The Song VS The Album

  Sometimes when you check some one's iPod out, you notice that they have artists that you like. But it turns out they only have one or two tracks. Which leads me to ask: should albums be bought and listened to in exactly that format, an album, or should you just buy the songs that you like?
  iTunes has given us massive power in this regard, to choose what we would like to listen to. So here's my opinion on the rise of digital music.
  I think the album was generally a massive part of the way music was once packaged. The album would reach legendary status much of the time, not the songs themselves. There are exceptions, but that's the case more often than not. Take a record like Radiohead's Kid A. It is, as a single entity, absolutely beautiful. But the songs themselves are not exclusively memorable. Or Silverchair's Young Modern. The album was designed to be understood as a whole, while all the songs have a wonderful individualism to them.
  Newer album releases however are becoming an exception. I would rather buy a song off a massively long remix-filled LP than purchase the entire thing. And that's really what most people do.
  So I guess the buying of albums has turned into an option that isn't always beneficial to the listener. I just like the feeling of having to go throw an okay album to get to that really, really good track inside. Then I fancy dance to it.

Feo.

Home

Home

Take all the things that you are not,

The lies, the promises, the lot.

The crashed attempts at symmetry,

The endless drives of infancy.

Then open wide a silver box

With worn out hinges and broken locks,

And throw your turpitude inside.

The silver walls will that abide.

Strap this silver box of lies

Onto your back with cotton ties,

And out into the calm blue sea

Take the box and swim with me.

We’ll swim until the shore’s no more.

We’ll swim until our souls are sore.

Further than the furthest wall.

Further than a mother’s call.

 And in the centre of this deep,

Where hazy clouds in circles sweep,

You’ll tear the box off soaking ropes,

The box of all your lowest hopes.

Without a grain of any care,

You’ll throw the silver in the air.

It’ll splash into the blue,

And all that shall be left is you.

We’ll swim back to the untouched sands

Of our ancient, true homelands.

We’ll lie down in the growing shade,

And watch a yellowed sun fade.

Feo P-S.

November 23, 2011

New Zealand and Penguins

NO WAAAAAAAY! YOU'RE CRAAAAAAAAZY!

  Knitters of the world! Lay down your needles and hear me out! Your 16 year old grandson does not want a poo-brown sweater with a puppy on it! I wouldn't mind that, but what he wants is a pair of fingerless gloves. Actually, I want a pair of fingerless gloves, too. I guess we both want fingerless gloves. It's the trend now, you see.
  Oh yes, I was saying. Knitters of the world! The whole wide wonderful world! Penguins need your assistance! Not the the hockey team, no. The small and smelly flightless bird! They need assistance immediately.
  Back in October, a Liberian oil tanker hit a reef off the coast of New Zealand. The resulting heavy oil spillage has already killed an estimated 1000 sea birds. So New Zealand-based yarn store Skeinz has asked the knitters of the world to assist them in knitting little penguin sweaters. Knit. I said it again.
  Why? The sweaters will keep the birds warm, and will stop them ingesting oil when they try to preen themselves. Knit.
  Apparently you can't mail sweaters to them anymore, but they still seem active as far as the oil situation goes, so check them out here. 
Knit.


Feo.

Some People Can't See The Future

  My English teacher seems to have a view on innovative artwork quite different from my own. What other explanation is there to explain his reaction to the all-encompassing beauty of my latest work?
  So the other day we were preparing for our PATs in class, which are, in essence, tests to see how low the IQ of my province is that year. One of the things we're tested on is business letter writing. The old exam papers we were using to prepare for that aspect gave this topic: your name is Kim Rogers, and you must write a letter to this and that person at your local newspaper about how you lost your pet, and subsequently found it. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Apparently, your pet was found by the local animal shelter! So now you have some sort of unhealthy obsession with preaching the word of 'animal shelter' to the masses. Oh, and the shelter also offered (and there was strange emphasis on this) spaying and neutering services.
  I wrote the letter, and after class, read it to some people in my class. It was met with support. A musical adaptation was discussed. The next day, it turned out we had to hand in the letter. Uh-oh. With a beaming smile on my face, I handed in the paper as my classmates laughed knowingly.
  Fifteen minutes before the end of class, my teacher stands up, walks to my desk, and throws the paper on my desk.
  "Next time, write something."
  A silence hung in the room.
  "What's wrong with it?"
  "You could never actually send that. What was that?"
  "Weren't we supposed to concentrate on business letter form and not on content?'
  "But you didn't learn anything! It's some sort of bad joke!"
  I seriously don't know what I was supposed to learn. I learned how to address a letter - what else do I have to prove?
  I paused for a moment, "should I rewrite it?"
  "If you want any participation marks, then yes."
  And with a sigh, I rewrote the whole thing. In seven minutes. I walked to his desk and gave it to him.
After a minute or so, he came back to my desk and hands me the paper.
  "Why couldn't you just do exactly that...the first time?
  "I chose not to."

  This is what he didn't like:

PO Box 701
Mikmat AB T75 4D6
Happy Day, 1960

Lesley Thompson, Editor
The Wentworth News
8974 Elm Avenue
Larkville AB T8M 4Q4

Dear Professor Thompson:

Several days ago, my donkey escaped my care. I discovered that it had been spayed, neutered, and almost adopted at my local animal shelter. Luckily, the person adopting Grigorovski, my donkey, realized just in time that it wasn't, in fact, a South African wiener dog. Thus, I have been happily reunited with with a now spayed, neutered, and slightly effeminate Grigorovski.

Once Grigorovski had been returned to his attic at home, I went to learn more about the animal shelter. It turns out that the Holy Mother of Keanu Reeves Animal Shelter is a completely volunteer-run organisation that provides emergency animal care, lost pet services, and an adoption program. I would be a volunteer too, but my extreme killer bee-keeping schedule keeps me from doing so. That is why I write to you, Professor Lesley Thompson: the Holy Mother of Keanu Reeves Animal Shelter is in desperate need of volunteers. I believe that if you publish even a small article on the subject, a team of willing spayers and medical amateurs will show up standing on the doorstep of the shelter. That would seriously help the likes of Grigorovski and me.

Peace,
Kimshafandinsterisko (Kim) Rogers.

  The moral of the story is that if you're going to spend 15 minutes doing what you like to do, be able to do what everyone else wants you to do in 7 minutes. I got full marks.
  I still think the one above is far superior.

Peace,
Feo.

Yes, Let's.

Feo.

Art and Today ('Wide Art')

 
Art is a very 'wide' concept. The art I'm discussing here is all of it. The widest of the wide. Every single form. And why am I discussing art? Because I want to.
  Let's go: I don't like art that deals with current events or anything political. Bam. I've told people that, and they don't like it. No sir, they don't. Here is my argument.
  Art based on events that have happened recently is, in my opinion, the weakest kind there is. These events touch us already. Take something like a massive natural disaster; we don't need art to make us emotional about it. We see the news, we hear the stories of pain and suffering. We feel for those people, even in the tiniest way. Putting art into the equation turns the whole thing into melodrama, a charade. The artist is using painful memories to add power to their work. Rather than using their own artistic power to move us, they feed off what we already have - that's a lack in ability.
  I'm not saying using our experiences to affect us is bad. I'm saying that manipulating events that have already been slammed in our faces by the media isn't the pinnacle of originality. The true beauty in great writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Shakespeare is that their works possess the ability to have us relate to current events without naming any. Take a look at "Slaughterhouse-Five". It was written in 1969, almost 25 years after World War II. And yet it not only vividly describes WWII, but also makes a powerful bridge to the events of today. The descriptions of destruction, patheity, and suffering apply today as much as they ever did.
   Consider "Romeo and Juliet". Some people love and respect it, some hate it. And yet what does it do? It conjures emotions. That's what artists should strive to have the ability to do: take a fairy-tale like "Romeo and Juliet", something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything going on right now, and make it touch us. For some people, it can connect their real world problems to those of the characters.
  Next topic: POLITICAL ART! OH YES. I think that art should never be political. While some consider that to be be the main purpose of it, to rally the people, I seriously disagree. That's what protests are for. Seriously.
  What I'm trying to say is that we should simplify. We should get to the core emotions of life rather than focus on specific events. So yeah. I like pie. See? That's a life-long emotion that shall never leave me. That's what art is all about.

Feo.

Remember.

  Life is short. That's been determined as a fact some time ago. Okay, so it might seem long at times, but in the end you have to make the most of whatever time you spend on this planet. So why is it that so many lose their precious time to war?
  I'm a day late for a Remembrance Day post, but you can never be a day late to remember. So today, no matter what day it is, remember that men, women, and children fought, fight, and will fight wars that didn't need to be. Will we ever have a world of peace? Today is not a day to ponder that. Today is a day to ponder how this lack of peace has affected everyone, no matter what side they're on, no matter what war touched them.

At 11:11:11 I was laying on bed listening to the radio as the station observed a minute of silence and then proceeded to play Imagine by John Lennon. As the last piano note ended, my favorite soldier called to say hi and to tell me that his friend died in Iraq recently. May Ottowa and Washington DC and every single person from sea to shining sea remember those that served, those that do serve, and all those that will come to serve to protect what we take for granted. Thank you.

-Mei Li

  I asked my friend Mei if I could post her Facebook status here. She said I could if I honoured the fallen soldier of whom Mei's friend spoke.

  So I ask that you consider First Lt. Dustin Vincent's death. He was 25. I can't even imagine the pain that so many feel for him. My brother is 25, too.  

  May Dustin Vincent be remembered and honoured, just as every other soldier who honestly fought for his or her country. May they all be remembered.

Feo.