Some of my recent posts are missing, so I'll wait till they have been recovered till I post anew. What a mess..
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
First Lines: Virginia Woolf - Orlando
He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
First Lines: Margaret Atwood - Cat's Eye
Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.
New Stuff: Richard Pinhas
Richard Pinhas is a prog-rock pioneer I hadn't heard about till now; this album sensationally has his collaborations with Merzbow and Wolf Eyes!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
First Lines: Raymond Federman - Double or Nothing
Once upon a time two or three weeks ago, a rather stubborn and determined middle-aged man decided to record for posterity, exactly as it happened, word by word and step by step, the story of another man for indeed what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal, a somewhat paranoiac fellow unmarried, unattached, and quite irresponsible, who had decided to lock himself in a room a furnished room with a private bath, cooking facilities, a bed, a table, and at least one chair, in New York City, for a year 365 days to be precise, to write the story of another person—a shy young man about of 19 years old—who, after the war the Second World War, had come to America the land of opportunities from France under the sponsorship of his uncle—a journalist, fluent in five languages—who himself had come to America from Europe Poland it seems, though this was not clearly established sometime during the war after a series of rather gruesome adventures, and who, at the end of the war, wrote to the father his cousin by marriage of the young man whom he considered as a nephew, curious to know if he the father and his family had survived the German occupation, and indeed was deeply saddened to learn, in a letter from the young man—a long and touching letter written in English, not by the young man, however, who did not know a damn word of English, but by a good friend of his who had studied English in school—that his parents both his father and mother and his two sisters one older and the other younger than he had been deported they were Jewish to a German concentration camp Auschwitz probably and never returned, no doubt having been exterminated deliberately X * X * X * X, and that, therefore, the young man who was now an orphan, a displaced person, who, during the war, had managed to escape deportation by working very hard on a farm in Southern France, would be happy and grateful to be given the opportunity to come to America that great country he had heard so much about and yet knew so little about to start a new life, possibly go to school, learn a trade, and become a good, loyal citizen.
William S. Burroughs: My Education. A book of Dreams
Airport. Like a high school play, attempting to convey a special atmosphere. One desk onstage, a gray woman behind the desk with the cold waxen face of an intergalactic bureaucrat. She is dressed in a gray-blue uniform. Airport sounds from a distance, blurred, incomprehensible, then suddenly loud and clear. "Flight sixty-nine has been --" Static...fades into the distance..."Flight..."
Standing to one side of the desk are three men, grinning with joy at their prospective destinations. When I present myself at the desk, the woman says: "You haven't had your education yet."
New Stuff: The Late Great Daniel Johnston. Discovered Covered
A great double album with cover versions from more popular artists plus the original versions to each song.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
First Lines: Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together.