January 2009
50 posts
“A rather ordinary picture of a student in the capital, but it worked on him like...”
– Roberto Bolaño
Arab Money Update... Viacom's Softballs
so, due to crimes against humanity on both a global and personal level, i have been slacking on my arab money fiasco coverage (p.s. amy@ the source, you suck and i’m taking my pitch elsewhere).
but…
today i was gifted with this interview busta gave to mtv featuring the money shot headline, “busta rhymes explains why ‘arab money’ isn’t racist” and some...
“Man is the cruelest animal.”
– Nietzsche
Syria-Lebanon politics on the pitch
“Football is political here and security has to be tight,” one of the federation officials explained.
It is because of politics that Syria and Lebanon have not played each other at home in years.
…Mr Omary said that on the eve of the game eight Syrian footballers got food poisoning and were taken to hospital.
The Syrian team doctor found the poisoning “highly...
But literary sleuthing was one of Mr. Bolaño’s favorite themes. Both “2666” and its equally praised predecessor, “The Savage Detectives,” are about bands of poets and critics trying to track down the truth about writers who have vanished from history or who cloaked themselves behind murky versions of their pasts.
by far, the best email i have received in the year...
from (redacted)
to (redacted)
date Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 8:52 PM
subject Re: Hello
mailed-by charter.net
Hi Beth
Let’s see, I responded to you e-mail of the 15th on the 15th, and here it is, ELEVEN days later. Should I wait ELEVEN days too?
:(
I’m not mad, but this is just like the year at MCW. I miss your smiling face! And keen wit! And …
:)
Thursday I have a dinner/meeting...
“But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of...”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
so does this new-era make me more creative or more blocked up? that is the eternal question i’m wrestling with in my mind, my mind that is under curious new ownership.
…the jury is still out.
stop, drop, roll.
i smoked a cigarette the other day after we said farewell outside the pub on the blvd. a parliament, as luck would have it. it was deliciously bittersweet, although...
Welcome to us now at the last
The ways that we shall go upon.
-James Joyce
and so here i am, that guy, sitting at the pub on queens boulevard at 10:30 in the morning taking shots of jameson with an irish electrician who is “absolutely shocked” when i tell tell him that i’m here, because she, is moving out. at this very minute. from our apartment, and leaving me. leaving us....
deerhunter - vhs dream
they always come back ...
As it took place, that happiness was already being remembered by our memory. It would never end, nor would we. For we are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass, which is something everyone knows, no matter how small his or her knowledge.
-Eduardo Galeano
“The Fiesta” from The Book of Embraces.
the empyrean
On the path to merging with the force, material life and the self (the fluctuating, impermanent self as determined by conditioning and environment) will at times seem meaningless, leaving one feeling stranded. The main character goes through extreme loneliness (in song two and the first half of song five) and at times thinks he can only merge with this force upon dying. In the 8th song of the...
Text: Barack Obama's full inaugural speech →
did not quite blow me away like a few of his others, but he still nailed it.
Eduardo Galeano - Operation Unpunished Lead
This is a translation into English of an article by Eduardo Galeano on Gaza…
To justify itself, state terrorism manufactures terrorists: it sows hate and harvests alibis. Everything indicates that this slaughterhouse of Gaza, which according to its perpetrators is for finishing off the terrorists, will achieve boosting them.
***
Since 1948, the Palestinians live condemned to perpetual...
Watchyeah, i just bought tickets to this.
invincible - the emperor’s new clothes...
Today, a group of women in Lebanon called for a rally on the Ramlet el Baida beach in Beirut (which looks like the Gaza beach) to pay their respect to the martyred children and offer their condolences to their mothers in Gaza. They wrote the names and the ages of 215 martyred children and stuck them to the railing. They stood up and called them one by one. Our martyrs have names. They are not...
k’naan - voices in my head
look at it this way, it could be worse (?)
this is so fucked up…
john frusciante - the days have turned
The days...
sister: you can't let international affairs bleed into your personal life as hard as it is
brother: yeah i can that's all my personal life is right now: international affairs
bon iver - skinny love
Hip-Hop for Gaza - Sunday, January 18th in BK
(please forward widely)
Musicians, hip hop artists, poets, and visual artists concerned about the ongoing attacks on Gaza are coming together for two public performance events this Sunday, January 18th, in the spirit of Martin Luther King weekend, to highlight the dire human rights violations in Gaza. Featuring video messages from Palestinian musicians Shadia Mansour and DAM. The events will be...
U.N. Acquires Nuclear Weapon
incredible…
NEW YORK—The United Nations, a highly organized governing body bent on world peace, has obtained a nuclear warhead and intends to use the dangerous device to pursue its radical human rights agenda, sources reported Monday.
News of the nuclear weapon first surfaced late last week when the United Nation’s own watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency,...
yeah, our new president used to quote peter...
from a just-unearthed article one barrack obama wrote during his heady days uptown at columbia…
i’d be totally lying if i said i never quoted reggae artists in my columbia papers, so it’s nice to know i had good company. like that one time i quoted beenie man in lit hum, or that other time i pulled out some circa 96’ bounty killa (my xperience!) in cc. actually, that...
live blogging the hillary confirmation hearings...
(disclaimer: these are observations from a personal, NOT professional perspective.)
opening statement:
-talking about the economic crisis (it’s bad).
-she called the somali pirates terrorists! (no! why no mention of the development vacuum there that has caused piracy?)
-america can not solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world can not solve the most pressing...
“My certainties breakfast on doubts. And there are days when I feel like a...”
– Eduardo Galeano “Dazed Days” from The Book of Embraces.
What’s new in Gaza today? I found myself asking that question repeatedly as the day went on. I wasn’t paying as much close attention to the news anymore. It was always on of course, on the radio at work, on TV at home, online wherever I was. But it didn’t mean anything. The story was the same as the day before, and the day before that. Thirty civilians killed. Fifty civilians...
the walkmen - in the new year
Oh I’m still...
things i like right now: galeano, bolaño, aira, borges, frusciante, ghostface, deerhunter, k’naan, amazon prime, teenage identical twin brazilian fullbacks, oden, paraguayan empanadas, maté, johnnie walker green, and moleskin notebooks.
things i don’t like right now: the security council, american media, war criminals, empty walls, broken promises, anxiety attacks, moonboots,...
k’naan - smile
Smile Dispite the war ...
in case you have any illusions about this war...
“They said that after the Israeli army first took the town on Saturday night soldiers had ordered about 100 members of the clan to gather in a single house owned by Wael Samouni around dawn on Sunday. At 6.35am on Monday the house was repeatedly shelled with appalling loss of civilian life. A handful of survivors, some wounded, others carrying dead or dying infants, made it on foot to...
“Mark my words,” predicted Marwan Bishara, a news analyst on Al Jazeera’s English-language station the other night. “Those who talk about the roots of violence and terrorism, should watch their televisions.”
john frusciante - fallout
Carried thru the road...
Yes, indeed: however hurt and shattered one might be, one can always find contemporaries anywhere in time, and compatriots anywhere in space. And whenever this happens, and for as long as it lasts, one is lucky to feel one is something in the infinite loneliness of the universe: something more than a ridiculous speck of dust, more than just a fleeting moment.
-Eduardo Galeano
“A Profession...
The Narcicyst - Hamdulilah (Gaza Remix) ft. Shadia...
Gaza Situation Report from UNOCHA
the humanitarian situation was very serious before the conflict even started, now it is incredibly dire.
key points:
At least 20 percent of the fatalities and 40 percent of the injuries are women and children.
Ambulances are expecting difficulty in reaching the injured because of continuous fire.
UNRWA food distribution was cancelled today due to Israeli military activity, except in...
k’naan - strugglin’
yeah, basically,...
