thoughtful review of the one-volume version of William Vollman's "Rising Up and Rising Down"--

"Humankind’s propensity for violence throws up questions that Vollmann pursues through the thick of the most horrific situations. He is, by turns, baffled, dogged, frightened, tireless, overwhelmed, uncertain and sickened even as he seeks to codify the possible responses to violence and formulate the arguments which organise this vast work."

thanks SL for this poetry from actor Michael Madsen

"Yesterday I was the answer to 46 Down
in a crossword puzzle
in the L.A. Times" 

from Laynie Browne - "A Mullein Sceptre in My Hand"

+


Doorstep, in her arms
an owl slept

Windmill modder cry
a drifting herd

an' road so steep
rasped the tale again

Bring home sheep

Entrammelled gambler
sorrow marble diurnal


+


Murmur of old stone
yellow water

Cross no mill

arms of darkness

No matter which primrose
rondel

Poppies doorways
browse


+


Yearneth
violet blows

turf comeliest
on a higher hill, ransom

Dogwoods starry
fell in flocks

Crooned bower
Canst thou conjure?


+
 

from W.N.P. Barbellion - a photographic tribute. I'd never seen a picture of him before. 

on the heels of D'Israeli comes the welcome bloggening of another favorite of mine W.N.P. Barbellion, author of "Journal of a Disappointed Man" (1919) in the "hideously named" Barbellionblog

"January 3, 1903

Am writing an essay on the life-history of insects and have abandoned the idea of writing on "How Cats Spend their Time." "

Still, a good title for someone.

James Wolcott

"The commentators noted this clampdown with a sigh of regret, and mentioned the "irony" of President Bush using the words "freedom" and "liberty" dozens of times in his address while the city was under such tight constriction. But this has gone past way irony now into total cognitive dissonant breakdown. Commentators refuse to recognize the ominous import of the stepped-up militarization of the parade and pageantry, and increasingly of civilian life in this country under a president who likes to wear neat little uniforms that say, "Me commander-in-chief." It's ridiculous for Judy Woodruff and Doris Kearns Goodwin (I think it was her I heard nattering) and Jeff Greenfield to wax patriotic about presidents and inaugurals past as if there were some heartening continuum at work when there are snipers perched on the roof of the White House and enough riot police to protect a Latin American dictator."

are we playing Robert Johnson too fast?

"This is a Steady Rolling Man, whose tempos and tonalities are much like those of other Delta bluesmen. Full-speed Johnson always struck me as a disembodied sound -- befitting his wraith-like persona, the reticent, drifting youth, barely more than a boy, that Don Law spoke of: the Rimbaud of the blues. Johnson slowed down sounds to me like the person in the recently discovered studio portrait: a big-boned man, self-assured and worldly-wise. It works for me, but listen for yourself."

Four More Years 

An Evening with The Rodney Graham Band
February 3, at 8pm
The Cambrian Hall
215 East 17th St., Vancouver
with commentary by Peter Culley
Free Admission
Cash Bar
Limited seating - please come early!
Information@604-662-4700
 

Luxury Class Coming to BC Ferries

When pressed, the BC Ferries spokesman did admit that, "in response to customer requests," the refit on the two ferries was going to include the possibility of new luxury business lounges, and that a "pilot project" involving two-tier travel was in the works for the spring. The "premium lounges," he told me, will feature free coffee and pastry, newspapers and magazines, and, as technological glitches are resolved, satellite linked internet access." 

new, improved Vancouver mag Terminal City is online

farewell Virginia Mayo of "White Heat" and "The Best Years of our Lives" 

MLK

"Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an 'I-it' relationship for an 'I-thou' relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong. " 

"Vigili Utrinque (watchful on both sides)" Jacobean surveillance culture emblematised in Henry Peachem's Minerva Britanna

must-read Seymour Hersh on Rummy's mattress mice--

“Rumsfeld will no longer have to refer anything through the government’s intelligence wringer,” the former official went on. “The intelligence system was designed to put competing agencies in competition. What’s missing will be the dynamic tension that insures everyone’s priorities—in the C.I.A., the D.O.D., the F.B.I., and even the Department of Homeland Security—are discussed. The most insidious implication of the new system is that Rumsfeld no longer has to tell people what he’s doing so they can ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘What are your priorities?’ Now he can keep all of the mattress mice out of it.”

(in New York, 1948)

pictures of Charles Olson, family, friends, etc. 

Kraftwerk pocket calculator (thanks metafilter)