Sunday, September 07, 2003
Herbie Nichols: "'...anyone who plays or even contemplates playing a song of Herbie's is making this planet a better place. This music teaches many things, but most importantly the sanctity of our minds and imaginations --
the Third World that lives in each of us.' -- Roswell Rudd"
the Third World that lives in each of us.' -- Roswell Rudd"
The Burryman: "This is a quite unique ceremony dating from around the 14th century that is still performed in South Queensferry. The Burryman, a native of the town, is wrapped from head to toe in flannel on which a thick matting of spikey burrs is stuck. He then processes slowly (for walking is difficult) and in silence for seven miles through the town. A number of theories exist about the origins of this strange custom. One has it that the Burryman is a scapegoat figure, carrying off the town's guilt and bad luck in his burrs. Another believes that the procession of the Burryman was meant to bring good luck to the town's herring fishermen, the numerous burrs representing fish caught in their nets. "
The Church Of Me: "If Scott Walker was the Dirk Bogarde of Brit (or honorary Brit) introspective troubadours - grandiloquent, immense, avant-garde - then Drake would be the James Fox; always apologising for breathing, so reticent that you feel that he perhaps would have been happier within a gated religious cult (as Fox later briefly was). But it's not quite accurate to assume that Drake's world is a blissful, asexual, even pre-sexual garden; in fact, if we take Barthes' identification of the 'grain' of a voice corresponding with its 'diction' - how the singer has assimilated the 'pheno-song' and 'geno-song' components, and how the singer renders them to the not necessarily passive listener - then Drake's voice is sometimes as carnal as hell. This is obviously more apparent on early things like his reading of Robin Frederick's 'Been Smoking Too Long' where his voice is surprisingly earthy, almost Hoagy Carmichael-ish; but take a real listen to his 1968 debut album, Five Leaves Left - hear particularly his Sinatra-derived habit of extending the final consonants/syllable of key words in his lyrics, sometimes with a barely suppressed growl; the 'love' in 'Time Has Told Me'; the 'time' in 'River Man'; even the 'slave' in 'Three Hours.' His natural baritone voice confirms that everything here is suggested/suggestive - Drake's voice is, more often than you might think, very sexy"
A taste of "Travels in Arabia Deserta": "The new dawn appearing we removed not yet. The day risen the tents were dismantled, the camels led in ready to their companies, and halted beside their loads. We waited to hear the cannon shot which should open that year's pilgrimage. It was near ten o'clock when we heard the signal gun fired, and then, without any disorder litters were suddenly heaved and braced upon the bearing beasts, their charges laid upon the kneeling camels, and the thousands of riders, all born in the caravan countries, mounted in silence. "
Saturday, September 06, 2003
kind comments on part one of my booklist from languagehat, who I may have persuaded to read Anthony Powell...
Thursday, September 04, 2003
Dissent Magazine - Spring 2003: "Imagine a building in which political philosophers are debating, in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the value and the purpose of participatory parity over against forms of authoritarianism or theocracy. Now imagine that this building has no access ramps, no Braille or large-print publications, no American Sign Language interpreters, no elevators, no special-needs paraprofessionals, no in-class aides. Contradictory as such a state of affairs may sound, it's a reasonably accurate picture of what contemporary debate over the meaning of democracy actually looks like. How can we remedy this? Only when we have fostered equal participation in debates over the ends and means of democracy can we have a truly participatory debate over what 'participatory parity' itself means. "
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Orwell Intentioned. by Michael Tomasky. September 3, 2003.: "I admire Orwell a great deal myself. But I always wondered, why him and not, say, Albert Camus? "
75 of maybe 150 "Essential Texts" in No Particular Order and not including reference books
1. Life of Johnson--James Boswell
2. Last Lunar Badeker--Mina Loy
3. So Going Around Cities--Ted Berrigan
4. Curiosities of Literature--Isaac D'Israeli
5. Pandemonium--Humphrey Jennings
6. Collected Novels--Jean Rhys
7. Tristram Shandy--Laurence Sterne
8. Collected Poems--Hugh MacDiarmid
9. Ambit--Gerald Creede
10. Planetary Gear--Ted Pearson
11. You--George Stanley
12. The Relative Minor--Deanna Ferguson
13. Europe of Trusts--Susan Howe
14. Words--Robert Creeley
15. Journals--Gilbert White
16. Swedish Letters--Mary Wollstencraft
17. Midsummer Cushion--John Clare
18. Art Criticism--Denis Diderot
19. Lost Illusions--Honore de Balzac
20. The Cloister and the Hearth--Charles Reade
21. Polyverse--Lee Ann Brown
22. The Power Broker--Robert Caro
23. The Glenn Gould Reader
24. Charlotte Bronte--Villette
25. The Fire Next Time--James Baldwin
26. Notebooks and Marginalia--Samuel Taylor Coleridge
27. Tight Corners (and what's around them)--David Bromige
28. From Next Spring--Gerry Gilbert
29. Don Juan--Lord Byron
30. Collected Nonsense--Edward Lear
31. Moominland Midwinter--Tove Jansson
32. Fovea Centralis--Christopher Dewdney
33. The Dumbfounding--Margaret Avison
34. Travels in Arabia Derserta--Charles Doughty
35. Memoirs--Thomas Bewick
36. The Seasons--James Thompson
37. The Task--William Cowper
38. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell
39. Autobiographies--Janet Frame
40. Reveries of a Solitary Walker--Jean-Jacques Rousseau
41. Stages on Life's Way--Soren Kierkegaard
42. Book of Magazine Verse--Jack Spicer
43. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire--Edward Gibbon
44. Street of Crocodiles--Bruno Schulz
45. Collected Poems--Basil Bunting
46. The Mediterranean--Fernand Braudel
47. The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity--Aby Warburg
48. The Journal of a Disappointed Man--WNP Barbellion
49. Martyrology Book 2--bp Nichol
50. Midwinter Day--Bernadette Mayer
51. Collected Short Novels--Collette
52. Own Face--Clark Coolidge
53. Testimony--Charles Reznikoff
54. Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror--John Ashbery
56. Anatomy of Melancholy--Robert Burton
57. Journals--Dorothy Wordsworth
58. Voyage of the 'Beagle'--Charles Darwin
59. The Fur Trade in Canada--Harold Adams Innis
60. Archaeologist of Morning--Charles Olson
61. The Kalevela--comp. Elias Lonrot
62. Collected Poems--Lorine Niedecker
63. Memoirs--Hector Berlioz
64. Marcel Duchamp--Octavio Paz
65. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym--Edgar Allen Poe
66. Diaries--Cosima Wagner
67. Essays--Arthur Schopenhauer
68. Harvest of the Cold Months--Elizabeth David
69. A Place of Greater Safety--Hilary Mantel
70. The Wind in the Willows--Kenneth Grahame
71. Imaginations--William Carlos Williams
72. Harmonium--Wallace Stevens
73. Hymns and Fragments--Friedrich Holderlin (Sieburth trans.)
74. The Wanderer--Alain-Fournier
75. Up in the Old Hotel--Joseph Mitchell
1. Life of Johnson--James Boswell
2. Last Lunar Badeker--Mina Loy
3. So Going Around Cities--Ted Berrigan
4. Curiosities of Literature--Isaac D'Israeli
5. Pandemonium--Humphrey Jennings
6. Collected Novels--Jean Rhys
7. Tristram Shandy--Laurence Sterne
8. Collected Poems--Hugh MacDiarmid
9. Ambit--Gerald Creede
10. Planetary Gear--Ted Pearson
11. You--George Stanley
12. The Relative Minor--Deanna Ferguson
13. Europe of Trusts--Susan Howe
14. Words--Robert Creeley
15. Journals--Gilbert White
16. Swedish Letters--Mary Wollstencraft
17. Midsummer Cushion--John Clare
18. Art Criticism--Denis Diderot
19. Lost Illusions--Honore de Balzac
20. The Cloister and the Hearth--Charles Reade
21. Polyverse--Lee Ann Brown
22. The Power Broker--Robert Caro
23. The Glenn Gould Reader
24. Charlotte Bronte--Villette
25. The Fire Next Time--James Baldwin
26. Notebooks and Marginalia--Samuel Taylor Coleridge
27. Tight Corners (and what's around them)--David Bromige
28. From Next Spring--Gerry Gilbert
29. Don Juan--Lord Byron
30. Collected Nonsense--Edward Lear
31. Moominland Midwinter--Tove Jansson
32. Fovea Centralis--Christopher Dewdney
33. The Dumbfounding--Margaret Avison
34. Travels in Arabia Derserta--Charles Doughty
35. Memoirs--Thomas Bewick
36. The Seasons--James Thompson
37. The Task--William Cowper
38. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell
39. Autobiographies--Janet Frame
40. Reveries of a Solitary Walker--Jean-Jacques Rousseau
41. Stages on Life's Way--Soren Kierkegaard
42. Book of Magazine Verse--Jack Spicer
43. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire--Edward Gibbon
44. Street of Crocodiles--Bruno Schulz
45. Collected Poems--Basil Bunting
46. The Mediterranean--Fernand Braudel
47. The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity--Aby Warburg
48. The Journal of a Disappointed Man--WNP Barbellion
49. Martyrology Book 2--bp Nichol
50. Midwinter Day--Bernadette Mayer
51. Collected Short Novels--Collette
52. Own Face--Clark Coolidge
53. Testimony--Charles Reznikoff
54. Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror--John Ashbery
56. Anatomy of Melancholy--Robert Burton
57. Journals--Dorothy Wordsworth
58. Voyage of the 'Beagle'--Charles Darwin
59. The Fur Trade in Canada--Harold Adams Innis
60. Archaeologist of Morning--Charles Olson
61. The Kalevela--comp. Elias Lonrot
62. Collected Poems--Lorine Niedecker
63. Memoirs--Hector Berlioz
64. Marcel Duchamp--Octavio Paz
65. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym--Edgar Allen Poe
66. Diaries--Cosima Wagner
67. Essays--Arthur Schopenhauer
68. Harvest of the Cold Months--Elizabeth David
69. A Place of Greater Safety--Hilary Mantel
70. The Wind in the Willows--Kenneth Grahame
71. Imaginations--William Carlos Williams
72. Harmonium--Wallace Stevens
73. Hymns and Fragments--Friedrich Holderlin (Sieburth trans.)
74. The Wanderer--Alain-Fournier
75. Up in the Old Hotel--Joseph Mitchell
Equanimity - if not a poetics, then what?: "The new bright traffic and walk lights: they make First Avenue look like an office hallway in a British detective serial. Whereas they give Gates and St James in Brooklyn the Hollywood wet-street effect."
Monday, September 01, 2003
Overlap: Drew Gardner's Blog: "What caught my attention in this group, though, was Milt Jackson. The tone of the vibraphone just shoots through the room. The speakers can't hold it back. I immediatly stopped what I was doing and listened. It was like some metallic fluid spilling over the speakers, carrying waves of information about life. "
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