Cryptowen

Weird Essay About Rifts Part 2: Owen Gets Stoned & Listens to Rifts Now for the record I don't usually smoke drugs & listen to music, or do much of anything really. I mostly just smoke drugs & sit in a corner crying & making woopwoop noises. The only exception that springs to mind is that one time in winter, I was well reefered in a car driving through a city at night. "Horse With No Name" came on the radio & the drums swirled around me like a soft wooden hurricane. The guitar pulled me into the radio while the vocals echoed above, like the voice of God speaking directly to me. I was the desert, I was the horse, I was a non-existent name. The guy driving the car said "man this song is shitty" but then last night It was my first time alone in a new apartment, in a new city where I don't yet speak the language. I began to unpack my luggage, & came across not one but two whole marijuanas. They'd been in a car in the sun for three weeks now, & had taken on a sickly brown colour. I cracked the jar open. Now it smells like Swamp Thing took a shit in my room. "I should smoke that", I think. Now, keep in mind that I don't do drugs often, because my tolerance is low & I get right fuckin wacky. But it had been a few months so I figured "why not". My usual smoking apparatus (a pop can with holes in it) was unavailable, so I had to improvise. Ripped a page out of The History of Western Philosophy, rolled a doobie roughly the size of a small dog, went to the balcony. First hit. Black smoke billows all over the place. Vertigo. "Oh god Swampthing you motherfucker". I soldier through half of it before being over taken by nausea. Rush to the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror. Oh shit I'm starting to get the swirlies I should listen to drone music. Now, the thing that really got me about that last Rifts reissue was that it put "Woe is the Transgression" as the opening track, & not the unique, simplistic beauty of "Behind the Bank". I mean, this is a compilation where every other track is a winner for me, that collectively send me on a 3-hour mystical journey even in the soberest of states. And here this guy is starting off with the ten minutes of harsh wandering synth tone. Never got that. Until the devil's lettuce opened my eyes. Suddenly it became clear. The harshness, it was cathartic. Putting it at the start like this, it was like confronting your own ugliest traits, looking them right in the eye instead of pretending they don't exist like humans do. I wrote a note to myself I was a point of light, arcing down a blue wire in slow motion. There was beauty in this place, finally. It had been there all along. I made another note The opening pads of "Behind the Bank" hit me like a busload of pandas. Blue, blue, my god everything's bright dark neon blue in this world. And that melody. So unconventional. So...natural. It was *my notes at this point also make reference to the film Zardoz but that is another topic* I turned the volume way down. Barely audible. I understood now. Ambient music is better when it's like this, barely discernible. Left up to the imagination. My memories at this point(never) become hazy. I lay in the dark, drifting in & out of what must have been sleep (though my consciousness remained level throughout). The music wrapped around me. Colours. Motion. "Woe is the Transgression" returned, and We are all reflections of one another. Yes, it was very clear now. The masculine & feminine of everything. The synchronicity. The eternity at the core of all moments. The aquatic arpeggios of "Ships Without Meaning" surround me. I am in some sort of alien womb.The point of life By the time I got to Terminator Lake/Transmat Memories I was pretty well trip ballin. I could remember composing this music in a previous life. That's why things resonate with you, y'know? Because you remember them from before. The notes & progressions were no longer important. It was all shapes & imagery, another reality being constructed right up there in the air. All music is this to varying degrees, but good drone/ambient does it so much better than most, with it's complete disregard for human conventions. Midway through the vast metal structure that is "A Pact Between Strangers" I felt real sleep overtaking me & knew I would go no further. That was okay. I was this music, vast & eternal. So I stopped the music & dreamt, reliving memories of my father's childhood. I recorded more notes that night but it's mostly just symbolic references to doors & fucking, so here is the final segment

I think I made that but it's on my old computer somewhere so i dunno

Hesitation Marks are actually when you need to take a poop but you keep holding off because you're scared of the toilet monster & by the time you've worked up the nerve to go there's already shit streaks in yer underwear

I thought Ghosts did a decentish job of stretching his melodic range a bit. There's tracks on there that sound downright playful (of course this might have been due to Ghosts being a bunch of guys in a room freestyling on instruments, hard to tell how much was actually Reznor on that one)

Gotta say though, I still think the lyrics are cheese as hell & the music isn't really breaking new ground, but frigged if this song hasn't been stuck in my head all day. The rezzler must still be doing something right...

Yeh that's my thinking NIN lyrics have always been goofy but he had a way of selling it each time around that he was teenage angst/suicidally depressed/feeling listless/mad about political stuff. This just kinda feels like oh jeez i gotta make another nin album better find something to be aggro about I thought Ghosts established that he was okay with making chill albums but maybe not?

only when it's my tracks

Rush Hour 2 because i don't remember how it went

I watched Primer a while back & while I didn't dislike it it felt kind of like if the guy from Pi had made Pi

Altered States the first half of this was the second most accurate depiction i've seen on film of how it feels when i get high (first place going to Zardoz). Second half with the monkey man etc felt a little more hollywood, but the ending message of "eternity is a fearful place & true enlightenment lies in the present" matches up pretty well with the theme of my recent spiritual experiences

they should call place beyond the pines "motorcycle of violence"

as soon as the edward scissorhands samples came in i was sold

MY BOOMBOX BROKE NOW I CAN'T LISTEN TO MY OPN CDs WHILE I'M ON THE TOILET #shitswithoutmeaning

points to anyone who can connect Jandek or Wesley Willis to kanye in 5 steps I can connect Jandek to Thurston Moore in 2 so I think it's doable?

I forget what I posted last time I was here

"this finale's off to an okay start, but man it's moving slow" "i wonder how they're gonna wrap things up with only like 20 minutes left" *checks time* *two minutes left in episode*

apparently that guy is becoming show runner in S4, so that's kinda promising maybe?

took this from a moving car with a handheld skillllzzzzzz

I got bored 2 questions into the eyes quiz & quit. Maybe that means I've got the attenti

Just edit together two hours of footage from the old films & give it a new soundtrack (something groovy & improvisational), call it Jazz Bond

"Carl, watch the wire" finally rick's saying things that make sense

omg tom waits

Yeah primer was a little dry for my tastes, but to its credit (i think?) it's one of the few films i've seen that truly confused me

Hausu holy heck