Tuesday, September 07, 2004


we can only hope

"'At the current rate of loss,' the report yells, 'literary reading as a leisure activity will virtually disappear in half a century.'

Really? To answer this question, let's look for a moment at the photograph of NEA chairman Dana Gioia displayed in the report's introduction. He's a trim-looking fellow: I'd guess about 165 pounds. Now, let's say that Dana's been hitting the maple scones lately, and gained four pounds in the last month. By applying Reading at Risk's statistical model of linear progression, I hereby predict that in 50 years time, NEA chairman Dana Gioia will weigh 2,565 pounds. " Posted by Hello

Monday, September 06, 2004

lucid Chechnya backgrounder

"So, what does al-Qaida and international Islamic terrorism have to do with any of this? Probably very little. Chechens have plenty of reason to do what they do without outside inspiration."

Friday, September 03, 2004


Young Marble Giants

"Parrish is dancing, his feet are a bIur
Comes to a standstill,
I ask him a question
He doesn't hear
Wurlitzer jukebox
Fingers are pointed in my direction
Words fly around me,
everyone's chanting..." Posted by Hello
still one of the best almanacs on the web--The Daily Bleed: A Calendar Better Than Boiled Coffee! Timeline, Chronology, Labor, Radical, Arts, Literature, Authors, Poets, Anarchists...

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Niall Ferguson in the WSJ

"In my view, the Bush administration, too, does not deserve to be re-elected. Its idee fixe about regime change in Iraq was not a logical response to the crisis of 9/11. Its fiscal policy has been an orgy of irresponsibility. Given the hesitations of independent voters in the swing states, polls currently point to a narrow Bush defeat. Yet Mr. Kerry, like Mr. Kinnock, is the kind who can blow an election in a single sound bite. It's still all too easy to imagine George W. Bush, like John Major, scraping home by the narrowest of margins (not least, of course, because Mr. Bush did just that four years ago)

But then what? The lesson of British history is that a second Bush term could be more damaging to the Republicans and more beneficial to the Democrats than a Bush defeat. If he secures re-election, President Bush can be relied upon to press on with a foreign policy based on pre-emptive military force, to ignore the impending fiscal crisis (on the Cheney principle that 'deficits don't matter') and to pursue socially conservative objectives like the constitutional ban on gay marriage. Anyone who thinks this combination will serve to maintain Republican unity is dreaming; it will do the opposite. Meanwhile, the Dems will have another four years to figure out what the Labour Party finally figured out: It's the candidate, stupid. And when the 2008 Republican candidate goes head-to-head with the American Tony Blair, he will get wiped out."
Laurable's Poetry Weblog is back!!
readers of Spanish might enjoy this translation of an essay on Stan Douglas that I wrote a number of years ago, which talks about Ayler, Glenn Gould etc...
excellent Albert Ayler site--pics, info mp3's, the works--Spirits rejoice!

(Ayler playing at John Coltrane's funeral)

I must have this new Albert Ayler box!! Posted by Hello

Wednesday, September 01, 2004


Signs of fall--the wind is up and this recipe for Toad in the Hole in New York Press, of all places... Posted by Hello
Lee Konitz


"As soon as I hear myself playing a familiar melody I take the saxophone out of my mouth. I let some measures go by. Improvising means coming in with a completely clean slate from the first note. The process is what I'm interested in. You can turn the most familiar standard into something totally fresh. The most important thing is to get away from fixed functions."

 Posted by Hello

(Roosevelt with John Muir, Yosemite 1906)

The Party of Lincoln

"The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others." Theodore Roosevelt, Labor Day speech at Syracuse, NY, Sept 7, 1903
 Posted by Hello
An Irving Wallace novel, thickly furred with blue mould...

"Books We Didn't Buy

� The BC Health Guide

� Windows 95 user's manual

� Word 95 installation guide

� 300 Silhouette romances

� Advanced Colon Cleanser's Workbook

� Baby 'board books' -- fat cardboard pages for little hands -- covered in bite marks

� An Irving Wallace novel, thickly furred with blue mold. Little cloud of spores exhaled as I picked it up and set it ever so quickly back down

� The wet, dog-eared books that failed to sell at someone's garage sale and were then apparently left out overnight in the driveway"