photograph: celebrate child abuse week

I don't know. . .what were they thinking?
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William Raymond Jones 8/16/1923 -8/20/2007 / Photographs of the Jones Twins

My Uncle and my mother's twin brother Bill Jones, died Monday afternoon. He suffered a major stroke some years ago, and had been in a nursing home for years. We visited him every week or two ever since. Last Saturday, when we visited to celebrate their birthday 84 years ago, he was still able to make a joke and extracted a promise from us to return soon, and "bring the keys to my car!"

Bill and Betty, August 18, 2007 - click to enlarge

Betty and Bill, June 1942 - click to enlarge

Betty and Bill, 1923 - click to enlarge
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Jack Kerouac's On The Road Turns Fifty (includes video of Jack reading from On The Road)

Jack Kerouac's On The Road was published nearly fifty years ago (on September 5). It is still taught in college, and it has spoken to several generations of readers now as well as being one of the seminal texts of both the 60's counterculture and the 50's beat subculture.

I devoured this book when I was in high school, and many times afterwards. It led me to the poetry of Allen Ginsberg (who we bumped into off and on in our NYC days), and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (the last man standing among the beats), Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, Diane DiPrima, John Clellon Holmes, Lew Welch, Phillip Whalen, Gary Snyder, and, of course, Neal Cassady, and the next generation of Ken Kesey, Jean Shepherd, Ed Sanders, Jim Carroll, and others.

The hero of some of Jack's novels, Neal Cassady, was a link between the beats and the next generation; he "starred" in several of Kerouac's novels, but also went on to pilot the bus Furthur for Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters (detailed in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test), as well as rap as a performer at the infamous Acid Tests. [Note: I use the word rap here as it was used in the 60's, meaning to speak in an extended improvisatory mode]. What many of us learned from the book was that you could write about America and not necessarily have to wear the straightjacket of our European antecedents. And that you could write a book patterned on the actual America around us. . .a book that found the rhythms of the road, and detailed what we now know were just the beginnings of being connected. They connected by routes and highways; we have found new, but not better ways to make that connection.



Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady (a/k/a Dean Moriarty)


What I have enjoyed about this 50th anniversary is reading the critical acclaim for Kerouac, and in particular for On The Road. The New York Times fell all over itself this weekend, detailing Kerouac's enormous cultural influence, but also not ignoring his impact on literature. His influence on rock and roll (interestingly, he wasn't a fan) has been enormous. In many ways, Jack Kerouac was the first modern "indy" writer (I would have to put William Blake and Walt Whitman as the first). All these years later, On The Road still sells 100,000 copies a year (although I suspect it will outstrip that this year).



My favorite works from Kerouac, the beats, their disciples and offshoots:

Kerouac: On The Road, Lonesome Traveler, Visions of Neal, Scattered Poems, Book of Dreams, Big Sur, Maggie Cassidy
Neal Cassady: The First Third (memoir), Selected Letters
Allen Ginsberg: Planet News, Howl
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: All the poetry
Phillip Whalen: On Bear's Head
William Burroughs: Naked Lunch, Junky, Exterminator, The Yage Letters, Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads, The Burroughs File, The Adding Machine
Hunter S. Thompson: The Gonzo Papers, Volumes 1,2,3, The curse of Lono, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diaries, The Hells Angels
Lew Welch: Ring of Bone
Ed Sanders: The Family, Tales of Beatnik Glory, 1968: A History in verse, Love and Fame in New York
Diane DiPrima: Memoirs of a Beatnik , Pieces of a song, Loba,
Denise Levertov: Selected Poems
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Ezra Pound's Canto CXX

Photograph during Pound's booking for treason

Ezra Pound, friend and supporter of Hemingway, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, and many more, wrote an incredibly beautiful, maddeningly convoluted, tantalizingly allusive, and frustratingly obscure poem over the course of his lifetime. The final Canto was the shortest in the entire book, undoubtedly the most accessible and was published posthumously in the collected edition of the work:

______________________________

Notes for Canto CXX
by Ezra Pound


I have tried to write Paradise

Do not move
Let the wind speak
that is paradise.

Let the Gods forgive what I
have made
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.
______________________________

A decent summing up of Ezra Pound's life, and The Cantos (although skipping his conviction and incarceration for treason following World War II):

From Project Muse: "No major work of modernist literature reveals so intensely conflicted a relation to the public, simultaneously spurning and courting it, as Ezra Pound's Cantos. At the age of twenty, when he was captivated by the exclusionary poetics of the coterie, Pound nonetheless declared his ambition to write a "forty-year epic," a poem, he would claim later, "containing history"--a people's history, "the tale of the tribe." As the poem evolved over the last fifty-five years of Pound's life, however, it grew ever more erudite, ever more removed from its public aspirations, until it confronted even the most devoted scholars with a mass of obscure references, cryptic "facts," and fractured narratives. As Pound himself lamented in 1919, only two years after the first three cantos had appeared in Poetry: "I suspect my 'Cantos' are getting too too too abstruse and obscure for human consumption." Despite moments of assurance and bravado, this suspicion would haunt Pound increasingly throughout his career."
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Bible Stories 7/How the Lord Caught Jonah's Attention In The Belly Of The Beast

The LORD called Jonah out one day
To head to Nineveh where "wickedness is on the rise"
Instead of going Jonah hit the bricks

And sailed to Tarshish and hoped the LORD
Wouldn't notice his insubordination
But the LORD sent down a three alarm

Blast of a mighty wind that sucked up
Everything in its path like a King-hell vacuum
And left behind mud rubble and ashes

And roiled a tempest in the sea
So the ship groaned and creaked
Tossed to the top of waves and into the trough

Parts of the boat broke off
The mariners were sorely spooked
And prayed to their gods

They hurled cargo and ballast over the side
So they wouldn't have to fight the boat itself
Jonah was hiding in a closet

And was sleeping when the captain found him
What meanest thou, O sleeper?
Arise and call upon thy God, if you have one

So God will think kindly and we might not perish
The sailors said let us cast lots so that we know
Who did what to bring this evil down around our heads

And when they cast lots the lot fell upon Jonah
Tell us they asked why this evil has befallen us?
Who are you what do you do?

And from what people do you hail?
Jonah said I am a Hebrew and I fear the LORD
Who made the sea and the land

And the men were petrified now and said
What have you done?
They knew he had scampered off

Ducking He who cannot be ducked
What do we do for you to calm the sea for us?
He said toss me into the water

And the sea will be calmed
This typhoon is here because of me
The men rowed like madmen to land the boat

But the sea fought back
We beseech you LORD save us
Why should we go down with the ship

Because Jonah burned you?
They grabbed Jonah and hucked him into the sea
The wind stopped and the water stilled

Until it was as calm as a painted boat
On a painted sea
A great big fish breached the calm waterline

And sucked Jonah into its maw
And Jonah was in the belly of the beast
Three days and nights and prayed to God from the belly

You cast me deep in the midst of the seas
And the water flooded around me
And the billows and Your waves passed over me

My soul fainted within me and I remembered you LORD
I sent out prayers to you
The LORD sent down some celestial Ipecac

And the great big fish vomited Jonah
And he fell upon a sandy beach
And the LORD said one more time

Go to Nineveh that great city
And testify like I told you
Jonah trudged three days to Ninevah

And became the town crier
In forty days he said Nineveh shall be overthrown
So the people of Nineveh took the LORD at his word

From the lowest to the highest
They fasted and put on sackcloth
And tried to make amends

The king of Nineveh rose from his throne
Put on sackcloth quit shaving and and sat in ashes
And he said let neither man nor beast herd nor flock

Taste anything not food or water
Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth
And cry mightily unto God

And turn away from evil
In hopes God will turn away from his fierce anger
And God saw they turned from their evil ways

And God Himself repented of the evil
He said he would do unto them
But it displeased Jonah and he was very angry

When I fled to Tarshish I thought you a gracious God
O LORD take my life from me
For it is better for me to die than to live

The LORD said doest thou well to be angry?
Jonah left the city and sat on the east side of the city
And built a hut so he could see what would become of the city.

The LORD God prepared a gourd
And sent it over Jonah like a shadow to deliver him from grief
And Jonah was glad for the gourd's presence

But the next morning the LORD smote the gourd and it withered
And when the sun did arise God called up an east wind
And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah

And he fainted and wished to die and said
It is better for me to die than to live.
And God said to Jonah are you angry about the gourd?

You have pity on the gourd which you did not make
or labor for and the gourd grew in a night
And perished in a night

And should not I spare the great city Nineveh,
Where there are 120,000 people
That cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand
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Video clip: Frank Zappa Guest Stars On Miami Vice

Frank Zappa plays a drug dealer in this episode of Miami Vice. He didn't want to play the part until he learned his son Dweezil loved the show. Ironically, Frank Zappa, as you may know, was violently anti-drug. As far as I know he never even smoked a joint in his entire life. He was a coffee and cigarette guy.

OK, he's not the best thespian I've ever seen, but as Frank himself would tell you, this video clip furnishes an interesting chunk of conceptual continuity...


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The 2,000th post on All This Is That/It's down to Rice, Cheney, and POTUS now

In the "old days," meaning, say, the 50's and early 60's, when you were the millionth customer of a store, bells wound ring, lights would flash, and a B-list celebrity would come out and hand you a boodle of gifts, cash, and, if you were lucky, a car. Well, this isn't really like that. As I was about to post this digital painting of Condy Rice and Dubyah, the Blogger editor showed it would be the 2,000th posting here. Now, I'm not equating persistence with quality, or doggedness with enterainment, but on the other hand, I didn't want to let this small milestone go unmarked. . .

Even the relief team is leaving. . .just this week Tony Snow said he would be leaving the White House, close on the heels of Karl Rove. You can't blame Snow--he gave up a lot to catch flak for the Administration. It's down to Cheney-Rice-Bush and they've become the living dead. . .zombies shuffling mindlessly through their old jobs, sustained by the vicarious blood they are letting in Iraq and Afghanistan...

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John Edwards rips into Ann Coulter, she-devil

ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: "Former Sen. John Edwards on Friday fired the latest round in his ongoing verbal feud with Ann Coulter, calling her a "she-devil" at a public event before quickly adding that he shouldn't engage in name-calling.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Edwards was 0n a rant against the right-wing media and reminded a crowd in Burlington, Iowa, that his wife called Coulter out earlier this summer.

"We know these people. We know their game plan. They're going to attack us personally," former Senator Edwards said. "They attacked Elizabeth personally, because she stood up to that she-devil Ann Coulter. … I should not have name-called. But the truth is -- forget the names -- people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language."

In June, on ABC's Good Morning America, Coulter said she had learned her lesson after being attacked and villified for suggesting that Edwards was a "faggot." "If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot," Coulter said.

Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, later called in to call in to Chris Matthew's Hardball and challenged Coulter directly. "I want to use the opportunity … to ask her politely to stop the personal attacks," Mrs. Edwards said. Coulter was flummoxed and did a few Jackie Gleason-style homina hominas before sputtering out altogether. . .

Some recent Ann Coulter posts on All This Is That:"

Caption of the week: "Coulter's Ugly Crack"

Ann Coulter calls Presidential Candidate Edwards A "Faggot" & Howard Dean Fights Back

Ann Coulter: Justice John Paul Stevens Should Be Poisoned

Ann Coulter Says POTUS Picked The Wrong Guy

$25,000 Worth of Ann Coulter

Heroes And Villains No. 49--> Mario Cuomo & Ann Coulter

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Video: The Welvet Underground play Sweet Jane. circa 1993

A live version of VU's Sweet Jane, from the 1993 tour. The best part of this vid?: Mo Tucker and her primeval./knucklehead/genius drumming. . .




Sweet Jane

Standing on the corner,
Suitcase in my hand
Jack is in his corset, and jane is her vest,
And me Im in a rocknroll band hah!
Ridin in a stutz bear cat, jim
You know, those were different times!
Oh, all the poets they studied rules of verse
And those ladies, they rolled their eyes

Sweet jane! whoa! sweet jane, oh-oh-a! sweet jane!

Ill tell you something
Jack, he is a banker
And jane, she is a clerk
Both of them save their monies, ha
And when, when they come home from work
Oh, sittin down by the fire, oh!
The radio does play
The classical music there, jim
The march of the wooden soldiers
All you protest kids
You can hear jack say, get ready, ah

Sweet jane! come on baby! sweet jane! oh-oh-a! sweet jane!

Some people, they like to go out dancing
And other peoples, they have to work, just watch me now!
And theres even some evil mothers
Well theyre gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
Yknow that, women, never really faint
And that villains always blink their eyes, woo!
And that, yknow, children are the only ones who blush!
And that, life is just to die!
And, everyone who ever had a heart
They wouldnt turn around and break it
And anyone who ever played a part
Oh wouldnt turn around and hate it!

Sweet jane! whoa-oh-oh! sweet jane! sweet jane!

Heavenly wine and roses
Seems to whisper to her when he smiles
Heavenly wine and roses
Seems to whisper to her when she smiles
La lala lala la, la lala lala la
Sweet jane
Sweet jane
Sweet jane
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Art: Double self portrait

click to enlarge self-portraits

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The Doors L.A. Woman - Video and lyrics

This is a fan video - but a decent one. The Doors perform their studio version of L.A. Woman. This is from their last album, when most people feel like Morrison had blown out his voice. It is a late, great, and final flowering of the band. Jim would shortly move to Paris and die. And the Doors would spend the next 30 years attempting to reanimate the corpse. You may already know this, but Mr. Mojo Risin' from the chorus is an anagram for Jim Morrison.





L.A.Woman
by The Doors

Well, I just got into town about an hour ago
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow
Where the little girls in their hollywood bungalows
Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light
Or just another lost angel...city of night
City of night, city of night, city of night, woo, cmon
L.a. woman, l.a. woman
L.a. woman sunday afternoon x3
Drive through your suburbs
Into your blues, into your blues, yeah
Into your blue-blue blues
Into your blues, ohh, yeah
I see your hair is burnin
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar
Drivin down your freeways
Midnight alleys roam
Cops in cars, the topless bars
Never saw a woman...
So alone, so alone x2
Motel money murder madness
Lets change the mood from glad to sadness
Mr. mojo risin, mr. mojo risin x2
Got to keep on risin
Mr. mojo risin, mr. mojo risin
Mojo risin, gotta mojo risin
Mr. mojo risin, gotta keep on risin
Risin, risin
Gone risin, risin
Im gone risin, risin
I gotta risin, risin
Well, risin, risin
I gotta, wooo, yeah, risin
Woah, ohh yeah
Well, I just got into town about an hour ago
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow
Where the little girls in their hollywood bungalows
Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light
Or just another lost angel...city of night
City of night, city of night, city of night, woah, cmon
L.a. woman, l.a. woman, l.a. woman, your my woman
Little l.a. woman, little l.a. woman
L.a. l.a. woman woman, l.a. woman cmon

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Painting: Circuits

click to enlarge the painting

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