One Day Holiday - Monotonous Timeless Rubbish

*One Day Holiday is an unscheduled, published-whenever-I-feel-like-it column for Hafeez, a resident blogger for this blog. This column are centered mostly around music and random stuff that ranges from the coherent to the absolutely absurd.



I remember there's this one time about eight or nine years ago, I read this one article in the New Straits Times in their now-long-defunct youth pullout called Youth Quake or something on the frequent use of cliches among Malaysian English speakers/users. At that time, I was quite certain that I know that I have heard of the word cliche before, but not that I was all that bothered to check the dictionary of what the Hell on Earth it actually means. But thankfully the writer had gone through the trouble of explaining what the word actually means - a frequently used word or term that has got its real meaning lost.
Fact is, I'm not very good at detecting this sort of thing because the propensity of the task of determining such occurrence is strictly reserved to full-time dedicated linguists who has a sexual life that was limited to masturbating to a MILF porn video. I imagine.
However, there is this one word that somehow grabbed my attention and it is the word timeless. We see that that word is frequently used when someone wants to describe the level of intensity of amazing quality of something, like for example a painting. A Vincent van Gogh's painting, I agree wholeheartedly, is a fine example of a timeless piece of painting. The vast amount of art that went onto the canvass was so huge it rivals the waistline of most Americans. Tchaikovsky's music is also another fine example of timeless classic. But seriously, why the use of the expression timeless? Why is it that when a very good piece of art is produced, they have to call it timeless? Is the expression the same with the one in Mastercard's TV advert that says the word priceless. Because the thing has no equal to it in terms of value? Sure, priceless seems like a fitting description.
I suspect that when someone says something is timeless, what they did not actually meant is that the thing has no equal or match in terms of time or age. No matter where you are placed in the scale of time, yesterday, today or tomorrow, that art piece is still the masterpiece. I suspect that the word timeless actually does not stand for that description because like it or not, even a very good, genuinely genius masterpiece has its expiry date. Just wait for the day when someone comes up to you and say: "Shakespeare who?"
The reason why I say so is because I have been listening to Mono's new album entitled Hymn to the Immortal Wind for the past two weeks, and I have to say this album, is a timeless classic. (And by the way, this Mono is the Japanese soft post rock band) There was not a single record that I have listened to in my entire life where my imagination goes absolutely stationary. Usually if I listen to something dreamy like Explosions in the Sky or Yndi Halda, my mind would go into space travel not quite like Star Trek. If I listen to something really dark and unsettling like Tool or Slint, my imagination would be wandering up a dark and lonely backstreet with savage unknown beings coming at me left and right while I am holding a spatula. My point is, for whatever type of music that I listen to, there is a mind trip to it. But not Mono.
I have to say, the type of music that they make is something that appeals to my highest level of sexual gratification. They are simply orgasmically interstellar. Their music is very melodic, very dramatic, heartfelt et al. I love it. But it was a bit too dramatic. It is too like watching a cheaply made Chinese voyage epic cartoon show on RTM on Sunday morning.
Even the titles to the songs are all too melodramatic. What the whole album felt like was like standing still on a vast wheatfield overlooking a huge valley while the wind blows onto your face. Sounds like a good thing; it is. But because it lacks movement. How do you like it when you're being chained permanently to a banyan tree on top of the Andes valley? Five minutes would probably be okay but permanently? What if you got hungry? What if you need to use the toilet real bad? Worse still: what if you got horny?
If you like dreamy stuff, you're going to like this album a lot. But you're definitely not going to enjoy its' complete lack of movement. After two tracks you will start to look at the clock and wonder whether time has really came to a stand still because like I said earlier, this album is a timeless classic.