Highgate

Monday

Excuse me Mr. Claus

If you would be so kind:
I spent a lot of time reading the Illuminatus! Trilogy five or six years ago, it blew my mind, not to mention it was completely absurd. Throughout it there are contradictory quotations from this book, also penned by RAW and others.


Soundtrack to The Hired Hand; A western Peter Fonda did right after Easy Rider, aparently it's a great movie, i havn't seen it, but i do have the soundtrack (on mp3) What i really want is the Vinyl. Very hard to come by . But if you get the chance take a listen, this album predicts the entire free noise folk sound by like 40 years... Matt Valentine, Tower Recordings, Buried Civilizations, the whole Jewelled Antler crew... A contemporary of Lovecraft, though even less recognized in his day, i've always had a soft spot for their inability to discern their own reality from the worlds they create on paper... adds a bit more creepiness than usual to a late night reading.
My friend Sara Paule used to play lots of various classical records around the house, often they'd just sort of float around and be generally pleasant, and other times, i would stop and be forced to listen; Schubert was one of these. I don't know what we listened to, but i know Bernstein come recommended, and i also know that these later works, including his unfinished, as he approached his young death, were some of his more pained and emotive pieces. Recommended for anyone interested in later Romantic period Classical music.

I'll be setting up my own domain and designing my own website come spring; integrating a blog system is an important step - i recently installed a bBlog on my test server; was a bit of a pain in the ass; i know nothing about PHP or mySQL, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out.


This is awesome... Every video that New Order put out, including new videos made especially for this collection, plus the orginal 30 minute Documentary of the band expanded to 70 minutes... that's alot of extra footage... awesome. Here's their video for Perfect Kiss; a great early video concept of "filming the band performing the song live in the studio." Plus i love watching Peter Hook play bass; dude is so good.


I've been meaning to check out some of Warren Ellis' comics for a while and this comes highly recommended; There a few pages where driving through LA, Desolation Jones, and ex-MI6 secret agent and a friend discuss the idea of Post Structuralism; that buildings and cities like LA are designed not to be lived in, but to be driven through... Sounds like a fun read.
Last but defiantly not least; The Complete Factory records design collection by Peter Saville; if you're wondering if you've seen his work before you probably have. There's a companion book simply called "Designed by Peter Saville" by Peter Saville. I'll take this too.

(ps Santa, you can click the pictures to find out where your elves can find them.)

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Tanner--I tried leaving this in the last post's comments, but it wouldn't take. Anyway, don't forget to come up with a top ten (or whatever) list for PP. I think we should try to get Sue to send one, too. You know, when it comes down to it, I think my favortie album from this year was the Califone. Did you get around to checking it out? I think you'd really like it, but then again, you might just find it boring.

Anonymous said...

I like me some Ambrose Bierce. Have you read Arthur Machen or Algernon Blackwood? Both are weird fiction writer of yore. Lovecraft said of Blackwood:

“Aside from Poe, I think Algernon Blackwood touches me most closely... I am dogmatic enough to call The Willows the finest weird story I have ever read... Blackwood rates far higher as a creative artist than many another craftsman of mountainously superior word-mastery & general technical ability...”

And Machen:

“Machen is a Titan—perhaps the greatest living author—and I must read everything of his.”

Fnord!

Tanner M. said...

Josh - seems like other people had a hard time too, I really dig the new Califone; I've listened to it about 5 times in headphones at work and it's a real grower i think. Definatly one of the Best of the year. I'll fersure do a PP top 10.

Casey thanks for the heads up on those dudes; i'll look into them - there's nothing better than some weird tales for a wintery long New England night.

Anonymous said...

they got the factory book at borders. i looked through it yesterday, its pretty great. too bad the rough trade one by rob young is shrinkwrapped
ben

jay said...

Schubert has always been one of my favs; I'm always a sucker for the wild geniuses who die young...

If you haven't heard it before, get a copy of his "Death and the Maiden" quartet--it's one of the most powerful pieces of music I've ever heard.

Tanner M. said...

ya hear that santa? "Death and the Maiden".

jay said...

Hey Tanner, you should post a mailing address or something in case, you know, Santa forgets something & someone else decides to get you a present.... :)

Sorry if I just killed the Santa myth for you. At least you didn't find it out the way I did--four years old, seeing my dad stark naked putting presents under the tree.

A few days later when my friend Robert showed off a hunk of cotton that he claimed was "Santa's beard" I thought about bursting his bubble---and then thought about how I would explain my enlightenment & decided to keep my mouth shut.

the le duo said...

yeah tanner...post your mailing address...only i have the key to the mailbox...tanner gifts will become jb gifts...mwahahahaha!

Tanner M. said...

Little boy Jay: "It's chwistmas evwebody! Pwesents! look deya, under da twee! Santa bwought... a.... bulldog? ... Oh. My. Gwod. Nooooooooooooooooooooo Daaaadddy noooooo...."

and christmas was ruined again.

Santa!, so sorry, here's my address... we don't have a chimney so you'll have to go through the door... the back door is open... (that's not a come on.) the front door is locked, so come in through the back Apt 1, 12 Clarke Street, don't be late :D

jay said...

I hear a rumor that Santa already had the elves record a Schubert disc for Tanner...though it's not the one pictured on his list.

Happy Holidays!

Tanner M. said...

Awe, thanks "elves" that's very kind! remember to come to our New Years Eve Party too!

gd said...

that 'hired hand' soundtrack is super nice. bruce 'mr. tamborine man' langhorne did a great job with it. i think there is a cd reissue of it out there somewhere. i want to see the movie at some point too.

jay said...

You can download a couple of full tracks (albeit in RealAudio streaming format)from "The Hired Hand" soundtrack at this site--

http://www.kqed.org/topics/arts/music/aquarius/langhorne.jsp

jay said...

Santa's elves just relayed me the following message--

December 21, 2006 01:48:00 PM WILLISTON VT US Delivery attempted - recipient not home

Tanner M. said...

er... williston?

12 Clarke Street apt 1
Burlington VT?