Sunday, October 25, 2009

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Just a sweet old man...

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There were moments at the 92nd Street Y Tuesday night when Gore Vidal was just a sweet old man, reminiscing. ...gather(ing) steam as the evening progressed. Parini showed slides of photos from his book—which Vidal, with some difficulty, turned around to glimpse. (One) photo showed him standing with Charlton Heston on the set of Ben Hur, on which (he) worked as a script doctor.


Asked about Heston’s acting skills, “He was rather wooden, wasn’t he?”


Vidal replied, “...if you count balsa as one of the woods.”


In memory of Ivan Lidster

Lloyd Grove @ The Daily Beast

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Boys in the hood..

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Taco Psychosis på Gutekällaren

October 24, 2009 at 10:00pm

Stora Torget, Visby

Yea, Axel!

At last...

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The Philemon Foundation is proud to announce that The Red Book will be published on October 7, 2009 by W.W. Norton and Co. The publication will coincide with The Red Book of C.G. Jung: Creation of a New Cosmology, an exhibition of Jung's original text at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, October 7, 2009 - January 25, 2010.

If you have a lot of patience, and good eyesight, you might try reading the New York Times article by Sara Corbett. Otherwise the Wikipedia page gives a good summary. And if you have a spare 99£ and would like to get me a Christmas present...

Monday, October 19, 2009

Alcoholic Self-Sonorous

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Last night my neighbor, for the third night in a row, woke me from a sound sleep at 3:15 (Visby bars close at 3:00). I don’t mean he just made a lot of noise coming home. Oh, no! He threw open the windows - onto a small, shared, high-walled, reverberant courtyard - turned on “classic” disco (everything from Janet Gaynor to Prince, all re-mastered to sound like a memorable night at Studio 51 complete with cheering crowds and sparkling sound effects) and proceeded, along with what must have been 5-7 bar-friends, to hoot, whistle, cheer, clap, and bounce up and down as if they were part of that fashionable demi-monde, which I’m sure they thought they were. His girlfriend, familiar from numerous other late-night soirees, must have specialized in hog-calling, back home in Norbotten. She likes to stand in said open window and howl into the night, just to let everybody know how happy, drunk, and slutty she is. By five o:clock, they had all passed out and silence was restored. Alas, this is not uncommon behavior for Swedes these days, and the summer nights are filled with similar banshee cries and loud explosions. It seems to be what passes for social-life here. The evening isn’t complete until you’ve staggered, screeching through the streets, smashed a few bottles or shop windows to prove that you’re so much more than the conformist drone you appear to be, during the day. Needless to say, what it proves is nothing of the kind.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Jack Kerouac's Essentials of Spontaneous Prose

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SET-UP

The object is set before the mind, either in reality. as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.



PROCEDURE

Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.



METHOD

No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas-but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases)--"measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech"--"divisions of the sounds we hear"-"time and how to note it down." (William Carlos Williams)



SCOPING

Not "selectivity' of expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash)-Blow as deep as you want-write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.



LAG IN PROCEDURE

No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.



TIMING

Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time-Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue-no revisions (except obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).



CENTER OF INTEREST

Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion-Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S. reasons. Never afterthink to "improve" or defray impressions, as, the best writing is always the most painful personal wrung-out tossed from cradle warm protective mind-tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow!-now!-your way is your only way-"good"-or "bad"-always honest ("ludi- crous"), spontaneous, "confessionals' interesting, because not "crafted." Craft is craft.



STRUCTURE OF WORK

Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, "different" themes give illusion of "new" life. Follow roughly outlines in outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed "beginning" becomes sharp-necessitating "ending" and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle-Night is The End.



MENTAL STATE

If possible write "without consciousness" in semi-trance (as Yeats' later "trance writing") allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so "modern" language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich's "beclouding of consciousness." Come from within, out-to relaxed and said.



From Language is a Virus

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Simple Chicken-Rice Casserole

1 lg. chicken breast filet

½ cup of brown rice

1½ cups water

1 soft vegetable bullion square

1 cup of frozen mushrooms



Cut chicken into ¾" pieces.

Lightly sauté them until no longer pink.

Boil water and add bullion.

When stock is ready add mushrooms.

Let stand until mushrooms are thawed.



Meanwhile put rice (uncooked) in a covered casserole.

Spread chicken and pan drippings on top of rice.

Pour stock and mushrooms over everything.

Cover and bake for 1-1½ hours, depending on your oven.

When rice is ready the rest is done.

Let stand for ten minutes.

Serves 2-3 socially if salad & bread are included.

Otherwise one big appetite.