The Constorium of Greater Minds

some powerful words:

Hollow Men ~ T.S. Eliot

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

i’ll be getting underway, as we say in the navy, sometime sooner or later (OPSEC, man) so I’ll be MIA for a few weeks. expect a flood of updates upon my glorious return from parts unknown…or, actually, very well known. be safe all

just introduced to this group via the honeyee blog. “Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) is a Japanese electropop band, formed in 1978. They were ranked No.2 in a list of Japan’s top 100 musicians by HMV.
The band is renowned as having pioneered the Synthpop and Electropop music genres, along with Germany’s Kraftwerk. The principal members are Haruomi “Harry” Hosono (bass, keyboards), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums and percussion, lead vocals) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards).”

YMO – Rydeen[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/9l6UpVqqtS4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Sketch Show – Chronograph[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/E7XqkmtXnoE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

j lau, a friend of the consortium visited over the winter break. she was on her way home from a school thing in china and stopped over in tokyo for a few days. we had a great time and here are some photos from the visit. come back soon jl, peace

at the meiji shrine in yoyogi park

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photos – check it out

[lina scheynius]

the friend formerly known as dj aka dominique was here over new years. it was great seeing my old buddy. here are some photos of myself, dj and jeff messing around one afternoon in zushi

the japanese do a lot of things well…pancakes are not one of them

i’m a rhinoceros

see you around

I originally had an article drafted last week on a few interviews I found on the internet by way of the hype machine. But friends of the Consortium, Better Than Yours, put me on to an interesting development — a little blogosphere beef between Heron P. and the writers over on the Complex Blog surrounding an interview Heron did with NYC coolguy A-Ron.

Basically what I drafted last week still applies. Here’s my take on the whole thing:

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fuji-san

there’s something about the grainy look, spontaneity and diy nature of polaroids that makes them seem slightly illicit – like they were made to capture images of heroin addicted models sprawled naked on hotel room beds.

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this morning when he woke up the air was wet and heavy and a sullen stillness covered the city outside. from the radio nina simone’s voice dripped like molasses …“tin can at my feet, i think i’ll kick it down the street, tin can at my feet, i think i’ll kick it dooown the street, why not, that’s the way to treat a friend.”
running water from the faucet filled his glass only slightly slower than other mornings and wouldn’t warm so his shave was cold and he nicked himself. he watched as the blood trickled slowly down the curve of the sink, meeting with a water drop and halting momentarily before it overcame the surface tension to mix and stream a little faster to the drain. nina simone’s voice slowed taking on an eerie, warped tone.
standing now on his balcony, the sky a dour grey on a black canvas, he spoke to himself – an unusual murmur like the sound of distant footsteps in an empty museum. a man stopped on the street corner and stared up at him standing on the balcony. there was a shout from around the corner. the man looked behind him down the street then turned around and disappeared the way he had come.
“now it’s come to distances and that’s no way to say goodbye…new York is cold in the morning,” he spoke to the building across the street.
somewhere down the road a car door slammed, a man and a woman laughed conspiratorially. a silent drumming on the rooftop signaled the coming rain. he turned his back to the city, to the street and the aching laugh and to Jane and her famous painting hanging in the whitney.