quote unquote

“oh my god, that’s like an orgasm for the tongue!”

- J on tasting an authentic Belgian waffle in Brussels. Similar sentiments later expressed in relation to some incredible chocolate later the same day.

John Zorn Painkiller

i just got me a ticket for tomorrow night’s Painkiller gig here at the old fire-station in Mannheim, colour me excited!!

for some background info - text below from House of World Cultures

John Zorn, the enfant terrible of New Music and Jazz, Bill Laswell, Jazz musician and producer have joined forces with a drummer from the hardest Japanese Noise-Rock school. “The most annoying free-jazz heavy metal you can imagine.“ (www.omnology.com)

Their music is controversial, refuses all attempts to pin it down, and explodes the framework of the genre: John Zorn, Painkiller’s leader, is one of the most important composers and musicians on the New York scene. His work ranges from cover versions of Ennio Morricone’s records to “game pieces” – improvisations based on a cleverly devised system of rules – and from the radical renewal of Jewish music to noise. With Painkiller, John Zorn has moved further away than ever before from traditional hearing habits: wild sound textures, bizarre rhythms, a saxophone that alternates between screaming solos and subtle nuances. The bass is played by legendary Jazz producer Bill Laswell, who has worked with William Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brian Eno and Carlos Santana. And with Yoshida Tatsuya on the drums, they have one of the most innovative drummer-composers on the Japanese avant-garde scene. Saxophone: John Zorn Bass: Bill Laswell Drums: Yoshida Tatsuya

as an aside Zorn means anger or rage in German…

treehugger

before i start i should point out that i am NOT any kind of rabid anti-environmentalist or such, i quite like trees… (i am not necessarily some sort of advocate for Singer or his philosophy either)

i have learnt a lot since i started going to Uni and often the readings are thought provoking and even if you don’t agree with the text there is usually things to think about and discuss or form an argument against / opinion of, and then of course occasionally you come across some horseshit like this:

direct quote from text assigned as a reading:

“Singer defends his exclusion of allegedly non-conscious vegetable life with the claim that ‘if a tree is not sentient, it makes no difference to the tree whether we chop it down or not’ (Singer 1997). But if a tree is a striving (teleological) and adaptive being, it must select some states to strive for (for example continued life, best development) and others to avoid (death).” 

here’s another one (and yes i may now be pulling out quotes from a different (assigned) text without context but still direct quote nonetheless):

“Because I see the oppression of women and the other animals as interdependant…”
and
“… vegetarianism acts as a sign of autonomous female being and signals a rejection of male control and violence.”

and so on it goes, utter fucking wank!!

fucking vegetarian telepathic dolphin loving woman-nature-native construct oppressed by the patriarchal dividend sexual politics of meat eating as a cultural discourse bollocks

makes me wish i was back in cog sci

</rant>

dodgy billboards revisited

seen this one about a bit around Mannheim, Germany the last week or so. don’t quite know where to start on commenting about this one, perhaps the steel tipped white shoes…?

click for bigger version

 

btw- WEST is a German brand

hole in the head

while ambling about the Landesmuseum here in Mannheim today i saw an old trepanation set complete with velvet lined box.  i’ve read about these before but actually seeing a real set of the instruments was kind of interesting and perversly cool.

as J said when i excitedly pointed it out to her and explained what it was used for “i wonder how many peoples heads got drilled with this one?”.

indeed.