Features / Series: era vulgaris

SPB contributor T is a global traveler. In visiting countries he’s a fan of music (that is the Scene Point Blank focus), but also a wide range of arts, which included the hot sauces that share spicy flavors and carry a bit of culture in a bottle. Goodness in Bottle … Read more

CURE MY HEART FROM BEATING.(...)every time I close my eyes I pray for your demise(...) Did you know that in Beijing, where in 2009 the fragrance of cooking oil and wood-fired kitchens had been supplanted by a less identifiable photochemical smell and smog, the approaching bullet train sings a song? … Read more

Chaos, contradictions, and confrontations are a rite of passage. Charles Dickens said that we begin to forgive a place as soon as it is left behind. There is some truth to it. True places never are in any maps, Herman Melville said. When you’re moving, you are what you are … Read more

FRUITION. ( . . . ) I can hear it fading / fading like gas. ( . . . )I am having a hard time figuring out what you came here for.You are reading the column of an online publication. I never do that, so I do not really know … Read more

Japan. A near flawless culture of hospitality, design, cuisines, architecture, and a wonderful sense of ritual that pervades its society. A country ruled by meticulous and supreme organization, people respectful to the point of being invisible with an innate sense of courtesy. Vibrant, ever-changing streetscapes and fantastic food. A country … Read more

INNER SANCTUM. line has been drawn / headed for the big death / your everywhere is my nowhere / some things are better left broken and scattered / better left unsaid / frightened by tradition / caved in scar tissue / senseless quest for power / quest in lies / … Read more

escape the confines of your fate / don't be a prisoner in someone else's scheme / leave behind and bury what is dead / relief wrapped inside a goodbye / it’s not getting better than this / it's ending one minute at a time / time for putting garbage in … Read more

As the good ole shock jock Plato so eloquently put it, music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. Loudspeakers are instrumental for that kind of education. A crossover network, transducers, an enclosure, additional parts and the complicated interactions of the aforementioned … Read more

I do travel. A bit. An iPod or portable device is a great, convenient yet soulless asset to have. It fits your music collection into your pocket and the capability is amazing. However, with the resurgence of vinyl and with emitting vinyl records via my projects, the necessity has arisen … Read more

before we talk of any repentance / I would do it all again / lose my way and fall again / they will never get what is inside of me / (vultures licking their lips) / step out of the womb right into the haze / reminded by scars / … Read more

(…) tunnel vision's tightening its grip - beat by mutual denial (…) During the Double Ninth Festival in China cemeteries get crowded. People drink chrysanthemum wine and hold onto dogwood as they clean ancestral graves and pay respects to the dearly departed. Celebrating the Chongyang festival in the capital of … Read more

Hmmm, anti-authoritarian views and addressing social concerns and issues related to the government and public affairs? Tick! DIY ethic? Tick! Attire that deliberately deviates from society’s norms? Tick! Rebellion against watered down arena rock and disco? Having started off as a subculture that eventually became absorbed by the mainstream? So … Read more

Afterimages Wreckages of the pastEternally damned to repeat it.Exploded views incinerated by the electricity of truthPierced by the arrow of time keeping everything from happening at onceWhile the tombstone is still blank, the chisel is already poised.Distraction and temporary relief running through the bottomless vessel of inherited emptinessTrite maxims of … Read more