Tobias Fünke: [about George Michael] He’s a regular Freddie Wilson, that one.
Michael: I dont get that reference.
Lindsay Bluth Fünke: I dont either.
Tobias Fünke: I dont either.
Narrator: [shows a photo of a Village People group with the photo circled around the police officer] It’s this guy
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
Firstly lets start off this rant with something utterly bizarre. This morning much to my dismay I awoke to find plumbers conveniently faffing with the geyser located in my cupboard (odd placement I know but that is not the only thing that’s odd). In the gruff overtones only a plumber at eight am can exude the problem was a faulty sacrificial anode. Sacrificial anode? How wonderfully malevolent and mysterious, the virgin anode leapt to its watery fate amidst the tribal dancers of the geyser people. How selfless you useless piece of anode. Isn’t it a bit theatrical to name the anode as sacrificial its awfully pretentious and oh so condescending… Yes ma’am the sacrificial anode… commonly seen it yep jumps to its death all the bladdy time, can never trust them trixie little blighters. Then what the bloody hell is it there for in the first place if its life’s goal is to sacrifice itself.
Secondly, I still haven’t figured out how to shake the feeling of you. Speaking to you again as glorious as that may be has just plunged me into new heights of ineptitude and longing. I’m utterly restless and decidedly useless. Planning to spend the day relapsing on my magic 8 ball and attempting to overcome my writers block.
Maybe the sacrificial anode got it right.
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
Jazz, blues, good rock or graphic novels are all the inherently the same in that they stem from the desire to feel something bigger than yourself. A desire to tap into that universal pain of the working man, the rejected man whose love was destroyed almost as quickly as it was plunged into existence. When your faced with something so creatively awe inspiring or charged with such raw uninhibited emotions your forced to let go, to be humbled. Your also healed, your soul is finally satisfied as all your insecurities and emotions are validated through transcendent music or the comfort of an illustration. That which you feel so strongly which weighs you down is felt by another, just that knowledge is enough to find the strength you needed all along. If blues taught us anything its that although we are incredibly fragile, the strength of the human spirit is unrivaled. Ironically resilience and hardship aren’t mutually exclusive, lord knows you can’t have one without the other. . . probably the reason why I have an incredible soft spot for strong lead females who have latent emotional insecurities, are actively (by their own doing) over sexualized taking on the stereotypical male imagery of leather boots, tat’s and a kick ass hair do to assert their dominance.
“You have all the weapons you need, now fight,” my latest crack in the awe invoking department is suckerpunch. it stumbled across my path while dying a friends hair at another friends apartment(that sounded awfully mysterious completely unintentional I swear), the merry procession of bongs and a need for entertainment resulted in me catching a few glimpses into what I can only say is pure art. I was hooked, for the first time in three years much to the delight of the local video store, I hired suckerpunch and so my descent into infatuated madness began.
I identified so strongly with babydoll, my new rolemodel. so beautifully tragic, plus c’mon as a gamer the fight sequences blew my mind. Did some amazing little fellow sit down one day and say hey what would the coolest fight scenes in the world be and mix them all together providing a feast for the mind. Yes your mind… robots in outerspace, dragons, knights, orc’s and demon ninja samurai. Yes please. I think I’ve broken the movie for myself at the moment, I’ve watched it so many times a break is needed before I can feast on its magnificence once more. I rate it as one of my favourites alongside fight club.
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
Mr Brainwash has a point, sadly his art well let’s just say not so much. Went to the banksy exhibit this morning at the 34 fine art gallery. It was pleasant, it was filled with unbelievably awe inspiring pieces of art just not banksy’s. There was only one banksy original, which was depressing because banksy is street art, but that one piece was incredible. Easily the simplest piece of art on the wall and easily the most profound. Understated simplicity but oh so powerful, banksy’s distinctive style and ease of skill with which he crafts his art. . . well I’m still a number one fan. His piece dubbed very ominously with price on request and an even formidable one of 25 prints contained a hooded and masked male holding the leash of a dog manipulated and subverted to become something identifiable but simultaneously bizarre. The oddities of every day life, isn’t art bliss. My main motivation behind rallying the group to go to the art exhibit was the film, ‘exit through the giftshop’. A film about the birth of the subversive and ground shattering culture of street art tracing its roots from banksy to space invader. The film captured for the first and only time banksy on tape, identity cloaked, but it provided a glimpse into the legend behind the name – the process of creating and even more exhilarating completing the street art under the cover of night without drawing attention or getting caught. If you haven’t seen it its a must see, but mr brainwash I’m glad your ‘art’ has progressed as much as it has, but I feel its bastardized the genre. Taking the pure idea and intent of street art and mimicking the style of others without half the skill and selling it for profits, capitalizing on a counter culture is not something that wins my vote. Your work displayed was beautiful if beautiful becomes synonymous with the cold, shallow, shiny things that occupy our lives: the metals that glint and most importantly reflect the true talent of others. For me mr brainwash is talented but his acclaim is unfounded, his fame is based on the piggy backed fame received from his link to banksy – who as if not shameful enough admitted after meeting him he never recommends that his friends try their hand at art. I mean him no ill intent, he has been fortunate enough to document and experience the birth of street art and was no doubt infatuated – rightly so. Yet mr brainwash is an amature with paintshop, silk screening and spray paint skills. Banksy creates artworks that speak and resound within a generation. Disguised in a gallery amoung the greats its easy to appear better than what things truely are. His knack for superimposed pop culture references are good, but is that considered equal to making great art? The gallery had a rather novel piece, an oil on canvas, of the god ganeish holding spray paint. It was amazingly playful and its childlike spirit encapsulated the nature of street art. It was a moment of gratitude to be witness to that talent, intent and dedication of each and every piece my only regret was that there weren’t more banksy originals or more for me to get lost in. The exhibit finishes on the 19th of november, its a must see.
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
“Listening to kim, heavy ass song but eminem is a lyrical genius. Its amazing how much emotion he conveys so eloquently, its musical theatre. Inviting the listener to be privy to the most emotionally destructive relationship you’ll ever find portrayed in a song, “Kim, KIM!
Why don’t you like me?
You think I’m ugly don’t you
(It’s not that!)
No you think I’m ugly
(Baby)
Get the fuck away from me, don’t touch me ” its haunting, its theatre an art form. A dialogue so skillfully crafted you feel the darkness you actively submerge within yourself.
Off to write my last piece of coursework for my undergraduate career. Wish me luck, see you on the flip side
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.”
― C.G. Jung
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
Its the strangest, surreal experience when all that pretense is shattered and a stranger asks you to hold them. The need to be held, to share for a second that comfort and refuge from the world in another’s arms. I met him a few hours earlier, we [bunch of friends old and new] stayed up till sunrise a bunch of lost souls unified in our deliberate fight against ‘normality’ and the dull. All pleasantries aside it was the saddest and happiest moment in his arms. Completely platonic without sexual advances. It was exactly what I needed too, strange how a complete stranger could give me all that I craved. For a few moments we shared a connection of humility of a love we both clearly need, of affection of another. It was beautiful in its purity but heartbreaking. Strange how even when you get what you need, or if your surrounded by so many beautiful intelligent people you can still feel utterly alone. The act of love, pushed me to new heights of self loathing, ineptitude and longing for a love and acceptance that I know is out there, but has eluded me for all this time. I’m sick of being cheated by the opposite of love. The realisation also hit me that that pattern of indulgence that night wasn’t conducive to that ever happening not healthily anyhow but that’s my only viable means of survival. Self medication to feel alive, is that what I’ve become. At least I’m thankful for one thing: every day is a chance to do better, to be better. To infiltrate the masses, they seem so happy all the time. I’m happy yes, I take delight in childish past times and simple joys but for different reasons. For me its an active choice a means to survive, if not I’ll splinter. I surprised myself. How easy it was for me to let him in even for a moment to be completely vulnerable and love without wanting anything in return except to share a beautiful moment a definitive punctuation in a jumbled sentence. I’m glad I could but its also a weakness as much as I siphon off my openness, I guess in altered states I let my guard down I just want to show affection, to have affection.
“I swear I waited and waited, I’ve got to get out of this hole,” self destruction aside I’m choosing to value myself. I tried him on it didn’t fit, oddly a stranger did. But I never wanted more. none of them are you. But I choose me, finally and fully. Someone has too.
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
What is choice? Its a construct force fed to the naïve.
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
Italian Sweet New Style poets transcended the salient points of Courtly Love to the spiritual. However the rhetorical techniques, namely personification of love, were kept constant. The two styles coalesce on a technical basis with Sweet New Style deepening the exploration of love through the attribution of a divine construct to be discussed. It is assumed that poetry is married to rhetoric as it is the only medium through which the subject matter of love can be explored. Both Courtly love and Sweet New Style acknowledge the need for technicality in expressing a subject with inherent paradoxes as it retains reason, even if only through structure.
In Courtly Love the object of desire is acted upon by the subject of desire, the “domina” or female figure. Sweet New Style poets continued the notion of an external force acting upon the subject of love but with added divine twist. For Cavalcanti love is a spiritual concept which depends on the existence of god and thus a submission to divine will. Love has no existence of its own, it is the consequence of being acted upon by the divine and thus removing the physicality attributed to the definition of Courtly Love (Oatley, 2007: 142). Thus the shift towards the evolution of Sweet New Style poetry could be argued to be a resultant outcome from the societal and internal pressures and tensions that existed within Courtly Love in pre-renaissance period. Courtly Love poets acted solely upon passion and demands of the flesh which created an internal war within the individual as it lacked added introspection needed to attain meaning. An ever present concern translated through the church was the issue of placing the “domina” dominant female in control of men’s’ actions. It removed elements of humility and spirituality through the attribution of females to societally created god like position (Scott, 2011: 99). The shift towards Sweet New Style poetry epitomized through Guido Cavalcanti and Dante, added elements not only of spirituality but introspection and transcendence from the trivial/ physical demands of the body. Only through a submission of earthly desires can the full nature and extent of love be explored; A love which humbles those afflicted by its beauty. Thus for Sweet New Style poets without constrains of earthy whims the eyes become a crucial recurrent source of imagery. Evident through Cavalcanti, “Voi che per li occhi mi passate ‘l core e destaste la mente che dormia, guardarte a l’angosciosa vita mia, che sospirando la distrugge Amore/
(You who’ve pierced my eyes to my heart, awakening my sleeping mind, look at my anguished life, sighing, destroyed by Love. Trans- lated by Cirigliano, 1992, p. 30–31.) as cited in Oatley, 2007”. The eyes become the medium for intimacy; a means to view the soul and source of the divine while still retaining the purity and sweet sweet re-enchantment of love. The female figure in Sweet New Style poetry evolves from the “domina” to an angel, a spiritual being linked to platonic intellectual love (Lewis, 2001: 70). Cavalcanti’s initial fears of blasphemy are resolved through awareness of divine plan and thus it is only natural to appreciate divine will at work through the female’s beauty.
Allegory and thus the technicality remains constant mode of expression as love affects the inner world of both the poet and the women. As opposed to Courtly Love in which the affliction would only reside within the poet. Thus poetry in terms of Courtly Love predominately served as a means to attain a reward (Oatley, 2007: 141). Thus was contrived in its definition of love. Courtly Love poets deemed love an elitist construct only to be experienced by the French aristocracy of the eleventh century (birthplace of Courtly Love). It seems Courtly Love invokes an indulgent fantasy of love in which love loosely translated into the physicality of the act and thus to the weaknesses if man. Whereas Sweet New Style poetry was a shift in consciousness; expanding notion of love to reach understanding that such a concept is bigger than the individual and human weakness and therefore must be divine and a divine gift that should be acknowledged (Lewis, 2011: 71). The acknowledgement of which is encapsulated through precision and technicality of the poetry felt in Cavalcanti’s Canzone. The topic is treated with unparalleled tenderness. It is difficult to separate Courtly Love from Sweet New Style poetry they are not entirely different constructs but represent more of a fluid transition of ideas, conscious expansion and evolution. One, namely Sweet New Style, could not exist or have emerged without the other, Courtly Love poetry. They are linked ultimately in individual need to explore the affliction of love, the supernatural experience of paradoxical happiness and pain through everlasting medium of poetry. Furthermore Sweet New Style evolved to incorporate the egalitarian nature of love, irrelevant of class structure or societal position, the effects on the individual remain constant. In that salient point love becomes a universal divine truth, a sense of comfort exists in ceding to a higher divine will and the acceptance that everyone shares the same experience.
A point traced through Dante, Vita Nuova, XXV, in which sentiments shared implore the use of allegory to explain universality of afflictions. The notions that love does not belong to the aristocracy but to all men in general. Ideas of a latent previously unexpressed experience in everyday vernacular that are granted life through poetry re-establishes the enchantment of love for Sweet New Style Poets. Now that the broader concepts of Sweet New Style and Courtly Love have been addressed a narrower analysis of evolution of Sweet New Style is fundamental to examining the differences or similarities with each.
In Vita Nuova, Dante initially incorporates the model of Courtly Love in illustration of his love and desire for Beatrice’s affections. Only once problems posed by Courtly love become so overpowering that a new solution is needed does the gradual shift to Sweet New Style poetry become evident. As such Courtly love asserts the position of a “domina” dominant female figure who is responsible for the domesticity of the man or hero to perpetuate the mendacity of societal roles. Through completion of tasks however irrelevant to attain the women’s attention and affections the hero is incapacitated and prevented from reaching his full potential. Courtly Love represents the tradition of a pervasive love of seemingly unattainable women outside the confines of marriage (Robertson, 1988: 2). A crucial point as Courtly Love is idealized it is not seen as something that can exist in normal everyday relations. Link posed between domesticity in the evolution of the understanding of love; evolution of Sweet New Style; to the domesticity of man to divine will. Processes of Courtly Love gave rise to “courtship”, “courtesy” and “gentlemen” an outcome of domesticity is the refinement of the suitor (Oatley, 2007: 140). The backbone of aristocratic secret and often ritualized Courtly Love was the style of poetry which facilitated hidden desires to secret lovers. As such the power relations within Courtly Love are heavily skewered in favour of the female, “emotions can be close to the heart of creativity because most emotions of force involve contradictions and therefore set problems. The problems identified by the poets of the provenance was that love and worship of a lady trespassed on ones duty to love and worship God,” (Oatley, 2007:141). The evolution to Sweet New Style in Vita Nuova is encapsulated in, ” in quello che non… puote venire meno,”in which Dante relinquishes any hope for an external reward characteristic of the Courtly Love tradition. Instead through forgoing the expectation of physical rewards Dante shifts praising Beatrice signalling an evolution self-interested love (Scott, 2011: 99). As such Sweet New Style is an evolution of Courtly Love poetry transcending love poetry to a holistic spiritual realm without primary focus on that which is corporeal and tangible. Signifying the predominate variance in the text, smaller subtleties exist in use of imagery and technicality however both forms of poetry have a fundamental basis in exploration of the affliction of love and the use of poetry as the only viable medium for exploration.
Peace, love and empathy. vinyl splinters.
Vinylsplinters' and doll parts 