con sordino

Berfday Festivi-tease!

2007-10-12T23:56:23Z

Sorry for the late notice; between work and play rehearsals things have been pretty hectic. Here's the scoop on my weekend festivities to celebrate yet another artfully arranged pile of 365 spent days....

TONIGHT:
Come with me to enjoy the art-pop sounds of The Story Of, at the Mohawk, 9:30pm and onward. Loud noises, pretty sounds, and hipsters in their natural habitat!

SUNDAY:
Dinner at Vespaio. 8pm. RSVP by 8pm Saturday night so I can get a reservation in. Wine! Pasta! Conversation! More Wine!

If you can't make it due to geography or prior plans, no worries. I love you all and your bountiful awesomeness brightens my life from wherever you may be.

What Do You Have To Say? - Writing: Makes Me A Better Writer

2007-09-03T16:57:55Z

What's been your biggest influence in making you a better writer?

View other answers

Reading. It's that simple.

William S. Burroughs said "Language is a virus," and he was right, because it's self-replicating. There's nothing more tiresome than a writer who doesn't read, and no writer more inspired than the one who does.

Reading is a well that never runs out of water, and all you have to do is dip the bucket and drink. It's as essential, and as nourishing, as that.

Europe, continued

2007-06-30T17:38:09Z

Hang Gliding

I was fully prepared to be scared out of my wits, but it was surprisingly easy to run down the steep hill and straight into the air. After that, it was a half-hour of non-stop giddiness. Being along for the ride was great, especially when the pilot started doing stalls, dives, and wing drops, but the moment when I was truly hooked was when I took the controls for a few minutes. Texas needs to sprout some fresh mountains, quick, or else I'm going to have to move somewhere else.

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

It took me 24 hours of trains and busses to make my way here from Switzerland. Then an hour of wandering twisted medieval streets in the wrong direction because the guidebook map was inaccurate. Being here was entirely worth the whole ordeal, though. CK is listed second to Venice on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites, and with good reason. To continue the Hayao Miyazaki comparison's, Krumlov is like the mountain towns seen in the beginning of Castle In The Sky, only here the castle isn't in the sky, it's atop a hill right in the middle of town. It's a beautiful agglomeration of ancient buildings surrounding a massive chateau complex of 40-plus buildings, all tightly embraced in a winding S-curve of the Vltava (Moldau) River.

Let no one tell you that the Czech Republic is not cheap anymore....it may be more expensive than it once was, but when I can have 2.5 liters of beer, an appetizer, an entree, and an absinthe for a grand one-night total of $19, it is plenty cheap here.

The hostel I had in Krumlov is - if such a thing is possible - even more awesome than the one in Antwerp was.   This one - called Krunlov House - was lovingly renovated with handbuilt furniture and staircases by a bunch of Australian backpackers, and it's quite possibly the most perfect place to stay in this town. Yes, there are stunningly beautiful posh hotels here, but if you want to live, eat and socialize like a local this is the place to be. The party people stay at Hostel 99, but the travellers with a capital T will be far happier at Krumlov House.

A few highlights:

River-rafting on the Vltava.

Walking through the stunning multi-period castle by day.

The local Eggenberg beer, from a brewery that "modernized" in the 19th century by installing steam machinery.

Horor Bar, a warren of arched cellars that may be the most perfect goth bar ever - the bartenders were both cute girls in a casual, everyday sort of goth dress, however the music was not "goth" but a variety of alternative music ranging from Iggy Pop to The Fall, and the patrons were just there for the atmosphere, not to be "blacker and lacier than thou".

Rambling conversation with a couple of local Czech guys at the self-same Horor bar.

Sneaking into the castle with one of them after dark.

The small but beautiful collection of Egon Schiele paintings at the Centrum Egon Schiele, especially his townscapes of Cesky Krumlov.

The Keith Haring exhibition at the Centrum which featured most pominently his illustration work for texts by William S. Burroughs, as opposed to the usual Haring stuff you always see everywhere, (Unfortunately, no photos were allowed or I would have photographed some of the best ones for Karin).

And now a stuffy three-hour bus ride has brought me to Prague...

I loved CK so much it's hard to imagine I'll like it here nearly as much. The hostel is very new and very modern in its design, but it doesn't have any real character. It's all style, and no "Hey, a big group from the hostel are going to see the live band at Gypsy Bar tonight".   I'm sure Prague will be of massive interest anyway, but if not for this place requiring an unusual 48 hours notice for cancellations I might well have stayed in CK until the last night of my trip.

More to come.

Love and Bohemian Bonhomie,

Jonathan

Catching Up On Europe

2007-06-27T08:05:06Z

Why Brussels Sucked:

It was unseasonably hot. It was nearly impossible to navigate, and I have breezed through every other city on this trip with ease (even the supposedly notoriously difficult Amsterdam). The directions to the hostel were so terrible I spent an hour wandering up and down hills before finding the street I needed at a 90-degree angle to where they said it would be. After that much time wasted, I had precious little to find the Musee des Beaux-Arts...and when at last I did, it was the Palais des B-A. Arrrgggh.   So, more walking, and finally arriving at the museum, which by then was closed. So I never saw The Fall Of Icarus or any of the other masterpieces, and Brussels was pretty much a complete wash.

It was punctuated by a failed attempt to meet up with some people from the hostel that night, and ending up alone in a cafe, getting service that even by European cafe standards was terrible.

Also, the Bruxellois apparently have no sense of humor. Despite valiantly trying to put a comic spin on my predicaments, I never saw one of them so much as crack a half-smile. Most regarded me as if I were from another planet.

And finally, Brussels is ugly. I can say this because everyone who lives there freely admits it. It's not even the edgy, exciting sort of ugly you get from parts of New York, though. It's not a lively arts and industry and street performers and subcultures, so-much-goes-on-here-we-have-no-time-to-make-it-pretty ugly, it's just plain ugly.

Next time I come to Belgium, I'm staying in Antwerp and just taking the train to Brussels for museum visits.

Amsterdam and MINI United:

MINI United was cool. Not at all a "singles mixer for MINI owners" as Bruce had jokingly called it, though. In fact, my number one complaint is that most people there came with an established MINI club from their hometown somewhere in Europe, and the way the festival was designed, people mostly just stayed in their established cliques. There weren't any events that would really encourage you to meet anyone else.

So the whole thing ended up feeling like going to an amusement park by yourself, but what an amusement park! Over the course of 3 days, I:

    - learned to do a cool James Bond style reverse 180-degree turn
    - took 6 speedy laps around the Zandvoort Formula 1 circuit in my loaner MINI from MINI USA
    - took 2 far speedier laps as a passenger to one of the MINI Challenge drivers, in his souped-up track racing MINI
    - took one of the new diesel MINIs for a high-speed rally-style group test drive around the public roads of the small beachfront community of Zandvoort. I think we flouted about 15 different European laws, but we did so very safely. :)
    - drove go-karts at speeds no American company would ever allow
    - saw two half-hour races in the MINI Challenge series...and discovered I have a much higher level of patience for motorsports when they don't last 4 hours (I'm talking to you, NASCAR)
    - saw several live bands, and some DJs from Hed Kandi (a pretty good house label, only slightly cheesy)

Meanwhile, the MINI USA crew gave us free drinks every night, an Amsterdam canal cruise the first night, and dinner at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen on the last night.

After MINI United, I spent most of my last day checking out the Van Gogh Museum, which was entirely worth the hype. Those paintings have to be seen in person to be truly appreciated.

On the whole, I liked Amsterdam. The ethnic food is amazing, and the quality you can get from cheap street food is unparalelled. The city is very pedestrian-friendly, and the red-light district not nearly as dramatic as people made it out to be. The people are some of the nicest, most hospitable people I've ever encountered in a city this size.

Night Train

Cue Oscar Peterson.... After Amsterdam, I took the CityNightLine to Switzerland. Provided you're not a light sleeper, it's a great way to travel and save yourself a night in a hotel.

Now I am in Interlaken.   If Brugge was Kiki's Delivery Service, then Interlaken and the surrounding villages (especially the hike down the valley from Murren to Gimmelwald) are Nausicaa's home valley in Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.   I spent the whole day yesterday riding trains and cable cars up mountains so I could walk down the other side of them. It's so picturesque here you can't quite believe it. I exhausted the camera battery by mid-afternoon, so the stunning views of the Eiger as I walked through Murren will have to remain unphotographed.

Now I'm off to pack up the gear before an afternoon of Alpine hang-gliding, then a night train to the Czech Republic.

Apologies for the mundanity of the posts so far...foreign keyboards and 30 minute time limits don't lend themselves to rumination, but there will be deeper, juicier stuff once I return.

Love to all of you,

Jonathan

Miscellaneous Europe updates

2007-06-20T19:27:55Z

Oper Koln

I am pretty sure the original Handel version of Giulio Cesare was not so sexy. This production featured harem dancers stripping to their undergarments, a male soprano in high heels, leather pants, and pompadour, and Cleopatra as a dominatrix in the third act. Still, the audience predominated by sexagenarians gave them enthusiastic applause and 4 curtain calls. Easily the finest young operatic cast I have ever seen. The hall was uninspiring and the production values more weird than wonderful, but the singing was divine:

More on Brugge

Had a lovely night walking around the place with a couple of people from the hostel: Ellie from Australia and Anne-Marie, a Quebecois studying in Vienna: Unfortunately, they weren't keen to actually go in anywhere, so we ended up back at the hostel by 10. I was so wired up with digging on the town that I wanted to head back out; but no one was left in the hostel, so I wandered alone, and ended up having one lonely beer at 't Brugse Beertje before calling it a night. The place was full of obnoxiously loud English metalheads...not my cup of tea.

I did, however, earlier have an excellent dinner. I wouldn't have expected it fro, a place called the Hoobit, but the kitsch was non-existent, the all-you-can eat grilled meats were excellent, and the Hoegaarden was ice cold. Yum!

As a side note, the cute waitress with the geeky glasses and desultory haircut was not my waitress, but she served to prove an interesting point: thong hanging out of your low-cut jeans...tacky. Sparkling white huge briefs doing same...inexplicably sexy.

Brussels

A nightmare. More on that later. Luckily, I am now in the coolest, most convivial-without-being-frattish-and-boorish hostel ever in Antwerp, and down the street is a cafe serving 200 kinds of jenever. Life is good again. Let's just pretend Brussels never happened.

Love and euro-kisses

J

Who wants witty postcards?

2007-06-19T10:00:58Z

I have found some real corkers already. Thank you, Tintin store. If you want one, e-mail me your address at my gmail account, unless you are Joy - yours I have from your condo postcard. If you don't have my e=mail, post a comment here and we'll sort it out.

Kiki's Delivery Service, minus the witch part....

2007-06-18T16:21:53Z

...that's Brugge in a nutshell. This place is so like that town it's eerie. I want to stay for months. phylomath should visit post-haste. More later because this keyboard is tiresome, but all I can say is WOW. I should have planned for more than one night here.

Tuesday Poem #9: Musee des Beaux-Arts

2007-06-17T15:50:29Z

Today I landed in Cologne after some 21 hours of combined travel. Groggy, hungry, and very excited, I made my way through customs to the S-Bahn station. Despite having learned at least 90 percent of my German from Beethoven librettos, I made my way effortlessly (but not uneventfully) through a series of trains and trams to my tiny no-frills hotel in Neumarkt.

The eventful part came when I emerged from the Hauptbahnhof (central train station) directly in the shadow of Koln's massive Dom (cathedral). The many steps all around it were littered with tourists, yes, but also with three times as many locals enjoying the summer sun. Apparently sitting on the cathedral stoop is the Kolnischer (is that the word?) version of what Southerners in the U.S. call "porch sittin'". It's an impressive sight to see teenagers with Technicolor hair and loud boom boxes next to Asian businessmen eating pizza and elderly locals with canes, all enjoying an afternoon sprawl in the sun.

It was at about this time that I started thinking about today's poem. It's actually two days early - on Tuesday I will be in Brussels, and will indeed be visiting the Musee des Beaux-Arts, but there in a welter of language I mostly don't understand, I noticed how much I was paying attention - actively taking things in, automatically thinking about context.

Today's poem is in a way an anti-travel poem. One of many ways to read it is as a comment on our human failure to see the wonderful and unusual and terrible taking place around us. We're so busy with our own everyday lives that we don't realize that the foreign, the strange, the spectacular is right under our noses.

But I think that gets at the heart of why we travel. It is less about the destination than it is about a way of thinking about place, a way of responding to everyday life. Travel awakens our "pay attention" circuits and sets them on high alert. We travel so that when we go home, we'll notice things there that we never saw before, because we come home thinking about context, treating every situation as an exercise in orienting ourselves and thereby possibly discovering a new angle from which we never saw our own little lives.

So, that brings us to the poem. I love this poem because it's the first time a work of art made me love another work of art I had never even seen. Later, when I found an image of the painting "The Fall Of Icarus", it was precisely as I had imagined it, and then I loved it twice as much.

Musee des Beaux-Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

- W. H. Auden

Speaking of suffering (forgive the segue), the fare at the venerable Brauerie Päffgen is the exact opposite of it. The local breweries here all brew Kölsch, a light but complex and slighly bitter brew served in elegant little glass cylinders. Combine that with a plate full of Wienerschnitzel, delicious potatoes bathed in a tartar-like sauce, and a cornucopia of other things I was unable to identify, and it makes for a very fine lunchtime feast.

That pretty handily crossed hunger off my list of ailments. Let's hope the grogginess fades in time for tonight's entertainment: if I can find my way to Offenbachplatz, I am going to see the Oper Koln perform Handel's Giulio Cesare. After that, if I have any energy left, I' going to a local club where DJ's from the excellent minimal techno label Kompakt man the decks every night of the week.

Tuesday Poem #8: Ithaka (the "abbandono is going to Europe" commemorative poem)

2007-06-05T20:46:50Z

So I'm going to Europe in two weeks. I deliberately haven't much of a plan...it's all very napkin-sketch. My very limited itinerary includes:

1) Drink a fresh Kolsch in Koln/Cologne
2) See Brueghel's "The Fall Of Icarus" at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Brussels
3) Attend the international MINI festival/party MINI United in Amsterdam
4) Visit Meteren, a tiny town in Geldermalsen, Netherlands that is the origin of my surname
5) Send home postcards and Belgian chocolates (more on that later)
6) Time permitting, hang- or para-glide in the Alps
7) Spend some time futzing around in Prague
8) TIme permitting, visit honorary family member Fenar in Copenhagen
9) As much as possible, take only pinhole and zone plate photographs. *

* I don't want to take the same Europe photos thousands of others have taken, and this seems like a good restriction to encourage creativity. I'll have only one other lens with me, for portraits of friends made along the way and other things that don't lend themselves to long exposures.

So, in honor of my impending journey, I'll be expanding the Tuesday poem into a series of posts over the next two weeks. This first one is perhaps the greatest travel poem ever written, most of all because it is not necessarily about travel.

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
may there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbours seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Constantine Cavafy
Tr. Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard

Who wants a Morrissey ticket?

2007-05-25T20:56:05Z

The Moz is coming to Austin, tomorrow at the Backyard. I have two tickets, but there is only one of me. Who wants the other ticket?

Fair warning: it's an outdoor show, and supposed to be rain or shine, BUT the Mozzer might cancel, or it might get very soggy and miserable out there.

His new album is superb, though, so it should be entertaining enough to be worth a few minor trials.

Post a comment or e-mail me, and the ticket is yours. Free, but a small donation is welcome if it makes you feel better.

Tuesday Poem #7 (belatedly): On The Roof

2007-05-23T13:09:43Z

On The Roof

The trouble with me is that whether I get love or not
I suffer from it. My heart always seems to be prowling
a mile ahead of me, and, by the time I get there to surround it,
it's chewing fences in the next county, clawing
the bank-vault wall down or smashing in the window
I had just started etching my name on with my diamond.

And that's how come I end up on the roof. Because even if I talk
into my fist everyone still hears my voice like the ocean
in theirs, and so they solace me and I have to keep
breaking toes with my gun-boots and coming up here
to live—by myself, like an aerial, with a hand on the ledge,
one eye glued to the tin door and one to the skylight.

- C.K. Williams

Links and Wiinks

2006-12-04T20:06:51Z

Links for wordies:

Wordie.org is a site for people who like words. Make lists of your favorite words, hated words, favorite palindromes, etc. Lots of fun. My lists are here, but I haven't entered many words yet.

The Unsuggester is a project by LibraryThing designed to invert the "if you liked this, you will like that" concept so prevalent on e-commerce and social networking sites nowadays. The idea is to present you with the books you are least likely to have read, or want to read, based on a favorite book which you have read already.

I tried it out with Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and the result suggests that fans of Calvino's poetic exploration of urbanity are highly unlikely to like John Grisham novels. Entirely accurate - I've never read a Grisham novel, and he's not on my reading list.

On the other hand, when I entered Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse, I was informed that I'm very unlikely to also like Chuck Palahniuk novels, or Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami. Not so accurate there, especially considering I recently read the latter and loved it. I guess I'm within the wee standard deviation on that one.

Links for gamers:

My Nintendo Wii was due to arrive Friday, but was delayed by the nationwide arctic cold snap, so meanwhile I'm amusing myself with links from the internets.

Grow Your Own 1-Up Mushroom - That's right. Now you can have "do overs" power in real life, with your very own Super Mario-style 1-up mushroom.

Dolce & Gabbana's Nintendo T-shirt - Well, it does seem like gaming is becoming more and more chic, but that doesn't make this $175 Dolce & Gabbana t-shirt any less ridiculous. The worst part is, I think they just took an old Nintendo ad from the Nintendo 64 era and put it on the shirt verbatim. Lame.

ps - Yes, there is actually a site called gaygamer.net, and yes, their slogan really is "For boys who like boys who like joysticks!"

I give the slogan a C-minus, but the site itself is a welcome change from all the mainstream gaming blogs that get 90% of their content from the other mainstream gaming blogs. (Funny how that sounds exactly like music blogs, innit?) This is just the sort of niche gamer market that Nintendo is poised to conquer, if they can just figure out how. Allow me to suggest a Project Runway game. You can cut and sew your clothing with the Wiimote, and Tim Gunn can pop up every now and then to say "Make it work!" or the dreaded "Well, I'll leave you to it." :)

The Joy Of Wii - If you've been on the fence about buying a Wii, this should give you some indication of just how exciting it is to play one. :)

Quo Vadimus?

2006-12-04T16:51:30Z

Still don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that test

It all started when I was watching Sports Night again. This time around, what lingers with me is how the act of making something, over and over, making and remaking, night after night, how that shapes a person's life. How thoroughly it makes you who you are.

And it occurs to me how much I miss that. How I miss the way time compresses as the moment approaches when the curtain goes up, until it is as hard and clear and immutable as diamond. I miss it from college theater in particular, but it occurs to me that it's a more fundamental part of who I am than that.

It's why I prefer writing poetry to writing anything else, and it's why I've never been anywhere close to finishing a novel. It's why I loved doing high school homework in the class period just before it was due. It's why I liked swing dancing when I was thinking only about the dance at hand, and why it started to bug me when I began being too concerned about long-term improvements in my dancing.

It's why, as much as I like my current job, I don't like the part of it that is big long projects with very few notable milestones, because most days feel like I've done nothing, and I really like the feeling of making something every day.

Until now, I'd never entirely decided what I wanted to do with my life. What I know now is that I was framing the question in the wrong way. I used to think the problem was that I was good at too many things, and couldn't bring myself to pursue just one to the exclusion of the others - am I a photographer, a writer, a programmer, a musician, a composer, a mathematician, a lighting designer, or something else entirely?

What I'm at bloody last realizing is that my "bliss" is none of these things - it's a way of living that involves making something every day, that compresses hours the way the weight of the atmosphere squeezes wet and loamy life up through the roots of plants and trees.

It doesn't really matter what I do, as long as every day (or as close an approximation as I can manage) has that feeling in it.

I don't know where I'm going yet, but I know at last what the destination looks like. As Mr. Bowie sang in the song, it's time to "turn and face the strain".

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

By Request: Holiday Wishlists

2006-11-27T17:15:41Z

Regardless of whether you're celebrating Diwali, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Xmas, Hanukkah, or the winter solstice, commerce is the least important aspect of the season.

Still, there's an undeniable joy in giving things to people, and some of you have asked for lists of what I want, so here are a few online shopping lists to assist you in your holiday buying. But first, a few disclaimers:

- I will be perfectly happy if you buy me something that isn't on the lists. Creative giving rocks!
- I will be perfectly happy if you don't buy me anything at all. Making things is a badge of uber-coolness.
- I will be perfectly happy if all you have to give me is a cheerful and heartfelt embrace to express your friendship.

That being said, here are the lists:

My Yoox DreamBox
Let me warn you, I have stuff ranging from the affordable to the ridiculous in here. Much of it is just cool fashion I like to look at wistfully while pretending there's an extra zero on the end of my salary. I don't actually expect anyone to buy me the $1500 Helmut Lang cashmere suit.

For actual buying practicality, I recommend the "sort by ascending price" option...that should push something more affordable to the top of the list. Note: Yoox does sell gift certificates, if you're feeling indecisive.

Everything from video games to German Romantic poetry to Kurosawa films. A few things are replacements for lost favorites, but most of it is new to me, so you have the added thrill of shaping my identity by guiding my cultural consumption. :)

My StyleHive
Currently empty, but I'll be adding stuff to it as I find neat things elsewhere on the web.

Miss Ellen E

2006-11-21T22:47:16Z

Happy Birthday, hangingfire!!

* * *

The new Badly Drawn Boy, Born In The U.K., is disappointing me. I should mention for context that I haven't bought anything since Have You Fed The Fish?. It's not bad, but it seems like Mr. Gough's lost track of his own weirdness. This album just doesn't have the awesome quirks that peppered his first two outings.

* * *

Requiescat In Pacem, Robert Altman. One of my favorite directors, and one of the most independent men in Hollywood. Don't blame him for Popeye...his career has so many gems in it that it's OK for a few sockets in the setting to be gemless. Short Cuts, The Player, M*A*S*H, Nashville, and Gosford Park are essential viewing, and that's more than a lot of directors will ever achieve.

* * *

No family plans for Thanksgiving this year. Granddad is still adjusting slowly to his new home, so it didn't seem wise to move him around right now. Instead I'll be sharing the festival of thankful dining with phylomath and McKee and whoever else shows up to their gathering of holiday remainders.

* * *

Those of you into graphic design, weird folk art, Japan, Scandinavia, and/or fashion might be interested in Klaus Haapaniemi [2] [3], who makes some delightfully twisted illustration work that blends Japanese and Scandinavian folk art with modern design and creative weirdness. Here's hoping he does get his wished-for collaboration with Comme des Garcons...that would be decidedly interesting.

* * *

Check it out...it's an electromechanical version of Pong! If you're not hip to the principles of engineering, let me just say that this is a ridiculously difficult achievement. Yes, it is yet another case of someone with a lot of time on their hands, but the execution is so extremely elegant, it's practically a work of art.

* * *

According to that BBC Brain Sex I.D. quiz battery, my brain is right smack in the middle of male and female. Not a big surprise for a math whiz who writes poetry. What *is* surprising is that I got a perfect score on the section for identifying emotions from the eyes alone. Feel free to post suggestions on how I can use this arcane skill to make millions.

* * *

Happy dining and safe travels to all of you during the holiday!

Tuesday Poem #6: Poems for Election Day

2006-11-07T17:06:04Z

It's Election Day! If you haven't voted yet, I implore you stop reading and go do so. I care not what you're voting for, I wish only to see you participating. It's the only weapon we have against the (mostly) guys in charge.

For Election Day 2006, I've chosen a selection of poems about American democracy. I urge you to read them all, because they're all bloody brilliant, and all but one of them is short.

"Election Day" by William Carlos Williams provides a subtle reminder of the condition of our democracy. Don't let this discourage you...vote anyway, and resolve to fix it up in future elections.

"Election Day, November, 1884" by Walt Whitman was written in response to one of the most rancorous, negative, and bitterly contested elections in American history. Yes, even then they had perfected mudslinging to a cruel science. Despite the nature of that election, Whitman celebrates something larger than a single election, larger than the man who won: the power of the choosing itself. "While the heart pants, life glows" - a hopeful truth.

And finally, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda celebrates, during a visit to America, the democracy of rail-splitter Abraham Lincoln, and wishes for an awakening in our modern world. What's printed here is merely an excerpt from "Let The Rail Splitter Awake", but it's one of my all-time favorite pieces of poetry and well worth your time.

On Election Day 2006, "Let us think of the entire earth / and pound the table with love."

Election Day
by William Carlos Williams

Warm sun, quiet air
an old man sits

in the doorway of
a broken house--

boards for windows
plaster falling

from between the stones
and strokes the head

of a spotted dog

Election Day, November, 1884
by Walt Whitman

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara-nor you, ye limitless prairies-nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite-nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones-nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes-nor Mississippi's stream:
-This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name-the still small voice vibrating-America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen-the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd-sea-board and inland-Texas to Maine-the Prairie States-Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West-the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling-(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity-welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
-Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify-while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

An Excerpt from
Let the Rail Splitter Awake
by Pablo Neruda

V.
Let none of this happen.
Let the Rail Splitter awake.
Let Abe come with his axe
and his wooden plate
to eat with the farmers.
Let his head like tree-bark,
his eyes like those in wooden-planks
and oak-tree boles,
turn to look on the world
rising above the foliage
higher than the sequoias.
Let him buy something in a drugstore
let him take a bus to Tampa
let him bite into a yellow apple
and enter a moviehouse to converse
with all the simple people.

Let the Rail Splitter awake.

Let Abe come, let his aged yeast raise
the green and gold earth of Illinois,
let him lift up his axe in his own town
against the new slaveholders
against the slave-lash
against the poisoned printing-press
against the bloodied merchandise
they want to sell.
Let them march singing and smiling,
the young white, the young Negro,
against the walls of gold
against the manufacturer of their blood,
let them sing, laugh and conquer.

Let the Rail Splitter awake.

Peace for the twilights to come,
peace for the bridge, peace for the wine,
peace for the stanzas which pursue me
and in my blood uprise entangling
my earlier songs with earth and loves,
peace for the city in the morning
when bread wakes up, peace for the Mississippi,
source of rivers,
peace for my brother’s shirt,
peace for books like a seal of air,
peace for the great kolkhoz of Kiev,
peace for the ashes of those dead
and of these other dead, peace for the grimy
iron of Brooklyn, peace for the letter-carrier
who from house to house goes like the day,
peace for the choreographer who shouts
through a funnel to the honeysuckle vine,
peace for my own right hand
that wants to write only Rosario,
peace for the Bolivian, secretive
as a lump of tin, peace
so that you may marry, peace for all
the saw-mills of Bio-Bio,
peace for the torn heart of guerilla Spain,
peace for the little museum in Wyoming
where the most lovely thing
is a pillow embroidered with a heart,
peace for the baker and his loaves,
and peace for the flour, peace
for all the wheat to be born,
for all the love which will seek its tasselled shelter,
peace for all those alive: peace
for all lands and all waters.

Here I say farewell, I return
to my house, in my dreams
I return to Patagonia where
the wind rattles the barns
and the ocean spatters ice.
I am nothing more than a poet: I love all of you,
I wander about the world I love;
in my country they gaol miners
and soldiers give orders to judges.
But I love even the roots
in my small cold country,
if I had to die a thousand times over
it is there I would die,
if I had to be born a thousand times over
it is there I would be born
near the tall wild pines
the tempestuous south wind
the newly purchased bells.
Let none think of me.
Let us think of the entire earth
and pound the table with love.
I don’t want blood again
to saturate bread, beans, music:
I wish they would come with me:
the miner, the little girl,
the lawyer, the seaman,
the doll-maker,
to go into a movie and come out
to drink the reddest wine.
I did not come to solve anything.
I came here to sing
and for you to sing with me.

From somewhere in the Americas, May 1948

"No, he's dangerous because he's sincere."

2006-11-03T20:54:02Z

I am informed by minimalrobot that actress Adrienne Shelly has died.

She starred in two of my favorite indie movies of all time, Hal Hartley's one-two punch of debut films, The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. More than a few people might have assumed that she was only funny because of the dry wit of Hartley's dialogue, but subsequent acting appearances and her writing/directing work on indie films like Sudden Manhattan and I'll Take You There established her as a true comic talent. Unfortunately, her genius managed to consistently fly just under the radar.

Whatever the reason for her death, it belongs in the "too soon" category. So have a drink and watch Trust again, for the memory of Adrienne Shelly, quite possibly the funniest girl that Hollywood never noticed.

Maria: Did you mean it? Would you marry me?
Matthew: Yes.
Maria: Why?
Matthew: Because I want to.
Maria: Not because you love me or anything like that, huh?
Matthew: I respect and admire you.
Maria: Isn't that love?
Matthew: No, that's respect and admiration. I think that's better than love.
Maria: How?
Matthew: When people are in love they do all sorts of crazy things. They get jealous, they lie, they cheat. They kill themselves. They kill each other.
Maria: It doesn't have to be that way.
Matthew: Maybe.
Maria: You'd be the father of a child you know isn't yours.
Matthew: Kids are kids, what does it matter?
Maria: Do you trust me?
Matthew: Do you trust me first?
Maria: I trust you.
Matthew: You sure?
Maria: Yes.
Matthew: Then marry me.
Maria: I'll marry you if you admit that respect, admiration, and trust equals love.
Matthew: OK. They equal love.

Mega-Huge Film meme (123 of 280 seen)

2006-11-02T23:20:14Z

I'm bored, so I made this one myself.

This list compiles 280 films from 4 different lists of the top 100 greatest films. How many have you seen? Copy this list and mark the films you have seen in bold. If you liked it, add a star (*) in front of the title, if you didn't, give it a minus (-). Use a zero if you're indifferent or can't recalll your opinion. Then, put the total number of films you've seen somewhere in the subject line and pass it on!

Bonus: Think all four of these publications missed a film that belongs on the list? Add it at the bottom under Viewer's Choice.

About the list: To avoid the usual grousing about list quality, this list compiles the selections of the top 100 films as selected by four different sources: the AFI, Time magazine, IMDB’s user ratings, and The Village Voice. Yes, there are many other top 100 lists, but three of these come up first in Google, so I’m arbitrarily choosing to consider them the most authoritative. I added the Village Voice for additional foreign balance to AFI’s Hollywood-biased approach. The sum of them makes for a pretty diverse list of 280 great films from the popular to the obscure but groundbreaking.

AFI and Time and IMDB and Village Voice

* Chinatown (1974)
* Citizen Kane (1941)
City Lights (1931) – apparently I really need to see this, since all 4 sources chose it
* The Godfather (1972)
* The Godfather Part II (1974)
* It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
* Psycho (1960)
* Singin' in the Rain (1952)
* Star Wars (1977)
* Taxi Driver (1976)

AFI and Time and IMDB

* Casablanca (1942)
* Double Indemnity (1944)
* Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
* Goodfellas (1990)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – never seen it, amazingly
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
* On the Waterfront (1954)
* Pulp Fiction (1994)
Raging Bull (1980)
* Schindler's List (1993)
* Some Like It Hot (1959)

AFI and Time and Village Voice

* King Kong (1933)
The Searchers (1956)

AFI and IMDB and Village Voice

* 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – one of my all-time favorites
All About Eve (1950)
* Modern Times (1936)
* North by Northwest (1959)
Sunset Boulevard (1950) – I actually feel guilty for not seeing this one
The Third Man (1949)
0 The Wizard of Oz (1939) – Maybe I’ve seen it too much, but I’m pretty ambivalent about this one now
* Vertigo (1958)

Time and IMDB and Village Voice

* Blade Runner (1982)
* Metropolis (1927) – absolutely essential

AFI and Time

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
* E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – haven’t seen it since I was 12, but I liked it then
* A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Unforgiven (1992)

AFI and IMDB

* A Clockwork Orange (1971)
* Amadeus (1984)
* Apocalypse Now (1979)
0 Forrest Gump (1994) – left me feeling a bit bamboozled, but decent enough I guess
* Jaws (1975) – not just a scary movie, this thing is brilliant. A Spielberg masterpiece.
* Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
0 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
* Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
* Rear Window (1954)
The Apartment (1960)
* The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
* The Maltese Falcon (1941)
* The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) – that’s right…I read the book but never saw the film. How the hell did that happen?

Time and IMDB

City of God (2002)
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
* The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
* The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
* The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
* Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Time and Village Voice

* Aguirre: The Wrath Of God (1972)
The Apu Trilogy (1955, 1956, 1959)
* Barry Lyndon (1975)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The 400 Blows (1959)
The Lady Eve (1941)
The Man With a Movie Camera (1929)
* Notorious (1946)
* Sherlock, Jr. (1924) – hilarious!!
Sunrise (1927) – listed more than Nosferatu. Interesting. I’ve never seen this, but I love Murnau, so I imagine I’d like it.
Tokyo Story (1953)
Ugetsu (1953)
Umberto D (1952)

AFI and Village Voice

* Duck Soup (1933)
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
The Gold Rush (1925)

IMDB and Village Voice

* M (1931) – one of the most important films you’ve never seen. Prototype for film noir.
* Rashômon (1950)
* Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) (1954)
The Seventh Seal (Sjunde inseglet, Det) (1957) – love Wild Strawberries and Fanny and Alexander, but I’ve yet to see Bergman’s best-known film all the way through.
* Touch of Evil (1958) - whether it's the original, or the version reconstructed from Welles' edit memeo, this film is excellent either way

Time Only

The Awful Truth (1937)
Baby Face (1933)
Bande à part (1964)
* Brazil (1985)
Camille (1936)
Charade (1963)
Children of Paradise (1945)
Chungking Express (1994)
Closely Watched Trains (1966)
The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)
The Crowd (1928)
Day for Night (1973)
* The Decalogue (1989) – if you haven’t seen this, I implore you to do so. Magnificent.
Detour (1945)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
Dodsworth (1936)
* Drunken Master II (1994)
* 8 1/2 (1963)
* Farewell My Concubine (1993)
0 Finding Nemo (2003) – OK, but nowhere near as good as The Incredibles
0 The Fly (1986) – I like Cronenberg lots, but this is not one of my favorites.
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Ikiru (1952)
* In A Lonely Place (1950)
0 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
It's A Gift (1934)
Kandahar (2001)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
The Last Command (1928)
Léolo (1992)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
* Miller's Crossing (1990)
Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980)
Mouchette (1967)
Nayakan (1987)
Ninotchka (1939)
Olympia, Parts 1 and 2 (1938)
* Out of the Past (1947)
Persona (1966)
* Pinocchio (1940) – One of my favorite of all Disney movies, because it’s actually dark and creepy at times.
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Pyaasa (1957)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
The Singing Detective (1986)
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Swing Time (1936)
Talk to Her (2002)
A Touch of Zen (1971)
Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
White Heat (1949)
* Wings of Desire (1987) - I adore this film.
* Yojimbo (1961)

AFI Only

A Place in the Sun (1951)
0 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) – Can’t remember this well enough to know what I thought of it.
American Graffiti (1973)
* An American in Paris (1951) - Worth it for the climactic dance number alone
Annie Hall (1977) – seen a bajillion Allen films, but not this
Ben-Hur (1959)
Bringing up Baby (1938)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
* Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
- Dances with Wolves (1990) – Nice try, Kevin, but your movie was tiresome.
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Easy Rider (1969)
* Fantasia (1940)
* Fargo (1996)
Frankenstein (1931)
* From Here to Eternity (1953)
0 Giant (1956) – saw this when very young. I think I liked it, can’t remember.
* Gone with the Wind (1939) – an archetype of cinematic melodrama; too bad Mildred Pierce didn't also make any of the lists
* Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
* High Noon (1952)
It Happened One Night (1934)
* M*A*S*H (1970) – yay, Robert Altman!
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
- My Fair Lady (1964) – I love Audrey Hepburn, and Shaw’s Pygmalion, but the two of them plus Rex Harrison does not equal a happy sum.
* Network (1976)
Patton (1970)
* Platoon (1986)
* Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
- Rocky (1976) - I think I laughed out loud at this even as a kid
Shane (1953)
* Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Stagecoach (1939)
The African Queen (1951)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
* The French Connection (1971) – Best. Chase. Ever.
The Graduate (1967)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The Jazz Singer (1927)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
0 The Sound of Music (1965) – seen so much I’m sick of it, but I liked it as a kid
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Tootsie (1982)
* West Side Story (1961)
Wuthering Heights (1939)
0 Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

IMDB Only

12 Angry Men (1957)
* Alien (1979)
* Aliens (1986)
* American Beauty (1999)
American History X (1998)
Batman Begins (2005)
* Das Boot (1981)
- Braveheart (1995) – a trying-too-hard epic
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
* Amelie (Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le) (2001)
* Fight Club (1999)
* Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
* Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
* The Professional (Léon) (1994) – if you haven’t seen the director’s cut, do so. It vastly improves the film over the butchered American version.
Memento (2000)
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo cinema Paradiso) (1989)
* Paths of Glory (1957) – if you though Dr. Strangelove was dark and cynical…
Rebecca (1940)
* Requiem for a Dream (2000) – Don’t ever need to see THAT again, but it was good once.
* Reservoir Dogs (1992)
0 Saving Private Ryan (1998) – Meh. The HBO miniseries Band Of Brothers used the same production team to tell a more effective story, in my opinion.
* Se7en (1995) – So widely (and often badly) imitated it makes me laugh.
* Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) (2001) - I would have put far more Miyazaki films than Disney and Pixar films on this list.
Sin City (2005)
* Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
* Strangers on a Train (1951)
0 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) – It’s a good action movie, but the splashy effects tend to obscure the fact that the first film had a far better storyline.
* The Departed (2006)
* The Elephant Man (1980) – Yay, David Lynch!
The Great Escape (1963)
* The Incredibles (2004) – Best Pixar film yet.
* The Matrix (1999)
The Pianist (2002)
* The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
* The Shining (1980)
* The Sting (1973)
* The Usual Suspects (1995)
Downfall (Untergang, Der) (2004)
Life Is Beautiful (Vita è bella, La) (1997)

Village Voice Only

A Man Escaped (1956)
* A Trip to the Moon (1902) – Beautiful. Modern effects artists would do well to watch this and remember that things don’t have to be realistic to be evocative.
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
All That Heaven Allows (1956)
An Actor's Revenge (1963)
Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Close-Up (1990)
* Contempt (1963)
Fox and His Friends (1975)
Greed (1924)
Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966)
Intolerance (1916)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Jules and Jim (1961)
* La Jetee (1961)
Landscape in the Mist (1988)
L'Atalante (1934)
Les Vampires (1915-16)
Los Olvidados (1950)
Masculine-Feminine (1966)
Mean Streets (1973)
My Life to Live (Vivre sa vie) (1962)
* Nosferatu (1922)
October (1927)
Ordet (1955)
Paisan (1946)
Pather Panchali (1955)
Performance (1970)
Pickpocket (1959)
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Salo (1975) – I hear this one is quite harrowing. As in, makes watching Tideland seem like a walk in the park.
* Shadow of a Doubt (1943) – Underappreciated Hitchcock masterpiece. Thrilling, and very timely both then and now.
Shoah (1985)
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
Suspiria (1977)
The Bicycle Thief (1949)
The Conformist (1970)
The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)
The General (1927)
The Golden Coach (1952)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1965)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) - Only Welles I haven't seen.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
The Rise of Louis XIV (1966)
The Rules of the Game (1939)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – I appreciate its massive influence on the horror genre, but it’s not really my preferred style of horror film.
Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966)
Wavelength (1967)

Viewer's Choice:
Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Black Orpheus
Withnail & I
The Trois Couleurs Trilogy
Raise The Red Lantern
Rear Window
The Chimes At Midnight

31 - Book meme

2006-10-31T22:38:51Z

I'm jumping on wanderlust_atx's bandwagon for this literary meme.

In 2005, Time Magazine picked the 100 best English-language novels (Update: since 1923, the year the magazine was founded, which explains away some, but not all, of my quibbles). How many have you read? Copy this list and mark the selections you have read in bold. If you liked it, add a star (*) in front of the title, if you didn't, give it a minus (-). Then, put the total number of books you've read in the subject line and pass it on! Bonus: Think Time missed a title? Add a novel you think belongs in the top 100.

The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm - George Orwell (managed to slip past this one…liked 1984, though)
Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
The Assistant - Bernard Malamud
* At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O'Brien
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Berlin Stories - Christopher Isherwood
* The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (on my shelf – keep meaning to read it)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder
Call It Sleep - Henry Roth
* Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
* The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
* A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat Turner - William Styron
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
* The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon (I actually like Pynchon, and I’m not just saying that thinking it will impress anyone)
A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather
A Death in the Family - James Agee
The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance - James Dickey
Dog Soldiers - Robert Stone
Falconer - John Cheever
The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles (liked The Magus…need to read this one)
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (kind of indifferent to this one)
* Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
* The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh (why on earth haven’t I read any Waugh? Big gaping hole, and I’m confident I’ll like it)
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
* The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene
Herzog - Saul Bellow
* Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace (I’ve read excerpts)
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Light in August - William Faulkner (One of the few I haven’t read by him)
* The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
* Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding (No marking…I’m indifferent about this one)
* The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Loving - Henry Green
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis (Another I keep meaning to read)
The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (Liked the Satanic Verses…need to branch out)
Money - Martin Amis
The Moviegoer - Walker Percy (liked The Second Coming)
* Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
* Naked Lunch - William Burroughs
Native Son - Richard Wright
* Neuromancer - William Gibson
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains Of The Day is brilliant…makes me wonder how much better this could be)
* 1984 - George Orwell (his prose style leaves me a bit cold, but I like this one in spite of its faults)
* On the Road - Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski
* Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays - Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
- Possession - A.S. Byatt (tedious…have a hard time fathoming why people like this one. I thought I would, as it appealed thematically to a lot of things I like, including the epistolary form in novels. But it just didn’t work for me)
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run - John Updike
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
The Recognitions - William Gaddis
* Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett (interesting choice, and despite sentimentally preferring The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon, I agree with the choice…his best and most important work.)
Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
* The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
* Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
* Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor - John Barth
- The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner (not a fan, despite significant effort)
The Sportswriter - Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John le Carre
* The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway (I prefer the short stories and For Whom The Bell Tolls, but this one I like well enough)
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
* To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (really need to read this one…like much of her stuff)
* Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller (liked despite its harsh attitudes toward women, and being more vulgar than I usually find felicitous)
Ubik - Philip K. Dick
Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
* Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise - Don DeLillo
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

Reader’s Choice:

Any of the following could rightly be placed in this list:

Bleak House – Charles Dickens
The Code of the Woosters (or maybe Jeeves In The Morning) – P.G. Wodehouse
Jude The Obscure – Thomas Hardy
Ulysses – James Joyce
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
Mansfield Park or Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen

And the inclusion of Watchmen plucks a finger from the dike and fails to deal with the flood of other worthy graphic novels. Leaving it at just one graphic novel is flatly disingenuous. They should have done a top 200 instead and made room for more graphic novels, plus all of the above and more.

Update: More Reader's Choice

I can't believe I forgot these....

Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
The USA Trilogy - John Dos Passos (much like Lord Of The Rings, it is for all intents and purposes a single book that just happens to be published in 3 volumes)

And just to stir things up a bit, not only should Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale be on this list, but also some Kathy Acker - probably Don Quixote: Which Was A Dream for its exuberant tower-toppling feminism and structural avant-garde insanity.

Tuesday Poem #5: [why must itself up every of a park]

2006-10-31T21:01:12Z

I msised last week's Tuesday poem, but we're back on schedule this week. I wanted to do something apropos of our coming election, and after considering a number of more well-known protest poems, I stumbled across this lesser-known gem by e.e. cummings. Enjoy the poem,.and don't be afraid to answer "no" on election day.

[why must itself up every of a park]
by e.e. cummings

why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice.Ain't freedom grand

Bandwagonesque: Siouxsie, Budgie, John Cale, and a big Orchestra

2006-10-27T15:14:45Z

For this installment of Bandwagonesque, here are Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie (of The Creatures) performing live in the Netherlands with John Cale (of the Velvet Underground) and the Het Metropolis Orchestra. The first video features "I Was Me" by The Creatures, and the second is John Cale's "Gun". Siouxsie's a little off-key at times in the latter, but it's still an interesting performance.

"I Was Me"

"Gun"

Tuesday Poem #4: Blackberrying

2006-10-17T16:28:25Z

Quoth the lovely phylomath: "I wish I knew more great poems about food."

Herewith, one of my favorite food poems:

Blackberrying
by Sylvia Plath

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks —
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.

Bandwagonesque: Orange Juice - "Falling And Laughing"

2006-10-13T20:42:13Z

Well, I might as well hop on the YouTube music video bandwagon and start posting some videos from the vaults.

So, here's Orange Juice, the band that was disco-post-punk about 25 years before disco-post-punk became cool, in a live performance of "Falling And Laughing".

Tuesday Poem #3: Lied Vom Kindsein (Song of Childhood)

2006-10-10T16:02:56Z

This week's Tuesday poem, by Austrian poet Peter Handke, is occasioned by my 33rd birthday. You may recognize it from the excellent Wim Wenders film, Der Himmel über Berlin (aka Wings Of Desire).

Song Of Childhood
by Peter Handke

When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.

When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.

When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?

When the child was a child,
It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
and on steamed cauliflower,
and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.

It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,
and now can at most guess,
could not conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today at the thought.

When the child was a child,
It played with enthusiasm,
and, now, has just as much excitement as then,
but only when it concerns its work.

When the child was a child,
It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread,
And so it is even now.

When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.

When the child was a child,
It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
And it quivers there still today.

Lied Vom Kindsein
by Peter Handke

Als das Kind Kind war,
ging es mit hängenden Armen,
wollte der Bach sei ein Fluß,
der Fluß sei ein Strom,
und diese Pfütze das Meer.

Als das Kind Kind war,
wußte es nicht, daß es Kind war,
alles war ihm beseelt,
und alle Seelen waren eins.

Als das Kind Kind war,
hatte es von nichts eine Meinung,
hatte keine Gewohnheit,
saß oft im Schneidersitz,
lief aus dem Stand,
hatte einen Wirbel im Haar
und machte kein Gesicht beim fotografieren.

Als das Kind Kind war,
war es die Zeit der folgenden Fragen:
Warum bin ich ich und warum nicht du?
Warum bin ich hier und warum nicht dort?
Wann begann die Zeit und wo endet der Raum?
Ist das Leben unter der Sonne nicht bloß ein Traum?
Ist was ich sehe und höre und rieche
nicht bloß der Schein einer Welt vor der Welt?
Gibt es tatsächlich das Böse und Leute,
die wirklich die Bösen sind?
Wie kann es sein, daß ich, der ich bin,
bevor ich wurde, nicht war,
und daß einmal ich, der ich bin,
nicht mehr der ich bin, sein werde?

Als das Kind Kind war,
würgte es am Spinat, an den Erbsen, am Milchreis,
und am gedünsteten Blumenkohl.
und ißt jetzt das alles und nicht nur zur Not.

Als das Kind Kind war,
erwachte es einmal in einem fremden Bett
und jetzt immer wieder,
erschienen ihm viele Menschen schön
und jetzt nur noch im Glücksfall,
stellte es sich klar ein Paradies vor
und kann es jetzt höchstens ahnen,
konnte es sich Nichts nicht denken
und schaudert heute davor.

Als das Kind Kind war,
spielte es mit Begeisterung
und jetzt, so ganz bei der Sache wie damals, nur noch,
wenn diese Sache seine Arbeit ist.

Als das Kind Kind war,
genügten ihm als Nahrung Apfel, Brot,
und so ist es immer noch.

Als das Kind Kind war,
fielen ihm die Beeren wie nur Beeren in die Hand
und jetzt immer noch,
machten ihm die frischen Walnüsse eine rauhe Zunge
und jetzt immer noch,
hatte es auf jedem Berg
die Sehnsucht nach dem immer höheren Berg,
und in jeden Stadt
die Sehnsucht nach der noch größeren Stadt,
und das ist immer noch so,
griff im Wipfel eines Baums nach dem Kirschen in einemHochgefühl
wie auch heute noch,
eine Scheu vor jedem Fremden
und hat sie immer noch,
wartete es auf den ersten Schnee,
und wartet so immer noch.

Als das Kind Kind war,
warf es einen Stock als Lanze gegen den Baum,
und sie zittert da heute noch.

Birthday Festivities Update

2006-10-03T23:03:08Z

Birthday planning is running apace. Final plans for the mellow moon-festival outing are set - we'll see the moon festival from 7-9pm on Sunday, followed by drinks/dessert at Capitol Brasserie. I've e-mailed most of you who are in Austin, but leave me a comment if I've forgotten you and we'll get you set up.

The other party is proving a difficult task to complete, and may have to be postponed, but for now I'm remaining optimistic and forecasting a surreal fantasia for Saturday, October 14th.

Finally, I just have to rant about the state of online inviting. There are so many great "2.0" apps out there for things like photos (flickr), life-management (43things), media consumption (allconsuming), etc. I just cannot believe no one has risen to give Evite the smackdown. There are many sites in closed beta, but nothing decent that I can actually use. And Evite seems to no longer have the nifty feature they once had where you could print a paper invitation with a code people could use to add themselves to the list. What the hell? Why discontinue that? It's precisely what I need...a URL I can post everywhere on other social networking sites, and hand out on paper invitations, but still collect RSVPs all in one place. Grrrr.

So, my apologies for using Evite for this. I've been trying for 3 days to get a PHP/MySQL solution working on my domain, but there have been a hundred tiny obstacles and my ISP has been very little help. In an ideal world, you would have been presented with something far more sophisticated, cool, and friendly.