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..."

"I am half distracted, Captain Shandy, said Mrs. Wadman, holding up her cambric handkerchief to her left eye, as she approached the door of my Uncle Toby's sentry box; "a mote, or sand, or something, I know not what, has got into this eye of mine; do look into it," said she.
I see him yonder, with his pipe pendulous in his hand, and the ashes falling out of it, looking and looking, then rubbing his eyes and looking again, with twice the good nature that ever Galileo looked for a spot in the sun.
In vain, for, by all the powers which animate the organ, Widow Wadman's left eye shines this moment as lucid as her right; there is neither mote, nor sand, nor dust, nor chaff, nor speck, nor particle of opake matter floating on it. There is nothing, my dear paternal uncle! but one lambent, delicious fire, furtively shooting out from every part of it, in all direction, into thine. "



very much enjoyed Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story yesterday, though maybe 5% less Steve Coogan & more Shirley Henderson would have been nice, but really good withal, certainly hope it helps to create a new generation of Shandeans, who are advised to start-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------here-------------
 

a fine oak by William Turner of Oxford in a nice set from the Art& Architecture wing of the Courtald Institute...
 

THE WAR ON HYPE

"What is the effect of this? For one, it creates a domestic state of war, a creeping authoritarian ethos that affronts the openness and relaxation of a liberal society richer and healthier than nearly any in history. This state of affairs might be acceptable if the threat were greater, but because most Americans are safe, it becomes show business, a set of policeman and analysts in every state that buy equipment and hold press conferences to announce the success of drills for disasters that will probably never come. "

The Kootenay School of Writing have a big new PDF of "W" up with work by Derksen, Robertson, Wah, Luoma etc and an essay on Billy Budd (as played by Terence Stamp above) by the late Charles Watts, who taught me how to sound out some of the rhymes in CLA-rel...


 

good luck tomorrow to our ladies team against Denmark, in the meantime I'll brush up on these animated Curling Basics
 

Europe's contempt for other cultures can't be sustained

"Europe has never had to worry too much about context or effect because for around 200 years it dominated and colonised most of the world. Such was Europe's omnipotence that it never needed to take into account the sensibilities, beliefs and attitudes of those that it colonised, however sacred and sensitive they might have been. On the contrary, European countries imposed their rulers, religion, beliefs, language, racial hierarchy and customs on those to whom they were entirely alien. There is a profound hypocrisy - and deep historical ignorance - when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world. With one crucial difference, of course: the white minorities ruled the roost, whereas Europe's new ethnic minorities are marginalised, excluded and castigated, as recent events have shown..."

Seattle's Stranger has two pieces on glass artist Dale Chihuly--

"The Bridge of Glass is terrible. And I never wrote about it when I was in Tacoma because I was worried that someone would try to kill me. It has completely revolutionized downtown Tacoma, but as art it is a complete failure. It is a concrete slab with some art thown up on it. The art has nothing to do with its location. It's all recycled work. You're looking at a wall of Venetian vases, these bong-like things, and there's like 70 of them, so you end up with this kind of Baskin-Robbins mentality, like, Today I'll have that one. This is glass, outdoors, and it�s completely covered, with video camera surveillance, and air control so that no steam gets in there, because if steam gets in there you can't see the glass, but it's not outdoor work. The one piece that is outdoor work is this plastic thing that looks like giant aqua rock candy, so gift shops have been making and selling aqua rock candy as souvenirs. This is what downtown Tacoma is supposed to mean? After going through the humiliation of losing the railroad terminus to Seattle, and being the laughingstock of Puget Sound--this aqua rock candy is what represents the rebirth of Tacoma? I don't know what happened there. I think Dale just wanted to experiment with aqua rock candy looking shit, and no one talked him out of it, because no one is powerful enough to talk him out of it. Akron, Ohio, recently purchased some rock candy towers for their city from Chihuly Inc. The good thing is you can shoot them, and the bullets will just sort of glance off, the art won't break. So feel free to shoot them."