more Bewick here 

(Walking across a frozen pond with a branch 1804) A very uncharacteristic for Nanaimo huge dump of snow has everything shut down tight, though our power has held. People in town have been without since early this morning. Walked up to the corner store (almost out of milk!), birds etched Thomas Bewick style against the white page. A great gathering of robins at the neighbours eavestrough.  

essay on Gerry Gilbert's Moby Jane


"the dandelion & the daffodil yellow
the sea & the sky blue
the field and the tree green

the fly on the windshield
the tourist who's seen too much
that was fast

i've set just about everything down for now
feel the light

help
i can't stop writing

come to stay
of course there's space
we're poor

you girls take your room upstairs
i belong down here
near the dishes

the toilet takes doing the doing
takes a moment the moment
takes no time at all

we stare at the cat a lot "

good interview with Jane Jacobs

""During a Dark Age," Jacobs argues, the mass amnesia of survivors becomes permanent and profound. The previous way of life slides into an abyss of forgetfulness.""

all time CKLG FM fave J.B. Shayne aka

"Johanne Bruno Shayne
Captain Midnight
Raindog (also Sundog)
The Semi-Legendary Mr. Shayne
Colonel Nocturnal
Sportscaster Chuck Stake
Rick Vandrazzo
Tony Spiffy (opposite Bill Reiter's 'Michael Gears')
Raouel Casablanca (also Raouel Shayne)
Saskatchewan Smith
Joe Gobbels
The Madame (in drag)
Aaron Schmelling
Johnny (The Rebel Without A Car)
Emperor Rasgula
Reverend Rock
Retired-DJ Jerry Silvers
Teen Jock Dino Hawkes
Showbiz Shayne "

"Red" Robinson & Elvis in Vancouver, 1958

Vancouver Broadcasters is a surprisingly complete list of the people who brought and bring the news, weather, time, talk and music to the lower mainland & island...reminded me of how much radio I listened to as a lad...

Gary at E l s e w h e r e has one for me & Chris

"STEELY DAN BOUCHARD

I make a pact with you Ron Silliman:
I'll learn to play the saxophone
there where I used to stand.

This is the day of the expanding man,
jet fuel flows with ground water. Tomato,
that shape is my shade

the landscape passes beside the highway.
I'll play just what I feel
in a remarkable book burning era.

They got a name for the winners in the world:
if you would like to make a speech
drink Scotch whisky all night long.

For the love of all things found,
crawl like a viper thru these suburban streets
till sunlight slights the cold.

I'm ready to cross that fine line
by streetcar rail. Imagine there's no Lenin,
and die behind the wheel

or from parking lots behind a stretch of trees.
I want a name when I lose
my mood in tandem with a poet's book.

They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
whose root lies in the material conditions of existence.
Call me Deacon Blues." 

online versioning of one of my very favorites--Curiosities of Literature

"An incrementally-published online presentation of Isaac D'Israeli's book Curiosities of Literature, a compendium of book-lore originally published in six volumes between 1791 and 1834. "

(ta to wood's lot)

nice radio review of my "album of the year", the Albert Ayler box with useful snippets & examples...

(more info & downloads here) 

various boffins answer the question "What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?"

Old school house sneaking back onto the decks?

"That experimentation lends itself properly to Phuture's 'Acid Trax,' Marshall Jefferson's 'Move Your Body' and Mr. Finger's 'Can You Feel It.' All of these classics have a raw energy completely lacking in the loungy house produced today. Here's to a house renaissance in the '05. "

Steve at Third Factory Notebook has very observant brief notes on recent and "holiday" films. Very good on Huston's "brusqueness", but he should give "Meet Me in St Louis" a few more chances.

gmtPlus9 has a download of the driving, catchy "Bar-b-q" by Wendy Rene, one of my favorite songs from the big Stax singles box, as well as "Starry Eyes" by the Records...

Shirley Chisholm 1924-2005 

omnibus review from "Canadian Literature" includes my Hammertown

"In short bursts this dizziness is quiet pleasing, but longer episodes induce sleep after all. "

from Willeford's cockfighter journal, about the making of Monte Hellman's adaptation, which starred Warren Oates

"Friday is the first day of the spring semester, and I'll be back in the classroom, back to mundane reality, teaching D. H. Lawrence to bewildered strangers.

The more I think about things, the more I admire Roger Corman and his intuitive mind.

Cockfighter, I am certain, is a winner. It will cause some controversy, pro and con, but we can't lose with this film. Because audiences can see an illegal sport legally, they will come to see the film out of curiosity, and then will spread the word about it because it has a good strong story. Frank is the first totally silent hero since Singer, in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, but Frank is willfully silent, not a deaf-mute. So Frank's stubbornness will appeal to anyone who talks too much, which includes writers like myself. " 

Charles Willeford's 'Cockfighter'

"The man who is unable to talk back is at the mercy of these people. He is like an inexperienced priest who listens tolerantly to the first simple confessions of impure thoughts, and then listens with increasing horror as the sins mount, one outdoing the other until he is shocked into dumbness. And, of course, the sinner takes advantage of a man's credulousness, loading ever greater sins upon him to see how far he can really go now that he has found a trapped listener who is unable to stop him. My ears had been battered by the outpourings of troubles, tribulations, aspirations and the affairs of broken hearts for two years and seven months. Only by being rude enough to leave the scene had I evaded some of my confessors."

Boswell and Samuel Johnson's Hodge--

"Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, "Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;" and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.""

an immense trove of poetry sound files at Pennsound
(So far I've played Hugh MacDiarmid's "A Glass of Pure Water" and James Schuyler's "Hymn to Life", volume cranked, tucked up under a quilt in the dark for extra concentration. Pressed against my foot tabbycat Blinky seemed especially taken with the latter, even starting a little during Schuyler's recollection of his battle-scarred tomcat Hodge leaving traces of blood on the card table.) 

fantastic, downloadable Bird Songs and Training Records 

American Muslims Fingerprinted By U.S. at Canadian Border...

"Several of the Muslim citizens held at the border for up to six hours on Sunday night and Monday morning told CAIR they objected strenuously to being fingerprinted, but were informed by CBP representatives that 'you have no rights' and that they would be held until they agreed to the fingerprinting procedure. One person was allegedly threatened with arrest if she attempted to leave the detention area without being fingerprinted."

(Clinton, Ontario) thanks S/FJ for the link to a video about a special place where books are free! 

Life Without Trial

"The new prison, dubbed Camp 6, would allow inmates more comfort and freedom than they have now, and would be designed for prisoners the government believes have no more intelligence to share, the newspaper said.

'It would be modeled on a U.S. prison and would allow socializing among inmates,' the paper said. "