A Prologue (of sorts)

Upon the shores of eternity, I found myself. It was an interesting predicament, me not knowing completely where I was and happening upon myself. It makes one wonder whether dopplegangers exist, since I was faced with my own.

He opened his mouth and spoke: "You have come, child."

To which I replied, "Where?"

"The beginning and the end of a journey, my child. Look."

As he pointed me out toward the cosmos, suddenly I saw pictures of my life. Visions of me at dawn, asking questions of my mother and enjoying the innocence of youth. Then of me in the afternoon, raising my only family and the joy that comes with being called 'father'. Finally, I saw myself at dusk, lying in a hospital bed surrounded by the faces touched by time.

Then I saw my death.

"Why are you showing me this?" I asked.

"I am only showing you what you want to see," he replied, "and what you need to see."

"What I need to see? I don't get it."

"You will."

This being cryptic was getting on my nerves, but I figured that if I knew something that I didn't I'd purposely withhold it from myself if I wanted me to find it out by myself.

"You are entering a time of change," he said. "Go forth through the gates of horn and ivory and see."

I followed his instructions and went through...

...that life is but a dream and we are just an imagination of ourselves...

I've been reading Borges again, and working on a philosophy essay (on Plato's theories of forms and such), and eating some monkey flesh, and this got me to thinking, (well, not that hard, but you know), about reality and other such stuff. I was thinking about how language influences our perception of reality (the Inuit have several hundred words for saying 'snow'), but that's not my main point. This entire year has been somewhat illusory, as though I'm not really learning or doing anything, as if I'm walking through a dream. I'd be more coherent if I didn't write a math test last night (at 7:30 at night damnit!) and I'm still somewhat shell-shocked, plus the philosophy essay I'm working on (as previously mentioned), and a sociology paper ( the proposal is due sometime before December, I should really bother into finding out, oh, and choosing a topic, narrowing it down to a thesis and so on and so forth, that I can present in a week or two or something like that.) Anyway, if you really want to be confused out of your head, I strongly suggest reading Borges' The Circular Ruins, and Tlon, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius, and The Immortal. Real illusory, thought provoking stuff, just take my word for it at this point I'll say something more when I can produce coherent sentences, although if you really want to be confused try Borges in Spanish, it loses and gains something in English that is somewhat clearer in Spanish. I think I might just go on to bed right now, good night.

A Brief Discourse on Rational Though

Before I begin my little rant, I'd like to say that I miss new wave, I miss 80's synth pop, I miss true prog rock and art rock, and I want it back. Much as I like the new releases by Jethro Tull, King Crimson, and Yes, the sheer fact that they were so hard to fucking find just irks me. Maybe it was just my own fault for going to major corporation franchises in order to get them, I mean, the pimply-faced kid at HMV looked at me like I was from some other planet when I asked for Cirkus.

erg...

Anyway, let me get on with it, I picked up Genesis' Turn it On Again, and it sparked this entire backlash against the music industry as it stands now. As much as I like what currently gets passed off as Adult Contemporary , it's just downright boring at best and just the same old crap being played on other stations set to slower, more 'ambient' music at worst. I mean how many fucking hours of rotation do Britney Spears and Ricky Martin actually get, if I have to listen to Livin' La Vida Loca one more time on Classic Rock and Modern Rock stations I think you're going to see a big article on your newspaper's front page about the mad little Canadian who brought the country's entire media operations to a halt and killed millions (and therefore a sizeable chunk of our population since we only have 30 mill. people). I know this have been hashed and rehashed before, but what happened to good song-writing?

In truth we've got lots of straight-ahead rock to choose from right now (Live, Creed, the Foos, and so on and so forth) and here in Canada rock never really went away considering that we're stuck in music about 20 years ago, (hell there's worse stuff we could be stuck in) which is again straight-ahead rock (Tragically Hip, Tea Party, Matthew Good Band, and just about anything Canadian playing on an Alternative station go to http://www.edge102.com/ there should be a link to see what's broadcasting *right now*). Anyway, rock is what I'm worried about anymore, if I ever really was, it's everything at the edges, it's the synth pop, it's the glam rock, it's the prog rock, it's the metal for christsake, in other words it's diversity. Where did all the choice go? For me, what do I get to choose from today? Various forms of rap and rap-metal and 'pop' (I use that as the industry uses it today as 'popular') music are the current flavours that everyone's going ape-shit over, and the much neglected rock medium (although it's better than nothing).

Beyond that I have to listen to all of my old albums and the 'greatest hits' packages that they come out with every five years or so. erg...

As I said before, I miss new wave, I miss 80's synth pop, I miss prog and art rock, and I want it back, but what's my opinion worth in the grand corporate scheme of things? Dick all. Maybe I should trade in all of my Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, and Genesis CDs for all the clothes in the Gap, a few of the current 'flavour' of music, and a bar code across my forehead? Aw shit, who am I kidding, I think I'm just going to go sulk somewhere bathing in the warm glow of Ian Anderson's voice.