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"A note to Pound in heaven: Only one mistake, Ezra! You should have talked to women"
--George Oppen, _Twenty Six Fragments_
Archives:
xoxo Hey, E-Mail Me! xoxo
ManY PoETiKaL HaTs LisT:
Michael Helsem's Gray Wyvern NOLA Fedora.
Duchamp's Rrose Selavy's flirting hat.
Max Ernst's Hats of The Hat Makes the Man.
Jordan Davis' The Hat!
poetry. hks' smelly head baseball cap.
Samuel Beckett's Lucky's
Black bowler hat,
giving his oration
on what's questionable in mankind,
in *Waiting for 'God-ot'*.
my friend John Phillips's 1969
dove gray fedora w/ wild feather.
Bob Dylan's mystery lover's Panama Hat.
Bob Creeley's Black Mountain Felt Boater Hat.
Duke Ellington's Satin
Top Hat. Acorn Hats of Tree.
Freud's 1950 City Fedora.
Joseph Brodsky's Sailor Cap.
Harry K Stammer's Copper Hat
Hell. Lewis LaCook's bowler hat(s).
Tom Beckett's Bad Hair Day
Furry Pimp Hat. Daughter Holly's black beret.
harry k stammer's fez. Cat
in the Hat's Hat & best
hat, Googling Texfiles:
crocheted hat with flames.
Harry K Stammer's tinseled berets.
Tex's 10 gallon Gary Cooper felt Stetson cowboy hat.
Jordan Davis's fedora.
Dali's High-heel Shoe Hat. Harry K Stammer's en-blog LAPD Hat
& aluminum baseball cap. cap'n caps. NY-Yankees caps. the HKS-in-person-caps
are blue or green no logos nor captions.
Ma Skanky Possum 10's nighttime cap.
moose antler hat. propeller beenie hat.
doo rag. knit face mask hat. Bob Dylan's & photographer Laziz
Hamani's panama hats. Mark Weiss's Publisher's Hat.
Rebecca Loudon's Seattle-TX-Hats'n'boots.
Ever-Evolving Links:
Unidentified
Br Tom @ One & Plainer
Dan Waber: ars poetica anthology
Dan Waber: altered books anthology
chris daniels: Notes to a Fellow Traveller
Chris Daniels: Toward an Anti-Capitalist Poetry
David Daniels: The Gates Of Paradise
subterranean poets: Beijing Poetry Group
Charles Alexander/Chax Press: Chaxblog
Headlines Poetry: the latest weblog entries
Henry Gould's AlephoeBooks
Julie Choffel's Understory
Tom Murphy's former one
Jean Vengua's New Okir
Roger Pao's Asian-American Poetry
Tom Lisk: Oilcloth and Linoleum
Kevin Doran
Reb Livingston's Cackling Jackal Blog
Janet Holmes: Humanophone
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Mark Young's gamma ways
Brian Campbell: Out of the Woodwork
Shanna's DIY Publishing Blog
Galatea Resurrects: a Poetry Review
Tom Beckett
John Sakkis: BOTH BOTH
New Francois Luong:Voices in Utter Dark, KaBlow!sm is...
Old Francois Luong: Voices in Utter Dark
Margin Walker: Andrew Lundwall
Free Space Comix: the latest BK Stefans blog
Adam Lockhart, Experimentalist Composer
Antic View: Alan Bramhall & Jeff Harrison
lookouchblog: Jessica Smith
MiPOradio
Web Log -- Charles Bernstein
Google Poem Generator: Leevi Lehto
Marie Mutsuki Mockett
Feral Scholar: Stan Goff
worderos: Tom Beckett
In Galatea's Purse
Japundit
Quiet Desperation: Jim Ryal
Luca Antara: Martin Edmond
Brief Epigrams: Ryan Alexander MacDonald
Radio My Vocabulary: 4 pm Sunday Poetry Streams
Mark Lamoreaux: [[[0{:}0]]]
Hot Whiskey Blog
louder
Nick Bruno: They Shoot Poets Don't They?
Joe Massey: Rooted Fool
Kate Greenstreet: every other day
heuriskein: Tom Orange
Chiaroscuro Metropoli: Tom Beckett
Behrle's latest spout!
Fluffy Dollars: Michelle Detorie
Jane Dark's Sugar High!
The Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center
(Charles) Olson Now: Michael Kellaher & Ammiel Alcalay
kari edwards' TranssubMUTATION
Notes on the Revival: Jeremy Hawkins
PurPur: Petrus Pokus
Snapper Missives: Scott Pierce
A Sad Day for Sad Birds II: Gina Meyers
Great Works: Peter Philpot
zafusy: experimental poetry journal
Writeboard: a collaborative writing tool
John Latta: Rue Hazard
KP Harris: Croissant Factory
Stephanie Young's New Site
Stephen Vincent's New Site
Portable Press@Yo~Yo Labs
Square America
Amy King's blog
Robert: Peyoetry Hut
Muisti Kirja: Karri Kokko
Karri Kokko's Blonde on Blonde
Yummeee Blog (recipes)
Nice Guy Syndrome: Tim Botta
Left Hook
Del Ray Cross: anachronizms
Juan Cole: Informed Comment
BuzzFlash - Daily Headlines, Breaking News, Links
Aaron McCollough
Chris Lott's Cosmopoetica
Chad Parenteau
Little Emerson
Fever, Light--by Sawako Nakayasu
Second Wish
Nomadics
Alison Croggon
Radical Druid
Ron is Ron: the Ron Silliman Cartoon by Jim Behrle
Dagzine: Positions, Poetics, Populations: Gary Norris
Shadows within Shadows: Tom Beckett
Self Similar Writing: Jukka Pekka Kervinen
The Little Workshop: Cassie Lewis
Sky Bright: Jay Rosevear
Poesy Galore: Emily Lloyd
Lisa Jarnot's Blog
Poetry Hut: Jilly Dybka (has moved here)
Pornfeld: Michael Hoerman
Seven Apples: Justin Ulmer
Hi Spirits: Andrew Burke
Bacon Bargain!: Joe Massey
Ivy is here: Ivy Alvarez
Whimsy Speaks: Jeff Bahr
Umbrella: Jeff Wietor
Chicanas! (Susana L. Gallardo)
Masters of Photography
Blog of Disquiet: Gary Norris' Teaching Blog
Suzanna Gig Jig
Bad with Titles: Jay Thomas
Spaceship Tumblers! Tony Tost
Desert City: Ken Rumble
E-Po
Zotz!
Optative Mood: Tim Morris
ecritures bleues: Laura Carter
The Ingredient: Alli Warren
Skanky Possum Pouch
Slight Publications
Jewishy-Irishy: Laurel Snyder
Sea-Camel: Alberto Romero Bermo
Growing Nations: Jordan Stempleman
Tom Raworth
Entropy and Me: Hal Johnson
Scott Pierce: Snapper's Junk
Chicano Poet: Reyes Cardenas
Semio-Karl M&M
Stephen Vincent
Hoa Nguyen/Teacher's & Writers
a New Word Placements
Narcissus Works: Anny Ballardini
Richard Lopez
Tributary: Allen Bramhall
The_Delay: Chris Vitiello
Jukka Pekka Kervinen: Nonlinear Poetry
Lanny Quarles: Phaneronoemikon
Clifford Duffy: Fictions of Deleuze & Guattari
DagZine
Carrboro Poetry Festival
Steve Evans: Third Factory
DEBORAH PATILLO
SKANKY POSSUM PRESS
Tim Peterson: Mappemunde
WOOD'S LOT
Geof Huth: DBQP
Ann Marie Eldon
Jim Behrle: The Jim Side
Ray Bianchi:Postmodern Collage Poetry
Never Mind the Beasts
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New Broom
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Tony Tost: Unquiet Grave
Grapez
SB POET
Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming
|||AS/IS2|||
Li's A Private Studio
Anny Ballardini's Poet's Corner
Tom Beckett: Vanishing Points
Dumbfoundry
BadGurrrlNest
Jean Vengua's Okir
Hear-it dot org: info on hearing problems
Tim Yu's Tympan
James Yeager's Modern Lives
Tony Robinson: Geneva Convention
Daniel Nestor's Unpleasant Event
Ex-Lion Tamer
Carlos Arribas: Scriptorium
David Nemeth
Ela's Incertain Plume
Mairead Byrne's Heaven
Catherine Daly
Black Spring
Br.Tom's Finish Yr Phrase
Shin Yu Pai: makura-no-soshi
Harry K. Stammer: Downtown LA
Corina's Fledgling Wordsmith
Jilly Dybka's Poetry Hut
Ben Basan's Luminations
Katey: Chewing on Pencils
YaY!! Eileen Tabios: Chatelaine Poetics !
Jill Jones: Ruby Street
Geoffrey Gatza's BlazeVox
Bill Allegrezza's P-Ramblings
Gary Sullivan's Elsewhere
GoldenRuleJones
Poetry_Heat
Bookslut
Chickee's SuperDeluxeGoodPoems
As-Is !
John Latta's Hotel Point
Sawako Nakayasu's Ongoing Show
Shanna Compton's Brand New Insects
Crag Hill
kari edwards: transdada
Fluss
Michael Helsem's Gray Wyvern
Word Placement
Bogue's Blog
Jordan Davis: Equanimity
Robert Flach's Unadulterated Text
Michelle Bautista
Ironic Cinema
Mike Snider
Farewell Tonio!
In Through the Out Door
The Blonde Brunette
Awake at Dawn on Someone's Couch is Toast
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen:Non-Linear
Xpress(ed) !
Chris Lott's Ruminate
Venepoetics
Laura: Yellowslip
Stick Poet Super Hero
Mighty Jens!
Radio UTA: Toni's Thursday Poetry Show
Tim Morris: Lection
Gabe Gudding
Constant Critic
Sappho's Breathing
Waves of Reading
Jhananin's Insite
Fanaticus
AdvExpo
Stephen Vincent
Stephanie Young: New Well Nourished Moon
Kasey Silem Mohammad's Newest Limetree
Lanny Quarles: (solipsis)//:phaneronoemikon
States Writes
Rebecca's Pocket
Simulacro
Braincase Links
Sentence
Sor Juana
73 Urban Bus Journeys
Poeta Empirica
poetry for the people: canwehaveourballback?
Ernesto Priego's Never Neutral
Nick Piombino's Fait Accompli
Weekly Incite blogresearch
Jim Behrle's first monkey
Jim Behrle's Monkey's Gone to Heaven
David Kirschenbaum's Boog City
Not Nick Moudry
Laurable
David Hess Heathens in Heat
Jack Kimball's Pantaloons
Li Bloom's Abolone
Ron Silliman
Chris Sullivan's Bloggchaff
Chris Sullivan's Slight Publications
Chris Sullivan's Department of Culture
Kasey S. Mohammad's Old-New Limetree
Kasey's Old Limetree
James Meetze: Brutal Kittens
Cassie Lewis: The Jetty
Joseph Mosconi's Harlequin Knights
Nada Gordon's Ululate
ultimate: Stephanie Young's First Well Nourished Moon
Steve Evans: Third Factory
Noah Eli Gordon's Human Verb
Jean Vengua's Blue Kangaroo
Sawako Nakayasu: Texture Notes
Free Space Comix: BK Stefans
Crosfader
Malcolm Davidson's eeksy peeksy
Marsh Hawk Press group
Catherine Meng's Porthole Redux
Josh Corey's Cahiers de Corey
Very Nice! Shampoopoetry
UTA's Lit Mag: ZNine
Wild Honey Press
Jacket
JFK's Poetinresidence
Malcolm Davidson's Tram Spark poems
HYepez: RealiTi
HYpez: Mexperimental
Aimee Nez's Gila Monster
BestMaX: Jim Behrle's jismblog
Cori Copp's Littleshirleybean
Jordan Davis: Million Poems
Eileen Tabios: Corpsepoetics [see Chatelaine above]
YaY! Liz's Thirdwish
Ultra Linking
Henry Gould's HG Poetics
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
Big hellos and a warm welcome to Texfiles and the winding train of links here, going out to new blogger
Unidentified!
chris at
9:33 AM
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Monday, July 14, 2008
more favorite readings from Roland Barthes * :
La baladeuse ~ The caboose
There used to be a white streetcar that ran between Bayonne
and Biarritz; in summer, an open car was attached to it:
the caboose. Everyone wanted to ride in that car: through
a rather empty countryside, one enjoyed the view, the movement,
the fresh air, all at the same time. Today neither the streetcar
nor the caboose exists, and the trip from Biarritz is anything but
a pleasure. This is not to apply a mythic embellishment to the
past, or to express regrets for a lost youth by pretending to regret
a streetcar. This is to say that the art of living has no history:
it does not evolve: the pleasure which vanishes vanishes for good,
there is no substitute for it. Our pleasures come, which replace
nothing. No progress in pleasures, nothing but mutations.
(50)
* Roland Barthes By Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard (UC Press, 1977)
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11:56 PM
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Saturday, July 12, 2008
reading from Roland Barthes, Barthes by Barthes * (I have always liked how some long stretches in this book leave out the numbers on the pages, of course calling into question the hegemony of a seeming necessity of chronological or numerical orderings, the seeming inevitability of an orderly, processive, sequential, succession of ideas and actions) :
Toward Writing
According to the Greeks, trees are alphabets.
Of all the tree letters, the palm is loveliest.
And of writing, profuse and distinct as the burst of its fronds,
it possesses the major effect: falling back.
(np)
L'arrogance ~ Arrogance
He has no affection for proclamations of victory. Troubled by the humiliations
if others, whenever a victory appears somewhere, he wants to go somewhere else (if he were God, he would keep reversing the victories--which, moreover, is what God does!). Transposed to the level of discourse, even a just victory becomes a bad value of language, an arrogance: the word, encountered in Bataille, who somewhere mentions the arrogance of science, has been extended to all triumphant discourse. Hence I suffer three arrogances: that of Science, that of the Doxa, and that of the Militant.
The Doxa (a word which will often recur) is Public Opinion, the mind of the majority, petit bourgeois Consensus, the Voice of Nature, the Violence of Prejudice. We can call (using Leibnitz's word) a doxology any way of speaking adapted to appearance, to opinion, or to practice.
He sometimes used to regret having let himself be intimidated by languages. Then someone said to him:But without them, you wouldn't have been able to write! Arrogance circulates, like a strong wine among the guests of the text. The intertext does not comprehend only certain delicately chosen, secretly loved texts, texts that are free, discreet, generous, but also common, triumphant texts. You yourself can be the arrogant text of another text. . . .
(46-47)
* Roland Barthes, Barthes By Barthes. trans Richard Howard (UC Press, 1977).
chris at
1:39 AM
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Traveling. Visiting the US this month. Good to be back.
chris at
1:32 AM
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Friday, June 27, 2008
Hello again! At moment, reading from Michel Foucault [hah:
so, finally, here is the trace of Foucault the Romantic!!]
writing on Magritte [trace of the wildly practical realist!!]. C'est la vie: the final [or, ultimate!] page of This Is Not a Pipe [Ceci n'est pas une pipe] * -- a wonderfully packed little luggage (and next, at a date sooner than later, I will post something of Magritte's response to this :-) Enjoy now, and then, my friends . . . :
. . .
1. To employ a calligram where are found, simultaneously present
and visible, image, text, resemblance, affirmation,
and their common ground.
2. Then suddenly to open it up, so that the calligram immediately
decomposes and disappears, leaving as a trace only its own absence.
3. To allow discourse to collapse of its own weight and to acquire
the visible shape of letters. Letters which, insofar as they are
drawn, enter into an uncertain, indefinite relation, confused
with the drawing itself--but minus any area to serve as a common
ground.
4. To allow similitudes, on the other hand, to multiply of themselves,
to be born from their own vapor and to rise endlessly into an ether
where they refer to nothing more than themselves.
5. To verify clearly, at the end of the operation, that the
precipitate has changed color, that it has gone from black
to white, that the "This is not a pipe" silently hidden
in mimetic representation has become the "This is not a pipe"
of circulating similitudes.
A day will come when, by means of similitude relayed indefinitely along
the length of a series, the image itself, along with the name it bears,
lose its identity. Campbell, Campbell, Campbell, Campbell.
(54)
* Foucault, This is Not a Pipe. trans. James Harkness (Univ Calif Press, 1983)
chris at
9:30 PM
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Saturday, June 21, 2008
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2:09 AM
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2:03 AM
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Friday, June 06, 2008
Interbirth once again showing its best stuff: Sharon Yablon's The Comet Gazers
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3:12 AM
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Saturday, May 31, 2008
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11:01 PM
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 Martin Creed, # 203
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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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1:28 AM
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008
reading from Kaja Silverman, The Subject of Semiotics, "The Writerly Text" * :
. . . No "glue" holds together the disparate pieces of the writerly text; in it heterogeneity and contradiction are multiplied as much as possible. None of its codes is subordinated to any other -- on the contrary, the writerly text strives for anarchy and incoherence. Barthes insists that even irony must be banished from that text's premises since it enacts a repressive discourse in which the voice of implied criticism dominates all others. Here numerous codes signify simultaneously, without regard to the rules of precedence of sequentiality.
The writerly text promotes an infinite play of signification; in it there can be no transcendental signified, only provisional ones which function in turn as signifiers. It thus denies the possibility of closure. The writerly text has no syntagmatic order, but can be "entered" at any point. Barthes proposes that within it "everything signifies ceaselessly and several times, but without being delegated to a final great ensemble, to an ultimate structure" (S/Z 12). The writerly text replaces the concepts of "product" and "structure" with those of "process" and "segmentation."
These substitutions effect a profound transformation in the experience of textuality. Whereas the notion of the text as product implies a reader or viewer who functions as a passive consumer, that of process suggests instead a reader or viewer who participates in an ongoing manufacture of meaning, an activity without a final goal or resting point. Similarly, whereas the notion of structure implies a kind of seamlessness or transparency, that of segmentation draws attention not only to the seams which join together the pieces which make up the whole, but to the ways in which the former exceed the latter. In short, it emphasizes the relative autonomy of each of the "lexia" or textual segments.
Segmentation provides the agency whereby the text as product yields to the text as process. It fragments the structure of the classic text in order to reveal the cultural voices which speak it, the codes which constitute its "reality." Segmentation first cuts up the text into its smallest units of signification, and then demystifies those units by demonstrating their coded status. Barthes describes that operation as a series of interruptions which serve to isolate signifying units from each other . . . so as to impede linear progression. . . .
* Kaja Silverman, The Subject of Semiotics (Oxford UP, 1983) 246-247
chris at
10:25 PM
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Sunday, May 25, 2008
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9:36 PM
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reading fromWassily Kandinsky's series, Klange [Sounds] * :
Different
Once there was a big 3 -- white on dark brown. Its top curve was exactly the same size as its bottom one. At least that's what many people thought. And yet the top one was just a
little, little, little
bit bigger than the bottom one.
This 3 always looked to the left -- never to the right. And it also looked down a little bit, since the number only seemed to stand straight up. In reality, which wasn't easy to see, the top leaned just a
little, little, little
bit to the left.
So the big white 3 always looked to the left and just a tiny bit down.
But then again maybe it was different.
(71-72)
* Kandinsky, Klange [Sound], trans. Elizabeth R. Napier (Yale UP, 1981)
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Saturday, May 24, 2008
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Friday, May 23, 2008
 reading from
Walter Benjamin's essay,
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,"
on early photographer, Eugene Atget (1857-1927) * :
VI
In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value
all along the line.
But cult value does not give way without resistance.
It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance.
It is no accident that the portrait
was the focal point of early photography.
The cult of remembrance of loved ones,
absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture.
For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs
in the fleeting expression of a human face.
This is what constitutes their melancholy, incomparable beauty.
But as man withdraws from the photographic image,
the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority
to the ritual value.
To have pinpointed this constitutes the incomparable significance
of Atget, who, around 1900, took photographs of deserted Paris streets.
It has quite justly been said of him that he photographed them
like scenes of crime.
The scene of a crime, too, is deserted;
it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence.
With Atget, photographs become standard evidence
for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden
political significance.
They demand a specific kind of approach;
free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them.
They stir the viewer; he [or she] feels challenged
by them in a new way.
At the same time picture magazines begin
to pin up signposts for him [or her],
right ones or wrong ones, no matter.
For the first time, captions have become obligatory.
And it is clear that they have an altogether different character
than the title of a painting.
The directives which the captions give to those looking at pictures
in illustrated magazines soon become even more explicit
and more imperative in the film where the meaning
of each single picture appears to be prescribed
by the sequence of all preceding ones.
* Walter Benjamin, in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (Schocken, 1968) 225-226
chris at
9:18 PM
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
My heartfelt condolences to my friend chris daniels, and all the family of David Daniels 1933-2008, ingenious poetic thinker and maker, who passed in peace, 12 May.
chris at
12:06 PM
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New issue just out:
P.O.S.T.M.O.D.E.R.N C.U.L.T.U.R.E
A journal of critical thought on contemporary cultures published by Johns Hopkins University Press with support from the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia and the University of California at Irvine.
PMC
Special Issue: Psychoanalysis and the Political
Guest Editor: Jan Mieszkowski
a.r.t.i.c.l.e.s
Jan Mieszkowski, Introduction: Analogy, Terminable and Interminable Alan Bass, The Mystery of Sex and the Mystery of Time: An Integration of Some Psychoanalytic and Philosophical Perspectives
Brett Levinson, In Theory, Politics Does not Exist
Laurence A. Rickels, Endopsychic Allegories
Eleanor Kaufman, The Desire Called Mao: Badiou and the Legacy of Libidinal Economy
r.e.v.i.e.w.s
Joseph Keith, What Went Wrong? Reappraising the "Politics" of Theory. A review of Timothy Brennan, Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right. New York: Columbia UP, 2006.
Joshua Kates, Philopolemology? A review of Alain Badiou, Polemics. Trans. Steve Corcoran. London: Verso, 2006.
Michael G. Malouf, When Were We Creole? A review of Charles Stewart, ed., Creolization: History, Ethnography, Theory. Walnut Creek: Left Coast, 2007.
Catherine Taylor, Open Studios: Rachel Blau Duplessis's Blue Studios: Poetry and Its Cultural Work. A review of Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Blue Studios: Poetry and Its Cultural Work. Tuscaloosa: Alabama UP, 2006.
Melinda Cooper, Homeland Insecurities. A review of Randy Martin, An Empire of Indifference: American War and the Financial Logic of Risk Management. Durham: Duke UP, 2007.
chris at
11:34 AM
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Monday, May 19, 2008
The Good News Is: an announcement from Anny Ballardini . . .
Dear Poetry Community,
It is with great pleasure that I am sending out a new update for the Poets’ Corner with the red of geraniums, the rounded green of leaves and superb blackbirds singing at all heights in the air.
Farideh Mostafavi Hassanzadeh
FMH
Jim Leftwich
JL
Tom Taylor
TT
Bernadette Geyer
BG
David Graham
DG
Alexander Dickow
AD
David Amram
DA
Rita Dahl
RD
* * *
New Poems by already featured Authors:
Sharon Brogan
Richard
SB
Alan Sondheim
Messay: The Mess of the True World
AS
Tad Richards
with the continuation of SITUATIONS up to Episode XVII
TR
Peter Ciccariello
Two whys II
PC
Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino
Warrens
GVStT
Conklintown Road
CRd
* * *
Under Poets on Poets:
Nassira Belloula translated by Peter Thompson
NB by PT
As usual, the order of appearance follows the one by which I received the contributions. With my best wishes,
Anny Ballardini
Narcissus Works
Fieralingue Italia
Anny Ballardini
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star!
Bravo to all the fine poets, and to you, Anny.
--cm
o~o/
chris at
9:58 PM
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Sunday, May 18, 2008
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Saturday, May 17, 2008
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Thursday, May 15, 2008
Giving Peace a Change . . .
 'Twas John Lennon who wrote in profound quest, [Can't we?!] give peace a chance, a witty, strong lyric that expresses sharp frustration with how language use--rhetoric--in the form of circulating ideas make prominent almost every trivial thing imaginable in the world yet fail the world, failing of course, in what's needed and what we still need, which is a concentrated focus on achieving peace.
Today, as in Lennon's moment, peace and all the hope of shared understanding it means for human survival, has little chance.
Or so it seems, especially lately.
Then again, as if in answer to that pessimism, here are some things that not only want to give peace a chance but would also seem to give peace a change, give peace a change in the way of a needed boost of hope regarding the most difficult ways we have of understanding peace in relation to justice (see link below):
This site,
Bloggers Unite, declared today a day for Bloggers to unite by discussing Human Rights. A welcome use of the blogsphere. Here are some other links to info:
Amnesty International
The Blog Catalog Community Blog » Bloggers Unite May 15th
There is so much to discuss on this question of human rights violations. In support of today's project of Bloggers Unite, one thing I'm asking folks to listen to and think about is the following item from CNN news (linked below): the story of a Rwandan group of women making traditional baskets to sell via the department store, Macy's. Their reason is to raise money for their efforts of reuniting community, especially over what must be the most difficult kind of forgiveness: that of meeting face-to-face in amnesty the murderers of one's family. The following link is a video interview with one of the women, and then, with the former tribal soldier who killed her family. I'm riveted, humbled, and trying to figure out how the women have moved past the devastation to this moment of transcendence regarding hatefulness, bigotry, violence against them and their loved ones. Amazing, hopeful, and I guess that's what I'm hoping we can all do in each of our lives: find the ways to move past hate and violence against others to work together for a good world. It should not be so hard as all this . . . but of course it is, thus, this example is the exception. Nonetheless, such exception emphasizes that it IS possible . . .
o~o/
Note: Depending on your computer and connection, the following video might take a moment to load.
CNN news video: in Rwanda, an exceptional project seeking forms of healing toward peace
*John Lennon photo via vagalume.uol .com.br
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Monday, May 12, 2008
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9:02 PM
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Saturday, May 10, 2008
chris at
3:45 PM
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 from Wassily Kandinsky's Klange,
Im Wald [In the Woods] * :
The woods grew deeper and deeper. The red trunks bigger and bigger. The green crowns heavier and heavier. The air darker and darker. The bushes lusher and lusher. The mushrooms thicker and thicker. Until there was nothing but mushrooms to walk on. It was harder and harder for the man to walk, to force his way through without slipping. But on he went anyway, repeating faster and faster and over and over the same sentences:
The scars that mend.
Colors that blend.
To his left and slightly behind him walked a woman. Every time the man finished his sentence, she said with great assurance and rolling her r's vigorously:
verrry cleverrr.
(79-80)
* Wassily Kandinsky, Klange [Sounds], trans. Elizabeth R. Napier (Yale UP, 1981).
& here is my review of this book:
wow -- this must be one thing Kandinsky meant when he said "white hot foam."
o~o/
chris at
2:20 PM
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Friday, May 09, 2008
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