in Seattle in 2005, my favorite DJ Theo Parrish talks & plays records...

from Edward Lear: The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World

The Four Children then entered into conversation with the Blue Bottle-Flies, who discoursed in a placid and genteel manner, though with a slightly buzzing accent, chiefly owing to the fact that they each held a small clothes-brush between their teeth which naturally occasioned a fizzy extraneous utterance.

'Why,' said Violet, 'would you kindly inform us, do you reside in bottles? and if in bottles at all, why not rather in green or purple, or indeed in yellow bottles?'

To which questions a very aged Blue-Bottle-Fly answered, 'We found the bottles here all ready to live in, that is to say, our great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers did, so we occupied them at once. And when the winter comes on, we turn the bottles upside down, and consequently rarely feel the cold at all, and you know very well that this could not be the case with bottles of any other colour than blue.'

'Of course it could not;' said Slingsby, 'but if we may take the liberty of inquiring, on what do you chiefly subsist?'

'Mainly on Oyster-patties,' said the Blue-Bottle-Fly, 'and, when these are scarce, on Raspberry vinegar and Russian leather boiled down to a jelly.'

'How delicious!' said Guy.

To which Lionel added, 'Huzz!' and all the Blue-Bottle-Flies said 'Buzz!'

At this time, an elderly Fly said it was the hour of the Evening-song to be sung; and on a signal being given all the Blue-Bottle-Flies began to buzz at once in a sumptuous and sonorous manner, the melodious and mucilaginous sounds echoing all over the waters, and resounding across the tumultuous tops of the transitory Titmice upon the intervening and verdant mountains, with a serene and sickly suavity only known to the truly virtuous. The Moon was shining slobaciously from the star-bespringled sky, while her light irrigated the smooth and shiny sides and wings and backs of the Blue-Bottle-Flies with a peculiar and trivial splendour, while all nature cheerfully responded to the cerulaean and conspicuous circumstances.

In many long-after years, the four little Travellers looked back to that evening as one of the happiest in all their lives, and it was already past midnight, when - the Sail of the Boat having been set up by the Quangle-Wangle, the Tea-kettle and Churn placed in their respective positions, and the Pussy-cat stationed at the Helm - the Children each took a last and affectionate farewell of the Blue-Bottle-Flies, who walked down in a body to the water's edge to see the Travellers embark.

As a token of parting respect and esteem, Violet made a curtsey quite down to the ground, and stuck one of her few remaining Parrot-tail feathers into the back hair of the most pleasing of the Blue-Bottle-Flies, while Slingsby, Guy, and Lionel offered them three small boxes, containing respectively, Black Pins, Dried Figs, and Epsom Salts: and thus they left that happy shore for ever...

Local trees

Blinky sitting in the empty buffet

in Portland, Oregon--Eco Baroque - Warlord Sun King

Warlord Sun King: The Genesis of Eco-Baroque is an installation being developed by Bruce Conkle and Marne Lucas and will be shown at Marylhurst University's The Art Gym in Gallery 2 from February 22 to March 25 2009

The Pursuit

There is a line of reasoning which accepts that totalitarian ideologies were shaped by apocalyptic and utopian thinking, while insisting that liberal humanism is entirely different. They - the Nazis and communists - may have been deluded and irrational; we - enlightened meliorists - have purged our minds of myth. In fact, the belief in progress in ethics and politics, which animates liberal rationalism, is itself a myth: a view of history as a process of redemption without the Christian belief in a single transforming event, but nonetheless a faith-based narrative of human salvation. It is obvious that human life can sometimes be improved. Equally, however, such gains are normally lost in the course of time. The idea that history is a process of amelioration is an article of faith, not the result of observation or reasoning.

Local & Lower Mainland trees

Explore Roald Dahl's Writing Hut

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