RJD2 Sample hunt

It's always interesting to stumble on something and make links...

So here I am, Thursday morning, cleaning out my room to the sound of Curtis Mayfield's self-titled «Curtis». For as we all know, there's no more perfect music for a white kid in a bourgeois neighborhood busy scrubbing wine stains off the wall than a bit of politically conscious African-American funk.

And then it happens.

I hear a harp glissando it's heart out in awesome black-psych-funkiness and I realize I've heard it somewhere before.

I just love that «eureka» feeling...

Here's so you can have it too! (In Mayfield's song, the sample is near the 75% point... either way, just enjoy. Jimi Hendrix cites him as his biggest influence... can you spot it?)

We People Who Are Darker Than Blue - Curtis Mayfield

Here and Now - RJD2

travels abroad

to all those who would like to learn basic Russian at the same time as I... knock yourselves out!

Russian Language - Russian language lessons, dictionaries, alphabet, pronunciation, grammar, forum, culture facts, and more. For both novice and advanced students of Russian.

Se tromper

Sartre disait autrefois que l'Homme est incapable de faire des «mauvais» choix. C'est par postériorité il peut ressentir du regret, mais dans l'instant suprême, soit le présent, pour ainsi dire le seul moment que nous possédons vraiment, ce serait une impossibilité que de choisir autre chose que ce que l'on veut. Un choix apparemment insensé pourrait tirer sa nature d'un désir auto-destructif, par exemple.

De cet angle, il devient tout à fait plaisant de constater que notre situation actuelle, lorsqu'elle nous plaît, provient en large partie de notre propre artifice; que l'on fait des bons choix. On peut effectivement jouer sur nos perceptions, «décider» de percevoir de n'importe quelle façon notre réalité, de sorte que l'on tombe dans un relativisme des plus embêtants. Il y cependant un échappatoire assuré à cette logique: tout ce que l'on ne comprend pas! On peut s'y blottir, à l'Art; on peut s'y inscrire de sorte qu'on cesse de rechercher et l'on ressent...

Et se trompe-t-on lorsqu'on écoute l'Amour?

L'amour, c'est comme le groove: on peut en parler, le décrire, en vulgariser quelques aspects, mais on ne le saisit jamais vraiment. Et lorsqu'on en est épris, on ne se trompe définitivement plus!

The Salad of The Bad Young Man - Don Cherry Quartet - Don Cherry : Scandinavian Radio Sessions 1965-1971

Cuando amor no es locura, no es amor.

Pedro Calderón de la Barca's words couldn't sound truer than at a time where the heart and mind crusade against the other. Well of course the ''heart'' has nothing to do with it; let's call it the irrational. One feels that there is nothing but madness in what this entity asks. There is risk, there is affront, there is pain even often conveyed onto others. The rational mind is at ends in trying to figure out why one would even fathom its persuit. A safer, painless way is always available, at the expense of the extinguishment of one's irrational voices.

One thing I cannot bear talking about is certainly love. It makes me feel like a surgeon trying to operate a beating heart with a pick-axe. Or trying to decipher a page of Braille with sand on it. The imprecision of words combined with the elusiveness of the feeling don't mix elegantly in worded forms other than poetry. Or music perhaps...

J.S. Bach - Suite No.4 in E flat major - 1. Prelude - Mstislav Rostropovich

les cheminées

j'eus constaté que l'aura de l'âtre,
émiettée par la glace érudite
ne demanda que peu de temps à se raviver
comme le foyer d'un chalet abandonné
dans lequel on aurait lancé quelques bûches.

le bois sec, préservé, brûla prestement
comme si hier le foyer l'accuellait
la fumée s'en envole en maître dernier d'elle-même
gracieux élans de poésie gonflée se manifestent enfin
pour n'en arriver qu'à, tristement, se dissiper.

et tous ensemble ils élevèrent au ciel leur fumée;
et tous ensemble ils entretinrent leurs brasiers.

tous, comme l'autre, se scintillent et s'assoient
devant les feux de leurs cheminées.

-p. robichaud

Photo prise du haut des Galleries Lafayette.

Holle ist meine Freundin

lengthened porpoise arms reach to grasp

and their clench loosens

a head tilts back, rolls, looks about

what time is it?

no strain exerted on the elasticity

no stress but that of the insecure floater

amidst a pool of unknown serenity

and a novel sense of breathing

She's done it again!

-me

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Adagio from Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K. 457

(forgive my loss of the interpreter's name... it was lost when copying the CD from my school's archives.)

ginger beer

the ginger beer made by the brasserie du Lièvre Mont-Laurier according to the Château Lausanne's original recipe is frankly excellent. it fits the present moment like a glove. i just came out of a math exam, which i can appropriately say i raped, and this beer's clean, simple complexion is a just remuneration for the two (sic) grueling hours of study i had to endure in order to deliver the aforementioned treatment to this math exam.

laurent can be seen to the far left. he is hairy. very hairy.

try this beer after something mathematic. it will fit, i promise.