Thursday, October 17, 2024

Same Age As Me This Tilted Wreck with Deliquescent Chin

A week from this coming Monday I'm driving to Michigan to spend a week with my daughter and son-in-law and stay in a town near the border between Blue Michigan and Red Michigan. I have been advised not to wear any clothes or hats with *anything* written on them and particularly advised not to wear my fabulous and favorite Guided By Voices zip-up hoodies if I don't want to be challenged to explain precisely *whose* voices I'm being guided by not by my daughter and son-in-law, who have both told me they have never experienced such a tense and potentially dangerous political vibration, but by both a colleague at work who until recently lived in Ann Arbor (Blue) and who, when in Michigan last week, visited friends in Owosso (Red) and by a professor I work with who's from Grand Rapids, a blue island in a sea of red. I promise, if I encounter locals on the disc golf courses I'm going to explore, I will only talk about disc golf and disc courses I should play

It's not mad to think our shitlords mad in both senses of the word





My wife and I am seeing Richard Thompson Band (so electric!) this Sunday night at Strathmore in Rockville. Other than the Dead I've seen Richard Thompson, solo or with band, more than any other musician or group though it's been a decade since I saw a solo acoustic tour (I never - never - want to hear "Persuasion," "Beeswing," and ESPECIALLY "Vincent Black Lightning again, all three ALWAYS on the solo playlist) and it's been years since he came through with a band. 

The tour in support of his new album, which doesn't suck but doesn't not suck either though reminds me of my reaction to the new Cure album (I only listened, did not buy either). As I get older the nostalgia annoys me when it's packaged as new and and breaking new ground, please. I don't resent the musicians putting out new product after their creativity has evaporated, I don't resent musicians putting out new product because they need the money, I just don't feel obligated to like it (and buy it) for loyalty's sake if it doesn't rock my world, though when it doesn't it makes me sad and kills a few fond memory cells I have for each of the early and peak albums I still love

Having said that, and guaranteeing he won't play it, I would love to hear "Bank Vault in Heaven," not only my favorite RT song but because during his 1996 *You? Me? Us?* 1996 tour at GW's Lisner Auditorium, one of the best three concerts in my lifetime - he motherfucking burned the house down - he ripped off a fifteen minute version, holy the holiest of fuck




You who have already been burned
"There is literally no act so vile that the UK, US and Germany will not support if perpetrated by the terrorist state of Israel"
Haaretz: Israeli Government Done With Ceasefire Talks, Seeks Annexation of Gaza
"I wonder if other world leaders are asking themselves: "what can I do to make Joe Biden so angry that he'll send me $18 billion in military aid and a bunch of missile defense systems?""
Israel does what it does; it was always planned this way
"After Israeli soldiers were filmed gang-raping a Palestinian man kidnapped from the Gaza Strip, their army buddies beat up the military police officers who came to detain them – but no charges will be filed, because the latter are too terrified to testify"
Here's an audit of the ongoing genocide in Gaza
"Starmer and Lammy today sanctioned Iran 🇮🇷 for the missile attack on Israel 🇮🇱 in response to their pager attack that killed over 40 Lebanese and injured 3,500. Last night Israel burned Palestinians alive in their tents. Not a word from Starmer or Lammy."
Israel is turning northern Gaza into a killing cage
"Let me translate what this psychopath is simply saying: Israel has the right to kill our children"
NEW DEPTHS OF EVIL FROM JOE BIDEN, KAMALA HARRIS, and THE DEMOCRATS!
"Biden and Kamala are now further right than a literal fascist"
Shitlibs suck, zionists suck, shitlib zionists suck squared
Biden envoy told aid groups Israel too close an ally for US to suspend arms
Shitlibs suck, zionists suck, shitlib zionists suck squared
"Four years ago Bernie Sanders did a town hall on Fox and the entire liberal commentariat declared it disqualifying. Harris is now going on Fox right before meeting with a racist conspiracy theorist and the discussion is now about just HOW much of a genius she is"
One reason she is openly running as George Bush is hope Trump so deteriorates mentally some media shitlords will begin to fear giving him the power they wanted to give him and turn their shithoses on him
"You rarely hear Democrats complain about Citizens United anymore because they've done better from it than the GOP has. They aren't going to overturn it"
Our neighbours burned alive
"As Trump improvises at his rallies, his grim imaginings of a mongrelized, crime-ridden country are transformed into unfalsifiable myths"
Imperialism as Antagonistic Cooperation
"I'm shocked Kamala is slipping in the polls as she rolls out a massive national ad blitz featuring war profiteering Pentagon hack Mark Esper and the fanatical coup-monger John Bolton as her campaign proxies"
Stop Trying to Understand the White Rural Voter
"The fact that the bank could still exist after paying the fine means money laundering is legal for anyone who can afford to do it"
"No bank executives arrested for laundering $670,000,000 in drug cartel money. But jump a turnstile and get arrested or shot for $2.90"
"The prospect of a Harris victory is seriously frightening. A new era of austerity at home and aggression abroad, with the party feeling vindicated for ignoring leftists and Arabs/Muslims, and increasingly abandoning what little commitment it had to trans rights"
Duh: Trump Plots to Declare 2024 ‘Rigged’ — Using GOP Efforts to Slow the Vote Count
One would think the Harris campaign would be shouting the 24 hours a day, but since they don't want to win, why would they?
Trump’s Racist Rants against Immigrants Hide under the Language of Eugenics
Trump could drop his pants, jerk-off, turn and wetfart on the microphone, and would not lose a single voter and probably gain more
The US just lost a war and nobody noticed
KROGER IS DOING WHAT NOW?
Catholics mad someone mocked their cannibalism rite
Frederick Douglass on Fake Christianity
Maggie'sSome notes on cliches, and then some
Anyone Can Turn You Into an AI Chatbot. There’s Little You Can Do to Stop Them
I've known since junior high and still 50 years later it amazes me how the biggest *ssholes in the world are invariably the biggest *ussies in the world
Lina Khan Is Just Getting Started
Harris, bet you unlimited digital pints, has already agreed if elected to snuff Khan for her shitlord donors, out by May at the latest
"The beauty of economics is that because nobody reads anything that was written more than 5 years ago, theories, hypotheses, doctrines can be permanently reinvented, and people can get famous for a couple of years until what they wrote is in turn forgotten"
Forgive me, baseball was a favorite preoccupation my first 40 years until Peter Angelos fired Jon Miller people can vouch but I still look (if not understand the new rules and despair the death of pitcher bats or pinch hitter), I'm that one guy): they're gonna expand to 32 teams and 8 four team divisions eventually, name an expansion city now with either an MLB-ready stadium or a decent AAA stadium whilt *their* stadium is built, move the Rays there until their new stadium is built, Rays move back, games still are unattended and they should move the team to Montreal but won't while foster city gets an expansion team
Yes I know many if not all of the new rules have worked out and baseball having a bit of a revival, the only new rule I know I truly dislike besides the death of the hitting pitcher is the extra inning man on second to start the inning bullshit
Plants fight for pollen-space on pollinators
{ feuilleton }'sThe amazing recording history of The Beatles *Here Comes the Sun*
Backwards is north: on Anne Carson's *Wrong Norma*
Bookselling Out: How the market transformed American bookstores
George Harrison Explains Why Everyone Should Play the Ukulele
Bobby turned seventy-seven yesterday:





WRONG NORMA

Anne Carson



4 comments:

  1. life goes on - with or without a reason[see footnotes]

    in order of impact:

    i read the letter from george harrison about why one should play a ukulele - it sounds like it could be quite enjoyable

    recently reminded of king crimson, i have watched a 21st century performance - recorded in japan - of their biggest hit - three percussionists in front; four players in back: saxophonist, bassist/stick, vocalist/guitarist, and mr fripp himself - the only one wearing a tie and sitting down

    i was impressed to see that the new york times - sometimes spoken of with an objectionable variation of the name by those who take antizionism too far - went to considerable trouble to establish beyond reasonable doubt that israeli armed forces snipers are frequently shooting palestinian children in the head and chest - the children are no more or less dead than if a giant bomb had been dropped on a building full of them, but at least they have received a higher level of personalized service

    footnotes
    line in italics is from a song on the album deface the music, by utopia - but it is wrong because

    1/life goes on only until it doesn't - and also, if apparently paradoxical -

    2/life always has a reason - everything in the universe is permeated by UWTB - universal will to become

    ReplyDelete
  2. with regard to the last phrase of carson's poem here, i have read that:

    The word "Miltoning" is a reference to John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost," where Satan is depicted as a fallen angel. The image suggests that the smoke is rising like a defiant or rebellious figure, reaching towards the heavens.

    ReplyDelete
  3. with regard to the ukulele, the instrument has a prominent place in the live performance linked here earlier

    4th-5th Grade Band, Invincible from the Riverfield Rocks School Band Program from Riverfield Country Day School in Tulsa, OK covering "Thank U" by Alanis Morissette:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbJN6t5CPBQ

    although it is clear that the ukulele player, like the bassist, is not a 4th or 5th grader - older brother? teacher's husband? parent?

    Thank you India
    thank you providence
    thank you disillusionment
    thank you nothingness
    thank you clarity
    thank you, thank you silence

    ReplyDelete

  4. i saw this at jesse's cafe americain:


    "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

    Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

    ReplyDelete