"No More Mowing" by John DeMartelly, from a wonderful website devoted to Hay In Art w/ writing, incl. John Clare--

"I often roam a minute from the path
Just to luxuriate on the new mown swath
& stretch me at my idle length along
Hum louder o'er some melody or song
While passing stranger slackens in his pace
& turns to wonder what can haunt the place
Unthinking that an idle ryhmster lies
Buried in the sweet grass & feeding phantasys
This happy spirit of the joyous day
Stirs every pulse of life into the play
Of buoyant joy & extacy---I walk
& hear the very weeds to sing & talk
Of their delights as the delighted wind
Toys with them like playfellows ever kind.


 

Lest We Forget

"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."

(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)

&c &c &c...

on the streets of Kitsilano, Chris reminds us that Magnolias predate bees! Best magnolias I ever saw were in Charlotte, NC, where they let them arch and canopy over the streets...


 

"Langley 5 O'clock" from Turkey: the paintings of Don Dingwall
 

Samuel Beckett and Caspar David Friedrich, etc:---

"He would study a painting inch by inch, going back to a gallery to re-see what had enthralled him, whether it was the Pieta at the National Gallery in Dublin or Friedrich's tempestuous canvasses that mirrored Malone's turbulence in "Malone Dies". A bare tree, a moon and two figures that he had seen at an exhibition of Friedrich's in Berlin served as the first glimmer for the writing of Waiting for Godot, a work he claimed to have embarked upon to get back his sanity and away from "the awful prose" he had been writing."


 

interview with the great John Hurt--

'You have to find the character's emotion, that's what being a performer is. Looking at Richard Rich [in A Man for All Seasons], looking at Quentin, looking at whoever it might be, and trying to describe it and understand it as if it were a painting.' When was the first time he did that? Hurt lets out one of his barking laughs. 'I've never done it, never really done it. Someone once asked me, "Is there anything you regret?" and I said, "Everything!" Whatever you do, there was always a better choice.'

 

Elvis Presley In Scotland

"The date was March 3rd, 1960. The place was Prestwick Airport in Scotland..."

This was the airport where my dad worked, 68-72...
 

lots of room for institutional grade Costco relish & other groceries in the back of this stretch pickup by Laura Piasta who was on our "Saddest Song Ever" panel Thursday, playing something by Anthony & the Johnson's. I played "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic, Tim Lee played "Mind playing Tricks on Me" by the Geto Boys, Jade Blade played "Puff the Magic Dragon" by PP&M and Matthew Swayer played a song by the Televison Personalities...
 

there's still a few days to catch Stan Douglas' magnificent Inconsolable Memories at the Belkin Gallery...

 

on CBC at 2230 tonight the don't miss Don Siegel-helmed Civil War gothic shocker The Beguiled with Geraldine Page and Clint Eastwood...

another find was Ron Padgett's biography of his pal Joe Brainard which I had almost finished by the time my ferry docked--amongst much else this site links to Padgett's own...

 

found on the very fine remainder tables of UBC yesterday a nice reprint of party animal/antiquarian (and friend of Burns) Francis Grose' The Vulgar Tongue. This site also has a link to his "Antiquities of England & Wales"

 

Crop Art Gallery Lillian Colton Kirby Puckett 9" x 12" 1984

"Seeds used:timothy, grits, alsike, poppy seed, brome grass"



 

"In conjunction with the Or Gallery's ongoing exhibition "Why I'm So
Unhappy," the Music Appreciation Society presents:

The Saddest Music in the World...Ever.
Thursday March 9, 8pm

Panel discussion and listening event with:

Jade Blade
Peter Culley
Tim Lee
Laura Piasta
Mathew Sawyer

Admission $5



Or Gallery
103.480 Smithe Street
Vancouver BC V6B 5E4
T 604 683.7395
F 604 683.7302

Nice to see Dennis Haysbert up and around --after catching a bullet as President Palmer in "24"--as the true blue smiling gung-ho team leader in the David Mamet penned "Unit" on CBS, which is promisingish (if he can steer it in a "Spartan" direction) but only one real classic Mamet line, spoken by one of Haysbert's colleagues when she's told a friend's husband is "very handy" around the house--

"My husband couldn't pound sand with a plastic shovel."

farewell Glaswegian poet Ivor Cutler. All I have on CD is his very memorable cameo on Rbt. Wyatt's "Rock Bottom", should dig around in my cassette boxes...

"The earth meets the sky over the hill, I was told by a sparrow with a lump on his head."
 

farewell Kirby Puckett...

"In his retirement press conference, Puckett made a point of speaking directly to Dennis Martinez. Martinez had brutally (and unintentionally) beaned Puckett with a fastball to the face in his final at bat and as a result had been subject to the scorn of many fans. "I just want to say I love you," Puckett told him. "He didn't do it on purpose. I was hanging out over the plate cheating." "

 

JG Ballard on the book and film Empire of the Sun

"With them was a brilliant child actor, Christian Bale, who uncannily resembled my younger self. He came up to me on the set and said: "Hello, Mr Ballard. I'm you." He was followed by an attractive young couple, Emily Richard and Rupert Frazer, who added: "And we're your mum and dad.""

 

round-up of books on Wee Beasties

"At a time when our rat-sized ancestors were still cowering in the shadows of the dinosaurs it is probable that certain insects had already created cities, farms, and skyscrapers, and today their descendants have become highly sophisticated indeed."
 

Rubbercat and yr humble blogger celebrate 3000 posts with hand-delivered Krispy Kremes. Thanks Jo, Alister, Liam and my beloved readers! 

mix your own version of Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question!

"Now imagine you are Charles Ives at the mixing board. Where would you place each instrumental grouping for maximum effect? How does each combination sound different? How do you bring an eternal piece to a satisfying end?"
 

enjoyable musical Les Girls at 2100 PST on TCM tonight, made more so by the rare presence of Kay Kendall (above) with Mitzi Gaynor & Gene Kelly, directed by Cukor, songs by Porter....

(found later in "George Cukor: A Double Life" by Patrick McGilligan, a quote from Francois Truffaut in Cahiers de Cinema "To give an account of "Les Girls" is a task which by no means can be compared to that required from seventh grade pupils when made to write a theme in French on the following subject: 'You have spent Sunday in the country; the weather was fine, the sun brilliant, you picked some flowers. Describe your impressions.'")



 

"My Father Pretending to be Old Growth" by Cynthia Lahti, from disappearing zine (thx Vanessa)
 

essay on the Trailer Park Boys

"This discourse of cinematic representations of the male Canuck may appear to be no more than a bitter cup of Tim Horton's coffee, but if we roll up the rim, there may be a silver lining. This incarnation of characters can not easily be reduced to a product of our film industry's inadequacy in the face of the big American brother and its culture machine; there is something more important at work. The paradoxically engendering nature of the series lies in its militant opposition to the standards of American film and television production. Coupled with the influence of the depressing duos of historical hoserdom, is the desire to take possession of something rightfully belonging to the Canadian experience, negative or not."



 

The Hype Machine - latest from the finest mp3 music blogs!

In case you haven't seen this very good music blog roundup, with search, etc...
 

James Schuyler: Letters from Italy, Winter 1954-55, to Frank O'Hara, on Laird Cregar and Edward Gorey...

"My dear, I'm depositing your letter in a vault, so that if you are murdered in a water front hotel, the police will know who to arrest. Ted Gorey has not thought since 1948 that you would be stabbed, he's simply been planning to kill you. Why do you think he wears that Laird Craiger (Creger?) beard? And reads those flocks of unreadable detective stories? Because he thinks he's Alpha and Omega come to save the world from beauty's snare: and you, you see, are too beautiful! So swear you'll never ever see him unless accompanied by at least three stout friends..."


 

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

"Bush was the principal author, along with his straight-shooting Vice President, and now he is hoisted by his own fear-mongering propaganda. The basic hysteria was invented from risks of terrorism, enlarged ridiculously by the President's open-ended claim that we are endangered everywhere and anywhere (he decides where). Anyone who resists that proposition is a coward or, worse, a subversive. We are enticed to believe we are fighting a new cold war. But are we? People are entitled to ask. Bush picked at their emotional wounds after 9/11 and encouraged them to imagine endless versions of even-larger danger. What if someone shipped a nuke into New York Harbor? Or poured anthrax in the drinking water? OK, a lot of Americans got scared, even people who ought to know better.

So why is the fearmonger-in-chief being so casual about this Dubai business?


Because at some level of consciousness even George Bush knows the inflated fears are bogus. So do a lot of the politicians merrily throwing spears at him. He taught them how to play this game, invented the tactics and reorganized political competition as a demagogic dance of hysterical absurdities, endless opportunities to waste public money. Very few dare to challenge the mindset. Thousands have died for it..."