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Friday, June 29th, 2012
This morning, riding the train from Mountain Station,  I happened to be looking through a notebook of mine, having a hard time pushing myself to write, so just rereading some pieces I've written over the past year or so and fretting about how they are not good enough... I found an early draft of the poem "Morning", which I really enjoyed reading, was even having a hard time picturing anything that could be changed to make it better -- a nice time reading. (But can also be a bit worrysome, like "Hm, well it is not good enough and yet I enjoy reading it; ergo my taste in poetry is poor.") Happily(?), it did not take too many repeated readings to start hearing missed timings and improper tones... Then this evening, back home, I was looking at my blog and noticed a referral from Orbis Quintus (a READIN-editorial-favorite blog for interesting links about archæology and more, which has been dormant for a while but is back in a big way this past week or so) to an old page of mine, one which coincidentally features midway down a later (second?) draft of the poem in question. Well! It did not take much to persuade myself that that was what I should be working on this evening. It's getting better, the poem, and it was pretty good to start with I think, with just a couple of semi-glaring flaws that came out to me a little more with each rereading. I will post the version I'm working on now a little later.
posted evening of June 29th, 2012: 1 response
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Wednesday, June 27th, 2012
The truth is you already know what it's like. You already know the difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all you can ever let anyone know. As though inside you is this enormous room full of what seems like everything in the whole universe at one time or another and yet the only parts that get out have to somehow squeeze out through one of those tiny keyholes you see under the knob in older doors. As if we are all trying to see each other through these tiny keyholes.
"Good Old Neon", the fifth story in David Wallace's 2004 collection Oblivion, is just an excruciating story to read. Especially (of course) in light of Wallace's ultimate fate, and especially the last two pages of the story; but even without the author's suicide, even without those last two pages, the story brings the reader unbearably close to the mental process of contemplating suicide and of being driven to contemplate suicide. The act of identifying with the narrator (and of identifying with the author, identifying with his character) is excruciating.
posted evening of June 27th, 2012: Respond
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Sunday, June 24th, 2012
Let's listen to Puttin' on the Ritz . Bunch of versions at the link, mostly brand-new to me. Check em out! Sheet music here.
posted evening of June 24th, 2012: Respond
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Saturday, June 23rd, 2012
 on a sunny day in June.Thanks, Ellen!
posted morning of June 23rd, 2012: Respond
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Monday, June 18th, 2012
Jose Antonio Vargas asks, a year after his essay for the Times Magazine, "Why have I not been deported? How do you define American?"
posted afternoon of June 18th, 2012: Respond
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Here's the brand-new podcast from Mountain Station,
posted afternoon of June 18th, 2012: Respond
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Sunday, June 17th, 2012
He grinned at them particularly because he knew that in a few minutes, he would be giving them one hell of a quote.
I have to wonder if any readers have commented on the similarities between Zaphod's theft of the Heart of Gold, and Bilbo Baggins's eleventyfirst birthday party.
I had totally forgotten this: every time I say or write "This is obviously some strange new use of the word (whatever the word is) that I was previously unfamiliar with" (which happens with nonzero frequency), I am making a reference to Arthur Dent and to the Hitchhiker's Guide. Don't know if Adams was the inventor of the construction but this is certainly the first place I ever saw it.
posted evening of June 17th, 2012: Respond
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We three went over to the South Orange/Maplewood Public Library's yearly book sale this morning -- $5 for a bag of used books -- and came away with a bag apiece. Some highlights -- The Hitchhiker's Guide and The Lord of the Rings (box set of paperbacks in poor but perfectly readable condition) were among Sylvia's haul. A nicish edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare and a Bullfinch's Mythology. The Æneid in Latin with copious commentary/glossary from Barbara Weiden Boyd and marginalia aplenty.
 (Note of thanks to Juan Gabriel Vásquez without whose columns to read I would not have thought to pick up the Æneid or the Shakespeare)
posted afternoon of June 17th, 2012: 1 response
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Saturday, June 16th, 2012
 A couple of observations at semi-random about Saura's CrÃa Cuervos, in the interests of jump-starting the discussion that Richard and Stu are leading on the weekend of July 6 -- a few things that have been running through my head while watching it.
I am imagining an alternate but parallel reality in which this film is an animated feature rather than live-action, and the artist who created it is Edward Gorey. I'm not sure how to illustrate this, quite,* but Saura's world and Gorey's seem to have quite a bit in common both visually and thematically.†I dig the theme song, "Porque te vas" by Jeanette (and see also this cover, by Pato Fu), while thinking that some of its appeal for me lies in its foreignness, that if it were an American song I might well find it bland and unlistenable. Am I wrong in thinking Geraldine Chaplin played several parts? Looking at the Criterion page... It only lists her as playing Ana's mother ('s ghost); but I thought that she was also playing the character of Ana herself as an adult, in soliloquies and voice-overs. The movie's title, "Bring up ravens" (or perhaps "Raise ravens" is better, or even "Keep ravens"?) comes from the proverb "CrÃa cuervos, y te sacarán los ojos"-- "Raise ravens, and they will pluck out your eyes." Thinking of Ana and her sisters as "ravens," as malevolent, is not quite clicking for me. Perhaps it will work better to think of this expression as showing how the adults in the film are thinking of the kids, rather than as a statement about the reality of the film. A parallel English-language construction might be to title the movie "Sharper than a serpent's tooth."‡ One other thing, is this about ravens perhaps what was being signified by the plate full of chicken feet that was in the refrigerator every time Ana opened it? Having the pet guinea pig die near the end of the film seemed a bit like overkill -- that whole scene (and the burial, natch) could have been chopped from the movie without losing much, I think. (It makes Roni into more of a narrative device, a Chekhovian gun, than a full character, which is how I had been seeing him earlier in the movie.) Speaking of scenes, the one about 15 minutes in, where Ana sees herself jumping, has got to rank pretty high on the index of emotionally overwhelming scenes in movies. Her character made me think a bit of Oskar in The Tin Drum. (Come to think of it, another movie for which parallel-universe Gorey might well be a good pick as animator.) Ana Torrent's other movies are going right onto my Netflix queue, starting with El espÃritu de la colmena.
*And yet it seems to me that the interaction between the young Ana and Nicolas in the beginning of the trailer makes as good an illustration of that as anything. †This suggests what might be a fun game, imagining which artist would animate which various live-action movies... Ghostbusters (perhaps cheating, this movie is very nearly animated already) suggests maybe, I don't know, Miyazaki? And Treasure of the Sierra Madre would of course go to Warner Bros. -- I think indeed that this may have already happened... Can very easily picture Bugs saying to Elmer, "Eh... We don't need no stinkin' badges, Doc!" ‡And looking at imdb, I am feeling amazed that this title has never yet been used for a movie...
posted evening of June 16th, 2012: 1 response
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Friday, June 15th, 2012
Michael of The New Post-Literate posts a fantastic new piece of work from SAzzTnt, which appears to be composing a soundtrack record for the forthcoming Seraphinianus...
 (be sure to click thru)
posted evening of June 15th, 2012: 1 response
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