Monday, October 28, 2013

Wrapped Up in Yourself Like a Spool, Trawling Your Dark as Owls Do




  • Conlon Nancarrow was born 101 years ago yesterday. I confess, after I watched that for the fourth time last night I almost broke my promise to myself not to post anything Sunday unless kaboom or Egoslavian Holy Day.
  • RIP Lou Reed, but I'm not the person to eulogize Lou Reed. It's not hate, it's not love. VU has aged badly for me (but not for others), Reed's solo work by and large didn't interest me. That's on me. And there are plenty of links to eulogies, a sign that if Lou Reed didn't sing to me he sang to a lot of people whose music opinions I value.
  • Here's one. Here's another. Here's a third.
  • I promised myself I wasn't going to post yesterday barring kaboom, and Reed's death is not a kaboom to me, and I'm certain (and you'll have to trust me) that had I not promised myself not to post barring kaboom I wouldn't have posted a stand-alone RIP Lou Reed post. This did get me thinking of borderline kabooms. John Cale, KABOOM, but say... well I won't say, I'm sure, if I keep promising myself days off, I will be tested soon enough.
  • Theses on austerity and how to fight it.
  • Krugman's errors.
  • Another lesson on proper whistleblowing.
  • Maggie's weekly links.
  • { feuillton }'s weekly links.
  • The New Inquiry's Sunday readings.
  • Bernhard, for those of you who do. I confess, I don't do well with German novelists, acknowledged irony from a far shittier bleggalgazer, reading bleggalgazing sucks to me.
  • But hey! bleggalgazing: I can! I can not post everyday! I'll see what tomorrow's blog-pressure numbers are.
  • On Bach, for those of you who do.
  • Bach defended against his devotees. (h/t guy in link above)
  • Linda Thompson interview!
  • Sylvia Plath was born 81 years ago yesterday. See kaboom and Nancarrow bullet above.






YOU'RE

Sylvia Plath

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,   
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,   
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense   
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.   
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,   
Trawling your dark as owls do.   
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth   
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.   
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.   
Snug as a bud and at home   
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.   
A creel of eels, all ripples.   
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.   
Right, like a well-done sum.   
A clean slate, with your own face on.



8 comments:

  1. Nancarrow is new to me. Must force self to listen to something new.

    Thanks for the link!

    How's the ankle? Able yet to do an entire disc golf course?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ankles fine. Been hiking with Earthgirl instead of discing.

      I know VU means a lot to you. Glad you posted some not often heard songs.

      Delete
  2. "RIP Lou Reed, but I'm not the person to eulogize Lou Reed."

    I'm shocked. I find a lot of his work uninspiring, but wowsy wow wow. What do I know, though, I think it was downhill after Transformer -- which I still adore -- which marks me as an interloper from Planet Bowie, not a true fan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was never love, it was never hate, just never worked for me. Looking back at VU I wonder how much of i's aging bad for me (or me aging bad for it) was a combination of hearing it way too much and buying into the hype of it more than the music actually worked for me - when I was young they were the band to revere in many of the parties I lived. And I never liked his voice - I'm shallow that way. I understand that Reed meant a lot to people of good musical fate but I just don't like his music enough to speak to its merits.

      Delete
    2. *Faith*, good musical *faith*, not fate. Damn my free blogging platform's inability to allow edits to comments.

      Delete
  3. re krugman's errors re obamacare - an excellent example of how "stuff happens" is almost always a vague as fog smokescreen for "people did stuff" - which people? which stuff? cui bono? the debbil am in them details

    most of the people with whom i listened to the velvet underground are now dead

    if there's a rock n roll heaven they got a hell of a band

    i'm glad you didn't post on sunday

    here are the last two paragraphs from Erich Fromm's The Heart of Man:

    Man's heart can harden; it can become inhuman, yet never nonhuman. It always remains man's heart. We are all determined by the fact that we have been born human, and hence by the never-ending task of having to make choices. We must choose the means together with the aims. We must not rely on anyone's saving us, but be very aware of the fact that wrong choices make us incapable of saving ourselves.

    Indeed, we must become aware in order to choose the good -- but no awareness will help us if we have lost the capacity to be moved by the distress of another human being, by the friendly gaze of another person, by the song of a bird, by the greenness of grass. If man becomes indifferent to life there is no longer any hope that he can choose the good. Then, indeed, his heart will have so hardened that his "life" will be ended. If this should happen to the entire human race or to its most powerful members, the the life of mankind may be extinguished at the very moment of its greatest promise.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My goal, I've doubts I can approach it much less achieve it, is to only post when I want not because I think I want to. In any case, been spending more time with pens and tablets trying to figure out something about this, and that's progress of some sort.

      Delete
  4. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/the-big-new-yorker-book-of-cats.html

    asserts today oct 29 2013 is national cat day

    ReplyDelete