Squiggy is in the house: 'Laverne and Shirley' star now Mariner's scout
Sunday, May 16, 2004
new Sy Hersh
"According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A. "
"According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A. "
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Friday, May 14, 2004
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Paris Hilton Goes to War, The Bush Administration Is Waging a War on Porn While Soldiers Waging War in Iraq Make Porn
"The second thing I find fascinating about the homemade porn coming out of Abu Ghraib--the consensual pornographic pictures depicting American soldiers, not the shocking pictures depicting American soldiers engaged in acts of torture and violence--is the disconnect it exposes between prudes in the Bush administration like Ashcroft and the men and women in the armed services. George W. Bush seizes every opportunity to tell us how brave, moral, and righteous the average American soldier is. He would have us believe that the U.S. armed services, like the Republican Party itself, are filled with churchgoing, patriotic, salt-of-the-earth, small-town-values types from Red states. The truth, of course, is that soldiers, like average Americans, are as likely to consume porn and, given the time, opportunity, and a digital camera, make porn as any other American. They're also likely, as we've seen, to buy into their own inflated sense of moral superiority--inflated by their commander in chief--and brutalize helpless human beings in their charge. Porn producers, by comparison, are angels. "
"The second thing I find fascinating about the homemade porn coming out of Abu Ghraib--the consensual pornographic pictures depicting American soldiers, not the shocking pictures depicting American soldiers engaged in acts of torture and violence--is the disconnect it exposes between prudes in the Bush administration like Ashcroft and the men and women in the armed services. George W. Bush seizes every opportunity to tell us how brave, moral, and righteous the average American soldier is. He would have us believe that the U.S. armed services, like the Republican Party itself, are filled with churchgoing, patriotic, salt-of-the-earth, small-town-values types from Red states. The truth, of course, is that soldiers, like average Americans, are as likely to consume porn and, given the time, opportunity, and a digital camera, make porn as any other American. They're also likely, as we've seen, to buy into their own inflated sense of moral superiority--inflated by their commander in chief--and brutalize helpless human beings in their charge. Porn producers, by comparison, are angels. "
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Jane Jacobs
"There's a joke that the father of an old friend used to tell, about a preacher who warns children, "In Hell there will be wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth." "What if you don't have teeth?" one of the children asks. "Then teeth will be provided," he says sternly. That's it--the spirit of the designed city: Teeth Will Be Provided for You."
"There's a joke that the father of an old friend used to tell, about a preacher who warns children, "In Hell there will be wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth." "What if you don't have teeth?" one of the children asks. "Then teeth will be provided," he says sternly. That's it--the spirit of the designed city: Teeth Will Be Provided for You."
Bad Ginger Cat
""As the postie pushes the letters through, I've seen Bat try to swipe him with his claws.
"He was a rescue cat and is only little--but he does get stroppy.""
""As the postie pushes the letters through, I've seen Bat try to swipe him with his claws.
"He was a rescue cat and is only little--but he does get stroppy.""
Monday, May 10, 2004
"We saw the pictures"
"The system of injustice that, since 9/11, we've sent offshore and organized globally -- from Guantanamo, Cuba to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan -- is by its nature also a system of torture. It was designed from the beginning to be a Bermuda Triangle of injustice, existing in an extrajudicial darkness beyond 'our' sight or oversight. There, on military bases and in special military-controlled prisons, the 'war on terrorism' could be carried to its informational climax in whatever ways and by whatever methods American intelligence officials felt might 'break' whatever prisoners we had. "
"The system of injustice that, since 9/11, we've sent offshore and organized globally -- from Guantanamo, Cuba to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan -- is by its nature also a system of torture. It was designed from the beginning to be a Bermuda Triangle of injustice, existing in an extrajudicial darkness beyond 'our' sight or oversight. There, on military bases and in special military-controlled prisons, the 'war on terrorism' could be carried to its informational climax in whatever ways and by whatever methods American intelligence officials felt might 'break' whatever prisoners we had. "
Sunday, May 09, 2004
wild wild west: "'I don't know where they got this from, but the MPs would say it all the time,' one of the soldiers said. 'MI would drop off a guy who wasn't talking, and the MP would say, 'So looks like I'll be going cowboy on him' or 'Looks like he needs some wild, wild west.''"
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Laura Nyro: Live: The Loom's Desire
"Melancholy doesn't even come close to describing this performance; maybe better is the Brazilian/Portuguese concept of 'saudade', the happiness that arrives when you realize you're just about as sad as you can be. Nyro's alto is maybe a little shaky and perhaps a touch flat, but it's as expressive as all hell, and when it floats on the fluffy cloud provided by the backing voices it sounds like a blueprint of someone's soul. "
"Melancholy doesn't even come close to describing this performance; maybe better is the Brazilian/Portuguese concept of 'saudade', the happiness that arrives when you realize you're just about as sad as you can be. Nyro's alto is maybe a little shaky and perhaps a touch flat, but it's as expressive as all hell, and when it floats on the fluffy cloud provided by the backing voices it sounds like a blueprint of someone's soul. "
too bad we never got Bagpuss over here
"...the lesser-known BAGPUSS was the epic masterpiece of this formidable canon which, like Fawlty Towers, you are always shocked to be reminded ran for a mere 13 episodes. The plot was laid out in a title sequence of faded sepia prints, a two-minute effort shown at the beginning of each episode - a fact that may surprise many Teletubbies-bashers today. In full, then - Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl called Emily. Emily had a shop. It was quite an unusual shop, because it didn't sell anything. Everything in the window was something somebody had once lost, but Emily had found, and taken home to Bagpuss. The titular old fat furry catpuss (widely rumoured to be baggy, and a bit loose at the seams) was called upon by Emily, in cod shamanic prose, to 'wake up and look at this thing that I bring. Wake up, be bright, be golden and light. Bagpuss, O hear what I sing.' Thus summoned, the cat yawned and woke up. And, of course, when Bagpuss woke up, all his friends woke up to. The mice on the mouse-organ woke up and stretched. A toad with a banjo (Gabriel - 'Oh, look!'), and a rather limply-written female character, Madeleine, also woke up. But the best was the allegedly JAMES BURKE (cf CONNECTIONS)-inspired PROFESSOR YAFFLE, a 'carved wooden book-end in the shape of a woodpecker' who made hard work of ambling down a pile of books to examine whatever this week's object was, and draw inevitably wrong conclusions. Hence a porcupine pin-cushion was claimed to be an earless elephant, and (by a thinking-cap-aided Bagpuss) a 'small, soft, Hamish.' Quite. A bog-standard doll's house was turned by the mice into a mill for making chocolate biscuits out of breadcrumbs and butterbeans, only to be exposed as a fraud. These intellectual battles were interspersed with songs and paper animation..."
"...the lesser-known BAGPUSS was the epic masterpiece of this formidable canon which, like Fawlty Towers, you are always shocked to be reminded ran for a mere 13 episodes. The plot was laid out in a title sequence of faded sepia prints, a two-minute effort shown at the beginning of each episode - a fact that may surprise many Teletubbies-bashers today. In full, then - Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl called Emily. Emily had a shop. It was quite an unusual shop, because it didn't sell anything. Everything in the window was something somebody had once lost, but Emily had found, and taken home to Bagpuss. The titular old fat furry catpuss (widely rumoured to be baggy, and a bit loose at the seams) was called upon by Emily, in cod shamanic prose, to 'wake up and look at this thing that I bring. Wake up, be bright, be golden and light. Bagpuss, O hear what I sing.' Thus summoned, the cat yawned and woke up. And, of course, when Bagpuss woke up, all his friends woke up to. The mice on the mouse-organ woke up and stretched. A toad with a banjo (Gabriel - 'Oh, look!'), and a rather limply-written female character, Madeleine, also woke up. But the best was the allegedly JAMES BURKE (cf CONNECTIONS)-inspired PROFESSOR YAFFLE, a 'carved wooden book-end in the shape of a woodpecker' who made hard work of ambling down a pile of books to examine whatever this week's object was, and draw inevitably wrong conclusions. Hence a porcupine pin-cushion was claimed to be an earless elephant, and (by a thinking-cap-aided Bagpuss) a 'small, soft, Hamish.' Quite. A bog-standard doll's house was turned by the mice into a mill for making chocolate biscuits out of breadcrumbs and butterbeans, only to be exposed as a fraud. These intellectual battles were interspersed with songs and paper animation..."
Friday, May 07, 2004
AncientScripts.com
(thanks Metafilter, who also link to stuff on mighty ""Aja" drummer Steve Gadd...)
(thanks Metafilter, who also link to stuff on mighty ""Aja" drummer Steve Gadd...)
Atkins Cicadas: " (This enables the flirtatious tunes they strum on body structures known as tymbals to resonate.) "
farewell to reggae pioneer Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd "Dodd set to work to recast American-style jazz and R'n'B within the African-Jamaican traditions of pocomania, mento and revivalism. The resulting sound came to be known as 'ska', from the 'hepcat' greeting 'skavoovie'. "
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Rummy's Lifebuoy?
"Let's say Rumsfeld resigns on Friday. The election is still six months away. And the nation is at war. So a new Defense Secretary would be needed more or less immediately. That would open up a very uncomfortable prospect for the administration.
Confirmation hearings for a new Sec Def would, I think, inevitably turn into a national forum for discussing the management of the Pentagon, the planning for the war and the lack of planning for the occupation. The new nominee would be drawn into all sorts of uncomfortble public second-guessing of what's happened up until this point. Sure, that's stuff under Rumsfeld. But, really, it's stuff under Bush -- the civilian head of the United States military.
That, I have to imagine, is something the White House would like to avoid at any cost."
"Let's say Rumsfeld resigns on Friday. The election is still six months away. And the nation is at war. So a new Defense Secretary would be needed more or less immediately. That would open up a very uncomfortable prospect for the administration.
Confirmation hearings for a new Sec Def would, I think, inevitably turn into a national forum for discussing the management of the Pentagon, the planning for the war and the lack of planning for the occupation. The new nominee would be drawn into all sorts of uncomfortble public second-guessing of what's happened up until this point. Sure, that's stuff under Rumsfeld. But, really, it's stuff under Bush -- the civilian head of the United States military.
That, I have to imagine, is something the White House would like to avoid at any cost."
The Province: "Some shackled inmates got rowdy on a public passenger ferry bound for Vancouver Island from the B.C. mainland Wednesday, breaking windows on the vehicle they were being transported in. " At that moment, Zodiacs full of hippie pirates streamed from the caves of Lasqueti island...
good Lars von Trier takedown
"Bjork, however, sees it rather differently - and recently struck back with a brutal assessment of the director, issued via her official website: 'You can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick and still they are the one that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier's case it is not so and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work soul, and he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming, and hide the evidence.'"
"Bjork, however, sees it rather differently - and recently struck back with a brutal assessment of the director, issued via her official website: 'You can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick and still they are the one that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier's case it is not so and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work soul, and he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming, and hide the evidence.'"
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Joseph Losey at lincoln center watched "Accident" on TV a few weeks ago and it was like one long, sweaty shudder...
A strike against democracy
"The governments have sent a powerful message to trade unions, one which will have ominous future repercussions: You can negotiate all you want, but when push comes to shove, unless you agree to what employers want, we will bring the full force of the state against you and impose what employers want." (thanks Ruth) (link to Globe and Mail doesn't work but you get the point)
"The governments have sent a powerful message to trade unions, one which will have ominous future repercussions: You can negotiate all you want, but when push comes to shove, unless you agree to what employers want, we will bring the full force of the state against you and impose what employers want." (thanks Ruth) (link to Globe and Mail doesn't work but you get the point)
Larry Wilkerson in the WaPo "'I call them utopians,' he said. 'I don't care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin on a sealed train to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz. Utopians, I don't like. You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process of trying to do it.' "
The Tyee: After the Deal
"So good to see all the union leaders coming out with one voice - 'we stood up for you!' 'we forced the goverment to back down' 'don't blame us, it was the government' - This is the bigest sell-out of working people since jack munroe went to bill bennet on bended knee. When will we learn? There's just one union in this province - Sinclair, heyman, worboys, allnutt and co - better known as the middle-aged white guys club - small membership but great fringe benefits. Did any of these guys just once say they would take any personal risk? I don't see Sinclair offering to take a 15% pay cut in support of his brothers and sisters. These so-called unions are simply another arm of the power elite, hand-in-hand with the bosses -- toss them out on their well-fed asses and find someone whose going to stand up for us. And don't give me that 'divided we fall crap' That BS line has been used by the porkchop squad to hang onto power for years. The only reason these guys still have jobs is because we have adbicated responsibility. The house of labour needs a good cleaning."
"So good to see all the union leaders coming out with one voice - 'we stood up for you!' 'we forced the goverment to back down' 'don't blame us, it was the government' - This is the bigest sell-out of working people since jack munroe went to bill bennet on bended knee. When will we learn? There's just one union in this province - Sinclair, heyman, worboys, allnutt and co - better known as the middle-aged white guys club - small membership but great fringe benefits. Did any of these guys just once say they would take any personal risk? I don't see Sinclair offering to take a 15% pay cut in support of his brothers and sisters. These so-called unions are simply another arm of the power elite, hand-in-hand with the bosses -- toss them out on their well-fed asses and find someone whose going to stand up for us. And don't give me that 'divided we fall crap' That BS line has been used by the porkchop squad to hang onto power for years. The only reason these guys still have jobs is because we have adbicated responsibility. The house of labour needs a good cleaning."
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Craig Baldwin's mighty Spectres of the Spectrum is out on DVD--
"The year is 2007, the "Eve of the Solar Eclipse, Las Vegas, Nevada" according to an informative title. BooBoo, an "epileptic telepath," is the granddaughter of scientist Amy Hacker, who died with a secret on her lips that BobBoo must uncover if she's to save the planet. She's part of a small group of revolutionaries fighting "electromagnetic control" by a shadowy entity called the "New Electromagnetic Order" (NEO) that, after decimating the earth, plans to erase the memories of every living creature on it. Abetting her is her father Yogi, an ex-intelligence guy who transmits anti-NEO propaganda from his bunker/Airstream trailer. BooBoo is immune to the devastation that's been wrought; the mind-control efforts of the NEO have no effect on her. Her plan is to travel back in time to retrieve her grandmother's secret and rescue the world from "the electronic miasma" that's annihilating it. This process allows her--and viewers--to survey America's apocalyptic past and the "heroes and martyrs" of "electromagnetic history" in the 19th and 20th centuries. "
"The year is 2007, the "Eve of the Solar Eclipse, Las Vegas, Nevada" according to an informative title. BooBoo, an "epileptic telepath," is the granddaughter of scientist Amy Hacker, who died with a secret on her lips that BobBoo must uncover if she's to save the planet. She's part of a small group of revolutionaries fighting "electromagnetic control" by a shadowy entity called the "New Electromagnetic Order" (NEO) that, after decimating the earth, plans to erase the memories of every living creature on it. Abetting her is her father Yogi, an ex-intelligence guy who transmits anti-NEO propaganda from his bunker/Airstream trailer. BooBoo is immune to the devastation that's been wrought; the mind-control efforts of the NEO have no effect on her. Her plan is to travel back in time to retrieve her grandmother's secret and rescue the world from "the electronic miasma" that's annihilating it. This process allows her--and viewers--to survey America's apocalyptic past and the "heroes and martyrs" of "electromagnetic history" in the 19th and 20th centuries. "
too much good stuff to steal any one thing from wood's lot today--especially the Gottfried Benn and Novalis
Terry Eagleton on fascism
"For all their crafty appeals to lower-middle-class grouses, fascist regimes left existing patterns of property and social class largely intact. The disgruntled petite bourgeoisie were taken for the longest ride in their unenviable history. "
"For all their crafty appeals to lower-middle-class grouses, fascist regimes left existing patterns of property and social class largely intact. The disgruntled petite bourgeoisie were taken for the longest ride in their unenviable history. "
Turning the Pages splendid shockwave enabled versions of Leonardo's Notebook, Diamond Sutra, etc
(thanks to Coudal Partners)
(thanks to Coudal Partners)
Monday, May 03, 2004
The Face of Jim Sinclair: "'All of us know it is not good enough,' Sinclair said. 'We're not celebrating tonight.'"
or: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Jim Sinclair: "'This deal saved thousands of jobs,' said Sinclair. 'We also got the employer to limit its plans to privatize public health care services. That's a major victory for public health care and union members because the government had very clearly stated they'd never do that.'
"
"
O My Cod!!: "Scientists studying the huge cod -- which can measure more than a metre in length and weigh as much as 26 kilograms, many times the size of cod now found in the sea -- say the fish are cannibals with voracious appetites that eat almost anything that crosses their path, including prickly sea urchins, each other, and -- in at least one case -- an entire loon."
Sunday, May 02, 2004
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
"The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority. "
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
"The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority. "
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Acadians to get apology from Queen Elizabeth: "'This is a royal proclamation, and it involves two very important things for Acadians everywhere,' Euclide Chiasson, president of Canada's National Society of Acadians, based in Moncton, New Brunswick, said Thursday afternoon. 'This is important because it makes historic records a fact, and the Crown is admitting it caused irreparable damages to the Acadian people."
this very difficult to sing song a great favorite of Dad's--
Mountain Greenery--Lorenz Hart (music Richard Rodgers)
On the first of May
it is moving day--
Spring is here
so blow your job,
Throw your job
away!
Now’s the time to trust,
To your wanderlust,
In the city’s dust
you wait,
must you wait
Just you wait.......!
In a mountain greenery,
Where God paints the scenery
Just two crazy people together,
While you love your lover,
Let blue skies
be your cover-let,
When it rains
we’ll laugh at the weather,
And if you’re good,
I’ll search for wood,
So you can cook...
while I stand look
in’
Beans could get no keener
reception
in a beanery--
Bless our mountain greenery home!
(Mosquitoes here,
Won’t bite you dear,
I’ll let them sting
me on the finger!)
We could find no cleaner
retreat from life’s machinery
Than our mountain greenery home.
Mountain Greenery--Lorenz Hart (music Richard Rodgers)
On the first of May
it is moving day--
Spring is here
so blow your job,
Throw your job
away!
Now’s the time to trust,
To your wanderlust,
In the city’s dust
you wait,
must you wait
Just you wait.......!
In a mountain greenery,
Where God paints the scenery
Just two crazy people together,
While you love your lover,
Let blue skies
be your cover-let,
When it rains
we’ll laugh at the weather,
And if you’re good,
I’ll search for wood,
So you can cook...
while I stand look
in’
Beans could get no keener
reception
in a beanery--
Bless our mountain greenery home!
(Mosquitoes here,
Won’t bite you dear,
I’ll let them sting
me on the finger!)
We could find no cleaner
retreat from life’s machinery
Than our mountain greenery home.
Evangeline, Longfellow's poem
"On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur and St. Martin.
There the long-wandering bride shall be given again to her bridegroom,
There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold.
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit trees;
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens
Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana! "
"On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur and St. Martin.
There the long-wandering bride shall be given again to her bridegroom,
There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold.
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit trees;
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens
Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana! "
more Acadiana
"KATC-TV has begun airing a summary of its weather forecast in Cajun French at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. each weeknight"
"KATC-TV has begun airing a summary of its weather forecast in Cajun French at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. each weeknight"
Friday, April 30, 2004
Contracting out torture
"Titan, based in San Diego, describes itself as a 'a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for national security'. It recently won a big contract for providing translation services to the US army."
"Titan, based in San Diego, describes itself as a 'a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for national security'. It recently won a big contract for providing translation services to the US army."
Thursday, April 29, 2004
can't argue with Patrick J. Buchanan!
"The Old Right curmudgeons who warned us against giving these vagabonds food, shelter and a warm place by the fire were right. We should have put them back out on the street.
President Bush should have listened to his father, who kept the neocons at some remove, and he had best beware, because they have a major card yet to play. That card is escalation.
With the situation in Iraq deteriorating, the neocon agenda is to widen the war into Syria, Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia, and convert it into 'World War IV,' the war of their dreams, a war of civilizations, an Armageddon, with America and Israel on one side and Islam on the other.
Exiting Iraq with honor and avoiding the wider war for which the neocons are even now scheming is the first duty of patriots."
"The Old Right curmudgeons who warned us against giving these vagabonds food, shelter and a warm place by the fire were right. We should have put them back out on the street.
President Bush should have listened to his father, who kept the neocons at some remove, and he had best beware, because they have a major card yet to play. That card is escalation.
With the situation in Iraq deteriorating, the neocon agenda is to widen the war into Syria, Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia, and convert it into 'World War IV,' the war of their dreams, a war of civilizations, an Armageddon, with America and Israel on one side and Islam on the other.
Exiting Iraq with honor and avoiding the wider war for which the neocons are even now scheming is the first duty of patriots."
Acadians in Maine--"Nos Histoires de L'Ile (Our Stories of the Island) is not only the title of our book, but also the organization that has been created by current and former residents of French Island to preserve the unique story of our French community. "
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Hubert Selby, Jr. 1928-2004
"Couteau: You're at the gates of heaven because that can be the next step? Or ... ?
Selby: Let me put it this way: I think we're always striving for this perfection of our own being, to realize our own perfection. To realize and be consciously at one with this thing that created us, that we always have within us. I mean, we always have it in its entirety. It's my belief that says, "I don't." And it seems to me that, periodically, the closer I get to the conscious awareness of my oneness with this creative power the more insane the human ego becomes. And I'm defining "ego" as the lie of separation. The lie that says I'm separate from this thing that I can never be separate from. I'm separate from me; I'm separate from you. It starts to feel really threatened, and it just becomes outrageously vicious -- at its best, [laughs] it's vicious. And so, I can just feel so twisted and turned, that I can't move; I just don't know what the hell is going on. But my experience has proven to me that when I'm feeling that way it's because I'm really knocking at the gates of heaven. You know, to use a phrase. And if I can just find some way of letting go of my fear, which usually means surrendering right into the middle of the fear -- in other words, just sitting and saying: Okay, you fucking dragons, you demons, here I am, eat me up alive, you fucking punk. Then I become aware of being at the gates of heaven. But, boy, it's not easy. [laughs] "
"Couteau: You're at the gates of heaven because that can be the next step? Or ... ?
Selby: Let me put it this way: I think we're always striving for this perfection of our own being, to realize our own perfection. To realize and be consciously at one with this thing that created us, that we always have within us. I mean, we always have it in its entirety. It's my belief that says, "I don't." And it seems to me that, periodically, the closer I get to the conscious awareness of my oneness with this creative power the more insane the human ego becomes. And I'm defining "ego" as the lie of separation. The lie that says I'm separate from this thing that I can never be separate from. I'm separate from me; I'm separate from you. It starts to feel really threatened, and it just becomes outrageously vicious -- at its best, [laughs] it's vicious. And so, I can just feel so twisted and turned, that I can't move; I just don't know what the hell is going on. But my experience has proven to me that when I'm feeling that way it's because I'm really knocking at the gates of heaven. You know, to use a phrase. And if I can just find some way of letting go of my fear, which usually means surrendering right into the middle of the fear -- in other words, just sitting and saying: Okay, you fucking dragons, you demons, here I am, eat me up alive, you fucking punk. Then I become aware of being at the gates of heaven. But, boy, it's not easy. [laughs] "
He fought for...something
"One of the things about football is that there is always another team you have to defeat. War is permanent. This is the central fact of the game. You want a guy who always fights because you always have to fight. Who does he have to fight? The other guy, naturally--it doesn't matter exactly who.
But in life? When you're fighting with guns and bombs? Well, it kind of matters who you're fighting; one ought to know who the enemy is--at the very least. But does anyone know whom Pat Tillman was actually fighting when he was killed? Not according to the news reports. As far as I could tell from most of the breathless paeans that appeared last weekend, the former Arizona State star died protecting our freedom from--a bunch of unidentified guys."
"One of the things about football is that there is always another team you have to defeat. War is permanent. This is the central fact of the game. You want a guy who always fights because you always have to fight. Who does he have to fight? The other guy, naturally--it doesn't matter exactly who.
But in life? When you're fighting with guns and bombs? Well, it kind of matters who you're fighting; one ought to know who the enemy is--at the very least. But does anyone know whom Pat Tillman was actually fighting when he was killed? Not according to the news reports. As far as I could tell from most of the breathless paeans that appeared last weekend, the former Arizona State star died protecting our freedom from--a bunch of unidentified guys."
Monday, April 26, 2004
Luc Sante on Nick Hornby and Geoffrey O'Brien
" The shock of the new is something they sought between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, if at all; now, however, a pop song should be like a cold beer on a hot day, with a bit of uplift worked into the transaction. Just as Hornby sets up a straw pop star--who in Eighties fashion applies heavy makeup, among other torts --when he needs a hissable villain to contrast with one of the hard-working, unaffected singer-songwriters he admires, so he crumples everything he finds emotionally or intellectually difficult into a wad and labels it with the damning adjective 'edgy.' Whatever kinds of music this advertising cliche might be applied to Hornby is content to represent it all as assaultive screeching with lyrics about murder, against which he can propose something or other by Teenage Fanclub, 'packed with sunshine and hooks and harmonies and goodwill.' So no problem, then. For that matter, he seems to think that jazz is that velveteen-textured pap you hear in commercials, and classical music is 'something that makes the room smell temporarily different, like a scented candle.' "
" The shock of the new is something they sought between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, if at all; now, however, a pop song should be like a cold beer on a hot day, with a bit of uplift worked into the transaction. Just as Hornby sets up a straw pop star--who in Eighties fashion applies heavy makeup, among other torts --when he needs a hissable villain to contrast with one of the hard-working, unaffected singer-songwriters he admires, so he crumples everything he finds emotionally or intellectually difficult into a wad and labels it with the damning adjective 'edgy.' Whatever kinds of music this advertising cliche might be applied to Hornby is content to represent it all as assaultive screeching with lyrics about murder, against which he can propose something or other by Teenage Fanclub, 'packed with sunshine and hooks and harmonies and goodwill.' So no problem, then. For that matter, he seems to think that jazz is that velveteen-textured pap you hear in commercials, and classical music is 'something that makes the room smell temporarily different, like a scented candle.' "
The Tyee: Recalling the Mounties Major Minor Legend
"When you come right down to it, there is no excuse for walking a batter," Bamberger told Boyd back in 1958. "It's accepted as normal, but it isn't normal; it's a mistake. If you throw four bad pitches, you have made four mistakes. There is no other sport where you can survive making that many mistakes."
"When you come right down to it, there is no excuse for walking a batter," Bamberger told Boyd back in 1958. "It's accepted as normal, but it isn't normal; it's a mistake. If you throw four bad pitches, you have made four mistakes. There is no other sport where you can survive making that many mistakes."
Mantis shrimp may have swiftest kick in the animal kingdom
"The high-speed video revealed other interesting aspects of the strike, including bubbles generated at the point of impact. The researchers suggest that the shrimp is taking advantage of a physical process called cavitation - the destructive effect of exploding bubbles - to break snail shells. The bubbles are created by negative pressure near the point of impact, either during the swift strike or as the heel of the appendage pulls back afterward. The popping bubbles also generate sound, and perhaps even light."
"The high-speed video revealed other interesting aspects of the strike, including bubbles generated at the point of impact. The researchers suggest that the shrimp is taking advantage of a physical process called cavitation - the destructive effect of exploding bubbles - to break snail shells. The bubbles are created by negative pressure near the point of impact, either during the swift strike or as the heel of the appendage pulls back afterward. The popping bubbles also generate sound, and perhaps even light."
documentary about Vancouver painter Attila Richard Lukacs
"Vaisbord: 'What did he do for painting?'
Sokolowski: 'I think he tried to show that Canadians could be more than people with good manners...you know, it's the school of eight thing.'
V: 'The Group of Seven?'
S: 'The Group of Seven. If I were to fault Attila and Diane (Farris), they sort of wanted to play with fire but they weren't willing to get burnt.... You just can't take loaded symbols and say, `Oh, I'm just play acting.'... You know, Saturday afternoon Sodom and Gomorrah.'"
"Vaisbord: 'What did he do for painting?'
Sokolowski: 'I think he tried to show that Canadians could be more than people with good manners...you know, it's the school of eight thing.'
V: 'The Group of Seven?'
S: 'The Group of Seven. If I were to fault Attila and Diane (Farris), they sort of wanted to play with fire but they weren't willing to get burnt.... You just can't take loaded symbols and say, `Oh, I'm just play acting.'... You know, Saturday afternoon Sodom and Gomorrah.'"
Sunday, April 25, 2004
ID card trials to start next week
"'What has anybody to worry about having their true identity known?' he said. "
"'What has anybody to worry about having their true identity known?' he said. "
Trouble for the Tories in BC?
"What was once a populist Western protest movement has revealed itself to be an old style Political Party just like the Liberals and, yes, the Conservatives. Voters who deserted the NDP a decade ago for the Reform Party are taking a look and don't like Reform's metamorphosis into Conservatives. "
"What was once a populist Western protest movement has revealed itself to be an old style Political Party just like the Liberals and, yes, the Conservatives. Voters who deserted the NDP a decade ago for the Reform Party are taking a look and don't like Reform's metamorphosis into Conservatives. "
Pantaloons on Mike Scharf's "Verite"-- " 'colloidal asphyxiates,' 'cathexes,' 'pulvery,' 'Axl Rose,' 'numbkin,' 'McKenseying,' 'fuckball,' "
blissblog
"The thing that IS offensive is the condescension to the hardcore Grime fans. They might mangle the Queen's grammar and use patois and sling slang and misspell words (deliberately, though, often), but surely it's OBVIOUS that the level of literacy in the better grime (or hip hop, or dancehall) lyrics is staggering? And therefore by implication and by definition the fans have extreme verbal skills. They're probably not bookworms (although that's just an assumption--for all I know D Double E's got library cards and overdue books all across East London) but they don't need to be--this is a post-literate literati, a voracious oral culture sucking in and chewing up stuff from across the mediascape. With a lot of these lyrics, the sheer comprehension skills needed to follow the twists, spot the allusions, and unravel the compressions, is staggering. You need skill to actually even ENJOY this stuff, the sheer linguistic sport of it. And that suggests to me that the people who are into it, the kids for whom it's their life, must be really sophisticated. When you read interviews with Dizzee and Wiley, they come across as very perceptive and insightful. What the Americans call EQ or emotional IQ, these guys score pretty high. I'd also venture that without having to read the Guardian or New Statesman or political blogs, the grime kids are probably pretty sussed in their grasp on what's fucked about the world. In that sense 'street knowledge' is as good (or better) an education as reading Fredric Jameson or some Routledge primer on late capitalism, postcolonialism etc etc. So yeah, as Matt concludes, tweak some of the words, translate a bit between jargons and idiolects, and you'll find that the bloggaz and the grimesters are speaking the same language. Gutterlectuals unite, down with middlebrow!"
"The thing that IS offensive is the condescension to the hardcore Grime fans. They might mangle the Queen's grammar and use patois and sling slang and misspell words (deliberately, though, often), but surely it's OBVIOUS that the level of literacy in the better grime (or hip hop, or dancehall) lyrics is staggering? And therefore by implication and by definition the fans have extreme verbal skills. They're probably not bookworms (although that's just an assumption--for all I know D Double E's got library cards and overdue books all across East London) but they don't need to be--this is a post-literate literati, a voracious oral culture sucking in and chewing up stuff from across the mediascape. With a lot of these lyrics, the sheer comprehension skills needed to follow the twists, spot the allusions, and unravel the compressions, is staggering. You need skill to actually even ENJOY this stuff, the sheer linguistic sport of it. And that suggests to me that the people who are into it, the kids for whom it's their life, must be really sophisticated. When you read interviews with Dizzee and Wiley, they come across as very perceptive and insightful. What the Americans call EQ or emotional IQ, these guys score pretty high. I'd also venture that without having to read the Guardian or New Statesman or political blogs, the grime kids are probably pretty sussed in their grasp on what's fucked about the world. In that sense 'street knowledge' is as good (or better) an education as reading Fredric Jameson or some Routledge primer on late capitalism, postcolonialism etc etc. So yeah, as Matt concludes, tweak some of the words, translate a bit between jargons and idiolects, and you'll find that the bloggaz and the grimesters are speaking the same language. Gutterlectuals unite, down with middlebrow!"
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Rhythms of Life: "There are two different rhythms which govern the day: the circadian drive for 'wakefulness', which reaches a peak towards midday - the best time for concentration and difficult decision-making - and the 'homeostatic drive' towards sleep. These two processes cross each other's path in the mid-afternoon, the time when sensible societies used to allow citizens to take a nap. "
Friday, April 23, 2004
The Discovery of Slowness: "Since it was first published in Germany in 1983, The Discovery of Slowness has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 15 languages. It has been named as one of German literature's twenty 'contemporary classics', and it has been adopted as a manual and manifesto by European pressure groups and institutions representing causes as diverse as sustainable development, the Protestant Church, management science, motoring policy and pacifism.
The various groups that have taken the novel up have one thing in common: a dislike of the high-speed culture of Postmodernity. Nadolny's Franklin appeals to them because he is immune to 'the compulsion to be constantly occupied', and to the idea that 'someone was better if he could do the same thing fast.' Several German churches have used him in their symposia and focus groups as an example of peacefulness, piety and self-confidence. A centre for paraplegics in Basle organises a regular Marsch der Langsamkeit (a 'march of slowness' or 'of the slow'), inspired by the novel. Nadolny has appeared as a guest speaker for RIO, a Lucerne-based organisation which aims to reconcile management principles with ideas of environmental sustainability. The novel has even become involved in the debate about speed limits on German roads. Drive down an autobahn today, and you will see large road-side signs proclaiming 'die Entdeckung der Gelassenheit' (Gelassenheit means 'tranquillity' or 'unhurriedness'), a slogan which deliberately plays off the title of the novel."
The various groups that have taken the novel up have one thing in common: a dislike of the high-speed culture of Postmodernity. Nadolny's Franklin appeals to them because he is immune to 'the compulsion to be constantly occupied', and to the idea that 'someone was better if he could do the same thing fast.' Several German churches have used him in their symposia and focus groups as an example of peacefulness, piety and self-confidence. A centre for paraplegics in Basle organises a regular Marsch der Langsamkeit (a 'march of slowness' or 'of the slow'), inspired by the novel. Nadolny has appeared as a guest speaker for RIO, a Lucerne-based organisation which aims to reconcile management principles with ideas of environmental sustainability. The novel has even become involved in the debate about speed limits on German roads. Drive down an autobahn today, and you will see large road-side signs proclaiming 'die Entdeckung der Gelassenheit' (Gelassenheit means 'tranquillity' or 'unhurriedness'), a slogan which deliberately plays off the title of the novel."
Thursday, April 22, 2004
A Donegal Hedgerow
" This website is a documentary of one year's life in a Donegal Hedgerow. Day by day, the sights I see are presented in pictures and text. The pages take the form of a diary, and all photographs are placed in date sequence. The website therefore records as many of the encounters with wildlife as I can photograph or describe."
thanks Plep
" This website is a documentary of one year's life in a Donegal Hedgerow. Day by day, the sights I see are presented in pictures and text. The pages take the form of a diary, and all photographs are placed in date sequence. The website therefore records as many of the encounters with wildlife as I can photograph or describe."
thanks Plep
if you haven't yet, do check out the new / U B U _ E D I T I O N S
"This year's titles range from the visually sophisticated Concrete poetry of Gustave Morin, a native of Windsor who spent 10 years on his 'novel' A Penny Dreadful, to an obscure volume of satirical translations of Baudelaire by the English poet Nicholas Moore, from the experiments in frame and format that Caroline Bergvall and designer Marit Meunzberg explore in their daring resetting of the poet's Eclat, to the equally daring, if entirely unscrupulous, logorrhea that is the 130 pages of another 'novel,' Name, by Toadex Hobogrammathon.
The big news this year might be the introduction of color into the pantheon of effects being used in our e-books: both Bergvall's Eclat and my own Alpha Betty's Chronicles rely heavily on it, in ways that would have been unsuitable to html and impossibly expensive to print in a book. Likewise, the volumes by Morin and Lytle Shaw - two of his uniquely low-tech Shark chapbooks - are primarily graphic works, while the titles by Craig Dworkin, Robert Fitterman and Larry Price attempt to re-conceptualize the page of an Adobe Acrobat file as a middle-space that ironizes the permanence of type (Dworkin's use of Courier fonts) or digital flow (Fitterman's box-like containers) as well as the 'writing on the wall' soixante-huitard-style (Price's poster-style typography).
Of the republications, we are happy to present the final section of Ron Silliman's The Age of Huts, The Chinese Notebook, probably the most influential of his early books outside of Kejtak, two small works by the increasingly-prized Jean Day, whose 1998 Atelos volume, The Literal World, woke so many up to her understated talents. Robert Kelly's quasi-fiction - yes, yet another 'novel' - called The Cruise of the Pnyx has long been one of my favorites of his, but has never appeared in another book, nor has the original Station Hill edition of 1979 been republished.
New writers include the playwright Madelyn Kent, whose Shufu plays - part Butoh, part Richard Maxwell-like deadpan, with a touch of Clark Coolidge -- are bound to become recognized as innovative theater, and Aaron Kunin, who is becoming known in New York and elsewhere as a writer of uncommon intelligence and tremendous technical precision. The English poet Ira Lightman drops in on the series like a lightning bolt, spreading his art in a sort of spirit of personal renaissance, while Barbara Cole's Foxy Moron - a text I see as existing somewhere between poetry and drama if only because she reads it so well in public - strikes a little lower, not so much toward "renaissance" as sexual catharsis, over and over again.
Lastly, we are especially happy to have Deanna Ferguson's long-awaited follow-up collection to her 1993 book The Relative Minor (which appears as a reprint in last year's series). Several of the poems in Rough Bush have already played parts in some of the signal poetics statements of the nineties; it's good to finally have such a stash of Ferguson's recent writings in one place.
Enjoy!
--Brian Kim Stefans "
"This year's titles range from the visually sophisticated Concrete poetry of Gustave Morin, a native of Windsor who spent 10 years on his 'novel' A Penny Dreadful, to an obscure volume of satirical translations of Baudelaire by the English poet Nicholas Moore, from the experiments in frame and format that Caroline Bergvall and designer Marit Meunzberg explore in their daring resetting of the poet's Eclat, to the equally daring, if entirely unscrupulous, logorrhea that is the 130 pages of another 'novel,' Name, by Toadex Hobogrammathon.
The big news this year might be the introduction of color into the pantheon of effects being used in our e-books: both Bergvall's Eclat and my own Alpha Betty's Chronicles rely heavily on it, in ways that would have been unsuitable to html and impossibly expensive to print in a book. Likewise, the volumes by Morin and Lytle Shaw - two of his uniquely low-tech Shark chapbooks - are primarily graphic works, while the titles by Craig Dworkin, Robert Fitterman and Larry Price attempt to re-conceptualize the page of an Adobe Acrobat file as a middle-space that ironizes the permanence of type (Dworkin's use of Courier fonts) or digital flow (Fitterman's box-like containers) as well as the 'writing on the wall' soixante-huitard-style (Price's poster-style typography).
Of the republications, we are happy to present the final section of Ron Silliman's The Age of Huts, The Chinese Notebook, probably the most influential of his early books outside of Kejtak, two small works by the increasingly-prized Jean Day, whose 1998 Atelos volume, The Literal World, woke so many up to her understated talents. Robert Kelly's quasi-fiction - yes, yet another 'novel' - called The Cruise of the Pnyx has long been one of my favorites of his, but has never appeared in another book, nor has the original Station Hill edition of 1979 been republished.
New writers include the playwright Madelyn Kent, whose Shufu plays - part Butoh, part Richard Maxwell-like deadpan, with a touch of Clark Coolidge -- are bound to become recognized as innovative theater, and Aaron Kunin, who is becoming known in New York and elsewhere as a writer of uncommon intelligence and tremendous technical precision. The English poet Ira Lightman drops in on the series like a lightning bolt, spreading his art in a sort of spirit of personal renaissance, while Barbara Cole's Foxy Moron - a text I see as existing somewhere between poetry and drama if only because she reads it so well in public - strikes a little lower, not so much toward "renaissance" as sexual catharsis, over and over again.
Lastly, we are especially happy to have Deanna Ferguson's long-awaited follow-up collection to her 1993 book The Relative Minor (which appears as a reprint in last year's series). Several of the poems in Rough Bush have already played parts in some of the signal poetics statements of the nineties; it's good to finally have such a stash of Ferguson's recent writings in one place.
Enjoy!
--Brian Kim Stefans "
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
U.S. border officials apologize to McEwan: "Danielle Sheahan, spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C., said it's 'extremely rare' for the agency to issue apologies and said McEwan's rejection has been erased from its computers. "
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
The Pentagon as Global Slumlord
By Mike Davis
The young American Marine is exultant. 'It's a sniper's dream,' he tells a Los Angeles Times reporter on the outskirts of Fallujah. 'You can go anywhere and there so many ways to fire at the enemy without him knowing where you are.'
'Sometimes a guy will go down, and I'll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies. Then I'll use a second shot.'
'To take a bad guy out,' he explains, 'is an incomparable 'adrenaline rush.'' He brags of having '24 confirmed kills' in the initial phase of the brutal U.S. onslaught against the rebel city of 300,000 people.
Faced with intransigent popular resistance that recalls the heroic Vietcong defense of Hue in 1968, the Marines have again unleashed indiscriminate terror. According to independent journalists and local medical workers, they have slaughtered at least two hundred women and children in the first two weeks of fighting. "
more... (thanks Metafilter)
By Mike Davis
The young American Marine is exultant. 'It's a sniper's dream,' he tells a Los Angeles Times reporter on the outskirts of Fallujah. 'You can go anywhere and there so many ways to fire at the enemy without him knowing where you are.'
'Sometimes a guy will go down, and I'll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies. Then I'll use a second shot.'
'To take a bad guy out,' he explains, 'is an incomparable 'adrenaline rush.'' He brags of having '24 confirmed kills' in the initial phase of the brutal U.S. onslaught against the rebel city of 300,000 people.
Faced with intransigent popular resistance that recalls the heroic Vietcong defense of Hue in 1968, the Marines have again unleashed indiscriminate terror. According to independent journalists and local medical workers, they have slaughtered at least two hundred women and children in the first two weeks of fighting. "
more... (thanks Metafilter)
Monday, April 19, 2004
Press Action: How the "Mainstream" Media Enables the Bush Administration ...: "Furthermore, by accepting government officials as the most valued of sources, journalism implicitly promotes the idea that these officials have something valuable to say.
There's a scene in a 2002 episode of The Simpsons entitled 'The Great Louse Detective' where, after discovering that Homer Simpson has in the course of the series annoyed quite a few people to the point that they want to physically harm him, Sideshow Bob remarks, 'None of this seems odd to you?' The members of the Simpson family don't see anything odd about this, because there is nothing odd about it within the context of the show.
This clever joke is an example of what does not happen in media coverage of the Bush Administration, just as it did not happen to the administrations that held power before January 20, 2001. Those who produce The Simpsons can publicly poke fun at the absurd nature of the context in which the story of the show resides. Journalists, on the other hand, if they want to keep the game going, don't have this option. If they were to make the obvious fact that Bush's comments were a mix of simplistic rhetoric and non-answers into one of the dominant discourses of the press conference, the press would effectively be saying the whole event was a sham. There goes their importance, prestige and (perhaps most importantly) ratings and sales. They can't say what actually goes on, so the charade continues."
There's a scene in a 2002 episode of The Simpsons entitled 'The Great Louse Detective' where, after discovering that Homer Simpson has in the course of the series annoyed quite a few people to the point that they want to physically harm him, Sideshow Bob remarks, 'None of this seems odd to you?' The members of the Simpson family don't see anything odd about this, because there is nothing odd about it within the context of the show.
This clever joke is an example of what does not happen in media coverage of the Bush Administration, just as it did not happen to the administrations that held power before January 20, 2001. Those who produce The Simpsons can publicly poke fun at the absurd nature of the context in which the story of the show resides. Journalists, on the other hand, if they want to keep the game going, don't have this option. If they were to make the obvious fact that Bush's comments were a mix of simplistic rhetoric and non-answers into one of the dominant discourses of the press conference, the press would effectively be saying the whole event was a sham. There goes their importance, prestige and (perhaps most importantly) ratings and sales. They can't say what actually goes on, so the charade continues."
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