-- spidermoon cobweblog --
blog of the futurepast
2002-12-31
2002-12-29
New year's eve special bulletin:
the time is currently new year's eve 2002.
as i was commenting a couple days ago about arianna huffington's article, 2002: in my rearview mirror, i was thinking to myself that this would be her final article of the year. she must have had the same thought and decided to publish a follow-up today, new year's eve, the absolute final day of the year. after all, why waste a day? how clever.
anyway here's 2002: in my rearview mirror (part 2), by arianna huffington. i bet this really will be her final one to publish this year, but i'm not holding my breath.
so long 2002 you tragically wonderful palindromic year.
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jezebel 14:23 - [Link] - Comments ()
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2002-12-27
since i rarely capitalize anything i don't have much room to talk. but that's the way they trained me in journalism school and again as relay operator. so i'm doomed to it.
anyway i don't think i ever capitalized the i in internet, or any other i for that matter. i totally agreee with stopping that silly practice.
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jezebel 07:26 - [Link] - Comments ()
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2002-12-26
my favorite columnist, arianna huffington, sums up the year 2002 much better than i could, unless of course, you paid me.
alas, no one paid me. here is arianna's latest installment looking back on some of the more nauseating highlights of 2002.
2002: in my rearview mirror
by arianna huffington
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jezebel 19:58 - [Link] - Comments ()
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this meteorite story reminds me of a recurring nightmare i had as a child. i never could figure out what it was about. i knew it was something big.
the article portrays it pretty well in describing the death of a star, a supernova, followed by the birth of our solar system, which came from the debris of the supernova.
that's what the nightmare was like, every time. at the beginning one enormous, gravitously repulsive high-pressure ball of energy that just kept growing and growing until it finally frighteningly disappeared by engulfing everything and then became something else that was just as scary.
it seemed to start small but grew and grew and repeated the cycle infinitely i think. very frightening in a fitful child's dreams, further proof that all life is .. but a dream.
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jezebel 20:59 - [Link] - Comments ()
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i knew the clash's music went global. here is further proof of strummer's effect in the latest edition of electronic intifada.
2002-12-24
jezebel 09:22 - [Link] - Comments ()
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"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
-Anais Nin
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jezebel 17:26 - [Link] - Comments ()
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2002-12-22
Joe Strummer Is Dead at 50; Political Rebel of Punk Era
By JON PARELES
Joe Strummer, whose raw voice and fervent songs for the Clash showed the punk generation that rebellion could be not just personal but also political, died of a heart attack on Sunday at his farmhouse in Broomfield, Somerset, in southwestern England, his recording company said. He was 50.
Mr. Strummer's hoarse, bawling voice and choppy rhythm guitar were at the center of the Clash, the band that played punk-rock with a world of troubles and insurgencies in mind. "If you ain't thinkin' about man and God and law, then you ain't thinkin' about nothin'," Mr. Strummer said in a 1988 interview. In Clash songs like "White Riot" and "London Calling," Mr. Strummer and his songwriting partner, Mick Jones, connected punk's individual rage to tensions of class, race and repression.
"The Clash was the greatest rock band," Bono, the lead singer of U2, said on Monday, the British Press Association reported. Early in the Clash's career the band delved into Jamaican reggae, and after the Clash broke up in 1986, Mr. Strummer's own band, the Mescaleros, went on to merge punk with international styles.
Mr. Strummer, whose real name was John Graham Mellor, was born in Ankara, Turkey, the son of a British foreign service officer. He lived in Egypt, Mexico and West Germany before going to boarding school in England, where he attended the London Central School of Art and Design.
He soon dropped out and lived as a squatter, with odd jobs as a gravedigger and a garbage hauler. He earned his stage name playing guitar in the subway, inspired by Woody Guthrie.
In 1974 Mr. Strummer formed the 101ers, playing soul-influenced rock on the London pub circuit; it released two singles, "Keys to Your Heart" and "Sweet Revenge." But hearing the Sex Pistols converted him to punk-rock. In 1976 he joined Mr. Jones on guitar and Paul Simonon on bass, who had been in a band called the London SS, and Terry Chimes (also known as Tory Crimes) on drums. They called their new band the Clash because the word was in so many newspaper headlines.
The Clash toured as an opening act for the Sex Pistols, who were already becoming notorious for their nose-thumbing, nihilistic songs; the two groups became cornerstones of British punk-rock. But their attitudes were as dissimilar as their music, particularly after Topper Headon replaced Mr. Chimes on drums.
Where the Sex Pistols insisted there was "no future," the Clash's songs railed against apathy, powerlessness, police brutality, American cultural domination and poseurs of all sorts. "You think it's funny turning rebellion into money," Mr. Strummer sang in "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" in 1977. Along with the fast blare that the Sex Pistols and the Clash both learned from the Ramones, the Clash drew on reggae as a badge of interracial solidarity and a musical exploration.
From 1977 to 1982 the Clash were at the vanguard of punk, a term the members came to reject. The Clash blasted out songs like "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." and "Safe European Home" and mixed rock with reggae and ska. The group's first album, "The Clash," reached the Top 20 in England in 1977. But the band's American label, Epic, wouldn't release it in the United States, so it became a best-selling import. The Clash's first American release was an EP, "Cost of Living," followed by its second album, "Give 'Em Enough Rope" in 1978. Both "The Clash" and "London Calling" were released in the United States in 1979, when the band made its first American tours. "London Calling," a double album, expanded the Clash's music further, with anthems like "Death or Glory" along with reggae, rockabilly and the Clash's first American hit single, "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)," which was written by Mr. Jones. "Rude Boy," a 1980 film about a punk fan, featured the Clash.
The Clash's 1981 album, "Sandinista!," was a sprawling, ambitious three-LP set that tried gospel, funk, mock-Motown, dub reggae, a waltz, sound collages and more; the band fought with its label to keep the price lower than most double-LP albums.
"Combat Rock" in 1982 included both a cameo appearance by the poet Allen Ginsberg and the Clash's biggest hit: "Rock the Casbah," written by Mr. Headon. Soon after it was released Mr. Headon was fired from the band for heroin use. After a final album in 1985 the Clash disbanded.
Mr. Strummer went on to a diverse, fitful solo career. He wrote "Love Kills," the theme for the movie "Sid and Nancy" (about Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols), and appeared in the films "Straight to Hell" (1986), "Mystery Train" (1988), "Walker" (1989), "I Hired a Contract Killer" (1990) and "Super 8 Stories" (2001). He wrote soundtrack music for "Permanent Record" (with his short-lived late-1980's band, Latino Rockabilly War), "Walker" and "Grosse Point Blank." He was host of a radio show, "London Calling," for the BBC World Service.
Mr. Strummer is survived by his wife, Lucinda; his daughters from an earlier marriage, Jazz Domino Holly and Lola Maybellene, and his stepdaughter, Eliza.
He made a solo album, "Earthquake Weather," in 1989. And in 1999 he began recording and touring as the leader of the gleefully eclectic Mescaleros, who juggled Latin, African, Irish, Indian, Arabic and hip-hop elements along with punk and reggae. The band made two albums, "Global a Go-Go" and "Rock Art and the X-Ray Style." Mr. Strummer also wrote a song, "48864," with Bono and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics in honor of Nelson Mandela for an anti-AIDS benefit concert to be held on Feb. 2 at Robben Island, where Mr. Mandela was imprisoned.
The Clash are to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year.
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jezebel 07:19 - [Link] - Comments ()
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2002-12-20
holiday times in the modern-day colonies
about twenty years ago one of my favorite songs was "holiday in cambodia" by the dead kennedys.
after reading this story "holiday in cambodia" popped into my head. i wonder what that means?
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jezebel 15:14 - [Link] - Comments ()
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jezebel 12:32 - [Link] - Comments ()
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2002-12-19
jezebel 12:30 - [Link] - Comments ()
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2002-12-18
mairzy doats and dozy doats
and liddle lamzy divey,
a kiddlely divey too, wouldn't you?
.
.
doesn't that seem celtic? it's actually just gibberish, and raymond scott is the son of russian immigrants. but that's cool. he was crazy enough to get it and pass it on.
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if the words sound queer and funny to your ear,
a little bit jumbled and jivey,
sing mares eat oats and does eat oats,
and little lambs eat ivy.
.. this is getting intense, i can feel my sanity slipping back into that cesspool of oblivion ....
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jezebel 23:46 - [Link] - Comments ()
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2002-12-01
.
.
my new mantra:
.
.
Mairzy Doats
--> (music A) <--
--> (music B) <--
Mairzy doats and dozy doats
And liddle lamzy divey,
A kiddlely divey too, wouldn't you?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats
And liddle lamzy divey,
A kiddlely divey too, wouldn't you?
If the words sound queer and funny to your ear,
A little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing "mares eat oats and does eat oats
And little lambs eat ivy."
Mairzy doats and dozy doats
And liddle lamzy divey,
A kiddlely divey too, wouldn't you?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats
And liddle lamzy divey,
A kiddlely divey too, wouldn't you?
A kiddlely divey too, wouldn't you?
-- 1943 raymond scott
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jezebel 01:00 - [Link] - Comments ()
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xxx
jezebel 01:00 - [Link] - Comments ()
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