"No one wins. One side just loses more slowly"

"Subcreators Gone Wild"

Atît de multe teorii,
Atît de multe profeţii
De ce avem nevoie
Acum i-un schimb de idei
Atunci cînd ne e frică
Ne ascundem în reverii
Schimb de idei, schimb de idei
De ce avem nevoie
Acum i-un schimb de idei.

 

"It's time for another style-moment"

 Prof. Corey Olsen:

1.

two passages:

A)  But she had disowned her Master, desiring to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness; and she fled to the south, escaping the assaults of the Valar and the hunters of Oromë, for their vigilance had ever been to the north, and the south was long unheeded. Thence she had crept towards the light of the Blessed Realm; for she hungered for light and hated it.
In a ravine she lived, and took shape as a spider of monstrous form, weaving her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. There she sucked up all light that she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode; and she was famished.

B) Then the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up even to the roots of the Trees, and Melkor sprang upon the mound; and with his black spear he smote each Tree to its core, wounded them deep, and their sap poured forth as it were their blood, and was spilled upon the ground. But Ungoliant sucked it up, and going then from Tree to Tree she set her black beak to their wounds, till they were drained; and the poison of Death that was in her went into their tissues and withered them, root, branch, and leaf; and they died. And still she thirsted, and going to the Wells of Varda she drank them dry; but Ungoliant belched forth black vapours as she drank, and swelled to a shape so vast and hideous that Melkor was afraid.

One of my favourite stylistic techniques that Tolkien does, and he does it on several occasions is where he has a long sentence and then he ends it with a final, simple clause, like "and she was famished." Just like how he describes the fell beast in the Battle of Pellenor Fields and he ends the long flowery description with "and it stank."

The great shadow descended like a falling cloud. And behold! it was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank.

I love the way he punctuates that. I believe it's one of the things about The Silmarillion and its style that works so well in audio performance because so much of it is rhythm. Notice how he does the exact same thing with the Trees: "and the poison of Death that was in her went into their tissues and withered them, root, branch, and leaf; and they died." We get those clear "ok, breathe now"-moments. In Medieval manuscripts you don't get punctuation - you don't NEED punctuation if you're writing properly.

That strangeness of style is one of the things that makes the Silmarillion so re-readable; it is such an obstacle at first to so many readers and it becomes something which is such an essential part of the beauty later on, and it's so elegant and so strange to our normal speech that it makes it really easy to savour it again and again.

2.

That scene of the attack of the Trees is terrific and a couple of things that you notice around that scene in terms of Tolkien describing the sounds before and after the attack. He describes the Teleri singing upon the shores before the attack:

Now it was a time of festival, as Melkor knew well. [...] and at each first gathering of fruits Manwë made a high feast for the praising of Eru, when all the peoples of Valinor poured forth their joy in music and song upon Taniquetil. [...] There came the Vanyar, and there came the Noldor of Tirion, and the Maiar were gathered together, and the Valar were arrayed in their beauty and majesty; and they sang before Manwë and Varda in their lofty halls, or danced upon the green slopes of the Mountain that looked west towards the Trees. In that day the streets of Valmar were empty, and the stairs of Tirion were silent; and all the land lay sleeping in peace.
Only the Teleri beyond the mountains still sang upon the shores of the sea; for they recked little of seasons or times, and gave no thought to the cares of the Rulers of Arda, or the shadow that had fallen on Valinor, for it had not touched them, as yet.

and the after the attack he describes that the only sound was the sounds of them wailing in the darkness:

Soon the Holy Mountain stood alone, a last island in a world that was drowned. All song ceased. There was silence in Valinor, and no sound could be heard, save only from afar there came on the wind through the pass of the mountains the wailing of the Teleri like the cold cry of gulls.

3.
One other thing I would point out: when we're talking about Ungoliant's relationship with light "for she hungered for light and hated it." Does that sound like anybody we know? Gollum. It's exactly like Gollum's relationship with The Ring.

x-post from own music blog: He Thought of Cars

Moscow's still red, the young man's dead
Gone to heaven instead,
The evening news says he was confused
The motorways will all merge soon,
Lottery winner buys the moon
They've come to save us, the space invaders are here

He thought of cars and where, where to drive them
Who to drive them with
There, there was no-one, no-one

There's panic at london heathrow
Everybody wants to go up into the blue
But there's a ten year queue
Colombia is in top gear,
It shouldn't snow at this time of year
Now America's shot, gone and done the lot

He thought of planes and where, where to fly to
And who to fly there with
Where, there was no-one, no-one

He thought of cars and where, where to drive them
Who to drive them with
There, there was no-one, no-one 

indiebopper: In my view, HTOC depicts a future dystopia. The main character has become detached from the rest of society and in his confusion killed himself. The media just shrugs this off, he was 'confused'. He's just gone to heaven 'instead', it's nothing to worry about. There's a great sense of trying to get somewhere else, physically or otherwise. The demand to get somewhere has forced the motorways to all 'merge', the rich try to buy their way out (a great nod at this point to the lottery -as elsewhere in the album - and the idea of the working class escapism and alienation that it embodies). The main character looks to technology - cars and planes - to get away. He craves human interaction, something which has likely died out in this age of apathy and alienation. After all, there is 'no one'. The 'panic' at Heathrow, wanting to escape to the 'blue', further points to the utter desperation of humanity to escape. International war has escalated, Albarn mentions Moscow, Colombia and America. Global warming has changed the planet - 'it shouldn't snow this time of year'. There is, though, a noticeably dismissive and casual tone. It's not really important. In this dystopia, death and war mean nothing - there are no meaningful human relationships, so why would it? It is a yearning to escape and a search for meanings that consume.

 ---------------------------------------------------

Stylus Magazine: Critical consensus would have it that Blur hit their peak with Parklife in 1994. The Great Escape received good reviews on release, but was quickly downgraded to “underwhelming follow-up”. Strange, because when I play The Great Escape now, it sounds anything but stagnant. On the contrary, it bursts with life and colour—even more so than its predecessor. It took Blur’s Britpop period (a trilogy of albums starting with Modern Life is Rubbish in 1993) to its peak.

Did Blur move on to more experimental pastures because of this perceived artistic failure? Quite possibly. Whatever their reason, the decision to change was the correct one.

Do listeners need to be convinced to give The Great Escape another chance? It would appear so; but there is one song extraordinary enough to lure the doubters back in. Simply play “He Thought of Cars” through once—and fall in love with the group again.

It begins with a fade-in—and it’s surprisingly forceful. A stomping back-beat, while Coxon forces a gnarled, repetitive riff from his guitar. This breaks down 25 seconds in, leaving just Damon Albarn over echo-y acoustic guitar. The verses are a peculiar balancing act: a wistful melody, a very resigned vocal performance—yet the lyrics are whimsical—silly, even. (“The motorways will all merge soon / Lottery winner buys the moon”) One can either think the combination a bit ridiculous, or (like me) find it beautifully enigmatic. Blur once had a real hesitancy to show their deepest emotions (prior to 13, on which they indulged themselves in rather unpleasant fashion). This is their great weakness, for some, but I always thought it lent them an aloof charm. Particularly on this track: the melancholic musical backdrop makes it the perfect stage for Albarn to bare his soul, yet he still shies away from that level of openness. It’s a powerfully elusive piece of music.

The chorus is a majestic thing indeed. The stomping backbeat makes a re-appearance—with Coxon’s reverb-heavy guitar still deep in the mix. There are some anguished backwards-vocal samples underneath Albarn, who ceases his stream-of-consciousness lyrical gibberish. He still refuses to give the listener anything tangible to chew on, though (the chorus runs “He thought of cars / and where to drive them / who to drive them with / but there was no-one / no-one…”). It’s a curiously incomplete lyric—Damon repeats “no-one…” but then leaves it to hang with a wordless mumble. The listener expects more, but the singer is hesitant to reveal anything else. He trails off, just as we become gripped.

Then, the bridge back to the second verse. Some high-pitched “la la-la-la-la”s blend in to a solemn trumpet figure, to such an extent that it’s hard to tell where voice ends and instrument begins. Coxon’s guitar thrashes and ripples. It’s beautiful.

More lyrical nonsense in verse two, (“Colombia is in top gear / it shouldn’t snow this time of year”) but we are entranced at this stage. We move swiftly to a second chorus, but it’s slightly different this time. Now, our hero thinks of planes rather than cars, and “where to fly to” rather than “who to drive with”. We are no closer to deciphering who the “he” is, and what has become of him, but it still makes the listener bulge with sadness. The chorus finishes in the usual fashion: left hanging after “no-one”, then the “la la-la-la-la”s and trumpet.

After this, the backbeat drops out again—leaving the pretty acoustic strumming exposed. Albarn is replaced by Coxon’s electric guitar this time. It’s a solo—but certainly not a showy demonstration of his skills as a musician. It’s short and economical and piercingly sad. It rises up again, leading into a repeat of the first chorus.

The track ends on a fade-out, after this chorus. The “la la-la-la-la”s repeat, but the song skulks slowly out of sight. It’s incomplete—we never achieve closure. So the best we can do is to play it again and again—scrambling to find (possibly absent) meaning in Albarn’s meandering thoughts. Surely something this beautiful must have hidden depths?

“He Thought of Cars” fades in at the beginning and out at the end. It’s an open-ended puzzle that makes little logical sense. All we are given is a short mid-section of an incomplete work. This is frustrating, and the listener is left with a strong desire to hear more. But, perhaps we should be grateful that we were lucky enough to experience just a part of this extraordinary song.

B: "What are we more excited about: GOT season 3, or Winds of Winter?"

A: "Neither. Shitty books and shittier show. Read In Search of Lost Time or something."

B: "synopsis from wikipedia: The novel recounts the experiences of the Narrator while growing up, participating in society, falling in love, and learning about art.
-Yeah, no thanks"

O să mă prefac că nu trăiesc în in lumea în care zicala "cine nu e cu mine e împotriva mea" e literă de lege.
Dixit.