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Month: August 2010

Help me disappear

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To completely dissolve
What method is used
I cannot sleep
My hands are bruised
There’s a hole in the wall
Torn up anew
One dead eye
The colour of you

To vanish for life
And promise to stay
Away from the knowing
Bird in a cage
I’d give so much
For the courage to go
If I ask for your help
Then you will know

So help me disappear
Or to believe in a change
No way out of here
That I can see
Or the nightmares that burn
Into my head at night
Make them disappear
So I can breathe

Looked out the window twice
Just to be sure
That no one was standing
Outside the door
But it’s just as calm
As it was before
They’re all gone now
Not there anymore

Isolated myself
For the sake of freedom
I clenched my fist
For the sake of kindness
I read a book full of strange words
Loneliness is a disease

So help me disappear
Or to believe in a change
No way out of here
That I can see
Or the nightmares that burn
Into my head at night
Make them disappear
So I can breathe

I wish you could have stayed

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How I needed you
How I bleed now you’re gone
In my dreams I see you
I awake so alone

I know you didn’t want to leave
Your heart yearned to stay
But the strength I always loved in you
Finally gave way

Somehow I knew you would leave me this way
Somehow I knew you could never, never stay
And in the early morning light
After a silent peaceful night
You took my heart away
And my being

In my dreams I can see you
I can tell you how I feel
In my dreams I can hold you
And it feels so real

I still feel the pain
I still feel your love
I still feel the pain
I still feel your love

Somehow I knew you could never, never stay
Somehow I knew you would leave me
And in the early morning light
After a silent peaceful night
You took my heart away
Oh I wish, I wish you could have stayed

Good shopping

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Here is my original copy of the Slackware Linux 13.1 DVD!

As I’ve said before, nowadays buying the original disks of a Linux distribution is definitively not necessary, since we all can freely download ISO files and burn them on any cd or dvd.

Buying the original media is mainly a demonstration of support, interest in the project, and a means to send a practical help to the developers team. That’s why I encourage those reading me who are Slackware users to buy, at least once in a while, the original disks of their favourite operating system through the official online store, Well, also other distributions’ users can buy their related disks, but I don’t care for other distributions. 😉

Noir for the masses

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This summer’s readings have been quite good, at least until now. Hugues Pagan‘s set of three stories, of which I’ve read the first two ones until now, has revealed as being rather intriguing. I’ve never been a fan of french stuff, perhaps excluding women, but Pagan is originally from Algeria so maybe this explains why his corrupted and decadent parisienne atmosphere sounds fine to me.

I’ve read some other reader’s comments saying that the main character in these books talks too much bullshit, and actually there’s a lot of talking to self, in a dark, negative, disenchanted tone, but this kind of “bullshit” is what defines the black novels in my opinion.

None of the characters is innocent, not at all. Hush-money cops, or just worthless. Whores, plenty of whores. Thieves, drug dealers, various criminals. This is the world the books describe, and nobody is clean or innocent, not even the main character. Victims aren’t anything great either: everything is around the assassination of a whore (“Dead End Blues” in the italian edition, there’s no english translation of these novels yet, as far as I know), and of Chess’ best friend – Chess is Pagan’s main character – who was a hush-money cop and was planning a trick related to drugs market (“Tarif de groupe/Quelli che restano“). But this doesn’t mean they don’t express humanity, deep feelings or merit. In the end, no one in the world is innocent, not even children.

Chess loves blues and jazz. He often cites Billie Holiday (his fav), Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and others, also naming suites and performances. I’ve never been into jazz and blues, I’ve always respected them from a distance, but I’ve tried to listen to some of the suites named in these books, and I can’t say I haven’t liked them.

Then comes James Crumley. The Wrong Case is amazing. It’s been written before The Last Good Kiss, his most celebrated novel, but it’s really cool. It comes out of the same cauldron: alcohol and selfdestruction. C. W. Sighrue in The LGK is perhaps more cinic and abrasive, while Milo Milodragovitch is probably less unemotional and more bound to his friends and to love, but they express the same power. The locations where these novels take place are so surreal in their wretched simplicity. Dives, poorly mantained houses where drunkards live, a world shining in its decrepit wretch. And also here no one is innocent.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 .