Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Max und Moritz
josh blog: "The small deviations from regularity in house music, like a few extra hi hat hits every eight measures, even when they occur as part of a larger regularity, can sometimes become especially surprising - charged - just because there are always other regularities (ultimately always the kick drum, regardless of what else changes) to fix on. And once I do fix on them, and I become locked in somehow, eventually I hear one of the (regular) deviations - which can be so small - as enormous."
Inner Gowanus

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

very fine review of Fatal Error by Thomas Munch-Petersen: " Another factor at play is that while society generally claims to value the preservation of life above almost all else this is clearly not true. For the greater good of being able to drive cars as one pleases society is willing to sacrifice a huge percentage of its own. The comparisons to homicide are illuminating. Murder, it is generally agreed, is a very bad thing. There's little debate about that, and punishments are appropriately severe for those who commit this act (whether for deterrent effect or otherwise). But murder is the cause of far, far fewer deaths than motor vehicle 'accidents' (the majority of which are far from true accidents, involving considerable driver contribution -- whether through drink or carelessness or other actions). So clearly it's not life that's valued above all else -- and not even the right to avoid having your life taken by another (since that's usually what happens in motor vehicle 'accidents'). "
Death Valley '74
Jordan: deep sifting the Wall Street Journal and then a good question--: "Text of a Wachovia Securities ad in the WSJ today: 'What can Abstract Art teach us about Raising Capital? It takes a creative approach along with traditional execution to achieve execution.' Then the American Capital logo, 'An Uncommon Partnership Since 1998,' and a series of pasted-up squares with dollar amounts in the tens or hundreds of millions, captioned 'Co-Lead Manager,' 'Sole Manager,' 'Sole Placement Agent,' etc.

What can Contemporary Poetry teach us about Raising Capital? Discuss."
Saskatchewan NDP caves over "Shrub" memo
MISCREAT >> IAN O'BRIEN INTERVIEW: 'Gigantic Days'
A New Form of Life: 'extremophiles'
Micrographia
Questioning the Delphic Oracle

Monday, August 04, 2003

Mr. Tong Bliss' Journal: "Spent this morning simultaneously reading Lee Ann Brown's Polyverse and watching National Lampoon's European Vacation. "
The Scottish Rite: "The fifth scene closes the grand climax. It borrows not its light from the rising or setting sun, nor derives its splendor from the moon. It is a flight, which only the genius of Loutherbourg could reach.

It is a view of the Miltonic Hell, cloathed [sic] in all its terrors. The artist hath given shape and body to the � fiery lake bounded by burning hills. He follows closely the descriptions of the poet. Belzebub and Moloch, rise from the horrid lake, and Pandemonium appears gradually to rise, illuminated with all the grandeur bestowed by Milton, and even with additional properties, for serpents twine around the doric pillars, and the intense red changes to a transparent white, expressing thereby the effect of fire upon metal. Thousands of Demons are then seen to rise, and the whole brightens into a scene of magnificent horror. "
Eidophusikon
Percy Shelley born today--

this from my favorite, Epipsychidion
:

"At length, into the obscure Forest came
The Vision I had sought through grief and shame.
Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns
Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn's
And from her presence life was radiated
Through the grey earth and breanches bare and dead;
Through the grey earth and branches bare and dead;
So that her way was paved, and roofed above
With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love;
And music from her respiration spread
Like light, -all other sounds were penetrated
By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound,
So that the savage winds hung mute around;
And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair
Dissolving the dull cold in the froze air:
Soft as an Incarnation of the Su,
When light is changed to love, this glorious One
Floated into the cavern where I lay,
And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay
Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below
As smoke by fire, and in her beauty's glow
I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night
Was penetrating me with living light:
I knew it was the Vision veiled from me
So many years-that it was Emily."
Self Portrait Sessions: "We moved to New York. Lookin' back, it really was a stupid thing to do. But there was a house available on MacDougal Street, and I always remembered that as a nice place. So I just bought this house, sight unseen. But it wasn't the same when we got back. The Woodstock Nation had overtaken MacDougal Street also. There'd be crowds outside my house. And I said, 'Well, fuck it. I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can't possibly like, they can't relate to. They'll see it, and they'll listen, and they'll say, 'Well, let's get on to the next person. He ain't sayin' it no more. He ain't given' us what we want', you know? They'll go on to somebody else. But the whole idea backfired. Because the album went out there, and the people said, 'This ain't what we want,' and they got more resentful. And then I did this portrait for the cover. I mean, there was no title for that album. I knew somebody who had some paints and a square canvas, and I did the cover up in about five minutes. And I said, 'Well, I'm gonna call this album Self Portrait.' "
Shamefaced with Triumph, Ted Koppel of Arabia