I'm a broken record, with a faulty memory !

I made a note to myself last weekend, to think about uploading the 1991 Blacktape compilation, A teardrop left behind (released on Hyperium), to iTunes. I grabbed a copy off the shelf just now and put it in the computer; I was wondering how the track "seireeenien lumoama" differs from the version on Mesmerized by the sirens. Ah, ok. It's an extended version I created by replicating the tracks and leaving the vocals off the first portion.... I did that when I was in college, in the school's crummy music room..... Then I started playing other tracks on the CD. I listened to "the turbulence and the torment" and thought "Hmm, those lyrics are good. I think I'll put them up on Blacktape's myspace page." So I opened the old quark file for the booklet of This lush garden within, to cut and paste the text. Staring at me was the story "forbidden," a song I recorded during lush garden, but eventually excluded from the album (it's on the CD-EP that came with my first book, The first pain to linger, which is now up at iTunes, by the way). And I thought "Oh my!!! I am a broken record!" This story is so much like what I have been working on for my book.... here it is:


forbidden
cast down. cast down upon broken shells of crystal dream. bruised and destroyed. defiled and abandoned. banish you from the world and cure you to death. cast you from the realm of perfection and throw you upon the scraps. overlooking hope and possibility lost. curse you and blame you and shake accusation upon your nude ruined form and light the pyre and ignite the wrath and dictate despair which casts you down upon the broken shell of the crystal night. despise you, despise you with their harsh pain glare laughing at your broken scrap of meat and spit you out and scrape your flesh with rusty blades and leave you to die at my feet, unable to kneel down and save you or pray to the cruel god who defiles you. unable to save you or pray to my cruel god who averts his gaze as you die.

The main character in my book is a 24 year old woman in an Eastern European city. It is set in 1920. The story is told from her perspective:

I like this. I like the intense stares, the eyes absorbing me, the crowd devouring me. My thoughts brought to existence through the power of my words. The feeling of living fully in a momentary reality where I am completely alive. All senses alert to their fullest. My words drawing breath, painting scenes, exposing my inner truths to the crowd. The audience before me grows as I speak. They pour in from the other rooms and from the street; they stop talking, focused. We breathe in collective gasps. We rise and fall on the oceanic waves of my words. The laughter, the shock, the horror . . . All felt by my design. The wounds, torn open. Exposing fear and hope. Desire and desperation. Exposing what once seemed like logic and courage to the microscopic scrutiny of self-discovery. As I speak, I razor off each successive layer of shit and facade in search of something once pure still lurking beneath. A thousand dreams, beliefs and lies left in bloody heaps around the room. A seared ember remains at the center, shouting and screaming and whispering truth.

Is there anything left of me? I have been divided, broken, destroyed. annihilated. I have torn these thirty minutes from my soul. And I just do not care what you think! I am crushed by the pressure of this transition from one existence to another. I taste my tears, I smell my sweat. I have no idea who is holding me as you all gather closer for your final look. Take your final mouthful of the tasty meat that has been slaughtered and served-up for your gluttonous enjoyment. The soft moist tasty treat. Are you satisfied, yet? How much more of me do you need? I imagine men and women alike stripping me naked amongst the crowd and raping me one by one. And stabbing me and killing me, and leaving me in a pool of my own vomit and blood for the cafe’s midget mop-boy to defile when the doors have been locked and the constable has gone home. You want to fuckin’ devour me!

My soul tarnished and dirty, perhaps even more so from your greasy hands temporarily holding it. Admiring it. Desiring it. You feast upon me briefly, draw me to my full height, then watch me deflate and smother and drown before you. All of this by my own design. My own masochistic design. If I were to die by all your hands, you would be absolved of guilt. You were forced to commit the act. Forced to mete out the fitting punishment for these revelations. The punishment which I deserve. I deserve the worst. For my ongoing betrayal. Betrayal of my own beliefs.

Well, I'm not sure if that 100% captures the similarity... but you'll see!! After 17 years, It appears I'm still working with similar issues and concepts; certainly the book explores a LOT more. It's really amazing how much I can explore in a book, vs. an album; how indepth I can go. Did I mention I've been working on this book since late 2002! Almost 1/2 of the lyrics for Halo Star were arranged and edited from things I wrote for the book.

At the moment, it is called Entwined in your nurturing arms; I cannot say it will still be called that next month! : ) It was called Damn Swan! for years, but that's not right, either.

I'm estimating the book - whatever it is named - will be out in early 2009.

(I have to do the brief advertisement now, mute your remote if you must...!) Out now is A Retrospective, the Black tape for a blue girl "Best of" from Russia. Also available is a digital-only ep called The Pleasures Everlasting, with cover versions of Dead Can Dance & Sonic Youth tracks. And of course ANTHOLOGY ARCHIVE from Revue Noir. Visit projekt.com to order. If you read my 25th Anniversary editorial (here, at Myspace), you'll know that we need every one of your orders!

If you have comments, please post them, and I'll reply.
I'll answer them, and/or include them next time....

Sam