Cheeky
UbuWeb offers 37 short films (in .MPG format) from the experimental (and venerable) New York art group Fluxus. Included are three by Yoko Ono, the most interesting of which is perhaps Four, an excerpt from her famous/notorious "Bottoms" project. The end . . .
_
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
A Scene from Dragnet
A Scene from Dragnet
The State Police banged on my door today: two plain-clothes guys straight from central casting. They said that someone from this address had sent them a letter, signed only "H.R.," stating that there was criminal activity going on in the building. They wanted to know if I knew who "H.R." might be. I told them I didn't; there's someone who lives here whose last name begins with "R," but the first name doesn't start with "H." They wrote down everything I said and left. Hmm. I haven't seen any "criminal activity" going on, except for my bicycle being stolen from the basement last December. But they seemed to be looking for something more serious than that. Having endured urban apartment life for many years, I've shared a roof, at various times, with thieves, drug dealers and wife/girlfriend beaters, but things have been quiet around here lately. I wonder if this presages some new malefaction. Good thing I'll probably be moving this summer.
HR . . .
Honest Reporter?
Highly Reliable?
Hot Resentment?
Hoodlum Realty?
_
The State Police banged on my door today: two plain-clothes guys straight from central casting. They said that someone from this address had sent them a letter, signed only "H.R.," stating that there was criminal activity going on in the building. They wanted to know if I knew who "H.R." might be. I told them I didn't; there's someone who lives here whose last name begins with "R," but the first name doesn't start with "H." They wrote down everything I said and left. Hmm. I haven't seen any "criminal activity" going on, except for my bicycle being stolen from the basement last December. But they seemed to be looking for something more serious than that. Having endured urban apartment life for many years, I've shared a roof, at various times, with thieves, drug dealers and wife/girlfriend beaters, but things have been quiet around here lately. I wonder if this presages some new malefaction. Good thing I'll probably be moving this summer.
HR . . .
Honest Reporter?
Highly Reliable?
Hot Resentment?
Hoodlum Realty?
_
Monday, April 11, 2005
Word of the Day
Word of the Day
cosmotellurian (adj)
pertaining to both heaven and earth
"So, feet on the ground, head in the stars, eh?" said Mr. Dolty. The astronomer smiled patiently and said, "I prefer to think of myself as a cosmotellurian investigator."
_
cosmotellurian (adj)
pertaining to both heaven and earth
"So, feet on the ground, head in the stars, eh?" said Mr. Dolty. The astronomer smiled patiently and said, "I prefer to think of myself as a cosmotellurian investigator."
_
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Random Acts of Poetry
Random Acts of Poetry
Mr. Spungarn's Complaint
For a long time,
each ensuing day
held something of the same loss,
that slow burning
of wreckage better buried.
He doesn't do well in extremes,
armed with his useless bludgeons,
his razed expectations.
He still keeps the bones in a box,
grudges that can't be dissolved,
not in the acetic acid
of each half-final night.
It's spring now: such mockery.
The fragrance of cut grass
and a tree's sawed limbs
offends him.
"This is your legacy," says he.
"I keep thinking,
while holding a breath,
of those adamant blades."
_
Mr. Spungarn's Complaint
For a long time,
each ensuing day
held something of the same loss,
that slow burning
of wreckage better buried.
He doesn't do well in extremes,
armed with his useless bludgeons,
his razed expectations.
He still keeps the bones in a box,
grudges that can't be dissolved,
not in the acetic acid
of each half-final night.
It's spring now: such mockery.
The fragrance of cut grass
and a tree's sawed limbs
offends him.
"This is your legacy," says he.
"I keep thinking,
while holding a breath,
of those adamant blades."
_
Friday, April 08, 2005
A Walk in the Woods
A Walk in the Woods
Get away from it all: Forests Forever is a beautifully designed Flash site featuring lush photography of forests around the world, set to ethereal (but not too annoying) mood music. See you in the trees.
_
Get away from it all: Forests Forever is a beautifully designed Flash site featuring lush photography of forests around the world, set to ethereal (but not too annoying) mood music. See you in the trees.
_
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
--e.e. cummings
TGIF
_
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
--e.e. cummings
TGIF
_
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Connections: Smoking a Joint
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.
_
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.
_
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)
_
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
