Futile Horn

06.25.2003 - 2:04 am (gold is the goodliest of all things)

So I got a job working weekend nights. The pay is nothing to talk about, but I don't really have anything to spend money on, except maybe nights out on the weekend, so now I'll have plenty of cash, huh? The fact that I can't really go out any more might have made me hesitate to take this job, but I had such a particularly terrible time out last weekend that I just haven't thought about it. It's only for the summer anyway.

Plus this still leaves me plenty of time to study and to write. It occurs to me that I should probably do stuff like prepare to take the GRE (hey I remember math) in addition to practicing the languages I need. Although the last few days I haven't been doing much beyond playing guitar and singing. I've been feeling kind of sluggish, maybe even depressed. Nobody listens or tells you what they are thinking, which just makes it a solipsistic universe in practice if not in truth.

I recorded this cover of an old song today. I'm still self conscious about my singing voice, but no one reads this page anyway.

I saw The Animatrix a few days ago. There was one short called "World Record" which I liked quite a bit because it reminded me of Pindar (whose work I keep on my night table). Pindar was a poet from Thebes who lived during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. Most of the work of his we have are commissioned odes written to celebrate the victors of Olympic games, as well as the games of lesser but still significant importance at Pythia, Isthmia, Nemia and one or two other locations. The odes often issue warnings to victor not to stray past the established boundaries of propriety for human achievement -- to the pillars of Heracles and touch, but no further. This might seem like a ridiculous thing to say to someone who has won a wrestling match (especially if you are a classicist, as we hate sunlight because it yellows our texts and turns our bodies to ash), but if you are like me, on some conscious or subconscious level you harbor the hope that there is some activity you could perform that would allow you to surpass your potential and enter into some next level of existence.

A long time ago I wrote a poem about a man who climbed the enormous mountains at the edge of the world and managed to reach the place where the earth met the dome of the sky. When he reached out and touched it, a velvety piece of the night sky peeled off into his hand, and for an instant he stared at the true light shining from the world beyond the glass. For an instant he was tempted to give a good yank and tear down the night like a huge piece of wallpaper. He is, of course, stopped.

"World Record" is more or less the same thing, but with the 100m dash.

Born to play the funky céilí,
Futile Horn