The Fifty Least Wanted
Blender magazine has issued its list of what it calls "the 50 Worst Musicians of All Time". Here is the list, stripped of the compilers' comments. Some of Dr. J's comments, however, are interspliced in italics.
1. Insane Clown Posse
2. Emerson, Lake and Palmer
3. Michael Bolton :IN-deed.
4. Kenny G :The Anti-Christ, indeed....
5. Starship
6. Kansas
7. Asia
8. Vanilla Ice :Kind of a no-brainer, really...
9. Lee Greenwood :Good, they didn't leave country alone...
10. Air Supply
11. Latoya Jackson
12. Tin Machine : I don't mind David Bowie, but TM was a broken before it was invented
13. Mick Jagger :Yeah, most of the time, but Wandering Spirit (1991) was a good album
14. Yngwie Malmsteen
15. Yanni
16. Oingo Boingo
17. Benzino
18. Pat Boone : Good call. Thought they might forget him.
19. Dan Fogelberg
20. Howard Jones
21. The Alan Parsons Project
22. Primus
23. Creed
24. Bad English
25. Jamiroquai
26. Celine Dion : Why so deep in the list? I'd have thought her pollution a more serious offence
27. Colour Me Bad : Oh, yes, I remember them. Unfortunately.
28. Crash Test Dummies :One letter, repeated sixteen times: Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm
29. Skinny Puppy
30. Richard Marx : The sort of music only a mother could love: Marx's
31. Arrested Development
32. The Hooters
33. Japan
34. Live
35. Paul Oakenfold
36. 98 Degrees
37. The Doors : Oooo, controversy! Actually, I agree. I still think the Doors vastly overrated.
38. Nelson : Do they qualify as musicians? They're really rock's Sigfried and Roy
39. Bob Geldof
40. Blind Melon : AGREED!
41. Whitesnake : Ah, yes, I had forgotten these bozos
42. Rick Wakeman
43. Mike and the Mechanics : Okay, I admit to a soft spot for 'The Living Years.' There, I said it. But yes, they sucked
44. Manowar
45. Gipsy Kings
46. The Spin Doctors : Yah
47. Goo Goo Dolls : Yah
48. Master P
49. Toad the Wet Sprocket : Oh, I had *so* forgotten those schmucks.... Damn Blender!
50. Iron Butterfly : Agreed
Overall comments from Doctor J: Can't say there's too much disagreement from me here; all of the candidates here are viable, and deserving of a place in the bowels of musical history. I'd posit some other names, though for Dishonourable Mention, if you will:
Bryan Adams: Joe Cocker via No-Frills (or, outside of Canada, insert a no-name brand sales outlet).
The Backstreet Boys: Yes, an easy target, but a necessary one nonetheless. Include here all the other variations on the 'boy'-band, all of whom are pretty much interchangeable with one another.
Snoop Dog and whatever name he's using this month: Ugh.
INXS: It's not nice to mock a band with a dead lead singer, but they were pathetic. Saving grace, their collaboration with Ray Charles on "Please," only because Ray does his inimitable 'thang.'
Mariah Carey after her first album: So much potential, so little soul. I still say she should have been sent to work with Aretha Franklin or Van Morrison or someone who'd have pushed her to use that voice for good instead of for evil.
Britney Aguilera and the rest of the interchangeable blonde bimbos: God help us if they do it again, dirty or clean.
Donovan: Sorry, Catherine, if you're reading this; 'Mellow Yellow' remains a crime against humanity, and I can't for the life of me think of a single virtue to his other music that I was exposed to and tried to like for your sake. If he's the 'Scottish Dylan,' this only advances the myth of the Scots as cheap.
The Cranberries: Why did they have to let it linger?
Culture Club: Do you really want to make me cry?
Whitney Houston: And I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i will always loathe you.....
Hanson: Mmmmm-barf.
Yoko Ono: How could Blender have forgotten this import?
REO Speedwagon: Nuff said.
Billy Ray Virus, er Cyrus: Don't Play That Song, That Achy, Breaky Song....
The Spice Girls: Hurl power.
Devo: I hope someone whips them, and whips them good.
Tiffany: Do I really need to say anything here?
Divinyls: Appropriately, they pioneered musical masturbation.
and Rick Astley: Oh, how soon we forget.... We have Remembrance Day, after all, to remind us 'Never Again.'
There are so many names I could list here... And I didn't even go into the spurious realms of 'house' and 'hip-hop' and so-called 'dance,' and the myriad contortions of musical crap that have cluttered up our culture bodies. But take comfort everyone, even the sternest cheese eventually makes it through the most constipated colon.
Oh, and how could I forget, the bane of every music lover's existence, whose utterly unnecessary shrine can be found here.
14 August 2003
Ouch....
Brittany Murphy to David Letterman, on the Ashton Kutcher-Demi Moore "romance":
Good girl, Brittany, good girl. :-)
Brittany Murphy to David Letterman, on the Ashton Kutcher-Demi Moore "romance":
I suppose the crux of their relationship basically means to him that age doesn't matter and to her that size doesn't matter. Good going for him, I suppose.... Kidding, I'm just kidding! He was always a huge Bruce Willis fan. Oh Lord, yes, of course I'm teasing....
Good girl, Brittany, good girl. :-)
13 August 2003
Small Consolation
Re: By The Time They Were Thirty : Counterpoint
>> Shakespeare was still a playwright in the making, languishing with the difficulties of writing blood-and-guts plays like the Henry VI plays and Richard III, and the slight comedies, The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew. That said, Shakespeare is writing like a madman-- and with King John, Richard II and the Sonnets in the offing, he'll soon surpass his rival Christopher Marlowe.
>> Wallace Stevens was only starting to publish in magazines, and was still trying to find stable work.
>> Alec Guinness had some small stage work (including a scene-stealing Osric in Gielguds's Hamlet), but aside from a bit part in Evensong, he had yet to make an impression on film; his performance as Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations is two years away. Like many English actors, however, Guinness found his acting career delayed by service in WWII; in a strange irony, due to an error, Guinness and another actor wound up being the first Brits to land on the shore of Italy before the invasion begun. Check out Guinness' brilliant autobiography Blessings In Disguise for more information.
>> James Joyce is in his own private hell after the destroyed publication of Dubliners and as Portait of the Artist as a Young Man lingers. Only Chamber Music, Joyce's very small book of verse, is in print.
>> Henry James had only one novel publish, in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly, the generally-forgotten Watch and Ward. Roderick Hudson doesn't appear for another two years.
>> Northrop Frye is still three years away from publishing his breakthrough study of William Blake, Fearful Symmetry.
>> John Dryden is still two years away from writing his first play, The Wild Gallant, now largely ignored, and All For Love remains six years away.
>> Virginia Woolf has yet to publish a novel. The Voyage Out remains three years away.
>> Emily Dickinson may be writing, but no one knows a damned thing of her, mostly by her own will.
>> Dante Alighieri is only on the cusp of finishing the Vita Nuova after the death of his beloved Beatrice; the Commedia remains at least five years away, with its beginning (the Inferno) not coming to development until 1290, when Dante was 35.
>> Walt Whitman remains six years away from publishing the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the volume (comprising just twelve poems) published at Whitman's own expense.
So, there's some consolation, I suppose.... So, to be Eliot, the young poet who rises to prominence in his youth, or to be Stevens, the poet (more than any other) associated with middle-age, that is the question.... Not that I'm near middle-age yet, but.... Oh, hell, one never knows, does one?
Re: By The Time They Were Thirty : Counterpoint
>> Shakespeare was still a playwright in the making, languishing with the difficulties of writing blood-and-guts plays like the Henry VI plays and Richard III, and the slight comedies, The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew. That said, Shakespeare is writing like a madman-- and with King John, Richard II and the Sonnets in the offing, he'll soon surpass his rival Christopher Marlowe.
>> Wallace Stevens was only starting to publish in magazines, and was still trying to find stable work.
>> Alec Guinness had some small stage work (including a scene-stealing Osric in Gielguds's Hamlet), but aside from a bit part in Evensong, he had yet to make an impression on film; his performance as Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations is two years away. Like many English actors, however, Guinness found his acting career delayed by service in WWII; in a strange irony, due to an error, Guinness and another actor wound up being the first Brits to land on the shore of Italy before the invasion begun. Check out Guinness' brilliant autobiography Blessings In Disguise for more information.
>> James Joyce is in his own private hell after the destroyed publication of Dubliners and as Portait of the Artist as a Young Man lingers. Only Chamber Music, Joyce's very small book of verse, is in print.
>> Henry James had only one novel publish, in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly, the generally-forgotten Watch and Ward. Roderick Hudson doesn't appear for another two years.
>> Northrop Frye is still three years away from publishing his breakthrough study of William Blake, Fearful Symmetry.
>> John Dryden is still two years away from writing his first play, The Wild Gallant, now largely ignored, and All For Love remains six years away.
>> Virginia Woolf has yet to publish a novel. The Voyage Out remains three years away.
>> Emily Dickinson may be writing, but no one knows a damned thing of her, mostly by her own will.
>> Dante Alighieri is only on the cusp of finishing the Vita Nuova after the death of his beloved Beatrice; the Commedia remains at least five years away, with its beginning (the Inferno) not coming to development until 1290, when Dante was 35.
>> Walt Whitman remains six years away from publishing the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the volume (comprising just twelve poems) published at Whitman's own expense.
So, there's some consolation, I suppose.... So, to be Eliot, the young poet who rises to prominence in his youth, or to be Stevens, the poet (more than any other) associated with middle-age, that is the question.... Not that I'm near middle-age yet, but.... Oh, hell, one never knows, does one?
A Shortcut For M. Mitchell
In response: follow this link. Sorry, it wound up longer than I intended.
In response: follow this link. Sorry, it wound up longer than I intended.
So Gary Hart Thinks He's James Joyce....
In today's NYTimes, Maureen Dowd has an interesting column on, of all things, politicians and their blogs. Once again, the article has to be read to be disbelieved.
In today's NYTimes, Maureen Dowd has an interesting column on, of all things, politicians and their blogs. Once again, the article has to be read to be disbelieved.
By The Time They Were Thirty:
» T. S. Eliot had written Prufrock and Other Observations, and was only two years away from completing The Waste Land.
» Orson Welles had directed Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, and become the definitive Mr. Rochester in the film version of Jane Eyre. He had, of course, already stunned North American audiences with his famous radio production of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.
» Van Morrison had released nine solo albums, including Astral Weeks and Moondance, two albums regularly cited among the top ten albums in rock and roll history, as well as the classics Tupelo Honey and Saint Dominic's Preview. He had also written "Brown-Eyed Girl" and "Gloria," staple songs for garage bands everywhere three decades later.
» Arthur Rimbaud was already past his prime and was settling into what would become the pattern of his self-destruction.
» Jodie Foster had already won two Academy Awards for Best Actress (for Silence of the Lambs, 1991, and The Accused, 1988, respectively), and had cemented herself as one of the icons of North American cinema.
» Alexander the Great (c. 356 - 323 B.C.) was only three years away from his death. Under Alexander's reign, the Macedonian empire reaches its apogee, and just prior to his thirtieth birthday Alexander and his armies had recrossed the Hindu Kush (in modern Pakistan) to begin the invasion of India. Previous victories: the defeats of Thebes, Persia, Tyre, Babylon, and Susa.
» Joan of Arc was embers: she was burned at the stake at nineteen.
» As Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart turned thirty, performances of The Marriage of Figaro had begun, to little acclaim; it survived for nine performances, though it is now considered a classic. He had already written numerous symphonies and concertos, and the Unfinished Mass in C Minor. He died at 35.
» Michelangelo had just (at age 29) completed his famous sculpture of David, and had just previously completed the Pieta now resident in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
» Winston Churchill was a controversial member of the House of Commons, and had already written his first book, The River War. Before turning thirty, Churchill was ambushed and taken prisoner by the Boers while reporting on the Boer War in South Africa.
» Leonard Cohen had published The Spice-Box of Earth, one of the few volumes of poetry to sell more than 100,000 copies in Canada. He had also written two other volumes of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies and Flowers for Hitler, and one novel, The Favourite Game.
» Hannibal had with 60,000 troops crossed the Alps into Italy in an ill-fated siege on Rome. Around his thirtieth birthday, he celebrated the successful ambush at Lake Trasimeno.
» Napoleon Bonaparte had reached Egypt and had defeated the Mamelukes, but had already lost to Lord Nelson in the Battle of the Nile. At thirty, he was five years away from being proclaimed Emperor by the Senate.
» Marco Polo was in China taking care of goverment business on behalf of Kublai Khan.
» John F. Kennedy had just (at 29) been elected to U.S. House of Representatives.
» Bob Dylan, born in 1941, had already released The Times They Are A-Changin', The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde, and John Wesley Harding. He famously "went electric" in 1965 at the ripe old age of twenty-four.
» Ray Charles had already recorded the iconic hits "What'd I Say?", "I Gotta Woman," "Lonely Avenue," "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," and "Georgia On My Mind." It's generally agreed that Charles' "I Gotta Woman" (alternately "I Got A Woman") was the first song of the genre now called 'soul music,' a genre that blended gospel, blues, and jazz sounds.
» Sir Philip Sidney was two years away from his death in the fields of Holland and had already written his key works, Arcadia, An Apologie for Poetrie, and Astrophil and Stella.
» W. B. Yeats had his Poems published in his thirtieth year. This followed the publication of The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, The Countess Kathleen, and The Celtic Twilight.
» Sylvia Plath was less than a year away from her suicide. The Colossus and Other Poems had been published, and in her final year she was compiling the poems later published in the Ariel volume.
» Graham Greene had published his third novel, It's A Battlefield. His previous novels-- The Man Within and Stamboul Train-- are still in print over seventy years later.
» Robert Lowell had already won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Lord Weary's Castle.
» As best as we can tell, by the time of his thirtieth birthday, Jesus has begun his ministry and had been baptized in the Jordan River.
» Katharine Hepburn had already won her first Academy Award for Best Actress (for 1933's Morning Glory). She eventually won four such awards.
» In her thirtieth year, Bette Davis was about to win her second Academy Award for Best Actress in Jezebel (1938). She had previously won for Dangerous (1935).
» Emily Bronte, born 1818, had just published Wuthering Heights (1847). She died in 1848-- in her thirtieth year-- of tuberculosis. Her sister Charlotte, born 1816, was in the process of completing Jane Eyre in her thirtieth year.
» England's King Henry V had already won significant victories at Agincourt and Normandy, and had begun the advance to Paris. At 33, he would defeat the French forces and be declared Regent of France. It is under Henry's reign that England last has a presence in continental Europe; the territories in France are eventually lost in the regency and rule of Henry VI.
» Charles Dickens had already published The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby and The Old Curiousity Shop. He was visiting America in his thirtieth year.
» John Milton had just published Lycidas, still considered by many the seminal example of the elegy. He had also already published Nativity Ode, Petition of Right and Comus.
» Charles Darwin was in the process of publishing his Journal of the H.M.S. Beagle.
» George Gordon, Lord Byron, had published the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and the first canto of Don Juan. His contemporary, John Keats, died at 25, author of Endymion and Hyperion. Endymion itself was a poetic effort of 4,000 lines that was finished, albeit not to Keats' satisfaction, within a year.
» Sir Isaac Newton had already started giving his Optic Lectures and had written De Methodis. He was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University at roughly age 27.
» Bill Gates had already started, with Paul Allen, at age twenty the company that so utterly controls our lives now, Microsoft. By the time of this thirtieth birthday (1985), Gates and his company were in the process of developing the Windows operating system.
Geez, all this makes me feel stunningly inadequate.... And yes, I compiled this myself, so I have no one to blame but myself....
12 August 2003
Ugh
The truly awful Ethan Hawke Hamlet is on A&E today. It is only one step above unwatchable, and I'm not sure of that, because I quite literally forced myself to watch it through some years ago for a paper a former student of mine wrote at the time, and I remain to tell the tale. Watching Julia Stiles as Ophelia is a drudgerous calisthenic exercise in itself. Saving grace, sole saving grace: Bill Murray has a few glimmers as Polonius. But, what did not kill me....
The truly awful Ethan Hawke Hamlet is on A&E today. It is only one step above unwatchable, and I'm not sure of that, because I quite literally forced myself to watch it through some years ago for a paper a former student of mine wrote at the time, and I remain to tell the tale. Watching Julia Stiles as Ophelia is a drudgerous calisthenic exercise in itself. Saving grace, sole saving grace: Bill Murray has a few glimmers as Polonius. But, what did not kill me....
Flowers, Manners and Cigars
I had to run out today to pick up flowers for some friends of my parents who are celebrating their anniversary this evening. And, of course, I had the experience of walking home with flowers in my hand which, of course, gathers curious looks from everyone who passes by-- and not just looks, but 'knowing looks,' 'speculative looks,' and 'aw, isn't that sweet looks.' How humiliating. Anyway, as I'm walking home, flowers in hand like some young lover with machinations for the evening, it occurred to me how long it had been since I had bought flowers for anyone, and it took me some time to think of when it was, probably seven years ago. Yes, it seems everything happened 'a long time ago.'
Strange isn't it, though, that at least in North America we associate flowers with either love or death, with romances or funerals. Stranger still, these days to give flowers during a romance is a faux pas, a kind of grandiose overstatement that supposedly identifies the giving party as taking things entirely too seriously, or, at least, too naively. That's too bad, really. I truly wish we lived in a society that was less jaded, less given to exaggerated interpretation; after all, we think nothing of bringing a bottle of wine when we are invited to dinner by someone, and yet to give flowers is not seen in a similar perspective. I dunno. Especially as a male in this ever-so-jaded society, it's harder and harder to know what to do and what not to do, what's right and what's not; every gesture, even simple, apparently innocuous ones, can be perverted from their intention in one way or another. Years ago, on campus, I saw a young woman coming up just behind me as I was about to enter a building. I waited the extra two seconds, and held the door open for her. She responded by stopping and slapping me in the face and saying, "What, do you think I can't open a door for myself?" I stood there, half agog, half resisting the temptation to the slam the door in her miserable face; but it speaks to the extent to which try to read whatever we want into common everyday gestures, and how we try to typify people according to our own expectations, and at the cost of undermining the basic codes and principles of a civilised and well-mannered society. And, to be totally honest, I find myself feeling very anachronistic a lot of the time.
We live, sadly, in a society that more often than not simply has to find a cynical way of looking at things. And as much as I embrace cynicism in other ways, such outright cynicism is debilitating. After all, as Freud reminds us, even if we take him as being defensive in his original context, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a bouquet is indeed just a fucking bouquet.
A Kind of Public Statement
This is no doubt premature, and more than likely moot, but I've decided that-- whatever my future, in any sense-- I do not want people going through my notebooks after my death. I've been thinking about this a bit lately, thinking about the notebooks of Frye, the letters of Eliot and Stevens, and so on and so forth. Should I become a writer or an academic of any significance (yeah, right...), I don't want people ferreting through my books looking for previous editions of poems, or notes for articles, or outlines for lectures; I don't want people trying to 'get at' the unknown nooks and crannies of my being. I don't want people looking for biographical information; I don't want them trying to figure out 'what I meant'; I don't want people charting compositional histories. I don't want my meanings fixed. I don't want my work reduced to biographical explanation. I don't want my work riddled through as if it were a crossword puzzle. I don't want whatever private thoughts and confessions I may have had used as a template for categorizing me, especially since, as Heraclitus reminds, you can never step in the same river twice. I don't want my unpublished work scavenged, and released posthumously, as was the more thankful case with Emily Dickinson.
Plain and simple, I don't want anyone raiding my tomb. What I publish or deliver will be a matter of public record; what I do not shouold never see the light of day; it should die with me.
I say this here partially in response to the tendencies of people to scavenge and to look for Rosetta Stones in a person's archives. I say it, too, so any of my friends and colleagues out there who are reading this will do me one favour, should anything horrendous happen to me before I have a will put in place: please, please, please execute with extreme prejudice anyone who tries to do dig into my archives for whatever purposes. Sometimes, the worst thing we can do to a writer or a thinker is to know them too well. I find it interesting that so much of the best writing these days is about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a poem about whose author we know very, very little, not even the poet's name. Sometimes the less we 'know,' the more we can truly understand.
It's important, I think, in the final analysis that we all maintain a bit of our mystery, a bit of our unknowability.
So there, that's on record, at least somewhere. And, yes, I count this blog as a kind of 'public' record.
I feel better now that I've written that.
(And no, the Dr is not feeling morbid or anything like that. Call it a pre-emptive strike, even if, when all is said and done, it's probably moot anyway.)
This is no doubt premature, and more than likely moot, but I've decided that-- whatever my future, in any sense-- I do not want people going through my notebooks after my death. I've been thinking about this a bit lately, thinking about the notebooks of Frye, the letters of Eliot and Stevens, and so on and so forth. Should I become a writer or an academic of any significance (yeah, right...), I don't want people ferreting through my books looking for previous editions of poems, or notes for articles, or outlines for lectures; I don't want people trying to 'get at' the unknown nooks and crannies of my being. I don't want people looking for biographical information; I don't want them trying to figure out 'what I meant'; I don't want people charting compositional histories. I don't want my meanings fixed. I don't want my work reduced to biographical explanation. I don't want my work riddled through as if it were a crossword puzzle. I don't want whatever private thoughts and confessions I may have had used as a template for categorizing me, especially since, as Heraclitus reminds, you can never step in the same river twice. I don't want my unpublished work scavenged, and released posthumously, as was the more thankful case with Emily Dickinson.
Plain and simple, I don't want anyone raiding my tomb. What I publish or deliver will be a matter of public record; what I do not shouold never see the light of day; it should die with me.
I say this here partially in response to the tendencies of people to scavenge and to look for Rosetta Stones in a person's archives. I say it, too, so any of my friends and colleagues out there who are reading this will do me one favour, should anything horrendous happen to me before I have a will put in place: please, please, please execute with extreme prejudice anyone who tries to do dig into my archives for whatever purposes. Sometimes, the worst thing we can do to a writer or a thinker is to know them too well. I find it interesting that so much of the best writing these days is about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a poem about whose author we know very, very little, not even the poet's name. Sometimes the less we 'know,' the more we can truly understand.
It's important, I think, in the final analysis that we all maintain a bit of our mystery, a bit of our unknowability.
So there, that's on record, at least somewhere. And, yes, I count this blog as a kind of 'public' record.
I feel better now that I've written that.
(And no, the Dr is not feeling morbid or anything like that. Call it a pre-emptive strike, even if, when all is said and done, it's probably moot anyway.)
Beyond Tragedy
From Northrop Frye's brilliant Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957):
From Northrop Frye's brilliant Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957):
At the bottom of Dante's hell, which is also the center of the spherical earth, Dante sees Satan standing upright in the circle of ice, and as he cautiously follows Virgil over the hip and thigh of the evil giant, letting himself down by the tufts on his skin, he passes the center and finds himself no longer going down but going up, climbing out on the other side of the world to see the stars again. From this point of view, the devil is no longer upright, but standing on his head, in the same attitude in which he was hurled downward from heaven upon the other side of the earth. Tragedy and tragic irony take us into a hell of harrowing circles and culminate in some such vision of the source of all evil in a personal form. Tragedy can take us no farther; but if we persevere with the mythos of irony and satire, we shall pass a dead center, and finally the gentlemanly Prince of Darkness bottom side up.
"I Didn't Sell My Soul, I Just Took Out A Loan"
What the hell has happened to all my CDs? Between general misplacings, various clumsy losses and the idiotic loaning of discs to so-called 'friends' of mine over the years, I've lost quite a bit of my music collection. Van Morrison's A Sense of Wonder, Down The Road, The Healing Game, Moondance, Days Like This, No Guru No Method No Teacher, How Long Has This Been Going On?; Bruce Hornsby's Harbor Lights; Robbie Robertson's Music for the North Americans; Leonard Cohen's The Future, Ten New Songs, and Various Positions; John Lee Hooker's Chill Out; the Chieftains' The Long Black Veil; Ray Charles' Anthology; these are just a few of the absentees in my collection, most of which I still have the jewel cases for, but not the actual discs. God only knows how many others have gone missing via one scenario or another. That's it. I'm never lending anyone anything again. Maybe a couple are hanging loose around the house, but I doubt it. This is very frustrating.
On the flip side, this morning-- for the first time in what has to be several years-- I dug out Hornsby's A Night On The Town, and album I've always liked. Listening to it now (it was released in 1990), it still sounds quite good. For lack of a better phrase, the album is good 'country driving' music, and it's also good writing music. And I miss popular music that uses strong piano lines.
Good seed don't grow
On the barren ground
Good things just don't come along
As you sit dreaming on
Good seed don't grow
On the barren ground
Say everything fades away
There you are, still around
What'll you do, where will you go
--- Hornsby, "Barren Ground"
What the hell has happened to all my CDs? Between general misplacings, various clumsy losses and the idiotic loaning of discs to so-called 'friends' of mine over the years, I've lost quite a bit of my music collection. Van Morrison's A Sense of Wonder, Down The Road, The Healing Game, Moondance, Days Like This, No Guru No Method No Teacher, How Long Has This Been Going On?; Bruce Hornsby's Harbor Lights; Robbie Robertson's Music for the North Americans; Leonard Cohen's The Future, Ten New Songs, and Various Positions; John Lee Hooker's Chill Out; the Chieftains' The Long Black Veil; Ray Charles' Anthology; these are just a few of the absentees in my collection, most of which I still have the jewel cases for, but not the actual discs. God only knows how many others have gone missing via one scenario or another. That's it. I'm never lending anyone anything again. Maybe a couple are hanging loose around the house, but I doubt it. This is very frustrating.
On the flip side, this morning-- for the first time in what has to be several years-- I dug out Hornsby's A Night On The Town, and album I've always liked. Listening to it now (it was released in 1990), it still sounds quite good. For lack of a better phrase, the album is good 'country driving' music, and it's also good writing music. And I miss popular music that uses strong piano lines.
Good seed don't grow
On the barren ground
Good things just don't come along
As you sit dreaming on
Good seed don't grow
On the barren ground
Say everything fades away
There you are, still around
What'll you do, where will you go
--- Hornsby, "Barren Ground"
But Would She Have Dashed The Brains Out Redux
Somehow, following the case of the woman who was cited for breast-feeding while driving, we knew there had to be a competition coming down the pike. I wonder if they sold tickets....
Somehow, following the case of the woman who was cited for breast-feeding while driving, we knew there had to be a competition coming down the pike. I wonder if they sold tickets....
We Knew It Was Bad But...
Box Office reports from the US are in for the past weekend, and even though we all knew Gigli was going down faster than Ricky Martin after a sweaty night of living la vida loca, who knew it was this bad: this weekend, it raked in a piddly $700,000 in its second week, despite showing in 2,215 theatres. Contrast this with the opening of the independent comedy Le Divorce, which earned $500,000 in a mere 34 theatres. Check out, too, the floundering of Charlies Angels 2 and Legally Blonde 2 which, despite each showing in more than a thousand theatres, still managed to earn less than Bend It Like Beckham and 28 Days Later. Ouch. Check out the other stats here.
Box Office reports from the US are in for the past weekend, and even though we all knew Gigli was going down faster than Ricky Martin after a sweaty night of living la vida loca, who knew it was this bad: this weekend, it raked in a piddly $700,000 in its second week, despite showing in 2,215 theatres. Contrast this with the opening of the independent comedy Le Divorce, which earned $500,000 in a mere 34 theatres. Check out, too, the floundering of Charlies Angels 2 and Legally Blonde 2 which, despite each showing in more than a thousand theatres, still managed to earn less than Bend It Like Beckham and 28 Days Later. Ouch. Check out the other stats here.
Damonic Possession?
There's an interesting production on in NY called "Matt and Ben" that looks like a good send-up of Damon and Affleck, the current icons (Leonardo DiCaprio aside) of pretty-boy American stardom. Here is Bruce Weber's review in the Times: Bad Will Hunting, Armed With Venom Darts. I have to agree with Weber that I do regard Damon at least a bit more kindly than I do Affleck: Damon is far less of a media whore, and I have to respect his willingness to tackle indie projects that aren't just exercise in glory-hunting or self-important "Aren't I cutting edge" posturing. After all, did anyone see Gerry?
There's an interesting production on in NY called "Matt and Ben" that looks like a good send-up of Damon and Affleck, the current icons (Leonardo DiCaprio aside) of pretty-boy American stardom. Here is Bruce Weber's review in the Times: Bad Will Hunting, Armed With Venom Darts. I have to agree with Weber that I do regard Damon at least a bit more kindly than I do Affleck: Damon is far less of a media whore, and I have to respect his willingness to tackle indie projects that aren't just exercise in glory-hunting or self-important "Aren't I cutting edge" posturing. After all, did anyone see Gerry?
10 August 2003
Ugh
Poems like Simon Lee help to console me: even Wordsworth had his real poetic stinkers. 'Hand me your tool...' OMG. *Shakes head vociferously*
Poems like Simon Lee help to console me: even Wordsworth had his real poetic stinkers. 'Hand me your tool...' OMG. *Shakes head vociferously*
Hope and Vainglory
Christopher Hitchens is famous for pissing in the faces of some of the world's sacred cows, including the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. But Hitchens may have stepped too far when he dared to say what I was thinking amid the exhaustive exercise in elegaic flatulence that surrounded the passing of Bob Hope. You can read Hitchens' 'obituary' here.
Christopher Hitchens is famous for pissing in the faces of some of the world's sacred cows, including the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. But Hitchens may have stepped too far when he dared to say what I was thinking amid the exhaustive exercise in elegaic flatulence that surrounded the passing of Bob Hope. You can read Hitchens' 'obituary' here.
Footnote to Housman
To reach the top flight as a poet
you must write an unreadable work,
so obscure that your friends will forgo it
and all but the bravest will shirk.
Then the few who have read it, begrudging
the waste of exertion entailed,
will claim it's essential for judging
how far you've succeeded or failed.
From admiring their own persistence
they'll come to admiring the screed
and claim that it stands at a distance
from works that are easy to read;
while the reader who skipped it is able
to pretend he enjoyed it himself,
and leave it about on his table,
and show it with pride on his shelf.
It was Housman who worst neglected
the force of this critical rule,
with result that his faults are detected
by infants who read him at school,
while we who admire him, defenceless,
lack some pompier twaddle to quote
and can find nothing prolix or senseless
to claim as the best thing he wrote.
To learn from the fault he committed
is the first of poetical cares.
Lucid intervals may be admitted,
but be lucid the whole time who dares.
--- Charles Johnson, from Selected Poems
To reach the top flight as a poet
you must write an unreadable work,
so obscure that your friends will forgo it
and all but the bravest will shirk.
Then the few who have read it, begrudging
the waste of exertion entailed,
will claim it's essential for judging
how far you've succeeded or failed.
From admiring their own persistence
they'll come to admiring the screed
and claim that it stands at a distance
from works that are easy to read;
while the reader who skipped it is able
to pretend he enjoyed it himself,
and leave it about on his table,
and show it with pride on his shelf.
It was Housman who worst neglected
the force of this critical rule,
with result that his faults are detected
by infants who read him at school,
while we who admire him, defenceless,
lack some pompier twaddle to quote
and can find nothing prolix or senseless
to claim as the best thing he wrote.
To learn from the fault he committed
is the first of poetical cares.
Lucid intervals may be admitted,
but be lucid the whole time who dares.
--- Charles Johnson, from Selected Poems
The World's Gone Totally Loopy
Two good pieces today, one on Arnold's run for governor called "Brawny or Scrawny?", and a fluff-piece on who will replace Arnold in the upcoming Terminator movies.
And, other names added to the list of would-be governors in California: Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live; and watermelon-smashing 'comedian' Gallagher. As I said before, only in California... or, rather, only in the US.
Two good pieces today, one on Arnold's run for governor called "Brawny or Scrawny?", and a fluff-piece on who will replace Arnold in the upcoming Terminator movies.
And, other names added to the list of would-be governors in California: Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live; and watermelon-smashing 'comedian' Gallagher. As I said before, only in California... or, rather, only in the US.
For Better And For Worse
Here's a very good piece from the Times on same-sex marriage, but more appropriately the idea of marriage itself: And Now, the Queer Eye for Straight Marriage. Worth a read.
Here's a very good piece from the Times on same-sex marriage, but more appropriately the idea of marriage itself: And Now, the Queer Eye for Straight Marriage. Worth a read.
09 August 2003
Current Book Reviews, Then
Also from The Atlantic: reviews of various classics at the time of publication (or thereabout; there's a reconsideration of Joyce's Portrait that is *way* later). Subjects include Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Leaves of Grass, Finnegans Wake and Lolita. Cool. At least for literature geeks like me.
Also from The Atlantic: reviews of various classics at the time of publication (or thereabout; there's a reconsideration of Joyce's Portrait that is *way* later). Subjects include Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Leaves of Grass, Finnegans Wake and Lolita. Cool. At least for literature geeks like me.
Bobby, You Heartbreaker You
The Atlantic also has an interesting article on the recently issued Collected Poems of Robert Lowell. Please read Lowell, everyone. At least his early stuff. And yes, it bugs me to *no end* that Lowell had already won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry by the time he was my age. Bastard.
The Atlantic also has an interesting article on the recently issued Collected Poems of Robert Lowell. Please read Lowell, everyone. At least his early stuff. And yes, it bugs me to *no end* that Lowell had already won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry by the time he was my age. Bastard.
Etymology Can Be Fun.... Really.
You know this site had eventually to link to this, The Word Detective. It really is interesting to see where some of our phrases come from.
It's also worth it to take a gander at The Court Recorder, a recurring column in The Atlantic.
You know this site had eventually to link to this, The Word Detective. It really is interesting to see where some of our phrases come from.
It's also worth it to take a gander at The Court Recorder, a recurring column in The Atlantic.
Classics Humour
For those with a penchant for the classics, check out this site which has some clever humour articles on bits of classical history. I particularly like:
For those with a penchant for the classics, check out this site which has some clever humour articles on bits of classical history. I particularly like:
this piece on Socrates and baldness;
this piece on 'gayness' and ancient Greece, inspired by W meeting with gay Republicans;
and this Aristophanic rewrite of the Bush-Gore debates from 2000 which includes Bush telling Gore to "Suck my cigar, you Clintonesque crapmonger."
The History Of The World
This is moderately amusing: I like the description of the 'Renaissance men' as 'guys without cable.' ;-)
This is moderately amusing: I like the description of the 'Renaissance men' as 'guys without cable.' ;-)
'Like the man said: Let it all hang out... Ding-a-ling-a-ling...'
OR:
Eight Men Out
There are so many jokes I could make here, but I won't: Apparently, Puerto Rican police have shut down performances of a production called
Naked Boys Singing pending a hearing. I personally like this sentence: "A week ago, members of the Tapia Theater's Board of Directors walked out on its first dress rehearsal" (emphasis added). Perhaps the production had serious shortcomings? ;-)
OR:
Eight Men Out
There are so many jokes I could make here, but I won't: Apparently, Puerto Rican police have shut down performances of a production called
Naked Boys Singing pending a hearing. I personally like this sentence: "A week ago, members of the Tapia Theater's Board of Directors walked out on its first dress rehearsal" (emphasis added). Perhaps the production had serious shortcomings? ;-)
But Would She Have Dashed His Brains Out?
This story just boggles the mind in so many ways. This case is indeed the best argument in favour of requiring breast-feeding licenses. Suddenly Lady Macbeth looks like an emblem of sanity. Sheesh.
This story just boggles the mind in so many ways. This case is indeed the best argument in favour of requiring breast-feeding licenses. Suddenly Lady Macbeth looks like an emblem of sanity. Sheesh.
When You Gonna Wake Up?
Now, I love Bob Dylan, but he really should stay away from the movies. His newest effort, Armed and Dangerous, looks typically very weird, and features a strange, strange cast that includes Jessica Lange, John Goodman, Mickey Rourke, Penelope Cruz, Jeff Bridges, Val Kilmer, and, of all people, Ed Harris in black-face. *Shudder* Click here for the review from the Toronto Star.
Now, I love Bob Dylan, but he really should stay away from the movies. His newest effort, Armed and Dangerous, looks typically very weird, and features a strange, strange cast that includes Jessica Lange, John Goodman, Mickey Rourke, Penelope Cruz, Jeff Bridges, Val Kilmer, and, of all people, Ed Harris in black-face. *Shudder* Click here for the review from the Toronto Star.
But, Of Course...
Here's a neat little link to an article in today's NYTimes about, of all things, links: What a Tangled Web We Weave. And, yes, this blog is very much aware of the irony of posting this.... ;-)
Remember: You need the free Times subscription to access this link.
Here's a neat little link to an article in today's NYTimes about, of all things, links: What a Tangled Web We Weave. And, yes, this blog is very much aware of the irony of posting this.... ;-)
Remember: You need the free Times subscription to access this link.
08 August 2003
Okay, Altogether Now: How Sticky Were They?
How ironic. A Denver city councilperson who didn't want a meeting televised because the council was eating cinnamon rolls during it (yes, we know the refutation is coming soon enough) is named Jeanne Faatz. Use a little creative pronunciation if you must. ;-)
How ironic. A Denver city councilperson who didn't want a meeting televised because the council was eating cinnamon rolls during it (yes, we know the refutation is coming soon enough) is named Jeanne Faatz. Use a little creative pronunciation if you must. ;-)
Comes A Walking Stick
This is just bizarre. I hope for this man's sake he isn't attacked my mad cows looking for something to chew on. If this guy loves his body so much, he should try doing the same trek during the Scottish winter.
Points, by the way, to anyone who catches on to the origin of the title of this post. ;-)
This is just bizarre. I hope for this man's sake he isn't attacked my mad cows looking for something to chew on. If this guy loves his body so much, he should try doing the same trek during the Scottish winter.
Points, by the way, to anyone who catches on to the origin of the title of this post. ;-)
OMFG: Not For Anyone With A Working Sense of Morality
I had heard about this a fair bit lately (it's constantly in the news), but it's even worse than I thought. Hunting for Bambi is more than just 'naked paintball'; there's also the repugnant promise of "an actual road kill scene as a semi-truck takes out Bambi on the highway" and the prospects of "tracking down women with dogs to chasing after them with a real armored tank." I don't know what depresses me most-- the sick minds that conceive of such shite, the sick minds that pay for such shite, or the sad, sick minds of the women who abase themselves and their sex for this shite.
This is truly disturbing. And I know full well, such misogynist 'entertainment' will no doubt become grist for the mill of the ardent feminists who would paint (pardon the word) all men as predatory scumbags. We've not heard the end of this, I assure you. To the assholes who thought this up: fuck you, and I hope some agitated females opt to turn your sorry hides into coats with which to cover themselves. These guys make the Girls Gone Wild mongers look like moral pillars.
I had heard about this a fair bit lately (it's constantly in the news), but it's even worse than I thought. Hunting for Bambi is more than just 'naked paintball'; there's also the repugnant promise of "an actual road kill scene as a semi-truck takes out Bambi on the highway" and the prospects of "tracking down women with dogs to chasing after them with a real armored tank." I don't know what depresses me most-- the sick minds that conceive of such shite, the sick minds that pay for such shite, or the sad, sick minds of the women who abase themselves and their sex for this shite.
This is truly disturbing. And I know full well, such misogynist 'entertainment' will no doubt become grist for the mill of the ardent feminists who would paint (pardon the word) all men as predatory scumbags. We've not heard the end of this, I assure you. To the assholes who thought this up: fuck you, and I hope some agitated females opt to turn your sorry hides into coats with which to cover themselves. These guys make the Girls Gone Wild mongers look like moral pillars.
French Fry?
The NYTimes has a review of the film Le Divorce, which features a great cast including the inimitable Stephen Fry. Here's the review: Paris in the Summer, When It Sits There. Maybe I'll see it on video some day, considering it's not likely to be anywhere nearby anytime soon. :-(
The NYTimes has a review of the film Le Divorce, which features a great cast including the inimitable Stephen Fry. Here's the review: Paris in the Summer, When It Sits There. Maybe I'll see it on video some day, considering it's not likely to be anywhere nearby anytime soon. :-(
A Modest Amusement -- or is that 'bemusement'??
Looks like someone at metacritic.com has rewritten the link to Terminator 3. It now reads 'Governator 3.' Wonder who did that...
Looks like someone at metacritic.com has rewritten the link to Terminator 3. It now reads 'Governator 3.' Wonder who did that...
It Extends, It Shrinks, And It Causes A Great Noise
Reading this makes me *so* embarassed to be Canadian.
Reading this makes me *so* embarassed to be Canadian.
Catch-All
NYTimes Sunday X-word, "Catch-All," by Jim Page, is a strange brew. There are some clever clues, but there's a lot of desperate cluing going on, and the puzzle will no doubt isolate non-Americans. Although it didn't really take long to finish, I can't say that I particularly enjoyed doing it; the theme, 'etc,' is dull and uninspired. "Lascars"? C'mon; that's just a little too obscure, I think.
NYTimes Sunday X-word, "Catch-All," by Jim Page, is a strange brew. There are some clever clues, but there's a lot of desperate cluing going on, and the puzzle will no doubt isolate non-Americans. Although it didn't really take long to finish, I can't say that I particularly enjoyed doing it; the theme, 'etc,' is dull and uninspired. "Lascars"? C'mon; that's just a little too obscure, I think.
The Ages of Van
Writing that last entry got me thinking about how much Van Morrison's music has 'been there' for various key stages in the Doctor's life. I think of 1990's Enlightenment album, and I think of my initial 'growing' with it; it was the first album that truly meant something to me. It remains for me one of my favourite albums, and I can still remember my young (17 year old) obsession with the song "Real Real Gone." I think of 1991's Hymns to the Silence, and I think of my first year of university residence, of coming slowly out of my self-imposed shell, of how that album helped preserve my sanity while I suffered through living with a roommate who was, suffice it to say, my diametric opposite. I think of that period in my first year of university, too, as my great education, as I ravenously bought up almost all of Van's back catalogue, and how some albums permanently cemented themselves in my imagination, particularly Astral Weeks, St. Dominic's Preview, Into the Music, and Common One.
This blog refuses to say anything about Moondance, except to say that it was the transcendent(al) album, the one that was 'always there.' Perhaps conspicuously, it is not now. I no longer own a copy of it. And I can't remember the last time I listened to the album entire. There are, sadly, two albums to which I can no longer bring myself to listen, as much as I love them, and Moondance is one of them.
When I think of No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, I always think of the young woman who taught me a lot about myself (and not in the dirty ways many of you are thinking ;-) ). I think of Days Like This, and I think of a period of my life I refuse to describe here. I think of Back On Top, and how that album became a kind of touchstone for me as my life spun entirely beyond my control, and it was all I could do keep myself alight. The piffle albums (The Skiffle Sessions, You Win Again) correspondended with periods of personal piffle and dispurpose. Down the Road corresponded to a time of trying again after a long period on the shelf, which I will leave at that. It's a lovely, nostalgic (but not corny) album; oddly, for the life of me, I can't find it anywhere in my collection.
It's amazing how much music (what you listen to, how you listen to it, what it evokes for you) says about you and to you. It's equally amazing how hearing a song again, or sometimes even thinking of it, can take you right back in time to certain places and feelings and thoughts, can disturb you from your nettle of 'the present.' It's one thing to leave the past in the past, it's another to forget it entirely; the past is part of us, part of who we are and the way we think and the way we respond; the past is us when let our guards are let down, for good or for ill; the present is who we are with them up, telling ourselves things are different this time, telling ourselves we know better than to do the things we've done before, and that we know how to handle things. Most people never wander too far from who they've been, even if it sometimes seems they do; we all remain, at least in some small part, who we have always been, we remain the self we no longer are, often tremorously so. In the words of Clough, 'in the lost childhood of Judas, / Jesus was betrayed." Food for thought.
Writing that last entry got me thinking about how much Van Morrison's music has 'been there' for various key stages in the Doctor's life. I think of 1990's Enlightenment album, and I think of my initial 'growing' with it; it was the first album that truly meant something to me. It remains for me one of my favourite albums, and I can still remember my young (17 year old) obsession with the song "Real Real Gone." I think of 1991's Hymns to the Silence, and I think of my first year of university residence, of coming slowly out of my self-imposed shell, of how that album helped preserve my sanity while I suffered through living with a roommate who was, suffice it to say, my diametric opposite. I think of that period in my first year of university, too, as my great education, as I ravenously bought up almost all of Van's back catalogue, and how some albums permanently cemented themselves in my imagination, particularly Astral Weeks, St. Dominic's Preview, Into the Music, and Common One.
This blog refuses to say anything about Moondance, except to say that it was the transcendent(al) album, the one that was 'always there.' Perhaps conspicuously, it is not now. I no longer own a copy of it. And I can't remember the last time I listened to the album entire. There are, sadly, two albums to which I can no longer bring myself to listen, as much as I love them, and Moondance is one of them.
When I think of No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, I always think of the young woman who taught me a lot about myself (and not in the dirty ways many of you are thinking ;-) ). I think of Days Like This, and I think of a period of my life I refuse to describe here. I think of Back On Top, and how that album became a kind of touchstone for me as my life spun entirely beyond my control, and it was all I could do keep myself alight. The piffle albums (The Skiffle Sessions, You Win Again) correspondended with periods of personal piffle and dispurpose. Down the Road corresponded to a time of trying again after a long period on the shelf, which I will leave at that. It's a lovely, nostalgic (but not corny) album; oddly, for the life of me, I can't find it anywhere in my collection.
It's amazing how much music (what you listen to, how you listen to it, what it evokes for you) says about you and to you. It's equally amazing how hearing a song again, or sometimes even thinking of it, can take you right back in time to certain places and feelings and thoughts, can disturb you from your nettle of 'the present.' It's one thing to leave the past in the past, it's another to forget it entirely; the past is part of us, part of who we are and the way we think and the way we respond; the past is us when let our guards are let down, for good or for ill; the present is who we are with them up, telling ourselves things are different this time, telling ourselves we know better than to do the things we've done before, and that we know how to handle things. Most people never wander too far from who they've been, even if it sometimes seems they do; we all remain, at least in some small part, who we have always been, we remain the self we no longer are, often tremorously so. In the words of Clough, 'in the lost childhood of Judas, / Jesus was betrayed." Food for thought.
Ya Heard It Here First
This blog is happy about two things, that Van Morrison has a new record deal that is making headlines in various different sources, and that this blog knew all about it long before official announcements were made. This blog is very happy with itself. More info from BILLBOARD. Now, if only The Man would make a much-desired return to southern Ontario: it has over eight years since his last stop in Toronto, a concert Dr. J. very joyously attended, and still has the T-shirt to prove it. Eight years. So very, very much has changed since then.
This blog also finds itself thinking back on Van's last release, Down the Road, and wondering how someone is doing.
Yes, this blog, like Van's music, is seldom more than a step-and-a-half away from the past.
This blog is happy about two things, that Van Morrison has a new record deal that is making headlines in various different sources, and that this blog knew all about it long before official announcements were made. This blog is very happy with itself. More info from BILLBOARD. Now, if only The Man would make a much-desired return to southern Ontario: it has over eight years since his last stop in Toronto, a concert Dr. J. very joyously attended, and still has the T-shirt to prove it. Eight years. So very, very much has changed since then.
This blog also finds itself thinking back on Van's last release, Down the Road, and wondering how someone is doing.
Yes, this blog, like Van's music, is seldom more than a step-and-a-half away from the past.
Ignition Indignation
Now, I'm no fan of motorsports, but you'd think the puritans in our governments would realize that their policies on tobacco laws have gone past prohibitive and are now detrimental to local and national economies. God save us from the 'holier than thou.' Check out this article from the BBC on Montreal's loss of the Formula One race. Don't goverments have more serious things to worry about?
And it figures that the anti-smoking lobby is blaming the tobacco companies for the loss. I agree with Formula One here, and not just because I'm a smoker: when legislation becomes prohibitive to sponsors, of course you're going to avoid places that have enacted such legislation. Whatever happened to legislative tolerance?????
And, of course, dear Lord, we're all so weak-minded that seeing cars with cigarette logos will corrupt all of us into buying cigarette packs by the truck load. Come on. This is bloody ridiculous.
Now, I'm no fan of motorsports, but you'd think the puritans in our governments would realize that their policies on tobacco laws have gone past prohibitive and are now detrimental to local and national economies. God save us from the 'holier than thou.' Check out this article from the BBC on Montreal's loss of the Formula One race. Don't goverments have more serious things to worry about?
And it figures that the anti-smoking lobby is blaming the tobacco companies for the loss. I agree with Formula One here, and not just because I'm a smoker: when legislation becomes prohibitive to sponsors, of course you're going to avoid places that have enacted such legislation. Whatever happened to legislative tolerance?????
And, of course, dear Lord, we're all so weak-minded that seeing cars with cigarette logos will corrupt all of us into buying cigarette packs by the truck load. Come on. This is bloody ridiculous.
Moo.
Canadian Press published an article whose title is just a little too open to (wilful) misinterpretation: Mulroney touted as mad cow messiah. This blog is really, really, really resisting the urge to riff on this....
In other cow news, there's this which suggests there may be revolt in the ranks. Anyone remember Animal Farm?
Canadian Press published an article whose title is just a little too open to (wilful) misinterpretation: Mulroney touted as mad cow messiah. This blog is really, really, really resisting the urge to riff on this....
In other cow news, there's this which suggests there may be revolt in the ranks. Anyone remember Animal Farm?
Only In California
The political situation in the land of botoxed is going from the sublime to the ridiculous, as this article from the Financial Times explains, following the entries of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gary Coleman, Angelyne, and Larry Flynt in the gubernatorial race. Oy vey.
It occurred to me another way this election could be very different than any other in North American history: Awh-nold could be the first gubernatorial candidate to have full-frontal nude images of himself published by an opposing candidate, Mr. Flynt. (Remember the fiasco about those pics years ago?) I do kinda like the idea of Larry Flynt being a candidate, though-- just because if there's *any* dirt out there on a candidate, you can bet safe money he'll find it, and publish it. Hee hee hee.
I can just imagine the jokes: An Aryan, a black midget, and a parapalegic are running for governor....
The political situation in the land of botoxed is going from the sublime to the ridiculous, as this article from the Financial Times explains, following the entries of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gary Coleman, Angelyne, and Larry Flynt in the gubernatorial race. Oy vey.
It occurred to me another way this election could be very different than any other in North American history: Awh-nold could be the first gubernatorial candidate to have full-frontal nude images of himself published by an opposing candidate, Mr. Flynt. (Remember the fiasco about those pics years ago?) I do kinda like the idea of Larry Flynt being a candidate, though-- just because if there's *any* dirt out there on a candidate, you can bet safe money he'll find it, and publish it. Hee hee hee.
I can just imagine the jokes: An Aryan, a black midget, and a parapalegic are running for governor....
To Have and Have Not
It All Depends on What You Mean by 'Have' is a very funny op-ed piece for the NY Times by Steve Martin-- yes, THE Steve Martin, who does a clever, Clintonian attack on the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction scenario. You have to have the free Times subscription to read it. If you don't have it, get it.
It All Depends on What You Mean by 'Have' is a very funny op-ed piece for the NY Times by Steve Martin-- yes, THE Steve Martin, who does a clever, Clintonian attack on the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction scenario. You have to have the free Times subscription to read it. If you don't have it, get it.
07 August 2003
Here is a lovely piece, also from Mark Strand's Blizzard of One, that combines prose-poem with the pantoum, and it achieves a kind of glorious dance-ish beauty that is very rare these days. It's long, but intoxicating.
The Delirium Waltz
I cannot remember when it began. The lights were low. We were walking across the floor, over the polished wood, the inlaid marble, through shallow water, through a dusting of snow, over the shapeless figures of fallen light. I cannot remember, but I think you were there — whoever you were — sometimes with me, sometimes watching. Shapes assembled themselves and dissolved. The hall to the ballroom seemed endless, and a voice, perhaps it was yours, was saying we'd never arrive. Now we were gliding over the floor, our clothes were heavy, and the music was slow. I thought we might die all over again. And I think we were happy. Large constellations of sound were leading us on. We moved in the drift of innumerable notes, abstractions and histories and as we passed over the ground it formed for us the shape of the earth. We moved toward the future, or was it the past? Anxiety has its inflections — wasteful, sad, and sometimes tragic — but here it had none; in its harmless, cloudlike hovering it was merely fantastic, the sweet result of a musical will. We kept on dancing. And I was with you. Why else would I practice those near calamitous dips? I think it was clear that we'd always been dancing, always been eager to enter the rhythms and transports of light. The attractions of motion were forever asserting themselves — from the beguiling fluff of clouds to the wink of an eye. Rooms became larger and finally dimensionless, and we kept turning, arriving and turning.
And then came Bob and Sonia
And the dance was slow
And joining them now were Chip and Molly
And Joseph dear Joseph was dancing and smoking
And the dance was slow
And into the hall years later came Tom and Em
And Joseph dear Joseph was dancing and smoking
And off to the side were Mark and Jean leaning together
And into the hall years later came Tom and Em
Holding each other and turning and turning
And off to the side were Mark and Jean leaning together
And Bill and Sandy and Jorie and Jim
Holding each other and turning and turning
Then came Jules tall and thin
And Bill and Sandy and Jorie and Jim
Everyone moving everyone dancing
Then came Jules tall and thin
Across the wide floor
Everyone moving everyone dancing
Harry was there and so was Kathleen
Across the wide floor
Looking better than ever came Jessie and Steve
Harry was there and so was Kathleen
And Peter and Barbara had just gotten back
Looking better than ever came Jessie and Steve
Leon and Judith Muffie and Jim
And Peter and Barbara had just gotten back
And others were there
Leon and Judith Muffie and Jim
And Charlie and Helen were eating and dancing
And others were there
Wearing their best
And Charlie and Helen were eating and dancing
And Glenn and Angela Wally and Deb
Wearing their best
Around and around dancing and dancing
And our shadows floated away beneath us towards sunset and darkened the backs of birds, and blackened the sea whose breath smelled slightly of fish, of almonds, and of rotting fruit. A blizzard of coastal aromas had come to collect our attention, and we drifted through all it tried to impart, not knowing where we were going. And soon the air was soiled with dust and iris-colored clouds. We were standing, watching everyone else afloat on the floor, on the sea of the floor, like a raft of voices. "Hi there," they said, as they sailed by, "may we have this dance?" And off they vanished into another room with pale blue walls and birds.
And one room led to another
And birds flew back and forth
People roamed the veranda
Under the limbs of trees
And birds flew back and forth
A golden haze was everywhere
Under the limbs of trees
And Howie was there with Francine
A golden haze was everywhere
And Jeannette and Buddy were dancing
And Howie was there with Francine
Angels must always be pale they said
And Jeannette and Buddy were dancing
And Roz and Denis were talking
Angels must always be pale they said
But pale turns round to white
And Roz and Denis were talking
Saying that blue slides into black
But pale turns round to white
And Jules was there in heels
Saying that blue slides into black
Rosanna was there and Maria
And Jules was there in heels
And day and night were one
Rosanna was there and Maria
And Rusty and Carol were there
And the day and the night were one
And the sea's green body was near
And Rusty and Carol were there
And Charles and Holly were dancing
And the sea's green body was near
Hello out there hello
And Charles and Holly were dancing
So thin they were and light
Hello out there hello
Can anyone hear out there
And the rush of water was suddenly loud as if a flood were loosed upon the ballroom floor. I seemed to be dancing alone into the absence of all that I knew and was bound by, the sight of the sea coming close, the spread of solvency, the smear, the blurred erasure of differences, the end of self, the end of whatever surrounds the self. All that I saw was a vast celebration of transparence, a clear dream of nothing. And I kept on going. The breakers flashed and fell under the moon's vacant gaze; scattered petals of foam shone briefly, then sank in the sand. It was cold, and I found myself suddenly back with the others. The sea, that vast ungraspable body, that huge and meaningless empire of water, was left on its own.
They drifted over the floor
And the silver sparkled a little
Oh how they moved together
The crystals shook in the draft
And the silver sparkled a little
So many doors were open
The crystals shook in the draft
Nobody knew what would happen
So many doors were open
And there was Eleanor dancing
Nobody knew what would happen
Now Red waltzed into the room
And there was Eleanor dancing
And Don and Jean were waiting
And Red waltzed into the room
The years would come and go
And Don and Jean were waiting
Hours and hours would pass
The years would come and go
The palms in the hallway rustled
Hours and hours would pass
Now enter the children of Em
The palms in the hallway rustled
And here were the children of Tom
Now enter the children of Em
There was nothing to do but dance
And here were the children of Tom
And Nolan was telling them something
There was nothing to do but dance
They would never sit down together
And Nolan was telling them something
And many who wished they could
Would never sit down together
The season of dancing was endless
And many who wished they could
Would never be able to stop
I cannot remember when it began. The lights were low. We were walking across the floor, over the polished wood, the inlaid marble, through shallow water, through a dusting of snow, over the shapeless figures of fallen light. I cannot remember, but I think you were there, whoever you were.
The Delirium Waltz
I cannot remember when it began. The lights were low. We were walking across the floor, over the polished wood, the inlaid marble, through shallow water, through a dusting of snow, over the shapeless figures of fallen light. I cannot remember, but I think you were there — whoever you were — sometimes with me, sometimes watching. Shapes assembled themselves and dissolved. The hall to the ballroom seemed endless, and a voice, perhaps it was yours, was saying we'd never arrive. Now we were gliding over the floor, our clothes were heavy, and the music was slow. I thought we might die all over again. And I think we were happy. Large constellations of sound were leading us on. We moved in the drift of innumerable notes, abstractions and histories and as we passed over the ground it formed for us the shape of the earth. We moved toward the future, or was it the past? Anxiety has its inflections — wasteful, sad, and sometimes tragic — but here it had none; in its harmless, cloudlike hovering it was merely fantastic, the sweet result of a musical will. We kept on dancing. And I was with you. Why else would I practice those near calamitous dips? I think it was clear that we'd always been dancing, always been eager to enter the rhythms and transports of light. The attractions of motion were forever asserting themselves — from the beguiling fluff of clouds to the wink of an eye. Rooms became larger and finally dimensionless, and we kept turning, arriving and turning.
And then came Bob and Sonia
And the dance was slow
And joining them now were Chip and Molly
And Joseph dear Joseph was dancing and smoking
And the dance was slow
And into the hall years later came Tom and Em
And Joseph dear Joseph was dancing and smoking
And off to the side were Mark and Jean leaning together
And into the hall years later came Tom and Em
Holding each other and turning and turning
And off to the side were Mark and Jean leaning together
And Bill and Sandy and Jorie and Jim
Holding each other and turning and turning
Then came Jules tall and thin
And Bill and Sandy and Jorie and Jim
Everyone moving everyone dancing
Then came Jules tall and thin
Across the wide floor
Everyone moving everyone dancing
Harry was there and so was Kathleen
Across the wide floor
Looking better than ever came Jessie and Steve
Harry was there and so was Kathleen
And Peter and Barbara had just gotten back
Looking better than ever came Jessie and Steve
Leon and Judith Muffie and Jim
And Peter and Barbara had just gotten back
And others were there
Leon and Judith Muffie and Jim
And Charlie and Helen were eating and dancing
And others were there
Wearing their best
And Charlie and Helen were eating and dancing
And Glenn and Angela Wally and Deb
Wearing their best
Around and around dancing and dancing
And our shadows floated away beneath us towards sunset and darkened the backs of birds, and blackened the sea whose breath smelled slightly of fish, of almonds, and of rotting fruit. A blizzard of coastal aromas had come to collect our attention, and we drifted through all it tried to impart, not knowing where we were going. And soon the air was soiled with dust and iris-colored clouds. We were standing, watching everyone else afloat on the floor, on the sea of the floor, like a raft of voices. "Hi there," they said, as they sailed by, "may we have this dance?" And off they vanished into another room with pale blue walls and birds.
And one room led to another
And birds flew back and forth
People roamed the veranda
Under the limbs of trees
And birds flew back and forth
A golden haze was everywhere
Under the limbs of trees
And Howie was there with Francine
A golden haze was everywhere
And Jeannette and Buddy were dancing
And Howie was there with Francine
Angels must always be pale they said
And Jeannette and Buddy were dancing
And Roz and Denis were talking
Angels must always be pale they said
But pale turns round to white
And Roz and Denis were talking
Saying that blue slides into black
But pale turns round to white
And Jules was there in heels
Saying that blue slides into black
Rosanna was there and Maria
And Jules was there in heels
And day and night were one
Rosanna was there and Maria
And Rusty and Carol were there
And the day and the night were one
And the sea's green body was near
And Rusty and Carol were there
And Charles and Holly were dancing
And the sea's green body was near
Hello out there hello
And Charles and Holly were dancing
So thin they were and light
Hello out there hello
Can anyone hear out there
And the rush of water was suddenly loud as if a flood were loosed upon the ballroom floor. I seemed to be dancing alone into the absence of all that I knew and was bound by, the sight of the sea coming close, the spread of solvency, the smear, the blurred erasure of differences, the end of self, the end of whatever surrounds the self. All that I saw was a vast celebration of transparence, a clear dream of nothing. And I kept on going. The breakers flashed and fell under the moon's vacant gaze; scattered petals of foam shone briefly, then sank in the sand. It was cold, and I found myself suddenly back with the others. The sea, that vast ungraspable body, that huge and meaningless empire of water, was left on its own.
They drifted over the floor
And the silver sparkled a little
Oh how they moved together
The crystals shook in the draft
And the silver sparkled a little
So many doors were open
The crystals shook in the draft
Nobody knew what would happen
So many doors were open
And there was Eleanor dancing
Nobody knew what would happen
Now Red waltzed into the room
And there was Eleanor dancing
And Don and Jean were waiting
And Red waltzed into the room
The years would come and go
And Don and Jean were waiting
Hours and hours would pass
The years would come and go
The palms in the hallway rustled
Hours and hours would pass
Now enter the children of Em
The palms in the hallway rustled
And here were the children of Tom
Now enter the children of Em
There was nothing to do but dance
And here were the children of Tom
And Nolan was telling them something
There was nothing to do but dance
They would never sit down together
And Nolan was telling them something
And many who wished they could
Would never sit down together
The season of dancing was endless
And many who wished they could
Would never be able to stop
I cannot remember when it began. The lights were low. We were walking across the floor, over the polished wood, the inlaid marble, through shallow water, through a dusting of snow, over the shapeless figures of fallen light. I cannot remember, but I think you were there, whoever you were.
A Piece of the Storm
For Sharon Horvath
From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed.
That's all There was to it. No more than a solemn waking
To brevity, to the lifting and falling away of attention, swiftly,
A time between times, a flowerless funeral. No more than that
Except for the feeling that this piece of the storm,
Which turned into nothing before your eyes, would come back,
That someone years hence, sitting as you are now, might say:
"It's time. The air is ready. The sky has an opening."
--- Mark Strand, from Blizzard Of One
For Sharon Horvath
From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed.
That's all There was to it. No more than a solemn waking
To brevity, to the lifting and falling away of attention, swiftly,
A time between times, a flowerless funeral. No more than that
Except for the feeling that this piece of the storm,
Which turned into nothing before your eyes, would come back,
That someone years hence, sitting as you are now, might say:
"It's time. The air is ready. The sky has an opening."
--- Mark Strand, from Blizzard Of One
Ah.... Hmmmm.....
Apparently, if I were to be in a movie, I would belong in:
Moi?!!! In "Power Rangers"? 'Tis to laugh.
Golden, yeah right. Then again, the devisers of this poll can't spell 'courageous' or 'corny.' LOL.
Apparently, if I were to be in a movie, I would belong in:
Moi?!!! In "Power Rangers"? 'Tis to laugh.
Golden, yeah right. Then again, the devisers of this poll can't spell 'courageous' or 'corny.' LOL.
06 August 2003
Hilarity from RK....
Received the following today from RK in response to the HAT posted earlier this week. Leave it to him to posit a response to all of the questions, and to have most of them prove hilarious. I roared as I read the initial email. If you're seeing this RK, thanks: you single-handedly brightened an otherwise abysmal day. :-) Not sure I'd want to call this 'the Official Answer Sheet,' though, cuz I think I have answers of my own... ;-)
Plain text is from the original examination. Text in italics is RK's.
**********
I thought, before you submit this to others (or vie versa) you might like to have the Official Answer Sheet.
HAT: Heaven Admission Test (Examiner's Copy).
You must answer at least TEN of the following questions.
Read this examination paper in its entirety before answering. You are reminded that you have three hours to complete this examination, and this is your only opportunity to sit this examination, so answer carefully and accurately. Good luck.
1. "Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum." Assess the implications of Descartes' suppostion in relation to the doctrine of God's infallibility. Does doubt finally prove God's excistence or his absence within this paradigm?
A: a carefully drawn picture of God smiling as He contemplates His creation René.
2. Identify your five favourite poems by Coventry Patmore, and defend your preferences.
A: Any five will do. The defence is by Tertullian: Credo quia impossibile.
3. Assume Douglas Adams, however jokingly, was right in postulating that the answer to the meaning of life was "42." Calculate accordingly the square root of the meaning of death to five decimal places.
A: 0.00000.
4. Name every person you've ever hurt in your life-- and not just the ones you know you hurt, but all of them-- and explain the reasons for your actions. Postulate remedies for at least twenty of those people.
A: 0.0001% of the following populations: Dutch, English, Canadian; 0.0000001% of the following populations: Swiss, French, German, Italian; 0.0000000001% of the following populations: American, Russian. No Chinese. As for names, they shall for decency's sake be nameless (what? no decency in Heaven?); as for remedies, champagne is usually adequate, for both the living (quaff, quaff) and the dead (libation, libation, libation).
5. It is generally noted that nature abhors a vaccuum. If this is the case, why do Hoovers continue to exist? What does this suggest to you about nature, and, indeed, about the future of reality TV?
A: Hoovers do not exist. They are an idea in the mind of God, which makes the argument, if not circular, at least elliptical. Nature has nothing to do with either. Reality TV is a contradiction in terms.
6. Is evil a necessary aspect of human existence? Why or why not? Note: do not invoke Nietzsche in answering this; God is still pissed after the whole "God is dead" thing.
A: Why not? And who needs Nietszche when we have Judge Antonin Scalia?
7. Is the Christian God heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, carnisexual, or herbisexual? Explain with references to indications of God's 'proclivities' that may be gleaned from the Bible.
A: Yes.
8. God can see you when you masturbate. Explain why this does or does not bother you. Caveat: Do not argue that you don't; he knows better.
A: Theoretically, He can: in practice, He can't because He is, well, er, busy. Doing what? Well, er, you know.
9. Your dead relatives also have front-row seats when you masturbate. Explain why this does or does not bother you. Again, do not argue that you do not masturbate, and think long and hard on your grandmother's face as you articulate your 'gendericity.'
A: Both grandmothers have it coming. And, perhaps, going.
10. Write your own version of Dante's Commedia. Where would you situate yourself in this version of purgatory, hell, and heaven, and why?
A: See attached 380-page annex. As for situation, how about just behind Paolo and Francesca? With X?
11. Turn the ink from your examination paper into either blood or wine (take your pick; this is supposed to be fun, after all!).
A: lick this and see.
12. Justify triskaidekaphobia.
A: There is no answer to this that does not involve the Last Supper.
14. Express your deepest love in one word.
A: Nougat.
15. Express your deepest hate in one letter.
A: ***.
16. Is time past gathered in time future?
A: Call me back.
17. Prove that Avril Lavigne and Jerry Springer are indeed the same person.
A: Oh, you naughty boy.
18. Perform one act of genuine faith and love, and describe the emotions you have as you do so. Keep in mind, this has to be an act of true faith and love, and not just what you assume one is.
A: As the 13-year old rapist of his grandmother said to the judge who asked him how he felt about the deed, "Well, your Honor, kinda humble and proud?"
19. "Brevity is the soul of wit," Shakespeare indicates. Prove this with your examination paper.
A: Done.
20. Can you honestly say you've given more to the world than it has given you? If so, address your wrongedness in the form of a Johnny Carson monologue. If not, address your plenty in the form of a Van Morrison song.
A: see attached 21-page Annex B.
21. Write an elegy for Hitler that does not invoke either jingoistic Teutonism, cheap patriotism, or vindictive anti-Semitism.
A: An American comes into a bar in Munich and asks for some juice. The bartender looks indignant, and says, "Juice? Ve haff no Juice here. Ve got rid off zem all longk ago."
22. What is the secret of the Caramilk bar?
A: Armad[Rest illegible under chocolate stains.]
23. Caress the inner truth within you, and describe it. Remember, your grandparents can read your answers.
A: [illegible under bloodstains.]
24. Have the guts: write your deepest desire, the one you most desperately try to pretend does not exist.
A: Nougat.
25. Explain the virtues of bukkake in the form of a poetic epistle.
A: Negative zero is still zero.
26. Explain the last time you cried.
A. Reading the questions on the HAT (Hell Avoidance Test).
27. Explain the last time you didn't cry, but wish you had.
A: Reading the students' answers to the CAT (Culture Avoidance Test).
28. Write the perfect equivalent of a kiss.
A: Been done. Basium XIII (Janus Secundus).
29. Does malt truly do more than Milton can to justify the ways of God to man? Why or why not?
A: No contest. Ever try Milton at room temperature?
and
30. Write a funny and intelligent parody of this examination paper that turns the tables on God. Do this without invoking the age-old joke of the platypus.
A: 1. If a parody of this paper were funny and intelligent, what does that make this paper? 2. You cannot turn the tables on God. Which tables? More to the point, whose? 2. The platypus is God's joke on us. Not invoking it can only spare us embarrassment. Go teach your grandmother to suckle eggs.
THE END
Reeelly?
Submit your examination paper to the attending procters. Feel free to prostrate yourself before them accordingly, but be assured this will do no good.
And remember that the Chinese funeral home opposite the Jewish Cultural Centre in Toronto is called Wing On.
OMG (again).... yes, there's no point keeping score anymore....
From IMDB.COM:
Jeez. Don't people have real things to worry about? Boggles the mind.
From IMDB.COM:
Whoopi Goldberg has offended yet another section of society - but the controversy delights the star. Fresh from upsetting fans of the late Salsa star Celia Cruz by revealing her plans to play the deceased singer in a film, Whoopi has now offended anti- smoking lobbyists. The actress' new TV comedy show Whoopi will see the Sister Act star play a chain-smoking innkeeper who puffs away in three of the pilot episode's 22 scenes. The Reverend Jesse Brown, executive director of African Americans For Positive Imagery, fumes, 'We don't need to see the tobacco companies' messages reinforced by Whoopi or anyone else on television.' Melissa Howard of the Centre For Disease Control And Prevention adds, 'Whenever you see a cigarette used as a prop, kids pick up on that. Children don't understand the nuances or see the humor that adults do.' Goldberg's series is designed to be a commentary on American society and takes a swipe at everything from racism and fears about terrorism to Arab-American stereotypes and President George W. Bush's mispronunciations. The stunned actress wonders, 'It's extraordinary when you have an interracial couple in the show and the thing that people are freaking about is that I'm smoking. I love it. People do still smoke and people do still drink and this character does. She's not perfect.'
Jeez. Don't people have real things to worry about? Boggles the mind.
Mmmmmm..... Cynicism.....
"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
for trying to change the system from within.
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them.
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
...
And I thank you for those items that you sent me:
The monkey and the plywood violin.
I practiced every night and now I'm ready.
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin...."
from Leonard Cohen's (of course) "First We Take Manhattan"
"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
for trying to change the system from within.
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them.
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
...
And I thank you for those items that you sent me:
The monkey and the plywood violin.
I practiced every night and now I'm ready.
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin...."
from Leonard Cohen's (of course) "First We Take Manhattan"
Oh, oh, oh! Oh my God, this is ******so****** fucking hilarious, and so goddamned true.
... And before I start getting accusatory emails: no, I'm not 'aiming' this at anyone in particular, or even aiming it per se; but every decent man out there will be laughing out loud at this, and even a few of the women, right Anne? ;-)
... And before I start getting accusatory emails: no, I'm not 'aiming' this at anyone in particular, or even aiming it per se; but every decent man out there will be laughing out loud at this, and even a few of the women, right Anne? ;-)
Two Selections from Wallace Stevens
The Woman In Sunshine
It is only that this warmth and movement are like
The warmth and movement of a woman.
It is not that there is any image in the air
Nor the beginning nor end of a form:
It is empty. But a woman in threadless gold
Burns us with brushings of her dress
And a dissociated abundance of being,
More definite for what she is---
Because she is disembodied,
Bearing the odors of the summer fields,
Confessing the taciturn and yet indifferent,
Invisibly clear, the only love.
--- from The Auroras of Autumn (1950)
excerpt: final section (XV) of Esthetique du Mal
The greatest poverty is not to live
In a physical world, to feel that one's desire
Is too difficult to tell from despair. Perhaps,
After death, the non-physical people, in paradise,
Itself non-physical, may, by chance, observe
The green corn gleaming and experience
The minor of what we feel. The adventurer
In humanity has not conceived of a race
Completely physical in a physical world.
The green corn gleams and the metaphysicals
Lie sprawling in majors of the August heat,
The rotund emotions, paradise unknown.
This is the thesis scrivened in delight,
The reverberating psalm, the right chorale.
One might have thought of sight, but who could think
Of what it sees, for all the ill it sees?
Speech found the ear, for all the evil sound,
But the dark italics it could not propound.
And out of what one sees and hears and out
Of what one feels, who could have thought to make
So many selves, so many sensuous worlds,
As if the air, the mid-day air, was swarming
With the metaphysical challenges that occur,
Merely in living as and where we live.
--- from Transport to Summer (1947)
Preface to a Prelude
When you're first getting to know someone and in that blissful, psychotic first flush of love, it seems like every aspect of their personality, their whole demeanor, the simple, lovely twist of the earlobes and their marvellous phone voice and their soft, dark whatever is somehow imbued with an extra push of color, and intensity heretofore... you know. Unknown.
from the play Prelude to a Kiss by Craig Lucas
Don't worry, I shall refrain from comment.
Legend
As silent as a mirror is believed
Realities plunged in silence by ...
I am not ready for repentance;
Nor to match regrets. For the moth
Bends no more than the still
Imploring flame. And tremorous
In the white falling flakes
Kisses are, ---
The only worth all granting.
It is to be learned---
This cleaving and this burning,
But only by the one who
Spends out himself again.
Twice and twice
(Again the smoking souvenir,
Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again.
Until the bright logic is won
Unwhispering in a mirror
Is believed.
Then, drop by caustic drop, a perfect cry
Shall string some constant harmony, ---
Relentless caper for all those who step
The legend of their youth into noon.
--- Hart Crane, from White Buildings (1926)
Note: "eidolon": an apparition, or a ghostly shape, from the Greek for 'ghost'
Perfect Light
There you are, in all your innocence,
Sitting among your daffodils, as in a picture
Posed as for the title: 'Innocence'.
Perfect light in your face lights it up
Like a daffodil. Like any one of those daffodils
It was to be your only April on earth
Among your daffodils. In your arms,
Like a teddy bear, your new son,
Only a few weeks into his innocence.
Mother and infant, as in the Holy portrait.
And beside you, laughing up at you,
Your daughter, barely two. Like a daffodil
You turn your face down to her, saying something.
Your words were lost in the camera.
And the knowledge
Inside the hill on which you are sitting,
A moated forth hill, bigger than your house,
Failed to reach the picture. While your next moment,
Coming towards you like an infantryman
Returning slowly out of no-man's-land,
Bowed under something, never reached you--
Simply melted into the perfect light.
--- Ted Hughes, from Birthday Letters (1998)
05 August 2003
If this doesn't make you want to cry, you truly have no soul: CNN.com - Fire engulfs seven-story bourbon warehouse in Kentucky - Aug. 5, 2003
From "The Worst Rock-and-Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You
Love to Hate"
33 1/3 rules of Rock And Roll.
1. Do not retain a band's name if the most important member(s) has left the group. Does anybody (even Pete Townshend) really like anything the Who have recorded since Keith Moon died in 1978?
2. Do not sing a song about Elvis, especially if you have never been in a recording studio before.
3. Do not record for Arista Records. In the late eighties, Clive Davis's label was a haven for art-rock has-beens eager for one last pillage, like GTR and the Kantner-Balin-Casady Band (both of which broke up after one album) and Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe (pending). Arista's flagship "new" artists of the time, particularly Milli Vanilli, were cynical
exploitation units.
4. Rock-an-roll songs with an orchestral choir are bound to be horrible. (Sole exception: "the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want.")
5. Rock lyrics are not poetry (especially if Sting or Bono writes them).
6. The quality of a rock-and-roll song is inversely proportional to the number of instruments on it (unless you're Van Morrison).
7. Supergroups never are.
8. Rock stars are not actors.
9. Actors are not rock stars.
10. White rock-and-roll stars who talk about their R&B roots are probably lying. Similarly, anyone born after April 1954 who records at the Sun Studio is a poseur. Furthermore, a return to roots in not necessarily a good thing. Listened to John Lennon's Rock'n' Roll lately?
11. Don't sing a song about your dead parent, especially if that parent was a celebrity. This is the Hank Williams, Jr. rule.
12. Elvis is dead.
13. Do not go to art school.
14. The more controversial the cause embraced, the more likely the star may actually be committed to it. Do you know anyone in favor or hunger or homelessness?
15. Whatever you do, Jerry Lee Lewis has already done it. Probably better, too.
16. A list is not a song. (Most blatant recent violation: Billy Joel's evasive "We Didn't Start the Fire.")
17. Established artists should not allow family members into the band.
18. There is no reason besides greed for an established performer to accept corporate sponsorship.
19. Live records should reflect what a performance actually sounded like when it occurred. We loved the Talking Head's Stop Making Sense until we found out how many studios were used for postproduction.
20. Videos are commercials.
21. Good politics are not what make good lyrics.
22. Formidable technical proficiency is never sufficient. This rule explains why art rock is always bad.
23. Neither is formidable hair. (Exception: Little Richard.)
24. Do not hang out with Jeff Lynne or Dave Stewart. They will produce your record, you will have to take part in periodic psychedelic revivals, and you'll start dressing like them. Do you want to wear a paisley vest and
cowboy boots that badly?
25. Cult artists are frequently just a boring and predictable as mainstream ones. This is also called the Robyn Hitchcock rule.
26. Heavy metal should be fast.
27. Punk happened. (Note tense.)
28. If you have recorded more than three albums, someone will some day compile a boxed set dedicated to your oeuvre and Rolling Stone will give it four stars and call it a "grand summary, especially valuable in pristine CD."
29. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is an oxymoron. If you want your work to be recognized in a museum, learn to paint.
30. Admit you're balding.
31. Love is not all you need. Psychedelic lyrics never ring true after you've come down.
32. Do not record cover versions of Motown or Stax/Volt hits.
33. Rock and roll is but one small part of the music being bade on this planet. Rockers who think they're changing the world are in fact only reaching a small part of it.
33 1/3.Do not die before Albert Goldman.
Love to Hate"
33 1/3 rules of Rock And Roll.
1. Do not retain a band's name if the most important member(s) has left the group. Does anybody (even Pete Townshend) really like anything the Who have recorded since Keith Moon died in 1978?
2. Do not sing a song about Elvis, especially if you have never been in a recording studio before.
3. Do not record for Arista Records. In the late eighties, Clive Davis's label was a haven for art-rock has-beens eager for one last pillage, like GTR and the Kantner-Balin-Casady Band (both of which broke up after one album) and Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe (pending). Arista's flagship "new" artists of the time, particularly Milli Vanilli, were cynical
exploitation units.
4. Rock-an-roll songs with an orchestral choir are bound to be horrible. (Sole exception: "the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want.")
5. Rock lyrics are not poetry (especially if Sting or Bono writes them).
6. The quality of a rock-and-roll song is inversely proportional to the number of instruments on it (unless you're Van Morrison).
7. Supergroups never are.
8. Rock stars are not actors.
9. Actors are not rock stars.
10. White rock-and-roll stars who talk about their R&B roots are probably lying. Similarly, anyone born after April 1954 who records at the Sun Studio is a poseur. Furthermore, a return to roots in not necessarily a good thing. Listened to John Lennon's Rock'n' Roll lately?
11. Don't sing a song about your dead parent, especially if that parent was a celebrity. This is the Hank Williams, Jr. rule.
12. Elvis is dead.
13. Do not go to art school.
14. The more controversial the cause embraced, the more likely the star may actually be committed to it. Do you know anyone in favor or hunger or homelessness?
15. Whatever you do, Jerry Lee Lewis has already done it. Probably better, too.
16. A list is not a song. (Most blatant recent violation: Billy Joel's evasive "We Didn't Start the Fire.")
17. Established artists should not allow family members into the band.
18. There is no reason besides greed for an established performer to accept corporate sponsorship.
19. Live records should reflect what a performance actually sounded like when it occurred. We loved the Talking Head's Stop Making Sense until we found out how many studios were used for postproduction.
20. Videos are commercials.
21. Good politics are not what make good lyrics.
22. Formidable technical proficiency is never sufficient. This rule explains why art rock is always bad.
23. Neither is formidable hair. (Exception: Little Richard.)
24. Do not hang out with Jeff Lynne or Dave Stewart. They will produce your record, you will have to take part in periodic psychedelic revivals, and you'll start dressing like them. Do you want to wear a paisley vest and
cowboy boots that badly?
25. Cult artists are frequently just a boring and predictable as mainstream ones. This is also called the Robyn Hitchcock rule.
26. Heavy metal should be fast.
27. Punk happened. (Note tense.)
28. If you have recorded more than three albums, someone will some day compile a boxed set dedicated to your oeuvre and Rolling Stone will give it four stars and call it a "grand summary, especially valuable in pristine CD."
29. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is an oxymoron. If you want your work to be recognized in a museum, learn to paint.
30. Admit you're balding.
31. Love is not all you need. Psychedelic lyrics never ring true after you've come down.
32. Do not record cover versions of Motown or Stax/Volt hits.
33. Rock and roll is but one small part of the music being bade on this planet. Rockers who think they're changing the world are in fact only reaching a small part of it.
33 1/3.Do not die before Albert Goldman.
Faster, Faster
Leonard Cohen, on meeting up with Bob Dylan:
"He said, 'I like this song you wrote called Hallelujah.' In fact, he started doing it in concert. He said, 'How long did that take you to write?' And I said, 'Oh, the best part of two years.' He said, 'Two years?' Kinda shocked. And then we started talking about a song of his called I And I from Infidels. I said, 'How long did you take to write that.' He said, 'Ohh, 15 minutes.' I almost fell off my chair. Bob just laughed."
No shit.
Leonard Cohen, on meeting up with Bob Dylan:
"He said, 'I like this song you wrote called Hallelujah.' In fact, he started doing it in concert. He said, 'How long did that take you to write?' And I said, 'Oh, the best part of two years.' He said, 'Two years?' Kinda shocked. And then we started talking about a song of his called I And I from Infidels. I said, 'How long did you take to write that.' He said, 'Ohh, 15 minutes.' I almost fell off my chair. Bob just laughed."
No shit.
04 August 2003
OMG The Umpteenth
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt files to run in recall election for Governor of California. Insert your own joke here.
*shakes head repeatedly*
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt files to run in recall election for Governor of California. Insert your own joke here.
*shakes head repeatedly*
Perfect
These words were written on a loose sheet of paper written by Northrop Frye, the eminent Canadian literary critic. I'm hoping one day I'll be able to use them. ;-)
These words were written on a loose sheet of paper written by Northrop Frye, the eminent Canadian literary critic. I'm hoping one day I'll be able to use them. ;-)
STATEMENT FOR THE DAY OF MY DEATH:
“The twentieth century saw an amazing development of scholarship and criticism in the humanities, carried out by people who were more intelligent, better trained, had more languages, had a better sense of proportion, and were infinitely more accurate scholars and competent professional men than I. I had genius. No one else in the field known to me had quite that.”
Time and Again
Time and again, however well we know the landscape of love,
and the little church-yard with lamenting names,
and the frightfully silent ravine wherein all the other
end: time and again we go out two together,
under the old trees, lie down again and again
between the flowers, face to face with the sky.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by J. B. Leishman
Time and again, however well we know the landscape of love,
and the little church-yard with lamenting names,
and the frightfully silent ravine wherein all the other
end: time and again we go out two together,
under the old trees, lie down again and again
between the flowers, face to face with the sky.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by J. B. Leishman
We chant and enchant
We chant and enchant,
Oh charming enchantment!
No raving, no ranting,
No canting enchantment!
This ranting enchantress
Has cast her enchantment--
We see what her chant meant!
Here rant! There cant!
You charming enchanter,
Cast out her enchantment,
Uncast it, uncant it,
Discast it, discant it,
Descant: Decant! Recant!
He can't. She can't.
Why can't she recant?
Why can't he uncant?
Ranting chanting
No recanting.
Discant, descant.
--- Velimir Khlebnikov, translated by Paul Schmidt
We chant and enchant,
Oh charming enchantment!
No raving, no ranting,
No canting enchantment!
This ranting enchantress
Has cast her enchantment--
We see what her chant meant!
Here rant! There cant!
You charming enchanter,
Cast out her enchantment,
Uncast it, uncant it,
Discast it, discant it,
Descant: Decant! Recant!
He can't. She can't.
Why can't she recant?
Why can't he uncant?
Ranting chanting
No recanting.
Discant, descant.
--- Velimir Khlebnikov, translated by Paul Schmidt
OMG (Again)
Further proof of the 'all scientists are creepy' theory: this article from the New Zealand News.
Further proof of the 'all scientists are creepy' theory: this article from the New Zealand News.
You Look Fabulous!
I imagine the boys in the White House are horrified by Maureen Dowd's article today, Butch, Butch Bush!. Dick Cheney with a diamond stud? I don't think so.
~~~Here comes the gender-unspecified-member-of-the-wedding-party~~
Since everyone and their brother has been talking about gay marriage lately, I may as well throw my two cents in. It seems to me that this is a relatively simple problem to solve. I can understand the objections to using the term 'marriage,' which has a very specific sacremental meaning in relation to the union of a man and a woman. But, really, the main fuss is about the legal implications of 'marrying' two men or two women. There's some truth, after all, in saying that a man marrying a man is not the same thing as a man marrying a woman. It's not better or worse, it's just not quite the same. So, under the law, it makes sense to come up with a more specific term that indicates the relationship between two people of the same sex. Under the law there could be two forms of UNION: marriage, and the as-yet-unnamed equivalent for gay marriages. This would recognize the relationships as equal under the law, but as fundamentally different entities.
And, by the way, I hate the term 'gay marriage,' which sounds by its very nature parodic: a new term, without parodic intimations, really should be invented. One of the common feelings among heterosexuals is that homosexuality tends to exhibit and to exert itself not as self-definition but as a kind of parody or mockery of institutions and moral codes (and so forth) that others hold dear. Many of those who object to the idea of 'gay marriage' do not so much object to homosexual unions, but to the semblance that marriage (as idea, as institution, as ceremony) itself is being mocked or debased. Yes, I am aware that such people tend to have little objection to the concept of Joe Millionaire and the like, but.... I never said people were intelligent. Everyone has to realize that to many people marriage is sacrosanct, so, really, 'gay' marriage looks a lot like 'pseudo' marriage, which is a lot like saying one can be a 'little bit pregnant.'
So, as I see it, we have to make an affirmative, non-parodic name for gay marriage. Since Ontario is taking the lead in this, I suggest maybe we should create the name in honour of our Premier: gay men and women across the country, and throughout the world, can join hands in Erniage. We'll lower-case the E, and it'll look like any other word: people can get ernied and be recognized fully under the law. Sound like an idea? ;-) I jest, of course, but a new name has to be made.
So, under the law-- two forms of human union, each equal, each valid. Most religions won't go for 'gay marriage' as a sacrement, but perhaps they might eventually come to endorse it over the centuries, especially if marriage itself as an institution is left to stand as is. 'Marriage' has a very specific meaning, and to expand the term in affront to many accepted ways of thinking is to undermine that meaning, and to undermine it unnecessarily. Really, we have two sides in this debate-- one that has had rights denied it and seeks recourse, and another that sees its traditions and ideals under attack. The way I see it, one side can have its rights met without attack the ideals of the other side. Yes, it may sound awfully close to the 'Separate But Equal' argument that became such a fiasco in the US years ago, but equality and sameness are not exactly synonymous. We need verbal precision here, especially since the law is ultimately about language, about the Letter of the Law.
This blog, however, would like to aver that he fully supports the idea of erniage. After all, homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals to make their lives persistent exercises in domestic misery. So there.
I imagine the boys in the White House are horrified by Maureen Dowd's article today, Butch, Butch Bush!. Dick Cheney with a diamond stud? I don't think so.
~~~Here comes the gender-unspecified-member-of-the-wedding-party~~
Since everyone and their brother has been talking about gay marriage lately, I may as well throw my two cents in. It seems to me that this is a relatively simple problem to solve. I can understand the objections to using the term 'marriage,' which has a very specific sacremental meaning in relation to the union of a man and a woman. But, really, the main fuss is about the legal implications of 'marrying' two men or two women. There's some truth, after all, in saying that a man marrying a man is not the same thing as a man marrying a woman. It's not better or worse, it's just not quite the same. So, under the law, it makes sense to come up with a more specific term that indicates the relationship between two people of the same sex. Under the law there could be two forms of UNION: marriage, and the as-yet-unnamed equivalent for gay marriages. This would recognize the relationships as equal under the law, but as fundamentally different entities.
And, by the way, I hate the term 'gay marriage,' which sounds by its very nature parodic: a new term, without parodic intimations, really should be invented. One of the common feelings among heterosexuals is that homosexuality tends to exhibit and to exert itself not as self-definition but as a kind of parody or mockery of institutions and moral codes (and so forth) that others hold dear. Many of those who object to the idea of 'gay marriage' do not so much object to homosexual unions, but to the semblance that marriage (as idea, as institution, as ceremony) itself is being mocked or debased. Yes, I am aware that such people tend to have little objection to the concept of Joe Millionaire and the like, but.... I never said people were intelligent. Everyone has to realize that to many people marriage is sacrosanct, so, really, 'gay' marriage looks a lot like 'pseudo' marriage, which is a lot like saying one can be a 'little bit pregnant.'
So, as I see it, we have to make an affirmative, non-parodic name for gay marriage. Since Ontario is taking the lead in this, I suggest maybe we should create the name in honour of our Premier: gay men and women across the country, and throughout the world, can join hands in Erniage. We'll lower-case the E, and it'll look like any other word: people can get ernied and be recognized fully under the law. Sound like an idea? ;-) I jest, of course, but a new name has to be made.
So, under the law-- two forms of human union, each equal, each valid. Most religions won't go for 'gay marriage' as a sacrement, but perhaps they might eventually come to endorse it over the centuries, especially if marriage itself as an institution is left to stand as is. 'Marriage' has a very specific meaning, and to expand the term in affront to many accepted ways of thinking is to undermine that meaning, and to undermine it unnecessarily. Really, we have two sides in this debate-- one that has had rights denied it and seeks recourse, and another that sees its traditions and ideals under attack. The way I see it, one side can have its rights met without attack the ideals of the other side. Yes, it may sound awfully close to the 'Separate But Equal' argument that became such a fiasco in the US years ago, but equality and sameness are not exactly synonymous. We need verbal precision here, especially since the law is ultimately about language, about the Letter of the Law.
This blog, however, would like to aver that he fully supports the idea of erniage. After all, homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals to make their lives persistent exercises in domestic misery. So there.
From today's NYTimes: Does 'The Da Vinci Code' Crack Leonardo?. Evidently the author has precious little knowledge of Leonardo, even less than I do. Sad....
Here's an old truism: Arts students 'die young', suggests a recent study in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. I shudder to think what the current results would be.
A few caveats to add to the report:
-- Arts students do tend to be an undisciplined lot, and they tend to collide their academic worlds with their social worlds more than those in other fields.
-- Arts students tend not only to come from lower-income families, but they also have to spend more of their adult lives in lower-income situations, in part because of the general underfunding of arts programmes in comparison with the medical and scientific fields; further students with Arts degrees tend to earn less than their colleagues do in comparable positions.
-- There are a lot of idiot arts students, people who really shouldn't have been accepted into university in the first place, and who study 'generally' rather than methodically. Such idiots are more likely to do stupid things.
and, one last addition, he says cueing the band behind him,
"Only the good die young! Only the good...."
A few caveats to add to the report:
-- Arts students do tend to be an undisciplined lot, and they tend to collide their academic worlds with their social worlds more than those in other fields.
-- Arts students tend not only to come from lower-income families, but they also have to spend more of their adult lives in lower-income situations, in part because of the general underfunding of arts programmes in comparison with the medical and scientific fields; further students with Arts degrees tend to earn less than their colleagues do in comparable positions.
-- There are a lot of idiot arts students, people who really shouldn't have been accepted into university in the first place, and who study 'generally' rather than methodically. Such idiots are more likely to do stupid things.
and, one last addition, he says cueing the band behind him,
"Only the good die young! Only the good...."
Musing About Muses
As much as it stings my practice to write this, I admit it: I need a Muse. We tend not to think of Muses these days, though in previous generations there was certainly no delay in doing so; we think, in our super-Modern way, that we can make it after all (cue the music, as Dr. J throws Mary Tyler Moore's hat into the air), and that creation is entirely internal and not at all external. Unfortunately, this is not the case, or it is not the case for me. Grumble, grumble.
Candidates for Muse should convey photographs of themselves to the good doctor c/o this blog. ;-)
As much as it stings my practice to write this, I admit it: I need a Muse. We tend not to think of Muses these days, though in previous generations there was certainly no delay in doing so; we think, in our super-Modern way, that we can make it after all (cue the music, as Dr. J throws Mary Tyler Moore's hat into the air), and that creation is entirely internal and not at all external. Unfortunately, this is not the case, or it is not the case for me. Grumble, grumble.
Candidates for Muse should convey photographs of themselves to the good doctor c/o this blog. ;-)
for C, who said I had to put this up here at one point or another...
HAT: Heaven Admission Test
You must answer at least TEN of the following questions.
Read this examination paper in its entirety before answering. You are reminded that you have three hours to complete this examination, and this is your only opportunity to sit this examination, so answer carefully and accurately. Good luck.
1. "Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum." Assess the implications of Descartes' suppostion in relation to the doctrine of God's infallibility. Does doubt finally prove God's excistence or his absence within this paradigm?
2. Identify your five favourite poems by Coventry Patmore, and defend your preferences.
3. Assume Douglas Adams, however jokingly, was right in postulating that the answer to the meaning of life was "42." Calculate accordingly the square root of the meaning of death to five decimal places.
4. Name every person you've ever hurt in your life-- and not just the ones you know you hurt, but all of them-- and explain the reasons for your actions. Postulate remedies for at least twenty of those people.
5. It is generally noted that nature abhors a vaccuum. If this is the case, why do Hoovers continue to exist? What does this suggest to you about nature, and, indeed, about the future of reality TV?
6. Is evil a necessary aspect of human existence? Why or why not? Note: do not invoke Nietzsche in answering this; God is still pissed after the whole "God is dead" thing.
7. Is the Christian God heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, carnisexual, or herbisexual? Explain with references to indications of God's 'proclivities' that may be gleaned from the Bible.
8. God can see you when you masturbate. Explain why this does or does not bother you. Caveat: Do not argue that you don't; he knows better.
9. Your dead relatives also have front-row seats when you masturbate. Explain why this does or does not bother you. Again, do not argue that you do not masturbate, and think long and hard on your grandmother's face as you articulate your 'gendericity.'
10. Write your own version of Dante's Commedia. Where would you situate yourself in this version of purgatory, hell, and heaven, and why?
11. Turn the ink from your examination paper into either blood or wine (take your pick; this is supposed to be fun, after all!).
12. Justify triskaidekaphobia.
14. Express your deepest love in one word.
15. Express your deepest hate in one letter.
16. Is time past gathered in time future?
17. Prove that Avril Lavigne and Jerry Springer are indeed the same person.
18. Perform one act of genuine faith and love, and describe the emotions you have as you do so. Keep in mind, this has to be an act of true faith and love, and not just what you assume one is.
19. "Brevity is the soul of wit," Shakespeare indicates. Prove this with your examination paper.
20. Can you honestly say you've given more to the world than it has given you? If so, address your wrongedness in the form of a Johnny Carson monologue. If not, address your plenty in the form of a Van Morrison song.
21. Write an elegy for Hitler that does not invoke either jingoistic Teutonism, cheap patriotism, or vindictive anti-Semitism.
22. What is the secret of the Caramilk bar?
23. Caress the inner truth within you, and describe it. Remember, your grandparents can read your answers.
24. Have the guts: write your deepest desire, the one you most desperately try to pretend does not exist.
25. Explain the virtues of bukkake in the form of a poetic epistle.
26. Explain the last time you cried.
27. Explain the last time you didn't cry, but wish you had.
28. Write the perfect equivalent of a kiss.
29. Does malt truly do more than Milton can to justify the ways of God to man? Why or why not?
and
30. Write a funny and intelligent parody of this examination paper that turns the tables on God. Do this without invoking the age-old joke of the platypus.
THE END
Submit your examination paper to the attending procters. Feel free to prostrate yourself before them accordingly, but be assured this will do no good.
HAT: Heaven Admission Test
You must answer at least TEN of the following questions.
Read this examination paper in its entirety before answering. You are reminded that you have three hours to complete this examination, and this is your only opportunity to sit this examination, so answer carefully and accurately. Good luck.
1. "Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum." Assess the implications of Descartes' suppostion in relation to the doctrine of God's infallibility. Does doubt finally prove God's excistence or his absence within this paradigm?
2. Identify your five favourite poems by Coventry Patmore, and defend your preferences.
3. Assume Douglas Adams, however jokingly, was right in postulating that the answer to the meaning of life was "42." Calculate accordingly the square root of the meaning of death to five decimal places.
4. Name every person you've ever hurt in your life-- and not just the ones you know you hurt, but all of them-- and explain the reasons for your actions. Postulate remedies for at least twenty of those people.
5. It is generally noted that nature abhors a vaccuum. If this is the case, why do Hoovers continue to exist? What does this suggest to you about nature, and, indeed, about the future of reality TV?
6. Is evil a necessary aspect of human existence? Why or why not? Note: do not invoke Nietzsche in answering this; God is still pissed after the whole "God is dead" thing.
7. Is the Christian God heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, carnisexual, or herbisexual? Explain with references to indications of God's 'proclivities' that may be gleaned from the Bible.
8. God can see you when you masturbate. Explain why this does or does not bother you. Caveat: Do not argue that you don't; he knows better.
9. Your dead relatives also have front-row seats when you masturbate. Explain why this does or does not bother you. Again, do not argue that you do not masturbate, and think long and hard on your grandmother's face as you articulate your 'gendericity.'
10. Write your own version of Dante's Commedia. Where would you situate yourself in this version of purgatory, hell, and heaven, and why?
11. Turn the ink from your examination paper into either blood or wine (take your pick; this is supposed to be fun, after all!).
12. Justify triskaidekaphobia.
14. Express your deepest love in one word.
15. Express your deepest hate in one letter.
16. Is time past gathered in time future?
17. Prove that Avril Lavigne and Jerry Springer are indeed the same person.
18. Perform one act of genuine faith and love, and describe the emotions you have as you do so. Keep in mind, this has to be an act of true faith and love, and not just what you assume one is.
19. "Brevity is the soul of wit," Shakespeare indicates. Prove this with your examination paper.
20. Can you honestly say you've given more to the world than it has given you? If so, address your wrongedness in the form of a Johnny Carson monologue. If not, address your plenty in the form of a Van Morrison song.
21. Write an elegy for Hitler that does not invoke either jingoistic Teutonism, cheap patriotism, or vindictive anti-Semitism.
22. What is the secret of the Caramilk bar?
23. Caress the inner truth within you, and describe it. Remember, your grandparents can read your answers.
24. Have the guts: write your deepest desire, the one you most desperately try to pretend does not exist.
25. Explain the virtues of bukkake in the form of a poetic epistle.
26. Explain the last time you cried.
27. Explain the last time you didn't cry, but wish you had.
28. Write the perfect equivalent of a kiss.
29. Does malt truly do more than Milton can to justify the ways of God to man? Why or why not?
and
30. Write a funny and intelligent parody of this examination paper that turns the tables on God. Do this without invoking the age-old joke of the platypus.
THE END
Submit your examination paper to the attending procters. Feel free to prostrate yourself before them accordingly, but be assured this will do no good.
Gigli, Gigli ("It rhymes with 'really'") Bad Movie Season....
It really isn't nice to revel in the disasters of others, but in the case of Gigli, I'll gladly make an exception. Check out this review from the Globe and Mail, which describes the fiasco as "a hypnotic, black hole of a movie that sucks reputations, careers and goodwill down its vortex." Hee hee. Apparently the movie is so bad that the words before the inevitable sex scene between J.Lo and Affleck are "It's turkey time" (!?!?!), and that it offers the unique opportunity to have audiences mooned by Lainie Kazan. This review from the Miami Herald is also quite funny. There's a particular kind of joy in savour critical vitriol which, all considered, hasn't been nearly as good as I'd anticipated.
Addendum: Preliminary reports on the opening week earnings: $3.8 million. Oh my god. That's not even enough to cover the costs of J.Lo's tampons.
I have to admit, too, that I take a perverse thrill out of watching as the much-ballyhooed pictures for the summer continue to take a beating, or to do far less business than had been expected. Lara Croft hasn't made anywhere near the money that was expected (one wonders if the producers knew it was going to tank unless they made the entire promotional process about Angelina Jolie's sexual inclinations); The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen more or less proved a disaster; The Hulk came and went with the speed of the Flash; and Terminator 3 was bahhk, and nobody really noticed. Even The Matrix Reloaded and X2: X-Men United made far less than had been hoped. Other relative losers include Bruce Almighty, which fizzled despite Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston, and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which succeeded only in cock-teasing itself. Sure, many of these movies had strong or decent opening weekends, but did any of them have staying power? No. It really looks like the big winner for the summer is going to be Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean, both of which had comparatively little pre-publicity.
Please say this means people are getting smarter and turning away from hype. Nah, I know better than to set myself up for an ounce of optimism. ;-)
I should qualify all this: I haven't seen any of these movies, so I have no preferences per se, for or against. Even if I had wanted to.
It really isn't nice to revel in the disasters of others, but in the case of Gigli, I'll gladly make an exception. Check out this review from the Globe and Mail, which describes the fiasco as "a hypnotic, black hole of a movie that sucks reputations, careers and goodwill down its vortex." Hee hee. Apparently the movie is so bad that the words before the inevitable sex scene between J.Lo and Affleck are "It's turkey time" (!?!?!), and that it offers the unique opportunity to have audiences mooned by Lainie Kazan. This review from the Miami Herald is also quite funny. There's a particular kind of joy in savour critical vitriol which, all considered, hasn't been nearly as good as I'd anticipated.
Addendum: Preliminary reports on the opening week earnings: $3.8 million. Oh my god. That's not even enough to cover the costs of J.Lo's tampons.
I have to admit, too, that I take a perverse thrill out of watching as the much-ballyhooed pictures for the summer continue to take a beating, or to do far less business than had been expected. Lara Croft hasn't made anywhere near the money that was expected (one wonders if the producers knew it was going to tank unless they made the entire promotional process about Angelina Jolie's sexual inclinations); The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen more or less proved a disaster; The Hulk came and went with the speed of the Flash; and Terminator 3 was bahhk, and nobody really noticed. Even The Matrix Reloaded and X2: X-Men United made far less than had been hoped. Other relative losers include Bruce Almighty, which fizzled despite Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston, and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which succeeded only in cock-teasing itself. Sure, many of these movies had strong or decent opening weekends, but did any of them have staying power? No. It really looks like the big winner for the summer is going to be Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean, both of which had comparatively little pre-publicity.
Please say this means people are getting smarter and turning away from hype. Nah, I know better than to set myself up for an ounce of optimism. ;-)
I should qualify all this: I haven't seen any of these movies, so I have no preferences per se, for or against. Even if I had wanted to.
03 August 2003
Alright...
Most of my female friends do not believe me that men can have different types of orgasms. Sorry, ladies, we can. Otherwise, no man would ever leave his own home, taking care of himself over and over again until the flesh ripped straight off his hands.
And any man that thinks there is only one type of male orgasm has my deepest pity.
There, I hope that clears that up. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programme.
Most of my female friends do not believe me that men can have different types of orgasms. Sorry, ladies, we can. Otherwise, no man would ever leave his own home, taking care of himself over and over again until the flesh ripped straight off his hands.
And any man that thinks there is only one type of male orgasm has my deepest pity.
There, I hope that clears that up. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programme.
Closing Time
So we're drinking and we're dancing
and the band is really happening
and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high
And my very sweet companion
she's the Angel of Compassion
and she's rubbing half the world against her thigh
Every drinker, every dancer
lifts a happy face to thank her
the fiddler fiddles something so sublime
All the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found and it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops
It's closing time
We're lonely, we're romantic
and the cider's laced with acid
and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"
And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant
with a mighty expectation of relief
So we struggle and we stagger
down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime
And I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
but closing time
I loved you for your beauty
but that doesn't make a fool of me --
you were in it for your beauty too
I loved you for your body
there's a voice that sounds like G-d to me
declaring that your body's really you
I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime
And I miss you since our place got wrecked
I just don't care what happens next
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time
And I miss you since the place got wrecked
by the winds of change and the weeds of sex
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time
We're drinking and we're dancing
but there's nothing really happening
and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night
And my very close companion
gets me fumbling, gets me laughing
she's a hundred but she's wearing something tight
And I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the Devil and it's once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights --
we're busted in the blinding lights
of closing time
--- Leonard Cohen, from the album The Future
So we're drinking and we're dancing
and the band is really happening
and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high
And my very sweet companion
she's the Angel of Compassion
and she's rubbing half the world against her thigh
Every drinker, every dancer
lifts a happy face to thank her
the fiddler fiddles something so sublime
All the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found and it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops
It's closing time
We're lonely, we're romantic
and the cider's laced with acid
and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"
And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant
with a mighty expectation of relief
So we struggle and we stagger
down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime
And I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
but closing time
I loved you for your beauty
but that doesn't make a fool of me --
you were in it for your beauty too
I loved you for your body
there's a voice that sounds like G-d to me
declaring that your body's really you
I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime
And I miss you since our place got wrecked
I just don't care what happens next
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time
And I miss you since the place got wrecked
by the winds of change and the weeds of sex
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time
We're drinking and we're dancing
but there's nothing really happening
and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night
And my very close companion
gets me fumbling, gets me laughing
she's a hundred but she's wearing something tight
And I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the Devil and it's once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights --
we're busted in the blinding lights
of closing time
--- Leonard Cohen, from the album The Future
OMG V
WFTV.com - News Of The Strange - Utility Workers Mistakenly Give Homes Wastewater Instead Of Drinking Water. I wonder if the water was as Walkerton quality.
WFTV.com - News Of The Strange - Utility Workers Mistakenly Give Homes Wastewater Instead Of Drinking Water. I wonder if the water was as Walkerton quality.
OMG IV
All I can say after reading this is OUCH. Gives new meaning to the phrase "throwing the dog a bone." *Shudder*
All I can say after reading this is OUCH. Gives new meaning to the phrase "throwing the dog a bone." *Shudder*
I absolutely have to know what puss-minded moron decided it would be a good idea to make a TV show about people riding the GO train everyday. Pathetic. The only thing more annoying than the show itself is the fingernails-on-the-blackboard sound of the theme song which repeats two words over and over again, "nah" and "train," as if each word were in itself profound. Grrrrrr.
"You're everybody's Dad, Jer, face it. No one cares if you're happy or not. They just want your approval and when they get run down, your advice. everyone wants you to be happy, but never gives it a second thought. Your everyone else's rock."
No fucking kidding.... 'No one cares if you're happy or not.' Cold, but finally true. I just wish I knew a way I could change that.
No fucking kidding.... 'No one cares if you're happy or not.' Cold, but finally true. I just wish I knew a way I could change that.
01 August 2003
Accidentally found some things today that I had secreted away years ago for reasons I'll not explain here. I still don't quite know what I think or feel about their rediscovery, except to say the experience was, is, disquieting. One gets into the sort of paradoxes only Saint Augustine could wrap his mind around.
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