Sunday, July 21, 2013

Music Criticism - Joy Division - Transmission

The music of Joy Division, like the vast majority of their post-punk peers, weaves the disparate and seemingly irreconcilable threads of punk rock and Krautrock into a single sonic tapestry. If you examine the ancestry of influences in nearly any post-punk group, you will find the DNA of the German experiamental pioneers somewhere in their sound. The auditory chaos of Faust was enthusiastically studied and replicated by The Pop Group, This Heat, and all of the early industrial pioneers. Can took the controlled madness of The Velvet Underground's Sister Ray, an improvisation from hell that fused the rhythmic engine powering Rock'n'Roll with the untameable inventiveness of free jazz, and then extended The Velvet's explorations in a number of new directions. These innovations were in turn picked up by Public Image Ltd, The Fall, and many others. The machine worship of Kraftwerk, when fused with punk rock, spawned the proto-New Wave music of groups like The Talking Heads, and Killing Joke. Each of these groups, and many others, incorporated musical ideas created or refined by the Germans into the punk template. For the most part, however, they remained loyal to the intensity that characterized punk rock, using the abrasive Krautrock experiments as a compliment to the aggressive nature of their punk rock foundation.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Poetry - Heroin (Summer 2012)

Sonnet. Written June 2012

Heroin

Poetry - Walking The Dog On A Winter Morning (Winter 2011)

Written November 2011

Walking the Dog on a Winter Morning

Poetry - The Blank Page (Spring 2012)

Written early spring 2012

The Blank Page

Poetry - In A Sailor's Suit And Cap (Early 2012)

Written between January and February 2012

In A Sailor's Suit And Cap

Fiction - DEFCON 17 (Spring 2012)

Written Spring 2012



“Well Mr. Johnson, our logs show your machine making a number of attempts at accessing IP addresses registered to DinoDonkeyDicks.com, FatBlackCocks.com, and GayFuckCity.xxx.”
The man on the phone noticed the audible gasp that United States Commercial Debt Recovery's client recovery manager Richard Johnson exhaled when he heard the news. He patiently waited for a response.
“Now listen Ted, I don't know what you're trying to tell me, but I can assure you that I had nothing to do with any visits to inappropriate websites.”
Theodore Allen noted the slight upward inflection in Richard's voice, the breathy panting that escaped from his mouth between sentences, and the increased speed he was talking at.
“Oh, I wasn't attempting to imply that a man of your position would use company resources to view prohibited content. Virus related hacks are a very common issue. These issue's happen all the time. I will just have to do a standard password reset for now and sometime later this week I will send somebody to your office to clean your machine up.”
Theodore listened as Richard recited his current password and the one he would like to use from now on. He gave a formal goodbye, hung up the phone, and vanished into the telecom void. In his place sat N0R4D, an ambitions up and comer making waves in the hacking community. He sat at a small wooden desk that had belonged to his mother, a desk that could once be described as utilitarian in appearance, but was now so enveloped in decals for various political causes and parts manufacturers that looked more like a fringe left wing rally car. His jet black uniform varied only in the large Korn logo embroidered on the front of his shirt and the skids of grease running around the thighs of his pants. His face was utterly unremarkable save the triumphant grin that currently adorned it. The current standards in computer defense are the result of billions of dollars in research and development by the best minds in information security, and all that money spent ensuring the safety of confidential computer data managed to do was draw the eyes of the enemy to the one link that no think tank of M.I.T. Doctoral candidate can control, human vulnerability.

Fiction - The Fix (Spring 2012)

Written Spring 2012



The percocet crackled and smoked like a fresh log thrown onto a bonfire. The refractions of the lighters flame across the crinkled tin foil gave the large V emblazoned across the pill an ominous appearance. It looked as if it were the altarpiece from a ritual of a dark and ancient culture. A race hidden beyond the reach of the fragile records that our species' keep of our trials and tribulations. A people who resided in the dark corner of some unexplored jungle, where human blood flowed like rivers in the name of appeasing a bloodlust god that ruled over his people with an iron fist and an insatiable lust for sacrifice.

Fiction - Rhapsody On A Red Eye Train (Spring 2012)

Written Spring 2012



Adrian looked out the window of the train cart and, for the fourth time since the Amtrack R143 from New York to Hartford had broken down, tried to take in the beautiful deciduous forests surrounding him. For a moment or two, Adrian stared out into the setting Connecticut sun attempting to induce some sort of awe. He ran his eyes in an even motion down the lines of pine trees that engulfed the horizon, giving each one an opportunity to make some sort of defense for why they should be looked at, studied, or appreciated; why people would leave their air conditioned houses and smother themselves in these uniform rows sharp pointy trees, each as sharp and pointy as the last. After finding whatever testimony the trees mustered unconvincing, Adrian returned to his iPad; a device thats worth seemed self evident to him. He swiped the device on and delved back into a book that had no issue evoking aesthetic pleasure, Suetonius' “The Twelve Caesar's”. He swiped through the pages he had long since read and re-read looking for something to comfort his ego, bruised from his inability to appreciate the simple beauty of nature. He stopped skimming at the onset of Julius Caesar's battle of Alesia. Reading of how Caesar constructed the dual ramparts to repel invaders from both fronts, and how he designed these ramparts to cave at explicit points where troops being funneled in would have the most difficulty, Adrian felt his desire to appreciate the forest around him disintegrate. Natural beauty is overrated, he thought to himself.

Fiction - Fun House (Spring 2011)

Written Spring 2011



The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living- are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later Hunter S. Thompson



Keith realized that he was conscious around noon. The first thing he was able to coherently focus on was the throbbing pain in his temple, followed by the large wad of snot caked around his nose. He conjured up all the strength he could find in his body and wiped loose the hardened layers of mucus that had formed a thick shell around his nostrils, as he had done every Sunday for longer than he could remember.

The the first sign that this may not be like every other Sunday morning came when Keith heard the skittering noises under his bed. With his head lifted up they were barely audible but when he placed it on his pillow the sound became amplified to the point that he could not simply ignore it. Fuck, he thought, I was so sure I killed all those bastard things off.