Mea Culpa
In the course of recording this album Brian and I crossed paths with artist and filmmaker Bruce Connor, who lives in San Francisco. Bruce’s’ legendary “experimental” films are well known for their pioneering use of found footage, so it was natural that we approach him regarding the possibility of working together- which was more like suggesting he use some of the Bush of Ghosts tracks in a film or two, due to the similarities of our working methods. Connor mainly uses old educational films, science films, government footage and film footage that people throw out and then recuts them to new music, creating dark and sometimes hilarious moods and visual commentaries. His work was sampling before that word existed, as was this record. The films gain an additional level of depth due to the fact that you can often guess what the footage was originally used for, and so you see it as an artifact and as something entirely new, both at the same time.
Environmental Heresies
The success of the environmental movement is driven by two powerful forces—romanticism and science—that are often in opposition. The romantics identify with natural systems; the scientists study natural systems. The romantics are moralistic, rebellious against the perceived dominant power, and combative against any who appear to stray from the true path. They hate to admit mistakes or change direction. The scientists are ethicalistic, rebellious against any perceived dominant paradigm, and combative against each other. For them, admitting mistakes is what science is.
Megway
Literalisms
Religious literalism often runs amuck. Here is an example of it costing one man a lot of time and money–but I guess this world has room for all of us somehow.
Some people think he’s crazy. His wife’s not exactly thrilled either, they say, but like the biblical Noah, this Dutchman, Johan Huibers, is intent on his mission to build an enormous working replica of Noah’s Ark as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.
Copepods
Tiny plankton living in the same pond and previously thought to be one species in fact are several, a new study finds. Researchers are surprised how quickly the plankton, called copepod, forms new species. Copepods are microscopic crustaceans found in lakes, ponds, rivers and ditches. They’re the main diet for many fish.
“Some identically appearing forms collected from the same pond cannot mate and produce young, thus defining them as different species,” said the study’s lead researcher, Grace Wyngaard, a biologist at James Madison University. “By following the parents and offspring of these plankton in the laboratory, we discovered that they reorganize their DNA dramatically from one generation to the next.”
“This study provides critical evidence that the ways species form and evolve are more complicated than we had previously understood,” said Sam Scheiner, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.
Dinosaur Jr.
I turned 37 yesterday, and in celebration we went to see Dinosaur Jr. I had never seen them live but have loved them since Aaron introduced them to me when we were in college. I have to say it was one of the best musical experiences of my life. They are focusing on their first three or four albums and Lou Barlow is back with the band. If you go see them, bring your ear plugs, the show is so loud it will damage your hearing, but the energy was fantastic and I felt like I was participating in something transformative.
Kevin Kelly
“Science is the way we surprise God,” said Kelly. “That’s what we’re here for.” Our moral obligation is to generate possibilities, to discover the infinite ways, however complex and high-dimension, to play the infinite game. It will take all possible species of intelligence in order for the universe to understand itself. Science, in this way, is holy. It is a divine trip.
Clones
I’ve half-joked before that, purely because of this basic point, sociologists should welcome human cloning with open arms. Technically achieving the sort of things many people imagine they could do with cloning — recreate a lost child or relative, produce a new version of themselves — would in fact have just the opposite effect. It would show just how important social structure, local environment and historical contingencies are to forming people. And that’s without even getting in to the metaphysical questions of what’s essential about people’s identity. Some people are going to be really upset when they realize that the genome is not some kind of magic essence of self. I hope public understanding catches up with the reality before actual cloned people are subject to the resentment of their creators.
Ivor Cutler
My nearly lifelong friend Sheila Ryan is currently at work on an essay/appreciation [for elimae] of the work of British eccentric/writer/musician Ivor Cutler, who died earlier this year. In the meantime she sends along this link to one of his songs, “I Built a House”. [Despite the depth of his voice, Ivor is singing in the voice of "the wife" in this song.] Other songs and story clips can be accessed by clicking here.
3 Years 3 Minutes
A video of three years of a person’s life in pictures in three minutes.
Alexander Cheek
Here you will find a collection of photos, design, and writing as I now begin to focus on the next phase of my life. After going to design school for four years, I am on to different things and new adventures, and look forward to it with great excitement. If you’d like to learn more, get in touch and we’ll go out for a yuppie kind of latte or chai something. Perhaps at a yuppie kind of place. Perhaps a Seattle-based yuppie kind of place.
—Alex
Bartlett’s
“I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.”
41 Hours in a Walmart
“I just intuitively thought, ‘This is brilliant!’” said Carol Spaulding-Kruse, a Drake associate professor of English. “I wasn’t quite sure why, but it just sounded like a really good idea.”
Kabir on “The Nag”
I lived with her night and day–
the Nag.I don’t mean my wife or mother-in-law,
they are both angels.I am talking about that voice in me that would not
let me hold each moment
as I did my son when
he was born.How to slay the Nag?
I am afraid I have become fond of you
dear student,
if I spoke the answer,
you might run.
–Kabir (1440-1518)You’re Married to a Gay Man
Twice in the last week I have realized I could profit from starting a service that let’s women know they are married to gay men.
Bob Burnett says. . . .
“You’re duplicitous; you’re biased; you’re a Republican.”
Peaks
The most common benchmark uses “peaks” to compare one culture to another. Government funding is praised, for instance, for having supported Bach, Velàzquez, and Edmund Spenser. The same invocation of peaks has been used to compare “the moderns” to “the ancients.” We might ask what modern composer compares to Beethoven or what modern poem measures up to Homer’s Odyssey. Or we might ask “Which age has produced the best symphony?”
NOON Reading
PLEASE SAVE THE DATE! April 19th 6PM
GARY LUTZ & CHRISTINE SCHUTT
CELEBRATION AND READING
RESERVATIONS NECESSARY 212 755-6710
THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY 17 E. 47TH STREETThe Mercantile Library Center For Fiction is very pleased to host this event in celebration of NOON 2006, edited by Diane Williams. NOON has been hailed in The New York Sun as “One of American fiction’s finest and most focused journals.”
CHRISTINE SCHUTT - She is the author of two collections of short stories, Nightwork, and the recently published, A Day, A Night, Another Day, Summer. Her first novel, Florida, was a finalist for the National Book Award, 2004. She is considered a modern master of prose.
GARY LUTZ - He is the author of Stories in the Worst Way and I Looked Alive. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the editor of 5 Trope, a literary publication dedicated to new forms of writing. Lutz has achieved cult fame and has been called a sentence writer from another planet.
Untimely
What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.
Weekly Picture 50
Handball Court Tree, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Urville
Hello, let me introduce myself, my name is Gilles Trehin, I’m 28, I live in Cagnes sur Mer, near Nice, in south-east of France.
I’m told I have autism, some say I have Asperger’s syndrome (it’s very similar). Maybe it is the reason I have been drawing since the age of 5 and I have always been fascinated by big cities and aeroplanes.
In 1984, I started to be interested by the conception of an imaginary city called Urville. The name came from “Dumont d’Urville”, a scientific base, in a French territory of the Antarctic. Since then, I made many (200) drawings of Urville, and I wrote a historical, geographical, cultural and economic description. I also have a book project, called “Urville Sightseeing Tour” that I’d love to publish. My greatest pleasure is to be invited to give a lecture on Urville because I can make it exist!
The Iran Conundrum
It’s a “tit for tat” war of words between the governments of Iran and the US. Our president has characterized the Iranian government as part of an “axis of evil.” Iranian spokesmen speak of the US government as “the great Satan.” This heated rhetoric is not unlike name-calling between juveniles on the school playground. It accomplishes very little except to stir up emotional responses among the people of both nations.
Words are one thing. Realities are quite another, and of course, reality is always complex, shaded in multiple ways. How you see reality depends, of course, on where you stand—your perspective.
Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery
Good & Plenty
Moving to yet larger questions, we cannot have a coherent political philosophy without bridging the gap between economic and aesthetic perspectives. For instance critics charge that liberalism cannot satisfy the higher aspirations of the human race. They compare liberal government to an innkeeper who looks after his guests but otherwise has little to offer in the way of vision or a common loyalty. On the international scene, the U.S. is often seen as a military and economic behemoth, but as lacking in concern for cultural values or beauty. I wish to put this picture to rest, and to reclaim America’s rightful role in offering a liberal vision for beauty and creative human achievement.
Paul Rand’s Final Logo
