this is a blog
that i use to organize the daily advice i receive from literature and music.
at the moment:
dead bloggin'. the riaa says no to me posting these songs here. the quotes are still viable, though.
"communication becomes the defining characteristic of homo sapiens; we are the species that speaks. we utter the words that create our world, and have learned to take our words and translate them into the ethereal play of zeros and ones, lay them out, at the speed of light, first on a wire, then a radio wave, and lately, on a beam of light, so that the voice, once constrained by mouth and ear, now straddles the entire planet in thirty millionths of a second, messages pinging back and forth, not unlike the meeting points of a synaptic gap, using photons as neurotransmitters, and each network router the equivalent of a synaptic junction, deciding whether to activate or extinguish each message that crosses the continents, connected now in a seamless, endless web of knowledge, more than two billion pages, more than any one of us could ever read or know, the collected and collective intelligence of a species that seems to have made information the central mystery of culture, the project of civilization, and the goal of being. /mark pesce
washed out - feel it all around
"i only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, i found, was really going in." /john muir
lauren landes - weird woods
"let me explain a little: certain things are bad so far as they go, such as pain, and no one, not even a lunatic, calls a tooth-ache good in itself; but a knife which cuts clumsily and with difficulty is called a bad knife, which it certainly is not. it is only not so good as other knives to which men have grown accustomed. a knife is never bad except on such rare occasions as that in which it is neatly and scientifically planted in the middle of one's back. the coarsest and bluntest knife which ever broke a pencil into pieces instead of sharpening it is a good thing in so far as it is a knife. it would have appeared a miracle in the stone age. what we call a bad knife is a good knife not good enough for us; what we call a bad hat is a good hat not good enough for us; what we call bad cookery is good cookery not good enough for us; what we call a bad civilization is a good civilization not good enough for us. we choose to call the great mass of the history of mankind bad, not because it is bad, but because we are better. this is palpably an unfair principle. ivory may not be so white as snow, but the whole arctic continent does not make ivory black." /g.k. chesterton
css - knife
"behold there in the wood the fine madman! he is a palace of sweet sounds and sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he walks with arms akimbo; he soliloquizes; he accosts the grass and the trees; he feels the blood of the violet, the clover, and the lily in his veins; and he talks with the brook that wets his foot. the like force has the passion over all his nature. [love] expands the sentiment; it makes the clown gentle, and gives the coward heart. into the most pitiful and abject it will infuse a heart and courage to defy the world, so only it have the countenance of the beloved object. in giving him to another, it still more gives him to himself. he is a new man, with new perceptions, new and keener purposes, and a religious solemnity of character and aims. He does not longer appertain to his family and society; he is somewhat; he is a person; he is a soul." /ralph waldo emerson
wilco - muzzle of bees
"grizzly bear recorded yellow house in the eponymous house, on cape cod, and the album retains an air of artistic remove. it is cryptic and gorgeous. this song in particular builds with drama and eerie restraint. like all of grizzly bear’s music, it is delicate and dense at once, and its complex harmonies do not so much convey lushness as fraught instability. something wants to happen." /ian mackenzie
grizzly bear - central and remote
"a great city is that which has the greatest men and women,
if it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world." /walt whitman
beirut - forks and knives (la fête)
"after the most famous voyage of modern times, it was time to go home. after proving that humanity has the ability to go beyond the confines of planet earth, the first humans to walk on another world -- neil armstrong and buzz aldrin -- flew the ascent stage of their lunar module back to meet michael collins in the moon-orbiting command and service module. pictured above on 1969 july 21, the ascending spaceship was captured by collins making its approach, with the moon below, and earth far in the distance." /astronomy picture of the day
kurt vile - beach on the moon (recycled lyrics)
"what if you slept,
and what if
in your sleep you dreamed,
and what if
in your dream you went to heaven
and there you picked a strange and beautiful flower,
and what if
when you awoke
you had the flower in your hand?
ah, what then?" /samuel taylor coleridge
jj - my hopes and dreams
"sometimes the sun will shine, yes i am just feeling fine.
sometimes i'm not aware where i am or what i care.
sometimes i'm well to do, but i don't know what to do;
sometimes i don't agree with my thoughts on being free.
please don't leave me; seems i feel good.
i've been lucky trying to feel good."/avey tare
the dovers - what am i going to do?
"i must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
to the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
and all i ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover,
and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over."/don marquis
bonnie prince billy - the gator (live)
"they were upon their great theme: 'when i get to be a man!' being human, though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be dwelt upon. so, when the old men gather, they say: 'when i was a boy!' it really is the land of nowadays that we never discover." /booth tarkington
kool dj dust - the quest
"john and paul's standard of writing has bettered over the years, so it's very hard for me to come straight to the top, on par with them. they gave me an awful lot of encouragement. their reaction has been very good. if it hadn't, i think i would have just crawled away." /george harrison
yim yames - long, long, long
"but, for the unquiet heart and brain
a use in measued language lies;
the sad mechanic exercise,
like dull narcotics, numbing pain."/alfred tennyson
white denim - say what you want
"bright star, would i were steadfast as thou art--
not in lone splendor hung aloft the night
and watching, with eternal lids apart,
like nature's patient, sleepless eremite,
the moving waters at their priestlike task
of pure ablution round earth's human shores."/john keats
ratatat - mirando (animal collective remix)
"though i am old with wandering
through hollow lands and hilly lands,
i will find out where she has gone
and kiss her lips and take her hands;
and walk among long dappled grass,
and pluck till time and times are done
the silver apples of the moon,
the golden apples of the sun."
/ray bradbury
joanna newsom - bridges and balloons
"all his life [the american] jumps into the train after it has started and jumps out before it has stopped; and he never once gets left behind, or breaks a leg." /george santayana
jimmy hendrix - star spangled banner
"mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity." /joseph addison
robert gomez - on this day
little fly,
thy summer's play
my thoughtless hand
has brushed away.
am not i
a fly like thee?
or art not thou
a man like me?
for i dance
and drink and sing,
till some blind hand
shall brush my wing./william blake
floating action - so vapor
