Peter Schuyff (thanks Caterina) 

Julianne Swartz 

Jimmy Breslin--Reagan should be on a $3 bill
"The great American news industry, the Pekinese of the Press with so much room and time and nothing to say, compared Reagan to Lincoln and Hamilton, they really did. This is like claiming that the maintenance man wrote the Bill of Rights. And almost all the reporters agreed that Reagan was the man who brought down Russia in the Cold War.

Just saying this is absolutely sinful. The Cold War was won by a long memo written by George Kennan, who worked in the State Department and sent the memo by telegram about the need for a 'Policy of Containment' on Russia. Kennan said the contradictions in their system would ruin them. Keep them where they are and they will tear themselves apart. We followed Kennan's policy for over 40 years. The Soviets made it worse on themselves by building a wall in East Berlin. When they had to tear it down and give up their system, Kennan was in Princeton and he sat down to dinner"

Mark Ames
"But what if the Truth is that Americans don't want to know the Truth? What if Americans consciously choose lies over truth when given the chance?and not even very interesting lies, but rather the blandest, dumbest and meanest lies? What if Americans are not a likeable people? The left's wires short-circuit when confronted with this terrible possibility; the right, on the other hand, warmly embraces Middle America's rank soul and exploits it to their full advantage. The Republicans know Americans better than the left. They know that it's not so much Goering's famous 'bigger lie' that works here, but the dumber the lie, the more they want to hear it repeated. " 

listening to Traffic & Jimi 

Cahiers de Corey is blogging through the "Cantos" of Ezra Pound (here with Jane Heap and Mina Loy) 

demos and unreleased recordings by Judee Sill  

redone Philip Whalen page at EPC 

Send for the cloud,
with the silver linin'
take me to paradise...

Show me that river,
take me across,
Wash all my troubles away,

Like that lucky old sun
give me nothing to do
but roll around heaven
all day...



 

Picnic time for teddy bears,
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.
 

Bear Snacks on Sub
"It took a bite out of the rudder and, finding it inedible, stayed around the area of broken ice around the rudder for a while, apparently thinking a seal (the bears favorite food) might use it as an air hole. The bear finally left when he heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. When an officer first looked around outside via the periscope, he noted that his sub was being stalked by a hostile polar bear. The periscope cam was turned on, and these photos of a polar bear chewing on the subs rear rudder resulted. The damage was said to be minor" 

Whiskey Bar on Ashcroft

"LEAHY: Has there been any order directed from the president with respect to interrogation of detainees, prisoners or combatants, yes or no?

ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to answer that question.

LEAHY: Does that mean because you don't know or you don't want to answer? I don't understand.

ASHCROFT: The answer to that question is yes."

(thanks Sharp Sand) 

Teen walks in on snacking Bear
"I've heard bears are pretty smart, but this one was really sharp,' said Sherry Walsh of her son Brett's close encounter on Tuesday night. 'He punched a hole in the screen mesh and put his paw through and unlocked the catch and then slid open the door.'

The animal, drawn, Walsh suspects, by a pot of bacon grease she had left on the stove, also helped itself to some ketchup and a package of goldfish food." 

$Xvarenah$
"The Neoformalists have failed to imagine farther back than Frost; they have no more use for Pope than for Ginsberg."

Not just the neocons, sadly.

Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush

" McClellan called the memo a HISTORIC or SCHOLARLY review of laws and conventions concerning torture. 'The memo was not prepared to provide advice on specific methods or techniques,' he said, 'It was ANALYTICAL.' "

Gordon Burns on Norman Mailer's "The Executioner's Song": "Brenda was six when she fell out of the apple tree. She climbed to the top and the limb with the good apples broke off. Gary caught her as the branch came scraping down. They were scared. The apple trees were their grandmother's best crop and it was forbidden to climb in the orchard. She helped him drag away the tree limb and they hoped no one would notice. That was Brenda's earliest recollection of Gary.' "

Transit of Venus 

Mammatus Clouds over Mexico (from Astronomy Picture of the Day) 

Boswell cuts up at the theatre with rhetorician Hugh Blair, from his "Tour to the Hebrides"--

At Mr Tytler's, I happened to tell that one evening, a great many years ago, when Dr Hugh Blair and I were sitting together in the pit of Drury-lane play-house, in a wild freak of youthful extravagance, I entertained the audience PRODIGIOUSLY, by imitating the lowing of a cow. A little while after I had told this story, I differed from Dr Johnson, I suppose too confidently, upon some point, which I now forget. He did not spare me. "Nay, sir," said he, "if you cannot talk better as a man, I'd have you bellow like a cow." "

[Note: As I have been scrupulously exact in relating anecdotes concerning other persons, I shall not withhold any part of this story, however ludicrous.-I was so successful in this boyish frolick, that the universal cry of the galleries was, "Encore the cow! Encore the cow!" In the pride of my heart, I attempted imitations of some other animals, but with very inferior effect. My reverend friend, anxious for my fame, with an air of the utmost gravity and earnestness, addressed me thus: "My dear sir, I would CONFINE myself to the COW!"]


 

Stardust and Black Coffee: "Sarah Vaughan's 'Stardust', written by Lucky Roberts, and 'Black Coffee', written by Paul Francis Webster and Reginald (Sonny) Burke are beautiful songs. Listening to them, I noticed that they were basically in the same tempo and seemed to have other relations also. So I cut them both into loops to see how they intermixed together. "