Saturday, November 15, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
a georg trakl poem and a wallace stevens poem
Mourning (Klage) - Trakl
The dark eagles, sleep and death,
Rustle all night around my head:
The golden statue of man
Is swallowed by the icy comber
Of eternity. On the frightening reef
The purple remains go to pieces,
And the dark voice mourns
Over the sea.
Sister in my wild despair
Look, a precarious skiff is sinking
Under the stars,
The face of night whose voice is fading.
Domination Of Black - stevens
At night, by the fire,
The colors of the bushes
And of the fallen leaves,
Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room,
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks
Came striding.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.
They swept over the room,
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
Down to the ground.
I heard them cry -- the peacocks.
Was it a cry against the twilight
Or against the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
Turning as the flames
Turned in the fire,
Turning as the tails of the peacocks
Turned in the loud fire,
Loud as the hemlocks
Full of the cry of the peacocks?
Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?
Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
I saw how the night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
The dark eagles, sleep and death,
Rustle all night around my head:
The golden statue of man
Is swallowed by the icy comber
Of eternity. On the frightening reef
The purple remains go to pieces,
And the dark voice mourns
Over the sea.
Sister in my wild despair
Look, a precarious skiff is sinking
Under the stars,
The face of night whose voice is fading.
Domination Of Black - stevens
At night, by the fire,
The colors of the bushes
And of the fallen leaves,
Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room,
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks
Came striding.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.
They swept over the room,
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
Down to the ground.
I heard them cry -- the peacocks.
Was it a cry against the twilight
Or against the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
Turning as the flames
Turned in the fire,
Turning as the tails of the peacocks
Turned in the loud fire,
Loud as the hemlocks
Full of the cry of the peacocks?
Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?
Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
I saw how the night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
Monday, May 5, 2008
charting all the stuff that happened to be in his backpack (From the February Memorial)
Erica:
“Tim was such a legend at the radio station, he’s still a legend, I went to a show in Chicago recently, I was talking to a girl who’s a junior in college there, about who was there at the radio station who she know and she stopped me and said, “wait, you knew Metal Tim?” And on the rocklist, which is this email list that almost all the people who’d been on the Rock Format are still on, which is I guess a little embarrassing, but people I’d never met and who Tim had never met are all talking about him, it’s really great, really a compliment--because Tim’s mission as Rock Format Chief was to make the station cool, by putting together these amazing top 30 charts for the station, and I remember when they turned up in San Francisco somehow, on some discussion list, talking about how WHPK, which was just this 100-watt station, was so cool with the stuff it was playing…but it was all because of Tim, because he’d made them up.”
Kareem:
“That’s the thing we were talking about the other day, that there was a moment when Tim was doing all these top 30s and he made the station super-important to the worldwide noise and experimental scene, and it was 100% based on the fact that he was charting all the stuff that happened to be in his backpack at the time.
And it’s sort of hard to explain now, because it wasn’t passive, like he’d stumbled into this thing, I was talking with a bunch of WHPK old folks, and Peter C., who was substantially older than many of us, was saying that “when he met Tim, when Tim was 18 and Peter was in his mid-30s, 'Tim knew more about music then than I do now,' he described Tim as a fully formed person. I think that’s important to realize, that Tim had such a well-formed sense of self, and aesthetics and belief and ideology, in ways that not many people I know do.”
“Tim was such a legend at the radio station, he’s still a legend, I went to a show in Chicago recently, I was talking to a girl who’s a junior in college there, about who was there at the radio station who she know and she stopped me and said, “wait, you knew Metal Tim?” And on the rocklist, which is this email list that almost all the people who’d been on the Rock Format are still on, which is I guess a little embarrassing, but people I’d never met and who Tim had never met are all talking about him, it’s really great, really a compliment--because Tim’s mission as Rock Format Chief was to make the station cool, by putting together these amazing top 30 charts for the station, and I remember when they turned up in San Francisco somehow, on some discussion list, talking about how WHPK, which was just this 100-watt station, was so cool with the stuff it was playing…but it was all because of Tim, because he’d made them up.”
Kareem:
“That’s the thing we were talking about the other day, that there was a moment when Tim was doing all these top 30s and he made the station super-important to the worldwide noise and experimental scene, and it was 100% based on the fact that he was charting all the stuff that happened to be in his backpack at the time.
And it’s sort of hard to explain now, because it wasn’t passive, like he’d stumbled into this thing, I was talking with a bunch of WHPK old folks, and Peter C., who was substantially older than many of us, was saying that “when he met Tim, when Tim was 18 and Peter was in his mid-30s, 'Tim knew more about music then than I do now,' he described Tim as a fully formed person. I think that’s important to realize, that Tim had such a well-formed sense of self, and aesthetics and belief and ideology, in ways that not many people I know do.”
Kicked Out of the Noise Show for Being too Noisy (From the February Memorial)
“Last year Tim took me to Chicago to go see -- all he told me was that we were ‘going to a show’ -- and he didn’t tell me that it was a ‘noise show’, in an illegal venue, a third-floor walkup space over a furniture store, that his friends lived in, and we got there late, and so the -- I don’t want to say music -- had started, and we were walking up the stairs, and I asked Tim, ‘is the show not going to happen, are they having equipment problems?’ and he was very excited about the music, and then we got there and me and Tim were hanging out on the landing, I don’t think there was any A/C or heat in this place, and me and Tim were with about people while the show was going on, and they came out and yelled at us -- for making too much noise during the show, and locked us out. That was a fun night.”
“you got kicked out of a noise show for being too noisy?”
“yeah.”
“And then we spent the night there, at the venue, on the floor of Tim’s friend’s bedroom -- Geoff Guy, and we were sleeping in his bedroom, and here’s his wall, and here’s the El, and so the whole room was vibrating all night.”
“you got kicked out of a noise show for being too noisy?”
“yeah.”
“And then we spent the night there, at the venue, on the floor of Tim’s friend’s bedroom -- Geoff Guy, and we were sleeping in his bedroom, and here’s his wall, and here’s the El, and so the whole room was vibrating all night.”
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Every Man's Death
"Every man's death is a standing in for every other. And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love that man who stands for us. We are not waiting for his history to be written. He passed here long ago. That man who is all men and who stands in the dock for us until our own time come and we must stand for him. Do you love him, that man? Will you honor the path he has taken? Will you listen to his tale?"
-Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
-Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
"dans la veine d’un croisement entre Sunn o)) et Darkthrone"
Something delightful about seeing this review of Tim's old band:
http://www.lacheursdetemps.com/spip.php?rubrique44
http://www.lacheursdetemps.com/spip.php?rubrique44
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Karen: Tim: European Man of Mystery
This may sound weird, but for awhile, I really thought Tim was from a foreign country. We met one night on the sidewalk outside of the Reynolds Club. I don’t remember who else was there that night. But I was keenly aware of Tim because it was like the moon decided to take the night off, descend on Chicago, and take on the human form of a U of C student. Only, he didn’t look like a typical U of C student--he was more like what a U of C student fantasizes about looking like: an elf from Lord of the Rings. He was not only very handsome, but he had an ethereal quality to him. His eyes, his smile, his laugh--everything about him was luminous. It felt good to be near him.
That night, in the midst of this daydreamy haze, I somehow got the notion that Tim had an accent. I don’t know if it was his cadence or the words he used or what--but my mind made another irrational leap and I started imagining that he was a European man of mystery. He kind of reminded me of this tall, blonde, impeccable Finnish exchange student I had known in seventh grade. When Tim said he liked Norwegian black metal, it was like an A-ha! moment where the pieces fall into place.
I don’t remember how long I believed in this delusion of mine. Days, possibly a few weeks. I do remember having dinner with him months later and talking about our respective childhoods. When he told me about growing up in Connecticut, I told him about my initial confusion over his origins. He laughed his great Tim laugh and was pretty amused by it all.
While my initial impression was that he was worldly-wise, I gradually got to know that he was in fact down to earth. He was so unabashedly inquisitive about the world around him--we had many conversations about music, friends, art, books, ethics (he loved that “Ethicist“ column in the NY Times). We laughed and had fun. Once, we sneaked him into the Empty Bottle using Sam Leimer’s ID--they so did not resemble each other, but the doorperson paid no mind. Perfect, because where there was music, there was Tim.
I have many good memories of Tim, but one stands out because it shows how thoughtful and kind he was towards me. It was winter and I had come down with the flu. I felt so crummy that I couldn’t even get out of bed. I was pretty useless--who wants to hang out with a sick person? You can’t talk without coughing, can hardly laugh or move because your whole body hurts, and you look your worst. Well, who should come over but Tim. And he was just there, to be close by and hold my hand. And despite the flu and winter and everything that was wrong with anything--despite all that, I felt so happy that day. So when I think of Tim now, I like to remember quiet times like these, where it was just us hanging out and enjoying the moment for what it was.
That night, in the midst of this daydreamy haze, I somehow got the notion that Tim had an accent. I don’t know if it was his cadence or the words he used or what--but my mind made another irrational leap and I started imagining that he was a European man of mystery. He kind of reminded me of this tall, blonde, impeccable Finnish exchange student I had known in seventh grade. When Tim said he liked Norwegian black metal, it was like an A-ha! moment where the pieces fall into place.
I don’t remember how long I believed in this delusion of mine. Days, possibly a few weeks. I do remember having dinner with him months later and talking about our respective childhoods. When he told me about growing up in Connecticut, I told him about my initial confusion over his origins. He laughed his great Tim laugh and was pretty amused by it all.
While my initial impression was that he was worldly-wise, I gradually got to know that he was in fact down to earth. He was so unabashedly inquisitive about the world around him--we had many conversations about music, friends, art, books, ethics (he loved that “Ethicist“ column in the NY Times). We laughed and had fun. Once, we sneaked him into the Empty Bottle using Sam Leimer’s ID--they so did not resemble each other, but the doorperson paid no mind. Perfect, because where there was music, there was Tim.
I have many good memories of Tim, but one stands out because it shows how thoughtful and kind he was towards me. It was winter and I had come down with the flu. I felt so crummy that I couldn’t even get out of bed. I was pretty useless--who wants to hang out with a sick person? You can’t talk without coughing, can hardly laugh or move because your whole body hurts, and you look your worst. Well, who should come over but Tim. And he was just there, to be close by and hold my hand. And despite the flu and winter and everything that was wrong with anything--despite all that, I felt so happy that day. So when I think of Tim now, I like to remember quiet times like these, where it was just us hanging out and enjoying the moment for what it was.
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