The ambient backgrounds for "From Gardens" were recorded here--
A Brief History of Moulsford
"Col. James died intestate, and it was found necessary for a liquidator to be appointed to realise what could be obtained for the unsold property. A Limited Liability Company has now purchased the Manor Hotel Property. A speculative builder has purchased the three cottages at Pye Corner, and the field south of the Old Vicarage has been sold--a part to Mrs Lockhart and a part as a cricket field to the Parish meeting. The field on the west was bought by Mr H. Hunt of Cholsey. The Waterworks have been sold to the South Oxfordshire Gas and Water Co., the factory buildings to Mr Thurston for stables, and the six cottages in the centre of the village east of the road to various purchasers. The village has accordingly become entirely disintegrated. " 

from W.H. Auden's 'A Summer Night' (1933)

Now north and south and east and west
Those I love lie down to rest ;
The moon looks on them all,
the healers and the brilliant talkers,
The eccentrics and silent walkers,
The dumpy and the tall.


She climbs the European sky,
Churches and power-stations lie
Alike among earth's fixtures :
Into the galleries she peers
And blankly as a butcher stares
Upon the marvellous pictures.


To gravity attentive, she
Can notice nothing here, though we
Whom hunger does not move,
From gardens where we feel secure
Look up and with a sigh endure
The tyrannies of love :


And, gentle, do not care to know,
Where Poland draws her eastern bow,
What violence is done,
Nor ask what doubtful act allows
Our freedom in this English house,
Our picnics in the sun.



 

A sleeping tiger by Delacroix from Maitres des Arts Graphiques via gmtPlus9  

from Paris, Cecile Schott aka Colleen's "Everybody Alive Wants Answers" likewise addresses drift, entropy, afternoon sleepiness, broken toys, distant shunting graveltrucks, snails heaped in a wheel rim planterbox. 

Virginia Astley's immortal album "From Gardens Where We Feel Secure" is back in print. 

Who loves ya baby? Ving Rhames is the new 'Kojak' . 

Marlon Brando as 19th century colonial adventurist and Emperor of Nicaragua William Walker in Gillo Pontecorvo's "Quemada!". Last year's discussions (and White House viewings) of the same filmmakers' "Battle of Algiers" made me hope that its often ignored (and arguably more immediately relevant) sequel might get some overdue attention.  

Gary Indiana on the Clinton memoir--
"Presuming the reader is old enough to cast his or her mind back to the poisonous social atmosphere that prevailed before the expulsion of George the First and dissolved for eight years under Clinton despite the grotesque efforts of the hard right to remove him from office, and again, presuming our reader has not been sufficiently hypnotized--by the prospect of an even larger plasma TV screen, a space-shuttle-size SUV, and a cell phone that gives you an enema while booking you into a fancy restaurant--to ignore the stench of malaise and hopelessness that a few years of our Dry Drunk and Compulsive Liar in Chief, George the Second, have poured over all but the very, very rich and very, very psychopathic, it should be easy to credit most of Clinton's book with abundant goodwill, a fair amount of wit, and far more reflection and intelligence than any of the recent literary effusions of G.W. Bush's hagiographers and anorexic cheerleaders have evidenced, despite the fascinatingly demonic abandon they have brought to their exhibitionism. "

Quarry find reveals hippos and hyenas once roamed Norfolk
"The great beasts would have had huge, prominent eyes which served as periscopes in a river system which would once have flowed from Norfolk into Wales. "

Michael Moore, Cause for War?

"'a massive array of evidence,' 'a detailed and persuasive case,' 'a powerful case,' 'a sober, factual case,' 'an overwhelming case,' 'a compelling case,' 'the strong, credible and persuasive case,' 'a persuasive, detailed accumulation of information,' 'the core of his argument was unassailable,' 'a smoking fusillade . . . a persuasive case for anyone who is still persuadable,' 'an accumulation of painstakingly gathered and analyzed evidence,' 'only the most gullible and wishful thinking souls can now deny that Iraq is harboring and hiding weapons of mass destruction,' 'the skeptics asked for proof; they now have it,' 'a much more detailed and convincing argument than any that has previously been told,' 'Powell's evidence . . . was overwhelming,' 'an ironclad case . . . incontrovertible evidence,' 'succinct and damning evidence . . . the case is closed,' 'Colin Powell delivered the goods on Saddam Hussein,' 'masterful,' 'If there was any doubt that Hussein . . . needs to be . . . stripped of his chemical and biological capabilities, Powell put it to rest.'"

at Phillysound Buck Downs answers questions about his new book "Golden Taters"--
"Talking about Southern Writing makes me crazy like those dudes who collect photographic evidence of Bigfoot. Does it exist? Did it ever?

But then I do lose my nut whenever I have to talk about 'poetry' in terms other than 'what I'm doing'. So yeah, I have no clew what the fuck is up with the New Southern Writing. But it's not like anybody else does either, so I feel like I'm in the right place where that's concerned." 

read about and download La Bolduc and others at The Virtual Gramophone 

enjoy some of these Hinterland Who's Who clips on Canada Day 

Pitchfork: Top 100 Albums of the 1970s is not as awful as might be expected.

Barrett Watten's Tribute to Zukofsky
"It turned out, I thought, that Zukofsky had better be read as a Marxist. That would put his sense of particulars right back down on the ground, back in the world where they came from and we are, if belatedly. Our reading was not originary, and not in homage to any original. It was, however, always at the beginning of a series of acts, from that one until now, as we are only just finding out. " 

Don Chaffey's The Three Lives of Thomasina--the greatest cat movie ever--finally out on DVD. 

Reagan Pyramid Nears Completion
"'Buried with Reagan will be his finest treasures,' Meese said, 'including 2,500 MX intercontinental ballistic missiles, 15 stealth bombers, a golden chalice of jelly beans, and his most prized servant, former president George Bush Sr.'

Bush told reporters, 'It is my honor and duty to have my sinus passages ceremonially packed with sand before my still-living, pain-racked body is forever locked with my leader's within the Great Reagan's final resting place. Let us all praise Osiris.'"

heartiest congratulations to Jean Crowder, who Daph & I helped to vote in on Monday. She replaces the odious retiring Reform MP Reed Elley, who (having read the writing on the wall?) left office after mailing a bitter diatribe to his constituents. The only reason the NDP didn't get 50 seats was that their program was mostly co-opted by the Liberals. The main thing is that the Hard Right will never have a better shot at power in Canada, and they blew it. Those who enjoy the sight of sputtering conservative fury are urged to check out various columns at Nealenews.

Matt Taibbi
"If even one network, instead of cheerily re-broadcasting Pentagon-generated aerial bomb footage, had risked its access to the government by saying to the Bush administration, 'We're not covering the war unless we can shoot anything we want, without restrictions,' that might have made a difference. It might have made this war look like what it is--pointless death and carnage that would have scared away every advertiser in the country--rather than a big fucking football game that you can sell Coke and Pepsi and Scott's Fertilizer to."