Just a little bit of proof that, even nearly 2100 years ago, people were putting their difficulties and problems into writing. Today, you're 'emo'. Back then? You're a writer, and a rather famous one, at that. Maybe even Dashboard Confessional would be poetic if they'd been around in 70 BC?
"Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
Et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,
Cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat
Amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla.
Ibi illa multa cum icocosa fiebat,
Quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat.
Fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.
Nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque. impotens, noli,
Nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,
Sed obstinata mente prefer, obdura.
Vale, puella. Iam Catullus obdurate,
Nec te rquiret nec rogabit invitam:
At tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.
Scaelesta, vae te. Quae tibi manet vita?
Quis nunc te adibit? Cui videberis bella?
Quem nunc amabis? Cuius esse diceris?
Quem basiabis? Cui labella mordebis?
At tu, Catulle, desinatus obdura.
VIII, Gaius Valerius Catullus, 84 - 54 BC"
Miserable Catullus, may you cease to be foolish,
And what you see to have perished, may you accept to have been lost.
Once gleaming suns shone for you,
When you came to where the girl was leading,
No one having been loved will be loved as much by me.
There when she did many pleasing things,
Which you wished nor did the girl not wish.
Truly gleaming suns shone for you.
Even now she does not wish: you also, powerless, do not wish,
And do not pursue what flees, nor, miserable, live,
But with mind resolved, be obdurate.
Farewell, girl. Now Catullus is stubborn,
Neither will he seek you nor ask you unwilling:
But you will grieve, when you will be asked nothing.
Evil one, woe to you. What life remains for you?
Who now will go to you? To whom will you seem beautiful?
Whom now will you love? Whose will you be said to be?
Whom will you kiss? Whose little lips will you bite?
But you, Catullus, determined, be obdurate.
Look, I don't like whining any more than the next guy. Listening to a song with no musical merit or melodic talent bugs me just like it would anyone who values such things in their music.
But please, for the love of God, give the "EMO!" cries a bloody rest. I'm sick of good music getting a bad rap because the singer feels like saying something with a bit of feeling to it. Life sucks sometimes, and ignoring that in music would make it paper-thin and vapid.
If the woman you loved was married, loved a sparrow more than you, was ten years your senior, would live to be twice your age because you were to die at thirty due to an unhealthy lifestyle, and had just revealed that she had no real feelings for you to begin with, you'd want to tell the world, too.
Two thousand years from now, the lyrics of "Sexy Back" won't be on anyone's blog, but someone might still find meaning in "Soul Meets Body".
I was wrong, it seems.
I left that Creator a note, did my best to impress, and in return?
Noise, squawking, and the scent of soiled earth.
He hasn’t fleed.
He hasn’t retreated,
Left,
Given up,
Hidden.
He’s become one of them, too.
Pickles taste like salty, dill-soaked God.
This,
This place is gorgeous, but the people are not.
Their outsides, perhaps, but their merit has
Rotted away.
They stand, most in pairs, a few off and alone,
Ever quiet, ever still, hardly speaking, their prone
Forms held together by ties invisible.
Why don’t they speak? It’s not that they can’t.
They are, to themselves, to the people they know
Won’t object to the sounds that come out.
They’ve lost their words, their eloquence, to favor
A different manner of subversive behavior for,
By chance, from their mouths, wide and creaking,
Issues forth not language, not a means of speaking,
But a means to an end.
“Get out, go away, we don’t want you here.”
Not in those words, as I’m likened to hear,
But in discordant syllables,
Jumbled,
and ripped from themselves,
Missing parts, missing wholes,
Missing marrow.
They have no patience, no need for those who might take offense
At their manner and ‘Vulgarian’ accent.
They have friends, and their lovers,
And thereby no need for others.
The trees sway in a breeze simulated
By someone who had known his work would be jaded
By undeserving folk who know nothing of prose.
He knew his sculptures, his grass, his art
Were in the service of clods, of cretins.
He had created something beautiful, pristine,
Full of meaning,
Of art, and of merit,
Of beauty and flow and of fineness,
Hours he’d toiled, worked, sweated, refined it
To be perfect.
His work has no faults.
Its beauty, no shame.
Its hills and its valleys,
The streams and the plains
Are free of contempt.
They are perfect, of course,
It was these ‘people’ who went
And ruined it.
A friend brought me here.
Not my request, not by urging,
But by, on a chance, I had just been perusing
His journal.
He’d circled it, in his own little fashion,
A way to mark which places he fancied
To travel.
“The Gardens of Apollo”,
when I set upon eyes,
were just as I’d hoped.
Green below, cloud-filled skies,
And people abound.
But I’ve been here, now, too long,
And I can see them more clearly, having moved closer.
Their shells are plaster,
And in deeper? No different.
Porcelain, rubber, colored with pigment
To appear Human.
They might have been beautiful, once.
They might be beautiful, now.
But this place has changed them, and if I’m not careful,
It will change me, too.
The garden is easy.
It’s simple, it’s sweeping,
And large enough for all.
Had the creator remained, it would still be worth
Our time, there.
He’s gone. He’s taken his spark,
Packed up, and left those transfixed by his work
To dine together on clay plates.
Without him, the trees sway about,
And they will,
Until the statues stop speaking and rest,
Content to stare at one another’s chiseled forms
Until they crack and fade.
I won’t return, despite how at home I feel,
In a place built for people with minds and ears
Trained to see detail. I see too deeply,
And what’s inside their stony forms chills me.
The ease is killing them,
And they’ve already tasted too much of its poison
To escape the muck.
I won’t let it take me.
A giant rendition of Atlas,
Holding the world on his shoulders,
And the children of Zeus,
Playing freely.
Great statues, with great purpose,
holding more life and meaning
than all the smaller ones that stand about,
To observe them
the gardens of apollo are beautiful
tnd the soil smells like home but
the people are cold and lifeless
and i can't stay here
alone,
much longer
Here's my problem.
I can write a rap verse about Statistics in the shower, think up a way to tie it into a song about harassing metrosexuals, and come up with enough extra verses and a backbeat to actually form a viable piece of grainy, sub-par, somewhat humorous music.
I have Garage Band and Acid Pro, I have a microphone.
The only thing stopping me is the fact that I know that, regardless of how good a job I do, it'll sound like a whiny little teenager wrote it, and despite my efforts to fight off the sound of my own voice, I can't fix that.
Additionally? Who the fuck, other than the kid's parents, ever gave a shit about the musical workings of a seventeen year old? You have to be a bloody savant to produce anything good enough to avoid the 'you're young and don't know what you're doing' stereotype that goes along with exercising creative license in music.
That, and, my brain is so obsessed with avoiding stereotypes that I'm not even willing to _TRY_ to prove one wrong, for fear of being 'lumped in' with the rest.
... I need a hug and some balls.
The correlation coefficient of
your line is not sufficient to
provide 'good evidence' that
linearity's efficient.
I don't care what your eyes say,
your sight is not omniscient.
The residuals are curved, man,
the result's significant.
.... Word.
If you could pick a cartoon world to live in, which would it be? Why?
Submitted by Scio, Scio.
I already do, to some degree.
If you've ever heard of SL, I don't necessarily 'recommend' it, as the whole place is populated by furries, creepists, perverts, children pretending to be adults, and adults acting like children.
If you can hold your own, though, it can be a neat place to meet people, write, and occasionally build stuff with folks, s'long as people don't come around to tell you how stupid you are.
www.SecondLife.com is the site for it, if you'd like to check it out, though as a warning, it's really not all that new-user-friendly, and as I said before, it's not the friendliest and most wholesome of places.
As an aside, this took me hours, but I finally got one version of "Kirrei" cut out from a screenshot, from said game. You don't have to like it, or like the concept, but acknowledge the time and the ache in my fingers.
What's in a screen/user name? Tell us how you found yours.
Submitted by Bill.
Kirrei Vaash is actually a pseudonym comprised of a couple different aspects.
Ambiguity of gender, age, and ethnicity is a plus, especially when your name is there to give people a first-guess at who you are. I don't know about you, but I tend to take 'eninemgurl1157' less seriously than I might others, at first glance. I'm not about to lie about myself, but I'd rather not have it out there without my request, yah?
It's also somewhat reflective of Latin. "i" is the plural nominative and vocative ending for a masculine noun in the first declension, along with a few other things. I'm not more than one person, but ending a name in 'us' just tends to sound funny, in all but a few cases. The name's construction also means that 'ae' can be substituted for 'i'. Any guesses as to what that effect might be, to someone who's analyzing gender?
Lastly, it was just something that came to me one day while I was wandering around, probably listening to music or talking to myself. I'm not horrible at gibberish, and with three years of Latin rumbling around my brain and a life of reading and loving Fantasy, stuff can occasionally just flow out without will. Ah well.
Kirrei's also a character I use in some stories/art, so he works as my stand-in, in places like this.
Macbook is back! <3
...
...<3..?
<3 = (< + 3)
(< + 3) + (=) = ?
< + (=) + 3 = ?
< + = + 3 = <=3
<=3.
... ()?
Recent Comments
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Kirrei Vaash said:
I whine about everyday shit all the time. Often times, it's right to your face, and you laugh and joke... read more
on F**k you, Emo-Haters. -
Cassie said:
I think that just makes them irrelevant. You're right, it's not their fault that I don't like their music. I'm... read more
on F**k you, Emo-Haters. -
Kirrei Vaash said:
Does that make their problems meaningless, or simply irrelevant? You can 'not care' or 'not want to hear' all you... read more
on F**k you, Emo-Haters. -
Cassie said:
You just said that you "don't care what you're talking about in a song". I think that lyrics have a... read more
on F**k you, Emo-Haters.
lol read more
on QotD: What A Character