#ajangle

[monriatitans]

QUOTE OF THE DAY Wednesday, January 11, 2023

"We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!" - Arthur Miller

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Image made with and shared via the Quotes Creator App! This was originally posted to Instagram, check it out here; everything posted to Instagram is shared to Tumblr! Quote choice inspired by Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Day: ajangle.

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[punsandfuturekingsmen-archive]

Sparrow (Kiss Meme)

@s1lveredw1ngs due to this

He kept wringing his hands as he took the path to Sparrow's door. This was just as terrifying as kissing Vivi had been.

Or-- was it worse? At least with Vivi there was-- it didn't have to mean something. He'd always been the kind of friends with her that might horse around in that way. Hell, the same could be said of his Lewis. But Sparrow felt....different. He was so--

Calm? Composed? Graceful? Adultier in his adultness?

Whatever it was, playing with Sparrow felt... more natural with words as gentle banter, than full-on teasing and affections like-- that. That seemed like something Sparrow would do more with someone he really cared about in a romantic sort of way, than something shared with friends for laughs. Sparrow seemed like a serious person in many ways, and one of them was probably how he showed his affections. He was so.... quiet and mature. So this felt off. Different in way that set his nerves ajangle.

Was it him, thinking too much about it? Was he being silly? Or was he right on point and about to make things-- awkward.

Either way, a dare was a dare, and knowing those little bastards, not playing by their rules would end up worse than just ripping a band-aid off.

Swallowing and trying to keep his brain from running over him with a truck, he rang the bell at the door.

Sparrow opened the door and just seeing him was enough for Arthur's face to go a shade of sparkling wine. He opened his mouth a few times, darkening and spreading the heat through his chest, over his skin.

Dammit dammit dammit--

Arthur swallowed, watched Sparrow's head tilt, his brows draw in concern and a thoughtful frown on his face. Worry shone in his eyes clear as day and he was so pretty he was so sweet his own heart was racing, pounding, thundering--

"IT'S FOR A DARE SORRY--" Arthur yelled it, god why did he yell it at Sparrow he shouldn't have-- but here he was, with his hand around Sparrow's tie, pulling it down just enough to bring Sparrow's head close. He turned his head to plant a kiss, right against the arch of Sparrow's cheek near his eye.

He held his lips there for a moment. Sparrow felt warm, soft and GOD WHAT WAS HE DOING HE DIDN'T EVEN ASK AUGH.

He pulled away with a half-stifled growl-squeak, before turning and booking it back the way he'd come, thumping his head with the heel of his palm.

Maybe that'd knock the embarrassment out, or some sense back in.

[poetrythreesixfive]

Once Upon a Time in New York

Looking back at footage from the 1960’s

of Woodstock and hippies and young folk

garbed in blue jeans and tie-dye, hair long

and unkempt, bandanas and beads ajangle,

sporting peace and love and togetherness,

the footage is grainy and raw compared to

the 4K ultra high definition digital video

that today captures every facet and detail,

the finest nuance and shades of color, yet

for all this well-defined magnification, the

clarity of our vision is blurrier than ever.

[dustedmagazine]

Youth Avoiders — Relentless (Build Me a Bomb)

Relentless by Youth Avoiders

A certain kind of punk rock peaked in 1985: Minor Threat released the “Salad Days” 7 inch; Descendents put out I Don’t Want to Grow Up; Seven Seconds dropped Walk Together, Rock Together; Minutemen’s Three Way Tie (For Last) came out in early December. D. Boon died weeks later. It’s still hard to say what Boon’s death meant or signaled to punk’s varied subcultures and scenes, but the records that came out the next year were heavier and darker: Big Black’s Atomizer, Poison Idea’s Kings of Punk, Die Kreuzen’s October File, Cro-Mags’ Age of Quarrel. And so on. (Yeah, sure, some really heavy punk got recorded before 1985, and some great melodic punk appeared thereafter. But I’m gesturing toward large-scale tendencies. Punk’s structure of feeling had shifted.)

History, of course, doesn’t stand still, and neither does music. But listening to Relentless, the new record by Youth Avoiders, one could hardly be faulted for thinking it a lost relic of 1985. Catchy and upbeat, vibrantly indignant — it’s got the earnest energy that some punk records can sustain without inflating into self-aggrandizement or collapsing into abject self-parody. The first track of Relentless, fittingly titled “On the Run,” is typical of the record’s infectiously resolute affect. It hits the ground at a sprint, with a sequence of top-speed hooks and a guitar tone that’s nearly ajangle. The vocals are delivered in an urgent cry that doesn’t (or at least doesn’t always) preclude melody. You can just about feel the cement basement floor, the duct-taped Chuck Taylors and sweaty leather.  

Things rocket along from there, with the consistency of a Discharge record. Songs clock in around two minutes in length, dominated by breakneck riffing and shout-along choruses. There are occasional variations in sonic texture and compositional structure: the spaghetti-western guitars in the breakdown of “Breakthrough”; the springy see-saw action of “Steel Concrete.” But as advertised, the pace never relents, the intensity never wavers. Song titles are indicative: “Martial Society,” “Street Violence,” “Face Up to It.”  

The wildcard is the LP’s closing track, “Ohaguro,” named for the antiquated Southeast Asian practice of dying one’s teeth black. What interests a bunch of 21st-century French punks in that former mark for (feminine, aristocratic and thoroughly outmoded) cultural prestige is hard to say. It’s also hard to say how Youth Avoiders’ musical aesthetic and political stance interfaces with contemporary France, in this age of Macron’s bromance with Trump, of the National Front’s repackaging as Rassemblement National, of a weakened Euro and an anxious Western Europe. And perhaps that’s why the record’s nostalgia for a sound from punk’s past feels at least a little problematic. So much history separates 2018 from 1985, and Paris from DC, or from San Pedro. Youth Avoiders’ record is a delightful musical throwback, but some of us would like for its sounds to be grounded somehow in today — today’s politics, today’s struggle.

Jonathan Shaw