646660 sunday gloomy sunday
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before falling asleep last night I read a v. good 24-hour comix by E.J. Barnes named "How Dear to Me Is Sleep", whose breezy matter-of-factness and dreamy disconnectedness might have been a leading factor
of my subsequent lucid dream about delivering a commencement address to a college graduating class of one; or, if you don't believe in time as currently accepted, th dream I had last night might've been a leading factor in my decision to read "How Dear to Me Is Sleep" immediately beforehand. In th dream, th lone graduate is my younger female cousin, name unknown, who dresses in th manner of a Gloomy Sunday and is regarded in my family as something of a black sheep.
You have to understand that in my non-dreaming reality, my family have long regarded me as something of a black sheep. In th dream, my commencement address takes on a tone of self-exhortation.
It's almost summer. On a stage under a bumblebee-striped canopy, standing behind a podium, I look out over a long, neatly-manicured lawn w/ one folding chair on it, which is located dead center of what would be th first row. My cousin, who looks exactly like Norah from Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, sits in th chair in her funeral best. She has on a hat w/ a veil attached, but I can see through th veil into her eyes. Although I'm not female or Gloomy, my cousin and I share a connection that is near psychic, and I give my speech in th same inappropriate and unprofessional voice I might use to say to a bathroom mirror, "Get sober, damn it." It goes like this:
"Thank you, you're too kind. I'm proud of you today, but I'm not here to congratulate you. You see, I remind me of you when you become my age, and it's my job to warn you about th future.
"I look into yr eyes, and I can see that you think you're smart, and it's true you ain't no dummy, you're one sharp cookie. But you ain't seen shit and you ain't done shit, and you don't know yet that smartness alone ain't no big thing, and nobody won a damn thing worth winning by smartness alone.
"You got to have @ least one of three other things, and optimally all three. In order of importance, these three are 1) social skills, 2) luck, and 3) hard work. Believe me, Whatever-yr-name-is, if you've got these three things, you can be un idiot total and still have a life worth loving. You are a woman who looks a lot like a movie star, so you're already way ahead on #2, and #1 probably comes real natural to you. These are all yr knives. Sharpen them!
"Th family want me to say something to you about God and Jesus. Our family, as you know, are nothing if not persistent. I haven't gone to church in over 20 years, and you're well on yr way down th same path, am I right? But we're both baptized and our family will never, never, never, never stop seeing us as children of God. You ain't been nowhere, but I have lived in th Philippines, which is One Nation Under God in a way that America cannot comprehend anymore, if she ever did. God is not debated; God is assumed. Do you get how different that is from here? You look totally Caucasian because I'm dreaming right now, but you're a first cousin to me, so that means you're a flippy, which means that you can shed religion and God and Christ intellectually and emotionally all you want, but you can't ever shed Him socially. Flippies are bound one to another primarily by food and language, and remember how much these people are always eating th body of Christ -- my parents, for instance, attend mass on weekdays -- and also remember how th Bible refers to Christ as th Word made flesh. Yeah, it sounds like crazy talk -- Word made flesh, eateth my flesh, drinketh my blood -- but think about it. Eat. Drink. Word. Food and language. In a nutshell, culture -- which is what ties us flippies together and makes us a community wherever we are in th world. Do white people have that 'community wherever' mindset? Naw. I see what you're saying w/ yr eyes. White people are too busy enshrining rugged individualism and ruling th world. It's true. Who needs a distinctive white people food? Not them. There are a million billion Thai restaurants in my neighbourhood.
"My recommendation is to make peace w/ th deity encoded in yr cultural DNA; consider it another language learned. You took Chinese and Spanish in high school? I took French, and my mum spoke to me in Tagalog. If you can find a way to keep yr languages living in yr head, please do so. Don't let those knives go dull th way I did. Learn as many languages as you can, especially nonverbal languages, mathematical languages, and specialized languages. I've already mentioned Religion, which is th language of not being alone when you're alone, of getting through suffering when you have no material recourse, of claiming a reward after you die, and of connecting all th dots to a big dot that encircles us all. Only Filipinos, Haitians, Mexicans, Indians, and other poor peoples are truly fluent in this language. Compared to them, people who love to watch Fox News and defend unborn babies' souls and family values and buy water filtration system vacuum cleaners and PajamaJeans® are strangers to God: not enough collective suffering.
"Other languages that have wide-ranging practical applications include Sports -- th language of instant avuncular tribal affiliation; Business Speak -- th language of letting th other person know, through a Dadaist yet socially-acceptable syntax, that you know that he knows that you know that he knows that you are going to rape him if he doesn't rape you first; and Body Language -- th language of reading in a split-second whether th other person is an immediate threat to yr physical well-being, or is receptive to a game of penetration w/ you later this evening if you play yr cards right.
"Let me be blunt w/ you now, cousin. Th family are worried that you will waste yr potential as a human being and as a carrier of proven high-caliber genetic material by deciding, selfishly and delusionally, that it is yr destiny to be a great artist -- and not a famous and well-compensated great artist such as Bill Watterson, Ansel Adams, or J.K. Rowling. They fear that during yr lifetime yr finest contributions to human beauty and wisdom will, like Melville's, be considered not much better than th ravings of a crazy person, and that you will die -- also like Melville -- a pauper. Or worse: that you will end up like th once-mighty D'Angelo, bloated and addicted to heroin, soliciting a female undercover police officer for a b-job in NYC's West Village. You are a woman. I doubt that will happen. Or worst: you will never produce a Moby-Dick or a Voodoo and will die alone, unloved and unmourned by yr nonexistent children and nonexistent husband after a lifetime of gleefully renting and barely making a living as th Gloomiest park ranger this country has ever known.
"If you are anything like me -- and I am pretty sure you are, deep purple nail polish aside -- you actually care quite a bit about being normal and fitting in; and this whole Gloomy Sunday thing isn't a rebellious act in th slightest. It's a conscious attempt to redefine normal, to relocate th center by pushing around th edges. Am I warm? Yr style is casual, not laboured. Action, not reaction. Not a statement. Not a negation. You just like how black looks on you @ this moment in history; you like Bauhaus because they rock harder than a monkey w/ a tool belt; and you think it'd do everyone a world of good to contemplate her own death and th end of existence as we know it. Love and reproduction and th entire political game we play -- e.g., if a high enough number of Libyans push 'like' on Colonel Gaddafi's page, he stays in power -- none of this stuff has urgency unless we die. One regime ends, another begins, am I right? That's what you think -- death is what keeps a person from being a loop de loop de loop de loop ... That ain't no human being, you think. That's a bloody animated GIF! Ain't thet right, dog. And I'm here to tell you that every serious artist since th dinosaurs probably had that same exact thought you jest had, and it was a cop-out back den, and it's a cop-out now, and y'all are in lust w/ death so much because you fear life, and you fear getting out there and sweating and getting yr hands dirty Monday to Friday, and you fear building a house to live in w/ yr own two dirty hands. As much tribute as you sing to th virtues of being normal, you fear not being special. Furthermore, if you fail to be normal and also fail to be special, what is that? That is a fate worse than death. Now how warm am I?
"My beloved cousin, I am here to tell you that you and everybody like you since dinosaur days are all full of shit. You are full of shit ...... and ...... you ...... are absolutely correct, in spite of yr obnoxious youth: not a one of us is getting out of here alive. Th gods of beauty, wisdom, and dramatic structure all demand a beginning, a middle, and an end. You are right: this has been proven repeatedly: endings are our most beautiful parts. I'm going to wake up a few seconds from now.
"One more thing. It will take you forever to learn this, but it's v. important: don't trust people who talk a lot. If you want to know a man or woman, turn th sound off, and pay attention to what they do. Do you get me? Turn th sound off and watch me. I'm waking up. I'm cupping yr face w/ my hand. My mouth is moving."
+ + +
THE COUNTDOWN:
33. AISLERS SET "Mary's Song" (7.3 MB)
32. YOU AM I "Heavy Heart" (4.4 MB)
31. RADIOACTIVE SAGO PROJECT "Astro" (5.3 MB)
30. BIG STAR "Thirteen" (3.5 MB)
29. DE KIFT "Nauwe Mijter" (5.0 MB)
28. TH CLEAN "Anything Could Happen" (2.5 MB)
27. JOHN FAHEY "Jaya Shiva Shankarah" (7.0 MB)
26. FEELIES "Forces @ Work" (9.8 MB)
25. LIFE W/O BUILDINGS "Sorrow" (9.5 MB)
24. TEENAGE FANCLUB "Broken" (7.3 MB)
23. PHYLLIS DILLON "Don't Stay Away" (3.7 MB)
22. MATUMBI "Wipe Them Out" (4.0 MB)
21. SISTER NANCY "Bam Bam" (4.5 MB)
20. FENWYCK "Mindrocker" (4.2 MB)
19. ADRIANO CELENTANO "Stai Lontana Da Me" (2.0 MB)
18. SHUGGIE OTIS "Strawberry Letter 23" (5.5 MB)
17. LEE MOSES "Time and Place" (2.8 MB)
16. FUNKADELIC "You and Yr Folks, Me and My Folks" (5.0 MB)
15. LISA "Rocket to Yr Heart" (17.5 MB) (Y'tube) -- If you can't lift off to this, check yr rocket. It's not Lisa's fault.
before falling asleep last night I read a v. good 24-hour comix by E.J. Barnes named "How Dear to Me Is Sleep", whose breezy matter-of-factness and dreamy disconnectedness might have been a leading factor
of my subsequent lucid dream about delivering a commencement address to a college graduating class of one; or, if you don't believe in time as currently accepted, th dream I had last night might've been a leading factor in my decision to read "How Dear to Me Is Sleep" immediately beforehand. In th dream, th lone graduate is my younger female cousin, name unknown, who dresses in th manner of a Gloomy Sunday and is regarded in my family as something of a black sheep.
You have to understand that in my non-dreaming reality, my family have long regarded me as something of a black sheep. In th dream, my commencement address takes on a tone of self-exhortation.
It's almost summer. On a stage under a bumblebee-striped canopy, standing behind a podium, I look out over a long, neatly-manicured lawn w/ one folding chair on it, which is located dead center of what would be th first row. My cousin, who looks exactly like Norah from Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, sits in th chair in her funeral best. She has on a hat w/ a veil attached, but I can see through th veil into her eyes. Although I'm not female or Gloomy, my cousin and I share a connection that is near psychic, and I give my speech in th same inappropriate and unprofessional voice I might use to say to a bathroom mirror, "Get sober, damn it." It goes like this:
"Thank you, you're too kind. I'm proud of you today, but I'm not here to congratulate you. You see, I remind me of you when you become my age, and it's my job to warn you about th future.
"I look into yr eyes, and I can see that you think you're smart, and it's true you ain't no dummy, you're one sharp cookie. But you ain't seen shit and you ain't done shit, and you don't know yet that smartness alone ain't no big thing, and nobody won a damn thing worth winning by smartness alone.
"You got to have @ least one of three other things, and optimally all three. In order of importance, these three are 1) social skills, 2) luck, and 3) hard work. Believe me, Whatever-yr-name-is, if you've got these three things, you can be un idiot total and still have a life worth loving. You are a woman who looks a lot like a movie star, so you're already way ahead on #2, and #1 probably comes real natural to you. These are all yr knives. Sharpen them!
"Th family want me to say something to you about God and Jesus. Our family, as you know, are nothing if not persistent. I haven't gone to church in over 20 years, and you're well on yr way down th same path, am I right? But we're both baptized and our family will never, never, never, never stop seeing us as children of God. You ain't been nowhere, but I have lived in th Philippines, which is One Nation Under God in a way that America cannot comprehend anymore, if she ever did. God is not debated; God is assumed. Do you get how different that is from here? You look totally Caucasian because I'm dreaming right now, but you're a first cousin to me, so that means you're a flippy, which means that you can shed religion and God and Christ intellectually and emotionally all you want, but you can't ever shed Him socially. Flippies are bound one to another primarily by food and language, and remember how much these people are always eating th body of Christ -- my parents, for instance, attend mass on weekdays -- and also remember how th Bible refers to Christ as th Word made flesh. Yeah, it sounds like crazy talk -- Word made flesh, eateth my flesh, drinketh my blood -- but think about it. Eat. Drink. Word. Food and language. In a nutshell, culture -- which is what ties us flippies together and makes us a community wherever we are in th world. Do white people have that 'community wherever' mindset? Naw. I see what you're saying w/ yr eyes. White people are too busy enshrining rugged individualism and ruling th world. It's true. Who needs a distinctive white people food? Not them. There are a million billion Thai restaurants in my neighbourhood.
"My recommendation is to make peace w/ th deity encoded in yr cultural DNA; consider it another language learned. You took Chinese and Spanish in high school? I took French, and my mum spoke to me in Tagalog. If you can find a way to keep yr languages living in yr head, please do so. Don't let those knives go dull th way I did. Learn as many languages as you can, especially nonverbal languages, mathematical languages, and specialized languages. I've already mentioned Religion, which is th language of not being alone when you're alone, of getting through suffering when you have no material recourse, of claiming a reward after you die, and of connecting all th dots to a big dot that encircles us all. Only Filipinos, Haitians, Mexicans, Indians, and other poor peoples are truly fluent in this language. Compared to them, people who love to watch Fox News and defend unborn babies' souls and family values and buy water filtration system vacuum cleaners and PajamaJeans® are strangers to God: not enough collective suffering.
"Other languages that have wide-ranging practical applications include Sports -- th language of instant avuncular tribal affiliation; Business Speak -- th language of letting th other person know, through a Dadaist yet socially-acceptable syntax, that you know that he knows that you know that he knows that you are going to rape him if he doesn't rape you first; and Body Language -- th language of reading in a split-second whether th other person is an immediate threat to yr physical well-being, or is receptive to a game of penetration w/ you later this evening if you play yr cards right.
"Let me be blunt w/ you now, cousin. Th family are worried that you will waste yr potential as a human being and as a carrier of proven high-caliber genetic material by deciding, selfishly and delusionally, that it is yr destiny to be a great artist -- and not a famous and well-compensated great artist such as Bill Watterson, Ansel Adams, or J.K. Rowling. They fear that during yr lifetime yr finest contributions to human beauty and wisdom will, like Melville's, be considered not much better than th ravings of a crazy person, and that you will die -- also like Melville -- a pauper. Or worse: that you will end up like th once-mighty D'Angelo, bloated and addicted to heroin, soliciting a female undercover police officer for a b-job in NYC's West Village. You are a woman. I doubt that will happen. Or worst: you will never produce a Moby-Dick or a Voodoo and will die alone, unloved and unmourned by yr nonexistent children and nonexistent husband after a lifetime of gleefully renting and barely making a living as th Gloomiest park ranger this country has ever known.
"If you are anything like me -- and I am pretty sure you are, deep purple nail polish aside -- you actually care quite a bit about being normal and fitting in; and this whole Gloomy Sunday thing isn't a rebellious act in th slightest. It's a conscious attempt to redefine normal, to relocate th center by pushing around th edges. Am I warm? Yr style is casual, not laboured. Action, not reaction. Not a statement. Not a negation. You just like how black looks on you @ this moment in history; you like Bauhaus because they rock harder than a monkey w/ a tool belt; and you think it'd do everyone a world of good to contemplate her own death and th end of existence as we know it. Love and reproduction and th entire political game we play -- e.g., if a high enough number of Libyans push 'like' on Colonel Gaddafi's page, he stays in power -- none of this stuff has urgency unless we die. One regime ends, another begins, am I right? That's what you think -- death is what keeps a person from being a loop de loop de loop de loop ... That ain't no human being, you think. That's a bloody animated GIF! Ain't thet right, dog. And I'm here to tell you that every serious artist since th dinosaurs probably had that same exact thought you jest had, and it was a cop-out back den, and it's a cop-out now, and y'all are in lust w/ death so much because you fear life, and you fear getting out there and sweating and getting yr hands dirty Monday to Friday, and you fear building a house to live in w/ yr own two dirty hands. As much tribute as you sing to th virtues of being normal, you fear not being special. Furthermore, if you fail to be normal and also fail to be special, what is that? That is a fate worse than death. Now how warm am I?
"My beloved cousin, I am here to tell you that you and everybody like you since dinosaur days are all full of shit. You are full of shit ...... and ...... you ...... are absolutely correct, in spite of yr obnoxious youth: not a one of us is getting out of here alive. Th gods of beauty, wisdom, and dramatic structure all demand a beginning, a middle, and an end. You are right: this has been proven repeatedly: endings are our most beautiful parts. I'm going to wake up a few seconds from now.
"One more thing. It will take you forever to learn this, but it's v. important: don't trust people who talk a lot. If you want to know a man or woman, turn th sound off, and pay attention to what they do. Do you get me? Turn th sound off and watch me. I'm waking up. I'm cupping yr face w/ my hand. My mouth is moving."
+ + +
THE COUNTDOWN:
33. AISLERS SET "Mary's Song" (7.3 MB)
32. YOU AM I "Heavy Heart" (4.4 MB)
31. RADIOACTIVE SAGO PROJECT "Astro" (5.3 MB)
30. BIG STAR "Thirteen" (3.5 MB)
29. DE KIFT "Nauwe Mijter" (5.0 MB)
28. TH CLEAN "Anything Could Happen" (2.5 MB)
27. JOHN FAHEY "Jaya Shiva Shankarah" (7.0 MB)
26. FEELIES "Forces @ Work" (9.8 MB)
25. LIFE W/O BUILDINGS "Sorrow" (9.5 MB)
24. TEENAGE FANCLUB "Broken" (7.3 MB)
23. PHYLLIS DILLON "Don't Stay Away" (3.7 MB)
22. MATUMBI "Wipe Them Out" (4.0 MB)
21. SISTER NANCY "Bam Bam" (4.5 MB)
20. FENWYCK "Mindrocker" (4.2 MB)
19. ADRIANO CELENTANO "Stai Lontana Da Me" (2.0 MB)
18. SHUGGIE OTIS "Strawberry Letter 23" (5.5 MB)
17. LEE MOSES "Time and Place" (2.8 MB)
16. FUNKADELIC "You and Yr Folks, Me and My Folks" (5.0 MB)
15. LISA "Rocket to Yr Heart" (17.5 MB) (Y'tube) -- If you can't lift off to this, check yr rocket. It's not Lisa's fault.