Hammering Away

One damn cool song by Steve Earle.

Vicodin...

Vicodin, vicodin for another outta work autoworker worried 'bout benefits...

Torturer in Chief

I remember talking to a friend a few years ago, before the Abu Goebells stuff had even blown up, telling him about the torture in the name of freedumb and suckurity our proud USA was employing.  "No, not really," he said, so naively incredulous.  Our own president authorize that?

 

Yes, really. 

 

Murakami: Master of the Business of Art

Sordid Warhol of the East or Sage of the New Age of Mega-Commodification? 

 

Key Murakami idea to contemplate here:  "You cannot create an art piece unless you know how to make and sell it."  Novel way of thinking of 'creativity'.  Not only making it, but marketing it.  Seeing and spawning 'original' paths to get it in consumer's hands, on their minds, on their credit cards...

 

Is there a relationship between the "superflat" non-hierarchical art world that Murakami espouses, and the "world is flat" global capitalism of Thomas Friedman? 

On Whitman and the Religious Impulse

I remember hiking mountains in the Northwest and chanting Whitman poems aloud by the side of some lake, the surrounding cedars and firs and mountainside like a great natural amphitheater--the lake, seen from above, seemingly a wide eye open to the universe.  And Walt Whitman and I its voice.  Or rather, giving voice to all its voluptuous citizenry.  This essay speaks to one of the converted.

 

Even though, years later, when I visited Whitman's home on a trip through Camden, I got a parking ticket. 

Fish on French Filosophy

I normally can't stand Stanley Fish, but here he has proved refreshingly elucudating on all that fancy French theory we on this side of the Atlantic like to get so up in arms about.

 

 

One-Handed Reading

Well well well...  I once asked a creative writing teacher about the market for ham-handed erotica--Penthouse Forum type stuff stretched (no pun intended) to novel length--and he, bless his gay soul--TOTALLY MISLED ME!!!  He said that the video market had done away with it.  Why read it when you could so easily download it, watch it in high definition.  But apparently he was wrong.  As this brief interview with one Edward Lear has made me realize.  That's it.  The lecherous and lewd scenarios that constantly are suggested to me by the guttersnipes of my imagination--I'm going to put those to use.  Onward, ho! 

 

 

Hi Tech Hotties Go Down On Another Democrat

For those who know Detroit--this happened on exit 69--Big Beaver.  High rise hotels, hi tech gratifications...  And a speeding ticket to go.

10,000 Hours To Take Off

Brooks the social observer/book reviewer cites a provocative factoid:  "It's commonly said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master any craft — three hours of practice every day for 10 years."  Hmm.  Conscience check:  where have I spent my 10,000 hours, my ten years?...