Pinchin

Thomas Pynchon gets a 10 for use of analogies — "She couldn't stop watching his eyes. They were bright black, surrounded by an incredible network of lines, like laboratory mazes for studying intelligence in tears."

Orange who?

Orange you glad it's a vegetarian!

mal(l)ignment

moths

le mot du jour est:

JOUR

jour - day, daylight
il fait jour - it is daylight
À chaque jour suffit sa peine - sufficient for the day is the evil thereof
c'est le jour et la nuit - they are as different as chalk and cheese
être à jour - to be up to time or in apple-pie order
jour maigre - fish day
jour gras - flesh-day
les jours gras - Shrovetide

il ne me plaît pas que vous y alliez - i do not like your going there

*Heath's New French Dictionary (1932)

speaking of words if you have six sets of six lines of words and round them out with three lines of words at the end and if you number the last word in each line of the first set 1,2,3...and so on, and then make them the end-words of the six lines of the next five sets, but in this order: 615243, 364125, 532614, 451362, and 246531 ...then you would have a sestina, an obscure, "highly structered form of poetry dating back to the 12th century." (the helpful wikipedia article is here: W)

Here's one by accordion-play/writer Terry Winch, sent to me by badass percussionist Jesse Winch:

Jennifer Connelly Sestina.
BY TERENCE WINCH
- - - -
The boy returns home with blue hair.
The dog understands everything we say.
He is wearing an lampshade around his neck.
His left hind leg is stapled closed.
The veterinarian says there is no reason for God
because the universe is just a dog's dream.

We can all agree that Jennifer Connelly is a dream.
Almost naked, in a thong, cloaked in her long black hair,
her every move is proof for the existence of God.
The boy with blue hair is not willing to say
why his lips are sealed, his mind made up, his door closed.
I am not wearing a lampshade around my neck.

My wife once owned a jacket with "Great Neck"
printed on the back. Before we met I had a dream
about her name. I waited until the restaurant closed
to tell her she had dazzling movie-star hair.
In fact, she is just as beautiful as, let us say,
the astonishing Jennifer Connelly, so help me God.

The boy and the dog are friends with God.
They claim they feel his hot breath on their necks.
Unfortunately, they don't like what He has to say.
I'd like to take this occasion to daydream
briefly once again about Jennifer Connelly's hair
and the rest of her: extraordinary. That's it. Case closed.

When I got to the church at midnight, it was closed
tighter than the eyes and ears of our good friend God.
Frankly, in that proverbial foxhole, I'd take Madalyn O'Hair
over the Pope. The boy's upstairs playing bottleneck
guitar. The dog is drunk on painkillers, dreaming
that if he could talk, he'd know just what to say.

O Jennifer, there is still so much left to say
but my time is up, it's late, everything is closed.
I want to crawl into bed, past the dog, and dream
of the sex palaces of Heaven, where everyone is the God
of love, and you and me and my wife are racing neck and neck
with the erotic angels of Paradise, but I win by a hair!

New Orleans, like you, is now a dream. Maybe I'll call this "The Hair
of the Dog," who, by the way, has become an incredible pain in the neck.
What more can I say, except that in Waking the Dead, you played God

he is

Have you ever gotten one of those Sacred Annointed Jesus Rugs? Well we got one yesterday. Jesse did as instructed and stared into Christ's eyes and them went to be alone while he touched the paper rug to his knees. He didn't get any further though, even though the letter clearly states that "Timing is VERY IMPORTANT to GOD!" So thanks Jesse, I didn't need that new car anyway.

Who is? Sam is. Thanks to me just not being dumb for a few minutes, the Sam Amidon interview (informational accuracy not gauranteed) is finally available in non-field-mouse viewing format: a webpage.

correction

Dear everybody, I have not been clear with you, or, er, clear enough. Ahhh, my point is that I did not drive my car into any river. And now looking back, I suppose it behooves me to say also the there was no cat suicide. The cat is fine and delighted to have Jesse back. He even bought her some new food—score! She is sitting right over there on the floor actually, although I should mention that she has changed her lounging style to a warm-weather style.

In other news, I am overwhelmed by delicious tea. My order form Upton came today, and in at a whole nest of samples from all over the place. So far I have had the Formosa (which is what they used to call Taiwan, I learned) Amber Oolong, and right now am drinking Special Grade Japanese Sencha Yamato, which I may have oversteeped. Nevertheless, they are, as I mentioned, overwhelmingly good. Both are interesting to look at as well (as you can see), and smell like stuff that would come out of the ground–amazing stuff. Also, the sencha leaves are great to eat, some of the least bitter leaves I have had.

the cat

For the cat, apparently, the only thing worse than Jesse not being around is being in the car. It would also seem that the remedy for this is a form ritualized suicide invented by the cat in which you whine and scream without end, no matter what, thereby maddening the driver until he is unable to function and the Jeep veers off the road into the river—whichever river that is where they have the drawbridge in West Point, Va.

Supply side

I have finally decided to take a break from sitting on the futon, which is what I have been doing for the last three days, tediously experimenting with a horrible but NEWLY-DISCOVERED (by me) method for multitrack recording.

The cat is very displeased at Jesse's not being here, and has taken to whining and drooling almost incessantly.

I have run out of olive oil, sweet potatoes, and clean underwear—which means it's time to go home.

ainu hott pink

Apparently those Ainu know how to party. (this might be better than the Chopin vodka ad on the back of the Nov. 14 2005 New Yorker, bravo Google Image search)

Ainu shut up.

that's what I said to Mikey (who wasn't listening) the other night, only I meant "I knew! Shut up." And Mikey said some smart-ass thing, so Jesse said to him "No I think he was talking about the Ainu people of Japan, and how they tend to shut up." Which of course is very funny.

As it turns out, the Ainu language (in which the word "ainu" means human) is nearly an extinct language. So the Ainu people do, in fact, tend to shut up. This is how brilliant Jesse is. The helpful wikipedia article on the Ainu is here: AINU!

Slender Loris

Aah!

Best concertina playing...ever.

Definately worth a listen: Micheál O'Raghallaigh (O'Reilly)

I really really want a pair of cowboy boots.

let's

Things were very hectic lately, but have in the last couple hours gotten very sleepy. Although this seems to happen to me fairly often (since I have been reading so much Henry James), now it has come over the others. As I write this, Jesse is napping on his bed with the cat, after a long but still shorter than usual session at Victoria, and Mikey has taken to the floor--no doubt running himself about in a bizarre rêve (isn't that pretentious) brought on by too much Sartre and Borges (to whom we owe having heard Mikey in some pain " ...and what the fuck is a quadricular notebook!?")

I will be playing "Indeterminacy" on the experimental show tonite, the piece for which the show was created. Andrew Miller may or may not be co-hosting anymore.


Ants are incredibly awesome, so stay tuned for something with them in the next couple days.

new roomie (?)

a good day for some

Last year (2005 for all you idiots out there), in India, a Hindu nationalist party renamed Valentine's Day "Prostitution Day".

blahseur

Pictures lend such a pleasant aesthetic to this space that I'm having a hard time not including one all the time, but here I am a-doin' it.

William and Mary is very concerned with toughness posturing. Way much work, not always with good reason. Damn we're tough though. #1 best deal small hot public college school ever. Don't worry about ever forgetting it, because we'll be reminding you.

You know Jesse has been saying hilarious things, but it's become so commonplace that I rarely write them down. Is this dull, I feel dull. I wish I had time to get this music myspace thing up and running. Work.

Speaking of myspace, the moleskine boom has gotten nearly out of hand, "Moleskines for Life" is a group on myspace now. But there is sometimes interesting stuff on www.moleskinerie.com, and of course there is very cool stuff in the archives there.

Sort of by request, here is some new french dictionary Heath's-ness.

(it'll be here in a bit, after I finish some more work)

oh, I know it's a bit late, but Jesse will be in the studio for tonight's show (at midnight), which will cheer things up considerably.

Re: me

this Sunday, at 3, Hennage Auditorium in the DeWitt Wallace Museum. If you follow the link, ignore the title. It will be otherwise good. And, it's sort of free, I think: "Included in museum admission, but requires a free reservation available at any Colonial Williamsburg ticket location."


R A D I O R A D I O

new show time

6 till 8

p m

every wed. night

W C W M

(listen live)


and on thursday nights there will be a new kind of party on the radio it is not a political party it is an experimental music party and andrew miller and graham dezarn are currating the party please do not not listen live from midnight until two a.m. when it is dark after the daytime of thursday it's technically friday morning but no one would ever say that . don't ever say that

Richmond

.I'm pretty sure there's something about my taking pictures that Jeremy doesn't like; here I don't think either he or Jesse know what to do.

.This was one of three people doing this outside Gallery 5. All kinds of pretentious Jackson Ward people were milling around waiting to get into the Gallery, where they'd wait even longer to get upstairs to see the nudes. I imagine it was unspeakably hot and smelly in there. Jesse later forwarded that in ADA gallery the atmosphere was like breath: "like walking through breath."

.A shot from Jesse's Vivitar of this scary old dilapidated house on Marshall St near Gallery 5, where people were apparently still living. The first time we walked by there was a handsome cat up on the outside sill of the middle second floor window. We didn't know how he could have gotten up there, and it was pretty obvious that nobody knew how he was getting down, but later (as you can see), he was gone. Actually, now that I look at it, the cat was in another house.

.Thank you Nikon for learning to take pictures in low light that aren't unspeakably shaky. Jeremy as vampire, in his new Calvin Klein jacket, and that same old sweater.

.It was a pleasant, nostalgic, rainy, Richmond morning here outside Kuba Kuba post-breakfast and "koffee"; "it's kind of bizarre being in a place where there are a lot of really attractive women," says Jesse during the meal, partially in reference to our uncommonly attractive waitress, "It kind of makes me angry at my parents."

as usual, click for larger photos

Chavez takes 1-credit pass/fail "word-mincing" workshop, fails.

BBC: the president said if the Bush administration wished to cut diplomatic ties to Venezuela, he would have no second thoughts about closing all the Venezuelan refineries in the US.
"Let's see what'll happen to the price of crude oil then", Mr Chavez told his audience.

He said the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been wrong last week to compare the Venezuelan president with Adolf Hitler:

"The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the US president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W Bush."

Does anybody really perform anymore?

So here this Sunday morning I'm listening to John Hartford radio, drinking coffee in my underwear; it's a recording from a radio broadcast--WEVM, but in New Hampshire--and he's playing some old dance tune and finishes up and there's all this applause and he says:

"Do y'all wanna dance?" and there's a big uproar, and people are yelling and he says "It won't make any sense to the folks out there on the radio. but we can have a good ole time. Just move them tables there outa the center" and everybody yells and stuff, he says "I'm serious." "It won't be a traditional New England contradance, it'll be like an old time Ozark square sorta thing." There's a bunch of noise and chatter and moving stuff around, and he just plays a tune and calls the dance right there. Everybody has a good old time, and he plays the Tennessee Waltz "to cool you off" and that's it. The radio announcer comes on, but they want an encore, so John comes out with the banjo and sings that Janis Joplin "Little Piece of My Heart" and the audience sings along. And that's it.

_________________

The other night I had a dream where I was in some woman's house, and it was all wood sided and plants were everywhere, and John Hartford was singing "No End of Love" on the radio and I start telling her how much I loved John Hartford.

wouldn't it just be the best of all possible worlds

You know what would be undoubtably great?
If doveman did a cover of the Beach Boys's "God Only Knows". Wouldn't it be totally decent?

fishing

this is a leafy sea-dragon
here is a website where you can get leafy sea-dragon desktop wallpaper.

also, some killer whales will swim below shoals of herring, herding them toward the surface where they club the herring with their tails and devour the stunned fish.

MC Duane

that guy right there ^ mikey duane
stolen from somebody, this picture was originally captioned "the hip hop battlers". oh it is an altogether excellent picture.

fighting

this is why I must take aikido

Something for the end of the semester

I Found a Reason

Look up "Jeremy Bass" on Google image search and you get this picture. Thankfully, that's not what the Jeremy Bass who I'll be picking up at the train station on thursday morning will look like. Well, I suppose it's possible that that guy might be there on some other business, and I guess if he needed a ride I might help the guy out. Hmm, on second thought, I'd likely not. Sorry, Jer.
But I WILL pick up the real Jeremy Bass, and his guitar, and then we'll be down at the radio station, playing a few tunes live on th air, during the show he'll be co-hosting with me.
SO THAT'S: ME and JEREMY---THURSDAY DEC. 15----3pm-6pm-----on 90.9 WCWM

And that, I promise, will end my manic run at the radio for all of a month.

Also, check Dave out: he's got himself some website, albeit a modest one. That's David Linaberg of pop-culture genius group Bent Rod, the far-reaching abstractionists Germany or Bust, and of intimidating stature (he's real tall). And check out that "red letters" thing on the "links" page he's got there. I think Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms might be up to some trouble in the name of a red letter. (I'll post it later, as soon as I can get some SFTP software and figure out the school's H:drive and website mess. It used to be that there was a lack of software for Apple computers, now apparently there's only a lack of software for anything but the latest OS. OS X IS NOT THAT OLD!!!!!!--but apparently old enough to malfunction regularly and, I might add, in very unhelpful ways).

I have been listening to so much Cat Power, mostly the covers album. I'm going to have to find a way to mention her in every post here from now on.

it's unbelievably hot in there. don't even try to believe it

December 7th 2005 was a good day because Jesse came in and did the first of my exam-week shows with me, and said "there are a lot of hucksters out there who are gonna try an' take yer money". We played that Cat Power single three times in a row, and then a guy in prison called in to request "Sea of Love" from the Cat Power covers album--it was the best request anyone could possibly have made at the time, that song is beautiful.

Look at this, 757noise. Maybe they can help me set up a show somewhere (maybe jeremy or pinson or dave will come along).

speaking of which... extra exam show (an exciting one at that):

sunday december 11 -- 9pm-midnight --
avante-garde
free jazz
onkyo
(field recordings and noise)
minimalism

coffee bean

not only does Ida Pearle have a really great name, but she does some really nice art, and is in a really nice band.
there's another band that's getting to sound nice too, that sounds not entirely unlike flashpapr. got a fancy new web-site but they may need a new name (and a fiddle player).

y'all should totally check out the cat power single: also, ah... nice.

(my exam week shows will be

wednesday -dec. 7- time 3-6 pm
and
tuesday -dec. 13- time 12-3 pm)

these are beech nuts

Last night, instead of working on my paper, Jesse and I drank beer (Anchor Christmas Ale, my favorite seasonal ale--Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale coming in second. Both of them good-smelling beers too.) and went to campus to forage for beech nuts, which we ate later.

Earlier, Jesse suggested to his old lady that she start calling him "the professor".

It rarely gets better than

24 HOUR JOHN HARTFORD RADIO ONLINE

mp3 Last Chance To See BBC episode - Rodrigues fruit bat. It's Douglas Adams, the risk of disappointment is very very small, but it's the BBC, so it still does exist.

Sweet Table of Peet!

hey, look at us

photo: Douglas Holland, www.npr.org

post-view

I asked Sam some questions for WCWM's November Submission online. But apparently we're not adults and the word "fucking" doesn't exist. Also, Racoons are interdict on websites and the content of creation is reasonable to edit.
Here is the co-director's cut (for those of you who are not field mice, I will soon link to a version that you can actually see. as for now, be mice).

Go where? What are you talking about?

just not in Norfolk, ok?

No really, I couldn't possibly handle any more breakfast

window

window
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

this is pretty old, but it's been a while since the last self-portrait.

oh come on. everybody's got skin under their shirts...

uuughh

this playlist stuff is getting a little messy. stay tuned for me to get off my ass and put it all on my wm webspace. sorry for the mess. i'm gonna go eat a potato or maybe an acorn squash, so try not to hold it against me.


also, special show of cut up music this sunday. featuring many minutes dj food's oeuvre, and more minutes of DJ Geoffrey Chaucery doing live cuts. you might think it's crap ( ...jerks), but i'll be having fun.

oh crap. does chocolate come out of t-shirts?

Playlist : 10.29.05 : Covers

tala dadra - Alla Rakha
heartbreak train - Rosie Flores
after hours - Rilo Kiley
iron man - the Bad Plus
all is full of love - Death Cab for Cutie
kid a - John Mayer
gentle on my mind - John Hartford (orig.)
country blues - Doc Watson
" - Doc Boggs
orphan girl - Crooked Still
drifter's escape & world traveler- Jimi Hendrix
- (12-1pm: a-list) -
interlude 3 & roll on john - Samamidon
bye ya - John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk
i bet it stung - Tegan and Sarah
the elves and the shoemaker - Grimms Fairy Tales
marilli & wiiks and mpintintoa - Mus ic from Ghana
noah's ark - Cocorosie
since k got over me - the Clientelle
don't think twice it's alright - Bob Dylan
untangle your mind - John Hartford
i wanna know girls - portastatic
the purple bottle - animal collective
- (1-2pm: covers, again) -
WEAK Sat. morning broadcast - Lester Moran and his Cadilac Cowboys
goodnight irene - Little Richard
sound and vision - the Sea and Cake
change my face into a duck - DJ Baldiazia
i wanna be your dog - Émilie Simon
the gloaming - Radiohead/Dj Shadow
nuclear war - Yo La Tengo
carried home by jesus - Aoife o'Donovan/Jed Wilson/Rushad Eggleston
james bond theme - John Zorn's Naked City
head over heels - Samamidon
god save the queen - Jimi Hendrix
the raven - Lord Buckley
your southern can is mine - the White Stripes

Playlist : 10.22.05 : Numbers

half a person - the Smiths
the magic number - De La Soul
4,5, and 9 - Leadbelly
more pretty girls than one - Doc Watson
biology 101 - Kool Keith
51st anniversary & can you hear me & if 6 was 9 - Jimi Hendrix Experience
-
the dispute at the crossroads/the 9-pint coggie - Robbie Hannan
run into flowers - M83
5 years - Björk
money folder - madvillain/four tet remix
flexen - microstoria
2+2=5 - Radiohead
sun drums and music - Four tet
-
Eric and the Angels set - Nightingale
dowd's #9 - Sam Amidon
the ways of the world - Ruthie Dornfeld, Keith Murphy, Mark Roberts
hills/mulqueen's - Nightingale
-
jackson's #1/strawberry blossom/tommy people's - Patrick Mangan
phase 2-4 arpeggio - Harald Bode
the four kisses jig set - Solas
-
2. - Jacob Danziger
seamus tansey set - the 7's
poska & bob's child/golden earing - Childsplay

Playlist : 10.15.05 : Family

Pappy Check - Medeski, Martin, Wood
Robert Segal interviews Spinal Tap - clip
Tell Your Ma, Tell Your Pa - Bill Frisell, Dave Holland, Elvin Jones
-
Let Him Go on Mama - John Hartford
Grandmother's Song - Steve Martin
It Isn't Nice - Barbara Dane and the Chambers Bros.
-
tekno love song - CocoRosie
Son of Sam - Elliott Smith
City of New Orleans - Johnny Cash w/ June Carter Cash
-
Distractions - Tartufi
Better Son/Daughter- Rilo Kiley
Mouth's Cradle - Björk
Slower Twin - Califone
Stepdaughter - Califone
-
But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted - Samamidon
I Hope You're Happy Now - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
-
the Like
O Superman - Laurie Anderson
-
De Cara a la Pied - Lhasa de Sela
Hornpipe/The Wrong Trousers/Reels - Martin and Marie Reilly
Martin O'Connor - Assembly

IIIII

at least I have been feeling alive lately, which is to say, feeling. And so now it is only (for me) the title that saves this poem, and then makes it very very good.

dudes went to Virginia Beach

it was fun

(oh) man

comics

I like your Brahms

WCWM t-shirt2

my entry for the 05 WCWM t shirt contest.
I think it would be cool to win. If you want to actually be able to read it, you can click on it for a larger version.

Furniture Music

...

in case the "accent" threw you, today's french show was (the order is not exact):

Roadrunner - the Modern Lovers
La vie en rose - Edith Piaf, then Émilie Simon (also played "Solène")
some tunes - Éduard Richard
Ciobane/the Mooche/Vapona not glue - Aksak Maboul
Jolie, Petite Blonde - Nathan Abshire
C'est plus pareil - Holden
Quelqu'un m'a dit and L'excessive - Carla Bruni
Au Coin du Monde, and Que n'ai je - Keren Ann
L'origine du Monde - Françoiz Breut
L'enfer - Coralie Clément
Chique Chique - Dominique A
Aussi belle qu'une balle - Daniel Darc & Diabologum
À ceux qui sont malades par mer calme - Yann Tiersen
J'arrive à la ville and La Confession - Lhasa
Le vent nous portera - Manu Chao/Noir Désir
Je pense à toi - Amadou & Miriam
Rompre les Armes - Bruno Meillier/Ferdinand Richard
Furniture music (pt. 3): Phonic tiles - Erik Satie
Nous allons une fête, Rond à Emile Leffondre/Mardi Gras song/Brenton Plinn - Keith Murphy and Nightingale
Reel des Montagnards - Éduard Richard

no clue what next week's show holds (but you can bank on hearing Sam Amidon in some capacity or another). Maybe two hours of field recordings. I'm all open to suggestions for themes, folks.

oh yeah (I will soon be able to put video on here. hell yes)

score

The library book sale was a-rockin' today, and I managed to score (among a few others) Gogol's "Dead Souls", some Borges, Van Wick Brooks's "The Flowering of New England" and nearly cried when I found "Editor to Author: The Letters of Maxwell Perkins". I noticed though that it does not include any of his letters to Elizabeth Lemon, perhaps to save length, or because she wasn't an author, but I suspect it to have been more personal. Anyhow, there's plenty of it in one of the best books ever- A. Scott Berg's "Max Perkins: Editor of Genius"

The real gold was in vinyl though. There were three tiny boxes of lp's, one of which contained near-perfect copies of
both Aqsak Maboul albums
Etron Fou Leloublan - en Public aux états unis d'Amérique
a great old ESP sampler
AMM - the Inexhaustible Document
Bruno Meillier/Ferdinand Richard - Bruniferd

for less than $20.

also, I am almost completely pschyed about Lhasa's The Living Road.

So you'll hear a bunch of that, and some of my new lp's on the show (french music this week) tomorrow.

HOLY CRAP!

Crazy things are always going on, but this is exceptionally crazy > thank you, ubuweb

that's 40-some minutes of the most insane and bizarre radio I've ever heard. with Glenn Gould and Harry Brown (of Canadian Broadcasting Company tv and radio). They are Canadians. Glenn Gould is is described at one point on the CBC webpage as "a ham who enjoys dressing up and taking on different personas". It's disorienting. If you think it's too weird to be true, it is, sort of: Gould appears as himself, and all of the other characters. At one point early on, he references "the Salieri of chess," "reprobate inversion of the Kafka theme," and an article titled "Psychic Murder at the Chessboard" and shoots back at Brown in this exchange:

"C'mon now Glenn. Berezavsky didn't end up out on his feet with an xray-able concussion and the likelihood of scar tissue--"
--"how do you know he didn't!?"

The rest pretty much goes like this:

"you mentioned pugilists, and i felt sure you'd get on to that tack, so i interviewed up and coming dominican welterweight Dominico Pastrano"

"i must say i find musical terms emoursmously helpful in clarifying own's own relation to symbolic structure, don't you know."

Have at it.

Maximum Roommate Efficiency

Jesse has these to have said:

-"it's really easy to chill out these days"

-"I think from a military standpoint, it's always good to get rid of the enemy. Aut there's a prudent time to do it. And if all of the countries in the world that aren't the ones that are really trying to kiss your ass are telling you not to do it, then it's probably not a prudent time to do it. It's like how you would get rid of the enemy if you were a clumsy stupid jackass."

-"how come flying insects are so spastic?"

French Vocab. (Heath's New French Dictionary 1932)

fourbissime - most knavish
gerbée - bundle of straw with some ears
humeurs froides - king's evil, scrofula
magnanier(ère) - silkworm breeder
maille - obsolete copper coin
harper

cela désopile la rate - that dispels the spleen
il vous a desservi auprès le ministre - he has done you an ill turn with the minister
il a mis le comble à son deshoneur - he has put the finishing touch to his dishonor

un collet monté - this phrase proves that the French have been popping their collars since the beginning of the century

dîner par coeur - to dine with Duke Humphrey ***I don't know, don't ask

An incredible survey about Life

Crazy satelite imaging courtesy of your tax dollars.

I bought some awesome peppers at the farmer's market today

peppers2
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

I did, see? They're right there.

I'd been reading Frost for class, and really enjoying much of it, so interested parties might take a look at "Two Tramps in Mud Time". I've also found that I enjoy Thomas Hardy much more as a poet than a novelist.

Recent (relatively) music purchases have been for the most part very satisfactory: Subtitle "Young Dangerous Heart" is my first hip-hop purchase.
-The new Bill Frisell "East/West" has a rather slow, flat burn to it but is in essence as intense and gratifying as the better part of his catalogue; for now I much prefere the Viktor Kraus trio on "West"
-The first Bob Dylan album has some great tracks; just guitar and harmonica and his voice, which is my favorite formula for Dylan. The station recently received a copy of the no direction home soundtrack which has more "home recording" style tracks of the same sort.
-Cocorosie is my new infatuation, and their first album "La Maison de Mon Rêve" is almost as striking as "Noah's Ark" which just came out, and has much more daring cover art. I don't like it when labels attatch weird tags to one of their groups, but "two field mice singing gospel" is can be pretty accurate sometimes with these two.
-Four tet's new "Everything Ecstatic" is cool. As a whole it's not quite as cool as his re-mix of Madvillain's "money folder", and I'm getting pretty sick of sounds that come out of computers.

There's one hell of a lot of good stuff on "Fresh Air" these days:

Here is a very interesting set of interviews--and a useful comparison--about science and politics, well worth the time.
sample: Robert Walker "A lot of the scientists come out of a lot of the large universities where there is a, um, a basically left-wing political bias on the campus and scientists uh, in their science may not see themselves as uh promoting a political agenda but they have in fact bought into a political inside the atmosphere in which they operate."

Hip-hop week featured loads of people, most noteably this interview with the RZA, author of the Wu-Tang Manual, who says "um" and "like" maybe once in the whole thing, and Terry Gross was still in high-fallutin' speech correction mode: "...morbidity, did you say?"
sample- RZA "So, when the movie first came on, the birds are flying, so i started with the flute in there [like Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf"] so you could feel that joyfulness, but it's also put into a RZA context, so it's joyfulness mixed with sorrow, and morbit...(trails off)."

the interview with ?uestlove seems promising, but is really pretty dull except that Gross gets a couple of her fats wrong, and this exchange:
Gross: So, one last question. Why do you wear an afro?
?uestlove: Uhhhhh... 'cause I'm secretly a Chia-Pet.

wow, that's a lot of stuff.

Radio Cure

17sky
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

I can now be heard alongside music that I listen to, on the radio.

"a Murmuring of Innumerable Bees"
DJ ________
Sundays, 12 noon - 2 p.m.

90.9 fm
WCWM Williamsburg, VA
the official station of the College of William and Mary
(reaches Richmond and Newport News)

24/7 live webcast, schedule and info: www.wcwm.org

If it sounds anything like Route 17 looks, I'll be a happy feller.

Testing, testing

The playlist from my trial show on WCWM (5-6pm) runs thusly:

Turn your Radio on - John Hartford
Noah's Ark - Cocorosie
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms - the Carter Family
Motorcycle Safety PSA
On Vacation - The Robot Ate Me
Smile around the Face - Four Tet
I bite You - DJ Baldiazia
Money Folder - Madvillain (Four Tet remix)
Booster Seat PSA
Organichemico - Subtitle
Teacup (live@Tonic) - Doveman
My Wife thinks You're dead - Junior Brown
Older Americans PSA
Is there Anybody here that love my Jesus - Medeski, Martin, and Wood
In my Time of dyin' - Bob Dylan
Choccolate Jesus - Tom Waits
Tribulations - Samamidon
Fake Palindromes - Andrew Bird
White Fang - Bill Frisell

thanks fo' listening

fox&chickens

fox&chickens
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

Before returning to Williamsburg, to read books in my new apartment and wait around for Conway Gardens Apartments to get its shit together and give me my mail key so I can maybe check my mail, I had a little stint at Fox Knoll Farm (aka Mikey's house), where cats live in birdbaths and have malicious chickens hang around in the background.

yin yang twins

yinyangtwins
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

Don't be deceived by their apparent docility--they have phat new beats.

Dept. of Things

OK. You can go to The Cheese Shop (or is it Shoppe? whatever, stupid revivalist entrepreneurs) and buy a decent beer--I will use Anchor Liberty Ale (because it's delicious) as an example--for about $1.80 and go and drink it outside at a table and watch people do things in Merchant's Square. FOR LESS THAN $2!

89.5 fm says that New Orleans is more than 80% underwater. Rescue workers spent much of the day take hundreds of people off of roofs. I haven't been able to find out what Pat Robertson has to say about that (but you can check out the CBN anyway, while you're there you might as well sign up for Operation Supreme Court Freedom, and don't forget about Pat's Age-Defying Protein Pancakes - "America loves pancakes!") yet.

Tomorrow the temperature in Williamsburg will be 94 degrees, and, as a result, Jesse will be moving up North when he gets older: "I wish Virginia the best, but this heat and I just don't get along, it's not a match, we don't match well." He also says that ladybugs, in England, are called "ladybirds". (that period there, the one outside the quotes, they do that in England too).

Also, Rex Goliath 47 Pound Rooster, despite its silly name, makes a very un-silly Pinot Noir.

How about some french, yeah?...

débardeur - workman who unlades, etc. ; stevedore, wharf-porter
haridelle - jade, hack, sorry horse ; (fig.) gawky woman

and now some conversational skills:
je ne vaux pas chipette (i feel absolutely fit for nothing)
-vous ne lui allez pas à la cheville (you are a pigmy compared with him, you are unfit to tie his shoe-strings)
je gémis de votre erreur (i bewail your error)
-adressez vous à d'autres (tell that to the marines!)
je profiterai de l'avis que vous me donnez (i shall avail myself of the caution you have given me)
-voici bien du haut style! *in disgust (this is lofty style with a vengeance)

Qu'est-ce qu'on va faire?

I meant to relate this story of Jesse's at the beginning of the summer, but we're approaching an equally meaningful transition period with the move back to Williamsburg next week (after nearly losing our apartment, oi). So this is a story about Jesse's dad and it's a portrait of competency. He told it during our last meal in The Tent (I think it was breakfast); I hope my memory does it justice.

We were in Hawaii, and I was really young, and we were at the bus station. So everybody was queuing up for this bus, and it's a pretty long line and we're all just waiting around. And all of a sudden there's this woman who's kind of just walking her way up to the front of the line; so my dad sticks his arm out and stops her. Of course she got kind of worked up but anyway everybody ended up getting on the bus. And then at the end of the ride, we had all gotten off and this guy comes up to my dad and is like "Hey, that was a really cool thing you did" and my dad says "Yeah man. You gotta create your own reality".

Comment dit-on "The summer of French existential crisis" ?

gaultier_bread_400_600
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

L'été de la crise existentialle française

And that is what I've been having, here in Charlottesville, attending the quasi-intensive French Summer Language Institute. Not too terrible much has happened except beaucoup de musique et beaucoup de films and beaucoup de fraçais and everyone needs to listen to DJ Sac à Dos/DJ Poubelle/Nick on 91.1 FM Charlottesville or online (http://wtju.radio.virginia.edu/stream.php) Wednesdays at 11pm.

I'd also like to share with you the joy of the 1932 Heath's New French Dictionary (Pourvu ce ne fût pas une besogne trop vile pour un honnête homme--that is to say "provided it were not such drudgery as did not misbecome an honest man"). So here are a few gems, some marginally useful, some just too perfect.

les phrases:
ses folles dépenses ont ébréché sa fortune - his extravagant living has made a hole in his fortune
compre une lance pour - to take up cudgels for
cette pedrix se rase - this partridge squats close to the ground
and of course - il en est des femmes comme des enfants - it is with women as with children

mots de vocabulaire:
rastaquouère - showy adventurer, foreign nobleman of doubtful antecedents
pacquer - to pack (herrings, etc.)
envoûter - to prick the wax image of a person in order to injure him magically

in Williamsburg 8/20

Inspiré!

A BBC World Service report on blogs has inspired me to start up again. The report featured this excerpt from a London blog:

"I was sitting on the settee in the living room today. It was quite comfortable to sit on, and I stayed sitting on it for a while."

and the accompanying comment:

"I once had a settee that I used to sit on the way you described. This blog brings back memories."


can't beat that, but i will be back, quand même (and soon, i swear).

i pollute

today's drive from williamsburg to winchester took five hours. but i got to listen to, in this order:
pinson on the phone
the Cardigans "Life"
Paul Simon "You're the One"
marianne on the phone
The Irish Tradition "[the first one]"
Björk "Vespertine"
a lot of wind, squeeky breaks

What is the difference between making cool new music using old traditional music and taking cool old traditional music and totally fucking it up? Is it taste? or invention or something? Tradition rocks, but drums also rock.

down time

3:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning of mid-Spring seems like a fine time to welcome change. As the school-weeks stop smouldering--and the point at which the last smoke rises and scatters plays on the line between imagination and reality--leaving on me a deeper and more distinct mark than probably even I can perceive, I ought to be able to look desirously forward. To regular sleep and eating well, old friends and time to myself, to reading and not worrying about money, the mountains and the river, playing music again, familiar and new places, and purpose and driving.

Really. Hell, why not?

boy is Anchor Porter ever good.

and because I'm not quite out of my mind yet, I'll listen to a little more of The Sounds of the Sounds of Science, and then read a bit more Gogol ("The Nose"). I've in the past suspected that too much was really only just enough. Let's roll.

from the "trash" can

nofiddle
out of my dad's trash can at home in winchester, va. click, i suppose, to read.

____________________________

and this from "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" in Borges's "Ficciones":
"To think, analyze and invent," he also wrote me, "are not anomalous acts, but the normal respiration of the intelligence. To glorify the occasional fulfillment of this function, to treasure ancient thoughts of others, to remember with incredulous amazement that the doctor universalis thought, is to confess our languor or barbarism. Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be."

Portia: Good sentences, well pronounced.

Up5105
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

. . . The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree--such a hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel, the cripple. (W.S., MofV, I.ii)
________________________

"It always come down to self-esteem."
a thought from Lori DeZarn.

in a not entirely unrelated sentiment, I believe:
that while, in some ways, who you are is dependent on what you know, the things you know have very little to do with who you are.
_________________________

had i a working top [#] list, i would be sure to include Bjork, "Unravel" from Homogenic

Actually, I'm the real father of your honor student

Anybody who gets an hour or so and a copy of the July 2003 Harper's on their hands, might read Jack Hitt's "A Gospel According to the Earth" and be really happy about it. Then read it again and again throughout the next couple years.

---------

so,
with
it.
though.
there is
the sleep
this shaking.
there is
great great.

-David Linaburg (these are the first words of each line of an email Dave sent some while ago; he claims not to have intended it. even better.)

---------

"Paradise Lost" turns out to be worth spending whatever enourmous amount of time you might spend on it.
Take a look at the very last lines (Book 12). Look familiar? Fight Club anyone?

---------

Lately: Nas, Joanna Newsom, MF Doom, Sam Prekop, Microstoria, Spoon (I turn my camera on)

David Meinke drinks Mad Dog 20/20 in the freakin' shower.

There's some new Jesse down there.

Plzen

PianoMouth
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

is it too large a leap to say that Tennyson was the only man ever able to making the idea of "innumerable bees" appealing?

yes, thankfully

devotion


resignation


acceptance




devotion

cheap thrills

hey look, be happy. i found movies.

+that everyone involved with this movie has to, at the very least, know who Douglas Adams is, means that it certainly can not be all bad.

+potentially a reaffirmation of Steve Martin's brilliance.

+madness

damn good address for a rat

home3-05
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

tomorrow i am going to buy Tom Waits's "Real Gone," and it is going to be more glorious than when i downloaded 'Hoist That Rag' earlier today.

Fossi Rosso is a problem solver.

Lotos-Eaters

Choric Song

1

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And through the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

2

Why are we weighed upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
. . .

[Tennyson]

to dig and be dug

sometimes you can tell what's important: if everything's going wrong, but some thing still makes you happy, even if only for a while.

"Then, farewell, heat; and welcome, frost!--" [The Merchant of Venice] -who says poetry isn't timeless/personally relevant?

pleas

exciting new listening: Motian/Lovano/Frisell (I Have the Room Above Her), Beck (Sea Change and some of Geuro--"hell yes"), Midlake (Bamnan & Silvercork), doveman ("teacup")

news brief. the pope is now being fed through a tube. the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment gets no respek, BBC and NPR.

THIS is a formal request for good, useful, and interesting adjectives and other descriptive words. so i can stop saying "totally" "weird" "funny" and so on. leave some comments, ok? (you can do this all the time you know, it's friendly)

kitchenD2-05

kitchenD2-05
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

today!

Happy Birthday Marianne!

today

happy re-birthday Jesus!

mindbloggling

here is a surprisingly accurate and beautiful representation of my headspace, by someone who doesn't know me (jacob danziger): "for brian"

-Enter Jesse-

[for a consistently updated record of jesse, this is your post]

4.28.05

J (phone to Sarah): yeah, new hampshire, that's their motto, live free or die. but i guess virginia is pretty hardcore, because we've got a picture of a guy standing on a dead guy with a spear through his chest; sic semper tyranus. if you're a tyrant we'll stab your ass to death with a spear. but also virginia is for lovers. so you can be a tyrant and get stabbed, or you can be a lover, and get... knee deep in stank.

4.18-22.05

graham: hey, so, taking care of your body is pretty much common sense right?
jesse: yeah, pretty much. unless you're mentally ill; but so many people are mentally ill. it's kind of a problem.

?.?.05

Me: ok, i have an email in my junk mail box from "paul and bill" with the subject "the mother of all hoodies." i don't know what that means.
Jesse (immediately): it's a hooded sweatshirt that redefines the concept of a hooded sweatshirt.

long ago (revived 3.31.05)
"cockroach equals bitch repellant"

3.21.05
girl in the stairwell (overheard): what is that scent?!
Jesse (to me): it's, like, pretty cool that you're filling the hall with the smell of delicious rice.
&
i felt so braindead earlier; i think it's because i was doing calculus on an empty stomach.

almost forgot

sunra12-04
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

24

for tomorrow
read Milton's "Lycidas" and Shelley's "Adonais"
learn the intro to the Bach Concerto in Am
write five pages on "Doctor Faustus"
drive to Richmond
drink a beer with Pinson
see the PMG
drive back from Richmond
sleep, but not through class
not neglect person(s) i care about (about whom i care)
lose sanity
find sanity

your worry is rotten, you head is on fire

MMGK
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

charlottesville was nice for once. thanks to mikey et al. my fortune cookie advises "Stop waiting for others to open the right doors for you." mikey's fortune cookie advised soon thereafter "Stop waiting for others to open the right doors for you."

"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

(William Carlos Williams)

i'm a ramblin' guy

it has been too long since i first thought i should read the Odyssey, and War and Peace; for reasons why i can never be a great writer, see self-portrait below (actually, i see my Richmond photo as something of a self-portrait too, though it still desires the grizzledness of the poetGod and the vegetarian). one of the many ways in which the world has recently become more full of beauty--the translation and publication of Picasso's (Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole) poetry.

2 July 38

drop by
drop
hardly
pale blue
dies
between
the claws of
green almond
on the rose
trellis

- Pablo Picasso


a 12th grade haiku,
speaking of such poetry,
from A. R. Hofstra:

A beautiful dog
Galantly strutting the streets
Always so much poop

calculusPOW!!!

i'm starting to have trouble believing what i'm told is every major early english poet's fundamental mistrust of poetry itself, and their fear of asserting what they clearly saw as truth. Potkay can say "It's all very PoMo--post-modern..." all she wants, but at some point it admitted that even Spenser was not that heavy-handed. upon first reading "The Faerie Queen" (in february, from my notes):
EDMUND SPENSER WAS MADE ENTIRELY OUT OF WRITTEN WORDS, AND WAS THE FIRST ABSTRACT ARTIST. HE APPLIED INK TO HIS HANDS AND, HAVING SPREAD IT ALL ABOUT HIS BODY, ROLLED AROUND ON THE FLOOR. IN ECSTACY, THIS COULD GO ON FOR HOURS, AND WHEN FINISHED HE COPIED METICULOUSLY THE RESULTS ONTO PAPER AND WHITEWASHED THE FLOOR FOR THE NEXT DAY. THIS IS HOW THE FAERIE QUEEN WAS MADE.

jesse's "Ex Old Lady" wants to marry him, and "the only reason it's problematic," he says, "is that in our culture, you can only have one wife."
i will soon begin my MASSIVE WEIGHT GAIN program, involving some minor regular excercises, and what i hope will be incredibly irresponsible overconsumption. i will be eating pretty much whatever Marianne tells me to eat (which, i am told, is to include more beer than usual. yep). i expect an official weigh-in, clothed, at about 146.

flashpapr, and what would almost definately not be Jeroen Bosch's favorite beer

too late

FranklinSt.
Originally uploaded by gfdezarn.

i had so much fun in Richmond, and i do miss it a lot.

john singer sargent eating children

roommirror2-05
the first of the self-portraits; all taken with nikon coolpix4200, no edit. ideally there would be a new one each week. gfdezarn.

so pretty much every day, Jesse will bless us with some excellence in speech and observation, the kind of which only he is capable. It comes in all forms, really.
A brief history:
-"Oh yeah, man, a dog pissed on my head this weekend."
-"My one problem with democracy is that people who are kind of stupid and nasty can, like, breed unchecked."

in other news: the colon is now my favorite punctuation mark, despite its name and recent events.

Always a pleasure

Jeremy, who is finishing out a year-long jaunt in the Town of the Apostle , "eating meat...drinking of the metaphporically omnipresent Spanish wineskin" among other things, in today's letter paints the latest Spanish happenings and pens sentences like these:
"However, unknowingly, I had made the most Korean of moves," "she 'knows' Kevin Burke, who reportedly once accused her of looking like an eastern european peasant."

And this too-beautiful fragment: "the aforementioned sandwich."


I will mention that Kevin Burke also was seen (by myself and others) taking a shallow trek into the dense growth behind the stage upon which both Jeremy and I were playing, to take a leak.

scene:

on my way to Tucker, to read and practice, feeling pleasantly independent, well-clothed for the cold.

As I walk into the Daily Grind, there is a guy looking really serious about himself stomping around a small space, close to the brick wall, saying loudly, with a vague northern accent, into his cell-phone "AND 'DEN?" ...AND DEN!? AND DEN!!!!?? in quick, overly energentic bursts, staring down and in front of him with intent eyes. I'm now awakened and a little off-balance.

First off, hot, get serious! aaiiii, here it is

This thing is my record of major and minor influences and of my shapes and phases, by way of experiences and studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.

I have been told that the literal translation, and the one I like, of psychomachia is "mind-war."

ad. (5.1.05) i had been wondering why "mind-war" didn't seem right. i am much more satisfied in thinking of the term's portrayal of the battle between the mind and soul, which i find is a beautiful and fundamental element for me. (thanks for the reminder Ryan)