Friday, February 06, 2004
Rhyme & Revolution: "The Coup"'s Boots Riley: "Like I said, every one had different stories about what happened; some of them matched up and some of the didn't, and that's what's gonna happen when you got a big crowd like that. But the one thing that did keep ringing true in each story was the fact that, when the police started shooting - and I don't know if you've ever been around when a gun is fired, but your first instinct is, 'lemme get the fuck up outta here because I could die right now' - so that's what everyone was thinking right then, and somebody started chanting 'Fight the power! Fight the power! Fight the power!' Now, that was the song at the time, in the summer of 1989. That Public Enemy song was out right then and that's what everyone was listening to, and that's what made everyone stop and think, 'Yeah, this one thing that we all know is right, that connects us all,' and we all went back, we stopped that from happening. That's when I knew that music could take a place in the movement."
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Goldfish revived after car crash adropos my frozen porchfish--they're tough. And they live into their 40's, if you follow the link.
the well-nourished moon on "Once Upon a Time in Mexico": "Most of the writing on the latter film reminds me of a Shostakovich review shouted from stage during the recent Death of Meyerhold: 'Shostakovich's new symphony is a mess!' I'm slightly embarrassed to have loved every minute of it, even the bad special effects. (especially the handcuffed Depp and Hayek body doubles rag dolling down the side of their hotel onto a moving bus. Also the Banderas chase / fight scene on motorcycle.) Depp as Oedipus-CIA agent: (why am I writing a mastercharge 'priceless' sentence?) superlative, superlative."
The Early Days of a Better Nation: "The great scandal of Lenin was that he taught realpolitik to the lower classes and backward peoples. If the working class was ever to become a ruling class it had better start thinking like one, and for a ruling class there are no rules. "
found in this fine Outlaws and Highwaymen site:
Take away justice, then, and what are governments but great confederacies of robbers? After all, what are confederacies of robbers unless they are small-scale governments? The gang itself consists of men, it is directed by the authority of the chief, it is bound together by a pact of mutual support, and the loot is divided in accordance with an agreed law. If, as a result of the recruitment of desperadoes, this evil grows to such an extent that it takes control of a territory, establishes bases, occupies cities and subjugates peoples, then it assumes the name of a government, the more openly because this is now plainly applicable: not because the robbers have renounced their rapacity, but because they are no longer at risk of punishment. The reply that a captured pirate made to Alexander the Great was apposite and legitimate. For when the ruler asked the man how he could justify making the sea a dangerous place, he answered, with defiant outspokenness, ‘In exactly the way that you justify doing the same to the whole world. But because I do it with a single paltry ship, I am called a robber; while you do it with a large navy, and are called an emperor.’
St. Augustine of Hippo
Take away justice, then, and what are governments but great confederacies of robbers? After all, what are confederacies of robbers unless they are small-scale governments? The gang itself consists of men, it is directed by the authority of the chief, it is bound together by a pact of mutual support, and the loot is divided in accordance with an agreed law. If, as a result of the recruitment of desperadoes, this evil grows to such an extent that it takes control of a territory, establishes bases, occupies cities and subjugates peoples, then it assumes the name of a government, the more openly because this is now plainly applicable: not because the robbers have renounced their rapacity, but because they are no longer at risk of punishment. The reply that a captured pirate made to Alexander the Great was apposite and legitimate. For when the ruler asked the man how he could justify making the sea a dangerous place, he answered, with defiant outspokenness, ‘In exactly the way that you justify doing the same to the whole world. But because I do it with a single paltry ship, I am called a robber; while you do it with a large navy, and are called an emperor.’
St. Augustine of Hippo
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
David Banner - Mississippi: The Screwed and Chopped Album: "Banner's original manifesto is as much a regional document as the screwed and chopped style, perhaps more so. As the first Mississippi rapper ever signed to a major label, Banner's sense of isolation is palpable. 'The place where your grandmama scared to come/the place your mama ran from' he describes amid the barks and bluesy guitar of the intro, his voice slowed to a demonic growl. Mississippi is a dark, foreboding place, a place forgotten by the moral leveling of modern culture where Evil (in its grand Christian form) still lurks. Through the prism of Michael Watts' DJing, this world becomes more alien, more isolated, more menacing, and more distinctly Southern as well. "
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Happy Birthday Gertrude Stein!
"CAKE.
Cake cast in went to be and needles wine needles are such.
This is today. A can experiment is that which makes a town, makes a town dirty, it is little please. We came back. Two bore, bore what, a mussed ash, ash when there is tin. This meant cake. It was a sign.
Another time there was extra a hat pin sought long and this dark made a display. The result was yellow. A caution, not a caution to be.
It is no use to cause a foolish number. A blanket stretch a cloud, a shame, all that bakery can tease, all that is beginning and yesterday yesterday we had it met. It means some change. No some day.
A little leaf upon a scene an ocean any where there, a bland and likely in the stream a recollection green land. Why white. "
"CAKE.
Cake cast in went to be and needles wine needles are such.
This is today. A can experiment is that which makes a town, makes a town dirty, it is little please. We came back. Two bore, bore what, a mussed ash, ash when there is tin. This meant cake. It was a sign.
Another time there was extra a hat pin sought long and this dark made a display. The result was yellow. A caution, not a caution to be.
It is no use to cause a foolish number. A blanket stretch a cloud, a shame, all that bakery can tease, all that is beginning and yesterday yesterday we had it met. It means some change. No some day.
A little leaf upon a scene an ocean any where there, a bland and likely in the stream a recollection green land. Why white. "
John Fucking Kerry, Will the Real John Kerry Please Stand Up: "I spent a day on the campaign trail with Kerry in June and met both John Forbes Kerry and John Fucking Kerry: Forbes delivered cautious, bland responses to my questions; Fucking, in a series of self-depreciating asides, revealed his sense of fun and toughness. "
Monday, February 02, 2004
Christopher of Pulpfiction Books sent this better source for the work of Vancouver artist Evan Lee. Thanks!
Surprise, surprise: "Toronto pollster Pollara Inc. has found that just 15 per cent of Canadians would vote for the American president if they could cast a ballot south of the border."
Pub drinkers tested for drugs With the disgusting whitewash of the Hutton report & now this, the Magna Carta is just about in tatters these days--
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Byron's Corsair sells 10,000 copies on first day of publication, 1814
By those, that deepest feel, Is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest,
And stupor almost lull'd it into rest;
So feeble now - his mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confess'd without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears - perchance if seen,
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flow'd - he dried them to
In helpless -hopeless - brokenness of heart:
The sun goes forth, but Conrad's day is dim;
And the night cometh - ne'er to pass from him.
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye - the blindest of the blind!
Which may not - dare not see but turns aside
To blackest shade - nor will endure a guide!
canto 3 verse 22
By those, that deepest feel, Is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest,
And stupor almost lull'd it into rest;
So feeble now - his mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confess'd without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears - perchance if seen,
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flow'd - he dried them to
In helpless -hopeless - brokenness of heart:
The sun goes forth, but Conrad's day is dim;
And the night cometh - ne'er to pass from him.
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye - the blindest of the blind!
Which may not - dare not see but turns aside
To blackest shade - nor will endure a guide!
canto 3 verse 22
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Richard Holmes on Shelley's drowning myths: " Later still might have come the famous 'Odes to Electromagnetism', the seditious verse play about Chartism, the suppressed 'Essay on the Variety of Sexual Intercourse'. Finally perhaps, we can imagine him being scandalously elected as the first Professor of Poetry and Politics at the newly founded, and strictly secular, University of London. "
kids & classic rock:
"Holly--It sounds like when your wee goes back up.
Beth-- Is this the Beatles?
Gabrielle --It's too rough and horrible.
Holly --It's a good tune but the singing is not good.
Ben --This is brilliant.
Beth --Ugh. I was born with Plasticine in my mouth?
Benjamin --He's getting things stuck in his mouth and he can't chew.
Ben-- And he's been arrested by a substitute. "
"Holly--It sounds like when your wee goes back up.
Beth-- Is this the Beatles?
Gabrielle --It's too rough and horrible.
Holly --It's a good tune but the singing is not good.
Ben --This is brilliant.
Beth --Ugh. I was born with Plasticine in my mouth?
Benjamin --He's getting things stuck in his mouth and he can't chew.
Ben-- And he's been arrested by a substitute. "
Friday, January 30, 2004
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Said's whole intro to Auerbach's "Mimesis": "It is not an exaggeration to say that, like Vico, Auerbach was at heart an autodidact, guided in his diverse explorations by a handful of deeply conceived and complex themes with which he wove his ample fabric, which was not seamless or effortlessly spun out. In Mimesis, he resolutely sticks to his practice of working from disconnected fragments: each of the book's chapters is marked not only by a new author who bears little overt relationship to earlier ones, but also by a new beginning, in terms of the author's perspective and stylistic outlook, so to speak. The 'representation' of reality is taken by Auerbach to mean an active dramatic presentation of how each author actually realizes, brings characters to life, and clarifies his or her own world; this of course explains why in reading the book we are compelled by the sense of disclosure that Auerbach affords us as he in turn re-realizes and interprets and, in his unassuming way, even seems to be staging the transmutation of a coarse reality into language and new life. "
Polish President held at Gander: "'We saw what it feels like when an unexpected guest arrives who in the beginning is treated as a potential illegal immigrant. And that is how we were treated,' Mr. Kwasniewski said. 'The passengers from my plane were held in a place where we could not leave. . . . it all took about three hours.'"
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Popular: "The UK's 950+ Number One Hits since 1952, reviewed, in order, irregularly, for as long as I can bear to keep doing it. A history of pop in the shape of a chart. "
Octopus Magazine has this & two other poems by Jacques Roubaud trans by the Waldrops:
Rues Madame and Monsieur
He walked one day on Rue Madame
One day she walked on Rue Monsieur
Rue Madame is laid with macadam
True no less for Rue Monsieur.
Gladly he strolled down Rue Madame
Calmly she ambled Rue Monsieur
A day without drama on Rue Madame
Delightful day on Rue Monsieur.
You can see the sky from Rue Madame
From Rue Monsieur the skies unfold
All cats are gray in Rue Madame
In Rue Monsieur all cats are old.
She never went down Rue Madame
He never went up Rue Monsieur
Never their eyes met flame with flame
Never a vow from either breast
And maybe that's all for the best.
He walked away by Rue Madame
She walked away by Rue Monsieur
Rue Madame is laid with macadam
True no less for Rue Monsieur.
via splinters
Rues Madame and Monsieur
He walked one day on Rue Madame
One day she walked on Rue Monsieur
Rue Madame is laid with macadam
True no less for Rue Monsieur.
Gladly he strolled down Rue Madame
Calmly she ambled Rue Monsieur
A day without drama on Rue Madame
Delightful day on Rue Monsieur.
You can see the sky from Rue Madame
From Rue Monsieur the skies unfold
All cats are gray in Rue Madame
In Rue Monsieur all cats are old.
She never went down Rue Madame
He never went up Rue Monsieur
Never their eyes met flame with flame
Never a vow from either breast
And maybe that's all for the best.
He walked away by Rue Madame
She walked away by Rue Monsieur
Rue Madame is laid with macadam
True no less for Rue Monsieur.
via splinters
reading at subtext in Seattle:
February 4th--Jeff Derksen(Vancouver, BC) & Kreg Hasegawa (Seattle, WA)
Jeff Derksen is author of three books of poetry: Down Time, Dwell and Transnational Muscle Cars. His writing on art, urbanism, and imperialism has appeared in magazines in North America & Europe. He lives in Vancouver, B.C. where he works at Simon Fraser University. He is a member of the transnational poetry collective, The Social Mark.
Kreg Hasegawa lives in Seattle. He is coeditor of Monkey Puzzle, a stapled, 8 1/2 by 11 inch magazine of poetry and prose. His essays have appeared in The Stranger, Tablet, Copper Press, and The American Book Review. His work is due to appear in The News and The Ensign.
February 4th--Jeff Derksen(Vancouver, BC) & Kreg Hasegawa (Seattle, WA)
Jeff Derksen is author of three books of poetry: Down Time, Dwell and Transnational Muscle Cars. His writing on art, urbanism, and imperialism has appeared in magazines in North America & Europe. He lives in Vancouver, B.C. where he works at Simon Fraser University. He is a member of the transnational poetry collective, The Social Mark.
Kreg Hasegawa lives in Seattle. He is coeditor of Monkey Puzzle, a stapled, 8 1/2 by 11 inch magazine of poetry and prose. His essays have appeared in The Stranger, Tablet, Copper Press, and The American Book Review. His work is due to appear in The News and The Ensign.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Stephen Greenblatt on Rabelais and carnival: "Gargantua and Pantagruel is not carnival, but the brilliant aesthetic representation of carnival motifs; not the communal laughter of a largely illiterate populace, but the highly crafted, classicizing of a supremely literate individual, not festive mayhem in the streets, but words on a page. The difference - like the difference between the traditional Whitsun-ale an Englishman could still have seen in 1611 in dozens of country villages, and the Whitsun-ale he could have seen represented at the Globe Theater in The Winter's Tale - signals as much the break away from the festive mode as its continued vigor. "
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel, by Francois Rabelais with these and other Dore illustrations--
Re-rack: "Sleep has long been thought to improve creativity. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards said the riff in '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' came to him in his sleep, while the 19th-century chemist Dmitri Mendeleev literally dreamed up the periodic table of elements. "
Haggis all year long??: "Anyone who scarfs down a sidewalk-vendor smokie has no reason to balk at 'the chieftan o' the puddin-race'."
The Tyranny of Copyright: "The Copy Left sees innovations like iTunes, Apple's popular online music store, as the first step toward a society in which much of the cultural activity that we currently take for granted -- reading an encyclopedia in the public library, selling a geometry textbook to a friend, copying a song for a sibling -- will be rerouted through a system of micropayments in return for which the rights to ever smaller pieces of our culture are doled out. ''Sooner or later,'' predicts Miriam Nisbet, the legislative counsel for the American Library Association, ''you'll get to the point where you say, 'Well, I guess that 25 cents isn't too much to pay for this sentence,' and then there's no hope and no going back.'' "
Monday, January 26, 2004
John Mullan on Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Great Cham in LRB: "So the Jacobite army entered London in triumph. The King escaped westwards, but with only a small kernel of his forces, and the Royal Family, which had been waiting at Portsmouth for news of the battle, sailed into an exile that seemed likely to be permanent. "
NDP "needs to be watched": "But the real story is in more prosaic revivals of NDP spirit at the riding level.
Nanaimo-Cowichan, on Vancouver Island, is a good example. The riding used to be an NDP stronghold. (Tommy Douglas represented an earlier version of it.) But in 1993, Nanaimo-Cowichan was one of a swath of Western ridings that leapfrogged from the NDP to Reform (from one form of populist protest to another). By 2000, the NDP had sunk to a very poor third place in the riding.
But Jean Crowder, a popular local councillor, has already secured the NDP nomination, and is working the riding hard. If Mr. Layton is to stage a comeback for his party, the NDP will need to get voters in this and similar 'leapfrog ridings' to leap back."
Nanaimo-Cowichan, on Vancouver Island, is a good example. The riding used to be an NDP stronghold. (Tommy Douglas represented an earlier version of it.) But in 1993, Nanaimo-Cowichan was one of a swath of Western ridings that leapfrogged from the NDP to Reform (from one form of populist protest to another). By 2000, the NDP had sunk to a very poor third place in the riding.
But Jean Crowder, a popular local councillor, has already secured the NDP nomination, and is working the riding hard. If Mr. Layton is to stage a comeback for his party, the NDP will need to get voters in this and similar 'leapfrog ridings' to leap back."
Sunday, January 25, 2004
birthday of Robert Burns
Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet
January
While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An' bar the doors wi' driving snaw,
An' hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An' spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk's gift,
That live sae bien an' snug:
I tent less, and want less
Their roomy fire-side;
But hanker, and canker,
To see their cursed pride.
It's hardly in a body's pow'r
To keep, at times, frae being sour,
To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want,
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
And ken na how to wair't;
But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head,
Tho' we hae little gear;
We're fit to win our daily bread,
As lang's we're hale and fier:
"Mair spier na, nor fear na,"^1
Auld age ne'er mind a feg;
The last o't, the warst o't
Is only but to beg.
To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,
When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin,
Is doubtless, great distress!
Yet then content could make us blest;
Ev'n then, sometimes, we'd snatch a taste
Of truest happiness.
The honest heart that's free frae a'
Intended fraud or guile,
However Fortune kick the ba',
Has aye some cause to smile;
An' mind still, you'll find still,
A comfort this nae sma';
Nae mair then we'll care then,
Nae farther can we fa'.
What tho', like commoners of air,
We wander out, we know not where,
But either house or hal',
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods,
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,
Are free alike to all.
In days when daisies deck the ground,
And blackbirds whistle clear,
With honest joy our hearts will bound,
To see the coming year:
On braes when we please, then,
We'll sit an' sowth a tune;
Syne rhyme till't we'll time till't,
An' sing't when we hae done.
It's no in titles nor in rank;
It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest:
It's no in makin' muckle, mair;
It's no in books, it's no in lear,
To make us truly blest:
If happiness hae not her seat
An' centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest;
Nae treasures, nor pleasures
Could make us happy lang;
The heart aye's the part aye
That makes us right or wrang.
Think ye, that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge an' drive thro' wet and dry,
Wi' never-ceasing toil;
Think ye, are we less blest than they,
Wha scarcely tent us in their way,
As hardly worth their while?
Alas! how aft in haughty mood,
God's creatures they oppress!
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid,
They riot in excess!
Baith careless and fearless
Of either heaven or hell;
Esteeming and deeming
It's a' an idle tale!
Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce,
Nor make our scanty pleasures less,
By pining at our state:
And, even should misfortunes come,
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some-
An's thankfu' for them yet.
They gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill:
Tho' losses an' crosses
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts!
(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes,
And flatt'ry I detest)
This life has joys for you and I;
An' joys that riches ne'er could buy,
An' joys the very best.
There's a' the pleasures o' the heart,
The lover an' the frien';
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part,
And I my darling Jean!
It warms me, it charms me,
To mention but her name:
It heats me, it beets me,
An' sets me a' on flame!
O all ye Pow'rs who rule above!
O Thou whose very self art love!
Thou know'st my words sincere!
The life-blood streaming thro' my heart,
Or my more dear immortal part,
Is not more fondly dear!
When heart-corroding care and grief
Deprive my soul of rest,
Her dear idea brings relief,
And solace to my breast.
Thou Being, All-seeing,
O hear my fervent pray'r;
Still take her, and make her
Thy most peculiar care!
All hail! ye tender feelings dear!
The smile of love, the friendly tear,
The sympathetic glow!
Long since, this world's thorny ways
Had number'd out my weary days,
Had it not been for you!
Fate still has blest me with a friend,
In ev'ry care and ill;
And oft a more endearing band-
A tie more tender still.
It lightens, it brightens
The tenebrific scene,
To meet with, and greet with
My Davie, or my Jean!
O, how that name inspires my style!
The words come skelpin, rank an' file,
Amaist before I ken!
The ready measure rins as fine,
As Phoebus an' the famous Nine
Were glowrin owre my pen.
My spaviet Pegasus will limp,
Till ance he's fairly het;
And then he'll hilch, and stilt, an' jimp,
And rin an unco fit:
But least then the beast then
Should rue this hasty ride,
I'll light now, and dight now
His sweaty, wizen'd hide.
Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet
January
While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An' bar the doors wi' driving snaw,
An' hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An' spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk's gift,
That live sae bien an' snug:
I tent less, and want less
Their roomy fire-side;
But hanker, and canker,
To see their cursed pride.
It's hardly in a body's pow'r
To keep, at times, frae being sour,
To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want,
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
And ken na how to wair't;
But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head,
Tho' we hae little gear;
We're fit to win our daily bread,
As lang's we're hale and fier:
"Mair spier na, nor fear na,"^1
Auld age ne'er mind a feg;
The last o't, the warst o't
Is only but to beg.
To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,
When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin,
Is doubtless, great distress!
Yet then content could make us blest;
Ev'n then, sometimes, we'd snatch a taste
Of truest happiness.
The honest heart that's free frae a'
Intended fraud or guile,
However Fortune kick the ba',
Has aye some cause to smile;
An' mind still, you'll find still,
A comfort this nae sma';
Nae mair then we'll care then,
Nae farther can we fa'.
What tho', like commoners of air,
We wander out, we know not where,
But either house or hal',
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods,
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,
Are free alike to all.
In days when daisies deck the ground,
And blackbirds whistle clear,
With honest joy our hearts will bound,
To see the coming year:
On braes when we please, then,
We'll sit an' sowth a tune;
Syne rhyme till't we'll time till't,
An' sing't when we hae done.
It's no in titles nor in rank;
It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest:
It's no in makin' muckle, mair;
It's no in books, it's no in lear,
To make us truly blest:
If happiness hae not her seat
An' centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest;
Nae treasures, nor pleasures
Could make us happy lang;
The heart aye's the part aye
That makes us right or wrang.
Think ye, that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge an' drive thro' wet and dry,
Wi' never-ceasing toil;
Think ye, are we less blest than they,
Wha scarcely tent us in their way,
As hardly worth their while?
Alas! how aft in haughty mood,
God's creatures they oppress!
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid,
They riot in excess!
Baith careless and fearless
Of either heaven or hell;
Esteeming and deeming
It's a' an idle tale!
Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce,
Nor make our scanty pleasures less,
By pining at our state:
And, even should misfortunes come,
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some-
An's thankfu' for them yet.
They gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill:
Tho' losses an' crosses
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts!
(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes,
And flatt'ry I detest)
This life has joys for you and I;
An' joys that riches ne'er could buy,
An' joys the very best.
There's a' the pleasures o' the heart,
The lover an' the frien';
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part,
And I my darling Jean!
It warms me, it charms me,
To mention but her name:
It heats me, it beets me,
An' sets me a' on flame!
O all ye Pow'rs who rule above!
O Thou whose very self art love!
Thou know'st my words sincere!
The life-blood streaming thro' my heart,
Or my more dear immortal part,
Is not more fondly dear!
When heart-corroding care and grief
Deprive my soul of rest,
Her dear idea brings relief,
And solace to my breast.
Thou Being, All-seeing,
O hear my fervent pray'r;
Still take her, and make her
Thy most peculiar care!
All hail! ye tender feelings dear!
The smile of love, the friendly tear,
The sympathetic glow!
Long since, this world's thorny ways
Had number'd out my weary days,
Had it not been for you!
Fate still has blest me with a friend,
In ev'ry care and ill;
And oft a more endearing band-
A tie more tender still.
It lightens, it brightens
The tenebrific scene,
To meet with, and greet with
My Davie, or my Jean!
O, how that name inspires my style!
The words come skelpin, rank an' file,
Amaist before I ken!
The ready measure rins as fine,
As Phoebus an' the famous Nine
Were glowrin owre my pen.
My spaviet Pegasus will limp,
Till ance he's fairly het;
And then he'll hilch, and stilt, an' jimp,
And rin an unco fit:
But least then the beast then
Should rue this hasty ride,
I'll light now, and dight now
His sweaty, wizen'd hide.
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Armond digs "Torque": "In this single sequence, Torque's pop references go from The Great Train Robbery to Spies, The Lady Vanishes to North by Northwest, Barocco to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to Mission: Impossible. Those Who Love it will want to ride this train again."
Friday, January 23, 2004
Vexations on a theme: "One player had to contend with a whistler in the gallery. And the jazz pianist Django Bates was disturbed by someone who stepped from the audience and emptied his pockets - including coins and a vodka bottle - into the instrument with the words 'Unprepared piano'. Afterwards, Bates said he felt 'totally stoned'. "
1985--the worst year for music ever!: "How can I loathe Billy Bragg so virulently when I agree with just about everything that he says? Does his career, his existence, represent the ultimate argument against socialism? Pop or socialism-- what do you want, and why moreover does it have to be an either/or? Why does pop have to be this glum, this morose, this isolated? "
The Spinoza Study:
"So far, then, from the authority of the Hebrew high-priests telling in confirmation of the authority of the Roman pontiffs to interpret religion, it would rather tend to establish individual freedom of judgment. Thus in this way also, we have shown that our method of interpreting Scripture is the best. For as the highest power of Scriptural interpretation belongs to every man, the rule for such interpretation should be nothing but the natural light of reason which is common to all - not any supernatural light nor any external authority; moreover, such a rule ought not to be so difficult that it can only be applied by very skilful philosophers, but should be adapted to the natural and ordinary faculties and capacity of mankind. And such I have shown our method to be, for such difficulties as it has arise from men's carelessness, and are no part of its nature. "
"So far, then, from the authority of the Hebrew high-priests telling in confirmation of the authority of the Roman pontiffs to interpret religion, it would rather tend to establish individual freedom of judgment. Thus in this way also, we have shown that our method of interpreting Scripture is the best. For as the highest power of Scriptural interpretation belongs to every man, the rule for such interpretation should be nothing but the natural light of reason which is common to all - not any supernatural light nor any external authority; moreover, such a rule ought not to be so difficult that it can only be applied by very skilful philosophers, but should be adapted to the natural and ordinary faculties and capacity of mankind. And such I have shown our method to be, for such difficulties as it has arise from men's carelessness, and are no part of its nature. "
today the centennial of Louis Zukofsky:
"His voice in me, the river's turn that finds the
Grace in you, four notes first too full for talk, leaf
Lighting stem, stems bound to the branch that binds the
Tree, and then as from the same root we talk, leaf
After leaf of your mind's music, page, walk leaf
Over leaf of his thought, sounding
His happiness: song sounding
The grace that comes from knowing
Things, her love our own showing
Her love in all her honor."
"His voice in me, the river's turn that finds the
Grace in you, four notes first too full for talk, leaf
Lighting stem, stems bound to the branch that binds the
Tree, and then as from the same root we talk, leaf
After leaf of your mind's music, page, walk leaf
Over leaf of his thought, sounding
His happiness: song sounding
The grace that comes from knowing
Things, her love our own showing
Her love in all her honor."
Thursday, January 22, 2004
The twinkling CNN pollster weasel whose name escapes me just now the first I've heard to make what will now be the inescapable Dean/Muskie triangulation: expressions of emotion as "unpresidential". Muskie's snowy breakdown (famously ascribed by Hunter Thompson to ibogaine abuse) I remember, that election the first I followed in any detail, even then it seemed weirdly set up, cinematic in a cheap way. Fletcher Knebel, thou shouldst be living at this hour!
U B U W E B :: Cornelius Cardew "Stockhausen Serves Imperialism and Other Articles" entirely up at this finest of websites--
Came quite accidentally, Law & Order being a repeat, upon the French film The Taste of Others , and it was rather good, the critic was right who said it was like Rohmer, but peppier. Nice too not to have that slightly used up feeling Law & Order leaves me with lately. Goodnight!
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Canada Reporter's Home Raided Over Al Qaeda Story: "'The whole affair started with the RCMP. First they whispered to the Americans that Maher Arar was a terrorist, which led to his deportation and torture,' she said.
'Then the RCMP tried to smear Maher Arar by whispering the same allegations to journalists. Now it's raiding journalists' offices as if journalists are the problem.' "
'Then the RCMP tried to smear Maher Arar by whispering the same allegations to journalists. Now it's raiding journalists' offices as if journalists are the problem.' "
Raising the Ghost of Joseph Mairs: "'Nanaimo and Ladysmith came under what amounted to military occupation for almost a year, with hundreds of residents herded into camps fenced in by barbed wire,' reports Haythornthwaite.
'When Canadian Collieries evicted miners and their families from company homes and imported strikebreakers,' says an entry to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography by Simon Fraser University labor lecturer Mark Leier, 'union miners organized strong picket lines. The province sent in constables, and by August scuffles were breaking out.'
"
'When Canadian Collieries evicted miners and their families from company homes and imported strikebreakers,' says an entry to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography by Simon Fraser University labor lecturer Mark Leier, 'union miners organized strong picket lines. The province sent in constables, and by August scuffles were breaking out.'
"
from Laurable
Anti- Hegemony Project: " The collusion between government and publisher,publisher and critic, critic and poet, poet and academy, academy and government, constitutes at once the most unbreakable ring of corruption, and the most vicious circle of ideological
contamination, yet to become manifest in our letters. "
Anti- Hegemony Project: " The collusion between government and publisher,publisher and critic, critic and poet, poet and academy, academy and government, constitutes at once the most unbreakable ring of corruption, and the most vicious circle of ideological
contamination, yet to become manifest in our letters. "
Toasters: "'you do not need to ring for more toast but make it yourself and eat it while it is crisp and hot'. "
from Bookslut
Seamus Heaney's hip hop pantheon!: "Dr. Dre--I cannot say if he is a doctor or not. This I do not know. But I do recall the shells which fell long ago on the pastures of Wicklow, cleaving the earth in two, and the sound of weapons crackling from the wireless. They are with me still, these songs of ruin. The sprung rhythm recognizes its own."
Seamus Heaney's hip hop pantheon!: "Dr. Dre--I cannot say if he is a doctor or not. This I do not know. But I do recall the shells which fell long ago on the pastures of Wicklow, cleaving the earth in two, and the sound of weapons crackling from the wireless. They are with me still, these songs of ruin. The sprung rhythm recognizes its own."
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Monday, January 19, 2004
The World's Greatest Actor, In Praise of Timothy Carey: "He appeared alongside Elvis Presley and the Monkees, James Dean and Frankie Avalon, Lee Marvin and Mr. T. Between 1958 and 1962, he directed, wrote, produced, edited, financed, distributed, and starred in The World's Greatest Sinner, a film so inscrutable, hysterical, and obscure (one known print remains) that even its cult following has a cult following. He died while making The Insect Trainer, which would've been the first film ever to tell the story of a man incarcerated for murder by farting. He was Timothy Agoglia Carey, the greatest peripheral actor of all time. "
Happy Birthday E. A. Poe!: "And now we rushed into the embraces of the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow. "
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Speech "Beyond Vietnam," Address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church 4 April 1967 at New York City: "At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called 'enemy,' I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a
short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor."
short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor."
Sunday, January 18, 2004
blissblog on the "Zone of Fruitless Intensification" re drum 'n bass: "Now it'd be intriguing to work out what the significant axis on which the Zone of Fruitless Intensification will manifest itself, looking at some current musics. With Grime, one possibility is clunkiness. At the moment the music exploits the aesthetic possibilities of clunky-but-in-a-good way -- the clunk-crunk-funk nexus (the fact that stiff and lurching is actually more funky, or more rhythmically arresting/compelling, than fluid, nimble "funky" playing). But I can already imagine that good-clunk turning to bad-clunk, getting both caned into the ground and exaggerated to the point of non-enjoyability. Same with the bombastic/doomladen post-Swizz/Ludacris fanfare-riff, although perhaps that's just a subset of 'clunk'.
I'm curious if Screwed as an Aesthetic has its ZFI -- and whether that would be the music getting slower and slower until it's just this voidal subdrone (I should get Erase the World's Baal to write this bit for me), a nauseously stretched out brink-of-standstill. "
I'm curious if Screwed as an Aesthetic has its ZFI -- and whether that would be the music getting slower and slower until it's just this voidal subdrone (I should get Erase the World's Baal to write this bit for me), a nauseously stretched out brink-of-standstill. "
the Downy Woodpecker we've been watching out of my window all day seems to be digging out a nest excavation on a little platform half way up the walnut.
Giorgio Agamben in Le Monde Saturday 10 January 2004
via Charles Bernstein on the Poetics List
Giorgio Agamben
The newspapers leave no doubt: from now on whoever wants to go to the United States with a visa will be put on file and will have to leave their fingerprints when they enter the country. Personally, I have no intention of submitting myself to such procedures and that's why I didn't wait to cancel the course I was supposed to teach at New
York University in March.
I would like to explain the reasons for this refusal here, that is,why, in spite of the sympathy that has connected me to my American
colleagues and their students for many years, I consider that this decision is at once necessary and without appeal and would hope that it will be shared by other European intellectuals and teachers.
It's not only the immediate superficial reaction to a procedure that has long been imposed on criminals and political defendants. If it were only that, we would certainly be morally able to share, in solidarity, the humiliating conditions to which so many human beings
are subjected.
The essential does not lie there. The problem exceeds the limits of personal sensitivity and simply concerns the juridical-political status (it would be simpler, perhaps, to say bio-political) of citizens of the so-called democratic states where we live.
There has been an attempt the last few years to convince us to accept as the humane and normal dimensions of our existence, practices of control that had always been properly considered inhumane and exceptional.
Thus, no one is unaware that the control exercised by the state through the usage of electronic devices, such as credit cards or cell phones, has reached previously unimaginable levels.
All the same, it wouldn't be possible to cross certain thresholds in the control and manipulation of bodies without entering a new bio-political era, without going one step further in what Michel Foucault called the progressive animalization of man which is
established through the most sophisticated techniques.
Electronic filing of finger and retina prints, subcutaneous tattooing, as well as other practices of the same type, are elements that contribute towards defining this threshold. The security reasons
that are invoked to justify these measures should not impress us: they have nothing to do with it. History teaches us how practices first reserved for foreigners find themselves applied later to the rest of the citizenry.
What is at stake here is nothing less than the new "normal" bio-political relationship between citizens and the state. This relation no longer has anything to do with free and active participation in the public sphere, but concerns the enrolment and the filing away of the most private and incommunicable aspect of
subjectivity: I mean the body's biological life.
These technological devices that register and identify naked life correspond to the media devices that control and manipulate public speech: between these two extremes of a body without words and words
without a body, the space we once upon a time called politics is ever more scaled-down and tiny.
Thus, by applying these techniques and these devices invented for the dangerous classes to a citizen, or rather to a human being as such, states, which should constitute the precise space of political
life, have made the person the ideal suspect, to the point that it's humanity itself that has become the dangerous class.
Some years ago, I had written that the West's political paradigm was no longer the city state, but the concentration camp, and that we had passed from Athens to Auschwitz. It was obviously a philosophical
thesis, and not historic recital, because one could not confuse phenomena that it is proper, on the contrary, to distinguish.
I would have liked to suggest that tattooing at Auschwitz undoubtedly seemed the most normal and economic way to regulate the
enrolment and registration of deported persons into concentration camps. The bio-political tattooing the United States imposes now to enter its territory could well be the precursor to what we will be
asked to accept later as the normal identity registration of a good citizen in the state's gears and mechanisms. That's why we must oppose it.
via Charles Bernstein on the Poetics List
Giorgio Agamben
The newspapers leave no doubt: from now on whoever wants to go to the United States with a visa will be put on file and will have to leave their fingerprints when they enter the country. Personally, I have no intention of submitting myself to such procedures and that's why I didn't wait to cancel the course I was supposed to teach at New
York University in March.
I would like to explain the reasons for this refusal here, that is,why, in spite of the sympathy that has connected me to my American
colleagues and their students for many years, I consider that this decision is at once necessary and without appeal and would hope that it will be shared by other European intellectuals and teachers.
It's not only the immediate superficial reaction to a procedure that has long been imposed on criminals and political defendants. If it were only that, we would certainly be morally able to share, in solidarity, the humiliating conditions to which so many human beings
are subjected.
The essential does not lie there. The problem exceeds the limits of personal sensitivity and simply concerns the juridical-political status (it would be simpler, perhaps, to say bio-political) of citizens of the so-called democratic states where we live.
There has been an attempt the last few years to convince us to accept as the humane and normal dimensions of our existence, practices of control that had always been properly considered inhumane and exceptional.
Thus, no one is unaware that the control exercised by the state through the usage of electronic devices, such as credit cards or cell phones, has reached previously unimaginable levels.
All the same, it wouldn't be possible to cross certain thresholds in the control and manipulation of bodies without entering a new bio-political era, without going one step further in what Michel Foucault called the progressive animalization of man which is
established through the most sophisticated techniques.
Electronic filing of finger and retina prints, subcutaneous tattooing, as well as other practices of the same type, are elements that contribute towards defining this threshold. The security reasons
that are invoked to justify these measures should not impress us: they have nothing to do with it. History teaches us how practices first reserved for foreigners find themselves applied later to the rest of the citizenry.
What is at stake here is nothing less than the new "normal" bio-political relationship between citizens and the state. This relation no longer has anything to do with free and active participation in the public sphere, but concerns the enrolment and the filing away of the most private and incommunicable aspect of
subjectivity: I mean the body's biological life.
These technological devices that register and identify naked life correspond to the media devices that control and manipulate public speech: between these two extremes of a body without words and words
without a body, the space we once upon a time called politics is ever more scaled-down and tiny.
Thus, by applying these techniques and these devices invented for the dangerous classes to a citizen, or rather to a human being as such, states, which should constitute the precise space of political
life, have made the person the ideal suspect, to the point that it's humanity itself that has become the dangerous class.
Some years ago, I had written that the West's political paradigm was no longer the city state, but the concentration camp, and that we had passed from Athens to Auschwitz. It was obviously a philosophical
thesis, and not historic recital, because one could not confuse phenomena that it is proper, on the contrary, to distinguish.
I would have liked to suggest that tattooing at Auschwitz undoubtedly seemed the most normal and economic way to regulate the
enrolment and registration of deported persons into concentration camps. The bio-political tattooing the United States imposes now to enter its territory could well be the precursor to what we will be
asked to accept later as the normal identity registration of a good citizen in the state's gears and mechanisms. That's why we must oppose it.
Scary Cheney "Asked aboard Air Force Two how he would spend an ideal day, Dick Cheney says, "On a river with a good friend and a fly rod. Northern British Columbia for steelhead. South Texas to chase quail.""
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