"Heaven has a road, but no one travels it; Hell has no gate, but men will bore through to get there."

Thursday, December 25, 2008

DOLPHIN

While uncertain if this is RPattz's real blog, and being already fully stocked in the vampire department, this is pretty funny...

http://rpattzadventures.blogspot.com/2008/10/twenty-three.html

Friday, December 19, 2008

BLACK CHRISTMAS-

Despite the below, which is terribly asmusing, check out Dennis Cooper's blog for the rest and then order this movie on Netflix... it is nothing short of amazingly terrifying and if "Christian" values cannot shine some light in on a scenario like this, what possible good are they? And as far as the Catholic church and its minions go, they certainly don't need my encouragement, but I have to borrow from Kathy Giffin and just say "SUCK IT!"

"People say, 'I respect their right to release crap like 'Black Christmas'," says Reverend Charles Demester, spokesman for the North Carolina Values Defense League. They say, 'It's really how we respond to it that matters.' No, I think jewish Hollywood's behavior matters too. By that way of thinking, since NE Asians are civilized (more civilized than Euros, actually) it's okay to have large numbers of them in our midst. After all, if they aren't robbing, raping, and murdering us, it only comes down to how we respond vis-a-vis intermarriage, right? People say, 'We are free-thinking individuals, responsible for choosing our entertainment.' And jews are responsible for pushing crap intended to destroy our civilization. People say, 'If someone wants to watch this movie, it's no skin off my back.' Wrong. If society turns into a mass of degenerates, it's plenty of skin off your back. People say, 'We have choices.' Yeah, we can watch jew crap or not watch jew crap."

http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2008/12/xmas-recognition-2.html

From Josh-

Dreams Posted by: Josh in Media, Music, Photo, Reading, Really Random

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awakening, till the beam Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, ‘Twere better than the cold reality Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, A chaos of deep passion, from his birth. But should it be - that dream eternally Continuing - as dreams have been to me In my young boyhood - should it thus be given, ‘Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven. For I have revell’d, when the sun was bright I’ the summer sky, in dreams of living light And loveliness, - have left my very heart In climes of my imagining, apart From mine own home, with beings that have been Of mine own thought - what more could I have seen? ‘Twas once - and only once - and the wild hour From my remembrance shall not pass - some power Or spell had bound me - ’twas the chilly wind Came o’er me in the night, and left behind Its image on my spirit - or the moon Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon Too coldly - or the stars - howe’er it was That dream was as that night-wind - let it pass. I have been happy, tho’ in a dream. I have been happy - and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life, As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality, which brings To the delirious eye, more lovely things Of Paradise and Love - and all our own! Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.


In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed- But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream- that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro’ storm and night, So trembled from afar- What could there be more purely bright In Truth’s day-star?


http://blog.milkboys.org/
http://ragazziragazzi.com/posts/
http://www.gayteenlove.com/

Two Good Ones From Canada-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3IQtvjcvTU&feature=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0msH3FBXexs&feature=channel_page

Winter Flix-

Doubt

Milk

Were The World Mine

Let The Right One In

*reviews in process...


http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/12/film/stockholm-syndrome

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Sunday, December 7, 2008

SIN EATER

Night Gallery #27 ( 2-23-72 )

THE SINS OF THE FATHERS* In 19th century Wales, a devastating famine forces a young boy to play the part of a sin-eater at a dead man's wake. Cast: Geraldine Page, Richard Thomas, Michael Dunn, Barbara Steele. View The Painting (27kb) / Play The Music

http://www.tv.com/night-gallery/the-sins-of-the-fathers/episode/77191/summary.html

TAU ZERO

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?cat=23

http://www.tauzero.aero/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Zero

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Glories of a cheerful hangover...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

*And for all those who are sitting around talking about the Republican picks for 2012 and the resurgence of the religious right, have some faith in our nation's accomplishment of electing Barack Obama, stop commentating and pick ONE THING off the limitless list of urgent to-dos this man has to grapple with and truly change our country by working with him on that one thing! Put down the iPhone, turn off the tv and be the change we have all been bitching for!

ACTION PLEASE!!

The Cleanup:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27628719

Moving Forward: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27611106

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

YES HE DID!

http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-presidential-victory-speech-you.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/opinion/05wed1.html?hp

Exorcism & Catharsis-
His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world. That is a start. The nation’s many challenges are beyond the reach of any one man, or any one political party.

Monday, October 27, 2008

MELT DOWN = HIGHER GOOD

"It was the worst of times, it was the best of times..."

*this one is in process, so bear with me. also working to complete any entries below with a lovely header and seemingly invisible contents. the thin line between the written word and life has blurred a bit these past few months on the side of simply living without benefit or solace of recording. patience si vous plait!*


The End Is Not Near

Radley Balko @ Reason.com

Doom and gloom may prevail on Wall Street, in Washington, and in the media, said Radley Balko, but for most Americans life is not only pretty good—it’s getting better. Advances in technology are improving our standing of living, giving us more leisure time, improving our health, and “putting much of the world—quite literally—at our fingertips.” The crime rate has been in “free-fall” since the 1990s, with everything from sex crimes to juvenile crime in decline. As for our immoral, “sexualized culture,” the abortion rate is at a 30-year nadir and the divorce rate at its lowest point in four decades. Meantime, Americans are living healthier, longer lives, with mortality rates dropping for eight of the 10 leading causes of death. Yes, the economy is suffering a severe, cyclical downturn, but that hardly signifies “the downfall of American society” or some new Dark Ages. Socially, economically, and technologically, we’ve made an astonishing leap forward over the past two decades, and once this storm passes, we’ll still find ourselves with a “personal and economic freedom” unprecedented in human history.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/130861.html

And from The Week:

Happiness as national policy...
While technocrats the world over try to boost their nations’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP),the government of Bhutan is publicly dedicated to increasing GDH—Gross Domestic Happiness. The policy has four pillars: equitable and sustainable economic growth; environmental conservation; cultural preservation; and good government. But Bhutan is not the only nation focused on happiness as a matter of national policy. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, encouraged by fellow Labor Party member and renowned happiness scholar Richard Layard, has shown interest in using happiness studies to advance “well being” in the U.K. Layard argues for teaching “happiness skills” in school and for curtailing advertising that targets children, in an attempt to stifle envy and greed. The nub of his approach, though, involves an aggressive program of income redistribution—since, he says, “an extra pound or dollar gives more happiness to poor people than to the rich.” Of course that leaves unaddressed the unhappiness caused when taxes are raised to make that possible.

Cozily chic...

http://store.diesel.com/searchResult/gender/U/toll/A/tskay/3FD17CD7/c/cat_142/lv/1/sales_line/176/areaid/7/layoutType/1

Sunday, October 26, 2008

"Such human nuances are lost on conservative warriors of the Allen-McCain-Palin ilk. They see all Americans as only white or black, as either us or them. The dirty little secret of such divisive politicians has always been that their rage toward the Others is exceeded only by their cynical conviction that Real Americans are a benighted bunch of easily manipulated bigots. This seems to be the election year when voters in most of our myriad Americas are figuring that out."

-Frank Rich

Let's hope so!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

SWALLOWED

The national debt hit the $10.2 TRILLION mark- a number so big as to be heretofore unimaginable- and the National Debt Clock in New York's Times Square has had to eliminate its dollar sign to make room for the extra digit. The national debt is fast approaching the size of the entire US economy...

Awaken Sleepers & VOTE!!!

*I was trying to find a picture of a giant sand worm from Dune excruciatingly gobbling up the evil Baron Harkonnen so that I could replace him with George Bush, but no luck... just watch the 1984 Lynch movie version and use your imagination. Be one with Alia and her knives amidst the fires of Arakis-


http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dune1984/148837170


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sitesdesignedbysites.com/alia1.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.sitesdesignedbysites.com/dune.htm&h=504&w=378&sz=37&hl=en&start=6&um=1&usg=__ECNIOngOc4gZ71niHV1BvtcUyak=&tbnid=gDDpbLopRGKWFM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dalia%2Bfrom%2Bdune%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.24liesasecond.com/site2/images/Alia.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.24liesasecond.com/site2/index.php%3Fpage%3D2%26task%3Dindex_onearticle.php%26Column_Id%3D88&h=180&w=413&sz=56&hl=en&start=17&um=1&usg=__zBueEfoBRLCWz9_J7QwDBsS-BsU=&tbnid=S7DwPeLyxYWd-M:&tbnh=54&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dalia%2Bfrom%2Bdune%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Easy Go, Easy Come

bout damn time...

http://www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk/NEWS.HTML

ST 11 @ 40

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b64207_jj_abrams_vs_william_shatner_round.html

Like Mother Like Son

http://www.christopherricebooks.com/

His mom may have abandoned her vampires to rekindle her faith, but Christopher Rice has not abandoned writing on the edge as he uses his new book to explore the mystery and tragedy of a soldier's life after the Iraq War. Good to know somebody takes the inner battle seriously as we continue to ignore the ongoing cost of the outer one and its effects on all levels of our society.

These wasted blues...

"Who could ever be so cruel- blame the Devil for the things you do?"

Marianne Faithfull singing Beck's Nobody's Fault- on her album Kissin Time

Long Days Journey Into Light

http://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm?ezine_preview_number=3139
http://www.annerice.com/Called-Editions.html
Jonathan Stacy

When dressed for physical illness,
waiting for the truths.Will you let me take you?
No secret faults, no shameful desires.
I think I'd rather walk.

That firmness, peppery.
That's why I got so stirred up.

I've got news for you:
Those that provide real strength.
No man is fit for society.

I have relatives who will only answer
my father with a look of despair.

"My child, here, I give it to you, time."

The shutting of gates.

I beseech you. I was now free.
I believe for a night. I was carried by the wind, in gold.

I was often tempted, so I wish to do two things
so that those good fathers close over me and my calamities
forever.

But soul, whom I tend, you shall surrender it to desertion.
At these moments I wept for his world.

Never is God more to be.
Remorse extinguished; lies, the true way of gaining Heaven.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Oscar's Books-

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/maddox_09_08.html

WATERFALL

Emergency economic bailout
And German existential lit
Even in urgency and intensity
Pale in their pull on my own pious soul
While I look to a blazing, sun-drowned Iowa field
Golden folds of wheat waving me
Toward my pacific forest with its rushing river
Where paddling fish try not to drown.
Then I look to you and brown soft hair
Eyes green as leaves tinged only a little
With brushstroke darkness in dawning light,
Fired with youthful obstinate determination
For my bailing out of the deepest waters
Which are so shallow now in contrast
To your brave and loving rescue of my heart.

cjk 08

GOD

Merlin in The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

Adventure Story of a Young Man...

Outside there is a foreign southern city, basking in the evening warmth, its fountains plashing noisily. An then comes the sea.

He drops his arms; with his arms at his sides he looks slender, narrow and disciplined. That way he looks like a pious young soldier, whose face pales above the black of his jacket in this twilight- standing sentry duty for something holy, acting the sentinel in this foreign room, across this foreign sea, across this foreign world.

from The Pious Dance by Klaus Mann, 1925

other works include: Mephisto, Pathetic Symphony, The Turning Point & Andre Gide and the Crisis of Modern Thought

INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED

http://www.lostworldmuseum.com/

DEBATEABLE

Sunday, September 21, 2008

FICTION TO THE AID OF FACT-

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21kristof.html?hp

TOTAL ECLIPSE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVRDX5_1UQo

JAMES

... so Matteo, a great friend of mine who I saw James with at the beloved and spooky St. Andrews Hall in Detroit over fifteen years ago, popped up through the Linked-In professional network and we're gonna reunite for James '08 at the Vic here in Chicago on Saturday September 27, 2008 for some Brit rock fun with my man Jon and luvcat Tara. Join us one and all complete with drinks at the infamous Berlin after. James is truly an extraordinary band and they have survived the test of time. Bald and Moby-like, Tim Booth's voice explodes out of his tiny frame in a mix of influences from the Manchester sound to Erasure to just good ole rock n roll in a way that is thoroughly unique and still alternative- an alternative to crap shit music that is- always offering up unrestrained passion and fun with enough thought to satisfy any brooders. For further delight, listen to the album that Angelo Badalamenti wrote music for. It is below. Angelo also helped to bring Marianne Faithfull out of heroin-crazed obscurity by writing the score underneath her lyrics on 1995's Secret Life- an album so luscious, deep and hypnotic you can wrap yourself in it like a warm blanket by a cool mountain stream and need no narcotic assistance whatsoever! And of course, Angelo completed the utter mysterious magic that is Twin Peaks by doing its music as well. Genious if you ask me. Listen up, and down...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crZxRIYchjQ&feature=related

"Only in my head you don't exist- who are you foolin', I don't need a shrink but and exorcist!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crZxRIYchjQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSXb9D8Iqn0&feature=related

http://www.wearejames.com/

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Shooting At Moose From The Air

... okay, Bill Maher is almost always good, but when accessorized by the likes of Salman Rushdie, Janeane Garafalo and Roseanne, it's simply a no-lose situation- especially when he brings on those who are even less afraid than he is to speak the politically incorrect truth to the vulgarities of power. Please download the Friday, September 12, 2008 episode from HBO online or catch a cable repeat. Below is a slice as the group tag-teams conservative Wallstreet Journal columnist John Fund (who one tried ta put the moves on me while he guested at a conservative lecture series at my alma mater Hillsdale College). I'm sure Bill had more fun with those edgy liberals at Cornell, but I got a chance to see the other side up close and, er, personal. Please keep in mind this is the college where the President carried on an affair with his daughter-in-law for fifteen years- who eventually blew her brains out in the Lovers Gazebo with a 45 calibre pistol- while noshing with Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley and carrying on the culture war from the Michigan boondocks. Three cheers for family values! You can google that sad and scandalous tale and look for the Vanity Fair article in particular!

Quote of the show:

"The Republican Party is the Unrestrained Id of A
merican Politics!"

Tasty slice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOXrj4-bgSI&feature=related

Janeane: http://members.tripod.com/janeane_garofalo/
Roseanne: http://www.roseanneworld.com/home/
Salman: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/salman-rushdie/enchantress-of-florence.htm

President Palin

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

more words from Graeme-

Everyone’s compass blood misses the sea.
Wavering, needle-sharp yearning for the salt in the air like the salt in sweat.
The blue distance that pulls the eyes to the horizon.
Everyone has a sea that the flesh wordlessly remembers, an ocean that lives on only in our cells. Water that's warm and taut, the skin of the drum I stretch across the world;
Water that holds me up when I walk across it.

I delete his digits from my cellphone, cut his name from my email with swift clicks,sever the dedicated connection of his trojantrust, remove the flickring pics of his face, his smile, his eyes, his laugh, his fingers,the feel of his skin to the recycle bin, wipe his memory from my harddrive and punch him in the software, block his handles and avatars, his podcasts and profiles, his webbed words and IMs, his voicemails and texts, all the digital roads that led to my analog heart.
"What looks like politics, and imagines itself to be political, will one day unmask itself as a religious movement."
Kierkegaard

Saturday, September 13, 2008

SOCK PEOPLE

http://www.sockpoliticians.com/products/palindoll/

*voodoo pins optional!
Bataille on Nietzche

In the image of the one he wanted to be to the point of madness, Nietzsche is born of the Earth torn open by the fire of the Heavens, he is born blasted by lightning and in that way he is imbued with this fire of domination that becomes the FIRE OF THE EARTH.

WHEN THE SACRED--NIETZSCHEAN--FIGURE OF TRAGIC DIONYSOS RELEASES LIFE FROM SERVITUDE, IN OTHER WORDS, FROM THE PUNISHMENT OF THE PAST, HE RELEASES IT AS WELL FROM RELIGIOUS HUMILITY, FROM THE CONFUSIONS AND TORPOR OF ROMANTICISM. HE DEMANDS THAT A BRILLIANT WILL RETURN THE EARTH TO THE DIVINE ACCURACY OF THE DREAM.

Courtesy of Disquiet; from "Nietzschean Chronicle"

TWIN PEAKS

"This has to be the place where all pies go when they die..."

Just watch them all- again
!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2lkvrMa27c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMXjjHFz__A

LENNY-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwbB4pdMFZQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoELFSc_dmU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igC18CrVyaE&watch_response

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_QffCZs-bg&feature=related

*This entire program/cd is indispensible!

DANNY-

Lose the owl, and ride the pony!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/theater/14lyal.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The Great Awakening

'Set in the oppressive environment of Puritan New England ca. 1740 and drawing inspiration from the ecclesiastical texts of Jonathan Edwards, the novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Decadent writings of Joris-Karl Huysmans, de Beer has created a period film filtered through the gaze of a psychedelic lens. The video is projected in the main gallery space, amongst a dropped ceiling, lush lighting and red carpeting. Typical of de Beer’s video practice, the artist replicates portions of the sets in The Quickening to accompany the screening. Before entering the projection room, the viewer must first pass through a ring of trees over 13 feet in diameter. Integral to the film itself, the colored light filtering through the trees prepares the viewer to be transported and delivers him ready to engage with the film. With The Quickening, Sue de Beer distances herself from her past fascination with the world of today’s youth, so characteristic of her previous videos. Instead, 18th century Puritan America becomes de Beer’s physical stage and inspires a wholly different culture to be mined.' -- Marianne Boesky Gallery

Sue de Beer Website
Sue de Beer @ Marianne Boesky Gallery

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Words From Graeme

John McCain looks like a shiny, albino turtle who's just eaten a botox salad.


Summer by Graeme



Across the parking lot there's an overgrown field, a vacant lot;
but it is anything but empty. Each morning as I get out of my car,
I can hear the insects whirring and clicking, the rustle of leaves
and thrum of woody limbs vibrating in the wind.

Each evening as dusk comes,
birds call to each other and busy themselves before dark;
the field purrs and stretches before sleep.

I'm wearing my work clothes: button-down shirt and silk tie, dress
shoes, pressed khaki pants. Dry-cleaning is expensive, and grass
stains? I can see the look of suspicion on the elderly lady's face as
I drop off my clothes, burrs and dirt and green tendrils everywhere.

"What have you been doing?" her look says, speaking volumes about
what is acceptable, appropriate, proper. And my co-workers think
I have gone mad. Tittering behind their gray cubicle walls, they
exchange glances as I walk by, eyeing an errant leaf stuck to
my sleeve, a feather in my hair…

They don't suspect that
I have become a Creature of the Field.

I grip the thick muscle of Summer
as it heaves and wakes from slumber.

I hear the streets crackle
with vines of green fire as Nature feasts

blossoms boom like cannons
milkweed pods burst seams
mercenary oak roots march

I am watered and alive again
satiated
full of sap and light.


-more from Wickerkid at: http://www.angelfire.com/blog/wicker_chronicles/esoterica/

The Gnats Buzz Leviathan

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31rich.html?scp=4&sq=frank%20rich&st=cse

Friday, August 29, 2008

CONVENIENT TRUTH

http://www.mahalo.com/Al_Gore_2008_Convention_Speech

ACCEPTANCE

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/28/barack-obama-democratic-c_n_122224.html

SARAH PALIN/LIFE HAPPENS

Well, although I thought outside-the-box thinking was far beyond John McCain's skeleton finger reach, this one did surprise me and I must say, good job! Hurrah for Track and Trig and that extra chromosome. We could do worse than boys with really gay names and snow mobile racing!

Mother of five
They have five children. Their son, Track, enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 11, 2007.

Palin gave birth to their fifth child, Trig, last April. The baby boy has Down syndrome, a genetic abnormality that impedes a child's intellectual and physical development.

"When we first heard, it was kind of confusing," Palin said, according to an account in the Anchorage Daily News. She called the news "very, very challenging."

But she added in a note, imagining what God would say to her family, "Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed-up world you live in down there on Earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25970882/?GT1=43001

And Sarah does bear a resemblance to President Laura (if only she were a real person and could run) Rosalyn from Battlestar Galactica so maybe there is hope for this fracked-up world...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

PAUL

http://www.artbistro.com/member/paulrosin

"Born in 1957, Paul Rosin, an American photographer based in Chicago, works in black and white images that searingly explore the human body, sexuality, death and the environment in which we live. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. University Galleries, Illinois State University has published his book, "Obliged by Nature: Photographs."

Friday, August 1, 2008

Sunday, July 20, 2008

SECURITY??

ANTI-CHRISTOS-

There is nobody less qualified to admonish individuals on their behavior than this biggoted, misogynist, anti-future, apologist, materialist creature! Radical Islam falls into second place behind this 2000 year old white-washed world cult. I'd follow Tom Cruise first. Ick!
Sell some
real estate and art and feed the poor as Christ taught. The church is within, not without holding a whip!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25754069

Saturday, July 19, 2008

COMING SOON:

SEEING PAST RED: BEYOND AMERICA'S CATASTROPHIC DISTRACTIONS

RSC

http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E8821188903894

IMPRIMIS

REALITY CHECK-

"Kansas is ready to lead us singing into the apocalypse. It invites us all to join in, to lay down our lives so that others might cash in at the top; to renounce forever our middle-American prosperity in pursuit of a crimson fantasy of middle-American righteousness."
-Thomas Frank
"The overflowing of opinion and sentiment pouring into a media-sterilized world through the blogosphere is the last breathing remnant of American rebellion!"

STAY GOLD...

Nature's first green is gold-
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower
But only for an hour...
As leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief.
As dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

BEWITCHED

Sunday, July 13, 2008

AD ASTRA PER ASPERA

Latin for: "To the stars through difficulty"~

This is the hearty pioneer motto of my home state of Kansas, and while I have transcended my birthplace in many ways, I retain this phrase as I do the beautiful color, openness and freedom of the prairie where I grew up. As anyone could most likely tell from my interests expressed in the content of this blog, I do in fact believe that we should all always reach for the stars, and especially when faced with circumstances that are truly difficult in times like the present.

This mantra is a guiding element of science fiction, but also of the fantasy and mythological genres too. It is synergistic to note this connection between future and past and all the everyday life found in between. And it is especially good to also have it intertwined with classical drama through links to Shakespeare- specifically Hamlet- who David Tennant is playing now, Richard Burton played then and also joined Richard Harris in playing the Lord of Camelot below...

"Resolved: I am a King, not a man
And a very civilized King.
Could it possibly be civilized to love myself above all?
Could it possibly be civilized to destroy the thing I love,
What of their pain and their torment?
Did they ask for this calamity?
Can passion be selected?
Is there any doubt of their devotion to me or to my Table?
My God, Excalibur, I shall be a King!
This is the time of King Arthur and we shall reach for the stars!
This is the time of King Arthur- when violence is not strength,
And compassion is not weakness!
We are civilized, resolved- We shall go through this together-
They, you and I,

And may God have mercy on us all!"


Also helpful to remember- in the face of the nameless multitudes- the power of One-

"We are less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea,
But it seems that some of the drops do sparkle...
Some of them DO sparkle!
Run boy! Run!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SxvcX_nxD4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q19Ce_4ypY

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Note to the Universe-

I shall not refuse to arrive.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Night Stalker

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DuMnksCBB48&feature=related

Father of the X Files...

... see the tv movie with the vampires- look for the lil cross on fire!

WE ARE ALREADY HOME

EROTS

riddle

journey- science fiction

vertical hierarchy

horizontal view- personhood

Freedom is inescapable, but you can still help remove the obstacles.

Per Nietzsche- remain ever-aware of the Intersection of Truths which = the overall greater Truth

Barzun-

anthropologist-

JOY

He who binds to himself a joy,

Doth the winged life destroy.

He who kisses a joy as it flies-

Lives in Eternity's sunrise!

-William Blake

DOWNLOADING...

... it all comes out of the ethers now- like witchcraft!

http://www.hulu.com/

GALACTICA 1980

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbweBDnViyA

... so just what is going on with Dr. Z?

GOBBELDIGOOK

http://sendmedeadflowers.com/2008/05/thoughts-on-sigur-ros-gobbeldigook.html

Sunday, June 15, 2008

A FRESH VOICE FROM BERLIN-

Daniella Seel-

www.kookbooks.de

KOONS IN CHICAGO-

... notes from a critic:

Koons' lobster is red,
His big heart is blue,
He's referencing Manet,
And Winnie the Pooh.
His blow-ups are steel,
The heart weights a ton,
His dick's in your face-
There's nowhere to run.

The minions they make it,
And Cicciolina has fun! (those two are me)


-Deanna Isaacs, Chicago Reader

Sunday, June 8, 2008

JUICY~

http://www.juicycouture.com

Tattoos Are Dirty! Yum

L'homme du jour est Johnathan Kroppmann...

One Historic Night, Two Americas

Mr. Obama is a liberal, but it’s not your boomer parents’ liberalism that is at the heart of his appeal. He never rattles off a Clinton laundry list of big federal programs; he supports abortion rights and gay civil rights with a sunny bonhomie that makes the right’s cultural scolds look like rabid mastodons. He is not refighting either side of the domestic civil war over Vietnam that exploded in his hometown of Chicago 40 years ago this summer, long before he arrived there.

He has never deviated from his much-quoted formulation in “The Audacity of Hope,” where he described himself as aloof from “the psychodrama of the baby boom generation” with its “old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago.” His vocabulary is so different from that of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain that they often find it as baffling as a foreign language, even as they try to rip it off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/opinion/08rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Perfecto

Paper to pen
And inside my skin

Saturday, June 7, 2008

A Pick To Silence The Slobs-

Barack Obama + Caroline Kennedy = LOVE!

color

gender

intellect

compassion

GO!!

Sunday, June 1, 2008

ADVANCING-

So-
Despite a fragile economy and slogging through the nightmare which continues to be Iraq... despite a black man about to become President having to contend with ludicrous charges of sexism? jeez- how we love to revel in our societal insecurities and guilt! there are three areas where we just can't help advancing...

Communication

Medicine

Astronomy

They appear unstoppable alongside the roadblocks we constantly throw up against enlightened or "elitist" thinking.

Perhaps that is because deep in our instinctive evolutionary gut, we know that there is nothing more important to our survival than to retain the ability to share with each other, stay well and whole, and look to the stars.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

MASTER & MARGARITA

http://cr.middlebury.edu/public/russian/Bulgakov/public_html/intro.html

TRUTH FORCE

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21474

ROSETTA STONE

Sometimes, family is the most complicated thing.
Those you love- and admire- them most of all, have many contradicting qualities and motivations. The great ones provide some over-arching and powerful touchstone that defies any anger we might focus on them aroused by external circumstances.
My grandmother Pearl was such a person...
Inspiring, and indestructible in her absolute belief that she could be good and foster that in others.
She died a couple years back at 97- having lived through almost a century... Kansas farm girl, one of eleven children, Depression survivor, two World Wars, Eisenhower, Kennedy, television and our modern age. She survived my mother by almost twenty years and was my source of strength and yes- wisdom too.
Iconic would be a fitting word, but she would not understand it. She was simple, powerful.
Familiar freinds and foes alike were caught off-guard by their inability to understand and therefore ultimately appreciate her humanity. I was too.
After her funeral, my cousin found a note she had written thirty years before that provided a key to her understanding of herself and of her frailty/humanity for us. It is now a treasured document. She wrote it while going through a bitter divorce that stripped her of a tremendous amount of pride. Her knowledge of that fact makes me proud every time I read it:

January 4, 1974

To Whom It May Concern,

I am guilty of-
Loving my children and my grandchildren too much-
Being too clean in my house and my person-
Loving flowers and gardening too much...
Although I did so enjoy brightening the little corner of my world,
And was told by many passersby and neighbors how they enjoyed it also.
Working too hard and expecting others to do the same, having been taught
'Idleness breeds mischief.'
Wanting to share and enjoy my children and grandchildren's joys and sorrows
With no intention of meddling or hurting.
Loving to give for the sheer joy of it-
My main reason for working outside the home.
Most of all trying to live as God would have me live, of course,
Falling short many times.
Love You-
Mother & Grandmother Pearl

Christopher Street

Take a look online at issue #167 from 1991 of this now gone but once erudite little publication... It's got the first published article by me, Bob Satuloff and Andrew Holleran on the spirit and sexuality of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Not bad for a $3 NYC rag.

Friday, May 30, 2008

ANARCHISM- from Dennis Cooper

"Spirituality and anarchism can be quite friendly. Anarchism is all about the power working through us. That's fundamental to it. When I've spoken about anarchism here, that has always been at core of what I've said. Why and how this blog exists and works the way it does owes almost everything to anarchism, and it's one working model to consider. Resisting institutional forms of power is way down the line of the trajectory of anarchist thought, and writers who latch onto that sound bite, and they often do, are missing the point. People who are intent on constructing broad based systems that consolidate their particular ideas about power like Foucault, for instance, tend to give anarchism a berth in their thinking as though it had a solid, marketable premise a la Marxism or post-structuralism when it defies that kind of codification by its very nature. The fact that it resists that kind of codification is not tantamount to anarchism not doing enough. That resistance is one of the many things it does. Chomsky writes unusually wisely and cogently about anarchism, and I think his entrance is a decent one. But most writing about anarchism by the know-it-all thinkers and explainers is massively reductive and simply manipulates cherry picked ideas from among its ideas in order to sideline a sticky issue and rush to consolidate the power behind their intellectual thrones. I hope all the above doesn't sound angry or attacking because it's not at all. It's just that I've thought about -- and tried to live in the light of -- anarchism for most of my adult life, and I can get passionate when I think it's being mischaracterized, you know? Gosh, at the risk of sounding like a backwoods trapper, I say you'll find your center when you stop listening so reverently to all those know-it-all guys lay out their supposed answers to everything, but I'm an anarchist so of course I'd say that, and you might want to add a grain of salt to that opinion."

Some nice thought from a smart man...

For me, if people could unplug their Blackberries and default on living their lives in a state of perpetual info overload and scatteredness, there might be enough clear-mindedness to actually achieve space to conceive of a great motivational thought, emotionally attaching cause or- the recognition of a Great Leader without the shameful and weak desire to take refuge in less than our baser selves- to actually seek confort from the distracting pettiness of our political, spiritual and social discourse. And so it should be... and- i.e. anarchy = the soil of Freedom

I WANT TO FIND SOMEONE WHO WILL LET ME FEEL THAT I'M TRULY EXISTING

GAYATRI

So, apres beaucoups de pensant on my part, the better half of course hopped online and inquired of the Hybrid/Enterprise computer as to the the words being transcendentally evoked in the Battlestar Galactica title sequence. Given that this might be the best show ever on television for numerous reasons, the answer did not disappoint...

The opening theme song for seasons two, three and four includes a famous Hindu mantra- the Gayatri Mantra (Wiki it), taken from the Rig Veda-

"Oh all-protecting Lord,
Please guide our intellects,
So that we may proceed in the right direction toward enlightenment."

Sunday, May 11, 2008

God Love Bill Shatner...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlZ1F-fru0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cKDpLHPp7k&feature=related

K- first clip is crappy, but it's good and goopy so just Wikipedia it for further info...
William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, the Devil- film consultant Anton Simon La Vey-
I mean- come on? How can that not go down well with some whiskey and good weed?

History That Belongs In The Dustbin-

http://www.faithinamerica.info/

The Best Columnist In America

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/opinion/11rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Saturday, May 10, 2008

CURRENT OBSESSION

http://doyler-currentobsession.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

ORIGINAL

I walk along untrodden paths alone.

He who trails behind another cannot pass ahead of him, and he who cannot do well by himself cannot make good use of others' works.

For he who would without wings
Follow an angel, in vain he casts
Seeds on rock, words on wind, and intellect to God.

M B

WEST

The first in a series of missions to rescue obscure 70s porn magazines from their decades of oblivion: 'West' (1973)
In 'West's' simple yet bizarre narrative, an African American hunk who may or may not be selling what looks like vaseline door to door suddenly starts getting it on in a standard porn manner with one of his potential customers, a somewhat hippieish meets teen idolish blond boy until what appears to be the blond's roommate or boyfriend or an intruder spies them and joins in whereupon the porn transforms into a sequence of awkward modern dance style poses that are apparently meant to represent the wild, go for broke three-way that would naturally ensue and ends not with the usual multiple orgasms but rather with an inconclusive if rather heroic pose. Whether the photographer was trying to challenge porn conventions in a period avant-garde manner or was very stoned or was seeking to comment on race relations or something else entirely for which the strangely unsexy title forms a clue, we'll never know, but the curious if somewhat annoying results are a very rare instance of deliberate experimentation within the medium of the gay porn magazine, and that plus the fact that I think the blond is hot made 'West' the first target of my new search and rescue missions.
----
Posted by Dennis Cooper at 8:53 AM
6 comments