Careful With That Axe: Pink Floyd Reappraised

Famously, on the last night of the tour, he beckoned a fan to the front of the stage and spat in his face (though bearing in mind the reverence and docility of Floyd freaks by 1977, it's possible that this fan never washed again – if, indeed, he had any plans to in the first place). The incident is ugly enough on its own terms, but it gets worse: a shame-faced Waters used it as inspiration for The Wall, an album so revolting on every level that it might be oddly compelling, were it possible to listen for more than ten minutes at a time. The Wall is the pinnacle of Waters' conceit, not just for its unsparing inverted narcissism, but the lumbering grotesqueness of the music – like third-rate New Wave swollen to the size of a gas giant, a would-be symphony almost devoid of melodic invention. It spawned the least spontaneous live shows in history, choreographed and stage-managed, performed to a click-track to stay in sync with Gerald Scarfe's hysterical cartoons. This is the Pink Floyd most people think of when you mention their name. It's a terrible shame...

via excellent sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy

Stephen Rodefer, the MC5 & Isola di Rifiuti

Is it possible to make a bigger contrariety between, though, Edna St. Vincent Millay and John Sinclair?

new books on Lincoln

“The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar and Washington was only moonlight by the sun of Lincoln ... He was great through his simplicity and was noble through his charity.”

Welcome Back To The 1982 Depression

Never has an American president been so sneeringly contemptuous of the poor. Never has an American president so openly despised the vast majority of Americans. Ronald Reagan was stupid, dishonest and just plain mean. The heavens rejoiced when that piece of shit finally died...

Secrets of Charcuterie

By six o'clock we had prepared four jambons, over 200 boudins noirs, a similar number of saucisses, and 30 jars each of pâté and rillettes. By common agreement a glass of wine seemed well deserved – the têtes and rillons could wait until tomorrow!

Blossom Dearie on Schoolhouse Rock--YouTube - FIGURE EIGHT

farewell Blossom Dearie

YouTube - I like London in the rain

YouTube - The Good Life

YouTube - Surry With the Fringe on Top

(young Moyers with LBJ)

must watch--Bill Moyers Journal

Is the old media sustaining the old politics? News and analysis with NYU journalism professor and PressThink blogger Jay Rosen and political journalist and Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald...

my publisher New Star has also made available in pdf form the exciting & entirely original Henry Pepper by Justin Lukyn--

From a train crossing where the dispossessed "swear at the train like
they didn't have time for it, like it came to them as a great financial
loss," to the brutal economy of evacuating in alleyways where the
ground cover has been systematically pared away, the imaginary Pepper
is a ribald, mordant participant observer. The architecture of his
alleyways, from the ubiquitous telephone poles to the dumpster serial
numbers titling each poem, becomes Henry Pepper's doorway and
windowsill. Smithrite, Monica's Hair Salon, gumboots and puddles are
his daily newspaper, dishes, chairs...

Local trees

interview with Jesse & Charlie from This Ain't the Rosedale Library, one of Canada's best bookstores

Too much attention has been paid to literary prizes, which are only as good as the juries that select from the current crops. Too much attention has been paid to market research in the cultural realm. In our case we enjoy, perhaps even a little too much, the work of researching culture on our own. We go to readings, we take recommendations from customers (many of whom are writers) and, especially, we aren't afraid to look backwards at books that were published in the past but still deserve a place on our customers' shelves. When we're traveling, we check out as many bookstores, galleries and readings as we possibly can. As a natural result of our enthusiasm we are happy to billet out-of-town poets, and keep abreast with the cutting edge in the areas of film, music, and especially visual art. All this demystifies the whole idea of marketing books and brings it down to earth, turning it back into a pleasure for all involved...

found this truly awesome Totoro snowman on Monster-Munch

Giant Snake Fossils Unearthed !!!

The animal named Titanoboa cerrejonensis (the titan boa) is a predecessor of today's boa constrictor, one of the largest snakes in the world. Its ancestor had a length of 42 feet, weighed up to a ton, and lived more than 60 million years ago, after the disappearance of the dinosaurs. The snake was apparently a force to reckon with, as discoverers say that it's main course was crocodile meat, and the only way to get it was to actually go out and eat a crocodile.

Lux Interior R.I.P.

for further study ::: wood s lot ::: has coralled up a fine collection of KD links...

in the Nation, Jordan Davis on The Poetry of Kevin Davies

& responding to both the above & to Drew Gardner's review in the St. Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter, esp. their misguided efforts to enlist Davies in the army of Flarf--

Isola di Rifiuti

The colours of feathers

If a cardinal's red feather were ground into powder, the powder would be red. Grinding a green feather from the speculum of a Green-winged Teal would make yellow powder. And the feathers of a bluebird would reduce to a drab brown powder. Clearly, there is more to the color of a feather than meets the eye...

Thelonious Monk's Advice, Archived By Steve Lacy

Just because you’re not a drummer, doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.

Pat your foot and sing the melody in your head, when you play.

Stop playing all those weird notes (that bullshit), play the melody!

Make the drummer sound good.

Discrimination is important.

You’ve got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

ALL REET!

Always know….(MONK)

It must be always night, otherwise they wouldn’t need the lights.

Let’s lift the band stand!!

I want to avoid the hecklers.

Don’t play the piano part, I’m playing that. Don’t listen to me. I’m supposed to be accompanying you!

The inside of the tune (the bridge) is the part that makes the outside sound good.

Don’t
play everything (or every time); let some things go by. Some music just
imagined. What you don’t play can be more important that what you do.

A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.

Stay in shape! Sometimes a musician waits for a gig, and when it comes, he’s out of shape and can’t make it.

When you’re swinging, swing some more.

(What should we wear tonight? Sharp as possible!)

Always leave them wanting more.

Don’t
sound anybody for a gig, just be on the scene. These pieces were
written so as to have something to play and get cats interested enough
to come to rehearsal.

You’ve
got it! If you don’t want to play, tell a joke or dance, but in any
case, you got it! (To a drummer who didn’t want to solo)

Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

They tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along and spoil it...

fascinating essay on Charles Reznikoff's "Testimony", with a link to another one...

Reznikoff’s Objectivist untitled verse settings of facts taken from published court decisions were short enough to read almost anytime, and impeccably well-made: concise and powerful. That Reznikoff, after being trained as a lawyer, had gathered his facts from case reporters filled with court decisions made the poems all that more miraculous: he’d made incredible poems from the same kinds of tedious cases I was studying...

Why US Airways Pilot Chesley Sullenberger III May Be the Last of His Kind

No pilot in modern jet aviation had ever pulled off a successful water
landing. The simulators don’t even offer it as a scenario...