Banana Nutrament has mp3's of Chicago House giant Mr. Fingers beautiful "Can You Feel It (Martin Luther King Mix)" and Coltrane's "Alabama".

 

Sir, You Bastard

Sir, You Bastard, originally uploaded by Trevira.

cover of the year so far at the flickr old-timey paperback cover pool...

good article on Henry Green


"Elope," she cried delighted all of a sudden.
"Elope," he agreed grave.
She gave him a big kiss. "Why Charley", she said, seemingly more and more delighted, "that's romantic."
"It's what we're going to do whatever the name you give it," he replied.
"But don't you see that's a wonderful thing to do," she went on.
"Maybe so," he said soft into her ear, "but it's what we're doing."

This looks proper.


NYT's "Crusty Macaroni and Cheese" - omits the roux!!


""Crusty" is no exaggeration; the two cups of cheese used to top the casserole shrink-wrapped itself around the uppermost elbows. Eaten piping hot it was a little chewy and a little crispy; after the dish had cooled just a hair, the top layer had firmed to a leathery shield. The noodles below sweated fat, which collected unappealingly at the bottom of my earthenware dish. On my first attempt, I took the high road and used the all-cheddar option presented in the recipe. Bits of cheese clung clumpily to the elbows. Cheese that's not processed-and especially cheddar-needs help to achieve an ideal state of ooziness. And without the moderation of something creamy-ricotta, cr�me fraiche, or I think, ideally, white sauce-that much cooked cheddar loses some nuance and tastes a bit caustic. "


 

valedictory deep house mix from Fleep. Thanks and here is my ancient ode to house in PDF format--

http://www.sfu.ca/west-coast-line/covers/culley.pdf

It all feels like history now, grind, grind, sift.

Vancouver artist Antonia Hirsch's cleanly designed website is up--a text seen in the very early days of this blog is reprinted, amongst much else...

 

M. Tissot, who apparently had a sideline in Bible illustration (including a nice set of Minor Prophets, suitable for trading), here introduces a note of realism by having Daniel confront a bedraggled den of half-starved and toothless zoo lions...

 

fruit of "mudlark" research this interesting picture by James Tissot, 1878, the scavenging kids just inches away from the crisp linen--


"The artist has his back to the river and an undisturbed table setting of cutlery, three glasses and cruet before him on the white cloth, with part of another setting visible on the other side of the table. Through the framing open window, he looks towards a group of four top-hatted gentlemen sitting outside in the small balcony of the western bay, and children on the foreshore..."

"The view is through the table in the eastern ground-floor bay window, with a place setting in the foreground. Men sit on the balcony in positions of power in this place of leisure. However Tissot makes social distinctions by contrasting them with the young boys, showing the children, known as mudlarks, on the shore below below. They are scavenging for coal and iron and reflect Henry Mayhew's investigative report in which he starkly illustrated the pestilence and depravity of Thames culture through such mudlarks, sewer-hunters and rat-catchers."

Another one from Ben--would make a good smokehouse.

, originally uploaded by Mongibeddu.

We have a "Veasey Banks" locally...

Wintry house in Bangor, ME

, originally uploaded by Mongibeddu.

thanks Ben!

sagacious Memo to Layton--

"Currently, the New Democrats hold five B.C. seats, and it seems unlikely at this point that the party will see any of its incumbents defeated. The NDP also has a reasonable chance to pick up six ridings currently or previously won by the Conservatives - Vancouver Island North, Nanaimo-Alberni, Surrey North, Newton-North Delta, New Westminster-Coquitlam, and British Columbia Southern Interior - as well as three from the Liberals - Victoria, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and Vancouver-Kingsway.

Electoral history and current polls do not support the notion that the Liberals, who now have eight B.C. seats, are poised to make gains on January 23. Indeed, in addition to the three Liberal ridings which are vulnerable to the NDP, two more - North Vancouver and Richmond - might be within the grasp of the resurgent Tories.

The New Democrats, therefore, have a chance to 'turn the tables' on the Liberals by claiming that their party is best able to stop Stephen Harper from becoming prime minister."

Dave Simpson tracks down everyone who has ever been a member of The Fall


"Smith confessed to me that he used to fine drummers £5 each time they hit the tom-tom, and that on tour in Europe he would employ the "European phrasebook", sending guitarists to say things like "I am a flower" in German. Hanley's brother Paul, a drummer, remembers how one of Smith's favourite jokes was to "take new members abroad just so he could send them home". Another was to dismantle the band's equipment in the middle of a gig. "When you're playing five or six nights a week the group get slick," Smith said in his defence. For him, routine is "the enemy of music"."

from the new Doppelganger magazine's Big Trees in Seattle

"Hegel writes: "When we want to see an oak with all its vigour of trunk, its spreading branches, and mass of foliage, we are not satisfied to be shown an acorn instead. In the same way science, the crowning glory of a spiritual world, is not found complete in its initial stages. The beginning of the new spirit is the outcome of a widespread revolution in manifold forms of spiritual culture; it is the reward which comes after a chequered and devious course of development, and after much struggle and effort. It is a whole which, after running its course and laying bare all its content, returns again to itself ; it is the resultant abstract notion of the whole...""

 

mp3's, though probably not for long, of Laura Nyro live, Christmas 1970...


"I love my country as it dies
In war and pain before my eyes
I walk the streets where disrespect has been
The sins of politics, the politics of sin
The heartlessness that darkens my soul
On Christmas.
Red and silver on the leaves
Fallen white snow runs softly through the trees
Madonnas weep for wars of hell
They blow out the candles and haunt Noel
The missing love that rings through the work
On Christmas.
Black panther brothers bound in jail
Chicago seven and the justice scale
Homeless Indian on Manhattan Isle
All God's sons have gone to trial
And all God's love is out of style
On Christmas.
Now the time has come to fight
Laws of book of love burn bright
People you must win the day
America your dignity
For all the high court world to see
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul."


 

George Segal fans, Harold Pinter completists and 60's spy film fans should look out for the underrated 1966 Quiller Memorandum on TCM tomorrow...

 

(CR center, reading WCW on the bus in Brooklyn)

Charles Bernstein kindly informs us that
Charles Reznikoff's "Collected Poems" are back in print--


"Reznikoff's commitment, throughout his work, is to the neglected, the overlooked, the discounted, and the devalued, as exemplified by this poem (also from 1920):

Her work was to count linings---
the day's seconds in dozens. "

If you don't have it, run, don't walk, I say...

this otherwise admirable UK Follies Home Page doesn't mention the only one I've ever got to spend any time in, The Hermitage in Dunkeld, Perthshire, visited in 1992, which also has an Ossianic poet's damp hutch nearby. The Hermitage above naturally amplifies the waterfall sound from below for a quick submersion into the Sublime. The landscape/reading/picturesque connection so clear over there, whereas here you can never be sure...

'Auld Lang Syne'

'Your meeting which you so well describe with your old schoolfellow and friend was truly interesting. Out upon the ways of the world! They spoil these 'social offsprings of the hear'. Two veterans of the 'men of the world' would have met with little more heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase Auld lang syne exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet... Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians.' 

Raiding the Icebox

"First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.

Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.

Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.
At that point, it's only a matter of time before we bring these Molson-swigging, maple-mongering Zamboni drivers to their knees! Or, as the official planners wrote, stating their objective in bold capital letters: "ULTIMATELY TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL.""

Harry Callahan: Women Lost in Thought