Blue Moon:
"'Blue moon' seemed to be a truly modern piece of folklore, masquerading as something old. Then my brother-in-law reminded me that the term was a question in one of the Trivial Pursuit boxes, the 'Genus II edition,' which was published in 1986. Trivial Pursuit is a fine company for scholars--they keep all their files and they can tell you the source of any bit of information in their games. Yes, they told me, that question came from a certain children's 'Facts and Records' book, published in 1985. Where the authors of that book got it, no one seemed to know." 

Blue Moon
"'On September 23, 1950, several muskeg fires that had been quietly smoldering for several years in Alberta suddenly blew up into major--and very smoky--fires,' writes physics professor Sue Ann Bowling of the University of Alaska. 'Winds carried the smoke eastward and southward with unusual speed, and the conditions of the fire produced large quantities of oily droplets of just the right size (about 1 micron in diameter) to scatter red and yellow light. Wherever the smoke cleared enough so that the sun was visible, it was lavender or blue. Ontario and much of the east coast of the U.S. were affected by the following day, but the smoke kept going. Two days later, observers in England reported an indigo sun in smoke-dimmed skies, followed by an equally blue moon that evening.'" 

Stay up and gaze at the Blue Moon: "Though it will be its usual pearly white hue, the full moon would be the second to be spotted this month after July 2, an occurrence from which the oft-used English saying 'once in a blue moon' is surmised to have originated.  

A message from White House West

Pharmacopia

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?' said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.

The comment was apparently directed to a colleague who was transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about job quality, and who overheard the remark.

When told the Prozac comment had been overheard, Sheybani said: 'Oh, I was just kidding.'

<$Xvarenah$> has a great list of favorite cover versions so I'd thought I'd list some of mine--

Walk Don't Run--Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Summertime Blues--T. Rex/Blue Cheer
Its All Over Now, Baby Blue--Them
It's Not Easy Being Green--Van Morrison
Reason to Believe--Rod Stewart (other great Tim Hardin covers include
Red Balloon--The Small Faces
How Can You Hang On to a Dream--Fleetwood Mac)
Who Knows Where the Time Goes--Nina Simone (used to great effect in John Malcovich's The Dancer Upstairs)
To Sir With Love--Al Green
Beginnings--Astrud Gilberto (like the Chicago version, with a longer trombone solo and percussion breakdown)
These Days--Jennifer Warnes (John Cale, who played on Nico's original, produced this version for her '72 Jennifer album)
Sister Ray--Joy Division (great, but worth it for Ian Curtis' "You should hear us do Louie Louie..."
Police on My Back--the Clash
Heartbreak Hotel--John Cale
At Last I Am Free--Robert Wyatt
Tomorrow is a Long Time--Elvis (Dylan's favorite Dylan cover)
Tomorrow Never Knows--801
Early Morning Rain--Jerry Lee Lewis (on his '72 London Sessions"unplugged", he puts you on that sad runway like Gordie never could)
Spoonful--Cream
Spooky--Lydia Lunch (great Robert Quine guitar on this)
Mary Tyler Moore Show Theme--Husker Du
Top of the World--Sugarcubes (I miss Einar)
Summertime--Billy Stewart (completely over the top)
Danny Boy--Jackie Wilson (and then some)
Gloria--Patti Smith
Move on Up--the Jam (the Curtis Mayfield version was a British hit--you flipped it over, like What I'd Say)
Honey Don't--the Beatles (who could sound like a Bakersfield bar band when they had to)
Layla--John Fahey
Are Your Ready For the Country?--Waylon Jennings
Different Drum--Linda Ronstadt
The Bells--Laura Nyro
Now I Wanna Be Your Dog--Alejandro Escovedo
Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die--Bob Dylan
Whole Lotta Love/Whiter Shade of Pale--King Curtis
Somewhere--Aretha Franklin
Some Other Time--Tony Bennett/Bill Evans
Trouble Man--Stanley Turrentine
Four Strong Winds--Neil Young
Work to Do--Average White Band
The Things We Did Last Summer--Lesley Gore
Come Down in Time--Lani Hall (from Brasil 66)
Hello It's Me--Isley Bros.
Only Love Can Break Your Heart--St. Etienne
A Walk on Gilded Splinters--Humble Pie/Johnny Jenkins
I Heard it Through the Grapevine--The Slits/CCR
Gimme Shelter--Mitch Ryder
Go Now--the Moody Blues

Creme Filled Red Velvet Bingles "The name alone is thoroughly delightful, though the snack itself resembles Twinkies soaked in blood."

CJR Campaign Desk has a good critique of CNN's faux Fox convention coverage...

Part One of Kevin Killian's Orono Report--

"The cell phone has a picture of Catherine Zeta-Jones inside of it, so
every time I turn it on, I see her. People mock 'Zeta,' saying she
cheapens herself doing ads for T-Mobile. I don't see it like that. I
bet Mercury had a bad reputation back in the day, flitting around
sending messages. I like her. I touched her brightly colored face
framed in its postage-stamp square of light. 'Good night.' Then I
realized I had brought a lot of things with me but I'd forgotten the
talk I was supposed to give Saturday morning." 

looking forward to turkey dinner at Huber's: Portland's Oldest Restaurant 

Genetics Pioneer Francis Crick Dies at 88

"He literally reasoned his way to the solution, and he was a 36-year-old mediocrity at the time."

Double helix
in the sky tonight
throw out the hardware
let's do it right.... 

Scott Moncrieff's Beowulf

Charles Spear

In the curdled afterglow of night
The long ship leaves the cliff, the ness, the cave;
Unending arcs of icy light
Flicker about her on the climbing wave;

And coming close fierce warriors crowd
To shout across the Swan's Way. See! They pass.
She drives through trailing veils of cloud,
And time pours down like rain on weeping glass.

(thanks <$Xvarenah$>) 

CORN REPORT: Daphne and I drove through Cedar and Yellowpoint and saw lots of corn and very high for late July but still a bit young. We did find some decent looking Fraser Valley corn at the Cedar store. Its just matter of a few days in this heat.  (Later: not bad, and it roasted up a treat, but...) 

How and Why Wonder Books--I have this one and the Dinosaur one. 

"SIMPSONS' GAY WEDDING" no mention of Lenny and Carl?? 

Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle: "As surreal as the movie gets, though, it never quite reaches the pungent contact high of Dude, Where's My Car?, a virtuoso demonstration of the pothead paradox that what isn't funny the first or second time absolutely kills the 11th or 12th time. Still, while H&K's larger point may be that its protagonists' ethnicity is incidental, it's indicative of the film's basic decency that the pesky racial stuff is allowed to interfere with its buzz--the repeated run-ins with bigoted white cops and extreme-sports rednecks have less comic value than social import. The titular destination would simply be noxious product placement if it didn't also serve a symbolic purpose. 'This night is about the American dream,' Kumar declares only semi-facetiously, and indeed, by the time our heroes finally approach their holy grail--having battled the usual impediments that go with being half baked as well as a lifetime of cultural expectations and heaps of dumbass racist bullshit--it's not just about a soggy case of greasy sliders anymore. " 

My Demographic

"Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm- The Kettles become grandparents and decide it's time to get back to basics on the farm after meeting their blue-blooded in-laws, who have some very different ideas about rearing children. To get away from the complexities of modern life, Ma and Pa move back to their farm shack. Meanwhile, Pa gets into trouble again--he strikes uranium, but promptly gets caught up in two crooks' swindle!" 

more on the election of 1912: "Had Theodore Roosevelt been nominated by the Republican Party -- and he would have been had he not been cheated out of the votes he had gained in the primaries -- he would have been president in 1912 and Woodrow Wilson would have lost. This would have meant that Roosevelt would have continued to make the Republican Party a party of reform, which is what he stood for at the time, indeed, almost radical reform. In terms of foreign policy he might very well have brought the United States into the First World War after the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, in which case the war might have ended far sooner and certainly with a less drastic peace than the one imposed on Germany. This might well have changed the course of the 20th century. "

DNC 2004 Weblogs: News Aggregator

(Teddy Roosevelt, mounting a third party challenge in 1912, trying to baptise the Republicans (his protege Taft is the tug-of-war anchor, left)in the progressive waters of "Teddyism")

Harper's Weekly Elections 1860-1912--a trove of info, cartoons, etc... 

Some favorite US presidential campaign books--1988

Richard Ben Cramer What It Takes : The Way to the White House

Besides the Hunter Thompson, this book would be the most fun for non-wonk readers. W appears as the hot-headed son of a ruthless dad. You end up liking Dole & Dukakis.

1976

Marathon: the Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-6

Hardly gonzo, but Witcover is a sharp guy. Every thrift store in Canada has a copy of this book.

1972

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail

Hunter Thompson

I read this in installments in Rolling Stone when I was 14, with the Ralph Steadman drawings spread across those huge newsprint pages. A pretty sound education & Thompson's best book.

1968

An American Melodrama Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, Bruce Page

"In its essence 1968 was like the great European revolution year of 1848 during which even the bourgeoisie perforce chose the streets as the only available forum to assert their unacknowledged power. Like 1848, its aftermath resulted in a flood of spiritual exiles who colonized the world in their diaspora. And as with 1848, the official structures of political and economic repression were reassembled afterward in slightly more disguised, but nonetheless excruciatingly durable form.

The four political tragedies for America were tied together by more than chronology. In a Shakespeare play, not just the hero is tragic, but all the characters as well. Both our leaders and ourselves failed to rise to the occasion. And the best book about the year remains the work of three journalists from the London Sunday Times, called with typical British approximation, An American Melodrama. (Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, Bruce Page: Viking Press, 1969) "

"An American Melodrama" is a superb book and widely available. Reading it, you get the sense of the gravity and momentousness of events constantly challenging the writers professional reserve.

looks like CPAC is carrying a feed of the gavel-to-gavel C-Span coverage of the Democratic convention--Miss Teen New Mexico just did the anthem... 

Letter by Thomas Nashe to William Cotton 1596

"[Address, at back] To my worshipfull good freinde Mr. William Cotton geue these

Sir this tedious dead vacation is to mee as vnfortunate as a
terme at Hertford or St Albons to poore cuntry clients or Iack
Cades rebellion to the lawyers, wherein they hanged up the L cheife
iustice / In towne I stayd (being earnestly inuited elsewhere) vpon
had I wist hopes, & an after harvest I expected by writing
for the stage & for the presse, when now the players as if they
had writt another Christs tears, ar piteously psecuted by the
L. Maior & the aldermen, & however in there old Lords tyme
they thought there state setled, it is now so vncertayne they cannot
build vpon it; & for the printers there is sutch gaping amongst
them for the coppy of my L. of essex voyage and the ballet of
the threscore and four knights that though my lord Marquesse
write a second parte of his feuer lurden or idlenesse..........
..................................................... or Churchyarde
[e]nlarge his Chips, saying they were the very same wch christ in
[Car]penters hall is paynted gathering vp as Ioseph his father
[sta]nds hewing a peice of timber, & Mary his mother sitts
[sp]inning by, yet wold not they giue for them the price of a
[pr]oclamation out of date, or which is the contemptiblest summe
[tha]t may bee, (worse than a scute or a dandiprat) the price of
[ ] Harveys works bound up together. Only mr harrington
{of} late hath sett up sutch filthy stinking iakes in pouls
churchyard, that the stationers wold giue any mony for a couer
[fo]r it. what shold moue him to it I know not, except he
[m]eant to bid a turd in all gentle readers teeth, or whereas
[D]onDiego & Brokkenbury beshitt pouls, to prevent the like incon-
[u]enience, he hath reuiued an old innes a court tricke of turning
[ ]out in a paper, & framed close stools for them t[o] carry
[in] there pockets as gentlewomen do there spuges th[ ]
[ ] O it is detestable and abhominable, farre worse then
[Mu]nday[s] ballet of vntruesse, or Gillian a Braynfords
[Wi]ll in which she bequeathed a score of farts amongst her frends
[&] able to make any man haue a stinking breath that lookes
[b]ut on the outstide of it. Sure had I beene of his
cousayle he shold haue sett for ye mott or word before it
Fah, & dedicated it to the house of the shakerlies that
giue for there armes thre doggs turds reaking, For my
paarte I pitty him & pray for him that he may haue
many good stooles to his last ending, & so I wold wish
all his frends to pray, for otherwise it is to be feared
yt according as Seneca reports the last words Claudi-
ius Ces was hard to speake were Hei mihi vereor
concacaui me so he will die with a turd in his mouth at
his last gaspe & bee coffind vp in a iakes farmer tunne
no other nosewise christian, for his horrible pfume being
able to come nere him. well some men for sorrow singe as
it is in the ballet of Iohn Carelesse in the booke of
martirs & I am merry whe[n] I haue nere a penny in my
purse. God may moue you though I say nothing, in wch
hope that that wch wilbee shalbe I take my leaue. yours in acknowledgement
of the deepest [bond] " 

essays & effluvia: 100 MP3 blogs

this Monet & others at the Portland Art Museum until Aug 22 

(Limestone Seacaves, Tobermory,Ontario)

Christopher Dewdney

"Transubstantiation

Devoid of perception the
blind form of the fossil
exists post-factum.
Its movement planetary, tectonic.
The flesh of these words
(as the words must be placed together
in light of theiyr skeletons)
Or rather the motion ascribed to
becomes a vehicle (for Paraclete).

What rises.
From the visible altar
to the altar sublime. Is
Is what we wish to inhabit
just the bread, just the wine.

Erosion unites with process to reveal
form.
Complies with laws
independent of vision.
In formation.
Mirrors.
(a photograph of the author photographing themselves)
At any given moment
moment is solid.

'Generation' of the Son.
'Procession' of the Holy Spirit.
A unicorn
white from existence in the underworld.
Gold is sprinkled on a fossil or
administered intravenously.
(in the late 4th century
the Arians released the unicorn in a cavern
to the thin leathern applause of bats)

'Generation' of Logos.
'Procession' of the Holy Spirit.")  

(Jimmie Rogers, Maybelle, A.P. and Sara Carter) the lyrics of all the Original Carter Family songs--

"Don't Forget This Song

My home's in old Virginia among the lovely hills,
The memory of my birthplace lies in my bosom still.

I did not like my fireside, I did not like my home,
I have a mind for rambling so far away from home.

It was on one moonlight evening the stars were shining bright,
And with an ugly dagger I made the spirit fly.

To friends I'll bid adieu to parents I'll bid farewell,
I landed in Chicago in the very midst of hell.

Twas then the sober struck me as plain as you can see--
I'm doomed I'm ruined forever throughout eternity.

I courted a fair young lady her name I will not tell,
Oh why should I disgrace her when I am doomed for hell?

But now upon my scaffold my time's not very long,
You may forget the singer but don't forget this song." 

The Outcrops of Prehistory
"Ahead of his own time in weighing the balance between nature, commerce, and art, Smithson was also prescient about conflicts over a park's social function. He included the general ideal 'Central Park is a ground work of necessity and chance, a range of contrasting view points that are forever fluctuating, yet solidly based in the earth.' But he deleted the more polemical 'All parks or 'recreation' sites should be able to absolve modifications, but not to the point where Disney-type kiddy villages subvert the organic dialectic, and cover the outcrops of prehistory. The new subway excavations in Central Park are probably more interesting to kids than big plastic Dumbos.'" 

(Seattle's Denny Park, 1903)

Happy Birthday Frederick Law Olmsted! 

Resisting Left Melancholy

"In short, the Left has come to represent a politics that seeks to protect a set of freedoms and entitlements that confronts neither the dominations contained in both nor the limited value of those freedoms and entitlements in contemporary configurations of capitalism. And when this traditionalism is conjoined with a loss of faith in the egalitarian vision so fundamental to the socialist challenge to the capitalist mode of distribution, and a loss of faith in the emancipatory vision fundamental to the socialist challenge to the capitalist mode of production, the problem of left traditionalism becomes very serious indeed. What emerges is a Left that operates without either a deep and radical critique of the status quo or a compelling alternative to the existing order of things. But perhaps even more troubling, it is a Left that has become more attached to its impossibility than to its potential fruitfulness, a Left that is most at home dwelling not in hopefulness but in its own marginality and failure, a Left that is thus caught in a structure of melancholic attachment to a certain strain of its own dead past, whose spirit is ghostly, whose structure of desire is backward looking and punishing. "

(thanks to wood s lot) 

Illinois Jacquet 1928-2004 

Delacroix's Faust 

lots of updates--new work, reviews--at Portland artist Bruce Conkle's site... 

Third two and a half buck movie--"The Hit List"
"Considering that Scott and I did not receive credit, everything we put in the script stayed there and is in the finished film. When we meet Jan Michael Vincent he is doing carpentry on his house and he's a Vietnam vet. Scott and I also added the main gag of the picture -- Lance Henrickson being dragged by a car toward the Severe Tire Damage spikes in a parking lot -- which became both the film's poster and video box. And, of course, the classic 6 swinging around and becoming a 9. "

The great Michael Rooker (here as William Quantrell) of Brown's Requiem, from James Ellroy's first novel, which I also purchased for two and a half bucks. We may be entering the golden age of VHS--like that period when 8-tracks were being phased out & they were giving them away. The flotsam of technology, the jetsam of content.  

William Smith in Run, Angel, Run purchased for $2.49 at the video store 

overegged and overlong but welcome tribute to Chris Penn, which makes up for a lot by correctly identifying his finest performance, in Abel Ferrara's "The Funeral", the only movie about the Mafia that avoids any trace of exculpatory romanticism. The similarly underused Annabella Sciorra was also very fine in it. (salon) 

Jerry Goldsmith, composer of the scores for "Chinatown". "Planet of the Apes" and many others, died. 

Jim Kalb's Palindrome Connection: "A Dan, a clan, a canal - Canada!"

took this sub-sophomoric Expatriate Manifesto as either the working notes of 9th grade debate champion or a knowing parody of the hysterical NYPress house style, but I really think he might be serious...

"(American decline) stalks the parapets of our crumbling democracy, howling at our low voter turn-out and groaning at a republic of television-entranced morons with little knowledge of or interest in the world outside their cycles of compulsive consumption."

Another reason for Canadians to fear a Bush victory--an invasion of smug backpackers. At least in the 60's they might have read a little Marcuse.

Running scared
"To live in America now - at least to live in a port city like Seattle - is to be surrounded by the machinery and rhetoric of covert war, in which everyone must be treated as a potential enemy until they can prove themselves a friend. Surveillance and security devices are everywhere: the spreading epidemic of razor wire, the warnings in public libraries that the FBI can demand to know what books you're borrowing, the Humvee laden with troops in combat fatigues, the Coast Guard gunboats patrolling the bay, the pat-down searches and x-ray machines, the nondescript grey boxes, equipped with radio antennae, that are meant to sniff out pathogens in the air. It's difficult to leave the house now without encountering at least one of these reminders that we are being watched and that we live in deadly peril - though in peril of quite what is hard to say. "

George Romero " Zombies ain't supposed to move fast. They're supposed to be dead, man. " 

It's Delightful, It's Delicious--It's Wrong
"But the worst thing "De-Lovely" does to Porter's music isn't musical, precisely; it's interpretive. After a few bars of 'In the Still of the Night,' the angel Gabe says, 'You wrote that for her, of course.' Porter responds, reasonably, 'A song doesn't have to be about someone.' The rest of the movie ignores this caution, and makes Porter out to be a kind of proto-James Taylor. It shows Porter jotting down a love song upon waking beside Linda, and generally suggests that his lyrics closely tracked his personal life. This is to impose a rock 'n' roll--or perhaps singer-songwriter--aesthetic on a prerock mode of production. Notions of sincerity and self-expression have little direct application to songsmiths of Porter's era, who produced romantic, rueful, or raucous material according to the needs of a given form, be it stage show, film, or the individually marketed song. " 

Germaine Greer--this goes for Canada too of course.
"'Australia doesn't owe whitefellas (including me) a living. They should stop ripping its guts out for a pittance, and sit on the ground. Sit on the ground, damn you, and think, think about salination, desertification, dieback, deforestation, species extinction, erosion, suburbanisation, complacency, greed and stupidity. As if.'" 

Robert Wyatt's "Cuckooland" nominated for Mercury prize: "'I think it would be a disgrace if anything came of it,' the 59-year-old told The Daily Telegraph. " 

LBJ's scar and the King's two bodies: "Trying to allay suspicions that Johnson was seriously ill, press secretary Bill Moyers 'snowed [the White House press corps] with details,' including full-color anatomical slides, and the news media duly carried daily reports of Johnson's convalescence, including such minutiae as how well the president slept on particular nights, Lady Bird planting a tree outside the hospital room window, and his viewing of 'Hello, Dolly!' on television. Unfortunately, Moyers had no idea how far the president was willing to take the full disclosure policy. On October 20, Johnson was holding forth to the press as he sunned himself on the Bethesda Naval Hospital grounds. 'Apparently feeling words to be inadequate' in describing how he felt, the Baltimore Sun's Muriel Dobbin reported, 'the President whipped up his blue knit sport shirt,' and, as Time put it, 'let the whole world inspect the ugly twelve-inch seam under his right rib cage' where the surgeons had done their work. Many newspapers and both major newsmagazines carried a photo that week of a squatting, squinting LBJ exposing his flesh for the press." 

Interesting looking doc on PBS tonight: "But 'Last Man Standing' meticulously delves beneath the surface--the filmmakers shot 200 hours of footage over five months--and stereotypes of Texas politics fall by the wayside. For one thing, Texas itself is on the cusp of a sweeping demographic change that threatens to unsettle the state and nation's political landscape."

(Later: this was rather good. Seeing the young (24!) Democrat
Patrick Rose--bucking a statewide trend--narrowly defeat his predictably sociopathic rival made for gripping TV. And early on, there were great colour shots of a white-suited LBJ doing some fancy walking horse dressage...) 

The Drunken Silenus, 1628
Jusepe de Ribera (Jativa, Spain 1591-1652 Naples)

from The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Special Exhibitions: Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints
(thanks again Plep) 

free tunes by STEREO TOTAL and many others at Kill Rock Stars mp3's 

Like the one early last Thursday, the quake was centred off the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Nootka Sound area. The biggest one I ever felt was a couple of years back, and it was like a big truck going through a violent gear change right outside the room. With lots of giant cheap subwoofer action. Any memory of these two recent quakes sadly to be found in the file folder marked "misc. unsorted responses to false alarms; see cats, porch umbrella..." 

from Seven Oaks Magazine, an Alberta NDP candidate detects a whiff of change in the Hinterland. Our experience in Nanaimo-Cowichan certainly bears her out.

"Alexa McDonough, a former leader of the NDP states that winning takes three elections.

The first election shows who and what you are. The second election reinforces the trust that was built in the first election. The third election drives home that the NDP is really the best choice for the constituency.

In the Hinterland, we have begun to build that trust. That we are willing to work so hard for what seems to be a lost cause is already beginning to pay off. "

The Flying Yankee: " The Flying Yankee is a three car articulated train that was said to be the first streamlined train east of the Mississippi. "

No longer runs of course, but travelled between Boston and Bangor.  

Trouts and Seasons of The Mountain Village--papercraft and fishing stories...

"The river's summer come around with cicada after the rainy season.
I'm soaked with sweat and go up the river
but there isn't good fishing though I got so tired. The Japanese proverb says
"There's only one trout for every 2.5 miles in summer".
I give up and take a nap in the shade of the tree." 

all of Maud: A Monodrama

Then I rise, the eavedrops fall,
And the yellow vapours choke
The great city sounding wide;
The day comes, a dull red ball
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
On the misty river-tide. 

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

Tennyson, from "Maud"



A treasury of Bats
(thanks Exclamation Mark) 

For a raven ever croaks, at my side,
Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward,
Or thou wilt prove their tool.
Yea too, myself from myself I guard,
For often a man`s own angry pride
Is cap and bells for a fool.

Tennyson, from "Maud"


Check out this amazing animated Harmonie / Harmony - John James Audubon - THE BIRDS OF AMERICA site 

The Self
"If their eyes were closed, and they were asked to point to their hand on the side where the fake hands were, they'd point to the rubber one. The experiment changed the perception of self. The volunteers swore that the rubber hand was their real hand. 'It is a strong sensation,' said Ehrsson, whose study was published in Science." 

Adolph Menzel "Rear courtyard and house" 1844.
 
Ok review of Menzel's Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin
" Fontane penned an affectionate poem on the occasion of the painter Adolph Menzel's seventieth birthday in 1885. In it he queried, 'Indeed, who is Menzel? Menzel is many things, if not everything; he is in any case a great Noah's ark, animal and human being.'" Discovering the huge & incredibly varied output of Menzel was one of the most interesting aspects of my long ago trip to Berlin. 

Adolph Menzel "Much later in the show, there is a painting by Adolph Menzel of an empty room, painted in 1845. The door to the balcony is open, the light filters into the room through a translucent curtain. The painting seems to ask us questions about what is real, what is reflected, what is painted. It is an inconsequential view of an unoccupied room on a sunny day, with the light coming in. We are made aware of the light, how it moves through the room, catches on a chair back and on a picture frame, pools on the polished floor. The air in the room feels very present. We are aware, somehow, that the painter is in the room, observing, and that he has bought us with him. " I disagree with this guy about Friedrich, though. 

Don't Stop the Presses!--sign the petition to save the venerable Coach House, certainly the most influential Canadian small press.

Virtual Flickbook "the rougher feel of plastic keys brushing against your filthy paws..."

my 2001 review of Clark Coolidge's Far Out West 

(Clark Coolidge, drums, at the top of the stairs) Equanimity on prosody, etc--
"The secret of Coolidge's (of Ashbery's of Yau's of Mayer's of...) work is that unlike, say Tate's (or Simic's or Young's or ...), is that there is no guarantee that he will or won't be goofing on you in any given poem. Civilians at poetry readings have remarked to me a couple times that non-slam non-traditional poetry can be like stand-up comedy without the tension and release tracked by the set-up and punchline of the joke." 

E l s e w h e r e visits temples in Japan only to discover--

"VERY IMPORTANT MOSS// (like VIP)' appeared above a sectioned table displaying 20-some-odd varieties of moss. That sign appeared above the six or so mosses to the far right of the display. 'Mold the interrupter' appeared above the mosses in the middle. 'Mold the interrupter' was totally lost on me. It's obvious that the translator was trying to get a particular idea about mold, or that particular mold, across. But these words don't get that idea across--except maybe *invasive* mold? Tough to tell. 'VERY IMPORTANT MOSS// (like VIP)' may very well have been written with a smile on the lips. But that does not take away from the fact that it was, indeed, very important moss--everything in these temples is very carefully arranged, manipulated, imbued with meaning. Part of what makes that funny for us, is our own cultural cynicism. Moss? Important? And so glibly put! 'Very Important Moss.' *Yeah, right*, we snort. So this is one cultural difference making the words resonate very differently to us." 

short interview with Matthew and Rich from Clear Cut Press

cat haiku from Kobayashi Issa (via
Plep as usual)

"heat shimmers--
how the cat talks
in her sleep!"

Maggi: the new Worcestershire sauce? 

("Love is Shit" by the Dishrags, 1980, three young women from Vancouver Island. I saw them open the Clash's first North American show, at the Commodore in Vancouver, along with Bo Diddley!)
Punk Rock Comes to Canada video and audio from the CBC archives 

(longtime CBC kid favourites Jerome the giraffe and the Friendly Giant. The rooster's name escapes me. Missing are the little band of cats "Friendly" liked to jam with.)
Words: Woe and Wonder--a CBC guide to Canadian English 

1 All Night Long / Mary Jane Girls
2 Don't Look Any Further / Dennis Edwards
3 Heartbeat / Taana Gardner
4 Funky Sensation / Gwen Mcrae
5 I Want To Thank You / Alicia Myers
6 Just A Touch Of Love / Slave

7 Watching You / Slave
8 Inside Out / Oddyssey
9 Walking Into Sunshine / Central Line
10 Mama Used To Say / Junior
11 Over Like A Fat Rat / Fonda Rae
12 Come Let Me Love You / Janet Lady Day

13 I Like What You Doin To Me / Young & Co
14 Rock Your World / Weeks & Co
15 Search To Find The One / Unlimited Touch
16 I'll Do Anything / Denroy Morgan
17 I Hear Music In The Streets / Unlimited Touch
18 A Little Bit Of Jazz / Nick Striker

 

MOODYMANN - Black Mahogani is fantastic--deep deep jazzy house doesn't begin to describe it... 

Gentle hobbits hire lawyers from Mordor
"'The incorporation of the SHIRE name into a domain name by you is a misrepresentation to the public that the domain is connected to the Lord of the Rings books and/or films. In particular, the registration by you of the domain name constitutes a representation to persons who consult the Whois register that you are connected to or associated with the name registered and thus the owner of licensee of the goodwill in the name, which of course you are not.'" 

Christopher Brayshaw generously reviews my book Hammertown on his new blog. 

Images of England

Ron Silliman quietly announces the completion of "The Alphabet" and rightly calls for a Spicer circle anthology.

lyrics by Johnny Mercer
music by Bernard Hanighen

I was talkin to the whippoorwill
He says you got a corny trill
Bob White!
Whatcha gonna swing tonight?

I was talkin to the mocking bird
He says you are the worst he's heard,
Bob White,
Whatcha gonna swing tonight?

Even the owl-
tells me you're foul
Singin those lullaby notes,

Don't be a bring down
If you can swing down--
Gimme those high notes

There's a lotta talk about you, Bob
and they're sayin you're 'off the cob',
fake it, Mister B
take it, follow me,
Bob white
we're gonna break it up tonight...

Even the owl,
threw in the towel
After you sang the gato,
and the flamingo
hollered by jingo!
what a vibrato!

recorded by Mildred Bailey, September 1937, with whistle solo by the composer & a hard swinging Eddie Sauter chart...
 

"Dirty Pretty Things"' Chiwetel Ejiofor to play 70's hero Frank Wills--the security guard who brought down the Nixon administration. 

from Tekoa, Washington--Mildred Bailey: "Her voice is light but not weak, and she never sounds calculating. There's almost never any melodrama; her favorite ambiance is well-lit and calm. On "Now That Summer Is Gone", the way she sings the line "You liked me on the tennis court" brings a sudden clarity of bathos, like a plain Edward Hopper light falling over everything. " 

from Puget Sound, Kalakala: The World's First Streamlined Vessel (via I like, which has plenty of other Art Deco links) 

Walden

"White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We never learned meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before the farmers door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth. " 

Ashcroft's Book Club

"Yesterday (July 8, 2004) I took the Internet Bookmobile to Walden Pond in Concord, Mass. It was the 150th anniversary of H. D. Thoreau's book 'Walden.' The Thoreau Society had a dawn to dusk reading.

After an hour of having readers print and take away free copies of 'Walden,' I was asked by the Walden Pond Reservation police to pack up and leave and threatened with arrest. I left.

The park supervisor told me I could not pass out free literature without a permit. And she would not give me a permit because, as she explained, the state park gets money from a concession by the Thoreau Society, which operates a store that sells 'Walden'--and I was competing with them by giving away free copies. " 

Meet the New Boss--leaves from Pete Townshend's Diary

"7 July

Michael Moore has been making some claims-- mentioning me by name - which I believe distort the truth.

He says--among other things--that I refused to allow him to use my song WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN in his latest film, because I support the war, and that at the last minute I recanted, but he turned me down. I have never hidden the fact that at the beginning of the war in Iraq I was a supporter. But now, like millions of others, I am less sure we did the right thing.

When first approached I knew nothing about the content of his film FAHRENHEIT 911. My publisher informed me they had already refused the use of my song in principle because MIRAMAX the producers offered well below what the song normally commands for use in a movie. They asked me if I wanted to ask for more money, I told them no.

23 May

The trip has been a good one. We played for the CBS presentation of their forthcoming season and introduced the song they are going to use for their CSI New York series - 'Baba O Riley'

Coincidentally Hewlett Packard have just started to use an original version of the backing music for the same song for their great new TV commercial. My brother Simon produced it from my original home demo recording.

In a very real way the use of Who music in this manner keeps it alive, and brings it to a new audience in an era when our music would otherwise never be heard on the radio or TV. "

listening to the GREAT Hoagy Carmichael anthology First of the Singer Songwriters, Key Cuts 1924-46 which has not only Hoagland but Fats Waller, the Boswells, Mildred Bailey, Al Bowlly etc... 

Mnemosyne
"A group of researchers (historians, art historians, and programmers) devoted to the idea of studying the history of images with the help of the computer. Their main topic of research: The emblematic game. Their instruments: Iconclass, topicmaps, XML, and the computer. Their favorite platform for publications: Dynamic, collaborative websites around collections of words and images." 

Which film guide is best?

Edward the Confessor cut penny, from The Portable Antiquities Scheme 

pf
"An accurate and correct linguistic usage therefore associates anxiety and the future. When it is sometimes said that one is anxious about the past, this seems to be a contradiction of this usage. However, to a more careful examination, it appears that this is only a manner of speaking and that the future in one way or another manifests itself. The past about which I am supposed to be anxious must stand in a relation of possibility to me. If I am anxious about a past misfortune, then this is not because it is in the past but because it may be repeated, i.e., become future. If I am anxious because of a past offense, it is because I have not placed it in an essential relation to myself as past and have in some deceitful way or another prevented it from being past. If indeed it is actually past, then I cannot be anxious but only repentant. If I do not repent, I have allowed myself to make my relation to the offense dialectical, and by this the offense itself has become a possibility and not something past.

[Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, translated by Reidar Thomte and Albert B. Anderson] " 

recipe for Limoncello--yum! (via) 

John le Carre on Alec Guinness as George Smiley--

"But even in this flawed thing, Tinker, Tailor, with its good and bad scenes, what you see in Alec is some kind of dramatic extension of a religious belief. I think that his view of his role as that person was almost as a Jesuitical moderator in a sinful society. There was no talk of pleasure, not for Alec. His own life was forfeit. I think there was something at that age in Alec that was very, very moving and identifiable for him in the character. It was a very personal thing.

There's something called the actor's guilt, the feeling that you're playing with life - you're acting life but you're never living it. It can amount to a kind of puritanical self-hatred. I think part of the amazing range Alec produces in his face, and everywhere else, derives from that genuine, internal concern about his own identity." 

amazing Polish Film Posters (via Coudal Partners) 

Say it ain't so, John
"McCain is a figure of character and charm, but he cannot leave the Republican Party, as his idol Teddy Roosevelt once did, and strike out against the big-business lobbyists and theocratic demagogues who now dominate the GOP. He won't be making history or remaking politics. He will stand up dutifully, like Colin Powell, in the service of inferior men who would gladly ruin him -- and leave us to wonder why. "

list of 50 best rock intros won me over by remembering "Monkey Man", which also has the best bridge...

"I want a Nixon-type pardon!"
Michael Moriarty as Jimmy Quinn in "Q: The Winged Serpent" 

Larry Cohen's "God Told Me To" "Bone" and "Q: The Winged Serpent" (containing truly "the best performance ever given in a monster movie" by Michael Moriarty, and co-starring the Chrysler Building and David Carradine) in lovingly restored versions on DVD... 

Play The Armonica! 

greatly looking forward to Michael Mann's Collateral 

Oh I wore a 15 pound beard of bees for that woman, but it just wasn't enough!

(PDF's of Rae Armantrout, Jacques Roubaud and more) 

Althea Gibson wins Wimbledon, 1957 

I was convinced it'd be G. too--nice tradecraft from the Kerry camp... 

pretty good essay on
The bicentennial of Nathaniel Hawthorne 
(JOHN not Paul Bunyan, though)

The Old Manse

"...they left their cares behind them as they passed between the stone gateposts at the entrance to our avenue, and that the so powerful opiate was the abundance of peace and quiet within and all around us. Others could give them pleasure and amusement or instruction - these could be picked up anywhere; but it was for me to give them rest..." 

nice little article on Mozart librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte --
"On the last page of his Memoirs he describes how customers sometimes entered his New York bookstore, mistaking it for the pastry shop next door. 'I am thinking', says Da Ponte, 'of placing a placard in my window with the words, 'Italian sweets and pastry for sale.' Then if that jest should chance to bring someone to my shop, I will show him Petrarch or some other of our poets, and hold that ours are the sweetest of sweets for such as have teeth to chew them.'" 

a word from Col. Kurtz: "To raise a stench, a stench so strong as to break the stride of...of a pack of jackals. To be familiar with death as maggots are with manure. The world needs us now, and we will stay here until mushrooms grow out of our faces. These men, these tired ticks that crawl across...across the anvil of history. A time for giants, and they send us pygmies armed with chalk, computers, tennis rackets, Santa Monica hotlines to human misery. The eager students of suffering and violence. The sick and twisted hippies, long haired hypocrites, rotting with decay.
In every powerful civilization, violence stills those inner ancient passions, that primordial slim that lies in the bottom of our minds waiting aeons and aeons to be ... only to be stirred and - what? And the silkworms...the silkworms writing those fawning reports of victories while we die out here like blind martins. The experts, the air-conditioned priests, who only look for the breaking point in human misery. McNamara ... Bunker ... Rostow ... Bundy ... Bunker ... Bunker ...Johnson." 

Prime Minister Diefenbaker (who Jack Spicer saw on Vancouver TV --"Diefenbacker addresses us with a parched face..." and who JFK called "that son of a bitch") fishing (and wearing a Cowichan sweater) in 1967. Via wood s lot, a brief history of minority rule

"With the possibility of no hockey season this fall, history shows that a minority government can provide plenty of nifty stick work, hard hits, and close calls to sate our appetites. "  

to celebrate my 1776th post occuring on the 4th of July, here are Howard Da Silva, Blythe Danner & William Daniels in the film of Sherman Edwards & Peter Stone's musical "1776". 

S/FJ on the new Beastie Boys--
"The bad engineering is one thing, the lack of hooks and boom-drop moments is another, but here's the spicy Cajun rub: The Three Stooges could have gone gold in a week with anything, including a hellacious dose of hateration, name-calling, political drop-kicks. What did we get? Fucking iTunes exclusives! exclusives! and 'Kumbaya.' And their traget demo is going to be running companies within 10 years, so just marinate on that." 

The ambient backgrounds for "From Gardens" were recorded here--
A Brief History of Moulsford
"Col. James died intestate, and it was found necessary for a liquidator to be appointed to realise what could be obtained for the unsold property. A Limited Liability Company has now purchased the Manor Hotel Property. A speculative builder has purchased the three cottages at Pye Corner, and the field south of the Old Vicarage has been sold--a part to Mrs Lockhart and a part as a cricket field to the Parish meeting. The field on the west was bought by Mr H. Hunt of Cholsey. The Waterworks have been sold to the South Oxfordshire Gas and Water Co., the factory buildings to Mr Thurston for stables, and the six cottages in the centre of the village east of the road to various purchasers. The village has accordingly become entirely disintegrated. " 

from W.H. Auden's 'A Summer Night' (1933)

Now north and south and east and west
Those I love lie down to rest ;
The moon looks on them all,
the healers and the brilliant talkers,
The eccentrics and silent walkers,
The dumpy and the tall.


She climbs the European sky,
Churches and power-stations lie
Alike among earth's fixtures :
Into the galleries she peers
And blankly as a butcher stares
Upon the marvellous pictures.


To gravity attentive, she
Can notice nothing here, though we
Whom hunger does not move,
From gardens where we feel secure
Look up and with a sigh endure
The tyrannies of love :


And, gentle, do not care to know,
Where Poland draws her eastern bow,
What violence is done,
Nor ask what doubtful act allows
Our freedom in this English house,
Our picnics in the sun.



 

A sleeping tiger by Delacroix from Maitres des Arts Graphiques via gmtPlus9  

from Paris, Cecile Schott aka Colleen's "Everybody Alive Wants Answers" likewise addresses drift, entropy, afternoon sleepiness, broken toys, distant shunting graveltrucks, snails heaped in a wheel rim planterbox. 

Virginia Astley's immortal album "From Gardens Where We Feel Secure" is back in print. 

Who loves ya baby? Ving Rhames is the new 'Kojak' . 

Marlon Brando as 19th century colonial adventurist and Emperor of Nicaragua William Walker in Gillo Pontecorvo's "Quemada!". Last year's discussions (and White House viewings) of the same filmmakers' "Battle of Algiers" made me hope that its often ignored (and arguably more immediately relevant) sequel might get some overdue attention.  

Gary Indiana on the Clinton memoir--
"Presuming the reader is old enough to cast his or her mind back to the poisonous social atmosphere that prevailed before the expulsion of George the First and dissolved for eight years under Clinton despite the grotesque efforts of the hard right to remove him from office, and again, presuming our reader has not been sufficiently hypnotized--by the prospect of an even larger plasma TV screen, a space-shuttle-size SUV, and a cell phone that gives you an enema while booking you into a fancy restaurant--to ignore the stench of malaise and hopelessness that a few years of our Dry Drunk and Compulsive Liar in Chief, George the Second, have poured over all but the very, very rich and very, very psychopathic, it should be easy to credit most of Clinton's book with abundant goodwill, a fair amount of wit, and far more reflection and intelligence than any of the recent literary effusions of G.W. Bush's hagiographers and anorexic cheerleaders have evidenced, despite the fascinatingly demonic abandon they have brought to their exhibitionism. "

Quarry find reveals hippos and hyenas once roamed Norfolk
"The great beasts would have had huge, prominent eyes which served as periscopes in a river system which would once have flowed from Norfolk into Wales. "

Michael Moore, Cause for War?

"'a massive array of evidence,' 'a detailed and persuasive case,' 'a powerful case,' 'a sober, factual case,' 'an overwhelming case,' 'a compelling case,' 'the strong, credible and persuasive case,' 'a persuasive, detailed accumulation of information,' 'the core of his argument was unassailable,' 'a smoking fusillade . . . a persuasive case for anyone who is still persuadable,' 'an accumulation of painstakingly gathered and analyzed evidence,' 'only the most gullible and wishful thinking souls can now deny that Iraq is harboring and hiding weapons of mass destruction,' 'the skeptics asked for proof; they now have it,' 'a much more detailed and convincing argument than any that has previously been told,' 'Powell's evidence . . . was overwhelming,' 'an ironclad case . . . incontrovertible evidence,' 'succinct and damning evidence . . . the case is closed,' 'Colin Powell delivered the goods on Saddam Hussein,' 'masterful,' 'If there was any doubt that Hussein . . . needs to be . . . stripped of his chemical and biological capabilities, Powell put it to rest.'"

at Phillysound Buck Downs answers questions about his new book "Golden Taters"--
"Talking about Southern Writing makes me crazy like those dudes who collect photographic evidence of Bigfoot. Does it exist? Did it ever?

But then I do lose my nut whenever I have to talk about 'poetry' in terms other than 'what I'm doing'. So yeah, I have no clew what the fuck is up with the New Southern Writing. But it's not like anybody else does either, so I feel like I'm in the right place where that's concerned." 

read about and download La Bolduc and others at The Virtual Gramophone 

enjoy some of these Hinterland Who's Who clips on Canada Day 

Pitchfork: Top 100 Albums of the 1970s is not as awful as might be expected.

Barrett Watten's Tribute to Zukofsky
"It turned out, I thought, that Zukofsky had better be read as a Marxist. That would put his sense of particulars right back down on the ground, back in the world where they came from and we are, if belatedly. Our reading was not originary, and not in homage to any original. It was, however, always at the beginning of a series of acts, from that one until now, as we are only just finding out. "