search
more stories
 

Bohren & der Club of Gore - Dolores

print   email   RSS
 October 8 2008 at 05:42:37 PM



Watch the clock. Its minute hand blurs through the hash marks; can’t even come close to keeping with its progress. Hindus, Buddhists: They share a protracted sense of time. Innumerable parables in existence dealing with the topic. They don’t just think of time as time. But rather as cosmic units, a sort of monadology that rounds out the great matrix of existence. Silk in the eagle’s talons. The Himalayas. Perseverance. Patience. The fuckin’ inevitable. These concerns are not ours. We wish them to be so. They are simple words connoting concepts we may have seen put into practice. We’ve observed patience, perseverance. We’ve felt the sting of the inevitable. We know Wittgenstein was correct when he noted—parenthetically—a word in utterance strikes a note on the keyboard of the imagination. We understood the statement the minute our eyes pass over it. We understand the parable in a similar manner. We understand the eagle, dangling a piece of silk in its talons, flies over the tops of mountains that comprise the Himalayas. We understand the eagle does this repeatedly. Perseverance. Etc. We understand the repeated action eventually wears the mountains down. The inevitable. This painstaking process wears down these mountains; one single unit of cosmic time has elapsed. Patience. Perseverance. The inevitable. Disbelief: Part and parcel to the notion of cosmic time. We understand how many units of cosmic time have passed. Every grain of sand on the banks of the Ganges represents one single unit of cosmic time.

I rarely exercise anymore, Evangelos said. I was playing pick-up games at the Y. The other guys don’t want me there any longer. I showed up; they treated me indifferently. I asked one of them why. He said it was the way I played, how long I took, holding the ball, dribbling repeatedly in one single place, as if to wear down the court. He said watching me play basketball was like watching someone play chess, the same thing—complete with all the mental affectations: staring off into space, methodically massaging my temples, gesturing as if contemplating the ramifications of each move, painfully organizing my whole being, my entire body weight, into severe, acute purpose. He said I might as well have shaved my head and walked in on a bed of nails. It was ridiculous.

I looked across the bar at Evangelos’ books. They fanned out, several of them, all splotched with enigmatic details. It was writing, ancient writing.

I’ve got to—it’s for my Pop. He said to start with the ancient and work my way up. I’ve been at it for six years, and I’ve spent three days on the verbs in this one paragraph—Plato, the Phaedo, on the soul. Psuche, he said, the Greek a gull bursting out of the foam. All potential senses of the verb—I’ll spend days on it. All night I’ll huddle over it, absolute quiet. A small glass of mineral water, some paper, a few very sharp pencils. I want to die like this—anxious, curious, confused, sure of myself, doubtful, triumphant, defeated. Translation is the beginning of the end.

He smiled again, that big yellow grin.

Why do this?

For my dad. He’s old-world. Refuses to speak English. He says it’s the language of money, of simplicity. Tells me Greek is for virtue, for love, for what he calls nothing too much… the middle path, all in moderation, he said, lighting a cigarette. Six years I’ve been at this language, and I’ll die before I understand two-thirds of the syntactical rules. That’s what the game is based on. No rules, no game. No function.

Evangelos laughed, smoke seeped from his nostrils, fanned out from his mouth.

Just the coffee?

Yeah.

Take it . . . go on, just leave with it; I’ll never tell anyone. We’re, like, conspirators. We’ve thought it over. Our concentration won’t ever wane. I could sit through a lecture on Hegel for the rest of my days. All secret terms and correlations.

It’s just coffee, man.

Get out. Fuck you. Get out of here.


[Stewart Voegtlin]

Bohren & der Club of Gore
Dolores
2008
Pias
type: reviews    keywords: lhp019,   

Comments (9)

  • 47 comments
    Helm
    3:05 AM on Oct 08, 2008 // reply »
    Try "some things in some moderation are alright" instead if you want to play it closer to what was initially intended (but then what use is it?). The self-referential application destroys the more common "pan metron ariston" as there is no restrained in "pan" and no restraint in "ariston". Then again, the ancient Greeks were cruel with knowledge. If you tried too hard to make it work, you weren't apparently understanding it. Epistemology & Arete & der Club of Gore.
  • 2 comments
    Jericho Maxim
    5:22 AM on Oct 08, 2008 // reply »
    nice bullshit review. How about something like what the record sounds like, where it fits in their discography and in the current realm of music? Who gives a shit about how you play basketball you fucking solipsist.
  • 374 comments
    Stew Vee
    5:29 AM on Oct 08, 2008 // reply »
    Mr. Maxim, you've got the right stuff; you'll go far in life. Don't mind the forest for the trees. Mr. Helm: Hekista ge! Episteme e aisthesis....
  • 19 comments
    Hiss Boo
    6:48 AM on Oct 09, 2008 // reply »
    Was it the fucking solipsist playing the basketball, or was it Evangelos? If it was Evangelos, the whole solipsism thing goes out the window. Unless Evangelos is a fictional character. But who would know? Only the fucking solipsist can know for sure whether or not he is actually a fucking solipsist, and not some kinda Reporter. Journalist. Fantasist. The rest of us can only toss mud and wonder.
  • 374 comments
    Stew Vee
    7:02 AM on Oct 09, 2008 // reply »
    Yeah, the round-baller would be Evangelos.

    Plus, as much as I enjoy the notion of no other minds in existence but my own, I responded to Mr. Laughs AKA "Jericho Maxim," which profoundly demonstrates my acceptance of thoughts, experiences, opinions, etc. other than my own. Now, if only the cogito meant something....
  • 47 comments
    Helm
    5:31 AM on Oct 19, 2008 // reply »
    No no. Let's say you were a solipsist and still discussed with what appeared to be other people. This doesn't make you less of a solipsist because these other people would be constructs your mind has brought into existence for the exact reason of your interacting with them. They would be vital, but not real (like many internal notions we hold dear). Whereas a very hard stance like fucking solipsism has its own share of peculiarities on closer examination (and really is no fun at parties) the one you picked out is not one of them.

    Also I feel a tinge of jealousy over never having been called a 'fucking solipsist'.
  • 19 comments
    Hiss Boo
    12:19 PM on Oct 20, 2008 // reply »
    I find it alarming that Mr. Helm is dissecting the finer points of your fucking solipsism. As a figment of your imagination, I feel that he has crossed the fucking line.
  • 6 comments
    Bill
    5:17 AM on Nov 25, 2008 // reply »
    Another terrible review. Hackneyed doesn't even come close.
  • 374 comments
    stew_vee
    6:06 AM on Nov 25, 2008 // reply »
    Hackneyed? (...)

    Writing a circumscriptive narrative about B&DCoG's latest recording, which includes ruminations on cosmic time, the futility of translation, and basketball as a stoic activity is unoriginal? I'd hate to be whomever yr fucking, hoss.
 

Leave Feedback


Name


Email
Email will not be displayed. Gravatars? The LeftHandPath.com uses Gravatars which are the pictures that you see next to each comment. If you haven't already, register your email address and picture with Gravatar.com

Website
( Optional )

Feedback

Post your feedback, HTML will not be rendered, only plain text.


Subscribe
Receive emails when others submit comments

 

Leave this field empty

 
TWITTER RSS FEEDS
categories
138 1970s 33 ac/dc ajna ambient amon another bad idea apocalypse art asia ass cheeks atl atlanta is burning away azagthoth baby warrior drama bazillion points beer ben vierling black metal black metal sublet black sabbath blasphemy blood blue cheer bon scott bone sickness bones books booze boredom brooklyn bros bukkake bullet belts canada canadian mexican food cargo chains chips & beer chips n beer chuck schuldiner cliches codpiece comics conan cooking corpse paint cowbell cross-chatter crust cry babies cycles d&d d.c. danzig david vincent death death metal deceased dei carnifex demo demos denim desecrate devil devilock dffd metal dicks dio dirty south disgruntled dodgy doom dragons dread drinkin drone drugs drunk again dvd ec comics elvis emotions eschatology euronymous's dildo fake fangoria farts feelings fetish film films filth fire florida death metal folk foodster free publicity fulci georgia german germans germans glen benton goats gore grind groupies gygax halloween hard rock hardcore headbanging heat heathen metal heavy heavy metal hell awaits hollywood homeless looking dudes make good music horror horror punk hotlanta ink interview jazz jerseys judas priest kali kenneth anger kill posers king cobra king diamond label profile latin leather lemmy lhp001 lhp002 lhp003 lhp005 lhp006 lhp007 lhp008 lhp009 lhp010 lhp011 lhp012 lhp013 lhp014 lhp015 lhp016 lhp017 lhp018 lhp019 lhp020 lhp021 lhp022 lhp023 lhp024 lhp025 lhp026 lhp027 lhp028 lhp029 lhp030 lhp031 lhp032 lhp033 lhp034 lhp035 lhp036 lhp037 lhp038 lhp039 lhp040 lhp041 lhp042 lhp043 lhp044 lhp046 lhp047 lhp048 lost lucifer lulz magick manilla road marcus garvey master mephistopheles mercyful fate metal metal chef meth mgd misfits morbus chron motorhead mutilation nature nazi gaga necronomicon new york no shit noise norway not black metal not good nwobhm nyc oakleys obama 08 oh death one from the grave pain pentagram philthy pony girl power metal power trio primer problematic production pulp punk pussy putrid real men listen to thin lizzy rednecks repka reunion riffs motherfucker riot ritual robert e howard rock rush salad days samhain satan savage sword scorpions seagrave shit show report sin nanna skanks slayer sleaze sleeveless slim pickens sludge sluts soulless space cadet speed speed metal spikes spooky fingers steel stranger in a strange land studs summer summoning swamp sweatpants sweden swords tanya roberts teethofskull texas thirsty and miserable thrash thrash metal tits tldr tna tombstones tour dates tremelo tuesday you tube vanguard vans varg vhs vinyl vomit weird woods year end blah year-end list you tube tuesday youth zines zinka zombies