Saturday, September 20, 2003
Friday, September 19, 2003
My Cottage Unroofed By Autumn Gales Du Fu
"In the eighth month autumn's high winds angrily howl,
And sweep three layers of thatch from off my house.
The straw flies over the river, where it scatters,
Some is caught and hangs high up in the treetops,
Some floats down and sinks into the ditch.
The urchins from the southern village bully me, weak as I am;
They're cruel enough to rob me to my face,
Openly, they carry the straw into the bamboo.
My mouth and lips are dry from pointless calling,
I lean again on my cane and heave a sigh.
The wind soon calms, and the clouds turn the colour of ink;
The autumn sky is black in all directions.
My ancient cotton quilt is cold as iron,
My restless children sleep badly, and kick it apart.
The roof leaks over the bed- there's nowhere dry,
The rain falls thick as hemp, and without end.
Lost amid disorder, I hardly sleep,
Wet through, how can I last the long nights!
If I could get a mansion with a million rooms,
I'd give all scholars joy and shelter from cold.
Solid as a mountain, the elements could not move it.
Oh! If I could see this house before me,
I'd happily freeze to death in my broken hut! "
"In the eighth month autumn's high winds angrily howl,
And sweep three layers of thatch from off my house.
The straw flies over the river, where it scatters,
Some is caught and hangs high up in the treetops,
Some floats down and sinks into the ditch.
The urchins from the southern village bully me, weak as I am;
They're cruel enough to rob me to my face,
Openly, they carry the straw into the bamboo.
My mouth and lips are dry from pointless calling,
I lean again on my cane and heave a sigh.
The wind soon calms, and the clouds turn the colour of ink;
The autumn sky is black in all directions.
My ancient cotton quilt is cold as iron,
My restless children sleep badly, and kick it apart.
The roof leaks over the bed- there's nowhere dry,
The rain falls thick as hemp, and without end.
Lost amid disorder, I hardly sleep,
Wet through, how can I last the long nights!
If I could get a mansion with a million rooms,
I'd give all scholars joy and shelter from cold.
Solid as a mountain, the elements could not move it.
Oh! If I could see this house before me,
I'd happily freeze to death in my broken hut! "
The Church Of Me:
"And then there is 'Telstar.'
Poor misbegotten bastards, the Tornados. Yes it's Thatcher's favourite pop record (which would have no doubt horrified Meek), yes it's been played to death, but ERASE all of that. Imagine you are listening to this for the first time. It is heartbreaking. The audacious intro (20 seconds of electronic crackle, interference and bleeps) which leads into a rapid ascent of a strange processed organ/guitar line (over the same 'Johnny Remember Me' galloping rhythm) which sounded like nothing else which had ever made the charts, or indeed like nothing anyone had ever heard (Sun Ra's records didn't start becoming available in the UK until 1965/6, and even then only as expensive imports). It imparts some awesome idea of hope, welcomes the future yet simultaneously realises its own redundancy. It is a future desired but transitory and unlikely to happen, underlined by the strange processed vocal which adds itself to the final refrain, and its ultimate disappearance into the electronic void (another 20-second fade-out). It was, as the sleevenotes state, already Joe Meek's epitaph. It was simultaneously #1 in Britain and America in October 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, and could quite easily have been the last song you ever heard. Think about that when you listen to this for the first time."
"And then there is 'Telstar.'
Poor misbegotten bastards, the Tornados. Yes it's Thatcher's favourite pop record (which would have no doubt horrified Meek), yes it's been played to death, but ERASE all of that. Imagine you are listening to this for the first time. It is heartbreaking. The audacious intro (20 seconds of electronic crackle, interference and bleeps) which leads into a rapid ascent of a strange processed organ/guitar line (over the same 'Johnny Remember Me' galloping rhythm) which sounded like nothing else which had ever made the charts, or indeed like nothing anyone had ever heard (Sun Ra's records didn't start becoming available in the UK until 1965/6, and even then only as expensive imports). It imparts some awesome idea of hope, welcomes the future yet simultaneously realises its own redundancy. It is a future desired but transitory and unlikely to happen, underlined by the strange processed vocal which adds itself to the final refrain, and its ultimate disappearance into the electronic void (another 20-second fade-out). It was, as the sleevenotes state, already Joe Meek's epitaph. It was simultaneously #1 in Britain and America in October 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, and could quite easily have been the last song you ever heard. Think about that when you listen to this for the first time."
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Bruno Schulz: "One thing must be avoided at all costs: narrow-mindedness, pedantry, dull pettiness. Most things are interconnected, most threads lead to the same reel. Have you ever noticed swallows rising in flocks from between the lines of certain books, whole stanzas of quivering pointed swallows? One should read the flight of these birds ... "
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
The-Incredible-True-Facts-Of-Space:
"time resonator perfected! just back from 1982, visited the Mobile Al, Sears store #1056, I actually smoked a cigarette while trying out their typewriters. The sales guy, who seemed very professional by the way, offered me a light. Oh and the Atari display was fantastic, played Space Invaders and a game I have never seen before, called Canyon Glider.
Will attempt to travel to 1979 later this week."
"time resonator perfected! just back from 1982, visited the Mobile Al, Sears store #1056, I actually smoked a cigarette while trying out their typewriters. The sales guy, who seemed very professional by the way, offered me a light. Oh and the Atari display was fantastic, played Space Invaders and a game I have never seen before, called Canyon Glider.
Will attempt to travel to 1979 later this week."
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Autumn Almanac Ray Davies
From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar,
When the dawn begins to crack.
It's all part of my autumn almanac.
Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow,
So I sweep them in my sack.
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
Friday evenings, people get together,
Hiding from the weather.
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns
Can't compensate for lack of sun,
Because the summer's all gone.
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my poor rheumatic back
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
I like my football on a Saturday,
Roast beef on Sundays, all right.
I go to Blackpool for my holidays,
Sit in the open sunlight.
This is my street, and I'm never gonna to leave it,
And I'm always gonna to stay here
If I live to be ninety-nine,
'Cause all the people I meet
Seem to come from my street
And I can't get away,
Because it's calling me, (come on home)
Hear it calling me, (come on home)
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my autumn Armagnac
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar,
When the dawn begins to crack.
It's all part of my autumn almanac.
Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow,
So I sweep them in my sack.
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
Friday evenings, people get together,
Hiding from the weather.
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns
Can't compensate for lack of sun,
Because the summer's all gone.
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my poor rheumatic back
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
I like my football on a Saturday,
Roast beef on Sundays, all right.
I go to Blackpool for my holidays,
Sit in the open sunlight.
This is my street, and I'm never gonna to leave it,
And I'm always gonna to stay here
If I live to be ninety-nine,
'Cause all the people I meet
Seem to come from my street
And I can't get away,
Because it's calling me, (come on home)
Hear it calling me, (come on home)
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my autumn Armagnac
Yes, yes, yes, it's my autumn almanac.
La-la-la-la...
Oh, my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
I love late September; last night the lavender light through the tree spaces, this morning the sun came out and it started raining at the same time, and then a great cool apple smell drifted in, and I can re-readthis
Monday, September 15, 2003
josh blog: "I thought Geoff was talking to himself in the next room. But I forgot that I was playing a Glenn Gould record."
Aaron D. Wolf on the legacy of June Carter Cash: "In a memoir, as she reflected on that “Ring of Fire” that brought her and John together, Mrs. Cash confessed: “Christ died for people like me. People who mess up their lives and stand shaking in their boots with guilt, wondering if they’re really going straight to hell. But he tells us to repent . . . That’s what I did.”"
from Adorno's Minima Moralia (1944) via Ezra Mark and Daniel Comiskey:
OUT OF THE FIRING LINE. — Reports of air attacks are seldom without the names of the firms which produced the planes: Focke-Wulff, Heinkel, Lancaster feature where once the talk was of cuirassiers, lancers and
hussars. The mechanism for reproducing life, for dominating and for destroying it, are exactly the same, and accordingly industry, state and advertising are amalgamated. The old exaggeration of skeptical Liberals, that war was a business, has come true: state power has shed even the appearance of independence from particular interests in profit; always in
their service really, it now also places itself there ideologically. Every laudatory mention of the chief contractor in the destruction of cities,
helps earn it the good name that will secure it the best commissions in their rebuilding.
[...]
The total obliteration of war by information,commentaries, with camera-men
in the first tanks and war reporters dying heroic deaths, the mish-mash of enlightened manipulation of public opinion and oblivious activity: all this
is another expression for the withering of experience, the vacuum between men and their fate, in which their real fate lies. It is as if the reified,
hardened plaster-cast of events takes the place of the events themselves. Men are reduced to walk-on parts in a monster documentary film which has no
spectators, since the least of them has his bit to do on the screen.
OUT OF THE FIRING LINE. — Reports of air attacks are seldom without the names of the firms which produced the planes: Focke-Wulff, Heinkel, Lancaster feature where once the talk was of cuirassiers, lancers and
hussars. The mechanism for reproducing life, for dominating and for destroying it, are exactly the same, and accordingly industry, state and advertising are amalgamated. The old exaggeration of skeptical Liberals, that war was a business, has come true: state power has shed even the appearance of independence from particular interests in profit; always in
their service really, it now also places itself there ideologically. Every laudatory mention of the chief contractor in the destruction of cities,
helps earn it the good name that will secure it the best commissions in their rebuilding.
[...]
The total obliteration of war by information,commentaries, with camera-men
in the first tanks and war reporters dying heroic deaths, the mish-mash of enlightened manipulation of public opinion and oblivious activity: all this
is another expression for the withering of experience, the vacuum between men and their fate, in which their real fate lies. It is as if the reified,
hardened plaster-cast of events takes the place of the events themselves. Men are reduced to walk-on parts in a monster documentary film which has no
spectators, since the least of them has his bit to do on the screen.
Eric Alterman: Altercation: "The champion will have the honour, no, no, the privilege, to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from the fiery keep of the dragon. If for any reason, the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner-up will take his place. And so on and so forth. Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make."
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