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January 07
January 31, 2007
Al Franken is offically running for Senate in Minnesota. God bless America. This is the same man, who, when his first child was born, staged a scene wherein he dropped, and then fell upon, a simalucrum of the baby in order to convince all of his friends that he’d killed his firstborn child. I say again: God bless America, for making it possible for a person with a sense of humor to have a reasonable shot at Congress.
Posted by: Deep Trachea in Uncategorized | Permalink 1 Comment
January 31, 2007
So why is it that I look forward now to reading Against the Day? It’s still a hard book, with a character count that rivals, perhaps exceeds, a Russian novel, none of whom actually get introduced – they just show up, much like people do in real life.
Some of it is that Tommy has become a much better raconteur. In places, Against the Wind is reminiscent of some of McMurtry’s later work. People make pronouncements that are almost cruelly pithy and wise – amazingly, in a book this size, much of the speech is telegraphic.
But, you know, more than that it is that Pynchon invites you in this book especially to share in his special code. I know you don’t understand everything, he says, and that’s OK. Ain’t it wonderful how mystifying life is? And you nod, because it is wonderful indeed.
In past posts I have tried to give you the flavor of TP’s poem-like ( I won’t use the word “poetic” – it’s just not the right word) prose with quotations – but none of them, once taken out of context, conveyed its beauty. Like life, I guess, you have to be there. However, I will try one more time. In one of the scenes I read lately, he described twilight in a small town in Colorado at the turn of the 20th century as follows: " As the evening crept across the valley, and farm stoves were poked up to working heat, and lamps lit indoors whose light soon filled the windowframes, outshining the departing sunlight on th spruce siding around them and draining donw among the rows of vegetable patches, the sawn ends of logs in woodpiles dyed the same intense orange yellow, the bark nearly black, silvered, full of shadows…" Isn’t that pretty? Well, not pretty exactly - just amazingly visual and song-filled at the same time. Sensual prose, that’s what it is.
What’s happened lately? Remember how I wondered what would happen to Kit (Webb Traverse’s son, the one co-opted by the billionaire). Well, he is now having a holiday with ,Colfax , the son of said billionaire, at the family mansion. Of which an entire floor is haunted but it is impolite to mention this in any but the most casual reference. Kit is having a pretty good time with some mild s&m and a family cousin, but manages to maintain an adequate soul-distance from the rich folks. We also learn thet Fleetwood, Colfax’s older brother, wound up on the arctic expedition I blogged about before bacause he had found an African miner possibly stealing a diamond, and offered him the choice of jumping into a half-mile-deep mineshaft or being shot, which apparently was not de rigeur even there.
We move on to Lew Basnight, the detective from Chicago (he of the Kafkaesque plot), who is supposed to be scoping the landscapes for proletarian dynamiters. Problem is, Basnight finds himself drawn more to the, shall we say, point of view, of the dynamiters than his mining - owner employers.
Now. In case you want to read some other people writing about Pynchon, HERE is a link to the best site on the author I have yet found. But, you gotta read the book. Someday.
Posted by: Non-Prophet in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
January 31, 2007
Talk about local weirdness..
Saturday February 3rd
The Ancient Mariner
(Manitou Springs)
neckwound records presents:
The Saint Valentines Day Massacre!
benefiting manitou springs school music programs.
nonstop music from 3pm to 1am!
featuring:
Luna’s Warning
Molten Audio Experience
Tall City featuring Nicky Coolbreeze
of the Nicotine Fits!!
Large Marge
Satan and the Republicans
Helltractor (from Wichita!)
McTallica
Not Another Devil Band
and..
$3 minimum donation. All proceeds go directly to Manitou Springs Schools Music Programs.
21 and over, bring your ID. Sponsored by Think Ink and The Ancient Mariner.
I go on from around 4 to 5pm. I promise to usher forth music, blood, stage diving, bannister-dancing, karate, tamborines, weapons, and some sort of apocalypse.
Posted by: Church Whipper in Music | Permalink 2 Comments
January 31, 2007
From the Alexandra Pelosi doc (with a tip of the dong to Non-Prophet) comes this fascinating display of self-delusion:
Posted by: marinaeckler in Haggard: Gay | Permalink 3 Comments
January 31, 2007
Downtown has an identity problem. Sam has done a lot to bring a crowd to the downtown area. At least at night. But it is certainly not a crowd I’m interested in being around. Nor, do I imagine, are the young richies or older yuppie singles that are supposed to be buying the overpriced downtown lofts. Walk out of your Tejon Street home on a Saturday night and find a bunch of GIs and their underage skanks on your "front porch." No thank you. Maybe you can visit a few Concept Restaurants filled with people wearing flammable materials and discussing The Da Vinci Code. Again, I’ll pass.
I lived in downtown Denver for many a year. It has a different vibe. A different crowd. Part of the problem, and this may make me universally hated, is that Colorado Springs doesn’t really have a young, urban, hip crowd. We don’t have big businesses attracting the best and the brightest. We don’t have Fortune 100 companies bringing hundreds of the smartest college students from all over the country to town. We don’t have a medical school. We don’t have a law school. We don’t have nurturing artists’ enclaves supporting up-and-coming talent. Those of us who do fall into those categories are here for other reasons. And we are very dispersed. Buck Blessing and Chris Jenkins alone cannot create a downtown. Even with the help of Classic Homes.
However, I think we need to keep trying. FAC Modern is a great example of how to bring some class to downtown. Hunan Springs. Terra Verde. Mountain Chalet. Couture. Newspeak. The Famous. Rubbish Gallery. Smokebrush. Cottonwood. Idoru. The Warehouse. Regina’s. Poor Richard’s. Tony’s. The Underground. La Creperie. These are our locally-owned and very unique businesses. Sadly, we’ve lost some great places. Whickerbill, Primitivo, Seabel’s, Runner’s Roost, Chinook. Many more.
Putting up more lofts or high rise buildings won’t solve the problem. The issue is population. It is about attracting and keeping the creative class. The stellar newbies. The cream of the crop. The type of person that we’d like to hang out with. If you’ve read the book, you know what that will take. We are being hurt by our strong military presence. We are being hurt by our right wing politics and our religious fundamentalism. Our anti-gay reputation. This isn’t really about development. It’s about identity.
The Downtown Partnership has their work cut out for them , no doubt.
Posted by: Brian Nemeth in Uncategorized | Permalink 60 Comments
January 31, 2007
GEEK WITH A DOUBLE LIFE
A Hard-Working Nerd by Day:
The only cultural thing he loves
Is going to see the opera;
He is an A-Student in College,
Plans ahead for the upcoming semesters,
And he does exceptionally great by semesters-end;
Puts Money Away for a Rainy Day;
And works at a job that matches his college major.
A Badass by Night, and Weekend:
Enjoys Broncos Football, Avalanche Hockey
and UFC Fighting (non-scripted fighting);
He reads a Playboy Once in a While,
And masturbates to shower pics in that magazine;
Loves fast two-passenger convertibles;
Loves Dancing at a local nightclub,
And enjoys the mega-sized strip joint;
And loves to get wild anywhere in the city.
Combining the two together:
Dressing Nice from the Waist up
By wearing a sport coat and necktie,
And hanging loose from the waist down
By wearing jeans and cowboy boots
Or athletic shoes.
Part Geek, Part Bad-ass
That is the Essence of a Full-On Man
Posted by: Chris Bullock in Uncategorized | Permalink 1 Comment
January 31, 2007
DANCING AND FIGHTING TOGETHER
THE START OF A LOVING COMPANIONSHIP
Teaching her how to open up
A mountain size can of whoop ass:
From blocks to escapes
To body slams and kicks;
No matter what asswipe she faces
From muggers to rapists;
She will fight back against those motherfuckers
Who try to do harm to her.
In exchange for her teaching a guy
How to get his badass funk on:
From the salsa and Latin dance,
To hip-hop and tap dance;
High-energy moves and awesome music,
Combined with sexual body language,
Makes a man horny after the little number on her.
Movement of the feet and hands,
And movement of the whole body,
They are both the same;
Opening up
A king-sized can of whoop ass
From him to her,
And getting the funk on
From her to him,
Are the only two differences.
On the Street, or On the Dance Floor
It’s a match made in Heaven.
Posted by: Chris Bullock in Uncategorized | Permalink Comments
January 31, 2007
If you haven’t heard, Chuck Norris has been filling in for Sean Hannity. That alone is entertaining.
But in the video above, the Iraqi-American rapper Timz politely beats down Mr. Delta Force on the realities of Iraq. “The Iraqis want freedom,” Norris says. Timz disagrees: “It was safer as a region [under Saddam].” Worth watching.
Posted by: Deep Trachea in Let's Win! | Permalink 6 Comments
January 31, 2007
Hey, great episode of The Daily Show last night. Not only was my favorite expert, John Hodgman, on the show—who showed the above cartoon, saying, “That Garfield! Always getting assassinated in train stations”—but the interview was with the brilliant and very charming astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who has a new book out that I’m dying to read: Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries.
I wrote in my January Pop Tard column about Cosmos and how science might never see another Carl Sagan. I might be wrong about this. Tyson is ebullient, clearly knowledgable and truly a joy to watch when he talks about things like, say, getting torn apart by a black hole. Tyson’s the current host of Nova: Science Now and is capable of discussing science in a totally accessible way. In this era of increasingly Balkanized disciplines, of subatomic particle-splitting and muons and gluons and quarks and ever-microtizing the Universe, he’s a big picture guy. It’s a joy to be enlightened by him. Buy the book.
Posted by: Deep Trachea in Television | Permalink 1 Comment
January 31, 2007
… another story about the Bijou bridge closure and its deleterious effects on downtown biz. The article says that Seabel’s, another longtime downtown resident, is closing its doors—right before it states that the Downtown Partnership maintains that business downtown is thriving. Really? Because we, who have relationships with a whole lotta downtown businesses, have heard pretty much the opposite. Unless, of course, you’re talkin’ Rum Bay and the Party Zone series of bars that have no trouble filling up with the syphilis-bound.
What’ve you heard?
Posted by: Deep Trachea in Let's Win! | Permalink 17 Comments
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