a happy and safe new year dear readers! 

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami links to help sites

spaghetti

[It., pl. of spaghetto thin string, twine.]

1. a. A variety of pasta made in long thin strings. Occas., a dish of spaghetti.

1849 E. Acton Mod. Cookery (ed. 8) p. xxxii, Sparghetti [sic] Naples vermicelli. 1888 Mrs. Beeton Bk. Househ. Managem. §2952 Maccheroni, or Spaghetti, a smaller kind of macaroni, generally follows the soup. 1921 F. Swinnerton Coquette ii. xvi. 175 The waitress approached, bearing two large plates piled high with spaghetti. 1931 B. Starke Touch & Go iv. 51 A schoolteacher took us to lunch in Avon and showed us how to manage yards of spaghetti by rolling it up on our forks. 1949 J. More Land of Italy 4 A capacity to eat pasta is an essential requirement. The principal varieties are the rope-like spaghetti of Naples, the pipe-like macaroni, and the omelet-like cannelloni. 1956 N. de la Fère Italian Bouquet vi. 66 He slipped the menu under my eyes. I refused to admit that the only recognisable word was "spaghetti". 1965 C. K. Stead in N.Z. Short Stories (1966) 337 Julian came into Gomeo's and asked for a spaghetti. 1981 M. Nabb Death of Englishman ii. iii. 97 Old men munching slowly at their spaghetti with toothless gums.

1981
1965
1956
1949
1888 1931
1849 1921

b. fig. and transf.
1935 A. Huxley Let. 17 Feb. (1969) 391 Orlo Williams has read every inch of spaghetti that has ever emerged from the Italian presses. 1940 O. Nash Face is Familiar 195 And they give you a look that implies that your spine is spaghetti and your soul is lard. 1946 F. Hamann Air Words 50 Spaghetti, (1) electric wiring; (2) strings of sealing compound. 1960 Cooke & Markus Electronics & Nucleonics Dict. 446/2 Spaghetti, insulating tubing used over bare wires or as a sleeve for holding two or more insulated wires together. The tubing is usually made of varnished cloth or a plastic. 1973 C. Williams Man on Leash (1974) viii. 119 He was always experimenting and lashing up nutty pieces of electronic spaghetti. 1981 T. Barling Bikini Red North xiii. 276 His vasectomy could be reversed. New techniques. "We can join up all that miniature spaghetti with incredible accuracy."

1981
1973
1960
1946
1940
1935









4. attrib. and Comb. spaghetti house, joint, sauce, tongs; spaghetti-like adj.; spaghetti Bolognese, spaghetti served with a sauce of which the principal ingredients are beef and tomato; spaghetti bowl, a network of pipelines constructed to carry materials between petrochemical companies on the Gulf Coast of the U.S.; also transf.; spaghetti junction colloq., a complex junction of roads at different levels; applied spec. to a major interchange on the M6 near Birmingham; also fig.; spaghetti (shoulder) strap, a thin cord-like shoulder strap for a dress or the like; spaghetti tubing colloq., tubular insulation for electrical wire; spaghetti Western, a Western (western n. 4) or film set in the U.S. old west, but made in Italy or by Italians, esp. cheaply.
[1947 L. P. De Gouy Gold Cookery Bk. 760 (heading) Spaghetti alla Bolognese.] 1950 E. David Bk. Mediterranean Food 93 If you are serving the classic spaghetti Bolognese+see that it is highly flavoured. 1973 M. Underwood Reward for Defector vii. 56 [He] reached out for everything he needed to make himself a plateful of spaghetti bolognese.



1962 I. Fleming Spy who loved Me i. ii. 34 Derek took me right across London to a spaghetti house called "The Bamboo".

1900 Ade Fables in Slang 158 He knew his Works were good, because all the Free and Untrammeled Souls in the Spaghetti Joint told him so. 1982 H. Engel Murder on Location (1983) ix. 87, I could see a spaghetti joint across the street.

1971 Evening News (Worcester) 15 Nov. 7/4 Worcester will have its own "spaghetti junction" if the big multi-level interchange is ever constructed in the Arboretum. 1978 Listener 5 Jan. 25/4 We pass abruptly from the proprium to the ordinarium, from the winding country road into a great spaghetti junction of criss-cross melodies. 1980 S. Brett Dead Side of Mike xi. 125 He got held up under the spaghetti junction between the M23 and M25 because of road works.

1979 K. Bonfiglioli After You with Pistol vi. 25 We parted in a spaghetti-like tangle of insincere matiness.

1953 A. Boni Talisman Italian Cook Bk. xiii. 222 (heading) Spaghetti sauce home style. 1968 C. Drummond Death & Leaping Ladies v. 111 He was neatly avoiding spilling spaghetti sauce over a very snappy jacket. 1980 B. Freemantle Charlie Muffin's Uncle Sam vii. 73 The man hadn't changed his shirt. There was spaghetti sauce on the collar.

1972 New Yorker 30 Sept. 81/1 Black cocktail dresses with sparkling spaghetti straps. 1977 Lancashire Life Dec. 104/3 The demure look from Elizabeth Hayes consists of a lace-trimmed polyester satin bedjacket which, when taken off, reveals a sexy nightdress with spaghetti shoulder straps. 1980 Times 12 Feb. 7/5 A natty little camisole top with spaghetti shoulder straps topped with an amazing sort of opened up tube of knitting which seals your arms and then blossoms into a shrug for the back and shoulders. Do not ask me how it is done.

1972 House & Garden Feb. 78/1 Spaghetti tongs, 85p. 1977 E. McBain Long Time no See iii. 32 Knives and forks piled haphazardly, paper napkins, spaghetti tongs, a corkscrew.

1922 Science & Invention Mag. May (Advt., rear cover), Spaghetti Tubing, black or yellow in 2 1 / 2 -ft. lengths+18 cents per length. 1969 M. Pei Words in Sheep's Clothing (1970) iii. 22 "Spaghetti Western" and "Sukiyaki Western" are terms applied to cheap Westerns produced in Italy and Japan. 1973 J. Susann Once is not Enough i. 34 It started with the flop of Melba's picture. When your kid is busted into pieces, you can't worry about a spaghetti western. 1977 G. Marton Alarum 56, I wanted to see a Spaghetti Western movie.

Home for the Holidays: Why?

"There are more depressing spots than the Winnipeg Greyhound station. But you never see them unless your ass is peeking out from a hospital gown. "

wassail, n.

(Forms: 3 wæs hæil, wæshail, washayl, washail, wesseyl, 3–4, 7 wassayl, 3, 6–7, 9 arch. wassaile, 5 wassaylle, wessayle, (whatsaile, -saill), 6 wassaill, -ayle, 6–7 wassall, 7–8 wassal, (7 vassaile, Hist. was-haile, washeall, waes heal, 9 waisall, waissel, arch. was-hael), 5–9 wassel(l, 3– wassail. [ME. wæs hæil etc., a. ON. ves (= later ver) heill, corresp. to OE. wes hál lit. ‘be in good health’ or ‘be fortunate’: see be v. A. 3 and whole a.
As an ordinary salutation (= "hail" or "farewell") the phrase, or an approximation to it, occurs both in OE. (hál wes þú, and in pl. wesað hále: see be v. A. 3) and in ON. (pl. verið heilir). But neither in OE. nor in ON., nor indeed in any Teut. lang., has any trace been found of the use as drinking formulas, of the phrases represented by wassail and drinkhail. It seems probable that this use arose among the Danish-speaking inhabitants of England, and became more or less common among the native population; in the 12th c. it was regarded by the Normans as markedly characteristic of Englishmen. The earliest known occurrence of the phrases is in Geoffrey of Monmouth vi. xii. (c1140), in the well-known story of Rowena (wes heil+drinc heil: v.r. was heil, printed edd. corruptly wacht heil). Geoffrey's attribution of the phrases to the 5th century is an anachronism; the original story as told by Nennius contains nothing corresponding to them. In Wace's Brut (c1180), which is a metrical version of Geoffrey, various MSS. have weshel, waisseil, gasel; drinkel, drincheheil, drechehel. That Wace's acquaintance with the ‘English’ phrases was not wholly derived from the passage in Geoffrey is shown by his reference to them in the Roman de Rou, where it is said that the night before the battle of Hastings was spent by the English in revelry, with cries of weissel (v.rr. wesse heil, welseil, weseil) and drincheheil (v.rr. drinceseil, drinqueheil, drinkeil). In the Speculum Stultorum of Nigellus Wireker (c 1190) the English students at the university of Paris are praised for generosity and other virtues, but are said to be too much addicted to wessail and dringail. The earliest example of the phrases in an English context is in Layamon's translation of Wace.
In drinkhail the second element is, as in wassail, the ON. adj. heill used as complement. Although the phrase drekk heill is not recorded in ON., it has an exact syntactical parallel in sit heill, ‘sit in health’. Whether the form of the first element in drinkhail is due to OE. influence or is archaic Scandinavian is doubtful; the form drechehel in one MS. of Wace is noteworthy from its resemblance to the ON. of the literary period.]
1. A salutation used when presenting a cup of wine to a guest, or drinking the health of a person, the reply being drink-hail.
c1205 Lay. 14309 Reowen+bar an hir honde ane guldene bolle i-uulled mid wine+& þus ærest sæide in Ænglene londe Lauerd king wæs hæil [c1275 wassayl]. Ibid. 14332 Þat freond sæiðe to freonde+Leofue freonde wæs hail. Ibid. 14970 Heo fulde hir scale of wine+& þus hailede him on+Lauerd king wæshail [c1275 wassail]. 13+ E.E. Allit. P. B. 1508 WeŠe wyn in þis won "wassayl!" he cryes. c1400 Brut 52 Ronewenne+come wiþ a coupe of golde+and knelede bifore þe kyng, and saide to him "Whatsaile!"þat was þe ferst tyme þat "whatsaile" and "drynkehaile" come vp into þis lande; and fram þat tyme into this tyme it Haþ bene wel vsede. 1568 Grafton Chron. II. 116, I trust this wassall shall make all England glad. And with that he dranke a great draught, the king pledging him. 1832 Motherwell Poems, Battle-Flag of Sigurd i, Then lift the can to bearded lip, Wassaile! to every dark-ribbed ship, To every battle-field! 1843 Lytton Last Bar. i. v, Fair mistress Sybill, your dainty lips will not, I trow, refuse me the waisall. [Another ed. reads waissel.] 1860 Longfellow Wayside Inn, K. Olaf xii. xiii, The Berserks drank "Was-hael! to the Lord!"


b. As a mere salutation. quasi-arch.
a1643 Cartwright Ordinary iv. ii, Ha. What? who goes there? Moth. Waes heal thou gentle Knight.
¶c. ironically. A salute, smart attack. Obs.
c1400 Laud Troy-bk. 9020 Odemoun+Toke Menelaus In that swyng, And him bare ouer his hors tayl: He aff him there suche a wassail, That he lay longe In colde swot.
2. The liquor in which healths were drunk; esp. the spiced ale used in Twelfth-night and Christmas-eve celebrations.
wine and wassail (now arch., echoing Shakes.): vaguely, strong drink in abundance (cf. sense 4).
c1300 Havelok 1246 Wyn and ale deden he fete, And made[n] hem glade and bliþe, Wesseyl ledden he fele siþe. 1494 in Househ. Ord. (1790) 121 When the steward cometh in at the hall doore with the wassell, he must crie three tymes, Wassell, wassell, wassell. a1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VIII, 9 Then was the wassaill or banket brought in, and so brake vp Christmas. 1601 Holland Pliny xxv. viii. II. 224 And even at this day [in Spain] in their great feasts+they have a certaine Wassaile or Bragat, which goeth round about the table, made of honied wine or sweet mead, with+hearbes in it. 1605 Shakes. Macb. i. vii. 64 His two Chamberlaines Will I with Wine, and Wassell, so conuince, That Memorie+shall be a Fume. 1616 B. Jonson Forest iii, The jolly wassall walkes the often round, And in their cups, their cares are drown'd. 1616 I Masque of Christmas 2 Enter+Wassal, Like a neat Sempster, and Songster; her Page bearing a browne bowle, drest with Ribbands. 1661 New Carolls for Christmas, For Twelfth-day iii, The Wassell well spiced, about shall go round. 1742–50 R. O. Cambridge Archimage xiii. Wks. (1803) 39 'Bove all things else he Wassel priz'd and ale. 1808 Scott Marm. vi. Introd. 64 On Christmas eve+The wassel round, in good brown bowls Garnish'd with ribbons, blithely trowls. 1816 I Old Mort. ix, Women, wine, and wassail, all to be had for little but the asking. 1824 W. Irving T. Trav. I. 7 The wine and the wassail of mine host began to operate upon bodies already a little jaded by the chase. 1836 Dickens Pickw. xxviii, They sat down+to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail,+in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. cv. v, And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.+ But let no footstep beat the floor, Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm. 1851 Longfellow Gold. Leg. i. Court-yard of Castle 17 No song, no laugh, no jovial din Of drinking wassail to the pin. 1857 G. A. Lawrence Guy Liv. iv, Two hundred gownsmen, wild with wrath and wassail, came leaping to the rescue. 1898 J. B. Crozier My Inner Life v. 43 He was much addicted to wine and wassail too, as his blood-red face sufficiently attested.
†3. A custom formerly observed on Twelfth-night and New-Year's eve of drinking healths from the wassail-bowl. †Also, ? the person invited to drink from the wassail-bowl. Obs.
1598 E. Guilpin Skial. (1878) 25 A wassaile on twelfe night. 1612 Selden Illustr. Drayton's Poly-olb. ix. 153, I see a custome in some parts among vs,+I meane the yearely washaile in the country on the vigil of the New-yeare. a1654 I Table-Talk (1689) 42 The Pope in sending Rellicks to Princes, does as Wenches do by their Wassels at New-years-tide, they present you with a Cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them Moneys. 1658 Phillips, Wassail,+an ancient Ceremonious custome, still used upon twelf day at night, of going about with a great bowl of Ale, drinking of healths. 1661 New Carolls for Christmas, For Twelfth-day ii, For a King of our Wassell this night we must chuse.
4. A carousal; riotous festivity, revelling.
1602 Shakes. Ham. i. iv. 9 The King doth wake to night, and takes his rouse, Keepes wassels. 1606 I Ant. & Cl. i. iv. 56 Anthony, Leaue thy lasciuious Vassailes. 1614 R. Tailor Hog hath lost Pearl G3, I sweare,+By Cresus name and by his castle, Where winter nights he keepeth wassell. 1805 Scott Last Minstr. v. viii, The blithesome signs of wassel gay Decay'd not with the dying day. 1820 Byron Juan iii. lxi, Meantime the lady and her lover sate At wassail in their beauty and their pride. 1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. (1849) 148, I at length arrived in merry Eastcheap, that ancient region of wit and wassail. 1848 Lytton Harold iv. ii, A board was spread and a wassail was blithe around me. 1878 H. Phillips Jr. Poems fr. Sp. & German 72 Two kings held wassail in Orkadàl. 1903 R. S. Hawker Footpr. Far Cornwall 28 Now there was signal made of banquet in the halls of Stowe, of wassail and dance.
†5. A carol or song sung by wassailers; a wassailing or health-drinking song. Obs.
In quot. 1607 ironical or jocular.
1607 Beaum. & Fl. Woman-Hater iii. i, Have you done your wassayl? 'tis a handsome drowsie dittie I'll assure ye, now I had as leave hear a Cat cry. c1650 New Christmas Carols, Carrol for Wassel-Bowl 7 Good Dame here at your Door Our Wassel we begin.
6. attrib. and Comb., as (sense 3), wassail-candle, -day, -singer, -singing; (sense 4), wassail-bout, -revelry, -roar, -rout, -season, -song; also wassail-cup = wassail-bowl.
A spurious compound wassail-bread, given in many Dicts., is due to a misinterpretation of wastell-bread: see wastel. For a similar figment, wassail-cake, see quot. 1686–7 s.v. wassail v. 2.
1840 Longfellow Skeleton in Armour vii, Many a *wassail-bout Wore the long Winter out.

1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, i. ii. 179 Iu. What? you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. Fal. A *Wassell Candle, my Lord; all Tallow.

1634 Brereton Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 6 Such as they met gave them money+to buy a *wassail-cup, a carouse. 1600 Holland Livy xxvi. xiii. 593 The same wassaile cup [L. poculum idem] that first will be presented to me, shall go round about to you all. 1853 C. Brontë Villette xxv, Let us haue a Christmas wassail-cup and toast Old England here, on the hearth.

1742 Shenstone Schoolmistr. xiii, O *wassel days! O customs meet and well!

1814 Scott Ld. of Isles vi. xix, But now, from England's host, the cry Thou hear'st of *wassail revelry.

1808 I Marm. i. xxx, This was the sign the feast was o'er; It hush'd the merry *wassel roar.

Ibid. iii. Introd. 187 Of forayers, who,+home returning, fill'd the hall With revel, *wassel-rout, and brawl.

1767 Mickle Concub. i. xxix, Now fly the *wassal Seasons wingd with Glee.

a1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, *Wassail-singers.

1895 ‘Q’ [Quiller-Couch] Wand. Heath 182 December and January, with+carols and *wassail-singing.

1829 Scott Anne of G. xxiii, The chorus of a *wassel-song, which some reveller was trolling over in his sleep. 1854 Grace Greenwood Haps & Mishaps 88 A hall of the old castle, which had rung to the clang of rude armour, and the wassail songs of Erin's princes and knights.

Top Cat (1961), at least partially responsible for my early turn toward languid Bohemianism, is out on DVD. 

1931 self-portrait of Ilse Bing: Queen of the Leica

(via gmtPlus9) 

Renata Tebaldi 1922-2004 

"A Child's Christmas in Wales" read by the author. Sadly no sign of the great Denholm Eliot TV version on local channels this year. 

Torture reconsidered: Shock, awe and the human body

"It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Bush administration is not torturing prisoners because it is useful but because of its symbolism. It originally was intended to be a form of what later, in the attack on Iraq, came to be called 'shock and awe.' It was meant as intimidation. We will do these terrible things to demonstrate that nothing will stop us from conquering our enemies. We are indifferent to world opinion. We will stop at nothing.

In that respect, it is like the attack on Falluja last month, which - destructive as it was - was fundamentally a symbolic operation. Any insurgent who wanted to escape could do so long before the much-advertised attack actually began. Its real purpose was exemplary destruction: to deliver a message to all of Iraq that this is what the United States can do to you if you continue the resistance. It was collective punishment of the city's occupants for having tolerated terrorist operations based there."

Tom and Jerry at Heart of China's Linguistic Storm

"Dubbed into regional Chinese dialects, the warring cat and mouse have been huge TV hits — and a good way to pass home-grown culture down to the younger generation, programmers say.

Not so fast, says the central government up north in Beijing, which for decades has promoted standard Mandarin as the only Chinese language worthy of the airwaves. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has ordered an end to broadcasting in dialect, saying kids should be raised in a "favorable linguistic environment."

The move has put Tom and Jerry — or "Cat and Mouse," as the show is called here — at the center of a long-running debate about how to maintain national cohesion amid a linguistic sea of highly distinct regional accents, dialects and wholly separate language groups."  

vignette from the Book of Daniel by Philip James de Loutherbourg, from The Bowyer Bible

(via the mighty Exclamation Mark) 

Screened Out--interesting top 10 movie list includes Mamet's "Spartan"

Overheard in New York

"Kid #1: Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up!
Kid #2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes it spicy. Now I got a SPICY ROCK! You can't defeat that!"

below from and much more at White Rose, a UK civil liberties blog

Guardian: If you value your freedom, reject this sinister ID card

"To be anonymous, to go privately, to move residence without telling the authorities is a fundamental liberty which is about to be taken from us. People may not choose to exercise this entitlement to privacy, or see the point of it, but once it's gone and a vast database is built, eventually to be accessed by every tentacle of the government machine, we will never be able to claw it back. We are about to surrender a right which is precious, rare even in western democracies, and profoundly emblematic of our culture and civilisation. And what for? "

Matter and Memory: A Conversation with experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison

"A (nitrate) print goes through various stages of "decomp," as it’s called for short in the archival world. And they also have terms for those various stages, the first one being that the print gets "tacky," then stickier and then they call it "donut," because a ring has formed. And then something that maybe came from a Canadian archivist, it's called a "hockey puck". And then at that point there is nothing to do with it, you can't even play hockey with it. Then it eventually turns into dust."


(via GreenCine Daily)

Real Mince Pies

"Take veel ysode and grynde it smale. Take harde eyren isode and ygron and do thereto with prunes hole; dates, icorved pynes and raisons corance hool spices, and powdor, sugar salt; make a litell coffin, and do this fars thereinne, and bake it, and serve if forth."  

just in case you haven't seen it by now, the magnificent online Early and Clairvoyant Journals by Hannah Weiner...

Bookseller's Plates

(via Coudal Partners) 

Anodyne on Steven Shearer at the CAG--

"That young dude posing down with his prize pot plant, his eyes glittering vampire-red from the camera’s flash? Irony. The painting of the greasy lunk whose hair highlights spell out H-A-S-H? Irony. Shearer’s fake Port Coquitlam basement metal band, the Puff Rock Shiteaters? Irony, baby. The alternative – that these works might actually be as transparent as glass, that Shearer might find something worthwhile or even appealing in his subjects – is too worrying for most institutional viewers to contemplate. Thus the unsigned wall panel at the CAG, whose anonymous author spends several densely worded paragraphs discussing systems of representation, and Shearer’s hopscotching jumps among them, without ever once discussing the artist’s subjects, a list apparently designed to bait the dependably liberal conscience of the Canadian art bureaucracy: longhairs; burnouts; suburban rednecks; decayed child stars; Kiss tribute bands; drunks, and assorted other “high”-culturally challenged folks."

Balance in the service of falsehood

" By promoting schools of journalism, media owners could claim that trained editors and reporters were granted autonomy to make decisions based on professional judgment, rather than on the needs of proprietors and advertisers. As a result, owners could present their media monopoly as a service to the community."

S/FJ on IDM

"The addition of "intelligent" and "music" to the category of original music composed and performed largely through cut'n'paste reproduction strategies is the history of the bleaching and bourgeosification of the tradition, and meanwhile I am still waiting for something as intelligent or musical from Sean O'Hagan (or Squarepusher or Shadow) as "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel." As for "dance," don't make me laff, it hurts my jaw.

There is a social content to IDM -- produced entirely by the drama between sonic composition/production technics and the name! -- and that social content is racism, and particularly the racism that takes the form of the most traditional, desecratory narrative of denial, recuperation, piracy and despoilage one could imagine, one that's been played out not just in artistic genre but in, hmm, the history of colonization? "

The Third Unheard--Connecticut Hip Hop 79-83  

beautiful photographs of Marcy Avenue, one of my favorite subway stations.

(via Gothamist) 

High-tech rat hole

" Ever since March 1983 when Ronald Reagan got it into his head that we could build an astrodome over the earth and created a crash program with almost no respectable scientific or expert input, this albatross has been nothing more than a welfare program for generals and defense contractors -men who often turn out to be the same person, see under "Tauzin" for a domestic allegory- but the scale is really something to behold. This particular administration's obsession with Star Wars crowded out any attention it might have been willing to pay to terrorism during the 9/11 days, but even with all of the evildoings discussed above, it still finds money to pour more and more billions down this high-tech rat hole while at the same time pretending it is not the unarguable failure it has proved to be at virtually every moment of its existence for the past 21 years--and counting. "

Silliman's Blog

"The degree of work involved in creating a couple hundred couplets on the topic of constipation & bears is not inconsiderable--and to do so with wit & humor all the more challenging. "

The Rebel Sell

"Thus the kind of ad parodies that we find in Adbusters, far from being subversive, are indistinguishable from many genuine ad campaigns. Flipping through the magazine, one cannot avoid thinking back to Frank's observation that "business is amassing great sums by charging admission to the ritual simulation of its own lynching." "

from children's illustrated books of the 50's & 60's

(via I like) 

(Estes Kefauver)

56 Uncommon Baby Names for Boys, Culled From the Index of Volume 3 of Master of the Senate, Robert Caro's Biography of Lyndon Johnson. 

happy birthday John Milton  

Jackson Mac Low 1922-2004

1ST LIGHT POEM: FOR IRIS -- 10 JUNE 1962


The light of a student-lamp
sapphire light
shimmer
the light of a smoking-lamp
Light from the Magellanic Clouds
the light of a Nernst lamp
the light of a naphtha-lamp
light from meteorites

Evanescent light
ether
the light of an electric lamp
extra light

Citrine light
kineographic light
the light of a Kitson lamp
kindly light

Ice light
irradiation
ignition
altar light

The light of a spotlight
a sunbeam
sunrise
solar light

Mustard-oil light
maroon light
the light of a magnesium flare
light from a meteor

Evanescent light
ether
light from an electric lamp
an extra light

Light from a student-lamp
sapphire light
a shimmer
smoking-lamp light

Ordinary light
orgone lumination
light from a lamp burning olive oil
opal light

Actinism
atom-bomb light
the light of an alcohol lamp
the light of a lamp burning anda-oil


(drawing byMimi Gross) 

online book version of the Anthology of American Folk Music 

memories of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band!!!

"Picture this: Oslo, Norway. SAHB are playing an outdoor festival. The stage is at the top of an old ski-slope, and at the bottom, there's a lake. As The Faith Healer's pulsing riff kicks in, Alex is standing on the far shore of the lake. Save for a swimming cap fashioned from a polythene bag, he's butt-naked.

Alex dives in, swims across the lake, then begins making his way up the ski-slope and through the crowd. When he reaches the stage, he pulls on his pirate-stripe T-shirt and jeans, then climbs up to introduce "The Sensational. . . Alex. . . Harvey. . . Band". The next day he made the front page in all the Norwegian papers. Ted McKenna still has the clippings."  

Lisa Robertson's "Soft Architecture" made The Village Voice's Books of the Year roundup

The Online Film Critics Society's "Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s" this is pretty good

warm review of the Joe Brainard memoir and the James Schuyler letters--

"Dear Americans, love, The Perkins Rose People. Dear Prisoner in a Chinese Laundry, love, Josette Day. Dear Kewpie, Ever-thine, Hilton Kramer. Engel, love, Bettina. Dear Glen Tetley, love, Pachita Crespi. Dear Lad of Sunnybrook Farm, love, Fran Hagood, Ye Ed. Dear Purvis, Love, The Hookers of Kew. Dear Hosty with the Mosty, love (Mrs) Birdsey Youngs. Dear Tempest Storm, love, Norma Vincent Peel. Dear Rich Freeze-Dried Coffee Chunks, love, Stubborn Stains." 

Torture and Truth

"It’s become a kind of cliché that, if in the struggle against terror, we forget our values, the terrorists will have been victorious. My question is, what do we mean by this? What exactly would constitute our having lost this battle and making changes in the way we live and our attitudes towards human rights and civil liberties that would actually constitute a kind of defeat? It’s hard to think of something more obvious than American troops and American intelligence officers torturing prisoners. And doing it not only as an act of desperation in the field, but doing it as a matter of policy which has been developed at the highest level of the administration. My question is, when we say the terrorists cause us to dispense with our values -- our belief in human rights, our adherence to laws we have passed that commit the U.S. not to torture -- if we have abrogated those, doesn’t that constitute the victory of the other side that we talk about? And if it doesn’t, what is the line you have to cross so that it does? "

hearing Tami Lynn's "I'm Gonna Run Away From You" for the firtst time since then brought back the glories of the UK chart for July 1971 into sharp relief--I tend to forget how different the British charts still were in those days...John Kongos! Slade! Jim Reeves! Hurricane Smith! Herman covering Bowie!--

UK Top 40 Hits of July 1971
1 Middle Of The Road Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep
2 T Rex Get It On
3 Sweet Co-Co
4 Hurricane Smith Don't Let It Die
5 Lobo Me And You And A Dog Named Boo
6 Greyhound Black And White
7 Blue Mink Banner Man
8 Dave & Ansil Collins Monkey Spanner
9 New World Tom-Tom Turnaround
10 John Kongos He's Gonna Step On You Again
11 Temptations Just My Imagination
12 Tami Lynn I'm Gonna Run Away From You
13 Supremes & Four Tops River Deep, Mountain High
14 Bob & Marcia Pied Piper
15 Tony Christie I Did What I Did For Maria
16 White Plains When You Are A King
17 Move Tonight
18 New Seekers Never Ending Song Of Love
19 Smokey Robinson & The Miracles I Don't Blame You At All
20 St Cecilia Leap Up And Down (Wave Your Knickers In The Air)
21 Mungo Jerry Lady Rose
22 Atomic Rooster Devil's Answer
23 Dawn Knock Three Times
24 Rolling Stones Street Fighting Man
25 Medicine Head (And The) Pictures In The Sky
26 Delfonics La-La Means I Love You
27 Who Won't Get Fooled Again
28 Slade Get Down And Get With It
29 Elgins Heaven Must Have Sent You
30 Gordon Lightfoot If You Could Read My Mind
31 Family In My Own Time
32 Jim Reeves I Love You Because / He'll Have To Go / Moonlight And Roses
33 Bob Dylan Watching The River Flow
34 Neil Diamond I Am ... I Said
35 Fascinations Girls Are Out To Get You
36 Diana Ross I'm Still Waiting
37 Judy Collins Amazing Grace
38 Elvis Presley Rags To Riches
39 Elvis Presley Heartbreak Hotel / Hound Dog
40 Peter Noone Oh You Pretty Thing  

interesting book round-up from Jed Perl features Rothko, Levertov & Duncan, Schuyler, Berkson...

visualisation of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" (thanks Metafilter) 

Smug Canada

"The rush to make comparisons sometimes prevents meaningful examination of the very real problems that Canada faces. As a Canadian social advocate once told me, when her compatriots look at their own societal problems, they are often satisfied once they can reassure themselves that they're better off than the United States. As long as there's still more homelessness, racism and income inequality to the south, Canadians can continue to rest easy in their moral superiority."

listening to the ambient folk (?) of Argentina's Juana Molina