Everything this person has written for TUNETHEPROLETARIAT

Oh, we’re doing lists? Yay, lists!

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The Middle East – Pig Food

Three meals that were eaten at least once a week, throughout the year after I discovered that they existed, as I desired to sit bloated and content in the sun, slowly recovering from a hangover.

3. The BLT — with a smudge of avocado — sandwich on Turkish bread from Newscaf, Newtown.
Mammoth and messy, it smears green and drips red. Swine strips on your tongue. Terrible for your arteries, great for your hangovers. You decide which is more important.

2. Ham, cheese and tomato open grill sandwich on Turkish bread from Newscaf, Newtown.
Cheese, so much cheese. A town of tomato and ham situated near an erupting volcanic cheddar, molten queso terrorising the townsfolk’s livelihoods and sating their taste-buds all at once.

1. The beef Chimichanga from Beach Burrito Company, Newtown.
Hey, God. Is this what you eat? I think this is what you eat. You spent, like, a day on the planets and the sun and the wind and wireless internet, then you spent six days on this. Intoxicating, addictive. I would better understand Eve’s unbearable temptations if this were hanging from the tree in Eden.

Three songs that inevitably burrowed their melodies into the crevices of daily listening, whether or not they fit the weather patterns, life occurrences and time constraints.

3. Paul Banks – The Base

Yes, yes. Why? It’s simple. It flickers and flickers and spins itself into an earthly refrain. Paul — can I call him Paul? — offers a morsel of poignancy: “Now and then / I can see the truth / above the lies. / Now and then / I can see you’re truly / anesthetized.”

2. The xx – Chained

“Separate / or combine / I ask you.” The xx’s follow-up was hotly anticipated, sourly received, carefully neglected. This is right. Sad and right and easily repeated. More of Oliver’s twists of tongue and the instrumental minimalism that so compelled audiences to listen to lovelorn tales quietly.

1. Freedom Fry – Summer In The City

Freedom Fry have been here once before. They were chirpy and sanguine-sweet then, in the middle of winter, and now as the mercury rises their rotation in the household — as cupboards are cleaned or in the car as the road to the sand and ocean gets shorter — is unquestioned.

Songs that mean more now than they did before, or “Songs That Joan Has Professed To Love All Along When Once He Ignored Or Under-Appreciated Them And Now He Is Really Sorry, Please Forgive Him.”

3. Bloc Party – Positive Tension

AND YOU CANNOT RUN OR EVER, EVER ESCAPE. AND YOU CANNOT RUN OR EVER, HIDE IT AWAY. SOMETHING GLORIOUS IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. OH MAN OH MAN I FUCKING LOVE THIS SONG NOW. I DIDN’T BEFORE BUT THE DRUMS, MAN, THE DRUMS! “RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN.” THEN THAT GUITAR KICKS IN AND THEY GO, THEY SAY

WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL? WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET SO HYSTERICAL?

WHY’D YOU HAVE TO GET… SO FUCKING USELESS?

2. Radiohead – Myxomatosis. (Judge, Jury & Executioner.)

I remember: Thom Yorke, frenzied and impassioned with his microphone clasped sweatily to his bearded lips. The distortion rang out and shook the arena. Droning and droning. The crowd cheering and waving, twitching and salivating. I know why I was so tongue-tied.

1. The Smiths – This Charming Man

Somewhere this song was lost. When The Smiths were every song played, this song was lost and that was a goddam shame. Infectious and, yes, charming. Rooms rise when this song comes on, limbs jerking and heads shaking from left-to-right while the bartenders call Last Drinks and nobody hears them. The year is ending and the stores are closing and the jobs are lost and they don’t hear it. They just keep dancing. Uh-ah!

[Yeah, take the time out of your day, and buy these albums and singles and soundtracks to your years to come.]

The circles you become

Written by

Freedom Fry – Summer In The City

I tore my hamstring last week. I can’t run, so all I can do is sit around and watch people do things. Taut joggers pounding flesh on park pathways. Children hopscotching in apartment block car-spots. People in shorts and singlets doing things.

Sitting on this bench in the afternoon I stretch my leg and feel the pull, the swell, the fabric on skin.

***

Man, I’m happy. I’m so happy I can’t take it. I’m used to being sad and angry and grumpy and tired and apathetic and bored. Now I’m happy and it’s fucking weird. People say stupid things and I smile, forget about it, be happy. I can’t get work done because I can’t think – all I can do is happiness. Everything seems little and wonderful and all I want to do is sit in the sun and see people smiling, laughing, waving to each other excitedly. Children marvelling, mothers marvelling over their children’s marvels. I can’t hear them but I imagine.

What’s that, mum?
It’s called a merry-go-round, honey.
What do you do with it?
You sit on the edge, and your friend spins you. Or you can stand and your friend spins you. Or you can spin yourself. Then you spin them. You spin, darling.

So they leave hours later and I amble over to the merry-go-round, hands pinched against the metal grips, and start spinning. I climb on, lay flat on my back and close my eyes, spinning. [“Summer In The City.”]

Until he needs the land I stand on.

Written by

Marketa Irglova – The Hanill

“I’m tired,” sighed Marika. Shifting her weight uncomfortably against his tilted ribs, draping her arm across his still chest, his arms by his side. A thumb’s worth of light filtered in through the window. The curtain exhaled with the push of the outside gales, each sharp, focused breath offering a momentary blindness. Marika had been sleeping here the last three nights and still hadn’t mentioned the light, hadn’t brought herself to reposition herself, to close her eyes for longer than a few seconds. Her arms felt limp and lifeless against his torso. His hands never met hers when her skinny, peach-painted fingernails lingered near his open palm, softly scratching at his lifelines. “Maybe I’ll go home tomorrow,” she whispered tentatively.

[1nce.]

Ani diFranco – Coming Up

looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking finding looking.

[Daytrotting.]

Makes me wonder if…

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[Start ‘Dreaming’ with Mikaela Davis here.]

Big bad wolves

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Short delights

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a tunetheproletariat guide to
HALLUCINATIONS
(drug free!)

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Inspired and the Sleep – While We’re Young

INGREDIENTS

(1) table tennis ball.
(1) pair of headphones to a device capable of MP3 playback.
(1) device capable of MP3 playback.
(1) strobe-light – or an iPhone that has a flashlight/strobe light app installed.
Optional: (6) bottles of beer* – the convenience being that beer often comes sold in packs of six.

METHOD

1. Plug headphones into MP3 device. (It’s not essential that you use an MP3 device per se, but this is more enjoyable overall when you can later align it with a particular song, or band, that accompanied you during the process.)
2. Plug headphones into ears. Left into left and right into right, if possible.
3. Prepare that strobe-light/strobe-light app. Slide your fingers across your oil-greased screen and watch the glass casing smear outlines of your thumb across it’s meticulous display.
4. Start drinking. To open bottles, standard definition ‘bottle-opener’ is preferred. Also suitable: a roommate’s army knife (why would you have an army knife?), a neat kitchen counter (ha!), a sturdy set of canines (though the idea of pulling an aluminum cap from the confines of a long-neck’s tip is frightening), a computer desk, the corner of the wall, or a rippling set of abs still centered by a hairy bellybutton.
5. Slice, with the silent to-a-hair precision of a caffeinated Samurai, the table tennis ball into (preferably) even halves, though thinking back this is probably not altogether important.
6. Tape the tennis ball halves over your eyes. Seriously.
7. I probably should have mentioned that you will need to have the strobe-light appropriately positioned in front of your eyes before you tape over them. I figured it was obvious. If it wasn’t, I’m sorry, but still quietly amused by your situation.
8. Listen to music. Watch flashing lights. Drink warm beer.**

*
Alcohol isn’t essential. You could get this done without alcohol but hey, drinking makes activities like going to a nightclub bearable, so god knows what it could do for interesting afternoon time-wasters! I tried this once, situating myself under a coffee table in the apartment’s living room, and though I did not hallucinate, I went somewhere. I went somewhere for a little while. Until my roommate – and his friends – walked in holding three boxes of pizza and found me under the coffee table with table-tennis shells taped over my eyes.

**
Inspired and the Sleep’s While We’re Young is not the song I would listen to when doing this, no. It is the song I would listen to afterwards. The song that clicks along the tiled kitchen floors, that clacks while you bashfully help with the pizzas, that smiles when you’re bearing the cuckoo-grin of somebody with an afternoon free to themselves. If, as things do, this doesn’t work, then this song will render that sadness inconsequential. It will remind you, in both your best-dressed candor and your fuck-off bleariness, that an afternoon free of expectation, an afternoon unreserved and ripe for shenanigans, is a good thing, is always a good thing. [Listen.]

(illustration clara terne)

You leave me no choice.

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Tame Impala – Half Full Glass Of Wine

One-nighters are easy: go to bar, meet girl, talk to girl, kiss girl, take girl home or – preferably – to her place, leave, number: optional.

Monogamy: meet Girl, talk to Girl, connect with Girl, divulge feelings to Girl, maybe make out with Girl, exchange numbers, see Girl for coffee, wait for particular night to sleep with Girl, wake up in the morning and get breakfast with Girl, spend time chatting until somebody has to leave, keep calling and messaging Girl, feel nothing all the while knowing she’s feeling something, feel suffocated, keep sleeping with Girl until she decides she really really likes you, hesitate and say something that is nice but not really in tune with what she said hoping that one day you will grow up and like another person in that kind of way, become distant, watch her face change, keep divulging feelings and thoughts and watch her idea of you meet the reality of you, feel depressed, break up with Girl, go to a bar. [I’ll tame your impala.]

Girls’ new album – Father, Son, Holy Ghost – available to stream.

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MANILA

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Meursault – One Day This’ll All Be Fields

“I’m torn,” Aspin sighed.

“Torn, huh?” quizzed Manila, halfheartedly, as she thumbed through the National Geographic sitting on an angle to the neatly stacked pile beneath it on the plywood table of the cramped waiting room slipping into the corridor that lead to their general practitioner’s office. It wasn’t the most recent edition. It was the one that required nothing of her. No sifting through the months, years, searching for the photograph that met best the magazine’s signature yellow frame. She never found a means to settle her nerves in waiting rooms. It bothered her that the idea existed, was promoted, became normal in buildings across the world. She had yet to meet somebody who felt comfortable in them. “Where?”

“Between.” Across them sat a miserly man, his wrinkled gaze begat the defeat that drowned his posture. His coat-jacket sat on his knees, pressed tightly to his slacks, the right sleeve reaching for the lint-ridden carpet. Aspin’s fists clenched. Released. The mismatched tones of skin on his fists cuddled tightly against tired veins.

“Yes, between what?” Manila was impatient. It wasn’t commonplace for her, Aspin knew, but he knew also that she had never felt comfortable in waiting rooms.

Even he wasn’t sure what he meant. Manila pinched the page of the magazine: her tension on the edges of the photograph skewed the exterior north wall of the Sera monastery in Tibet, it’s surrounding mountain threatening to crumble from the pages onto the slanted tiling of it’s roof. The monks stood unchanged, their expressions warm, their demeanor betraying nothing of the impending destruction around them.

Aspin reached out and felt for her knuckles, his tenderness prising her clenched thumb and forefinger from the red switch of chaos they pinched against. “I’m not sure, my dear. It’s just a strange feeling,” he soothed.

Not a month had passed since he had been rustling through the refrigerator of their apartment early in the morning, searching for something to sate the niggling pull of his stomach, tugging on his insides like a hook through the upper lip of a restless, impatient carp. His thoughts were disjointed, in strains of coupled words, like “unpaid rent” and “broken lock” and ” dirty carpet” and “sleeping woman”. He eased the utensil drawer back into place. His ears prickled at the sound of Manila’s soft snores. Not abrasive, he thought, but more as if she turned from headstrong woman into fidgeting hummingbird as dusk fought for dawn. He fumbled with the bread slat.

Manila rested the magazine on top of the pile. She nuzzled the cuff of Aspin’s collar, his scent lingering on the fabric. “Are you alright, Aspin?” She tended to use his name when she was concerned. A year earlier they had met at the housewarming party of a mutual friend. Ezequiel had introduced them, smugly joking that with Aspin’s light frame and slender expressions they might be best girlfriends.

Aspin grimaced with the ill-timing of Ezequiel’s humor.

Manila, in her casual jeans and open flannelette shirt escorting an unironed singlet, had an ebullient charm to her movements. It was Aspin’s absent-mindedness that had brought them together, speaking briefly early on he had pressed his palm against the bars of an electric heater and, without realising, burned himself. He cursed and nursed quietly his hand against the cool fabric of his shirt. Manila grinned, vanishing, a blur through the hallways that snipped into the kitchen. Returning with a wet tea-towel, she held it against his irritated skin and, still grinning, carried on with the conversation. “I’m okay, Manila,” he assured.

Lips pressed to his sweater, Manila recalled the night a month ago. She had been asleep when she awoke to a tumble, a sound in the kitchen. Reaching instinctively for Aspin, she found only creased bed-sheets, a duvet deflated by the disappearance of its person. Pulling together her nightdress, she wandered into the hallway, lights flicking on as she passed. “Aspin?” she queried against the empty walls.

It was the silence that frightened her. The silence that comes with the nightfall where creatures and persons alike tire and rest.

She heard rattling, a bundling sound like a group of children dashing across the courtyards of their school. Patters of steps, in tandem and out. Aspin had fallen, was seizing. He had collided with the corner of the bench-top, an unseen wound bearing blood along the length of his skull. A soft, high-pitched sound escaped her, foreign to her throat. It was a dash blurred more so than when they first met, when he had seared the skin of his palms and tried tirelessly for nonchalance. It was there, cradling him, pressing her weight against his convulsions, that the silence stood steady, unwavering.

“Mr. Vasquez,” called the young, unruffled receptionist from her desk cluttered with office filings, portable drawers, and a computer running spreadsheets with listed appointments, administrative notes, and Solitaire minimised along the taskbar. It was always at this point of the afternoon that she could feel the wear in her calls, could feel her fingers lagging with each keystroke. “Dr. Avielo will see you now.”

Manila grasped Aspin’s hand in hers, pressed her thumb tightly against the fickle hairs on back of his fingers. [All Creatures Will Make Merry.]