Bach's Coffee Cantata

Liesgen: 

Herr Vater, seid doch nicht so scharf!

Father, don’t be so hard!

Wenn ich des Tages nicht dreimal

If three times a day I can’t

Mein Schälchen Coffee trinken darf,

drink my little cup of coffee,

So werd ich ja zu meiner Qual

then I would become so upset

Wie ein verdorrtes Ziegenbrätchen

that I would be like dried up piece of roast goat.

4

Aria: Liesgen [Soprano]

Flauto traverso, Continuo

Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee süße,

Ah! how sweet coffee tastes!

Lieblicher als tausend Küsse,

Lovelier than a thousand kisses,

Milder als Muskatenwein.

smoother than muscatel wine.

Coffee, Coffee muss ich haben,

Coffee, I must have coffee,

Und wenn jemand mich will laben,

and if anyone wants to give me a treat,

Ach, so schenkt mir Coffee ein!

ah!, just give me some coffee!

5

Recitative: Schlendrian [Bass], Liesgen [Soprano]

Continuo

Schlendrian:

Wenn du mir nicht den Coffee lässt,

If you don’t give up coffee,

So sollst du auf kein Hochzeitfest,

you won’t be going to any wedding

Auch nicht spazierengehn.

and you won’t go out walking either.

Liesgen: 

Ach ja!

Alright then !

Nur lasset mir den Coffee da!

Just leave me my coffee!

Full Translation Here: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/BWV211-Eng3.htm

This exists, let's have a moment to appreciate it.

One Day.

Moral Myopia.

"One of the oldest and most universal moral precepts is the Golden Rule: Treat others as you want them to treat you. That mandate shows up in Confucianism and in the Code of Hammurabi. It was reiterated by Seneca and by the Buddha. It appears in the Bible, as the command to love thy neighbor as thyself. It might possibly have been taught to more people than any other notion in history.

It is also, on reflection, a little weird. For a guideline about how to treat others, the Golden Rule is strikingly egocentric. It does not urge us to consult our neighbors about their needs; it asks us only to generalize from ourselves—to imagine, in essence, that everyone’s idea of desirable treatment matches our own. As such, it makes a curiously narrow demand on our imagination, and, accordingly, on our behavior. Morality does not start with the self, it starts when we set the self aside. We dwell in moral myopia; literally and figuratively, we are too close to ourselves."

- Kathryn Schulz.

:)

Here Goes Nothing.

Milestone

GUESS WHO DID SO WELL ON HER GRAPHICS FINAL PROJECT THAT SHE GOT A TEACHER HUG AND BONBONAYA MEN KOL NOO3?

TODAY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS A GOOD DAY. AND I AM AWESOME! AW HELL YEAH!

Happiness

  

My 21st

My Life.

I'm Turning 21 In A Week...Oops?

Of Cacophonysts.

My illustrator friend asked me to create a back story for her species, and I'm terrified by what came out. The vocabulary and spelling were thrown around, so this is no prose. It can be made into prose, but I will not touch it. This is one of those things that should be sealed in a vault, and now it shall be. 

The race is called cacophonysts

They live on a carnivorous planet that feeds them by morning and feeds off of them by night

Survival is a constant struggle, but they bear it anyway because each is promised to their doppelganger, and most would rather survive the cruel planet than leave it to face their own doppelgangers on the neighbouring moon.

They're called cacophanysts because the atmosphere is so thick with a mixture of nobel and outlandish gases that their own movements make music

each cacophonyst is born bound to their doppelganger, that lives on a neighbouring moon

and most would rather live and struggle on the planet than venture to meet their doppelganger and find out the truth about themselves by contrast

fearing confirmations.

It was a wondrous life of sheer denial

They didn't even know they were in denial, and that was their gravity
They were part of that planet as much as it was part of them, and the missing part was filled by their complete lack of selves, for you can't fill what has been annulled.

There are ways for the willing

ways that aren't known except to those who've made that choice

All the willing have to do is go to the elders counsel

The symphorium

The puppet masters

The puppets

The ones who keep the balance, who are the balance

where they lose their identity by leaving the atmosphere, and go to meet their own true identity through a secret spell known by these elders

There are no ways back, for it is said that to find yourself you have to lose it.

Their race is homogenous; they can hardly be told apart. And live in harmony, almost literally

They exist in systems similar to beehives, communicating through harmonizing music by their bodies

and the relationships are fleeting, there are no families, but they're all a family

there are no secrets, no fear, no struggle, no sense of belonging but no sense of alienation

There just is.

And most are content

They have no concept of time nor attachments

nor happiness

They exist like children do, from a moment to the other, caught up in trivial wonders and blowing them up into worlds of their own

Their nervous system was more complex than their minds could understand, for they were mostly intuitive creatures. 
Electric signals were more active than any other species that they could hope to see.
Everything was very..there. The very there-ness was tangible.

He was not.

One of them was born with a disturbance in brain electricity

He was more..placid than the others

He didn't move as much, and was perceived as a mute disturbance.

They couldnt understand how he could be, nor could he understand how he was different

Since there were no mirrors, they had no concept of themselves

other than the one they get through others

His malfunction was a disturbance wherever he was, emitting an aura of inertia for a mile's radius around him

They couldn't communicate with him, and he didn't know what communicating was.

It was almost as if he was a moving vaccuum, that disspelled others with invisible forces. A bubble boy, moving within his own sphere of quietude.

For a community that existed solely on sound, his quietness was disturbing to his kin

They feared what they could not relate to, and he was impossible to relate to. It was rendered even more disturbing by the fact that even the planet reacted to their movements with its atmosphere, and he was their first exposure to an object.

He was the only object.

The symphorium had to intervene

They had to somehow eliminate this vacuum so their community could regain balance again

and they did the only thing they knew how to do

They banished him to meet his doppelganger, or not, they didn't really care, just as long as he was on the moon, there where he couldn't reach nor affect them, or rather, there where he couldn't not affect them.

He didn't realize he was, nor did it make much of a difference to him, save for a change in scenery and a lighter atmosphere, with no sounds

The place was almost like living in a Polaroid, it was perfectly still

He had to relearn how to move all over again

But that was okay because he didn't realize it.

If we were to perceive that moon from a cacophonyst's persepctive, it was an absolute nightmare, the air almost hanging heavy with distress.

The banished would convulse in an effort to make music, get terrified by the lack of it, and repel almost like magnets from their doppelgangers, afraid of learning their own truth.

The doppelgangers couldn't help hanging close, for that's how they were made.

It was also why they were made

Holograms

of their originals

They were hoping to find meaning as much as the banished, the only difference is that they were seeking to start fulfilling their existence as well, for unlike the cacophonysts, they didn't know any different.

They may have been a curse to the banished, but the banished delivered them. 

And neither knew they were the other's bane.

It was a nightmare

One that he couldn't see, nor feel, or understand

He was protected in his own bubble

Protected by his ignorance and lack of intuition. He was not affected. The same reason that caused him to be banished from his planet is the one that protected him on that haunted moon.

He had no truth to find, he had no concept of truth, and the truth wouldn't affect him.

He didn't realize he was. 

He wasn't there, not like them.

He was protected.

AND I WOULD WALK 500 MILES AND I WOULD WALK 500 MORE!

Loose Threads.

Remember the deaf/mute old man that I told you about? He has a one-eyed cat with human-like tendencies, or at least tendencies that aren't naturally peculiar to cats, like standing on its hind legs and not reacting to its own reflection. I found that out recently, and it seemed to make all the sense in the world. It seemed to make so much sense as to throw off my natural balance of things. Do things really happen for a reason? Maybe it only makes sense to me, but even I know that the world doesn't make this much sense without at least a consequential message. Only, what is the message? If it's not this, that is? It's a lucky coincidence, one that managed to put a smile on my face more mornings than most. 

He can read now, he taught himself how to read using discarded newspapers. He has the purest laughter in the world, with neglected and broken front teeth, a voice that's a note short from being whole, and a breath away from being a whisper. Scratchy and out of breath, with enough strength to breathe life into a harpy. Physics won't let it echo so it wouldn't throw off its fragile numbered systems, but it echoes loud enough if you know how to listen. 

He still gets his own broomstick and cleans around his area at 7 am everyday, even though he doesn't have to, wasn't asked to, and it's not his job. He still does it because it makes him happy, or rather because he's human enough to humanize 5 square metres around him at all times.

He's a wonderful human being, and he won't ever know it in his lifetime, nor will he be remembered afterwards because I don't think he has any family. He restores order and throws off more in my head, and he won't ever know it. The world hasn't broken him, although it has tried. Some people are just bigger than the world I guess.

His cat is a curious creature as well. I thought I may have rationalized this into my own conscious memory to add a certain magic, or maybe that's only how I saw it because I wanted to see it, for people only see what they want to see, but I like to believe it isn't. One-eyed and seems to linger longer than most of its fellows on things that wouldn't naturally stop a cat, like a twirling leaf or an intriguing shoe. It's bound to the man though neither of them seem to depend on the other. He feeds it when he can and it brings him bird offerings when it could. They greet with a 7 second or so long glare every morning, that they snatch in the middle of chores, like the look you may give an old friend with stories that don't need recounting but are shared nonetheless. It's funny.

I wonder if he has enough clothes, it's getting colder.

It's wonderful night tonight, cold and quiet and tangibly there. One of those nights that you can rest in without having to rest. I've found peace as well, it was within me all along. Bad things haven't stopped happening, they still do and they are even worse. People aren't getting better, they're shittier than I remember. Life isn't giving more chances, and taking away more than most. But I'm happy, through it, somehow. I've found peace.

I remember a good friend once telling me that no person can ever be whole or completely happy if they're not their own home. I think I found home now.

Ramona

Ramona, come closer

Shut softly your watery eyes

The pangs of your sadness

Will pass as your senses will rise

The flowers of the city 

Though breathlike, get deathlike at times

And there's no use in tryin'

To deal with the dyin'

Though I cannot explain that in lines.

Your cracked country lips

I still wish to kiss

As to be by the strength of you skin

Your magnetic movements

Still capture the minutes I'm in

But it grieves my heart, love

To see you tryin' to be a part of

A world that just don't exist 
It's all just a dream, babe

A vacuum, a scheme, babe

That sucks you into feelin' like this.

I can see that your head

Has been twisted and fed

With worthless foam from the mouth

I can tell you are torn

Between stayin' and returnin' 

Back to the South

You've been fooled into thinking

That the finishin' end is at hand

Yet there's no one to beat you

No one to defeat you

'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad

I've heard you say many times

That you're better 'n no one

And no one is better 'n you

If you really believe that

You know you have 

Nothing to win and nothing to lose

From fixtures and forces and friends

Your sorrow does stem

That hype you and type you

Making you feel

That you gotta be just like them.

I'd forever talk to you

But soon my words

They would turn into a meaningless ring

For deep in my heart

I know there is no help I can bring

Everything passes

Everything changes

Just do what you think you should do

And someday, maybe

Who knows, baby

I'll come and be cryin' to you.

“Demons run when a good man goes to war

Night will fall and drown the sun

When a good man goes to war

Friendship dies and true love lies

Night will fall and the dark will rise

When a good man goes to war

Demons run, but count the cost

The battle's won, but the child is lost.”

― Steven Moffat.

Best Part About My Day

Of Flying Bisons, Liz Lemon & Dickolocausts.

I’ve been aching to blog for a while, and it wasn’t for lack of news that I didn’t, but rather for lack of words. This part isn’t covered in the grownup handbook but apparently what happens is this; you get to a point where you don’t feel the need to talk anymore, because you realize how little anything you have to say matters, and how talking is basically playing molecule fetch. We’re just here to keep the air moving, otherwise it gets stale and the fishbowl wreaks of elephants stuck in rooms and we all turn belly up.

I think aurora borealis is beautiful.

Life has been hectic and meaningless, with heartbreaking ellipses and disappointingly premature periods. I’m juggling a job and uni, previously two but then economy happened. Which I don’t mind, the mind-numbing emotion-draining robot-mutating capitalist nature of 21st century work suits me well, it comes in handy sometimes. Although, at other times, I go from worrying why momma ship is ignoring my distress signals to worrying that maybe my distress signals brought momma ship down.

I still don’t understand people, the only difference is that now I’m not even trying to because who needs that?

Let me take you for a walk in my shoes so you’d understand. For instance, this whole Saudi women driving campaign is like a guy getting kicked out of his house putting up the fight of his life to keep the doormat. Forgive me, but shouldn’t they be fighting for rights to lead normal lives first? Aren’t there severe human rights violations and freedom shenanigans to sort out? Shouldn’t you worry about your school lunch before snagging your toy back from the big bully? Priorities, people. I get it that you gotta start somewhere, but it doesn’t have to be a commercialized first-world whine in a third-world environment. That’s not square one.

Then there’s 30 Rock, which everyone finds hilarious and I find incredibly depressing. What is funny about an intelligent beautiful hardworking woman getting fucked over and having her dreams stomped and is humiliated on a daily basis for absolutely no reason at all? How is that funny? TV sitcoms should tend to escapism, not serve as painful reminders. I mean, Louie I get, we laugh in self-defense. But Liz Lemon? Come on, Liz Lemon should rule the world goddammit.

Then there’s a dude friend who, talking about his crush, quips: “It's like she's the female version of me. Well, I'm the female version of me, but she has the package.” Yes, it’s funny. But is that really all? I knew guys think with their dicks but this is a whole new level of dickhead-ism. I’m starting to think that the whole ‘Guys think with their dicks’ thing has more truth to it than the revelation most of us had at 15. Everyday it proves long-lasting. But then again most chicks these days remind me of energizer bunnies, in the sense that they’re immortally cute squeeze-balls who have nothing at all to add to the world other than their squeaks, so guys aren’t entirely to blame.

I hate adjacent lines. I think it’s cruel that two lines can overcome so many forces to meet at a point then have no choice against the same forces to part, with no hope of reprieve till they’re a circumference apart, god knows when. Parallel lines have it easy, compared to that. I wasn’t going for a bumper sticker line but it looks like it came out that way.

I have stalkers now, it was annoying at first but then I came to think of them as puppies. When trained, they fetch you stuff and bite at cue. It’s entertaining, if it hadn’t been for all the time spent in curt social interaction directed at saving the feelings of someone who has proved they have none by being there. This doesn’t make sense to me either. The only thing that pisses me off, and by ‘pisses me off’ I mean I haven’t found a silver lining with yet, is this annoying tidbit: They won’t let me read. Much like puppies, they feel offended if your attention is directed at an inedible object that isn’t them. This is equally baffling to me.

Japan would have got a lot more media attention if geishas had swag. Floating around all 'I be rocking this Okiya like it was Okinawa brah san.' What does have media attention, however, (Other than the last Airbender who likes penguin sledding and has a pet flying bison) is the release of the new iPad air, which is a lighter, faster, more expensive bourgeois clone of its predecessors. Apple doesn’t make sense either. You see, the only reason Apple is so famous in the US is because they produce quality gadgets with a cheap price tag. In the Middle East, it is ridiculously overpriced next to its more competent competition that comes at half the price, and remains the most purchased because that’s how parallel universes work I guess. US Apple fan boy vs. Arab inferiority complex. Meet Asia, working behind the curtains, beating all released smart phones for a fraction of the price, with absolutely no media attention, at all, on this beauty right here: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/12/xiaomi-beats-samsung-to-top-chinas-smartphone-charts/

 
Amongst the many other things that I still don’t understand is how onion soup is so underrated, how Tennant never showed up on the Simpsons, how struggles and snuggles are only a letter apart and people still opt for the former - Well two, alphabetically speaking. One, mathematically speaking – why people refer to Wust el Balad as some muggle Diagon alley where they can find anything, from Unicorn blood and falcon hooves to phoenix litter, why there are 18 stair steps on each flight rather than an easily manageable 20, how no one has orchestrated a dickolocaust yet, why burger patties are so hard to make, why they’re called unicorns rather than uniswords or unispears or unilances since they don't have corn on their heads, and last but not least, why they still haven’t built an aero hydraulic Quidditch coliseum, magnetically levitated broomsticks, a repelling snitch & a ginormous remote-controlled bludger when there’s an unfunded kickstarter project begging for Quidditch to be an official sport.

I rest my case.

Adam’s Apple.

You know what the problem is? I'll tell you what the problem is, it's life as a concept, treating life like an absolute block of something that doesn't make sense when taken apart, when all you're supposed to do if you wanna give life meaning is break it down and tend to the morsels. Treating life like a block is what makes people act out of character, because they’re so sure that block is supposed to fit somewhere, or take shape, but they have no idea where it’s supposed to fit, how it’s supposed to look like or why it’s supposed to look like that. A lot of ‘supposed’ presets that somehow precipitated in people’s subconscious as the ultimate goal. I don’t know, is that what it’s really all about? All what we’re going through, you take a flaming ball of uncontrolled circumstances set in motion by a random state of pulsated chaos and somehow make it into a shape whose form, origin and reason are unknown? That’s a little too complicated for a couple of naked schmucks who were stuck in a garden with a morbid apple tree, wouldn’t you say? And isn’t that what eventually triggers the state of frantic achievement that transforms people from many single human beings to an unthinking, unfeeling, unsatisfied stampede? Aren’t those who think they know what they’re doing to get there the most delusional of all? I think it’s simpler than that. I think we’re put here on this weirdass planet to live in knick knacks. I think the planet itself having an expiry date is a cheat code. I think the fact that days are similar means that nothing is moving forward or backwards but a groundhog day syndrome. They’re not supposed to be connected, leading up from anything or to anything, they’re just there and you’re supposed to enjoy them while you can because they’re gonna run out and thank god they will.