Hydration

Well, let's put it out there. This is a project I did based on John Frusciante's "Life's a Bath", off of his most pained, fragmented record, "Smile From the Streets You Hold". I spent the first part of the day covering the song and the second part assembling the movie.

The original, for comparison purposes (graphic drug use).

Emulation

From the Tao Te Ching:

"The ancient masters were profound and subtle.

Their wisdom was unfathomable.

There is no way to describe it--

All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful

As someone crossing an iced-over stream.

Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.

Courteous as a guest.

Fluid as melting ice.

Shapable as a block of wood.

Receptive as a valley.

Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait

Until your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving

Until the right action arises by itself?"

Fellini, Lynch... amateurs...

This is a PSA on the dangers of trees. This is also me learning how to use iMovie, and then export the finished product to Youtube:

Dendrophobia

(Yet) Another Green World

Shoot, I guess I'm feeling generous! So why not enjoy this ambient remix/fool-around thing I did with Brian Eno's marvelous "Another Green World"?

http://www.mediafire.com/?nlm21inmnou

It sounds a bit like Ratatat to me, or at least from what I know of them. Put it on, zone out, do other stuff, let me know if you like it or not.

Edit: just realized I uploaded an .aup file, which might be problematic for those w/o Audacity. Re-uploaded as an mp3, should be good to go.

A Baby for Pree

Everything that has come out of my guitar or my voice over the past two days has sounded like a van made of broken glass driving over a box full of birds... except this video. It sounds somewhat OK. "A Baby for Pree", by Neutral Milk Hotel. As usual, it deals with Mangum's prevailing themes of sex, children, family, fluids and all emotions attendant thereunto.

"Blistering Pree, all smiling and swollen

Makes babies to breathe, with their hearts hanging open

All over the sheets, as soft as beets

In some brown dresser drawer

And with bees in her breath, and the rest of her ringing

They'll sting through her chest, with a force hard and beating

Until wonderfully wet she will get

Until she's soaked inside her clothes

And there is no sorry to be sorry for

For a roll around the floor one afternoon so sound and soft

It made her swallow all her sweat

With every bit of breath she coughs

And when the day it came to pour

All her babies all across the bathroom floor

She will be swimming in them all forever more"

The original, for comparison purposes

The Unquiet Mind

I would like to talk to you about schizophrenia, as it is a subject that has been somewhat on my mind lately. I find myself feeling a deep sympathy for the plight of the schizophrenic-- but I must also confess that I feel the faintest tang of envy, or at least curiosity, for those who experience the world in such an intense way. I know that to experience the world as they do would ultimately be quite exhausting, and ravaging on the soul in ways I can't even imagine, but I would like-- if only for a brief time-- to see what they see, think how they think. Not only out of pure curiosity, but also out of a desire to help them by better understanding their affliction. Recently on television I saw the story of a young girl named January, who was a brilliant child (a tested IQ of 140 at age FIVE) but who was possessed of a terrible case of schizophrenia. My heart broke for her, and for her parents. They seemed horribly besieged by the difficulties of not only raising a child, but raising a child with such a florid mental disease. She saw imaginary figures, animals, and was compelled to strange thoughts and actions by her blazing mental landscapes. Her parents said that the only way that they could get any peace (the child barely slept) was by overstimulating her as much as humanly possible. Even at a very young age, she was captivated by noises, sights, sounds, crowds-- perhaps her over-active brain could only comfortably relate to such chaos. She seemed charming, intelligent, beautiful, but plugged into a staggering mental fire that was quite beyond most people. In fact several schizophrenics, from what I can tell, seem to be afflicted by an excess of energy, of spiritual combustion, of a fused switch in the brain setting all the dials to "11". The drawings of Louis Wain, if they do indeed depict what the world might look like to someone with schizophrenia, describe to me a life in which every single thing is ravingly intense, too much for the human organism to handle. As I've said, this fills me with sorrow and a desire to understand (if I am able), and a deep sense of respect for the capacities of the human organism. If we are capable of producing such a welter of painful energy, might we be able to harness it in some way? Use the capacity of the brain to imbue the world with such vividness? Can we honor the schizophrenic by letting them point us to what we are capable of? Of course it goes without saying that it is our duty, as human beings, to try and ameliorate their suffering as much as possible. But in some way, on some level, I feel like we might be able to transcend this horrible disorder, meet it, learn from it, and perhaps integrate it into the human condition and ease its painful sting.

More about January Schofield

More about Louis Wain