Liu, Yvonne (yl28172@imcnam.sbi.com)
Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:41:52 -0400
I am elated with my purchases at the HMV on Fifth Avenue.
(1) This is Acid Jazz
Compiled by Tim Millington (1997: Beechwood Music)
Three Massive CDs for the incredible import price of $20 !
CD 1:
Nuyorican Soul, Runaway
Brand New Heavies, Dream Come True
Incognito, Always There
Etceteras, etceteras ...
CD 2:
Freakpower, Turn On Tune In and Cop Out
( Let it Flow now, Mama ...
Become a Woman )
Mother Earth, Jesse
Vibraphonic, Feat
( With Alison Limerick, Trust Me
* btw, does anyone know where I can get
a single of this song?
I know it's on a Graeme Park [sp?] compilation * )
Big Cheese All Stars, I'm Gonna Love You (Meat Mix)
Corduroy, Mini
Etceteras, etceteras ...
CD 3:
Free Bonus Mix CD
Turn On & Tune In as Dread Flimstone
from the serious A-Jazz label blends together
a "smokin' mix of pure a-jazz vibes."
Wutever, wutever ...
A spectacular CD collection, all around.
(2) DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid
Riddim Warfare (1998: Outpost Recordings)
I felt rather obliged to buy this since I was
@ Irving Plaza last nite, but missed Spooky.
Did catch EBN: Emergency Broadcast Network
( awesome ! ) and Plastilina Mosh ( eh ).
( sorry )
But I *did* see Jacques Derrida @ NYU
give a lecture in pure philosophical French (!),
nah, couldn't understand a word.
( What is "sucre" ? )
I needed a babel fish.
( See Arthur Dent, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)
Tu a besoin un poisson de babel ( I think ).
An Euro photographer went crazy everytime
Derrida shook his wrist to emphasize a point.
I guess there isn't much action at a post-structuralist lecture.
Derrida was a short, florid-faced man
with a shock of white white hair.
Wearing a brown velvety moleskin barn jacket
and gold glasses with bifocal lense.
I poked my friend outside the lecture hall,
" Psst ! Is that him ? "
The crowd was a mix of pseudo-intelligentsia,
vainly trying to hide their clips from Time Out NY
( which, btw, didn't announce that the lecture
was to be entirely in French, with nada translation ).
Bourgeois Eurotrash, lecture groupies in black,
pretentious Americans straining to recall their HS French.
There was a movement in the mob every five minootas
of embarrassed NYU freshmen and Time Out NY hipsters
excusing themselves from the heated and stuffy hall.
I was intrigued by a white eraser mark smudge
on the side of the lectern Derrida was pontificating from.
It was to his left, at waist height.
What was it's meaning ?, I pondered.
Or did it even have one ?
Could we have deconstructed the fuzzy linear strokes,
smeared by a careless yet purposeful hand ?
And its height ?
Surely some strange midget haunts the Main Bldg.
Sleepless premed phantom inebriated on Starbucks cawfee,
walking the newly refurbished halls on Washington Sq. E.
Scaring away freckled freshmen new from the Bible belt.
There was a wobbly card table to Derrida's right,
set with a liter bottle of Poland Spring H2O
and a few plastic cheap Dixie cups.
Surely for Derrida,
would not crystal wine goblets
overflowing with honeyed ambrosia
be more apropos ?
With wicks of burning lotus incense
implanted on both sides ?
Well, well, well.
(3) U.N.K.L.E., Psyence Fiction
DJ Shadow & James LaVelle (1998: MoWax Recordings)
I've been told that this one is hard to hate.
Big crowd-pleasing break beats for the MTV audience
and the frat boys with Buds in their fists.
Oh, that reminds me,
I went to this Guinness/Oyster Festival this Saturday
on 4th Street between Lafayette and Bowery.
Saw Black 47,
" Diddle-y, diddle-y, daddle-y, dee,
I was born to play the Funky Kalei (sp?) ... "
Punch drunk on Guinness Harp,
I watched playful frat types from the Upper East side
play hopscotch, I was the referee.
Who's going to PUSHER tonite @ CB's ?
Or Abstrakt Tuesdays @ the Orchard Bar ?
Cya there,
Yvonne.
____________________________________________
This is a story. It's about the Word,
the Virus and the Magician.
Crossing Time and Space,
transcending cultural boundaries.
It is about disguise and dissimulation,
transmission and dissemination.
It begins at an end,
and ends at a beginning.
Full circle,
cycling through the ages,
turning through 360 degrees
and all points in between.
It is a story about magic and codes,
about dreams and reality;
above all, it is about the PROCESS.
The end of one story is the beginning of another.
All things return to their root,
and to begin we will visit the secret chamber
of Hassan i Sabbah,
Old Man of the Mountain
and founder of the Ismaeli sect
known throughout history as 'The Assasins.'
The date is May 23rd.
The year, 1124.
The place, Alamut, the Eagle's Nest
set high in the mountains,
just south of the Caspian Sea...And
it is here that we find
Hassan i Sabbah,
the hero of our tale.
He is waiting for us in the same chamber
he has occupied for 33 years since founding
his mountain kingdom, 33 years, the time endured
in this world by an earlier heretic some thousand
odd years before. Another law breaker
whose word struck fear into those who opposed.
Hassan i Sabbah is dying, but still he waits.
Waiting for the moment to strike.
And while he waits he dreams of
the grand stratagem by which he secured this
impenetrable retreat...He must speak with Kiya.
Reaching out from his bed,
he beckons Kiya-Buzurg-Umid,
his Grand Vizier,
friend and chosen successor.
'Kiya, come close,' he whispers.
'It is time to convey the secret.'
Later they were to be recorded in
CITIES OF THE RED NIGHT
from which I now quote:
'It is said that an initiate who wishes
to know the answer to any question
need only repeat these words as he
falls asleep and the answer will come
in a dream...'
Rumour has is that 'these words' were:
' NOTHING IS TRUE.
EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED. '
(From A William S. Burroughs Birthday Book,
Ed. by Paul Cecil, Temple Press: 1994)
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