2008 beckons...

The year is coming to an end...2008 beckons.

What better way to celebrate but Absolut?

The Most Potty: Lee Scratch Perry

The greatest reggae and ska producer there ever has been. Lee "Scratch" Perry has worked with many of the top reggae artists like U Roy, Gregory Isaacs, Max Romeo, The Bleechers, his own band The Upsetters, The Mighty Diamonds and The Wailers. The Wailers no doubt being the most well known band in that list but certainly not the best. Lee Perry worked with a man called Robert Nesta Marley who would become one of the best known figures in world music.
I have managed to get two of Lee Perry's compilations and they are among my most prized possesions. All the tracks are very old with their artists either dead or forgotten to the world.

I can say with some certainty that music is full of shit these days. Hip-Hop is worth doodley squat in front of the great classics of the yesteryear.

Death Proof(2007)

Death Proof(2007)

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
HBMR Rating:6.0/10*

*In comparison to other films.
In comparison to Quentin Tarantino-3/10

A 6/10 isnt a bad rating. Its not mediocre either, its what I would call "an above average" rating for any film. But then again, Tarantino's film's aren't just any films. Tarantino's films have a knack for becoming cult classics and in comparison to his earlier work, Death Proof is way below average. Death Proof suffers from the Tarantino tag it bears and the high expectations it bears with that tag. I believe that if any one else had made this film, its reception would have been better. This is probably Quentin Tarantino's worst film to date and I really hope he doesn't do worse than this.

In Death Proof, QT has tried to replace the "Bad Mofo's" like Jules and Vincent with the badly contsructed feminine characters Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), Kim (Tracie Thoms) and Zoe (Zoe Bell). The problem is QT did not replace the dialogues. And needless to say this is the downfall of the film. Kim, who is a black woman says the words "nigger", "bitch" and "fuck" about 20 times in each sentence. Now I'm not pointing fingers to any racist sentiments in the mind of QT as has been done by critics before. Neither am I objecting to the foul language. What I am saying is that the "bitch", "nigga" and "fuck" don't come out half as well as they did from the lips of Samuel L. Jackson. Dialogue just does'nt transcend gender.It just doesn't. I dont want to sound chauvinistic but the girls are the problem. What the girls are saying is quite interesting, its just how they're saying it thats a bit pissing off. Whenever Kim or Zoe started to talk I pretty much put the TV on mute and read the subtitles. The other girls were'nt as bad but Kim and Zoe pretty much spoilt it for them. The character of Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) was a waste and could easily have been exempted. It goes without saying that I enjoyed the first set of girls much more than this. Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) and Jungle Julia(Sydney Poitier). Though even Jungle Julia had her foulmouthed moments.

Bluntly put, they were hotter and the lap dance did help. But jokes aside, I feel the film would have been much better without the two different sets of girls. If QT had just eliminated Abernathy and Co. and decided not to kill off Arlene and Co., this film would have been much better.
But I would also like to add that if you replaced the girls with the hard men of Hollywood, this film would not improve too much.

The chase sequence isn't that bad I have to say. That is if you cease all thinking and reasoning.
With Zoe strapped to the front, they go racing at a gazillion miles per hour. They find time to stop, to beat up Kurt Russell but dont find time to unbuckle the helpless Kiwi. QT, again, could have done better.

Kurt Russell obviously is the best part about this film. His character(Stuntman Mike) is extremely well rounded and while his serial-killer persona didn't keep me awake, his crying like a pussy certainly made me laugh. The only thing about his character is that he was underused by QT, his appearance is way too brief. Though when he does come in bits and parts, it is too rescue us from the monotonous dialogue of the inane twittering of the girls. And because he is so briefly cast in the film, KR is not reason enough to see this film.


In the end, I have to say with some sadness that my favourite director let me down this time. Its sad to say but QT's resume will not suffer if this project was exempted. Here's hoping that Inglorious Bastards (2009) will make up for this film. See this film if you have nothing else to do. Nothing.



-AtBp

Howlin' Wolf

The name of this blog is inspired by the one, the only, the raspy Blues guitarist and singer Howlin' Wolf.

KPC

Haha...a bit tough to read though (click on it and it becomes clearer).
Random humour

The Sir Richard Steele's

The pub in North London, Steeles in May 2007.

Conjunctivitis Craze by Me

Something random and dumb done by me on paint on the computer...I like the pink eye.

2BR02B By Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Got a problem? Just pick up the phone. It solved them all—and all the same way!

2

B

R

0

2
B

by KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

---

Everything was perfectly swell.

There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars.

All diseases were conquered. So was old age.

Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.

The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.

One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.

Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine.

X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first.

Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.

The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die.

A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found.

The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer.

Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash-burners.

Never, never, never—not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan—had a garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use.

A hospital orderly came down the corridor, singing under his breath a popular song:

If you don't like my kisses, honey,
Here's what I will do:
I'll go see a girl in purple,
Kiss this sad world toodle-oo.
If you don't want my lovin',
Why should I take up all this space?
I'll get off this old planet,
Let some sweet baby have my place.

The orderly looked in at the mural and the muralist. "Looks so real," he said, "I can practically imagine I'm standing in the middle of it."

"What makes you think you're not in it?" said the painter. He gave a satiric smile. "It's called 'The Happy Garden of Life,' you know."

"That's good of Dr. Hitz," said the orderly.

---

He was referring to one of the male figures in white, whose head was a portrait of Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hospital's Chief Obstetrician. Hitz was a blindingly handsome man.

"Lot of faces still to fill in," said the orderly. He meant that the faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank. All blanks were to be filled with portraits of important people on either the hospital staff or from the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Termination.

"Must be nice to be able to make pictures that look like something," said the orderly.

The painter's face curdled with scorn. "You think I'm proud of this daub?" he said. "You think this is my idea of what life really looks like?"

"What's your idea of what life looks like?" said the orderly.

The painter gestured at a foul dropcloth. "There's a good picture of it," he said. "Frame that, and you'll have a picture a damn sight more honest than this one."

"You're a gloomy old duck, aren't you?" said the orderly.

"Is that a crime?" said the painter.

The orderly shrugged. "If you don't like it here, Grandpa—" he said, and he finished the thought with the trick telephone number that people who didn't want to live any more were supposed to call. The zero in the telephone number he pronounced "naught."

The number was: "2 B R 0 2 B."

It was the telephone number of an institution whose fanciful sobriquets included: "Automat," "Birdland," "Cannery," "Catbox," "De-louser," "Easy-go," "Good-by, Mother," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss-me-quick," "Lucky Pierre," "Sheepdip," "Waring Blendor," "Weep-no-more" and "Why Worry?"

"To be or not to be" was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination.

---

The painter thumbed his nose at the orderly. "When I decide it's time to go," he said, "it won't be at the Sheepdip."

"A do-it-yourselfer, eh?" said the orderly. "Messy business, Grandpa. Why don't you have a little consideration for the people who have to clean up after you?"

The painter expressed with an obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors. "The world could do with a good deal more mess, if you ask me," he said.

The orderly laughed and moved on.

Wehling, the waiting father, mumbled something without raising his head. And then he fell silent again.

A coarse, formidable woman strode into the waiting room on spike heels. Her shoes, stockings, trench coat, bag and overseas cap were all purple, the purple the painter called "the color of grapes on Judgment Day."

The medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal of the Service Division of the Federal Bureau of Termination, an eagle perched on a turnstile.

The woman had a lot of facial hair—an unmistakable mustache, in fact. A curious thing about gas-chamber hostesses was that, no matter how lovely and feminine they were when recruited, they all sprouted mustaches within five years or so.

"Is this where I'm supposed to come?" she said to the painter.

"A lot would depend on what your business was," he said. "You aren't about to have a baby, are you?"

"They told me I was supposed to pose for some picture," she said. "My name's Leora Duncan." She waited.

"And you dunk people," he said.

"What?" she said.

"Skip it," he said.

"That sure is a beautiful picture," she said. "Looks just like heaven or something."

"Or something," said the painter. He took a list of names from his smock pocket. "Duncan, Duncan, Duncan," he said, scanning the list. "Yes—here you are. You're entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here you'd like me to stick your head on? We've got a few choice ones left."

She studied the mural bleakly. "Gee," she said, "they're all the same to me. I don't know anything about art."

"A body's a body, eh?" he said, "All righty. As a master of fine art, I recommend this body here." He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was carrying dried stalks to a trash-burner.

"Well," said Leora Duncan, "that's more the disposal people, isn't it? I mean, I'm in service. I don't do any disposing."

The painter clapped his hands in mock delight. "You say you don't know anything about art, and then you prove in the next breath that you know more about it than I do! Of course the sheave-carrier is wrong for a hostess! A snipper, a pruner—that's more your line." He pointed to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead branch from an apple tree. "How about her?" he said. "You like her at all?"

"Gosh—" she said, and she blushed and became humble—"that—that puts me right next to Dr. Hitz."

"That upsets you?" he said.

"Good gravy, no!" she said. "It's—it's just such an honor."

"Ah, You admire him, eh?" he said.

"Who doesn't admire him?" she said, worshiping the portrait of Hitz. It was the portrait of a tanned, white-haired, omnipotent Zeus, two hundred and forty years old. "Who doesn't admire him?" she said again. "He was responsible for setting up the very first gas chamber in Chicago."

"Nothing would please me more," said the painter, "than to put you next to him for all time. Sawing off a limb—that strikes you as appropriate?"

"That is kind of like what I do," she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them.

---

And, while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into the waitingroom bounded Dr. Hitz himself. He was seven feet tall, and he boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living.

"Well, Miss Duncan! Miss Duncan!" he said, and he made a joke. "What are you doing here?" he said. "This isn't where the people leave. This is where they come in!"

"We're going to be in the same picture together," she said shyly.

"Good!" said Dr. Hitz heartily. "And, say, isn't that some picture?"

"I sure am honored to be in it with you," she said.

"Let me tell you," he said, "I'm honored to be in it with you. Without women like you, this wonderful world we've got wouldn't be possible."

He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms. "Guess what was just born," he said.

"I can't," she said.

"Triplets!" he said.

"Triplets!" she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications of triplets.

The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents of the child could find someone who would volunteer to die. Triplets, if they were all to live, called for three volunteers.

"Do the parents have three volunteers?" said Leora Duncan.

"Last I heard," said Dr. Hitz, "they had one, and were trying to scrape another two up."

"I don't think they made it," she said. "Nobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but singles going through today, unless somebody called in after I left. What's the name?"

"Wehling," said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy. "Edward K. Wehling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be."

He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarsely wretched chuckle. "Present," he said.

"Oh, Mr. Wehling," said Dr. Hitz, "I didn't see you."

"The invisible man," said Wehling.

"They just phoned me that your triplets have been born," said Dr. Hitz. "They're all fine, and so is the mother. I'm on my way in to see them now."

"Hooray," said Wehling emptily.

"You don't sound very happy," said Dr. Hitz.

"What man in my shoes wouldn't be happy?" said Wehling. He gestured with his hands to symbolize care-free simplicity. "All I have to do is pick out which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternal grandfather to the Happy Hooligan, and come back here with a receipt."

---

Dr. Hitz became rather severe with Wehling, towered over him. "You don't believe in population control, Mr. Wehling?" he said.

"I think it's perfectly keen," said Wehling tautly.

"Would you like to go back to the good old days, when the population of the Earth was twenty billion—about to become forty billion, then eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what a drupelet is, Mr. Wehling?" said Hitz.

"Nope," said Wehling sulkily.

"A drupelet, Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little pulpy grains of a blackberry," said Dr. Hitz. "Without population control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old planet like drupelets on a blackberry! Think of it!"

Wehling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.

"In the year 2000," said Dr. Hitz, "before scientists stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat but sea-weed—and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jackrabbits. And their right, if possible, to live forever."

"I want those kids," said Wehling quietly. "I want all three of them."

"Of course you do," said Dr. Hitz. "That's only human."

"I don't want my grandfather to die, either," said Wehling.

"Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox," said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically.

"I wish people wouldn't call it that," said Leora Duncan.

"What?" said Dr. Hitz.

"I wish people wouldn't call it 'the Catbox,' and things like that," she said. "It gives people the wrong impression."

"You're absolutely right," said Dr. Hitz. "Forgive me." He corrected himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a title no one ever used in conversation. "I should have said, 'Ethical Suicide Studios,'" he said.

"That sounds so much better," said Leora Duncan.

"This child of yours—whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Wehling," said Dr. Hitz. "He or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean, rich planet, thanks to population control. In a garden like that mural there." He shook his head. "Two centuries ago, when I was a young man, it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us as far as the imagination cares to travel."

He smiled luminously.

The smile faded as he saw that Wehling had just drawn a revolver.

Wehling shot Dr. Hitz dead. "There's room for one—a great big one," he said.

And then he shot Leora Duncan. "It's only death," he said to her as she fell. "There! Room for two."

And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children.

Nobody came running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots.

The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively on the sorry scene.

---

The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born and, once born, demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply and to live as long as possible—to do all that on a very small planet that would have to last forever.

All the answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer, surely, than a Catbox, a Happy Hooligan, an Easy Go. He thought of war. He thought of plague. He thought of starvation.

He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to the drop-cloths below. And then he decided he had had about enough of life in the Happy Garden of Life, too, and he came slowly down from the ladder.

He took Wehling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself.

But he didn't have the nerve.

And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went to it, dialed the well-remembered number: "2 B R 0 2 B."

"Federal Bureau of Termination," said the very warm voice of a hostess.

"How soon could I get an appointment?" he asked, speaking very carefully.

"We could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir," she said. "It might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation."

"All right," said the painter, "fit me in, if you please." And he gave her his name, spelling it out.

"Thank you, sir," said the hostess. "Your city thanks you; your country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2008

Why is everyone waiting for the New Year so bad?
This year wasnt soo bad, I kind of liked it.

But this happens every year, the only thing people look forward to after seven-eight months of the year are over is December 31st. Its like they are hoping for some sort of kick in the ass from god that will wake them from their slumber. The New Year doesn't deserve any new celebrations if you ask me. We just draw one year closer to our deaths. I think people feel that all their troubles are going to disappear with 2007, just like they had hoped would happen with 2006. But the fact of the matter is that everything will still be on the table the next morning on the great day of the 1st of January 2008. For better or worse. Your bills will need to be paid, you'll have to talk to your parents, you'll find out what the vodka did the night before, the exams will come, your children will grow up, you will grow up and the new year will also end.

But I guess we just need a reason to party, we all do and what better reason the party to than a celebration of false hope?

Choose Life

“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television; choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday night. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?”

I don't do heroin, there are reasons.

Movies To Watch

Great films have been made over the years and I do not think its humanly possible to make a best 250 list or anything. But we all do love lists. So here's a list of 10 movies that i thought were good enough to spend time on. These are just 10 random movies I like and they are in no particular order. This isn't a list of great achievements in filmmaking, these are movies I like and for no definite reasons. I'll try coming up with lists like these often.

1. Life Is Beautiful(1997)

2.Fight Club(1999)

3.The Seven Samurai(1954)

4.Good Bye Lenin!(2003)

5.Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind(2004)

6.The Lion King(1994)

7.Memento(2000)

8.American History X(1998)

9.Snatch(2000)

10. The Green Mile(1999)

Warhol Montage

A montage on the term "Warhol" on Google images.

For more information: Montage-a-Google

Nietszche

A casual stroll through any street in the world shows that faith does not prove anything.

Music

An essay on music by me

"Music has magical powers and affects everyone in identical ways"

Discuss and analyse the merits of this statement.

"They say music can alter moods and talk to you,

Well can it load a gun up for you, and cock it too?"

-Eminem

The instructions read "Discuss and analyse the merits of this statement". I shall be discussing the demerits of this statement as I find it false.

I shall first elaborate my point of view on the statement.

I feel this statement superficially defines music and portrays it as a two-dimensional entity while we all know that music is a three dimensional entity and that it is far too profound to be described in words. Music may be magical at times, but at times it is quite the opposite. This part of the statement can still be defended but the next segment is what I find outrageous.

Music does not affect everyone in "identical ways". For this too happen, our individuality of musical choice and basic individuality of mind would have to be stripped. The mathematical and scientific term for our cognatic state would be known as "a constant". Just like in a mathematical problem, a constant remains unchanged; our minds would be the same and our thinking process identical.

Even this does not ensure the "identical" effect of music as, if our minds are the constant, music is then the variable and there are thousands of forms of music that address different issues and thereby affect different people differently.

The effect of music not only depends on the listener but also depends on the cultural context of the listener. It depends on the political set up the individual belongs to, his religion, his intellect.

For example a Bob Marley song entitled "Get Up, Stand Up", which talks mainly about liberation and standing up for your rights will have different effects on a sixteen year old in Pakistan, a dictatorship and a sixteen year old in India, a democracy. Assuming that these two adolescents are Reggae and Bob Marley fans and enjoy this type of music. Though the youth in India will feel somewhat roused by it, he will feel helpless like a rebel without a cause; the youth in Pakistan will almost feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

A new study about music has progressed over the years and has developed a name, Ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology is the study of music in its cultural context. Wikipedia calls it the anthropology or ethnography of music.

I shall now discuss the first part of the statement in detail; it deals with the "magical powers" of music. Let me add here that what “magical” here implies is only the ethereality of magic and the “dark side” of magic is not taken into account. This is because I do not feel the topic implies black magic, it is the simplistic definition of magic that a 7 year old would think of. So therefore I shall refute this statement by refuting music’s “magical” powers.

I agree that music possess magical powers that relax, heal and stimulate the mind at the same time. We all have become aware of the Mozart Effect, which is a scientific study that claims that classical music stimulates brain activity positively more than any other form of music. Though it will be wrong and almost criminal of us to give so much credit to music as a whole as to call it "magical". Certain forms of music have been known to blind people and fuel hate inside their minds. Gangsta Rap and Death Metal are two forms of this immoral and damnable form of music. Gangsta Rap is also used in the brainwashing of child-soldiers in Africa. This fact was communicated and shown to the masses with an English film called "Blood Diamond" that released in 2006. With its strong lyrics and the oozing violence, it has a number of detrimental effects on not only a child but anybody.

Gangsta Rap ever since it developed in the United States in the 1980's has been a centre of controversy. It has been accused of foul themes such as extreme violence, drugs, the darkest form of misogynism, sexual promiscuity, homophobia and maximal profanity. Nearly all of the artists in this genre when it first started were of the African-American community and were nearly always belonging to the streets. This is how John H. McWhorter, in his article 'How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back' writing for the City Journal in the summer of 2003 put it,

"…that ghetto life is so hopeless that an explosion of violence is both justified and imminent—would become a hip-hop mantra in the years ahead."

Soon Gangsta Rap broke out of the "black" tag it bore and people of all colours started identifying with it, and now there are more white customers in the U.S.A. of Rap than Black, Gangsta Rap brainwashes like no other genre of music, I feel that Gangsta Rap has brainwashed and killed the intellect of a whole generation of American children. Those who didn't identify with it are the ones that got out alive. Not only is Gangsta Rap leading to the downfall of American children, with the tide of globalisation spreading, youth all over the world have been exposed to this attractive looking lifestyle. In the early and mid 20th century they had War Propaganda being spread viciously in every country, Russia, U.S.A., Germany, Britain, France etc., this century's equivalent of War Propaganda is probably the misleading of the youth, and one of the elements is Gangsta Rap.

Death Metal which at first glance seems much more detrimental than Gangsta Rap as it involves the far blacker themes of Satanism and other obscurities is less harmful. A form of Death Metal called Blackened Death Metal is a genre of music which is the lowest form of music possible includes the themes of dismemberment, Satanism, Neo-Nazism, Nihilism (which is prominent in Gangsta Rap as well) and some other rather graphic ones.

The only reason Death Metal is not as harmful as Gangsta Rap is that it does not have a large enough audience to maim, only very few deranged, damned human beings have found it to suit their taste.

Different types of music have different effects and not all are magical. Music is one medium that has become immensely popular among the youth of the world and this is not entirely healthy. I have said before that I feel music has become a new sort of propaganda around the world as the youth brainwashed by blatant consumerism have indulged in this material lifestyle without knowing the adverse effects of it.

The second segment of the statement which states the "identical" effect of music is extremely wrong and this is because of the simple reason that the conditions of the individual that the music acts upon are never the same for even two people.

Music acts on two levels, external and personal. The external plane includes history, political framework, society and economy. This means that the persons history as well as the history of his region comes in the picture along with, the political system in which he lives in, his position in the local or national society and its traditions and the state of the economy of the state (no pun intended).

The personal plane includes his likes and dislikes, the facets of his disposition, his own life history, his experiences, his religious beliefs etc.

Another extremely important factor is that is the mood and state of mind of the listener at the time.

Music can charge us, it calms us, and it will wake us up if we wish to be woken from our oblivious state. Music does to us whatever we let it do. I feel music is like a liquid; it takes any shape you want it to take and is free-flowing.

The Mod Acrostic By G.M. Davis

Should art be autotelic, or for use?
Only for pleasure; all else would be abuse.
Can it not point us to the wise and good?
Rarely--and there's no reason why it should.
An artist, then, may lack a moral sense?
Too true--and there's an alp of evidence.
Is Matthew Arnold not a guiding light?
Call him instead a kind of Prozac-lite.
Must culture only be panacea?
Ethics are the tastes of the yesteryear.
Then appetitites are all you recognize?
Hedonic jouissance is what I prize.
Oh, is there nothing that can lift your soul?
Decidedly: sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.