Monday Morning Commute: multiple phantasms.
In 1992 Dave Mustaine welcomed us to tomorrow. To be fair, this presentiment was most likely the product of combining hours of guitar-slingin’ with label deadlines and, of course, heroin. But the man wasn’t wrong. By the end of the 1990s, the world would be altered irrevocably, requiring us to adapt or perish.
A new Allegory of the Cave called The Matrix bullet-timed its way into our collective consciousness, reminding us that its of the utmost importance to wonder about the very nature of reality. The Internet skulked into our homes, providin’ us with unprecedented access to democracy and porn and free/stolen/whatever music. And then Star Wars fucking died.
Again, Uncle Davey had tried to warn us.
Look around. Grandpa’s got a Bluetooth in his head, the teens use Twitter to goad one another into suicide, and SkyNet has invented a self-driving car in the hopes of obliterating human agency. So how do we survive the hustle in bustle of the post-cybernetic revolution?
We talk about the shit that makes us happy! Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! This is the spot where I show you how I’ll be entertaining myself into the weekend. Your task is to hit up the comments section and share the wares you’ll be using. It’s really just show-and-tell with typing, but aren’t we all pretty much children these days anyways.
Let’s rock.
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Assemblin’ With/The Avengers
If seein’ The Avengers isn’t on your list of things to do this week, then I’m pretty sure you don’t like superheroes.
Not only is this movie hoping to pull off something that’s never been done before, it actually looks mighty fine. I mean, I’ve (at least) liked every movie in this Marvel Studios Universe, and I have plenty of faith in both Joss Whedon and the cast. Hell, as of right now the flick has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Although I’m sure that my true nerd-lust will appear in the week before Dark Knight Rises, I can say that I haven’t been this amped for a movie in a good long while.
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Salivatin’ For/Skelethon [Aesop Rock]
In July Aesop Rock will give us his first new full-length in what feels forever when Skelethon is released. I’d heard about this a few weeks back, but I’m just now getting around to diggin’ on a couple of new tunes (Zero Dark Thirty and a live version of Homemade Mummy are posted above). If these songs are a fair representation of the album, we’re all in for a goddamned, monosyllabic-mindtwister of a treat.
But isn’t that just par for the course with Aesop Rock?
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Readin’/VALIS (Philip K. Dick)
There was a time in my life when I came dangerously close to a mental breakdown. I’m not joking. I was constantly questioning the substance of reality, drawing connections and inferences between everything I could, and never taking anything at face value. I was probably three bad days away from either joining a cult or starting a YouTube channel for absurd conspiracy theories, and as a result I’m pretty glad that I only peered into the abyss, never fully falling.
But I’ll be goddamned if I didn’t feel creative as hell back then.
So every now and then I make a point to try to seek out something that was created during a period of artistic/existential transcendence. As such, I’ve started reading Philip K. Dick’s VALIS. This book is the semi-autobiographical retelling of Dick’s encounters with a divine pink laser that he termed the vast active living intelligence system. In the novel, Horselover Fat (who is not only the third person character but the narrator as well) who experiences theophanies, suicide attempts, and interactions with a boatload of kooky characters…all while trying to figure out the nature of reality.
Yeah, I’m hooked.
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So that’s my week – superheroes and hip hop and reality ruminations.
What’s your week lookin’ like?
