Epic Fail on the blogging front this week, will try harder next week...
x
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Our own will to nothingness
"The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And, once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant, is to say yes to all of existence."
- Waking Life -
The phrase "our own will to nothingness" often floats into my conscious stream of thought, and must linger ever present behind that. It means different things at different times, but right now it is all about blissful abandon, a state of being so fully in the present that there is nothing else, no thought, just love. The ego removed, the layers stripped away until there is nothing but your soul standing there, naked and bare.
In other words, I got drunk last night.
There was what I can only describe as a bop in the I-House cafe, followed by an afterparty in the games room. Both had huge speakers and incredibly good electro house. Everyone was in their finest neon outfits, there were red cups a plenty, and the good times rolled. I had to lend out my room to someone for some nefarious purpose and whilst waiting for them to finish and get out I fell asleep in the corridor and had to be woken up by someone at about 6am suggesting that maybe I should go to bed. I also woke up this morning to discover that I had completely fucked my ankle. It was all very classy. Not quite as classy as one of the first parties here when I dropped an almost full bottle of wine so that it smashed and most of it went over the jeans of a very unimpressed girl.
Drinking is different here. The majority of English university students would be classed as alcoholics - drinking every day is a strange and scary notion to most at I-House, and probably rightly so. I might be getting a skewed view, I'm sure the frats are a different story. Under 21s can't go to bars so they go to frats and get older people to buy the drinks, but it means that a lot of people are pretty new to proper boozing. There is something puritan still about the states, even here in California. It is one of the main contributors to the feeling that despite being an incredibly advanced country, these guys are 50 years behind us. Take healthcare for example. Our battle for universal healthcare took place 50 years ago. Theirs is being fought right now. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONKxGko-JNI - So different from anything you will ever see in UK politics. Also note how at some point Obama throws in the idea of the social state and makes it so apparent that it is the only reasonable option. It really is a big deal what he's doing here.)
More things that are fucking archaic: banks charge you to use their cash machines if your account is not with them; pay as you go phones are only just getting popular; you have to pay to receive texts as well as send them; electric kettles are a rarity - most people just have coffee brewing machines; and techno is minimal here (in terms of how many people have heard of it as a distinct thing from house).
There is a latin party downstairs tonight. And no, not the kind where we sit around and conjugate.
"We are nihilists. We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing."
x
- Waking Life -
The phrase "our own will to nothingness" often floats into my conscious stream of thought, and must linger ever present behind that. It means different things at different times, but right now it is all about blissful abandon, a state of being so fully in the present that there is nothing else, no thought, just love. The ego removed, the layers stripped away until there is nothing but your soul standing there, naked and bare.
In other words, I got drunk last night.
There was what I can only describe as a bop in the I-House cafe, followed by an afterparty in the games room. Both had huge speakers and incredibly good electro house. Everyone was in their finest neon outfits, there were red cups a plenty, and the good times rolled. I had to lend out my room to someone for some nefarious purpose and whilst waiting for them to finish and get out I fell asleep in the corridor and had to be woken up by someone at about 6am suggesting that maybe I should go to bed. I also woke up this morning to discover that I had completely fucked my ankle. It was all very classy. Not quite as classy as one of the first parties here when I dropped an almost full bottle of wine so that it smashed and most of it went over the jeans of a very unimpressed girl.
Drinking is different here. The majority of English university students would be classed as alcoholics - drinking every day is a strange and scary notion to most at I-House, and probably rightly so. I might be getting a skewed view, I'm sure the frats are a different story. Under 21s can't go to bars so they go to frats and get older people to buy the drinks, but it means that a lot of people are pretty new to proper boozing. There is something puritan still about the states, even here in California. It is one of the main contributors to the feeling that despite being an incredibly advanced country, these guys are 50 years behind us. Take healthcare for example. Our battle for universal healthcare took place 50 years ago. Theirs is being fought right now. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONKxGko-JNI - So different from anything you will ever see in UK politics. Also note how at some point Obama throws in the idea of the social state and makes it so apparent that it is the only reasonable option. It really is a big deal what he's doing here.)
More things that are fucking archaic: banks charge you to use their cash machines if your account is not with them; pay as you go phones are only just getting popular; you have to pay to receive texts as well as send them; electric kettles are a rarity - most people just have coffee brewing machines; and techno is minimal here (in terms of how many people have heard of it as a distinct thing from house).
There is a latin party downstairs tonight. And no, not the kind where we sit around and conjugate.
"We are nihilists. We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing."
x
Saturday, September 12, 2009
I'm gonna have been rapping for about 4 years, I won't write my stuff anymore, I'll just kick it from my head
It's the first rainy day since I got here. It began yesterday with a thunderstorm just on the far side of the bay - it was 4am and I was walking home alone, which isn't all that safe in a country rife with guns and a city only a handful of blocks away from Oakland, centre of gun crime in the states (which reminds me that my route to school used to take me through the centre of gun crime in the UK... maybe I'm destined to join an armed gang, its definitely my style). So it was 4am and then there's this giant flash followed by a peal of thunder so epic that its almost brown pants time. I managed to get home just before the rain begun.
I'd been out in 'the city', San Francisco, to a huge club with a pretty decent (although not fabric level) soundsystem. Four rooms of mainly bass orientated stuff, with a prog house room thrown in for good measure. The highlight has to be a garage mix of Manderin Girl. Hats off to that guy. The night was pretty crazy because it was filled with people coming back from Burning Man. Hippies, goths and crazies of all shapes and sizes. An ingathering of the tribes so epic that it takes a 4x4 mile city to accommodate everyone.
Gurps, Amit, Ferhana, Mike and Willy had all just got back and seeing them followed by dubstep made me feel like I was home (no K though, so not quite at home). Sadly, they already had plans to go to a different club with some friends from the Burn, and as I had arranged for loads of people to go to the dubstep place I couldn't join them. Musically, I've been very impressed by SF so far, and there's more to come, with Boize Noize and the Fuck Buttons both visiting pretty soon. Also, someone at I-House is setting up an electronic night in our cafe/bar, which I am desperately trying to play the warm up slot for (for those interested I have new gear - a Numark 'Total Control' controller and Numark DJ I/O sound thingy).
So, life continues apace, but seeing everyone from London yesterday drove home for the first time just how long I'm going to be here for.
4 y e a r s
\\\\\its gonna be strange.
I'd been out in 'the city', San Francisco, to a huge club with a pretty decent (although not fabric level) soundsystem. Four rooms of mainly bass orientated stuff, with a prog house room thrown in for good measure. The highlight has to be a garage mix of Manderin Girl. Hats off to that guy. The night was pretty crazy because it was filled with people coming back from Burning Man. Hippies, goths and crazies of all shapes and sizes. An ingathering of the tribes so epic that it takes a 4x4 mile city to accommodate everyone.
Gurps, Amit, Ferhana, Mike and Willy had all just got back and seeing them followed by dubstep made me feel like I was home (no K though, so not quite at home). Sadly, they already had plans to go to a different club with some friends from the Burn, and as I had arranged for loads of people to go to the dubstep place I couldn't join them. Musically, I've been very impressed by SF so far, and there's more to come, with Boize Noize and the Fuck Buttons both visiting pretty soon. Also, someone at I-House is setting up an electronic night in our cafe/bar, which I am desperately trying to play the warm up slot for (for those interested I have new gear - a Numark 'Total Control' controller and Numark DJ I/O sound thingy).
So, life continues apace, but seeing everyone from London yesterday drove home for the first time just how long I'm going to be here for.
4 y e a r s
\\\\\its gonna be strange.
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