chanting

From Mark Kaplan's blog:

‘Song,’ of course, is associated also with expression; to sing is to utter or vocalise – a conscious articulation. Chaunt is something altogether more incantatory, mantric, rote-like. There is something properly mindless about chanting, hence its use in religion, ritual and magic – one cedes the initiative to a word or formula not yours. The momentum of the chant seems to overtake and then take in the individuals who began it. So too does the chant reverse the relation between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ implied in ‘expression’. That is, whereas ‘expression’ is conceived as the inner made outer, something like a chant begins by emptying out the ‘wilfulness’ of expression in deference to some older word or doctrine.

Damn I wish I'd thought of that on my own.

And 'song' and 'chant' is the difference between the pop star on the stage and his screaming fans below. The pop star is quintessentially personality - personality magnified beyond the person. The pop star is more than the person. Whereas his fans give up their personality in imitation and worship. The pop star expresses personality, but his fans surrender theirs to the personality on-stage. The pop star sings (even if he sings badly), but his fans can only chant.

Does this make sense? Or is this because it's 630am and I've no idea where the night went?

War

At 2 in the morning I discovered hundreds of small, black larvae wriggling in the corner of my bathroom, and I got rid of them.

Afterwards, I made some amusing comparisons and composed a blog entry in my head. I would draw an interesting parallel between my ordeal and the effects of war on soldiers.

Oh it would be entertaining. I'd talk about how I'd gone from reluctantly executing a distasteful task to screaming war cries at the worms. I'd talk about how, instead of making the killing as clean as possible, I had resorted to chemical warfare to dislodge the stubborn ones, using the most dangerous liquid I could find in my bathroom, mouthwash. I'd even dub the mouthwash Agent Blue. I wondered what my boyfriend, who knows well how I hate killing things, would think, and I considered including a 'soldier returns to lover a different person' skit.

I'd make it all witty and humorous and entertaining. Then I thought, how easy it is to compare a war with the de-worming of my bathroom! And suddenly, I lost all appetite for humour.

where angels fear to tread

There's only one author whom I refuse to pick up again, not because my determination to read has been eroded by boredom or thwarted by difficult prose, but because I don't dare.

A few years ago, I picked up a collection of short stories by Tennessee Williams. Less than 100pgs in, I almost threw the book away, and I'd be a fool if I attempted again. I'll pick my battles thank you, and I'd like one without the emotional scars.

Damn he's good.

like my mum

Ho hum. I never knew how powerful this genes thing was. I'm exactly like my mum.

430am and I discover I forgot to dump the leftovers into the fridge, don't dare to keep them, so I'm trying to stuff myself with a plate of brinjal and a bowl of fish soup even though I'm not sure if that flavour is my mum's unique style of cooking that is almost a philosophy or just plain decompostion.

Hmmm that was a mouthful.

If I fall sick I'll feel really stupid. But it's just not in my genes to cold-bloodedly and deliberately dump a whole plate AND bowl (just think of that!) of food. Even if it's gone bad. Damn these genes.

Also, if LSB would like to inhabit the same world as me, breathe the same air, stroll in the same green fields, roll in the same hay etc, he might like to give me a wake-up call.

Itzhak Perlman (Schindler's List)

This one always gets me everytime. Does anyone else here love his violin?