RKNet Blog... Thing

I think I’ve been listening to too much Röyksopp lately. For context, I’ve found myself highly enamored of a certain track off their album The Understanding called “What Else Is There?“. It features vocals provided by Karin Dreijer Andersson from an electronica duo called The Knife (whose album Silent Shout has also been on repeat a lot for me) and I have fallen in love with her unique and expressive voice.

That being said, on the with the description. I was in this housing area, all cheap houses, run down and small. Looking on from a short distance, I saw a huge explosion rip through 3 or 4 of the buildings, seemingly at random. I looked to my companions (who defy description right now, just some people, I can’t remember) and ran towards the damage. I’ve dreamt almost this same thing before, I know it. Sudden fire in run down houses, or an explosion followed by fire. It was chewing up the old, dry buildings.

Then it all reset. Same place, no explosion, none of that. I rode in the mind of someone sneaking through these projects, tiptoeing by back doors and noticing as they all swung open by themselves. Screen doors, all, and cats of different kinds peering out from kitchens or living rooms. Sometimes there were people within, all walking away, not noticing that the door was open. The creeping person was a thief and although no entry was made into any of these houses, the big black bag s/he carried filled up. A small rip showed a blue and white striped piece of terry cloth sticking out. Perhaps the dishes wrapped in the towel to prevent noise? Who knows?

Finally coming to an unremarkable house near the end of the rows, the thief enters and discovers an old man and a fluffy white cat. There’s a moment of mutual surprise, then the cat makes a mad dash for the open door, and the thief follows, trying to track it down through these houses while still remaining silent and unseen, still carrying the full bag. The cat dashes under buildings built off the ground, and finally the thief is able to cut it off at an awkward turn near a wall and snatches the beast up, dragging it back to its master.

There’s a short conversation after that, and the old man says he’s not going to rat out the thief. The thief cautions that there may be some dangerous activity.

Cut to a group of about five or six people. Storm clouds are high, thready, and getting darker, turning the sky to a psilocybin vision of broadly patterned marble. The people are holding onto what appears to be the female end of extention cords, which are all tangled together and tied to a central location, looking to be pipes coming out of one of the houses. They stretch the cords into the road, fanning out in an uneven manner over about a 180° area. A stroke of lightning comes down slowly, almost like a weighted streamer: straight down, but wavering in the air. It is viewed from the eyes of one of the group before it hits them. The power goes through the cords and infuses the others. One by one they begin shouting, calling down the lightning on themselves, despite the presence of others on the scene insisting they stop (but too afraid to act).

There was only one left, hesitant, stupid, afraid of the lightning. The others had disappeared, disintegrated or wandered off or something. The one left walked away. It may have come back to the explosion at that point but I don’t recall.

Other points which are unclear to me now:

• Pulling a large revolver on someone who wanted to come into a house where I lived. It was large and dull and akward.
• Yelling and throwing things at a group of young, grinning hooligans who heaped things in the middle of the yard and doused it in gasoline, intending to set fire to the whole property
• Counciling a very angry young man, sharing tales with him. We were both in Civil War era dress. I slowly went from persuading him to stay, to comforting, to seducing. Anything to distract him from this blind fury.
• A master/husband type figure appearing during the “seduction” phase, unperturbed by the scenario.

Also, for your convenience here are the lyrics to “What Else Is There?”

It was me on that road
But you couldn’t see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here

It was me on that road
Still you couldn’t see me
And then flashlights and explosions

Roads end getting nearer
We cover distance but not together

I am the storm I an the wonder
And the flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions

I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

It’s about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for

I’ve got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there

Roads and getting nearer
We cover distance still not together

If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have a flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions

There’s no room where I can go and
You?ve got secrets too

I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

Note: These are just what I found online, I know there is a verse or two missing and maybe a few lines wrong. Care to help me flesh that out?

Okay so technically it’s Tuesday morning at this point. What are you going to do about it though? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

We’ll just jump right into it with this for preamble: Inappropriately hilarious video.

Just when you thought the day’s news couldn’t get any more ridiculous, New Haven, Connecticut comes through with the whopper of the day.

A couple members of the Hash House Harriers - “A drinking club with a running problem” - were charged with first-degree breach of peace, which is a felony.

Their crime? Siblings Daniel and Dorothee Salchow used flour to mark the trail for the group’s other runners for that day’s jog and party. The flour was used because it’s noticable and biodegradable.
Read the rest of this entry »

Owen Wilson was brought to the hospital today via ambulance. It is unknown at this time why exactly, but he has already released a statement regarding this incident, stating:

“I respectfully ask that the media allow me to receive care and heal in private during this difficult time,” the 38-year-old actor said in a statement released through publicist Ina Treciokas.Via Yahoo! News

Naturally the news is abuzz with this event. It is this author’s opinion that there will be a great deal of journalists who will not do as he requests and simply allow him privacy during this time - and I don’t just mean the obviously opportunistic tabloid types. There are already a great deal of articles running that he “reportedly tried to commit suicide”. The real questions are, how can they so casually include this hearsay, and how much worse will it get before the end of the day?

This internet rag, known as the National Ledger, has already gone so far as to claim knowledge of “a slit wrist and ingestion of a bottle of pills”; this bit being written just before a complete breakdown of his astrological chart. There were also no sources cited for their claim. Splendid detective work, National Ledger, now get back to your charts and your remarkable slew of banner ads.

Give me a break, people. The guy went to the hospital. It happens to thousands, for various reasons. I sincerely hope that this base speculation is as far as the majority of the media goes into prying into his not-very-private-right-now life. Good luck to you, Owen Wilson, in what may be a difficult time. I for one wish you swift and peaceful healing.

O Gentle Readers, I would be truly remiss if I did not make it a point to express my elation and sorrow. Sorrow for the loss of Table of Malcontents, and elation that when ToM was slain a glorious monstrosity arose from its fetid corpse to continue to disseminate only the finest cthuloid steampunk propaganda porn available, among other gruesome oddities and fascinating delights.

Be sure to stop by Ectoplasmosis (or “ectomo” for short) and tell them I sent you. ;)

If you’re interested in contributing, they have a twitter account which you can “at” message to send links of interest. (i.e. @ectomo russian steampunk explorer vessel art http://urltea.com/blablablabla)

Help with the layout would also be welcome, as they’re wriggling deparately inside their first carapace, begging to molt into the glorious octobee they know they’re capable of being.

Last night I dreamt about… being on vacation?! Say it isn’t so. I was in a big, strange city, with friends of mine I rarely get to see, and a few people from work. One of said rarely seen friends was trying vigorously to put the moves on me, or at least grope me. It wasn’t terribly exciting, just sort of awkward. Then a sassy foreign man and his friend got my attention in the street and I was whisked away (okay more like walked) to an exciting, exotic… bowling alley! The architecture was about five times as grand as what you’d expect. No beer and stale carnival atmosphere here. No, there were big dividers between lanes, and everything was a gleaming, modern, minimalist black and white. Before I even got a ball that I could heft picked out, someone pulled the plug on some small item (some light or noise emitting thing that was getting to be irritating) and the power went out in the whole place, so we all bolted.
Next I knew I was stumbling along outside of some manner of Charlie Brown theme park, area, ride, what-have-you. I walked on outside of a larger themepark area and sat down on a bench under the stars and stared at a book fluttering into the wind and began to cry for the end of innocence, the end of cartoons with merit, the end of art that is genuine, the end of a lot of things. I don’t now remember exactly what I said. Some friends encountered me and I sucked it up grudgingly as they gently suggested that perhaps I should go get some rest. Thinking that I was too worked up myself, I obliged.
I returned to what was ostensibly my hotel room, which was really more like two double-bed rooms separated by a curtain (but my side got the window so ha). There seemed to be a lot of detritus as I went to close the curtain, and discovered some strange girl throwing up in the unenclosed toilet just around the corner. I politely stepped away from the scene without closing the curtain all the way.
At some point shortly thereafter the girl was in our room with a regular guitar… and an inflatable bass (with a hole in the plastic somewhere). There was a bit of playing with those. I don’t remember much about it though.

I don’t remember anything of my dreams from earlier this morning other than:
“Why should I pay imperialist dues on music I’ve listened to for free for years?”
Unfortunately the rest was lost because I woke up to the cat being a HUGE JERK. Waking up irritated like that is a really easy way for me to forget things.

Kids, don’t smoke, listen to My Bloody Valentine instead.

This video is comprised of film clips of people smoking. Regular people. Not just creeps, hooligans or bad guys. Once upon a time, it was okay to depict regular people having vices, too. I definitely saw Jack Nicholson in there.