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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
windmill100's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, October 17th, 2008 | | 8:28 pm |
monday and tuesday excursion
So there I am at listening group, some fresher puts on Rammstein and I'm like 'whatever. So i leave, on my way out bumping into Dr Thomas which is good because i can tell him I'm going to Sheffield and he can offer me a lift, which he does. He then drives at 70mph down the wet country lanes, to Pat's house while telling me about Ian Pace, why his dad became a priest and how he's 'still got a few points left' on his license. After eating some rice and listening to some music at Pat's parents crib, we set off to see Phil, Mark, Sean and Becky. Pick up an 8-pack of Stones bitter on the way. Legends. Then spend some time on facebook and watch Alan Partridge (series 3 FYI), but have to leave earlyish so we can catch the train in the morning. So I wake up in some hookers bed, then we have some stiff coffees and head into town, buying a multipack of crisps for the road (rail). Anyway so we get to London then have to walk all the way across it to get to Tate Britain. This isn't so bad cos we see all the sights on the way without even trying including, and limited to, Will Self. So we go round the Bacon exhibition, cos once you've seen one Rothko you've seen em all, but it turns out to be 'pussy-central', which Pat can't quite handle so we go round the Turner prize to calm down. They sold Francis Bacon fridge magnets and re-usable carrier bags which was cool, and macabre. So we head off to the Southbank centre, eating a pork-pie on the way. I meet some friend of my dad's when i get there, which is good cos i'm gonna stay in his house after the concert. We then watch one of the most amazing pieces of music ever, Gerard Grisey's Les Espaces d'Acoustiques, which I wont translate for you cretins. Friend of my dad's then gives me a lift back to his crib on his vespa. We were like Jamie Oliver (and Jools) bombin it round London. Then we kickback on the fifth floor balcony, just lookin out over canaray wharf, talking about Wagner and smoking a massive joint. I reflect on a very nice day. Current Music: Grisey | | Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 | | 5:44 pm |
Am I writing an entry just so that when I next check my friends page there'll be something to read? Current Music: Schubert | | Sunday, September 9th, 2007 | | 10:57 pm |
Looking forward to getting back to uni and studying Stockhausen's Licht, a series of 7 operas for each day of the week. Sounds fairly mental...
Dienstag aus LICHT Karlheinz Stockhausen 1977-1991 Opera for 17 musical performers (3 solo voices, 10 solo instrumentalists, 4 dancer-mimes) actors, mimes, choir, modern orchestra, (14 instruments), tapes  Tuesday is the Day of War between Michael and Lucifer Dienstag's Gruss / Tuesday Greeting (1987/88) solo soprano, 9 trumpets, 9 trombones, 2 synthesizer players, choir At the back of the auditorium two choirs (each with its own brass ensemble, synthesizer player and conductor) perform a Peace Greeting. The Luzifer ensemble, wearing red and black, deny the existence of God and demand peace and freedom on those terms. The Michael ensemble, wearing blue and wanting peace and freedom in God, engages in a musical fight and it is left to a solo soprano to attempt a resolution. "May he who has God and also he who denys God love his neighbour... That gives peace, freedom". Act 1: Jahreslauf vom Dienstag / Course of The Years of Tuesday (1977/91) solo tenor, solo bass 4 dancer/mimes, actor-singer, 3 mimes, little girl, beautiful woman, modern orchestra, tape Luzifer challenges Michael to a game, "Course of The Years". Luzifer will try to stop time itself, while Michael will attempt to keep it going. Time is represented by four actors (runners) who traverse the four numerals that make up the date. The runner for the millenium digit moves the most slowly while the year runner must move very quickly indeed, to show the passing of time. The four time layers (one for each digit in the date) are musically realized by different instruments: 3 harmoniums for the millennia. 3 piccolos and an anvil for the centuries. 3 soprano saxophones and bongo for the decades. Harpsichord, guitar, and bass drum, for the years. Four times, Luzifer tempts the performers to stop playing, so time freezes: 1. Flowers for the performers. 2. A delicious meal. 3. A monkey in a car. 4. A beautiful woman in a nightclub scene. Michael finds four ways to restart the music: 1. Audience applause 2:.A lion to bite the runners 3. A 10,000 mark prize 4. A wild thunderstorm With the game over, and the prizes awarded, Lucifer challenges Michael to a much tougher fight. Act 2: Invasion-Explosion mit Abschied / Invasion-Explosion with Farewell (1990/91) solo soprano, solo tenor, solo bass 3 trumpets (1 also plays flugelhorn), 3 trombones, 2 synthesizer players, 2 percussionists, 6 trumpets, 6 trombones, choir, 8 track tape  With eight speakers placed in the corners of the cuboid musical space, the electronic music represents the bombs, missiles and aeroplanes of a battle scene around above and below the audience. The stage is blocked off by a mountain side. Lucifer's troops, in red and black, have trombones and are led by a bass singer. They attack the precipice, revealing it as a camoufaged metal wall, with trumpet bells protruding from within. Michael's fighters have trumpets, their commander is a solo tenor and they wear blue and black. Both sides have a synthesizer and a percussion player, carrying amplifiers and loudspeakers with them. During the fierce battle the metal wall is torn down by welding torches and a crystal wall is revealed. It is clear that Luzifer's forces wish to demonstrate that there is no world beyond the wall. There is a ceasefire while one trumpeter lies injured. A nurse tends to him and while he lies across her lap he also appears standing as two more larger images behind the nurse. Having been revealed as Michael he plays the flugelhorn solo "Pietà" accompanied by the nurse (Eve soprano). The battle resumes and the crystal wall is finally destroyed by massive explosions.  Out of the cloud of dust a strange glass world (Jenseits/Beyond) is revealed. It has a conveyor belt carrying war toys in front of the singers. The singers are using croupier rakes to remove the toys selectively from the belt, and are tallying the losses for each side. With a flourish a synthesizer player (Synthi-Fou) spins towards the glass world. He has huge ears, sunglasses and a long nose. His colourful music distracts the singers from their war games, and they accompany him with their voices, and begin to dance, transported by the happy music. Synthi-Fou takes a bow and Dienstag comes to an end. Current Music: Varese | | Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 | | 12:54 am |
'Neutrality is cowardice' from the New Statesman Journalists who provide a platform for climate change sceptics should summon up the courage needed to help defend the planet Future historians, assuming that there are any, will have an entertaining time looking back at how today's journalists wriggled when confronted with the great moral question of our age. Faced with clear evidence of an existential threat to the survival of the planetary biosphere, news correspondents and media organisations not only constantly fail to convey the true magnitude of the story, but also dash for cover every time the going gets tough. The most sacred principle of news reporting is that of "balance": giving equal weight to both sides of an argument. I say this principle is sacred because it is so little adhered to. Analyse most news journalism and you will quickly discover a welter of unspoken assumptions and hidden biases, from the false parity accorded to the combatants in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the refusal to question the "need" for economic growth. The reality, as most journalists will tell you after a couple of drinks, is that "fairness" largely consists of balancing out and accommodating the most powerful lobbies and the loudest voices. In an issue as divisive and politicised as climate change, that for a long time meant according the tiny number of sceptics equal coverage with representatives of the majority scientific consensus, leaving the public woefully misinformed. Now it simply means being timid: the reactionary lobby is still powerful enough to shoot down anyone who sticks their head above the parapet and says anything that might vaguely be interpreted as "campaigning". The spat at last weekend's Edinburgh International Television Festival was a classic example of this impulse to timidity. When the anti-environmentalist film-maker Martin Durkin and his Channel 4 commissioning editor Hamish Mykura attacked the BBC's upcoming Planet Relief project - a proposed day of climate change-related programming and entertainment modelled on Comic Relief - corporation executives present rushed to disown it. "It is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet," insisted Newsnight editor Peter Barron. "I think there are a lot of people who think that it must be stopped." If Barron is really suggesting that the BBC should be "neutral" on the question of planetary survival, his absurd stance surely sets a new low for political cowardice in the media. It is also completely inconsistent. On easy moral questions, such as poverty in Africa, the BBC is quite happy to campaign explicitly (as with Comic Relief or Live Aid), despite the claim by the corporation's head of television news, Peter Horrocks, that its role is "giving people information, not leading them or prophesying". By analogy, the BBC would have been neutral on the question of slavery in the mid-19th century, and should be giving full voice today to the likes of the British National Party - all in the interests of balance and fairness. Likewise, it should not cover the plight of Aids orphans in South Africa without constantly acknowledging the views of the tiny minority who still dispute the link between HIV and Aids. It is worth re-stating again what a more rigorous and honest approach to climate change might look like. First, it would recognise that, despite small uncertainties regarding the specifics, the larger scientific question regarding causality has been settled for a decade at least. Second, it would acknowledge the moral repercussions of our failure to act so far: on people who are already suffering and dying in more frequent and extreme weather events, on future generations of human beings who will suffer a far worse fate, and on other species that will be driven to extinction as a result. I recently came across a fascinating academic paper, written by Dr Marc Davidson of the University of Amsterdam and published in the scientific journal Climatic Change, which reviews the striking parallels between arguments made by pro-slavery reactionaries in the US deep south 150 years ago and those made by climate change deniers today. Slave-owners argued that the economic consequences of giving negroes freedom would be disastrous, as the muscles of enslaved Africans were the main energy source of the time, as fossil fuels are today. They also argued that the consequences of abolition were just too uncertain to go through with it. Some even claimed that slavery was good for blacks - as some today argue that more carbon dioxide is "good for us". With the benefit of historical hindsight, we can see just how false and self-serving the pro-slavery arguments were. Slave-owners were defending the indefensible, but it took a civil war to end the evil institution they had established. If more of today's media commentators can summon up the courage to help defend the planet, even against the powerful vested interests that continue to profit from its destruction, then maybe the coming holocaust of global warming can be averted without such a deep and bitter conflict. Mark Lynas
Current Music: interpol | | Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 | | 2:14 pm |
Dome
So I guess the summer is almost over, well uni doesnt restart for quite a while but in my mind there was the gig yesterday*, the recital this saturday and that is the end of my obligations in this city. I'm looking forward to uni more than I was this time last year, despite trepidation about my housing arrangements. The following things have cemented the feeling that my 'real life' is in west yorkshire now and the time here is just waiting for the next academic year to start; A level results in liverpool the other week, the same atmosphere as last year but feeling a lot more peripheral The 800th Birthday thing The vigil for the 11 year old shot half a mile from my home, all this happened somewhere else *apologies to all who attended, charmlessly shambolic Current Music: Coptic Light - morton feldman | | Sunday, August 26th, 2007 | | 9:14 pm |
poetry
I'm feeling pretty optimistic atm. The last 4 books i read: immortality, desolation, despair, and one hundred years of solitude. I've got my bases covered at least. __________________________ Round Like a circle in a spiral Like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning On an ever-spinning reel Like a snowball down a mountain Or a carnival balloon Like a carousel thats turning Running rings around the moon Like a clock whose hands are sweeping Past the minutes of its face And the world is like an apple Whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind Like a tunnel that you follow To a tunnel of its own Down a hollow to a cavern Where the sun has never shone Like a door that keeps revolving In a half-forgotten dream Or the ripples from a pebble Someone tosses in a stream Like a clock whose hands are sweeping Past the minutes of its face And the world is like an apple Whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind Keys that jingle in your pocket Words that jangle in your head Why did summer go so quickly? Was it something that you said? Lovers walk along a shore And leave their footprints in the sand Is the sound of distant drumming Just the fingers of your hand? Pictures hanging in a hallway And the fragment of a song Half-remembered names and faces But to whom do they belong? When you knew that it was over You were suddenly aware That the autumn leaves were turning To the colour of her hair Like a circle in a spiral Like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning On an ever-spinning reel As the images unwind Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind Current Music: Dad - Venitian Snares | | Saturday, August 4th, 2007 | | 10:22 pm |
I havn't dropped a post in a bit, i know. Nowadays I'm filling my time with composing in the morning and working in the evening. I work for Friends of the earth and as of yesterday I work Aiden cotteral boyce, ker-ching. I also saw Christopher Eccleston of 28 Days Later jogging in Eccles so it's a pretty classy job. I was supposed to work today. 'Team leader' Alex Manning must of got off with the 'awesome spanish bird who doesn't speak English' and decided to make an afternoon of it. You can't turn down an afternoon with a girl who answers the phone 'I am the Noella'. Be reasonable. Instead of taking over squadron leader duties I just went to town and bought my mum a birthday present. | | Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 | | 12:59 am |
Mike Foy only managed to boost Quezacotl to 88, however he made amends on the next go by boosting it to 141! Foy, 18, claims 'Homing Laser' is his favourote of Quistis's limit breaks. | | Saturday, July 14th, 2007 | | 12:45 pm |
good to see you're still acting cribley Current Music: elvis costello | | Friday, July 13th, 2007 | | 12:13 am |
ohhhhh, it's good to know...
Leila Francis Coleman is in canada. 52 seconds ago Jed Backhouse is sad he's leaving upset. 15 minutes ago Tom Wordley is getting his haircut... So sorry sweeney. 46 minutes ago Charlenie Parisa Naik is STILL thinkin about how great M.E.T.H.O.D mannnn is!! about an hour ago Stacey Waddell is a ditzy bitch. 3 hours ago Katie Hayes is not busy at all! 4 hours ago Eleanor Snape is excited for saturday! 4 hours ago Thomas Power is depressed. 4 hours ago Laura Nundram is goin to derbyshire. 5 hours ago Madeleine Fitton is without mobile and it feels great. 6 hours ago Matthew Charles Brooks is hoping the wether will improve for 2morrows bbq. 7 hours ago Sarah Kelly is facing a very tough decision, hmm. 10 hours ago Jack Howarth is fucked thanks to HSBC. 10 hours ago Peta Humphrey is thinking that she would quite like to go back to tenerife! 11 hours ago Mark Williams is dumbfounded as to why he is so hungover, pissed after 4 pints? His liver has declared war on him. Current Music: amnesiac | | Monday, July 9th, 2007 | | 1:22 am |
| | Saturday, July 7th, 2007 | | 5:01 pm |
Foy doesn't 'really like' tuna. When asked for clarification he claimed 'I don't like tuna at all'. | | Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 | | 5:49 pm |
Foy changed kathy's name on his phone to 'sister' as a reference to the stan bowles video where doherty's sister phones. | | Saturday, June 30th, 2007 | | 1:16 am |
Long films, bad. Long scenes, good.
I saw a film today where the guy sings along with a Kim Wilde song and he sings it all the way through. I thought that was good. Current Music: John Coltrane | | Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 | | 4:08 pm |
We're all in agreement that The Holy Bible is probably the best thing to happen to art ever. OK? Good. Someone told me the other day that She is Suffering is their best song. At first I dismissed them as just another crack-addict but the more I think about the more I realise he was onto something. The way he sings 4 simple lines, particularly the way he phrases She is suffering. No apostrophe in sight. Like an arpeggiated chord emphasizes the last note. Like a weighted clause. She is suffering She sucks you deeper in She is suffering You exist within her shadowI wrote loads about how well the melody works with the words and the harmony and so on but it's all a bit much for LJ really. Stay lucky. Current Mood: Jack IS suffering | | Monday, June 25th, 2007 | | 8:33 pm |
| | Friday, June 22nd, 2007 | | 8:44 am |
senti-mental
It's going to be a morning of lasts; I've already had my last shower in storeths, had my last breakfast and so on. I'm glad the weather's bad because leaving somewhere in the sun is hard. No matter how long I've known about leaving it seems just as sudden as being woken up in th middle of the night, probably by the SS. I'm going to the library to get all the scores/dvds/libretti for the complete Ring cycle. It's going to be one of those Current Music: Mendelssohn | | Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 | | 10:06 am |
verse
I stay sweet as a nut, sweet like Tropicana, When I hammer in your head splits like banana Your not ready for this girl, You better send your best soldiers, 'cos this is Captain Rascal! More destructive and troublesome than ever, I'll probably be doing this, probably forever, Fellas wanna stop me dont probably come together, Its probable they'll stop me, probably never, You Topman, Topman, hard toppa toppa, Come to me with an attitude, come a cropper, I'm old school like Happy Shopper, I fight old school, bring your bat and your chopper, And a First Aid Kit, and some antiseptic, this could get hectic, I'm a done accept it, you got a bright future, Dont let my shit affect it! [CHORUS x2] Fix up! Current Mood: tired | | Thursday, June 7th, 2007 | | 3:24 pm |
for anyone who missed it or mislaid it, Windmill Explosion's album from last summerexpect more music this summer, with probable gigs. ________ Tomorrow i go to hud for another 2 weeks since the summer holidaying here is not going well stay lucky | | Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 | | 11:52 pm |
Police said several people were still unaccounted for as rescuers searched the wreckage near the farming town of Kerang in central Victoria state. My mum's home town, population 1500, is now international news. Shame about the deaths like |
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