Irishwind: An Amazing Artist

          I have admired Irishwind as an artist for six years.  She lives in Singapore and draws like I wish I could.  Similar to my work, much of her art relies on pareidolia and apophenia, (which happens to be one of my 2009 titles).

          Recently, I learned that some people are either unable or less-prone to seeing "things which aren't there" and, I surmise, that's a primary reason why some don't like abstract art.  When someone says they "don't understand" a work of art—what they mean is they are unable to look at (hear, watch) something that relies upon the "abilities" of pareidolia-apophenia (either or both) to appreciate it.

          Irishwind's art can be seen here.  Go appreciate it!  (Even if you are pareapop-blind.)

MySoLiMo - My Song List Month

In March-April I participated in a month-of-songs.  I began by following someone.  Once I learned it was a meme, *wards evil-claw while hissing* I began creating my own categories.  Listen to the 30-song playlist (2hr 49min) on YouTube Music. Your Favorite Song.  Starship Trooper, YES A Song You Fucking Hate.  Fade To Black, METALLICA A Song That Makes You Happy.  Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit, GINA G A Song That Makes You Sad.  Beautiful, CHRISTINA AGUILERA A Song That Reminds You of Someone.  Canadian Sunset, HUGO WINTERHALTER A Song That Reminds You of Someplace.  Knock Three Times, TONY ORLANDO & DAWN A Song That Reminds You of an Event.  Vincent, DON McLEAN A Song You Know All the Words To.  Man of Constant Sorrow, SOGGY BOTTOM BOYS A Song That Makes You Laugh.  No Children, THE MOUNTAIN GOATS A Song That Describes You.  Poor Boy, SUPERTRAMP A Song You Can Dance To.  Block Rockin Beats, THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep.  Surf Sounds, NATURE A Favorite Song From (Random Year).  True, SPANDAU BALLET (1983) A Song That Reminds You of Elementary School.  Winchester Cathedral, NEW VAUDEVILLE BAND A Song Which Reminds You of a Sport or Job.  D'yer Ma'ker (Jamaica), LED ZEPPELIN The Oldest Song You Enjoy.  Boléro, RAVEL A Fucking Song.  Mia Culpa, ENIGMA Your Favorite Duet.  Under Pressure, FREDDIE MERCURY, DAVID BOWIE & QUEEN Your Paragon of Protest Songs.  Why Can't We Live Together, TIMMY THOMAS Your Favorite Instrumental.  The Box, ORBITAL Your Favorite Foreign Song.  Cose Della Vita, EROS RAMAZZOTTI A Song Which the Color (Random) Reminds You Of.  And She Was, TALKING HEADS (green) Your Favorite Spiritual-or-Secular Song.  The Weight, THE BAND & THE STAPLE SINGERS A Favorite From Your First Compilation Album.  Lucky Man, EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER A Song You Enjoy From Your Least-Listened-To Genre.  From A Distance, NANCI GRIFFITH A Quirky Song You Admire, But Can't Put Your Finger On Why.  The Sun King et al., THE BEATLES A Song That Reminds You of a Favorite Film.  Monsters, CHI-AD A Song Which Reflects Your Opinion On The Weather.  Feels Like Heaven, URBAN COOKIE COLLECTIVE A Favorite Talk Song.  Somewhere Down The Crazy River, ROBBIE ROBERTSON The Newest Song You Enjoy.  Wishery, POGO   other music lists: combat sAd (62 songs 4:20 length)

What The Fuss Is All About Patrick Rothfuss

          About once a decade I "discover" a "new" fantasy/speculative fiction author with sufficient imagination, drive, and wordsmith-ability to hold me rapt for thousands of pages.  Normally, I come upon them—whether stumbling by lucky happenstance or navigating by direction—after their trilogy is complete.  Not the case with The Kingkiller Chronicle, written by Patrick Rothfuss.

          The first 750 pages (The Name of the Wind) were very good.  The next nearly-1000 pages (The Wise Man's Fear) were great-to-excellent and better than the first.  The third is still being carefully crafted.  I hope it's published early in 2012; with sufficient time for me to read it before the end of the world.

          Patrick Rothfuss is on the same shelf as:  Orson Scott Card, Frank Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Gene Wolfe.

☆☆☆ Ratings—The Forgettable 3+/- Defined

          Dear anonymous (14-year-old-male) commenter who recommended Sucker Punch and questioned my 3+ rating on Source Code here.

          I've previously detailed my unorthodox rating schema.

          Simply put:  The vast majority of everything is forgettable (the mediocre ☆☆☆).

          Over time, we forget things that don't stand-out.  ☆☆☆☆☆ are reserved for the few fantastically-great things we witness, and although we try to avoid ☆, occasionally, we step in something terribly-horrible anyway.

          Normal rating systems fail to address that the majority of things (over 65%) are forgettable.  My system—best visualized as a hyperbolic curve—addresses these bland, middle-range, ☆☆☆, forgettable things by sub-dividing it.  3+ are forgettable with some memorable accomplishments and 3- are forgettable with a few memorable errors.

pogo ∼ snapperhead ∴ pogos ∼ digi-rends

Today is my thirtieth-consecutive day of my song list month, which I've grown fond of referring to as MySoLiMo.  This eight-letter-run-on is a parody of National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo).  I pronounce it like an American butchering the Italian song 'O Sole Mio, but I begin with 'My' instead of 'Oh'.  Today's title is a reference to my day-14 title: toothbrush ∼ condom ∴ dental caries ∼ ?.           The original meme author's final title was your favorite song at this time last year; my similar but less-restrictive category is: The Newest Song You Enjoy            On March 24th I began MySoLiMo mistakenly thinking the titles were coming from the incisive mind of Ginny, a writer whom I respect.  I also thought it was going to be a video month (that's how she described it at first).  Although I began coloring outside the lines on day 3 (when I selected a sad video, instead of a song) the obvious cracks didn't begin to stand out—for me—until after a week (when I began to suspect Ginny wasn't the author and started choosing my own categories).  Because I especially enjoy films, and I wanted to steer the meme back toward videos, my day 8 selection was from a film.           Day ten I briefly touched on the difficulty of creating MySoLiMo categories from whole cloth, while cherry-picking from the more interesting original author's titles.  The fourteenth-day Ginny confessed to also disliking the titles.  Now that I realized I wouldn't be stepping on her toes, I abandoned the original author's titles (albeit I did ridicule and scorn them more than thrice).           I retained the song-theme while continuing to hint at—as well as insert—movie, film, and video (maybe I'll craft a MoFiVoLiMo someday) references whenever the opportunity arose.           Recently I've been listening to Pogo (Australian artist Nick Bertke, not the possum cartoon character who's most memorable caption—quoted in 2009 here—is:  We have met the enemy and he is us).           I love everything he pogos.  Yes, as a verb.  It's not mere remixing; no more than my digital renderings from poached images are just photo-shopping.  The pogos (versatile, yup, now it's a pronoun) I enjoy most are those distilled from animated films.  However, the pogo from his mother's garden is fantastic (makes me tear-up a little); as is the one I saw excerpted on television last month, about a local place I've hiked (Beaver Creek State Park).           My newest favorite is Pogo's Wishery.  It plays to an entire menagerie of affinations:  instrumental, talk-song, film, elec-trance, as well as it chimes both my happy and laugh bells. My complete 30-day list of songs: My Song List Month Redux-Return to Day 1:  My Favorite Song

AFFINATION

          A Favorite Talk Song.

          Subtitle: (if you're not into the ol' brevity thing) a music composition incorporating instruments and vocals in such a manner that some, or all, vocals are spoken rather than sung (e.g. the rap genre; the song Tubthumper—a safe example because it's nobody's favorite; or everything by Lou Reed).

          My favorite talk song is Somewhere Down The Crazy River, by Robbie Robertson.

          There are quite a few talk-songs I like.  I'm not exactly sure why, but, since I am the most qualified to posit a theory, here goes.

          Poetry sounds like a song which has taken a cappella to the extreme.  When lyrics are sung the words become part of, and meld with, the song.  Speak with instrumental accompaniment, however, and the prose stands out.  Tells a story.  I have an affination for this type of song-stylin'.

          Here's a thing (more of a tangential aside-thing) affination is a word I've used my entire adult life, but it doesn't mean what I want it to mean.  And never has.  But.  I still use it.  Affination (from the—obviously—abridged snapperhead dictionary):  A proclamation of strong affinity used in much the same manner as the (real) words:  abomination, fascination, consignation, and (especially) affectation.**

          But where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Talk-songs.  Affinity.

          The story takes center stage when a singer downshifts the lyrics and speaks some of the song's words.  If he or she has an interesting voice—with a story-teller's ear-catching character and inflection—the story of the song is more-easily sculpted into memory.   

          Even if you haven't heard Lullabye by Shawn Mullins in over a decade, you probably still remember which celebrities her parents hung out with, at big parties?^‡  And, if you (like most) were only confused by the off-putting Mmm(x4) song by The Crash Test Dummies...I still wouldn't be surprised if you, none-the-less, remember why the boy's hair turned from black to bright white?^♦

** If you work in the sugar-processing or metallurgical industries, you may feel affronted by my repurposing your word.  Good.  I would ask that this not become the one turd in a sea of shit that pisses you off and hope you don't decide to do somethin' about this turd—but I won't.  I hope it pisses your federally subsidized asses right-the-fuck off. 
‡ Dennis Hopper, Bob Seger, Sonny and Cher.
♦ from when the cars crashed sooo hard.

Day 30 - Newest Song You Enjoy

Free My Mind...Just Free My Mind

          A Song Which Reflects Your Opinion On The Weather.

          The weather, in today's category, is a metaphor.  It could have been anything beyond our control; chicken little's non-upcoming apocalypse, solidly proven quantum factoids, the flowering myth of world-wide social equality—anything at all—I just chose weather because it's global (omnipresent), powerful (omnipotent), and everyone has an opinion about it (omnipinint).  (Not to be confused with omnipaninint...the burgeoning trend of selling every sandwich on earth with grill lines.)

          Feels Like Heaven by Urban Cookie Collective is my metaphorical answer.

          But wait.

          Why then, does my answer seem meteorological in nature?

          I thought that would be obvious from the tone, young grasshopper.

          Whether you're too vain to understand metaphors or your brain can only interpret all the information your senses send to it in such an extremely straightforward manner that you're unable to (free your mind) stop fixating on the weathervane, the answer is still the same.

          There is no spoon.

          It's never just a foot massage.

          When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble, give a whistle.

Day 29:  A Favorite Talk Song

The Prodigal Song

    Today's category:  A Song That Reminds You of a Favorite Film.

          Sample-quotes from two favorite films are within my favorite Chi-AD song Monsters.

          The first sample-quote, from Aliens (1986), is a conversation between Newt and Ripley:  "Mommy said there weren't bad monsters—not real ones—but there are."  "Yes there are aren't there?"  "Why do they tell little kids that?"  "Most of the time it's true."


          The second is from The Usual Suspects (1995).  Kobayashi, the lawyer, saying, "One cannot be betrayed if one has no people."

           I jogged to this song my last three years of military service; its tempo was perfect to set a strong initial pace.  Upon retirement, I left the running, bathroom scale, uniforms, alarm clock, barber, and uncountable miscellaneous items and routines behind; this song became forgotten on my jogging playlist.  I'm quite pleased this has reminded me of it.  Enough to kill a fatted clef.

Day 28 - Song Which Reminds You of the Weather

Sunday's on the phone to Monday

          A Quirky Song You Admire, But Can't Put Your Finger On Why; everybody has at least one rollin' around back there like a three-legg'd puppy in a truck-bed bouncin' along a washboard road.  When you think about it, faster than you can say Bob's yer uncle, you'll give-n-get a smirk with that inside-to-your-ownself smile.
       
                    but, even if you seriously try
                    to concentrate on all the why
                    n' all the way t' Kokomo pry
                    'til unwrapped-present sighs
                    Go figure 

          I'm not cheating.  Mine is The Sun King et al. by The Beatles.  Technically five songs, but not in reality (no more than side-one of Dark Side of the Moon should be listened to as five stand-alone songs).  Those who say otherwise ...well... they're as wrong as blue soy turducken and should spin that-there dial back to their fav pop station lickedy-split.*
       
          I admire The Sun King et al. because...

• whimsical non-words and alliterative phrases abound
• my bona fide fy-ants is named Pam
• I'm a retired police officer 
• my favorite condiment is mustard
• Tuesday's on the phone to me (oh yeah)                  

      *Where else can you find this concise of a sentence containing one hyphenated Americanism, three correctly used homophones, two abbreviated popular slang terms, one three-word malapropism (using a real 3-bird American meal to supplant a politically incorrect adage about homosexuals)?

Day 27:  A Song That Reminds You of a Favorite Film

From a Distance This Ain't No Meme

          My category for this 25^th day of MySoLiMo is A Song You Enjoy From Your Least-Listened-To Genre.

          In all fairness, this is slightly similar to day 14's title from the original meme (which I abandoned a few weeks back because most of those titles were befuddlingly redundant and immature).  The little girl's title was A Song That No One Would Expect You To Love.  I criticized it a little already, so I'll just explain why mine is superior.  Her verbiage is too restrictive.  Readers who ponder it are discouraged when they try-on different songs (in their mental dressing room) and discover none of them fit; either they don't love it, someone on the planet knows them well-enough, or the concept of song expectations is off-putting.  My category relies on the simple assumption that everyone has at least one music genre they rarely listen to, but, can still identify an enjoyable song from.

          I'm not proud of my prejudices.  They aren't a characteristic I routinely discuss (with fingers or voice).  My strongest prejudice comes in the form of a sincere disdain for those who proudly enjoy and embrace their own ignorance.  It's easier to describe the behavior of these people from a distance.  They live in America's rural south—in Texas and Georgia and all the sad states in-between.  They enjoy watching cars race around in a circle, wearing impractical costumes, driving impractical vehicles and being hypocrites (reveling in the inherited-hatred of those who differ from them in thought, appearance, or deed...which they blithely rationalize as the will of their creator).

          Oh sky cake, why are you so delicious?

          This music, the music of those who enjoy flaunting their ignorance—American Country, Bluegrass, and Folk—are the genres I have, and will, listen to the least.

          However, I enjoy Nanci Griffith (very much a down-home Texan folk singer).  Her voice always contains a wink and a smile.  Her lyrics rarely cater to the NASCAR lovin' cowboy, drivin' his HMMWV to church with stars n bars flyin' from his antenna.  Her version of From A Distance (written by Julie Gold) is the one I prefer.

• The 1^st stanza describes, literally, our planet from high above.
• The refrain, 3^rd and 5^th stanzas sketch humans—from a distance—as harmonious, peaceful, and well-fed.   
• The middle stanza declares:  God is watching us from a distance.  (Irony?)

          Maybe yesterday's song has me still thinking about irony too much.  I get the idealized, hope-for-a-better-mankind-tomorrow message.  But, within the song's context, isn't it saying:  God doesn't exist.  If she did, he can't see all the terrible feckin shite we keep doing to ourselves from its distant vantage point.  Maybe it's just me and I'm not taking 'distance' metaphorically enough?

 Day 26:  A Quirky Song You Admire, But Can't Put Your Finger On Why