Why do these two songs

seem strangely and delightfully similar? :)


Winnie the Pooh 2011 - The Backson














listen here (embedding disabled because Fuck You copyright Nazis)








Lovin' the dark-ish minor key on both. Well-crafted, awesome melodies.


~

Let's Skin Us Some Pirates: Neverland's bloodfest as written by Barrie

Mr Tarantino has nothing on J.M. Barrie. The author of the beloved Peter Pan was a small, frail man with an imagination that rivaled the bloodlust of Blackbeard, a writer who unleashed a romp through the fantasy battlefield of little boys – but with a very real body count.

Not that anyone makes a big deal of it. All's fair in child's play, after all. And Peter is nothing if not fair.

"There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us," Peter told him. If you like, we'll go down and kill him."

"Suppose," John said, “he were to wake up.”

Peter spoke indignantly. “You don’t think I would kill him while he was sleeping! I would wake him first, then kill him. That’s the way I always do.”

He’s not just bragging, either.

He often went out alone, and you were never absolutely certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten about it completely; and then when you went out you found the body…

These charming bits more or less give you a picture of the sort of wonderland we’re visiting. That is, the sort where life is cheaper than a pint of pirate rum.

The boys on the island vary in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.

And by ‘thinning them out’, I have no choice but to assume He Offs Them.

Probably by throwing them to the crocodile.

Then again, facing a man like James Hook repeatedly must cultivate a ruthless streak in the sweetest of boys – not that Pan (Barrie’s Pan, not Disney’s) has ever been sweet. When your entire life ambition involves taking down one of fiction’s most awesome villains, you want to have a heart that matches your balls of steel. Mr Barrie takes utmost delight in demonstrating Hook’s sheer badassery in this one paragraph:

Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do. As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside and the pirates pass on. He has not even taken the cigars from his mouth.

Around the line ‘Skylights will do’, you begin to get the feeling that the isle of Neverland takes murder lightly. And not just-another-day-in-a-mafia-thug’s-life lightly. More like tra-la-la lightly. Neverland does not breed sissies. It is a place where the most ‘pathetic’ of men is one who affectionately names his sword as he twists and turns it in your wound.

You read me.

“Shall I after him, captain,” asked pathetic Smee, “and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew?” Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew because he wriggled it in the wound. One could mention many loveable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.

In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s Mr Smee. The so-called ‘good guy’ pirate in every film adaptation of Pan thereafter, the one who might reluctantly slug a fellow man but spare the children. Tough luck, kids. If you’re lucky he won’t wriggle that blade too much. Oh and, since he’s too busy cleaning his glasses, your blood will have the honour of adorning his instrument of death.

It’s not just the pirates who are to be feared, either. Neverland is a savage place, and by the time night falls it’s best to be safely tucked up in the Lost Boys’ secret burrow. You’re not in the sterile paper cut-out forest of picture books. You’re in the jungle, baby.

The redskins disappear as soon as they have come, like shadows, and soon their place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions, tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from them; for every kind of beast and, more particularly, the man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the island. Their tongues are hanging out, and they are hungry tonight.

Oh, and traipsing around to dance with the fairies might be a good idea, or not, depending on whether it’s Orgy night.

You read me.

The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with a bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking beautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy.

Now this story was written at a time when ‘gay’ meant happy, so I’m fairly sure the fairies weren’t unsteady from attempting the reverse cowgirl while airborne. But somehow it doesn’t make the context any less...intriguing. To quote from the fairly reliable Dictionary.com, an orgy could also be:

-Uncontrolled or immoderate indulgence in an activity

-A secret rite in the cults of ancient Greek or Roman deities, typically involving frenzied singing, dancing, drinking, and sexual activity

. . .

You know what, screw it. I’m going with the second definition.

-

Nothing's Gonna Change My World

Having recently rewatched that fantabulous musical film Across The Universe, I am tempted to muse on a dream I had some three or four years ago. A dream that began in chaos and confusion but ended in a strange, peaceful feeling. And I say strange because I have never felt like that in real life. Yet.

The song began playing about three quarters into that muddled pillow-cradled thought-phantasm. I'm not sure why. I had no particular fixation on it at the time; hadn't even listened to it once that day. But it blew like gentle breeze into my miserably confused psychological opera. There is a wonderful subtle glow of acceptance in those words: "Nothing's gonna change my world." Repeat it, say it again and again, when your hopes and your very self is on the verge of being blown to smithereens like an absinthe glass at the end of a deadshot Colt.

It works.

In the dream I was struck with a semi-realization that I can't, in the conscious realm, put a name on. But I think that all it was saying, was this.

Embrace change, but also embrace what you can't change.

For all things are temporary. (Some Buddhist philosophy for you; if John were alive right now he'd tell it to ya.)

Nothing lasts forever. And everything - joy, pain, sorrow - will pass.

Jai guru deva ohm.

~ ~ ~

Few things are built for eternity. Even Paradise can fall. And it will fall again, and rise again. Such is the way of the great circle.
Serpent 17:19

-

6 Reasons Smokers Won't Quit

(and 6 reasons non-smokers feel tempted to start)


1. It just looks good.
Whether you're an elegant she-devil or a machismo-loaded cowboy, cigarettes are part of the picture. It gives you a chance to whip out that expensive Zippo, to dangle your slim ciggie holder like Cruella De Vil, while looking like you Couldn't Give A Fuck. Smoking is also a symbol of female liberation & bad-assery, as Kristen Stewart's Joan Jett in Runaways proved. Silver screens whisper that the languid serpentine coil drifting from the glowing tip of your cancer stick is sexy. And goddamnit, they're right.

Speaking of cancer...


2. Your grandpa smokes 10 Marlboros a day and is still alive.
He also downs Guinness like a mofo, which seems to further prove that everything your li'l yuppie health mag ever told you was bullshit. Lung tumours? Are you kiddin'? He looks tumours in the face and laughs like the cowboy he is. Meanwhile, you're 25, hit the gym every evening and still struggle with a spare tyre.

You'd think ol' granddad was the exception. But no....


3. Rock stars who look great for 50-year-old nicotine addicts
There's a reason rebellious youths get an urge to play some shredding guitar with a roll between their teeth. It goes with the whole...image. The leather; the tight ripped denim; the nonchalance of checking out chicks through a faint haze of smoke. It makes you bad-boy archetype. It makes you feel like Slash. A guy who once drank and puffed himself into cardiac arrest, and still looks like sex. Him and your grandpa are out to make the entire medical community look like dicks.

And since the mention of dicks came up...


4. Phallic power & all that loaded symbolism
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes it's a badge of Arnold's action-hero testosterone. Or an innuendo-laden flirtation tool. If you've ever felt turned on by a lover lighting your smoke, you know the power of the humble deathstick*. It also possibly provides an explanation to the post-coitus cigarette.

(*that's what they call it in Star Wars Ep III. because Obi-Wan never met Slash or your granddad.)

It's not just a useful come-on, though. Cigarettes are also great for perfectly platonic interactions...


5. It's what social people do.
As if staring at computers all day long wasn't unhealthy enough, most yuppies pick up ciggies as a convenient bonding activity. It's a great way to meet someone new or catch up on old times. It's the great equaliser between you and your boss (one pair of tar-stained lungs look the same as another). And notice how you don't need to be a good conversationalist? Having something to do with your fingers and mouth means the effortless filling of silent awkward gaps.

However, if there's one thing that beats the perks of social smoking, it's...


6. The cool stuff that comes with it
The sleek silver case. The lighter with an emblem of your favourite whisky or band. The countless novelty ashtrays into which to empty your butts. The limited edition packs. Humans love their toys, and the fact that ciggies are addictive in themselves doesn't help. While it's unlikely that people will start lighting up just so they can amass a cool collection of Zippos, people with said collectionof Zippos are less likely to stop.

=== ~~ === ~~ === ~~ === ~~ === ~~ === ~~ === ~~

It is better to indulge knowingly than to sin in ignorance.
Serpent 3:16

Heart On Sleeve?

...I Don't Think So.
I may cry freely at the ending in Armageddon, but that doesn't mean I enjoy doing it. Especially when you factor in the runny nose and ruined eyeliner.

The other day my colleague and dear friend Jit told me: "You MUST watch Aftershock. I guarantee it'll make you cry."

Right. That's like convincing someone to get a piercing and guaranteeing it'll hurt. Sorry, what's the good part again?

Jit is the darlingest person you will ever meet, but he can be strange that way. Or maybe he just needed a good cry that day. (Jit, you know my shoulder is there for you, right?)

He guessed right that I don't enjoy being vulnerable in front of other people. With the exception of my mom and dad, perhaps. I have dreams about being suddenly naked all the time with nobody noticing. Supposedly it's a sign of inner vulnerability.

It's why I don't listen to Seal or Taylor Swift in public (and in my defence, i have exactly ONE Seal and ONE Tay Swift song on my playlist, shaddup). It's also why I'd rather watch Alice blowing up zombies in the upcoming Resident Evil: Afterlife. In 3D, hellyeah.

Aftershock, and the tears it supposedly brings, can wait till I'm alone.