"Britney Spears, a pop star, declared
her faith in President Bush: "Honestly,"
she said, "I think we should just trust
our president in every decision that he
makes and we should just support that."
A large silo filled with human excrement
exploded in the Bronx."
--Roger D. Hodge
"Some of the Chief's readers have come through with how to contact those in charge.
First:
Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000
Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Secretary of Defense
1010 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1010
(Big thanks to Alan E. Brain)
Next, a way to send comments via the web:
http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.html#Form
(Big thanks to Virgil)"
via Chief Wiggles
"i was listening to an ex-marine turned
army staff sergeant...and an ex-abrahms
tanker turned signal puke...they described
the scene as a long stretch of road
running through the middle of a small
foreign town...fox holes and machine gun
nests littering the road way...snipers
plugged up in windows...the enemy dug in
deep...an assault by ground forces would
prove catastrophic...there were very few
options that would lead to victory over
these circumstances...
the good guys brought in the tanks...lined
them up side by side facing down the
fortified roadway...simultaneously the
tanks fired two rounds down range...the
rounds created enough of a vacuum that the
enemy soldiers were sucked from their
fortifications and into the middle of the
street...where they were gunned down from
a top the turret...or rolled over by tank
tread...
they laughed at this story...they made sound
effects...squashing and womping...and they
thought it was great...i found no humor in
this tale..."
(via Turning Tables)
Friday, September 12, 2003
One of my favorite Johnny Cash songs:
"ONE PIECE AT A TIME
(Written by W. Kemp)
Well, I left Kentucky back in '49
An' went to Detroit workin' on a 'sembly line
The first year they had me puttin' wheels on cadil- lacs
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
CHORUS
I'd get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive ever'body wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is a-round.
So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now I never considered myself a thief
But GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.
The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an' bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home.
Now up to now my plan went allright
'Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a '53
And the motor turned out to be a '73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an A-daptor kit
We had that engine runnin' just like a song
Now the headlight' was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on.
The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got thru
Well, that's when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."
So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear ever'body laughin' for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.
CHORUS
I got it one piece at a time
And it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive ever'body wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.
(Spoken) Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PYSCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it's cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it
Well, It's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56
'57, '58' 59' Automo-bile
(Fade) It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67
'68, '69, '70 Automo-bile."
[A traditional American value is Anarchy.]
Molly Ivins is mad. (Sept 9)
"ONE PIECE AT A TIME
(Written by W. Kemp)
Well, I left Kentucky back in '49
An' went to Detroit workin' on a 'sembly line
The first year they had me puttin' wheels on cadil- lacs
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
CHORUS
I'd get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive ever'body wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is a-round.
So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now I never considered myself a thief
But GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.
The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an' bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home.
Now up to now my plan went allright
'Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a '53
And the motor turned out to be a '73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an A-daptor kit
We had that engine runnin' just like a song
Now the headlight' was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on.
The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got thru
Well, that's when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."
So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear ever'body laughin' for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.
CHORUS
I got it one piece at a time
And it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive ever'body wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.
(Spoken) Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PYSCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it's cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it
Well, It's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56
'57, '58' 59' Automo-bile
(Fade) It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67
'68, '69, '70 Automo-bile."
[A traditional American value is Anarchy.]
Molly Ivins is mad. (Sept 9)
Oh well, i can dream, can't i?
"Though ticks must have some language
that they communicate amongst themselves,
they surely have no word for fate." --Jack
Stephens, Triangulation
Imagine if artists never finished their
own works; if everything had to be done
by collaboration...
"Rilke, when he realized what his work was
telling him, interrupted his writing of
poetry, and spent months watching animals
in the zoo, and blind men on the streets,
and years alone. He began to ask less of
life, not more." --Robert Bly, A Little
Book on the Human Shadow (1988)
My sense of play & of the sacred, largely
coincide. This is due to the nature of my
shadow (ESFP). Perhaps fo that reason i
cannot enter into someone else's sense of
the sacred; & my external view falsifies
theirs as much as they would, mine.
"At the turn of the century there may have
been only two dozen men who deserved the
Grandmaster title, so we remember them as
titans. Today there are about 300 GMs, so
all but the very best tend to be obscured
by the pack." --Andy Soltis in Chess
Life 5/90
Where Wittgenstein failed to destroy
Metaphysics, Shirley MacLaine succeeded.
"Women are half of the world's adult
population; they comprise one-third of the
paid labor force, and they actually perform
two-thirds of the world's working hours. For
this, they earn one-tenth of the world's
income, but they own only 1 percent of the
world's property." --from Leavenworth
Jackson's rubberstamp catalog
When Noriega was photographed holding his
jail booking placard, over 12,000 Miamians
bet that number in the next state lottery.
"Though ticks must have some language
that they communicate amongst themselves,
they surely have no word for fate." --Jack
Stephens, Triangulation
Imagine if artists never finished their
own works; if everything had to be done
by collaboration...
"Rilke, when he realized what his work was
telling him, interrupted his writing of
poetry, and spent months watching animals
in the zoo, and blind men on the streets,
and years alone. He began to ask less of
life, not more." --Robert Bly, A Little
Book on the Human Shadow (1988)
My sense of play & of the sacred, largely
coincide. This is due to the nature of my
shadow (ESFP). Perhaps fo that reason i
cannot enter into someone else's sense of
the sacred; & my external view falsifies
theirs as much as they would, mine.
"At the turn of the century there may have
been only two dozen men who deserved the
Grandmaster title, so we remember them as
titans. Today there are about 300 GMs, so
all but the very best tend to be obscured
by the pack." --Andy Soltis in Chess
Life 5/90
Where Wittgenstein failed to destroy
Metaphysics, Shirley MacLaine succeeded.
"Women are half of the world's adult
population; they comprise one-third of the
paid labor force, and they actually perform
two-thirds of the world's working hours. For
this, they earn one-tenth of the world's
income, but they own only 1 percent of the
world's property." --from Leavenworth
Jackson's rubberstamp catalog
When Noriega was photographed holding his
jail booking placard, over 12,000 Miamians
bet that number in the next state lottery.
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Listening to: "Gem Tones" by Kadri Gopalnath.
--South Indian saxophone!
"The smouldering sweetness of a dead red rose" --Riley
Another library booksale. Nothing excites me like
the prospect of getting good books for next to nothing
--yet i still feel as if i've been, also, assisting at the
sack of Rome.
'We avenge death with the sacrifice of ourselves' --Adonis
If Art only has meaning in relation to a tribe, what
do deracinated artists create for? Tribe-simulations:
such as, all the artists that came before--or their imaginary
audience to be.
"I am not worried that poems reach relatively few
people. As it is, they go surprisingly far--among strangers,
around the world, even. Farther than the words of a
classroom teacher or the prescriptions of a doctor; if they
are very lucky, farther than a lifetime." --Sylvia Plath
Somebody's written a book to rehabilitate Caligula.
[Later note: Vlad the Impaler, also!]
"They pay no attention at all but wander
freely in and out of danger like sanderlings
feeding on the edge of the ocean as the tide
changes, chasing after each wave as it recedes,
racing before as the wave rushes back." --Marge Piercy
Ideas have no power; indeed, people's receptivity
to ideas depends much on their power-relations. But
ideas are used as the coin of prestige (--not
the only one), & thus a whole mythology has grown
around ideas associated with prestigious names.
--Which is an unintellectual attitude toward the things
of the mind.
Short stories are to novels what watercolor is to oil
painting--by far the more difficult medium.
'I would say that the State consists in the codification
of a whole number of power relations which render
its functioning possible, and that Revolution is a
different type of codification of the same relations.
This implies that there are many different kinds of
revolution...' --Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge
(interviews)
Surely it was a lover that invented Ghosts.
--South Indian saxophone!
"The smouldering sweetness of a dead red rose" --Riley
Another library booksale. Nothing excites me like
the prospect of getting good books for next to nothing
--yet i still feel as if i've been, also, assisting at the
sack of Rome.
'We avenge death with the sacrifice of ourselves' --Adonis
If Art only has meaning in relation to a tribe, what
do deracinated artists create for? Tribe-simulations:
such as, all the artists that came before--or their imaginary
audience to be.
"I am not worried that poems reach relatively few
people. As it is, they go surprisingly far--among strangers,
around the world, even. Farther than the words of a
classroom teacher or the prescriptions of a doctor; if they
are very lucky, farther than a lifetime." --Sylvia Plath
Somebody's written a book to rehabilitate Caligula.
[Later note: Vlad the Impaler, also!]
"They pay no attention at all but wander
freely in and out of danger like sanderlings
feeding on the edge of the ocean as the tide
changes, chasing after each wave as it recedes,
racing before as the wave rushes back." --Marge Piercy
Ideas have no power; indeed, people's receptivity
to ideas depends much on their power-relations. But
ideas are used as the coin of prestige (--not
the only one), & thus a whole mythology has grown
around ideas associated with prestigious names.
--Which is an unintellectual attitude toward the things
of the mind.
Short stories are to novels what watercolor is to oil
painting--by far the more difficult medium.
'I would say that the State consists in the codification
of a whole number of power relations which render
its functioning possible, and that Revolution is a
different type of codification of the same relations.
This implies that there are many different kinds of
revolution...' --Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge
(interviews)
Surely it was a lover that invented Ghosts.
"Poem"
A bone fragment yields
In the lab, the ghost of a name.
The days temper their heat.
I continue to meet detours.
A soldier a day dies;
Victorious, all.
The skies darken predictably.
Someone defaces my bumper sticker.
Halliburton cashes in.
The days temper their heat.
I continue to meet detours,
And the new road still is not done.
09 08/11 03
A bone fragment yields
In the lab, the ghost of a name.
The days temper their heat.
I continue to meet detours.
A soldier a day dies;
Victorious, all.
The skies darken predictably.
Someone defaces my bumper sticker.
Halliburton cashes in.
The days temper their heat.
I continue to meet detours,
And the new road still is not done.
09 08/11 03
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Sketch for a story. The vertical Wall that is the artificial
world everyone lives on, is gradually falling over. Only
a few can actually feel it move; these are said to suffer
from a mental illness called World-Vertigo. When some-
thing slides off, seemingly of its own accord, because
the infinitesimal shifting of the Wall has nudged it into
instability, that catastrophe is attributed to Demons,
& no connection is ever made with the purely subjective
malady of vertigo... [Note: K W Jeter wrote of a
"vertical world" in Farewell Horizontal.]
"Berryman had no further dealings with Time
until 1968, when he was commissioned to write a poem
about the Apollo spacecraft. At that time, Berryman
sat in front of his television and wrote an 18-line poem,
'Apollo 8', in Dream Song style. Although Time
paid him several hundred dollars, the poem was not
printed." --The Life of John Berryman (by Harrenden)
Movies in which the necessity of work does not exist.
Movies in which poverty does not exist. Movies without
the consequences of inertia. Movies without books.
Movies without people who are familiar with what tends
to happen in movies.
If movies were poetry every movie
would have a screenwriter as protagonist & the whole
action would take place in one room.
A song by Mark Chesnutt: "My heart's too broke to pay
attention".
"Sed uos littoribus primis ne insistite: dudum
Vltra fata uocant." ("But don't stop at the first shores you
reach; for some time destiny has been calling you further
on.') --Girolamo Fracastoro, Syphilis (1530)
world everyone lives on, is gradually falling over. Only
a few can actually feel it move; these are said to suffer
from a mental illness called World-Vertigo. When some-
thing slides off, seemingly of its own accord, because
the infinitesimal shifting of the Wall has nudged it into
instability, that catastrophe is attributed to Demons,
& no connection is ever made with the purely subjective
malady of vertigo... [Note: K W Jeter wrote of a
"vertical world" in Farewell Horizontal.]
"Berryman had no further dealings with Time
until 1968, when he was commissioned to write a poem
about the Apollo spacecraft. At that time, Berryman
sat in front of his television and wrote an 18-line poem,
'Apollo 8', in Dream Song style. Although Time
paid him several hundred dollars, the poem was not
printed." --The Life of John Berryman (by Harrenden)
Movies in which the necessity of work does not exist.
Movies in which poverty does not exist. Movies without
the consequences of inertia. Movies without books.
Movies without people who are familiar with what tends
to happen in movies.
If movies were poetry every movie
would have a screenwriter as protagonist & the whole
action would take place in one room.
A song by Mark Chesnutt: "My heart's too broke to pay
attention".
"Sed uos littoribus primis ne insistite: dudum
Vltra fata uocant." ("But don't stop at the first shores you
reach; for some time destiny has been calling you further
on.') --Girolamo Fracastoro, Syphilis (1530)
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
"Triumph of the Will" is a hypnotic, ultimately
wearying montage of parades & flags, flags
& parades, made about as abstractly
beautiful as any such spectacle could be.
Even though nothing is vouchsafed of the
purpose of this vast antlike machine,
it is impossible for anyone schooled in
artistic individualism not to feel the crushing
weight of its threat; the best that can be
said for the movie's maker, is that records
of rare natural cataclysms of a similar
order, would come to be seen as invaluable
information. As a cautionary tale it is
incomplete: no hint of the final Götter-
dämmerung, either, could be inferred from
these purely triumphal images. I count it
an artistic lapse that Riefenstahl could not
or would not show us the rest of the
picture--though there are snapshots
aplenty of piles of corpses, all too
familiar today, to supply the deficit
--if you look for them.
Unfortunately, there are
still a lot of people who seem not to
need to look for them. And
worse than presenting a half-truth
as the whole truth, they do not
scruple to make it as difficult as
possible for some braver camera
person to finish the job. I count
that a graver portion of guilt, than
what is due to Leni Riefenstahl.
wearying montage of parades & flags, flags
& parades, made about as abstractly
beautiful as any such spectacle could be.
Even though nothing is vouchsafed of the
purpose of this vast antlike machine,
it is impossible for anyone schooled in
artistic individualism not to feel the crushing
weight of its threat; the best that can be
said for the movie's maker, is that records
of rare natural cataclysms of a similar
order, would come to be seen as invaluable
information. As a cautionary tale it is
incomplete: no hint of the final Götter-
dämmerung, either, could be inferred from
these purely triumphal images. I count it
an artistic lapse that Riefenstahl could not
or would not show us the rest of the
picture--though there are snapshots
aplenty of piles of corpses, all too
familiar today, to supply the deficit
--if you look for them.
Unfortunately, there are
still a lot of people who seem not to
need to look for them. And
worse than presenting a half-truth
as the whole truth, they do not
scruple to make it as difficult as
possible for some braver camera
person to finish the job. I count
that a graver portion of guilt, than
what is due to Leni Riefenstahl.
At A--- S---'s opening we got to talking about her
former nextdoor neighbor, a young man who'd
"snorted $20,000 worth of coke in one summer",
went mad & had to be locked up (after an indecent
delay). The house is now torn down, but she said
they sneaked in after he was gone & found one whole
room full of dead squirrels laid out in neat rows...
"My hunger is given to me to understand with, not
to understand." --Robert Kelly, Transparent Tree
I was thrilled to discover a simple progression of
fractions converging on the square root of 2, & can now
add to the sum of my knowledge the curious & rare
intelligence that (114243 divided by 80782) squared
on my calculator (9 decimal places) comes out to just
2. Ah, numbers... "a world where there doesn't have
to be justice."
To make my hobby try to be also, my therapy, my
justification, & my livelihood--is asking too much--how
much more generous would artists be toward each
other, if they could just let go of that mocked garland.
Art is the cultural sanction we seek for what we'd be
doing anyway.
Source. Our nonverbal awareness is essentially
animal-like. Therefore it is worth considering that our
"Unconscious" is unique to us as "Language"; somehow
they're the same process; the connecting link is Ego.
As-if Me. As-if Not-Me. But it is nonverbal awareness,
not the unconscious, that is our true source. Religions
based on Trance, religions based on "Stance" (attitude,
dogma, form)...we need a religion based on Dance.
Salam Pax has a book out!
Promo page.
former nextdoor neighbor, a young man who'd
"snorted $20,000 worth of coke in one summer",
went mad & had to be locked up (after an indecent
delay). The house is now torn down, but she said
they sneaked in after he was gone & found one whole
room full of dead squirrels laid out in neat rows...
"My hunger is given to me to understand with, not
to understand." --Robert Kelly, Transparent Tree
I was thrilled to discover a simple progression of
fractions converging on the square root of 2, & can now
add to the sum of my knowledge the curious & rare
intelligence that (114243 divided by 80782) squared
on my calculator (9 decimal places) comes out to just
2. Ah, numbers... "a world where there doesn't have
to be justice."
To make my hobby try to be also, my therapy, my
justification, & my livelihood--is asking too much--how
much more generous would artists be toward each
other, if they could just let go of that mocked garland.
Art is the cultural sanction we seek for what we'd be
doing anyway.
Source. Our nonverbal awareness is essentially
animal-like. Therefore it is worth considering that our
"Unconscious" is unique to us as "Language"; somehow
they're the same process; the connecting link is Ego.
As-if Me. As-if Not-Me. But it is nonverbal awareness,
not the unconscious, that is our true source. Religions
based on Trance, religions based on "Stance" (attitude,
dogma, form)...we need a religion based on Dance.
Salam Pax has a book out!
Promo page.
Monday, September 08, 2003
'I guide without a scripture; I point the way by unseen
means unto my friends and such as observe the precepts
of my teaching, which is not grievous, and is adapted
to the time and conditions.' --from Kitab el-Jilwa
(The Book of Divine Effulgence of the Yezidis) tr Anis
Frayha
A tattoo is a talisman.
"The monster is the root-stock of specification." --Ketjak
To answer my dream, i danced.
Each poetics, like the rules of chess: beyond justification or
argument. And the chaos after playing a game, when for
a moment the rules suspend, & you change sides & set
the pieces up reversed, this is something a poem should
contain as well!
When i say Love, i mean--a perception which changes your
life...feelings are tidal, they come & go; but Love is a Rubicon,
a typhoon which erases every trace of the former shoreline,
so you couldn't figure out where to replace everything if
you wanted to.
"But it is always something we look on as evil in ourselves
that forces us toward wholeness." --Robert A Johnson, We
(1983)
Strange diverted channels of pride...Refusing to use handholds
while standing on the bus. All through high school i never
used a bookmark; i simply fixed in my mind the number of the
page where i'd left off reading.
means unto my friends and such as observe the precepts
of my teaching, which is not grievous, and is adapted
to the time and conditions.' --from Kitab el-Jilwa
(The Book of Divine Effulgence of the Yezidis) tr Anis
Frayha
A tattoo is a talisman.
"The monster is the root-stock of specification." --Ketjak
To answer my dream, i danced.
Each poetics, like the rules of chess: beyond justification or
argument. And the chaos after playing a game, when for
a moment the rules suspend, & you change sides & set
the pieces up reversed, this is something a poem should
contain as well!
When i say Love, i mean--a perception which changes your
life...feelings are tidal, they come & go; but Love is a Rubicon,
a typhoon which erases every trace of the former shoreline,
so you couldn't figure out where to replace everything if
you wanted to.
"But it is always something we look on as evil in ourselves
that forces us toward wholeness." --Robert A Johnson, We
(1983)
Strange diverted channels of pride...Refusing to use handholds
while standing on the bus. All through high school i never
used a bookmark; i simply fixed in my mind the number of the
page where i'd left off reading.
I'm beginning to think Brian Stefans's "Coda: The
Nineties Tried Your Game, There's Nothing In It"
must be the first great poem of the 21c. (or
second, if you count Eminem's duet with Dido).
It's not of the first water, but something i can
return to again & again with pleasure.
A small article on The Anathemata, with
a link to an Auden essay. (via Language Hat)
Nineties Tried Your Game, There's Nothing In It"
must be the first great poem of the 21c. (or
second, if you count Eminem's duet with Dido).
It's not of the first water, but something i can
return to again & again with pleasure.
A small article on The Anathemata, with
a link to an Auden essay. (via Language Hat)
"Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Roland was a warrior
from the Land of the Midnight Sun
With a Thompson gun for hire,
fighting to be done
The deal was made in Denmark
on a dark and stormy day
So he set out for Biafra
to join the bloody fray
Through sixty-six and seven
they fought the Congo war
Fingers on their triggers,
knee-deep in gore
For days and nights they battled
the Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living
and to help out the Congolese
Roland the Thompson gunner...
His comrades fought beside him -
Van Owen and the rest
But of all the Thompson gunners
Roland was the best
So the CIA decided
they wanted Roland dead
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen
blew off Roland's head
Roland the headless Thompson gunner (Time, time, time
For another peaceful war
Norway's bravest son
But time stands still for Roland
'Til he evens up the score)
They can still see his headless body
stalking through the night
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun
Roland searched the continent
for the man who'd done him in
He found him in Mombassa
in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun -
he didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body
from there to Johannesburg
Roland the headless Thompson gunner...
The eternal Thompson gunner,
still wandering through the night
Now it's ten years later
but he still keeps up the fight
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley
Patty Hearst
heard the burst
of Roland's Thompson gun
And bought it"
--Warren Zevon
Listening to: Ancient Voices of Children
Roland was a warrior
from the Land of the Midnight Sun
With a Thompson gun for hire,
fighting to be done
The deal was made in Denmark
on a dark and stormy day
So he set out for Biafra
to join the bloody fray
Through sixty-six and seven
they fought the Congo war
Fingers on their triggers,
knee-deep in gore
For days and nights they battled
the Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living
and to help out the Congolese
Roland the Thompson gunner...
His comrades fought beside him -
Van Owen and the rest
But of all the Thompson gunners
Roland was the best
So the CIA decided
they wanted Roland dead
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen
blew off Roland's head
Roland the headless Thompson gunner (Time, time, time
For another peaceful war
Norway's bravest son
But time stands still for Roland
'Til he evens up the score)
They can still see his headless body
stalking through the night
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun
Roland searched the continent
for the man who'd done him in
He found him in Mombassa
in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun -
he didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body
from there to Johannesburg
Roland the headless Thompson gunner...
The eternal Thompson gunner,
still wandering through the night
Now it's ten years later
but he still keeps up the fight
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley
Patty Hearst
heard the burst
of Roland's Thompson gun
And bought it"
--Warren Zevon
Listening to: Ancient Voices of Children
Sunday, September 07, 2003
"Hills of Home
Name me no name for my disease,
With uninforming breath;
I tell you I am none of these,
But homesick unto death--
Homesick for hills that I had known,
For brooks that I had crossed,
Before I met this flesh and bone
And followed and was lost...
And though they break my heart at last,
Yet name no name of ills.
Say only, 'Here is where he passed,
Seeking again those hills.' "
--Witter Bynner, Oxford Book of American
Verse (1927)
Name me no name for my disease,
With uninforming breath;
I tell you I am none of these,
But homesick unto death--
Homesick for hills that I had known,
For brooks that I had crossed,
Before I met this flesh and bone
And followed and was lost...
And though they break my heart at last,
Yet name no name of ills.
Say only, 'Here is where he passed,
Seeking again those hills.' "
--Witter Bynner, Oxford Book of American
Verse (1927)
Saturday, September 06, 2003
In spite of all the regularity of my habits, i cannot
become rooted in this world. I will always find it
a shock to step outside, a bewilderment to rise,
a lostness to be among people. And i think by
now it has nothing to do with being loved, or not
being loved.
' "the sun that shows itself is not the real sun. '
--Dennis Tedlock's tr of the Popol Vuh
I heard plaster crumbling from the hole above
the door (paper on the carpet amplifies every
bit that falls) & this time, unlike when i hear
it in the night, i was able to see what makes
that sound. It was a four inch roach.
become rooted in this world. I will always find it
a shock to step outside, a bewilderment to rise,
a lostness to be among people. And i think by
now it has nothing to do with being loved, or not
being loved.
' "the sun that shows itself is not the real sun. '
--Dennis Tedlock's tr of the Popol Vuh
I heard plaster crumbling from the hole above
the door (paper on the carpet amplifies every
bit that falls) & this time, unlike when i hear
it in the night, i was able to see what makes
that sound. It was a four inch roach.
Friday, September 05, 2003
I always wanted to write a novel with
palindromic dialogue. [There's a character
in Bruce Sterling's Zeitgeist who speaks
only in palindromes.]
Maybe the Dems needed to be
completely humiliated in order to rediscover
their deepest gumption--but the harm caused
by this belatedness will last for, literally,
generations.
The movies are less like our literature, than our
equivalent of the old oral-epic cycles: where
certain fixed epithets & tropes & the same
handful of characters are endlessly recycled.
The only originality is in the accent in
which these familiar things are newly presented.
We went to a hidden-away concrete burnt-out
shell of a neo-classical small mansion in South
dallas. Turn of the century; sometime crash-pad;
i found a broken piece of plastic that said "Promise"
--a broken promise.
I answered a Serbo-Croatian
mail art with another of the same: "Srpskohrvatski
je tvrdjezik." ('Serbo-Croatian is a hard language.')
"Around our cars graze leisurely the fawns."
--Monier-Williams's tr. of Sakoontala
I can't stand to read poems that are nothing
but a display of sensibility--it gives me
the same feeling as a blank message left on
my answering machine.
"Modern Russians are constantly amazed that
so few Westerners have heard of E. L. Voynich,
the great English novelist." --Gridgeman in
Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games
A poet who writes like his speaking is like
a chess player who only plays against a home
computer.
Fast reading & slow reading is how i solve the
problem of defining prose & poetry. In an
ideal world the former would not exist. If
you wanted to find out something you would go
to a person who knew about it, & stay till you
really understood. And if you wanted words
you would go to poetry.
To be a poet & to be a word-
(& phrase; & book-) hound, is not necessarily
the same thing. And poets who are poets because
they love language may actually be in the
minority at all times, & have more in common
with crossword puzzlers & collectors of old books,
than with people who want to stand up in front
of a crowd & be heard, or who want their name in
histories after they're dead.
palindromic dialogue. [There's a character
in Bruce Sterling's Zeitgeist who speaks
only in palindromes.]
Maybe the Dems needed to be
completely humiliated in order to rediscover
their deepest gumption--but the harm caused
by this belatedness will last for, literally,
generations.
The movies are less like our literature, than our
equivalent of the old oral-epic cycles: where
certain fixed epithets & tropes & the same
handful of characters are endlessly recycled.
The only originality is in the accent in
which these familiar things are newly presented.
We went to a hidden-away concrete burnt-out
shell of a neo-classical small mansion in South
dallas. Turn of the century; sometime crash-pad;
i found a broken piece of plastic that said "Promise"
--a broken promise.
I answered a Serbo-Croatian
mail art with another of the same: "Srpskohrvatski
je tvrdjezik." ('Serbo-Croatian is a hard language.')
"Around our cars graze leisurely the fawns."
--Monier-Williams's tr. of Sakoontala
I can't stand to read poems that are nothing
but a display of sensibility--it gives me
the same feeling as a blank message left on
my answering machine.
"Modern Russians are constantly amazed that
so few Westerners have heard of E. L. Voynich,
the great English novelist." --Gridgeman in
Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games
A poet who writes like his speaking is like
a chess player who only plays against a home
computer.
Fast reading & slow reading is how i solve the
problem of defining prose & poetry. In an
ideal world the former would not exist. If
you wanted to find out something you would go
to a person who knew about it, & stay till you
really understood. And if you wanted words
you would go to poetry.
To be a poet & to be a word-
(& phrase; & book-) hound, is not necessarily
the same thing. And poets who are poets because
they love language may actually be in the
minority at all times, & have more in common
with crossword puzzlers & collectors of old books,
than with people who want to stand up in front
of a crowd & be heard, or who want their name in
histories after they're dead.
[the Silver Age] "The individual, prohibited from
developing his external life, retired more and
more into himself... The majority, however, became
blasé, soured and morbid... Forced carefully to
hide nature, men relapsed into artificial and
unnatural ways. ...a certain vanity attaches to
all the characters of the age in question, and
this was fed by the public declamations... The
uncertainty of existence and possession, the
continual apprehension in which men lived, caused
a restless versatility, a morbid irritability and
hurry, which was always afraid of beginning too
late and eagerly made the most of the moment.
...simple and natural composition was considered
insipid; the aim of language was to be brilliant,
piquant, and interesting. Hence it was dressed up
with abundant tinsel of epigrams, rhetorical
figures, and poetical turns, and indulged in all
manner of borrowed phrases and allusions....
Mannerism supplanted style, and bombastic pathos
took the place of quiet power. ...on the whole,
literature lost the sympathy of the nation at
large; most Emperors even intentionally widened
the chasm between the educated class and the
populace..." --Teuffel (1900)
developing his external life, retired more and
more into himself... The majority, however, became
blasé, soured and morbid... Forced carefully to
hide nature, men relapsed into artificial and
unnatural ways. ...a certain vanity attaches to
all the characters of the age in question, and
this was fed by the public declamations... The
uncertainty of existence and possession, the
continual apprehension in which men lived, caused
a restless versatility, a morbid irritability and
hurry, which was always afraid of beginning too
late and eagerly made the most of the moment.
...simple and natural composition was considered
insipid; the aim of language was to be brilliant,
piquant, and interesting. Hence it was dressed up
with abundant tinsel of epigrams, rhetorical
figures, and poetical turns, and indulged in all
manner of borrowed phrases and allusions....
Mannerism supplanted style, and bombastic pathos
took the place of quiet power. ...on the whole,
literature lost the sympathy of the nation at
large; most Emperors even intentionally widened
the chasm between the educated class and the
populace..." --Teuffel (1900)
Thursday, September 04, 2003
The Price of Repeated Transformations Is a
Zigzag Course & Spells of Confusion.
"At Netanya 1968 Bobby and the Dutch player
Hans Ree discussed the story of how Wilhelm
Steinitz reputedly claimed in his sad, final
days that he could give odds of pawn and move
to God. Fischer said no one could give odds
to the Almighty. Then, according to Ree's
account in a Dutch book, Fischer began to
speculate out loud: 'But with White I should
be able to draw against Him. I play 1.P-K4
and if we have a Ruy, the position would be
balanced, I could never lose.' Fischer became
concerned about what would happen if his
opponent replied 1...P-QB4 and got into an
open variation of the Sicilian. 'No, no,
then I play B-QB4 and I'm better,' he
concluded. 'So, what can He do?' " --July
'88 Chess Life
Zigzag Course & Spells of Confusion.
"At Netanya 1968 Bobby and the Dutch player
Hans Ree discussed the story of how Wilhelm
Steinitz reputedly claimed in his sad, final
days that he could give odds of pawn and move
to God. Fischer said no one could give odds
to the Almighty. Then, according to Ree's
account in a Dutch book, Fischer began to
speculate out loud: 'But with White I should
be able to draw against Him. I play 1.P-K4
and if we have a Ruy, the position would be
balanced, I could never lose.' Fischer became
concerned about what would happen if his
opponent replied 1...P-QB4 and got into an
open variation of the Sicilian. 'No, no,
then I play B-QB4 and I'm better,' he
concluded. 'So, what can He do?' " --July
'88 Chess Life
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
"My life was now so hopeless that I wrote a book."
--Edward Dahlberg, Because I was Flesh
One who has ceased to share the illusions of a
group, is farther removed from them than if
he had died & come back to life. So it is with
me & artists.
The truth in alienation is the losing of the
illusion of homogeneity.
Dostoevski on wheels is unthinkable. --A clue.
Not having to drive is the luxury, instead of
having a car.
I drop in my tracks each night like a drugged
rhinoceros.
The Soviet-American hotline was once
accidentally cut by a Finnish farmer plowing his
field.
We need a word for words that have 16 different
definitions--before we can get anywhere.
Boarding the bus: their anxiety that the system
won't work, anymore than it ever has worked for
them. Versus the truth of those who fly.
I hate injustice, but i don't love justice.
"...as his [Goethe's] first romance he devised
six brothers, each of whom 'wrote' chapters
in a different language. Goethe thereby perfecting
himself in German, English, French, Italian, Latin,
and Judaeo-German (Yiddish)..." --Walter Blumenthal,
Bookmen's Bedlam (1955)
Love, the Daedalus of paradoxes.
I am more certain than ever it is wrong to write
poems just because you think they should be
written. But this is the whole game nowadays.
How rude, then, for me to say: No poetry is
serious poetry unless its aim is to inspire awe.
"I want to be a carpet in a cathouse." --Kenneth
Patchen, The Journal of Albion Moonlight
--Edward Dahlberg, Because I was Flesh
One who has ceased to share the illusions of a
group, is farther removed from them than if
he had died & come back to life. So it is with
me & artists.
The truth in alienation is the losing of the
illusion of homogeneity.
Dostoevski on wheels is unthinkable. --A clue.
Not having to drive is the luxury, instead of
having a car.
I drop in my tracks each night like a drugged
rhinoceros.
The Soviet-American hotline was once
accidentally cut by a Finnish farmer plowing his
field.
We need a word for words that have 16 different
definitions--before we can get anywhere.
Boarding the bus: their anxiety that the system
won't work, anymore than it ever has worked for
them. Versus the truth of those who fly.
I hate injustice, but i don't love justice.
"...as his [Goethe's] first romance he devised
six brothers, each of whom 'wrote' chapters
in a different language. Goethe thereby perfecting
himself in German, English, French, Italian, Latin,
and Judaeo-German (Yiddish)..." --Walter Blumenthal,
Bookmen's Bedlam (1955)
Love, the Daedalus of paradoxes.
I am more certain than ever it is wrong to write
poems just because you think they should be
written. But this is the whole game nowadays.
How rude, then, for me to say: No poetry is
serious poetry unless its aim is to inspire awe.
"I want to be a carpet in a cathouse." --Kenneth
Patchen, The Journal of Albion Moonlight
People i have six or more albums by: Frank Sinatra,
Nina Simone, Messiaen, Tori Amos, Patti Smith, The
Ventures, & Throbbing Gristle.
A new "Mauberley" for the 1990's, with just the right mix of elegy & sarcasm. (pdf, via Free Space
Comics)
For a desert island, i'd have to have the eye-readable OED
(it could double as most of my furniture, too).
I have become so leery (& weary) of "poetics" in prose
that the only book i can think of is Gilbert Highet's Poets
in a Landscape (1957)--one of my favorite books--a
close exploration of seven Roman poets, in relation to
their lives & the places they lived in (with cute Rolleiflex
tourist-fotos, too). This is a terrific read even if you have
no Latin & are only vaguely familiar with these poets in
translation. I wish this kind of book were available
for all my favorite writers. I think that no one understands
a writer unless they have tried to imagine the way he
or she lived; & where.
"DC 9/11: Time of Crisis"
Flick empyrion
For that scaly mazuma.
Soot of a gerund.
From the rust-colored mesa,
Somber olive vacuole.
09 02 03
Listening to: Lycia- Estrella.
Nina Simone, Messiaen, Tori Amos, Patti Smith, The
Ventures, & Throbbing Gristle.
A new "Mauberley" for the 1990's, with just the right mix of elegy & sarcasm. (pdf, via Free Space
Comics)
For a desert island, i'd have to have the eye-readable OED
(it could double as most of my furniture, too).
I have become so leery (& weary) of "poetics" in prose
that the only book i can think of is Gilbert Highet's Poets
in a Landscape (1957)--one of my favorite books--a
close exploration of seven Roman poets, in relation to
their lives & the places they lived in (with cute Rolleiflex
tourist-fotos, too). This is a terrific read even if you have
no Latin & are only vaguely familiar with these poets in
translation. I wish this kind of book were available
for all my favorite writers. I think that no one understands
a writer unless they have tried to imagine the way he
or she lived; & where.
"DC 9/11: Time of Crisis"
Flick empyrion
For that scaly mazuma.
Soot of a gerund.
From the rust-colored mesa,
Somber olive vacuole.
09 02 03
Listening to: Lycia- Estrella.
[In the museum for a different opening] i wandered into the
"Images of Mexico" exhibit & found half a dozen unballyhooed
paintings by Frida Kahlo. One, a self portrait with a chihuahua,
is just about the scariest painting i've ever seen. ...a
subtle & powerful statement about her attitude toward dying
(& living) that is hard to put into words, but unmistakeable...
[:} What use could Stoicism be as a philosophy to one
who lives in perpetual pain?
The Gnomic is a mood, but Justice itself is either a passion or
a desperate pretense. A passion--to remain cool-headed.
The world lacks, not so much truth, as moral courage. No one
has a long enough life to learn all the truths we've accumulated
in books already--& who tries for even a day to practice them?
Team sports is not only the religion of [Sensing-Perceiving types],
it is also the form their politics & sexuality take. This accounts for
90% of what happens on earth at any given moment; most of
the rest, is other types resisting this fact.
Mathematical proof that Ticketmaster is evil. (via Metafilter)
"Images of Mexico" exhibit & found half a dozen unballyhooed
paintings by Frida Kahlo. One, a self portrait with a chihuahua,
is just about the scariest painting i've ever seen. ...a
subtle & powerful statement about her attitude toward dying
(& living) that is hard to put into words, but unmistakeable...
[:} What use could Stoicism be as a philosophy to one
who lives in perpetual pain?
The Gnomic is a mood, but Justice itself is either a passion or
a desperate pretense. A passion--to remain cool-headed.
The world lacks, not so much truth, as moral courage. No one
has a long enough life to learn all the truths we've accumulated
in books already--& who tries for even a day to practice them?
Team sports is not only the religion of [Sensing-Perceiving types],
it is also the form their politics & sexuality take. This accounts for
90% of what happens on earth at any given moment; most of
the rest, is other types resisting this fact.
Mathematical proof that Ticketmaster is evil. (via Metafilter)
I was reading near the end of Anais Nin's Collages
(1964), when i realized she was describing Djuna Barnes
after her retreat in New York City ("Judith Sands"). It was
such a beautifully subtle evocation that i wanted to write
in the name for those who wouldn't get it.
On the next page someone had done
that for me.
Every day however, i think: Why not now?
(When i know why not now)--
it's not really a question--.....it's an insect in the shape
of a leaf.
It's only when my ego's attenuated to a few rags that
i can call every form of fear by its true name.
Too often i do "good deeds" for the singing of a lie
inside me: that this changes the person i am. I should
do them only out of an understanding of causality.
I must know by now, nothing ever changed me without
great pain--& i continue to regret it till long afterwards.
Doubt is a maggot in the bottom of the ricebowl.
(1964), when i realized she was describing Djuna Barnes
after her retreat in New York City ("Judith Sands"). It was
such a beautifully subtle evocation that i wanted to write
in the name for those who wouldn't get it.
On the next page someone had done
that for me.
Every day however, i think: Why not now?
(When i know why not now)--
it's not really a question--.....it's an insect in the shape
of a leaf.
It's only when my ego's attenuated to a few rags that
i can call every form of fear by its true name.
Too often i do "good deeds" for the singing of a lie
inside me: that this changes the person i am. I should
do them only out of an understanding of causality.
I must know by now, nothing ever changed me without
great pain--& i continue to regret it till long afterwards.
Doubt is a maggot in the bottom of the ricebowl.
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
'The Mute Griffins
They pass across the sky at noon,
the summer noon,
through seas ablaze with searing light--
the golden barbed and golden scaled
lions of flight.
The birds of story, treasure griffins,
unglossal griffins,
are gazers of the solar zone
who proudly bear a vulture head
of diamond stone.
These birds are voiceless, proudly mute,
despairing mute,
and if they make a sound they sway
and fall to earth a shadowy brown,
a sparrow gray.
And there they pass the sky at noon,
the summer noon,
in black of pride through seas of light--
the golden barbed and golden scaled
lions of flight.'
--Ady
"O Java Tide"
The chilly waters of the night
are not the night.
The ratchet of my anti-theft
device scrapes in a silent car;
the lone drive's left.
The frigid margins of the dream
are not the dream.
I venture onto foreign soil
in search of rapture & to spring
a hoar gargoyle.
I trail no saving string.
The frozen surface of my life
is not my life.
They pass across the sky at noon,
the summer noon,
through seas ablaze with searing light--
the golden barbed and golden scaled
lions of flight.
The birds of story, treasure griffins,
unglossal griffins,
are gazers of the solar zone
who proudly bear a vulture head
of diamond stone.
These birds are voiceless, proudly mute,
despairing mute,
and if they make a sound they sway
and fall to earth a shadowy brown,
a sparrow gray.
And there they pass the sky at noon,
the summer noon,
in black of pride through seas of light--
the golden barbed and golden scaled
lions of flight.'
--Ady
"O Java Tide"
The chilly waters of the night
are not the night.
The ratchet of my anti-theft
device scrapes in a silent car;
the lone drive's left.
The frigid margins of the dream
are not the dream.
I venture onto foreign soil
in search of rapture & to spring
a hoar gargoyle.
I trail no saving string.
The frozen surface of my life
is not my life.
I write & have always written for one reason & one
reason only: not to be at the mercy of my feelings.
To pretend this is a way of manufacturing unique
artifacts for public consumption, is a stupidity i am
often guilty of.
"...the whole of Albertus's considerable output was
intended by the author to be a commentary on
Aristotle..." --Best & Brightman (eds.), intro to
Albertus Magnus's The Boke of Secretes
(16c tr), 1973
My allergies make me a mandarin.
The riddler, not the Riddle, yields; a dawnflush to
the gray marble sings like life.
The place ideas about art come from, is not where
the art does.
The only thing long experience does to a true
artist, is turn irrational insecurity into rational
humility. Failure isn't any farther away, it just
has a changed countenance.
Many more people are literate than are capable
of telling good writing from bad.
Art & careerism are like human-powered airplanes
& commercial jetliners--they hardly even share
the same sky.
Is there any trick but patience?
"I consider ego something to be starved into
submission," i was saying to someone the other
day; but i said it with pride of tyranny in my
voice.
To put up with picayune effects from good intentions
is admitting a symbolic victory is better than none.
But a symbolic victory could have been had even
without those efforts. Truth is sacrificed in
order not to believe in magic.
" 'We must be clear that, when it comes to atoms,
language can be used only as in poetry...' " Bohr
quoted in Heisenberg's Physics and Beyond
reason only: not to be at the mercy of my feelings.
To pretend this is a way of manufacturing unique
artifacts for public consumption, is a stupidity i am
often guilty of.
"...the whole of Albertus's considerable output was
intended by the author to be a commentary on
Aristotle..." --Best & Brightman (eds.), intro to
Albertus Magnus's The Boke of Secretes
(16c tr), 1973
My allergies make me a mandarin.
The riddler, not the Riddle, yields; a dawnflush to
the gray marble sings like life.
The place ideas about art come from, is not where
the art does.
The only thing long experience does to a true
artist, is turn irrational insecurity into rational
humility. Failure isn't any farther away, it just
has a changed countenance.
Many more people are literate than are capable
of telling good writing from bad.
Art & careerism are like human-powered airplanes
& commercial jetliners--they hardly even share
the same sky.
Is there any trick but patience?
"I consider ego something to be starved into
submission," i was saying to someone the other
day; but i said it with pride of tyranny in my
voice.
To put up with picayune effects from good intentions
is admitting a symbolic victory is better than none.
But a symbolic victory could have been had even
without those efforts. Truth is sacrificed in
order not to believe in magic.
" 'We must be clear that, when it comes to atoms,
language can be used only as in poetry...' " Bohr
quoted in Heisenberg's Physics and Beyond
head for making coins of conceptuality; they all have
heads & tails: i don't know how to make any other kind
(or it isn't a coin)--.
" 'Oh no!' said Holland, 'The species is not at all intent
on destroying itself. It's intent on being something
which happens inevitably to entail its destruction,
that's all.' " --Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down (1952)
Reason is a chainsaw but only hands can build.
"For, if the Grand Architect had acted a human part,
he would have ranged the stars into some beautiful
and elegant order, as we see in the vaulted roofs
of palaces; whereas, we scarce find among such an
infinite multitude of stars any figure either square,
triangular, or rectilinear; so great a difference is
there betwixt the spirit of man, and the spirit of
the universe." --Francis Bacon, On the Dignity
and Advancement of Learning IV, iv.
Freedom is not a feeling. (A terrible truth for our
times)
"Robert Frost liked very much to play [tennis], they
say, but he hated to lose. In fact he would get so
upset and grumpy when he lost that those who
looked out for him arranged that no one could play
him who did not agree beforehand to dump the
match." --Galway Kinnell, Walking Down the
Stairs (interviews)
[So much for free verse being tennis
without a net!]
'Tower of Night
Moonwan and whitely intumescent
in anxious silence of a summer night
the tower
peers out and waits for sanguine tidings
of flame and ruin and fright.
A monody of silence strangles
the bells and hymns within this voiceless shrine,
and the Lord's
tower arises, stares, and trembles
beneath an awesome sign.
Mysterious swimmers of the heavens,
the misty moon clouds move and drift on high,
the tower
salutes the moon orb, this all-knowing
omnibus of the sky.
The moon has seen unnumbered towers
it never hurries and is never late,
it glances
in calm upon this little planet
and its unfolding fate.
This sentinel of our salvation
may gleam with blood beneath tomorrow's moon
as once more
we hear proclaimed the ancient motto,
to victory or ruin.
The tower may confess tomorrow
a dedication to the claw and fang,
and the bells
these iron cubs in spellbound languor,
will ominously clang.
The lonely moon will rumble onward,
so will this vacant and unpeopled earth,
and above
a moonwhite ruin of fallen towers
the peace will come to birth.'
--Endre Ady
Moonwan and whitely intumescent
in anxious silence of a summer night
the tower
peers out and waits for sanguine tidings
of flame and ruin and fright.
A monody of silence strangles
the bells and hymns within this voiceless shrine,
and the Lord's
tower arises, stares, and trembles
beneath an awesome sign.
Mysterious swimmers of the heavens,
the misty moon clouds move and drift on high,
the tower
salutes the moon orb, this all-knowing
omnibus of the sky.
The moon has seen unnumbered towers
it never hurries and is never late,
it glances
in calm upon this little planet
and its unfolding fate.
This sentinel of our salvation
may gleam with blood beneath tomorrow's moon
as once more
we hear proclaimed the ancient motto,
to victory or ruin.
The tower may confess tomorrow
a dedication to the claw and fang,
and the bells
these iron cubs in spellbound languor,
will ominously clang.
The lonely moon will rumble onward,
so will this vacant and unpeopled earth,
and above
a moonwhite ruin of fallen towers
the peace will come to birth.'
--Endre Ady
"The Alternate Martians"
On the dusty plateau a
Startlingly covariant link.
Viroid trawlnet it's easy
To lose chrome of your hermitage.
Caress where ivorine shade goes
To Civet House.
09 03 03
Mathematical proof that Barney is evil. (via Robot Wisdom)
On the dusty plateau a
Startlingly covariant link.
Viroid trawlnet it's easy
To lose chrome of your hermitage.
Caress where ivorine shade goes
To Civet House.
09 03 03
Mathematical proof that Barney is evil. (via Robot Wisdom)
"No azure-hued tahalia now..." --from Epiphanius Wilson's
renditions of Moorish Ballads
In a recent poll on the American public's knowledge of
science, 21% thought the sun went around the earth.
[1988]
'It is a very great safeguard to learn by heart instead
of writing. It is impossible for what is written not to
be disclosed. That is the reason why I have never
written anything about these things, and why there
is not and will not be any written work of Plato's
own. What are now called his are the work of a
Socrates embellished and modernized.' --2nd letter
of Plato
The chief illusion of art is the same as the chief
illusion of the City: that it has everything you
need. (& can't find elsewhere--)
In antiquity, the only Halloween
funhouses were the Mysteries. Today, the only
Mysteries are Halloween funhouses--.
"I am sick of the invisible world and all its efforts
to be visible" --Spicer
The Metaphor of the Unconscious as one, is a
reflection of the metaphor of the conscious as
one. Both are half-truths of immense utility.
"The long poem testifies reliably for period style."
--Harvey Gross
renditions of Moorish Ballads
In a recent poll on the American public's knowledge of
science, 21% thought the sun went around the earth.
[1988]
'It is a very great safeguard to learn by heart instead
of writing. It is impossible for what is written not to
be disclosed. That is the reason why I have never
written anything about these things, and why there
is not and will not be any written work of Plato's
own. What are now called his are the work of a
Socrates embellished and modernized.' --2nd letter
of Plato
The chief illusion of art is the same as the chief
illusion of the City: that it has everything you
need. (& can't find elsewhere--)
In antiquity, the only Halloween
funhouses were the Mysteries. Today, the only
Mysteries are Halloween funhouses--.
"I am sick of the invisible world and all its efforts
to be visible" --Spicer
The Metaphor of the Unconscious as one, is a
reflection of the metaphor of the conscious as
one. Both are half-truths of immense utility.
"The long poem testifies reliably for period style."
--Harvey Gross
Monday, September 01, 2003
'...ritual is permissable only to the extent
that it is genuine as a kiss.' --Wittgenstein
The Epic as a colossal statue.
' "...I would [rather] watch over madmen, than
have to put up with fools. The only trouble, really,
is that there are so many madmen who are also
fools..." ' --Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, Abel
Sanchez and Other Stories
By distributing its effectual parts among the
arts & sciences, magic has been gerrymandered
out of existence.
"Even the subconscious is not patient enough for
poetry." --Jack Spicer, After Lorca
In a culture that celebrates the apotheosis of
trivia, poetry is the one thing that doesn't matter.
All ambitions are silly, but poetic ambitions are
sillier than most. Poetry itself should teach that
small is beautiful, that the unimportant can be
infinitely precious. As such, it's a metaphor for
human life...
"The tick, to use Uexkuell's example, has no need
for any grasp of spatial order and her imagined
place in it: she has only to sit on a grass-stalk,
for up to eighteen years, until the scent of
butyric acid (what we call butyric acid) impels
her to land on a passing mammal, suck blood, drop
to earth and lay her eggs." --Stephen Clark, From
Athens to Jerusalem
that it is genuine as a kiss.' --Wittgenstein
The Epic as a colossal statue.
' "...I would [rather] watch over madmen, than
have to put up with fools. The only trouble, really,
is that there are so many madmen who are also
fools..." ' --Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, Abel
Sanchez and Other Stories
By distributing its effectual parts among the
arts & sciences, magic has been gerrymandered
out of existence.
"Even the subconscious is not patient enough for
poetry." --Jack Spicer, After Lorca
In a culture that celebrates the apotheosis of
trivia, poetry is the one thing that doesn't matter.
All ambitions are silly, but poetic ambitions are
sillier than most. Poetry itself should teach that
small is beautiful, that the unimportant can be
infinitely precious. As such, it's a metaphor for
human life...
"The tick, to use Uexkuell's example, has no need
for any grasp of spatial order and her imagined
place in it: she has only to sit on a grass-stalk,
for up to eighteen years, until the scent of
butyric acid (what we call butyric acid) impels
her to land on a passing mammal, suck blood, drop
to earth and lay her eggs." --Stephen Clark, From
Athens to Jerusalem
The London Review of Books notices slang in the
Buffyverse. (via Momus) More.
A million reasons are no better than one
reason, but a million excuses delude better
than one. Hence, politics.
"Every time we defecate we lose 100,000
million microbes." --Desmond Morris, Intimate
Behavior (1971)
A painter should be no smarter than his fingers.
"Most readers, we have discovered, dislike
computer verse with intensity that borders on
moral censure." --introduction to Against
Infinity, Ernest Robson & Jet Wimp
People lack freedom to the precise degree that
they avoid self-criticism.
'...a cosmos where ice and fire are in eternal
conflict, and [a cosmos] in a hollow globe
surrounded by an infinite expanse of rock. Hitler
was asked to decide between them. His answer gives
food for thought: "Our conception of the world
need not be coherent. They may both be right." '
--The Morning of the Magicians
Art must be a wilderness howling among the voices.
"Desperately I strapped a dildo around my waist."
--Kathy Acker, Don Quixote
Only the colors move.
Buffyverse. (via Momus) More.
A million reasons are no better than one
reason, but a million excuses delude better
than one. Hence, politics.
"Every time we defecate we lose 100,000
million microbes." --Desmond Morris, Intimate
Behavior (1971)
A painter should be no smarter than his fingers.
"Most readers, we have discovered, dislike
computer verse with intensity that borders on
moral censure." --introduction to Against
Infinity, Ernest Robson & Jet Wimp
People lack freedom to the precise degree that
they avoid self-criticism.
'...a cosmos where ice and fire are in eternal
conflict, and [a cosmos] in a hollow globe
surrounded by an infinite expanse of rock. Hitler
was asked to decide between them. His answer gives
food for thought: "Our conception of the world
need not be coherent. They may both be right." '
--The Morning of the Magicians
Art must be a wilderness howling among the voices.
"Desperately I strapped a dildo around my waist."
--Kathy Acker, Don Quixote
Only the colors move.
" 'Poor, foolish boy! Politeness is the name
Politely given to equivocation.
'Twas not a tree from which this comment came;
But an old stump with fungus vegetation
Encrusted thick. It was this old stump's aim,
And, as it deemed, beneficent vocation,
To extract out of the toadstools it evolved
A system that all other systems solved."
--Owen Meredith, Glenaveril (1885)
"Self-Questioning
To-day I saw a chipmunk stealthily
Sitting upon a slender branch;
How steadily he gazed at me--
As tho 'twere deed in no wise staunch!
Madly I hurled a stone--and down he fell. . . .
Limp little body, am I then
So void of hell? . . . Since you can't tell,
We'll think we're masterfull again!"
--Hyman Segal, The Book of Pain-Struggle
(1911)
"...It would be a pity if any future historian
were to have to write words like these: 'By
the middle of the twentieth century the higher
institutions of learning had lost all influence
over public opinion in the United States. But
the mission of raising the tone of democracy,
which they had proven themselves so lamentably
unfitted to exert, was assumed with rare
enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary
skill and success by a new educational power;
and for the clarification of their human sym-
pathies and elevation of their human preferences,
the people at large acquired the habit of
resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain
private literary adventures, commonly designated
in the market by the affectionate name of ten-
cent magazines...' " --William James in
Memories and Studies
[--Well, almost.]
Buffalo Daughter has a new album!
Politely given to equivocation.
'Twas not a tree from which this comment came;
But an old stump with fungus vegetation
Encrusted thick. It was this old stump's aim,
And, as it deemed, beneficent vocation,
To extract out of the toadstools it evolved
A system that all other systems solved."
--Owen Meredith, Glenaveril (1885)
"Self-Questioning
To-day I saw a chipmunk stealthily
Sitting upon a slender branch;
How steadily he gazed at me--
As tho 'twere deed in no wise staunch!
Madly I hurled a stone--and down he fell. . . .
Limp little body, am I then
So void of hell? . . . Since you can't tell,
We'll think we're masterfull again!"
--Hyman Segal, The Book of Pain-Struggle
(1911)
"...It would be a pity if any future historian
were to have to write words like these: 'By
the middle of the twentieth century the higher
institutions of learning had lost all influence
over public opinion in the United States. But
the mission of raising the tone of democracy,
which they had proven themselves so lamentably
unfitted to exert, was assumed with rare
enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary
skill and success by a new educational power;
and for the clarification of their human sym-
pathies and elevation of their human preferences,
the people at large acquired the habit of
resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain
private literary adventures, commonly designated
in the market by the affectionate name of ten-
cent magazines...' " --William James in
Memories and Studies
[--Well, almost.]
Buffalo Daughter has a new album!
'Song
All of autumn, rose,
Is this single one of your petals
Falling.
Girl, all of sorrow
Is this single drop
Of your blood.'
--Selected Writings of Juan Ramón Jiménez
tr H R Hays (1957)
When two cultures meet, they can choose to
mix or try to remain separate... It is
instructive to compare New Mexico & Arizona,
Brazil & Argentina, in this light.
Just because you wake up earlier doesn't
give you any sort of moral superiority.
So, neither does intelligence.
It behooves a barbarian to speak in
particulars, to collect shards, and to sleep
uneasy. A barbarian with ambitions beyond
that is himself a shard, a freak, and a
disturbing dream-episode.
Fusion is explosion made conspiracy.
If art is proto-mindscience, we are all
of us mad scientists, for attempting to prove
what we already know, and disdaining results
that contradict it.
Turned up while googling for "theocrat".
Listening to: "Twin Peaks" soundtrack.
All of autumn, rose,
Is this single one of your petals
Falling.
Girl, all of sorrow
Is this single drop
Of your blood.'
--Selected Writings of Juan Ramón Jiménez
tr H R Hays (1957)
When two cultures meet, they can choose to
mix or try to remain separate... It is
instructive to compare New Mexico & Arizona,
Brazil & Argentina, in this light.
Just because you wake up earlier doesn't
give you any sort of moral superiority.
So, neither does intelligence.
It behooves a barbarian to speak in
particulars, to collect shards, and to sleep
uneasy. A barbarian with ambitions beyond
that is himself a shard, a freak, and a
disturbing dream-episode.
Fusion is explosion made conspiracy.
If art is proto-mindscience, we are all
of us mad scientists, for attempting to prove
what we already know, and disdaining results
that contradict it.
Turned up while googling for "theocrat".
Listening to: "Twin Peaks" soundtrack.
I don't know if he was familiar with Pessoa, but in his
early book License to Carry a Gun, Andrei
Codrescu writes different kinds of poems under several
pseudonyms--including that of a Black Militant.
"Radiant Silhouette IV
Frenzy softens the air.
The hardly used desire was posted on the outer panel
of the blackboard sky. Beneath rows of illustrated
fragments, someone whispers and someone listens,
and no one agrees on how many were in the bed between
one and one equals all the hours you have known or
imagined knowing another.
The inside of the walls got sticky, and tiny spots of
pink paper floated toward the rain spattered clouds.
I followed feathers down flagpoles
I stood on trains,
sat across from
and beside
I traced the little wigs of a tarnished button,
and started eating the perfumed crumbs
left out for the leper of milk
I licked peeling canisters
until rain trickled out of
my mouth and pockets
I counted the insect vowels missing from the slag heap
I inserted a strip of imitation fur into the Book of Neon
After he tied her on the bed, she handcuffed him to the stove.
Dark aquamarine light slipped off the rounded edges of the
upturned venetian blinds, dropping into mirrors fastened
at the corners.
An old movie flickered on the outer border of their gnawed platform."
--John Yau in: The Open Boat ed Hongo (1993)
A manifesto by Mark Amerika.
early book License to Carry a Gun, Andrei
Codrescu writes different kinds of poems under several
pseudonyms--including that of a Black Militant.
"Radiant Silhouette IV
Frenzy softens the air.
The hardly used desire was posted on the outer panel
of the blackboard sky. Beneath rows of illustrated
fragments, someone whispers and someone listens,
and no one agrees on how many were in the bed between
one and one equals all the hours you have known or
imagined knowing another.
The inside of the walls got sticky, and tiny spots of
pink paper floated toward the rain spattered clouds.
I followed feathers down flagpoles
I stood on trains,
sat across from
and beside
I traced the little wigs of a tarnished button,
and started eating the perfumed crumbs
left out for the leper of milk
I licked peeling canisters
until rain trickled out of
my mouth and pockets
I counted the insect vowels missing from the slag heap
I inserted a strip of imitation fur into the Book of Neon
After he tied her on the bed, she handcuffed him to the stove.
Dark aquamarine light slipped off the rounded edges of the
upturned venetian blinds, dropping into mirrors fastened
at the corners.
An old movie flickered on the outer border of their gnawed platform."
--John Yau in: The Open Boat ed Hongo (1993)
A manifesto by Mark Amerika.
Shia Pundit.
How would you feel if you were a baker and had
to throw away fresh bread every day because
no one could smell it?
What is a leader? A person standing at the point
of maximum illusion. They have the least freedom
but the greatest sense of power... Nobody tells
the truth to a leader.
Speech is only the latest language.
Story is older than speech.
The only storytellers we listen to anymore, are
either professional liars or people who believe
words can describe reality.
Science is the political expression of method, and
arose with the modern state (17c.). It was inevitable
that, having chosen to perceive reality in terms
of its largest gestalts, and in generalizable relations
about groups, exclusively, scientists should have
gone on to become a collectivized institution which
serves the state in its oppression of individual
humans, just as science must ignore particularities
in order to attain certainty; not "Knowledge is power"
but "certain knowledge is Power-thinking applied
to things"...
In me the bricoleur wars with the enginer. Try to
utilize this as a dialectic. Sketch an outline, decide
on certain elements to choose from among,
then improvise.
"During the siege, concerts were held even as the
city was being shelled. Paintings from the Hermitage
were moved to the Ural Mountains for safekeeping,
but locals still flocked to the museum, where guides
pointed to empty frames and described the art they
once contained." --Craig Neff, in Sept/Ocr '03 Texas
Journey
"At a bookshop, we found...the familiar black-and-yellow-
covered for Dummies series; the word used for
dummies in the Russian version translates to teapots."
--ibid
How would you feel if you were a baker and had
to throw away fresh bread every day because
no one could smell it?
What is a leader? A person standing at the point
of maximum illusion. They have the least freedom
but the greatest sense of power... Nobody tells
the truth to a leader.
Speech is only the latest language.
Story is older than speech.
The only storytellers we listen to anymore, are
either professional liars or people who believe
words can describe reality.
Science is the political expression of method, and
arose with the modern state (17c.). It was inevitable
that, having chosen to perceive reality in terms
of its largest gestalts, and in generalizable relations
about groups, exclusively, scientists should have
gone on to become a collectivized institution which
serves the state in its oppression of individual
humans, just as science must ignore particularities
in order to attain certainty; not "Knowledge is power"
but "certain knowledge is Power-thinking applied
to things"...
In me the bricoleur wars with the enginer. Try to
utilize this as a dialectic. Sketch an outline, decide
on certain elements to choose from among,
then improvise.
"During the siege, concerts were held even as the
city was being shelled. Paintings from the Hermitage
were moved to the Ural Mountains for safekeeping,
but locals still flocked to the museum, where guides
pointed to empty frames and described the art they
once contained." --Craig Neff, in Sept/Ocr '03 Texas
Journey
"At a bookshop, we found...the familiar black-and-yellow-
covered for Dummies series; the word used for
dummies in the Russian version translates to teapots."
--ibid
Sunday, August 31, 2003
Beyond Us and Them
Beyond Rational and Irrational
Beyond I and not-I
Beyond Same and Different
"The Arm Twisted And Turned With Lightning
Imperativeness As If To Reach The Point
Of The Borders Of The Days That Touch
Each Other On The Rim Of The Precision-Discipline."
--Sun Ra
Improvisation depends on having to invent
as little as possible.
''The Seventh Rose
The first rose is of granite
The second rose is of red wine
The third rose is of lark's feathers
The fourth rose is of rust
The fifth rose is of yearning
The sixth rose is of tin
But the seventh
The most delicate
The believng rose
The rose of night
The sisterly rose--
Only after your death
Will it grow out of your coffin.'
--Yvan Goll, ibid
The last war. The last war will be fought between
robots trying to sell something, & humans who just want
to be left alone.
The only separable form & content is in lying.
But even so: this is a true representation of an inner
contradiction...
'With every dawn you return to be changed
From the wings of night's theater
Are you elf Holy Infanta?
In your dark strangeness?
With what weapon do captives approach you?
Will you step out of a revolving door
Out of a sunken castle? Out of a storm
Or a street full of tormenting detours?
What blaze touseled your locks?
What god whispered the password to you?
You sing in Tuscan you smell of burning
You come back to me confused bewildered
With the mask of a smile and--only half hidden--
Under the purple of your cloak an angel's wing'
--Yvan Goll, Selected Poems (1981) tr
Schulte & Bullock
I have the hatred of injustice of the true poet, &
the love of gewgaws of the false poet--in equal
measure. I am obviously predestined for no ordinary
disappointment.
robots trying to sell something, & humans who just want
to be left alone.
The only separable form & content is in lying.
But even so: this is a true representation of an inner
contradiction...
'With every dawn you return to be changed
From the wings of night's theater
Are you elf Holy Infanta?
In your dark strangeness?
With what weapon do captives approach you?
Will you step out of a revolving door
Out of a sunken castle? Out of a storm
Or a street full of tormenting detours?
What blaze touseled your locks?
What god whispered the password to you?
You sing in Tuscan you smell of burning
You come back to me confused bewildered
With the mask of a smile and--only half hidden--
Under the purple of your cloak an angel's wing'
--Yvan Goll, Selected Poems (1981) tr
Schulte & Bullock
I have the hatred of injustice of the true poet, &
the love of gewgaws of the false poet--in equal
measure. I am obviously predestined for no ordinary
disappointment.
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Between languages: Yvan Goll.
A well-made site on art & the Holocaust.
"One reason that I have travelled more than you is
that I do not have a car. A car is not a travel machine,
it's a repetition machine." --Momus (his account, with
pics, of the blackout)
By the time they start putting tiny broadcast chips in your
consumer products, you'll be able to buy a chip to block them.
Ah, capitalism! (via Plastic)
A well-made site on art & the Holocaust.
"One reason that I have travelled more than you is
that I do not have a car. A car is not a travel machine,
it's a repetition machine." --Momus (his account, with
pics, of the blackout)
By the time they start putting tiny broadcast chips in your
consumer products, you'll be able to buy a chip to block them.
Ah, capitalism! (via Plastic)
Spanish has its Pig Latin too: it's called jerigonza.
"Now, areas are identified as “the one with the crater
where the missile exploded”, or “the street with the
ravaged houses”, or “the little house next to that one
where that family was killed”. --Riverbendblog
Compare your standard of living with other cities in the U.S.
"Now, areas are identified as “the one with the crater
where the missile exploded”, or “the street with the
ravaged houses”, or “the little house next to that one
where that family was killed”. --Riverbendblog
Compare your standard of living with other cities in the U.S.
"The Difference
by Steven Jesse Bernstein
(from the book More Noise Please!)
There are poets stuck
to the underside of the chair
by their fingers. If you
give them string they will
put it in their mouth and
it will come out sticky.
That is as close to being
spiders as they can get.
And, there are bugs
under my fingers, bouncing
them across the keys
like Mexican jumping beans.
That's as close to being
a poet as I can get.
The difference between me
and most insects is that I approach
the truly sexless, while
they approach the truly heartless.
The difference between
me and most poets
is I am really a spider."
[Bernstein had died just before i moved to Seattle, & i
went to a tribute reading for him without knowing who
he was.]
"Over the past 30 years the productivity of the people whose
brain and muscle creates the wealth of the world's richest nation
has grown by 66 percent. But the wage of the typical employee
– the median wage – has grown by only 7 percent." --Mark
Weisbrot (via Wood's Lot)
by Steven Jesse Bernstein
(from the book More Noise Please!)
There are poets stuck
to the underside of the chair
by their fingers. If you
give them string they will
put it in their mouth and
it will come out sticky.
That is as close to being
spiders as they can get.
And, there are bugs
under my fingers, bouncing
them across the keys
like Mexican jumping beans.
That's as close to being
a poet as I can get.
The difference between me
and most insects is that I approach
the truly sexless, while
they approach the truly heartless.
The difference between
me and most poets
is I am really a spider."
[Bernstein had died just before i moved to Seattle, & i
went to a tribute reading for him without knowing who
he was.]
"Over the past 30 years the productivity of the people whose
brain and muscle creates the wealth of the world's richest nation
has grown by 66 percent. But the wage of the typical employee
– the median wage – has grown by only 7 percent." --Mark
Weisbrot (via Wood's Lot)
Beware of cultivating your monstrousness, O
comprachicos; do you know how much love it takes to
pull that off?
'In this growth of landscape-art into a slow transform-
ation of the world into landscape, there is a long human
development. The content of these pictures, resulting
so unintentionally from observation and work, speaks
to us of a future that has begun in our own time: tells
us that man is no longer the social entity, moving with
poise among his like, nor is he any longer one for whom
evening and morning, for whom proximity and distance
exist. It tells us, that he is placed amongst things like
a thing, infinitely alone, and that all which is common to
them both has been drawn from things and men into the
common depth where the roots of all growth drink.'
--Rilke (1902), Where Silence Reigns tr G C Houston
Playing music for other musicians/ music for nonmusicians.
But: there are no magic tricks for other magicians! So art
has a tendency toward illusionism that goes unchecked
when its culture no longer cultivates.
What is it that's so difficult? To talk about each sick
person--and not the Plague.
I want no great art if that only means to be the tree for
a great monkey.
But what kind of degradation has not become an
art?
Turin compares a perfume he reviews to Bizet's Symphony in C.
I just had to check it out, & while it didn't blow me away, the
second movement has a brooding delicacy that is quite charming.
comprachicos; do you know how much love it takes to
pull that off?
'In this growth of landscape-art into a slow transform-
ation of the world into landscape, there is a long human
development. The content of these pictures, resulting
so unintentionally from observation and work, speaks
to us of a future that has begun in our own time: tells
us that man is no longer the social entity, moving with
poise among his like, nor is he any longer one for whom
evening and morning, for whom proximity and distance
exist. It tells us, that he is placed amongst things like
a thing, infinitely alone, and that all which is common to
them both has been drawn from things and men into the
common depth where the roots of all growth drink.'
--Rilke (1902), Where Silence Reigns tr G C Houston
Playing music for other musicians/ music for nonmusicians.
But: there are no magic tricks for other magicians! So art
has a tendency toward illusionism that goes unchecked
when its culture no longer cultivates.
What is it that's so difficult? To talk about each sick
person--and not the Plague.
I want no great art if that only means to be the tree for
a great monkey.
But what kind of degradation has not become an
art?
Turin compares a perfume he reviews to Bizet's Symphony in C.
I just had to check it out, & while it didn't blow me away, the
second movement has a brooding delicacy that is quite charming.
Friday, August 29, 2003
Melanie reviews:
" The following is my mass e-mail review of the screenplay for the current Miramax release, The Battle of Shaker Heights. To refresh, Shaker is the end product of this year¹s current Project Greenlight, the scriptwriting contest sponsored by Miramax, HBO, and Oscar winning actor-writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (who collectively won the Best Original Screenplay award for Miramax¹s 1997 release Good Will Hunting, in which Affleck played second banana to Damon¹s title character). Anyway, Project Greenlight was initiated about two years ago to encourage aspiring (struggling, waiting to be discovered) screenwriters. In its second go-round the contest, in which all entries are submitted and judged online, was expanded to include as of yet untested directors, who were asked to submit micro-short films for consideration. The catch with Project Greenlight is, as anybody who regularly watches HBO already knows, is that besides a guaranteed one shot movie deal (w/ a modest 2 million dollar budget), the winning writers and directors must submit to Big Brother type treatment (via HBO¹s omnipresent cameras) during the production of their debut effort . The idea seems to be that the normal frustations of making a movie, let alone one with such a modest budget and hurried shooting schedule (approximately three weeks) make for mighty entertaining tv viewing when the focus is on the inexperienced talent behind the camera. Whereas the first season of Project Greenlight highlighted the seeming ineptitude of writer-director Pete Jones (whose film was titled Stolen Summer), the ante was upped in the recently concluded season by pitting a pair of directors (the team of Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle) against a single writer, Erica Beeney; the three of them, remember, all newcomers to the wonderful world of feature film production.
It is true I entered my script, Learning Meredith, in last fall¹s PGL competition, but let me be perfectly frank: I never wanted to win. Life is humiliating enough without going on tv and essentially being set-up to look like a jack-ass, or worse. All I wanted, all I expected, from Project Greenlight was constructive, informed criticism from my peers; all scriptwriting participants were required to read and evaluate at least four screenplays and a minimum of two short films (likewise, we were guaranteed our script would be rated by at least four of our peers). I thought some of the comments about my screenplay were well intended, but a lot of the responses were laughable because they were so contradictory (example: none of my peer reviewers could list a single movie my script reminded them of--a question clearly designed to gauge marketability--while my scores for originality were only middling).
Anyway, I do not have HBO so I have not seen a single episode of PGL, round 2, (The Making of The Battle of Shaker Heights) which has been a big summetime hit for the premium cable network; however, I have read plenty about the shennanigans the directors pulled, not to mention the frustrations of veterans Chris Moore, producer, and Richard Nord, the Oscar nominated film editor of 1993¹s The Fugitive. Directors Rankin and Potelle apparently underminded Beeney by writing new scenes without her knowledge. Producer Moore has called the directors a number of names too colorful to repeat, and Nord has said trying to edit the film, which fared poorly with test audiences, is/was like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Hardly a vote of confidence, though, to be fair, not all the blame can be laid on the two directors who, as per the PGL rules, have no control over the final edit. Meanwhile, the tv show is itself assembled to make sure everyone comes across as bad (evil, dense, or both--you name it) as possible. That¹s a given. On the other hand, Rankin and Potelle haven¹t done themselves any favors in the intelligence department, either. In a recent Dallas Observer interview Rankin referred to Emmy winning actress Camryn Manheim (The Practice), who auditioned for a role in Shaker, as Catherine Manheim.
But what about the final result? I was shocked to read that the completed Battle of Shaker Heights runs only a scant 73 minutes, not including credits. Whoa! 73 minutes! That¹s only an hour and thirteen minutes. I went to the PGL website to look at Beeney¹s winning screenplay and found that it was 119 pages long. If you consider the standard one page of screenplay equals one minute of screentime, you have to wonder what the heck happened to Beeney¹s original vision for Shaker Heights. Apparently somewhere along the way to completion 46 minutes of Shaker Heights was discarded, and for a movie that should have been just one minute shy of two hours (a perfectly respectable length), 46 minutes is a significant chunk, easily almost half. With that in mind, I decided to read Beeney¹s script so I could compare it to the actual film at a later date.
The Battle of Shaker Heights tells the story of a high school senior, a smart aleck misft, named Kelly who spends his free-time reenacting famous WWII battles; we¹re also to understand, as per the script, that this young man is more qualified to teach history than his teacher. Our hero has a messy, downscale, home life: his mother, a once promising artist, now employs an assembly line to manufacture pieces for ³starving artist² shows and the like; the boy¹s father is a reformed druggie now devoted to helping others less fortunate than himself. Kelly¹s life changes when, at one of his war events, he meets and befriends a rich kid, a private school type from an affluent, seemingly perfect family (with the possible exception of a dad who¹s just a shade uncaring, or remote). Moreover, the rich kid has an older sister named Tabby (???) upon whom Kelly develops a crush, even though he knows full well she¹s engaged to be married. That¹s the basic set-up, and it¹s a fine one, although in many ways it¹s not too terribly different from last year¹s Stolen Summer. Both movies are boy coming of age stories and, more specifically, both are fueled by the friendship that develops between boys (or, okay, young men) from opposing backgrounds. In the case of Stolen Summer, a Catholic boy befriends the terminally ill son of a rabbi. I didn¹t hate Beeney¹s screenplay for The Battle of Shaker Heights--she clearly has some screenwriting savvy, almost too much at times (I could only take so much of her editorializing about the onscreen action...very much telling, rather than showing). She also has a keen ear for dialogue--and good for her. I will go so far as to say that in many ways, the script was better written than most anything I read during the first round of judging. Some of the scripts, nevermind essentials like basic storytelling and dialogue, were poorly formatted and gramatically suspect. Beeny¹s script has only a few such lapses. Still, in spite of all that is good and right with the script, the story itself is slight--119 pages of generally well-written nothing--and some of the turns of plot seem entirely arbitrary, melodramatic, even, whereas the action should at least seem to flow organically from the characters. Most of time, absolutely nothing seems at stake. The war reeactment stuff forms the basis of a sequence that seems almost premature; after that, the idea goes nowhere. That said, the writer has come up with an interesting lead character; interesting in the abstract, that is; a tad sketchy (inconsistent, all over the map), perhaps, but one with plenty of potential in the hands of the right actor, and by all accounts, Shia LaBeouf, of Disney¹s springtime hit Holes (and the cable series Even Stevens, also from Disney), is well up to the challenge of connecting the dots in Beeny¹s script (so that Kelly seems more a creature of deep, contradictory impulses instead of an assortment of writer¹s whims). Some early reviews have even compared LaBeouf to a young Dustin Hoffman. The character of Kelly¹s mother might also turn out to be interesting in the hands of the capable Kathleen Quinlan (an Oscar nominee for 1995¹s Apollo 13).
Finally, perhaps Beeny¹s biggest selling point, the thing that made her script so attractive to the contest¹s judges, is its relative simplicity--a few basic settings, maybe only a dozen speaking parts, and, again, the war stuff is kept to a minimum, although it¹s a great hook.
Apparently Beeny, who reportedly has signed a deal with Aliens producer Gale Anne Hurd, has waffled all over the place in her estimation of the finished film. I know I¹m definitely curious to see how a 119 page script can be whittled down to a satisfying--coherent--73 minute film. What¹s the point? Stolen Summer made less than a million dollars at the box office last year. Shocking, in light of all that built-in publicity (and a praiseworthy performance by Kevin Pollack as the terminally ill boy's rabbi-dad). Can a movie as seemingly butchered as Shaker Heights be expected to fare better, on its own cinematic terms, that is, and not as an extension of a curious prank?
Mp
More about LaBeouf. Shia LaBeouf, by the way, is of Jewish and French (Cajun?) descent. He has joked that his name, the first part of which reportedly rhymes with ³Hi ya,² actually translates as ³Thank God for the Beef.² Funny boy. Besides Shaker and Holes he has also been seen in some of this past summer¹s biggest duds: Charlie¹s Angels Full Throttle and Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd."
" The following is my mass e-mail review of the screenplay for the current Miramax release, The Battle of Shaker Heights. To refresh, Shaker is the end product of this year¹s current Project Greenlight, the scriptwriting contest sponsored by Miramax, HBO, and Oscar winning actor-writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (who collectively won the Best Original Screenplay award for Miramax¹s 1997 release Good Will Hunting, in which Affleck played second banana to Damon¹s title character). Anyway, Project Greenlight was initiated about two years ago to encourage aspiring (struggling, waiting to be discovered) screenwriters. In its second go-round the contest, in which all entries are submitted and judged online, was expanded to include as of yet untested directors, who were asked to submit micro-short films for consideration. The catch with Project Greenlight is, as anybody who regularly watches HBO already knows, is that besides a guaranteed one shot movie deal (w/ a modest 2 million dollar budget), the winning writers and directors must submit to Big Brother type treatment (via HBO¹s omnipresent cameras) during the production of their debut effort . The idea seems to be that the normal frustations of making a movie, let alone one with such a modest budget and hurried shooting schedule (approximately three weeks) make for mighty entertaining tv viewing when the focus is on the inexperienced talent behind the camera. Whereas the first season of Project Greenlight highlighted the seeming ineptitude of writer-director Pete Jones (whose film was titled Stolen Summer), the ante was upped in the recently concluded season by pitting a pair of directors (the team of Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle) against a single writer, Erica Beeney; the three of them, remember, all newcomers to the wonderful world of feature film production.
It is true I entered my script, Learning Meredith, in last fall¹s PGL competition, but let me be perfectly frank: I never wanted to win. Life is humiliating enough without going on tv and essentially being set-up to look like a jack-ass, or worse. All I wanted, all I expected, from Project Greenlight was constructive, informed criticism from my peers; all scriptwriting participants were required to read and evaluate at least four screenplays and a minimum of two short films (likewise, we were guaranteed our script would be rated by at least four of our peers). I thought some of the comments about my screenplay were well intended, but a lot of the responses were laughable because they were so contradictory (example: none of my peer reviewers could list a single movie my script reminded them of--a question clearly designed to gauge marketability--while my scores for originality were only middling).
Anyway, I do not have HBO so I have not seen a single episode of PGL, round 2, (The Making of The Battle of Shaker Heights) which has been a big summetime hit for the premium cable network; however, I have read plenty about the shennanigans the directors pulled, not to mention the frustrations of veterans Chris Moore, producer, and Richard Nord, the Oscar nominated film editor of 1993¹s The Fugitive. Directors Rankin and Potelle apparently underminded Beeney by writing new scenes without her knowledge. Producer Moore has called the directors a number of names too colorful to repeat, and Nord has said trying to edit the film, which fared poorly with test audiences, is/was like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Hardly a vote of confidence, though, to be fair, not all the blame can be laid on the two directors who, as per the PGL rules, have no control over the final edit. Meanwhile, the tv show is itself assembled to make sure everyone comes across as bad (evil, dense, or both--you name it) as possible. That¹s a given. On the other hand, Rankin and Potelle haven¹t done themselves any favors in the intelligence department, either. In a recent Dallas Observer interview Rankin referred to Emmy winning actress Camryn Manheim (The Practice), who auditioned for a role in Shaker, as Catherine Manheim.
But what about the final result? I was shocked to read that the completed Battle of Shaker Heights runs only a scant 73 minutes, not including credits. Whoa! 73 minutes! That¹s only an hour and thirteen minutes. I went to the PGL website to look at Beeney¹s winning screenplay and found that it was 119 pages long. If you consider the standard one page of screenplay equals one minute of screentime, you have to wonder what the heck happened to Beeney¹s original vision for Shaker Heights. Apparently somewhere along the way to completion 46 minutes of Shaker Heights was discarded, and for a movie that should have been just one minute shy of two hours (a perfectly respectable length), 46 minutes is a significant chunk, easily almost half. With that in mind, I decided to read Beeney¹s script so I could compare it to the actual film at a later date.
The Battle of Shaker Heights tells the story of a high school senior, a smart aleck misft, named Kelly who spends his free-time reenacting famous WWII battles; we¹re also to understand, as per the script, that this young man is more qualified to teach history than his teacher. Our hero has a messy, downscale, home life: his mother, a once promising artist, now employs an assembly line to manufacture pieces for ³starving artist² shows and the like; the boy¹s father is a reformed druggie now devoted to helping others less fortunate than himself. Kelly¹s life changes when, at one of his war events, he meets and befriends a rich kid, a private school type from an affluent, seemingly perfect family (with the possible exception of a dad who¹s just a shade uncaring, or remote). Moreover, the rich kid has an older sister named Tabby (???) upon whom Kelly develops a crush, even though he knows full well she¹s engaged to be married. That¹s the basic set-up, and it¹s a fine one, although in many ways it¹s not too terribly different from last year¹s Stolen Summer. Both movies are boy coming of age stories and, more specifically, both are fueled by the friendship that develops between boys (or, okay, young men) from opposing backgrounds. In the case of Stolen Summer, a Catholic boy befriends the terminally ill son of a rabbi. I didn¹t hate Beeney¹s screenplay for The Battle of Shaker Heights--she clearly has some screenwriting savvy, almost too much at times (I could only take so much of her editorializing about the onscreen action...very much telling, rather than showing). She also has a keen ear for dialogue--and good for her. I will go so far as to say that in many ways, the script was better written than most anything I read during the first round of judging. Some of the scripts, nevermind essentials like basic storytelling and dialogue, were poorly formatted and gramatically suspect. Beeny¹s script has only a few such lapses. Still, in spite of all that is good and right with the script, the story itself is slight--119 pages of generally well-written nothing--and some of the turns of plot seem entirely arbitrary, melodramatic, even, whereas the action should at least seem to flow organically from the characters. Most of time, absolutely nothing seems at stake. The war reeactment stuff forms the basis of a sequence that seems almost premature; after that, the idea goes nowhere. That said, the writer has come up with an interesting lead character; interesting in the abstract, that is; a tad sketchy (inconsistent, all over the map), perhaps, but one with plenty of potential in the hands of the right actor, and by all accounts, Shia LaBeouf, of Disney¹s springtime hit Holes (and the cable series Even Stevens, also from Disney), is well up to the challenge of connecting the dots in Beeny¹s script (so that Kelly seems more a creature of deep, contradictory impulses instead of an assortment of writer¹s whims). Some early reviews have even compared LaBeouf to a young Dustin Hoffman. The character of Kelly¹s mother might also turn out to be interesting in the hands of the capable Kathleen Quinlan (an Oscar nominee for 1995¹s Apollo 13).
Finally, perhaps Beeny¹s biggest selling point, the thing that made her script so attractive to the contest¹s judges, is its relative simplicity--a few basic settings, maybe only a dozen speaking parts, and, again, the war stuff is kept to a minimum, although it¹s a great hook.
Apparently Beeny, who reportedly has signed a deal with Aliens producer Gale Anne Hurd, has waffled all over the place in her estimation of the finished film. I know I¹m definitely curious to see how a 119 page script can be whittled down to a satisfying--coherent--73 minute film. What¹s the point? Stolen Summer made less than a million dollars at the box office last year. Shocking, in light of all that built-in publicity (and a praiseworthy performance by Kevin Pollack as the terminally ill boy's rabbi-dad). Can a movie as seemingly butchered as Shaker Heights be expected to fare better, on its own cinematic terms, that is, and not as an extension of a curious prank?
Mp
More about LaBeouf. Shia LaBeouf, by the way, is of Jewish and French (Cajun?) descent. He has joked that his name, the first part of which reportedly rhymes with ³Hi ya,² actually translates as ³Thank God for the Beef.² Funny boy. Besides Shaker and Holes he has also been seen in some of this past summer¹s biggest duds: Charlie¹s Angels Full Throttle and Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd."
"A caged community of chimpanzees reacts very
sensitively if a member of the tribe has received
LSD. Even though no changes appear in this
single animal, the whole cage gets in an uproar
because the LSD chimpanzee no longer observes
the law of its finely coordinated hierarchic tribal
order." --Albert Hofmann, LSD: My Problem
Child (1980)
"Until the late eighteenth century there was no
history of art, only the lives of artists." -Jacques
Barzun, The Use and Abuse of Art (1973)
sensitively if a member of the tribe has received
LSD. Even though no changes appear in this
single animal, the whole cage gets in an uproar
because the LSD chimpanzee no longer observes
the law of its finely coordinated hierarchic tribal
order." --Albert Hofmann, LSD: My Problem
Child (1980)
"Until the late eighteenth century there was no
history of art, only the lives of artists." -Jacques
Barzun, The Use and Abuse of Art (1973)
The thinking type says; There is no evil but error. Find out!
The feeling type says: There is no evil but unhappiness.
Love every thing!
The sensation type says: There is no evil but pain. Do what
feels good!
The intuitive type says: There is no evil but being lost. Get
oriented!
--But who ever has suspected that
there might be more than one ill, & one remedy?
The mark of a barbarian is clumsiness. What passes for culture
today is the strenuous simulation of a few smooth moves.
"The stars are only a gleaming leprosy in the sky" --Hegel,
quoted by Heine in Kaufmann's Nietzsche
For a thinking person violence is the ultimate banality, and all
banality seems to some degree an act of violence.
Art is wasted on those who have to decide right away "it works"
or "it doesn't work"; you have to be willing to be bored before you
can begin to get interested.
The feeling type says: There is no evil but unhappiness.
Love every thing!
The sensation type says: There is no evil but pain. Do what
feels good!
The intuitive type says: There is no evil but being lost. Get
oriented!
--But who ever has suspected that
there might be more than one ill, & one remedy?
The mark of a barbarian is clumsiness. What passes for culture
today is the strenuous simulation of a few smooth moves.
"The stars are only a gleaming leprosy in the sky" --Hegel,
quoted by Heine in Kaufmann's Nietzsche
For a thinking person violence is the ultimate banality, and all
banality seems to some degree an act of violence.
Art is wasted on those who have to decide right away "it works"
or "it doesn't work"; you have to be willing to be bored before you
can begin to get interested.
'Maïr
The star, Maïr, shines in the sky above me--
The star, Maïr.
A world is lighted by this star so lovely,
So far from home.
The land, Oilay, floats on the waves of ether--
The land, Oilay.
The glittering light of Maïr one can see there
Is bright as day.
In that calm land of love, the Ligoy river--
The lithe Ligoy--
Makes the bright face of Maïr softly quiver
As waves deploy.
The flowers that smell, the lyres that strum (amazing
Lyres, strumming clear),
And songs of women in one breath praising--
Praising Maïr.'
--Sologub in: Modern Russian Poetry (tr Markov
& Sparks, 1967)
The avant garde speaks: "I'm not an artist I'm a
terrorist. My bombs don't hurt bodies--they blow
up souls. So far I have had no effect. Can it be that
there are no souls left?"
The star, Maïr, shines in the sky above me--
The star, Maïr.
A world is lighted by this star so lovely,
So far from home.
The land, Oilay, floats on the waves of ether--
The land, Oilay.
The glittering light of Maïr one can see there
Is bright as day.
In that calm land of love, the Ligoy river--
The lithe Ligoy--
Makes the bright face of Maïr softly quiver
As waves deploy.
The flowers that smell, the lyres that strum (amazing
Lyres, strumming clear),
And songs of women in one breath praising--
Praising Maïr.'
--Sologub in: Modern Russian Poetry (tr Markov
& Sparks, 1967)
The avant garde speaks: "I'm not an artist I'm a
terrorist. My bombs don't hurt bodies--they blow
up souls. So far I have had no effect. Can it be that
there are no souls left?"
Thursday, August 28, 2003
"Never forgot about, never more has been yiped
Stalking nothing like it was beat--Just like a watch band
A shot beats . A giraffe progresses.
Piercing sounds, wails, crys: 'Shut up, you profane faces!'
A chain talks noisily, but no one ever listens ...
Like Brett, the petals flopped in violent circles--his anguish exposed
Hope for you is not a morning dove, rather a mourning ham hock
Why ask why ? One envisions this always.
O melancholy world, you have punched me again."
--Poetry CreatOR 2
Stalking nothing like it was beat--Just like a watch band
A shot beats . A giraffe progresses.
Piercing sounds, wails, crys: 'Shut up, you profane faces!'
A chain talks noisily, but no one ever listens ...
Like Brett, the petals flopped in violent circles--his anguish exposed
Hope for you is not a morning dove, rather a mourning ham hock
Why ask why ? One envisions this always.
O melancholy world, you have punched me again."
--Poetry CreatOR 2
'You ought to learn to laugh, my young friends, if
you are hell-bent on remaining pessimists.' --Nietzsche
(1886)
At the Dallas museum i saw a Mochica cast-pot with just
the same expression as Picasso's famous portrait of
Gertrude Stein.
We are inundated with images of unavoidable injury, to
the point that all injury seems unavoidable. (That enter-
tainment accompanies this teaching is entirely beside
the point.)
"I read their expression as if I were reading the ingredients
of a bottle of poison I swallowed by mistake." --Darcey
Steinke, Suicide Blonde (1992)
Listening to: Morton Subotnick, "Silver Apples of the Moon".
you are hell-bent on remaining pessimists.' --Nietzsche
(1886)
At the Dallas museum i saw a Mochica cast-pot with just
the same expression as Picasso's famous portrait of
Gertrude Stein.
We are inundated with images of unavoidable injury, to
the point that all injury seems unavoidable. (That enter-
tainment accompanies this teaching is entirely beside
the point.)
"I read their expression as if I were reading the ingredients
of a bottle of poison I swallowed by mistake." --Darcey
Steinke, Suicide Blonde (1992)
Listening to: Morton Subotnick, "Silver Apples of the Moon".
Sailor Moon cocktails. (via Plastic)
"Hi,
just a minor correction. I am not muslim or Kuwaiti.
Take care
R--------"
"[William Wells] Brown had a wildcat bank up in
Buffalo, New York, you know. The first Afro-American
novelist printed up and issued his own money. Think
of that." --Ishmael Reed, 1977 interview, in:
Conversations with Ishmael Reed (1995)
"Hi,
just a minor correction. I am not muslim or Kuwaiti.
Take care
R--------"
"[William Wells] Brown had a wildcat bank up in
Buffalo, New York, you know. The first Afro-American
novelist printed up and issued his own money. Think
of that." --Ishmael Reed, 1977 interview, in:
Conversations with Ishmael Reed (1995)
Interesting meter in that Red Hot Chili Peppers song
that begins: "Can't stop addicted to the shin dig".
At first i analyzed it as a palimbacchus (@@* where
@ is a stressed syllable) plus first paeon (@***)
plus a trochee (@*) or spondee (@@) or dactyl
(@**), depending on the rhyme; but as i let the
rhythm sink in, i realized the 6th syllable was almost
always a very weak stress, giving a duple movement
to the latter half of the line. Then, too, the first two
syllables have a kind of syncopation, audible in the
near-equivalent one-line song from "Frazier": "Flesh
is burning/ dada dada da-da". So, it becomes a trochaic
pentameter with caesura after the second foot & a
combination of slowing the first part & speeding up
the second. Actually, this kind of line is known in
Yugoslavian poetry as an epic meter...
The Swingle Singers: a cappella classical music.
Four and a half billion years to produce a
creature that would rather kill than push
the brake pedal with its foot!
that begins: "Can't stop addicted to the shin dig".
At first i analyzed it as a palimbacchus (@@* where
@ is a stressed syllable) plus first paeon (@***)
plus a trochee (@*) or spondee (@@) or dactyl
(@**), depending on the rhyme; but as i let the
rhythm sink in, i realized the 6th syllable was almost
always a very weak stress, giving a duple movement
to the latter half of the line. Then, too, the first two
syllables have a kind of syncopation, audible in the
near-equivalent one-line song from "Frazier": "Flesh
is burning/ dada dada da-da". So, it becomes a trochaic
pentameter with caesura after the second foot & a
combination of slowing the first part & speeding up
the second. Actually, this kind of line is known in
Yugoslavian poetry as an epic meter...
The Swingle Singers: a cappella classical music.
Four and a half billion years to produce a
creature that would rather kill than push
the brake pedal with its foot!
"Two barbarians meet"
First one says: "I hurt. Pity me."
Second one says: "I hurt worse. I need all my pity for my own pain."
First one says: "You lie."
They begin to fight.
2 23 83
A glossary of Pali & Buddhist terms.
The Ten Commandments leave Alabama; meanwhile, in
Kyrghyzstan...
"The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire
poem could be made in this vocabulary." --Louise Gluck
First one says: "I hurt. Pity me."
Second one says: "I hurt worse. I need all my pity for my own pain."
First one says: "You lie."
They begin to fight.
2 23 83
A glossary of Pali & Buddhist terms.
The Ten Commandments leave Alabama; meanwhile, in
Kyrghyzstan...
"The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire
poem could be made in this vocabulary." --Louise Gluck
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Would you drive the moneychangers
out of the temple? It's their temple. (the Art
World)
Egotism creates empires, but Empire also creates
egos. The missing link is collectivized
education: the means is by preventing contempla-
tion (which would develop [the power of voluntary]
attention). That's why dogma is so important
to an empire. Without knowledge of real things
to furnish a common context, the only basis for
human relations must then be a rigidly preserved
terminology. [N.B. Dogmas need not be verbal. Many
of ours are made of images.]
The ego is finite and unbounded.
Psychologies have been founded on either of these
(half-) truths.
The concept of the Unconscious means: here there
are no more explanations. --But that assumes
explanations must be rational. If explanations are
instead 'stories', then the unconscious is also a
story, and can be elaborated. Once there were two
brothers who lived in the same house. But these
were blind and deaf brothers, and each thought that
he was alone. A day came when things were no longer
where they were supposed to be. They couldn't find
anything half the time. "Am I going crazy?" they
said to themselves, "Or do things move of their own
accord?"
out of the temple? It's their temple. (the Art
World)
Egotism creates empires, but Empire also creates
egos. The missing link is collectivized
education: the means is by preventing contempla-
tion (which would develop [the power of voluntary]
attention). That's why dogma is so important
to an empire. Without knowledge of real things
to furnish a common context, the only basis for
human relations must then be a rigidly preserved
terminology. [N.B. Dogmas need not be verbal. Many
of ours are made of images.]
The ego is finite and unbounded.
Psychologies have been founded on either of these
(half-) truths.
The concept of the Unconscious means: here there
are no more explanations. --But that assumes
explanations must be rational. If explanations are
instead 'stories', then the unconscious is also a
story, and can be elaborated. Once there were two
brothers who lived in the same house. But these
were blind and deaf brothers, and each thought that
he was alone. A day came when things were no longer
where they were supposed to be. They couldn't find
anything half the time. "Am I going crazy?" they
said to themselves, "Or do things move of their own
accord?"
I often watch movies on video in pieces, an hour
here, an hour the next day or the next. Onetime i
had been watching one of the "Thin Man" movies,
but by mistake i put in a different one the next time,
& was mildly confused by how the mystery finally
wound up...but i hadn't been watching it for the
plot anyway. An idea for a novel: midway through
it, finish with the second half of a different
novel--sharing the same character names, but
nothing else. This, i believe, would be truer to
life than the illusion of transparency given by
an omniscient author with a point to make.
here, an hour the next day or the next. Onetime i
had been watching one of the "Thin Man" movies,
but by mistake i put in a different one the next time,
& was mildly confused by how the mystery finally
wound up...but i hadn't been watching it for the
plot anyway. An idea for a novel: midway through
it, finish with the second half of a different
novel--sharing the same character names, but
nothing else. This, i believe, would be truer to
life than the illusion of transparency given by
an omniscient author with a point to make.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
The 'tater that exploded. One of my wife's
friends was cooking new potatos in the microwave.
She bit into one & it exploded in her mouth, burning
her severely. Her husband heard the report clear
in the next room!
Stefan George: Ihr alten bilder schlummert mit den toten
'You ancient visions with the dead have vanished,
I lack the strength to conjure you again,
Since from the true dominions I was banished,
I now wil taste the splendor tinged with bane.
By rumors of enchantment I am stricken:
The meadows of an azure vale reveal
How herons white and rosy-colored quicken
The nearby lake that sleeps and shines as steel.
There, as in symmetry of chords she paces,
Her upward pointed finger lifts and takes
The shrouding garment by its silken laces,
That in the night she wove of willow flakes.
O subtle play divined behind these veilings!
My senses wrought the fancy we were paired,
Before through vines that screen with bloomy trailings
Down to the nearby lake she slowly fared.'
--Poems tr Valhope & Morwitz (1943)
[I italicized this because in the original, George's poems
are printed in a peculiar typeface sort of like Carolingian
uncials, & he doesn't capitalize nouns, an effect impossible
to simulate in English...]
friends was cooking new potatos in the microwave.
She bit into one & it exploded in her mouth, burning
her severely. Her husband heard the report clear
in the next room!
Stefan George: Ihr alten bilder schlummert mit den toten
'You ancient visions with the dead have vanished,
I lack the strength to conjure you again,
Since from the true dominions I was banished,
I now wil taste the splendor tinged with bane.
By rumors of enchantment I am stricken:
The meadows of an azure vale reveal
How herons white and rosy-colored quicken
The nearby lake that sleeps and shines as steel.
There, as in symmetry of chords she paces,
Her upward pointed finger lifts and takes
The shrouding garment by its silken laces,
That in the night she wove of willow flakes.
O subtle play divined behind these veilings!
My senses wrought the fancy we were paired,
Before through vines that screen with bloomy trailings
Down to the nearby lake she slowly fared.'
--Poems tr Valhope & Morwitz (1943)
[I italicized this because in the original, George's poems
are printed in a peculiar typeface sort of like Carolingian
uncials, & he doesn't capitalize nouns, an effect impossible
to simulate in English...]
Monday, August 25, 2003
"Round
"Wondrous life!" cried Marvell at Appleton House.
Renan admired Jesus Christ "wholeheartedly."
But here dried ferns keep falling to the floor,
And something inside my head
Flaps like a worn-out blind. Royal Cortissoz is dead,
A blow to the Herald-Tribune. A closet mouse
Rattles the wrapper on the breakfast food. Renan
Admired Jesus Christ "wholeheartedly."
Flaps like a worn-out blind. Cézanne
Would break out in the quiet streets of Aix
And shout, "Le monde, c'est terrible!" Royal
Cortissoz is dead. And something inside my head
There is no twilight on the moon, no mist or rain,
No hail or snow, no life. Here in this house
Dried ferns keep falling to the floor, a mouse
Rattles the wrapper on the breakfast food. Cézanne
Would break out in the quiet streets and scream. Renan
Admired Jesus Christ "wholeheartedly." And something inside my head
Flaps like a worn-out blind. Royal Cortissoz is dead.
There is no twilight on the moon, no hail or snow.
One notes fresh desecrations of the portico.
"Wondrous life!" cried Marvell at Appleton House."
--Weldon Kees; An essay on him.
"Wondrous life!" cried Marvell at Appleton House.
Renan admired Jesus Christ "wholeheartedly."
But here dried ferns keep falling to the floor,
And something inside my head
Flaps like a worn-out blind. Royal Cortissoz is dead,
A blow to the Herald-Tribune. A closet mouse
Rattles the wrapper on the breakfast food. Renan
Admired Jesus Christ "wholeheartedly."
Flaps like a worn-out blind. Cézanne
Would break out in the quiet streets of Aix
And shout, "Le monde, c'est terrible!" Royal
Cortissoz is dead. And something inside my head
There is no twilight on the moon, no mist or rain,
No hail or snow, no life. Here in this house
Dried ferns keep falling to the floor, a mouse
Rattles the wrapper on the breakfast food. Cézanne
Would break out in the quiet streets and scream. Renan
Admired Jesus Christ "wholeheartedly." And something inside my head
Flaps like a worn-out blind. Royal Cortissoz is dead.
There is no twilight on the moon, no hail or snow.
One notes fresh desecrations of the portico.
"Wondrous life!" cried Marvell at Appleton House."
--Weldon Kees; An essay on him.
You think people are interchangeable,
don't walk in another man's moccasins--
look through his glasses.
'Health consists essentially in being able
to resolve contradictions.' --Kierkegaard,
The Sickness Unto Death (1849) tr
Lowrie
Artists settle for gestures. Then curse the
audience for not having enough imagination
to supply the rest.
You don't gain skills, you lose preconceptions.
No dreams grow where reality is not
examined.
Art can be a discipline instead of just a
drug, when it demands more freedom of
the artist.
I could never be a professor, because the first
thing i'd have to profess is the evil of
universities.
Terrorism insurance. (via Volokh)
don't walk in another man's moccasins--
look through his glasses.
'Health consists essentially in being able
to resolve contradictions.' --Kierkegaard,
The Sickness Unto Death (1849) tr
Lowrie
Artists settle for gestures. Then curse the
audience for not having enough imagination
to supply the rest.
You don't gain skills, you lose preconceptions.
No dreams grow where reality is not
examined.
Art can be a discipline instead of just a
drug, when it demands more freedom of
the artist.
I could never be a professor, because the first
thing i'd have to profess is the evil of
universities.
Terrorism insurance. (via Volokh)
An addiction is like being pinned to the
ground by a spear. You don't just get up
and walk away. --Nor should you hang a
flag from it.
'The beauty of the world is the mouth of
a labyrinth.' --Weil
Every heresy is at once a power struggle &
a quibble over words.
We seem not to be able to conceive of an
individuality which finds fulfillment in
solidarity, or a solidarity which does not
suppress the individual.
A real history of ideas would have the effect
of mapping possible discourse. Without a
continuing dialog with the past however, it's
just etymology and dates.
First mistake: that words have a meaning.
Second mistake: that they don't.
ground by a spear. You don't just get up
and walk away. --Nor should you hang a
flag from it.
'The beauty of the world is the mouth of
a labyrinth.' --Weil
Every heresy is at once a power struggle &
a quibble over words.
We seem not to be able to conceive of an
individuality which finds fulfillment in
solidarity, or a solidarity which does not
suppress the individual.
A real history of ideas would have the effect
of mapping possible discourse. Without a
continuing dialog with the past however, it's
just etymology and dates.
First mistake: that words have a meaning.
Second mistake: that they don't.
"Eliot, writing as a critic, easily
demonstrates the impossibility of Eliot's
writing The Waste Land." --Stephen
Spender, The Struggle of the Modern
(1963)
"A terrible thought, that after God's
withdrawal into silence the ancient mechanisms
which made prophets should continue working,
like machines left on in an abandoned factory:
so that bearded wild men strode forth as before,
howling, to any who would hear, their
inarticulate warning." --John Gardner, The
Sunlight Dialogues (1972)
Falling ones admire jugglers most. It makes
them feel like they're going somewhere.
Perhaps the hardest thing to recognize is the
process by which a truth becomes a lie. If you
believed it, you can't alter it without attacking
some part of yourself. And if you never did
believe it, then it seems to have been untrue all
along.
demonstrates the impossibility of Eliot's
writing The Waste Land." --Stephen
Spender, The Struggle of the Modern
(1963)
"A terrible thought, that after God's
withdrawal into silence the ancient mechanisms
which made prophets should continue working,
like machines left on in an abandoned factory:
so that bearded wild men strode forth as before,
howling, to any who would hear, their
inarticulate warning." --John Gardner, The
Sunlight Dialogues (1972)
Falling ones admire jugglers most. It makes
them feel like they're going somewhere.
Perhaps the hardest thing to recognize is the
process by which a truth becomes a lie. If you
believed it, you can't alter it without attacking
some part of yourself. And if you never did
believe it, then it seems to have been untrue all
along.
Sleepiness makes me forgiving. Ego thrives on
revenge.
"So skilled was he [Pessoa] at this art that, after
reading the autobiography of a well-known English
magus named Aleister Crowley, alias Master Therion,
he dared to inform the author that the horoscope
he'd drawn up for himself and published in his book
was mistaken. Crowley recognized the error, struck
up a correspondence with Pessoa, and came to
Lisbon in 1930 to meet the poet astrologer, who
in the following year published a Portuguese version
of 'Hymn to Pan'..." --Introduction to Fernando
Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems, ed & tr Richard
Zenith (1998)
Momus defines a new aesthetic for the new century.
A long, fascinating essay on "neophilic irreligions" on the
internet, such as the Church of the Subgenius & the
Cthulhu mythos.
"ODE TO MARS"
I want my canal share
Of life on Mars.
I hear its sough
Where air's not thick enough.
That Yma expiry
Named Orphalese
Drones on in koto
Glissades. Come Boreas,
Penetrate the dimness
That is our wisdom
Or somber cargo
Cult; come, ye Parcae
Flying pyramids, massed rods of Rome!
07 04 97
revenge.
"So skilled was he [Pessoa] at this art that, after
reading the autobiography of a well-known English
magus named Aleister Crowley, alias Master Therion,
he dared to inform the author that the horoscope
he'd drawn up for himself and published in his book
was mistaken. Crowley recognized the error, struck
up a correspondence with Pessoa, and came to
Lisbon in 1930 to meet the poet astrologer, who
in the following year published a Portuguese version
of 'Hymn to Pan'..." --Introduction to Fernando
Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems, ed & tr Richard
Zenith (1998)
Momus defines a new aesthetic for the new century.
A long, fascinating essay on "neophilic irreligions" on the
internet, such as the Church of the Subgenius & the
Cthulhu mythos.
"ODE TO MARS"
I want my canal share
Of life on Mars.
I hear its sough
Where air's not thick enough.
That Yma expiry
Named Orphalese
Drones on in koto
Glissades. Come Boreas,
Penetrate the dimness
That is our wisdom
Or somber cargo
Cult; come, ye Parcae
Flying pyramids, massed rods of Rome!
07 04 97
Sunday, August 24, 2003
'...poetry is like the arts of painting, cooking, and
cosmetics in its ability to express every sensation
of sweetness or bitterness, beatitude or horror,
by coupling a certain noun with a certain adjective,
in analogy or contrast...' --Baudelaire, Draft of a
Preface
"Black stands for malediction, red for flames,
and white for light. Those who use only three colors
say that blue, green, and yellow washes are merely
intended to please clients and are neither necessary
nor effective against demons." --Jacques Mercier,
Ethiopian Magic Scrolls (1979)
Martin Seymour-Smith's top 20c list would be something
like: Vallejo, Mandelshtam, Pessoa, Riding, Cavafy,
Rilke, Valéry, Hagiwara, Campana, Ady, Goll, & Isaac
Rosenberg, possibly Bacovia & Hart Crane.
cosmetics in its ability to express every sensation
of sweetness or bitterness, beatitude or horror,
by coupling a certain noun with a certain adjective,
in analogy or contrast...' --Baudelaire, Draft of a
Preface
"Black stands for malediction, red for flames,
and white for light. Those who use only three colors
say that blue, green, and yellow washes are merely
intended to please clients and are neither necessary
nor effective against demons." --Jacques Mercier,
Ethiopian Magic Scrolls (1979)
Martin Seymour-Smith's top 20c list would be something
like: Vallejo, Mandelshtam, Pessoa, Riding, Cavafy,
Rilke, Valéry, Hagiwara, Campana, Ady, Goll, & Isaac
Rosenberg, possibly Bacovia & Hart Crane.
Saturday, August 23, 2003
Part One
I like the idea of Essential Titles, though my
concept of a canon changes from decade to decade.
So here's a list of mine, with the caveat that
no list can be either representative or exhaustive; it's
making such a list that's instructive...
Propertius- Elegiae (30/16 BC). I know, no one can
consider themselves educated who isn't conversant with
the Aeneid, but for me Propertius is the one essential
poet of Classical Antiquity. He takes all the tools so pain-
stakingly developed by his predecessors, & uses them in
amazingly virtuosic & personal ways. Compared with
Propertius, Catullus (his only rival in the elegy) is heavy
handed & all too direct. Propertius will always be absolutely
up to date. [Note- I use the Loeb edition so i can
refer to the Latin. He has not been served well by trans-
lators, perhaps because they are hard put just to
capture his sense, much less his music. Pound at least
caught a little of his tone...]
Tottel's Miscellany (1557). This is the beginning of
poetry in English, & every song on the radio has its origin
somewhere in here. Shakespeare was of course the
consummate wielder of what might be called "the music
of grammar"--& his study will not be finished in a life-
time--yet this first anthology shows just what he
started with in that long ago era before dictionaries
when the poets really were the makers of speech.
Donne- Songs & Sonnets (1633). Just when the
lyric had been perfected, someone comes along with a
whole new game--combining a philosophical point of
view with the personal note lost for a thousand years--
& we are still trying to duplicate his results.
Baudelaire- Les Fleurs du Mal (1857). The modern
world, with all its alienation & dark glories, rendered
into sonorous & enduring form. There are several decent
translations available; Baudelaire loses surprisingly
little in the process; in that respect he is like Dostoevsky:
the impact of the message continues, like a Molotov
cocktail thrown through a stained glass window...
I like the idea of Essential Titles, though my
concept of a canon changes from decade to decade.
So here's a list of mine, with the caveat that
no list can be either representative or exhaustive; it's
making such a list that's instructive...
Propertius- Elegiae (30/16 BC). I know, no one can
consider themselves educated who isn't conversant with
the Aeneid, but for me Propertius is the one essential
poet of Classical Antiquity. He takes all the tools so pain-
stakingly developed by his predecessors, & uses them in
amazingly virtuosic & personal ways. Compared with
Propertius, Catullus (his only rival in the elegy) is heavy
handed & all too direct. Propertius will always be absolutely
up to date. [Note- I use the Loeb edition so i can
refer to the Latin. He has not been served well by trans-
lators, perhaps because they are hard put just to
capture his sense, much less his music. Pound at least
caught a little of his tone...]
Tottel's Miscellany (1557). This is the beginning of
poetry in English, & every song on the radio has its origin
somewhere in here. Shakespeare was of course the
consummate wielder of what might be called "the music
of grammar"--& his study will not be finished in a life-
time--yet this first anthology shows just what he
started with in that long ago era before dictionaries
when the poets really were the makers of speech.
Donne- Songs & Sonnets (1633). Just when the
lyric had been perfected, someone comes along with a
whole new game--combining a philosophical point of
view with the personal note lost for a thousand years--
& we are still trying to duplicate his results.
Baudelaire- Les Fleurs du Mal (1857). The modern
world, with all its alienation & dark glories, rendered
into sonorous & enduring form. There are several decent
translations available; Baudelaire loses surprisingly
little in the process; in that respect he is like Dostoevsky:
the impact of the message continues, like a Molotov
cocktail thrown through a stained glass window...
Housman- A Shropshire Lad (1896). You could say that
Housman is essentially a trivial writer, but in this age of
egregious untidiness it is good to remember that perfect
poems can & have been written. [More Poems & Last
Poems also contain many necessary lyrics.]
Mallarmé- Poésies (1898). If you only learn one
foreign language & only a bit of that, do try to scope out
Mallarmé in the original. Untranslatable, the inventor of
Modernism & the culmination of the literary tradition,
what can i say? Yet he wears it very lightly... His best
poems are about little things, flickers or the wave of
a fan, & thus connect with the Japanese poetic tradition.
Weinfeld's Collected Poems (1994) is bilingual &
includes the prose poems.
Stein- Tender Buttons (1914). I can't add anything
to my Amazon review.
Stevens- Harmonium (1923). Most of Stevens's best
poems. It is worth a concentrated study to inquire how much
of French Symbolism has been captured & how much lost;
he also, without even trying, spares you the necessity of
reading any Imagism.
Jeffers- The Roan Stallion (1924). A lot of people don't
like Jeffers, but he can't be ignored. There isn't another
such vatic writer in modern times; & his eye is always on
the land--something too easily lost in 20c verse.
Auden- Poems (1930) & The Orators (1932). You'd've
thought T S Eliot had said the last word in Modernism, & suddenly
this guy drags in Anglo-Saxon meters & the best imitation of
schiz-lit this side of Finnegans Wake. He also sets the
bar for a unified collection very high with the latter work--&
people are still arguing over what it means.
Part Three
Riding- Poems of Laura Riding (1938). The most original voice
of the 20c. She accomplishes some of the same things Mallarmé
did, without sounding anything like him. [Her cantankerous critical
writings are also essential.]
Rexroth- One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955). I can't
think of another book that so effortlessly teaches the essence of
another poetic tradition. A good antidote to the Eliot-Pound-Joyce
triumvirate.
Plath- Collected Poems (1981). Forget the myth. She was the
last Symbolist, & the greatest poet of the later 20c. Only fools despise
her.
Merwin- The Second Four Books of Poems (1993). Merwin is very
hit-or-miss, often lapses into self-pastiche, & seldom rises to the level
of great poetry. Still, when you read in these books long enough, you
realize he captures something that most other 20c writers never
even noticed--the subtragic grayness of daily life--& gives it
definitive expression.
---------------------------------------------------
Besides this, maybe Rilke's letters & that Snyder essay.
Riding- Poems of Laura Riding (1938). The most original voice
of the 20c. She accomplishes some of the same things Mallarmé
did, without sounding anything like him. [Her cantankerous critical
writings are also essential.]
Rexroth- One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955). I can't
think of another book that so effortlessly teaches the essence of
another poetic tradition. A good antidote to the Eliot-Pound-Joyce
triumvirate.
Plath- Collected Poems (1981). Forget the myth. She was the
last Symbolist, & the greatest poet of the later 20c. Only fools despise
her.
Merwin- The Second Four Books of Poems (1993). Merwin is very
hit-or-miss, often lapses into self-pastiche, & seldom rises to the level
of great poetry. Still, when you read in these books long enough, you
realize he captures something that most other 20c writers never
even noticed--the subtragic grayness of daily life--& gives it
definitive expression.
---------------------------------------------------
Besides this, maybe Rilke's letters & that Snyder essay.
" 'Masculine perfumery is defined negatively, by what
you don't put in it. ...It's like that novel by Perec that
was written withot the letter e. You can still do a
good one, though that's rare.' " --Luca Turin, quoted in:
Chandler Burr, The Emperor of Scent (2002) [thanx
Melanie!]
you don't put in it. ...It's like that novel by Perec that
was written withot the letter e. You can still do a
good one, though that's rare.' " --Luca Turin, quoted in:
Chandler Burr, The Emperor of Scent (2002) [thanx
Melanie!]
Friday, August 22, 2003
The three most non-phonetically spelled languages:
Irish, Tibetan, English.
Language with the most rational writing system: Korean.
Most unpronounceable language: Georgian.
Irish, Tibetan, English.
Language with the most rational writing system: Korean.
Most unpronounceable language: Georgian.
Doctor Dee exerts a perennial fascination, & ever
since "The Tempest" writers have used him for
a character: Meyrink (The Angel of the West Window)
John Crowley, Mary Gentle, & now Peter Ackroyd (The
House of Doctor Dee). And Test Department did an
album about him (The Enigma of Doctor Dee)... At
another time i mean to come back to Enochian,
one of the most legendary (if rudimentary) conlangs
of all time. Aleister, of course, meddled with it; but
perhaps the most fascinating thing for me is how
the idea that each of the letters has its own meaning,
& thus the meaning of a word can be derived from its
spelling--has migrated here out of Kabbalism,
unacknowledged.
since "The Tempest" writers have used him for
a character: Meyrink (The Angel of the West Window)
John Crowley, Mary Gentle, & now Peter Ackroyd (The
House of Doctor Dee). And Test Department did an
album about him (The Enigma of Doctor Dee)... At
another time i mean to come back to Enochian,
one of the most legendary (if rudimentary) conlangs
of all time. Aleister, of course, meddled with it; but
perhaps the most fascinating thing for me is how
the idea that each of the letters has its own meaning,
& thus the meaning of a word can be derived from its
spelling--has migrated here out of Kabbalism,
unacknowledged.
John Steinbeck, Master of Terror.
Lit-hist progresses by redrawing the canon. For the
Ur-Flarf Progenitor, i nominate "Ern Malley". (Even
Ashbery pays tribute to him.) I can see a clear lineage* through Spicer to the
present-day epigones... Yes, Poetry ends like a rope.
Another "damned poet"--born with twelve fingers. On translating Ady into Russian. A poem translated into Esperanto. A few English translations.
------------------------------------------
*Not to mention the ersatz computer poetry reviewed here.
Lit-hist progresses by redrawing the canon. For the
Ur-Flarf Progenitor, i nominate "Ern Malley". (Even
Ashbery pays tribute to him.) I can see a clear lineage* through Spicer to the
present-day epigones... Yes, Poetry ends like a rope.
Another "damned poet"--born with twelve fingers. On translating Ady into Russian. A poem translated into Esperanto. A few English translations.
------------------------------------------
*Not to mention the ersatz computer poetry reviewed here.
Not only good poetry has reverted to the "subter-
ground", so has a lot of the most interesting
horror & scifi, that corporate publishers simply
can't be bothered with. Even writers who may
have managed a "breakout" book or two, often
end up publishing subsequent works in hard
to find & expensive limited-editions. (Case in
point: Thomas Ligotti.) On the other hand,
it also means that such presses sometimes
reissue great works from the past that have
dropped out of sight. I am glad to see Robert
Aickman's stories being reprinted lately, like
Samuel R Delany's novels... (I thought to write
this entry after trying to find out if Tibet 93 was
still doing his Durtro Press/ Ghost Story Press
stuff. Can't tell from the website. Buy something
there! Where else are you going to find Count Stenbock??)
ground", so has a lot of the most interesting
horror & scifi, that corporate publishers simply
can't be bothered with. Even writers who may
have managed a "breakout" book or two, often
end up publishing subsequent works in hard
to find & expensive limited-editions. (Case in
point: Thomas Ligotti.) On the other hand,
it also means that such presses sometimes
reissue great works from the past that have
dropped out of sight. I am glad to see Robert
Aickman's stories being reprinted lately, like
Samuel R Delany's novels... (I thought to write
this entry after trying to find out if Tibet 93 was
still doing his Durtro Press/ Ghost Story Press
stuff. Can't tell from the website. Buy something
there! Where else are you going to find Count Stenbock??)
There's suppressed books, like the L Ron exposé, which
Scientologists went everywhere to buy & destroy; then
there's ignored books, like The Sacred Mushroom and
the Cross, that so dumbfounded the world of Biblical
scholarship that Allegro immediately became an "unperson"
--& is remembered today only by the 'Shroom Community...
I would have liked to believe that the name "Jesus" was
a code word for Amanita, but that business of Sumerian
puns was all too Saussure-like & just the way crackpot
reasoning proceeds, for me. But i think it's still a mind-
blowing book, if only because its author was who he
was (no wild-eyed hippie, he) to write it.
Incense clocks.
Free jazz is the only kind of music that when i play it
in the store, i invariably get asked to turn it off. We got
in some Albert Ayler the other day. I still haven't heard
all of it. I myself couldn't understand "A Love Supreme"
the first time i heard it. But it kept nagging at me
that there was something there i'd missed. Finally
one day i was listening to it, not really paying
attention--& i got it! (But i still don't know how
exactly to describe its meaning...) Sort of like
"averted vision" in astronomy--you look off to
the side of the object in the telescope, because
the peripheral areas are more sensitive to
faint light than the cornea. They are playing at
the edge of the music. Not trying to get it
directly. And what is evoked by your groping into
the sound, is the true music of this.
"Fair and Balanced"
Dreaming, in the Althusserian night,
That all our work will oneday 'scape debunking.
Driving, like a raid-marooned sad Viking
Siren from somewhere; other hands at hunt.
Sodium pink & mercury blue dispute
Pavements of the empire-builders' principle
Still i find this brillig blindness beautiful
To cross striped shadows wearing fingerprints
Envenomed darkness bring me French velvet
Acolytes... Fiesta red rodents pitch
Unopening windows, logarithmic squelch
Dreaming through the creaking of the pivot
A Volapük threnody, or part of it.
08 20 03
"I have a dream" in Lojban.
Listening to: Sven Vath.
Shadow of the Dolls ecards.
[Not anymore, but still.]
Scientologists went everywhere to buy & destroy; then
there's ignored books, like The Sacred Mushroom and
the Cross, that so dumbfounded the world of Biblical
scholarship that Allegro immediately became an "unperson"
--& is remembered today only by the 'Shroom Community...
I would have liked to believe that the name "Jesus" was
a code word for Amanita, but that business of Sumerian
puns was all too Saussure-like & just the way crackpot
reasoning proceeds, for me. But i think it's still a mind-
blowing book, if only because its author was who he
was (no wild-eyed hippie, he) to write it.
Incense clocks.
Free jazz is the only kind of music that when i play it
in the store, i invariably get asked to turn it off. We got
in some Albert Ayler the other day. I still haven't heard
all of it. I myself couldn't understand "A Love Supreme"
the first time i heard it. But it kept nagging at me
that there was something there i'd missed. Finally
one day i was listening to it, not really paying
attention--& i got it! (But i still don't know how
exactly to describe its meaning...) Sort of like
"averted vision" in astronomy--you look off to
the side of the object in the telescope, because
the peripheral areas are more sensitive to
faint light than the cornea. They are playing at
the edge of the music. Not trying to get it
directly. And what is evoked by your groping into
the sound, is the true music of this.
"Fair and Balanced"
Dreaming, in the Althusserian night,
That all our work will oneday 'scape debunking.
Driving, like a raid-marooned sad Viking
Siren from somewhere; other hands at hunt.
Sodium pink & mercury blue dispute
Pavements of the empire-builders' principle
Still i find this brillig blindness beautiful
To cross striped shadows wearing fingerprints
Envenomed darkness bring me French velvet
Acolytes... Fiesta red rodents pitch
Unopening windows, logarithmic squelch
Dreaming through the creaking of the pivot
A Volapük threnody, or part of it.
08 20 03
"I have a dream" in Lojban.
Listening to: Sven Vath.
Shadow of the Dolls ecards.
[Not anymore, but still.]