Sleep Paralysis →
“In addition, the paralysis may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger.”
Khalom
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Brightest Lights - King Charles (Feat. Mumford & Sons) from Loveblood
The brightest lights
Cast the darkest shadows,
And that’s where I’ll be found,
For what’s hiding by the morning
Will be chased by daylight’s hounds.
I saw King Charles when he opened for Mumford & Sons in 2010 (and it was great). So I was especially happy to see that they collaborated.
Let us get a firm grip of the very little which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise we may be ready to fit them into their places.
— Sherlock Holmes, “His Last Bow”
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.] The Wanderer - Johnny Cash
I stopped outside a church house where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don’t want God in it
“He was pretty mellow. He was resting up on the branch.”
Bear is tranquilized down from a tree on a Colorado campus.
Victor Hugo would write naked and tell his valet to hide his clothes so that he’d be unable to go outside when he was supposed to be writing.
— Article in The New Yorker titled “What We Can Learn from Procrastination”
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Roll Away Your Stone (Mumford & Sons Cover) - Laura Marling
It’s not the long walk home
that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with the restart
There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue. To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the weekend in town astride a radiator.
— A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
Cher Ami →
As Cher Ami tried to fly back home, the Germans saw him rising out of the brush and opened fire. For several moments, Cher Ami flew with bullets zipping through the air all around him. Cher Ami was eventually shot down but miraculously managed to take flight again. He arrived back at his loft at division headquarters 25 miles to the rear in just 65 minutes, helping to save the lives of the 194 survivors. In this last mission, Cher Ami delivered the message despite having been shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, covered in blood and with a leg hanging only by a tendon.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.] Aya - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club from Beat the Devil's Tattoo
Neighborhood Bully →
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bullyThe neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bullyThe neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bullyWell, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bullyWell, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bullyHe got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bullyWell, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bullyEvery empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bullyNow his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bullyWhat’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bullyWhat has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully
At any rate, Goldmund had shown him that a man destined for high things can dip into the lowest depths of the bloody, drunken chaos of life, and soil himself with much dust and blood, without becoming small and common, without killing the divine spark within himself, that he can err through the thickest darkness without extinguishing the divine light and the creative force inside the shrine of his soul.
— Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.] Don't Ask Me Why - Laura Marling from A Creature I Don't Know
Time found its hand and called it an end
Me and time we go way back when
I was a child
And I always knew why
