I respect rather than love it. Like Gravity's Rainbow's sewer scene on his knees, bare as a baby ... or Wi'Breathe in Johnny -- Here Goes --'
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I respect rather than love it. Like Gravity's Rainbow's sewer scene on his knees, bare as a baby ... or William T. Vollmann's telephone exchange between steel reefs, a wire wrapped in gutta-percha vibrates: I hereby...zzZZZZZ...the critical situation...a crushing blow....The sleepwalker's all eyes; the realist is all ears; their mating forms the telephone. Later perhaps, I see parts, flashing, cut-in, from David Lynch this is a formica table or Cronenberg's not naked lunch or beginning of Kubrick's 2001 apes confronted with steel. Celluloid burning. when we came out of the mud we had names. Perhaps, Trump Tweets massacred by homoeroticism: I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke 11:43 AM - 14 Oct 2012. Thinking man's thin man. Marlowe and Philip K Dick detectives utilizing third-person singular indirect recall, though now using the cut-up method, Burroughs unsettles and alarms with images of consumption (not to mention graphic scenes of: sex - drugs - coprophagia - sacrifice - self-abuse). Pan God of Panic piping blue notes through empty streets as the berserk time machine twisted a tornado of years and centuries -- wind through dusty offices and archives -- Late night Trump tweets interrupted because The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences! 6:22 PM - 1 Aug 2014. The time to be Messianic is now. Word Hordes of the World Unite! I feel like I just jumped off a modern Joyce nightmare. Not even my warm bath, diet Coke, Hi-Chew blood sugar highs and restless foot cramps can keep me from the dizzying nature of Wind turbines are ripping [Scotland] apart and killing tourism.Electric bills in Scotland are skyrocketing-stop the madness....High on ammonia issuing insane orders... Grammy award goes to Adele 'Song of the Year' HELLO? Reading paperback 3rd edition on back in bath. 'Record of the Year' HELLO? Listening to audiobook of revised edition. 'Best Pop Solo Performance' HELLO? HELLO? HELLO? The inconsistency between editions seems right. Lost seems right. Unsettled seems right. Unfinished loop seems to capture the Burroughs sense of a living text. I'm adrift. Wet certainly. Drowning. Cut the word lines -- Cut the music lines -- Smash the control images -- Smash the control machine -- Burn the books -- Kill the priests --Kill! Kill! Kill!.Amazing how the haters & losers keep tweeting the name “F**kface Von Clownstick” like they are so original & like no one else is doing it... 9:35 AM - 3 May 2013. Welcome Mr. President. President Trump welcome to the future. - nothing here now but circling word dust - dead postcard falling through space between world - this road in this sharp spell of carrion -...more
"My hand's the universe, it can do anything." - Shinkichi Takahashi
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A nice survey of Zen poetry from the Southern Sung Dynasty to a segment highl"My hand's the universe, it can do anything." - Shinkichi Takahashi
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A nice survey of Zen poetry from the Southern Sung Dynasty to a segment highlighting Shinkichi Takahashi (who is probably best described as a Contemporary Zen Dadaist). While I can't read Japanese, the translations by Lucien Stryk & Takashi Ikemoto seem to strike a nice balance between translating the Zen experience of these poems while maintaining the poetic nature of the originals. While previously exposed to a bunch of Basho, Bunan, Issa & Shiki, I wasn't nearly as familiar with Shinkichi Takahashi. Takahashi's poems ALONE make this book worth the dime and time.
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He seems to bridge the ideas of Zen with a modern atomic energy. Here is an example:
Destruction
The universe is forever falling apart -- No need to push the button, It collapses at a finger's touch: Why, it barely hangs on the tail of a sparrow's eye.
The universe is so much eye secretion, Hordes leap from the tips Of your nostril hairs. Lift your right hand: It's in your palm. There's room enough On the sparrow's eyelash for the whole.
A paltry thing, the universe: Here is all strength, here is the greatest strength. You and the sparrow are one And, should he wish, he can crush you. The universe trembles before him.
"All art must be for the end of liberating the masses. A landscape is only good when it shows the oppressor hanging from a tree." ― Ishmael Reed, Yello"All art must be for the end of liberating the masses. A landscape is only good when it shows the oppressor hanging from a tree." ― Ishmael Reed, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
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Imagine an acid-trip dream that involves Loop Garoo Kid, a bad-ass black cowboy who is a master of Neohoodooism. Set this dream up as a classic Western, invert and twist it, add various funky characters:
1. Bo Schmo, a part-time autocrat monarchist and guru and his neo-socialist realist gang. 2. A touring circus troupe including a dancing bear, the Juggler, and Zozo the palm reader. 3. Chief Showcase, a paternalist Indian. 4. Drag Gibson, the ranch Boss. 5. Pope Innocent, God's fixer. 6. Mustache Sal, a nymphomaniac mail-order-bride.
And many, many more.
Imagine a story that seems like a mixture of Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, George Saunders, and Richard Brautigan. In the beginning of the book, Loop tells us:
“No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.” Loop, the protagonist is up against the man, struggling against established religious, economic, and cultural oppressions.
The novel's prose riffs and rolls the narrative with some strange, obscene, smokey combination of Jazz and African-American folk magic. I kept hearing the words in my head as if sung by Sly Stone on peyote in the midst of a vision quest. This is a book that needs to be read it one sitting. It is not casual. It is funny, absurd, strange, twisted, obscene, messy, relevant, infinitely quotable, cheeky, irreverent, subversive, rollicking, and completely woke....more
“How fragile we are under the sheltering sky. Behind the sheltering sky is a vast dark universe, and we're just so small.” ― Paul Bowles, The Shelteri“How fragile we are under the sheltering sky. Behind the sheltering sky is a vast dark universe, and we're just so small.” ― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
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Paul Bowles masterpiece reminds me of some alternate, trippy, version of Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night, but instead we see the other side of the Mediterranean. Tangier and the deserts of North Africa take the place of the South of France. A different love triangle exposes different forms of loneliness, madness, love, and existential expats.
The thing I love about Bowles is he brings a composer's mind to writing. His novel isn't propelled forward by a strong plot (although it has plot) or attractive characters (none of the characters are very attractive), but the music of his language alone pushes and pulls, tugs and compels the reader page after page. It felt very much like I was floating limp and languid in Bowles prose as his hypnotic sentences washed over me and drifted me slowly toward the inevitable end.
Most days, I don't feel a real need to read a book twice. I might need to make an exception for 'The Sheltering Sky'....more
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