Prophecy

Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani

Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachtani? (My God My God Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?) posits a future world in which a suicide plague can only be controlled through noise rock. Noise rock, as the name suggests, is an acquired taste. More than that, though — it's a taste that's difficult to describe or defend to people who don't have the ear for it. To most people, artists who fall into the noise-rock category (i.e. Merzbow) are merely crafting ear-blistering feedback, white noise that annoys. The appeal in such an extreme form of music, in my eyes, lies in its cathartic element. There's little that can make you feel better about your bad mood like the sound of someone bashing the hell out of his guitar strings, screaming his guts out or using atypical instruments to make sounds that shouldn't exist in this dimension. Director Shinji Aoyama (Eureka) understands this quality, and for his latest film he's gone ahead and literalized the idea.

The "white noise" of Virtu (Part 1 / Part 2)

Secular Fears

“We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace and justice throughout the developing world – a world that borders on our doors.

“If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality and strength without sight.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Disassociating Sensibilities

Eliot’s famous phrase, “dissociation of sensibility”, in this essay was to explain the change that came over English poetry after Donne and Andrew Marvell. Dissociation of sensibility is the division of thoughts and feelings, which according to Eliot is done by Dryden and other poets of the age. They are responsible for the dissociation. There is a loss of union of thought and feeling whereas in metaphysical poetry, according to pointing out of “Eliot and the Traditions of Criticism”, there is no separation of thought and feeling. Chapman’s work is a recreation of thought into feeling while a thought to Donne was an experience, which modified his sensibility. Metaphysical poets were trying to objectify their emotions according to Eliot’s principle of objective correlative.

- Read more: http://bookstove.com/poetry/the-metaphysical-poets-by-t-s-eliot-2/#ixzz2zdkSjGAF

Sax? Or Violins?

Fifty Year Full Circles

Maggie's Farm

The lyrics of the song follow a straightforward blues structure, with the opening line of each verse ("I ain't gonna work...") sung twice, then reiterated at the end of the verse. The third to fifth lines of each verse elaborate on and explain the sentiment expressed in the verse's opening/closing lines.

"Maggie's Farm" is frequently interpreted as Dylan's declaration of independence from the protest folk movement.[1] Punning on Silas McGee's Farm, where he had performed "Only a Pawn in Their Game" at a civil rights protest in 1963 (featured in the film Dont Look Back), Maggie's Farm recasts Dylan as the pawn and the folk music scene as the oppressor. The middle stanzas ridicule various types in the folk scene, the promoter who tries to control your art (fining you when you slam the door), the paranoid militant (whose window is bricked over), and the condescending activist who is more uptight than she claims ("She's 68 but she says she's 54"). The first and last stanzas detail how Dylan feels strait-jacketed by the expectations of the folk scene ("It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor" and "they say sing while you slave"), needing room to express his "head full of ideas," and complains that, even though he tries his best to be just like he is, "everybody wants you to be just like them".

The song, essentially a protest song against protest folk, represents Dylan's transition from a folk singer who sought authenticity in traditional song-forms and activist politics to an innovative stylist whose self-exploration made him a cultural muse for a generation. (See "Like a Rolling Stone" and influence on The Beatles, etc.)

On the other hand, this biographical context provides only one of many lenses through which to interpret the text. While some may see "Maggie's Farm" as a repudiation of the protest-song tradition associated with folk music, it can also (ironically) be seen as itself a deeply political protest song. We are told, for example, that the "National Guard" stands around the farm door, and that Maggie's mother talks of "Man and God and Law." The "farm" that Dylan sings of can in this case easily represent racism, state oppression and capitalist exploitation.

In fact this theme of capitalist exploitation came to be seen by some as the major theme of the song. In this interpretation, Maggie's Farm is the military industrial complex, and Dylan is singing for the youth of his time, urging them to reject society.

Exploring the Limits of Colour

...figure is that which always follows colour.

- Plato, "Meno"