Saturday, August 05, 2006

impressions

McCarthy
on the left
and
I got
as much nerve
as anybody
I'm on the level
is all
and
the right amount of whiskey
and
a joe jackson song
and
friends
and
inspirations
leaving town
or already gone
and
new inspirations
being found
and
still no damned job
and
a borrowed car
barely running
and
a bike that squeaks
and
a hurt wrist
popping
popping
and
a new book
and
a desire for solitude
and
maybe
just maybe
a nap

words of wisdom

Can You Get To That

{G Clinton, Ernie Harris}

I once had a life, or rather
Life had me
I was one among many
Or at least I seemed to be
Well, I read an old quotation in a book just yesterday
Said "Gonna reap just what you sow,
The debts you make you have to pay."
Can you get to that?

Can you get (I wanna know)
I want to know if you can get to that (hey!) (get to that!)
Can you get (can you get to that)(I wanna know)
I want to know if you can get to that

I recollect with a-mixed emotions
All the good times we used to have
But you were making preparations
For the coming separation
And you blew everything we had

When you base your love on credit
And your loving days are done
Checks you signed with a-love and kisses
Later come back signed "insufficient funds"
Yeah, get to that!

Can you get (I wanna know)
I want to know if you can get to that (hey!) (get to that!)
Can you get (can you get to that)(I wanna know)
I want to know if you can get to that

Friday, August 04, 2006

He's so hot! Lewis Black on theater and the insanity of golf

He's so hot! Lewis Black on theater and the insanity of golf:
"Why does this restaurant hold such a special place in your black heart?

It's where my two best friends Rand Foerster and the late Rusty Magee ran a theater that did full-length one-act plays, and we did probably more theater during one period of time than any theater has ever done. Eight years, two plays a week. We were doing minimal sets, so everyone was trying to get as close to what was on the page, and everyone was moving around and being directed. And I was doing intros for every show, so that's where I became comfortable on stage."

news from me - ARCHIVES

If you didn't catch this when it was on you should go watch it now...

news from me - ARCHIVES:

"Today's Video Link

Don't be too quick to click on this one. It runs 27 minutes so you might want to wait 'til you have the time to watch a long interview with comedian Lewis Black. This is an episode of the PBS series, InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse. It's a serious chat and a good one."

I can't wait for the InnverVIEWS with Ernie Manouse interview with Leopard Boy...

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Media Matters - O'Reilly blasts "smear merchants" and "vampires" criticizing Mel Gibson; Rivera smears Olbermann, Stewart, and Colbert

Media Matters - O'Reilly blasts "smear merchants" and "vampires" criticizing Mel Gibson; Rivera smears Olbermann, Stewart, and Colbert:
"O'REILLY: It's like going after the rappers. You don't go after the rappers. You go after the masters."

and now just to stir some shit up,
I'll quote public enemy:

if you don't own the masters
the masters own you
who you trust
with this swindler's lust

news from me - ARCHIVES

news from me - ARCHIVES:
"Technically, that was the last Harold Lloyd movie to be released apart from some compilation films. But next month, that changes. On September 15, the silent version of Welcome Danger will be rescued from the vault and screened (with musical accompaniment) at the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills. Only a few film scholars have seen it so it is, in effect, a 'new' release. If it gets a few more screenings before the end of the year, it might even be eligible for an Oscar...not that I'd bet real money on its winning one."

Hopefully it'll make it to DVD soon, or maybe the MFA...

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.: "As MAYAN DOOMSDAY PROPHECY describes, in Mayan cosmology, there are five great cycles, each lasting about 5,125 years, and four have already passed. According to Alten, “The four prior cycles all ended in destruction. So when we talk about the Mayan doomsday prophecy, we’re talking about the end of the fifth cycle, the very last day of which equates to December 21st in the year 2012.”"

Literary Encyclopedia: It Can’t Happen Here

Literary Encyclopedia: It Can’t Happen Here:
"It Can’t Happen Here (1935), while artistically inferior to Sinclair Lewis’s great novels of the 1920s, proved that Lewis’s skilful satire was still able to capture the attention of the American public. In this dystopian work, Lewis effectively pointed out the dangers of German and Italian Fascism by transplanting the movement to the USA. In addition to its influence on the body politic as a book, the novel inspired a play that was widely performed all across the nation under the auspices of the Federal Theater Project."

blogroll

cleaned up a little over there...
and added "aynart" the site of my very talented
friend (and set designer for "The Adding Machine"),
Ayn Morgan. Go take a look at all the coolness!!!

I'll be adding a few more later today...
or tomorrow...

A Second Look at 'Bartleby'

A Second Look at 'Bartleby':
"But Bartleby has his way. He does not choose to help verify copy. Others must do his work, the work which normally would be expected of him. Thoreau lived on Emerson's land by Walden Pond. He borrowed Alcott's ax. Someone else paid his tax to keep him out of prison. 'In fact,' Thoreau wrote in his essay, 'I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases.' Melville was so fond of good food, good drink, and good fellowship that the vagaries in Thoreau's diet offered themselves as subject for jest. Bartleby remained in his 'hermitage,' his little corner of the office, even at mealtime. He was in the office first in the morning and last at night. In fact, he--like the camel which thrust its nose in the tent--took up quarters in the office. If he were to make his withdrawal effective, it must depend on someone else. He did not go out for food. Food must be brought to him. Ginger Nut, the office boy, is regularly sent out to return with a bag of ginger nuts, a dry, hard cookie."

I love "bartleby" and have found at least 3 adaptations are already available...
hmmmm...

lotsa posts...

just some links so that when I hit the library looking for scripts I can remember some of the things I wanted to look for...

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.:
"THE STORY: Tells of a woman whose physical and spiritual wants are disarmingly normal-a sort of anomaly in our modern, complex city life. This woman finds herself between a dentist who is unhappily married, and an old gentleman who has everything to offer her except youth. Of plot in the ordinary sense, there is very little, but with characters such as Mr. Odets draws, there is no necessity for a story in the conventional sense. The play is brilliantly written and offers and extraordinary opportunity for the depiction of human beings at odd with themselves and their environments."

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.:
"THE STORY: The play shows, in a series of trenchant scenes in a small Vermont town, how a fascist movement begins, spreads and captures our free American institutions, and drives the few courageous and intelligent members of the community into a revolt which in the end we feel will prove successful. This is a fresh, forthright document, indignant, theatrical, human, occasionally humorous, setting forth clearly the idea that if the members of a democracy really care about liberty, they will guard it at the cost of their lives."

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.:
"I CAN'T IMAGINE TOMORROW. There are only two characters, a man and a woman. She is ill, perhaps mortally so, and living alone in her dark house. The man, her only friend and equally solitary, dreads returning to the airless hotel room that has become his home. He tries to reach out to her, to help her, but it is too difficult, perhaps too late, for her to respond. Their confrontation, sometimes gentle, sometimes tense, becomes a revealing and moving emotional experience as they accept the need to face alone the terrors that might be more easily met together. "

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.:
"THE STORY: A woman, while preparing breakfast for her husband (heard off-stage), complains of her struggles to make ends meet. The husband, once considered a desirable catch, has steadily degenerated until he is no longer good for anything. When his wife has said everything hateful and bitter that is in her, she subsides into silence. A moment later we know that the desperate man in the next room has just cut his throat."

let's hear it for public domain!

Tesla Motors

The electric car has arrived.

Tesla Motors

tonight - remants of a conversation - nothing but love

the ignorant are as guilty if not more guilty than the informed,
and I'm sorry you disagree...
anybody who didn't see the evil, the disaster, that a Bush administration would be, but enabled it, is just as guilty as the folks who welcome the evil, the disaster... bottom line.
It ain't like the "a to b to c" wasn't there for anyone who fuckin' took the time to look, and if ya didn't bother to fuckin' look then stay the fuck home on election day...and if you looked (and you saw) and then stayed home on election day you're even guiltier...

I say I'm a lefty, a liberal, a progressive, an anarchist, whatever...
more and more I think I'm really a nihilist,
and if that's true then I'm an enemy to all of you...
look, if there's something out there that isn't me,
then it's a limit and a threat to me...
the other option is that it's all me...
that we're all one...
aspects of the one -
electrons of the same atom -
cells of the same body -
whatever...
(new agey? post-modern? just what it is?)

Is it a weakness that I can't hate people I know,
or is that a trait that if we all shared maybe we'd all
be a little less fucked?
I'm an empathic muthafucka sometimes,
it's a gift and a curse...

mistaking folks you'd hang with
with folks that you'd vote for
is what got us G.W. in the first place...

please don't consider this me trying to get the last word...
or as my final thoughts...
just some drunk ass shit I had to get out...

and though he wouldn't have my vote,
if Lieberman showed up at my door
to smoke out and make some art
I reckon I'd welcome him...
warily at first, sure, but as long
as he didn't start trying to convince
me that Israel has the right to exist
(no nation does) maybe we'd find
some common ground...
Do I hate Leiberman as a person?
I don't know him as a person,
but I do know that it is important to
get him out of the senate.

How do civil rights move forward?
Some are convinced they are right,
and eventually most of the others are
convinced change is inevitable,
and some folks just lose...
they are on the wrong side of history,
and although our team has had some setbacks
eventually we will win
Believing this I also believe that sometimes we can afford to be generous
and then when the battles are over it will be the little bits generosity that
we can spare that will allow us to still work together, to still recognize each other as people...

Actually I had the thought a while back,
and whether I believe it or not I'm not sure,
but maybe, I thought it is better to spend time with people
who entertain you than it is with people you admire...
that's just a thought mind you,
and it's one of the more wrong-headed thoughts
that entertains me.

grrr...
and good night.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

IMAGE

IMAGE

Port of Houston - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Port of Houston - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"History:

The citizens of Harris County, Texas approved creation of the Port in 1909, believing that an inland port would better serve the region after the destructive Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The Port was officially opened to traffic on November 10, 1914. Early supporters would prove to be correct; the Port has grown to be one of the world's largest, while the nearby Port of Galveston has dwindled in significance."

Charles W. Morgan (naval officer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles W. Morgan (naval officer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Commodore Charles W. Morgan (1790 – 1853) was an officer in the United States Navy during the War of 1812.

Born in Virginia, Morgan served in Franklin, commanded North Carolina and served as the Commodore of the Mediterranean Squadron.

Morgan died in Washington, D.C. He was survived by his wife, Julia."

What are you gonna do when the bomb drops?

Houston's History 1900-1999: "Houstonians wear costumes for the Notsuoh — Houston spelled backwards — celebration in the early 1900s. The annual event, designed to rival Mardi Gras, didn't last past World War I."

Historic Houston: The Gay Nineties

Historic Houston: The Gay Nineties:

"Houston, by 1890, was recognized as the railroad center of Texas. The Port of Houston was opened to the world after the federal government reimbursed Commodore Morgan's estate for the cost of the channel he had cut across Morgan's Point, and the toll-chain was lowered for the last time. During 1891, Houston started operating its first electric street cars, and the 12 railroads hauled increasing tonnages of freight into and out of the city each day."

Monday, July 31, 2006

Triptych - pay what you will tonight!!

I'll most likely be there...
and I can't think of any reason
you shouldn't be too...
really.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Shrike's Passion in the Luncheonette

Shrike's Passion in the Luncheonette:

"ADDING MACHINE USED
IN RITUAL OF WESTERN SECT
Figures Will Be Used for Prayers for
Condemned Slayer of Aged Recluse

DENVER, COLO., Feb. 2 (A. P.) Frank H. Rice, Supreme Pontiff of the Liberal Church of America has announced he will carry out his plan for a 'goat and adding machine' ritual for William Moya, condemned slayer, despite objection to his program by a Cardinal of the sect. Rice declared the goat would be used as part of a 'sack cloth and ashes' service shortly before and after Moya's execution, set for the week of June 20. Prayers for the condemned man's soul will be offered on an adding machine. Numbers, he explained, constitute the only universal language. Moya killed Joseph Zemp, an aged recluse, in an argument over a small amount of money."