Battle of Mice – “At the Base of the Giant’s Throat”
A Day of Nights

This post-metal group’s creditable but unremarkable compositions are merely a noisy nest in which to cradle the unique voice of Julie Christmas. Switching between childlike whisper, death-metal scream, and breathy song in the recitation of lyrics rich in darkly poetic imagery, Christmas packs a frisson-inducing wallop. The 911 call that forms the coda of this song, apparently the climax of the spectacularly dysfunctional relationship behind the album, had me hovering over the pause button in terror. ACTUAL TRIGGER WARNING. “Sleep and Dream” is another, less disturbing standout. (neurot)

As debauchery often causes weakness and sterility in the body, so the intemperance of the tongue makes conversation empty and insipid.

Plutarch, Parallel Lives – Lycurgus

Fermilab Bubble Chamber tracks

Daniel Crooks, An Embroidery of Voids

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night?

John Fowles, The Magus

Vocabulary: Fisher Fowles Edition

chapfallen: having one’s jaw (chap) hanging out of exhaustion or disappointment
chlorotic: lacking coloration due to lack of iron, in either plants and people
picquet: also piquet, a two-player game played with a 32-card deck
osculation: in mathematics, to touch and share a tangent; to kiss
paregoric: medicinal opium originally prescribed to children
stylobate: a continuous base for a series of columns
rodomontade: a boast, or to speak or act boastfully
contumacious: stubborn or resistant to authority
algedonic: relating to both pleasure and pain
carious: decayed, esp. bones or teeth
apaugasma: a brightly shining light
puteal: a classical-style wellhead
batrachian: toadlike or froglike
desipience: folly or silliness
slammakin: loose or untidy
nacreous: pearlescent

Albrecht Altdorfer – Countryside of Wood with St George Fighting the Dragon

Radar image of Antarctica’s glacier-covered Gamburtsev mountains

Beauty is a form of genius — is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Thomas Klein – Lowitz arcs, Parry supralaterals, and sundogs (more)

Tennis – “Never Work For Free”
Ritual in Repeat

If this record had released in June rather than September, “Never Work For Free” would have been the Song of the Summer, no question. It’s Madonna-tier Pop with, as you can see, a capital P. You can’t unhear it, and you won’t want to. (insound)

Vocabulary: Wherry Coam Frump Edition

cathead: a beam projecting from the bow of a ship used as support in lifting anchor
coaming: a raised frame around a roof, floor, or hatch, to keep water out (or in)
pergola: an arbor or colonnade with horizontal trelliswork for vines or plants
cenotaph: a monument honoring someone who is buried elsewhere
marplot: the person or circumstance that defeats a plan or design
saker: a field gun below demiculverin size; also a type of falcon
goffer: decorative frills or plaits, or the process of adding them
bawcock: familiar term for a comrade (from Fr. beau coq)
cess: Irish slang for luck, particularly in “bad cess to you”
madapollam: a smooth, glazed calico cotton fabric
wherry: a light rowboat or skiff, or to pilot one
doxy: a woman of questionable reputation
marline: a tarred two-strand nautical rope
veracious: a better way to say truthful
plethoric: turgid or overstuffed

And here is the more violent type of progression. A girl quits going to school and Sunday school, begins going to dives. She gets coarse and vulgar, while her parents stand by and do nothing, and when a policeman attempts to reason with her, she throws a brick at him. She is sent to a training school, then released. Within a few weeks she is back in the hands of the law again, for picking up men and blackjacking them.

J. Edgar Hoover, Youth… Running Wild

Still from “Il Capo,” following the boss of a marble quarry and his gestures

Mystery photos of CERN

Radar Brothers – “Change College of Law”
Eight

The sleepy, strummy crooning of Radar Brothers has been on my playlist ever since 1999’s The Singing Hatchet, but Eight may as well be from a different band (15 years will do that). The rich, shifting phases and varied tones of this track, to say nothing of the almost Grails-like crashing drums and descending bass, were a huge and pleasant surprise, and there are plenty of others worth listening to on the album. (merge records)

Is that all I am ever to do in life — dress myself carefully, put leaves in my hair, and think about the effect?

Maria Bashkirtseva, Journals

Odilon Redon – St George and the Dragon (1909)

Crayola crayon colors, 1903-2010

Better our work unfinished than all bad.

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture

White Lung – “Down It Goes”
Deep Fantasy

I’ve been waiting for years for someone to pick up where Hot Snakes left off, and White Lung gets closer to doing so than any band I’ve encountered. Savages got close, but their sound was never desperate enough, and their singer was clearly going for something. Blood on the Wall had some of the attitude, but their best songs were their quietest. This is fast, raw, and brutal, approaching speed metal levels on “I Believe You” but generally striking a happy (and furious) medium with tracks like “Face Down” and this one. Bonus points for having no song reach 3 minutes. (insound)

Original patent for Katamari Damacy

“A game performing method for executing a game by arranging a plurality of objects comprising a plurality of objects to be stuck and an operation object, in a virtual space, controlling rolling and movement of the operation object according to a player’s input, and rolling and moving the operation object while sticking the objects which the operation object comes in contact with”

Marion Balac – Anonymous Gods, statues with faces blurred automatically by Google

Sabato Visconti – Images Adrift

John Constable (eng. David Lucas) – Weymouth Bay, Dorsetshire