Smacks of Wisdom

"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are."
Kurt Cobain

Umm, yeah...

So the last time I had one these moments it was over a multimedia pack of book, dvd and cd called Baby Shakespeare (somewhere back in 2006/7). You can pretty much figure out the contents I would've purchased had I had the need. I had no need, therefore I had a day or two of OMGMOMMYHOODSEEMSFTW!

At some crazy hour early this morning/late last night I had this brainwave of an idea which I wanted to do for some of the lil hobbits in my life, and I Googled in preparation for the task ahead.And then I found it, the idea in my head existed -_-, so much for originality, eh?. But it did save me some bother of finding tabs/notes to attempt my own renditions.


How awesome is this? Or any of these for that matter? Good musical taste cannot start young enough. Someday my kids'll have a blog and write stuff like "my mom was so awesomely cool, we had Smashing Pumpkins/NIN/The Cure/The Pixies/Nirvana as our lullabies"!

I am not crazy though, I've not purchased any of them yet. I've just wishlisted them all :D

Hold meeeee, for goodbyes and whispered lullabyes...
rah*

It's getting hot in here...

You know, there's those people who find it "kewt" to type "kewl" and replace -r's and -l's with w's eg "sowwy" and "hewwo". Now this is just ghei firstly, and secondly, when grown adults do this it works on my nerves (my magnanimous streak does however extend only to people who are around the age of 12-16 who do this because alas, they were not fully alive while the world and the internet was still awesome and not filled with twits), and thirdly, there is absolutely nothing more off putting than (consciously) horrific spelling and grammar.

I got this in an email from a person who brims with awesomeness and smells like teen spirit :P, with the most apt subject line ever (see below):

If you laugh, you're going to hell:

Suffice to say (before you get your panties in a knot and go all moral high ground on me)...I guess you can all queue up behind me?
rah*

Lighters for anyone?

April 8 1994. The body of rock icon and the face which defined a generation was found dead. RIP Kurt Cobain. *Lights a lighter for a moment*. I have a knack for remembering dates oui? He actually died on the 4th or 5th April, but I had no time to pay my respects then. However, that wasn't really what this post was supposed to be on.

I've had this extract going in and around the revolving glass doors of my mind for a while now, and wanted to share it with whoever reads the stuff I pin up here.

"When people are happy they have a reserve, she had told Elizabeth, upon which to draw, whereas she was like a wheel without a tyre (she was fond of such metaphors), jolted by every pebble -- so she would say, staying on after the lesson, standing by the fire-place with her bag of books, her ‘satchel’, she called it, on a Tuesday morning, after the lesson was over. And she talked too about the war. After all, there were people who did not think the English invariably right. There were books. There were meetings. There were other points of view. Would Elizabeth like to come with her to So-and-so? (a most extraordinary-looking old man). Then Miss Kilman took her to some church in Kensington and they had tea with a clergyman. She had lent her books. Law, medicine, politics, all professions are open to women of your generation, said Miss Kilman. But for herself, her career was absolutely ruined, and was it her fault? Good gracious, said Elizabeth, no.

And her mother would come calling to say that a hamper had come from Bourton and would Miss Kilman like some flowers? To Miss Kilman she was always very, very nice, but Miss Kilman squashed the flowers all in a bunch, and hadn’t any small talk, and what interested Miss Kilman bored her mother, and Miss Kilman and she were terrible together; and Miss Kilman swelled and looked very plain, but Miss Kilman was frightfully clever. Elizabeth had never thought about the poor. They lived with everything they wanted, -- her mother had breakfast in bed every day; Lucy carried it up; and she liked old women because they were Duchesses, and being descended from some Lord."

Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway was published in 1925 and is written in the stream of consciousness style of Virginia Woolf and the High Modernists. The story basically follows a day in the life of a Mrs Dalloway who is preparing to be hostess to the Prime Minister and centres around her thoughts as she goes about her daily chores and getting the house in order for the arrival of the Prime Minister. Mrs Dalloway also formed the basis of the storyline for the book and the movie The Hours.

This passage often makes me wonder, just how far has society and social consciousness come since 1925? Women still have their own opinions, and each age thinks that the women of their age have more rights than those of the age before? Do people think about the poor any more now than they did before? Or does it not matter as long as we have what we want? Are people expedient? Does caring for your fellow members of society only extend as far as what you can get out of them?

I still do maintain that Kurt Cobain was the Virginia Woolf of our generation, both gifted artists, both tortured and both with a keen misanthropic streak. After all, if you're not a Vampire or and Elve, you never will see what a despicable race the human tribe is.

I'm going off To the Lighthouse
rah*

Best Left in the 90s

I know I harp on about music alot, it's one of my great passions in life. However, there's some music which just makes me want to hurl. For the moment, we'll excuse pop with the likes of girl/boy bands(consisting of 30 year old MEN, none of whom play any instruments-spot the irony if you will)and we'll excuse trance/house/blahblahblah( not really worth giving an opinion on this,because well I'm still deciding whether to classify it as music or whether it belongs in the category of noise.mp3). We will not even discuss Indian music or more specifically Bollywood rubbish (and no, I don't care how beautiful the lyrics are when you translate it into English, it (tune/melody/beat) sounds like crap/pop/regurgitated 70s disco beats to me).I won't venture to hip-hop either, which was once the sound of the streets and the poor and is now the sound of the rich who get off condescending at the poor. What I want to discuss is the most disgusting music ever- RnB.

While music history teaches one that it might've had very noble roots and gave hope to slaves and farm workers and was the American equivalent of Umshiniwam. Take a listen to the rubbish lyrics that they churn out which I would assume is supposed to be sexy...but it actually sounds like the musical version of 12 year old online cyberers who pretend they're 16 and spell without vowels. In other words, retards.Typical dialogue of the species goes something like this:

Kewt-boi "hi asl,i cn c u gt sxy nik,want 2 cybr" (rant: WHY CAN'T PEOPLE TYPE NORMALLY? IT TOOK ME LONGER TO TYPE THAT THAT THEN THE WHOLE PREVIOUS TWO LINES-/rant-another debate.

So anyway you get the picture. Poor lyrics, bad language, filthy images and general scummy values allow the fan-base masses to indulge their senses in a cheap-sex thrill.

While this might not exactly be RnB (or maybe it is, I'm outside of my genre here so I could be wrong) Ludakris at the 46664 Concert in Johannesburg last year belted out the following lyrics to a crowd of thousands "I won't stop til I get them in they birthday suits so give me the rhythm, and it will be off in they clothes" followed by "we want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed". Please take note that the concert was in aid of Aids awareness. And here you have someone who sings about easy women, easy sex etc. Spot the irony? This is just an off the top of my head example of how music of this sort, just promotes bad values and demeans women, it might not necessarily be the best example. Sure, RnB fans might make the case against some shock rockers like Marilyn Manson and co, but to Manson's credit, when you dig beneath the surface of his lyrics, you often find a surprising bit of social commentary or unveiling of the standard hypocrisies.

I find RnB too "turn-off"ish for lack of a clearer phrase. Which gets me thinking, whether I'm missing out on something, after all the legions and legions of fans must be picking up on something I'm not. My neighbours are classic examples of this(wonderful people though, in every regard besides their music taste). Almost Sunday morning whilst washing their cars; (yeah, they've got American flag bandanas hanging off the rear-view mirror, and the uncle does have a pair of black Ray-Bans with the ivory and gold bridge bit over the nose); I am subjected to the Blaaaaahnians playing a cd(at full volume it seems)consisting of Boyz II Men's End of the road, followed by I'll make love to you, followed by In the Still of the Night. And then the aunty will shout out "OOO I like this song, don't make it slow, put fast volume" and then queen_Lestat groans and pulls her pillows over her ears and curls up into foetal position and shrinks deeper into her bed. I mean wtf? A little consideration for the grunger in your vicinity would be nice people!

Now here's a classic example of the crap that is RnB, and (as you shall hear in a bit) the song which inspired the post. I REFUSE to watch this video(and I won't name it either,so you're all forced to watch a few seconds to know what I'm on about! i R ev0ln355 :P), so I don't know if it's the original or what, but here goes:



DISGUSTING!!!! YERGH!

Anyway here's the story. While it might've been the hit of 1992/3, there was Nirvana to listen to as well at the time. There was also Snow's Informer (which proved why only one White Boy should rap per decade) and the cult classic Whitney (pre-crack revelations) Houston with I Will Always Love You (and iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-hee-iiiiiiiiiii, jis, the dramatic overkill in that song teh_lol) and UB40 was pretty big then too, and Meatloaf (well, Bat Out of Hell was on the charts for 9 years.True story and random bit of music trivia for you there).

Flash back to 2008 and you're coming back from a night out and stop at a petrol station, where about 15 guys (men) are listening to the song (at a volume that would make a jet engine seem mute) in the video above and dancing with one another in the most horrifically obscene way.Literally bump 'n grind. Quite revolting really, makes seeing the side of the road pee-ers (the members of the uri-Nation) seem tame-like. Not the ideal way to end a Saturday night. No Sir, not at all.

After that episode, I'm sufficiently traumatised to say,
"It's raining, it's raining, tears from my eyes..."
rah*

Smells like Eid Spirit

This is the Ramadaan-Eid post. The sort of mention it lest you feel like you've missed an important obligation of sorts (guilt trip into submission type) one.

Warning: Semi-vacuous rambling to follow.

I kept all my fasts, helped around like the domesticated pet that I am, and generally behaved. I'm almost disqualified from the realm of childhood due to the fact that I have a signed employment contract. But I'm still young enough (for now) to be considered Eidi-worthy. I've missed several birthdays and anniversaries tags in between. One of which was Anne Rice's on the 4 October. Happy Birthday bitch, lotsa love, rah*.

Following the whatseemstobeaanannualRamadaan spider spotting spree (the one I described last year was about the same size), herewith are the pictures (circa Ramadaan 2007) of the mofo I somehow found chilling out on my room door.

(Apologies for the quality, it was the best I could do considering the semi-darkness and not wanting to go paparazzi on the Celebrity Spider's ass.)





I just left it alone as usual, it vanished, Lord knows where to, but it did. I haven't seen it since, and neither have I spawned any extra superpowers. Well at least not any more than the ones I already possess.

Re: Facebook. It bloody sucks, it's glorified email. (We will not go into details regarding it's complexity to use and the fact that I can barely use the freaking thing or the way it clogs your inbox with merde soos Person X has inhaled click this link to view more.; Person Y has exhaled click this link to view more.)I've possessed it for the last week and I am dubious as to it's importance on the Internet and life in general. And as for all the "omg it's so kewl, you can liek write on people's walls and stuff!!!!! you HAVE to get Facebook". It is my very un-humble opinion that the wall phenom is nothing more than Instant Messaging for voyeurs. (I just don't respond to stupid messages and I don't have lots of time to spare, so I'll reply sometime or the other if you left a non-stupid message)

Perhaps weblife's greatest irony is that the very same people who insist you get with the web 2.0 vibe, have /quit Facebook (including the same people who create your account -_-). There are also other twits who insist on telling you how amazing it is, and who begged you to get on,but they have absolutely no interaction with you (according to quite a few of my Facebook baccalaureates this is quite de rigueur, it's nothing personal (and I'm guilty to a certain extent of it too),which I suppose is fair enough). We've come to the conclusion that they've added you as a "friend" purely to increase their friend count.You serve no other purpose there.Shallow and fickle are not the only words I could think of to cover this trend.

I have stated this before, and I think I should restate my case.People who mean anything to anyone and who are of any importance and consequence in and to your life(be they people you know in real life or from the vast and infinite black and white pixels of the /Online Realm)...you don't need/shouldn't need a website to alert you to who they are. I made a mental list of some of these people the other day. And I am grateful to have these folk in my life in whatever form they take.

Okay, sure there've been obscure people from a life lived long ago, who've found me.Through a fake name and alles! Nice to see them, nice to know that they just needed to take one look at my display pic and see my 'name' for them to know that it could only ever be yours truly. But for all the miles and memories in between, is there anything left there to touch base with again? I certainly do not have the time or the will to want to write detailed biographical tales of all my major life epics spanning the last almost 2 and half decades.And I don't suppose they do either.

My point is, is that whilst some people are just merely acquaintances they find themselves on your list of friends as though they are of integral importance to your life. It might be a matter of semantics, but queen_Lestat is not the sort to leave such matters be. She tends to suffer from a debilitating syndrome called Overthought. Most of her inner circle, would agree that this condition is better than Underthought, though that's a whole other debate. Ponder and Muse... sounds like a good name for a cosmetic brand./me trademarks it!

But ye, web 2.0 is a capricious vagrant, with about as much ability to discern between antipodean elements as a drunk-whilst-parallel-parking-female-on-a-cell phone. The queen Declareth it such.

I should call this post finito now. I've infringed on my own disclaimer.

I assume I need no conclusion.
/quit
rah*

PS (there's possibly only 5 people reading this now, who will instinctively know where *that's* adapted from.Those 5 are not on Facebook ;) )

Inflation

1x pair of Doc Martens somewhere around 1996 or before...R300-350ish

December 2006...they die whilst not in my direct possession.

1 x (last) pair of Doc Martens(tagged with the sign of the beast) June 2007 from some obscure charo shop... R200

(I kid you not, that was the price. Thanks to some weird high paying, very easy,very last minute editing job, (which I didn't think counted as "work", therefore considered it freebie money)I only had to throw in R200 which is R100 less than 10 years ago.)(Okay, my logic might be a bit weird there but it makes sense to me)

...Being rawking enough to still wear them...

....priceless.

\m/

For everyone else there's pointy Nine West Stiletto boots
(but not for,)
rah*


PS breaking them in again is a bitch...