June 29, 2013
Before They Make Me Run
When I first bought the Rolling Stones' Some Girls
(These days I tend to avoid buying records in shops because of the handful of times when the guy at the register has said something like "ohhh, let's see what the famous Dr. Frank is buying today, Oasis, seriously? Ha, I thought better of you…" Similarly, that bothered me way more than I felt it ought to have. Mail ordering is preferable because then at least you don't have to hear the ridicule. So I guess I have a history of paying attention to what record store clerks say in spite of a wish to be a better sort of person who wouldn't care.)
Anyhow, it was only a few days from the release but the faces on the die cut cover had already been expurgated and replaced with the words "pardon our appearance, cover under construction." I was disappointed then, and I guess the disappointment lasted unnoticed because I just got an "all the faces" one to replace the long-gone original and now I'm surprised to discover that I feel a little more complete, as a person. It was mail order, of course, because, you know, I just can't take the ridicule in person. Point being, nothing satisfies like something you've wanted since you were 14, and the other point being, wow, it's weird how little has changed since 1978.
June 23, 2013
June 21, 2013
Do It
Don't actually have this record
Voluntarily Involuntary
As I've mentioned before, I'm engaged in this OCD-ish project of gradually sorting through my records to try to determine what's there and what's missing and put them in a bit of order for the first time ever. The OCD part is that I made a rule that I must listen to each record all the way through, come what may, (or else, the implicit logic runs, something terrible might happen.)
In any case, this morning my heart sank a good deal lower than the way it usually sinks when I realized that Stations of the Crass
ADDED: Well, I was warned: the nature of my oppression was the aesthetic of their anger.
Collected Postcards of Dr. Frank
Evidently I wrote this postcard to the guy who posted the pic of the BAM cover below:
June 20, 2013
June 18, 2013
June 17, 2013
Posting this again because it's happening tonight
Try to use this information for good rather than evil: I'm on the bill of this Porchlight Storytelling Series show at the Verdi Club on June 17, along with Jack Boulware, Stacy Bond, Maura Finkelstein, Mike Keegan, and Steve Mavromihalis. The topic is "Imposters: Stories of Lies, Deception, and Trickery."
Monday June 17, The Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa St., San Francisco, CA, 7PM
Money Flows Away from the Artist
Joyce Carol Oates wrote this in form of seven reverse order tweets today and it was easier to read copied and pasted:
The issue of "creativity" could be translated into plainer terms: hours spent in work. It requires many hours to write a novel--more than most sane people would wish to expend in the effort. (Yes, you may think some of us write more quickly than others. But not easily.) If prose fiction, poetry, music are simply appropriated--all that time is "stolen" from the creators. Making pots & writing require TIME & in this way are exactly analogous. Appropriating a novel reduces the need, or wish, to buy the physical object, "book." Thus, it is theft of a specific kind.Writers, poets, musicians are reluctant to complain because on the whole they--we--enjoy what we do, else we would not be doing it; yet, you would not argue that a teacher should not be paid because she enjoys her work, on the whole. "Money flows away from the artist" is a remark made now with disconcerting frequency, & generally that is so, with uncommon, highly publicized exceptions...
Thought for the Day
From Julian Sanchez:
We might imagine a system of compulsory cameras installed in homes, activated only by warrant, being used with scrupulous respect for the law over many years. The problem is that such an architecture of surveillance, once established, would be difficult to dismantle, and prove too potent a tool of control if it ever fell into the hands of people who—whether through panic, malice, or a misguided confidence in their own ability to secretly judge the public good—would seek to use it against us.
Yeah, I'm the Kind of Guy Who Has a Favorite Osmonds' Song
and this is it:
From The Plan
June 15, 2013
On Hatred
This girl I used to be pretty friendly with off and on once sent me a photo of herself with the title "Hatred." I was taken aback by this, and it kind of bugged me in a vague way for months: what was she mad about, what was she trying to say, etc. Then I looked at the picture more closely and realized she was wearing a red hat. So you see, dear readers, sometimes hatred is just a red hat. You can write that on the bathroom wall if you want.
June 14, 2013
Adapted Joke
Three prisoners are in the yard at Guantanamo, and the topic turns to the reason for their imprisonment.
"I defended Glenn Greenwald, so they data mined me and found out about some unauthorized lobsters and threw the book at me," says one, mournfully.
"Hey wait a minute!" says the second. "I *attacked* Glenn Greenwald! But I guess my data turned up in the investigation of Greenwald defenders like you and it indicated possession of a guitar with an unauthorized fingerboard. Fortunately, they agreed to let my family go if I pleaded guilty."
What about you, they both say to the third guy. What did your data indicate? "Well," he says, "unfortunately, it indicated that I'm Glenn Greenwald."
June 13, 2013
June 12, 2013
A middle school author appearance where no books are on sale generally involves signing a lot of arms
Notebook
Sir Crichton Davey's study was a small one, and a glance sufficed to show that, as the secretary had said, it offered no hiding-place. It was heavily carpeted, and over-full of Burmese and Chinese ornaments and curios, and upon the mantlepiece stood several framed photographs which showed this to be the sanctum of a wealthy bachelor who was no misogynist.-- Sax Rohmer, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
June 07, 2013
Thought for the Day
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.Washington Post, June 6, 2013
June 06, 2013
Where I'll Be on the 17th
Try to use this information for good rather than evil: I'm on the bill of this Porchlight Storytelling Series show at the Verdi Club on June 17, along with Jack Boulware, Stacy Bond, Maura Finkelstein, Mike Keegan, and Steve Mavromihalis. The topic is "Imposters: Stories of Lies, Deception, and Trickery."
Monday June 17, The Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa St., San Francisco, CA, 7PM
June 05, 2013
Translated from the Greek into Rotten English by John Dryden and Others, the Whole Carefully Revised and Corrected by an Ass
List: Classic Books Annotated by Famous Authors.
Here's the Unabomber's copy of Anne of Green Gables
One day, after I'm dead, my Platonis Opera: III
June 01, 2013
One of the Four Anecdotes I Have Involving me and the Band Blink-182
Drunk-posted this little tale on the face thing last night, and the comments wound up being funny enough that I'm posting it here for the edification of anyone who still reads stuff on this blog.
So, some time ago when my then upstairs neighbor was kind of stalking me, she invited me to go with her to some big radio-sponsored "summer concert" that her favorite band was playing at. Now that is just not my kind of scene, and there was no way I was actually going to go to it, but in the course of trying to figure out a way to decline gracefully without hurting her feelings too much, I learned that the band in question was Blink-182.Well, I was able to tell her, politely I hoped, that there was pretty much zero chance that I would have a good time at something like that. And she was all: "I know they're edgy and 'punk' and you probably aren't comfortable with that but they're actually really good and you should give them a chance..."