WBOR

You're listening to WBOR Lite FM, where we play the safest, most insipid reggae this side of Kingston. Up next, “Red, Red Wine” by UB40...

*

"Superstars of Asian ladyboy scene invite you to the backstage for some fun."

I suspect that the term "backstage" is some sort of euphemism.

*

"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.” - George F. Will

*

Up next on WBOR Lite FM, some music to do some light house cleaning, or, perhaps, get an early start on preparing those taxes. But first, a check of local traffic conditions...

*

We are interested in shock - in convulsion. We are obsessed with the failed attempt at producing objects with a vertiginous obscenity attached to them; in being purely gratuitous and rejecting critical worth. But even more, we are interested in how even the most abject object is recuperated to 'use value'. We are interested in the redemptive value of transgression, and how morality is squeezed from sin. We fantasize about producing things with zero cultural value, to produce aesthetic inertia - a series of works of art to be consumed and then forgotten.

I find it terribly funny that the Chapman Brothers (Jake & Dinos), those English rabble-rousers of the modern art scene, have desecrated prints of Goya's Disasters of War by drawing clown faces all over them. The official title of such subversive acts against the establishment? Well, Insult to Injury, of course.

And speaking of the Chapman Brothers, somebody needs to get me their book, Unholy Libel, for Christmas.

*

This is WBOR Lite FM, where we play the music most suited for hibiscus planting. Or needlework. Yeah, needlework. Ah, how relaxing. And now, a ballad from America's princess of lite-pop, Celine Dion in duet with Whitney Houston...

disney world is highly disturbing...

Let Us Go Then, You and I... No, Really, We Gotta Go

Poems by myself and Mr. Rivera are now appearing on the Smyles & Fish Poetron.

I am wrongly identified as a "Spanish Diplomat" (everyone knows I serve at the pleasure of the Queen of Portugal). Mr. Rivera is identified as someone who can't keep a secret (true--don't tell him the combination to the wall safe... SERIOUSLY, DON'T TELL HIM!).

Mr. Rivera is also the author of a review now posted in the Editors' Journal at The One Three Eight.

Does anyone at all read this except for ourselves and our significant others?

{gc}

Movie Movie

No Country for Old Men is an excellent Western Noir, and quite faithful to Cormac McCarthy's grim vision. I was thinking about it in terms of the classic Western tropes and realized that it's basically Shane, except for the fact that Shane never shows up. Then I realized that Javier Bardem's stone cold killer is Shane, walking into the sunset with a broken arm, a force that even the universe cannot kill. Kudos to the Coen Brothers--this makes up for their utterly misguided remake of The Ladykillers.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a crackerjack example of the crime-gone-wrong genre, but the real reason to see it is for its painful delineation of a family that lost its way long ago. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance is stunning, but then his character is the crux of the whole tragedy: a man who, as he puts it to his drug dealer at the Trump Tower (!), "doesn't add up," and who doesn't understand why this is so. Kudos to Sidney Lumet, who can knock this sort of ball out of the park at 83.

The Darjeeling Limited is another fine example of Wes Anderson's sensibility, and even with its flaws (it becomes fairly pedestrian after the bravua funeral/flashback sequence) is pretty enjoyable. If for no other reason, Anderson should continue to make films for the soundtracks they inspire.

{gc}

Rocky Rococo, at Your Cervix...

Never trust a man in a fez.

Recent Records of Note

Black Dice - Load Blown - [Paw Tracks]



The Darjeeling Limited: Original Soundtrack - [Abcko]

Party Party

nuts and bolts!

LAME DUDE WITH NO COSTUME

The Grand Marquis Coterie: We Put the Cult in Culture

Score!

Righteous Ruminations

The following may point to just how naive I am, but I find it wrong that Nissan, in all its corporate wisdom, has licensed a song performed by The Clash, a cover of the roots reggae standard "Pressure Drop," for use in one of its commercials. Given the nature of the products the company sells, including the SUV prominently featured in its latest advertisement, wouldn't it have made more sense for the carmaker to use, say, "Rock the Casbah" or "Bankrobber," instead?

Oh, the irony, the bitter, bitter irony.

*

"The center is not the center." - Derrida

*

I love quoting dead French philosophers because, in all frankness, the practice makes me feel closer to common folk.

*

My Daddy was a bankrobber,

but he never hurt nobody.

He just loved to live that way,

and he loved to steal your money.

So we came to jazz it up,

we never loved a shovel.

Break your back to earn your pay,

and don't forget to grovel...

*

The Grand Marquis Coterie "Song of the Week!" honors go to Teenage Fanclub for "Speed of Light." Yeah!

*

One of the more curious headlines on the Internet: "Dating Advice: 'Help, I'm Falling For a Priest.'" Uh, is this supposed to be news?

*

It must be pretty obvious to those who know me, but I am getting old. As in, I can see at least two gray hairs on my head, and that shit is pissing me off old. But if only that were the last sign proving that the ravages of age are upon me! You see, if I sit down for more than fifteen minutes, I end up having a dull pain in the left side of my hip. When I stand up to walk around, I feel as though someone had just place a two-ton slab across my body. Such is the terror that has befallen me, but I shall perservere through all attacks against my youth!

*

We had chicken for dinner tonight. What did you have?

Ghouls and Goblins

What should I be for Halloween?? -LM

Definition of the Day

draw - to pull out to full or greater length; make by attenuating; stretch: to draw filaments of molten glass.

Sledge!

you could have a steam train
if you'd just lay down your tracks
you could have an aeroplane flying
if you bring your blue sky back

all you do is call me
I'll be anything you need

you could have a big dipper
going up and down, all around the bends
you could have a bumper car, bumping
this amusement never ends

I want to be your sledgehammer
why don't you call my name
oh let me be your sledgehammer
this will be my testimony
show me round your fruitcage
'cuz I will be your honey bee
open up your fruitcage
where the fruit is as sweet as can be

I want to be your sledgehammer
why don't you call my name
you'd better call the sledgehammer
put your mind at rest
I'm going to be-the sledgehammer
this can be my testimony
I'm your sledgehammer
let there be no doubt about it

sledge sledge sledgehammer

I've kicked the habit
shed my skin
this is the new stuff
I go dancing in, we go dancing in
oh won't you show for me
and I will show for you
show for me, I will show for you
yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do mean you
only you
you've been coming through
going to build that power
build, build up that power, hey
I've been feeding the rhythm
I've been feeding the rhythm
going to feel that power, build in you
come on, come on, help me do
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you
I've been feeding the rhythm
I've been feeding the rhythm
it's what we're doing, doing
all day and night

--Peter Gabriel

Poem of the Day

The Letter

I am not feeling strong yet, but I am taking
good care of myself. The weather is perfect.
I read and walk all day and then walk to the sea.
I expect to swim soon. For now I am content.
I am not sure what I hope for. I feel I am
doing my best. It reminds me of when I was
sixteen dreaming of Lorca, the gentle trees outside
and the creek. Perhaps poetry replaces something
in me that others receive more naturally.
Perhaps my happiness proves a weakness in my life.
Even my failures in poetry please me.
Time is very different here. It is very good
to be away from public ambition.
I sweep and wash, cook and shop.
Sometimes I go into town in the evening
and have pastry with custard. Sometimes I sit
at a table by the harbor and drink half a beer.

--Linda Gregg, from The Sacraments of Desire [Graywolf Press].

Wild Boys, 1984

The wild boys are calling on their way back from the fire
in august moon's surrender to a dust cloud on the rise
wild boys fallen far from glory
reckless and so hungered on the razors edge you trail
because there's murder by the roadside in a sore afraid new world

they tried to break us, looks like they'll try again

wild boys never lose it
wild boys never chose this way
wild boys never close your eyes
wild boys always shine

you got sirens for a welcome there's bloodstain for your pain
and your telephone been ringing wile you're dancing in the rain
wild boys wonder where is glory
where is all you angels now the figureheads have fell
and lovers war with arrows over secrets they could tell

they tried to tame you looks like they'll try again

wild boys never lose it
wild boys never chose this way
wild boys never close your eyes
wild boys always shine

--Duran Duran

Jean Valentine poem in The New Yorker

On a Passenger Ferry
by Jean Valentine

(For Grace Paley)

The deck is big, and crowded. In one corner,
an old woman, sick, on chemo, not in pain, is
writing in an elementary-school notebook.
Nobody else saw her, but I saw her.
I had seen her before. Her round, kind face,
smiling and still as a photograph
outside a window—


The New Yorker
September 24, 2007

Poem

Mango

Delicious slivers of mango
cut like long tongues--so it's as if we eat
our passion, this longing

sticky like the afterglow of our sex,
with skin the reddish mottle of mango skin.
How often had I eaten these alone

bought at some Upper West Side bodega
and cut open with a pocket knife,
sitting at Riverside park, sunset

orange in the Hudson below:
sunset orange with a knife in it,
bleeding orange in my hands.

--Gerry LaFemina

Originally published in the Winter 2004-2005 issue of The Southeast Review.

Spinner

Some recent records of note:

Liars - Liars - [Mute]

I'm not entirely convinced that Liars, one of my favorite bands, have written a cohesive, fully-realized record with this, their fourth release, but that particular truth may not matter, given that the new songs are more about mood and tone, as opposed to ideas. Having said that, it is best that would-be listeners not overlook Liars for what it is: a document of a daring, risk-taking music prepared by a band interested not in pleasing its audience, but in circumventing tired norms.

The tracks to which my ear is especially drawn include: "Leather Prowler"; "Sailing to Byzantium"; "Clear Island"; and "Protection," a song that can best be described as haunting (a falsetto has never sounded so right), and which is probably the best album-closer that I've heard in the last five years.

I will take your Polaroid / You will show me how to drink...

M.I.A. - Kala - [XL]

It has a good beat and you can dance to it.