500 X 5 TELEVISION

Well, here's the obligatory YouTube-age (can you have a blog these days w/o some YouTube content?), anyways, this is a little thing I made using the time-lapse function on my camera.

The music(?) I've put underneath it is a tiny chunk of some of the last GTR WRK-SHP material I've recorded (about 3 or 4 years ago?), which has been a bit tinkered w/.

Oh yeah, somehow a video glitch crept into this b/n the first and second frame of the thing, it wasn't intentional and I don't know how to get rid of it but truth be told I enjoy that more than any of the other images and it goes better w/ the music(?).

Good on you Shirley . . . and some good old fashion blasphemy, apocrypha, and doggerel!?!

A little while ago, right after it happened, I saw that Shirley Collins received a MBE (i.e. Member of the British Empire), not quite a 'Dame' but who needs any stinking royals to be able to call her one! I had meant to do a post about that but I mean to do alot of things that never seem to get done and that was during a time when my ever raging Shirley love was somewhat dormant.

Well it's raging full on again, I recently got another album by her "Folk Roots, New Routes", which is actually her and the guitarist Davy Graham (who I believe she had a relationship w/?).



I wasn't sure how much I'd like this album b/c I prefer Shirley unaccompanied but it hasn't taken very long for me to become completely addicted, that said, my favorite track so far is the only one that's Shirley (and banjo) by herself, "The Cherry Tree Carol".

The Cherry Tree Carol

Joseph was an old man
and an old man was he
when he married virgin Mary
the queen of Galilee

as Mary and Joseph were walking one day
to an orchard of cherry trees they chanced for to stray
then Mary said to Joseph so meek and so mild
pick me some cherries Joseph for I am w/ child
but Joseph flew angry so angry flew he
let the father of your baby gather cherries for thee

then up spoke lord Jesus from in his mother's womb
bow low down cherry trees bow down to the ground
and the cherry trees they bowed down bowed low to the ground
and mary gathered cherries while Joseph stood around

then Joseph took Mary all upon his right knee
come tell me pretty baby when your birthday shall be
on the fifth day of January my birthday shall be
and the stars and the heavens shall all bow down to me

"The Cherry Tree Carol" in it's apocrypha/mild blasphemy brings to my mind the more blatantly blasphemous "ballad of joking jesus" (a.k.a. "ballad of japing Jesus", a.k.a. "The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus") of Stately plump Buck Mulligan's (a.k.a. Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty) from "Ulysses".

The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus

I'm the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.
My mother's a Jew; my father's a Bird
With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree
So 'Here's to Disciples and Calvary.'

If anyone thinks that I amn't divine,
He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.

My methods are new and are causing surprise:
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes
To signify merely there must be a cod
If the Commons will enter the Kingdom of Good

Now you know I don't swim and you know I don't skate
I came down to the ferry one day and was late.
So I walked on the water and all cried, in faith!
For a Jewman it's better than having to bathe.

Whenever I enter in triumph and pass
You will find that my triumph is due to an ass
(And public support is a grand sinecure
When you once get the public to pity the poor.)

Then give up your cabin and ask them for bread
And they'll give you a stone habitation instead
With fine grounds to walk in and raincoat to wear
And the Sheep will be naked before you'll go bare.

The more men are wretched the more you will rule
But thunder out 'Sinner' to each bloody fool;
For the Kingdom of God (that's within you) begins
When you once make a fellow acknowledge he sins.

Rebellion anticipates timely by 'Hope,'
And stories of Judas and Peter the Pope
And you'll find that you'll never be left in the lurch
By children of Sorrows and Mother the Church

Goodbye, now, goodbye, you are sure to be fed
You will come on My Grave when I rise from the Dead
What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet's breezy-- Goodbye now Goodbye.

And continuing down the apocrypha/blasphemy/doggerel road that leads to one of my favorite Stereolab songs and hands down favorite piece of blasphemous apocryphal doggerel, "The Incredible He Woman".

The Incredible He Woman

month one mary grows a mustache
in the second she grows a beard
in the third month her breasts fall off
the fourth month testicles appear
the fifth her penis shows its face
in the sixth month grows a foreskin
it took nine months made evident
experience, she gave it hands
in the seventh month, christ's sandals grow on her
in the eighth month, her chest becomes transparent
in the ninth wounds appear as christ is apparent
and then she was christ
and mary disappeared

put that one in your Da Vinci codes!?!

Two and counting . . .

Happy Birthday little BLOG





I wish I could say it was a matter of quality over quantity, but that is surely not the case and I'm going for the opposite (and doing a good job) on the FOTO blog.

I did see though, that today is Rosie O'donald O'donnell and her wife's anniversary, so that's good enough for me to celebrate! I knew it was an auspicious day today!


(. . . and that I finally got to do a strikethru)

TV PARTY tonight

I had a dream this morning, all I can remember of it is that I found this fountain pen I'd been looking for (which in my waking life I keep meaning to look for) and the Elliott Smith song "Miss Misery" was either playing or my dreamself was singing. If I had to tease out some meaning from that dream, I don't know? I guess I have the Academy Awards on my mind? B/c since I've been watching them regularly, when Elliott came out and did that song ten years ago is one of the greatest Oscar moments I can think of (right up there w/ Fellini lovingly telling his wife to stop crying).

miss misery

i'll fake it through the day
with some help from johnny walker red
send the poison rain down the drain
to put bad thoughts in my head
your two tickets torn in half
and a lot of nothing to do
do you miss me, miss misery
like you say you do?
a man in the park
read the lines in my hand
told me i'm strong
hardly ever wrong i said man you mean
you had plans for both of us
that involved a trip out of town
to a place i've seen in a magazine
that you left lying around
i don't have you with me but
i keep a good attitude
do you miss me, miss misery
like you say you do?
i know you'd rather see me gone
than to see me the way that i am
but i am in the life anyway
next door the tv's flashing
blue frames on the wall
it's a comedy of errors, you see
it's about taking a fall
to vanish into oblivion
is easy to do
and i try to be but you know me
i come back when you want me to
do you miss me miss misery
like you say you do?

aMERICAN nIHILIST. . . now brought to you by fifteen year old girls!?!

When the cold wind comes ... I go where the dahlias bloom . . .

Florida Room
Greatcoat
Sleeping Porch


Florida Room
Greatcoat
Sleeping Porch


Florida Room
Greatcoat
Sleeping Porch


Florida Room
Greatcoat
Sleeping Porch


Florida Room
Greatcoat
Sleeping Porch


Florida Room
Greatcoat
Sleeping Porch

This is Just to Say

I spent the afternoon looking at woolgathering, the wonderful artblog of this lady that posts daily drawing/watercolors. Anyways, the warm homeyness of the images kept making me think of the William Carlos Williams poem "This Is Just To Say".

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


And that poem always makes me think of his wife's reply:


REPLY

Dear Bill: I've made a
couple of sandwiches for you.
In the ice-box you'll find
blue-berries—a cup of grapefruit
a glass of cold coffee.

On the stove is the tea-pot
with enough tea leaves
for you to make tea if you
prefer—Just light the gas—
boil the water and put it in the tea

Plenty of bread in the bread-box
and butter and eggs—
I didn't know just what to
make for you. Several people
called up about office hours—

See you later. Love. Floss.


I was trying to think why did that site make me think of the Williams poem and I realized that the watercolors reminded me of a animation made of the poem "This Is Just To Say" that was part of the 'Voices & Visions' episode about William Carlos Williams. 'Voices & Visions' was a great PBS series on American poetry that I used to love watching as a kid and if I have any interest in Poetry at all a good 75% of it could be traced back to that series.

If I Told Him Would He Like It . . .

If I had known, I forgot. I think I had known at one point and then I forgot. That I had known, I forgot. But now I know again, I'm sure soon to forget. Again but now I know b/c I just saw. So I know b/c I saw. B/c I saw, I know and b/c I know I can forget b/c I saw I'm sure to forget b/c I saw I can forget.


. . . Some cod Gertrude Stein in tribute to her birthday and for the fact that it falls the day after her great rival James Joyce's (albeit almost ten years later).

New York Herald Tribune

. . . I don't think I've ever expressed my minor fixation w/ the New York Herald Tribune, of course the above picture (of Jean Seberg from À bout de souffle A.K.A "Breathless") is a nice edifice to pin my fixation on. And that great movie is a good part of the fixation's origin , the other being that the New York Herald Tribune was the pile of newspapers sliced into w/ a Stanley blade by Bryon Gysin when while making a matte, he discoverd the 'Cut-Up Method'.

Mesostic II

PLEASE COMMODIFY ME
o		Ption
a		Ll
caus		Es
inhum		An.
it		S
voic		E
maso		Chism,
f		Or
		Merely
de		Mands
c		Onceal
prepare		D:
revolut		Ion,
o		F
ever		Yday
hu		Man
b		Eings
s		Piritual
rea		L
pow		Er
		A
hi		S
r		Eal
whi		Ch
		Only.
		Means
infa		Mous
separati		On
an		D
not		Ion
o		F
purel		Y
eli		Minate
privativ		E
a		Ppropriation
ca		Lled
c		Eased
		And
bourgeoi		S
th		E
		Consumption.
		Old
		Minutely
		Metered
		Of
an		D
just		Ice.
		Fewer
b		Y
		Miserable
id		Eologies.
ho		Ping
insane		Ly--for
ar		E
th		At
ill'		S
		End
		Cold
y		Ou
i		Mmediate.
ser		Monizing
		Of
re		D
pr		Iests
o		F
		Yourselves
		Meat
potato		Es!the
ca		Pital."
simi		Lar
t		Erms:
		And
		Steel
ar		E
radi		Cals
d		O
ti		Me
de		Monstrating
		Or
en		Dless
ser		Ies
o		F
bod		Y
		Must
how		Ever.
		Possibility
		Level
consciousn		Ess.
		And
con		Sistency.
th		E
fas		Cist
sl		Ogan
		Muerte!
		Must
f		Or
		Death
		In
o		F
the		Y
		Mitigate
th		E
		Passion
		Life,
th		E
		Against
it		Self
th		Ey
		Camps,
		Only
na		Me
		Moderation--in
		Of
an		D
l		Ife
o		F
revelr		Y
		Monstrous
th		E
s		Partan
		Legions,
m		Ercenaries,
f		Anatics,
		Suicide
		Experience
		Caught
f		Or
ca		Mera
		Madrepores--conscious,
		Of
paralyze		D,
l		Ife
o		F
b		Y
re		Member
th		E
		Paris
tota		L
d		Eath
brut		Ally
de		Signed
pr		Eaching
		Communards
passi		On
		Mutilated;
fla		Mes
t		O
		Die
l		Ive
o		F
cr		Y
for		M
suicid		E,

. . . You're my reason to get out of bed before noon*

Shirley & Dolly

* Well a different 'Shirley' and noon, pshaw more like three! . . . and more like 'you're my reason for dusting off my banjar' (literally) but you get the idea!?! . . . and also that picture of the late great DOLLY again talk about LAMF! too much!

MERRY XMASS II

Gower Wassail

A-wassail, a-wassail throughout of this town
Our cup it is white and our ale it is brown
Our wassail is made of good ale and cake
Of nutmeg and ginger, the best we can bake

Al dal di dal di dal
Dal di dal di dal
Dal di dal di dee
Sing deero, sing daddy
Sing too ral di do

Our wassail is made of the el'berry bough
Although my good neighbors I'll drink unto thou
Besides all on earth, we have apples to store
Pray let us come in for its cold by the door

We know by the moon that we are not too soon
And we know by the sky that we are not too high
We know by the star that we are not too far
And we know by the ground that we are within sound

Now master and mistress let your company forbear
To fill up are wassail with you cider and beer
We want none of your pale beer, nor none of your small
But a drop of your kilderkin, that's next to the wall

Now master and mistress if you are within
Pray send out your maid with her lily-white skin
For to open the door without more delay
For our time it is precious and we cannot stay

You've brought your wassail, which is very well known
But I can assure you we've as good of our own
As for your jolly wassail, we care not one pin
But its for your good company we'll let you come in

Here's a health to our Cooley and her croo'ed horn
May God send her Master a good crop of corn
Of barley and wheat and all sorts of grain
May God send her Mistress a long life to reign

Now Master and Mistress, know you will give
Unto our jolly wassail as long as you live
And if we do life to another new year
We'll call in again just to see who lives here

Xmassiness round-aboutly byway of my recent and raging Shirley Collins obsession!!!

The First Lady of Folk

Shirley Collins

False True Love

Come in, come in, you old true love,
And chat for awhile with me,
For it's been three quarters of a long year or more,
Since I spoke one word to thee.

I shan't come in, I shan't set down,
I ain't got a moment's time,
And since you are engaged with another true love,
Then your heart is no longer mine.

When you were mine, my old true love,
Then your Head lay on my breast,
You could make me believe by the falling of your arm,
That the sun rose up in the west.

There is many the star shall jingle in the west,
There is many the leafs below,
There is many the damn that shall lite upon a man,
For treating a poor girl so.

I wish to the Lord I'd never been born,
Or had died when I was young,
Then I never would have mourned for my old true love,
Nor have courted no other one.*

back in the day so LAMF

* 12 The False True Love Trad arr S Collins
From Cecil Sharp's 'English Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, volume II'. The False True Love is one of hundreds of examples showing that the British folk song tradition has grown steadily more lyrical in the past two or three hundred years. As the role of the ballad singer lost its importance, the narrative pieces were broken down into fragmentary lyric songs. This process has been especially marked and rapid in the Southern Appalachian area, from which this song comes.

The original piece is a tragic ballad, called 'Young Hunting' (Child 68), probably Scots in origin, but widespread throughout Britain and North America. It tells of a young man who rides by to visit an old sweetheart. When she bids him to light down and spend the night, he says that he prefers his new light of love. Whereupon the jealous girl stabs him, throws his corpse into the well and curses him. The remainder of the ballad consists of a dialogue between the murderess and her little parrot, the sole witness, who insists he will tell all and will not be bribed or threatened into silence.

All that is left of this story in the Tennessee lyric form is the opening bit of dialogue. Moreover, the situation has been so generalised that either part may be taken by a man or a woman, and there is no hint of violence. The song dwells upon the faithlessness of lovers, and the tragic position of the betrayed one, twin themes which are paramount in American erotic folk poetry. In the view of an academic critic such as Louise Pound the shortening of the ballad into the lyric song represents merely a decay in the folk tradition. Perhaps she would not hold to this opinion if she could hear the song as it is actually sung. One can say no more than this; at one time there was a fine ballad and later it gave rise to an equally beautiful lyric piece. ("FALSE TRUE LOVERS" Original sleevenotes by Alan Lomax) - Oh Yeah, "False True Love " isn't actually on the album "The Power of the True Love Knot", I just like that album's art more but I believe they were done by the same artist (at least the CD re-issues).

La Belle De Amherst

Ave Lucia

Mesostic

PLEASE KILL ME

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... More like 'King of the BullShit Guitar'! ... Look at that thing

STEIGER

why do i love Rod Steiger so? and why does this picture excite me for no obvious reason??

Be My Mommy









The Late Great Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

COME OUT

COME OUT FOREVER

"I had to like open the bruise up and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them."

SPRING AND ALL

A LOVE SONG: 1st Version, 1915

What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet-
I lie here thinking of you.

The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.

There is no light-
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb,
Spoiling the colors
Of the whole world.

I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.

See me!
My hair is dripping with nectar-
Starlings carry it
On their black wings.
See, at last
My arms and my hands
Are lying idle.

How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now? - Dr. William Carlos Williams

WHAT IS THE WORD

for Joe Chaikin

folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
folly from this -
all this -
folly from all this -
given -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this -
this -
what is the word -
this this -
this this here -
all this this here -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this this here -
for to -
what is the word -
see -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse -
what -
what is the word -
and where -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where -
where -
what is the word -
there -
over there -
away over there -
afar -
afar away over there -
afaint -
afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
seeing all this -
all this this -
all this this here -
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -

what is the word - Samuel Beckett





"not a thought in your head till hard to believe harder and harder to believe you ever told anyone you loved them or anyone you till just one of those things you kept making up to keep the void out just another of those old tales to keep the void from pouring in on top of you the shroud" - from "That Time" by Samuel Beckett

Dreams Are FREE, MotherFucker!

In your eyes I've seen it
In my silence it's heard
In a dream it lingers

In solitude it's known
In honesty I scream it
In panic I forget it

In desperation I need it
In time I lose it
In my mind I save it

"WHAT IS IT?" (kira/watt)

This Is Not Your Father's American Nihilist

It's Been a Horrible Year for My GTR Heroes

The great Malian griot (and king of the BULLSHIT electric gtr)

Ali Farka Touré (1939 - March 7, 2006) has passed away though his music never will.




. . . I just hope wherever the king of SKRONK Arto lindsay is he's doing well, same goes for that living saint Fred Frith (I'm sure he's giggling like a school girl though)!

Maybe I Should Just Rename the Blog?

. . . more where that came from; you yes you

MMM Kidneys!

Joyces' doodle of Leopold Bloom and the first line of the "Odyssey" in Greek

Not only is today Candlemas and Pete SEEN his Shadow day but on this day five years before the first ever observation of Groundhog Day, the Great James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born!

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.



- Joyces' portrait by the great Bernice Abbott

It's rare for me w/ a book but I can trace the exact sentence that gave birth to a twelve plus year obsession. I can't really remember a time when I didn't know about "Ulysses" or didn't want to read it some day. I finally got my copy (shamefully liberated from the high school library, THANKS Paul! where it had been moldering untouched since 1976!) around 1990. But it languished on my shelves for many years, I would occaisionaly dig it out and leaf thru it reading passages here and there at random but they always made little sense. until sometimes early in 1994 when i read these sentences:

Mr Bloom read again: The beautiful woman...

Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amid rumpled clothes: whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched themselves for prey. Melting breast ointments (for him! for Raoul!). Armpits' oniony sweat. Fishgluey slime (her heaving embonpoint!). Feel! Press! Chrished! Sulphur dung of lions!

Young! Young!

and really the exact sentence that set the hook (for some unknown reason?) was -

"Armpits' oniony sweat."

I knew what that meant. and quickly after reading that I was on my thru my first reading of the book that's pretty much ruined any other work of fiction for me. not that i've really tried all that much but i've found no other book as real or filled w/ as much humanity (good, bad, and/or ugly) as "Ulysses".

. . . And what may be my favorite sentence in all of "Ulysses":

"The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit."

I know what that means.