Fun fact: did you know Icarus was actually trying to touch the sun's tits when his wings melted off? It's true. Don't bother looking it up, but that's exactly what happened. He was hoping to tear off a nipple to use as a flame-shield.


i love geekologie

http://blip.fm/Kninja

one day i will be independent and autonomous. one day i will have so much power. I will treat every soul, every human being, every creation equally... like they were each little pieces of myself.

and i will be a hippy that loves everyone.

until then, this is what i can offer you.


that is all. carry on my critters. carry on.

organized sound

Edgar Varèse: music can be thought of as organized sound.  And there is no known culture, now or ever before, that lacks it.

I listened to Jon Hendricks adaptation of Charlie Parker tunes, adding scat lyrics to them.  Then to this version of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony with lyrics added.  (Youtube them).

I hum guitar riffs and often sing my bands songs using only simple syllables like da-na-na - sometimes tapping and beat boxing - without ever singing the lyrics.  But just because we don't sing lyrics doesn't mean it's not a song.

"Most of us share this intuition that "song" is a broad category that includes anything we might sing of any collection of sounds that resembles such a thing. [...] African drum music h as an important role in the daily lives of millions of people and might not strike some as being songs, but to ignore such purely rhythmic (and difficult to sing unless you're Mel Tormé or Ray Stevens) forms of expression would betray a bias toward melody" - Levitin 

But then the meaning of a purely melodic or rhythmic song would be debatable.  I'm listening to Bonjay's Gimmee Gimmee right now. It incorporates so much of what I'm talking about and questioning.  In the song, the basses primary function is maintain a steady beat.  Layered over top of it is series of clapping, nonsensical hip-hop-inspired-scat-styled, heavy breathing and sort of muted (purely rhythmical) guitar strokes.  The song is a compilation of sounds functioning primarily percussively... and it's beautiful.

I'm searching for a catchy chorus to insert into an already catchy song and it's making my head spin.  I'm trying to process all of the cultural arrogance and narrow-mindedness I've been taught (and grown to love).  So my musical muses for this week will be: Tool, Rodrigo y Gabriela and City & Colour.

Growing Old

I'm sitting on a train hung over, burned out and nauseous; listening to Tool and melting into the sunset.  If you feed the pollution and disintegrating ozone to the malnourished dog, the rest of the gourmet sky becomes beautiful and the suns rays can pierce through the earth - like my eggs ever-easy every morning.  And if I flush out the beer cans left behind by last night's froshers, Ottawa's canal can flood my eyes with tears of stevia.

tsunami jam 7 years ago!

Remember LiveJournal? I sure do! That site got me so many women... and got me in so much trouble.

I went through my old rants and found this... an impromptu jam session in 2004 to raise money for tsunami relief.

I'm on the bongo's and my friend is struggling to keep up on the djambé.

  Tsunami jam 2004 by pykmusic

things

Things that are disgusting:  massive death.  union busting.  total physical exhaustion.  sick beats:

catty baits

I met the real-life version of Kathy Bates yesterday. She was driving the TTC bus into York U. I thought she was going to run over pedestrians then run us off a cliff while screaming "STUPID YOUTH OF TODAY TAKE OFF YOUR HEADPHONES! STOP LISTENING TO NOISE! GET OFF THE ROAD DAMN YOU STUPID DRIVER BAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH"

But she didn't.

happy new years

Here's what I learned on this new years day:

• Australia: massive flooding with gigantic damage.
• Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri have all been hit with deadly tornado's. 
• The blizzards in the Northeast have left people stranded with major damage.
• The death toll in Africa rising exponentially 
• Ivory Coast is gathering to surround Ouattara's hotel for a rally. I'm sure the death toll will be tomorrow's news.  
• Pakistan: Missile attacks and bombers in Pakistan kill several more than last week's attack
• Argentina: 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit today.
• Haiti: Cholera death toll rises to more than 3,000.
• Russia: 1 person killed, 3 missing, 4 in hospital after an explosion and fire on Russian plane. 
• Egypt:  A bomb kills 21 and wounds 80 in New Years Mass outside of a Coptic Egyptian church.
• Italy: One person was killed, more than 70 injured after gunshots and fireworks rang in the new year.
• Iraq: opened the new year with bloodshed as two police officials were show dead.  
• Canada: 
• Calgary has it's first homicide of the year.
• shooting at Ontario place (non-fatal) 
• double stabbing on queen street (non-fatal) 

And that's the New Years news from 3am-8am.

May be the Mayan's are right?

BTW, New York prepared for a new years eve terrorist attack in Time Square.  They had undercover cops, radiation detectors and even snipers set up around the new years party - which attracted around 1M people. Thankfully the event ran smoothly.  

bloor street buddhist

i was stopped on the street today by a canvassing buddhist - he was a young white man in an orange robe with some paint on his forehead, talking to people and giving away books on buddhism (one of them was a book, he said, inspired gandhi, mandela and mlk).  he said that i look "at peace".  i smiled and nodded. he asked me what my secret is. i explained that it's not one big secret, but a bunch of little ones. he offered me a book and asked for a donation. i told him that his books look interesting, but i honestly was not going to read them.  I'm pretty happy and i'm not looking for enlightenment or spiritual growth right now.  I told him that there are many more torontonians that could benefit from these books. I wished him good luck and bid him farewell - and now i wish i stayed and talked a bit longer with him.  i wonder what his story is.

sometimes i like sharpe marker facial hair

i don't like halloween.

so much pressure to dress up/i hate dressing up

WE'RE SO EXCITED

weird psycho ttc driver

he looks friendly, doesn't he?

Yesterday, I took a bus route that I was unfamiliar with. At Bathurst station I asked if this “express to exhibition” bus would stop at Fleet street. It obviously didn’t, but I was in a rush. The bus driver put his arm around me and said “eh.. eh yea jew know, fo you, I’ll a work somethin out". So I was kinda like, uh, yea? You sure? Should I just wait for the Bathurst Southbound Streetcar? And he was all like "shhh just don’t tell anyone eh! You know, if you don’t say nothin, then no one will know. I’ll work somethin out fo you. Justa get on yea? Shhhh”

So I got on. And by King Street he turned on the automated voice of God that tells you what stops are next. 10 stops later, the voice says "fleet street is next". So, thinking may be he had forgotten, I ran the dingy bell thing, got up with a smile and said thank you. But no… then he yelled at me for ringing the bell and blowing his secret under-cover courteous bus driver scam.

Ugh, anyways, this story was much more interesting in my head.

virginia gold by people you know

skull shot

Justin Bieber got hit in the face by a water bottle.

the busker

There was an old man waiting out front of the concert tonight. He was a short with a yellow shirt, a fedora and mismatched shoes. He sat on the floor with his eyes shut singing out some Mccartney hits. I heard him wailing "let it be, let it be..." so I said hi. We talked for a long time. I guess he couldn't afford a ticket so he came to sit outside of the doors to take in what he could.


He reminded me that nostalgia is a great feeling.