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Traffic Signals.

The icing on the cake with no messages on my phone.

“The cheese stands alone.”

And all that I am is pink, cherry blossom pink, without pits.

I still have acne, large whitehead zits but with shame I am holy.

To be with you some day.

I weigh the consequences of what kind of man you are and what kind of woman I am.

Could we ever be born equal?

As all men have been created or are we rats chasing down the perfection of bats.

I cannot know

but I love you

through thick and thin

rain drenched impenetrable skin.

To be no more alone.

To be no more alone.

To be no more alone.

She stops at a red light.

Pre-Easter Jitters.

Two nylon ties for my wrists and my house is full of books I do not want to read.

This loneliness creeps upon me and I strangle myself, ankles behind my head, I cannot suck on myself, my mouth falls short.

What do I do in this new virgin way to get laid?

I’ll smoke another cigarette and wait for another man with a babe to show up, another stranger whose touch I haven’t felt.

I hunger for your touch.

Another cigarette.

It is becoming too much for me, to struggle alone abandoned, the grown puppy with no master, and I struggle for a bone or a boner, either way I have empty palms.

Hosanna.

Pear tree.

A Civil Argument.

The Seduction.

            distress

the rabbit burrows a hole

Chardonnay and chocolate

                        with peanuts.

A sit amiss

            strangle this

“Illegal?”  “I couldn’t say.”

rapture begotten

            and gone away.

All the tea in China

            and I wouldn’t sell my hat.

You can snear if you want

            I know I’m fat.

At the mercy of a dream

I wait with a gleam

O don’t be mean.

Chapter Three.

The sun hung in the sky like a lemon drop.  My mother warns me not to stare but I stare into the sun until I see a black hole and my eyes begin to water.  The sirens are aching to climax because the weatherman declared a tornado warning and I am all excited but anxious.  I go into my room and collect all of my favorite stuffed animals.  I wrap them in my favorite blanket which is blue and has a pocket.  I often wear the pocket on my head and declare myself a Muslim with a cape, traveling the deserts with my faithful camel, Mordoch.  I take all of my stuffed animals to the basement and there set about to prepare them for the end.  They are all nervous.  We have never lived through a tornado but we have seen the movie “Twister” and know that the F-5 is wrathful and waiting like a blessing from God. 

My father is sitting in his armchair surveying the news.  The news is loud and it blares because he is hard of hearing.  He likes things loud.  He is loud.  We wait together.  My mother is upstairs making dinner.  Clams and asparagus.  We do not live on the seashore but the sound of seagulls and the taste of salt bend our smiles North.  I like asparagus with olive oil, just so the ends are browned and crunchy and sweet.  Kiki is not allowed in the house when father is home.  She has her own apartment downtown but I’ve never seen it.  Le amour, my stuffed little lemur, is crooning love songs to Dog, my stuffed Siamese cat.  I named Dog after our neighbor Tammy’s cat whom she named Dog, I don’t know why.  Dog, the live cat, loves to sleep in the car so Tammy leaves her out there all day long while she cleans her house.  Her house is very clean and adorned in candles.  She decorates the house in honey and bumble bees and I like the white plush carpet that covers the stairs to the attic.

Tammy does something naughty that my mother doesn’t approve of but I don’t know what it is.  Tammy and I are best friends and I call her Buzzy.  Her cat doesn’t like me too much so I give Dog a lot of space.  We like to sit outside on the plastic pation furniture and drink iced tea.  She tells me about her father who is in prison.  She says she knows that he loves her but she misses him.  I don’t know why he’s in prison, and I hope my father will never go to prison.  It seems like a place of lost love, a place of confinement and sedation.  I never want to go to prison either but I am not entirely sure if I am good enough to stay out of prison.  Prison is not my biggest fear, however, my biggest fear is psychiatric wards.  No one believes that you are sane and the doctor tries to help you but he can’t understand what you’re going through and all the while you just want to be free.  I hate locked doors and I hate shots.  I am really careful not to make my mother angry.  I do not want her to send me away.  This all began when we had a fight, me and my mother.

“You don’t know what suffering is.”

I suffer mother, more than you.  When she is done scrutinizing me I sneak into the kitchen and take a serrated stake knife from the block.  I go up to my room and begin sawing into my left arm.  One line, two lines, four lines and then the fifth across the others like a crooked fence.  My body is a fence and I am trapped inside.  I cannot escape my reality and I suffer.  With barely a tear I replace the knife.

At work where I sling dishes through a silver box my mother is with her cousin.  My mother is mocking our fight, she is spilling our beans.  “What happens in the family stays in the family.”  Is her mantra that rattles through my head.  How could she betray me?  I start to weep, I cannot work.  I run to the bathroom and Jacci, our cousin, follows me.  “What’s wrong sweetheart?”  I pull up my sleeve and show her the scars.  “I’m Emo.”  I wail.  The next thing I remember is my mother and father cornering me in the bathroom threatening me that if I do not behave they will lock me away in psych ward.  I am terrified so I swallow my tears and resign into myself.

Source - Oyster

Zac Bayly: こんにちは、Thom！今日の調子はどう？
Thom Yorke: いいよ、どうも。昨日の夜はあまり眠れなかったんだけど。

－どうして？
わからない…睡眠薬を飲んだりいろいろしてみたんだけど…しかも今朝は電話がどっかにいっちゃって、ホテルの中を探さなきゃなんなくってさ。いい始まり方じゃなかったんだよ。

－いや、それはいい始まりじゃなかったですね。普段はきれい好きで整理整頓してる人なんですか？
ううん。まあ、整理整頓っていうのは創造性とは全然関係ないらしいよ…でさ、僕もようやく家にスタジオを持つようになって－ほんと前はなかったんだよ、それでどんな風になってるかって言うと…ツアーから戻って、全部を繋ぎ直して動くようにしてやるよね、で音楽的にはだよ、それをやると何も起こらないみたいな感じなの。でも外し始めるとカオスが戻ってきて作業が始まるっていう。僕らの家はまったくもってカオスで、そりゃもうひどい散らかり様なんだよ。そういえばさ、最初にちょっとしたお金が手に入ったとき、「家を持つのもいいんじゃないかな？」なんて考え始めるだろ、でパンフレットをもらってきたら何にも無いミニマルな部屋のミニマルな写真が載ってて－テーブルの上にリンゴが1個置いてあったりなんかして、「こんな風に生活する奴なんているか？」とか思っちゃうよね。…で、もうアルバムは聴けたの？

－レコード・レーベルからemailでアルバムが届いたのは15分くらい前でしたね。
そりゃひどいな。

－でも僕はRadioheadの作品のことをよく知ってます。10代の頃は“There There”を一日に10回くらいは聴いてたと思いますよ。
なんだって、そりゃ変わってるな。　[Nigel Godrichが部屋に入ってくる]　こいつまだアレを聴いてないんだってさ！　[Godrich、笑う]　心配することないよ－もしかしたらその方がいいのかもしれない、僕ら一日中同じ質問に答えてたからさ。実はちょうどその話をしてたんだよ、日本のインタビューはおかしかったなって。違う記者たちに対してひとりの通訳しかいないってのはほんと変だよね、だって同じ奴が同じ質問してくるんだよ！おかしいけど結構気に入ってる。質問の間に考える時間が持てるから。精神の「払い戻し」だね。ビデオを録っとくべきだったな、ほんとすごいから！

－その話でニューヨーク・タイムズで読んだ草間彌生さんのインタビューを思い出しましたね。記者が席に着いて「実生活ではとてもまじめな方のようで、本当におもしろいですね。だってあなたの作品はとてもハッピーでポップじゃないですか！」みたいなことを言ったんです。そして通訳がそれを伝えると、草間さんは通訳に耳打ちしたんです。「このインタビューは終わり」って。
Thom: ああ、そう、僕も同じだね。「ほんとに？お前にはわからないんだろ？」って。ほら、僕がアート・カレッジにいてアウトサイダー・アートの思想に入れ込んでたときにはさ、学校では「うーん、役に立つことを教えてくれないな、精神病院にいるみたい」っていう感じだったな。

－大学にいたんですか？
Thom: そう。でアウトサイダー・アートにハマってた、音楽に近いところがあるなって感じてたから。アート・カレッジではがっかりするときもあったよ、創作のプロセスの多くを数値化するっていうやり方にね。スイスのローザンヌにそういうコンセプトを持って、アート・セラピーとして施設の中でアートをやってた医者がいるよ。自分を表現することが正気を保つひとつの方法だという考えからきてるんだね。ヤヨイはその代表的なことを言葉にしてたよ、「もしわたしにこれがなかったら、とっくの昔に自分を殺していたでしょう」ってね。僕もまったくもって同じで、クリエイティブな人間は大抵そうだと思う。もし表現するチャンネルを持っていなくて、物事が悪く進んだとしたら、ただ落ちていくだけだよね。中にはそういう人もいて、彼女もそうなんだ。でも僕はいつもアート・カレッジで、なぜかその考えが間違った方向に進んでる感じがしてたんだ、ちょっとだけ、何が起こっていたのか頭で考えると。自己表現によってもたらされる、その喜びや救いを失うことになる。実は僕は何年もアート・セラピストのとこに通ってたんだよ。彼女と一緒に精神病院で活動してたんだ。

－ええ、本当に？
Thom: うん、そうやって彼女と出会った。アート・カレッジに行くのはおもしろかったし、彼女と一緒に、自己表現としてのアートのアイデアが存在する場所にいることもね－完成した作品としてじゃなくても、日々解放するメソッドとして、わかるかな？
Nigel: ヤヨイは当然それを本当に意識していたね、彼女は自分が住んでいたところ(日本の精神病院)で確かめたんだから。
Thom: それってなんか僕がそのことを考えていた理由でもあって。テレビでちょっと観たんだよね、「彼女はまだ『治療』を強く求めている」、で僕は「ふん、もちろんそうに決まってるだろ！」って思った。ダミアン・ハーストにとってもそれが真実だとは言わないけど、多くのアーティストは「これが必要なんだ。これを持っていなくちゃ。選択の余地はない」みたいな感じだと思う。

－僕は、人って一般的に何かであるよりも何かをすることに意識を向けているときの方が、より幸せで真っ当でいられるような気がするんですけど、どうでしょう？
Thom: それってかなり、物事を見るときの禅の道だよね。そう、それが何であろうと携わっている時はその中に存在していなくちゃいけないんだ、そこに存在しないものに固執しちゃいけない。そりゃ僕はそこまでの「禅」信者ではないけど－たった一冊禅の本を持ってるだけだしね。ただ瞑想をしようとして、取り組もうとして読み始めたんだけども、その禅の本でほんとにおもしろいなと思ったのは創造性についてそこで如何に多く触れられているかってことで、それは自分が存在しているその瞬間に自分を解放していなければ創造的ではありえない、ということだったんだよね。頭の中に然るべきアイデアがある、でももしそのアイデアを実践するために自分が変わる用意ができていなければ、そこに到達することはできないんだよ。それじゃ気が狂っちゃうね！

※インタビューの残りは発売中のOyster #102: The Peace Issueで。

Why not the midwest USA?  We love you here in Wisconsin, fuck LA fuck New York, play a small show in Eau Claire, I guarantee it would sell out...don't you love us?

Sugar Veins.

I feel so hard core

And all I wanted was some soft porn

But now here I am alone and waiting for a softer touch

To feel alive again.

All these shades of grey,

Chains of torture that are aptly applied

To make me come, but never can I cry

What must I do for one tear to fall

Who must I fuck to forget it all.

And I am waiting for a softer touch.

Another caress and I say thank you sir so much.

Can you hear me wail at the top of my lungs

Voice cracking on cigarette butts.

Can you hear me laughing at the top of my lungs

Voice cracking weighing the mutts.

I am unlevened bread

The taste of success is still left unsaid

And all I do commiserates the truth

To be what I will and not a jew.

But we are all atheists deep down

Conforming to our molds of brown.

God where are you now?

Sugar Veins.

I feel so hard core

And all I wanted was some soft porn

But now here I am alone and waiting for a softer touch

To feel alive again.

All these shades of grey,

Chains of torture that are aptly applied

To make me come, but never can I cry

What must I do for one tear to fall

Who must I fuck to forget it all.

And I am waiting for a softer touch.

Another caress and I say thank you sir so much.

Can you hear me wail at the top of my lungs

Voice cracking on cigarette butts.

Can you hear me laughing at the top of my lungs

Voice cracking weighing the mutts.

I am unlevened bread

The taste of success is still left unsaid

And all I do commiserates the truth

To be what I will and not a jew.

But we are all atheists deep down

Conforming to our molds of brown.

God where are you now?

I'm sorry THOM you're young and sexy and I love you.

Umm, so I am a satahnist.

And you tell me to be sober but drugs are my religion.

Freedom doctor is all I ask

To be myself and dip the flask.

Fuck Americans.

when i was 25 years old. my second trip to beijing, china: a visit to the past.
this story is a reflection.

have you ever had the feeling of being stared at and then when you turn around somebody is looking at you? well, this experience is about the most extreme version of this sensation i have ever had!
where to start? i think i should start at the moment when i was in my hotel room, in beijing, looking into the bathroom mirror. the moment that i realized somebody was behind the mirror watching me. actually, i need to start a wee bit before, i will start here and i will end this story here:

"we'll see you later..." 

the man had said to me, and really, i didn't think much of it at the time. after all, it's a hotel. and the chances of seeing 'doormen'? again is very likely, or, so i had thought...

the thought slipped my mind as i entered the hotel, dog tired, to book in at 2 or 3? am...after a long fleight and almost no sleep at all....

around 6am or so? finally in my hotel room, at first, all i could think about was how badly i needed to take a bath, as i stripped off my clothes, i took the liberty of walking around my room in my underwear, smoking, and then looking out the large windows facing out into the never ending rivers of traffic below. that familiar scene: sckyscraper after skyscraper flooded my eyes. i went from the window... could not stop paceing back and forth my room. mind flooded. flooded with thoughts and memories. back and forth back and forth. as if the paceing helped this thought process. feelings and sensations of the past all coming back to me...

"I'm back", i thought "i'm back... home?"

...beijing did feel like my home, some how. after all it was the first place i ever lived after graduation. moving out all "on my own" into the "big bad world", my first living experiences outside of home had been, in china: first job, first rent, first "adult" experiences, had all been there. and, so yes, it was a kind of "home" for me and in the strangest possible way. after all, it had not been a place i had just passed through, i had lived there. i mused over all of these memories...rolling this sour tasting candy over my tounge. the sour kind of candy that leaves a kind of sweet after taste; that as much as you hate, you love.
but the strangest thing was, as i was thinking of the past, i had been hit by all of these feelings and emotions, not from my own past or connected to anything that i had been thinking about, but, these introjectory images and emotions that had started to invade my mind...

i felt strange in that hotel room. ...more than strange, i felt a very distinct sensation

"something bad happened here"...i felt..

the walls were screaming it at me, in their silent pervasive way but i did not hear the silent scream from the walls...i heard it from the floor.

who has not had this sensation in a hotel room? i hope i'm not the only one! and if you have had this sensation before, then you know what i'm talking about, because it's a very un-nerving sensation.
the hotel was beautiful, fancy,'chik' massive and at the same time; empty, dark, moody, haunted, and it was very very scary. i had felt like i was inside a horror movie being there.

on a side note, the hotel was the"beijing international hotel"haha original name!...the chinese have the funniest names for places and things in english. the shopping center i used to go to from my old neighborhood was called "the pretty shopping center", ahaha, always made me laugh looking at that giant sign! "the pretty shopping center", yes shopping is so pretty. ching-glish is really funny. there is a whole entire book of rediculously funny signs and things from china.

unfortunatley this story is more about the dark side of things...i should continue. where was i? oh yeah...
the feeling in the hotel, it was like i was inside a movie like 'the shinning', being in that hotel, being in that room.
while i had been pacing the floor, lost in thoughts, i had noticed two big stains on the floor. wine? it was too big of a stain to be wine. the stain was so subtle, and yet very distinctly, there. it looked like somebody did an almost-good-enough-job of getting it out of the white carpet. it was only a very light light shadow, hardly detectable at first glance. like a blush. but the more i stood there staring at it, the more prominent the stain became. the carpet was a face slowly burning into full blush. the stain was sprawled across the carpet just outside the bathroom door. the massive mirror overlooking ALL.
the floor revealed the rooms dark secret to me, it said:

"some one has died here, and not just one...
more than one person, has died here,
you could die here, you know."

the floor whispered this dark nasty thought to me. it gave me shivers looking at it. i imagined two differnet scenerios:

when i was at the window...i felt the first introjectory sensation of unease, and a visual of a man dressed in a nice suit...jumping out of the window after an argument had taken place, over money. i saw this in my mind as clearly as if it had been a movie clip from one of those maffia scenes. or something like that?
the second image that invaded my mind, when i saw the carpet stain, was of this woman bleeding from the head...and the body.

"was it from a gun shot wound? a knife? i don't know"...i thought to myself,

but there must have been two distinctly different wounds. one to the head, which was the smaller stain, and the larger one was to the body, the core of the body..maybe even to the heart? i pictured how the body would have been laying there...then i said to myslef

"STOP!"

i had to control my mind at this moment. i could not handel these images that were invading my mind....i told myself

"this is your imagination, you're very wild and vivid imagination, nothing more!"
my logic told me to "shut up, be quiet!... your just jet-lagged, thats all"...after a sixteen? hour fleight, hardly no sleep at all " my logic continued to argue with my intuition and was forcefully trying to comfort me by saying

"your wrong, your crazy to think these thoughts"!

..and really! i had wanted to believe i was crazy...but what followed showed me that...my intuition might have known more than my logic had been able to see at that moment.
another detail that i have to mention before i forget, and really just don't know where to insert into this story is... is that when i put the keycard into my hotel room door, the lights would instantly turn on...but only in certain parts of the room. i had never seen this before, and i wondered at it thinking at first " wow, fancy hotel!!"

... i had thought...haha...wow...little did i know...little little little...did i know...
i went into the bathroom, the majority of the wall was covered with a large mirror. i observed that there was something odd about the mirror, but i could not exactly pick out what the oddity was! first of all, it was a shade darker than most mirrors. tinted? thats what had stood out to me the most, at first...
i looked at myself in the dim relfection thinking "oh my god, i look haggard!" in fact, i looked old. eyes sunken in from hardly no sleep at all... hair matted to my head. i observed myself in a way normal to most people when they are alone, until, a sudden sensation hit me while looking at myself.
i felt like i was being watched.

a very distinct feeling. a feeling that i have had before, but not like this, this feeling was stronger. i started to feel more and more insecure as i looked at my own reflection and now had started pacing back and forth the large bathroom, as if interrogating the mirror, and myself!

i did not want to take off my under garments... i no longer wanted to have a bath.IT had started... the whole annoying... logic and intuition debate!!

this ridiculous argument with in myself continued but, the thing is, that, i needed a bath, very badly, and so...with that very ferm decision... i took off my bra and undwear, and did this half trying to cover my body on the behalf of the part of myself feeling insecure for reasons i could not understand or fully comprehend at the moment!

it was like the mirror was screaming at me when i looked at it, just like the floor had been! i have never felt so shy about my own reflection in my entire life. the only other time i felt this shy while naked, was the first time i was naked infront of a boy. but never, ever alone, did i feel this way!

i waved at my own reflection at first, as if to say "hello" to myself and the sensation i felt of being watched! more as a joke, really than anything else. waving at your own reflection is a stupid thing to do, but i thought, oh well, who cares. i can do whatever i feel like doing if i'm alone, and if i'm not, then, somebody will be surprised about my greeting them!

i got into the bathtub, and put my head under the water. the water turned red.
the water turned red from my hair dye. i had just a day before my fleight to beijing died my hair from blonde to a very dark browish red. i noticed this as i had lifted my head from out of the water. looking at it through the mirror and thinking at first

"oh shit, i guess some of the dye still hasn't been washed out!" or that "it must be bleeding through the blonde!? i don't know?!"...

i had died my hair lots of times, and always had washed it thouroughly, and yet...for some reason, this time...i obviously had not done a good enough job of cleaning it. hence the result of the murky brownish red water!!
looking through the reflection at myself, the bathtub, the water and my eyes!
the bathtub looked like it was filled with blood!
seeing myself and to my own horror at what was reflected back at me
under my eyes had run black from my mascara. i looked at my reflection in the mirror, again, blinking...

"wow"...

i thought to myself..."i look dead!"

eyes sunken in and black, sitting in red bathtub water. if it had not have been for the insane situation i founf myself in, i almost would have looked at it more artistically ( which, i can see it in this way now) except for in that very moment when that happened, along with all the other weird thoughts i had been thinking, i could not see it in this way, yet. and i could not shake this feeling...like this image reflected back at me, this was a sort of premonition...and this eerie feeling that somebody was on the other side of the glass. looking at me, musing at this specatcle.

i went right to the edge of the bathtub, right up to the mirror, and started vigorously scrubbing my face to get rid of the black stains that had seeped under my eyes. closing my eyes, then opening them wide...looking at myself...knowing. somehow...that there was some-one there, looking back at me. where they laughing? maybe? where they wondering why the water had turned red? who knows.
after scrubbing my face vigorously for what seemed like a long time...i sank back down into the murky water. thinking, "how disgusting!" i felt dirty, i felt old...and i felt really scared for some reason.
i continued to examine the mysterious mirror:
looking into it, it was exposing myself and the entire room behind, the bloodstain, and myself to my very own tired and paranoid eyes.

as i looked at the mirror, it dawned on me, the strangest detail, of all. and maybe even the most important detail. the very detetail that i had almost missed! this detail of the mirror that confirmed to my logic that my intuition may not be so crazy...

the mirror i noticed...was protruding from the wall by at least two inches. there was a space where the mirror met the ceiling that did not completely connect with the ceiling...and it was the smallest of spaces between, about half an inch or so... and i realized that it made the mirror look like it was almost floating there, off the wall. in fact the entire architechture of the bathroom all of a sudden did not make any sense to me...and as i sat there...i thought...to my own horror

"oh my god, it looks like they have built a wall in front of a wall...and the mirror...IS that Wall!"... so suble was this detail, but like the blood stain. once i saw it...it became even more and more noticable. everything started to make more and more "sense" ?

Instantly i covered myself. got up slowly. looking direclty through the mirror now, not at myself, but at whoever would be, could be, possibly behind that mirror. behind that wall.
i turned around, sitting on the edge of the tub. and very nevously tried to grab for a towel. awkwardly and nervously trying to co ordinate keeping myself covered and at the same time to dry myself.
then my intuition became very angry. i turned to the mirror...now fully covered...hair wrapped up in a nice safe towel. looking at the room around me, myself, everything through that fucking mirror...and i raised my right hand...all fingers down, except the middle one...and said out loud..."FUCK YOU!" FUCK YOU YOU MUTHER FUCKING FUCKERS!" FUUUUUUUCK".

then i walked out of the bathroom. tried to get as far away from that fucking mirror as possible...and then i started shaking. started thinking, i have to get out of my room. i have to get out of my room right NOW!
but, i didn't get dressed right away. i started speaking in "tounges"! i started to go into some kind of a spiritual tranz...and i started speaking in a different language. i didn't know why, i didn't care. my intuition took over at that point...and it was my intuition telling my logic now to "shut up"....i paced the floor back and forth like i had done before, but this time speaking in this strange language that my mind did not understand.
after doing this for a long time. maybe about an hour? i got dressed and went out to find some food to eat. i was really hungry by this point.

as i walked down the dark hallway from my room to a small lobby where i had argued aimlessly with the stubborn chinese staff about why i couldn't book into my hotel room, yet, when it was 2am, they had made me wait in that empty crpeepy fucking lobby until 6am to book in.
i noticed, again, these large mirrors outside my room in the hallway. i had taken note of it breifly, before, but this time they stood out to me with a different kind of significance:

... "umm" ...i wondered while passing through the hallway...
"that mirror aligns directly with the mirror on the other side of the wall, aligns directly with the mirror that is in my bathroom"

...i let the thought go...and continued on my search for food.
after all the crazy babble i had been doing in my room previously, unaware of time passing, unfortunatley ended up missing the buffet breakfast and so decided to go to the bar and get a drink to calm my very frazzled nerves. after that, i went to a mc donalds across the street to eat something. good old mickie d's is everywhere in the world! sometimes it's comforting, even though the food is disgusting plastic waste! in moments like this, i couldn't care if i were eating garbage. may as well.
while going to the mc donalds i was reminded how scary it is to cross the street in china! almost didn't know how to cross the road, until i realized,

" oh yeah right, there is the underground walkway, duh. "

i returned to the bar in the hotel and drank another beer to wash down the garbage and ordered a couple more to bring back to my room. the mini bar in my room had been ridiculously over priced for what it was worth! at this point i needed a good buzz to get me through the rest of the day.
when i had been wandering around earlier, and also when i was at the bar, all the workers in the hotel had been staring at me in this really foreboding way. there were no other guests in the hotel, as far as i could see...it was like the place was completely empty...just the workers, staring at me. silent. looking at me. it was like everyone knew something that i didn't. the song "i know something you don't know do da, do da" was playing over and over in my head...and i could read it in their thoughts, all of them seemed to be singing this song at me with their slanted eyes, and sly smiles. i still get the shivers thinking about this experience. dark, really dark. china can be fucking DARK!... bugio!

i returned to my room, but this time, stopped in the hallway, where the mirror that was parallel to my bathroom had been. the thought, then, occured to me...

"if there is really a person behind the mirror, well then, there must be a door!
could this mirror in the hallway be that door...to the mirror in my bathroom?...
if there is a door then when i push the mirror, it will move, if it doesn't move, then i'm crazy, and i will forget every crazy thing that has just happened"

...at this point my intuition and logic where making a truce...agreeing to dissagree..to confirm, "reality"...and what really IS...the truth? of this very perplexing situation!
i pushed ever so slightly on the mirror in the hallway...and my heart sank...because as i pushed the mirror moved inward. like...like...just like i had thought! just like it should do, if a mirror..were to be a fucking door!!
i said to myself

"OK"...logic still not letting go of this debate...

"well then if it's a door, then, there has to be a way to open it!" ...

i started to examine the fine detail to the edges of the mirror. eyes desperately searching all sides...left to right, up and down...and then...there on the bottom left hand corner of the mirror near the floor..there...gleaming at me...smiling almost...was this very tiny, very small...silver...KEY HOLE. something you would completely miss, unless, haha, unless you were looking for it!

"brilliant... brilliant!" my logic said to me

" and, yet so...so... totally fucked up!" my intuition replied...

"OH my god" my logic said.."intuition was RIGHT"!

with that...the two halves of myself that had been waring against eachother decided to make peace.
i walked into my room with a new found confidence. I started screaming at that fucking mirror! without anything held back. whereas before it was more my intuition going off, and rather insecurly. this time it was full force. both of me was on the same page. i had now proven to myself, that i really was being watched, and this made me a hell of a lot angrier than i had been before.

i don't even remember what i said, all i know is that i yelled a lot!!
don't even know if anybody was there at this point to see me! BUT, i didn't care. the only comfort i had was that, at least my intuition had acted before my logic had the time to catch up with the situation...that i had told the mirror "fuck you" already when somebody had been, no doubt, there watching. my intuiton had been right...it was RIGHT!! i was happy then that i had said fuck you already, before any of my feelings had even been confirmed, yet.

i made a point of every time crossing in front of that mirror to say "FUCK YOU", to it...and to myself. haha. although this really isn't funny. this experience was really quite truamatizing. saying fuck you to your reflection knowing someone is looking at you messes with the mind, in more than one way...and you know, there could be a philisophical value to this, but i'm too tired to get into that right now.
but wait...i have to tell you... it gets worse! i could not recieve calls to my room for some reason?! and... my best friend had been trying frantically to get a hold of me because she was stuck in india, and wasn't able to make it to the airport because her passport had been stamped on flying through china to get to india, and so now, they would not let her through.

i found out all this information after a couple hours of argueing with staff...asking them to PLEASE!!help me !!!...figure out what the fuck is wrong with the phones and why i cannot get my messages!!!!! ? ? ?
i had missed her call while i was at mc donalds. haha. "Awesome! brilliant, just, GREAT!"...
" thank you hunger, thank you logic, thank you body for fucking everything up for me! "
i ended up fiiiinally, getting her call...waiting in my room anxiousley, and, i tell you now, those hours waiting, there, felt like more, i assure you! a millenium may as well have passed between the moments of waiting for that phone call.

the chinese staff could not figure out what was going on, and it took about five of them in order to do anything! in order for them to, even, understand themselves! it was...familiarly agrivating...and comforting some how watching them all bicker between themselves. talking amoung themselves for about half an hour, or more, to simply turn to me after and explain with blank faces, two word responses to any questions i asked! ....welcome to the twilight zone...! whatever the fuck that means. china must be it!!!
i mentioned to the staff, the stain on my carpet, that they should have cleaned it better. told the lady that it looks like blood! she looked at me wide eyed, shaking her head in this very superficial laugh, saying

" haha oh, no no no, you have mistake, it's wine stain!"
and i said,

"um, i don't think so, it's too big of a stain to be a bottle of wine!"
she said to me again, "no, you mistaken"...

"fine, whatever", i thought..."this arguement is pointless"...

at this point i didn't know if i would be meeting up with my friends that day or not, with the way things were going, i thought i would have to spend another night in that room...
so i said to her "look i really don't like my room, can you book me into another room, at least!!"
she started making arrangements to give me a different room while i wated to get in contact with my friends.
finally, ashley called me crying, explaining the whole situation from the airport in india
she had called and let lindsey, in beijing, know that i was in beijing and all the contact information to the hotel. shortly after that lindsey called me and we made arrangements to meet at the hotel in a couple hours or so...lindsey ended up meeting me at my hotel, the friend i had planned on surprising, there. little did i know this trip gave me the surprise!

... i booked out of there as soon as i heard her voice on the phone! waiting for the rest of the time in the lobby, not in my room. i made a point of telling staff that their hotel should be sued for having mirrors that perverts may be able to look through ! they just smiled and nodded, and said,

"yes yes...no plob-lem!"...haha. again funny...but in a really sad way!

i made a point to tell the staff that their hotel is SHIT, and that they are the WORST hotel, in the whole entire world. not that they cared, i'm sure, but it felt saticefying for me to say out loud to them, none the less. i was ONLY thankful not to have had to spend a night in there, alone. i'm sure that if i had not have had a contact in beijing, if i had of stayed a night in that room alone...i may not be here right now.
you know those porno's that are illegal? the ones that sick people pay big money for? the ones people don't normally talk about?...the ones where women get raped and murdered on video? well...i'm pretty sure that...one of those types of porno's had been made there, before. i came to this conclution based on the blood stains and the mirror in my bathroom, and really, only came to this conclution entirely with my intuition!! what sucks about this is that i will never be able to confirm this, and don't care to confirm it..except for the little details of evidence i was able to find...to confirm to myself that i was right....
all in all....all things said and done...i'm just really happy i wasn't in the next episode of some sick-fucks-million-dollar-fantasy! my logic knows that chinese people pay big money to cover up crimes and that they very sadly, all too often, get away with what they have money to pay to cover up! corruption to the core. the apple is rotten. i was lucky not to be another missing person. people go missing all the time! i know very well that the people in china with money do horrible things, and cover it up. this time....i think i really fucked with their minds. i wish i knew! i wish i could see the reaction from the other side! i don't know who was sitting behind that glass...but i'm sure...when they or he or whoever the fuck it was realized, that i realized...what was going on...some fueses must have ruptured. and i'm happy about that :)
i won't get into all the other details of how long i waited in the lobby for my friend to arrive, and all the shit that happened inbetween. all i have to say is that i could have cried when i saw linsdey there...coming to pick me up to bring me back to her place

..sitting there anxiosly, waiting, and then i saw her there, haha, almost running through the hotel doors towards me, i heard her cry out:

"BEAN!"...my nickname...

and i just ran over to her and hugged her!
i could have broken down crying at that moment..but somehow i didn't. it had all been just a wee bit too sur-real for me....lost for words...and so i smiled and said
"it's SO good to see you!"...

china, beijing...like i said before, and will say again...anything can happen there, anything can happen anywhere, really!

so now that you know the core of the story, the very rotten nasty core, i want to fill you in on the beginning...
the story starts like this:

i had decided to take a week vacation in beijing to surprise a friend if mine who had decided to go live there based on the stories my sister and i had shared with her about beijing! she had been there for already a year, almost two. a trip to see her was way over-due.
strange place to decide to go on "vacation" you would think, and you would be right. i guess it was not so much a vacation as it was an oportunity to visit the past. i really wanted to see my old neighborhood and go see my old friend who owned the restaurant. it would turn out that the restaraunt was closed for the chinese new years, never got to see her and i had lost contact with sufwey-tom, so that was out of the options. there was no way i could have ever been able to find him, again.

so, yes, i had this opportunity to go... because my two best friends and i planned a sort of "reunion" in china. luckily i have found friends in this life who are as crazy as i am! lindsey and ashley:)
ashley was flying through beijing, from india, and lindsey lives in beijing. i was flying over to beijing to surprise lindsey. she did not know that i was going to be there, was only expecting ashley.
ashley and i had made up this brilliant surpise, and worked out all the details so that it would go perfectly, or well, as perfectly as you can manage when dealing with places such as india and china! which, if you've been there, i'm sure you'll know, are a bit mental...and pretty much you have to be ready for anything to happen.
it was february and the chinese new years festival. couldn't have picked a better time of year to go. no body does the new year, like the chinese do it! it's like a fucking war is going on! seriously. for that whole week i was there. the sound of those "BANGS" and "crackles" and "pops" were the background music to my trip...along with Caribou the album 'swim'. haha. and it was a marvelous combination:)
i had made all the arrangements perfectly, or so i had thought. booked myself into a nice hotel so that i would have the comfort of a bath and a nap after the grueling 16? hour fleight there. also, my fleight was arriving at night. needed somewhere to go before meeting ashley at the airport the next day. where lindsey would have been surprised to see both of us together there!

my fleight was delayed, i arrived at my hotel at 2 or 3 am...had to wait in the lobby until 6am to officialyl book into my room because i messed up the dates when booking online, only realized when i arrived! my fleight had been delayed because of bad weather, and had to wait more than a couple hours, in shanghai. i will skip the details of the fleight, because it was scarry AT parts, and boring at parts, and over all it made my legs feel like they were jelly by the time i arrived.
i will also just mention, briefly, that upon arrival, the taxi ride to my hotel was no less entertaining then i had once remembered. the driver kept on calling me "pretty" which if i think i can remember is "piow-leeung" in maderine...and he kept saying this over and over at me... when we arrived at the hotel the taxi driver had tried to kiss me! he had been touching my hand in the cab, commenting on how cold they were, and i just laughed nervously thinking, "wow, this is weird". but i let him touch my hand. i was so tired my mind was hardly functioning at this point and really, it's just a "hand" i thought, no big deal..didn't really know what to say or do about that.... but when we arrived and he pulled me towards him to kiss him i said "NO!" and ran out of the cab, basically throwing the money at him...and running.

"weird" i thought. "weird china experiences here we come, bring it on!!"...
but...that was nothing compared to what was waiting for me in my hotel.
outside the hotel there was nobody around except about four or five men dressed in suits. i had assumed that they were door men. they were outside smoking. my lighter had been confiscated at the airport and so i asked one of the men for a light. they, in return, asked me what the hell i was doing there so late at night, and alone. these men were not chinese! they looked of indian origin, spoke really good english, and now that i think of it,i don't really know where they were from. they all looked like they had different nationalities. and i found this strange....

i told them that i had plans to make a reunion with some friends.
they looked at me like i was out of my mind to be in china, a woman, alone. and so late at night, or by this time, early morning, i guess!
after smoking a cigarette and small talking with them for a bit, i went inside, but as i left...one of the men said while i was walking away

"we'll see you later..."

i didn't understand this comment at first. .. and the way he said it, i remembered thinking, was strange. something in the tone of voice. he said it with a kind of irony, a cruel irony that i nievly missunderstood at the time...

Now i know what that muther fucker meant...

but i'm sure they never expected to see what...what happened next! they, for sure, did not expect me to see through...

the looking glass.

and...you know...when you see a reflection as ugly as that...makes you never want to look in the mirror, ever, ever again.

My love is a madness

            That I dare not to control

And the object of my affection

            Has not forgotten to anchor my soul.

At moor I rest assured without caress

            Teasing the names of a motherless jest

Baking drug cartels in muffin tins for breakfast

            Searching the earth for a frostbitten mistress to be my bridesmaid.

I titillate my bed to the left and hold in my right hand a pen

            To write my darkest secrets down

That I make famous on the internet

            For every Tom, Dick and Harry to scrutinize blatantly.

Come and fuck wit me Darryl, I dare you.

I love walking into a store thinking that its just a furniture store and not realizing that the whole back of this perfect little shop is stuffed to the brim with beautiful mint condition records! 

I went in to this little store(which was actually ginormous), not expecting much, thinking I was shopped out because I had already bought  an adorable sun dress but we decided to check it out anyway. I walked out with 4 records! I got Wish you were here ( Pink Floyd), Aladdin Sane ( David Bowie), Crisis? What Crisis? (Supertramp), Deja vu (Crosby Stills Nash and Young)! 

Hilary.

And in the room I had coveted for myself she told me point blanco, “I envy you.”

Damnit girl I am so fucking blue, I envy you.

I’ll try my hand at graphic design, I’ll do everything I can to be like you but it’s all wrong baby.

Scrub it, I am not you.

But you hold all the cards and all the men I love love you more.

What am I doing wrong, I swear I try so gawddamned hard and fail flailing rabid like the miserable wretch I am.

I am not you my friend and you never think of me, never speak to me, breaks my heart not to be missed by you.

added by Lady Newell & Friends WASTECENTRAL  Curator

                                                        DEFAULT

                                                                                         photo by Phil Fisk

It slipped my mind

and for a time                                                                   

I felt completely free

A word of trouble

Silent double

A pawn unto a queen

I laugh now

but later's not so easy

I gotta stop

the will is strong but the flesh is weak                                       

I guess that's it

I've made my bed and i lie in it

I'me still hanging on

Bird upon a wire

I fall between the waves

I avoid your gaze

I turn out of phase

A pawn unto a queen

I laugh now

but later's not so easy

I gotta stop

the will is strong but the flesh is weak.

I guess that's it

I've made my bed and i lie in it.

 But it's eating me up

It's eating me up

It's eating me up

If i get free of all my snares and my nets

added by Lady Newell & Friends WASTECENTRAL Curator

Thanks to : Arico  ! Josephine  ! Radiohead Malasia ! athomsforpeace !

                                                INGENUE

You know like the back of your hand

who let em in.

You got me into this mess so                                                

you get me out.

You know like the back of your hand

Your bell jar

Your collection                                                                 

Ingenue

You get me into this mess

Fools rushing in, yeah

and they know it

The seeds of the dandelion you know blow away

In good time, i hope, i pray

If  i'm not there now physically

i'm always before you

come what may

And you know it                                                                  

Fools rushing in

yeah

well you know it

who let them in?

yeah

well you know it

gone with a touch of your hand

gone with a touch of your hand

move through the moment

though it betrays

transformations

jackals and flames

if i knew now

what i knew then

just give me more time

i hope and pray

i mistake all you say

the seeds of the dandelion you blow away

Label: XL Recordings)
Dancers: Thom Yorke and Fukiko Takase
Director: Garth Jennings
Choreographer: Wayne McGregor
Production Company: STK Films
Producer: Helen Power
Director of Photography: Nick Wood
Editor: Dominic Leung @ Trim
Focus: Karl Hui
Gaffer: Paul Allen
Make up: Carol Hart
With thanks to Trinity Laban, Norton & Sons, and Grenson
P & C Unsubstainabubble Ltd 2013

CLUB AMOK ! Live debut in LA, June 14 2013 - Thanks athomsforpeace !

added by Lady Newell & Friends W.A.S.T.E Central Curator

                                                                                   photo by Eliot Hazel

BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES

Look out of the window

What is passing you by

If you really want this bad enough                      

You're young and good looking

The keys to the kingdom

Sooner or later

And before your very eyes

Old soul on young shoulders

How you'll look when you're older

Times' fickle card game with you and I

You have to take your chances

The book of forgiveness

Sooner or later

And before your very eyes

HI just putting out a call to anyone in Rome that will be seeing ATOMS on the 16th July.

Im an Aussie travvelling for a short art course in Rome and i would love to duck out of class to go see Atoms.

If anyone is going and wouldnt mind letting a fellow fan tag along - that would be AMAZING - i dont speak italian but am fluent in the universal language of gratitude and love. Hope someone happens upon this!

Even if someone could let me know the best way to purchase a ticket from the vendors in Rome that would be helpful!

- Tom

forget any prior statements of me announcing the best day of my life... that night at LPR seeing Atoms For Peace was the best. why? because i met Thom Yorke. Yes. i did. and he was lovely. the show was absolutely wonderful, Nigel was wonderful, and the show just kept on going and going and going... nothing could ever beat it. thank god for good music. thank the lorrrrrrrrrd