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(that day) I was struck by lightning, an idea too ingenuous to ignore. First the idea and only after, as usual, its justification: in such a strongly categorized context, why limit ourselves to conceptual labels? why can't we incorporate something taken from intellectual organization or automatic information into the tangible reality?
So, what did I do? I selected some objects from the room but not only objects: elements, arrangements. I printed their names, cut out little paper lables and attached them coherently.
Now, a "shutter #2" note is glued on a shutter of my wardrobe, two little ceramic owls on the bookshelf have a caption: "two owls", "fixes bidimensional element" is attached to the skirting in the noth-east corner of the room, and so on…
Notable, from a book pile, oddly stashed on the pavement as a reminder of the huge amount of reading I have to catch up with, slits a stich of paper with the printed words: "pile of books" …
and only a few years later, as I live and breathe, I stumbled into a japanese word, on the tumblr dashboard.
tsundoku : to buy books without reeding them. To accumulate unread books on shelves, floors or bedsides.
What else can one add? The japanese have a word for everything, apparently, so I'm not the only moron because somebody has even coined a word for it.
I accuse the italic idiom for not having it in its dictionary, letting me torment myself for my own passivity and today, when the fool starts to feel the side effects of a "free "market on his unaware life, and yet still thinks as conspiracy the theory for wich these are just the long run effects of an agenda conceived decades ago, and still does not understand how in an era of scarce democratic representation the most politically relevant act he's got left is the choice on how he spends his money, does he wonder at least, what position the characters he voted to represent him have or did have against capitalism?
Meanwhile, the occupants of the spacecraft decide to remain in orbit, maintaining cloaking ...
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Blockbuster goes out of business, it's the end of an era, I never even subscribe and now I have the uncomfortable feeling of being one of those drifted by the zeitgeist. Heavens! Have I ever been part of the flow or did I always remain at the side? It's hard to tell when you're tasting the spirit of your times instead of just sheeply following trends… afterall the two things are never completely apart.
Anyway, Blockbuster was bad and ugly, and there could be some joy in its demise if it didn't happen by the hand of far worse monsters, so here comes the revenge: living at the edges of the flow, especially now that it couldn't possibly be a self emanation of a collective culture - more likely a wicked stream of trends enforced by marketing masterminds payrolled by the uber-hated and never too reported capitalist elite, it's more than ever a personal pride.
It all buckles up to the same old dilemma: "are you in or are you out? and if you are, why are you and especially do you know you are?" It's always better to be in and aware. Old fellow Andrea Pazienza knew it well, and for a short while, he was.
Oh.... how I agonized in the 90s, as an average FM radio listener, when following contemporary music, forced to suffer through shit over shit stashed in piles in the exhausting wait for what still was barely listenable. That was the incubation period for the musical disaster yet to come in the following decades and I used to be rather unsettled… nowadays, at least on that front, my anxieties are more noble.
What's the looming moral for the young man struggling with the most difficult of his battles? The answer may lie in a bizarre Japanese term ...
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Michael Jackson's career has been long and prosperous, shining through thirty years and uncountable hits. It's hard to dispute that the 80's signed his deepest impact - artistically and commercially - on the world's musical canvas but it's also notable that after a decade that crowned him as one of its most significant representatives, Michael decided to lead his music onto new solutions, instead of laying on the reassuring decision of becoming a classic act (it wouldn't have been too difficult to reproduce ad libitum Quincy Jones' formulas).
For these reasons I always considered Jackson's production in the 90's equally important and interesting as the 80s masterpieces, especially the HIStory series, where the stylistic experiments started in the uptempo tracks of Dangerous evolved to full maturity (ballads, for obvious reasons, require less bold structures).
I'd like to play the What If game: because during the period that presumably matched the conception of the HIStory bulk, the Jordan Chandler bomb exploded. A pivotal event in Michael's life and career, so destructive to cause the downfall of his universe, triggering a painfully long string of controversy, blant mistakes and unwise choices that followed him until his tragic death in 2009.
I'd like to imagine what would have happened if the veil Chandlers had turned elsewhere their filth and if Michael had been able to continue on his artistic way in a - if not total - at least accettable serenity.
Around the mid-90s, without the urge of rebuilding an image shattered by media, no one would have adopted absurd formats like the one HIStory or the following Blood on the Dancefloor came in, no hurried retrospectives, no monumental gimmicks, no messy doughs… Instead of an album married with a greatest hits(!) in 1995 and a follow-up EP plus remixes (!!) in 1997, a new album of brand new material (maybe in 1996).
The title? I've always liked Blood on the Dancefloor, it holds the sinister flavour (strangely enough, considering the good nature of the artist) of his former albums (think about it: Thriller, Bad, Dangerous... the guy is sick)
The songs? I believe that the need for simmetry with the 15 tracks of the greatest hits forced too many fillers in HIStory disc 2 that are not as good as Jackson's standards would have normally allowed, essentially I would have taken out:
This time around - because the production is awesome but the song doesn't take off,
D.S. - I welcome the rant against Thomas Sneddon but the music idea deserved more development,
Money - good rhythm patterns but overall a bit trivial,
You are not alone - I would have included Why? instead of this track, still an R.Kelly tune but a better one if you ask me. Besides, gifting the nephews of a successful single didn't manage to kickstart their career, if not briefly,
Childhood - musically speaking it would have served better elsewhere,
HIStory - an experiment that didn't end up quite straight - too many elements not working together,
Come together - probably one of the best covers ever recorded but why here (since it had already been released anyway)?
Superfly sister (from BOTDF) - nothing more than a cute song.
Obviously I would have released the BOTDF remixes as b-sides, rather than on an album.
The resulting tracklist of Blood on The Dance Floor - 1996 of the alternative reality - the album that could have been:
- Blood on the dancefloor - the title track: powerful, danceable, innovative
- Ghosts - a respectful call on Thriller's atmospheres
- Why? - Wonderful ballad with his nephews as guests
- They don't care about us - simply perfect
- Stranger in Moscow - unquestionably perfect
- Scream - another duet within the family
- Morphine - a ghastly and visionary Michael at its rough best
- Earth song - important themes on an indelible melody
- 2Bad - killer rhythm, leaves you breathless
- Tabloid junkie - same as above
- Little Susie - moving and orchestral
- Is it scary? - epic closure
(ghost track) Smile - written by Charlie Chaplin but a Michael's tune by right.
Would it have been or not an amazing record?
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hexakosioihexekontahexafobics, don't read this article !!!
from a passage of the Apocalypse according to Me.
"The Beast will rise from the sea deeps and furiously pour his destructive wrath upon the men who polluted it. Everything will be, eventually, made biodegradable.
The survivors will be warmly invited to confer whatever shall remain in the special bins for separate collection (which will be provided by Belzebul Ecological Services Inc.)"
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part I
once I dreamed that my head was a skull... and I didn't have a neck: the skull was just floating over my shoulders.
I was quite shocked when, in the dream, I looked at my self in the mirror and realized in what state I was.
The scene was so striking that I still remember it vividly, after so many years.
part II
Nowadays I found myself reflecting on the meaning of that vision.
Today the message that undergows it is cristal clear.
I wasn't dead, but the image reflecting back was telling me that my head was.
It was a warning: when a mind is conditionable, schematized, simplified, massified, unified, comfortable, indolent, judgmental, obscured, dodging stimulations, changes, devoid of interest, creativity, doubt, with no indulgence for chaos but neither for rigor then it's, in fact, dead.
And one can exist for a very long time in that sorrow and morbid state.
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