On Reading

Reading, a peaceful balm for the soul, A refuge from life's tumultuous toll, An escape from the world's constant noise, A respite from the chaotic joys.

Through books we venture to realms unknown, We journey to places we've never flown, We meet characters, both great and small, And witness stories that enthrall.

With each turn of the page, we gain insight, Our minds expand, our perspectives take flight, We learn of different cultures and ways of life, And embrace new ideas, free from strife.

As we delve deeper into each written word, Our worries and troubles slowly blur, Our spirits are calmed, our hearts set at ease, And we find a renewed sense of peace.

So let us cherish this gift we're given, This solace that enriches our livin', Let us read with an open heart and mind, And discover the wonders we're sure to find.

[ai generated]

King Crimson

Today was an interesting morning. As soon as I woke up I kept thinking about a certain King Crimson song. The song was Lament from their album Starless and Bible Black. It's a terrific record, as most of their early records and late records are. What makes that song in particular so interesting that I was reciting them in my head upon wake up?

Well, the song is, well, a lament of sorts. The song features some interesting lines. Here are some:

I guess I tried to show you how
I'd take the crowd with my guitar
And business men would clap their hands
And clip another fat cigar

 

But now it seems the bubble's burst
Although you know there was a time
When love songs gathered in my head
With poetry in every line

 

I like the way you look at me
You're laughing too down there inside
I took my chance and you took yours
You crewed my ship, we missed the tide

 

And strong men strove to hold the doors
While with my friends I passed the age
When people stomped on dirty floors
Before I trod the rock'n'roll stage

 

Those are all pretty damn good lines for vocals. Even in the 70s. And the music was topnotch art-rock with heavy feedback guitar and mellotron [a synth].  

So yeah those lines in particular really stood out to me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can't escape the influence of King Crimson on my life. When I was 19 years old I would sit in the freezing basement in Wisconsin. I would invite my friend David over and we would smoke a lot of weed and blast progressive rock. But it was always King Crimson that was our favorite progressive band from England. 

 

There's something about King Crimson that makes them stand out apart from the other English art-rock bands from the 1970s. Robert Fripp's guitar playing and lead role in forming and keeping the band going through many permutations made them a much better band than say, ELP, Genesis, and even Yes. Fripp was a art-rock guitar god. He knew how to play any chord for any feeling. He was like a jazz guitarist in a rock band. He knew many great 'noise chords,' as I would call it, but he could always mellow out and play something that a nice jazz guitarist could play. I credit him for this day for helping me develop my guitar sound. 

 

 

What's also interesting is the fact that when my friend and I were listening to King Crimson stoned all those years ago is that we are both black kids. I know this might be kind of arrogant to think, [but I definitely believe this is true] but I actually believe that David and I were probably the only black kids [or at least part of a very select few] in America in the mid 2000s that listened to and loved King Crimson. That's actually truly remarkable. 

 

King Crimson is one of my favorite bands. I listened to them more than any other band from England, including those four lads from Liverpool [who they were inspired by of course]. Their legacy lives on. Fripp was and still is a monster and I credit him [and countless others] for inspiring me to make noise on the guitar. The art-rock thing died but its influence will live forever through indie rock and its noise variants.

 

As Pete Townsend [the guitarist from The Who] said about the first album, the critically acclaimed In the Court of the Crimson King, "an uncanny masterpiece."

Kickstart my heart

Howdy, everybody. Here I am back at it with another vlog-style post, life update sort of work. 

Work has been pretty intense. 40+ hours every week, sometimes only one day off. The holidays are here already. That's very scary for a retail worker like myself. I tried to request all the major holidays off. Not that I would actually get them off but I just had to try anyways for giggles. The pay is okay but not great. The work has become very boring. My only solace is that some of my coworkers are cool and some customers are cool. 

As a result of all this retail work experience, I've come to class consciousness. I'm not a full-on Marxist yet but you don't even need Marx and Engels to come to class consciousness. For that, all you need is struggle and contradiction [ironically also a part of Marxism sort of]. All this low-level grunt work forces you into action. You start to think about all the workers in their hierarchy. You see where you fit in and you come to realizations. Some good, some bad. Mostly bad. 

I'm this close to reading Adorno at this point. That's become my running joke lately: Retail work is so bad that it's forcing me to class consciousness. I don't really have as much time for my music, reading, or writing [that's why I haven't written book reviews for a while, forcing me to write these rants of the proletariat]. When you see how highly stratified American society is, and how the common man is treated, it forces you to wake up, to jump out of your small inner shell [my outsider musician shell], and look out into the world, and see for what it actually is. "If the doors of perception were completely cleansed, man would see the world for what it actually is." 

What do you do when you see this? Well, I'm not really sure there's anything I can do. That's just the way it is. It's possible that this entire society [America] is doomed, the government is corrupt to the core, and the environment along with wildlife is damned. Even if that was all true [I suspect it is honestly some days] is that all there is? 

"Is that all there is? If that's all there is, then let's go dancing."

The Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of the best books ever. Written some 2,700 years ago by Homer, the story contains everything you'd want in a good story. In fact, it's hard for writers or story tellers in any medium not to be influenced by this monumental masterpiece. How does one go about and review the best book, one of the most original books, the most copied book? Rather than answer that I think I'll improvise and see what I can make of it. Make a go of it shall we? 

First of all, a lot happens in the Odyssey. Fundamentally this is ancient fiction, epic poetry about a guy struggling to get home. That's all it's about. But along the way, all these things happen. Where shall we start? There's a cyclops who eats Odysseus' crew-members alive. Circe, the goddess witch turns his crew into pigs, making them forget about going home. There's the sea monster Scylla, lying in wait in the wayward seas. The only way past Scylla is to just sail on past her, there was no chance of killing it. There are sirens that sing a beautiful tune, making the men go to them, and forget about going home. Zeus himself strikes a thunder bolt that hits Odysseus' ship, sending him lost at sea, alone, and helpless. 

The big question for the reader is why is all this happening to Odysseus? Well, for one thing, Poseidon is trying to stop him from getting home because Odysseus took out his cyclops sons' eye, stabbing it out with a sharp stick. Zeus himself intervenes sometimes against Odysseus but it isn't clear why. Odysseus never thought himself greater than the gods, quite the contrary. The only good thing Odysseus has going for himself is that he is Athena's champion. Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, loves Odysseus and does everything in his power to see that he gets home. She intervenes throughout the story, helping immensely. 

I read the Robert Fagles modern style translation from 1996. It reads like butter, meaning that it flows effortlessly. Everything makes sense. I was never confused or puzzled by anything. This is one of the better translations you can find out there. Better in the sense that its a modern take on the classic. There's no classical English phrasing or the archaic language of antiquity. Rather, this is an inspired translation based on the original Greek text. Meaning this is an authentic rendition but it's been updated to fit the modern reader's taste. All in all, this means that this is a great version of the Odyssey for your first read through of the epic. It's so inspiring that I'm already planning on buying other translations so I can compare and contrast them with this. Robert Fagles is a true master of bringing works of antiquity to the modern era. What a guy. 

On a side note if you want to read the Odyssey you should read the Iliad first. It just makes more sense to do that because the events in the Iliad happen before the Odyssey. Also, it will help prepare you for Greek mythology in a nutshell. All the basics are there in the Iliad and appear again or in different shades in the Odyssey.

Back to our plot synopsis. So the Odyssey is a man going through many trials. He even goes down to the House of the Dead on some errand, one of my favorite parts. But the most difficult trial is still at hand after that. Odysseus goes back home only to find that his palace has been overtaken by many suitors, who have been wooing his wife, trying to win her hand in marriage, never knowing if the king of Ithaca will ever return, the champion from the Trojan War This part is interesting. 

All those events that everybody knows about happen in the first half of the book. The entire second half is dedicated solely to Odysseus getting his revenge against the suitors in Ithica. Athena turns him into an old man, begging for scraps at the palace. Eventually, old man Odysseus and his son Telemachus, and two farmhands take up arms and kill all the suitors, a real blood bath. To be quite frank, it ends like how you expect it to end. With him getting him but barely making it, and taking his revenge against these suitors. He also kills the maids who were whores and slept with the suitors. The guy has no mercy. He even cuts off the ears and nose of a guy, tears off his genitals, and feeds it to the dogs! My name is reek anyone? After going through the intense violence that is the Iliad, going through this was a walk in the park. Intense violence isn't really my thing but the Iliad is a much more fucked up and violent story, showcasing the complexities of war in the most aggressive way possible. 

Lastly, what you can come to expect is that you'll see and rehear these tales rehashed over and over again. In other books like fantasy novels in particular, in video games [like Warcraft], in movies, TV shows, and even in music [Symphony X, Odyssey]. What I've learned through my fascination with epic poetry, ancient fiction is that everything you'd ever want in a story is already written. It's all either in the Bible or Greek mythology. Everything is variations of those themes. It's the job of the writer to make these variations better and more interesting. This is one of those books you must read. Even if you don't like ancient fiction literature there's something for everybody here. The fact that its a straight narrative of one man makes it a simpler story to tell than the Iliad. A lot of writers have been copying the tales here in endless variations. Of course, in the end, nothing is better than the original source.

Check out my review for the Iliad https://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-iliad.html 

Spring 2019 Goals

Hello ladies and gents. Here I'd like to go on a short motivational speel about goals. Personal mostly but this can apply to anyone relatively speaking. Spring 2019 is here. Life is moving by quickly. Have you been working on all your New Years resolutions? Are you getting everything you want to be done? 

First, my biggest New Years Resolution [only one really] was to work out more. In the beginning of the year I was working out super hard. In fact, during the first week I ran 2 miles everyday for five days. That was way too extreme. Hurt my legs. But I felt great in my mind. I had a strong mental mindset about the whole thing. Then, the California winter was super harsh, so I didn't run because of the rain and cold. Now, spring is here so I have no excuse. I'm not going to go hardcore. In fact, I'll probably run one day, then rest the next. End up running 3 days, resting for 4 days. My weight is still the same, which is not good, as I'm above 200 pounds. I have a lot more work to do. 

Second, I need to learn how to eat less. Contrary to what Americans believe, it isn't the fact that I don't exercise much that I'm overweight. Its the fact that every day I'm eating too much, overfeeding my body, too many calories. If I can learn to eat less [and drink less soda, drink more water], I can lose weight the natural way, by just allowing the weight to fly off, by letting my body be hungry more. This is more difficult than working out for me because my friends all love to eat out all the time and they sure as hell don't eat healthily. In fact, they're all getting overweight too. I was doing this for a while and I managed to lose twenty pounds. Unfortunately, I went back to bad eating habits and gained the weight back. This is the most difficult task for me. My number one goal.

Third, finish my novella and show it around to some publishers. I've been working on a novella [long short story] and my goal once I've finished it is to show it around to some publishers and try to get it published. If I can't get it published its no big deal. In fact, I think just learning how to write better in the process is worth it just by itself. My goal is 100 pages. I currently have 28 pages. So I've got a lot more writing and editing to do before I even really discuss it with anyone.

Fourth, release an album for sale on Bandcamp. I've been working with an alto saxophonist named Jason Thomas. He says he can get us free studio time. Our end goal is to record at the studio and release the best tracks as an album on Bandcamp, a music website people use to sell their tunes. I also want to perform live with him more whether it just be open mics or real gigs. Hopefully real gigs. I also want to find a bass player so we can have a legit jazz trio. The guitar, alto saxophone duo is cool but we really need that bass for the low end, as well as having the complete complementary instrumentation. 

Fifth, read more books. Reading is my spirit animal at this point. Most of all my blog posts are about novels. I love reading with a  passion. Maybe even as much as music. Or more? Not sure. I want to finish reading The Illiad, read the Aeneid,  the Odysee, finish the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, more Hemingway novels, more philosophy, in particular, finish reading Heidegger's Time and Being. Hopefully, I get to all those. Its a lot but I've got the discipline and reading habit to actually do it. I'm a reading machine.

Sixth, think about finding another job if my family doesn't end up moving. The family plan is to move to Chicago but I'm not sure when if ever that is going to happen. I love California and I'd love to stay here but its too expensive to live here on my own. If we end up staying in California say, another year, then my plan will be to find another job. Retail can only take you so far in life. They're not giving me that many hours anymore. Sometimes its good to know when to pull the plug. 

Life is full of distractions. In a way its good that my friends are busy working most of the time. I've found that seeing my friends only once or twice a week is a lot better for our friendship. Time makes the heart fonder, as they say. Not only that, but I enjoy more free time by myself, where I'm able to work on all my goals. A lot of my friends have moved away and others have drifted apart. Sometimes you have to realize that some people will only be in your life for a short while. Such is life. In the meantime, I'm going to keep pushing myself, and fight the good fight, so to speak. 

John Milton's Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is a biblical epic poem by John Milton, written in 1668, the most well known epic poem in English. It has about 10,000 lines of verse. Milton was a highly religious man, a Protestant until late in life, who became apart of the new government in England, after they chopped off King Henry's head. He worked in government in between writing; poems and discourses on things like divorce and monarchy, he argued that the Divine Right of Kings was wrong, even idolatrous. Paradise Lost tells the story of the fall of man, when Satan tempts Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and ultimately lose Eternity with God in the Garden in Eden.

The story has everything; love, war, peace, evil, politics, science fiction style peaks into the future, marriage talk, sex talk, metaphysics, and philosophy. There are a lot of themes that this book touches on. I'd like to go over a few that I found interesting.

Milton shows us that his God in Paradise Lost is an artistic god, omnific, knowing all, creating all, everything. God is professorial here, the ultimate Monarch. In the passages where we see how God created the Earth, we see the true artist in his godly abilities. Milton's God is also shown as the ultimate sovereign, who sends his Warrior Son Chieftain to single-handedly destroy Satan and his evil angel allies, sending them to Hell. This is unusual because Milton doesn't believe in the Divine Right of Kings, but despite this he chooses to write a biblical epic about the most divine right of thee King. Milton strives to show us "the ways of God to men". Here we must take note and separate Milton's work in Parliament from his work as a poet. The artist's pen differs greatly from the political essays. 

Another theme is the justification of Satan being a sympathetic character. Here, Satan is portrayed as a bad guy, yes, but there's strong argumentation for Satan being a more understandable character than Milton's God, empathy. Sure, Satan is evil, and wants to overthrow God with a third of the angels, but in seeing this we see that, yes he is proud, but we can also see his "radicalism and fraudulence, freedom and its counterfeit fused in a single personality not easily pigeonholed." (hudsonreview) Milton doesn't see Satan as a hero, because Milton understands whats its like to go against an absolute soverign and lose. We can sympathize with Satan's determination, never to yield, perhaps because its inherently human, which we see when Eve eats from the Forbidden fruit. 

Another strong theme is the relationship between Adam and Eve. There's a hierarchical aspect to their relationship because when Raphael comes to warn them of an approaching enemy in the future, Raphael mostly talks with Adam. They talk about marriage, the enemy, even sex. When Satan enters their lives, things change forever. It seems to me that the way Raphael warns Adam and speaks mostly to him, it was like an early temptation for Eve to rebel. 

Once we see Satan travel through the Earth's globe, and take the form of the serpent, we know its all over for the human race. However, what comes off as a surprise is the psychological justification for Eve choosing to rebel from God, and eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and that justification creates greater empathy for Eve than it did for Satan. Its interesting, what a way to write. Of course, Adam choose to Fall with Eve because he "loves his wife too much." He can't stand the thought of being away from her, and the thought of losing another rib doesn't sound too good.

The book is quite astonishing. There's a great scene where after the Fall, Adam talks with the archangel Michael and is shown the future of the human race. This part had a strong emotional effect on me, in some aspects I could see how that future represents the world of today in a way, I almost can't explain it in words, the sheer emotional intelligence brings to mind Wagner's music (my signature daily favorite is Tannhauser), or the sounds of the archaic delta bluesmen, with their yells, shouts, blue notes expressing emotion and pain. This section had a science fiction vibe to it, because they were looking at the heavens at this portal, and seeing everything that would happen on Earth. It was beautiful. 

Another highlight was the description of the civil war between God's angels, Satan, and his army of evil angels. Again, I really like the archangel Michael's stature, because he's the ultimate angel-warrior, with a flaming sword, second only to the Son of God Himself. We get this description of the most epic civil war in the universe. Ultimately though it is Christ Himself, The Son of God, who comes out and single-handedly defeats Satan and his army, sending them to Hell. 

Yet another interesting section was a talk between Satan and his evil angels in Hell. Here we get a real glimpse of the ultimate evil-doers in their lair. This section gave me a strong Dante's Inferno vibe, reminiscent because I just finished reading that a few weeks back. 

Paradise Lost is one of the all time great writings. Its something I plan on going back to and rereading, and I think the poetic beauty in every line will be just as exciting the next time I read it. In today's world, Milton is still relevant. These ideas haven't died as technology has taken over, rather these ideas are forever, and shouldn't be overlooked in the modern age of literature. This isn't just for Lit grad students, its for everyone. 

Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th century epic poem Divine Comedy, its followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. Inferno tells the story of Dante going through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. Hell is depicted as nine circles located within the Earth. Its a famous novel despite being written 700 years ago. People know what Dante's Inferno is, even if they've never read it.


This is a challenging piece of fiction, mainly because its about hell, anguish, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Not only that but because the original work was written in Italian, its can be tough to get a great English translation. But I think my copy from the library was pretty good. If you don't see the book as horrifying and/or an evil grip on your literary senses, you can see the book the way I do, as a fantastical tale, albeit a much darker one.


The writing itself is written in cantos, in which is a form called terza rima, where every three lines rhyme. Getting that literary rhythmic sensibility has been a challenge for every translator that puts it from Italian into English. But once you start reading the book every day and don't stop, you get a sense of the physicality and repetition of the poetry, its rhythmic sensibility.


The lines are quite difficult to get used to at first. I was sort of easing myself into these epics. I started out reading a little bit of the Illiad and then I started reading Milton's Paradise Lost, and then I went ahead and finished Inferno after that, after I had a taste of epic poetry. Its not for everybody. But at the same time its not just for college lit majors either. I think of myself as someone who is intellectually stimulated by these sorts of archaic, classical works. They enrich my literary palette. I have to look up words online, learn ancient slogans, and really move up to speed, learning much along the way. I would say its all worth it.


Inferno is emotionally gripping but that's the reason why I couldn't put it down. It was exciting, human drama. It literally doesn't get more terrifying than Satan at the bottom of a frozen lake, with three heads, of which are Judas Iscariot, Brutius, and Cassiaus, accusers who got Jesus Christ crucified. It was kind of exciting that Achilles' teacher, the centaur Chiron was in hell, leading a brigade of centaurs that shoot arrows at sinners, a sort of mythology religious hybridization.


Most of the people Dante meets in hell are political celebs of that era, people everyone of that time period would have heard of and known about. There's devils torturing humans, and at the bottom of hell there's a frozen lake where people are chewing on each other for eternity, zombies anyone?


Certainly Alighieri is a religious man, a schooled religious man. His ideas on church and government are heard here in sections. Dante makes a note of it that religion is for spiritual purpose and that the state/monarchy's role was primarily secular order, and that the two complemented each other.


The work shows that Hell is a horrible place for sinners, full of real fire and brimstone. As this is only the first part of a trilogy, I'll be reading Purgatorio and Paradiso when I find the time.


Read this if you like classics and poetry

The Beats

The Beats: A Very Short Introduction by David Sterritt is a cute one hundred and twenty six page book about the Beatnik writers and poets from the 1950s. The lives and works of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S.Burroughs are covered with great detail in addition to Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Clellon Holmes, Gary Snyder, and Kenneth Rexroth. I must also mention LeRoi Jones, Anne Waldeman, and DiPrima too, as they are mentioned near the end.

My dad found the short book at the library and thought it would give me a better perspective on the true Hipsters (not the Arcade Fire fans), the Beatniks, as I formed an interest and I've been reading Kerouac's On the Road, which I found out is one of the most important works to come out of this movement.

I learned that the Beats mostly came from middle class and sometimes even bourgeois background, which gave them the comfortable life, which enabled them to becomes Beats in the first place. You can't become an artist and dissident of society if you are struggling to survive or pay rent. They were mostly white males who explored with sexuality, drugs, and religion. Ginsberg and Burroughs were gay in a time where being gay could get you beaten up or possibly killed. The Beats were avid readers of Oriental religious text, and were heavily inspired by Buddhism. Interestingly enough I had a book on Zen Buddhism that I read everyday for a while until I could understand the hermeneutics  of it. I can leave the gay sex and drugs (especially hard drugs) behind though (lol).

Another important influence on the Beats was jazz music, particularly bebop. Ginsberg had a name for Kerouac's improvisational writing style where he would write and write without stopping, creating the sensation of a saxophone player blowing on the bandstand. I like that very much. I'm beginning to see jazz's influence on literature a lot more now after reading this book whereas before when I was just reading about the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a book by George Lewis) and biographies (Kansas City Lightning by Stanley Crouch), I couldn't see that correlation. But now I see that jazz has an even longer extended reach than I previously thought, interesting indeed.

I especially liked the ending of the book where Sterritt makes a bold universal claim; nearly all the movements that sprang up in recent times owe something in part to the Beats. He makes references to the Tea Party Movement, Occupy Movement, Cyberpunk (of which I am definitely apart of) Movement, and more. In a lot of ways I can see that he's right. In order for various movements to be started people have to reject society in a certain way, to create their own form of society through art, in this case through artistic literary works. It's quite wonderful.

All these writers will be legends in the future. The world won't forget them. It seems as society has become more conservative (the Reagan years and now in the Trump years) the ideas of the Beats have never sounded so universal. Sterritt says that there are Beats (in a different sense) in other countries but especially China, where there are people who are different kinds of Beats that might come to important and historical light in the upcoming years. All interesting things to think about.

Its quite a good book and if you want to learn about these great writers, their works, and the Beatniks in general this would be a great place to start. Very informative, engaging, and most importantly fun to read.

Lastly, learning all this stuff about the Beats makes me realize that most of the young people today who believe that are true outsiders are actually quite conservative conformists. The idea of young people today believing that they are 'different', 'cool', outside of the norms of society is quite wrong. Most of them will never truly be outsiders because they will never have to deal with status inconsistency. These writers did. That's the difference.

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jack_kerouac_119789

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. -Kerouac 

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jack_kerouac_119789