this is the first blog entry i've made in months and all i can muster is a shout out to the most amazing comic site i've found since sam brown's exploding dog. (for those of you that don't know explodingdog.com, go acquaint yourself before you read further...)

toothpaste for dinner (toothpastefordinner.com) is dubbed 'the most addictive comic on the web.' it's true. i just found it and i'm up at 4 in the morning to tell you all about it! read the archived comics. a new one goes up everyday.

i can't find the name of the guy on his page, but no matter, he's the king today. especially because he mentioned ladytron in his comics. i saw them last night at the commodore and they were, well, clad in black with dyed black hair and about as emo as electroclash ever gets. none of the 6 members on the stage ever cracked a facial expression...not once...and i was close and i was looking hard. yeah, i realize with a name like 'ladytron' i should be expecting some sexy robotic chicks, but honestly, they weren't that sexy (ok, one of them was pretty sexy, particularly because i thought she was a really hot guy until half way through the show...) and, short of the fem-bots, how many of us has ever seen a truly sexy robot? fess up if you have, and send pics, cuz i'd love to check that out.

i decided during the show that, to be successful in electroclash, you don't need decent singers or hot chicks or sexy/cool lyrics...you need awesome beats and production. ladytron's quiet keybordists really were the whole show, although the 2 skinny chicks up front are what everyone looked at. go figure.

...and Image is Virus.

When the words of ancient languages were first developed into a written form, something amazing happened. Humans had to permanently assign what was once only sound into shape. Our minds went through a much more dramatic change when spoken language developed out of grunts and gestures, but in the same way as chat rooms and instant messaging is changing the way we think, so did the development of text change our very brain structure.

My own brain has a very strong affinity for the written word. I often have text appear in my mind instead of sound when searching for words, especially when trying to remember something that was written. I see shapes of entire words, word placement on a page, the number of little loops below the line, instead of actual ideas. For this reason I have long been fascinated with the earliest written forms of language.

Many years ago I stumbed across some information regarding the connection between sound and shape of ancient Hebrew letters. Now, I am not sure this is even true, but what I heard was that the sounds created when accurately vocalizing some of the letters, will make a similar shape when viewed through an oscilliscope. Whatever the truth behind this, it got me to thinking that the process of developing the written language out of a spoken one has much to do with imagining what shape is made in the air with the expulsion of breath that makes the sound.

Imagine trying to draw the sound of 'b'. The first part is closed, but then it opens with a softly audible rush of air following the quick parting of softly closed lips. You might draw something like a half open circle with a break in it, or a line broken with an angle jutting out at a small degree. You see what I am getting at? The mind has to imagine the shape of the sound itself to create a little glyph that might represent it.

Of course, this is different for languages with pictographic letters (such as Japanese) than with alphabetic systems. Pictographs attempt to simplify thought into little shapes that represent the basic pieces of the language. I know nothing of these languages, as I have never learned one.

But I have learned English, and am now learning ancient, biblical Hebrew. It turns out that the only way to actually use the language is to apply it to the study of Torah. Torah, for those that are unfamiliar with Judaic theology (as I was until mere months ago) is equivalent to the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the bible. Only difference is that the Torah is meant to be read in the original Hebrew, which is easy to misunderstand and therefore has been discussed, argued and theorized for 5000 years.

One of the first obvious differences in the text of the Hebrew from the King James bible comes in the first few words of Genesis. Even those of us without much biblical training know that it goes, "In the beginning..." Well, it turns out that the original language seems to say, not "in THE beginning", but lacks the definitite article "the", and so says something akin to, "In A beginning". See how much that might change the fundamental meaning of the creation myth? If that was not THE beginning, then perhaps there was something before that, and if that is so, then the presumed universal creation is not what was being referred to at all... and makes one wonder what indeed was going on before.

My point is that I have come to find the study of Torah a very illuminating and fascinating part of my life. The language comes, albeit slowly, but it comes. But what is shaping up in my mind is more about the early myths of our world than about the language itself. In my mind, the study of how word becomes image, has become about how words become historical fact, or at least theological truths.

There will be much more about this as I work through the Torah parasha, which are the weekly study sections that Jews throughout the world all read in the same sequence. I am becoming, not a Jew, but a student of Jewish theology, a theology which has evolved into the western Christian mythologies which shape our daily lives, and of the early language that evolved into the words which shape our very minds.

I've been going off for weeks about it to anyone who would listen. And it proved every bit as exciting as I imagined. Twenty some years after first banging my head to "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll', I got my chance to witness a Judas Priest concert. I'm still bouncing off the walls with unbridled heavy metal ecstasy.

Rob Halford is one of my heroes. In the mid 70s, he showed up on the hippy-acid-metal scene dressed as the leather daddy that he was, and influenced 30 years of redneck boys' fashion. Then he comes out of the closet, proving once and for all that metalhead boys dress like fags, and they love him for it!

He's over 50 and going like a man shot from a British Steel cannon into the mouth of a hot young stud. He roared out onto the stage for the encore on his 70s custom Harley Davidson, sporting as much chrome on his jacket as on his bike. His voice is stronger than I imagined, stronger than I remember it from recordings 25 years old.

The show drew the very best metalheads, pure and unfettered with anything but beer and balls. Picture long hair flying in synch to the hair of the guitar players on stage, all rocking out with ferocity, fists flying with the determined pace of a piston...or something like that...

I did not see, however, the other demographic I expected to be in full colours: leather fags. I predicted that Priest's (or at least Halford's) largest loyal fan base would be among the leather crowd. Perhaps they were there in metalhead drag: baseball caps rather than leather cop caps; black band shirts instead of black latex shirts; tight jeans, not leather chaps. <shrug> It all made me a little sad though. Doesn't Rob Halford deserve to be an icon of leather pride? Were the leather guys scared of the rest of Judas Priest's fans kicking their leather asses? Or maybe Billy was right: Real leather boys like house music. <shudder>

As I walked along the road back to my car after the show, still sweaty from extreme rocking, I had the pure metal experience of shouting a long high falsetto "Waaa!" while raising high the heavy metal salute devil horns and banging my head at a stream of cars. The honks, hoots and hollers of metalheads showing their appreciation for a hard rocking rang on through the night.