Poet Passports

Ezra Pound's passport

more poet passports in Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities

Please Plant This Book by Richard Brautigan

image: Wikipedia

Books Are People, Too:

This is the rarest of Brautigan’s books. Four are currently listed on ABE, ranging from $395 (for an incomplete set) to $1,250.

pleaseplantthisbook.com:

Richard Brautigan published Please Plant This Book in the Spring of 1968. It consisted of eight packets of garden seeds, each printed with a poem, all gathered in a small folder.

Here is a digital version of Please Plant This Book, typographical errors and all. Seeds not included.

more info at the Brautigan Bibliography and Archive

Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)

Philip José Farmer, January 26, 1918 - February 25, 2009. R.I.P.

P.J. Farmer moved peacefully to a new Tier this morning. He might also be found roaming about Riverworld, or the Wold Newton Universe.

The True Stories of Philip K. Dick

painting by G.K. Bellows

The Most Brilliant Sci-Fi Mind on Any Planet: Philip K. Dick (pdf) (excellent 1975 Rolling Stone article by Paul Williams)

Articles, Essays and Fiction - a collection of PKD related writings

via Ministry of Truth

Thomas Pynchon Age Progression

An age progression made from Thomas Pynchon's last known photograph.

Forensic Art (interesting site)

hat tip to pack-horse and carrier

Thomas Pynchon’s National Book Award acceptance speech by Professor Irwin Corey

(video link)

The story behind Thomas Pynchon’s National Book Award acceptance speech by Professor Irwin Corey.

from The Modern World:

Here’s how it is described by famous New York writer and newspaper columnist Jim Knipfel:

“One of Corey’s most notorious public appearances came on April 18, 1974, when he showed up at Alice Tully Hall to accept the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow on behalf of Thomas Pynchon.

‘Thomas Guinzberg [of the Viking Press] first suggested the idea,’ he says, ‘and Pynchon approved it.’

So, after being mis-introduced (as ‘Robert Corey’), the little man with the wild hair and the rumpled suit walked to the podium and addressed some of the most esteemed figures in American publishing and literature…

…Corey’s speech was accentuated by a nude man who streaked across the stage as he spoke. The audience, needless to say, was dumbfounded by the entire spectacle.

transcript of Corey’s speech

video via rreennaann

Notebooks

Thornton Wilder, [Manuscript notebook containing dialogue for Merchant of Yonkers and notes on "other projects"] (YCAL MSS 108)

Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities - Notebooks

All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy is nothing short of a complete rethinking of what a novel can and should be. It's true that, taken on its own, All Work is plotless. But like the best of Beckett, the lack of forward momentum is precisely the point. If it's nearly impossible to read, let us take a moment to consider how difficult it must have been to write. One is forced to consider the author, heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence. It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power. Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint.

Stephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel

A clip from "The Making of..."

Bill Brandt

Dylan Thomas

photo: Bill Brandt

via e-l-i-s-e

Life on the edge for Syrian artists

Poetry night at a Damascus hotel, part of a thriving bohemian scene in Syria

Life on the edge for Syrian artists:

“It’s become like a game between us and the authorities,” he told me. “We write what we want and they say what they want. True, my latest novel is ‘not allowed’ here, but you know what they say, books have wings and can fly over any frontier.”

also: At home with avant-garde Syrian artist

Wild Things

Spike Jonze interview: Where the Wild Things Are

via benhästen
via breezy

stray bullets

Is the US too big to fail? Why are investors rushing to purchase US government securities when the US is the epicentre of the financial crisis? This column attributes the paradox to key emerging market economies’ exchange practices, which require reserves most often invested in US government securities. America’s exorbitant privilege comes with a cost and a responsibility that US policy makers should bear in mind as they handle the crisis. A bit arcane, but worth it, if you can slog through. (via)

A way with words: Lexical wizard Henry Hitchings on the crazy history of our language It's rather nerve-racking, interviewing an acknowledged master of the English language. I tell Henry Hitchings that I feel as though I'll have to take extra care with my choice of words. "Don't," he says briskly, as he ushers me into his book-lined 13th-floor Bermondsey flat. Fortunately, his attitude to language is anything but stuffy, snobbish or prescriptive.

Art sleuth: Museum director also helps nab the bad guys She now routinely goes once a month to The Fortress, the vault where U.S. Customs keeps valuable confiscated goods, ''just to see what they have.'' She reviews photos of artifacts on her computer, and, if she determines more investigation is warranted, she goes to see the items in person. If they are valuable, Damian and the government follow up with an archaeologist from the country to which the artifacts belong. If the case merits prosecution, they contact government authorities as well.

Restaurateur tracks down bill dodgers on Facebook An Australian restaurateur left holding a hefty unpaid bill when five young diners bolted used the popular social network website Facebook to track them down -- and they got their just deserts. (via)

'Mummy, can I phone the pirates?' One of the biggest frustrations facing journalists is being unable to get through to people on the phone. But as Mary Harper discovered, contacting the Somali pirates on the Sirius Star turned out to be child's play. (via)

also:
Shipwreck in Antarctica: Part 1 - Discovering we are sinking (via)
William Friedkin: We're all Dirty Harry now
A Year of Parking Tickets (map of NYC with block-by-block stats - one block had over 10,000) (via)
How to: Transfer Music from One iPod to Another
Quiz: TS Eliot
Patti Smith’s favourite books (via)
Huge glossary of drug slang (via)

viddy:
Lucian Freud on 'Diana and Actaeon'
1964 U.S. anti-China propaganda
Kerouac Scroll Unrolled (via)
Fifty People, One Question: New York (seemed somewhat more superficial and materialistic than the first) (via)
Interesting new synth interface
Orbital to reunite! (plus video of Chime from their farewell set - they are amazing live, more than this video could possibly convey)

Truman Capote on The Dick Cavett Show

(video link)

Truman Capote, Groucho Marx, and Jim Fowler on the Dick Cavett Show - 1971

Shut the #&@! up, Groucho. Please.

pt.2

via

plot

Plot chart for Norman Mailer's book Harlot's Ghost, undated.

Harry Ransom Center: The Mystique of the Archive

via The Dizzies
via The Elegant Variation

Philip K. Dick, A day in the afterlife

(video link)

An excellent 1994 BBC documentary, including interviews with Tim Powers, James Blaylock, Thomas M. Disch, Kim Stanley Robinson, Brian Aldiss, Terry Gilliam, an assortment of ex-wives, friends and associates, as well as PKD himself.

I liked how this film riffs on Ubik, a favorite of mine, which is probably his most lucid and complete work.

Interesting note: Tim Powers was a close friend and submitted the typescript for Radio Free Albemuth, written in 1976 but published posthumously as Dick's "last novel" in 1985. The character "David" in VALIS is based on Powers and a later edition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - published concurrent with the release of the film Blade Runner - is dedicated to him.

see the rest here

found thanks to MetaFilter

Eight Men Out

John Sayles, Studs Terkel and John Mahoney

Eight Men Out

Studs Terkel (1912-2008)

A life fully lived.

Studs Terkel: Conversations with America
Conversations with History: Studs Terkel (YouTube) (via)
Conversation with Studs Terkel (via)

...banging on Rocketman's helmet with a stick.

Zak Smith's Illustrations For Each Page of Gravity's Rainbow

The Comedian Mark II

The origins of Watchmen:

Alan Moore's initial outline for Watchmen was already more than Dave Gibbons 'could have imagined', but it went on to become one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. Here we present preliminary designs and early sketches which chart the development of their alternate reality

stray bullets

Getting A Story Made at National Geographic After talking with several National Geographic photographers about shooting for the magazine I became intrigued with the process of getting a story made. The collaboration between the photo editors and photographers and then the photographers involvement in all the steps along the way is unique and important to how they make stories. More magazines should spend this kind of time with their contributors. The few times I’ve had photographer come into the office and present their images to us have been incredibly rewarding and certainly I think made the story that much better. I asked David Griffin, National Geographic’s Director of Photography about the process of getting stories made and the rumored years it takes for a story to go from idea to printed page... (via)

Jacking into the Brain--Is the Brain the Ultimate Computer Interface? How far can science advance brain-machine interface technology? Will we one day pipe the latest blog entry or NASCAR highlights directly into the human brain as if the organ were an outsize flash drive?

From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre A cache of letters hidden in the basement brings to life a house, a family and the tragedy that would change everything (via)

Love story: The librarian, the postal worker and their art Art takes up all the air in Herb and Dorothy Vogel's cramped one-bedroom on the Upper East Side. Minimalist and conceptual works cover every inch of wall and dangle from the ceiling. Because there is no other place for it, a Richard Tuttle painting clings to the inside of a louvered door that leads to the tiny kitchen. Other pieces crowd shelves and table tops. And the Vogels, who are giving the Miami Art Museum and 49 other institutions around the country gifts of 50 artworks each and are subjects of a documentary that will screen in December during Art Basel Miami Beach, say there is plenty more under the bed and jammed into the closets of this modest, rent-stabilized space they have called home since 1963.

Library Ghosts: Northeastern U.S. Last year about this time (just in time for Halloween), I posted on this blog a list of libraries that are said to be haunted. Now the library ghosts are back, by popular demand...

also:
Stanislav Petrov, the man who could have started a nuclear war, but didn’t (via)
Know Your Intelligence Agencies: National Reconnaissance Office
Biology in Science Fiction: Erasing Memory
The History of Some of Today's Most Common Phrases (via)
Recent additions to the Chambers Slang Dictionary
Punctuation Game
1000 artworks to see before you die (via)
Podcasts from the University of Oxford (via)
Haruki Murakami interview (via)
Wayne Coyne interview
Aerial Phenomena Research: Selected Papers - Jacques F. Vallee (via)
Casting the Runes by M.R. James
Oboe Bong

Futility Closet: Over the Moon Jules Verne earned his title as the father of science fiction. His 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon contains eerie similarities to the Apollo program that unfolded a century later. (read more)

viddy:
The Anti-Fascist trailer
Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives 1/6 (Eels frontman Mark Everett in search of his father's brain. Dr Hugh Everett III proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.) (via)
Hog Hunting (A plague of feral hogs has descended on the American South. They've been spotted here in Savannah.) (via)
The Real Secret Of The Matrix: The Haunting Sound Of The Waterphone (You'll know it as soon as you hear it.)
Daily (kinda sorta) Weather with David Lynch (via)
Angkor Wat, Cambodia (1930s newsreel)