lively Terry Castle on Claude & Marcel & Janet & Alice & Gertrude & the Babe...

new book of Leveller texts--

‘We are now engaged for our freedom. That’s the end of parliaments: not to constitute what is already established, but to act according to the just rules of government. Every person in England has as clear a right to elect his representative as the greatest person in England. I conceive that’s the undeniable maxim of government: that all government is in the free consent of the people.’

The Agreement Of The People. The Levellers' Manifesto from May 1649

:That it shall not be in their power to continue or make any Law, to deprive any person, in case of Tryals for Life, Limb, Liberty, or Estate, from the benefit of witnesses, on his, or their behalf; nor deprive any person of those priviledges, and liberties, contained in the Petition of Right, made in the third yeer of the late King Charls..."

my favorite seasonal song--Good King Wenceslas, that "deep and crisp and even" line was the first line of poetry I ever remember really responding too, the way the syllables fall like feet in the snow--

Good King Wenceslas looked out
on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about
deep and crisp and even;

Brightly shone the moon that night,
tho' the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
gath'ring winter fuel.

"Hither, page, and stand by me,
if thou knows it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"

"Sire, he lives a good league hence,
underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence
by Saint Agnes' fountain."

"Bring me flesh
and bring me wine,
bring me pine logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine,
when we bear them thither."

Page and monarch,
forth they went,
forth they went together;
Through the rude wind's wild lament
and the winter weather....

via me-fi Dylan Thomas reads A Child's Christmas in Wales

(photo from the great Denholm Elliott version, which I haven't found on the schedule this year...)

via me-fi some old time radio --The Jack Benny Show: a Santa Sack Full of Christmas Episodes & from me some non-thematic Bob and Ray...

Check The Cool Wax has lots more swank holiday stuff, including Pee-Wee clips!

Have lots of fun over the holidays dear readers!

TCM has Christmas in Connecticut at 500 pst tomorrow...

off the streets into the store, but since Junior, no more...

via Bookslut--Dickens Christmas Drinks--

"Mr Pickwick expressed a strong desire to recollect a song which he had heard in his infancy, and the attempt proving abortive, sought to stimulate his memory with more glasses of punch, which appeared to have quite a contrary effect; for, from forgetting the words of the song, he began to forget how to articulate any words at all; and finally, after rising to his legs to address the company in an eloquent speech, he fell into the barrow, and fast asleep, simultaneously."

just by chance found my long mia copy of Charlie Rich - The Complete Smash Sessions one of my all time faves--grab this while you can...

YouTube - Charlie Rich - Mohair Sam

YouTube - Charlie Rich "MOOD INDIGO"

these Photos from Brooklyn Storefront Houses Of Worship album the closest thing to a long stroll in the borough I've found on the web lately...

cool interactive Governors Island Proposals--the Mollusk!

the wonders of Piedmont Pate, Liver Mush aka Scrapple--

"Take eight pounds of scraps of pork, that will not do for sausage..."

& more respectably 101 E-Z Snacks for entertaining, from the NYT"s "minimalist"....

Theodor Adorno's essay on "The Old Curiosity Shop" at Google Books--

"Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or calling, though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets and alleys by the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very nose of the Custom House, and made appointments on “Change with men in glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the Surrey side of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called ‘Quilp’s Wharf,’ in which were a little wooden counting-house burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp’s Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship-breaker, yet to judge from these appearances he must either have been a ship-breaker on a very small scale, or have broken his ships up very small indeed. Neither did the place present any extraordinary aspect of life or activity, as its only human occupant was an amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole change of occupation was from sitting on the head of a pile and throwing stones into the mud when the tide was out, to standing with his hands in his pockets gazing listlessly on the motion and on the bustle of the river at high-water..."

the peerless Frank McHugh in "Lily Turner"--

Spencer Tracy: "Frank, dear Frank. Of all our gang, Frank was the funniest one, and the only people who saw him at his funniest were the boys down at The Players and The Lambs. He'd take those skinny little parts they gave him at Warners and make them little bits of comic genious. I saw him just a few days ago on television in the musical version of State Fair, a nothing part, and Frank made it bloom with his charm. An actor."

another reason to move to Weehawken--New Jersey officially abolishes death penalty

"Corzine said the new law 'best captures our state's highest values and reflects our best efforts to search for true justice rather than state-endorsed killing.'"

Local trees

getting ready to read "The Old Curiosity Shop" (which Walter Benjamin translated into German) found this fine essay Dickens and the Dream of Cinema by Grahame Smith

"Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him, retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in a phantasmagoria..."

Led Zep

“Kashmir” is as good an example as any of Zeppelin’s weird genius. The lumbering riff pits three guitar beats against two drumbeats, executing a Sisyphean march that cycles over and over without becoming tiresome; on the record, it is the shortest eight-and-a-half-minute song I know. Its minute-long breakdown is like one long drum sample, held together by the motion of John Bonham’s dancing right foot. (P. Diddy and Schoolly D have rapped over “Kashmir.”) The lyrics are allegedly inspired by the Sahara Desert—“the storm that leaves no trace”—and the combination of strings, guitar, and Mellotron keyboard has often been described as Middle Eastern. In concert, though, it became clear that “Middle Eastern” is just one way of capturing an implausibly big and eerie song that wanders through a spooky fog in enormous boots and could just as easily be about settling on the moon or diving to the bottom of the ocean..."

thanks CB & the photographer for these amazing images of the Nanaimo River Flood