Sunday, October 05, 2003
Slavoj steamed at Verso:
"In an interview appearing in Critical Intellectuals on Writing, a volume published this summer by the State University of New York Press, Mr. Zizek complained that Verso had been unenthusiastic about his 400-page theoretical magnum opus, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Center of Political Ontology. The press asked him to make it shorter, he says, and to include more obscene jokes. "
"In an interview appearing in Critical Intellectuals on Writing, a volume published this summer by the State University of New York Press, Mr. Zizek complained that Verso had been unenthusiastic about his 400-page theoretical magnum opus, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Center of Political Ontology. The press asked him to make it shorter, he says, and to include more obscene jokes. "
CONVERSATION BETWEEN D'ALEMBERT AND DIDEROT: "Diderot: I think that is so; that has made me sometimes compare the fibres of our organs to sensitive vibrating strings which vibrate and resound long after they have been plucked. It is this vibration, this kind of inevitable resonance, which holds the object -present, while the mind is busied about the quality that belongs to that object. But vibrating strings have yet another property, that of making other strings vibrate; and that is how the first idea recalls a second, the two of them a third, these three a fourth and so on, so that there is no limit to the ideas awakened and interconnected in the mind of the philosopher, as he meditates and hearkens to himself amid silence and darkness. This instrument makes surprising leaps, and an idea once aroused may sometimes set vibrating an harmonic at an inconceivable distance. If this phenomenon may be observed between resonant strings that are lifeless and separate, why should it not occur between points that are alive and connected, between fibres that are continuous and sensitive? "
Jonathan Edwards @ 300: "Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen"
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Tommy Douglas A Remarkable Canadian: "The North American Medical Establishment tried to defy Medicare, Douglas's top priority project, and Saskatchewan became an intense battleground. This turbulent time was marked by the Doctor's Strike as the physicians of the province protested socialized healthcare. However, the striking doctors were no match for Douglas. When the dust settled with the resolution of the strike, Medicare in Saskatchewan was born. Douglas showed Canada two things: that it was possible to develope and finance a universal Medicare system and that the medical profession could be confronted. Had Douglas not have made these first ground breaking steps, national Medicare would never have happened."
Welcome to the Tommy Douglas Website
a great Canadian, Tommy was our MP in Nanaimo (then considered a very safe NDP seat!!) during the 70's. I met him a couple of times and remember the iron grip of his ex-bantamweight boxer's grip, the calm yet room-filling clarity of his speech...I wasn't sure Kiefer was up to playing his grandpa until some of the stuff he had to pull on "24" last year....
a great Canadian, Tommy was our MP in Nanaimo (then considered a very safe NDP seat!!) during the 70's. I met him a couple of times and remember the iron grip of his ex-bantamweight boxer's grip, the calm yet room-filling clarity of his speech...I wasn't sure Kiefer was up to playing his grandpa until some of the stuff he had to pull on "24" last year....
vote for the top Scottish album of all time
for me either the Average White Band's second album or John Martyn's "Solid Air"...
but when I lived in Scotland (68-72) the universally encountered albums were
1. Something by Andy Stewart or Kenneth McKellar
2. Jim Reeves "Greatest Hits" (red cover)
3. Mario Lanza "The Student Prince"
4. Hank Williams "Greatest Hits" (yellow cover with guitar against a chair)
for me either the Average White Band's second album or John Martyn's "Solid Air"...
but when I lived in Scotland (68-72) the universally encountered albums were
1. Something by Andy Stewart or Kenneth McKellar
2. Jim Reeves "Greatest Hits" (red cover)
3. Mario Lanza "The Student Prince"
4. Hank Williams "Greatest Hits" (yellow cover with guitar against a chair)
Friday, October 03, 2003
Why no one really cares about prison rape. By Robert Weisberg and David Mills: "So accepted is assault as part of prison life that an outsider might conclude that on some basic, if unarticulated level, we think it an appropriate element of the punishment regimen. Perhaps we believe that allowing prisons to be places of horrific acts will serve as part of the utilitarian deterrent effect of criminal sentences. Or perhaps we recognize that prison rape and assault are an unavoidable byproduct of the rape and assault in society generally, so that our goal here is not utilitarian but retributive: that is, even though we cannot eliminate rape and assault, we can at least reallocate them. Thus, when we purport to incapacitate convicted criminals, what we are really doing is shifting to them, the most 'deserving' among us, the burden of victimization."
new blog "tufluv" reviews luke vibert and more: "Indulge me and imagine this: ‘YosepH’ (WhaT’s WitH ThE CapitaL ‘H’?) is like an archeologist sometime after the next Ice Age drilling into a block of permafrost. Within it he finds encased a perfectly-preserved acid-box, with it its once-owner cryogenically frozen with his fingers stuck to the quaint little machine’s knobs (It must have been one of those ‘flash’ ice ages, you see). Once they’ve thawed him, the guy is unable to do anything but tweak his knobs, making these fucked up, funky, squiggly noises that amaze the future people. Only, the time in the ice has sorta slowed his whole motion down a gear – it’s kinda fatigued and frosty yet sorta tender and loving. "
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Keats to Leigh Hunt from Margate, May 10 1817: "Before I come to the Nymphs I must get through all disagreeables - I went to the Isle of Wight - thought so much about Poetry so long together that I could not get to sleep at night - and moreover, I know not how it was, I could not get wholesome food - By this means in a Week or so I became not over capable in my upper Stories, and set off pell mell for Margate, at least 150 Miles - because forsooth I fancied that I should like my old Lodging here, and could contrive to do without Trees. Another thing I was too much in Solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought as an only resource. However Tom is with me at present and we are very comfortable. We intend though to get among some Trees. How have you got on among them? How are the Nymphs? "
words to remember from Lawrence Rinder as I prepare to attend and write about the big Core Sample show in Portland, which opens 11 Oct.: "The saddest thing going on these days in Portland is the yearning for recognition from afar, the aspiration to an imagined normalcy which seems to motivate a number of up and coming art enthusiasts. When you have a chance to be anything, why would you cultivate, as Jef Jahn advises, the tepid success of a Julie Mehretu or even the vapid stardom of a Matthew Barney? And why the cloying need to be appreciated by someone from out of town? Athens (Greece, not Georgia) had far fewer citizens than Portland and you can bet that they didn't measure their success by the sheen of their reputation in Corinth. "
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
more Willefordiana: Susan Waggoner ("Pepper")'s Vinegar Pie Recipe from "Miami Blues"
pastry for a 9-inch pie crust
1 Cup seedless raisins, all chopped up
1/4 cup soft butter
2 cups sugar (granulated)
1/2 teaspoon cinammon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
4 large eggs, separated
3 tablespoons 5 per cent vinegar
1 pinch of salt
Cream the butter well with sugar. Add spices and blend well. Beat in yolks with a beater till smooth and creamy.
Stir in chopped raisins with a wooden spoon. Beat egg whites with a dash of salt until they are soft, then slide onto sugar mixture. Cut and fold lightly but well. Turn into pastry-lined pan. Bake fifteen minutes in preheated 425 F. oven. Reduce heat to 300 F. and bake for twenty minutes longer, or until top is beautifully browned and center of filling is jellylike. Cool on a rack for two or three hours before cutting.
pastry for a 9-inch pie crust
1 Cup seedless raisins, all chopped up
1/4 cup soft butter
2 cups sugar (granulated)
1/2 teaspoon cinammon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
4 large eggs, separated
3 tablespoons 5 per cent vinegar
1 pinch of salt
Cream the butter well with sugar. Add spices and blend well. Beat in yolks with a beater till smooth and creamy.
Stir in chopped raisins with a wooden spoon. Beat egg whites with a dash of salt until they are soft, then slide onto sugar mixture. Cut and fold lightly but well. Turn into pastry-lined pan. Bake fifteen minutes in preheated 425 F. oven. Reduce heat to 300 F. and bake for twenty minutes longer, or until top is beautifully browned and center of filling is jellylike. Cool on a rack for two or three hours before cutting.
Whitstable Museum and Gallery: Photo Gallery
Spent an odd melancholy couple of days alone on the Kentish coast after I'd done readings in London and Cambridge. Whitstable a grand little ship shape town, famous for big skies and various seafood/beer combos (oysters and Guinness, or what I had, potted prawns on toast with the local St. Augustine Ale) and paradise after the depressing and slightly scary Margate, where I convinced myself that I'd gotten Verlaine and Rimbaud's old room in the unfriendly, windows-painted-shut b & b.
Spent an odd melancholy couple of days alone on the Kentish coast after I'd done readings in London and Cambridge. Whitstable a grand little ship shape town, famous for big skies and various seafood/beer combos (oysters and Guinness, or what I had, potted prawns on toast with the local St. Augustine Ale) and paradise after the depressing and slightly scary Margate, where I convinced myself that I'd gotten Verlaine and Rimbaud's old room in the unfriendly, windows-painted-shut b & b.
Hollywood super-hunk Andrew Jackson: "In one of several joint marketing efforts between the Treasury and consumer goods companies, the bill's design will grace bags of Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish crackers, and the crackers themselves will be colored to match the new bills. "
Louis Menand on the Chicago Manual of Style: "The notion that the personal computer has eliminated the bone-crushing inefficiency of the typewriter, and turned composing The End Matter into a drive in the word-processing park, belongs to the myth that all work on a computer is “fun”—one of the Digital Age’s cruellest jokes"
Monday, September 29, 2003
more from David Perry: "We were meeting in the tree house to plot our escape from wage slavery at the pencil testing facility. We didn't know enough to keep the new kid away and he kept coming back.... "
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Daphne Oram, electronic music pioneer: Francis Bacon, New Atlantis: "Wee have also Sound-Houses, wher wee practise and demonstrate all Sounds, and their Generation. Wee have Harmonies which you have not, of Quarter-Sounds and lesser Slides of Sounds. Diverse Instruments of Musick likewise to you unknowne, some sweeter then any you have; Together with Bells and Rings that are dainty and sweet. Wee represent Small Sounds as Great and Deepe; Likewise Great Sounds, Extenuate and Sharpe; Wee make diverse Tremblings and Warblings of Sounds, which in their Originall are Entire. Wee rep resent and imitate all Articulate Sounds and Letters, and the Voices and Notes of Beasts and Birds. Wee have certaine Helps, which sett to the Eare doe further the Hearing greatly. Wee have also diverse Strange and Artificiall Eccho's, Reflecting the Voice many times, and as it were Tossing it; And some that give back the Voice Lowder then it came, some Shriller, and some Deeper; Yea, some rendring the Voice, Differing in the Letters or Articulate Sound, from that they receyve. Wee have also meanes to convey Sounds in Trunks and Pipes, in strange Lines, and Distances."
Delia Derbyshire: "'My most beautiful sound at the time was a tatty green BBC lampshade,' she recalled. 'It was the wrong colour, but it had a beautiful ringing sound to it. I hit the lampshade, recorded that, faded it up into the ringing part without the percussive start.
'I analysed the sound into all of its partials and frequencies, and took the 12 strongest, and reconstructed the sound on the workshop's famous 12 oscillators to give a whooshing sound. So the camels rode off into the sunset with my voice in their hooves and a green lampshade on their backs.' "
'I analysed the sound into all of its partials and frequencies, and took the 12 strongest, and reconstructed the sound on the workshop's famous 12 oscillators to give a whooshing sound. So the camels rode off into the sunset with my voice in their hooves and a green lampshade on their backs.' "
Friday, September 26, 2003
Edward Said: "The total rejection, the utter irrational condemnation, the blanket denunciation of complex phenomena such as Wagner is an irrational and finally unacceptable thing, just as in our situation as Arabs, it has been a stupid and wasteful policy for so many years to use phrases like 'the Zionist entity' and completely refuse to understand and analyse Israel and Israelis on the grounds that their existence must be denied because they caused the Palestinian nakba. History is a dynamic thing, and if we expect Israeli Jews not to use the Holocaust to justify appalling human rights abuses of the Palestinian people, we too have to go beyond such idiocies as saying that the Holocaust never took place, and that Israelis are all, man, woman, and child, doomed to our eternal enmity and hostility. Nothing historical is frozen in time; nothing in history is immune to change; nothing in history is beyond reason, beyond understanding, beyond analysis and influence. Politicians can say all the nonsense they wish and do what they want, and so can professional demagogues. But for intellectuals, artists, and free citizens, there must always be room for dissent, for alternative views, for ways and possibilities to challenge the tyranny of the majority and, at the same time and most important, to advance human enlightenment and liberty. "
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Spirals in Nature: The Magical Number behind Hurricanes and Galaxies: "You can visualize the effect by imagining an old-fashioned record album spinning on a turntable. Suppose you draw a chalk line from the edge of the record to the center while it is spinning -- the line will be curved even though your motion is straight."
The Globe and Mail: "Under certain weather conditions, sound can refract, and the focal point may be many miles away from the source.
The sound may actually be louder at the focal point (many miles away) than it is in the immediate vicinity of the explosion.
'Today is a typical day, with clouds, when you'll get a temperature inversion,' he said Wednesday. 'This is a classic situation where you have a focusing of sound. It might be further out than you think. It might even be in Vancouver.' "
The sound may actually be louder at the focal point (many miles away) than it is in the immediate vicinity of the explosion.
'Today is a typical day, with clouds, when you'll get a temperature inversion,' he said Wednesday. 'This is a classic situation where you have a focusing of sound. It might be further out than you think. It might even be in Vancouver.' "
Happy Birthday Glenn Gould : "The role of the forger, of the unknown maker of unauthenticated goods, is emblematic of electronic culture. And when the forger is done honor for his craft and no longer reviled for his acquisitiveness, the arts will have become a truly integral part of our civilization."
Why was I not informed of this?: "Some writers have genial relationships with their critics. Jilly Cooper responds to positive reviews by sending the reviewers thank-you notes and even presents. A colleague of mine received a bar of soap and a note thanking her for the 'darlingest' review, though she was later peeved to hear that the authors of some even darlinger reviews seemed to have got champagne. "
David Kipen: "This time around, according to Merriam-Webster's Wilkinson, the 11th edition bounced not just snollygoster but also microcopy, microreader, microreproduction, record changer, portapak, pantdress, pocket-handkerchief, poke bonnet, vitamin G, lantern pinion, frutescent, impudicity, wool stapler, long play, retirant, sheep-dip, ten-cent store and traffic manager. A few hundred more, too, but nobody keeps a special list. "
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Bellona Times brilliant and right on as ever today. I didn't know Yeats had said that about Keats--he'd better not come around here.
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
The day the sky stood still: "A contrail is not smoke, as I fancied as a child. It's not even an emission, really, at least not in the true sense of the word. Much of what you see when you look at a contrail is water that was present in the atmosphere before the jet came along. A contrail is a cloud, as surely as a thunderhead boiling up over a prairie on a summer afternoon. A cloud of ice, birthed by the happenstance of a passing jet."
from New Years by David Perry (braincase c/o
Noah Eli Gordon PO Box 1471
Northampton, MA 01061) :
"CAT STOPS HER PACING in response to my glance. I thought I was being smooth. "
Noah Eli Gordon PO Box 1471
Northampton, MA 01061) :
"CAT STOPS HER PACING in response to my glance. I thought I was being smooth. "
Equanimity - if not a poetics, then what?: "Involuntary sensation this morning of biting into an immense powdered donut." And when he woke up, his pillow was gone!!
After Theory by Terry Eagleton: "Cultural theory as we have it promises to grapple with some fundamental problems, but on the whole fails to deliver. It has been shamefaced about morality and metaphysics, embarrassed about love, biology, religion and revolution, largely silent about evil, reticent about death and suffering, dogmatic about essences, universals and foundations, and superficial about truth, objectivity and disinterestedness. "
Officials unable to explain powerful blast that shook Nanaimo (CP WIRE) I think it was a meth lab personally...
End of line for Redbird subway cars-- I had one of these all to myself my first ride to Coney, except for some lazy pigeons who rode free for a couple of stops.
Monday, September 22, 2003
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