Armageddon's Children

Two nights ago, I finished reading this wonderfully wonderful new book by Terry Brooks, called Armageddon’s Children. It is one of, if not the, best book he has ever written, and with him being my favorite author, it is one of my favorite books.

Every good author has a unique ability to write. They have something to their words that makes them stand out, whether it is in building a character, creating suspense, intrigue, or painting vivid pictures. For the authors whose work I have read extensively, I am able to identify certain characteristics to their writing that is particularly unique. It is nothing special, anyone who has a favorite author knows the style of writing well enough to identify these things. R.A. Slavatore, for instance, has one of the best action choreography skills in writing that I have read. John Saul knows the best ways to touch the fear nerve using everyday concepts. De Lint builds characters and blends reality, dreams and music seamlessly.

Mr. Brooks paints the most incredible and amazing pictures in your head. Never has it been more apparent than in Armageddon’s Children. For decades, his Shannara novels created this wonderful fantasy world where every book is an epic on to its own, on scales that most authors would shudder to attempt. His imagery and vision are his key ingredients. With him, you get this look into this huge and beautiful world from a seemingly all-encompassing point of view.

In this latest book, he does the same but with a different tone; darkness. The imagery and vivid pictures are all there, but they now carry a terrifyingly dark tinge to them. This is largely due to the fact that the setting is that of Earth eighty years from now, in what was referred to by Amazon.com as a ‘worst-case scenario’ of the current world conditions. In other words, it is a world where war and pollution have won out and civilization has been reduced to siege mentality. People find themselves living like refugees inside big stadiums and sports complexes and defending themselves from… other things. Humans are no longer the dominant species. Mutation has caused the birth of new races of creatures from human beings, and these creatures are left outside to survive. Some humans who think that living inside confined spaces in a death sentences choose to stay outside, including tribes of young children and teens.

This story is a new series in Brooks’ repertoire, but it is actually a merging of his two biggest worlds. The first is the Word and Void series, which is set in the real world in current times. The stories were of a much more localized scale and very much closer to home. It was a blend of urban life with fantasy and magic. The series were his first true forays into darker and starker visions. There was a distinct edge to those books. The second world needs no introduction; any fan of fantasy or literature will know what Shannara stands for. Tolkien had Middle-Earth; Brooks has Shannara. Brooks is attempting something that borders on impossible. He is attempting to actually merge the two worlds, making the world of Shannara as an aftermath of our current reality. The amazing part is that, based on Armageddon’s Children, is that he is gotten off to an incredible start. So much so that it is frightening. The images he has painted of our future are to close to home, in a way, and I have been unable to forget them or get them out of my head. Judging by how our world today is going, what Brooks prophesizes seems inevitable. I warn you, it is no pretty picture. Yes, there are demonic creatures and wild magic in his book, but even with those elements, the world that he projects is very much our own.

There is so much about this new book that is fresh, beautiful and frightening all at once. The characters have facets to them that are new yet very distinctly Brooks. The parallels and references he makes are quite frankly astounding and bordering on controversial. Dick Cheney as a Pitbull spoiling for a fight… make your own conclusions. The Moses and the exodus reference is also another big point that pretty much defines this new series. It is a book that needs to be read, by anyone who likes a good story. I read the first third of the book on the first two days after buying it, then finished it in one sitting, at night, late into the wee hours of early morning. I was unable to put it down and the cliffhangers made me slightly angry because I now have to wait till the end of 2007 to know what happens. READ THIS BOOK!

Orbits

Fifty years from now, I would be very surprised if the world remains anywhere near the same as it does today.

Someone was saying that things are about to get very bad in this country. That someone was speaking at a show for stand-up comedians, and he was quite serious. He said that laughter and humor is important, because we need such things to carry us through the bad times that are about to come. We need to be able to laugh it all off and not let it get us down too much, because it will get bad...very bad. This was not just some guy off the streets; it was someone very well respected in the media industry. His words, well, had to be taken pretty seriously.

In a way, it is not something that unexpected. Anyone who pays attention to these things will be able to tell that a lot of things have changed; a lot of things are still changing, and not necessarily for the better. Everyday there is more and more talk about racial discrimination, marginalization of people, economic problems,corruption... and the only response by those is power to all this is to warn people to not speak about it; as if by keeping silent, the problems will go away. They are worried that someone might say things that will incite the different racial groups, hence they came up with the silly little Sedition Act, supposedly to curb an such acts of civil misconduct. In reality, that Act has been more successful at curbing people's fundamental rights to the point of even stopping well-intentioned individuals from highlighting important issues such as abuse in detention camps. The Act, meant to prevent people from saying racially sensitive things, is nothing more than a weapon for the authorities to gag anyone who speaks against them who does not happen to have political connections or is filthy rich. No wonder someone accused us as turning into a police state.

Some might argue that this is nothing new. True enough; the Sedition Act has been around for more than a decade, almost two now. The repercussions, however, are cumulative, and the effects of constant media restrictions and censorship has never been more apparent. The American's are so paranoid over Big Brother; Malaysian's think it is a natural state of being. That is the saddest part, the fact that we are so accepting of our dronal, silent, existence. We are content to be blind and ignorant; in fact, our entire lifestyle reflects this. There are not too many places, I am sure, where the people of a society are so ignorant of the glaring problems within their own country. No one gives a rat's ass until the problem comes knocking on their doors. I have an excellent example; I was at a job interview yesterday, and the two managers from the company who were conducting the interviews looked at my resume and asked me if Amnesty International was some kind of College. Progress indeed...

This must sound like a broken record at times; yet this is exactly what the few of us in this country who actually care are stuck doing. It is difficult to solve all the problems, probably impossible. There will always be problems and issues that societies have to learn to handle. The problem that this society has, however, is something akin to the green algae that grows on the surface of ponds. The Oxygen and light sapping algae that causes a process known as eutrophication is a problem in many parts of the world because it pretty much stunts the growth of life in these ponds and lakes. This happens because the algae covers the surface, cutting off light which is so important for life underwater. Hence, it pretty much starves and suffocates life inside these ponds, incapacitating it of any sort of ecological progress.

Ignorance is the algae of this society; of any society in similar circumstances. Our ignorance stunts our development, it inhibits our progress. Progress, despite what we might think, is not measured by technology and infrastructure. It is measured by our personal growth, our maturity and compassion as licing beings. That is the true form of progress, something that lies within rather than outside. True progress will occur when we stop thinking of ourselves and start putting others before ourselves. Unfortunately, our ignorance of the problems we have is preventing us from going anywhere, of doing anything. We are pretty much stuck in this state of being for a long time, or at least until another huge wave comes to visit our beautiful but fast-vanishing shores and wipes us all out...

Anna Molly
As I was browsing through the bleesed archives of YouTube, I came across this gem... the latest from Incubus, from their upcoming album, Light Grenades.... these dudes rock...

On Race

There was an article in the newspaper a few days ago... well, more like the headlines which went "Don't play the racial card", spoken by some cabinet minister in the circus that passes for a government in this country. Spoken, I should point out, in the context of tactics that might be employed to fish for votes in the coming election. He or she was refering to those who might try to bring up racial inequality issues such as welath distribution, affirmative action, etc as means of gathering support.

Now, do not get me wrong, this is not intended as a anti-government rant or anything. Nothing of the sort. This is about something else; this is about the concept of race itself, which is proving to be such an important 'reality' in our lives, especially in this country, Malaysia. A train of thought led me to start pondering about what race means; about what being regarded as a member of a particular race in a so-called multi-racial society as this means. Ont he surface, it might seem like the most obvious thing in the world to most people, but having spent some time deliberating on it, as always, the lines of black and white start to blur, metaphorically speaking.

To those who take it as important, I am labelled as an Indian. Again, this might seem as a ridiculously obvious statement. Not so. Whenever I fill up a form about myself, in the race column, I find myself ticking or writing down 'Indian', without really stopping to think about it. Almost as if it was second nature, like ticking homo sapien in the species column, if there ever was one. It is not very obvious as to why I am an Indian, or why anyone else belongs to any particular race that they might be put into.

There are many different ways of looking at this. Many differnet definitions of race exist out there, and i cannot really deal with all of them; only with those that are relevant to my current situation and context. I suppose that the main reasonings behind the racial division in this country, in this society are things like family background, language, religion and customs. The irony is that even these things come with enough extra baggage and ambiguous meanings that can drive a person mad. I will try anyway, at the risk of my marbles.

Why am I Indian? Why am I not Indian? Never mind...

I guess if one were to look at family background as a reason for racial categorization, then I guess I am an Indian. Then again, what brings about this reasoning anyway? Because my great-great-grandparents were from India? Lets face it, that is what lies at the bottomline. That maybe so, but I was never born in India; I have never been to India. Heck, I don't even KNOW my great grandparents. I grew up in an Indian family, or at least that is what they say, but then again, I also grew up in a 'Malay' school, I grew up with 'Chinese' best friends, etc. Why does the family factor come first? is it written in our blood? It is a bit of an amateurish argument, I know, but any discussion about race feels childish to me anyway.

The language argument is not a very strong one, so no point arguing about it all that much. Just because I speak Tamil does not make me Indian, because I can also speak Malay and English and I know plenty of people of other 'races' who speak multiple languages. I mention this because there have been many an occasion when I have been told that I should speak and be well versed in Tamil because I am 'Indian'. That puts the language into the definition of a race, which would technically make me 'Indian, Malay and ermm...either English or American' at the same time.

Religion is a touchy issue, mostly because in itself it is a very confusing and personal matter. I would not normally include it as an argument, but because of the context of this society, where Islam, for instance, is synonymous to being Malay, as they claim, religion does play an important role. This does not apply as much to 'Indians', who are considerably more liberal with the entire religion-race thing, and the 'Chinese' even more so. However, this does not mean that it does not exist at all. It is quite common to see a family of 'indians' imposing Hinduism or Christianity on their children. This applies to other 'races' as well. Hinduism is almost completely an 'indian' thing. So does that make me Indian? Well, not in this case, because I gave up Hinduism long ago.

Maybe it is customs then. Practices and lifestyles? Perhaps. As I said before, I have never been restricted to any particular group... as is the ase with most Malaysians. We have all at some points in our lives come in contact with the other 'races', so to speak. More so, a lot of us learn, eat, sleep, socialize and grow up with people of other 'races'. We are not limited to any one type of influence or custom, no matter how much we delude ourselves. I cannot say that I grew up Indian because I did not, simply because I spent a lot of time with member so of the other 'races' as well, learning their ways, their beliefs, and practices. That applies to all of us, does it not? In this matter, who can safely claim to be of any particular 'race'?

All these arguments have made it clear to me as to why I can never ever think of myself as an Indian again, or any other 'race'. This is not meant to include anyone else, because this is a very personal matter that each of us needs to deal with. It is important because it is a matter of personal identity. When we put ourselves into a category, when we label ourselves as such, we should be aware of what it all means and why we make these decisions. Never blindly. At least, that is what I feel...

"A great person will know that there is no one better than them...
A greater person will know that they are not better than anyone else..."
-Pagonel, R.A.Salvatore's Immortalis

Echoing the Soul

As I write this, Holly Brook is playing on my good old 2.1 pc speakers. I like Holly, she is quite distinct, despite being new to the music scene. The genre listing on the player lists her as 'slow rock', which, as far as my definition of rock goes, fits fine enough. Not that I like categorising artists into... well... categories. It just sort of makes sense, compared to all the other stupid labels there are out there... Screamo?
Right....

Ms. Brook was the same vocalist on that Fort Minor song, in case anyone is wondering. No worries, though, her music is not even remotely similar to that whatever-they-are. Holly Brook, for lack of a better comparison, is more of a female version of Chris Martin, with a generally darker tone. Fits right into the stuff that I am into. The songs are soft, for most part, and at times almost-radio friendly, but only to a station that is into good music. She does not perform nuclear science here, just the basics, and it works... good lyrics, piano-driven music, and an excellently breathy voice. To follow that Chris Martin similarity, she even has a song called 'Like Blood, like Honey' which is of the similar tempo and mood as 'Parachutes', by Coldplay, including the single acoustic guitar plucking. The song even has some tinges of classic Jewel. Coldplay, Jewel... still wondering why I like her?

Holly Brook is not quite the Breaking Benjamins, Evanescences, or Funeral for a Friends of this world, which is what I am more inclined to, so maybe it is a bit surprising for me to listen to her as well. No down-tuned, heavily distorted power chords, no vocalist screaming and bleeding their throats off, no poison laced lyrics... yet I think she is brilliant.

This whole thing called musical interests is a funny thing. It can, however, be summed up in one simple question; why do some people absolutely love one form of music while others absolutely despise it?

This question may take on many appearences. Here are some from my viewpoint:

1. Why does pop music suck so bad at times and are tolerable on others?
2. Why do I hate hip-hop and rap so much while others think its awesome?
3. Why do other people fall in love with hard alternative music the way that I did?

As you can see, these three questions are all centred around me... not because I'm a self-centred bastard (which I hopefully think I am not..am I?), but because I do not have the balls to even assume I understand what other people's perspectives on music might be like. I ain't that stoopid...

Music reflects the voice of the soul. The soul being the sincere, honest, and pure entity within each and every one of us. At least, that is how I look at it. Not really looking to venture into a discussion about the soul here, so let us, for the sake of this entry, assume that the soul is a substantial element of our make-up. Our FORM.

On the outside, we may be anything, and everything. We might try to be. WE put on masks, images, personalities... things that are not truly us, but we put them on anyway because that is how we want to be seen. Essentially, it is an easy exercise, because the part of us that is purest, the soul, is so well hidden and difficult to find anyway. It takes a really seasoned, wise, and sensitive person to be able to see through the layers... and how does one do it? Through music.

Nothing speaks to and understands our souls as well as the music we listen to. Be careful not to misunderstand me, I use the word "Listen" very deliberately. Not just hearing music, not just hearing a cool beat and thumping our body parts to it... but listening. The music that we listen to are those that bear special meaning to us, individually, uniquely... usually something that other people simply cannot understand. More often than not, each one of us will have a special song or two that seems to speak so truly to our deepest thoughts and feelings. Not just on special occasions, but at all times... a song that, in many ways, seems to define us. Just like a good book is able to read us, a good song listens to us... listens patiently to our pains, our secrets, our truths as we ouselves perceive them.

When I think about the kind of music that I enjoy, that I am able to appreciate, yes, there are certain similarities in all of them that I can identify, and they do reflect on many elements that are dear to me. The music reflects who I have become, why things are the way they are and what will be. The music that I listen to reflects the things that I believe to be important; purity, honesty and sensitivity. Sometimes, there are so many things, so many wounds and scars that we really want to just ignore and hide, but there comes a time when letting them go, seeking closure and freedom are the only way for us to move on. It is about dealing with the deepest thoughts and feelings we might have. That is what the music that I love does for me. That is how it speaks to my soul.

All that darkness and depressing music that I listen to is not me having a death wish... quite the opposite, these songs are about finding a way out that is true, not just illusions, they are about confronting the most hidden parts of the soul and seeing it for what it is. This kind of explains why I listen only to hard rock with hopeful, positive lyrics, and none of that death metal stuff.

Perhaps I am wrong, but maybe, just maybe, this is how music really affects us? For a fan of good music such as me, it is a journey that is ongoing and never-ending... and it is one we embrace willingly.

Fully Alive

Hey guys, as you can see, I've decided to give this blog of mine a facelift. It has been a while since I did something nice for this little webpage that has been chronicling my thoughts for so long, and it's long overdue. A big thanks to Caz for his brilliant template. I've including the link to his page on the side, so go check it out. Anyway, to inaugurate the new-look blog, here's a music video by a really fascinating new voice in alternative rock called Flyleaf. The song is called Fully Alive. Enjoy...

Diary of Jane (Acoustic)

This is not the same as the original acoustic version on “Phobia”. It is a different version entirely meant to be played on acoustic guitar.

Notes: Capo on the 1^st Fret, Standard Tuning

Intro (strum)

Am

--- -0-----0-----0----0----0-1------0-----0-----3--1---0---

---- 1-----1--- --1----1----1---------1-----1------1--1---1---

--- -3-----3-----3----3----3---------3-----3-----3--3---3---

-2--2-----2---- -2----2----2---------2-----2-----2--2---2---

-0--0-----0-----0----0----0--------0-----0-----0--0---0---

----------------------------------------------------------------

Verse and Chorus Chords

Am F G C D B5

--0-----1--------3--------0-------2--------------

--1-----1--------0--------1-------3--------------

--3-----2--------0--------0-------2--------4-----

--2-----3--------0--------2-------0--------4-----

--0-----0--------2--------3---------------- 2----

------------------3--------------------------------

Chorus Solo (Optional for Second Guitar)

-----9--8--9--8--9--11----9---8---9/11—11/13---13/11---11-----

--------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------

-----9--8--9--8--9--11---9--8—9/11---11/13---13/11--11----

----------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------

--6--8--9--11--9--11--14--13--------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Chords

Am

If I had to, 

Am

I would put myself right beside you

Am

So let me ask

                  F

Would you like that?

F

Would you like that?

Am

And I don't mind

Am

If you say this love is the last time

Am

So now I'll ask

             F

Do you like that?

F

Do you like that?

No….

Am

Something's getting in the way

F

Something's just about to break

C                               B5                       F

I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane

F               G

So tell me how it should be

Play Intro x1

Am

Try to find out what makes you tick

Am

As I lie down

Am

Sore and sick

             F  

Do you like that?

F

Do you like that?

Am

There's a fine line between love and hate

Am

And I don't mind

Am                            F  

Just let me say that I like that

F

I like that

Am

Something's getting in the way

F

Something's just about to break

C                               B5                      Am

I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane

Am

As I burn another page

F

As I look the other way

C                                B5                    F

I still try to find my place in the diary of Jane

F               G                          Am

So tell me how it should be

Bridge Solo (Optional for Second Guitar)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

--11--13--9-------------9-----------11--13--9------------9--9/11--

--------------8/10--10----8--7-----------------8/10-10------------

---------------------------------8-----------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------

C

Desperate, I will crawl

B5

Waiting for so long

Am

No love, there is no love

C

Die for anyone

B5

What have I become

Am

Something's getting in the way

F

Something's just about to break

C                               B5                       Am

I will try to find my place in the diary of Jane

Am

As I burn another page

F

As I look the other way

C                               B5

I still try to find my place

                    Am                                              

In the diary of Jane

Play Intro to end