Bob Dylan / Modern Times (a stream of the whole new cd, released the other day--by 8:50 or so, you gotta be slayed or without a heartbeat)

This Dylan thing, I'm not getting over it any time soon. As Brad would say, I want to do my own thing but I think it's a trend. O well. With 6 billion souls in the world, it's impossible not to be standing in the space of some cliche all the time any which way, right?

self help reading + music

What a banana fold is, which actually even now that I know what it is I’m not sure I’m picturing it correctly. And I don’t want to keep trying.

And how a Body Mass Index is calculated: "The index is calculated by dividing a person's weight in pounds by his height in inches, squared, and multiplying that total by 703." (And my X and Y thing was hard to follow? Who the hell thought that up, and why do you suppose 703 is the magic number?)

Finally, for Virgo this week: Philosopher George Gurdjieff declared that most of us are essentially asleep, even as we walk around in broad daylight. We're ignorant about the higher levels of awareness we're capable of; we're blind to the continuous flow of life's miraculous blessings. He said that in order to wake up and stay awake we need regular shocks. Some of these are uncomfortable, forcing us to face our own stupidity. But other shocks are delightful. They're doses of sacred medicine that entice us to shake off our sleepiness and come to attention in pleasurable ways. I believe that in the coming weeks you'll be offered a steady supply of the latter.

(Methinks perhaps the body mass index calculation was used to gauge my “steady supply” odds.)

Odetta - Weepin Willow Blues (for New Orleans)

blindly here to stand but still not sleeping

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from “Because you think you know how it goes already, you don’t really listen anymore” [Dylan] playlist:

tambourine man
tangled up in blue
man of constant sorrow

The Judge—at most, under extreme duress, he offers the very top of his head for a kiss, holding the rest of his body an almost gravity-defying distance away. Then he asks, Why are all the workers who have to take care of old people, why are they all from China? I’d guess it’s actually the Philippines, but point well taken. I’m sure there is a socio-economic answer to that question. But what I want to know is why a woman who raised 5 kids and whose mind is a tack is trapped in a room with a man who is in an end-state spinal stenosis fetal position about 20 hours a day, and she’s going blind so the novel a day to keep her occupied is down to one a week using a magnifying glass as thick as the desk I’m sitting at, and the only other people she sees in a daily way have vocabularies in her language that seem completely limited to the word “okay”.

Why is that the case, and how can there be a “meanwhile”?

Meanwhile, sis’s first ultrasound. The baby looks like something that would go well with cocktail dip. And still, a little pang of love shoots right through me. A sad kind. My kind.

neko case, andy

I’m just trying to cheer you up, she says.
Does it make any difference that your wanting me to be cheery is utterly oppressive?, I ask.
I don’t see what that therapist is doing for you—you’re supposed to get a new, a brighter, way of thinking. Like you write things down that are a blessing (she looks around), like geraniums in bloom, and you write that on a piece of paper and keep it in your pocket to remind yourself if you start feeling bad.
Mom, I seem to recall a year you had when Jesus would materialize above your bed to protect you from the government, which you claimed had tapped your phone lines and was watching you. Did you lose your little piece of paper then, or what?, I ask.
I’m not saying it’s not been a hard year. But that’s just what I mean though!—the Lord would keep you company if you would just want to feel better, but you don’t even want to. I am never lonely—the Lord and I spend whole days together, taking drives together. . .
Is He here now?, I scan the room.
Fine, be a pickle.
No, I’m just saying, because I’m not wearing any underwear so if He’s sitting at my feet at the end of the couch I should probably know that. Then again He is kind of my type . . .
STOP!
And while the government was spying on you, wasn’t Jen driving herself to the store to get the groceries, I mean the Hostess selection, and she was 12? I don’t think a few crying jags with FrouFrou on repeat is a real show stopper of a response on my part, all things considered.
I’m not saying you’re not functioning admirably as always, it’s just that you’re not happy. And life is a joy.
Last I heard it was brutal and short.
Well that is just a sucky attitude, she fumes.

(pause)

She starts back in [shit], There are lots of reasons to be grateful and joyful. Like my friend Kim, that egg lady who delivers these wonderful big brown eggs from her family farm and has all the cats and lives up the way here and I swear she is the Saint of Land o Lakes Trailer Park.
I’m sorry I forgot to aspire to that--? What the hell has that got to do with anything?
Well for one thing, she saved my life that time I had the flu and when I was forced to walk the dog I was so sick that I lost bladder control and it was a good thing she noticed and called Jen!
(Kim is one of Mom’s more perceptive friends, Jen says.)
And that is a reason for me to be grateful, she continues, and everyone is grateful for Kim. Just today she took Evie and So-n-So for a walk with their dogs. They’re shut-ins who have motorized chairs—do you know those?
Shut-ins and chairs, got it.
And the 17-year-old Yorkie and that other one, the Shih Tzu with no tail and so fat you can’t believe it. And Kim takes all of them down to the end of the park and back for a walk, otherwise they’d never get out.
So far, this story is making me want to stab myself in the eye with an ice pick.
It’s a triumph of the human spirit! Why, Kim has plenty of problems. She’s with but not-married to that fucktard, who’s very nice but still he can’t hold a job or anything, the one named Mike but everyone calls him Bob like Bob Villa. And they have that developmentally disabled girl, poor little thing, Kalen, who will never hold a job either. And the boys—Tony who has ADD-Blee-Bla-Bla. And then the actual retard, who’s name is Andy by the way [lol] [wait, LOL]. And the older one, Chad, who I guess is going to be a chiropractor though he’s been at the community college for at least 3 years now . . . all this and she works as a cleaning lady all night and never is anything but a blessing. She’s got one pair of stretch pants to her name and she’s a blessing.
(The phone rings. Mom is saying, Omygod!, while I try to feel grateful for my wardrobe. She hangs up the phone.)
That was your father.
The other shoe drops—and?
Well with all the remodeling, your brother-in-law blew a hemorrhoid and they’re rushing him to the hospital.
That sucks.
See? SEE?! What a blessing and a joy life is?!
Not that it matters, not that it ever matters, but no, your logic just totally escaped me right there.
Well, you should just thank the Lord for your perfect gorgeous asshole!
Ah. [obviously]


To my mother’s credit, if you stop and think about what your life would be like if your asshole suddenly stopped working, that would definitely make things worse no matter what.

Nine Inch Nails - Terrible Lie

ricky lee jones - someone to watch over me

cannibal buffet, 8.06
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i.e. Wisconsin.

Refuge again in Bro-in-law's pc. And (thus) tunes from DmS

"I'm Going to Kill Myself," You

bonus track: larry goldings quartet- hesitation blues (love the line about the old women. this tune is perfect background music for a pan shot of a trailer park, david lynch style.)

sneaker pimps - low place like home

“Metrophobia”

Sophophobia - fear of learning
Optophobia - of opening one's eyes

Autophobia or Isolophobia or Monophobia - aloneness
Enissophobia – criticism
Bathophobia – fear of depth
Deipnophobia – dinner conversations
Panophobia, Panphobia, Pamphobia, or Pantophobia – everything
Atychiphobia or Kakorrhaphiophobia – failure

Athazagoraphobia – fear of forgetting or being forgotten

Hellenologophobia – Greek words
Apeirophobia – infinity
Eremophobia or Eremiphobia – of being oneself and/or lonely
Malaxophobia or Sarmassophobia – love play
Melophobia – music
Hedonophobia – fear of feeling pleasure

Arachibutyrophobia – peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth
Ithyphallophobia - penis, erect: seeing, thinking about or having

Hypengyophobia or Hypegiaphobia – responsibility
Catagelophobia or Katagelophobia – being ridiculed

Enosiophobia or Enissophobia or Hamartophobia – having done something unpardonable

Aphenphosmphobia, Haphephobia or Haptephobia or Chiraptophobia – fear of touch



Tuung- Jenny Again

He collects things. Music. Alphabetizing, then by release date, and another section for frequently-played. Another collection that includes much of the same items of first one but in a different format, and some other items. Another whole set that goes in the car—those are the mixes of the first two collections, arrangements to complement various kinds of days and moods. At first I guess it was kind of Dick Clarky. But at the height, the collection(s) included Fleetwood Mac, Led Zepplin, Santana, Credence Clearwater Revival, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Jethro Tull all on the frequently played list. He makes a point to have everything in order of release by the ones he likes best—those need to be complete. I hated the Jethro Tull—I needed the word cliché but I didn’t have it yet. I watched mostly, cuz I was a very little kid. But I got to pick too, make suggestions. I always liked that one about being crazy on the lawn by Pink Floyd, so he let me have the poster with the triangle. I liked some sweet stuff too that he didn’t like so much. So the Linda Ronstandt was sort of mine. Blue Bayou.

"stop right there", 8.2006

I remember this all suddenly when Petty covers “Oh Well”. It was like falling down the hole to wonderland, and the hole is lined like the insides of a geode rock. I go by my father as I fall. I can’t see the moment I am in. I can’t see past it.



“When I get to the bottom of this hole, I’m desperately wanting Eddie Vedder in a rabbit suit” playlist:

tom petty - walls
pearl jam with ben harper- another lonely day
beth orton – concrete sky
george michael – waiting for that day
Johnny - I Still Miss Someone
the jayhawks – love hurts (oldies cover-nazareth?)
linda ronstadt – blue bayou
ron sexsmith – whatever it takes
fleetwood mac – oh well

to our joys a clog

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isreal kamakawiwo - somewhere over the rainbow

images from Alice in Wonderland, the mouse's tale

'a mistake for me today' - jonathon richman (salon review) (website)

live tonight in Buffalo

he is going like Cash, more and more and

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([opened with] tone: listen to her heart)
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go back and get those couple of new ones if you missed the prior post
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ambulance ltd - fearless [syd barrett cover]

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ane brun - this voice

tone: better

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"no regrets" , 8.2006


Magnet - Lay Lady Lay (great cover)

theorizing education, v. 1

(tone: arms crossy)

What is the predominant theory of higher education, i.e. the one that runs the show? I try to simply find a way to describe that, before I assess the thing, ya know?

An inspiration. Use symbolic logic. Here are the symbols:

X me (playing Professor Girl)
Y something of intellectual value
Z Studenty Someone
~ gives
> to
~' thus gives
$ money
SS secret sauce (I dunno how to define this precisely--stimulus?)

Breaking down the basic components and their relations to each other--This is how I see the basic situation of formal higher ed now:

Formula 1
X (me) ~ (gives) Y (something of intellectual value) > (to) Z (student) ~’ (thus gives) $ > DYC

Are you following this so far? Notice that X doesn't get shit. So. I propose a changeroo (paradigm shift) in the theory of how learning anything should, ideally, work:

Formula 2
X ~ Y > Z ~’ SS (secret sauce) > X ~’SSY > Z ~’ SS > X ~’ SSE > Z . . . (repeat)

The next step is field work, which I will commence with the first person who followed one letter of that

X

wilco- kamera

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not titled,
7.2006
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Chad VanGaalen - Sing Me 2 Sleep
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see me, 7.2006
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Ray LaMontagne - Trouble
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conceptual framework,
8.2006
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daryl hall - the farther away I am (sacred songs 1980)

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john lennon -

beautiful boy

wanted: human beings

My children: I am in schools a lot and that’s all gearing up now, August. Last year, I was doing “reading pillow”, a Montessori practice whereby children are read to by an adult—they pick up the pillows, one for them and one for the adult, and when they set them down in a quiet hallway, nobody else may come into that private space of reading that the child and adult are sharing. Fatimah liked Clifford the Big Red Dog stories. No matter what the plot, she would point and say “I like that dog.” One day, Fatimah had taken the guinea pig (Brownie) out of its cage, put it under a metal chair leg, and then she sat down on the chair. She stayed sitting there a long time until one of the other children noticed her quiet pose above the dead classroom pet. I knew that. I asked her if she liked animals. She said, I killed the guinea pig. I said, Sometimes people do things that they want to do but they don’t know what will happen or how they will feel about it. She said, It wasn’t an accident. I asked, How did you feel about it? She smiled and shrugged, “I don’t know.”

From the classroom doorway, The Judge, playing Othello, looked on in jealous anguish:

I had rather be a toad,
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others' uses.

Maria Montessori shares my birthday. “That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration.” She didn’t mean that sentimentally, she meant that consciousness is a burden which only a very few things (like wonder) can assuage.

My students, all grown up: They ask, “Is this going to be on the test?” When I get that question, I think of this science fiction novel I read once, DUNE, in which women had developed a test to determine who was a human being. Not like the aliens from the humans. I mean, who is human. The Test: Place your hand in a box. I will hold a needle of deadly poison to your juggler vein. Nothing will happen to your hand, but it will feel as if it is being burned off to a stump of ashes. When you pull it out, there will be no trace of the experience. If you can deal with that and not ask for the needle instead, you’re a human being.

Accreditors are visiting my campus. One of their biggest complaints, too little interaction between education students and the liberal arts (we’re the content portion). I feel like the gay friend/relative, who gets trotted out on certain occasions to prove “we like gay people.” I like the meetings about OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT the best. It’s fancy bullshit for ‘proving they learned something’. So let me get this straight I ask, There’s the student and the teacher and Othello. I give the students Othello, I force them to read it by telling them it’s going to be on the test, they read it, they pass the test . . . is that it? YES!

But wait, wait . . .

X (me) and Y (some occasion for us to know each other, like Othello whatever) and Z (you). X gives Y to Z. What did X get?

Cake - Shut the Fuck Up . . . (website)

fiona apple - extraordinary machine (video live)

linger is a lovely word

Virgo, week August 10.

Of all the times in your life when you have been in captivity, this has to be one of the least arduous and frustrating ever. I'll go so far as to say that I have rarely seen a more beautiful prisoner than you; for a drudge in bondage, you're ravishing. As hard as it may be to contemplate, however, it's almost time to escape. Your dark though sexy night of the soul will soon come to an end. Don't you dare linger any longer than you have to.

Beth Orton - Shadow of Doubt

self help reading + music

from Terrorist, John Updike

There is an endearing self confidence in how compactly her brown roundedness fill her clothes, which today are patched and sequined jeans, worn pale where she sits and a reddish-ribbed shorty top both lower and higher than it should be. Blue plastic barrettes pull her glistening hair back as straight as it will go; the plump edge of her right ear holds along its crimp a row of little silver rings. She sings in assembly programs, songs of Jesus or sexual longing, both topics abhorrent to Ahmad. Yet he is pleased that she notices him, coming up to him and now and then like a tongue testing a sensitive tooth.

johnny kidd & the pirates - shaking all over

fear is the heart of most things

death cab for cutie -i will follow you into the dark (video)

Faure- Requiem- Celilia Bartoni

from How Soccer Explains the World, Franklin Foer:

The biggest soccer stadium in Tehran, in the world for that matter, is the 120,000-seat Azadi. Even though its name translates as “freedom”, it represents something close to the opposite. Ever since the Islamic revolution of 1979, females have been forbidden to watch soccer in the Azadi. This prohibition isn’t exclusive to the venue or even to Iran. It applies in broad swaths of the Muslim world . . . But the fundamental fact of Iran is that it is not Saudi Arabia. With so many people flowing through the Azadi’s turnstiles, it’s impossible to ensure conformity with the finer points of Islamic law. Some of the men are clean shaven and dressed in suspiciously baggy clothes. Under closer inspection, it would become clear that these men aren’t even really men. Risking severe punishment, Tehran’s women have been unable to let go of the Azadi.

This corps of aggrieved, soccer-starved women, it is reported, included the daughters of important clerics . . . In 1987, the country’s spiritual and political dictator, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a new fatwa that revised the regime’s absolute prohibition of female fandom. Speaking through his long white beard, he decreed that women could watch soccer on television, which would carry games for he first time in the Islamic era, but still disallowed trips to the testosterone-laden stadium.

But even the mullah’s rare stroke of Solomonic reasoning couldn’t placate the deep desires of Iranian women. Like all good fans, they understood that technology is a poor substitute for the real, flesh-an-blood experience. In hindsight, it was inevitable that women would demand to be let back in. Still, such a bold demand requires great courage and pretext. The heroics of the national team in November 1997 gave the women of Iran both. Iran’s campaign to qualify for the World Cup turned on a single playoff game against Australia, played in Melbourne . . . [they won].

Some women threw off the hijab and partied without any of the mandated head coverings. When the basiji, members of the religious paramilitary militia, arrived to shut down the demonstrations, they were persuaded to join the roistering themselves. . . . when the team finally returned three days later, the government held the celebration in the Azadi. The heroes arrived in the stadium via helicopters, as if Silvio Berlusconi had planned the event. But the real spectacle wasn’t inside the stadium. Thousands of women defied the state’s pleas and gathered on the other side of the Azadi’s gates, in the 27-degree chill. As the anthropologist Christian Bromberger has reported, when the police refused to admit these women to the stadium, they began shouting “Aren’t we a part of this nation? We want to celebrate too. We aren’t ants.” Fearing the horde, the police let three thousand women into special seating.

But what about the two thousand women on the other side of the turnstile who hadn’t wormed their way into the Azadi? Determined to get their own piece of the celebration, they broke through the police gates and muscled their way into the stadium. Intent on avoiding a major fracas that could steer the raw emotions of the day in a dangerous direction, the police had no choice but to overlook their entry and concede defeat.

eels- novocaine for the soul

self help reading + music

Awkward Moments Abound in Penis Pump Trial (Oklahoma) [AP wire]

Former Judge Donald D. Thompson, a veteran of 23 years on the bench, is on trial on charges he used a penis pump on himself in the courtroom while sitting in judgment of others.

Over the past few days, the jurors have watched a defense attorney and a prosecutor pantomime masturbation. A doctor has lectured on the lengths the defendant was willing to go to enhance his sexual performance.

The white-handled sexual device sits before the jury box for hours at a time. Occasionally an attorney picks it up and squeezes the handle, demonstrating the "sh-sh" sound of air rushing through the contraption's plastic tubing.

Thompson's former court reporter, Lisa Foster, wiped away tears as she described tracing an unfamiliar "sh-sh" in the courtroom to her boss. She testified that during a trial in 2002, she heard the pump during the emotional testimony of a murdered toddler's grandfather. The grandfather "was getting real teary-eyed, and the judge was up there pumping on that pump," she said.

The R-rated testimony has produced occasional outbursts of laughter and surreal scenes. A man who once served as a juror in Thompson's court testified that he never saw the device, but figured out what it was based on movies he had seen: "It sounded like a penis pump to me," Daniel Greenwood testified. He said he had seen such devices in "Austin Powers" and "Dead Man on Campus."

Dr. S. Edward Dakil, a urologist called as an expert witness, repeatedly prompted laughter from the jury when discussion turned to the penis pump. Dakil defended use of the device after defense attorney Clark Brewster said it was an out-of-date treatment for erectile dysfunction.

"I still use those," Dakil testified. Dakil responded as jurors laughed, "I recommend those, as a urologist."

the folk yous - take it on the run . . . (website)