WORK IT!

"Work it!" This classic clip from Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott is dedicated to my hardworking girlfriend Wendy on her last day of grad school. She gives her final presentation in a couple hours, and turns in her last paper, the culmination of sixteen months earning a Master's Degree WHILE working a full-time job. She worked it, all right! Only a couple more hours of a long, long hard trip. Respect, pride, and love to Wendy.

HENRY MILLER

"The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal." - Henry Miller


Henry Valentine Miller (American writer, 1891-1980) was a novelist most famous for writing "Tropic of Cancer," "Tropic of Capricorn," and "Black Spring." Shocking to some, he was a radical in style and content, and probably as infamous for his obscenity trials as his written works. Miller wrote joyously and exuberantly about sex and other taboos and shocked a prudish America. He was a cranky mandarin expat who didn't suffer fools gladly, and would just as soon spit in your eye as use a polite euphemism or censor his freewheeling imagination. Miller once said you could travel thousands of miles in America and never once taste good bread.


In 1940, George Orwell praised Miller in an essay entitled, "Inside the Whale."

"Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses."

"Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world besides the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?" - Henry Miller

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (TIMES THREE)

The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1956) was an amazing film by Japanese master director Akira Kurosawa about seven samurai (including the grizzled, unkempt Toshiro Mifune) who defend a town against marauding bandits. It was a rousing, mythic, influential film that spawned many imitations. This is art.


The Magnificent Seven (1960) was a great American western based on Kurosawa's film--same story, this time in English, with such great character actors as Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach and Yul Brynner. This is entertainment.


The Magnificent Seven is a song based on the western, based on the samurai movie--this time performed by the magnificent Clash--led by punk rabble rouser Joe Strummer. Here they perform it on the Tom Snyder show in 1981. This is rock and roll.

LET IT BE

I read the news today, oh boy. Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have stopped the release of the Beatles film 'Let It Be'.

The 1970 documentary reveals tensions between the Fab Four - Paul, Ringo and the late John Lennon and George Harrison - shortly before their break-up, and insiders at the band's record company, Apple, claim the two surviving members do not want it re-released.

(Sorry...the "Let it Be" film has been removed) For educational purposes only, we present the film in it's entirety. As unrepentant Beatles fans who bought every album and movie, and happily forked out dough for the "Love" show in Las Vegas, we think you should see this--with all due respect to Paul and Ringo, it's part of the story. They should release the film.

FEAR OF WRITING

I'm out of town, and today I start my first day of Tin House Summer Writing Workshop, an amazing weeklong intensive of workshops, readings, seminars and panel discussions. The writers attending are quite impressive.
Today, I meet some of my fellow students as well as writers, agents, editors, and the always present demons of doubt. I was admitted on the basis of my manuscript, and so were my fellow attendees, and I've read their stories in preparation, and they are good. My group leader is Colson Whitehead, the author of "The Intuitionist," "John Henry Days," and "Apex Hides the Hurt." I'll keep you posted on my progress this week.

In the meantime, Jacques Derrida, the famous French deconstructionist, will discuss the "Fear of Writing."

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! And all you mothers out there. Thanks for bringing us into this world, and putting up with years of worry and trouble and dirty socks and tantrums and weird ceramic things that are supposed to be ashtrays. Today is a special day, and we salute you!

To help celebrate, we've got "The Mothers of Invention," a seminal group that blew the minds of kids and censors back in the 1960s. Their fearless leader, musician and composer Frank Zappa, fought against mindless censorship and the PMRC ratings code until his dying day in 1993.


Here's Zappa on "Crossfire," arguing with screwheads about censorship. The exchange between Zappa and smug Conservative gasbag Robert Novak is priceless.


The follow-up show in 1987, with Zappa on CNN's "Crossfire" guest-hosted by Michael Kinsley. Here, Zappa disagrees with suits from the PMRC about censorship and the ratings system of music. The Mothers of Invention

I SHALL BE (UN)RELEASED

Inside Dylan's Head: click to enlarge picture

I shall be (un)released; some wonderful Dylan rarities from Uncle Bob's Vault:

John Brown from the unreleased Town Hall Concert, in 1963. This was supposed to be issued on the "Bob Dylan in Concert" record that was scrapped by the label. Too bad. A young folk Dylan mesmerizes the crowd with an acoustic guitar and his timeless storytelling.


Like a Rolling Stone, take 6, from the unreleased Highway 61 sessions, 1965. This is just a couple takes away from the finished product, one of the greatest songs ever. Like the man said, this is "thin, wild mercury music." Electric Dylan. Shakespeare in the alley with pointed shoes and bells.


Simple Twist of Fate. Rarely performed, this unreleased gem is from the Rolling Thunder Review, a gypsy caravan that traveled the northeastern states in the autumn of 1975. He'd written this song not long before, but he's already rewritten it by now. As even casual fans know, you don't go to a Dylan show expecting it to sound like the records. Or even the same as the previous tour. He moves fast, like a thief.



"People have long wondered what goes on in Bob Dylan’s mind. But if you pay attention to what the recent Pulitzer Prize-winner says and plays on his XM satellite-radio program, Theme Time Radio Hour, you can actually get a pretty good idea. Here, by cataloging the themes has chosen for the episodes, the artists he has favored, and Dylan’s other preferences and quirks, Vanity Fair has constructed a revealing portrait of America’s most enigmatic musician."

Read the Vanity Fair article and find out by clicking HERE.

SHORT STORIES

And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to Ryabovitch an unintelligible, aimless jest. . . . And turning his eyes from the water and looking at the sky, he remembered again how fate in the person of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him, he remembered his summer dreams and fancies, and his life struck him as extraordinarily meagre, poverty-stricken, and colourless. . . .
-from The Kiss, by Anton Chekhov

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
-from Araby, by James Joyce

He dove in and swam the pool, but when be tried to haul himself up onto the curb he found that the strength in his arms and shoulders had gone, and he paddled to the ladder and climbed out. Looking over his shoulder be saw, in the lighted bathhouse, a young man. Going out onto the dark lawn he smelled chrysanthemums or marigolds—some stubborn autumnal fragrance—on the night air, strong as gas. Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer? He began to cry.
-from The Swimmer, by John Cheever

So foolish did his ideas seem to me, so pompous and so drawn out his exposition, that I linked them at once to literature and asked him why he didn't write them down.
-from The Aleph, by Jorge Luis Borges

Great lines from great stories. Great writing. I decided to make a list of my favorite short stories, an impossible task, but a good distraction from an illustration commission that requires more than simple procrastination to avoid. So I made this list. Here, a highly subjective list of my all-time favorite short stories:

The Kiss - by Anton Chekhov
Car Crash While Hitchhiking - by Denis Johnson
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - by Alan Sillitoe
Axolotl - by Julio Cortazar
Babylon Revisited - by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Dead - by James Joyce
Cathedral - by Raymond Carver
Signs and Symbols - by Vladimir Nabokov
Walking Out - by David Quammen
People Like That Are the Only People Here - by Lorrie Moore
The Blue Hotel - by Stephen Crane
Helping - by Robert Stone
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - by James Thurber
A Clean, Well Lighted Place - by Ernest Hemingway
Rock Springs - by Richard Ford
A Good Man is Hard to Find - by Flannery O'Connor
Barn Burning - by William Faulkner
The Things They Carried - by Tim O'Brien
A & P - by John Updike
The Schreuderspitze - by Mark Helprin
The Swimmer - by John Cheever
The Barracks Thief - by Tobias Wolf

And my all-time favorite, The Aleph, by Jorge Luis Borges.

To read The Aleph, click HERE for the complete text.

STRANGE SCENES FROM AMERICA (1969)

Maybe these damn hippies seem naive by today's standards, but these clips of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young should melt your cynicism a little if you're not already too far gone. Hanging out, shooting the breeze, jamming on Stills' "Black Queen", "Find The Cost of Freedom", and Crosby's "Laughing".
The second part is the morning after Woodstock, so a little utopian enthusiasm is forgivable. Literally just off the plane from the festival, the band has arrived blissed-out at Dick Cavett's TV studio, ready to spread the news. Stephen Stills sings "4+20." Friends Joni Mitchell and some of the Jefferson Airplane are there, too. Use your imagination. For one golden moment it seemed the world might change for the better, and pessimism and superstition would be swept aside for peace, love, and understanding. Corny, right? I guess you had to be there.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! w/CARDS & MUSIC!

Hope to see you at the Valentine's Day show at the Cafe Racer this evening (see post below) but whatever you do, have fun. Today you have license to be a romantic! Here are some classic vintage valentines from the days of yesteryear to put you in the mood...and some music to turn on your lovelight.

First, the classic Victorian valentine. This bespeaks a heart-shaped box, a difficult fastened bodice, and a special kiss on the river bridge. Oh, dear! Froggy went a-courtin, and all that good old-fashioned repression masking unbridled lust! In these days, they even put pants on piano legs. Perish the impure thought!


A half a century later, this valentine is from a pack of 32, with one card for everyone in class. This is the 1950s, the world has gone only halfway to hell, but true love competes with atom bombs and science fiction and hot rod cars -- not to mention rock and roll. On the surface, it's all golfing with Ike, but even that kind of heavy sedation can't kill the urge to merge, as long as you save it for marriage. You have a secret admirer!


The present day. This is the future you dreamed about, but not quite. Unless you dreamed of being a couch potato glued to reality TV. Our hearts may be a little smaller, but our asses are growing to elephantine proportions, and we can barely reach the remote without wheezing out of breath. Give this special "Veal-entine" to trendy vegans, or any friend stuck on a diet! No box of chocolates for these folks!

And now for some special Valentine's Day music, courtesy of Minnesota Public Radio. Click here.

AL GREEN IS LOVE

The amazing Al Green. This is an early Valentine's Day gift, a special one-two punch of pure love and soul wrapped in a snappy 1970s jacket. There is nobody like Al. Coming after heroes Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown, Green embodied sweet soul music that was more silken than gritty, and, like Cooke, a combination of Sunday gospel and Saturday night club, the sacred crossing paths with the profane. Conflict makes a story, right? Currently, the Reverend Al gives Sunday services in Memphis, but this clip should take you back to the sweet sexy sinful Seventies.
Can you dig it?

LOVE

LOVE deserves some respect. The group is roundly ignored by meat-headed classic rock stations, and sadly remains unknown to younger music fans. With the amazing Arthur Lee at the helm, Love first scored radio play in 1966 with the garage nugget "My Little Red Book," followed by their first real "hit" early the next year, "7 and 7 is," which hinted at things to come. In 1967 they emerged with strings, brass, and spanish guitars to deliver their masterpiece, "Forever Changes," a collection of shimmering baroque pop and psychedelic rock tunes that perfectly captured the spirit of the time like a butterfly in amber.

Love is acknowledged as a major influence on everyone from the Doors and Pink Floyd to Yo La Tengo, but nothing came easy for the band. Lee was fragile, both physically and mentally -- not the only qualities he shared with Syd Barret and Brian Wilson -- and terrified of flying, which held the group back from a wider success since they rarely left Los Angeles. I'm glad they ventured up the coast on at least one occasion, when I saw them perform in Portland. Shortly after the release of "Changes," the band fell apart.
In 1996, Arthur Lee was sent to prison for twelve years for illegal possession of a firearm. He served six years of his original sentence, and was released in 2001. Lee died of leukemia in 2006.

This film clip is from the "Forever Changes" anniversary tour in 2002.

THE WORLD EXPLAINED

Got religion?

Here's the "New Christian Science Textbook" from Matt Bors. Click to enlarge and study.


Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion –- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.

~ Mark Twain

Three quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, in God doing this and that — it’s astonishing. These numbers aren’t duplicated anywhere else in the industrial world. You’d have to maybe go to mosques in Iran or do a poll among old ladies in Sicily to get numbers like this. Yet this is the American population.

~ Noam Chomsky

Matt Bors is an illustrator working in Portland. Thanks to World Gone Mad.

EIGHT ARMS TO HOLD YOU

This grilled octopus with fennel, green sauce and chickpea puree may look strange to you, but it tastes fantastic. I ate it last night for my birthday, at a wonderful Northern Italian restaurant, Cafe Juanita. The grilled octopus began a perfect meal (actually, the Grey Goose martini kicked things off nicely) and joined the other antipasti from the sea, bacala -- salt cod fritti -- with a caper maionese. Delicate, lightly done. The prima piatta was goat cheese gnocchi with Lamb Sugo. Amazing. For the main course, my girlfriend Wendy ordered the Roasted Duck with Peccorino Romano and pomegranate seeds, which was perfect. I had the cinghiale - Wild Boar braised in organic local milk -- with a "Ligurian Silk Handkerchief" - a delicate sheet of homemade pasta. This was food elevated to the high level of art. Everything was perfect.


Yes, an extravagant meal -- a birthday feast -- and it might puzzle the meat-and-potaoes types, or offend those thoughtful vegetarians and vegans who sneer as I pass by. With all due respect, to hell with them. This is life!

To finish, we had a Pralus Chocolate Souflee with Crema Inglese, and a couple liqueur glasses of Limoncello. Ahhhhh.

Gourmet Magazine ranked Cafe Juanita among the fifty best restaurants in the country, and I can see why. It was definitely worth the drive to the Eastside.

HOT-BUTTERED SOUL

Flight of the Conchords follows a two-man neo-folk band from New Zealand living in the New York trying to make it big in music. They're desperate and talented, and they travel in and out of musical numbers, spoofs, and derivative masterpieces such as this sexy nugget of hot-buttered soul, "Business Time." We wish them the best.

YOSHITOMO NARA

Japanese Pop Art is an important movement, and Superflat, the post-mod, sub-category founded by Takashi Murakami (b. 1962), is a mix of manga and anime, a critique of the otaku lifestyle (those obsessed with manga and anime) and a response to the homogenization of post-war Japanese culture. Got that? Murakami hangs (literally) with such wacked-out artists as Takano, Aoshima, and Nara. Placing these characters in the stream of art history is best left to art historians, but we know what we like. We like these guys. Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) is a particular favorite who makes cute and disturbing kids, animals, and floating faces.

A favorite of critics and hipsters alike, Nara dazzles with simple form and shape, but pleases the Hello Kitty Generation with big-eyed cuteness.

TOUGH STAX SOUL

Be cool and there is no cooler than Stax Records from deep, down in chicken-fried Memphis, recording home of so many greats, Rufus and Carla, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Albert King, the Staple Singers. You can have your Graceland across town, but make sure to visit Stax, nicknamed Soulsville, USA. If you're lucky you'll get to hear the hardcore house band, Booker T and the MGs.
You can't go wrong with Booker T's heavy Hammond B-3 organ layed thick over kick-ass rhythm section Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass and Al Jackson Jr on drums, with lead guitar from the great Steve Cropper, who co-wrote "Dock of the Bay" with Otis Redding. Rare for creating such a groove, and rare for being racially mixed in the Deep South in these Jim Crow days. In the early days, it was shades and razor sharp sharkskin suits, and later on there were beards and long hair and a tough psychedelic sound that never deteriorated into endless hippy noodling.
The film clips are a little rough, but imagine it's a hot southern night and you're sipping whiskey on the rocks and maybe smoking gage out behind the club and these cats are on the bandstand and there is no tomorrow. Cool? These guys wrote the book. Enjoy the early, essential instrumental hit "Green Onions" above, and this later clip of a swampy "Time is Tight" led off by weird beard Steve Cropper. Either way, catch a riff to Soulsville.

SGT. PEPPER HOAX REVEALED

Close examination of a newly-discovered photograph reveals Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to be none other than super pop group, the Beatles. The photograph was discovered among letters written by the late former Beatle John Lennon in a storage locker registered to his name. Until now, the Pepper band was thought to have produced only one album -- albeit a great one -- and then vanish into rock obscurity.

"We've had our suspicions for years," said rock critic Greil Marcus, "but this is the smoking gun."

Sir Paul McCartney was reached at his Kensington estate. "Remember, this was the age of the put-on," he said. "We were just trying to have a little fun." He added, "Sorry we hurt your field, mister."

For more Pepper/Beatle fun, check out the cool link to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, where you can click on every person on the Sgt. Pepper album cover for their bio.

http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/sgtpepper/