the last battle
By emily on May 24, 2026 5:14 pm
puzzle & shift by pauline baynes
make narnia great again?
"None of that! Hold your noise!" said the Ape with a snarl. "Who said anything about slavery? You won't be slaves. You'll be paid—very good wages too. That is to say, your pay will be paid into Aslan's treasury and he will use it all for everybody's good." Then he glanced, and almost winked, at the chief Calormene. The Calormene bowed and replied, in the pompous Calormene way:
"Most sapient Mouthpiece of Aslan, The Tisroc (may-he-live-forever) is wholly of one mind with your lordship in this judicious plan."
"There! You see!" said the Ape. "It's all arranged. And all for your own good. We'll be able, with the money you earn, to make Narnia a country worth living in. There'll be oranges and bananas pouring in—and roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons—Oh, everything."
"But we don't want all those things," said an old Bear. "We want to be free. And we want to hear Aslan speak himself."
"Now don't you start arguing," said the Ape, "for it's a thing I won't stand. I'm a Man: you're only a fat, stupid old Bear. What do you know about freedom? You think freedom means doing what you like. Well, you're wrong. That isn't true freedom. True freedom means doing what I tell you." -shift from 'the last battle' by c.s. lewis
*ancient sample: 'shift's folly' circa 1999? 'shift's folly' was matthew norris miller/guitar & emily/vocals
recorded at Plinko manor in all it's punkrockness
*lyrics are excerpts from the "howling psalm" of david
› not forgotten
‹ not forgotten
this one was a very emotional one for me to get out
memorial day is on the horizon & it's been a rough holiday since one of my best buds who was an army veteran, passed away suddenly in 2011 - he survived a helicopter crash in Afganistan in 2010, then in 2011 he was in a civilian car accident stateside but he was healing from that too when he died out of the blue just when it seemed he was on the mend... it was a shock
he loved memorial day & getting to eat for free at the 'golden corral' buffet with the veterans in his family
memorial day became even more emo for me when my great uncle - a WW2 veteran with a bronze star, purple heart, and congressional gold medal- survived multiple heart attacks & who seemed invincible - died of COVID19 in 2020 - the last time i remember hugging him was at the graveyard on memorial day
(he visited his wife's & his sister's graves every day...) he's buried in between his wife & my grandma now
i miss you uncle don
in light of what our troops are having to endure right now i felt it was time to sit with the feels
"eve of destruction" has been on a loop in my head since we bombed Iran..."when will they ever learn..."?
i've been shoving down the feels that have been coming up as our troops deployed to Iran - so many memories flooding back of friends deploying to Iraq and Afganistan... all these young men/teenagers could not afford college, came from trauma &/or challenging home enviornments, needed help paying for further eduction, & it seems to me that perhaps most of them just needed some kinda mission/direction & belonging - 9/11 was a catalyst for enlistment... all of these young men i'm thinking of loved music, art, poetry, movies, & all of them are/were hopeless romantics... matthew wanted to be superman when he was little & before enlisting told me he wanted to be a history teacher & was hoping the army would be a path to college...
i started to lose touch with Matt once he enlisted and kept serving tours in the middle east - but we did touch base a few special times that i treasure... he was a chosen family big brother to me who taught me about what true friendship & belonging feels like - he was a mess but gave the best advice & cheerleading, was a stealer of my tapes & cds, the most pain in the ass & then the most fun person to work in a coffee shop with, my swing dance partner & mosh pit protector (we might have maybe once gotten kicked out of weslyn college in indiana for dancing at a metal show - flashdance had nothing on us...), buyer and sharer of banana splits and adventures to Lloyd's record shop, sulker extraordinaire (can't hear "head in the door" without thinking of him pouting), fellow painter/artist, first bandmate, & all around superman 
my buddy Matthew who wrote & is playing the guitar part on that 'shift's folly' sample enlisted after 9/11
he deployed to Iraq and then re-upped and went to Afganistan - this sample was from a one day recording session at Plinko manor before he moved back to KC to get married & he enlisted soon after... it was only toward the end of his deployment in Afganistan about a decade later that technology was in a place were we able to finally share a music file through email - but at the time i didn't know how to work with the one he sent & it's been lost to time and computer crashes... but i carry him in my heart and music still
there is so much more to say but i can't get my thoughts straight
i guess i just want to hold space & keep the memory alive of my buddy who was the first friend to encourage me to make my own kinda music
Matthew, no one is drinking coffee on the mosh floor...
thank you for all the times you encouraged me to use my voice
“The light is dawning, the lie broken.” - the last battle
i miss you
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