Listen! what is life? It is a feather; it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried away into the heavens. But if the seed be good and heavy it may perchance travel a little way on the road it will. It is well to try and journey one’s road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At the worst he can but die a little sooner.
Peach Pit – “An Open House Where Horror Is Your Host”
Suspicious Cargo
This is from a much earlier (1999) album than their astonishing split EP with Majmoon. It’s much more subdued but you can still hear a lot of the same tendencies, especially in the menacing final third of this track. They had yet to really apply the math or layers, though. Definitely worth a listen.
Socrates: Let us begin, then, with a picture of our citizens’ manner of life, with the provision we have made for them. They will be producing corn and wine, and making clothes and shoes. When they have built their houses, they will mostly work without their coats or shoes in summer, and in winter will be well shod and clothed. For their food, they will prepare flour and barley-meal for kneading and baking, and set out a grand spread of loaves and cakes on rushes or fresh leaves. Then they will lie on beds of myrtle-boughs and bryony and make merry with their children, drinking their wine after the feast with garlands on their heads and singing the praises of the gods. So they will live pleasantly together; and a prudent fear of poverty or war will keep them from begetting children beyond their means.
Glaucon: You seem to expect your citizens to feast on dry bread.
Socrates: True, I said; I forgot that they will have something to give it a relish, salt, no doubt, and olives, and cheese, and country stews of roots and vegetables. And for desert we will give them figs and peas and beans; and they shall roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, while they sip their wine. Leading such a healthy life in peace, they will naturally come to a good old age, and leave their children to live after them in the same manner.
By the time our “scherm” was finished the moon was coming up, and our dinner of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones was ready. How we enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them! I know no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is elephant’s heart, and we had that on the morrow.
Oh my. Gruesome warnings to children. They don’t make ‘em like this any more.
Locations of tourists taking photos (red) and locals taking photos (blue).
Blood On The Wall – “Stoner Jam”
Awesomer
I place this song under the same “nearly perfect” category as the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine,” Radiohead’s “Airbag,” and Skygreen Leopards’ “The Heron.” There are hundreds of such songs in my memory, but it is still relatively exclusive company; it is a category of consummate craftsmanship and a sort of syzygy of every element in a song to make it something more than a sequence of notes. Blood On The Wall’s “Lightning Song” is another good example. (insound)
