a small publication of teen-angst journal art and poetry

Rejoice! The World Is All There Is

2011-05-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

The end is something you don't have to worry about.
It has not happened yet and continues to not happen because it won't happen.
Certainly not on a scale you could deal with.
The end of you and the end of the world are not the same thing.
One is likely to occur sometime within the span of time you can expect to be alive.
That is you leaving. Not the everything of it.

Whatever bad you can imagine
there are a billion other things that are going to happen
before after during and above
your fallout scenarios
your doomsday prediction runs

It keeps not happening
because there is too much on tap for the yet to be
can't even begin to comprehend
a hundred year disconnected orgies of future sound

and of course you and everything you've ever loved and believed in will be gone by then
but that is where the strength and durability of the future lay.
you can't possibly fuck all of it up.
It is going to continue to be beautiful and vibrant and alive
and your lack of foresight just can't kill it.

The Generational Divide in Copyright Perception: The Goddamned RIAA Diminishing the Legitimate Needs of Author Protection

2011-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

In 1999, I started going to college in New York and there were many more music Compact Discs (cds) that I wanted to purchase. So, I was upset when record stores seemed to change the default price to $18.99 + tax. I thought this was too much and I discussed this with friends of mine in the same situation. We promise not to pay more than $14.99 + tax for new compact discs. I devoted considerable time and energy towards fulfilling this promise -that became more a promise to myself and a type of challenge.

I remember this well because I have remembered it many times since. I'm using it here as entry point and preamble for my discussion on what has gone wrong with copyright. It will be difficult for me to narrow this down into on-topic sense-making because there are many other issues and personal anecdotes and blah blah, but ...

My thesis is that abuse of copyright by certain large businesses in the recent past created a situation where people about my age and younger have a vastly different view of the value of copyright than do people who are older. This different view is dangerous to the future of copyrights.

Copyright laws have changed significantly in the recent past. Also initial differences of opinion have been magnified by controversy and antagonism. The over-zealous defenders of copyrights and the correspondingly zealous defenders of being a teenager have fostered the current situation where the entire concept of copyright is in danger. And will remain so until the zealousness is brought down several hundred degrees. And the over-zealous protectors of copyright are in fact burning their own apple cart -or whatever the fuck cliche. Because people who have grown up in this atmosphere have an increasingly distorted and wrong notion of what copyrights are for and why they exist and why someone would think they were good. Nothing has entered the public domain in my lifetime. The public domain has gotten smaller in the 30 years I've been alive.

Back to 1999/2000. As it turns out, there was illegal anti-competitive collusion amongst large businesses designed to inflate the price of music beyond what rational markets would dictate. I was not the only one to balk at $18.99 + tax; the price was illegally pushed forward. Compact discs were not worth $18.99 + tax so people would not pay that much for them.

My response was to go to my 15 dollar ceiling. Another response was to engage in a class action lawsuit which resulted in real people getting real money and certain information entering the public record. Or the lawsuit came after criminal investigations or something. Anyways, the complicated courtroom response. A third response, the one you heard about the most, was to not buy new music at stores on compact disc at all and instead download mp3s from the internet. !!!!!Napster!!!!!

...to be continued...
You can follow along with the longer version which is a google document.

"engaging in wholesale, blatant copying without first obtaining copyright permissions."

2011-03-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

Judge Denny Chin, in a ruling filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Tuesday, rejected the parties' settlement,

In addition, some works are orphaned, meaning their rights owners haven't been identified

Just this week, France's privacy watchdog fined Google about $141,000 for the intrusions in that country.

"You may need to go back and get new permission for the digital edition,"

engaging in wholesale, blatant copying without first obtaining copyright permissions

© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Support Shoplifting From American Apparel

2011-03-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

Oh I thought it was going to be like you could play it. But I suppose you have to click the thing above

You should read the book anyway. I enjoyed reading it. I found it refreshing.

books, lots and lots of books.

2011-03-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

So, I don't think the internet used to have this. With the google books now. Pretty much every single book in the public domain. You can read it for free* You can read the scanned pages or "flowing text". Though I can't just double click on that text to search on or copy certain bits.
Henry Adams
There are a lot of problems involved with all of this. It is kind of super awesome cool.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Like, how cool Dover Thrift editions are cool. But like all of them. On your very own spinning wire bookshelf so you can browse them. A wire bookshelf of fantastic proportions.
Lewis Carroll
This is what they've kind of been promising with "the information superhighway" Like nobody had just put all of the books in the public domain up. I mean. You still have to read it on the computer and all. You can download it or read it online.

fucking anything you can think of. I mean. I suppose I gradually have been aware that the full text of this stuff is now all available online. Like this should already have been. But it wasn't. and is now.

just think of all the written things!

A Couple Recent Hyperboles

2011-03-02T22:36:00.000-08:00

"The mere fact that you are this tells me you're different. You will inherit the earth. Not because you are meek, but because you recognize the importance of"

"I discovered your site a couple weeks ago without really thinking much about the website I was on; the process was very fluid and the site did a good job of facilitating my purchase without getting in the way. I discovered the site anew today while researching a small artist who, I learned, has a . Impressed by the page design and especially the full-track streams, I did some poking around to figure out what exactly is. The conclusion I came to is that is nothing short of the future of"

"Infinity points go to people who know the differences between the 15th and 16th editions of the Chicago Manual of Style."

Sedentary Behaviour (or)

2011-02-27T18:29:00.000-08:00

Or, why do you feel the need to make new posts? Why not you edit existing posts instead.
or, it must be more orthodox than it sounded. ("Misled by his respect for the goodness of God,")
"and then you will face the stretch between eating and sleep that is not claimed by any prescribed activity. "
Add to. divisible. "choking on the ashes of your enemies"
Subtract from.
How can you pronounce 'prurient'? (its alphabet juice sounds wonky)
Only the audacity needed is prohibitive.
Lenny Bruce died for your sins. or Lenny Bruce died for your speech.
(I think) yet the audacity remains. For it can only be limited by a self.
intended to (or was that likely to) raise the "prurient interest of the audience" is obscene. Or used to be. What about lascivious details? Well that Lenny Bruce trial hinged on whether Lenny had aroused the prurient interest of the audience -which Lenny eventually deduced meant getting a boner. trumped up charges.
The struggle is between sense and incantation
"...with the large increase in dementia cases expected within the next 10 years in the United States, it will be increasingly important to correctly recognize, diagnose, prevent and treat age-related cognitive decline,” said Lon White, M.D.

Oh, but more specifically, this one which links how scared of outside your parents are with being sedentary,
"The study sought to identify the links between the quality of outdoor public spaces, parents’ perception of them, and children’s sedentary behavior. Sedentary behavior is a contributing factor in the growth of childhood obesity, which is becoming a major public health problem."

It is a fun one because I can do this, "Sedentary behavior ... is becoming a major public health problem."
dirigible
Which I tie to this picture from an article

which I see as showing sedentary behavior being a major problem.
How do you talk to "the next ten people who were trying to be polite" if they didn't know they were one of your next ten people who happened to be trying to be polite at the time.

Artist of the month for March is Eleanor Roosevelt. I've mentioned that before. I have social media redundancies because of the sheer number of feedback loops. Make the loops be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Eleanor Roosevelt wrote.

I put something in and then the same thing comes out.

Force Flinging, Flubbed

2011-02-25T22:50:00.000-08:00

Feelings' Meanings Careening Away From Thought

"in the long run the less he will be able to feel"

this is lust rising

"prevent him from doing anything"
this is lust risen and full
these are fluctuating feelings
"let him do anything but act"
these are thoughts blocking out
their meanings play keep-away from words
this is tension manifesting in heightened sensory receptivity
this is desire thorough and true
these are sexual lamentations gnawing through the truth of being
sexuality full and prone and clamped
glistening musky air fogged up
"fire" and it's shot out of cannons
force flinging, flubbed
these are not unclean thinking
yet, my prurient interest at the time was aroused

Let us now praise famous women intro

2011-02-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

thank you for that and welcome to this:

Let us now praise famous women

a quarterly cultural podcast
produced in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California
aimed at presenting original performances or original content
promoting local artists and thinkers brought together
to praise and be praised appropriately
in a spirit of fellowship, experimentation, and mutual trust

Spring edition plopping March 21, 2011 focuses on:
manifestos and other written statements of purpose
artist of the month for March is Eleanor Roosevelt (also it is women's history month)
happiness
the male gaze
the power we have over the present and future
why not to content ourselves with the slumber of conventional wisdom or traditional experience

The forms of the content:
music we think we have permission to play
manifestos read aloud
readings from the public domain
excerpts from grand, unfinished works
very short stories or poems (preferably easy to read)
quotations, aphorisms, epilogues or any other interstitial
incorrect facts (with source)
interviews: (fantasy dinner party guest)
lists! (day jobs of artists/poets over time)
games (drunk history and what am I thinking?)

--
ready to be read by Eric and/or Phil

uh-oh I'm changing it other places not here - well there is another post just below anyways

Everyone likes big round numbers!

2011-02-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

Woohoo!
That was one of the most exciting drives home as I pulled into my parking spot with exactly 79,999 miles on the Honda Civic Hybrid (2005?) that we call The City Mouse. We passed 70,000 less than a year ago.

I forget when it happened -it wasn't that long ago but we were living here and we moved here in May 2010. So, the next place I go ... it's bam bam bam 80,000. Ta fucking da! I am all pumped and excited and ready to celebrate but didn't quite get there. And it is kind of late and, well, wait till tomorrow.

Anyone want to see it happen? I doubt it. But I will record a voice message to send out of the blessed crossing to 80,000 mile mark. I guess it is sort of less cool because it is an electronic display so it isn't really ticking over. But still. I have a couple recordings when it seemed so close. Well, next time I drive. I'll need a cool errand to do.

80,000!

Glorious Exuberance

2011-01-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

Glorious Exuberance
or I think these cut and paste notes amount much towards gibberish. Can you spot strains of ideas in the below?

An Original Content Package from People in Echo Park, in Los Angeles in California in the United States of America.

to be gathered for pod/vid-casting from the Echo Park Neighborhood. 2011, making this the future. this technology.

setting out a sail or a weather balloon.

some of you have cool stuff I could already use if I have it. But if you have other parts of wholes.

of a literary, dramatic, musical, visual, audio, reading aloud, conversations

and so by coming to enjoy a brief part of conversation to be added into the mix.

It probably won't be heard by many people. But it is legitimate and all so there is no shame in getting credit or audio or visual representation. inclusive or.

first episode theme is local history, and I'm looking at this area now and how it is best understood historically. And I have these other ideas that may pop up later.

going to try to mix in interesting people and interesting projects and combine them up to fill the content hole in this. But still, I feel it is an important mission. One that is presumably being replicated my others like me. If not, i

has not been certified organic, vegan, all-natural, artisan, rustic, etc.

welcome: announcement of beginning and intentions quick into song and bits and parts. always keep the music coming. or not have those as breaks and use three or four. and so get things cool people have written or can tell. anything you got written down written from yourself. or to talk about. or add in.

coming upon the main aspects of our lives. the way we navigate the terrain.

how do I navigate all these different socio-economic constructs constantly attacking me. They always talk about how hard it was for different people to navigate the hazardous soical hierarchies

stories of moving forward. year-hopping

games of challenge, strategy, adaptability, progression, learning, incorporating

Holidays - created holidays, the joyful parts of holidays. New/ up and coming holidays. culture creation but more a vocabulary for discussing certain aspects of emotions and the circumstances surrounding their rising and falling.
emotion talking. opennness talking. fix it in post.

podcasting and video-casting with the internet and microphones and the cultures in the air and the combination of all of our own selves in contributing.
Publishing and distributing self-like.
with nickels tossed the appropriate ways. If you think that we should give you a nickel for something that contained below or above.
so, since I do it my own self or with people I know and can talk to about it, then Bob is your Uncle.

taking the form of bitlits, musics, essays, drunken (impaired) theses, games, etc

Welcome to "Frankenstein Was The Name of The Doctor"
which is the name I gave to a magazine for the precocious that existed almost entirely in my imagination.

So, welcome instead to this calvinball area - a Temporary Automnomous Zone we're working out here in the Echo Park Neighborhood of Los Angles, California.

looking out at words and images and meanings and emotions and the rational mind and emotional mind and the overlapping area of mindful mind.

Great Momements in Promotional Copy

2011-01-23T18:45:00.000-08:00

BLUE
CAMEL
WILLIAMSBURG
BROOKLYN NY

Some call it the most famous hipster neighborhood.
But it's not about being hip.
IT'S ABOUT BREAKING FREE.
It's about last call, a sloppy kiss goodbye and a solo saunter to a rock show in an abandoned building. It's where a tree grows. It's Camel in the Williamsburg corner of Brooklyn.

CO RJReynolds Tobacco Company

To your own tune please ...

2011-01-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald,
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling,
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.

--
or how about some Edward Lear Nonsense from the new google books:

I

II

III

But damn if anytime facebook changes its layouts it doesn't make with the teen-angst journal art and poetry

2011-01-12T00:16:00.000-08:00

this isn't me or anyone:

"I miss you terribly.

It's your birthday. You are old now.

I hope your phone still works because I send you sweet texts intermittently. ♥"

Warming Up Of The House Party This Saturday (11.6.10)

2010-11-04T15:40:00.001-07:00

In addition to Friday Night's Last Minute Guy Fawkes Day Party / Hanging out with parade of cool people and cool things through Echo Park at 1913 Clinton St 90026
------------------------------

This Saturday, get ready to:

1.) Look

2.) Listen

3.) Drink

4.) Chat

5.) Run

6.) Jump

7.) Smoke

8.) Bump

9.) Grind

10.) Meet

and

11.) Play

Who: You, me, your friends, my friends.

What: John, Patrick, and Tim's "Warming Up Of The House" Party. We'd love to show you our new house to let you know where it is and give you a fun first impression so you'll feel welcome to stop by anytime unannounced. There will be some booze, but it'll be gone quick so feel free to bring some to drink/share so there'll be enough for everyone, just like school lunch. We'll have a couple bands play and I can let you know who once they're fully confirmed, but that would fall under the previous section.

Where: 3121 London St, 90026 - meet us in the backyard

When: This Saturday the 6th of November 2010

Etc.: Bring vinyl that you'd like to spin or hear spun. Bring synths that you'd like to play or hear played in our garage. Bring drinks that you'd like to drink or see drunk. Bring drugs that you'd like to do or see done. Bring an interesting fact that you'd like to speak about to facilitate awkward interactions. And bring your face that you'd like to see other people see (in real life).

This is an open invitation/party. You can do whatever the fuck you want as long as it doesn't jeopardize our security deposit.

Hope to see you there.

Love,

Tim

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Emergency Guy Fawkes Party Nov 5.

2010-11-03T03:25:00.000-07:00

The Holiday for Fire!

Collocating Recent Feminism and Bitch

2010-11-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

I favorited this video about legitimizing sexism in advertising through through irony. It is from Bitch magazine (or bitch media) "Mad World" blog. Bitch is a feminist critique of pop culture.

A couple weeks ago I signed up as a $5 a month charity or whatever so I am super excited to get my first issue of Bitch with my new subscription which comes with my membership in the "B-Hive"

So the verb collocate works for what I am doing in this post but the noun collocation has shades of a meaning different from what I want. So with my title I don't know what collocating implies.

Still, I think you will enjoy clicking this link and listening to this Bitch podcast extended interview with Sara Marcus author of Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution.

You can watch her read from the beginning of her book.

I was going to add some other things here. I might just edit this post.

Spooky Sounds and Scary Stories 10 31 10

2010-10-31T13:47:00.000-07:00

Spooky Sounds and Scary Stories 10 31 10:
Nickroehl@gmail.com High Freakin Five CD Mix Club:
Halloween

Download http://db.tt/LJp3L5M

1. We Were Somewhere Around Barstow - Hunter S. Thompson
2. Horn Intro - Modest Mouse
3. 96 Tears - ? & The Mysterians
4. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!! - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
5. Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel
6. (Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below We're All Gonna Go (Edited Single) - Curtis Mayfield
7. Devil's Sidewalk - Neil Young
8. Serious Drug Collection - Hunter S. Thompson
9. Franz Kafka! - Brendon Small of Home Movies
10. Turnin' To A Bug - Brendon Small of Home Movies
11. Livin' Like A Bug Ain't Easy - Brendon Small of Home Movies
12. Franz Kafka! Finale - Brendon Small of Home Movies
13. Paris Is Burning - St. Vincent
14. We'll Have to Arm Ourselves - Hunter S. Thompson
15. Scream and Run Away - The Gothic Archies
16. Sweet Satan - Beck
17. Dig Your Grave - Modest Mouse
18. The Pirate's Gospel - Alela Diane
19. The Lobster Quadrille - Franz Ferdinand
20. Lake of Fire - Nirvana
21. American Dream In Action - Hunter S. Thompson
22. A More Perfect Union - Titus Andronicus
23. This Wicked Tongue - PJ Harvey
24. Stromboli - Paul F Tompkins
25. Septopus Theme - Brendon Small
26. This Is How We Walk On The Moon - Arthur Russell
27. 97 Flood - Tom Brosseau

27 Tracks, 1:09:10 total seconds, 115.3MB

The Truth The Dead Know

For my mother, born March 1902, died March 1959  and my father, born February 1900, died June 1959

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.

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

Ghosts

Some ghosts are women,
neither abstract nor pale,
their breasts as limp as killed fish.
Not witches, but ghosts
who come, moving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.

Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
fat, white-bellied men,
wearing their genitals like old rags.
Not devils, but ghosts.
This one thumps barefoot, lurching
above my bed.

But that isn't all.
Some ghosts are children.
Not angels, but ghosts;
curling like pink tea cups
on any pillow, or kicking,
showing their innocent bottoms, wailing
for Lucifer.

Anne Sexton, All My Pretty Ones, 1961 Houghton Mifflin

"sun-drenched" as a possibile name for music with that hip washed out sound

2010-10-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

Lost in the haze
fuzz.
rained on
sun dried

You find an old polaroid picture of a swing set and take it outside to look at it. It is an early autumn evening. The phone rings, the dishes fall, or the neighbors call. It rains that night on the photo. After the rain, there is an Indian Summer for four days. On the third afternoon, you pick up the sun-dried polaroid picture. You know what year it was when the photograph was taken if you get a ten-year grace period for your guess.

You

polaroid

over-exposed polaroid music

sun-drenched

that hip washed out sound

bleached

cornered edged

singed memory.

Music that smells and sounds and lives like a memory

2010-10-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

They walked Utley and Werth INTENTIONALLY. They let both runners advance on steals. One being the first intentional walkee. I blame the stupid columnists that every sports section has.

Gorillaz Live on the Internets for less than $147

2010-10-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

"Plastic Beach" by Gorillaz is one of the top ten albums of 2010. It almost doesn't matter what you normally listen to. They are playing October 26th at the erstwhile Universal, now Gibson Amphitheater. They sold out of 65 and 85 dollar tickets and the 147 is with conveniently added fees on top of 125. I don't begrudge the price. Because they are touring with so many amazing people that all need to get paid. It wasn't enough for Damon to tour with one member of the Clash, now he has Mick Jones on stage too and they have logistics and films and all.

I got to see Damon in concert twice, with Blur in 1997 and 1999 so I can't complain too much. But, I can provide you, the hypothetical reader of my blog with links to three Gorillaz sets available online.

1. 45 minute set from CBS that was webcast live. Out of several scene-stealing guests, Yukimi Nagano of Lucky Dragon singing Empire Ants was the most amazing. Even better, she plays tonight, Sunday October 17, at the cheap and small and wonderful Pehrspace.

2.
Appearance live on tape on Morning Becomes Eclectic that doesn't have video. Wonderful interview mid-set.

3. Full Gorillaz Concert in Syria - where the musicians have lots of trouble get into our country.

There may be others and there are cool music videos. But their third album Plastic Beach is still the thing.

Important Information for Vote By Mail Voters

2010-10-15T08:57:00.001-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: <LACountyRegistrar@rrcc.lacounty.gov>

This email was sent to you by the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters.
If you're having problems viewing this email, please click here or copy and paste this address (http://www.lavote.net/EMAIL_BLAST/vbm/vbm.html) to your browser. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please go to www.lavote.net or call us at (800) 815-2666.

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

what I meant to say

2010-10-10T02:03:00.000-07:00

Stop.

I said stop.

I mean it.

It would really be an insult to you for me to sit here and continue listening to you speak total gibberish as if you were saying real sentences with words used correctly.

No, it would be nasty if I kept listening. Because then you would say more of these things. And later you will look at me and remember the bullshit I politely nodded my head to. And then you would think I was an idiot, a pushover with no integrity, or someone who never listens to what you actually say.

Then you would be embarrassed to see me, knowing that I heard what you said about gravity and Africa and time zones.

Stop saying those things out loud. It is different if you say them and they are heard. You won't be able to mentally change what you said. It will be out there in all of its perverse, astonishingly incorrect, racist ignominy.

Yes I'll gladly leave. I am sorry because this is an odd way to end this whole relationship because I understand why you are yelling and saying you don't want me to come back.

But believe me, it is better this way. Because we started fighting about this. And you stopped saying things about differences in the layers of the Earth changing how people in different continents speak.

No, leave it unsaid. The pain and anger you and I both feel now is nothing compared to the stupidity of what you were trying to say.

You may not see it this way, but I was a hero tonight; a hero defending the truth, the collective unconscious, and humanity itself, from reaching a new low with your gabbling rhino crap mouth.

let us examine the world truthfully with full imagination

2010-10-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

El Guincho - Bombay from CANADA on Vimeo.

El Guincho - Bombay

special thanks to Mally who gave special thanks to alexis for bringing this video to my attention.

this punctuation keeps biting my ass

2010-10-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

Even if you don't notice something, you can still feel it - or it can still affect your actions.`

you see, Jesus dies for somebody's sins - but not mine

okay, there were just too many instances where one would use a comma. Once in undergraduate, I counted the commas on the first page of Emma and it was an insane number. So some of those had to be made incorrect so some could be correct.

But so much writing suffers confused comma usage and the limits of that suffering change.

And everyone has different notions of those limits in their heads. And so it is damn hard and it seems ridiculous following absolute rules. So just use shorter sentences. And no commas preceding an and, or, or but because these are words that act in a comma type fashion. But I do like my Oxford (or serial) commas. I like chicken, french fries, and apple dumplings. But I don't know if that applies to other and instances.

Really, the old definition of a comma was to note a pause in speech. Okay. But on top of that there are rules and sticklers and people who, faced with the comma problem, develop strict rules that are true for everyone. Then people growing up these past several decades have been inserting commas more or less at random. Using the speech pauses but also a couple rule instances.

And this just gets worse and worse with people having random comma usage in all the writing they see, so that is how they comma. Seriously there needs to be a mark that means, sentence flow change, but doesn't really change the structure of the sentence. Like it is going along, oh and then there is this side bit. I don't know that isn't the best example.

And even if I come up with what I think is the best answer ... well, that isn't necessarily going to change much.

Thomas Jefferson: a character sketch By Edward Sylvester Ellis

2010-09-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

Edward Sylvester Ellis
Thomas Jefferson: a character sketch
WITH ANECDOTES, CHARACTERISTICS AND
SAYINGS
CHICAGO
The University Association
Association Building
Copyright 1898,
By The University Association.

NO golden eagle, warm from the stamping press of the mint, is more sharply impressed with its image and superscription than was the formative period of our government by the genius and personality of Thomas Jefferson.

Standing on the threshold of the nineteenth century, no one who attempted to peer down the shadowy vista, saw more clearly than he the possibilities, the perils, the pitfalls and the achievements that were within the grasp of the Nation. None was inspired by purer patriotism. None was more sagacious, wise and prudent, and none understood his countrymen better.

By birth an aristocrat, by nature he was a democrat. The most learned man that ever sat in the president's chair, his tastes were the simple ones of a fanner. Surrounded by the pomp and ceremony of Washington and Adams' courts, his dress was homely. He despised titles, and preferred severe plainness of speech and the sober garb of the Quakers.
(Copyright 1898, by The University Association.)

In the colonial times, Virginia was the South and Massachusetts the North. The other colonies were only appendages. The New York Dutchman dozed over his beer and pipe, and when the other New England settlements saw the Narragansetts bearing down upon them with upraised tomahawks, they ran for cover and yelled to Massachusetts to save them.

Clayborne fired popguns at Lord Baltimore, and the Catholic and Protestant Marylanders enacted Toleration Acts, and then chased one another over the border, with some of the fugitives running all the way to the Carolinas, where the settlers were perspiring over their efforts in installing new governors and thrusting them out again, in the hope that a halffledged statesman would turn up sometime or other in the shuffle.

What a roystering set those Cavaliers were! Fond of George Calvert, Lord Baltimore.
horse racing, cock fighting, gambling and drinking, the soul of hospitality, quick to take offence, and quicker to forgive,—duellists,as brave as Spartans, chivalric, proud of honor, their province, their blood and their families, they envied only one being in the world and that was he who could establish his claim to the possession of a strain from the veins of the dusky daughter of Powhatan —Pocahontas.

Could such people succeed as pioneers of the wilderness?

Into the snowy wastes of New England plunged the Pilgrims to blaze a path for civilization in the New World. They were perfect pioneers down to the minutest detail. Sturdy, grimly resolute, painfully honest, industrious, patient, moral and seeing God's hand in every affliction, they smothered their groans while writhing in the pangs of starvation and gasped in husky whispers: ' 'He doeth all things well; praise to his name!'' Such people could not fail in their work.
And yet of the first ten presidents, New England furnished only the two Adamses, while Virginia gave to the nation, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and then tapered off with Tyler.

In the War for the Union, the ten most prominent leaders were Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Farragut, Porter, Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J. E. Johnston and Longstreet. Of these, four were the products of Virginia, while none came from New England, nor did she produce a real, military leader throughout the civil war, though she poured out treasure like water and sent as brave soldiers to the field as ever kept step to the drum beat, while in oratory, statesmanship and humanitarian achievement, her sons have been leaders from the foundation of the Republic.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Shadwell, Albemarle County,Va., April 2,1743. His father was the owner of thirty slaves and of a wheat and tobacco farm of nearly two thousand acres. There were ten children, Thomas being the third. His father was considered the strongest man physically in the county, and the son grew to be like him in that respect, but the elder died while the younger was a boy.

Entering William and Mary College, Thomas was shy, but his ability quickly drew attention to him. He was an irrestrainable student, sometimes studying twelve and fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. He acquired the strength to stand this terrific strain by his exercise of body. His father warned his wife just before his death not to allow their son to neglect this necessity, but the warning was superfluous. The youth was a keen hunter, a fine horseman and as fond as Washington of out door sports.

He was seventeen years old when he entered college and was one of the "gawkiest" students. He was tall, growing fast, raw-boned, with prominent chin and cheek bones, big hands and feet, sandy-haired and freckled. His mind broadened and expanded fast under the tutelage of Dr. William Small, a Scotchman and the professor of mathematics, who made young Jefferson his companion in his walks, and showed an interest in the talented youth, which the latter gratefully remembered throughout life.

Jefferson was by choice a farmer and never lost interest in the management of his estate. One day, while a student at law, he wandered into the legislature and was thrilled by the glowing speech of Patrick Henry who replied to an interruption:
"If this be treason, make the most of it."

He became a lawyer in his twenty-fourth year, and was successful from the first, his practice soon growing to nearly five hundred cases annually, which yielded an income that would be a godsend to the majority of lawyers Patrick Henry. in these days.
Ere long, the mutterings of the coming Revolution drew Jefferson aside into the service of his country.

At the age of twenty-six (May n, 1769), he took his seat in the House of Burgesses, of which Washington was a member. On the threshold of his public career, he made the resolution which was not once violated during his life, "never to engage, while in public office, in any kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune, nor to wear any other character than that of a farmer." Thus, during his career of nearly half a century, he was impartial in his consideration of questions of public interest.

His first important speech was in favor of the repeal ofthe law that compelled a master when he freed his slaves to send them out of the colony. The measure was overwhelmingly defeated, and its mover denounced as an enemy of his country.

It was about this time that Jefferson became interested in Mrs. Martha Wayles Skelton, a childless widow, beautiful and accomplished, and a daughter of John Wayles, a prominent member of the Williamsburg bar. She was under twenty years of age, when she lost her first husband, rather tall, with luxuriant auburn hair and an exceedingly graceful manner.

She had many suitors, but showed no haste to lay aside her weeds. The aspirants indeed were so numerous that she might well hesitate whom to choose, and more than one was hopeful of winning the prize.

It so happened that one evening, two of the gentlemen called at the same time at her father's house. They were friends, and were about to pass from the hall into the drawing-room, when they paused at the sound of music. Some one was playing a violin with exquisite skill, accompanied by the harpsicord, and a lady and gentleman were singing.

There was no mistaking the violinist, for there was only one in the neighborhood capable of so artistic work, while Mrs. Skelton had no superior as a player upon the harpsicord, the fashionable instrument of those days. Besides, it was easy to identify the rich, musical voice of Jefferson and the sweet tones of the young widow.
The gentlemen looked significantly at each other. Their feelings were the same.

"We are wasting our time," said one; "we may as well go home."
They quietly donned their hats and departed, leaving the ground to him who had manifestly already pre-empted it.

On New Year's day, 1772, Jefferson and Mrs. Skelton were married and no union was more happy. His affection was tender and romantic and they were devoted lovers throughout her life. Her health and wishes were his first consideration, and he resolved to accept no post or honor that would involve their separation, while she proved one of the truest wives with which any man was ever blessed of heaven. The death of his father-in-law doubled Jefferson's estate, a year after his marriage. His life as a gentleman farmer was an ideal one, and it is said that as a result of experimentation, Jefferson domesticated nearly every tree and shrub, native and foreign, that was able to stand the Virginia winters.

Jefferson's commanding ability, however, speedily thrust him into the stirring incidents that opened the Revolution. In September, 17 74, his "Draught of Instructions" foi Virginia's delegation to the congress in Philadelphia was presented. The convention refused to adopt his radical views,but they were published in a pamphlet and copies were sent to England, where Edmund Burke had it republished with emendations of his own.

Great Britain viewed the paper as the extreme of insolence and punished the author by adding his name to the list of proscriptions enrolled in a bill of attainder.
Jefferson was present as a member of the convention, which met in the parish church at Richmond, in March, 1775, to consider the course that Virginia should take in the impending crisis. It was at that meeting that Patrick Henry electrified his hearers with the thrilling words:

"Gentlemen may cry, 'Peace, peace!' but there is no peace! The war has actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY, Or GIVE ME DEATH!"

Within the following month occurred the battle of Lexington.

Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry were members of the committee appointed to arrange a plan for preparing Virginia to act her part in the struggle. When Washington, June, 2o, 1775, received his commission as commander-in-chief of the American army, Jefferson succeeded to the vacancy thus created, and the next day took his seat in congress.

A few hours later came the news of the battle of Bunker Hill.

Jefferson was an influential member of the body from the first. John Adams said of him: "he was so prompt, frank, explicit and decisive upon committees that he soon seized upon every heart." Virginia promptly re-elected him and the part he took in draughting the Declaration of Independence is known to every school boy.

pdf of book images

I discuss why something Baseball executives with the Dodgers were stupid. Very stupid.

2010-09-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

"August 1, 2010Acquired RHP Octavio Dotel from Pittsburgh for RHP James McDonald and OF Andrew Lambo."
...

"September 18, 2010Traded RHP Octavio Dotel and cash to the Colorado Rockies for a player to be named."

So after a 6 week period where James McDonald pitched wonderfully.

I am quite sure the player to be named later will be much worse than James McDonald and Andrew Lambo and the cash to have another solid reliever. No.

The Dodgers had to pay the Rockies otherwise they would not have accepted Octavio Dotel. They need a good veteran reliever but Dotel is kind of bad and he isn't under contract for next year (I don't think so. I don't know for sure.)

Very bad.

The might have noticed how bad it could be if Joe Torre hadn't overworked Broxton and fucked him up.

Seriously I think Broxton could sue Joe Torre for how much Joe Torre put at deliberate risk without regard for the safety of Broxton's arm, the best interest of Broxton as a player of the course of a year and several years, and onto careers.

Fucking bad, And McDonald isn't like some unpolished potential thing, he is pitching consistently well at the major league level and he has been better than Dotel since the trade and is a better fit with the dodgers organization. Montaserios and Haeger starting games?!

this is just really bad.

My brain navigated bizarre territory relating to the more intense experiences involved over the past few years of my life.

2010-09-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

Holy Shit.

Hi. This is me.

I have been missing certain avenues of personal narrative making.

It has been a bitch. The "it" in the previous sentence being the experience of living through certain intensely experienced events that I have been through over the past few years.

is phenomenology too important or essential to be considered at length. It feels kind of wrong to me. Or I feel hesitant to dwell in it from a sense of the sacred. That it is the study of what it is to be alive. Or the study of the how it is to experience it.

My brain navigated bizarre territory relating to the more intense experiences involved over the past few years of my life.

I don't retain.

The Title and Summary of California Proposition 19

2010-08-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

Title and Summary

Changes California Law to Legalize Marijuana and Allow It to Be Regulated and Taxed. Initiative Statute.

Allows people 21 years old or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use. Permits local governments to regulate and tax commercial production and sale of marijuana to people 21 years old or older. Prohibits people from possessing marijuana on school grounds, using it in public, smoking it while minors are present, or providing it to anyone under 21 years old. Maintains current prohibitions against driving while impaired. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: Savings of up to several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments on the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders. Unknown but potentially major tax, fee, and benefit assessment revenues to state and local government related to the production and sale of marijuana products.

Ramble.

2010-08-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

God dammit, digitization, file transfer - **but a different word for transfer. it is similar to "move" but longer

See, with a born digital document, it is different.

This internet thing is not that great.

I mean, the French still haven't picked up Sliced Bread
and we've been trying to sell them that shit for ages. or eons or something.

The ugliest hacks you'll ever see. Perverse shit that is more perverse because it had to have been done on purpose.

You could not do something that unholy without knowing how unholy that was.
We can't do something that big without being reallllllly holy first.
What about one?
Huh?
never mind.
oh.
morgation.
no; migration.
thank you.
file migration.
migration is like the word move but longer.
the more important thing is

November 2, 2010 Save the Date - Vote.

2010-08-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

Proposition 19 — the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 — treats pot much like alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition, allowing each city and county to decide whether it wants to approve and tax commercial sales of the drug.

Californians, on November 2nd please vote to end a monumental failure of weak-willed and misguided politicians. Pledge to vote and read more clearly written arguments at http://yeson19.com/

The Prohibition of alcohol in the early twentieth century was a failure. What is more, it is an acknowledged failure. If you are reading about ideas in government that did not work out, you'll Prohibition is one of the most cited. Mostly because everyone agrees it was a colossal failure Almost universally it is believed a failure - even by people who wanted other people to not drink.

The prohibition of marijuana is an equal failure. It does not stop usage. It gouges out huge chunks of the time and money resources of the police, the justice system and the penal system. That is leaving aside the people who have had their lives ruined by those wasted resources.

We are on at least our third consecutive president who smoked marijuana as part of "youthful indiscretions." None of them got arrested for it. I bring this up because of the unfair and unconstitutional (The 14th amendment guarantees equal protection under the law for all citizens. It is unconstitutional to single out certain groups for punishment. And marijuana prosecutions are notoriously skewed toward the poor and ethnic minorities.) prosecution of marijuana related crimes.

OK. "but smoking marijuana is bad," "I used to think it was no big deal but I was wrong and I don't do it anymore," "I think it would be best if no one smoked any marijuana" "the problem is that kids can access the drug."

The thing with Prohibition of alcohol being an unmitigated failure is that it did not stop people consuming alcohol. It made alcohol more dangerous to consume. It made organized criminals and thugs rich and powerful.

Even if you think people shouldn't smoke marijuana, they do. Even if you think it should be impossible to get marijuana, it's possible.

The best thing about Prop 19 is that it focuses on regulation and taxation.

It will allow safe, regulated cultivation. There will not be a need for marijuana users to send their money to violent drug cartels. With illegal access, groups that are already committed to living outside of the law get involved. Violent and illegal business practices are more common with large scale marijuana cultivation because it is illegal and the stakes are so high.

Why not have people send their money to the state instead of drug dealers? Why not let individuals grow marijuana on a small scale? where things aren't as intense and fraught with tension?

Another thing which is used against baby-boomers and other people who had their George W Bush and Barry Obama youthful indiscretions, is that marijuana now is more potent so it isn't harmless like you remember. The rise of extremely potent marijuana strains is a direct result of prohibition. You sell 100 times as much for something the same size and 100 times more potent. Not all strains of marijuana are super-potent and it shouldn't be an argument in favor of prohibition, mostly because prohibition - an unmitigated failure - is making things worse.

I have pledged to vote yes on Prop 19 this November 2nd. Tax Cannabis, give the money to The People, not criminals. And don't force people into being criminals.

free shoe groupies streaming or download on last.fm

2010-08-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

above this should be a badge (also should be to the right) linking to some recordings I've made goofing off with garage band. There is the poem Small Round Yellow Passing Through which I wrote a good long while ago and I feel it has a bunch of room to improve. But nobody reads it or ever says anything. Just basic shit about the poem and the odd choices. I am too lazy to get the transcript - I bet I've already posted it here on this blog and I can put the link in later.

And so we don't get scared, another youtube clip of text to speech

It is another poem

Awesome Cover Design by Allicette Torres

2010-08-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

This book, A Wicked History, "Catherine the Great: Empress of Russia" by Zu Vincent is a really good book. It has engaging writing and clever maps and useful charts and images. And technically this is a "juvenile" book but it gives off a certain connotation that it shouldn't. Like you aren't being adult if you read easy-to-read non-fiction. I mean, that is kind of the point. Academic writing for history books - even "dumbed down mass books that are for adults and not classified as juvenile. I mean some things are only called juvenile because that is how the publisher is going after that part of the population. The experience of reading this history book is astonishingly engaging and fun and not horribly taxing. It should not be so astonishing.

now there is a video excerpt from a buggy text to speech web video maker thing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x82mPGZK9eA

Ted Leo and Paul F Tompkins

2010-08-25T00:31:00.000-07:00

Ted Leo And The Pharmacists - "Bottled In Cork" (Official Video) from Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/3cbac7e38c/ted-leo-and-the-pharmacists-bottled-in-cork-official-video

New Irish Writing from 1976

2010-08-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

Michael Curtin - The White House p.89 "New Irish Writing" Ed. David Marcus. Quartet. London 1976

"...

On the odd night that George did potter about behind the counter Nan's heart did not beat any faster. This was what she loved about him, she decided. She could be relaxed and natural in his presence. George was unaware of her existence other that that she was a friend of Madge's and he tolerated her as amiably as he did the other odd bods who laid bare their souls in front of the fire.

"Nan accepted the cruel twist of fate that attracted her to the unattainable. She threw herself into the theatre. When she was not acting she was producing. She had affairs and inevitably, as time passed she sometimes allowed a relationship to reach its natural climax.

"She enjoyed herself but always surrendered to the thought that if such pleasure could be had from a liaison with a vacuous artist, what paradise the droll George would surely provide. She did not feel envious of Madge. On the contrary, she was drawn closer to her. Madge had such good taste. Oh George, George!"

..."
(it is all one paragraph in the book.

My Review of Ken Kensey's Jail Journal, "Cut All The Motherfuckers Loose"

2010-08-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

I wrote it into Amazon.com and below is the review from there now. Further down, you can read the text copied from now when it is the #2 review on The Google Library page for the book. So ... I did it late at night and edited later that same night at the same time.

"11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Immediate Work of Art, An Important Piece of History, July 6, 2005

This review is from: Kesey's Jail Journal (Hardcover)
The main question examined in this boisterous, original work of art is when you should "hold your mud." Ken Kesey - Hippie Number One - spent the summer of love incarcerated for a drug conviction. He was America's most promising young novelist when he announced that he was taking an indefinite break from writing novels. His first creative work after this was an unfinished marathon film of a bus ride to Furthur. What he produced next was an amalgam: a personal collage that grabs the reader's eyes and heart on every page.

If Kesey's Jail Journal had been published in its entirety when it was finished, (instead of decades later with some pages lost to prison guards) it probably would have been a sensation. At least it would have gotten a wide audience to see how a blend of images and words could be more immediately affecting and powerful than straight prose. Most pages of printed text are accompanied by that text incorporated into a collage drawing he made in jail. These pages appear like displays of Japanese Calligraphy at the Met. The words are given extra meaning by how they are presented visually.

His illustrations are disarming and masterful. The accompanying text tells easily understood stories in simple, poetic prose. These are seemingly small snippets of life, but Kesey uses them to demonstrate the power structures, personal motivations, and racial tensions underlying every interaction. Kesey wants to create, be free and play - but he must hold his mud enough to keep from losing all of his privileges; along with the book that he is making - which begins to have an importance of its own.

Every page of this book is an ode to the artistic spirit. In prison and at a work camp, Kesey has to contend with the whims of guards and their rules in order to keep his book alive as he creates it. On some pages, he has more varied materials to draw with than on others. The dance between Kesey's creative impulse and the repression of the state institution plays out within and above the book. The effect is a touching display of creativity rising above the obstacles it encounters.

Anyone who wants to have a discussion or book group on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" should read this genre-busting book. From the institutional setting; from the imprisoned individuals who have transgressed society's mores; from the blunt way rules are imposed on the deficient; from the wily, red-haired, Oregonian protagonist; from the detailed look at the daily mechanisms of an on-going power structure; all the way down to the farcical (and mandatory) group meetings: there are numerous parallels to Kesey's first novel.

But this was Kesey's real life, not McMurphy's fictional morality play. Kesey has a wife and kids on the outside. He does not reach a point (like McMurphy does in "Cuckoo") where he sees a moral imperative to throw himself into a bitter and mortal struggle on behalf of his fellow inmates. In his Jail Journal, the real Kesey is careful to hold his mud: keeping a lid on his emotions, allowing guards to paint over his decorated shed, at times hiding and smuggling his book.

While he looks out for himself, he looks out at others and provides touching portraits of interesting characters he meets.

Kesey is a master at understanding power and how it is used and abused. His Jail Journal (which the publisher, holding his mud, calls "Kesey's Jail Journal" instead of its real title, "Cut the M************ Loose") is a universal description of the struggle of the individual against the institution. (played out externally against the power structure's guardians and within the individual who pits his courage and principles against his pragmatic self-preservation)

It is also an important document of its time. Kesey sees and unflinchingly displays the divisiveness of race - the veneer of calm on the surface with root conflicts simmering below.

Kesey also demonstrates the distrust of the establishment towards drugs, and how conservatives viciously defended the status quo on day-to-day behavior in the sixties. His fate and his evolving ideals serve an important counter-point to the standard tales of reckless freedom and blindness to consequence that are often set in the summer of 1967. "

My review as it looked listed as the second review on google library for the book today. - Edit review
well, it is just the last paragraph. it ends with "Kesey also" but it has "Kesey also" instead of nothing. The more likely explanation is I have made successive mistakes copying and pasting this review. I am sure you have seen it before. well maybe not you. This is mostly for The Olive Reader Blog - or that is what prompted my posting this now.

Monata Kunveno!!!

2010-08-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

"Saluton al cxiuj,

Nome de la Esperanto-Lingva Konversacia-Rondo de Losanĝeleso mi skribas por rememorigi al cxiuj pri nia venonta kunveno, dimancxe la 29an de Auxgusto 2010, cxe nia kunvenejo – Hotel Stillwell je la 4:00 - 6:00ptm. Nia temo por cxi tiu monato estas "Konaado".Aldone estas kopio de preparitaj demandoj pri la temo. Ni kuragxos partoprenon de cxiuj rondanoj. Novaj membroj estas bonvenataj. Gxis nia baldauxa renkontigxo.

Amike salutes,

Charles Ezebingaya"

The above is Esperanto. I don't speak it myself, but I did receive the beginning parts of a course in Esperanto that worked through the mail - where they would mail you lessons and worksheets and then you mail them the worksheet and then they mail you back with notes on the worksheet and another lesson.

Pirate Radio August 2010 Hour One: Summer

2010-08-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

1. Build Voice - Dan Deacon
2. HAMOR DIARY READ KXLU 2 - shoe groupies
3. Beetlebum- Blur
4. So Sleepy - Fiona Apple f/ Jon Brion and the Punch Brothers
5. records management - shoe groupies
6. Introduction To Star Time! - James Brown
7. Licking Stick - Licking Stick - James Brown
8. Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc. - Rhythms Del Mundo - KCRW's Today's Top Tune
9. King of the Beach - Wavves
10.Satin In A Coffin - Modest Mouse
11. kxlu auditiontape001 rachaelcdclub - shoe groupies
12. jefferson2 - shoe groupies
13. Los Campesinos!: Tiny Desk Concert (audio only) - NPR: Live Concerts from All Songs Considered Podcast

http://skitch.com/nicholasr/dur23/summer-pirate-radio

best blanks of the decade as written Dec.15, 2009

2010-08-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

Bests of the Decade

Dec. 15, 2009

best *blanks* of the decade

song: All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem (2007)

album: Kid A by Radiohead (2000)

movie: Punch-Drunk Love by P.T. Anderson (2002)

tv show: It's Always Funny In Philadelphia by Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney (2005-present)

poem: Like Lavrinia by Kimiko Hahn (2002)

short story: Jon by George Saunders (2003)

fiction: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (2007)

non-fiction: Consider The Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace (2007)

book of poetry: Skincerity by Laura Elrick (2003)

food: Dinner by the Four Seasons Restaurant in NYC (2001)

viral video: Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy by Louis CK (viral in 2009)

gallery show: Odyssey Of A Cockroach by Yoko Ono (2003)

technology: DSL with wireless by nerds (for me, 2004)

visit to a city: Budapest by Hungary (2004)

music video: Pyramid Song by Shynola (2001)

play: The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard (2003)

opera: Dr Atomic by John Adams (2007)

kitty: Mimi by behind a dumpster in Portland (2005) (Mimi got bigger)

new drug that will seriously fuck your head up: Ambien by scientists (I don't know)

thing said to me that sucked to hear at the time that I now find increasingly hysterical: "I said I loved you; I never said I was in love with you" by K. E. W. (2001)

Schadenfreude: at the end of the 90's, the Music Industry was trying very hard to make cds cost $18.99 plus tax. A couple of friends and I swore to not pay more than $15 for an album. Now, ten years later, albums cost like $5-8 as MP3s. Ha Ha fuckers. That is way less. Way to over-reach. That is why you had Napster - because you were trying to force people to pay more than they were willing to pay. And now you totally fucked yourselves. I mean, most things cost more than they did ten years ago. CDs and albums cost much less. Stupid greedy fuckers fail. (2000-09)

other books

fiction (not Harry Potter): The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (2003)

non-fiction (move David Foster Wallace to best "essays/journalism"): A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (2004)

history: Postwar by Tony Judt (2005)

fictional non-fiction: The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman (2005)

audiobook: America The Book The Audiobook by John Stewart and The Writers of The Daily Show (2004)

coffee table book: O Que E Fluxux? O Que Nao E ! O Porque/What's Fluxus? What's Not! Why by Jon Hendricks (ed) (2002)

this list is limited to things I have experienced.

I am a there-was-no-year-zero partisan. But this is America where majority rules and pedantry drools.

Oh and Budapest and The Four Seasons existed before 2000 so they really shouldn't count

from mail@kcrw.org

2010-08-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

KCRW 89.9

Dear Nicholas,

Thank you very much for your support of KCRW.

Your donation has just been processed. You will receive your KCRW Premium in 4 to 6 weeks.

Support from members like you ensures that we can continue providing the unique programming you love to hear on KCRW each and everyday.

And we hope you enjoy the benefits of being a KCRW member.

Once again, thank you!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Ferro
General Manager
KCRW

PS: Please print or save this message for your personal records. You can use this page as a receipt for tax purposes

ESA Wage & Hour Division Customer Email Request

2010-08-16T07:20:00.001-07:00

Thank you for contacting the U.S. Department of Labor National Contact Center!

Your inquiry is important to us. To better assist you we have opened Service Request Number 1-77867497 to handle your inquiry; please use this number in all future correspondence with us.

Thank you!

U.S. Department of Labor National Contact Center

NOTE: This is a system generated message. Please do not reply to it.

[THREAD ID: XXXXX]

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Batgirl PSA - Holy Act of Congress

2010-08-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

Dear U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division
http://www.dol.gov/whd/contactform.asp
I just watched a youTube PSA with (the campy 1960s) Batman and Robin and Batgirl. In the film, Batgirl comes to the rescue of Batman and Robin but refuses to save them until women get equal pay. In her specific case, she wants to be paid as much as Robin because she does equal the work. At the end of the film, (It could have been from the 1970s) the viewer is encouraged to contact the US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division.

Is there a federal law that mandates an equity in pay for men and women? If there isn't, I think there should be one and if there is one now that needs to be improved.

It is my understanding that there is still a clear, large statistically significant gap in the pay men receive compared to the pay women receive.

If this continues to be the case with equal pay laws that exist; there needs to be action taken to see why this pay discrepancy exists and then make successive plans to reach that goal (men and women receiving equal pay) in a constitutional and lawful manner.

It seems that this process has not had empirical success in terms of the goal of men and women receiving equal pay.

I am writing this so that my views, as a citizen of the United States of America, born in the state of California are made explicit and noted. I hope that it can be grouped with similar messages of this type and its ideas (equity in pay for men and women) made manifest.

"The Bullet Wore A Tuxedo"

2010-08-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

"The Bullet Wore A Tuxedo"

Trevor Steele crossed the casino floor. The man in the black t-shirt with the red beard was playing blackjack at a $100 table.
"All in!" he said.
Spotting him, Trevor sprinted over.
"Are you sure you wanna do that, Jack?" Trevor asked, gesturing to his watch.

Before Trevor could be answered, everyone in the room was distracted as the tenor saxophone player, Claire hit full volume on her solo as a young woman named Brenda swayed her hips with the music as she drew all eyes towards her. Brenda Stackhouse sat down. The bartender brought her the usual Tennessee Highball.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...
There was trouble with Detective Trevor Steele's past. Trouble hot enough to get a phone call through to the bar.

B.B. (Belida Bagshot Steele - mother of Trevor and Belinda) was ecstatic to have finally reached Trevor. While she waited for him to get to the phone, she worried over how to get her son to understand the severity of the danger he was now in.
They felt as though they were spicy Italian sausages, grilling in god's big cast iron pan, flipped mericifully when one side began to burn

Turn Aside, Turn Aside, Turn Aside, Turn Aside

2010-07-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

Turn aside, Turn aside! Confine yourself to the personal and the spiritual

Thomas Mann - Tagenbucher.

Monata Kunveno!!!

2010-07-22T04:03:00.001-07:00

Download now or preview on posterous

Pafil-kontrolo.doc (22 KB)

I signed up for a go at your own pace Esperanto Course a while ago.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Charles Ezebingaya <okarlo@verizon.net>
Date: Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 2:18 AM
Subject: Monata Kunveno!!!

Saluton al cxiuj,

Nome de la Esperanto-Lingva Konversacia-Rondo de Losanĝeleso mi skribas por rememorigi al cxiuj pri nia venonta kunveno, dimancxe la 25an de marto. Ni kunvenas je la 4:00 – 6:00ptm cxe nia kunvenejo – Hotel Stillwell. Por cxi tiu monata kunveno, traktos la temon: “Pafil-Kontrolo”. Aldone estas kopio de preparitaj demandoj pri la diskult-temo. Ni kuragxos partoprenon de cxiuj rondanoj. Gxis nia baldauxa renkontigxo.

Amike salutas,

Charles Ezebingaya

PS: Kunvenejo

Hotel Stillwell (behind the front lobby)

838 S. Grand Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90017- 4610

Kontaktoj

Kenecxjo Goldbergo Charles Ezebingaya

(213) 627-1151 ext.Rm224 okarlo@verizon.net

Directions

From Santa Monica

Merge onto I-10 E toward Los Angeles

Merge onto CA-110 N via the exit on the left toward PASADENA

Take the 4^th st / 3^rd st exit – EXIT 22B

Take the 6^th st ramp

Stay straight to go onto W 6^th st

Turn right onto S Grand Avenue

From San Bernardino

Merge onto CA-210 W

Merge onto I-605 S

Merge onto I-10 toward Los Angeles

I-10 W becomes US-101 N

Take the CA-110 / PASADENA FWY / GRAND AVE exit toward HARBOR FWY / SAN PEDRO / PASADENA

Take the GRAND End at 838 S Grand Ave AVE exit

Turn right onto N GRAND AVE

End at 838 S Grand Ave

From Marina del Rey

Merge onto CA-90 E

Merge onto I-405 N toward SACRAMENTO

Merge onto I-10 E toward LOS ANGELES

Merge onto CA-110 N via the exit on the left toward PASADENA

Take the 4^th st / 3^rd st exit – EXIT 22B

Take the 6^th st ramp

Stay straight to go onto W 6^th st

Turn right onto S GRAND AVENUE

End at 838 S Grand Ave

From I-5 S Fwy

Merge onto CA-110 S toward LOS ANGELES

Take the 6^th st / 4^th st exit toward I-110 S / WILSHIRE Blvd / DOWNTOWN

Take the CA-110 ramp toward WILSHIRE BLVD / HARBOR FWY

Take the ramp toward WILSHIRE BLVD

Turn slightly left to take the 6^th st ramp

Stay straight to go onto W 6^th st

Turn right onto S GRAND AVENUE.

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

no man could do such miracles without the lord to entreat him

2010-07-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

gloves - long sleeved black gloves.
elbow bends against the floor (it pushes back)

boots - ideally somewhat useful as a boot
arching along with a back and legs - the whole back side side side side all of it.
tendons softened in secret mirrors with private thoughts
eyes that linger

before
during
after.

eyes during
eyes after
eyes before

no man could do such miracles without the lord to entreat him

Aidez-moi s'il vous plait. "Qu' est_ce que la canard dit a la Petit Prince?"

2010-07-20T10:11:00.001-07:00

Posted via SMS from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

I forgort why I am repepeating this.

2010-07-20T06:32:00.000-07:00

and I will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep myself from dying (death, again, is unAmerican, and a sign of personal weakness, I've never believed in it myself). There are some good things that came out of this do whatever it takes approach. It has sparked innovation. There are people willing to pay for and undergo risky new procedures becaue of this insane rejection of death as "an option,"

John Saw That Number

2010-07-20T06:21:00.001-07:00

no man could do such miracles without the lord to entreat him

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

"No. Of course it isn't fascinating.

2010-06-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

Did you know Zulu has a word for "annoying three-foot-long one-note plastic trumpet"? Isn't that fascinating?

No. Of course it isn't fascinating. It's a wonderful example of why I tend to think the issue of what things different languages have words for (especially, have nouns for) is stupid and trivial.

from the Language Log.
Who cares what Zulu has a word for? June 12, 2010 @ 3:16 pm · Filed by Geoffrey K. Pullum under Words words words

hi nick

2010-06-11T18:51:00.001-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: txxxxx xxxxx <glenofrustyxgmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Subject: hi nick
To: Nick Rxxxx <nickroehlxgmail.com>

hi nick this is nick writing from tricia's computer.

Nick, please do not confuse things needlessly.

sorry.

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Chickens In Love

2010-06-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

Love 826LA Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes cover the 826LA song Chickens in Love.

new Fiona Apple Song, So Sleepy. written by 826LA students for Chickens In Love. For free download: http://bit.ly/d98SEq

2010-06-09T02:06:00.000-07:00

June 08, 2010 — A new song from Fiona Apple entitled "So Sleepy" -- written by 826LA students for Chickens In Love. For free download: http://bit.ly/d98SEq
Category: Music
Tags:
fiona apple so sleepy fiona apple new song fiona apple new single

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QNu3OaWolE

Fiona Apple – “So Sleepy” (The Gummy Bears Cover)
Jun 8th '10 by jessica @ 12:17pm 1 Comment Share7113

We often post about literacy charity 826’s great music fundraisers (LCD Soundsystem DJing the 826NYC prom, their Revenge Of The Bookeaters shows). The group’s workshops (and storefronts — I used to volunteer at 826NYC’s adorable Superhero store) are also worth talking about, even if you don’t have kids. Here 826LA brought both together, releasing the previously reported fundraiser CD made of songs written by students in their songwriting workshop. The CD, titled Chickens In Love has covers of the kids’ songs by artists like She & Him, Cold War Kids, Tim & Eric, Crystal Antlers, and Dum Dum Girls, but the best track from the album may be Fionna Apple’s cover with Jon Brion. The Gummy Bears’s “So Sleepy” has Arcade Fire-like lyrics (“I’m so sleepy, but it’s not my bedtime / We got bells / The bells, the bells keep me awake”), and a clanging rhythm. Apple and Brion transform the song into a jumpy, sweet anti-lullaby. Listen at 826LA’s Chickens In Love Facebook page, where you can stream the entire album.

[Via 24Bit]
Share7113Tags: Fiona Apple, Jon Brion
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* Zach Galifianakis & Fiona Apple – “Up In Them Guts”
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* New Of Montreal – “An Eluardian Instance (Jon Brion Remix)”
* New of Montreal – “Gallery Piece (Jon Brion Remix)” (Stereogum Premiere)
* New Jon Brion – “Little Person”

The boy is still fire! The depth of emotion and sensitivity

2010-06-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

The Fronting has Is will Pass

2010-06-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Fronting

this, too has passed.]

Hello Future

how have I been?

2008, September 15

he writing)

Because I am growing up

and after all

it was after you read a poem

that I had written when you knew you loved me.

And so it is rude to not continue more onward

except for the realities on the ground

focus in on what you *can* do

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_PR1KB96haBM/TAoj5Z2F0HI/AAAAAAAAGAQ/Fu_Fm-wkhV4/s800/32242_397025061805_604991805_4665272_26210_n.jpg

Hazel. or Heather, which?

was the name of the book that would have had to have been a 500 page book.

not Eleanor no.

Falla

Dance of Terror

Dance of the Game of love

Ritual fire dance

Advancement in Robotic Digital Capture at Emory University

2010-06-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

A glimpse of 19th century British life is available online, courtesy
of Emory University Libraries' Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book
Library (MARBL).

More than 1,200 novels, known as yellowbacks, have been digitized
using a cutting-edge robotic digital book scanner purchased from
Kirtas Technologies by Emory Libraries in 2008. The Kirtas machine
enables the libraries to scan thousands of rare and out-of-copyright
books in its research collections.

Yellowbacks were cheap, 19th century British literature sold at
railway book stalls, with colorful, sensational covers to attract
buyers. While some were well-known books such as "Sense and
Sensibility," many of the yellowbacks were obscure titles by authors
unknown today. "They were the equivalent of a popular novel you'd read
on a plane today," says David Faulds, MARBL's rare book librarian.

The digitization project allows MARBL to make the collection of rare,
fragile books accessible to a widespread audience. "There are a good
number of yellowbacks where we have the only known copy of the text,
so we're able to make that available to people around the world," he
says. "They're very rare now because they weren't that sturdily built
- they just disintegrated or were thrown away. It's an aspect of 19th
century life that's disappeared today."

The project has taken about six months and is almost finished, says
Kyle Fenton, leader of digitization services and digital curation,
whose team worked to digitize the collection of yellowbacks. Of the
1,235 books digitized, nearly all of the titles are available online
and can be downloaded by readers for free.

MARBL has one of the largest collections of yellowbacks in the world.
The nickname comes from the yellow glazed paper of the illustrated
covers.

The genres and topics include romance, detective fiction, war,
biography, medicine, horse racing, hunting and fishing.

"Some of these books are so rare that they've been lost to history,"
Faulds says. "Scholars and casual readers can now discover these
works. There may be aspects of them that are of interest not only to
literary researchers but also social historians looking at Britain or
America in the 19th century or women's lives in this period - what
they were reading, how they are portrayed or what they wrote."

How to access the yellowbacks:

You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Visit the Emory Libraries home page at http://web.library.emory.edu/.

In the discoverE search box on the right side of the screen, type the
word "yellowbacks" and click the search button.

At the next screen, under results on the left side of the screen,
click "online resources." You can also narrow by genre, topic and
author.

Click on the title of the yellowback you wish to read.

Scroll down under details, and at the second blue arrow, click "PDF version."

The yellowback will load; note the first page is usually blank. You
can then save the novel to your desktop or a flash drive and read it
at your leisure.

Rare Book Librarian
Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University

This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of
the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged
information. If the reader of this message is not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution
or copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictly
prohibited.

If you have received this message in error, please contact
the sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of the
original message (including attachments).

When I read the book, the biography famous,

2010-06-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's

life? And so will some one when I am dead and gone write

my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life, Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing

of my real life, Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and

indirections I seek for my own use to trace out here.)

from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman on google books

May 25th is Towel Day

2010-05-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hi, so today is Towel Day and you carry a towel around with you because you like Douglas Adams. His favorite one of his books and possibly the least well known is the brilliant Last Chance To See. You should try and read it.

In the meantime you can read the following opening to an episode from the second series of the radio program. This - the flapping tendrils broken off from home when you traveled too far or lost the connection - has resonated with me a great deal at times (like when I was living in England or New York or not knowing where to live) and the search for home is probably one of the greatest themes in my life. Certainly why I am living in The Southland as I figure this area has the most good claims to home. (It also had to have had some impact on the whole issue of who I used to be living with when I moved out here first.)

Arthur Dent, a man whose planet has been blown up, has been having a remarkable effect on the universe. And the most remarkable thing about this is that the only remarkable thing about him as a person is that he is remarkably unremarkable, in all respects other than that of having had his planet blown up. And this, of course, is the nub of the matter, because most of the things which stir the universe up in anyway are cause by dispossessed people. There are two ways of accounting for this. One is to say that if everyone just sat around at home nothing would ever happen - this is very simple - the other is to say, as Oolon Colluphid has at great length in his book ’Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Guilt, But Were Too Ashamed to Ask’,

that every being in the universe is tied to his birthplace by tiny invisible force tendrils composed of little quantum packets of guilt. If you travel far from your birthplace, these tendrils get stretched and distorted.

This compares with an ancient Arcturan Proverb “How ever fast the body travels, the soul travels at the speed of an Arcturan Mega-Camel.” This would mean, in these days of hyperspace and Improbability Drive, that most people’s souls are wandering unprotected in deep space in a state of some confusion; and this would account for a lot of things. Similarly, if your birthplace is actually destroyed, or in Arthur Dent’s case demolished - ostensibly to make way for a new hyperspace bypass -

then these tendrils are severed and flap about at random. There are no people to be fed or whales to be saved; there is no washing up to be done. And these flapping tendrils of guilt can seriously disturb the space-time continuum.

Don't Panic!

Memorable English Football

2010-05-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Oh boy everybody, the World Cup is coming up. And to celebrate, let us remember some great moments from the England National Team. These are the ones that I most remember seeing. This doesn't include off field memories. Like the many different crowd control measures foreign governments had to take against English fans (in the stands in Italy during a World Cup qualifier and of course the fire hoses in France during the 1998 World Cup), the fans who had so obviously kept drinking at the pub well into the night after England beat Argentina in the 2002 World Cup in a game with an early start time as it was in South Korea, Gazza talking about how his wife had bought him shirts and stuff to clean him up for his impossible to understand appearances as a World Cup pundit, and of course the way the English somehow manage to find a longstanding hatred for any country they happen to play at Football.

The David Beckham 2001 free kick against Greece in stoppage time for World Cup qualification isn't in the playlist as it (and the others I found) all had embedding disabled by request

2010-05-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

From Donagh MacDonagh's 1958 preface to "The Oxford Book of Irish Verse" on Managan and his peculiar translation priorities.

"Then, through the prose translations of the scholars ... he discovered Irish. ... instead of becoming an original poet he was often content to be the medium for dead writers whose words he transmuted. ...

Mangan knew no Irish and made no attempt to learn it;"

Anyways, it is a good collection. Below is a poem by Bryan Guiness. (There are some great names. Donagh MacDonagh's name can compete with the editor of The Oxford Book of English Verse, Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch who made possibly the best book dedication ever, "TO /THE PRESIDENT/ FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS/ OF/ TRINITY COLLEGE OXFORD/ A HOUSE OF LEARNING/ ANCIENT LIBERAL HUMANE/ AND MY MOST KINDLY NURSE" yeah. Gotta give props to your nurse. I am aware you can read it as if Trinity College Oxford is his most kindly nurse but I love the idea that he throws in for an actual nurse - like Sir A T Quiller-Couch maybe couldn't feed himself and shit/)

What Are They Thinking ...

WHAT are they thinking, the people in churches,
Closing their eyelids and kneeling to pray,
Touching their faces and sniffing their fingers,
Folding their knuckles one over another?
What are they thinking? Do they remember
This is the church: and this is the steeple:
Open the door: and here are the people?
Do they perceive in the pit of their palms
The way of the walls and the spin of the spire,
The turmoil of tombstones tossed in the grass,
Under the yawning billows of yew?
Can they discover, drooping beyond them,
The chestnuts' fountains of flowers and frills,
And the huge fields folded into the hills?

What are they thinking, the sheep on the hills,
Bobbing and bending to nibble the grass,
Kissing the crisp green coat of the combes?
What are they thinking, lying contented
With vacant regard in the long rumination?
Do they consider the sky a cage,
Their fleeces as fetters, their bones as their bonds?
Or do they rejoice at the thyme on their tongues,
The dome of the sky, the slope of the downs,
The village below, the church and the steeple,
With shepherd and ploughman and parson and people?

And what is he feeling, the lark as he flies,
Does he consider the span of his days,
Does he dissever himself from the spirit,
His flight from his feathers, his song from his singing?
Is he cast down at the thought of his brevity?
Or does he look forward to fond immortality?
He stitches the sky with the thread of his breath
To all the bright pattern of living beneath,
To ploughman and shepherd and parson and people,
To the sheep on the hills and the church and the steeple.

trail loc: hollywood reservoir @34.119728,-118.330951

2010-05-15T01:27:00.000-07:00

trail loc: hollywood reservoir @34.119728,-118.330951

I haven't checked my email or any internet thing since early Saturday.

2010-05-10T13:33:00.001-07:00

Posted via SMS from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Blow, Northern Wind - Anonymous - C. 1300.

2010-05-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

4. Blow, Northern Wind

C. 1300

TCHOT a burde in boure bryht,

That fully semly is on syht,
Menskful maiden of myht;

Feir ant fre to fonde;
In al this wurhliche won
A b^rde of blod ant of bon,
Never yete y nuste non
Lussomore in londe.

Blou northerne wynd!

Send thou me my suetyng!

Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!

With lokkes lefliche ant longe,
With frount ant face feir to fonge,
With murthes monie mote heo monge,
That brid so breme in boure.

With lossom eye grete ant gode,
With browen blysfol under hode,
He that reste him on the Rode,
That leflych lyf honoure.
Blou northerne wynd, etc.

Hire lure lumes liht
Ase a launterne a nyht,
Hire bleo blykyeth so bryht,

So feyr heo is ant fyn.
A suetly swyre heo hath to holde,
With armes shuldre ase mon wolde,
Ant fingres feyre forte folde,

God wolde hue were myn !
Blou northerne wynd, etc.

•

Heo is coral of godnesse,
Heo is rubie of ryhtfulnesse,
Heo is cristal of clannesse,

Ant baner of bealte.
Heo is lilie of largesse,
Heo is parvenke of prouesse,
Heo is solsecle of suetnesse,

Ant lady of lealte.

For hire love y carke ant care,
For hire love y droupne ant dare,
For hire love my blisse is bare
Ant al ich waxe won,

For hire love in slep y slake,
For hire love al nyht ich wake,
For hire love mournynge y make
More then eny mon.

Blou northerne wynd !

Send thou me my suetyng!

Blou northerne wynd ! blou, blou, blou!

The Oxford book of English verse, 1250-1900

edited by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch available as full text on google books from scanned from Harvard's Library

Jamboree

2010-05-03T01:25:00.000-07:00

Jamboree.

I love this.

Three musicians travel through the woods. They are watched and confronted by the local inhabitants. A tribe, a gang which communicates with music. They use their music as weapons to defend their home territory.

(post a comment if you would summarize the film differently)

I Am The New Lyricisim

2010-04-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

these sacrifices you speak of
why do you speak and speak of them?

SO MANY OUTLIERS but that is all any life is.

now I don't know what the people there are like
but you need to fuck them in their teeth
and bash their skulls with golf clubs
before they suck your soul out of your eye sockets
(with a vacuum)

I know a woman and I know a man and they sing much better that I can
could be one in a million or at least a hundred thousand
all I know is they could rule small towns
but they can't sing here
and be of our culture
a song in an ocean a song in a lake

I am the new lyricism
can you sing it in the forest
can you sing it on the land
can you sing it in a river
can you sing without a band
I am the new lyricism
born of the fear behind
the finger that lifts one closed venetian blind
and the eye revealed

there isn't enough to go around
the plenty has been fouled [etc. whole bit of local culture and just culture population ratios and standard deviations]

and bringing it all back you have to swallow that shit
poison fouls up inside of you, when you're trying to break through
because ten thousand ten thousand then thousand
gatekeepers and the panopticon

I am the new lyricism
flipping off the sanity control systems
the ones that keep you chained to television
or, a teacher, doctor, cop, to executioner

guarantee someone with the spark of a thousand like you (inside)
is covered by controllers

I never know why
I say I don't want to pry
that is all that I ever I ...
[etc.]

but now I say I am the new lyricism
culture on the scale of a thousand people you know
unchained from television

and when you see the unblinking eye
recognize its habitats

remember, I don't know what the people there are like
but you need to fuck them in their teeth
and bash their skulls with golf clubs, a podium
else they suck your soul out of your eye sockets

be afraid. this is life and death
the social worker works with the executioner.

and all those things you said in those romantic comedies
that you wouldn't want to live or here [in a million years]
you complete me
I'm nothing without you
I need you
I gave the best years of my life to you

this frantic scramble for experience
fighting off all comers to a moment
leaving life and relife behind
for one or two moments
to cling to and distort into a perfection
while burning the foundations of your life
kicking aside anyone that would betray you
one of your less than seconds of bliss
a billion dollars
a hundred lives
as if infatuations were pure
or difficult to find.

I've got those stree eet corner blues
north of south, east, west I can't choo oose
I've been waiting here too long
only sing i ing this song
I've got those street corner blues.

ok

2010-04-29T17:23:00.001-07:00

Thirteeen Ways Of Looking At Blackbirdswith youtube

2010-04-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

I Funeral Singers - Califone
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II Periodically Double or Triple - Yo La Tengo  
I was of three minds,
 Like a tree
 In which there are three blackbirds.

III Daylight - Matt & Kim  
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. 
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes  
A man and a woman
 Are one. 
A man and a woman and a blackbird 
Are one.

V Say Yes - Langhorne Slim  
I do not know which to prefer,
 The beauty of inflections
 Or the beauty of innuendos, 
The blackbird whistling 
Or just after.

VI White As Diamonds - Alela Diane
  Icicles filled the long window 
With barbaric glass. 
The shadow of the blackbird 
Crossed it, to and fro. 
The mood 
Traced in the shadow
 An indecipherable cause.

VII My Girls - Animal Collective  
O thin men of Haddam,
 Why do you imagine golden birds? 
Do you not see how the blackbird 
Walks around the feet 
Of the women about you?

VIII Too Many Birds - Bill Callahan
  I know noble accents 
And lucid, inescapable rhythms; 
But I know, too, 
That the blackbird is involved
 In what I know.

IX Actor Out Of Work - St. Vincent  
When the blackbird flew out of sight, 
It marked the edge
 Of one of many circles.

X Stillness Is The Move - Dirty Projectors  
At the sight of blackbirds 
Flying in a green light, 
Even the bawds of euphony 
Would cry out sharply.

XI Bull Black Nova - Wilco  
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach. 
Once, a fear pierced him,
 In that he mistook 
The shadow of his equipage 
For blackbirds.

XII While You Wait For The Others - Grizzly Bear  
The river is moving. 
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII I And Love And You - The Avett Brothers  
It was evening all afternoon. 
It was snowing 
And it was going to snow. 
The blackbird sat 
In the cedar-limbs.

2009 CD Mix Thirteen Ways Of Looking at a Blackbird

2010-04-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

I Funeral Singers - Califone
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II Periodically Double or Triple - Yo La Tengo  
I was of three minds,
 Like a tree
 In which there are three blackbirds.

III Daylight - Matt & Kim  
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. 
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes  
A man and a woman
 Are one. 
A man and a woman and a blackbird 
Are one.

V Say Yes - Langhorne Slim  
I do not know which to prefer,
 The beauty of inflections
 Or the beauty of innuendos, 
The blackbird whistling 
Or just after.

VI White As Diamonds - Alela Diane
  Icicles filled the long window 
With barbaric glass. 
The shadow of the blackbird 
Crossed it, to and fro. 
The mood 
Traced in the shadow
 An indecipherable cause.

VII My Girls - Animal Collective  
O thin men of Haddam,
 Why do you imagine golden birds? 
Do you not see how the blackbird 
Walks around the feet 
Of the women about you?

VIII Too Many Birds - Bill Callahan
  I know noble accents 
And lucid, inescapable rhythms; 
But I know, too, 
That the blackbird is involved
 In what I know.

IX Actor Out Of Work - St. Vincent  
When the blackbird flew out of sight, 
It marked the edge
 Of one of many circles.

X Stillness Is The Move - Dirty Projectors  
At the sight of blackbirds 
Flying in a green light, 
Even the bawds of euphony 
Would cry out sharply.

XI Bull Black Nova - Wilco  
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach. 
Once, a fear pierced him,
 In that he mistook 
The shadow of his equipage 
For blackbirds.

XII While You Wait For The Others - Grizzly Bear  
The river is moving. 
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII I And Love And You - The Avett Brothers  
It was evening all afternoon. 
It was snowing 
And it was going to snow. 
The blackbird sat 
In the cedar-limbs.

Go Outside Walkabout Sunlight

2010-04-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

1. sunlight - tune-yards
2. go outside - cults
3. stylo - gorillaz
4. walkabout - atlas sound
5. king of spain - the tallest man on earth
6. double knots - the living sisters
7. paddling ghost - dan deacon
8. ships with holes will sink - we were promised jetpacks
9. when they fight, they fight - generationals
10. whippin' piccadilly - gomez
11. I can't turn you loose - ottis reading
12. trilogy: Z) Eliminator Jr. - sonic youth
13. cut your hair - pavement
14. whole wide world - wreckless eric
15. popular mechanics for lovers - beulah
16. queen bitch - david bowie
17. camera talk - local natives
18. carol kaye - laura veirs
19. the cave - mumford and sons
20. so good - angela McCluskey

The Richard Alpert Episode

2010-04-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

I think you can watch this episode if you have not seen the show in a year, since season 1, or ever.
On hulu, it is tagged "greatest show ever" multiple times. If you are confused, just accept the confusion and wait it out as best you can. It doesn't matter. Yes it is the awaited Richard Alpert episode.

I'm sick of this Progress bull shit

2010-03-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

I am sick of all this progress bull shit. (just, I feel like that today and sometimes) Christians introduced this nutty notion of progress. Especially with Jesus dying once for everyone's sins. That was progress. he doesn't have to keep dying, progress was made and cannot be unmade. Maybe like everything. Which God started and God will end. and in between there is progress.

I now tie this to Lost and Jacob's "anything until then is progress." And drop the issue of progress to talk about a couple other aspects of Lost.

First, where is the imagery depicting hand/arm injuries as representations of loss of agency. I can't remember any right now but I sure there have to be at least some. But Lost has so much iconic imagery (black and white are good and evil) (the eye represents awareness) (mirrors can be like portals) (the isolated tropical beach is an arena for starting anew) that it I find it shocking that it hasn't been oozing with hand-agency metaphors. Especially considering the show is so concerned with agency. Concerned with agency in a very christian way.

(One example of hand=agency is at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Darth Vader shows his physical dominance over Luke in the light saber duel where Luke is no match. Vader cuts off Luke's hand to show Luke he has little agency. And that joining the dark side gives you power which can seem like agency.

At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke wails on Vader in a rage and cuts off Vader's hand to show that Luke now has agency. But he looks at his mechanical replacement hand and sees how similar it is to Vader's mechanical hand and he sees that the agency in this situation is based upon the Dark Side and anger and hate and Luke sees that this is not real agency - not the agency he wanted.

If you don't know Star Wars, just think of literature and movies and western culture and you will come up with examples of hand=agency)

But Lost??? where is the hand=agency. I guess Jack is a surgeon and he uses his hands in the surgery to have as much agency as he can over the world. And in Season 6 episode 8: Recon (the most recent) Sawyer has a bandaged hand after he smashes the mirror our of frustration with the lack of agency he has had. The bandaged hand shows this loss of agency. Slim pickings. Help in comments with more lost hand=agency examples. I don't want Lost dropping the ball for western civilization here.

And Lost is all about western civ and Christian ideas (and agency). One thing I really like is how Lost portrays Good and Evil. In the pilot Locke shows that they are not so different - just opposing pieces in a game of Backgammon.

It has been getting way better in this last season. Jacob is a great Christian God. For one thing, god supposedly made people in his own image - so I think it is cool that Jacob has to eat and poop and everything like us. Also, he is a total dick. He is not up front about things, he manipulates people for his own purposes in ways they hardly ever fully comprehend and he will go to great and mysteriously circuitous ways to get people to serve their purpose. Even if it causes great hardship for those he is guiding in the dark. He is a bitch to his closest servants. He'll make Sawyer write the letter to get him on the Island. He'll kill/not save Nadia to get Sayid back to the Island. He expects the best from people without giving them concrete signs that it is worth it.

Evil (Smokey, Flocke, Man in Black) makes more sense. Evil is cool. Evil is rational Evil is direct. Evil provides knowledge and information. Evil gives more concrete signs and promises about what one can gain. Evil is aware of the things that pisses people off about good.

But, at the end of the day. The devil is a liar. And good has a purpose - even if good kills as many as evil (I wager it kills one less overall) - and even if that purpose is some ridiculous notion of progress. And good tends and nurtures. Where Evil is similar but with nothing behind it - just destruction and materialism and illusory personal gain.

daylight saving time

2010-03-14T03:04:00.001-07:00

Holy Shit it just did it. 1:59, 3:00 AM

*I am against daylight saving time

springing forward while it is still winter.

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another handwritten page from my "Poetry Drafts" file folder

2010-03-12T20:27:00.000-08:00

One time,
She was screaming red steam at me
and [in the heat eye of it] it sounded like:
"if you love me so much (as you say you do)
how come you let me feel this horrible?"

Then [another time],
I was smashing the base of my fist against the wall at her
and [in the beat heart of it] it sounded like:
"if you love me so much (as you say you do)
how can you let me feel this horrible?"

as if we were in control of each other

written on hotel message pad late the night I didn't sleep before I got married

2010-03-12T20:20:00.001-08:00

a roving focal point in space;
a raving focal point in earth's mantle
you ellipse
yet rise
and rise
and rise

the foci of your life
are to swim the deepest sea
and to glide over the top of the highest peaks

April 10, 2010 : Celebrate MY Birthday as a Pirate!

2010-03-11T02:19:00.001-08:00




Captain Sebastian the Black and his crew understand it’s your birthday… Well matey, they have a special offer for you and your crew of birthday swashbucklers. Book your party of 4 or more Book your party of 4 or more full-priced admissions before 04/10/2010 and the 5th admission is FREE (up to a $56 dollar value). Use the code EBD2010 when making your reservation. Book your party of 15 or more Book your party of 15 or more before 04/10/2010 and you’ll receive not only one complimentary adult admission, but we’ll also put your name up in lights on our Pirate’s Dinner Adventure outdoor marquee on Beach Boulevard!* Use the code EBD2010 when making your reservation.




Not valid on New Year's Eve. Not valid on Saturdays. Not valid with any other offers, discounts or existing reservations. Must mention discount code when making reservations. Not valid for online reservations or prior bookings. Based upon availability. Expires: 04/10/2010 • Discount Code: EBD2010

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Pirate's Dinner Adventure
7600 Beach Blvd.
Buena Park, CA 90620

nickroehl@gmail.com is registered with permission.

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bowling Korea town. 4some scores 357 N 106

2010-03-10T22:48:00.001-08:00

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: Ranzen! Where is The Panchen Lama?

2010-03-10T16:52:00.001-08:00

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Dr Linus (screen grab)

2010-03-10T03:58:00.001-08:00

<div class="thumbnail"><br /><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Trebuchet, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 10px; color: #808080">Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!</span></div> Dr Linus. (Elba is the second Napoleon Exile Island)

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alas, it became art

2010-03-02T15:16:00.001-08:00

alas, it became art.

if I can not touch it,
if it is sealed, kept, set apart from now,
from using it,
if it is owned, stored or dated,
I don't think it counts.

too much pseudo-intellectual, ironic marketing
ownership, consumerism, reverence
suffocates that part of it that was ever
true to what it said it was.

[Patrocinio e Realizacao CENTRO CULTURAL / BANCO DO BRASIL
Co-realizacao THE GILBERT & LILA SILVERMAN FLUXUS COLLECTION FOUNDATION
Apoio INSTITUTO TAKANO]

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Candy? Iron? Bronze? Pottery?

2010-03-01T14:56:00.001-08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The Paul F. Tompkins Show <pftshow@gmail.com>
>

IT'S THE 8TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST

The

PAUL F. TOMPKINS

Show

That's right!

In March of 2002, THE PAUL F. TOMPKINS SHOW made its debut at a little nightclub called Largo!

It went on for a few years, and then Paul stopped doing it! He was going through some stuff!

He got through that stuff! Then he started doing the show again!

Then he moved to New York for a year, and couldn't do the show!

Then, his job in New York got canceled, he moved back to Los Angeles!

And he started doing THE PAUL F. TOMPKINS SHOW again!

And now here we are!

And so, in that joyfully convoluted vein, he invites you to attend

THE PAUL F. TOMPKINS EIGHTH (OR SIXTH) ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL!

with special guests

ED HELMS

and

THE WATKINS FAMILY!

Plus, some cool surprises that are actually pretty cool!

YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS THIS ONE!

YOU WILL WANT TO BRING SOMEONE WHO HASN'T SEEN THE SHOW BEFORE AND LOOK LIKE A GENIUS!

When: Thursday, March 25th 8:30PM

Where: Largo at The Coronet

366 N. La Cienega Boulevard

West Hollywood, CA 90048

Reservations: (310) 855-0350

How Much: $25

Must-Get-In List: $20 cash

If you'd like to reserve a seat without leaving a credit card over the phone--

and save $5 in the process-- reply to this email and get on the Must-Get-In List!

Include your name and the names of those in your party.

You will receive a confirmation email, then you simply pay cash at the door!

Space is limited

, so don't sleep on this!

Names must be received by Tuesday, March 23rd.

Must-Get-In Listers should arrive no later than 8PM to claim their seats.

* NOTE! * If you're already on the list but can't go for some pathetic reason, let us know, and we'll remove your name from the Must-Get-In List with extreme prejudice, so someone else can get in!

If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, simply reply to this email and type "Your emails are a problem because I lack persepctive" in the subject line.

Headquarters

Twitter

Facebook

Photo credit: Morgan Murphy

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family fun fantasy baseball announcement

2010-02-28T17:15:00.001-08:00

Hello,

You have been invited to join Family Fun custom league in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball, Family Fun.

In order to join the league, follow the link above or go to game front page, click the "Sign Up Now" or "Get Another Team" button and follow the links to "Join a Custom League". When prompted, enter the League ID# and password below.

League ID#: 272883
Password: archie

We will send you a confirmation with further details once you have completed the registration process.

Note from Nicholas:
It is Fantasy baseball Time With Family fun and all

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

This scene would work better if The Architect was sitting behind a desk

2010-02-17T15:35:00.001-08:00

the architect

From Evernote:

This scene would work better if The Architect was sitting behind a desk

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Account of Hero Quest 9 by Calexander the Elf

2010-02-14T21:24:00.001-08:00

The Account of The Elf, Calexander
regarding his death

The lights go out. [looks like]
the guy (prick) tricked us
"Farewell my heros"
"[sinister laughter]"

Hero Quest #9
Race Against Time

February 13
Patrick - scheming dastard
Mally Dwarf Gary
James Wizard
John Barbarian
Nick Elf Calexander

[chaos warrior ]

1. Elf skips
2. rolled 5
searched for
and found one secret door
3. rolled 6
went through secret door
4. rolled 6
searched for traps:
no traps
5. rolled 8
moved one to be in awesome position
checked for secret doors
no secret doors

[bourbon, pepsi, and ice :burpsi]

!ATTACKED! by "little" goblin
lost one point
rolled three white skulls and a black shield

6. just killed this guy - the goblin - after rolling something

7. two white skulls killed a goblin
rolled double six (for 12) - was really just showing off

roll 4 White skulls - down to 2 points

advised against using potion of healing

8. roll eleven move to door - no traps
9. didn't attack, rolled 6 but didn't move cause I was hurt like that

[2 Fimir; 3 attack 1 Defend]
[what attack the wizard]

10. used potion of healing brings points up to 6
rolled nine, search for traps:
no traps
11. rolled into new room:
searched for treasure ...
mellow harshed
blocked off!
ohhhhhh.
blocked again.

12. rolled six
13. rolled a seven
14. rolled an eight - moved out of the way

rolled shields, "nice"

15 rolled eight searched for secret door
16. moving behind, rolled ten
17. rolled nine, acted like a loser
18. Searched for doors - none
rolled a nine, moved wicked far
19. moved seven, two, six, three
20. moving backwards to first room
21. opened door - 3 bad dudes
killed the big one
nice.
22.ran away
24. being attacked by all sorts of shit
1 elk, 2 goblins
. fimir
killed goblin
ran away eight
but caught
died - ?
death by femur

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Renascene

2010-02-10T13:16:00.001-08:00

Renascene - Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917)

All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me.
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand!
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure the sky is big, I said:
Miles and miles above my head.
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop . . .
And - sure enough! - I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed, to feel it touch the sky.

I screamed, and - lo! - Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest;
Bent back my arm upon my breast;
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition of my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.

I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense,
That, sickening, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, - nay! but needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My Lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. - Ah fearful pawn:
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.

And all the while, for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire;
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, - then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.

I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more, - there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now.
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who's six feet under ground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face,
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

How can I bear it, buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-coloured, multi-form,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold! -
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchered away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and - crash!
Before the wild wind's whistling lash
The startled storm -clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky!
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain's cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealed sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see! -
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, -
I know not how such things can be! -
I breathed my soul back into me.

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed into the sky;
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes:
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I ca push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, -
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat - the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

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Thomas Jefferson was a dick

2010-02-05T22:52:00.001-08:00

onward these shoes.

Also,

Thomas Jefferson was a dick.

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Positive Affirmations for Taking Action

2010-02-04T12:28:00.001-08:00

-I can not abide an overly compromised live situation so I will fight. It saves a lot of time and energy to fight now instead of waiting for the negative consequences of laziness to manifest and grow until I am forced into action. It is just easier to do it now
-It is impossible to do nothing.
-My self-esteem, mental health, and social health are better when I am taking some action
- I know what I am doing more than I let myself think.
- I am more competent than I let myself think.
- Every minute is a choice to act.
- Inaction makes later action harder.
- Acting makes future actions easier.
- I thrive in structure so I should create it.
- You get out what you put in.
- I have a record of success.
- I can always act - no matter what the circumstances.
- When I am forcing myself to work, it is best if I don't struggle against myself.
- I crave independence, status, and inclusion even if I am sometimes conflicted about these ideas (and society as a whole).
- I can turn negative energies positive by using them to act.
- Calm derived from inactivity is a lie that can not last.
- Activity improves mastery and decreases fear.
- Acting to keep commitments to myself creates self-trust and a firm foundation for growth.
- I am worthy and important.
- I have desirable skills and talents. I have much to offer others.
- I can always just do it anyways

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I'm trying to watch season 4 and 5 by the time the new season comes around - if possible

2010-01-18T04:27:00.001-08:00

I'm sorry Charlie, this time, you have to die

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Nicholas Roehl wants to share a video from hulu.com

2010-01-16T16:32:00.001-08:00

Nicholas Roehl would like to share a video with you.

Message from Nicholas Roehl:
talking about Santa Claus
you get lthem to believe... only to snatch it away from them ...
"Welcom to Humanity"

You can see this video by clicking here. Or copy the following link into your browser to view the video:

Enjoy!

Hulu

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"Welcome to Humanity"

2010-01-16T15:50:00.000-08:00

From the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien on Thursday January 14 2010, a clip with Bryce Dallas Howard where she is talking about introducing her child to Santa Claus.

The best exchange starts about a minute in.
"They should believe ..."
"to then be told it's all a lie?..."
"yeah"

"Welcome to humanity"

This outing is taking much longer than I was told it would.

2009-12-17T17:33:00.001-08:00

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Sometimes A Great Notion

2009-12-10T22:22:00.001-08:00

I have been reading "Sometimes A Great Notion" by Ken Kesey for over a year now. It is very good. It is hard to describe why I keep putting it down. (the foreboding, the aching beauty, the depth) But it is fabulous and I keep picking it up again and remembering everything that happened before when I do. I wrote the following down on the back page of my copy:

"society - a venal conspiracy of the weak - attempts to tear down and level off (cut off at the knees or fingers) the Strong Man Alone (Hank Stamper). The SMA has struggle enough in his Personal Struggle against/with Nature. He is too strong to show his struggle because he enjoys it and draws strength from it. So, he appears above the struggle, easy with it. This ease spurs society on its quest to level off the thorny edge of wild freedom
--------------------------
"Then also, this book involves mother fucking. (*step* mother fucking) The Strong Man Alone has trouble with the Close Family Individuals He Knows. They complicate his relationship with nature and with society--- as his wife, step mom, dad, step brother are NOT a Venal Conspiracy of the Weak to cut him down. [But that Lee is in a VCoW against Hank's SMA] Family is where SMA's struggle vs. society & vs. nature meet --- it is where he is most vulnerable as he is not in direct opposition to his family, more his struggle is for a clarity in his relationships with his family."

so I don't remember writing that, but it is pretty good. Also now below this I will have a bit of the book,

"because an echo is an inflexible and pitiless taskmaster: you sing the echo's way because it is damned sure not going to sing yours. And even after you leave this mossy acoustical phenomenon to go on with your hiking or fishing, you cannot help feelingm for a long time after, that any jig you whistle, hymn you hum, or song you sing is somehow immutably tuned to an echo yet unheard, or relentlessly echoing a tune long forgotten." (page 286)

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

All broad, definative statements are sometimes wrong - including this one. Everything in moderation - including moderation.

2009-12-10T12:48:00.001-08:00

Posted via SMS from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Spineless Duplicitous Bull Shit

2009-12-06T09:31:00.001-08:00

Spineless Duplicitous Bull Shit.
(where I feed the troll)

This fucking suggesting enough to make people believe something with such meticulous deceit that they can go back and say they didn't say it. That is the worst type of lie - bad in general, but much worse when used to sabotage the country. It is creating such a horrifying situation. Irresponsible politicians carefully perpetuating alternate realties. Turning America into two different countries. In one country Saddam Hussein was involved in planning September Eleventh and in another country he was not. This is tearing the fabric of the nation apart.

And, I guess this post is more about the venial spineless manner of going about it - The saying it but not saying it. Fix News always has a question mark after their biggest lies. But they know what they are doing and it is tearing America apart from itself into universes that are fundamentally different. One where Obama is American, and one where Obama is not. But oh, Peylyn isn't going to say that Obama is Nigerian or that Black people aren't really American. (He is half-white, which is pretty fucking white) She is going to say that stoking the fires of ignorance and deception is perfectly acceptable and that she will continue to do it until people finally stop listening. That is what she says and that is what pisses me off. She says, [ha ha ha] yes this type of shit is fine by me.

"I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue," [Peylyn] said. "I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers."
-December 3, 2009, Rusty Humphries Radio Program

"But at no point - not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews - have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States."
-December 3, 2009, Facebook

I know I should not feed the troll and I have feebly acknowledged that by mispelling her name so I don't get counted as chatter about her, but I still link to her stupid facebook page and plug the stupid radio host.

Anyways, I could have done that just by linking to the Huffpost article that I got the quotations and the story from. (If you listen to the video it isn't as bad as it reads, I think, but still it is as bad,)

This is why I try to avoid the news. This isn't news, it is hot air. And I am currently caught up in enough hot air to fucking write this shit to no one.

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

preliminary top ten albums of 2009

2009-11-28T21:36:00.001-08:00

This may change but, here is a first attempt at getting the top 10 albums of 2009. I actually have a top 25. That is a nice number. Plenty of good albums.

1. Embryonic - The Flaming Lips
2. Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors
3. Actor - St. Vincent
4. Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective
5. Where The Wild Things Are - Karen O and the Kids
6. Horehound - The Dead Weather
7. Grand - Matt & Kim
8. Live in London - Leonard Cohen
9. Middle Cyclone - Neko Case
10. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear

11. Kid A (Collector's Edition) - Radiohead
12. One Foot in the Grave [Expanded Edition] - Beck
13. Wilco (the album) - Wilco
14. Posthumous Success - Tom Brosseau
15. Those Darlins - Those Darlins
16. The Woodlands - The Woodlands
17. To Be Still - Alela Diane
18. A Woman A Man Walked By - PJ Harvey
19. The Silence of Love - Headless Heroes
20. Goodnight Unknown - Lou Barlow

21. Tonight: Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
22. Sketches of Spain 50th Anniversary (Legacy Edition) - Miles Davis
23. Spells - The Happy Hollows
24. The Briar Patch - Freddy & Francine
25. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

hiccups

2009-11-26T04:03:00.001-08:00

holy fucking shit, hiccups, die - stop - die die die - stop stop stop. No more hiccups

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Please Forward Widely: Students Arrested and Skirmishes Reported @ Regents Meeting, Covel Commons

2009-11-18T15:03:00.001-08:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Subject: [IS-CHAT] Fwd: Please Forward Widely: Students Arrested and Skirmishes Reported @ Regents Meeting, Covel Commons
To: is-chat@lists.gseis.ucla.edu

Stay updated, or better yet, go to Covel and support!
UCLA Resistance: Skirmishes and Possible Taser Use Reported http://uclaresists.blogspot.com/2009/11/ucla-skirmishes-taser-use-by-police.html
8 Arrests Reported in the Regents Meeting
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/eight-arrested-at-uc-regents-meeting-at-ucla-.html
Twitter from inside the Regents Meeting itself
http://twitter.com/ucreentlive

Posted via email from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Home Movies - Trust Yourself

2009-11-15T00:59:00.001-08:00

via youtube.com

I really enjoy the TV show Home Movies. This is one of the many wonderful parts of that show.

Posted via web from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

About | Giant Robot Biennale 2: 15 Years | Japanese American National Museum

2009-11-13T02:13:00.001-08:00

via janm.org

Curated by Giant Robot co-founder and co-editor Eric Nakamura, this expanded follow-up to the 2007 exhibition Giant Robot Biennale: 50 Issues will highlight artists associated with the magazine over the past 15 years.

David Choe • James Jean • Souther Salazar • Theo Ellsworth • kozyndan • Stella Lai • Jack Long • Albert Reyes • Jeff Soto • Rob Sato • Deth P. Sun

Providing an overview of the Giant Robot aesthetic, this multi-faceted exhibition will celebrate the depth and diversity of perspectives found within the Giant Robot experience through a series of components that visually represents the magazine’s ethos.

GR2 includes installations by David Choe, James Jean, and Souther Salazar, in addition to works by Theo Ellsworth, kozyndan, Stella Lai, Jack Long, Albert Reyes, Jeff Soto, Rob Sato, and Deth P. Sun.

Other components feature a group show of more than 50 other artists; a retrospective for longtime magazine contributor Ben Clark; a tribute to the kaiju scene featuring collaborative works made by indie sculptor and artist Yukinori Dehara, UglyDolls co-creator David Horvath, and Portland-based underground toy legend LeMerde; and four custom videogames developed by the Attract Mode Collective in conjunction with some of Giant Robot’s favorite artists.

Posted via web from We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Ahead On These Shoes

2009-11-08T04:11:00.001-08:00

Ahead On These Shoes

Teenage lust rings most true
No matter how randomly they choose
You are old and wise and untrue

Confused emotions are always more true
Move forward with this Western news

____
for Caroline 11/6 or 1 2009

Posted via email from nicholasr's posterous

5 Great 2007 Albums of 2009

2009-11-04T13:59:00.001-08:00

2007 was such a great year for new music, that I am still finding awesome albums released in that year. Some by way of great 2009 releases. (Sorry 2008, you are the bad meat in a lose sandwich.) So that is why I am posting this list of

Great Albums Released in 2007 That I Didn't Get Around to Loving Until This Year

*Love is Simple by Akron/Family - the band was suggested to me after I got into Dirty Projectors and Grizzly Bear
*Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective - I heard this in 2008 at least but I only very recently came to really appreciate it, (well after I got into Merriweather Post Pavillion) and hear the "noise" turn into music.
*Emotionalism by The Avett Brothers - 2009 single led me to this album
*Marry Me by St. Vincent. I loved this year's "Actor" and went back and loved its predecessor.
*Grand Forks by Tom Brosseau - 2009 single led me to this album

2009 has seen follow ups to each of the five albums on the list. I prefer the 2007 albums. (I am amazed I can say that.)

honorable mention
*Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon by Devendra Banhart - I got into Alela Diane and was introduced to the term "New Weird America." I heard some of his earlier stuff and this album seemed well recommended. He may be too hip for me. Sea Horse is a great song. But, some songs - especially Shabop Shalom - well executed and clever as they are, undermine my ability to connect emotionally to other songs. Like Saved. Can I enjoy the emotion and strength of that song honestly? Or do a need a bunch of irony? How much irony? I know I like ironic music and slightly ironic music and music with ironic nods in them, but I think Banhart may have crossed some sort of hipster line only reachable by the L train into Brooklyn. So, maybe later I'll have a Strawberry Jam type re-evaluation of this, but as of right now, this album doesn't really belong on the list as I don't currently *love* it. But it is good. But I haven't bought his 2009 release.

Posted via email from nicholasr's posterous