Sunday, November 30, 2008

Post-T-Day Notes

I am, as is often the case these days when I fly, recuperating from a (terrible) cold. For once I did get a flu shot, and try to prep for the Petri dish conditions on the plane, but this time I was ringed by ill travelers, so I think my fate was sealed, despite the best efforts of Zicam, Emergen-C, orange juice, lots of water, and so on. My and our Thanksgiving was nevertheless wonderful, and I'll be working off the added pounds for weeks to come, but I do wish there were a way not to get sick from flying short of wearing a (gas/surgical) mask. One of these days I hope to figure it out.

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I should note that one of the first bits of international news I heard on Thanksgiving Day morning concerned the horrific series of attacks, lasting for three days, in Mumbai, India. As of the most recent tally, over 195 people were killed, nearly 300 were injured, and the physical destruction to Mumbai's chief attractions and the psychological damage to its people and to India more broadly, as well as the further destabilization of India's already fraught relationship with neighbor Pakistan, are as of this point still incalculable. According to this Daily Mail account by the lone surviving terrorist, the original aim of this gang was to kill around 5,000 people and cause inestimable destruction. 3 RDX bombs they had planted which could have raised the death and destruction totals and razed the Raj, were thankfully either defused or did not go off. The recriminations in the Indian government have begun, as have accusations of Pakistan's complicity, but I sincerely hope before anything escalates at the national level between these two nuclear powers that they, and other nations, including the United States, can sit down and figure out what happened and how, even in light of the intractable problem of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as other issues, to prevent it in the future.

People hold a candle-light vigil, for the victims of the terrorist attack in Mumbai. (AP Photo)
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On a different continent, another horror was playing out: the politically oriented, socially fractious riots in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, where over 350 (or considerably more, depending upon the source) people have died, countless have been injured, and residents of certain neighborhoods have had to flee their homes (photo at left, IRIN). The Plateau state governor has dispatched troops to calm the violence, which was led by armed bands of opposing political factions that closely mirrored the Muslim and Christian divisions in many parts of central and northern Nigeria. What appeared to spark the riots were allegations that the People's Democratic Party (PDP) had unfairly won the elections. As the first article I linked to suggests, the Nigerian federal government should probably step in to calm the tensions and assure, to the extent possible, the fairest and most transparent resolution to the electoral contest.

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On a completely different note, I've been following of late in some of the conversations composer and Juillard School professor Greg Sandow has initiated on his blog around current problems with classical/European-American art music. He is now compiling a list of what he suggests are ways that classical music "doesn't connect" with contemporary audiences. There have been some excellent thoughts and suggestions, from Sandow and others in the classical music field, and I haven't had too much to add, except on a few points where I can speak without sounding like too much of a fool. Sandow has more than once attempted to analogize the condition of the contemporary classical music world--meaning more than just composers and compositions, for example, and encompassing all of the related institutions--to other art genres and forms, noting for example that classical music concerts tend to emphasize a fairly historically and formally narrow collection of composers and works, especially at the expense of the new.

One of my first thoughts about this was that, in fact, if you take literature, every single genre, in almost every nation, society, and culture around the world, presents new works alongside the classics, and it would be very strange, for example, to read only or primarily works from 200+ years ago, whether they were poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction, criticism, and so on, even though in some cases those works still hold tremendous sway over contemporary literary production. In the case of American literature, of course, British literature from Modernism backwards looms large, which is unsurprising, but there isn't a single major institution in the academic or publishing realms, no matter how fixated it might be on the importance of British literature in relation to American or any other literature, that would primarily or only teach British texts from, say, the British Renaissance, employ scholars in this area, invite people to present talks on or read from texts written during that period. I don't think even British Renaissance (and perhaps say Italian, French, and German Renaissance) scholars and enthusiasts would find that all too interesting. And yet it is very much the case in the classical music world that the music produced from the late Baroque period through the late Romantic era (roughly Bach to Mahler), primarily in German-speaking countries but with some selections from France, Italy, and Britain, garners the overwhelming share of attention and programming at most orchestras. In some cases, most work produced in the 20th and now 21st centuries, beyond selected composers and works, does not get played very much if at all.

One could make all sorts of arguments about why this happens, and that is what Sandow and company have been engaging in for some time (years, really). I'm interested to know what other J's Theater readers think about this. If we were to look at other genres of say, music, especially popular music, which Sandow does reference quite frequently, I would argue that if the musical genre is still living, which is to say, if people are still creating within the generally accepted forms and modes of that music, it's common to hear both the older, sometimes oldest, forms of that music as well as the most recent. Jazz would be one example, but rock & roll, or the much younger hip hop would also fit the bill. Or maybe none of these musical forms can be analogized to classical music in the same way, because of incommensurabilities, like history and chronology and technology and systems of distribution and performance, and so on. What do you think?

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I didn't post anything on the 125th edition of "The Game," and I truly didn't pay much attention to it, but when I learned the results, I was quite happy that a certain team based in New Haven did not win (they did not score a point). Nevertheless, the Crimson and the Bears finished in a tie for the league championship. The University's team, the Wildcats, finished 9-3, ranked 25th in the country, which means a Bowl visit.

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Lastly, this Sierra Leonean begs to differ on a key, recent US historical point, while a black St. Louisan demonstrates he's living in a parallel universe. Chacun à son goût, I think the phrase goes....

Canadia 2056 (16)


Hello, i have been reviving the links zshare so casually managed to loose last month, it will take time the ones from the Japan series (26) have been re-upped and meanwhile im halfway thru the wavetrain. Fortunately i didnt use them much on the Rhotation series so the coming weeks i expect to have completed all lost zShares.

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In the year 2056 the US has declared war on the Ipampilashians and has sent the American armada to destroy their planet. Canada has sent its only ship, The Canadia, in support of the American mission but the Canadia is not a warship. It's a maintenance ship (they change light bulbs and plunge toilets). Six months after their fateful return to Earth, the Canadian maintenance ship Canadia and her crew lay in ruins. They have all but given up hope that the human race can survive.
Until a sign from above reaffirms their belief in the human spirit... kind of.


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Episode 16

The universe is ending and the Canadia is almost out of power. Skip's demands on Anderson are wearing him out. Lewis and the Captain are brought together by their resentment of Anderson. Gaffney makes his stand for Faverau. Anderson makes a decision that may cost them their lives.

Canadia 2056- 16

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Saturday, November 29, 2008

Sundaze (Ap 7)

Hello, hi time to have another Sundaze , first up a YouTube 10 min clip on one of the greatest scientists that ever lived thusfar..our lives would be very different without his contributions, and there's still plenty of suppressed work of his about..some ended up in the inevitable black projects that the US likes to revel in. Then there are O Yuki Conjugate that passed by on Rhotation 47 aswell, here is their breakthrough album -of sorts..Peyote...finally Tenhi, minimalistic and dark neofolk, i posted some of their work - during the eurosonics tour at Finland/linux - enjoy the Maaäet album .

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The Greatest Scientist.of the last century and yet how many have heard of him....the press was against him ..they serve other interests...as by now most should be aware of...well here's a 10min clip to get you started.



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O Yuki Conjugate - Peyote (91 ^ 99mb)

O Yuki Conjugate is an organic ambient musical group, instruments used include tongue drums, roto-toms, bongos, congas, "big bean," "found percussion," drum machine, wind chimes, loops, frying pan, bass guitar, samples, keyboards, fractal guitar, e-bow, flutes, chants, radio, wildlife, tablas, berimbau, nose-singing, and vocals. Their music, as apparent from this list, is percussive and inventive, but it is also atmospheric.

O Yuki Conjugate was formed in Nottingham in 1982 by multi-instrumentalists Andrew Hulme, Tim and Roger Horberry and Claire Elliot; inspired by the atmospheric guitar instrumentals of the Durutti Column, they began experimenting with keyboards and tape loops, adding percussion to the mix before debuting with the soundscapes of 1984's Scene in Mirage( lim. ed 500 copies). A three-year gap preceded the release of the follow-up, Into the Dark Water, good reviews limeted edition, 1000 copies the first of many extended absences from the contemporary music scene; only in 1991 did O Yuki Conjugate again resurface, issuing Peyote on the Projekt label. Undercurrents (re-issued In Dark Water), which assembled both older material and latter-day recordings, appeared a year later. The band split up with marriage and study taking presedence, Andrew and Roger continue.

When asked to do a show in the netherlands Tim returns Malcolm McGeorge, Dan Mudford and Peter Woodhead join and after some serious repetitionwork, the concert is a success and O Yuki is reborn a homestudio is build. Support slots for Biosphere and Higher Intelligence Agency bring them ahead and 1994's Equator is deemed superb. The group released Sunchemical, a collection of remixes,just 2000 copies nevertheless it got them a cease and desist notice from the american printing giant with te same name..duh. They release Primitive on Staalplaat. Roger Horberry moves the Amsterdam where he pursues solo projects Andrew Hulme meanwhile does his own á small good thing". Oh Yuki dissappears to the back ground.Hulme and Horberry additionally collaborated on dance music under the name Symetrics, with the former also heading the groups A Small Good Thing and Sons of Silence as well as recording Fell with Paul Schütze.

By 2004 Oh Yuki is revived as Hume and Jenkins finish recording a dirty ambient album and decide to use the Oh Yuki moniker, the album is finally released in 2006 as "The Euphoria Of Disobedience". The band described the new album as ''dirty ambient - multi layered, hyper textural and distinctly gritty''. Meanwhile the backcatallogue has been uploaded to Itunes aswell.



01 - Snake Charm (Voc.Chris Lucas) (5:57)
02 - A Darker Belief (5:04)
03 - Earth Loop (Fragment) (3:42)
04 - Long Pig (7:15)
05 - Tidal Dance (4:24)
06 - Dusk, Dead Heart (5:00)
07 - Still Breath (Voc.Chris Lucas) (5:20)
08 - Alia Ma (7:05)

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Tenhi - Maaäet (06 ^ 111mb)

At the end of year 1996 Tyko Saarikko composed the first songs for Tenhi and Ilkka Salminen joined the band. After short sessions, a demo tape ‘Kertomuksia’ was recorded and released in spring 1997, getting good response in the underground and catching the interest of German label Prophecy Productions, a deal was signed for three full-length albums. Ilmari Issakainen was asked to join the group before they entered the studio for the ‘Hallavedet’-recording session in spring 1998. The recording and mixing took place in a hasty 16-hour session and the band indirectly learned to define their wanted Tenhi sound by it. The following summer, violin player Eleonora Lundell joined the band while they were composing material for the first full-length album ‘Kauan’ which was recorded autumn 1999. Veera Partanen played flute as a session member. Two songs were dropped out from the sessions: ‘kielo’ and ‘niin auer hiljaa vie’.

During the summer of 2000, `Kielo´ was re-recorded and released later on the mCD `airut:ciwi` with two other songs. At the end of year Tenhi started to record the following full-length album `väre`, which came across many setbacks. Now it ought to be released early autumn 2002. In the beginning of summer 2001 Tenhi got another chance to play at Wave-Gotik-Treffen and this time everything went as planned. Following autumn Tenhi had a tour in Germany and in Austria with Dornenreich and Of The Wand And The Moon. The tour went well, apart from the lack of proper equipment at some venues, which forced the bands to play at almost speaking volume. The following release after 'väre' is continuing the 'airut:' saga.

The piano driven “Airut:aamujen” was originally released in small limited edition thru our Utustudio in December 2004 under the name Harmaa. After signing it also to Prophecy we wanted to re-release it with the title TENHI and so bring the saga together.Airut:saga is based on my and Ilmari Issakainen’s visions. The saga continues and explores further paths found in certain TenhiI songs. The song ‘Kielo’ was the source of inspiration for the first two chapters. The third one “Airut:Savoie” will grow upon themes found in ‘Tuulenkaato’ and ‘Maa syttyy’ (Maaäet). Tenhi have already composed the material for “Airut:aamujen released late 2006, In 2007 they've released a triple cd in bookformat, Folk Aesthetic 1996-2006.



01 - Varpuspäivä | Sparrow-day (6:31)
02 - Kuoppa | Depth (4:31)
03 - Kuulut Kesiin | July's Wreath (3:34)
04 - Salain | Shapeless (4:40)
05 - Viimeiseen | Through Bloom-blades (7:00)
06 - Vähäinen Violetissa | Lithe in Lilac (6:16)
07 - Sarastuskävijä | Frail (5:59)
08 - Maa Syttyy | Orphan Joy (2:15)
09 - Tuulenkaato | Falter (5:00)
10 - Aatos | Reverie (2:14)
11 - Uuvu Oravan Luu | Ease Squirrel Bone (4:59)
12 - Rannalta Haettu | From the Shore (7:19)

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Friday, November 28, 2008

The Prisoner (02)

Hello, over @ Transgloballs The Prisoner cultseries continues with part 2 The Chimes Of Big Ben , it's availble as a straight 337mb download at megaupload or a two(split) rar archives via rapidshare.

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Episode 02; The Chimes Of Big Ben

Number Six has a new nextdoor neighboor, Nadia. She befriends Number Six and tells him that The Village is situated on the Baltic. To cover their plans of escape Number Six enters The Village arts and crafts exibition competition. His entry entitled "Escape" is the inspiration for their plan to get back to London.

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To work up some appetite, here's the 1 min trailer, directly viewable or downloadable

trailer The Chimes of Big Ben (7mb)





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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Eight X again

Hello, some A-tix again, 88 's to be precise a two bands of (hard) rockers that went against the prevailing dance culture of the late eighties. First up, a band that Kaiser Chief fans should like as the latter come rather close soundwise to The Godfathers of 1988, they were rather ignored in the UK at the time, but did have some continental success and in the US, and deservedly so..they produced enigmatic live shows during their extensive touring schedules aswell. Have to say, not having listened to the album for quit some time, they still sound great..here's your chance to discover a band that wouldnt be misplaced in the current music scene...In contrast to the Godfathers the next band did achieve global recognition, though it took some time to sink in that here were four blacks rocking...(wasnt that the whiteman's burdon ?) Anyway once MTV picked up on a track that epitomizes their businessmmodel..The Cult Of Personality...Living Colour quickly became part of the cult of personalities they had expressed their misgivings about in the song..

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The Godfathers - Birth, School, Work, Death ( 88 ^ 88mb)

The Godfathers were founded by brothers Peter and Chris Coyne in London in 1985. Vocalist Peter and bassist Chris were joined by guitarists Kris Dollimore and Mike Gibson and drummer George Mazur. After acclaimed independent single releases produced by Vic Maile and collected on debut album Hit By Hit they signed to Epic Records in 1987. Touring extensively the UK, Europe and the USA, The Godfathers earned a reputation for their no-holds barred live shows and electrifying brand of primal rock 'n' roll. Their guitar-driven alternative rock sound stood out in the electronica-driven music scene of the UK at the time, while laying the foundations for the Brit Pop rock resurgence of the nineties.

As they missed the British punk revolution by a decade and were a few years too early before loud guitars became fashionable in England again. Consequently, the group's 1988 LP Birth, School, Work, Death is often overlooked. Released during the U.K. rave craze of the late ‘80s, Birth, School, Work, Death must've seemed completely dated in the barrage of pulsating electronic sounds that enveloped Britain at the time. Wearing Mafia suits and skinny ties, the Godfathers had a mean look that matched their name. And their sound was similarly tough: brass-knuckled punches in the form of menacing, explosive riffs; venom-spewing, nihilistic vocals; body-slamming percussion. Yet the Godfathers never forget the importance of the hook, they are far from being one-dimensional. "Just Like You" is an upbeat love song and on "When Am I Coming Down" guitarist Kris Dollimore helps illustrate an acid trip gone wrong with swirling, disorienting guitars that recall Jimi Hendrix' moments of sonic transcendence. The production by Vic Maile is clean yet it doesn't soften the Godfathers' two-fisted attack.

Their third album, More Songs About Love & Hate (1989), featured the popular college radio track "She Gives Me Love," but was less commercially successful. They released a fourth album, Unreal World, on Epic in 1991. After the split of the original line-up the band briefly resurfaced in the 90s and toured Europe and Australia. Peter Coyne and Kris Dollimore have contributed to an outfit called The Germans with Rat Scabies, formerly of The Damned in 2003. Mike Gibson has also been busy releasing his first solo album in 2004 with the City Farmers. Lead guitarist Kris Dollimore is active on the British blues scene in London and the South East purveying his unique 'Medway Delta' blues. George Mazur has been working as a session drummer overseas. Rumours of a return to the stage for their traditional Saint Valentine's Day Massacre concert in London have kept their cult following waiting for decades.



01 - Birth, School, Work, Death (4:08)
02 - If I Only Had Time (2:30)
03 - Tell Me Why (2:52)
04 - It's So Hard (3:39)
05 - When Am I Coming Down (4:56)
06 - Cause I Said So (2:47)
07 - The Strangest Boy (3:58)
08 - S.T.B. (2:32)
09 - Just Like You (3:10)
10 - Obsession (3:49)
11 - Love Is Dead (2:42)

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Living Colour - Vivid ( 88 ^ 99mb)

Living Colour was formed in New York City in 1983 by guitarist Vernon Reid. They grew out of the Black Rock Coalition, a non-profit organization founded by (among others) Reid, British-born but a longtime New York resident, and a guitarist of unnerving technique and speed He assembled a number of bands under the name Living Colour from 1983 until 1986, when a stable lineup was formed, consisting of vocalist Corey Glover, bassist Muzz Skillings, and drummer Will Calhoun.

Soon after, the band became experienced at touring, including performing regular gigs at the seminal club CBGB's. Aided by a demo produced by fan Mick Jagger (who hired Reid and Calhoun to play on his 1987 album Primitive Cool), Living Colour scored a record deal with Epic Records. Living Colour's debut album, Vivid, was issued in the summer of 1988, yet it would take a few months for momentum to build. Exploding at the year's end with the hit single/MTV anthem "Cult of Personality," which merged an instantly recognizable Reid guitar riff and lyrics that explored the dark side of world leaders past and present (and remains LC's best-known song). The album was also incredibly consistent, as proven by the rocker "Middle Man", the funky, anti-racist "Funny Vibe," the touching "Open Letter (To a Landlord)," plus the Caribbean rock of "Glamour Boys." Add to it an inspired reading of Talking Heads' "Memories Can't Wait," the Zeppelin-esque "Desperate People," and two complex love songs ("I Want to Know" and "Broken Hearts"), and you have one of the finest hard rock albums of the '80s. The band supported the release with a string of dates opening stadiums for the Rolling Stones' first U.S. tour in eight years that autumn.

The quartet regrouped a year later for their sophomore effort, Time's Up, an album that performed respectfully on the charts but failed to live up to the expectations of their smash debut. An appearance at the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in the summer of 1991 kept the group in the public's eye, as did an EP of outtakes, Biscuits. Skillings left the group shortly thereafter (replaced by studio vet Doug Wimbish), as their darkest and most challenging release yet, Stain, was issued in 1993. Although it failed to sell as well as its predecessors, it retained the band's large and dedicated following, as Living Colour appeared to be entering an interesting and groundbreaking new musical phase of their career. The band began writing the following year for what would be their fourth full-length, but an inability to settle on a single musical direction caused friction between the members, leading to Living Colour's demise in early 1995.

In the wake of Living Colour's split, all of its former members pursued other projects. Reid issued a solo album, 1996's Mistaken Identity (as well as guesting on other artist's recordings), while Glover attempted to launch a career as a solo artist, issuing the overlooked Hymns in 1998 Calhoun and Wimbish remained together and launched a new outfit, the drum'n'bass-inspired Jungle Funk, who issued a self-titled debut release in 1997 .With Living Colour out of commission for several years by the early 21st century, Calhoun and Wimbish teamed up once more with Glover in a new outfit, Headfake, playing often in the New York City area. A few days before Christmas in 2000, Headfake played a show at CBGB's, and were joined on-stage by Reid, which led to rumors of an impending Living Colour reunion. The rumors proved to be true, as Living Colour launched their first tour together in six years during the summer of 2001. In 2003, Living Colour returned with a deal with Sanctuary and their most experimental release to date, Collideøscope. Two years later the rarities collection What's Your Favorite Color? was released, followed by Everything Is Possible: The Very Best of Living Colour in 2006.



01 - Cult Of Personality (4:54)
02 - I Want To Know (4:24)
03 - Middle Man (3:47)
04 - Desperate People (5:36)
05 - Open Letter (To A Landlord) (5:32)
06 - Funny Vibe (4:20)
07 - Memories Can't Wait (4:30)
08 - Broken Hearts (4:50)
09 - Glamour Boys (3:39)
10 - What's Your Favorite Color? (3:56)
11 - Which Way To America (3:41)


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Monday, November 24, 2008

Over the Weekend

A few notes and photos from this past weekend.

On Friday, two distinguished writers and three graduate students affiliated with the university's MA/MFA program read their work at the new Center on Halstead in Lakeview, easily one of the sites most seeing in the Boystown-Belmont area of Chicago. MA/MFA faculty and Center for Writing Arts visiting fiction writer-in-residence Sefi Atta read from the opening of her novel Everything Good Will Come (Interlink USA), while Chicago Tribune columnist and Brenda Starr comics writer Mary Schmich offered three short essay-columns, one of which involved hang-gliding in Rio. (She captured the experience perfectly.) Aubrey Henretty (creative nonfiction), Nate Zoba (poetry), and Kelly Burgess Mayer (fiction-creative nonfiction), one of my past and current students, presented their works as well.

MA/MFA co-director and author Sandi Wisenberg introducing Nate Zoba, Kelly Burgess Mayer, Aubrey Henretty, Mary Schmich, and Sefi Atta

On Saturday evening, a group of Joshua Marie Wilkinson's poetry students from Loyola University in Chicago, led by Charles Gabel, invited me to read with them and Loyola professor Terence Boyle, at a poetry reading-salon they regularly host in Rogers Park. It was tremendous fun, an honor to read with Terrence, and also so encouraging and exciting to hear these young poets, whose interests range widely, who're publishing chapbooks and journals, and who're collaborating on projects of all kinds. One highlight was when one of the writers (a student at Columbia College) and her girlfriend performed Chris Stackhouse's and my "unreadable" poem, "Index," from Seismosis, giving (doubled) voice and body/ies to the concrete-ish poem and its twin image. Thanks again to Charles and all these poets, and we must do it again!

Terence Boyle reading his work

The performance of "Index"

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Canadia 2056 (15)


Hello, have been re-upping some requests, im aware that zShare dropped all their links last month so if you want one of mine feel free to ask for it..


In the year 2056 the US has declared war on the Ipampilashians and has sent the American armada to destroy their planet. Canada has sent its only ship, The Canadia, in support of the American mission but the Canadia is not a warship. It's a maintenance ship (they change light bulbs and plunge toilets). Six months after their fateful return to Earth, the Canadian maintenance ship Canadia and her crew lay in ruins. They have all but given up hope that the human race can survive.
Until a sign from above reaffirms their belief in the human spirit... kind of.

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Episode 15

It's a romantic time on the Canadia when they find themselves moments away from the Syzygian Horizon. Anderson and Lewis both have a problem with the idea of Skip in her new body, but for different reasons. Skip uses her new body to try to rekindle a romance. Faverau and Pickens spend some time debriefing.

Canadia: 2056 - Episode 15

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Friday, November 21, 2008

The Prisoner

Hello, been out of town and busy and will get back to posting some music during the upcoming week, in the meantime i start a new series, 40 years old but it has kept the interest for all those years. "I'm Not A Number, I'm A Free Man !" really hit home and i would think even more so these days. Next year a remake of the series will hit the screens, i hope they won't fuck it up with violence as this series is mostly build on psychological violence.

The Prisoner is a British 1960s television drama series starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan which combines spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.

It follows a former British secret agent who, after abruptly resigning from his position, is held captive in a small village by the sea by an unidentified power that wishes to establish the reason for his resignation. Episodes typically feature the unnamed prisoner, labelled "Number Six" by his captors, unsuccessfully attempting to escape from or change the authority of "the Village." However, Number Six has numerous victories of his own, successfully thwarting the various individuals serving as the Village's chief administrator, "Number Two" in their attempts to break him or control the Village, causing a disconcertingly rapid turnover of personnel in the position. Eventually as the series reaches its surreal climax, Number Six's indomitable resistance and his mounting blows against the administration eventually threaten the viability of the Village itself, which forces its desperate warders to take drastic action.

The show was created by McGoohan and George Markstein, with exteriors filmed primarily on location at the Hotel Portmeirion in Penrhyndeudraeth, North Wales. Seventeen episodes were produced. The first was originally broadcast in London on 1 October 1967[1] and the last aired on 4 February 1968.

Although sold as a spy thriller in the mould of McGoohan's previous series, Danger Man, the show's combination of 1960s countercultural themes and its surreal setting had a far-reaching effect upon science fiction-fantasy-genre television and also popular culture in general.

As a teaser i offer here the first shows trailer, just click on the red triangle (choice) to view or download. Over at Transgloballs you can download episode 1 Arrival


Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Sports + Barkley L. Hendricks at Studio Museum in Harlem

Okay, at first I was thinking, nothing literary today. The "apparatus with which I think" (Bierce) is tired. So: sports. And specifically: baseball.

Yesterday, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols was named the MLB's 2008 National League Most Valuable Player. Pujols hit .357 with 37 home runs and 116 RBI, and had an on-base percentage of. He beat out the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies' (and native St. Louisan) strapping slugger, Ryan Howard, who hit 48 homes (first in the league) and drove in 146 runs (first), while hitting only .251.


Albert Pujols, aka El Hombre (or Prince Albert, Phat Albert, The Machine, and my personal tag for him, Big Papa, Photo: Emily Rasinski/P-D)

Pujols was easily a more consistently dangerous threat at the plate, with an on-base percentage of .462, and a .653 slugging average, both well ahead of Howard. He was second only to Atlanta's Chipper Jones (.364) in the batting title race.

This is Pujols's second MVP award, making him the first Latino and Dominican player to achieve this status; his first came in 2005. He has been in the top five every single year he's been in the league, save last year, and is the only player in MLB history to have 30 home runs and 100 RBIs in this first 8 seasons. It's not unlikely that if he had better protection in the lineup he could have hit even better. As it was, despite being out 12 games because of injuries, he still helped kept the Cardinals in contention for most of the season, until their late fade, when they finished in 4th place.

Other MLB awards: AL MVP, Dustin Pedroia (Boston); AL Cy Young, Cliff Lee (Cleveland); NL Cy Young, Tim Lincecum (San Francisco); AL Rookie of the Year, Evan Longoria (Tampa Bay); NL Rookie of the Year, Geovany Soto (Chicago); AL Manager of the Year, Joe Maddon (Tampa Bay); NL Manager of the Year, Lou Piniella (Chicago).

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Bernie T.
pointed out this amazing story to me, and Reggie H. posted about it yesterday, so I'll send you to his blog to read more. Take it away, Reggie:

Since my partner and I got hooked on Rugby thanks to watching the Wallabies, the All-Blacks, and the Tri-Nations tournament on Fox Sports, I can't resist pointing to this video and article about The Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Washington DC, from the New York Times.

When the team starts the post-game singing of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," I get all choked up....

Aim High, boys!
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I seldom read Newsweek magazine, but I did flip through it today while waiting at the pharmacy, and saw Sarah Bell's article, "Urban Outfitters," which among other things asks why Kehinde Wiley, whose gorgeous new paintings are lighting up New York (in the exhibit "Down" at Deitch Projects and elsewhere) hadn't acknowledged his debt to Barkley L. Hendricks.

Who is Barkley L. Hendricks? Well, interesting that you ask, because today the New York Times offered a brief focus on Hendricks that's worth checking out. Hendricks is an important but little heralded painter whose work from the 1970s on has mapped out a new area in African-American and American vernacular, photorealist portraiture. To give one example of his work, I've posted of my all-time favorite of his works, "North Philly Nigga (William Corbett)," [1975. Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas, 72 ½ x 48 ½ inches. Collection of E. Blake Byrne, Los Angeles], which resoundingly evokes a world I and many others know and recall so well. Many of his most famous paintings, full-size in scope, depict urban black male subjects, sometimes in dandyish fashions, sometimes in street wear, but he also has painted numerous portraits of black women and group images, some inspired by prior works in the Euro-American art tradition, others drawn from his own photos and mass media imagery, as well as from his personal life. He also has exhibited some of his photography, which mines a similar vein.

Hendricks, it turns out, is having his first major retrospective exhibit this year; titled Barkley Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, it's now at the Studio Museum in Harlem (it runs from November 12, 2008-March 15, 2009). (You can hear the great art historian Richard Powell on Hendricks' work, from the exhibit's previous stop at the Nasher Museum of Arts at Duke University website.) A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Yale's art school (BFA, MFA), and a longtime professor at Connecticut College, he has been making his art almost concurrently with the rise of late 20th century vernacular forms such as hip hop, funk and r&b, and his work is the epitome of soul, wit, grit, rawness, queerness, and realness. Although work of this kind hardly seems revolutionary now, especially with the "return" of painting, especially representational and realist painting over the last few years, Hendricks is and should be acknowledged as an important pioneer. His DNA is all up in Wiley's and others' work. So give some props, bruh. And let's all get up to the Studio Museum (and Deitch) if we can!

Hendricks on YouTube (doesn't he sound a little like Chris S.?)

He received a United States Artist award as well this year (congrats to all the other winners, including folks I know, like Harryette Mullen, A. Van Jordan, Tayari Jones, and Forrest Gander, and many I've long admired, like Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, Joy Harjo, William Greaves, Jawole Wille Jo Zollar, Ela Troyano, and lê thi diem thúy!)

(Also running simultaneously with this exhibit is AACM philosopher-musician George E. Lewis's Travelogue, a SMH StudioSound exhibit that he writes was "twenty years in the making.)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Snow + Mulled Wine

Sometimes I wonder if I'm going to look back on these past few years in Chicago outside of my classes as little more than a mostly endless avalanche of documents--not books of poetry or fiction or creative nonfiction or biographies written by others or even by me, etc.--that have to be read by a certain date and letters and reports and so forth that have to be produced by a certain date and endless meetings involving documents that have to be read and reports that have to be read and written and so forth, but I do know that one of the things I will not ever forget is the weather, which has never failed to surprise or stir me from the dumps. Of course there are other places where it can be in the 30s one day and 75 F the next, or in the high 40s one day and snow the next, or be cool near one's apartment and like an antechamber to the arctic just 25 blocks away and then merely chilly only a few hours later. Or so freezing and windy that you are sure you have died and are cast into you know where. But I don't live in those places and can't speak to them. Chicago's vagaries, however, I do know a bit. See for example the photo below, taken on Sunday evening.

By the time I snapped the photo, the snow had stopped. A cashier in the bookstore I'd dropped into mentioned that because of the less extreme weather earlier, he hadn't even worn a coat or jacket to work, and now wasn't sure what he was going to do. I suggested he call a family member or friend to bring a jacket, or a coworker heading in to work to lend him the same. I felt so bad for him that I almost wanted to go buy him a jacket myself. Unfortunately for both of us, whatever desire I had to carry out that altruistic act was dispelled when I saw the ticket nestled in the snow atop my windshield. I guess someone has to pay for all those appealing new banners across the cityLoop area congratulating our President Elect.

There was still a little snow on the ground but tonight the sky and snowless was clear as I walked from class to the El. I'd felt crappy earlier in the day but this evening class always picks me up. A group of students and I were heading west on Superior and one mentioned how much she enjoyed having a glass of wine when she got home from class, and the cold weather immediately made me think of mulled wine, which I will always associate with the Second Sun readings at Naïeveté Studios, and especially with Toni Asante Lightfoot (who is now the mother of Leontyn Ella Gbegan!!!-congratulations, Toni and Setondji!) and Krista Franklin. I suggested mulled wine to some of the students, a few of whom hadn't heard of it, so in honor of little Leontyn, and my great grad students, here's the recipe, from an earlier J's Theater, for mulled wine:

Mulled Red Wine (hat tips go to Toni A. L., Krista F. and James Earl H. and Donald A. for their delicious version).

MULLED RED WINE

2 bottles of merlot, red zinfandel or a similar wine ($5-9 range, not too cheap, not to expensive)
2/3rds cup of sugar or honey
zest from 1/2-1 orange
10 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2 cup of brandy or cognac (not too cheap)
+ non-reactive pot, muddler/spoon, non-reactive bowl/mortar, stirring spoon, mugs/coffee cups/warming cups.

1. Pour the red wine in a non-reactive pot (non-stick, tempered glass/Pyrex, stainless steel, etc.), and heat over a low flame. Avoid very cheap wines, since they grow unpalatable when heated, and avoid aluminum, which will react with the wine.
2. With a vegetable peeler, zester or paring knife, zest the orange, making sure to avoid the white backing of the peel and rind, since there's less flavor and it can be bitter.
3. Muddle (or mash with a pestle or spoon) the zest/peel, releasing the oils, in a non-reactive (glass, porcelain) bowl or mortar.
4. Add the zest/peel to the wine.
5. Stir in the sugar, making sure it dissolves, then add the cloves and cinnamon sticks.
6. Add the 1/2 cup of brandy or cognac (the better the quality, the better the taste--and it adds real bite).
7. Heat until the wine is steaming, but try not to let it boil.
8. Set it aside, let it cool, and then ladle it into mugs, and enjoy!

(And remember, if you have more than a glass, designate a responsible driver, hire a cab or hit the public transportation!)

Monday, November 17, 2008

Photos: Stop Prop H8 March

FIRST: I did fix the "Long Nightmare Will Be Over" gif--yes, it should be January 20, 2009!

Now, some photos from the Rally which became a (permit-less) March.
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The rally area, at Federal Plaza (Calder sculpture in the background)
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One of my favorite (silly) placards
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Heading towards Michigan
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Protesters
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On the street, beneath the new banners celebrating our President Elect, Barack Obama
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Protesters have fun
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Two ebullient protesters
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Not sure where this is (but in the Loop!)
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A drummer, heading back towards Michigan Ave.
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Illinois's very gay state seal
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The Chicago mounties
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Near Wacker Drive (and those famous Marina "Honeycomb" Towers)
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Alongside the Chicago River on Wacker Drive (I took this photo from Starbucks window--the young black folks working in there were quite supportive)
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Back on the street
Impromptu marcher/drummers
Some impromptu young marchers who joined on Michigan Ave.'s Miracle Mile
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On Michigan Avenue's Miracle Mile

Politics Politics

It looks like quite a few people are still very interested in what our soon-to-be president and his wife have to say.

Foto: João Laet / Agência O DiaHe's still provoking tremendous excitement across the globe, including among African-descendant people in Latin America (thanks, HBR!), and in particular in Brazil (from left, singer Toni Garrido, actor and model Walter Rosa, actor and MC André Ramiro, and actor Rocco Pitanga, photo: João Laet, Agência O Dia). Though black and brown French people and Britons are energized by Obama's victory, France's lone black governmental minister remains pessimistic that a French Obama is possible with the current political crowd. Yet his French enthusiasts have formed committees to discuss and push for change, and have the support of France's first lady, Carla Bruni Sarkozy. In the UK, it's not likely anytime soon, given the political system and comparatively smaller black and brown populations, but some believe the electorate would be ready.

There's a subset in this country, however, who aren't happy at all at the election results (just as they weren't by the very prospect of Obama's candidacy or victory), and are acting out in horrid ways. It's imperative that while we respect people's free speech rights, the authorities do not write off as "knuckleheads" or "aspirational," that is, take lightly the threats against the president or anyone else, or dismiss violent or deadly acts by these folks. As the Oklahoma City bombing 13 years ago demonstrated, domestic terrorists can be as great a threat and as deadly as foreign ones.

We're hardly in a post-racial world; this is part of what poet Brian Gilmore eloquently argues in his Bookforum review of historian David R. Roediger's How Race Survived U.S. History and law professor and my college classmate Ariela J. Gross's What Blood Won’t Tell, books that Brian says "chart the ongoing legacy of the legal apartheid system in the United States." Not that I need to say this, but no one should be celebrating the end of "race" or racism, two terms that unfortunately that often elided into one another to efface the latter and misrepresent the former.

Back to President Elect Obama, I'm trying not to focus too much on the ideological-political casts of his appointees (I've been disappointed by some of the picks, like Rahm Emanuel, and heartened by others, like Mona Sutphen), or get too caught up in the drama involving any mention of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's role in the new administration. Certainly I think she'd be an excellent Secretary of State, or really anything he appointed her too, because she's brilliant and dogged to the point at times of ruthlessness, but then several of the people whose names have been bandied about for this post could serve with distinction. The real issue as I see it is would this post be enough for Hillary? Then again, short of the presidency, what would a comparable platform? One person he pray he does not pick is Colin Powell, has irrevocably disgraced himself through his active participation in putting us in Iraq. His endorsement of Obama was great, but that was more about his own atonement. Another, and this goes without saying of course, is John McCain--President Obama, just say no, seriously. With regard to his larger staffing process, I sincerely hope he is considering many more new faces and fewer of the Clintonistas, and lots of Latinos and Asian Americans, since he won among both groups overwhelmingly. There's a reason the vote totals in California, New York, Illinois, New Mexico, and other states weren't close at all.... His first two choices for the US Supreme Court should be Elena Kagan and Harold Hongju Koh. Sí se puede!

I'm glad to see that it's increasingly unlikely that the longest-serving Republican Senator, now a convicted felon, will not be heading back to Washington. This means no Palin appointee, including herself, and a moderate-progressive Democrat, Mark Begich, will be holding the junior Alaska seat for at least the next 6 years. Al Franken remains in limbo, though the way things are looking incumbent Norm Coleman could be facing not just a recount but a judge and jury fairly soon. I keep getting emails from Jim Martin's campaign about the runoff in Georgia; the voting begins today.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Canadia 56 (14)


Hello, the Canadia Saga continues...

In the year 2056 the US has declared war on the Ipampilashians and has sent the American armada to destroy their planet. Canada has sent its only ship, The Canadia, in support of the American mission but the Canadia is not a warship. It's a maintenance ship (they change light bulbs and plunge toilets). Six months after their fateful return to Earth, the Canadian maintenance ship Canadia and her crew lay in ruins. They have all but given up hope that the human race can survive.
Until a sign from above reaffirms their belief in the human spirit... kind of.

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Episode 14
The crew finds themselves in Medieval England. Pickens sends the Canadia crew down to earth to collect a sample of the Black Death while he and Faverau tour some plague-free castles. The Captain sees this as an opportunity and Gaffney is given the responsibility of protecting them from the plague.

Canadia: 2056 - Episode 14

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Videos: Anti Prop H8 Rally & March

"Do not feel shame for how I live." - Essex Hemphill

I'll write another post, with photos, from yesterday's extraordinary Anti Prop H8 rally and impromptu march (it wasn't planned, but the police complied) in downtown Chicago, but here are some video clips I took.







Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Video: Michigan Avenue/Grant Park Election Celebration

Way too much work today, so here's one of the videos from last Tuesday's celebration. It's taking place on Michigan Avenue. Enjoy!

A.P.(04) V 4 Vendetta

Hello, some vinyl ripping troubles here..anyway a week later as planned i post of movie,btw not uploaded by me but i did very much enjoyed it, it's from the people behind the Matrix, nothing VR this time but there are some pills to swallow...It's one big download from Megaupload 442mb, if you havent seen the movie yet , get it and enjoy...

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V for Vendetta is a 2006 action-thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. The film is an adaptation of the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. Set in London, England in a near-future dystopian society, the film follows the mysterious V, a freedom fighter seeking to effect sociopolitical change while simultaneously pursuing his own violent personal vendetta. The film stars Natalie Portman as Evey Hammond, Hugo Weaving as V, Stephen Rea as Inspector Finch and John Hurt as Chancellor Sutler.

The film was originally scheduled for release by Warner Bros. Friday, November 4, 2005 (a day before the 400th Guy Fawkes Night), but was delayed; it opened on March 17, 2006. Alan Moore, refused to view the film and subsequently distanced himself from it. Moore said that the script contained plot holes and that it ran contrary to the theme of his original work, which was to place two political extremes (fascism and anarchism) against one another. He argues his work had been recast as a story about "current American neo-conservatism vs. current American liberalism". Per his wishes, Moore's name does not appear in the film's closing credits. Co-creator and illustrator David Lloyd supports the film adaptation, commenting that the script is very good and that Moore would only ever be truly happy with a complete book-to-screen adaptation.

There are several fundamental differences between the film and the original source material. For example, the comic is set in the '90s, while the film is set in 2038: Alan Moore's original story was created as a response to British Thatcherism in the early 80s and was set as a conflict between a fascist state and anarchism, whereas the film's story has been changed by the Wachowskis to fit a modern political context. Alan Moore charges that in doing so, the story has turned into an American-centric conflict between liberalism and neo-conservatism, and abandons the original anarchist-fascist themes.


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V For Vendetta (05 442mb, MP4)

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In case your player doesn't support the mp4 format you can get the VideolanPlayer, it will work with just about anything. On 30 October 2008 VLC media player won a "TIM Award" in category "Multimedia Software" at a PC-WELT event. You can go to their website to download and pick up some skins or download the package thru sharebee(with a handful of skins) uploaded by me. Btw excellent support at their website and wiki. BTW i note a much better sound quality compared to other videoplayers.

Videolan multimediaplayer VLC 0.9.6 14 mb
or
Videolan multimediaplayer VLC 0.9.6 15 mb

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Our Long Nightmare Will (Soon?) Be Over

Update: Gif fixed!
Our Long National Nightmare Will Soon Be Over

Monday Notes

Many thanks to Joshua Marie Wilkinson and his colleagues at Loyola University of Chicago who hosted the talks + reading that I was fortunate to participate in last Friday. Joshua, who opened the event by reading one of Barack Obama's poems, invited six of us to speak about poetry and something else we were doing that inflected our work, and my co-speakers offered great remarks. Jennifer Karmin spoke about poetry and activism; Robyn Schiff (I miss her!) spoke about poetry and publishing; Abraham Smith spoke about poetry and performance; Quraysh Ali Lansana (Q!) spoke about poetry and history; and Lisa Fishman spoke about poetry and farming. I read some remarks on collaboration in relation to my work, extending it to my translation projects (another form of collaboration, and one in which this blog has played a great part), and some art stuff. (Dear collaborators...hint, hint....)

After a delicious lunch, we all read briefly, and then I had to go catch a plane, missing what was billed as a "snow storm." I was very glad to see so many local poets and students there (a group from the university came down), and to see them really getting into the poetry as well.

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Rapturous reviews of Roberto Bolaño's final, unfinished magnum opus 2666 (FSG, 2008) have been appearing over the past week. The persnickety Adam Kirsch says that it has the "confident strangeness of a masterpiece." (Francisco Goldman's summer 2007 review of a portion of Bolaño's collective oeuvre, including the Spanish version of 2666, can be found here.) The Spanish version graced my carrel at the library this summer, though I wasn't able to get far in it. Would that there were a parallel vein of time.... But the English translation, by Natasha Wimmer, who deserves an award, is out, and although I have only grazed a few pages, I can say, as I did in an email to Reggie H., that it confirms for me that Bolaño will join that cadre of exception writers since 1900--Rilke, Proust, Tolstoy, Hughes, etc.--who are among the finest in the literary tradition but never received the Nobel Prize. You can get the book in one hardcover volume or a boxed three-volume set; I bought the box. Bolaño originally suggested five volumes, but his heirs and executors wisely, it seems, kept the entire work (mostly) together.

Also receiving rhapsodic treatment is Toni Morrison's new novella, A Mercy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008). Reviewer after reviewer discusses its exploration of slavery's early form and praises its poetic language, tautness, haunting qualities, and links it to Morrison's masterwork, Beloved (1987). Even the nation's toughest critic, who hasn't spared Morrison harsh criticism in the past, is jumping on the bandwagon. If you missed her reading selections from it on NPR, you can hear it here. It's on my list, for the winter break...

One of the books that recently crossed my desk is Asher Ghaffar's Wasps in a Golden Hum Dream a Strange Music (ECW Press, 2008). It looks gorgeous, from cover to cover, and I've also added it to my list!

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Family membersOne of the most dismaying bits of recent news was the horrific school collapse in Pétionville, Haiti, just outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. More than 94 children and adults have died, and the international search and rescue effort, which did pull 4 surviving children from the rubble on Saturday, will now likely turn to a recovery of bodies. Up to 250-300 people were thought to be in the building at the time of its collapse. (Above left, a woman in anguish for her missing child is assisted by relatives at the site of the collapsed the church-run school, La Promesse, in Petion-ville, Haiti on November 10, 2008, AFP/Getty Images.)

It now appears that the school's owner, Pastor Fortune (Fortin?) Augustin, who had voluntarily turned himself in, is being charged with involuntary manslaughter; when the building collapsed, workers were adding an additional floor, and the pastor is alleged to have constructed the building without engineering help. Haiti is still trying to recover from the quartet of devastating storms which have battered the Caribbean islands since the late summer. Haiti lost 2/3rds of its crops and entire neighborhoods still remain under water.

If you are able to, you can contribute relief funds here or here.

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I'm not going to speculate on President-Elect Barack Obama's transition team or his putative cabinet picks, though I found this short New York Times piece on Valerie Jarrett quite illuminating. Really, I think we should just wait and watch. Despite the right's claims that he was the second coming of V. I. Lenin (yeah, right!), and the desire among some in Washington for the second coming of Dwight Eisenhower (whom the contemporary Republicans have banished from their roster, along with other decent Republican presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, who was Ronald Reagan's favorite), he has mostly been a center-left legislator, both in the Illinois State Senate and the US Senate. This maps closely onto what I read as his ideological orientation, which is center-left, with the emphasis on the center. Obama isn't and hasn't ever been a left radical, though he often announces leftist intentions and demonstrates progressive tendencies. But he will likely govern from the center-left, perhaps further to the left, because he received a greater popular vote mandate, than any of his previous three predecessors. He is, nevertheless, going to appoint DLC-prototype folks like Rahm Emanuel and his ilk to high posts, bring in a host of Clintonistas, and draw upon the University of Chicago braintrust he hung with for quite some time, and not just the progressive ones.

Some of the early news we're getting, such as his team's careful review of Bush's executive orders and his plan to reverse many of them and his intention to close the abomination at Guantánamo Bay, more than balance out his accommodating stance towards someone like Connecticut's independent senator, Joe Lieberman. Uggh!

Now, can anyone scare up some inauguration tickets for C, me, and family members? (Former classmates...help!)

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Speaking of Obama, poet John Murillo sent along a link to an article noting the President-Elect was recently spotted carrying a copy of Derek Walcott's Selected Poems (Edward Baugh, ed., FSG, 2007) as he was dropping his daughters off at school. I noted to the CC folks that "So much marvelous work in this collection that I'm sure hits Obama at a very deep level," and posted the poem I'd posted on here a month ago, "As John to Patmos." Given that he's already alluded to Langston, Alice Walker (tell me you knew that!), and others, I thought that we might hear snippets of Walcott and many others from our literature in his speeches, including his inaugural. Get your ears and eyes ready!

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One of the greats to remember and honor: Miriam Makeba. Singer, actress, activist-fighter, visionary, "Mama Africa": beautiful. She was 76.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Quote: Rosario Ferré

"I think that magic has to do with the subconscious, much as the ancient sorcerers believed. The identification of man with his material surroundings and his active participation in that world are detailed in books of Carlos Castañeda, for example, as well as, on a different level, with the books of sociologists like Lévy-Bruhl and Ernst Cassirer, or Lévi-Strauss. The magical identification has a lot to do with literature, this alternate way of viewing the world."
-Rosario Ferré (b. 1938-), in Marie-Lise Gazarian Gautier, Interviews with Latin American Writers, Normal, Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 1992, p. 85.

Canadia 56 (13)



Hello, the Canadia Saga continues...

In the year 2056 the US has declared war on the Ipampilashians and has sent the American armada to destroy their planet. Canada has sent its only ship, The Canadia, in support of the American mission but the Canadia is not a warship. It's a maintenance ship (they change light bulbs and plunge toilets). Six months after their fateful return to Earth, the Canadian maintenance ship Canadia and her crew lay in ruins. They have all but given up hope that the human race can survive.
Until a sign from above reaffirms their belief in the human spirit... kind of.

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Episode 13

Faverau tries to ensure their future by helping the "people" on earth. The Captain goes to the surface of earth to find food and sneaks something else back onto the ship. Gaffney gets drawn into the Captain's plan to get Skip out of her jar. Lewis and Anderson make their first attempts at "steering" the timecar.


Canadia: 2056 - Episode 13

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Saturday, November 8, 2008

AP(04) Sndz

Hello Sundazers, wont leave you without today, in fact it seems that last weeks upload didnt connect to well so i bring it up again ..Manuel Gottsching - E2 E4 ( 84 ^ 139mb)..courtesy Zshare as is today Condition of Muzak a great sampler by an idiosyncratic label Expanding Records ...N -Joy..

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The Condition Of Muzak ( 02 ^ 179mb)

The Condition of Muzak is a radio show compiled and mixed by Paul Merritt (tench)

It originally appeared in 1995 as a weekly 2 hour show on the first ever internet radio station www.gaialive.com. Set up by Mr C of the Shaman and pirate radio dj Redz it now owned and run by the internet genius Tim Read. The Condition of Muzak is now the longest running radio show of any kind on the internet. Early shows were put together by Tench and Mike Sumpter (Spongeboy) and as Spongeboy and Tench they dj'd on radio and in clubs from the mid nineties into the new millenium. The Condition of Muzak is also the name of the Expanding Records club night which ran monthly in 2000 for a year and then became an occasional 'happening' which has been transported worldwide.

The Condition Of Muzak (evsc1:01) is a compilation based around the series of nine 7" singles released on Expanding Records during the year 2001. Each 7" single was limited to 400 copies on coloured vinyl and in custom packaging and all contain exclusive tracks not available on this CD. The CD is a record of the EVS 7" project and also a pointer toward future Expanding releases...in 2006 The Condition Of Muzak 2 was released 



01 - Benge - Logans Walk (6:38)
02 - Abfahrt Hinwil - Links Oben (3:39) 
03 - Stendec - Avro (6:50)
04 - Vessel - Tiny (3:50)
05 - Benge - Baud (5:30)
06 - Antoni Frankowski L5 (4:06)
07 - Fibla - foHb (4:29)
08 - Zorn - Bits For Breakfast (5:47)
09 - David Mooney - Garbanzo Poem (Stendec Remix) (4:08)
10 - Volume - Dr Salts Massive Lung Trombone (6:32)
11 - Benge - Baud (Zorn Remix) (6:00)
12 - Tennis - Duckshelf (7:09)
13 - Tennis - Duckshelf (Jan Jelinek Pet Sounds Remix) (7:12)
14 - David Mooney - Malfunction 54 (0:54)

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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Sweet Tea + Podcasts + Farewells

So let's shift gears a bit. There are tons of things I've been meaning to post about, but here are a few.

Sweet TeaWeeks ago I went to see my colleague E. Patrick Johnson perform pieces from his remarkable new work, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (University of North Carolina Press, 2008). A collection of interviews, with extensive, clarifying commentary, that E. Patrick conducted in 2004 and 2005, the work gives voice to a wide array of men who are rarely represented, especially so thoughtfully and with such complexity, in our culture. You can order the book online, and as I've urged friends, please do go see Patrick perform selected interviews if he comes to your city or town.

***

One of the major issues we face is the lack of affordable, universal comprehensive health care and prescription drug benefits. I am lucky to have employer-provided insurance, but despite having very good coverage, I can attest to how exorbitant my bills have been, and I know that without insurance, there'd be no way I could have paid for them. So many people either go without necessary health care and prescriptions, or go bankrupt as a result of necessary care, every single day. The SEIU wants to keep health care at the forefront of our new President Obama's agenda. You can sign on here to support their effort.

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I went through about a week of Apple Appstore Appophilia--there're so many interesting ones! And they're free! And you can get ones that perform the most useful or obscure things for you, at least in theory!--but it waned quickly, right around the time I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't properly record my voice on Jott and ended up writing down the list of library call numbers I'd been trying record to my phone. Then yesterday I saw my colleague John Bresland's video essay-in-progress about his fascination with iPhone Apps (and so many other things; it was outstanding) and that Appophilia started up again. Sort of--I've downloaded a few since yesterday, which I guess points to my suggestibility or something. But the truth is, I'm actually more enthralled now with iTunes' Podcasts, which I listen to when I'm driving to work, waiting to hop on the plane, working out at the gym...yes, I admit it. In place of Common, Jazmine Sullivan, Belasco, Ghostface, N.E.R.D., Janet Jackson, Q-Tip, and all the rest of my favorite playlist residents, I actually have been listening to (CUNY series) Mark Anthony Neal lecturing on rethinking contemporary Black identity; Paul Krugman on health care and the economy; (NYPL) Daniel Mendelsohn, James Wood and Pico Iyer (who has an almost surreally high voice and loves V.S. Naipaul far too much) on literature, criticism and new media; Frank Bidart and (92nd St. Y, 1968) Adrienne Rich reading their poems; John Edgar Wideman reading his fiction; and William Rhoden on Black athletes and responsibility, just to name a few.

Some podcasts are just inappropriate for an elliptical trainer or free weights, though. Saul Kripke, for example; why on earth did I think I could get through more than a few minutes of this, doing anything except sitting very quietly, notebook in hand, and concentrating to the full extent of my capacities? Or a very old (1961) pair of Nadine Gordimer stories from the 92nd Y, which were about as engaging as a piece of toast discovered behind a refrigerator. I managed about two minutes and then had to say enough. Yes to Gordimer, no to her voice and those pieces. Driving in New Jersey, I found listening to the New Yorker's podcast of Mary Gaitskill reading Vladimir Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols" so entrancing that I had to make sure I was watching traffic lights and stop signs. But Donald Antrim's enthusiastic version of Donald Barthelme's "I Bought a Little City" didn't grab me. So it goes.

I've never been a fan of audiobooks, since I love to hold the physical book in my hand, but I do love readings, lectures and talks, and conversations, and anything along these lines conducted by very smart people, so I can't get enough of these podcasts. What really got me going after my few early dabblings was when a particularly brilliant colleague also suggested I check out the iTunes U offerings. I haven't looked back. At the risk of singling out several universities, Stanford by far has the best offerings, while MIT's courses are the most thorough, and Yale has lots of material but a lot of seems geared towards Yalies. Other universities whose materials I've downloaded include Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Oxford, SVA, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, DePaul, Vanderbilt, and Villanova. The university doesn't appear to have any materials on iTunes right now.

A few times I've rewound the talks so many times trying to get into them that I realize, it's time for some music. And then I'm back to Janelle Monáe, Tom Zé, TV on the Radio, Ben Harper, Kelis, Kid Sister, Violator.... Looking at the iTunes offerings, I realized I haven't explored the video casts much beyond comedy shorts, so I'll have to try more of those, especially the lectures. There's a whole series on Kara Walker, including a reading by Kevin Young and a lecture by Dorothy Walker, that I've got to check out. On my list for a plane trip tomorrow: Claudia Rankine reading from her work and Elizabeth Boyi on African and Caribbean Francophone writers!

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Also, I must say goodbyes to Chicago icon, writer, historian, and social activist Studs Terkel, who passed away on Halloween; South African author Es'kia Mphahlele, who died on October 27; and the inimitable critic and visionary John Leonard, whose sentences could induce vertigo. He died on Wednesday. Last week Chicago Public Radio made my day by devoting a chunk of airtime to celebrating Terkel, and you can hear some of that material, and find links to other great stuff, like Terkel chatting with Langston Hughes, here.