#get a rEAL INSTRUMENT LEWIS

[here4tripitaka]

Ch 59: Yum cha, fire and literal bubble tea

This chapter was just all-round beautiful. Atmospheric, poetic, visually vivid and full of music - although sometimes also uncomfortably realistic (unnaturally hot weather; mountain fires).

The red mountain made me think of landscapes I’ve seen. The idea of drums and bugles saving people from the sound of the sizzling sun sinking into the sea made me think of the din of musical instruments at Chinese New Year. The dragons in the streams and the paulownia trees were simply beautiful.

And the music! There is so much music. Yu’s footnotes say that three of the poems are set to pre-existing Chinese tunes. I tried to dig them up. They’re at the bottom of this post, for anyone interested.

Well, let’s begin. As we know, the travellers come upon a strangely sweltering part of the landscape. Bajie thinks they must be at the Edge of Heaven, but Wukong points out they can’t possibly have travelled that far. They approach the house of a local man, introduced to us through the ‘Not Quite’ poem.

I loved this poem. It reminded me a little of the Phantom Tollbooth or of Lewis Carroll. (Of course, that may well be because I don’t know much, if any, non-western poetry or literature with which to compare it. Do let me know if you know any Tollbooth-esque literature or poetry from other cultures.)

He tells them they’re at the foot of the Mountain of Flames.

I didn’t realise the flaming mountains were a real land feature in China - minus the pyrotechnics. Apparently travellers along the Silk Road avoided them. The soil temperature has been estimated at 66.8°C (152.2°F). (Thanks Wikipedia.)

Tripitaka is overwhelmed at the mere thought of the heat. He turns pale and falls silent - right back to his old ways:

Wukong, being the ADHD kid that he is, gets distracted by a vendor with a cart, and goes to buy rice pudding with a hair-turned-copper-coin.

I don’t know which kind of rice pudding this means, but it sounds delicious. Maybe this?

Or this?

But really I’m just thinking of this - which has nothing to do with rice or pudding, but everything to do with me getting excited when a Chinese food cart rolls around:

Wukong calls bullshit on the place being hot all year round. He figures if they can make rice flour for rice pudding, there have to be both hot and cool seasons.

And so they find out about Immortal/Princess Iron Fan, whose fan can extinguish the fires and even bring rain.

Cut to the woodcutter on Jade Cloud Mountain, who has a real chip on his shoulder about calling her ‘immortal’:

The 'Raksasi' thing may or may not be a jerk move, because apparently it just means ‘female demon’:

Wukong gets nervous about having to confront another angry relative of Red Boy, and the woodcutter schools him on how he should never be nervous as a Buddhist:

Even when Wukong explains his bind, the woodcutter stands by it:

I somehow love the total lack of strategy here. “Okay. You have every reason to think that this demon will refuse to give you what you want. Just disregard that entirely, and go in there confidently.”

Wukong finds Iron Fan, gets his ass kicked by her, and takes back some of the condescending thoughts he’d had about her as a woman fighter. We go from this:

To this:

He’s bailed out by Bodhisattva Lingji, who conveniently has a Wind-Arresting Elixir. Wukong returns to unwarranted pride in his manhood in no time:

I mean, the only reason he can withstand the wind is that a woman was nice and gave him an elixir. So I'm not sure what it has to do with him being a man.

He sneaks into Iron Fan’s stomach via her tea:

In the ultimate Trojan Horse move, he prods her insides til it hurts. I must not have been the only one thinking of yum cha when the rice pudding came up, because the dim sum theme continues:

Iron-Fan puts on a good pretence of panicking and surrendering, but keeps her cool. She gives Wukong a fake iron fan. He doesn’t realise until he’s dragged the whole of Team Tripitaka up the Mountain of Flames and made the fire worse.

Tripitaka cries.

Ah, dear Tripitaka. He wants those scriptures. He wants them SO MUCH. And if he can’t get them, his heart is going to break.

Meanwhile, Bajie is just laughing his ass off because Wukong lost all the hair from his thighs in the fire.

The guys are at a bit of a loss. The only way to the west is to pass the Mountain of Fire, but nobody really knows what to do next. Clearly Wukong is no longer feeling so confident about kicking Iron Fan’s ass, cos he’s not even talking about trying a third time.

While they’re kicking around, they’re approached by a mysterious man, who turns out to be the spirit of the Mountain of Flames. He tips them off about what to do next.

And that’s it for this week. I’m excited for the next chapter, because I came across some ceramic art online that gave me some possible hints about next week. I’ll refrain from posting it, but we’ll see next week.

Music

As promised! The music for the three poems.

#1 To the tune of the Wind in the Pines

《風入松歌》 Feng Ru Song Ge

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOr1-ZeVGvM

About the music: https://silkqin.com/02qnpu/10tgyy/tg28frsg.htm

#2 To the tune of Barbarian Bodhisattvas

Probably this music? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1jmF5zg9yI

#3 To the tune of Moon Over West River

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGMkxd8RW5o

@journeythroughjourneytothewest

—

Image credits: The usual spiel. The images above are either AI, or random pictures from the web, or a Frankenstein of both; some modified, some not. They are not original. The pre-existing images should turn up with reverse googling or have links embedded, but feel free to ask and I’ll dig up sources.

[soracities]

I’m coming to you because you seem very intelligent - not only in what you post/your taste, but also in your responses. Do you have any advice for integrating contradictory and conflicting parts of your personality? I want to be authentic, but I seem to resonate with very opposing things. I feel a split. Thank you so much ❤️

I've had this ask in the back of my mind for a long, long time and I'm sorry to only be getting to it now.

In all honesty, I don't think that "authenticity" is about eliminating contradiction—I don't believe that's even possible: human consciousness is....profoundly complicated and to even attempt to do so is essentially futile; we are as murky to ourselves as we are to others, and others are to us. I don't believe there is a fixed and final self that awaits us, either at the end of whatever journey we feel ourselves to be on, or at any given moment in our lives. It's not a linear thing to me (it isn't even a thing, to be honest), but more like a rhizome--a kind of constant branching and growing and moving. It is a series of responses that differ year by year, month by month, even hour by hour. The world happens to you, and you happen to it and this happening is constantly shifting. As it should! The real conflict, I think, is to try and surrender to the idea of a finished self that is coherent and complete because to do so A) potentially alienates you from experiencing yourself as you are at any given moment because you are tied up in what you should be, and B) can leave you stranded from the world around you because you're seeking finality in an existence where such a concept, literally, cannot exist.

Contradiction is not inherently a bad thing; we tend to assume that it equates to insincerity or, worse, deception but that is not always the case. I don't know exactly what your "opposing things" consist of, but I do believe it helps sometimes to consider that whatever authenticity you're looking for is not so much found in the opposing things themselves, or in the process of reconciling them to each other, but rather within the response that they evoke in you. The things don't matter as much as the interplay that happens between them and you, because it is in that interplay that you are actually present, or rather a distinct portion of you. There's a beautiful quote by C.S. Lewis where he talks about friendship and how there is a version of you that exists, and can only exist in the way it does, because of how it emerges when you are in the company of a particular person. Who you are with your close friend A may be subtly different to who you are with your close friend B, who may differ again from who you are with your friend C, and vice versa. But none of those relationships are insincere because of those differences and we would never think to dismiss them as such, either. Each of those friends is a different person, who responds to you, and to whom you respond in turn according to their distinctness. They are not contradictory but simply amplify different parts of who you are, in different ways, the same as how a piece of quartz reflects and refracts light differently depending on how you turn it, depending on where exactly that light hits. But no matter the angle, it is still the same stone.

The things that resonate with you are like that, I think; it's not a single instrument at work but rather a small symphony with different movements at different times. And the only real contradiction, the only thing-- at least in my view--that possibly will cause a split, is the belief that you need to force any part of yourself to cohere to a mythical, singular, state of being, which does not--which cannot--exist. Because honestly, it's all our multitudes that allow us to fully engage with the world as it finds us, that actually widen our awareness and give us a capacity for empathy and to accept the distinct otherness of other people and creatures: even more, it allows space for humility in our approach to the world because it accepts that there is so much more beyond the boundaries of what we know or think we know. It allows space for truths rather than A Truth and we've all seen (and are seeing) what happens when you build your entire view of the world, and yourself, on the notion that only one thing can be true at all times.

I think integrating is not always the right word--I think it's more about acceptance, because these opposing things in themselves are not really defining you; they're just the medium through which some part of you (it doesn't even have to be a part of you--it could be a question, an idea, even a passing curiosity) is finding an expression in the world, but this is not the whole and entirety of who you are and it does not need to be either. I've seen it a lot online, especially when it comes to fitting your interests into an aesthetic or neat category to list in your bio and it saddens and infuriates me in equal measure because it is far more limiting than it is freeing. Categorizing like this is about consumability, which is about whittling down all difference and variation (which, honestly, is where the truly exciting stuff happens). Not everything must be categorizable or listable to be valid. You are allowed to like the things you like without feeling as though you must corral them all into a coherent assessment of your entire being.

It is a lot more exhausting trying to harmonize all the conflicting and opposing facets of your personality than to accept them for what they are: different responses to different stimuli, environments, or events, that arise at different times, in different ways. They are not necessarily set in stone; they do not always need to make sense to each other, only to you. Do these things genuinely interest you? Do they excite you? You are no less you for liking one thing and then its polar opposite--you're simply coming into contact with a different part of yourself , or perhaps even just another side of a question you did not realise you were asking, which is always an incredibly exciting and intriguing experience because it means the potential within yourself, this vast playing-field of interests and questions, is never-ending-- it's a growing and responding with and to the world beyond you! It shows you that you are bigger and wider than you thought yourself to be! How exhilarating is that? (On top of that it is also a profound relief to know you are not obligated to be the same person at all times, in all times--you're a customizable character in an, admittedly absurd, but gloriously varied video game that requires literally nothing from you--you are free to show up however you want and add to the absurdity without needing to justify any of it).

I've said it before but as far as I'm concerned the self is not a destination; it's cultivation, like a garden. It's uncovering and recovering and discovering. It's not about the endgame because a garden does not have one; it's just filling time in with fragments of life, in various forms and stages. And I think that's all any of us can really do for as long as we're here--we fill our time in with life as we accumulate it, life that is filtered down to us through the lens of so many relationships and experiences with the world that to even attempt to try and quantify it and explain it all into neat concepts would cost us a significant chunk of the little time we have. I'm not saying that there aren't facets of yourself that it would be useful to question or try to understand, nor am I saying that all contradictions are positive and don't require change (if change is the healthiest thing for you). All I'm saying is that human beings cannot be easily defined and boxed away, and we do ourselves a huge disservice (not to mention immense violence, metaphorically and literally) when we move through life assuming we can, or should be.

At the end of the day, and if I'm completely honest, I'm not a fan of the word "authentic". I've always found it to be uncomfortably loaded--it's a word where the active meaning of it rests not with you but with other people's perceptions of you (it also seems to suggest a binary that I find far too reductive for something as messy and expansive as human thought and feeling). Whatever it is meant to represent is, to me, not some external construct that you fit yourself into; it's simply openness, honesty, and curiosity: about your own limitations, your interests, no matter how varied, the unpredictability that is part and parcel of existing in a world where nothing is guaranteed or certain, no matter how many ideologies we cook up.

All the different versions of yourself that have existed so far--the yous that are, either entirely or marginally, you no longer because you have grown and changed in accordance with the things that have happened to you--the things you have seen, learnt, read, the people you've met, or moved on from--are no less sincere for having been grown out of than the version of you that exists now, which will also be no less sincere than the you that will emerge 5 years or 5 months from now. And even some imprint of those versions--their thoughts, ideas, fears, passions etc., still remain: some louder and some fainter than others, some disappearing for decades and emerging out of the blue, some fading bit by bit, and then entirely. There is no towering and ultimate Self that unites all of these; our being here is a brief, beautiful palimpsest that just keeps going and growing and growing. The best thing we can do, I think, as we go about our small and often confusing lives, is accept and acknowledge them as such, and hold, perhaps, a small space in gratitude that we, tiny as we are, get to be part of this kind of expansiveness.

[ourshadowstallerthanoursoul]

Interview to JPJ

(by Steven Rosen, Guitar Player - July 1977, Chicago)

It was shared on ultimate-guitar.com by Steven Rosen himself (link). I suggest going to read the introduction because there's a bit of angry JPJ which is quite surprising (to me at least). Enjoy!

What was the impetus behind becoming a bass player?

I used to play piano when I was younger, and there was a rock and roll band forming at school when I was fourteen, but they didn't want a piano player, all they wanted was drums or bass. I thought, I can't get the drums on the bus, bass looked easy, four strings, no chords, easy so I took it up. And it was easy; it wasn't too bad at all. I took it up before guitar, which I suppose is sort of interesting. Before I got a real 4-string, my father had a ukulele banjo, a little one, and I had that strung up like a bass, but it didn't quite have the bottom that was required. Actually my father didn't want to have to sign a guarant or to back me in the payments for a bass. He said, ‘Don't bother with it; take up the tenor saxophone. In two years the bass guitar will never be heard of again.’ I said, ‘No Dad, I really want one, there's work for me.’ He said, ‘Ah, there's work?’ And I got a bass right away.

What was your first bass?

Oh, it was a pig; it had a neck like a tree trunk. It was a solid body Dallas bass guitar with a single cutaway. It sounded all right though, and it was good for me because I developed very strong fingers. I had no idea about setting instruments up then, so I just took it home from the shop. I had an amplifier with a 10 speaker... Oh, it was awful. It made all kinds of farting noises. And then I had a converted television; you know one of those big old stand-up televisions with the amp in the bottom and a speaker where the screen should be. I ended up giving myself double hernias. Bass players always had the hardest time because they always had to cope with the biggest piece of equipment. It never occurred to me when I was deciding between that and drums that I'd had to lug a bass amp.

What kind of music were you playing in that first band?

Shadows, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis stuff. I started doubling on piano. We didn't have a drummer at first, because we never could find one. That happened to another bass player, Larry Graham, Sly Stone's bass player. He started off in a band with no drummer, which is how he got that percussive style. You've got a lot to make up for once the lead guitar takes a solo because there's only you left. You've got to make a lot of noise. We got a drummer after a while whom I taught, would you believe. I've never played drums in my life.

That must have definitely had an influence on your playing.

I suppose it must have. I don't like bass players that go boppity boppity bop all over the neck; you should stay around the bottom and provide the end of the group. I work very closely with the drummer; it's very important.

How long did that first band last?

Not very long. I found a band with a drummer. This band also came along with really nice looking guitars, and I thought, ‘Oh, they must be great!’ They had Burns guitars so I got myself one, too. The one with the three pickups and a Tru-Voice amplifier. We all had purple band jackets and white shoes, and I thought, ‘This is it, this is the big time.’ But as soon as I got out of school I played at American Air Force bases, which was good training, plus they always had great records in the jukebox. That was my introduction to the black music scene, when very heavy gentlemen would come up insisting on Night Train eight times an hour.

What was the first really professional band you were in?

It was with Jet Harris and Tony Meehan (bassist and drummer with The Shadows). That was when I was seventeen, I suppose. And those were the days when they used to scream all the way through the show. It was just like now, really, where you have to make a dash for the limos at the end of the night make a sort of terrible gauntlet. In the days before roadies, you'd have to drag around your own gear, so we all invested in a roadie. We thought we owed it to ourselves, and this bloke was marvelous. He did everything, he drove the wagon, he lugged the gear, he did the lights... the whole thing.

What kind of bass were you using with Harris and Meehan?

Oh, I got my first Fender then. I lusted after this Jazz bass in Lewisham, and it cost me about $250, I think. It was the new one. They'd just changed the controls, and I used that bass up until last (1975) tour, and then she had to go. She was getting unreliable and rattling a lot, and I just had to leave her home this time.

What followed your working with that band?

I got into sessions. I thought, ‘I've had enough of the road’, bought myself a dog and didn't work for six months. Then I did start up again. I played in other silly bands. I remember that Jet Harris and Tony Meehan band, John McLaughlin joined on rhythm guitar. It was the first time I'd met him and it was hilarious. Here he was sitting there all night going Dm to G to Am. That was my first introduction to jazz when he came along, because we'd all get to the gig early and have a blow. Oh, that was something, first meeting him. And then I joined a couple of other bands with him for a while, rhythm and blues bands.

Do you remember the first session that you ever did?

No, I don't think so; it was in Decca Number 2 (studio in London). I was late, and I suddenly realized how bad my reading was. There was another bass player there, a stand-up bass, and I was just there to provide the click. It was nearly my last session.

Who were some of the people you were doing sessions with?

All kinds of silly people: used to do calls with Tom Jones, Cathy Kirby, Dusty Springfield.

The Rolling Stones and Donovan, too, didn't you?

I only did one Stones session, really. I just did the strings, they already had the track down. It was ‘She's A Rainbow’. And then the first Donovan session was a shambles, it was awful. It was ‘Sunshine Superman’ and the arranger had got it all wrong, so I thought, being the opportunist that I was, ‘I can do better than that’ and actually went up to the producer. He came around and said, ‘Is there anything we can do to sort of save the session?’ And I piped up, ‘Well, look how about if I play it straight?’ because I had a part which went sort of ooowooooo (imitates a slide up the neck) every now and again, and the other bass player sort of did wooooo (imitates downwards slide) down below, and then there was some funny congas that were in and out of time. And I said, ‘How about if we just sort of play it straight; get the drummer to do this and that?’

How did the session go?

The session came off, and I was immediately hired as the arranger by Mickie Most whom I loved working with; he was a clever man. I used to do Herman's Hermits and all that. I mean they were never there; you could do a whole album in a day. And it was great fun and a lot of laughs. I did all of Lulu's stuff and all his artists. I did one Jeff Beck single, and he's never spoken to me since. It was ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’. I did the arrangement for it and I played bass. Then we had ‘Mellow Yellow’ for Donovan, which we argued about for hours because they didn't like my arrangement at all, not at all. Mickie stood by me. He said, ‘I like the arrangement, I think it's good’. It wasn't Donovan. He didn't mind either but he had so many people around him saying, ‘Hey, this isn't you.’ But he sold a couple of a million on it, didn't he?

Was the Hurdy Gurdy Man session when you first met Jimmy Page?

No. I'd met Jimmy on sessions before. It was always Big Jim and little Jim. Big Jim Sullivan and little Jim and myself and the drummer. Apart from group sessions where he'd play solos and stuff like that, Page always ended up on rhythm guitar because he couldn't read too well. He could read chord symbols and stuff, but he'd have to do anything they'd ask when he walked into a session. But I used to see a lot of him just sitting there with an acoustic guitar sort of raking out chords. I always thought the bass player's life was much more interesting in those days, because nobody knew how to write for bass, so they used to say, ‘We'll give you the chord sheet and get on with it.’ So even on the worst sessions you could have a little runaround. But that was good; I would have hated to have sat there on acoustic guitar.

How long did you do sessions?

Three or four years, on and off. Then I thought I was going to get into arranging because it seemed that sessions and running about was much too silly. I started running about and arranging about forty or fifty things a month. I ended up just putting a blank piece of score paper in front of me and just sitting there and staring at it. Then I joined Led Zeppelin, I suppose, after my missus said to me, ‘Will you stop moping around the house; why don't you join a band or something?’ And I said, ‘There are no bands I want to join, what are you talking about?’ And she said, ‘Well, look, I think it was in Disc, Jimmy Page is forming a group’, he'd just left the Yardbirds ‘why don't you give him a ring?’ So I rang him up and said, ‘Jim, how you doing? Have you got a group yet?’ He said, ‘I haven't got anybody yet.’ And I said, ‘Well, if you want a bass player, give me a ring.’ And he said, ‘All right, I'm going up to see this singer Terry Reid told me about, and he might know a drummer as well. I'll call you when I've seen what they're like.’ He went up there, saw Robert Plant, and said, ‘This guy is really something.’ We started under the name the New Yardbirds because nobody would book us under anything else. We rehearsed an act, an album, and a tour in about three weeks, and it took off. The first time, we all met in this little room just to see if we could even stand each other. It was wall-to-wall amplifiers and terrible, all old. Robert (Plant) had heard I was a session man, and he was wondering what was going to turn up some old bloke with a pipe? So Jimmy said, ‘We're all here, what are we going to play?’ And I said, ‘I don't know, what do you know?’ And Jimmy said, ‘Do you know a number called, The Train Kept A Rollin'?’ I told him, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘It's easy, just G to A.’ he counted it out, and the room just exploded, and we said, ‘Right. We're on, this is it, this is going to work!’ And we just sort of built it up from there. ‘Dazed And Confused’ came in because Jimmy knew that, but I could never get the sequence right for years; it kept changing all the time with different parts, and I was never used to that. I used to having the music there, could never remember. In fact, I'm still the worst in the band remembering anything. And the group jokes about it, ‘Jonesy always gets the titles wrong and the sequences wrong.’ Even now I have a piece of paper I stuck on top of the Mellotron which says: ‘Kashmir remember the coda!’

What were some of your early amplifiers?

I've used everything from a lousy made-up job, to a great huge top valve (tube) amp. We started off in a deal with Rickenbacker where we had these awful Rickenbacker amps; they were so bad. Our first tour was a shambles. For about a year I never even heard the bass. They said, ‘We've designed this speaker cabinet for you’, and I said, ‘Let me see it, what's it got in it?’ It had one 30 speaker! I said, ‘All right, stand it up there alongside whatever else I've got, and I'll use it.’ I plugged it in, and in a matter of five seconds it blew up. I thought the bloke was having me on; I said, ‘There's no such thing as a 30 speaker!’ And I had to take the back off because I couldn't believe it. Then we met the guy from Univox, and he came up with a bass stack, which unfortunately didn't last the night. But while it was going, it was the most unbelievable sound I've ever heard. It was at the Nassau Coliseum in New York, I remember, and the bass filled the hall. It was so big, it couldn't have lasted. I don't think I'll come across anything that sounded like that. But as I said, three numbers and wheel the Acoustics out again. I used two or three 360 standard Acoustics for quite a long time. They served me well.

You used the Jazz bass until just recently?

Yeah. Oh, I got a hold of a very nice Gibson violin bass (pictured in the little cut out wheel on the cover of Led Zeppelin III). That was nice, too, it's not stage worthy, but it gives a beautiful warm sound. I don't like Gibson basses generally because they feel all rubbery; I like something you can get your teeth into. But the violin bass was the only Gibson that was as heavy as a Fender to play, but still had that fine Gibson sound. I used it on Led Zeppelin III, and I've used it every now and again, usually when I'm tracking a bass after I've done keyboards for the main track. The one I have went through Little Richard's band and then through James Brown's band, and it arrived in England. In fact, I saw it in an old movie clip of Little Richard. It was probably about a '48 or '50 or something like that; it was the original one. Actually, I've also got an old '52 Telecaster bass. I used that on stage for a while, for ‘Black Dog’ and things like that.

Do you ever use a pick when you play?

Yes, when the situation demands it; on the 8-string it's awful messy with your fingers. On ‘The Song Remains The Same’ I use a pick to get that snap out of the instrument. It's fun, you play different. If I was just playing straight bass, I'd use fingers. When I first started I always used my fingers.

How has playing with Jimmy Page for the last nine years styled your playing?

That's hard. I play a lot looser than I used to. For instance somebody like John Entwistle is more of a lead instrument man than I am. I tend to work closer with Bonzo I think. But then again I don't play that much bass on-stage anymore, what with the pianos and the Mellotron. I'll always say I'm a bass player, though.

How do you develop a bass part?

You put in what's correct and what's necessary. I always did like a good tune in the bass. For example, listen to’ What Is And What Should Never Be’ (on Led Zeppelin II). The role of a bassist is hard to define. You can't play chords so you have a harmonic role; picking and timing notes. You'll suggest a melodic or harmonic pattern, but I seem to be changing anyway toward more of a lead style. The Alembic bass is doing it; I play differently on it. But I try to never forget my role as a bass player: to play the bass and not mess around too much up at the top all the time. You've got to have somebody down there, and that's the most important thing. The numbers must sound right, they must work right, they must be balanced.

You just picked a track from the second album, but there was something so gloriously unique about the first Zep record.

I know what people mean when they say the first Zeppelin album was the best. It was the first. I don't know what it was; we could never recreate those conditions it was recorded in. It was done in about thirty hours, recorded and mastered. There was a lot of energy in those days. But I liked (Physical Graffiti). I liked most of them actually. The funny thing was about the first album, when we got to about the third album (Led Zeppelin III) and started using acoustics everyone was saying, ‘Ahhh, Led Zeppelin has gone acoustic. They've changed their style.’ What everybody forgets is there were two acoustic numbers on the first album. Right? ‘Babe I'm Gonna Leave You’ and ‘Black Mountain Side’. The funny thing is people try to pigeon-hole you with all that heavy metal stuff. And if they ever listened to the fucking albums they'd realize it was never riff after riff after riff. It never was like that, you know? Peculiar... oh, well.

Do you practice?

In a word, no. I fool around on piano, but bass I never practice. Although again, with the Alembic, I'm beginning to feel, ‘Wouldn't it be nice to have it in the room?’ It really makes you want to play more, which is fantastic.

The band has always had a strange relationship with the press.

There is an amount of professionalism which must be retained. You can't go around canceling gigs and things like that. After Robert's accident there were rumors of, ‘Oh, they're afraid to come out’ and this and that which was really hard on us because we've always tried to be as professional as possible. And we take a pride in this. We've tried to turn up on time but it gets hard moving this amount of people. And that sort of thing hurts. Robert was in a wheelchair and we had to wait until he was healed. And then we were all ready to go and he got tonsillitis on this '77 tour. And he must have felt so bad. I tell you if this band ever drops from favor with the public, a load of people are going to come down on our asses so fucking hard. They're just waiting for us to drop. I don't know why, I honestly don't know. I always remember the first review of our first album in Rolling Stone and the bloke dismissed it out of hand. I don't even think he would listen to it and said as much. Then they dismissed us as hype.

Who do you listen to?

I don't. I used to listen to a lot of jazz bass players once, but jazz has changed so much now, it's hardly recognizable. I listened to a lot of tenor sax players: Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and all those people. Bass players? Scott La Faro, who died. He used to be with (jazz pianist) Paul Chambers. Ray Brown and Charlie Mingus, of course. I'm not too keen on the lead bass style of some players. Paul McCartney, I've always respected; he puts the notes in the right place at the right time. He knows what he's about.

Who don't you listen to?

Ian [Anderson] is a pain in the ass. We toured with Jethro Dull [sic] once and I think he probably spoke three words to Jimmy or I at any one time. The band was nice but he was such a funny fucker. His music bores the pants off me, it's awful. Page came up with the greatest line about them. He had a title for a live album when Jethro was playing in Los Angeles: ‘Bore 'Em at The Forum’. (Ritchie) Blackmore is another guy I don't like. He was supposed to have been a big session man but he must have done demos because he was never a regular session man. I'm getting out all my pet hates.

There's nothing you'd like to do outside of Zeppelin in an instrumental context?

I always get the feeling I'd like to write a symphony. I like all music. I like classical music a lot. Ravel, Bach, of course, Mozart I could never stand, though to play it on the piano is great fun. If Bach had ever come across the bass guitar, he would have loved it. Rock and roll is the only music left where you can improvise. I don't really know what's happened to jazz; it has really disappointed me. I guess they started playing rock and roll.

So you're able to continually experiment in Zeppelin and expand your playing?

Yes, absolutely. I wouldn't be without Zeppelin for the world. What's it like being in Led Zeppelin? I don't know. It is a peculiar feeling; it intrigues me.

[zodoods]

What kind of music do you imagine them playing for your singer au? Ive always pictured them being into dad rock akdhfbfkebdi but I wanna know what your vision is!!!

hiii dagger thank u for asking me this because I could talk ab it for hours . in my mind they’re kind of at that intersection between indie pop and rock? like I see pop stars like Olivia Rodrigo, Britney Spears and groups like little Mix influencing ladybugs music but she also takes from like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jagged Stone so you get kind of a mix in her work?

for chat noir in my mind his freshman album was heavy on acoustics and like strong on the instrumental side bc in this au he was originally a classical pianist, but again I see a lot of that pop influence in his work —think real life artists like DPR Ian, Conan Gray and Matt Maeson. i also think his selling pt is his ballads (influences like Lewis Capaldi and Tom Odell) and he leans towards that pop r&b side kind of (Dj Bubbler adds a rap verse onto his song passion fruit later in the au)

anyways . thanks for the ask I love talking ab them !!!!

[thenameswinter99]

Get to know me!

Many thanks for the tag @whitedarkmoonflower and sorry for the late reply, but the university took almost of my free time!

Nickname: TheNamesWinter, Winter, WinterStorm

Sign: Pisces

Height: 160 cm

The last thing I googled: "House of the dragon 2 trailer" (I was so in hype lol)

Amount of sleep: Between 4-5 hours when I have to travel by train and go to university, generally 7-9 hours.

Dream job: I'm a cinephile, a film lover and a theatre lover. My dream job is to become an actress. I know it is silly, but I’ve been acting since high school and I used to do school recitals when I was a little girl. I do have a plan B, though. I'm a design student, I'm finishing my university studies and I think I'll study to become a VFX Artist and work in the field of special effects at the cinema, or become a video game developer.

Favorite song: I have several favourite songs, but in this period I'm obsessed with "Cinnamon Girl" by Lana del Rey.

Movie/Book that Summarises Me: Book: I don't know, honestly... Maybe Mrs Dalloway by Virgina Woolf. Movie: La La Land by Damien Chazelle

Favorite instrument: I can't play, but I love piano and guitar.

Aesthetic: I am not a fashionista, I rather prefer simple and comfortable clothes. I love purple and black things, as they are my two favourite colors. I also love Medieval, Norse and Viking aesthetics.

Favorite authors: J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Isabel Allende, Suzanne Collins, Oscar Wilde, Friedrich Nietzsche, Luigi Pirandello, Alda Merini, C. S. Lewis, Licia Troisi, and many others.

Random fun fact: I'm obsessed with dragons. Please, look for a way to create real dragons, I would adopt one right away!

Tag: @sihtricsafin @verenahx

[mywifeleftme]

211: Erkin Koray // Arap Saçı

Arap Saçı Erkin Koray 2021, Pharaway Sounds

Pharaway Sounds’ Arap Saçı (Arab Hair) collects 24 Erkin Koray tracks originally issued as singles between 1968 and 1976. Koray is best known in the West for his groundbreaking fusion of Anatolian/Arabic folk and classical with crunching psychedelic rock on his 1974 debut LP Elektronik Türküler. However, as Angela Sawyer’s tart liner notes observe, Turkey was predominantly a singles market at the time, and back home Koray did most of his damage on 7���. The limitations of the format, and the preferences of Koray’s record company, preclude the kind of long-form acid voyages he undertook on Elektronik Türküler, but he's able to generate plenty of smoke on these “pop” singles.

Highlights abound. Arap Saçı kicks off with 1973’s “Mesafaler” (“Distances”), a scorching psych banger complete with cowbell that only stops rocking to periodically gawp and stare fixedly into space for 20 or 30 seconds at a time before shaking itself awake to get back to business. (Is there footage of a Turkish TV performance featuring liquid light art? You bet your hairy ass there is.)

The waltzing, organ and hand drum-led “Komşu Kızı” (“Girl Nextdoor”) is a classic melancholy Middle Eastern ballad that hides a wild, surprising drop two-thirds of the way through; Koray freaks “Aşka İnanmıyorum” (“I Do Not Believe in Love”) with his insinuating croon and serpentine guitar licks; “Istemem” (“I Do Not Want”) mixes a light-stepping folk beat with some stinging solos that aren’t too far off what Uli Jon Roth would get up to in Germany with Scorpions a few years later. There really isn’t a bum track to be found.

This new compilation covers much of the same ground as the ‘70s Erkin Koray (AKA Mesafaler) and Erkin Koray 2 (AKA Şaşkın) singles compilations, and Pharaway Sounds opts to follow their track sequencing as closely as possible—a good choice, as they had a great flow, though a bit frustrating for those hoping to track Koray’s musical development chronologically. Regardless, we know that Koray was exposed to Western music as a young age, learning Occidental classical music on the piano as a child and discovering rock ‘n’ roll as a teen. According to the liners, Koray was performing songs by Elvis, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis in the late ‘50s, and by the late ‘60s, when he began to emerge as a recording artist, he’d clearly imbibed industrial quantities of Hendrix, Cream, and the other usual psychonauts.

In a previous review, I briefly contrasted Koray with Egypt’s Omar Khorshid, a fellow guitar god and contemporary pioneer in electrified Arabic music. Khorshid had some familiarity with Western pop music, but he was working with the top stars in Arab folk and classical, using electric instruments to push traditional Eastern music forward rather than to fuse it with rock. Koray on the other hand was a long-haired freak who claims to have fought in the streets with a knife and joined Anglo-American-inspired combos with names like Mustard (Hardal) and Sweat (Ter). By the late ‘60s rock had become popular in Turkey, as had Arabesk music, which Sawyer describes as “a purposely uncouth… appropriation of Arabic pop and folk, popular with rural or marginalized folks who were suddenly encountering pockets of urbanized Europe in their backyard.” Koray intuitively crossbred the invasive genre (rock) with the reactionary one (Arabesk) and found himself one of the fathers of a powerful new mongrel breed of psych music.

By reissuing both Elektronik Türküler and these essential singles, Pharaway Sounds has done a real service to psych and non-Western rock aficionados. Koray makes a great gateway to the other masters of ‘70s Anatolian folk-rock, including Selda, Moğollar, and Barış Manço, a loose affiliation of artists that has been one of my most prized discoveries of recent years.

211/365

[thebunnylord]

List of things that were supposed to happen in my scrapped countryhumans talent show fanfic

-Hawaii does an Elvis impersonation and performs blue suede shoes

-Hungary spends the entire show trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. When his five minutes on stage ended, they just moved him off to the side so he can continue. He doesn’t solve it

-Poland and Vatican’s talent was performing Exorcisms, and brought a possessed woman on stage to exorcise, but got kicked off immediately by UN. So they begrudgingly decided to perform their exorcism in the boys bathroom, which got stopped halfway through by both UN and ASEAN who understandably did not want a demon running around on the Asian country’s section of the building. Oh yeah, in my ch AU, Poland was a priest and was trained in demonology by Vatican and is certified to perform exorcisms.

-Northern Ireland and England dressed as their secret drag queen personas, along with Wales who dressed in her drag king persona, and they all “danced” (it was mostly them doing uncoordinated dance moves like the worm, the running man, and the epileptic octopus.) to Scotland’s bagpipe playing. And then they all jumped onto each other’s shoulders and fell over.

-Serbia’s performance of a Diss song that she composed that mostly made up of her playing an accordion and dissing all of the countries that have wronged her, or she hates, both past and present. The big finale was when she started insulting Ottoman empire and calling him names, when both Turkey and Ottoman Empire jumped up and chased her around the auditorium while she continued to hurl insults at them, both EU and UN had to chase after the trio to get them to stop.

- a few of the African countries put on “Africa” by Toto.

-America’s western states do a crummy half hearted line dance to “finally Friday”, the northern states perform “Blame Canada”, and New York performs a Broadway number (unfortunately… his song of choice was “springtime for Hitler”) they were all supposed to do a group number, but split due to creative differences.

-Mexico played a quiet folk song on his guitar which was well received.

-Austria played a classical piano piece with Germany as the page turner, Germany fumbles with the pages causing the pages to fall onto the floor, Austria playing the same measure over and over in a panic as Germany struggled to collect all of the pages before giving up, and running off stage in embarrassment.

-France and a few of her states perform “do you hear the people sing?” While Normandy performs “bring him home”

-Austria-Hungary with help from German empire performs a classical music piece, but then gets interrupted by someone’s phone.

-Italy sings a song and then ends it with a sudden cart wheel.

-India, Brazil, Kenya, and Australia bring a VERY VERY DANGEROUS AND HIGHLY VENOMOUS BLACK MAMBA ON STAGE to demonstrate their venomous snake handling skills, they tried to get someone to come on stage to HOLD THE SNAKE. But that got nixed real quickly.

-Mauritius does a dance with his cloned dodo bird, Captain Lewis, which then walked off stage and fell into the audience.

-Britain gets introduced on stage as “performing a nice number by Bach”, he has his suit on, a top hat, and everyone thinks, “oh, he’s going to play the number on his violin”. Nope, he lowers his tie, tucks his pants inside his big, tall, platform boots, and unbuttons his collar to reveal the spiked collar underneath, and whips out his old electric guitar and plays friggin’ toccata and fugue in D minor like a legend.

- Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Estonia try to do a Black Death metal performance with their band, “Estonia and the Nordics”. It was just them screaming, banging on their instruments, and smashing their guitars while Estonia, the lead singer, gets a bout of anxiety and stands awkwardly on the stage looking at her feet unable to sing.

-Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and China tried to perform the dance of the little swans (Russia’s idea, no one else wanted to) but only Russia practiced and China was a last minute edition as Kazakhstan quit that day, and not even one second into the music, the whole thing dissolved into a massive fight and Belarus running offstage to go snitch to Soviet Union.

[findafight]

here is the spotify link to Robin and Steve's Epic Platonic Soulmate Mixtape (vol.1) I'm going to say they made this version in the early spring of 1985. fic link

track list and explanations under the cut!!

Side A--the queer side

Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler: I'm gonna take a wild guess and say y'all know why this is here

Rainbow Connection by Kermit: also self explanatory. and a bop. AND about rainbows. what more could you want?

Bangkok/One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head (Original Chess Recording version): 1) a banger. 2) from a whole musical written by the Bs of ABBA 3) Steve likes to listen to musical while vacuuming his pool :) 4) queer vibes. "the queens we use would not excite you" "i get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine" also to note they DID probably shave off the first minute of instrumental, but not all of it. I used this version and not the radio edit because in my heart of hearts I believe Steve picked up the Chess concept album in the fall of 1984, vibed with it, (I've answered an ask about stobin and the musical chess where I talk more) and that's the version he has.

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen: tbh always sounded gay to me, and it's such a fun song, I think they'd vibe with it and agreed it's a silly little nod to steve's previous rep.

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard by Paul Simon: GAY GAY VERY GAY SONG "it's against the law...what their mama saw/it was against the law" HMM also it's catchy and has so much potential to be an angsty queer ballad too. (also Robin's dad is 100% a Simon and Garfunkle stan that's just. a fact to me.)

I'm Coiming Out by Diana Ross: iconic song claimed by the gays. for the obvious reasons. bit on the nose but this is for THEM.

Sunshine (Go Away Today) by Jonathan Edwards: About not letting someone control your life. It's catchy and heartfelt, dreams about the future. Steve's Vecna Song for me.

You Can't Hurry Love by The Supremes: stobin are losers in the love department, and it's a great and hopeful song about not rushing into things. The Supremes Version because Robin is influenced by her former Hippie parents, and Steve by his Aunt Evelyn and her love of 50's and 60's music. They have appreciation for the Oldie Goldies.

Lady Marmalade by LaBelle: Disco baby. I also feel this was a song for us queer folk. maybe because I'm queer and I like it. it's great, and robin loves hearing women sing about having sex.

Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler: throwback to the first song on the mixtape Steve gave Robin at the very beginning! now with the Upside Down between them it means more too. it's also SO FUN to belt in the car. frantic and with a good beat. I don't think I need to justify this one haha

Believe it or Not (theme from Greatest American Hero) by Joey Scarbury: Robin LOVES this stupid show about a cringe fail teacher with his cringe fail life getting a super suit from aliens and then losing the instruction manual. It just feels like a show she'd like even though it's so silly. The theme song is actually great tho. I think it'd really tickle the part of Robin that feels overly average and a bit trapped in Hawkins, but feels those confines lessen when she's with Steve and getting to feel like there's more out there for her. Personally, I first heard it on cassette of top 100 tv themes (along with MASH, Law and Order, Hawaii Five-oh, Andy Griffith etc) sitting in a booster seat in the front seat of my family's motor home on a long summer road trip in the early 2000's, as my dad drove and told me what show each song was from. (Steve buddy I understand your dream so much ok. There's nothing quite like being a kid and going on a roadtrip with your family. magical.)

Side B--The Besties side

You're My Best Friend by Queen: Love song for your best friend me thinks yes :)

Stuck With You by Huey Lewis and the News: the only anachronistic song on the playlist, but I couldn't NOT put it on. lavender marriage stobin REAL. They're stuck with each other :) also look at Steve. He is a guy who listens to Huey Lewis. We know this. He heard this song a year before it came out and was like robin :') it's us....I'm stuck with you...I'm so Happy about it :))

Stoned Soul Picnic by The 5th Dimension: Robin's parents are former hippies. This song is fantastic. Pure vibes. Steve and Robin are going to get rescue cats that are bonded together and name them Sassafras and Moonshine for this song.

Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles: Bop and a half. Sing along song.

Both Sides Now by Judy Collins: 1)gorgeous song originally by Joni Mitchel but this version is a bit faster 2) Robin's former Hippie parents influencing her taste strike AGAIN 3) she tries to convince Steve it's about being "queer like him" and he doesn't buy it but "I've looked at love from both sides now/.../I really don't know love at all" and "Oh, but now old friends they're acting strange/ And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed/ Well something's lost, but something's gained" hit different for him

Only the Good Die Young by Billy Joel: I chose this billy joel song because it's 1) catchy as all hell 2) about having sex 3) mentions dying and stobin are like We didn't die!! hell yeah! Steve's a pianist and tbh he loves billy joel. who doesn't. it was between this one and piano man i guess, tho i love many Billy Joel songs that are "deeper cuts" ha. and "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints/the sinners are much more fun" line is like. what are they gonna do. not be an emotional queer teen about it?

Raspberry Beret by Prince: it's catchy, and whilst originally I had put La La Love You By Don McLean here, I like this one better. Robin is definitely a Prince fan. and a beret fan. happy coincidink. and its a fun song! about loosing your virginity to a hot girl in a barn!

Indiana Wants Me by R. Dean Taylor: okay originally I'll admit I put this on the masterplaylist because. obviously post-s4 Eddie running away angst song even if it's more folk-rock than metal. I think Steve and Robin would listen to it and really vibe with wanting to go home but not being able to. even if it's not literally. also they live in Indiana and like. you've gotta respect a song about where you live. ALSO the cop sounds in it. so good.

Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen: a song? about being disillusioned with the American dream after seeing the institutional failures of the government??? very Steve. the whole album is great, and I know I've reblogged a post about Steve and the album (My Hometown hits different). It's angry, frustrated, passionate. Being queer in a small town where the government covers up it's human experimentation and alternate dimensions probably makes you feel a lot of things. All with the veneer of Americana.

Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) by Peter Starstedt: purely self indulgent of me. I adore this song. I think Steve heard it, and thought of Robin. The remembering, the deep knowledge of another person, the longing. When he told Robin that it's a song he always associates with her she tears up a bit, because it's so tender and loving, and a bit silly. Like. Steve knows she'll be amazing and can't comprehend anyone not seeing it. It's sooo tender.

Thank You for Being a Friend by Andrew Gold: Golden Girls didn't air their first episode until fall 1985, and obviously when it does Stobin are loyal viewers, (Steve is in love with Bea Arthur. as is right) but this song came out in the 70's. It's fun and cute and catchy! They love each other and are so, incomprehensibly grateful that they found each other.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Hello! 🧡 I'm curious how you balance viewing scripture as infallible while also not taking parts of it (Genesis in particular, to reference your recent post) literally. I've heard some people say that Genesis is meant to be a poetic version of creation and therefore not entirely truthful: sort of like a kids' story, how some details could be fudged without losing The Point. I get why God wouldn't give us all the details, and it's not like this is necessarily a core doctrine issue, but I guess what I'm asking is if scripture is infallible, why would it give an incorrect account?

Hey Anna! I'd love to talk about this! It's one of my favorite issues in the world, actually, so please be prepared for a whole lot of passion from me 😆

So the bottom line, like I said in my previous post, is that I believe that all Scripture is true and infallible, but that it ought not be read literalistically. This is not the same as saying that some Scripture is less true by virtue of using poetic language, nor that I believe that details have been fudged. For me (and others who interpret Scripture as I do), it comes down to analysis of Biblical language, style, and genre.

So okay, let me start by defining my terms:

History = A text detailing true events that actually happened. These accounts may use symbolic, metaphorical, or otherwise figurative language in the service of conveying these events. A history is also not necessarily complete in its detail or exact in its chronology unless the text itself makes those claims (ie it's possible for histories to backtrack and tell events again from another point of view; this is pretty common actually.)

Biblical figurative language can take a variety of forms depending on the genre of the text we're discussing, however in general it is used to express truths that cannot be expressed in other ways. I'm gonna quote Lewis again here, as I think his discussion of Biblical symbolism in Mere Christianity is really great and relevant. This is from book three, chapter 10 (Hope):

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of "Heaven" ridiculous by saying they do not want "to spend eternity playing harps." The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity.

Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

Figurative language is used throughout the entire Bible. It's in discussions of heaven, like Jack illustrates here, but it's also frequently used in the Epistles ("I have been crucified with Christ") and, in the Gospels ("You must be born again.") It's heavily employed in the prophetic books, Psalms, and the wisdom literature (not even gonna pick an example, it's everywhere). It's used frequently throughout the Pentateuch (God "bore [the Israelites] up on eagle's wings"). It is used in Biblical histories ("[Samson's] soul was vexed to death"), though not to the extent that I believe it's used in Genesis 1-11. Sometimes the text telegraphs that figurative language is about to be used, but certainly not always.

None of these things are any less true than the things described in what we might call "plain" language. Rather, imagery is a tool that helps us understand the deeper truth of a thing; it "expresses the inexpressible" without causing us to doubt that the images are about something real. Sometimes, the language even tells us something that occured spiritually/from God's perspective, but which did not literally happen in the physical world (again, "I have been crucified with Christ.") I think it's clearly a mistake to conclude that the presence of figurative language means that the story is merely figurative or that it's incorrect.

So I read the Genesis 1-2 creation account as a largely figurative account of historical events, and I think it's written that way in order to convey God's perspective of creation. Certainly a human perspective on creation would be (a) theologically un-useful and (b) impossible for an ancient person to understand.

To expound on point (b) a little bit: even a modern person, with all the geological, paleontological, chemical, and genetic evidence that we have, simply cannot comprehend the expanse of what we call "deep time." Modern scientists must communicate these things in metaphors: they use 24-hour clocks in which each minute is thirty thousand years and football fields with geological epochs marked off at the various yard lines in order to try to express that which the human mind is fundamentally not equipped to grasp. The Bible should and must tell the story of creation from God's perspective, and to do that it must use figurative language.

Thus, "Days" are figurative days, but as such they convey greater truths about the way that creation appeared to God: it was gradual and periodic and God was patient, yet it did not seem to take eons to him. It was like a week of diligent work that produced good results.

Likewise, when the text says that God speaks light and land and life into existence, we can read that as a statement of God's incredible, beautiful power over creation. The moon likely formed in the "Big Splat," when another planet collided with proto-Earth and flung debris into space (I'm not even gonna touch the formation of the sun-- waaaaaay outside my wheelhouse). To God, these things were as simple as saying, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night" and then making them. The complex natural processes involved were simple before the Almighty God.

Likewise, the billions of years that are took for life to evolve, from self-replicating auto-catalytic molecules to microbes to multicellular life that arose from endosymbiosis and horizontal gene transfer, and then all the way down the epochs of history: the beautiful Cambrian Explosion, trilobites and the first chordates, then Tiktaalik propping itself up in shallow water and its tetrapod descendants stepping onto land for the first time; those strange, fascinating club-moss forests of the Carboniferous, dinosaurs and archaeopteryx taking to the skies, the K-T extinction event and then mammals picking up the torch and growing larger, whales returning to the seas and their vestigial legs disappearing, life, life life... All of that, to God, was two days of creation in which he spoke and natural processes produced the glorious array of life that existed when Adam and Eve came to be. He had authority over all of it. He said "Let the earth bring forth living creatures," and it did! God made them as surely as if he had sculpted them from clay with his hands, as miraculously as if He had spoken a word and they had existed in a split-second.

It's all true! All truth is God's truth! Every word of Genesis is God's truth, not despite the fact that it's written using figurative language, but because it is. We can understand truths that science alone can't account for - that in all the vastness of protein sequence space, God formed rubisco and ATP synthase: not by random chance, but through loving providence using randomness as a tool. We can see deep time as God sees it, not as a yawning abyss that we can't begin to properly conceptualize, but as a week in the mind of our great God who transcends time.

(My concluding paragraph is going to be somewhat harsh toward YE Creationists, but it cuts to the core of why I feel so strongly about how we read Genesis. I'm going to put it under the cut so that no one has to read it unless they want to; I'm not trying to attack anyone. I hope you know that I say all these things out of a place of deep, deep love.)

Returning to what Jack said: "If [people] cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them." YE Creationists would have us read Genesis without allowing for any figurative language; they would disregard the scientific method in order to do so. To my thinking, if a creation in seven 24-hour days were the intended meaning of the text- if we were, like children, meant to take everything in it entirely literally- then God would be a liar, because then he would have created a world in which the speed of light and geologic strata and the fossil record and even the evidence of our own DNA and physiology are all lying to us about how we were created. I could not love such a God.

But because I, like Jack, like millions of other Christians, can read the text of Scripture and interpret the figurative language it uses, I can instead marvel at the wonder and glory of our Creator-God, to whom epochs are like days, who can speak natural processes into existence. Scripture is history and it's poetry and it's all true. All truth is God's truth.

[catierambles]

Shades Ch.14

Pairing: Walter Marshall x Faith Culver (Vampire!OFC)

WC 2412

Warning: A myriad. Reader Discretion is Advised Minors DNI 18+ ONLY

@brattymum96 , @ouroboros113 , @peaches1958 , @summersong69 , @henryownsme , @greensleeves888

Faith got word the next day from the hospital that Becky was going to pull through. She had lost a lot of blood and had sustained significant trauma to her neck, but she would be fine after rest and healing. For the second time in only a few months, the bar was closed due to being an active crime scene and Faith was starting to worry about finances and how she was going to pay her staff. People dying or getting attacked in or around her place of business would eventually start to hurt the flow of patrons. Hopefully, the cops released it sooner this time than they did the last.

Walter was still asleep when there was a knock at the front door and she got up from the couch, peeking out of the front windows and seeing two familiar Detectives standing out there. Was the station that short-handed?

"Good morning." She said as she opened the door, “Detectives Graves and…Lewis, right?"

"You have a good memory." Graves said and she shrugged.

"When it wants to be." She said, "I'm assuming you're here about what happened last night?"

"You would assume correctly." Lewis said, "May we come in?"

"Yeah, of course, come on in." She said and stepped aside, letting them in and closing the door behind them. "Walter, you awake?"

"Yeah." He called back from the bedroom. "Let me get some clothes on and I'll be out."

"You guys want some coffee?" She asked, "Walter can't function without it first thing so I started keeping some in the house."

"He lives here now?" Lewis asked but she shook her head.

"Just staying here while his place is getting fumigated." She said, pouring water from the carafe into the reservoir. "Coffee?"

"Would love some, thank you." Graves said and she nodded, adding more grounds than she usually did to the filter as Walter was usually the only one that drank it.

"Detective Lewis?"

"I'm good, but thank you for the offer." He said and she shrugged. Walter came out from the back of the house, tugging his t-shirt straight, and moved his head at the two Detectives in greeting, getting a nod in return. "Ms. Culver, I would like to begin by telling you that Ms. Stanford is expected to make a full recovery."

"Yeah, the hospital called and told me. Becky doesn't have any family nearby, so she has me as her emergency contact." Faith said. "Were you guys able to talk to her?"

"We did," Graves said, "Before we came here. Doctors thought that, based on her injuries, that she was stabbed by some kind of pronged instrument, but she told us that she remembers her assailant biting her."

"He bit her?" Walter asked, pulling a face.

"That's what she said." Lewis said, "Ms. Culver, she also told us that she was under the impression that you knew her attacker, and that's why she left the bar with him." Faith sighed at this and Walter gave her a questioning look.

"Faith?" He asked.

"Yeah, I know him. I didn't know that it was him that did it last night, but if her memory is correct, it would make sense that it was." She said.

"How so?" Lewis asked, "What can you tell us about this man?"

"Detectives, everything I'm about to tell you I want to preface with the fact that this man is unhinged. I want you to keep this in mind, especially with what I'm about to say next."

"Okay." Graves said.

"This guy, he…shit, he thinks he's a two thousand-year-old vampire." Faith said and Walter looked at her, his brows jumping in surprise as the Detectives gave her steady looks.

"Excuse me?" Lewis asked.

"Like I said, unhinged." Faith said, "When I met him, he was going by "Quintus Aurelius", which is a bullshit name if I ever heard one. Never knew his real name."

"How'd you meet him?" Graves asked.

"Every teenager goes through a Goth phase," She said, Lewis shrugging in agreement, "Mine was just a little more…aggressive than others. I was sixteen? When I fell into his group? It was two steps away from becoming a cult, but I felt like I belonged, you know? Anyway, he was the leader of the group."

"What did this group do?" Lewis asked, starting to write in a notebook that he pulled from his jacket pocket.

"Mainly? We smoked a lot of pot and watched horror movies." Faith said, "Listened to loud music, talked about the occult, those kinds of things."

"And this "Quintus" styled himself as a vampire?" Graves asked and she nodded.

"Filed his teeth to points and everything." She said and Graves nodded with a sound as Lewis wrote it down. "It wasn't long after I joined that it started getting…weird. Well, weirder."

"How so?" Lewis asked.

"He got a little…fixated on me. Wouldn't leave me alone, kept finding reasons to be alone with me, shit like that." Faith said, "I just figured he was a creep but the others were harmless, so I ignored it. Then shit hit the fan."

"How so?" Graves asked.

"I started dating another member of the group, named Sean." Faith said, "Quintus found out and he snapped, started yelling at us, at me, calling me all kinds of things and saying that Sean "betrayed" him."

"Okay?" Lewis asked, prompting her to continue.

"He…" She paused, her eyes closing tight as she took a deep breath. "One night, Sean and I were about to head out when Quintus attacked us." Walter slid his hand over her shoulder and she reached up, covering it with her own. "He killed Sean, tore his throat out with his teeth."

"Jesus." Graves whispered.

"And then he…hurt me." Faith said, wiping away tears that had welled in her eyes. "When he was…finished, he said I belonged to him now. That I would always belong to him."

"Where did this take place?" Lewis asked, "Was it local?"

"It wouldn't matter if I told you, you won't find a report on it." Faith said.

"Why is that?" Lewis asked.

"Sean didn't have anyone that would have reported him missing, and I never reported the assault." Faith said.

"May I ask why not?" Graves asked.

"Detective, I was sixteen years old, I had just watched my boyfriend get murdered and then was raped by the man who killed him." She said, "I was terrified and I just wanted to forget that it ever happened."

"I understand." Grave said with a nod. "What happened next?"

"I ran, I went home, and I never contacted the group again." She said, "Quintus left town not long after, probably because he just killed a man, and I never saw him again until last night when he walked into my bar. Detectives, he may be delusional, but he's extremely dangerous. Until you do find him, he won't stop, he thinks he's immortal so even if you pull a gun on him he won't stop, and he won't be taken alive. He's going to kill people until he's stopped. The only reason why he didn't kill Becky last night is, I don't know, maybe he heard Walter and me coming."

“Ms. Culver, if this guy is that obsessed with you, we need to put you under protective custody and--”

“Not going to happen.” Faith said, “I need to make a living and I need to be able to help my staff pay their bills. Can’t do that in protective custody.”

“Fair enough.” Graves said, “We can have a plainclothes officer at the bar whenever it’s open, and we’ll organize some kind of signal you can give if he comes in again.”

“Yeah, that works.” Faith said, “There is one other thing, though.”

“What’s that?” Lewis asked.

“He knows about me and Walter.” She said, “Based on how he handled the last time I was with someone who wasn’t him, I…Walter is in danger.”

“I agree.” Lewis said.

“Faith…” Walter started.

“Don’t caveman me, Walter. Let me do this.” She said.

“Walter,” Lewis started, “I’m going to talk to the Captain, let him know what Ms. Culver told us about this guy and how you’re in his sights. Don’t know what he’ll do, but it needs to be done.”

“Yeah, I know.” Walter said with a sigh.

“Ms. Culver,” Graves said, “Thank you for talking with us and shedding some light on who this guy is. Couldn’t have been easy to talk about it.”

“It was a long time ago.” She said,

“Not that long.” Graves said, “Sorry I couldn’t take that coffee.”

“Take it to go, I have disposable to-go cups for when Walter is running behind.” Faith said and reached under the kitchen island, pulling out the pack of paper cups and lids.

“Can I actually accept that coffee?” Lewis asked, “It smells fantastic.”

“Yeah, sugar is on the counter next to the coffee maker, and if you want creamer, let me know.” Faith said and they fixed their coffees the way they liked, praising it when they took a sip.

“Wish the station coffee was this good.” Lewis said, scowling slightly and she perked a small smile. “Ms. Culver, we’ll be in touch about that plainclothes officer. Walter, expect a call from the Captain.”

“Yup.” He said and walked them to the door, locking it again once they were gone. Faith was still at the kitchen island when he turned around, leaning against it with her hands clasped together on the granite, her expression serious. “Faith.”

“Yeah?” She asked, not looking at him.

“What you told them about Quintus.” He said, “Not the goth group thing, I know that wasn’t real, but about what happened with Sean.”

“Yeah?”

“Did he really…”

“Yeah, Walter, he did, before he Turned me.” She said and he sighed, his eyes closing.

“Fucking hell.”

“Yeah, I doubt Quintus was human even before he became a vampire.”

“You have not had an easy life.”

“It’s been more good than bad, it’s just the bads are really bad.” Faith said, “I try not to think about it and I have eternity to process it, so there’s that, but I’ve had friends, people I’ve considered my family, loved ones, people I’ve cared about. People I’ve laughed with and had good moments with. I’ve had lovers that cared about me and who I cared about. Sometimes shit goes sideways, but that’s life. Unfortunately, my life makes it so when it goes sideways, it goes sideways. What’s the saying? God saves the toughest battles for His strongest soldiers?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t enlist in the war.” Walter said and she snorted entirely without humor.

“I was kinda drafted, wasn’t I?” She said, “But my life now, putting aside recent events, is really good. I’m…happy.”

“Have I helped with that?” He asked and she gave him a slow smile.

“Yeah, Walter, you have.” She said, “Faith Culver is going to be a difficult life to leave behind when I finally have to.”

“Have you thought about when that’ll happen?”

“I have, but it won’t be for another decade or so before people start to realize I’m not visibly aging. There’s an underground network that supplies people like me with new identities and everything that requires. When the time comes, I’ll get in touch with them, and let them know I’m ready. I’ll probably have to leave the bar here behind, sell it or something, that “passing it down to the daughter” will only work for so long. They’ll set me up with a new identity in a new city, a new bar, a new house, everything. They’re very thorough. Maybe a bed and breakfast this time, I know we talked about me possibly opening one now, but maybe in my next life.”

“And what’ll happen to Faith Culver?”

“She’ll die in some accident or she’ll get sick. Either way, they’ll set it up so no one comes looking for her.” Faith said, “And then I will move on. New city, new name, new me.”

“And what about us?” He asked and there was a long pause.

“I don’t know, Walter, and that’s the honest truth. If we’re still together then…I don’t know.” She said, “I could have them get you a new identity too, get you set up, but I couldn’t ask you to leave your entire life behind just for the sake of me. You have a daughter, someone who would be devastated if Walter Marshall suddenly died. No, I couldn’t ask that of you. So I guess, if we’re still together then, I’ll leave and you’ll just have to mourn the woman that died.”

“Knowing you’re still alive somewhere?”

“Yeah.”

“You could--”

“Absolutely not.”

“You don’t know--”

“Yes, I do.” She said, “And it’s not happening. I’m not Turning you. I can deal with a broken heart and so could you, but I wouldn’t be able to handle taking your humanity from you.”

“Faith.”

“This isn’t a discussion I’m having with you, Walter. It’s not a discussion at all. It’s an “it’s not happening and that’s final”.”

“Faith, I understand how you feel, but isn’t it ultimately my decision?”

“Then you’ll have to find someone else to do it because I won’t.” She said, “But we’re talking in hypotheticals right now. We haven’t been together for that long and honestly, we’re still in our fluffy honeymoon phase where the idea of not being together is unfathomable. We don’t know what’s going to happen five, ten, or even just one year down the road. Let’s just take it one day at a time and not think about what may or may not even happen. Sound fair?”

“Sounds fair.” Walter said.

“Wonderful.” She said and sighed, hanging her head. “Fuck, I wish I could drink.”

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning.” He said and she picked her head up to look at him.

“Day drinking is a thing.” She said and he went over to her, sliding his hand across her shoulders and turning her into his chest, breathing in the scent of her hair.

“Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

“Back to bed for you, maybe. I was never there to begin with.”

“Well you are now and if I have to carry you, I will.”

“So pushy.” She said, “Fine, let’s go back to bed.” Turning her, he gave her butt a pat and she squeaked adorably in surprise before walking to the bedroom with him in tow.

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: Event Horizon

Fun fact: Time is an illusion and I keep forgetting what weekday it is, but anyway: This October, I've decided to dedicate my FF entries to horror movies that I feel deserve a little more attention. First up to bat is none other than the best space horror movie that doesn't feature Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm, the infamous Event Horizon.

In the real world, an Event Horizon is the zone around a black hole where the gravity is so strong that not even light can escape, and as such we cannot observe what's going on there in any meaningful way. In retrospect, it was perhaps unwise to name the ship built to take humanity's first Faster Than Light journey by performing a jump by using experimental gravity technology after the phenomenon, but hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

The story follows the salvage crew on the salvage vessel Lewis & Clark who are sent to recover the Event Horizon. The Horizon has, after a lengthy absence in Parts Unknown, jumped back towards Sol and is now caught in Jupiter's gravity well and showing no signs of life. Along for the ride is Dr. Weir, the troubled physicist whose work was instrumental in the gravity drive that took the Even Horizon out of charted space, and indeed regular space itself.

One thing in particular I like is that the movie takes the form of a journey from a haunted house in space to something considerably more Hellraiser-esque. Something in the ship, or perhaps the ship itself, has been changed by the journey, and its effect on its former crew is messy and unsettling, to say the least. For the first two acts, it's all about having a Bad Feeling About This Place and Weir growing steadily more unreliable as events escalate from the expected search and salvage mission into a desperate struggle to survive in a location that very much wants you vivisected, surrounded by the mercilessly uninhabitable world of Open Space.

Things turn Hellraiserways bit by bit as we're offered recordings of the Event Horizon's former crew, there's a very notable change of tone. Turns out that the ship's journey outside of normal space took it on a jaunt through hell or some secular equivalent of the same, and the things the crew did to themselves and each other are gruesome and kept just vague enough to leave a little room for the imagination to do some gnarly work.

There's actually some controversy around these scenes, and a rumor of a longer "uncut" version of the scenes have achieved a sort of "La Fin Absolute du Monde" genre nerd infamy. For my money, I think less is some times more, and the brief flashes of the atrocities we get to see are more than enough to establish that the movie isn't fucking around and force the tone from "Man this ship sure is spooky" to "WE! HAVE! TO! GET! OFF! THE! HELL! SHIP!" which is honestly what it's there for.

If I'm honest, restraint isn't really a thing the movie deals with outside of these scenes. The third act features some rather notable scenery-chewing by Sam Neil's Dr. Weir going full Store Brand Cennobite, and although he doesn't go quite as hard into the realm of ham, Laurence Fishburn also left the more subtle acting tools at the door for the movie's climax. It isn't bad per se, and it leads up to one of my beloved Hard-Earned W's Against Evil-endings, but it does leave me wishing Neil had either dialed it down a little to allow for meanance, or somehow went even more bombastic and reached that humanity-transcending intensity that he's trying for but not quite hitting.

Before I close up, I want to talk briefly about sound design. Event Horizon doesn't do much out of the ordinary, except for making some truly memorable soundscapes of Hellish Mayhem, and the sound of our heroes beating Dr Weir with some sort of Sci-Fi Tube being truly hilarious. One sound design decision I really like, however, is the background noise. There's a persistent bassy drone sound present in the first two acts or so of the movie, barely audible without amping the bass, and it's a simple, but clever move to unsettle your audience, because this almost-hearing-it does make our lizard brains get all sorts of wibbly.

So, in closing, Even Horizon is good messy fun. It's the kind of sci fi horror I feel we get in both games and books, but almost never in movies. It's probably because making dimensions of suffering and haunted space ships look good in the movies on a B-movie budget is easier said than done, and while I do love Event Horizon and know little about its budget and box office, I kinda doubt it made its money back. It's a shame, and probably one of the reasons we're not getting more of these, but boy howdy is it fun.

[hootenanie]

tagged by charlotte @charlottan to spell my url in song titles! tyyyyy my friend

H-hung up on a dream by the zombies. this is maybe my favorite zombies song. beautiful barque pop instruments. beautiful harmonies. beautiful homoerotism. what more can be said? it's the zombies, I've only ever met one person who didn't love them and she was later exposed for abusing her boyfriend.

O-oh death by kaleidoscope I really like this folk song! it feels so much like a fake traditional ballad someone would make up to put in their bad horror movie trailer lmao, so I'm glad it's real. the kaleidoscope version is... fine. kaleidoscope in general is kind of just fine, but I'm including their version because of how much I like their album art and because I don't wanna go through the trouble of finding a better version rn. sorry

O-one of our submarines by thomas dolby. Thomas Dolby is pretty hit or miss for me, but when he hits he really hits. I love his atmospheric synth songs, and I love how they're equally suggestive of a bleak after-the-end future and an analogue world wartime past. this is I think one of his best songs special thanks to @psygull for introducing me

T-train song by the pentangle. this is from basket of light, which is one of my favorite vinyls I own! it always cheers me up, it's so warm and friendly sounding, quite a bit of uk folk from that period is. I don't really have any special thoughts on the pentangle, only that they where very good, remarkably technically skilled, and I'm glad John Renbourn and Bert Jansch went on to release collaborative albums together after the group broke up. you know, it's nice when people seem to be friends

E- è tornato sabata, hai chiuso un'altra volta! by marcello giombini. I love themes with lyrics that explain the premise of the movie SO much. every film should have one. and this one is so good, it's really catchy, it's sung in English which is good because that's the only language I can understand, it explains who our protagonist is ("sabata, fastest gun in the west. nine-fingered man, four barrel dillinger, he's the only invincible man in the country side") what the stakes are ("if you want money, if you wanna get rich, you gotta be a son of a...") it's got a goofy singer whose elongating vouls like crazy. again: every movie should have this

N-(the) night has a thousand eyes by gary lewis & the playboys. I've got a weakspot for early 60s bubblegum pop, and for unintentionally unnerving stuff from the same era, which you can probably tell from the title this also is lol. I also think this album is just really solid. this isn't one of the best songs on it, but it's one I listen to more than most. anyway, I reccomond it, or at very least opening track This Diamond Ring to fans of the Beatles' early work

A- america by allen gingsberg. not a song? fuck you it's on spotify. that's where the songs live. america I feel sentential about the wobblies

N-no love lost by tucker zimmerman. I found tucker zimmerman by chance while looking for something else, and I'm really glad I did. he's got a gentle voice and a simple & emotionally open lyrical style I find really nice. this album, songpoet, in particular is a real gem of a find and I'd say more about it if I wasn't getting really tired

actually y'know what I'm so tired I'm just gonna list the last two without commentary

I-I'll follow the sun by the beatles.

Eastern Spell by t. rex.

tagging @chymical @itsonofthem @psygull @lindaloring @chaumas-deactivated20230115 @bluecheer @lew-basnight @bill-blake-fans-anonymous

[newtonian-tragedy]

This is the greater danger for our species, to try to pretend that we are another kind of animal, that we do not need to satisfy our curiosity, that we can get along somehow without inquiry and exploration and experimentation, and that the human mind can rise above its ignorance by simply asserting that there are things it has no need to know. This, to my way of thinking, is the real hubris, and it carries danger for us all.

Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail

These I mention, that I may excite the World to enquire a little farther into the improvement of Sciences, and not think that either they or their predecessors have attained the utmost perfections of any one part of knowledge, and to throw off that lazy and pernicious principle, of being contented to know as much as their Fathers, Grandfathers, or great Grandfathers ever did, and to think they know enough, because they know somewhat more than the generality of the World besides: . . . Let us see what the improvement of Instruments can produce.

Robert Hooke, Animadversions on the Machina Coelestis of Johannes Hevelius, 1674

[art-of-manliness]

Sunday Firesides: Through Disappointment to the Stars

When the video game Rock Band became popular, kids flocked to music lessons, inspired to learn how to really play the songs they’d been jamming out to with instrument-like controllers.  But, they quit as quickly as they’d started, disappointed to find that mastering an actual instrument was a lot harder than smashing buttons on a plastic toy. As C.S. Lewis observed, this kind of disappointment “occurs on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted . . .  by Stories of the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.” Amidst this transition, two things collide.  The first is an idealized vision of what an endeavor will be like, made up of the highlights of the process (buying a new guitar; sinking three-pointers; getting into the flow of writing) and the consummate outcome (slaying a solo; wearing a championship ring; seeing your novel become a bestseller).  The second is the reality of all the daily, tedious, frustrating work that comes in between those far rarer moments.  When the ideal runs into reality, most people turn back in dismay. Focused on the realization that the road to their aim is much steeper and rockier than anticipated, they forget the fact that the glory of the destination remains unchanged. Used to describe the journey to greatness, the Latin phrase per aspera ad astra is often translated as “through hardships to the stars.” It is well to remember, however, that regardless of how much outright adversity you may face on the path to the heavens, there is always one surprisingly strenuous portal to be passed through first: that of garden-variety, workaday disappointment. The post Sunday Firesides: Through Disappointment to the Stars appeared first on The Art of Manliness. http://dlvr.it/Sp0q1y

[reddyanna798]

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Harry Brook challenges Australia's 14-match winning streak that dates back to the 2023 World Cup by breaking Alastair Cook's historic record.

Tuesday heard Harry Brook create a new English record as he helped the team in ending Australia's amazing ODI winning run. In the third rain-affected come across of the match against Australia, England's acting captain, Harry Brook, made his first century in an ODI and led his team to a significant Duckworth-Lewis- (DLS) win by 46 runs. Australia's lead over the five-match series fell to 2-1 thanks to Brook's stunning knock.  Jos Buttler is healing from a right calf injury, so Brook, who is leading the team in his place, became the youngest England captain to score an ODI century at the age of 25 years and 215 days. As Brook came at the edge, England were losing at 11-2 during a 305-run chase. He attacked back with a hit. With 13 boundaries and two sixes in his 94-ball 110, he beat his previous ODI best of 80. With a 156-run tie for the third wicket with Will Jacks, who made a major 84 off 82 balls, Brook worked to tip the vote in favor of England.

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[froshele]

REAL AS FUCK!!!! OK I grew up in a cultural context with an existing oral recitative tradition and I find it hard to explain to people why my Taste in Poetry is Like That but this gets it exactly. Sorry to swerve off fanfic I promise we'll be back someday but yeah the conventions of all these stodgy auld formes that people feel are restrictive and get around of with coy little visual tricks and visual arrangements of vers libre are kind of essential to any long form recitative piece, both to help the reciter remember and because the satisfaction of rhymes and metres resolving is part of why humans are pleased by lyric-epic poetry and song

this by the way is why no beowulf adaptation will ever fuck as hard as beowulf, no kalevala-based cinematic universe as hard as the actual kalevala. sure reading them silently gets sleepy almost instantly but perform them! sing them make them what they were meant to be

these narratives are to be sung! and as much as you can get tired of very similar melodies repeating in instrumental music if you actually listened to someone trained to do it sing the whole kalevala i promise you would be riveted the entire time. the melody and the ensuing sort of trance is also part of the experience it is the point the performance is the point it's not quite like written literature it's not it's not it's not

also though i think if you reference an epic in a fic title everyone will get it and applaud your wit, even novels do that :^) cs lewis is mad because people set out reading these things for the wrong reasons and then give them up as Bad and Old not because they then reference them as the composers intended and hoped

CS Lewis's explanation of why oral poetic epics cannot be mined for fanfiction titles is not going to stop me from mining Paradise Lost for fanfiction titles. But I respect the explanation

The misunderstanding of [narrative poetry] I have learned from looking into used copies of our great narrative poems. In them you find often enough a num­ber of not very remarkable lines underscored with pencil in the first two pages, and all the rest of the book virgin. It is easy to see what has happened. The unfortunate reader has set out expecting 'good lines' – little ebullient patches of delight­ such as he is accustomed to find in lyrics, and has thought he was finding them in things that took his fancy for accidental reasons during the first five minutes; after that, finding that the poem cannot really be read in this way, he has given it up. ... If anyone will make the experiment for a week or two of reading no poetry and hearing a good deal, he will soon find the explanation of the stock phrases. It is a prime necessity of oral poetry that the hearers should not be surprised too often, or too much. The unexpected tires us: it also takes us longer to understand and enjoy than the expected. A line which gives the listener pause is a disaster in oral poetry because it makes him lose the next line. And even ifhe does not lose the next, the rare and ebullient line is not worth making. In the sweep of recitation no individual line is going to count for very much. The pleasure which moderns chiefly desire from printed poetry is ruled out anyway. You cannot ponder over single lines and let them dissolve on the mind like lozenges. That is the wrong way of using this sort of poetry. It is not built up of isolated effects; the poetry is in the paragraph, or the whole episode. To look for single, 'good' lines is like looking for single 'good' stones in a cathedral.