Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Lorine Niedicker Mural

2011-10-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

A Tale of Two Arts

2011-07-21T09:55:00.000-07:00

I encountered 2 interesting tales of art lately, one the novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, the other a film, Exit through the Gift Shop.

Jeff is a novel in 2 parts. the first part features a "lost" writer who's life has become meaningless, who travels to the Biennale in Venice to supposedly write an article on a painter's ex-wife, get some photos, and obtain permission to use a secluded work of art. He fails on all accounts, but falls in love (very graphic, hot sex), attends parties (where the true artist of the Biennale is toasted -- the drink Bellini), and critiques art. His new girlfriend actually has one of the better lines in the book, although there are many, when she states that art has become so banal it has achieved a new realm of meaning, like a new physics (paraphrased). This section has some wonderful moments, particularly if you like the wry, ironic, overly cynical (but with moments of sentimentality) British take on things.
In the second part of novel, Jeff travels to Varanasi, India to write a travel piece. Again he fails, but settles into life in Varanasi, and comes to some weird sort of enlightenment. This section is far more detailed and atmospheric than the Venice segment, which paled in comparison to an Aurelio Zen mystery I recently read (Dead Lagoon). The "spiritual" element of the second part is very strange, evolving through illness, an altered perception of time, and the absurdities of life in Varanasi.

The movie, Exit through the Gift Shop is a must see for anyone who has doubts about the authenticity of art in these current times. I found myself on the edge of my seat, pumping my fist in the air at times. The imagination, courage, passion, political stance and non-commercialism of many of the street artists portrayed here is truly heartening, and has given me a direction for when I retire. Another great line (again paraphrased) is said by the artist Space Invader: I hope to create meaning based on repetition, the thought being that the more a piece is seen in different places, the more it assumes importance and meaning, thus creating meaning out of something meaningless. The film itself, has elements of a cosmic joke, turning itself on its head, or the head of Thierry Guetta, who supposedly shot much of the film, and decided to become an artist himself using the name Mr. Brainwash. Is a Brainwash a hoax? Is he Banksy? Or is he who he says he is? The jury is still out. Meanwhile, he's designed a Madonna cover, and sold extensive amounts of "art."

Bach, Forests & Cell Phones -- Pretty Impressive Mix

2011-05-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

A Blast from the Past

2011-05-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

Machine of Death

2011-05-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

the contest is now open for volume 2. The first volume ranked higher than Glenn Beck's book on Amazon -- this one will rank higher than Sara Palin!

Machine of Death Talent Show - Opening from David Malki ! on Vimeo.

What Is Poetry

2011-04-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

A compilation of opinions by a compilation of practitioners and readers courtesy of George Quasha.

poetry is [vol. I] from George Quasha on Vimeo.

Heavy Industry

2011-04-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Check this venture from Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industry out. Done to an Art Blakey soundtrack, and based on Pound's first 2 cantos.
http://www.yhchang.com/DAKOTA.html

Print in Action

2011-03-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

Poetry in Action

2011-03-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Very Cool Website/Very Excellent Writer

2011-02-10T20:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.ranadasgupta.com/
the url for Rana Gastupa's website is a web
sight a web of
sites
a lure.

Reading his Tokyo Canceled, a brilliantly conceived book about thirteen travelers stranded
in an airport (where?) by a blizzard that shuts down the Tokyo Airport. They begin to talk,
share stories, become a book.

Anis Shivani

2011-01-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

"Next door in a bookstore, the power of the blast made the thin, dusty volumes of French novelists translated into Persian totter and fall off the shelves, although the thicker British and Russians stayed put." from "Tehran" by Anis Shivani

Every rare once in awhile I discover a new writer that I would sing about if I could sing, so write I will. I first discovered the brash young Anis in his reviews at the Huffington Post, where he takes on the Canon and introduces many writers I never heard of, which for me are the best kind. Soon after my introduction I obtained a copy of his collection of short stories, Anatolia and Other Stories, and began reading alongside a number of other books. Anatolia soon won out. The stories all grapple with multiculturalism, or shifting culturalism, as well as issues of race and class, yet they are in no way the politically correct liberal takes that fill the best literary journals, no sire, Anis likes to raise hackles, similar to his character Simone Carpentier in "Go Sell It on the Mountain," a vicious little take on a Breadloaf-styl writing workshop. The stories are set in the U.S., Dubai, India, Iran, Turkey and other locales. Everywhere the winds of change are shifting the landscapes, and characters are caught up in these changes. And these are Stories! No po-mo shape-shifting for Anis. Each story is filled with scrupulous detail, indigenous language, and fascinating characters. They are touching, funny, angry, unjust, irritating and gentle to name a few.
The initial story, a very Kafkaesque peice, Dubai, tells of a construction worker who came to Dubai from India many years ago, and on the eve of his returning to India is visiting friends and reminiscing. A disturbing incident from the past however interferes. And the other stories, are well worth the visit to a library or book store. And Anis Shivani is someone very much worth singing, or writing about.

Language Poetry Gone Awry

2011-01-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

Judge: David-Winn: Miller, the wanna-be avant garde poet who believes the U.S. government is controlling us through it's use of grammar is a possible influence on the recent tragic Arizona shooting. The shooter, Jared Loughner, apparently believed the most effective way to fight bad grammar was with a .9mm, something our schools are failing to teach (which he was also pissed about). This seems related in methodology to the "Hit Squad" school of literary criticism, ala Salman Rushdie. Watch your commas and CAPS, writers.

Old Stuff, Overheard in the National Gallery and adjacent Sculpture Garden

2011-01-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

Young girl to young man: " I'm really getting arted out."

Young man to young man: "My dad is NOT a lawyer."

Man in blue vest: "How can time be a circle when there is no such thing as time?"

Stephen Machmanovich Free Play!

Denis Dutton

2011-01-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

I just recently read that Denis Dutton had died at the far too early age of 66 (only 6 years my elder). I had recently been introduced to Mr. Dutton by a friend, Jeff Purdue, and found his book The Art Instinct, an investigation of the role of evolution in the artistic process and appreciation. The book was terrifically well-written, and threw out numerous hypotheses. It was not Mr. Dutton's self-identified task to conclude anything, but rather open doors of inquiry, something he did masterfully. I also became aware of his website, Arts & Letters, a virtual collage of reviews, opinions, and at times, madness. Men of his honesty, directness and charm will be missed.

On other notes, recommended reads include the South African author J.M. Coetzee's (a new author for me) Boyhood: Scenes from a Provincial Life, a memoir of sorts about growing up in South Africa. This is a marvelous and at times searing book. I am looking forward to his next two in the series: Youth: Scenes from a Provincial Life II & Summertime.

And a highly recommended movie: The Social Network. A must see!

Clear Dawn, Motor Started Eventually

2010-12-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

Well it's almost a new year and a beautiful clear, cold Bellingham morning -- a perfect opportunity to pluck a few keys and get this old machine rolling again.
I bought a Nook, and was just comparing the readerly qualities between it and a paperback book at my desk.
The Nook's page is smaller, but there's no inner crevasse of a margin that needs to be tipped towards the light.
The heft is the same.
And I could say that there is a sensuality of paper that can't be matched by plastic but that's subjective. But I'll say it anyway.
On the other hand, the damn thing can hold 1500 books, and I can check out books from the public library, get Google Books, and shop at our local Village Books as well as the nefarious Barnes & Noble.
So for my first two options I chose "Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi" by Geoff Dyer and "Just Kids" by Patti Smith which unbelievably won a National Book Award. I'm grazing a bit in the Dyer, but have several paper texts to put away first.
On to the new year, beginning appropriately enough with a wedding on New Year's Eve (my friend Jim).
ciao.

A Taste of Bellingham

2010-10-08T13:57:00.001-07:00

Frazey Ford (OMG, Obadiah)

2010-09-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

I apologize in advance for the "Youtube Quality" but I love watching her move while she sings. Obadiah is my favorite album of the year thus far. And the sound is much, much better, as is the song diversity.

Poetry on Glenn Beck's new site - the bLAZE

2010-08-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

UCSD PROFESSORS WANT TO DISSOLVE US — GIVE GPS PHONES WITH EXPLICIT POETRY TO ILLEGALS FOR BORDER CROSSING

GPS phones with EXPLICIT POETRY! For Illegal Aliens (the ones from Mars?) Funded by taxpayer money! Holy )&%)&^&_ Batman!

Blaze away Beck, with your "real journalists."

Tuli Kupferberg RIP

2010-08-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

I was deeply moved today when I read that Tuli Kupferberg had died some weeks back.
I first saw Tuli perform with his band The Fugs in 1967 in Chicago at the Electric Playground, and this pivotal concert opened up more than a few doors of perception. Tuli wrote amazing songs, and one of my favorite was "Morning, Morning" which is pure poetry.
These lines written by Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman in Memorial Day 1971 describe Tuli perhaps better than anything ever written.

"I asked Tuli Kupferberg once, "Did you really jump off of The Manhattan Bridge?" "Yeah," he said, "I really did." "How come?" I said. "I thought that I had lost the ability to love," Tuli said. "So, I figured I might as well be dead. So, I went one night to the top of The Manhattan Bridge, & after a few minutes, I jumped off." "That's amazing," I said. "Yeah," Tuli said, "but nothing happened. I landed in the water, & I wasn't dead. So I swam ashore, & went home, & took a bath, & went to bed. Nobody even noticed."

A god of peace and vicious personal honesty has passed.

Nice Video, Nice Tune

2010-08-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

Such a Stone

2010-08-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Such a stone
Rolling down.

anonymous

Reality Hunger

2010-08-13T18:52:00.001-07:00

Read this Book:

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto.
David Shields, UW

then let's talk

Does It Get Better than THIS? The Question of the Month

2010-08-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

A beautiful Visit with a Free Man

2010-06-02T08:16:00.001-07:00

A Dead Hand

2010-06-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

A dead hand is an expression for writer's block, but in Paul Theroux's new novel of the same name it becomes a real object handed to him by a former hotel maid - the hand of a young boy. Theroux's novel is set in India, primarily Calcutta, and like much of his work can be somewhat ponderous and self-absorbed, but rich in ambiance and detail. The plot involves a writer, Jerry Delfont, who is in Calcutta to give lectures, and is contacted by a mysterious and beautiful humanitarian, Merrill Unger, who wants him to do her a favor. As a mistress in the Tantric Arts she sucks him into her world, which is not what the somewhat naive Jerry Delfont expects. Playing off Hindu mythology (Unger is the perfect Kali), Theroux takes us into the duality that is India -- Spiritual, harmonic, enlightened and equally impoverished, brutal and materialistic. No one can deconstruct a utopia like Theroux. One of the funnier moments in the book is when Paul Theroux himself shows up and has a brief encounter with the narrator Delfont, whom he considers a hack. A decent read, but I still rely on John Burdett for my Southeast Asian mysteries.

More El More

2010-05-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

I just read Elmore Leonard's Be Cool which is a sequel to the fabulous Get Shorty. Near the beginning Chili Palmer, talking about the movie sequel to Get Leo (Get Lost) says that the sequels are never as good as the original. Unfortunately, it sets the tone for this book, which is a meandering novel about using and manipulating life to make a movie (kind of like writing a novel about using life and manipulating life to make a movie). Along the way we meet US mobsters, bad-assed rappers, a gay Samoan body guard, Russian mobsters, star-starved women, and any number of LA entertainment industry characters. It's a fun romp, if not a bit depressing, because the realization that talent doesn't really matter all that much is probably true. (A top music business CEO tells Chili that most of the women who do toothpaste ads can sing better than the stars.) Anyway, the end result is that Chili hands the whole thing to a screenwriter and hopes that he/she can turn it into something. Elmore Leonard did not. He published it as is. But of course because it's Elmore, and he's even cooler than Chili Palmer, it's worth the time.

Over or Under?

2010-05-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what the characteristics of people who take their toilet paper from under rather than over were?
I thought not, but here they are anyway, courtesy of Hunch.com.

Olives, Anyone?

2010-05-20T20:00:00.001-07:00

Olive Kitteridge is a stunning book. Simply and beautifully written; complex in its simplicity, the novel is a collection of interwoven short stories, a form that if not birthed, was certainly given identity by Louis Erdich with Love Medicine. Olive is not a likeable woman. She is intolerant and speaks her intolerance, alienating her son and many others. As Olive states, “And I am essentially a peasant. I have the strong passions and prejudices of a peasant.” But she is far richer in character than this, and to paraphrase a New York Times book reviewer commented, the gravitational pull that anchors the various stories in the novel. The novel will shock you, amuse you, stun, marvel and nearly devastate you, often within a few pages. Set in contemporary Maine, Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer for this work. And she damn well deserves it.

Spill Baby, Spill

2010-04-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

On the average of twice a day I wish for the powers of a Greek God. This morning my wish is to take all those morons who were chanting "Drill Baby, Drill" at the Republican convention and displace them to the shores of Alabama where the first fingers of the largest oil spill in history are beginning to degrade wetlands, fisheries and beaches, and magically have them continue their chant, while jumping up and down and generally acting like idiots. I would welcome what the locals would do to them.

The Strangest Urban Ecosystems in the World

2010-04-21T11:44:00.001-07:00

This makes for a fascinating read.

Eating Ants

2010-04-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

A recent poem, "Eating Ants," was accepted by Alimentum's MenuPoems. Hear it being read in a noisy eating establishment by someone I don't know but am now indebted to.

Quick Takes

2010-04-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh, who claimed he was going to move to another country (we were hoping) if the health care bill passed, still hasn't found one without socialized health care. Keep looking Rush.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the University of Phoenix, which many of us used to think was a hoax, is now the second largest university in the country, beating out the California university system. New York's is still the largest.

Almost perpetual motion machine: Given the two universal laws that cats, when dropped from a height, always land on their feet; and the law that dictates a buttered piece of bread will always hit the ground (or floor) butter side down = if a buttered piece of bread is attached butter side up to the back of a cat, and the cat is dropped from a great height, it will spin indefinitely generating great amounts of electricity.

Clay Shirky on Cognitive Surplus

2010-03-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

This is a fascinating talk by a very interesting contemporary social observer, Clay Shirky, who's book "Here Comes Everybody" I'm currently reading, learning from, and enjoying very much.

Battling the AntiChrist

2010-03-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

Given this is who is currently battling the AntiChrist, I'm going to have to put my chips with him.

Fox News Folks

2010-03-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

To get a good idea of the average Joe (and Jill) who reads Fox News, take a look at the comments
for the story about Jesse Jackson confronting the Tea Party. This is really scary, and I hope the FBI, etc.
is following these clowns.

The Original Earworm

2010-03-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

I'm sure everyone out there feels the same way about Pachebel's Canon as I do, so here's a rendition for you:

Take that Tea Party

2010-03-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

It's the Coffee Party, a new political movement that is challenging the Tea Party to a competition of mudslinging and chicanery. I'm waiting for the W(h)ine party myself.

VookS

2010-03-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

Vooks are the new thing. A combination of book and video that work on computers and I-Phones and soon on Kindle-like devices (c'mon engineers, let's open these up and sell the cheap). And at the rate video is evolving, they'll probably be in 3-D by next year.

Sonata for John Cage

2010-03-11T17:06:00.000-08:00

Here's where I wish I had a million readers.

Walk to the nearest bookcase, magazine rack, etc.
Open a book or magazine to any page.
Read out loud for exactly three minutes.

Taken to the next level, each participant would video themselves and we'd post them into a huge mashup.
Such is my so-called life.

Village Book Reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-03-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

Paul Piper,

Allen Frost, Laura Smith, myself and our publisher Larry Smith will be reading at Village Books out of "Bottom Dog Press Poetry Anthology: 25th Anniversary." The event takes place at 7p.m. All attendees will be wined and dined, receive free money and numerous back issues of the National Geographic. Plus Great Poems!!! Be there or be polygonal.

Colbert at Irish House

2010-03-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

Although it's only a snippet, and the sound is crap, it is a great moment in Western Culture when Stephen Colbert reads a small portion of Ulysses at the Irish House.

Bloom Boxes

2010-02-24T13:02:00.000-08:00

The future of energy? A stack of disks the size of a brink powering an average home, and running on SAND!?
Check it out.

Two Interesting New Search Engines

2010-02-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

You may have heard of these two newcomers to Search, but they are worth noting and playing around with.

The first is Wolfram Alpha, and here is a nifty Youtube tutorial Wolfram is an excellent research tool for gathering any kind of data, particularly comparative data. For example, if you want to compare the demographics of two cities, type the city names into Wolfram along with the word demographics. If you want to limit this to a certain date, or time frame, enter that as well. Comparisons, such as nutritional values of foods, is a breeze with this tool.

The Second is less of a search engine per se and more of a Web navigation tool. It's called HyperWord and a instructional video is here. By highlighting a word in a web document, you are offered a number of choices, such as search, reference, convert, shop, share, copy, and translate. Definitely worth the free download.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

2010-02-18T20:27:00.001-08:00

Palin is the Essence of 2012

2010-02-11T12:15:00.001-08:00

In Michael Tomasky's blog in The Guardian today he traced a possible path for Sara Palin to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, feats which would give her a good shot at the Republican nomination. And while all things Palin have great comedic and interest value, one of the comments to Tomasky's post deserves serious (:) consideration. PhillipD wrote, and I quote "I thought she'd be a shoe-in for New Hampshire. If I lived there and I was a Dem I'd round up everyone I knew to vote for her, purely for the entertainment value." While Sara has the Tea Party vote fairly wrapped up, the Entertainment vote (which could include the likes of Colbert) is not being widely discussed, yet it is exactly this vote which may squeak her into the nomination. Many wonder how incredibly weird it would really be. Really.

Literature that Gets Under Your Skin

2010-02-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

This is the last line of Tobias Wolff's short story Bullet in the Brain, courtesy of Karl Yaeger, a true fan. More literary tats at contrariwise

The Spuggies are Fledged

2010-02-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

So goes the line from Basil Bunting's poem Briggflats, and it's Spring & All with the first crocuses out, and the flowering plum not far behind.

King Crimson

2010-01-28T19:16:00.000-08:00

Well I was going to try and be more diligent and/or ambitious about posting this year but winter in B'ham is a time for hibernation, despite the record warmth. What's this got to do with King Crimson you say? Who knows, other than I've been enjoying this phase of the band (Discipline, Beat) lately. Also Sara Tavares. Yum.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T10:06:00.000-08:00

It's been a bit of a hiatus, but good to be back in the saddle. I'm working on a brief review of John LeCarre's newest novel "A Most Wanted Man," that may appear here soon, but in the meantime just wanted to share a line or two. I was at a pre-Christmas party of very mixed company (young/old; liberal/conservative), my favorite kind of party actually, and someone mentioned that they had read Palin's book and thought it very "elegantly" written. Of course the book was ghostwritten so that credit (if it's true -- haven't read the book and won't) would go to the ghostwriter. But diving once again into "I Claudius" I came across this very appropriate line on the first page: "My readers must not therefore be surprised at my practised writing style: it is indeed Claudius himself who is writing this book, and no mere secretary of his, and not one of those official annalists either, to whom public men are in the habit of communicating their recollections, in the hope that elegant writing will eke out the meagerness of subject matter and flattery soften vices."

To that, in the context of Sarah Palin I will raise my glass. And also to a year that will hopefully forget her.

A Universal History of Infamy

2009-11-24T09:46:00.000-08:00

After browsing my home book shelves this morning and slipping out a thin volume entitled "A Universal History of Infamy" by Borges I began paging through it. While everywhere there were depictions of scoundrels and murderers, I was never able to re-locate the page I had just read, a device that Borges himself used in his story "A Book of Sand." I suddenly realized that the only way such a slim volume could actually hold a Universal history of infamy, which I took to include past and future, would be if the volume contained a near infinite number of pages, which would make for a very unwieldy book indeed. Borges solved this problem by allowing pages to appear and disappear at random, thus allowing a near infinite coverage while keeping the volume slim. Just another of his great fictional devices.

Riff off Tanikawa

2009-11-23T08:47:00.000-08:00

One hundred black coots
bobbing on silver water this morning

and i hear the sound of blood in my ears.
Tanikawa says poetry is none other than blood;

blood then is nothing but wind, and wind
our lost voices returning.

One hundred black coots bobbing
on silver water and the sound of wind

in my ears.

Nicolas Cage's Movie Choices

2009-11-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

There is a reason the talented actor Nicolas Cage has taken such stupid roles in such stupid movies over the past few years. Apparently he's broke. According to CNN: "Nicolas Cage brought about his own financial ruin with a spending spree that included two castles, 15 palatial homes, a flotilla of yachts and a squadron of Rolls Royces." Poor baby.

Siegal/Schwall Memories

2009-11-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up in Chicago and Oak Park one of the most popular blues bands was the Siegal/Schwall band, a band we lived out many high school concerts with. Corky Siegal of course went on to some notoriety while Jim Schwall, who played a beautiful miked acoustic Gibson, disappeared. It was with great pleasure that I found this re-union at one of our neighborhood clubs, Fitzgeralds, also featuring the great Sammy Lay (luv those glasses!). Enjoy.

Or, Well, What?

2009-11-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

I still find myself intrigued and disturbed by 1984, and have dog-eared so many pages (it's a library book - my bad!) that I'm going to buy a copy. The text has cast a filter on my news consumption (and even sports viewing!) lately, and in light of the apparent continuation of our "little" wars in Afghanistan and Iraq I'll share this quote:

"Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this is by continual warfare. The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence in the long run, too intelligent. (I'm not sure about that -- fat and complacent might be more like it.) Even when weapons are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labor power without producing anything that can be consumed." Are we on the path of continuous warfare? And let's not forget that we are the largest weapons producing nation in the world, a fact that should make any sane person a subversive. Along with this continual warfare is all the pomp and jingoism and choreographed mourning for the killed soldiers, who gave their lives for their country. Don't bother asking why the f*ck we're over there anyway.

The other insight I picked up from 1984 was how the populace needs to be kept joyless. Anger, pain, cynicism, bullying, violence and fear are all legitimate emotions or psychological states because of their ease of manipulation. The prevalence of these negative energies, or the condition of cynicism, which is so prevalent in most media, has caused the poet Robert Hass (and many others in different ways) to state that merely "Feeling human is a useful form of political subversion."

1984

2009-11-13T16:02:00.002-08:00

Is a stunning book and one that doubtfully would be published today, with it's thin plot line, didactics, and complex psychological, philosophical and political descriptions, But it's a book everyone in America should read (again) and discuss in schools, cafes, bars, talk radio and news shows, because it still pertains to US. To some extent we have become the people of this book.

But, that's not what I had in mind with this post. What I had in mind was to transcribe this beautiful passage about a bird singing, overheard by Winston and Julia after they had first stolen away into the country and illicitly made love:

"A thrush alighted on a bough not five meters away, almost at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in the sun, they in the shade. It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung together, fascinated. The music went on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as if the bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped for a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its speckled breast and again burst into song. Winston watched it with a sort of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was the bird singing? No mate, no rival was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood and pour its music into nothingness?"

Great Zorn Thread

2009-11-13T16:02:00.001-08:00

http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=38347

Questions for Big Bird

2009-11-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Sesame Street turns 40 next Tuesday and this is your chance to ask Big Bird any question you want. Check out some of the questions here.

thanks to M for this.

Whatcom County Feminism

2009-11-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

A feminist visiting from another area, seeing that Kathy, Mary Beth and Michelle are running against Dan, Carl and Ken might be heartened to see women well represented in local elections. If that same feminist arrived today, they might be dismayed that all three women were defeated. The irony is that the three men represent "progressive" concerns, while the three women were right-wingers. In what I am beginning to call the Sara Palin Effect, Republicans seem to be turning more and more to literate, pretty, clean-cut women to carry their cause forward. The further irony of this is that putting women into positions of power is a feminist cause, and the current crop of Republicans seem to be embracing it more effectively than the Democrats. And if by some amazing fluke Sara Palin runs, and is elected president, the Republicans will have achived a feminist coup by electing a woman to an office previously occupied by men 100% of the time.

Medicine Cabinets

2009-11-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

Damien Hirst, a conceptual artist, is selling a series of Medicine Cabinets through Christie's Auction House. the medicine cabinets feature sliding glass doors, sleek white cabinetry, glass shelving, and are stocked full of bottles and boxes of goodies. The Medicine Cabinets are "thought up" by Hirst but actually executed by people with technical talent (but far less imagination) that Hirst. The Cabinets are going for around $239,000 and up. But before you rail on about the idiocy of conceptual art and the foolishness of investing this kind of money in flukey sh*t, be aware that the bottles and boxes in the Medicine Cabinets are crammed with Oxycontin which have a street value of around $80 - $100 a pill, thus making the investment rather a bargain. And selling the contents at local High schools is legal since it's art. Smart guy, this Hirst.

The Way of Music

2009-10-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

I wrote recently that I'd been dabbling in Kurt Weill. Well that led to a re-discovery of Carla Bley, one of the first major women jazz band leaders, who had a fascination with German marching music, as well as the music of the Weimar Republic. Tracking down Bley also led me to her collaborations with Nick Mason (of Pink Floyd) and Robert Wyatt. It also evoked many memories of old friends, concerts, and life in a seemingly more adventurous yet simpler time. Currently listening to Third by Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt drumming his way into the future.

Buying Byron

2009-10-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

Now that Lord Byron's letters are for auction at Sotheby's it gives us a chance to ruminate on the days when a poet had the same "larger than life" persona that a rock star does nowdays (i.e. Michael Jackson), given the communication constraints of the era of course. Aside from the always obnoxious and persistent commodity fetish we subscribe to the "things" of famous persons, the fact that this sale actually represents letters of a poet is grand enough. Undoubtedly thousands of people will pick up Byron, perhaps for the first time, and if some beauty enters the world because of it, then it's all good.
Our last American larger than life poet was arguably Allen Ginsberg, whose spiritual and to a large extent stylist mentor was our first grand, and much larger than life poet, Walt Whitman. If Walt were alive today he'd probably be a hip-hop artist or rock star. Poetry is quiet in America, despite the popularity of slams. But perhaps it is just estavating, waiting for the right person to come along. Someone large, bold, bad, brilliant, and very damn good.
My favorite Byron tidbit thus far, picked up from NPR, is his reference to Wordsworth as TURDSworth. Nothing like a smack-down to get poets into the limelight.

On other issues of proportion, check out the Book of Genesist illustrated by R. Crumb. It may succeed in giving back the bible (this book anyway) its elemental and perverse humanity.

Such a Lovely Song for Such a Rainy Day

2009-10-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Going Rogue

2009-10-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

Marvel to the days when one can have a bestseller before the book actually exists, which is what has happened with Going Rogue, Sarah's somewhat premature memoir. But I say Fair's fair. If people are allowed to pay for a book that doesn't yet exist, we the people should be allowed to pay so that it will never exist. I'd pay $10 for that.

It's Not What You Say

2009-10-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

The following post by Atrios (http://www.eschatonblog.com/) garnered 99 comments.

"Morning Thread
I'm sure I'll have something to say once I've had some coffee."

I wouldn't get any comments if I said this because it would mean something entirely different. I drink Maxwell House.

Marianne Faithfull

2009-10-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

I'm tracking down as much Kurt Weill as I can these day, and making forays into German Caberet music, all as a result of hearing Maianne Faithfull's 20th Century Blues (originally released in 1997). Marianne's husk-smoked voice serenaded by the incomparable Paul Trueblood on piano and arrangements, introduces her interpretations of many classic Weill songs. I was thrilled to hear them, remembering the Three Penny Opera LP my parents owned and played when I was a child, versions of Mac the Knife that wouldn't leave my head, and the cover of Alabama Song by the Doors that could be mundane or insanely edgy depending on Morrison's psychotropic cocktail that particular night. Anyway, thought I'd share this rather good youtube of Marianne singing "I Want to Buy Some Illusions" There are several of the Weill songs on youtube as well but the imbed feature has been disabled. This will give you a taste however. Now onto the Berliner Requiem.

A New (to me) Chanteuse

2009-10-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

Looking for that Perfect Gift Book?

2009-10-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

Look no further. Awful Library Books has hundreds of ideas, from cat dissection to embalming fetal pigs in plastic to curing VD at home; books titled "Looking Forward to Being Attacked" (who can wait?) and "Nice Girls Do: Now You Can Too!" (I'll be looking at nice girls differently after this one.
Anyway, thanks to Elizabeth for the tip.

The Moon at Dawn

2009-10-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

This morning while walking the dog I was, as Charles Olson once wrote, "seized by the moon." As contemporary cosmology has proven, the light of the moon is not merely reflected sunlight, but a remarkably altered light, with it's own mysterious qualities.
It's wondrous eye above the dark fir caught me in its gaze. Still holds me hours later.

Returns

2009-09-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Top Bellingham, to Rock!

After 2,000 plus miles on the road -- Montana, Idaho (Stanley!), Oregon, Washington with my 86 year old father who held up well, though befuddled and pained.
Read Treasure Island and Kidnapped by Stevenson for the first time since I was 8 or 9...what a treat! Long John Silver is as much an operator as anyone Elmore Leonard ever created (or knew) and I'd forgotten all about the Scottish sovereignty theme in Kidnapped.
But mostly wanted to share a live version of a song that's been looping through my brain for the last month or so. It's off Streetcore, the 3rd and final album from Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, actually released after he died (the version on the album is slightly different). This is such a powerful, terrific, eclectic band one can't help wondering where they would have taken themselves.

Neil Young took Coltrane's Wail and Stuck it into an Electric Guitar

2009-08-26T19:03:00.001-07:00

Two Books

2009-08-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

I've been reading somewhat slowly lately, due to many outdoor treks and other ventures, but these two books are definitely worth the time. Both are runners up for the National Book Award.

Telex from Cuba, by Rachel Kushner (former editor of BOMB!) is a complex, lyrical, witty, intelligent investigation of colonial Cuba. Narrated by multiple characters, but largely children of the corporate managers, the stories travel through the eras of Prio, Batista, and the Castro Brothers tracking the relationships between American industrialism (such as United Fruit) and the national government. The stories that comprise this tapestry often conflict, and the net result, for me, was a deeper understanding than would emerge from a more univocal novel. The children exist in a unique world shared by their priviledge, but also by children of the oppressed cultures -- particularly Haitians and Cubans. They move in and out of these worlds both aware and unaware; they witness the economic abuse, and the very humane compassion, often from the same person. There are no easy answers other than polyvalent contradictions, and a similar scenario is most certainly taking place in many third and fourth world countries today. The theme of exploitation continues my forays into novels such as Tree of Smoke and The Grapes of Wrath.

The Lazarus Project, by Aleksandar Hemon, is a parallel narrative that also continues this theme. The initial narrative begins when a Russian Jewish immigrant, Lazarus Auverbach, shows up unnanounced on the doorstep of the Chicago Police Chief, Chief Shippy, with an envelope. He is invited in, and subsequently shot dead by the chief and several other police. This narrative begins to explore the immigrant conditions in Chicago around the turn of the 20th century, the anarchist forces of protest, the tenuous Jewish voice, and the corrupt power and brutality of the Chicago Police. The second narrative is that of Vladimir Brik, a recent Bosnian immigrant. The recipient of a grant to write an investigation of Lazarus, Brik joins a photographer friend and travels back to Eastern Europe, tracing the route he imagines young Lazarus and his sister Olga took to escape the waves of pogroms. Their bizarre and often surreal adventure, replete with thugs, hookers, war and love develops parallel to the earlier investigation of Lazarus' murder. Hemon delivers gritty, desperate and depressing insight into the fulfillment of immigrant dreams.

Reflecting a bit on this book, it's interesting and disturbing that once each wave of immigrant becomes settled they tend to violate the new comers.

Protest - Check Out the Guy in the Middle

2009-08-20T08:53:00.001-07:00

The Last Three Weeks in Review

2009-08-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

Young Men and Fire

2009-08-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

On the Way to Work - Matins

2009-07-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

Lovely Ameriaisan girl one foot off the curb poised in space

Older man head bowed grimacing walking fast arms pumping

Water a reflection of all above

The rabbit scurrying away, the ducks looking up from their grazing, a goose starting towards me, neck cocked back

Grapes of Wrath

2009-07-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

I have come onto so many great lines in Grapes that like the emperor in the Borges story I would have to re-create the entire work to make a perfect map, but these are some that strike me on this glorious warm sunny breeze filled evening

"they walked about, stiff in clean clothes, miserable with carefulness."

"You know a vagrant is anyone a cop don't like.""

"An' she's gettin' prettier," said Tom.
The girl blushed more deeply and hung her head. "You stop it," she said softly.
"Course she is," said Ma. "Girl with a baby always gets prettier."

" An don' let anyone touch me."

"In a little while it ain't gonna be so bad." (I think this every day!)

"Pretty soon they're gonna make us pay to work."

"And in the distance the Jesus-lovers sat with hard condemning faces and watched the sin."

Viking 1967 ed.

Hope you got a nap Rob.

The Ride In

2009-07-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

Twenty geese in the pond this morning tipped like buoys, white
rumps in the air. Two deer on the trail -- a mother and fawn
who ran scared toward me, then heeled and into the woods.
Air crisp, fog below in the valley, and the Ocean Spray browning.

Vox

2009-07-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

Nicholson Baker's novel Vox was both titillating and a disappointment. Vox is a 165 page telephone conversation between and man and woman who have called a sex number advertised in a magazine. The random connection of two lonely and distant people is a wonderful and imaginative set-up, but not this time. First off, Baker is in love with ironic distance, and reducing a character to a voice on a phone fuctions as a distancing mechanism for Baker (the way a voice in a confessional need not). Secondly, the characters, Jim and Abby are interested in masturbation, even when they actually share sexual experiences with physically present people. This renders their actual sexual experiences as once-removed, and the phone conversation twice-removed. Thirdly, and most importantly for me, the book fails to take advantage of what could be an immensely powerful and moving situation by dwelling on the mundane. But perhaps reading Vox so quickly after Koestler's Darkness at Noon was the problem. A book of enormous philosophical, political and self-examination, and yes, real soul. Something that is rare in pop culture, in which Baker seems to be a star.

On the other hand, and yes there are two, I'm fascinated by the device of a phone conversation to frame an entire novel. The only other one I know is Lily Tuck's Interviewing Matisse, or the Woman Who Died Standing Up.

Whatcom Falls Park and Other Ramblings

2009-07-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

It is one of the true joys of these summer days that in my six mile bike to work (which I don't do every day, since it is also six miles home with steep hills at each end) that I bike almost four of those twelve miles through Whatcom Falls Park, a gem of an urban forest bisected by a salmon/steelhead stream, and criss-crossed with hiking and biking trails. The morning ride (largely downhill) is crisp and fragrant, and the other morning I saw two deer standing in the center of Whatcom Creek, one lowering its head to drink. Other wildlife spotted include opossums, racoons, beaver, squirrels, rabbits, and numerous birds, including a bald eagle family in and around a nest at the top of the park. This park is the site of Bellingham's infamous pipeline explosion in 1999 and I ended up riding through a tour commemorating the 10th anniversary several weeks ago. Returning in the afternoon is an uphill affair, replete with sweat and the shouts of kids swimming in the creek. This ride makes it worth going to work.

Lydia Davis had a lovely line in her recent book Varieties of Disturbance. The book is comprised of numerous short vignettes, and in some cases aphorisms, witticisms, and so forth. This particular line is from a short piece entitled "Kafka Cooks Dinner" and goes like this: "But at other times I sit here reading in the afternoon, a myrtle in my buttonhole, and there are such beautiful passages in the book that I think I have become beautiful myself."

Come on Gary

2009-07-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

Every writer occasionally publishes work that later embarrasses them, but Gary Snyder recently published work in that esteemed of the esteemed journals "The American Poetry Review" that embarrasses me as a reader, and should have embarrassed him enough to keep it in a notebook. Snyder, riding his cache bareback, is featured on the cover with his de rigeur backdrop of craggy peaks. Just inside we meet his contribution, nine frags, of which I'll reprint three of the worst:

Don't Twist My Hair
"Don't twist my hair
old bear

Three inch teeth
good grief"

Out West
"There's all the time in the universe
and plenty of wide open space"

Country & Western
Loving, hurting

Cheating, flirting

Drinking, lying

Laughing, crying
songs

It's not just that he is still capable of much better work (I hope), but that a journal with the stature and respect of APR would give him the space over other, lesser known but far more worthy writers. And it also attends to the lack of judgment on his part. Has
Gary reached a place where lack of discernment is celebrated as yet another demonstration of his Dharma achievement?

Dick Dale at the NightLight

2009-06-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

How many guitarists invented surf music? How many play a right handed guitar upside down and backwards? Dick Dale at the Nightlight Lounge 6/28. Twenty bucks.

Telephone Novels

2009-06-25T10:43:00.001-07:00

This is somewhat related to my last post about novels written on Twitter, with mention of Japanese novels written on cell phones (the ones I've seen are pretty fragmentary), however this post concerns novels that are comprised entirely of a phone conversation, and are wholly dialog. Thus far it's a short list, though I'd love to hear of more. I've always been attracted to films that are largely dialog (My Dinner with Andre and Twelve Angry Men come to mind) as well as stories like Hemingway's The Killers or even A Clean Well-Lighted Place. There is something about sheer dialog holding its own without the props of background (or foreground) action that intrigues and satisfies me.
I'm currently reading Nicholson Baker's Vox which consists entirely of a conversation between two people who dialed up a phone-sex matchmaking service. I haven't finished the book, but the confessional nature (two people sitting/lying in the dark talking to a stranger) is compelling, and not nearly as sexual as one might expect. Although the man (anonymity is valued after all) is strangely aroused by Tinkerbell. Anyway, the only other novel that I've read or heard of, that takes place entirely as a phone conversation is Interviewing Matisse, or The Man Who Died Standing Up by Lily Tuck, and it was probably the most infuriating novel I've ever read outside of Creeley's The Island. This novel consists of two women talking past each other for around 140 pages. I couldn't wait to finish it, yet couldn't put it down for fear something might happen. It reminded me of watching Warhol's Sleep in Chicago many years ago, and how there were many comments about not leaving for fear of missing something important. Turns out the most important action was John Giorno rolling over. With regard to telephone novels, I'm sure that William Gaddis would have written one had he thought of it, although his would involve a switchboard.

Twitter My Novel

2009-06-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

Cell phones in Japan supposed accounted for (as writing devices) five of the best sellers in 2007, but thus far Twitter hasn't made as much of a splash in longer fictive ventures. As Ed Sanders once penned "I'll write with my bloody stump if I have to," Twitterers have it easier and cleaner. A list of Twitter novels.

Bumper Sticker

2009-06-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

One of the stranger bumper stickers I've seen lately:
"God was my copilot but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him"
Having grown up Catholic, and eating God in the form of little wafers, I can definitely relate.

The Books of Koolhaas

2009-06-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

I was visiting the Seattle Public Library the other day and watched a brief video on how their automated system sorts the returned books. I couldn't help thinking how out of place, how displaced these books looked in the midst of vast steel and plastic technology, as if they were relics from another era, outdated, or sacred objects protected and shuttled about by some alien life form. What a strange technology paper and ink, and what strange contradictory impulses it causes within us, in this age of Kindle, and the online pulse.

Seven is the New Four

2009-06-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Picture for Allen

2009-05-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

very very very

2009-05-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Art Is Lost, but Alive

2009-05-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

Art hunkered in the shadows of Lascaux, smoldering.
He broke into the third dimension under Rembrandt, found beauty

With Botacelli, exactitude with Van Eck and Vermeer; exploded
Into a rage of color and perspective with the Impressionists, the Cubists.

Then Art began questioning his intentions.

In 1917 Marcel Duchamp hung Fountain, a urinal, at the
Society of Independent Artists exhibit, and said “this is art.”

In 1980 Jeff Koons did pretty much the same thing
with four Hoover vacuum cleaners, but for a different reason, perhaps,

at the New Museum in New York City. One of the series (why quit
a good thing?) was recently sold by Christies for $11,801,000, and

being encased in plastic the vacuums still work, which is an added
bonus. You could take them out and clean your house.

Since then Art has wandered many places, but seems to have a fascination
with primary functions: Piero Manzonni in 1961, exhibited

90 cans of Artist’s Shit (two cans recently sold
for well over $100,000 – must be good shit!) and Adres Serrano

dropped a crucifix into a glass of urine and photographed it;
John Baldassari videotaped himself sitting in a chair; Maurizio Cattelan

Hung stuffed horses, and Matthew Barney milked his
Cremaster, but this was tame stuff.

When Guillermo Vargas’ chained a dog to a gallery wall
letting it starve (it was later rescued) he violated Art’s trust;

and when Aliza Shvarts successively impregnated herself, aborting herself
each time while videotaping the procedure she became what Art

Should never be -- evil. Today Art is lost.
He finds himself slouched on a barstool off Forty-Seventh

unable to remember where he lives; an air conditioner
banging away and the Wurlizter playing Cryin by Roy Orbison.

The amber liquor is going down smooth, too smooth. It so seems
long ago since Art took his hat off the peg and went to find

beauty, truth, and the mind and soul of humanity. The bartender, a cherub with
an evil grin pours it slow out of a stout bottle, and the light is the light

of Marlowe, of dusk and neon and loss. After
a few more drinks, Art has to piss. He gets up walks to the rear

but the door opens not on the men’s room, but on a high prairie where
moonlight casts shadows off contorted sagebrush. He pisses and watches

the dry ground drink it up. Not far off a coyote howls. North wind, and Art
feels the back of his neck prickle. He throws his head back, and once

the dizziness subsides, stares into the vast cataclysm above dotted with stars,
but he doesn’t realize that up is relative

to where he stands (which is perhaps Art’s problem - hubris?)
and he is staring into directionless

endless distance. Pieces of an exploded universe move away from him
at speeds approaching light, rushing blindly into infinite emptiness

until at some immeasurable future time they might slow,
stop, and begin retracting again, long after the lights

of the dwellings on earth have burnt out; long after Art is dead.
Art shivers again, turns and re-enters the warmth, light and cluttered noise

of the bar. He summons the bartender, takes out a wad of cash
and buys a round for everyone in the house; then he walks over

to the jukebox and plays another Orbison song, “You Got It.”
Art turns and watches the crowd, their naïve humanity,

Their banter and their beauty, and Art grins, happy to still be alive
even if barely.

Can't Buy Happiness

2009-05-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

As the quarter end nears, and the work piles up, stress levels are apparent. I caught part of an NPR show this morning that discussed the relationship between health and vacations. One interesting statistic was that men who worked with no vacations had up to a 30% greater chance of having a heart attack than men who had at least two weeks off a year. Women had a 50% greater chance. The relationship between "Happiness" and vacations was also commented on, and the correlation between vacation (and free time) and Happiness was apparent. Many of the happiest countries are those European and Northern European nations that allow (or in some cases mandate) five and more weeks of vacation a year. The average in the U.S. has fallen to less than two weeks in recent years.

There are numerous lists of Happiest Countries and Happiest Citizens out there, but I couldn't find any that listed the U.S. in the top ten.

The list NPR used (Ruut Veenhoven's database of happiness) ranks these as the top five: Iceland, Denmark, Colombia, Switzerland, Mexico

Adrian White's list (University of Leicester’s School of Psychology) puts the top ten at:
1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada

Right now, I'd be pretty happy with sunshine and a couple of weeks off.

Modern Times

2009-05-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

I Linked-In my Twitter
and Twittered my Facebook,
Facebooked my Flickr and
Flickered my face.
Linked-in Myspace and Second-Lifed
My Blogger, Myspaced my Twitter
and Flickred my frog.
Bloggered my Buzznet and
Netted my Linked-in,
Twittered my Plurk and
Plurked my Dog.
GoodReads and AgentQuery
send spam to my mother
who hangs out on Facebook,
Outlooking on Flickster
and watching the Ryze.
So my Twitter my Myspace
or Twitter my Flickr
if you want me to answer
What you have to say.
I'm watching my LibraryThing
Flickr on down screen
and Skyping my Blog
to bypass my Mog.

Praxis, in my Heart, Will Never Die

2009-05-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

The Dead w/Branford- Walkoff GrandSlam at Izod Center - I Know You Rider- 4/29/09

2009-05-01T08:41:00.000-07:00

The Latest on Google Books

2009-04-23T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have commented here on Google Books and the recent the recent settlement of the lawsuit brought on by the AAP and the Author's Guild against Google Books, particularly with respect to an article in The New York Times Book Review by Robert Darnton, the director of Harvard's Library, who claims that the settlement makes Google the largest book publisher and distributor in the world. While this is still debatable, the amount of literary turf appropriated by Google as a result of this settlement is enormous, even as the exact dimensions will continue to be mapped.

There is a synopsis of the effect in the current (and hopelessly irregular) Google Librarian Newsletter, but I'll highlight here:

- Expanded access to millions of in-copyright books:
The agreement dramatically expands the reach of Book Search Library Partners<http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html> by enabling readers across the U.S. to preview<http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/#2>millions of in-copyright out-of-print books preserved in their collections. Readers will be able to search these books through Google Book Search and where previously they have only been able to view bibliographic information and a few snippets of text from the book, they will be able to view a limited preview (up to 20%) of the book to find out
if it suits their needs.

- Free online viewing of books at U.S. public and university libraries:
Through this agreement, public libraries, community colleges, and universities across the U.S. will be able to provide free full-text reading to books housed in great libraries of the world like Stanford, California, Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan. A newly-created Public Access Service license will allow full-text viewing of millions of out-of-print books to readers who visit library facilities. Public libraries will be eligible to receive one free Public Access Service license for a computer located on-site at each of their library buildings in the United States. Non-profit, higher education institutions will be eligible to receive free Public Access Service licenses for on-site computers, the exact number of which will depend on the number of students enrolled.

- Institutional subscriptions to millions of additional books:

Imagine never having to ask a patron to wait until a book is returned or arrives through interlibrary loan. Beyond the free license described above, libraries will also be able to purchase an institutional subscription to millions of books covered by the settlement agreement. Once purchased, this subscription will allow a library to offer patrons access to the incredible collections of Google's library partner when they are in the library itself as well as when they access it remotely.

- Services for People with Print Disabilities:

One of the advantages digitization presents is the opportunity to enable greater accessibility to
books. Through the agreement, the visually impaired and print disability community will be able to access millions of in-copyright books through screen enlargement, reader, and Braille display technologies.

- New Research Opportunities with the Creation a Research Corpus:
The vast database of books that Google is digitizing is not just a resource for readers, but also a one-of-a-kind research tool. The agreement allows for the creation of two research centers that will include a copy of almost all of the books digitized by Google. These research centers will enable people to conduct research that utilizes computers to process or analyze the text of the books. Examples of the types of research they will facilitate include automatic translation, analysis of how language has evolved over time, next generation search technology, image processing research and others.

The Audience always sat a few rows back when little Charlie Olson practiced his Projective Verse

2009-04-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hungry Art

2009-04-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

As someone who earns a good chunk of change writing Dog poems, I am obviously a Dog activist and worshiper (remember Dog spelled backwards is God -- this is not a coincidence). God may be dead, but Dog survives. At least mine do. Guillermo Vargas's dog in the art installation "Eres Lo Que Lees" (Códice Gallery in Managua, Nicaragua, August 2007) may not have been so lucky. While there remains controversy about the fate of the dog, it was documented to be extremely sick and emaciated while chained to a gallery wall. Stories conflict as to how long the dog remained there, whether or not it was fed, and other details, although many of the reports/rumors concerning the installation described the object of the piece as deliberately starving a chained dog in an art gallery and noting visitor's reactions. Vargas himself commented that no one attempted to assist or free the dog. His intention in the piece was purportedly to explore how sets of rules and understandings prevent spectators from "interfering" with tragedy, particularly in the case of media (i.e. news photographers snapping photos while an elderly woman is bludgeoned to death) or art museums, where visitors are sternly warned against touching or interacting with most art.

The thought of a dog chained to a sterile gallery wall is bad enough; starving it to death to note visitor reatcion is deplorable. To call the entire experience art however is intriguing, and opens the door on an entire realm of performance/installation art that I feel would be intriguing. Simply stated, it would involve artists chaining themselves to gallery walls and starving themselves to death (I have a list of candidates). Installations could be videotaped, and spectator interaction studied (huge signs warning people against touching or feeding the artists would be posted). What sould be the effect of gagged pleas, urine and fecal-soaked clothes, and the listless, lethargic eyes of death on "sternly warned" viewers? The effect would certainly transport art into a real life or death arena, and remove it from its current ennui of dillentantism, actualizing the prophetic text of Kafka (The Hunger Artist), or John Hawkes (The Passion Artist). In the words of Professor Suanders Stillet of the Ecole de Baguette whom I often consult with on matters of art, "This type of artistic pursuit would foreground the premise of nihilism and suggest that Derrida’s analysis of dialectic pretextual theory is invalid. In simpler terms, the gradual starvation and death of will is also reflective of the body of the Other in the One, embedded, as it were in the meaninglessness of narrativity, beyond which there is no transgression but the use of capitalist neoconceptualist theory to modify sexual identity, as Debord certainly clarified."

And when it was all over, think of the bones it would provide for Dogz.

Teabag Em

2009-04-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Rachael Maddow recently reported on the new phenomenon she dubbed Teabagging, a conservative (largely Fox News driven) attempt to rile everyone from Storm Front to the average idiot who hates taxes to protest by sending tea bags to everything Democratic, Obama on down. We are assuming they are not referring to the first Wikipedia definition, although who knows. Anyway, teabagging brings to the forefront several extremely relevant issues:

1) Does the type of of tea matter (i.e. green or black)? Can one use Chai?
2) Is this a good time to buy stock in companies who trade and harvest tea?
3) Can one use cream? The first Wikipedia definition would imply yes.
4) and, Do Tea Parties count as Protests, and thus, are the participants Protestors? Because I thought Fox News considered them bad. ??

Amazon's New Adult Labeling Policy

2009-04-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

Amazon, arguably the world's largest book-seller, has made a small change in their classification system which has HUGE ramifications. They recently introduced the category "Adult," for books. Those books categorized Adult will not be ranked, nor will they appear in Best-Seller lists, nor will they appear on many searches, even exact title searches. Nor is there a way to include these titles using the Advanced Search option.

Additionally, the category Adult includes a vast quantity of new LGBT literature, much of which is now being excluded from most Amazon searches. To read more about this very disturbing development check out this Daily Kos post. And voice your concerns to Amazon!

Threatened by Books

2009-03-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

I was heartened to hear Sherman Alexie chant the word books 15 or 20 times in a row, the chant of love, of adoration, of kinship. And I do idolize them, but they currently surround me, threaten me, climbing up on the tables and sofas, baring their spines, snapping their pages, ready to leap. Sons & Lovers (the next in my Modern Library pilgrimage having just finished Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, the greatest book ever written); The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage (my friend Rick Newby has just published (via Drumlummon) a re-issue of The Pass by Savage); Tree of Smoke by one of my all-time favorite authors Denis Johnson, and what will perhaps become the definitive Vietnam War novel (and winner of the National Book Award in 2007); The Power of Now (which I'll never finish since the Now is never-ending) by Vancouver spiritual teacher Echardt Tolle; The Dog Who Spoke With Gods by Diane Jessup (can never read enough good dog novels); Shadow Country by Peter Matheissen (the whole Watson trilogy revamped!). I must read furiously to keep them at bay! Or perhaps I'll succumb and read the New Yorker book reviews and find even MORE!

Great lyric of the week - "If words could speak I wonder what they'd say?" Martha and the Muffins

This Modern Life

2009-03-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the 45 seconds I spent standing in front of the microwave negated the health benefits of my organic vegan black bean and rice wrap?