Ken Nordine - The Eye Is Never Filled (2005)

(UbuWeb)

This is a long play at 90+ minutes, but it's just as good to listen to. I've been enjoying it while goofing off around the house this morning.

previously in Uncertain Times

Uncertain Times v.ii tribute to Ken Nordine

Ken Nordine - The Eye Is Never Filled (2005) (DVD)

kennordine on YouTube

Ken Nordine's Word Jazz

Poet Passports

Ezra Pound's passport

more poet passports in Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities

Ken Nordine - Maybe the Moment

(kennordine)

Ken Nordine

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

Ken Nordine's Image Jazz - immunological systems

(kennordine)

Ken Nordine

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Ken Nordine Tribute

“Ken Nordine, yea I know that guy, I heard his voice 1000 times, he’s the guy in the bus station that says “go ahead I’ll keep an eye on your stuff for you,” and you see him the next day walking around town wearing your clothes. He broadcasts from the boiler room of the Wilmont Hotel with 50,000 watts of power. I know that voice, he’s the guy with the pitchfork in your head saying go ahead and jump, and he’s the ambulance driver who tells you you’re going to pull thru. He’s the guy in the control tower who talked you down in a storm with a hole in your fuselage and both engines on fire. I heard him barking thru the Rose Alley Carnival strobe as samurai firemen were pulling hose. Yea he’s the dispatcher with the heart of gold, the only guy up this late on the suicide hotline. Ken Nordine is the real angel sitting on the wire in the tangled matrix of cobwebs that holds the whole attic together. Yea Ken Nordine, he’s the switchboard operator at the Taft Hotel, the only place in town you can get a drink at this hour. You know Ken Nordine, he’s the lite in the icebox, he’s the blacksmith on the anvil in your ear.”

—Tom Waits

Be sure to check out the tribute to the great Ken Nordine over at Uncertain Times v.ii. You might have to scroll down a bit to find the posts.

update: just enter "Nordine" in the search window and all of the posts will come up.

Shaker Visual Poetry

Sacred roll [untitled booklet], 1840-43. Anonymous. Ink and watercolor on paper.

UBUWEB - Shaker Visual Poetry (Gift Drawings & Gift Songs):

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing — called "Shakers" — originated in England in the mid-eighteenth century and soon centered around the person of Ann Lee (Mother Ann, or Mother Wisdom, or simply Mother), who became "the reincarnation of the Christ Spirit … Ann the Word … Bride of the Lamb." The group practiced communal living and equality of the sexes, along with a reputedly complete abstention from sexual intercourse. After persecutions and jailings in England, Ann brought them to America in 1774, where for many years they thrived on conversions, reaching a maximum size of 6,000 before their demise in the twentieth century.

Between 1837 and 1850 ("known as the Era of Manifestations") the Shakers composed (or were the recipients of) "hundreds of … visionary drawings … really [spiritual] messages in pictorial form," writes Edward Deming Andrews (The Gift To Be Simple, 1940). "The designers of these symbolic documents felt their work was controlled by supernatural agencies … — gifts bestowed on some individual in the order (usually not the one who made the drawing." The same is true of the "gift songs" and other verbal works, and the invention of forms in both the songs and drawings is extraordinary, as is their resemblance to the practice of later poets and artists.

thanks to On An Overgrown Path for the reminder

Bill Brandt

Dylan Thomas

photo: Bill Brandt

via e-l-i-s-e

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)

Bob Dylan - Love Minus Zero/No Limit

(video link)

for John Henry

from No Direction Home

via kung fu grippe

Walt Whitman (1848-54)

Walt Whitman, some time between 1848 to 1854, probably in New York. Photographer unknown, but perhaps John Plumbe, Jr., whose daguerreotype studio Walt Whitman often visited around this time.

Did they smoke weed back then?

The Walt Whitman Archive

hat tip to Could it be Madness-this?

Gilgamesh for Apes

lexigram for "Enkidu"

Gilgamesh for Apes (all of it; readable by both humans and great apes)

Primate Poetics:

The question becomes: can the ape move away from primordial wordsoup to the solid state of conventional literature. Great apes do have what it takes to be literati: they have self-awareness and empathy, they can deceive and play roles, they can have pleasure, they can mourn and feel sad and lonely, they have great sense of class dynamics... They have other assets in which they surpass us, like a superb short-term memory and a good ear. In fact apes are already telling stories. Gorilla Michael has given us what his keepers believe to be an account of the death of his mother at the hand of poachers: "Squash meat gorilla. Mouth tooth. Cry sharp-noise loud. Bad think-trouble look-face. Cut/neck lip (girl) hole".

brought to us by Social Fiction (updated Oct. 2008)

stray bullets

Villagers in fear of occult killers who deal in flesh Human genitals are the most prized parts and can be used to attract wealth and increase fertility. Children's body parts are believed to be the most potent. They are cooked and ground down, to be used with herbs and other ingredients. Sometimes parts are used whole - it is believed that if a human arm is waved around each morning in commercial premises it will draw customers.

Space 'smells like fried steak' Nasa has commissioned Steven Pearce, a chemist and managing director of fragrance manufacturing company Omega Ingredients, to recreate the smell of space in a laboratory.

also:
The Five Oldest Banks in the World (via)
Logic Exercises - The Three Laws of Robotics
Meetways.com: find a point of interest between two addresses (via)

viddy:
Robert Wyatt & Bertrand Bergalat - This Summer Night
Björk talking about her TV
Allen Ginsberg interview (via)
Don't you put it in your mouth

Graphic Poem: Emily Dickinson, “It was not death, for I stood up”

The Poem as Comic Strip #2

via In the Labyrinth

stray bullets

At Home With Wayne Coyne
When trees grew in Antarctica (via)
Emily Dickinson's Secret Lover! (via)
Historical Fiction for Teenage Girls
Historical Fiction for Teens
Create your own search engine
FM 100-30 Nuclear Operations (via)
Make Your Own Hard Cider (via)

viddy:
Daedelus Talks Vinyl And Culture (crate-digging)
Jack Kerouac - American Haikus
Laptop Orchestra
Che - Steven Soderbergh @ NYFF Q&A
How cocaine is made
Motoman: Robot Bartender

Ezra Pound

Portrait of Ezra Pound, Poet, Rutherford, New Jersey, at the home of William Carlos Williams, June 30, 1958 by Richard Avedon

Pound's ABC of Reading might be the most instructive book on language, reading, writing and poetry that I have encountered.

via Ordinary finds

The ABCs of Dada

A

B

C


via bright stupid confetti

NGA - DADA ("Everybody can Dada") (via)

Jack Kerouac, Artist's Club, New Year's Eve, 1958

photo by Fred W. McDarrah

Beat Generation: Glory Days in Greenwich Village

via growabrain

Walt Whitman in Camden, New Jersey, 1887

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art • Cornell University:

...in 1886, (Thomas) Eakins was taken to visit Walt Whitman for the first time at his home in Camden, New Jersey, by their mutual friend and Philadelphia journalist, Talcott Williams. Whitman generally refused to pose for photographers, but because of his respect for Eakins's artistic skill and educational beliefs, he made an exception.

hat tip: Ordinary finds

Ken Nordine - Bickering

I'm not sure if it's him, but there's a kennordine on YouTube.

(update: I'm pretty sure it's him. He just posted a video of his newborn great-grandson.)

Bickering:



For those of you not familiar with the name, many will be familiar with the voice. At age 88, Ken Nordine is still working. Along with his occasional pieces on NPR, he has a podcast and it would seem, a page on YouTube.

here's his latest posting, truth mute:



With my generation, Nordine was best known for his Levi's voice-overs, but he was well-known in smaller circles, many years before that, developing and honing his singular style, Word Jazz- which is essentially free verse storytelling over music- a sort of second generation beat, ur-rap, but more with the flavor of Kafka, The Brothers Grimm and Poe than was fashionable at the time. He emerged in the mid-1950's Chicago jazz scene and has cited Lord Buckley as an influence. He realeased his second album Word Jazz in 1957. Fifty-plus years later, he's still kicking it.

something a little more upbeat, Hamlet does the Blues:



For those of you not familiar, here's the usual primer on Wikipedia and a decent little page of Nordine links.