystery. A-side closer “V70” heads immediately into a dreamcloud electro headspace, with airy breakbeats vibing out and panning pads stoking hallucinatory visions. Claps cracks in counterpoint to the rhythms, electronic rimshots blast across the stereo field, and insectoid oscillations ride unseen currents towards a sunset horizon while layered bass syncopations and jacking sequential bursts bring touches of future funk and sci-fi boogie. The rhythms disperse at some point, leaving space for psychosonic bubble tracers, melodies of glowing glass, and pads that swell into a gentle smolder before blowing waves of tropical warmth across the mix. And as the heady electro groove resumes it’s starlight dance, fusion scats, soul-funk solos, and rainbow dashes of light are woven together amidst a wobbling tapestry of vocally generated sea-foam.

The B-side opens with “Clear Sky Cold Wind” and its environments of lapping water, which set the stage for shadowy pad swells and synthetic bass waves. Crystalline chords melt over the billowing currents of synthesis and each pulse of melodic air hits with more strength than the one before, as the notes trail out ever longer through psychotropic fx chains. Those now familiar mermaid choirs join the beauteous float as a galactic arp fades in, with the mixture of emotional ambient darkness and glowing kosmische reminding me of the works of Råd Kjetil Senza Testa. The Carpenter-esque bass synths of “Swarm” generate ominous atmospheres as the Berlin school evocations of the previous track take center stage, with layered sequences weaving a polychrome kosmische panorama. A momentary bassline drop out sees the sequential patterns transforming into themes of flower kingdom prog majesty and when the throbbing bass pulsations return, they bring with them a pillowy kick beat…like pulsing Italo magic repurposed into a mechanized krautrock lullaby. Sequences and arps are filtered into a dazzling displays of synthetic light, alternately bouncing like a balls of cosmic energy, snapping through gemstone refractions, or smearing into drunken delirium. Later, the track breaks down into a false ending that sees progressive electronics mutating into aquatic bubbles strands while sirens sing songs of enchantment through a wah-wah soundbath. And as starscape sequences low pass filter back into shimmering resolution, they carry the spirit with them on waves of anticipation until the kick beat drops and the Italo bass pulsations resume their slow motion hypo-jam, now with epic spaghetti western themes flowing forth on spaceage crystals…the effect like racing across a paradise vista in some futuristic rendering of the wild west.

In “Water Flow,” cold industrial breezes blow over a vortex of darkness while percussive sparkles transmute into frozen mist. String synthesizers and phaser organs whoosh across the stereo spectrum, bringing kosmische atmospheres yet again…though this time evoking the earliest days...think Schulze’s Cyborg and Tangerine Dream’s Zeit. Arps dance star-to-star, pads evoking oboes and bassoons swoon through heart-wrenching descents, ghosts scream amidst fields of cyborg computations, and seabirds fly through the celestial ether, with wing motions causing ripples of laser light to spread in every direction. As well, during particularly spellbinding moments, tremolo picked guitars howl into the void, causing my mind to drift towards Manuel Gottsching and those early Ash Ra Temple B-sides. Sound for Gardening ends with “Dark Clouds Above the Roses” and its flutey bubbles, rattling percussion fx, and shards of sonic ice cycling in a sea of abstraction…with everything modulating in ways that defy logic. Sequential synth patterns skip across clouds as the track evolves into funereality, with tambourines clicking through pools of reverberation and kick drums stomping into the night. It’s a magisterial dirge for forgotten seafloor kingdoms….a sad yet radiant waltz through a paradise of shadow and sorrow…with synthesizers joining together for massive melodies of solar melancholy. The sparse rhythms drop away at times in favor of polysynth prog leads and later, ethnological hand drums bop through bodies of water as star-crystal electronics play schmalzy melodies of new age spirituality. There’s a touch of Vangelis to it all…of floating off towards a cinematic horizon, with ominous clouds gathering and somatic arps filtering sofly amidst the subsuming atmospheres of dreamtime romance.

(image from my personal copy)

[classicalsatanism-blog]

CLASSICAL SATANISM TEXT 2 The Ruling Demonic Legion

Given here is the Ruling Demonic Legion of Hell … their Names, Genders, most powerful Day and Moon Phase to call upon them as well as their Demonic Title by which they may be Called. Below this areas of influence over which each of the Demons hold power are detailed to aid the Practitioner in selecting the appropriate Demons for the Workings they undertake … particularly in such Workings Evocation and Invocation. The inclusion of Days appropriate for each Demon calls Planetary Forces into play, for those not interested in incorporating such Forces then simply ignored these elements ~ whether you plan to incorporate these influences or not never let them dictate putting off a Working of importance, for the Demons can be summoned on any day at any time. The Moon Phases are also not a mandatory obligation but included for those who have an interest in harnessing the power of Moon phases into their Workings, however I do find this element more useful than that of the Planetary influenced days as the Moon itself has such a strong influence on so many areas of are World and ourselves. In truth on a Planetary level the one Planet connected to all Demons is that of Saturn, its energy, its Dark Current completely conducive and attuned to the Infernal Currents of the Demons themselves … which is why the Sigils of the Demons utilized in this Book have been designed upon the Kamea Planetary Square of Saturn. SATAN - Male Day- Saturday Moon Phase - Dark Title: Infernal Father Of Hell Occult Wisdom ~ Black Magick ~ Knowledge ~ Mastery ~ Protection ~ Healing ~ Power ~ The Dark Arts ~ Rulership ~ Authority ~ Command ~ Demonic Power ~ Creation ~ Desire. LILITH - Female Day - Monday Moon Phase - Dark Title - Infernal Mother Of Hell Infertility ~ Miscarriage ~ Lust ~ Menstruation ~ Mandragoras ~ Stillbirth ~ Desire ~ Destruction Of The Pious ~ Slaying The Clergy ~ Abortion ~ Death ~ Hexes ~ Succubi. ABADDON - Male Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Prince Of The Desolate Pit Destruction ~ Death ~ Misery ~ Torture ~ Hexing ~ Binding ~ Isolation ~ Cursing ~ Desolation ~ Fetishism ~ Pain ~ Darkness ~ The Black Arts ~ Catastrophe. SATANACHIA - Androgynous   Day - Tuesday Moon Phase - Full Title - Weaver Of That Made Manifest Lust ~ Seduction ~ Protection ~ Passion ~ Success ~ Magick ~ Sexual Manipulation ~ Sigil Magick ~ Controversy ~ Deliberation. ADRAMALECH - Male Day - Monday/Tuesday Moon Phase - Waning Title ~ Prince Of Pestilence Plague ~ Disease ~ Blood Sacrifice ~ Pestilence ~ Malady ~ Pandemic ~ Viruses ~ Cursing ~ Malediction ~ Desolation ~ Destruction. AGALIAREPT - Male Day - Monday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Keeper Of The Gate The Initiatory Path ~ Initiation ~ Gateways ~ Portals ~ Scrying ~ Seership ~ Other Realms ~ Divination ~ The Gates Of Hell ~ Knowledge ~ Literature. AGRAT BAT MAHLAT - Female Day - Friday Moon Phase - Full Title - Princess Of Wanton Desire Harlotry ~ Sex ~ Fornication ~ Infidelity ~ Seducing Other Women’s Husbands ~ Prostitution ~ Sexuality ~ Promiscuity ~ Wanton Sexuality. SARGATANAS - Androgynous Day - Monday Moon Phase - Full Title - Guardian Of The Faithful Psychic Protection ~ Magickal Protection ~ Safe Travel ~ Seduction ~ Command ~ Psychic Powers ~ Protection ~ Fortitude. ALASTOR - Male Day - Tuesday/Saturday Moon Phase - Dark Title - Lord Of Bloodshed Death ~ Destruction ~ Execution ~ Assassination ~ Bloodshed ~ Violence ~ Murder ~ Bloodlust ~ Brutality ~ Torture ~ Retribution. MEPHISTO - Male Day - Wednesday Moon Phase - Waxing Maker Of Pacts Revenge ~ Pacts ~ Deals ~ Trade ~ Commerce ~ Etiquette ~ Passion ~ Liberation ~ Wisdom ~ Contracts ~ Oaths ~ Trading ~ Enticement. ASHTAROT - Female Day - Sunday/Friday Moon Phase - Waxing Princess Of Gestation Creating Magickal Beings ~ Psychogones ~ Golems ~ Egregores ~ Sexuality ~ Desire ~ Lust ~ Sex Magick ~ Servitors ~ Mandragoras ~ Ritual Sex. ASMODEUS - Male Day - Tuesday Moon Phase - Full Lord Of The Carnal House Lust ~ Spirit Boards ~ Protection Of Others ~ Protection Of The Self ~ Desire ~ Male Virility ~ Sexual Possession ~ Liberation ~ Wisdom ~ Power. BEELZEBUB - Male Day - Sunday/Thursday Moon Phase - Full Standard Bearer Of Hell Power ~ Strength ~ Bravery ~ Fortitude ~ Loyalty ~ Influencing Other People ~ Command ~ Authority ~ Leadership ~ Military Tactics ~ Conflict ~ Mastery. ARIOCH - Male Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Dark Title - Harbinger Of Revenge Revenge ~ Karma ~ Retribution ~ Justice ~ Vengeance ~ Bloodlust ~ Vindication ~ Attonement ~ Punishment ~ Legal Victory. BEHEMOTH - Androgynous Day - Tuesday/Sunday Moon Phase - Full Title - Demon Of Decadence Avarice ~ Greed ~ Sloth ~ Luxury ~ Apathy ~ Lewdness ~ Exhibitionism ~ Voyeurism ~ Seduction ~ Debauchery ~ Blasphemy ~ Decadence. NAAMAH - Female Day - Friday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Princess Of Seduction Seduction ~ Fornication ~ Seducing The Pious ~ Sexual Excess ~ Adultery ~ Sexual Possession ~ Succubi ~ Fertility ~ Sexual Vampirism. BELPHEGOR - Androgynous Day - Friday/Sunday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Architect Of Creation Love ~ Inventions ~ Friendships ~ Alliances ~ Reconciliation ~ Creativity ~ Craftsmanship ~ Ideas ~ Binding Lovers ~ Relationships ~ Compromise. EURYNOMOUS - Male Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Prince Of Tears Death ~ Suicide ~ Depression ~ Self Harm ~ Pain ~ Misery ~ Loss ~ Mental Disease ~ Paranoia ~ Apathy ~ Misanthropy ~ Misfortune ~ Malice. EISHETH - Female Day - Friday Moon Phase - Full Title - Seducer Of The Pious Lust ~ Seduction ~ Desire ~ Fornication ~ Seducing Others Lovers ~ Promiscuity ~ Passion ~ Seducing The Chaste ~ Inciting Adultery In Others. LEONARD - Male Day - Saturday/Wednesday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Master Of The Arts Black Magick ~ Voodoo ~ Sorcery ~ Knowledge Of The Occult ~ Hexing ~ Cursing ~ Dark Magickal Arts ~ Witchcraft ~ Spellcraft. LUCIFUGE - Male Day - Sunday/Thursday Moon Phase - Full Title - Grand Paymaster Of Hell Wealth ~ Prosperity ~ Good Fortune ~ Riches ~ Gold ~ Promotion ~ Ambition ~ Attaining Lucrative Employment ~ Money ~ Luxury. MAMMON - Male Day - Wednesday/Thursday Moon Phase - Full Title - Prince Of The Golden Throne Wealth ~ Power ~ Money Lending ~ Banking ~ Business ~ Commerce ~ Business Deals ~ Employment ~ Dictatorship ~ Management. UKOBACH - Androgynous Day - Sunday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Watcher Of The Flame Fire ~ Pyromancy ~ Ash Scrying ~ Protection From Fire ~ Commanding Fire ~ Defeating Flames ~ Divination ~ Passion ~ Lust. XAPHAN - Androgynous Day - Sunday/Tuesday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Bringer Of The Inferno Fire ~ Fire Seership ~ Burning ~ Destruction By Fire ~ Death By Fire ~ Infernos ~ Burning Properties ~ Death ~ Wrath ~ Anger. ABYZOU - Female Day - Friday/Saturday Moon Phase - Dark Title - Feeder Upon The Soul Possession ~ Lust ~ Pain ~ Hatred ~ Discord ~ Destruction ~ Anger ~ Obsession ~ Blasphemy ~ Death ~ Torture. RIMMON - Male Day - Sunday Moon Phase - Full Title - Grand Physician Of Hell Healing ~ Medicine ~ Science ~ Mathematics ~ Healing The Self ~ Medication ~ Health ~ Physical Rejuvenation ~ Medical Success. UNSERE - Female Day - Friday Moon Phase - Full Title - Princess Of The Giving Womb Childbirth ~ Healing ~ Pregnancy ~ Fertility ~ Safe Childbirth ~ Family ~ Healing Children ~ Fertility Of The Land ~ Harvests ~ Cultivation ~ Healing Charms. SONNEILLON - Female Day - Tuesday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Weaver Of Discord Discord ~ Disagreements ~ Arguments ~ Conflicts ~ Divorce ~ Feuds ~ Strife ~ Hate ~ Grudges ~ Family Feuds. DELEPITORAE - Female Day - Friday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Princess Of Enchantments Seduction ~ Enchantment ~ Sexuality ~ Entrapment ~ Allure ~ Glamour ~ Beauty ~ Feminine Enticement ~ Sensuality. HUICTIIGARA - Female Day - Monday Moon Phase - All Phases Title - Lady Of Dreams Sleep ~ Insomnia ~ Dreams ~ Lucid Dreaming ~ Dream Prophecy ~ Nightmares ~ Command Of Dreams ~ Meditation ~ Protection On The Dreamscape. FRIMOST - Male Day - Tuesday Moon Phase - Full Title - Possessor Of The Flesh Seducing Young Women ~ Seducing The Wives Of Other Men ~ Promiscuity ~ Sexual Excess ~ Liberation ~ Sexual Libertine Behaviour ~ Adultery. BECHARD - Androgynous Day - Sunday/Thursday Moon Phase - All Phases Title - Harbinger Of Storms Storms ~ Rain ~ Winds ~ Thunder ~ Lightning ~ Weather Magick ~ Control Of Storms ~ Tempests ~ Hail ~ Windstorms ~ Snow. FRUCISSIERE - Male Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Lord Of The Dead Necromancy ~ Death Rites ~ Mediumship ~ Dark Rituals ~ Ouija ~ Automatic Writing ~ Seership ~ Seances ~ Funerals ~ Passing The Dead. GULAND - Androgynous Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Bringer Of Malady Inflicting Disease ~ Plague ~ Malady ~ Infecting Wounds ~ Fatal Illnesses ~ Pandemic ~ Germs ~ Viruses ~ Sickness ~ Ailments. BRULEFER - Androgynous Day - Friday Moon Phase - Full Title - Demon Of Alliance Love ~ Friendships ~ Allegiance ~ Alliances ~ Partnerships ~ Compromise ~ Passion ~ Compassion ~ Empathy ~ Reconciling Friends. HIEPACTH - Androgynous Day - Monday Moon Phase - Full Title - Keeper Of The Lost Discovering The Lost ~ Finding Missing People ~ Discoveries ~ Locating Those Missing ~ Finding Missing Items ~ Revealing Secrets ~ Revelation. MORAIL - Androgynous Day - Monday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Demon Of The Veil Invisibility ~ Hiding ~ Concealment Of Truth ~ Concealment Of Others ~ Anonymity ~ Remaining Hidden ~ Remaining Unseen ~ Clandestine Plans. FRUTIMIERE - Androgynous Day - Wednesday Moon Phase - Full Title - Bringer Of Joy Celebrations ~ Festivals ~ Gatherings ~ Parties ~ Happiness ~ Harmony ~ Fruition ~ Rewards ~ Recognition ~ Occasions ~ Entertainment. KHIL - Androgynous Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Harbinger Of Chaos Earthquakes ~ Storms ~ Natural Disasters ~ Tsunamis ~ Volcanic Eruptions ~ Flooding ~ Mass Destruction ~ Astral Storms ~ Chaos. MERSILDE - Female Day - Monday Moon Phase - All Phases Title - Lady Of The Spheres Astral Protection ~ Astral Projection ~ Astral Travel ~ Visualization ~ Meditation ~ Pathworking ~ Entering Other Realms ~ Oracles. BALTHAZAR - Male Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Prince Of Torment Pain ~ Misery ~ Torment ~ Persecution ~ Evil ~ Wickedness ~ Inflicting Loss ~ Mental Torture ~ Fear ~ Harassment ~ Demise. NYSROGH - Androgynous Day - Wednesday/Thursday Moon Phase - Full Title - The Harlequin Of Hell Promotion ~ Position ~ Commanding Lower Spirits ~ Commanding Elementals ~ Etiquette ~ Charm ~ Wit ~ Popularity ~ Influence Of Others. CARNIVENAN - Androgynous Day - Monday/Thursday Moon Phase - Full Title - Demon Of Sorceries Witchcraft ~ Sorcery ~ Black Magick ~ Pride ~ Strength ~ Boldness ~ Arrogance ~ Augury ~ Sorcerous Knowledge ~ Willpower. VERDELET - Androgynous Day - Wednesday Moon Phase - Full Title - The Shapeshifter Of Hell Ceremonies ~ Rituals ~ Command ~ Class ~ Etiquette ~ Popularity ~ Judgement ~ Compelling The Will Of Others ~ Aesthetics. PHILOTANUS - Male Day - Wednesday Moon Phase - Full Title - Lord Of Wisdom Teaching ~ Philosophy ~ Understanding ~ Intellect ~ Knowledge ~ Experience ~ Wisdom ~ Studying ~ Commitment ~ Comprehension ~ Exams. ARPHAXAT - Male Day - Tuesday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Prince Of Blasphemies Possession ~ Sexual Possession ~ Control ~ Compulsion ~ Blasphemy ~ Desecration ~ Sin ~ Wickedness ~ Spite ~ Discord ~ Self Destruction. ROSIER - Female Day - Friday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Mistress Of Unions Marriage ~ Proposals ~ Engagements ~ Love ~ Passion ~ Longevity Of Love ~ Alliances ~ Acceptance Of Proposals ~ Courting ~ Charm ~ Romance. PICOLLUS - Androgynous Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Walker Within Shades Necromancy ~ Death Hexes ~ Blood Sacrifice ~ Cursing ~ Doom ~ Calamity ~ Catastrophe ~ Mediumship ~ Bloodshed ~ Death. FLEURETY - Androgynous Day - Thursday/Monday Moon Phase - Full Title - Demon Of Demands Commanding Lower Servitors ~ Commanding The Mandragora Spirits ~ Hail ~ Rain ~ Strategies ~ Command ~ Rulership. MUSISIN - Androgynous Day - Thursday Moon Phase - Full Title - The Demon Of Manipulation Influencing Those In Authority ~ Commanding Those In Power ~ Influencing The Will Of Another ~ Authority ~ Seduction Of Will ~ Manipulation. CLAUNECK - Female Day - Sunday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Mistress Of Fortune Riches ~ Wealth ~ Inheritance ~ Heirlooms ~ Legacies ~ Financial Security ~ Money ~ Financial Gain ~ Investments ~ Rewards ~ Financial Rewards. SEGAL - Female Day - Monday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Mistress Of Apparitions Apparitions ~ Paranormal Phenomena ~ Illusions ~ Paranoia ~ Terror ~ Hauntings ~ Inciting Paranormal Activity ~ Ghosts. VERRIER - Female Day - Sunday Moon Phase - Full Title - Princess Of Healing Healing Others ~ Good Health ~ Vitality ~ Herbal Medicine ~ Natural Healing ~ Health ~ Healing The Elderly ~ Banishing Disease ~ Vanquishing Malady. JEZEBETH - Female Day - Wednesday/Friday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Mistress Of The Serpent Deceit ~ Jealousy ~ Envy ~ Manipulation ~ Obsession ~ Material Greed ~ Lies ~ Cunning ~ Concealment Of Intentions ~ Mental Manipulation. CLISTHERET - Androgynous Day - Monday/Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - The Wraith Of Hell Illusions ~ Mirages ~ Dreams ~ Nightmares ~ Mental Imbalance ~ Schizophrenia ~ Insanity ~ Apparitions ~ Fear ~ Paranoia ~ Mistrust. HUMOTS - Androgynous Day - Wednesday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Demon Of Tomes Locating Books ~ Literature ~ Archives ~ Libraries ~ Research ~ Book Discoveries ~ Tomes ~ Knowledge ~ Grimoires ~ Manuscripts. BIFFANT - Male Day - Saturday/Tuesday Moon Phase - Dark Title - Lord Of Destruction Possession ~ Holocausts ~ Genocide ~ Death ~ Persecution ~ Conflict ~ Destruction ~ Disasters ~ Volatility ~ Demise. SERGUTTHY - Male Day - Wednesday/Tuesday Moon Phase - Full Title - Prince Of Manipulation Influencing Women ~ Seducing Women ~ Inciting Women To Sexual Promiscuity ~ Charming Women ~ Compelling Women. ELELOGAP - Female Day - Monday/Saturday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Princess Of The Depths Drowning ~ Bodies Of Water ~ Sinking Sailing Vessels ~ Storms At Sea ~ Tidal Waves ~ The Tides ~ Hydromancy ~ Lake Scrying ~ Protection At Sea. SERGULATH - Male Day - Thursday Moon Phase - Thursday Title - Lord Of The Battlefield Military Tactics ~ Dividing Enemy Allies ~ Combat ~ Dividing Alliances ~ Strategies ~ Plans ~ Military Success ~ Command ~ Vigour ~ Bravery. SIRCHADE - Androgynous Day - Friday Moon Phase - Full Title - Lover Of Beasts Communication With Animals ~ Protecting Animals ~ Healing Animals ~ Totem Animals ~ Animal Spirits ~ Nature ~ Wildlife ~ Linguistics. AGLASIS - Male Day - Wednesday/Monday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Prince Of Sojourns Safe Journeys ~ Transport ~ Trade Deals ~ Transportation ~ Protection On Journeys ~ Communication ~ Travel ~ Expeditions. PENTAGANONY - Androgynous Day - Thursday Moon Phase - Full Title - Master Of Masters Granting Favours From Those In Power ~ Gaining Profitable Alliances ~ Gaining Powerful Alliances ~ Compelling Those In Authority ~ Sedition ~ Charm. TEZRIAN - Female Day - Saturday Moon Phase - Dark Title - The Soul Gatherer War ~ Warfare ~ Gathering The Souls Of Dead Warriors ~ Mass Death ~ Graveyards ~ Battles ~ Destruction ~ Global Conflict. PROCULO - Androgynous Day - Monday Moon Phase - All Phases Title - The Dream Painter Sleep ~ Peaceful Slumber ~ Rejuvenation ~ Seership ~ Dreams ~ Prophetic Dreams ~ Dream Travel ~ Command Of Dreams ~ Trances. ELMEK - Male Day - Saturday/Tuesday Moon Phase - Dark Title - Lord Of Blades Blades ~ Knives ~ Death By Blade ~ Swordsmanship ~ Fatal Wounds ~ Concealed Weapons ~ Concealing Homicide ~ Infected Wounds. NYBASS - Androgynous Day - Monday Moon Phase - Waxing Title - Waiter In The Shadows Visions ~ Apparitions ~ Messages ~ Oracles ~ Divination ~ Lucid Dreaming ~ Remote Viewing ~ Augury ~ Possession ~ Psychic Attacks. SUCCORBENOTH - Androgynous Day - Friday/Monday Moon Phase - Waning Title - Demon Of Excess Jealousy ~ Emotional Imbalance ~ Possessiveness ~ Sexual Obsession ~ Wanton Lust ~ Exhibitionism ~ Attention ~ Pity. ©copyright2018 Brother Nemo

[silver-leaf-girl]

so I read Record of a Spaceborn Few

so, I just finished the audiobook of Becky Chambers Record of Spaceborn Few last night, and haha do I have some feelings. it is a beautiful, and lovely book?

mild spoilers, and initial review-y thoughts below?

I think a lot of my friends will be familiar with Becky Chambers’ stuff, but for context (since context is such a theme in this book) - they’re queer-positive, fairly soft sci fi, focusing on the relationships (shipmates, romantic, rivalries, friendships) between individuals in the world, rather than colossal Events of Galactic Significance (esp. compared to stuff like Ann Leckie, who I also like a lot). they’re also focused on humans (and their creations, <3 Lovelace in Book 2) as a kind of marginal and hardscrabble recently discovered species that’s not up to much, rather than casting us as the kind of ‘Humanity F- Yeah!‘/humans are special/have a unique manifest destiny that a fair amount of other sci fi does (a lot of people compare Chambers with the Mass Effect universe, which I genuinely don’t like because of this).

RoSF is very much in the tradition of this kind of small-scale ‘cosy’ sci-fi, dealing with the Exodan Fleet and its inhabitants who fled an environmentally devastated Earth, and who are under the three strains of the loss of one of their Generation Ships to metal fatigue, the visit of a well-meaning but intrusive alien anthropologist (whose broadcasts back home to her wealthy alien planet are really well-captured), and the issue of emigration/immigration/decline (?) of the Fleet. It follows a variety of plot lines - a fleet archivist, a recent immigrant, a restless teen guy, a caretaker (a kind of priest/funerary worker, really interesting), and a harried mum who’s considering leaving the fleet. It really inhabits their everyday lives and concerns; it indirectly tells a bigger story about uncertain cultural identity, but is focused on these small intimate stories.

The big through-line in the book is a sense of community, shared history, and what we owe to the past. The ships of the Exodan Fleet are maintained and patched together from their own scraps; people carry on identities, meanings and (as is discussed in one rather haunting bit towards the end) even bodies and ways of living as relics from a planet they will never set foot on; and (a really key theme) the nutrients of the bodies of the dead are recycled in a really emotive and heartfelt funereal ritual. How different people struggle with the past - rejecting it, chafing against it, seeking it out to fill holes in themselves, finding meaning in it, preserving it, making it - is so key throughout the book, both in the fiction, in the language, and the structure (bookended by two naming ceremonies, using a form of words that is so beautiful I feel I have to put it in a reblog), and it puts together a beautiful picture of a changing society where people are trying to preserve the values they built it on. The notion of recognising the fleet/the fleet you grew up in - is really powerful, and honestly a bit heart-in-throat.

But the notion of keeping shared history for its own sake isn’t enough - what’s worth preserving? Politically, it’s v. interesting too - there’s quite a lot of (well-blended-in) exposition and description of how the Fleet operates, and it’s ... well, if not Post Scarcity Fully Automated Luxury Gay Pacifist Space Communism, then at least Low Scarcity Labour-Egalitarian Lib Fem Space Anarcho-Socialism. The way that humans live and coexist alongside each other - where people come together, and where the faultlines between them are - is really well-illustrated without becoming didactic, and the idea of the fleet as this utopian, half-realised, desperate-but-now-slightly adrift project is really beautiful and well-evoked. The book is hopeful and convincing about the liberatory potential of this project (there’s a beautiful bit towards the end about even people leaving the fleet still being part of it and embodying what it values and means, but is ultimately clear-eyed about the fact that it’s the marginalised, minority part of a species that is nothing special on the galactic field and is surrounded by wealthy and powerful neighbours. It’s clear about the lingering crud of human social structures, about being undercut by intense, tragic disaster, by unequal external trade and internal corruption, and about the dubious appeals of the austere space-borne (and spaceborn) life compared to what the capitalist world beyond offers - but it’s hopeful nonetheless that people can make something of it, and that the fleet can carry on.

In terms of ~queer content~, it’s not quite as rich a vein as some of the previous books (first one had a lot more queer aliens and relationship structures, second had an incredibly strong trans metaphor as a through-line with an AI working out embodiment), but it’s got a lot of stuff that works with this too? Isabel, one of the main characters, is in a beautifully described and lovely wlw relationship, and her date with her wife where they’re remembering how they met is one of the most lovely bits of the book? Sometimes it’s OK not to have difficult queer feelings be an important part of the book. Sometimes just happy elderly lesbians is all you want/need! There’s also some interesting stuff with Sunny - a sex worker - and his relationship with Eyas, a funerary worker/caretaker - about the concept of ‘caring for bodies’, and the emotional labour that goes into that?

In terms of writing, it’s beautiful and lovely, just as much a warm hug and cup of hot chocolate as any of the other books in the series - it’s not super-lyrical or evocative in its use of language, but that’s not the point - it’s heartfelt and evokes real, flawed-but-good people in messy but fixable situations. The narration by Patricia Rodriguez on the audiobook version that I listened to is fantastic - I particularly like the way that she subtly changes language and accent on the different viewpoint characters to evoke the way different cultural perspectives and denaturalising the protagonists’ narrative voice.

So yes - it’s a small, beautiful, character-focused book with an extremely evocative sense of community and history. I cried a few times listening to it.

I’d definitely recommend it - probably on its own, but ideally in the context of the other two books before it, to flesh and round out the world(s) it evokes.

[sjohnson24]

Did Jesus Underestimate Satan?

“The greatest triumph of the devil in the modern age is convincing people that he doesn’t exist.”

Even as a boy, I didn’t understand the contradiction between Palm Sunday, which marks the triumphal arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, and the days that followed, culminating in his crucifixion on Good Friday.

If Jesus knew he was to die on the cross for the sins of mankind, as Christians maintain, then why the set up of Palm Sunday?

Christians say things such as, “Though Jesus felt happy with the welcome he received on Palm Sunday, only He knew that he was going to be betrayed and killed soon.”

From any rational perspective, that makes no sense. And though the mystical dimension was in full flower with Jesus, it isn’t irrational. To live and act from a higher source than the mind of man in this world requires faith, not a suspension of disbelief.

The term suspension of disbelief has been defined as a “willingness to suspend one’s critical faculties and believe something surreal; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment.”

That’s what we do when we go to the movies. And too often that’s what people do when they go to church. Perhaps that’s why evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics are the biggest voting bloc that put evil in the White House.

I attended Catholic schools until I was a junior in high school. Three years after being involved in an instance of violent abuse on a good friend by a nun in the 8th grade, I left the Church at 17.

It was neither whim, nor teenage revolt, since I’d questioned, observed and researched the Catholic faith while in high school before announcing one Sunday that I wasn’t going to Mass that day or ever again. Except for funerals and weddings, I never have.

Over 20 years later, immediately after recovering from a brush with death, an elderly Chinese woman approached and spoke evocatively of the Buddha and Jesus. This was not the detached Buddha of transplanted Buddhism in America, nor the deified Jesus of Catholicism and Christianity. She evoked the essence of Buddha and Jesus as human beings.

After that I began to ask, what actually happened to Jesus? Was he meant to die on the cross, as Christians believe, or did something go terribly wrong?

A contemplative is someone who takes the time, allows the space, and applies the art of completely quieting the mind in order to attain “union with God.” Many insights come during deeper states of meditation. One insight is that things went very wrong the days after “the people saw Jesus riding on the donkey, and knew He was the prophesized Messiah.”

It’s called Palm Sunday because, “in Biblical times, the palm branches symbolized peace and victory, and the crowd threw palm branches at the feet of Jesus, acknowledging that their hero had arrived.”

So what happened in Jerusalem? Put simply, it appears that Jesus overestimated his fellow Jews, and underestimated the dark forces arrayed against him.

Jesus’ had met and dispensed with the devil in the desert, and had every reason to believe that he had vanquished evil. His ministry had been attracting huge crowds, and he had every reason to believe that he could carry his message from the countryside into the capital.

But the devil (yes it exists in human consciousness) laid a trap for him. In addition, the people were not up to his call for radical change, and Caiaphas was able to organize a plot and convince the Sanhedrin. They held a mock trial of Jesus, turned the people against him, and got Pontius Pilate to execute him.

Did Jesus know he was going to die as he rode triumphally into Jerusalem? If some of his last words on the cross are to be believed—“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—No. That also shows that Jesus was a human being, not God, as Christians blasphemously believe.

An incident prior to Jesus’ arrest, purportedly in the Garden of Gethsemane, attests to this insight. “Hematidrosis is a condition in which capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood, occurring under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress.”

Why did that happen if Jesus knew all along he was going to die on the cross? Either he didn’t know, and the realization that he was about to die a horrible death caused it; or he did know and had a very human reaction.

While he was teaching, there’s a story of Jesus encountering a man who asked to follow him. Jesus said come. The man said he first had to go back and bury his father. To which Jesus responded, “Let the dead bury their dead.”

That indicates that he lived in a culture like the present one in America. It also attests to why, after over two years of manufactured outrage on cable TV, evil still rules this land.

Martin LeFevre

[joneswilliam72]

Review: On Sulphur English extreme metal act Inter Arma deliver their most uncompromising statement yet

You know what? Inter Arma are tired of being inadequately (and reductively) pigeon-holed under the “doom” or “sludge” labels. On the other hand, they likely don’t give a shit either about the lengths you’ve gone to in coming up with a multi-hyphenated descriptor that ticks off every metal sub-genre the band cherry picks its stylistic touchstones from; blackened-and-sludgy-southern-hard-psych-stoner-death-doom-post-metal hardly rolls off the tongue anyway.

Pitched as a deliberate subversion of expectations, Sulphur English strips the band’s sound of much of the colour and light that they had increasingly let in over their past few releases, to send listeners careening, disorientated, into a dark and stormy night of the soul, with little promise of a brighter dawn. Make no mistake, frontman Mike Paparo certainly sings of his own soul across a few of these tracks, but that album title, and its none-too-subtle nod to the toxic discourse of contemporary politics, should clue you in to the fact that it’s America’s soul that’s at stake here.

In their mastery of long-form composition, their deliberate wielding of shifting dynamics, expert control of tension and release, and, yes, exuberant indulgence in genre agnosticism, Inter Arma have always been a band that merited the use of adjectives like “transportative” and “transcendent.” Sky Burial, Paradise Gallows and especially the single track epic, The Cavern (which I like to think of as the Bloodborne iteration of Inter Arma) feel like journeys, Homeric in scale, and despite the vein of misanthropy that has run through virtually all of Paparo’s lyrics, there was always a sense of escapism inherent to the experience of listening to an Inter Arma record.

Like the best post-rock, the band’s music connects emotionally by sublimating its slow builds into moments of jaw-dropping catharsis. But they’re also just a group of incredible musicians, whose self-evident glee at the sheer possibilities of unfettered creativity translates into a life-affirming, even joyful, experience for their audience. Which is why, putting on an Inter Arma album feels like an escape from realities both humdrum and painful.

All of that is to say that Sulphur English, by contrast, is not interested in providing escapism. It’s here to confront you with personal agonies and political abominations, and get you to wake the fuck up and confront our collective reality. Where Paradise Gallows opened with a prologue of pretty acoustic guitars and solo-ing worthy of David Gilmour, all in an effort to sonically conjure up the cosmic grandeur of that beautiful album art, Sulphur English opens like a goddamn horror film, all piercing whines and echoing piano. Named for erstwhile Lord Mantis and Indian drummer, Bill Bumgardner, who took his own life in 2016 (the LP is dedicated to his memory as well as to the founding member of Bell Witch, Adrian Guerra), the album opener is a howl of pain and anger, expressed in its back half via a solid minute of lurching riffage and crashing symbols, rising to a cacophony of bass drum blasts and all-consuming static. It’s a deliberately unwelcoming introduction.

The intensity doesn’t let up over the next few tracks. ‘A Waxen Sea’ and ‘Citadel’ are about as thrillingly blunt as Inter Arma get. There’s no slow build here. Just wrecking ball riffs and T.J. Childers behind the kit doing his damnedest to convince us that he is in possession of more than the standard allotment of limbs. ‘A Waxen Sea’’s appropriately sea-sick rhythm evokes being aboard a ship buffeted by tumultuous seas. As the song spirals to its conclusion, it feels like you’re circling the vortex of an unfathomably vast sinkhole. Paparo’s low death growl throughout is positively terrifying and animalistic, and yet the key lyric of a song that seems in thrall to the majesty of the oceans is about the placid tolling of iron bells. Calm and peaceful, this ain’t.

Lead single ‘Citadel’ is like a showreel for what Inter Arma are capable of. Stop-start riffing, blast beasts, vertigo-inducing, descending guitar leads, and Paparo’s vocals vacillating between the guttural bellows of death and the demonic screech of black metal, layered with effects. The lyrics posit the song as a call-to-arms, an appeal to one’s strength of will, to rise above depression and personal anguish. It’s a striking examination of mental health, wrought in Shakespearean terms: “Held captive by untold wounds of corporeal and psychic root/ Aloft in a storm of unseen anguish where joy and sorrow entwine.” The eyes-closed, horns-raised shredding of the song’s guitar solos could be interpreted as a sonic metaphor for the triumph of Paparo’s determination to overcome, but they sit so incongruously against the blunt force aesthetic of the rest of the track, that they almost seem to mock that possibility.

��Howling Lands’, the final piece of the opening triptych, places full emphasis on Inter Arma’s rhythm section. Tribal drums dominate the mix before roiling riffs and Paparo’s blade-sharp shriek join to create an overwhelming wall of sound. If you hadn’t done so already, this is without a doubt the track where you’ll rise from your seat to applaud the job done by Mikey Allred, who engineered, mixed and mastered the record. The sheer sense of scale created here is immense, and it’s all in service to conjuring an image that matches Paparo’s words. In his most operatic baritone, he intones that the masses are digging their way to the centre of hell, as their masters (the 1%, presumably) pound their drums incessantly. And that’s exactly what ‘Howling Lands’ feels like.

When Childers finally relents, and the gently plucked acoustic guitar of ‘Stillness’ fades in, it feels like being soothed to sleep by the side of a campfire in a moonlit desert of the far-flung wild west. There’s an undeniable Swans vibe in the song’s gothic Americana, and more than a touch of Michael Gira in Paparo’s vocal delivery. If Cormac McCarthy wrote folk-inflected post-metal, this is undoubtedly what it would sound like.

Long-term Inter Arma fans will have noticed by now that they’re onto the fifth track of the album and not one song so far has come close to breaking the 10-minute barrier. The band have been holding back on the slow build approach because they’ve been too busy trying to cave in your skull; until ‘Stillness’ that is. A spiritual successor to ‘The Long Road Home’ off Sky Burial, and sounding uncannily like the beautiful folk lullaby of Paradise Gallows closer, ‘Where the Earth Meets the Sky’, ‘Stillness’ takes its time getting to its payoff. But when that monolithically sludgy riff hits, it brings with it some serious emotional heft. It’s as if the song blossoms, if something so resolutely indelicate could be said to blossom. Paparo’s voice resonates as if it’s bouncing off the towering sandstone buttes of Monument Valley.

There’s something deeply goofy about someone roaring the word “stillness” at the top of their lungs, but there is a certain sense of calm to the maelstrom that Inter Arma create. It’s brutal, unfathomably huge and loud, but somehow comforting. Released in an understated fashion as an Adult Swim Single, ‘Stillness’ is actually something of a thesis statement for Inter Arma’s raison d’être: Paparo’s lyrics, with their references to hymns and primeval songs, are suggestive of music’s power to both rouse and still the mind. This is something the guys in Inter Arma, despite their apparently irreverent approach to release strategy, take very seriously.

The band revisit the relative quiet of the album’s centerpiece on ‘Blood on the Lupines’, another gothic reverie, which passes by like a bad dream. Paparo’s droning baritone is virtually incomprehensible over an instrumental backdrop that can only be described as Lynchian jazz-doom. But pay attention to the lyric sheet, and what you have is an evocatively told narrative about an America that has lost its way. It’s deliberately obtuse, overtly symbolic and beholden only to the internal logic of dreams, but as the band gradually builds the tension, Paparo’s narrative reaches a head that is as unsettling as any of the more extreme instrumental moments on the album.

Speaking of extreme, ‘Blood on the Lupines’ is flanked on either side by two of Inter Arma’s wildest ever compositions. ‘The Atavist’s Meridian’ may not be entirely without precedent in their catalogue (‘’sblood’ and ‘Violent Constellations’ come immediately to mind), but the malevolent churn that the band whips into life during the song’s breathtaking opening minutes sets a new standard for chaotic heaviness. Childers’ performance is simply phenomenal, and Paparo is at his most deranged, whilst the contributions by Dalton, Kerkes and Russell feel less like parts written for and performed by bass and guitar, than an unholy noise summoned from the depths of the earth. There’s a period of respite during the song’s middle section but it is defined by a pervasive sense of uneasiness; the threat of being thrust back into the raging inferno of that striking album art hanging overhead. Spoiler alert: you get thrust back in. And then some.

Given its subject matter, it makes sense that the closing title track is the most aggressive song on an album that already wasn’t shy about how mad it was about a lot of things. Quite plainly an indictment of Trump and especially the GOP’s backbone-deficient willingness to follow the “charlatan [with the] forked tongue” down any outlandish, self-serving avenue he sees fit, in their quest for “power absolute,” ‘Sulphur English’ sees the band plow through passages of blistering death-metal, before slowing down to a funeral trudge to drive home the moral imperative like exasperated and weary blows to the head: “sever the corrupt tongue of the imperious fool,” Paparo growls. You can’t help but feel that anti-Trump demonstrations would be a lot more effective if protestors sounded like the Inter Arma frontman.

As the title track fades out on a cacophony of blast beats, piercing feedback and distended slabs of guitar, you realise that you now find yourself, silent and alone in the dark. Dawn has not broken. You’ve been on a journey through that black and blustery night of America’s soul, but you still have to make your own way out to the light. Inter Arma aren’t going to hold your hand and tell you that everything’s going to be ok. That’s why Sulphur English is lacking in the unguardedly beautiful moments that had graced Paradise Gallows. It’s an album that’s decidedly a product of and reaction to the times. Despite the grandeur, theatricality and sheer exuberant technicality of everything this band does in their music, the fact that they’re engaging with the uncomfortable realities of the present adds a new string to their bow and arguably makes them more vital a band than ever. Ever since Sky Burial’s release in 2013, the metal community has been hailing Inter Arma as one of the form’s leading lights. Sulphur English may not quite attain the same stratospheric heights as that record did, but, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder alongside the rest of their catalogue, it easily earns Inter Arma the right to be heralded as the metal act of the decade.

from The 405 http://bit.ly/2Zc3vqN

[inloveandwords]

This post was inspired by Ally’s series (which was inspired by Lia at Lost in a Story).

It works like this

Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.

Order on ascending date added.

Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books

Read the synopsis of the books

Decide: keep it or should it go?

    The Book of Love (Magdalene Line Trilogy #2) by Kathleen McGowan

Maureen Paschal thought she might rest and work on her book after discovering the gospel written by Mary Magdalene that revealed Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. The truth of their story rocked the world and made Maureen a target of those who did not like her discovery and a heroine to those who did. Then Maureen receives a strange package containing what looks like an ancient letter written in Latin and signed with a symbol. She discovers that its author is an extraordinary woman whom history has overlooked — or covered up — Countess Matilda of Tuscany, and in the letter Matilda demands the return of her “most precious books and documents.” Maureen soon finds herself in a race across Italy and France, where hidden dangers await her and her lover, Berenger, as they begin to realize that they are on the trail of another explosive discovery: the Book of Love, the Gospel written in Jesus’ own hand. As Maureen learns more about Matilda, an eleventhcentury warrior countess who was secretly married to a pope, she begins to see the eerie connections between herself and Matilda, connections she must trace to their source if she is to stop the wrong people from finding the Book of Love and hiding it forever. Weaving together Matilda’s little-known true story and Maureen’s thrilling search, “The Book of Love” follows two amazing heroines as their stories intertwine through time. Maureen is immersed in the mysteries of the labyrinth, the beautiful poetry of the Song of Songs, the world’s greatest art and architecture, and Matilda’s amazing legacy…until a potentially fatal encounter reveals the Book of Love to Maureen — and to the reader.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Ditch Comments: Dear me from June 27, 2011… y tho?

The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti

Scarlet spends most of her time worrying about other people. Some are her friends, others are practically strangers, and then there are the ones no else even notices. Trying to fix their lives comes naturally to her. And pushing her own needs to the side is part of the deal. So when her older sister comes home unexpectedly married and pregnant, Scarlet has a new person to worry about. But all of her good intentions are shattered when the unthinkable happens: she falls for her sister’s husband. For the first time in a long time, Scarlet’s not fixing a problem, she’s at the center of one. And ignoring her feelings doesn’t seem to be an option…

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Keep Comments: It is my personal mission to read every Deb Caletti book ever written. Also, I own this book already.

Dead Beautiful (Dead Beautiful #1)by Yvonne Woon

On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Renée Winters was still an ordinary girl. She spent her summers at the beach, had the perfect best friend, and had just started dating the cutest guy at school. No one she’d ever known had died. But all that changes when she finds her parents dead in the Redwood Forest, in what appears to be a strange double murder.

After the funeral Renée’s wealthy grandfather sends her to Gottfried Academy, a remote and mysterious boarding school in Maine, where she finds herself studying subjects like Philosophy, Latin, and the “Crude Sciences.”

It’s there that she meets Dante Berlin, a handsome and elusive boy to whom she feels inexplicably drawn. As they grow closer, unexplainable things begin to happen, but Renée can’t stop herself from falling in love. It’s only when she discovers a dark tragedy in Gottfried’s past that she begins to wonder if the Academy is everything it seems.

Little does she know, Dante is the one hiding a dangerous secret, one that has him fearing for her life.

Dead Beautiful is both a compelling romance and thought-provoking read, bringing shocking new meaning to life, death, love, and the nature of the soul.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Keep Comments: This is already on my bookshelf. I don’t plan on unhauling it just yet 🙂

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Annie loves Duncan — or thinks she does. Duncan loves Annie, but then, all of a sudden, he doesn’t. Duncan really loves Tucker Crowe, a reclusive Dylanish singer-songwriter who stopped making music ten years ago. Annie stops loving Duncan, and starts getting her own life.

In doing so, she initiates an e-mail correspondence with Tucker, and a connection is forged between two lonely people who are looking for more out of what they’ve got. Tucker’s been languishing (and he’s unnervingly aware of it), living in rural Pennsylvania with what he sees as his one hope for redemption amid a life of emotional and artistic ruin — his young son, Jackson. But then there’s also the new material he’s about to release to the world: an acoustic, stripped-down version of his greatest album, Juliet — entitled, Juliet, Naked.

What happens when a washed-up musician looks for another chance? And miles away, a restless, childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humblingly humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one’s promise.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Ditch Comments: This had been on my bookshelf for a long time, but I actually recently sold it back to Books a Million since my sister forced me to watch the movie. I didn’t love the movie, so I don’t plan on reading the book either.

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Midwives, and Skeletons at the Feast comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice.

“There,” says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels.

Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents’ murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen – who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him. But then the State’s Attorney begins to suspect that Alice’s husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.

Secrets of Eden is both a haunting literary thriller and a deeply evocative testament to the inner complexities that mark all of our lives. Once again Chris Bohjalian has given us a riveting page-turner in which nothing is precisely what it seems. As one character remarks, “Believe no one. Trust no one. Assume all of our stories are suspect.”

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Ditch Comments: This is on my bookshelf, but I honestly don’t plan on reading it. Time to unhaul it!

Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts

Declan Fitzgerald had always been the family maverick, but even he couldn’t understand his impulse to buy a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans. All he knew was that ever since he first saw Manet Hall, he’d been enchanted-and obsessed-with it. So when the opportunity to buy the house comes up, Declan jumps at the chance to live out a dream.

Determined to restore Manet Hall to its former splendor, Declan begins the daunting renovation room by room, relying on his own labor and skills. But the days spent in total isolation in the empty house take a toll. He is seeing visions of days from a century past, and experiencing sensations of terror and nearly unbearable grief-sensations not his own, but those of a stranger. Local legend has it that the house is haunted, and with every passing day Declan’s belief in the ghostly presence grows.

Only the companionship of alluring Angelina Simone can distract him from the mysterious happenings in the house, but Angelina too has her own surprising connection to Manet Hall-a connection that will help Declan uncover a secret that’s been buried for a hundred years.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Keep Comments: I have two shelves full of Nora Roberts books right now and I’ve only ever read one series by her. While I enjoyed it, the only reason why I own so many of her books is because I inherited them from a friend. TBH I don’t know that I’m ever going to get to reading most of them. I hate reading mass market paperbacks and 99% of them are in that format. At some point, when I gather enough books, I’m planning on getting rid of most of my mass market paperbacks. For now, though, I’ll hang on to this.

The Letter (The Christmas Box Trilogy #3) by Richard Paul Evans

Nineteen years after the death of their young daughter, an estranged couple finds a letter at the base of the girl’s gravestone. Feeling in his heart that the letter is from the mother who abandoned him as a child, the husband embarks on a poignant journey of self-discovery and renewed love. The bestselling author of THE CHRISTMAS BOX brings another universal message of hope and love to Spanish-speaking readers.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Ditch Comments: It’s part of a series I haven’t read yet!

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

“Come to me–come to me entirely now,” said he. “Make my happiness–I will make yours.”

Born into a poor family and raised by an oppressive aunt, young Jane Eyre becomes the governess at Thornfield Manor to escape the confines of her life. There her fiery independence clashes with the brooding and mysterious nature of her employer, Mr. Rochester. But what begins as outright loathing slowly evolves into a passionate romance. When a terrible secret from Rochester’s past threatens to tear the two apart, Jane must make an impossible choice: Should she follow her heart or walk away and lose her love forever?

Unabashedly romantic and utterly enthralling, Jane Eyre endures as one of the greatest love stories of all time. This must-have edition of a timeless classic is beautifully presented for a modern teen audience.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Keep Comments: MUST. READ.

The Taking by Dean Koontz

On the morning that will mark the end of the world they have known, Molly and Niel Sloan awaken to the drumbeat of rain on their roof. It has haunted their sleep, invaded their dreams, and now they rise to find a luminous silvery downpour drenching their small California mountain town. A strange scent hangs faintly in the air, and the young couple cannot shake the sense of something wrong.

As hours pass and the rain continues to fall, Molly and Niel listen to disturbing news of extreme weather phenomena across the globe. Before evening, their little town loses television and radio reception. Then telephone and the Internet are gone. With the ceaseless rain now comes an obscuring fog that transforms the once-friendly village into a ghostly labyrinth. By nightfall the Sloans have gathered with some of their neighbors to deal with community damage… but also because they feel the need to band together against some unknown threat, some enemy they cannot identify or even imagine.

In the night, strange noises arise, and at a distance, in the rain and the mist, mysterious lights are seen drifting among the trees. The rain diminishes with the dawn, but a moody gray-purple twilight prevails. Soon Molly, Niel, and their small band of friends will be forced to draw on reserves of strength, courage, and humanity they never knew they had. For within the misty gloom they will encounter something that reveals in a terrifying instant what is happening to their world – something that is hunting them with ruthless efficiency.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Ditch Comments: This is 100% not my thing. Why did I add it?

Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession by Anne Rice

Autobiographical spiritual memoir providing an account of how the author rediscovered and fully embraced her Catholic faith after decadesas a self-proclaimed atheist. Begins with her childhood in NewOrleans, when she seriously considered entering a convent. As she grewinto a young adult she delved into concerns about faith, God, and theCatholic Church that led her away from religion. The author finallyreclaimed her Catholic faith in the late 1990s, realizing howmuch she desired to surrender her being, including herwriting talent, to God.

Date added to TBR: Jun 27, 2011 Keep or Ditch? Ditch Comments: This is the second book in a series. I got a little excited over the name, apparently.

  Here are the stats

Previous Total TBR Count: 1896

Updated Total TBR Count: 1951

Total Ditched Today: 6

Total Kept Today: 4

  Bye-Bye Books: Decluttering my TBR March 2019 This post was inspired by Ally’s series (which was inspired by Lia at Lost in a Story…