happy new year!

to you, dear reader/readerette. i have been slacking blogwise, but there’s still exams coming, so maybe i’ll have to do a mega post come feb or something. we’ll see, i’m always bumming around anyway.

well, may 2008 bring you all you desire, and me all i desire, and then we’ll both be happy.

computer programmers and serial killers…

can you tell them apart? i got 5/10. geeks and creeps look the same, dear reader, so beware next time you’re going to see that geeky cousin who’s into linux, xbox gaming and super mario action figures – he might hide a chainsaw in that vintage IBM mainframe of his.

vrolijk kerstbeest!

suffer little children.

so, yesterday i went to radio soulwax-mas. the music was alright (erol alkan and boys noize were particularly exciting, and zombie nation made interesting layered collages of grooves, drones and noises), but the venue was way too big and looked like a decrepit soviet nuclear command centre, and… there were loads of 16 yos.

all they did was drink tons of beer and look youthful with those shiny faces of theirs. i think i’ve come to the point where i have to accept that i’m young, but not for all that long anymore. i felt like slapping them and yelling ‘DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR YOUTH, DO SOMETHING BEFORE YOU’RE A FAT FUCKING LOSER BEING HUMILIATED BY SOME FAT LOSER HUSBAND ON REALITY TV, FOR THE GAWPING AMUSEMENT OF OTHER FAT LOSERS JUST LIKE YOU.’

then i realised i never did anything notable with my own youth either, so i just let it slip by and watched scores of perfect-looking, radiant teenagers puke. they looked at us like we were mammoths, new arrivals from the siberian permafrost. i hadn’t seen that many teenagers huddled together since i was a teenager myself, so it was really quite a shock. children are different, though. they’re clean slates and possibilities waiting to happen. teenagers are more… fully-formed.

apart from that, it was quite fun.

the self-loathing simon.

after an evening of raclette cheese and german spirits i refused to get up this morning, and here i am, huddled up in bed. oh, how i hate myself! i’m the human equivalent of an african elephant, minus the pretty ivory and cool noises. oh, how did it ever get this far! i should be studying korean, but all i do is wallow in my misery.

hm, business as usual, isn’t it. i know it all sounds a bit too dramatic, but half of the time i just want to stay in bed, listen to nico or beach house, smoke a pack of gauloises (or some ‘indian cigarettes’) and scream inside.

singles and songles, vol. 1.

in this new featurette thingie, i’ll upload one of my favourite songs every now and then, complete with lyrics and all, for your exclusive enjoyment, oh reader love.

I was a postal worker from May until July
I left because of allergies – the letters made me cry
8AM on Fridays, 6AM the rest
Postal for the two months
Coastal for the rest
I kept the last day’s letters
I kept the last day’s letters

piano magic, ‘postal’.

this song is killah. a glockenspiel and some airy analogue electronics quiver around while angele david-guillou reads the lyrics in a rather resigned fashion, but when she reaches the two last lines, she just repeats them over and over incredulously, like a madwoman who can’t believe she actually isn’t the viceroy of british india would occasionally raise her voice and yell ‘where are my maharajahs! where are my elephants! where are my turbans and turfans!’.

the opposite of feel-good, and the epitome of wintry desperation.

 

fear not my fiercest love.

ah, i just came back from the scout niblett gig. temperatures below zero outside and simon + a cuppa inside… gneh gneh.

sooo. the support act, castanets, was one (never mind the -s) extremely obese american man with a long beard, singing awful folk songs about awful subjects like nuclear holocaust, suicidal cowboys and the like. not nice, no, not very nice at all.

but scout niblett, ah. the shy nottingham blonde packed a punch with her noiserock-cum-freakfolk explosion. she played, well, every song worth hearing, including my favourite, the beastly heavy metal instrumental ‘handsome’! yay. scout niblett might sound like a screeching gorgon every now and then, but she actually looks like a really nice, unassuming girl, the kind you see doodling in notebooks in coffeeshops.

her show was great, but you could tell she was a bit nervous at times (she has quite a few tics, bless her). poor lovely shy scout. then again, she sounded quite threatening when she was banging away on the drums and roaring happily:

“we’re all gonna DIIIIIE, we’re AA-AA-AAALLLL gonna die, we don’t know WHENNNNN, we don’t know HOWWWWW, but we’re all gonna DIIIIIIE!”

hm hm. all in all, it was a really good night, and i’ll grace my scout niblett cds with a couple more listens this year, fo sho. that aside, i’m still really busy with school and all, and i look like a 肥豬 more and more, buh. to quote emma l. niblett one last time, i’d much rather be a golden ball of light (and still have sex). ta for now, dear reader!

the sorrowful simon.

ah, work is killing me! morin and rouch already stated that ‘malheureusement l’homme est réduit à son travail qui bien souvent brise l’idéal’ back in 1960, and oh, weren’t they right? it’s actually rather… interesting to be on top of things, even if it gets a little stressful from time to time, so we’ll see. as far as philosophy goes, though, i still prefer lafargue, the heroic hero who invented the right to laziness.  hmmph.

apart from that, there’s a bright, shining future in sc-land again (ie. a masters’ scholarship to taiwan or hong kong, most likely, since professor carine will back my application). oh yeah! and i’ve managed to spend a lot of money at a christmas fair getting drunk and stuffed with delicious christmas food, but that’s another story. and, tomorrow evening i’m off to see scout niblett live! (well, i assume she’ll play live, but if she just puts on the i am cd and grovels around the concert hall i’d be quite pleased too)

busy, but penultimately satisfying times.