Author Archives: d.perry

“Sometimes I like to explore Google Earth. Its unhealthy, but I like to see how profoundly lucky I’m to be where I’m, at just this moment in history. Here I am, in my room, looking at a screen.”

—Road_To_Niflheim

Li Shizhen explains, “Renpo is found in the soil under a person who has hanged himself or herself. It resembles soft charcoal. If the Renpo is not dug out in time, it will penetrate deep into the earth where it cannot be traced.”[14] The Bencao gangmu compares a hanged person’s soul with similar phenomena, “When a star descends to the earth it turns into a stone. When a tiger dies, his eyesight descends and turns into a white stone. Human blood will turn into phosphorus or jade when it drops to the ground.”

-from “Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body” wiki

The great seasonal festivals, as done in traditional primitive cultures, also balance out the male and female in each person. This is very important for preventing the difficult anima and animus battles between the unconscious of men and women. As described by C.G. Jung, the animus is the male aspect inside a woman and the anima is the female aspect inside a man. In our culture these other aspects are seldom given a chance to develop fully so that when the person reaches middle age there is a real crisis. “When a man is possessed by the anima he is drawn into a dark mood, and tends to become sulky, overly sensitive, and withdrawn.” In a woman, the animus (her male aspect) “typically expresses himself in judgments, generalizations, critical statements.” [24]

Sometimes I’ve fantasized about including a clause in my will about having all traces of myself erased once I’m dead. Placing my songs in a detergent solution and leaving nothing but white sheets behind. But that’s nonsense, I know. Pure narcissism in disguise. What I leave to the world belongs to the world. I donate it to you like I donate my body to science. I will from now on carry a donor card in my wallet that says ”After my death – any song I’ve ever written and anything I’ve ever posted on my blog – may be used for the benefit of others. Take this old flesh, learn something from it. Carve in it. Tear it to pieces. Delete it if you want or frame it in a museum. Read my growth rings like a tree, my musical calcifications. Laugh with me and laugh at me. I was a human. No more, no less.”

—Jens Lekman

“…half sung and half spoken: “In the water, no, just look, deep, deep. It took a long time, long, so long. And you do not weep. If you knew, it’s so black and so muddy all around me. But look. A violet is growing from my mouth. It’s singing. Do you hear? Can you hear it? You might think I’d drowned. How lovely, so very lovely. Isn’t there a ditty about it? That Klara! Where is she now? Go looking for her, go look. But you’ll have to go into the water. That’ll make your skin crawl, won’t it? My skin no longer crawls. A violet. I can see the fish swimming. I am perfectly still, I no longer do anything at all. Be sweet, be kind. You look displeased. That’s where Klara is lying, right there. Do you see her, do you? I’d wanted to say something else to you, but I am content. What did I want to say? A little bell. I always knew. But don’t say so. I can’t hear anything any more. Please, please—”

–The Tanners (by Robert Walser)

Each new arrival is either a disturber of the peace and environment and/or a business opportunity. While many stay for lifetimes, death only confirms the transience of their stay.

-Bill Appell

I wonder a lot of things about Lewis really. Remember when Light in the Attic found him? Someone commented: “He would pull up outside in a white Porsche and wander in wearing a dapper suit like on his album cover. Had a few chats with him and he mentioned he made music and how a woman took all his money from him at some point.” That’s where that quivering pain comes from, you can hear it! And he didn’t even want any of the profits from the reissues. “I’m not looking into coin. I’m not looking into anything. I’m just strumming my guitar. I just wish you guys all the best in the world.”

“Coil utilized techniques such as the cut-up technique, ritual drug use, sleep deprivation, lucid dreaming, granular synthesis, tidal shifts, John Dee-like methods of scrying, instrument glitches, SETI synchronization and chaos theory.”

The (ca. 100 CE) Chinese pharmacopeia Shennong Ben Cao Jing (Shennong’s Classic of Materia Medica) described the use of mafen 麻蕡 “cannabis fruit/seeds”:

To take much makes people see demons and throw themselves about like maniacs (多食令人見鬼狂走). But if one takes it over a long period of time one can communicate with the spirits, and one’s body becomes light (久服通神明輕身).