Saturday, January 17, 2004

Popeye Was Based On True Story
Happy Birthday Popeye!
Jan 17 1773, Captain Cook circumnavigates Antarctica - no sight of land: " 'should anyone possess the resolution and fortitude to... (push) yet further south than I have done, I shall not envy him the fame of his discovery, but I make bold to declare that the world will derive no benefit from it'. "
Bellona Times: "When Jack Spicer or Frank O'Hara 'plead their case' in a poem, they acknowledge (miserably or lightly) the scare quotes: no one will really be swayed by their plea; their case isn't really the case of the poem; in fact, the poem frankly doesn't care about them one way or the other. When the New Critic poets plead their case in a poem, they sound like they expect us to pretend that they hope someone will believe them, and to give them extra credit for attempting the delusion. That's a lot of zombie-raising to go through just to hear some melodious groans. "

Friday, January 16, 2004

Cori & Anselm diggin' on Miles Champion's flow, New Year's day at St. Mark's
www.mnftiu.cc | get your war on | page thirty
Ill-starred, hard-to-love Samuel Johnson subject Richard Savage born 1698-- "Those are no proper judges of his conduct who have slumbered away their time on the down of plenty, nor will any wise man presume to say, 'Had I been in Savage's condition, I should have lived or written better than Savage.'"
Apothecary's Drawer reminded me of one of the first great websites I ever came across. Here is the "Ethnic Diversity" page of The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record. The all time blue of the Emir of Bukhara's cloak...
Equanimity: "Dog howling over the sound of the bakery's ventilators. And the occasional car alarm. But mostly the highway."
Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES PRESENTS very fast text-based(flash) animations
looking forward to Nine Queens (2002), a one-off showing at Malaspina College this aft.
reading, with great enjoyment The Lunar Men by primo Hogarthian Jenny Uglow

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Copps won't rule out move to NDP Sheila Sheila Sheila take a bow...
amazing homemade LP covers
Happy Birthday Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)!
Hey Garland I Dig Your Tweed Coat: "Hey Garland, I dig your tweed coat. I'll trade you a domino this size, mothball-scented. The woman silk nude tie painting his chest. One celluloid stay exposed through his nibbled collar. Feet speckled the sidewalk. Faces gurgled through windows. Passing cars gum rubber streaks. Neon plants swim like green seaweed to a deep rhythm of blues. Red thyroid sunsets, flame in speckled chemistry. Pipes run off dark tubes. Erase into marks that pour the dye of darkness. Crystal comes together as silent as ink.
'I don't think I could let it go. I got it at the religious scene'
Teeth let go, tobacco juice, an oiled balloon, brown eye in an egg white, black tar bubbles and stripes. A straw hat squeaked on the brim of a feather. Newsprint thumbed through nicotine fingers, a dark olive was turned on. Its small pulp speaker burst into a scream. One large tomato was immediately peeled skin red. It bled into a red 'O' and smacked behind accepted fangs. Quick eyebrows danced cutely above a mole. The bridge held a large gold pair of spectacles. The front was smooth. It slightly gathered and wrinkled at the holes. A dark wooden moustache deposited below above Chinese red varnished lips that dented slightly into the evening.
'It's gotten quite cold. I've decided I can't sell you my coat.'
Honking, the wind puffed into the clumps above the lattice rows. And out looked Panatella, naked and not ashamed, without no clothes. Wiggle Pig went snout-first into a tree. The rubber turkey was gobbled up by the night's dark rubber mouth. A white phosphorous raindrop dropped in the sky. Hot silhouettes in a convertible gave this applause. And several white porcelain trays were rolled in by bumblebees. Their wings arranged with pictures out of the past. And the rainbow baboon gob."
new bios of Gould and Nowlan

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Big points to August Kleinzahler for referencing the late Bob Kerr, greatest DJ ever--& Wednesday is organ day: "I have been sitting in the tub listening to Aldo Ciccolini play Satie for nearly 30 Januaries. I think all that really got going in earnest when I lived in Montreal in the mid-to-late '70s. There was an old fellow on CBC radio named Bob Kerr, if I recall, possessed of a comforting baritone and absolutely stuck on Ciccolini playing Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes. I had a little apartment, a little radio, and nowhere much to go; besides, it was colder than the moon outside."
Thanks Metafilter for these"Not fooling anybody" storefront conversions.
Nature books by kids
Logarithmic Maps of the Universe

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

looking forward to John Dos Passos: Travel Books and Other Writings 1916-1941.
memories of Brooklyn Hot Chocolate
the sequel to "Strange Brew": "Many of the plants were growing inside giant steel vats that were once used to brew Molson's most popular brands of beer. The vats were six metres wide and 30 metres long, with watertight doors. The vats provided an ideal growing environment, police said, since it was easy to control the humidity and temperature levels inside."
Stan Levey: "He still trains everyday. As he puts it, 'I still do my roadwork.'"
Denzil Best: "'The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes.' "
Good news: it looks like the "outdoor" fish, a big carp who lives in a barrel on our porch--made it through the cold snap. Again, a little uncanny, the barrelwater had seemed frozen solid...

Monday, January 12, 2004

By popular request, Liam is "Waspinator Smurf"
Smurf Name Generator Bob is "Stoner Smurf", Jo is "Britney Smurf", Alister is "The Real Slim Smurfy" and I'm "Fatass Smurf". Uncanny.
Extraordinary Rendition--first US report I've seen on this case: "Our intelligence agencies have a name for this torture-by-proxy. They call it 'extraordinary rendition.' As one intelligence official explained: 'We don't kick the s -- out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the s -- out of them.' "

Sunday, January 11, 2004

ex-RCMP heads up RIAA goon squad: "'They said they were police from the recording industry or something, and next time they'd take me away in handcuffs,' he said through an interpreter. Borrayo says he has no way of knowing if the records, with titles like Como Te Extrano Vol. IV: Musica de los 70's y 80's, are illegal, but he thought better of arguing the point.
The RIAA acknowledges it all, except the notion that its staff presents itself as police. Yes, they may all be ex-P.D. Yes, they wear cop-style clothes and carry official-looking IDs. But if they leave people like Borrayo with the impression that they're actual law enforcement, that's a mistake."