religious experience

electrelane is on hiatus

jesus. they released probably the best records to come out this year(one of them anyways) and one of probably very few active bands who was constantly evolving and who i was actually excited to see what they were going to do next. when i first heard them almost ten years ago i thought they were good but weren't going to be much more than a stereolab knockoff and would probably release the same art record three times before they broke up. boy was i wrong. not only did they come to outdo themselves but also their genre, escaping the coldness that plagues a lot of this kind of music. anyhoo, no shouts no calls is a great record, check it out sometime.



i thought about making a list of all the records i liked this year, maybe i still will. i think it would be easier to do the ones i wasn't impressed by and why. what's with record nerds tho, i never see people that aren't critics listing their favourite movies or books they read, meals they ate etc. but at this stage it's just a habit.

what the hell

why does everyone(ok not everyone but too many) use those godawful latuff cartoons? srsly eff this guy.

back to the roots of this blog: nostalgia for stuff i listened to ten years ago. remember when bands wrote songs like this instead of going on about what a whore their exgirlfriend was and how bad they wanted to mutilate her, or else some other stupid cocaine soaked garbage? no? it's ok i'll remember for you.



unfortunately i missed the anniversary of the école polytechnique massacre, but yes, never forget, as they like to say these days.

jubran II

Mansour Bey's character was similar to his uncle's; the only difference between the two was that the Bishop got everything he wanted secretly, under the protection of his ecclesiastical robe and the golden cross which he wore on his chest, while his nephew did everything publicly. The Bishop went to church in the morning and spent the rest of the day pilfering from the widows, orphans, and simple minded people. But Mansour Bey spent his days in pursuit of sexual satisfaction. On sunday, Bishop Bulos Galib preached his Gospel; but during weekdays he never practiced what he preached, occupying himself with political intrigues of the locality. And, by means of his uncle's prestige and influence, Mansour Bey made it his business to secure politcal plums for those who could offer a sufficient bribe.

Bishop Bulos was a thief who hid himself under the cover of night, while his nephew, Mansour Bey, was a swindler who walked proudly in daylight. However, the people of Oriental nations place trust in such as they--wolves and butchers who ruin their country through convetousness and crush their neighbors with an iron hand.

Why do I occupy these pages with words about the betrayers of poor nations instead of reserving all the space for the story of a miserable woman with a broken heart? Why do I shed tears for oppressed peoples rather than keep all my tears for the memory of a weak woman whose life was snatched by the teeth of death?

But my dear readers, dont' you think that such a woman is like a nation that is oppressed by priests and rulers? Don't you believe that thwarted love which leads a woman to the grave is like the despair which pervades the people of the earth? A woman is to a nation as light is to a lamp. Will not the light be dim if the oil in the lamp is low?

the recent outbreak of stories from basra are extremely disturbing, but they're stories i've been hearing for quite a while. one of the first was this horrifying incident from healing iraq. reading about the student strikes and outrage now is so amazing, but what's sad is that it shouldn't be, and we all know that it shouldn't be considered so weird, something so remarkable. but they feel like they're from another era, some other place that no longer exists. who would dare do that now? who's going to speak up about these women in the future?

and why the basra stories in the press now, when there's about to be a pullout? are we going to care about this two months from now?

what the hell i thought this was supposed to be my apolitical blog.

i also thought i was going to take a break from posting this fall...but, uh, i am seriously up to my ass in studies so expect some pretty frequent awkwardly written posting over the next month or so.

coles notes

for the people that don't really follow iraqi blogs all that closely, this basically sums up the discussion over the last year and a half:
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i wish i was kidding.