Connections
Yesterday I saw two teenage boys walking down the street, talking, laughing and smoking a joint. They passed the joint back and forth, not trying to hide it. They were very casual. Lawbreakers, I thought, but I didn't care; I was just a little surprised that they were so open about it. In a million little ways, people break the law--or at least the rules--all the time, of course. I also saw a woman sitting in a parked car open her door and dump some trash before driving away. Another car almost ran me over while I was crossing the street (legally). And people don't clean up after their dogs in our local park--Poop Park, as I call it. Law or rule breakers, all of them. Breaking rules can be good or bad, certainly; it has been called the essence of creativity. And we worship creativity, at least in theory. In practice, policies like the so-called "No Child Left Behind" act (another set of rules), which imposes a mania for standardized testing on the schools, squeeze all the creativity out of the classroom, many teachers say. I suppose if I was a student now, I'd think of every free moment outside of school as a sort of prison break. Maybe I'd even want to smoke a joint on my way home from school to relieve the pressure. I'd pass it to my friend and perhaps wonder, for a moment, what it is that they're smoking down in Washington.
_
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Word of the Day
Word of the Day
floccinaucinihilipilification (n)
setting at little or no value
The world's floccinaucinihilipilification of Malachi's mad scribblings turned him into a bitter pamphleteer.
_
floccinaucinihilipilification (n)
setting at little or no value
The world's floccinaucinihilipilification of Malachi's mad scribblings turned him into a bitter pamphleteer.
_
Monday, April 04, 2005
Radio DavidByrne.com
Radio Free Byrne
Bored with FM's programmed niches and commercials? Me too, but relief may be at hand, online. Heads are talking about David Byrne's new ad-free "radio station" at Radio DavidByrne.com. Give a listen if your pop musical tastes are, shall we say, eclectic. (This ain't no disco.) "The artists played here are respectful of one another and gunplay is forbidden," says Byrne. (Requires a broadband connection.)
_
Bored with FM's programmed niches and commercials? Me too, but relief may be at hand, online. Heads are talking about David Byrne's new ad-free "radio station" at Radio DavidByrne.com. Give a listen if your pop musical tastes are, shall we say, eclectic. (This ain't no disco.) "The artists played here are respectful of one another and gunplay is forbidden," says Byrne. (Requires a broadband connection.)
_
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Random Acts of Poetry
Random Acts of Poetry
Hermit
His solar system
of possessions, people, obligations
never tires, never leaves him
to his iron sepulcher.
"Shove my food in on a tray,"
he'll say.
But the hot breeze of summer
makes the pines weep.
A child holds a mirror up,
the wind bangs open a door,
and his mind inclines
to another space.
That small hut of his
expands
and begins to seem
a splendid cathedral.
_
Hermit
His solar system
of possessions, people, obligations
never tires, never leaves him
to his iron sepulcher.
"Shove my food in on a tray,"
he'll say.
But the hot breeze of summer
makes the pines weep.
A child holds a mirror up,
the wind bangs open a door,
and his mind inclines
to another space.
That small hut of his
expands
and begins to seem
a splendid cathedral.
_
Friday, April 01, 2005
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
"I'm given to write poems. I cannot anticipate their occasion. I have used all the intelligence that I can muster to follow the possibilities that the poem 'under hand,' as Olson would say, is declaring, but I cannot anticipate the necessary conclusions of the activity, nor can I judge in any sense, in moments of writing, the significance of that writing more than to recognize that it is being permitted to continue. I'm trying to say that, in writing, at least as I have experienced it, one is in the activity, and that fact itself is what I feel so deeply the significance of anything that we call poetry."
--Robert Creeley, 1926 - 2005
(via wood s lot)
_
"I'm given to write poems. I cannot anticipate their occasion. I have used all the intelligence that I can muster to follow the possibilities that the poem 'under hand,' as Olson would say, is declaring, but I cannot anticipate the necessary conclusions of the activity, nor can I judge in any sense, in moments of writing, the significance of that writing more than to recognize that it is being permitted to continue. I'm trying to say that, in writing, at least as I have experienced it, one is in the activity, and that fact itself is what I feel so deeply the significance of anything that we call poetry."
--Robert Creeley, 1926 - 2005
(via wood s lot)
_
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Here comes the ice-cream truck
Connections
The first real sign of spring around here: an ice-cream truck drove by, playing a jangly, unidentifiable music-box tune. Last summer, they constantly played "Turkey in the Straw," a song I hope to never hear again. What do turkeys have to do with ice cream? When I think of a turkey, I think of Thanksgiving, which is more of a pie holiday than an ice-cream one. It's always seemed strange to me that, in the Middle Ages, pies were filled with meat rather than fruit or berries. I guess that explains the nursery rhyme about "four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie." Blackbird pie? Ugh. Eating crow, in other words. Today, to "eat crow" means "to admit one is mistaken or defeated" (according to Barron's Handbook of Commonly Used American Idioms). That's something it seems our fearless leader can never do. It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong, so they say. I assume that applies to women as well--but we never say, "It takes a big woman to . . ." For some reason, big has a different, entirely physical connotation when applied to a woman--as if she's been eating too much ice cream. And indeed, a lot of the people, male and female, who swarm around the Mr. Softee truck in the summer look like they eat too much ice cream. Maybe that explains the annoying tunes the trucks play. It's Pavlovian: hear the tinny, childish jingle, and suddenly you're eight years old again, and hungry for something cold and sweet.
_
The first real sign of spring around here: an ice-cream truck drove by, playing a jangly, unidentifiable music-box tune. Last summer, they constantly played "Turkey in the Straw," a song I hope to never hear again. What do turkeys have to do with ice cream? When I think of a turkey, I think of Thanksgiving, which is more of a pie holiday than an ice-cream one. It's always seemed strange to me that, in the Middle Ages, pies were filled with meat rather than fruit or berries. I guess that explains the nursery rhyme about "four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie." Blackbird pie? Ugh. Eating crow, in other words. Today, to "eat crow" means "to admit one is mistaken or defeated" (according to Barron's Handbook of Commonly Used American Idioms). That's something it seems our fearless leader can never do. It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong, so they say. I assume that applies to women as well--but we never say, "It takes a big woman to . . ." For some reason, big has a different, entirely physical connotation when applied to a woman--as if she's been eating too much ice cream. And indeed, a lot of the people, male and female, who swarm around the Mr. Softee truck in the summer look like they eat too much ice cream. Maybe that explains the annoying tunes the trucks play. It's Pavlovian: hear the tinny, childish jingle, and suddenly you're eight years old again, and hungry for something cold and sweet.
_
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Beatles video clips; rejected White Album cover art
Can Your Bird Sing?
Visit the Beatles Video Directory for new video/audio edits of "I Saw Her Standing There," "I'm Down," "I Should Have Known Better" and "And Your Bird Can Sing." The Mac-constructed site requires QuickTime, which I have installed, but for some reason I can hear the audio only for the latter song. I'm down.
Coda: Here is some rejected Revolver cover art. It's a sort of photographic mandala that actually fits the "revolver" theme better than the actual cover. It's not in the same league as Klaus Voorman's fantastic illustration/collage, but it would have been nice if they'd used this on the back of the album or the inside sleeve.
And here you can see some intriguing but rejected White Album cover art:
The Animal Album?
And if the White Album had been a single, not a double album, it might have looked like this. (Check out the track line up!)
Visit the Beatles Video Directory for new video/audio edits of "I Saw Her Standing There," "I'm Down," "I Should Have Known Better" and "And Your Bird Can Sing." The Mac-constructed site requires QuickTime, which I have installed, but for some reason I can hear the audio only for the latter song. I'm down.
Coda: Here is some rejected Revolver cover art. It's a sort of photographic mandala that actually fits the "revolver" theme better than the actual cover. It's not in the same league as Klaus Voorman's fantastic illustration/collage, but it would have been nice if they'd used this on the back of the album or the inside sleeve.
And here you can see some intriguing but rejected White Album cover art:
The Animal Album?
And if the White Album had been a single, not a double album, it might have looked like this. (Check out the track line up!)
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
"Listening to right-wing evangelicals talk about a 'culture of life' is a lot like hearing George Bush talk about 'human rights.' They're using words I've used all my life, but there seems to be no connection between what I mean when I use them and what they mean when they use them."
--Jeanne d'Orleans
Read more at Body and Soul
_
"Listening to right-wing evangelicals talk about a 'culture of life' is a lot like hearing George Bush talk about 'human rights.' They're using words I've used all my life, but there seems to be no connection between what I mean when I use them and what they mean when they use them."
--Jeanne d'Orleans
Read more at Body and Soul
_
Monday, March 28, 2005
My wonders never cease
My wonders never cease
How did "egg on" come to mean encouraging someone? . . . Why is it that dimes, quarters and half dollars have notched edges, but pennies and nickels do not? . . . I understand what it means to be on "cloud nine." But what does cloud eight feel like? Or cloud one? I think I'm on about cloud four today . . .
_
How did "egg on" come to mean encouraging someone? . . . Why is it that dimes, quarters and half dollars have notched edges, but pennies and nickels do not? . . . I understand what it means to be on "cloud nine." But what does cloud eight feel like? Or cloud one? I think I'm on about cloud four today . . .
_
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Random Acts of Poetry
Random Acts of Poetry
Trains
I remember that heartbeat
thud of them
while I turned in my bed.
The endless freight
of Lackawana, the mineral tick
of steel on tracks.
You could not enter
the city of my birth
without smelling the tannery,
respecting
the crossings that brought us all
to a stop.
The noise of the courses
off in the world
was part of that house,
with its model train
in the basement,
with a miniature mind
running in circles
vast in their distance.
_
Trains
I remember that heartbeat
thud of them
while I turned in my bed.
The endless freight
of Lackawana, the mineral tick
of steel on tracks.
You could not enter
the city of my birth
without smelling the tannery,
respecting
the crossings that brought us all
to a stop.
The noise of the courses
off in the world
was part of that house,
with its model train
in the basement,
with a miniature mind
running in circles
vast in their distance.
_
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