Essay: Ethnocide, or the Death of Language and Conversation

To coincide with one direction that I think would be beneficial for the Heap to head in, I'm posting an essay I wrote last semester for my Composition class. The essay is on Eugene Ionesco's Absurdist play, "The Bald Soprano" (a personal favorite of mine). I hope everyone will take a few minutes to read it and then leave some thoughts, it certainly would be appreciated.

Here's a performance of a scene from the play (a little hard to hear, but the best adaptation I could find on youtube).

The essay can be found here.

*Picture is from a visual treatment of the play by Robert Massin. Others are worth looking at, and can be found here. Sorry, its in French.

-Jordan C. Ozubko

Natalie Bush- Artist

Since it's late, and I have tendencies to ramble, I'll keep this first post of mine short and simple.

Natalie Bush, college senior, is a painter, poet, and photographer. She has a talent for blending these art-forms, as well as others, together to create beauty. Her pieces reach an achievement many artists' works fall short of doing, they spark something in you and cause you to think about things other than exactly what is right in front of you. She's something different, and something brilliant.

Check out her website

-Emily

POST #22

I'm taking a break from doing the band of the week this week, instead I'm just going to post a bunch of links to artists that I've discovered over the past month or so and you can check them out without any pretext.
The reason that I'm forgoing the usual fare this week is because I feel Heap has grown a little stale and only rooted in music related posts, I'm working on introducing some new things soon to remedy that.
Of course, I'm kicking that off with this post, which is music related...

Bombadil

Bowerbirds

Megafaun

Rocky Votolato

Two Door Cinema Club

Danger

Fanfarlo

Andrew Morgan

Matt Pond PA

Dawes

BAND OF THE WEEK: KITTENS ABLAZE

Political music is very hit or miss with me. When I can tell that it's sincere, and the band actually feels what they are playing, then, to me there's nothing quite as visceral and exciting. When it feels like the singer is just jumping on the bandwagon and complaining to show how "concerned" they are, I can't stand it. Recently most folk/americana acts have felt that way to me, they didn't want to incite any real change, they really just wanted to get attention, maybe it was because it was just so easy to join everyone else in hating George Bush, you always knew your band would agree with you. Don't get me wrong, I really like Bright Eyes (I figured I'd just get right out to saying what bands I was talking about) but it never felt real when Conor Oberst shouted "I'm wide awake, it's morning!", after listening I didn't feel like getting up and changing things, I just felt like a complacent middle class white-kid, content with sitting at a starbucks and complaining about how awful authority is.
Kittens Ablaze is not Bright Eyes, they didn't choose an easy time to criticize the government and it's leaders. Dissenters are no longer typified as anti-war protesters, people fighting passionately for a good moral cause as they were under Bush, instead they are seen as (often appropriately) nut-jobs and racists, people holding miss-spelled signs demanding the president's birth certificate. It's not easy to be political in a time like this, but Kittens Ablaze shrugs off any warning that they might have received and throw themselves right into the throng while still standing miles away from the Fox-News induced insanity.
Their music does not punch you in the face with knowledge like Rage Against the Machine, but it is just as passionate, possibly more so. The band is a six-piece Folk-Punk-Americana outfit from Brooklyn whose sound recalls a blend of Los Campesinos!, The Decemberists, and Bright Eyes. They've come to be known for their high-energy live performances, (they smashed a cello at SXSW last year), and the music to go with it.
If you aren't really down with politics at all it's okay, their music isn't all throwing stones at the windows of the establishment, they also deal with issues of morality and things of the like.

Sorry I spent most of this post knocking on Bright Eyes, I really do like their music.
anyway... check out the link below to hear something that's relatively unlike anything you've ever heard before.

KITTENS ABLAZE

Why I oppose Washington State's HB2401

Hello, my name is Jordan and I, admittedly, hate talking politics. However, in the past 6 months there has been a good number of states introducing medicinal marijuana legalization or decriminalization bills into their respective congresses. Those bills appeal to a certain interest of mine and I have begun following said bills through their (usually short) lives.

Currently 14 states have legalized medicinal marijuana and 11 states have decriminalized it. The most recent action on this topic has taken place in Washington state. This is in the form of HB2401 (non medicinal marijuana legalization) & HB 1177 and its Senate counterpart SB 5615 (marijuana decriminalization). House bill 2401 allows the sale of marijuana, in liquor stores, to those 21 and older. While this bill may appeal to most cannabis enthusiasts, I have a problem with it. That is, I believe that selling pot out of liquor stores isn't the right answer, for the reason that marijuana should have no connotations with alcohol. It simply wouldn't be fair to it, marijuana is non harmful and even medicinal, while alcohol is addictive and menacing.

Would it really be fair to sell something thats used to treat chronic pain, Multiple Sclerosis, and Cancer, alongside something with no medicinal value? Doing so, in my opinion, would only further perpetuate the negative connotations that cannabis carries with it.

That is why I am happy Washington voted against HB2401, 6-2 opposed. Heres a link to a news article. Still, congrats for trying Washington.

BAND OF THE WEEK: HADOUKEN!

Hailing out of Leeds, England is quite possibly the only band deserving of the name Hadouken!, a special move from the Street Fighter series (in case you didn't already know). Their sound, which is a dizzing blend of dance-punk, videogame-esque synths, drum n' bass, and rap/sung vocals is pure energy.
Their first LP, Music For an Accelerated Culture Was a lyrical the seedy underbelly of youth culture, accompanied by synth riffs reminiscent of 32-bit fighting games (huh, go figure) the result is an album perfect for getting you in the mood to go do something against the law.
Their newest album, For the Masses which dropped today, saw them team up with drum n' bass producers NOISIA to create a more refined release. The videogame riffs are still present but are fewer and replaced by heavier drums. The lyrics have become more simple and less focused, the sound is more like that of club music, but it's still Hadouken! and it's still incredibly intense.
Check em' out if you enjoyed playing street fighter or just want to try something completely new...

HADOUKEN!

SHORT STORY: A Death Study

Here's a short story from Jordan Ozubko, I'll post the first segement as a teaser and then a link to the rest since it's relatively long for the blog.

I

It was on that damp Parisian night that I died. I awoke the following morning to find that little in my setting had changed. The sun rose, the people were out, and I was in my room. In fact, nothing had changed.

Initially, I was utterly shocked and repulsed by the lies I was fed throughout my mortal life. In death, I was not condemned to hell, but instead I remained in my meek settings, pondering the circumstances of my death.I began smoking a cigarette, while watching the smoke dance off of the burning cherry at the end, it came to me. It must have come at some point after I drunkenly left the café and walked to my room. However, I see little benefits in dwelling on what cannot be changed, prevented, or altered. After all, what is the point of loathing and lamenting on your death after you spend decades loathing and lamenting your life? The purpose of these entries is to explain how I died one day and arose the next day .

READ ON