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omnium gatherum, n. : a collection of many different, often unsorted, ideas or items.
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Monday - July 09, 2007Monday - July 09, 2007Stockholm Syndrome... it's my new MoO. Yikes. Glad to have the computer back... finally. (The logic board failed, hence my radio silence the last few weeks.) So much action! So many thoughts! Saturday - June 02, 2007Postscript: RevelatorThinking about that old line of Henry
James:
"I am too American myself, and lack juices." I am too sentimental myself, and lack bones. Monday - May 14, 2007Not right nowI've taken Franz Wright's poem "The Word I" and run
away with it.
Apologies to Mr. Wright; I've done his brilliance a disservice. Ach, it is what it is. The Word "I" Harder to breathe near the summit, and harder to remember where you came from, why you came Spring's harder, and harder to say the word "I" with a straight face, and sleep-- who can sleep. Who has time to prepare for the big day when she will be required to say hello to everyone, but goodbye to the aforementioned pronoun, relinquish all the mind's attachments completely, and witness the end of one's world-- harder in other words not to love it not to love it so much Friday - March 30, 20078 Speed Automatic Gear Shift with TiptronicHoly hell, what is happening to my life.
Ridiculous RPMs. My conceptions of the following things are changing so drastically I don't even know where to begin: - speed - activity/motion - time - capacity - energy .......... As Lucinda was singing to me earlier, "I asked for water; he gave me gasoline." Monday - March 12, 2007Watching the moon rise.In spite of -- and beyond -- human nature, I am
trying, and trying to insist, upon my consciousness.
Perhaps it is a Sisyphian task, but I truly advocate another way -- transcendence. Wednesday - February 14, 2007Dreaming back through life, your time -- and mineNostalgia is, and has been, one of the strangest
things on my conscious lately (and by lately, I meant for a few months now,
though it's been getting a lot more intense these last few weeks.) Nostalgia not
as much for the far past, but the near -- ie, from 2003 or so on. I can't escape
it. Very strange. How can one start mythologizing and revisioning such recent
times so
quickly --
even though they may have been difficult?
Friday - February 02, 2007Ach ach ach ZAMI seek something torrid. Torrid! What a fantastic
word.
LIGHTNING Wednesday - January 24, 2007How I'm feeling latelyGive a listen to Manuel Obregon's piece, "Allegro Solemne". (err, make that a
link. The file won't play.)
Also, do you believe in magic? Yes, I do. Finally: "Sometime in your life, you will have occasion to say: what is this thing called time?" and some nice prose to accompany this perfect, reflective Simone tune, courtesy of the Times: "We are poised between the extremities and homogeneities of nature, between delirium and ad infinitum, and our andante tempo may be the best, possibly the only pace open to us, or even to life generally. If we assume that whatever other intelligent beings that may be out there, in whatever alpha, beta or zepto barrio of the galaxy they may call home, arose through the gradual tragicomic tinkerings of natural selection, then they may well live lives proportioned much like ours, not too long and not too short. They’re dressed in a good pair of walking boots and taking it a day at a time." Wednesday - December 06, 2006Ze Beatles, amashedI'm just taking a quick break for dinner, but was
reading through the New
Yorker and stumbled across this brilliant (I've
intoned similar thoughts about him before, but hell, his linguistic pirouettes
are alone worth the time it takes to read his pieces, because they capture the
essence of a song and/or artist like no other pop music writer ever has --like
in this piece, for example, with cryptic
badassery to describe "Come Together"?!?! It's
beautiful and fresh, hip, straightforward, with a sense of self-acknowledged
utter amazement/baffling that simultaneously implicates you, the reader, through
the mutually proffered recognition) ok.... anyway, this write up by Sasha
Frere-Jones on the extended length Beatles mashup that's just been put together
by George Martin & son. Give a listen to his overview here; read the piece here. Mm mm
mm.
The other year I mentioned a few other good mashups floating about -- some Beatles-based, some not. The mp3's should still be up and working, though if not they are fairly easy to track down on the internets, specifically on the google. Among other things, he makes a terrific comment about "Tomorrow Never Knows", one of the most hypnotizing songs the Beatles ever recorded (I've been listening to this song in particular a lot lately, trying to deconstruct it...) In between my long stretches of Gillian-airtime in the studio, the Beatles (every album, yes, including 1) have been on repeat the last couple of weeks. I've been listening to their music since I was out on this side of the womb, and I still find new things in it every day. It is Glenn Gould-good. Wednesday - November 08, 2006Thursday - November 02, 2006BackstoryA brief, fleeting
observation..
Everything seems to be moving towards telling the backstory. The behind-the-scenes. Part of that has always been there, but it's gained a very firm foothold in fairly important arenas that inform our sense of ourselves, our culture and society.. Think of the film "A Prairie Home Companion" (which prompted this post) but also "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (and the similar, though I've not watched it, 30 Rock), and telling campaign stories in major news mediums, notably print but also tv -- not talking about issues, but on how issues are delivered, the stagecraft, the propmasters, the scriptors.) Is this related to the rise of ombudsmen? Consultants? Or, on a larger scale, is this related to a culture-wide acknowledgment and/or acceptance of the fact that the viewer knows what they see in large part on a daily level is false? I think there is something deeper, especially in a certain vain that has been growing in the last year or so (one that seems more optimistic than anything similar in the news media) -- and it's perhaps the trend which will reject or ultimately refute the irony of the times.. I can't fully articulate it right now, and it goes a lot deeper than I can reveal, but I didn't want to lose the thought. However, it's obscenely late, so I'm going to bed, and hopefully I will pick up on this later and see where it runs.. Friday - October 13, 2006Historical perspective, or American amnesia"At times during the eighteenth century, war could
be a gentlemanly endeavor. Captured officers were regularly paroled -- that is,
sent home upon their promise to engage no longer in hostilities. Such had been
the fate of General Burgoyne after Saratoga. Soldiers of the rank and file were
often exchanged for their counterparts from the other
side.
But the British government refused to accord such courtesies to captured Americans. London contended they were not belligerents but rebels. To an early application from Franklin regarding treatment of prisoners, the British ambassador in Paris, Lord Stormont, responded curtly, "The King's ambassador receives no letters from rebels, unless they come to implore his Majesty's mercy." Such might have finished Franklin's hopes for ameliorating the prisoners' plight, if not for the assistance he gained from others in Britain. The Parliamentary opposition to the North ministry seized on the suspension of habeas corpus, as it related to the American prisoners, and attacked the government for hypocritically undermining essential English institutions in the name of defending them. English prisons were a scandal in the best of times, and though conditions there pricked few consciences regarding regular felons, the harsh treatment accorded the Americans elicited letters to editors and other forms of low-grade protest." -- H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, 583-4. UPDATE 10/22: To elucidate my point, see this. Thursday - September 28, 2006Then and Now.Some reflections.
1) On the recent, partially declassified NIE (this is a .pdf link) (let's hope someone turns up the gas on Negroponte and the Administration so they let the second, Iraq-specific NIE come out) -- something I wrote awhile back, entitled "Iraq, The New Afghanistan". Many other things I could link to, but after linking all these other things below, I've become weary. 2) The Office of Special Plans, which I mentioned last November -- those lovely folks of CTEG who brought us the "intelligence" for Iraq -- are at it again with an Iran Directorate. Look out! (By the way, I find it interesting that all of a sudden I've started seeing programs pop up on TV advertising "Final Reports" and other documentary type things on Iran, the Iran Hostage Crisis, etal. The Final Report one in particular -- because the ad makes it seem like the hostage crisis is happening right now. It's going to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel, 67% of which is owned by the Fox Cable Networks Group. It's not the first time I've seen such innuendo advertised on that channel, either. These little subtle plugs about "Iran as evil nation we must attack" are reminiscent of 4 years ago during the Iraq war selling /buildup.) 3) Regarding the recent truces and scuffles between the Taliban, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda: see here, here, here, here. Recent related headlines: "Britain Greets Pakistani Leader with Accusations of Ties to al-Qaeda" (NYT), "Bush seeks truce in leaders' spat" (BBC), "Musharraf Defends Deal with Tribal Leaders" (NYT). Cheers to Jon Stewart for putting it to Pervez point blank the other night. 4) A general observation about Katrina, New Orleans, and American amnesia: I found the following statement, nestled within this piece in the Times this morning about the GOP's choice of the Twin Cities for their '08 convention, particularly illuminating (especially in light of the August 28 New Yorker article on the failure to rebuild New Orleans): "While Democratic officials had four cities to choose from, an early contestant, New Orleans, took itself out of the running when it became clear that its hurricane damage would not be repaired in time." The convention is two years away. The hurricane happened a year ago. Do you mean to tell me that they won't be able to fix the damage in THREE WHOLE YEARS?!?! Unbelievable. Monday - September 25, 2006Drowning polar bears.Yes, I've been MIA. Settling down and painting,
among other things. More on those later. But I've been somewhat consumed with
environmental news in the last day, so I thought I would post the following two
articles, both terrifying. The Revenge of
Gaia is en route via Amazon -- as if I didn't
have enough trouble sleeping already.
Article from the WaPo with James Lovelock; and new satellite images of arctic melt shock scientists. I wonder if anyone has started buying up land in the Arctic yet.. seems like it might be a good investment. See "An Inconvenient Truth" if you haven't already. Sunday - August 20, 2006Staying by the ocean.Well, so it's the East Coast, but, hey, it's free,
and beautiful.
I'm not going back to Nashville. I can't. It's too sad. I'm going to stay and work out in Long Island. So that's done, I guess. I just have to go back and clean out my stuff. And those paintings... Saturday - August 05, 2006Wednesday - July 19, 2006A new year.It was a quiet birthday, too much wine without
enough dinner beforehand, but it was charming. Why are birthdays getting quieter
these last three years? Hm. I sort of like it.
I'm feeling more optimistic about 24. Or at least I'm excited by the trends I started on in the last parts of 23. Yeah. Going to take myself out to a nice dinner somewhere along the ocean in the next few days, and muse, maybe finish writing all the things I've started... go for a long swim in the sea.. all that stuff. Yeah, 24. I dig. Friday - June 02, 2006As of late..I've been thriving, of a sort. And tonight, for the
first time in what seems like ages, I am truly, happily, blissfully exhausted
and worn out. It's quite a lovely feeling actually; I had forgotten.
Thursday - May 11, 2006My kind of humor..I immediately thought of the following Shouts and
Murmurs piece from the New Yorker a few years back when I heard about Ahmadinejad's letter (full version)... which
was only reinforced by the Daily Show's similar parody this evening. I had the
following pieceposted on the wall of my office for 4 years. It still cracks me
up. "Read more" to check it.
Laura Bush is speaking here in the morning. Yeah, don't think I'm going to make that one. Also -- first it was Iran, now Afghanistan? Rap may indeed be the new Jazz. Or Rock n' Roll. Voila, the Rapper of Kabul. |