Coelispex M. Aphetor

*randomly thinks of UHF*

*scrolls down once or twice on Bluesky and spots a snippet of UHF*

Today is either blessed or cursed.

The only nice thing about my insomnia tonight is listening to the rain hit my AC unit and a few audible puddles in the alley way. Rain hitting things has to be one of the best sounds. I could never live somewhere where I couldn’t have this often.

yeah man the club is brillig tonight. yeah the borogoves are fucking mimsy. the mome raths outgrabe and shit—aw keen spite, is that the fucking manxome foe? shit, this is totally not gyre OR gimble... say, how about u bring yr vorpal sword tonight? yeah... let's get snicker-snack with it

I wouldn’t recommend it, no. But after some an unsuccessful wasp hunt I am struggling bravely on with the task of not getting up yet.

Quite a long time ago I was woken up with moderate regularity by welcome sexual advances. What happened to my life.

Can confirm that there are better ways to wake up than via wasp sting, and doubly so for wasp sting then promptly losing track of the wasp - leaving it free to return to the scene of the crime.

LeGuin wrote about the desire for 'unassailable safety' as one of the deep roots of evil, and I think about that a lot.

hey dude, I noticed you attempting to carve a small space for joy in the face of overwhelming sadness. kind of problematic considering all the horrors

(Source: former archaeologist.)

The lack of modern medicine means a lot of middle-aged conditions finished people off, but this is largely true. It’s a gross statistical oversimplification, but broadly a life expectancy of 32 implies for every person who died in the first year of life (a lot) someone else made it to or near 64+.

Holy fuck

I would say that I completely stopped caring about personalising my environment about 15 years ago, which is probably not coincidentally also my general marker for when my mental health went from pretty poor to actively catastrophic and socially repellent. So maybe there’s something in it.

Seen a fair few “share your phone background” posts going around - mine is just the default from when I got it maybe 7 or so years ago? I can’t help but feel this is some kind of bad signifier for my ongoing mental health and/or broad social appeal. Or maybe it just means nothing, really.

Wrestler social media right now is an endless series of tweets apologising for either being disrespectful about the death of Hulk Hogan, or being respectful about the death of Hulk Hogan. The fabled double-edged cancel culture paradigm! Many thought it just a story elders tell around the campfire.

Just to say that Mythic Bastionland is the best, most intriguing TTRPG I've read in years. It's been a long time since I devoured one cover-to-cover.

Nothing like encountering your regular Tesco Express crush singing along to Toploader for burning that idly speculative bridge forever.

Thanks Sam! And despite that being more or less down the road from where I grew up, I was not aware of that.

YouTube video by Black Sabbath BLACK SABBATH - "Black Sabbath" (Official Video)

It has always been Sabbath. Four working-class lads from Birmingham, changing global culture forever with nothing but some huge, evil riffs and a song about how Satan is a pretty fucking scary kinda dude. RIP Ozzy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lVd...

A remarkable number of genres were birthed, defined or reframed here. And while our claims on originating the likes of punk and dance music are shaky at best, there simply is no debate with metal.

That is glib, but it's true. We can argue on songs all we want, but the first metal band was Sabbath.

They also remain a fundamental part of one of the only element of something approaching national pride that remains inside me - the UK's contribution to music.

Considering our size and modern geopolitical relevance, we punch far above our weight.

Crucially, Sabbath remain essential gateway music. I have lost count of how many people I've played them to for the first time, whether it be a metalhead who has never actually heard them or someone who doesn't usually go for that kind of thing.

Their hit rate with almost anyone is astonishing.

That pushed me into exploring further. Since then I've firmly stocked my musical library with Sabbath album after Sabbath album - remaining in the Ozzy era, admittedly.

They are a go-to for me when I feel like metal, like rock, like glorious '70s riffs and the honest emotion of pioneering music.

YouTube video by Black Sabbath BLACK SABBATH - "Children of the Grave" from The End (Live Video)

Which, of course, is Children Of The Grave. It's perfect metal. That thunderous, rolling riff. That booming depth-charge bass. The ratting, dextrous drumming. And of course Ozzy with those banshee-adjacent vocals, a classic Sabbath anti-war diatribe. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUT7...

Very early on in this hilarious gaming love letter to metal, they play Sabbath. I mean, if you're going to be metal you HAVE to start with them. Right?

The soundtrack is my favourite use of licensed music in video games, and that they chose my favourite Black Sabbath song is icing on the cake.

But even then I didn't really throw myself into Black Sabbath in a collect-all-the-albums way (and I am, as anyone who knows me will tell you, an album collector kind of guy). That would take me until 2009, and come via a fairly unexpected source.

The video game Brütal Legend.

Off the back of that I bought this compilation, oddly enough not a part of their official catalogue due to not being released by a label associated with them and their management. How that happened I don't know. But it gave me a good introduction.

YouTube video by Black Sabbath - Topic Planet Caravan (2009 Remaster)

One song didn't have those bombastic Sabbath riffs - the trippy, melancholic Planet Caravan.

Being 20, standing on a grassy hillside with my friends and several thousand others, looking up at the stars while the guys who invented metal play this. Take me back.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6sV...

It was unashamedly a huge performance, which stood out after the desperate desire to be raw and real* that defined much of the mostly nu-metal lineup.

Huge fireworks, colossal chugging riffs, and Ozzy - an awkwardly creaky enthusiasm at the centre of it all.

*Of course, a given definition of real.

But I didn't really get into Sabbath until I saw them live at Ozzfest 2001. I was mainly there for Tool. A young, pretentious Tool guy in the early 2000s? What a treat for everyone around me.

Sabbath of course came on last, as night was falling. They were so loud, so precise, so perfect, so metal.