A Truly Lame Duck

"Mr. Bush campaigned on the idea that he is the man to handle the aftermath of 9/11. But if he could not deliver a sound bill with the Democrats, most Republicans, the entire 9/11 commission, the 9/11 families and a lot of ordinary Americans backing him up, what will happen on something actually hard?" 

US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev

"In Belgrade, Tbilisi, and now Kiev, where the authorities initially tried to cling to power, the advice was to stay cool but determined and to organise mass displays of civil disobedience, which must remain peaceful but risk provoking the regime into violent suppression.

If the events in Kiev vindicate the US in its strategies for helping other people win elections and take power from anti-democratic regimes, it is certain to try to repeat the exercise elsewhere in the post-Soviet world. "

halfway through Genesis in Robert Alter's new translation of 'The Five Books of Moses' 

new version of Raymond Roussel's New Impressions of Africa

"It took him 12 years to compose, or as he himself calculated, approximately 19,110 hours. The book was illustrated by an artist Roussel commissioned through a private-detective agency so as not to have to show him the text he was illustrating. The pictures are trapped inside uncut pages, and one of them depicts a man peering into the uncut pages of a book." 

info on Miyazaki's new film Howl's Moving Castle!!

(thanks Bookslut) 

Neko Case in The Emerald City Saturday and Sunday, also has a new live album out... 

"W Hannah Accordeonist Kirkwall 14-8-29" from Postcards of The Orkney Islands 

Carellin Brooks

"I wouldn't be able to threaten to leave anymore, that much was clear. Nothing about our happiness, which is considerable, would require regulation: it's only our unhappiness that would be legislated. "

<$Xvarenah$>

"Recoil from what natty pumpkins say. Go back into study of colors, old songs, truthful books. Past days had such wars, tyrants, and bad art. Try not to run into cars. Strong thoughts. It is gray but not cold. Icy gnashing far; dying in Iraq. Put that in your small songs. Nobody knows your faction."

Overlap

"Ave. B: doughnut holes arranged lovingly on the windshield wipers of a vintage MG."

Will digital editions become the art world's new headache?

"Once files start floating around in cyberspace, the certificate of authenticity becomes paramount. And what if that certificate gets lost? That's precisely what happened with a Dan Flavin neon-light piece recently offered at Christie's London. Estimated at roughly $83,000 to $117,000, it had to be withdrawn from the sale because the owner mislaid the certificate and Flavin's estate would not issue another." 

photographs of the Faroe Islands


via Plep 

happy birthday to the unequalled Boris Karloff--as also with Vincent Price and Poe, so much of what I think of as the Romantic tradition was transmitted to me by the performances of these men, encountered in childhood on snowy blue screens, that I can't separate them from it.  

The Rap Against Rockism

"Rockism isn't unrelated to older, more familiar prejudices - that's part of why it's so powerful, and so worth arguing about. The pop star, the disco diva, the lip-syncher, the "awesomely bad" hit maker: could it really be a coincidence that rockist complaints often pit straight white men against the rest of the world? Like the anti-disco backlash of 25 years ago, the current rockist consensus seems to reflect not just an idea of how music should be made but also an idea about who should be making it."

"Daguerre's Soup" by Marcel Broodthaers, and an interview with his cat. 

memoirs of Thomas Jones

"Two small rooms under the Stair Case, on the Ground-floor were allotted to a poor woman to live in on condition that she took care of the Portone or Great Street Door, and supply with Oil a lamp which was placed before a picture of the Virgin at the foot of the Stairs -- The first floor was inhabited by a [deletion] kind of Attorney & his wife -- On the second, lived an old Baron who had parted from his Lady Baroness, and kept an old Woman as housekeeper -- The third floor, which in Naples, is reckoned the genteelest and consequently the dearest being vacant fell to my Lot -- and which, with the exclusive Use of the Lastrica, I engaged 'till the 4th of the May following for the very moderate Sum of 20 Ducats -- From this Lastrica by which Term the flat roofs of the houses in Naples, surrounded by parapet Walls, are called; I say from this Lastrica you Commanded a view over great part of the City, with the Bay, Mountains of Sorrento & Island of Capria -- on the other Side, the Rocks, Buildings, & vineyards about Capo de Monte -- and where I spent many a happy hour in painting from Nature -- " 

Thomas Jones "Houses in Naples" at the Web Gallery of Art 

"Buildings in Naples with the North-East Side of the Castle Nuovo" 1782 Thomas Jones at the National Gallery, Cardiff 

David Mamet's guide to movie gags--

"All right, what about magnets? Cat, with magnet hidden (or, indeed, implanted) in its neck, is lured to stick its head into a funnel smeared with tuna fish. Funnel contains radio-controlled electromagnet. Two prop guys hold monofilament lines, one to ootz cat and funnel over the ledge, second to ootz it back. Electromagnet is turned off, and grateful cat removes head from funnel. In this scenario, I would shoot the cat sequence first. That is, before "establishing" the cat.

Or: set up four or five ledges, four or five different cats. Whichever cat-and-team first got the shot in the can, that cat would be the Hero Cat, and play in the rest of the film. This version, of course, would require many, many cats standing by. " 

"ornicopytheobibliopsychocrystarroscioaero-genethliometeoroaustrohieroanthropoichthyopyrosideroch-pnomyoalectryoophiobotanopegobydrorhab-docrithoaleuroalphitohalomolybdoclerobeloax-inocoscinodactyliogeolithopessopsephocatop-trotephraoneirochiroonychodactyloarithstichooxogeloscogastro-gyrocerobletonooenosapulinaniac."

The H.P. Lovecraft Archive

"If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings... It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence..."

(via Plep)  

a monkey that knows kung-fu (mpg)

thanks metafilter

Charles Pierce

"Here's what I'd like to see. The entire Democratic caucus of the House of Representatives simply refuses to go to work as long a Tom DeLay is Majority Leader. Deny a quorum. Get your best parliamentarian and tie the place in knots. Sell the hell out of the fact that the House Republicans just used the rules of the institution as a getaway car. Go to Texas and pose with Ronnie Earle. But, under no circumstance, do anything of substance until the Tiny Little Hammer is deposed. And, above all, do not listen to Bill Clinton who, I swear to God, still believes there are reasonable men among the Republicans."

Carpeted

a new e-book by Corina Copp 

10 year old Julia Mayhew's Eagle's Wing has a GEORGE W. BUSH acrostic--

Ghastly
Empty head
Obtuse and offensive
Rude rogue
Grotesque
Eliminate him!

Weapons of mass destruction not found!

Belligerant
Unjust war
Shudder to think about him!
Harmful to the entire world!

Burning Man's Piano Mover

"'And there is no one who can find me and there is no one who knows where I am,' he recalls. 'And there are 88 pianos dropped off in the desert and...a bunch of hippies who will beat them with sticks. I didn't think about my mom or my grandmother, just these 88 pianos." 

Horn Subwoofer Made in Bricks

(via Bifurcated Rivets) 

Plum Pudding

"Stone carefully one pound of the best raisins, wash and pick one pound of currants, chop very small one pound of fresh beef suet, blanch and chop small or pound two ounces of sweet almonds and one ounce of bitter ones; mix the whole well together, with one pound of sifted flour, and the same weight of crumb of bread soaked in milk, then squeezed dry and stirred with a spoon until reduced to a mash, before it is mixed with the flour. Cut in small pieces two ounces each of preserved citron, orange, and lemon-peel, and add a quarter of an ounce of mixed spice; quarter of a pound of moist sugar should be put into a basin, with eight eggs, and well beaten together with a three-pronged fork; stir this with the pudding, and make it of a proper consistence with milk. Remember that it must not be made too thin, or the fruit will sink to the bottom, but be made to the consistence of good thick batter. Two wineglassfuls of brandy should be poured over the fruit and spice, mixed together in a basin, and allowed to stand three or four hours before the pudding is made, stirring them occasionally. It must be tied in a cloth, and will take five hours of constant boiling. When done, turn it out on a dish, sift loaf-sugar over the top, and serve it with wine-sauce in a boat, and some poured round the pudding. The pudding will be of considerable size, but half the quantity of materials, used in the same proportion, will be equally good." 

Lard crisis: mince pies threatened as supplies dwindle

"There are fears of panic buying in the run-up to Christmas when it is traditionally an ingredient in mince pies and Christmas puddings." 

Bush's Guernica

"You don't liberate a country by sealing off cities and shooting at everything in sight. You don't liberate a country by killing a 100,000 citizens -- and climbing -- including men, women, children, the elderly and whole families at a time. You don't liberate a nation by looting it. You don't reduce the number of people battling you by killing more of the population as a whole, unless you plan on killing the entire country. (The question of what they are resisting is another one the media conveniently ignores. Let's try this on for size: many of them are resisting an occupying army.) " 

Niall Ferguson from September

"The lesson of British history is that a second Bush term could be more damaging to the Republicans and more beneficial to the Democrats than a Bush defeat. If he secures re-election, President Bush can be relied upon to press on with a foreign policy based on pre-emptive military force, to ignore the impending fiscal crisis (on the Cheney principle that 'deficits don't matter') and to pursue socially conservative objectives like the constitutional ban on gay marriage. Anyone who thinks this combination will serve to maintain Republican unity is dreaming; it will do the opposite. Meanwhile, the Dems will have another four years to figure out what the Labour Party finally figured out: It's the candidate, stupid. And when the 2008 Republican candidate goes head-to-head with the American Tony Blair, he will get wiped out."

We Won, You Just Don't Know It Yet

"If the Iraq adventure fails, or drags on interminably, he, and not Kerry, will suffer the ugly political fallout. And that is likely to come sooner rather than later. The Democrats will be around in 2008 to pick up the pieces. "

CNN.com - Beavers weave stolen cash into dam

" A bag of bills stolen from a casino was snapped up by beavers who wove thousands of dollars in soggy currency into the sticks and brush of their dam on a creek in eastern Louisiana." 

Welcome to Canada!

"Don't point out, either, Canada's complicity in America's global reach. To harp on the fact that Canada depends on America to buy more of its exports than anyone else, or that America's massive military has, in unseemly ways, enforced global economic arrangements that benefit Canada is to really cast a pall over a salmon barbecue party."

Comet in Moominland never too soon to start in on the Moomin books again!! (thanks Chris for the painting link) 

Jonathan Franzen on the oddly underrated Alice Munro 

this vivid contemporary account of the 1913 Nanaimo coal strike (and more) in the Socialist History Project--

"The manner in which the accused miners were brought to and from the courthouse is aptly illustrated by the following excerpt from the News-Advertiser:

They were brought up in a body, under the escort of fifty special police, and a guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets.

Martial law had not been proclaimed, yet Russia was never more militarized than was Vancouver Island. Soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets searched the trains, looked under all the seats, (presumably for machine guns) and subjected all passengers to an inquisition as to their business, etc. All persons travelling to Nanaimo by boat, had to pass an examination at the hand of special police, reinforced by a file of soldiers. It was impossible to send telephone or telegraph messages out of the city without the military knowing the text of such messages. The following excerpt explains the origin of some of the stories which afterwards appeared in the press:

Special to the News-Advertiser.

Nanaimo, Aug. 20.—Indications point to the possibility of the extension of the power of the military authorities here over the telegraph and telephone lines leading out of Nanaimo and the strike-affected district..

Already the telephone headquarters here are under guard, and all messages, especially long distance ones, are overheard by a military representative.

The telegraph lines to a certain extent are supervised, military men being stationed at the railway station here to overlook all messages received or sent.

Now, so the rumor emanating from the military headquarters indicates, the next step will be the exercising of some measure of control over the messages sent out by the newspaper representatives.

Some members of the newspaper fraternity have had the suggestion made to them that they should first submit their press copy to headquarters, where it could be looked over before being sent.

In all, 179 miners were arrested and thrown into prison where they were held, bail being refused."

Liberal Groupthink

"The dangers of aligning liberalism with higher thought are obvious. When a Duke University philosophy professor implied last February that conservatives tend toward stupidity, he confirmed the public opinion of academics as a self-regarding elite -- regardless of whether or not he was joking, as he later said that he was. When laymen scan course syllabi or search the shelves of college bookstores and find only a few volumes of traditionalist argument amid the thickets of leftist critique, they wonder whether students ever enjoy a fruitful encounter with conservative thought. When a conference panel is convened or a collection is published on a controversial subject, and all the participants and contributors stand on one side of the issue, the tendentiousness is striking to everyone except those involved. The False Consensus does its work, but has an opposite effect. Instead of uniting academics with a broader public, it isolates them as a ritualized club."

happy birthday Jo Stafford--warmest and most lucid of singers 

Random Frog Generator

Ched Myers' powerfully argued Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus

[20] And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.
[21] And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.
[22] And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
[23] And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?
[24] And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
[25] And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
[26] And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.
[27] No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.

liberation theologian and activist Ched Myers reads Mel Gibson through the Gospel of Mark--

"Mark's social criticism, though necessarily historically specific, is addressed to every culture and political formation. To limit it to late Second-Temple Judaism is not only to miss his point badly; it is to perpetuate the murderous historical legacy of misunderstanding and oppression that has too often characterized the attitude of gentile Christians (and pseudo-Christians) toward the Jewish people. The opponents of Mark's Jesus were, to use apocalyptic semantics, "powers," a rubric that embraces not only members of the Roman and Judean ruling classes then, but also those in North American now."