A Magical Fluke

It's not often that I pay attention to news stories, and less often that I'll recommend one to my regular readers, but the following Reuters story popped up at the top of my gmail inbox, and I'm moved to bring it to your attention.

Reuters story

Original website where the man posted his description

What blows my mind about this is the number of NY city inhabitants (8 million) -- and that the internet made it possible for this guy to find one (1) person with a basic cartoon sketch. There really is magic in the world if you look for it.

John Cage's Rules For Learning

Of course you'll have to click on the image, it's much too small to read like this.

Goth Poetry Generator

In an earlier post I provided a link to the Post-Modernism Essay Generator, which creates the kind of schlock written by many unfortunately aimless academics.

Well, here is a parallel machine geared for many of the black-clad hipster students who worship these sad professors... It's called the Goth-O-Matic Poetry Generator, and a few moments with it yields the kind of poetry many overworked editors must reject daily (in order to maintain some semblance of esteem in the literary landscape).

Types of goth poetry you can generate include:
Supernatural Violence & Horror
The Feeling Very Sorry For Yourself
The Fear of Religious Persecution
The Eternal Love of Vampires
The Black Abyss of Righteous Hatred

More Prague Pics

Click for more Prague photos -- winter 2006-2007, as well as miscelaneous sites around town, JESUS SIGHTINGS, and a trip to Bratislava, Slovakia.

Cool Words

or Aeon Iota

A cool word is abscond, I said
to which Stephen responded with timepiece

Yes, an oxymoronic compound, I wrote
and we thought about this

Charles Baudelaire: Two De Profundis Poems

DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI

O my sole love, I pray thee pity me
From out this dark gulf where my poor heart lies,
A barren world hemmed in by leaden skies
Where horror flies at night, and blasphemy.

For half the year the sickly sun is seen,
The other half thick night lies on the land,
A country bleaker than the polar strand;
No beasts, no brooks, nor any shred of green.

There never was a horror which surpassed
This icy sun's cold cruelty, and this vast
Night like primaeval Chaos; would I were

Like the dumb brutes, who in a secret lair
Lie wrapt in stupid slumber for a space...
Time creeps at so burdensome a pace.

(translation by Sir John Squire)


OBSESSION

You forests, like cathedrals, are my dread :
You roar like organs. Our curst hearts, like cells
Where death forever rattles on the bed,
Echo your de Profundis as it swells.

My spirit hates you, Ocean ! sees and loathes
Its tumults in your own. Of men defeated
The bitter laugh, that's full of sobs and oaths,
Is in your own tremendously repeated.

How you would please me, Night ! without your stars
Which speak a foreign dialect, that jars
On one who seeks the void, the black, the bare.

Yet even your darkest shade a canvas forms
Whereron my eye must multiply in swarms
Familiar looks of shapes no longer there.

(translation by Roy Campbell)

Quote For the New Year

"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority."

~Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)

Genius: Do You Know Who I Am?

I can only hope I will be this clever if ever in a similar situation:

Murrican Haiku

Expat damsels
crochet cuz they have to
- th'accordion's that intense

~written at Globe Bookstore & Cafe, during Pavel Brycz's reading from his book I, City (Twisted Spoon Press).

Quotes of the Day

"I can believe anything, provided it is incredible." ~ Oscar Wilde

"It is to the poet a thing of awe to find that his story is true." ~ Isak Dinesen

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Women: You can't live with them, and you can't get them to dress up in a skimpy Nazi costume and beat you with a warm squash.” ~ Emo Phillips

Quote of the Week

"It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them."

~ Bill Vaughan

Quote: Our Greatest Fear

The following quote, perhaps best-known from its use in the film Coach Carter, is often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela, but was in fact written by Marianne Williamson:

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God, your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."