Whiff o’ the Week (10/26/14)
“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.
“You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die?
“Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become leaguse, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.
“If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?
“Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things – as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our universe and our own lives, turning everthing yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it’s already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.
“Think how small such a concept of things make us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for such a race of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see… what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?
“Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes – not worlds but universes – encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.
“Size, gunslinger… size.
“Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?…
“You dare not.”
And in the gunslinger’s mind, those words echoed: You dare not.”
We are all insignificant, merely tiny fragments of dust particles adrift in the cosmic winds of change. All of our hopes, dreams, and aspirations are but a very tiny racket in a sea of cacophony. Celebrate your insignificance. This is Whiff o’ the Week.
W.
As you’ve surely discovered during your time here on this earth, everything inevitably decays. Friends move away; parents pass. We all spend our last moments truly alone. The world of metal is no different. As you grow, your love and affection for certain bands changes. Those who seemed to be the very best inevitably fail you, and you find yourself hoping that your mutual past will drift away into nothingness. Thus it is with Sonata Arctica. My champions, once reigning supreme in the field of battle, now loom as an empty husk of dead potential. The rapid decline from Unia onward is all the more poingant when compared to the re-release of majesty that is Ecliptica. Rest now, Sonata Arctica,
Papa Joe/Ghostflusher
7:00 in. In an album jam packed with completely tasteless bullshit this terrible riff stands head and shoulders above all the other terrible riffs.
Scrimm
Every single Van Halen song ever.
365 Days of Horror
JC can inspire their lyrics but can’t inspire their riffs.
Jack Bauer
This is a trillion times worse than Deafheaven.
SheWölf
CAN YOU SMELL THE WHIFF?
Jöhnny Crünch™
Probably shooting fish in a barrel here, but fuck this song. The whiff starts about 1.00 minutes into the song, and for some reason they thought they’d continue this abortion of a song for over 7 and a half minutes as a further fuck you to their fan base.
DeadButtDreaming
I nominate “Pulling Teeth” by Metallica. It’s a shitty bass solo, so much so that Lars coming in on drums halfway through actually makes it more interesting.The bass solo is akin to a drum solo, where the drummer is reduced to just using the cymbals. No one listens to an album because of the bass or drum solos. No one gives a fuck. Cliff wasn’t the Godsend of a bassist that people make him out to be. A good portion of his talent is built up by the legacy of his death.
Masterlord SteelDragon
My whiff this week is the Beechcraft E18S twin-engined aircraft for killing Jim Croce. Fuck planes.
Alright fellow travelers of the void, time now to vote on the biggest insult to cosmic order in our first ever Poll o’ the Weak!
Feel free to defend any of these choices in the comments section and tell me what a turd I am for my opinion. Also, if you hate something I love, send it to me for the next Whiff o’ the Week! All opinions here are strictly those of the writer in question, although most of them are correct.
(Photo VIA)
