September 29, 2008
Jeb
“

Lunfardo is frequently found in the lyrics of tangos, supplying nuances and double-entendres with overtones of sex, drugs, and the criminal underworld. Lunfardo is, for all practical purposes, unintelligible to an average Spanish-speaking person from any other country.

—wikipedia
Finn

A dagger rests in a drawer.

It was forged in Toledo at the end of the last century. Luis Melian Lafinur gave it to my father, who brought it from Uruguay. Evaristo Carriego once held it in his hand.

Whoever lays eyes on it has to pick up the dagger and toy with it, as if he had always been looking out for it. The hand is quick to grab the waiting hilt, and the powerful obeying blade slides in and out of the sheath with a click. This is not what the dagger wants.

It is more than a structure of metal: men conceived it and shaped it with a single end in mind. The dagger that last night knifed a man in Tacuarembo and the daggers that rained on Caesar are in some eternal way the same dagger. The dagger wants to kill, it wants to shed sudden blood.

In a drawer of my writing table, among draft pages and old letters, the dagger dreams over and over its simple tiger’s dream. On wielding it the hand comes alive because the metal comes alive, sensing itself, each time handled, in touch with the killer for whom it was forged.

At times I am sorry for it. Such power and singlemindedness, so impassive or innocent its pride, and the years slip by, unheeding.

— “The Dagger” by Jorge Luis Borges


Jeb

What was that thing about the book of poetry and the stiletto?


Finn

that’s the post about the sevillana. if you follow the link in that post there is a picture of the switchblade and the book of poems.


Jeb
In 1967 my very Argentine but very communist aunt, Sara Lopes Colodrero de Irureta Goyena gave me three parting gifts when I left Buenos Aires. I shoved off in an ELMA (Empresa Lineas Maritimas Argentinas) Victory Ship called the Rio Aguapey. She told me that on board a long voyage stopping at many Brazilian ports anything could happen. “You will need this sevillana (switchblade)and so that it will open swiftly I am giving you this little bottle of whale oil. Whale oil is the best. And finally you will have plenty of time to read. I am giving you my copy of Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén’s (1902-1989) Sóngoro Cosongo.” I lost touch with Tia Sarita and the whale oil is long gone. But I still have the sevillana and I often read Tú no sabe inglé which is one of my favourite poems.

Ry

Joust-2600-comic-ad

Finn

I love joust.


Finn

Ataturner600

Turner didn’t paint AT-ATs, but if he did…

(↝via b3ta)
Ry

Donoghue_oldmoderns_540

Chip Kidd’s cover for The Old Moderns.

September 28, 2008
Jeb
Hippopotamus
‘From the Greek ἱπποπόταμος (hippopotamos, ιππος hippos meaning “horse” and πόταμος potamus meaning “river”).’
Walrus
‘The most likely origin of the word is the Old Norse hrossvalr, meaning “horse-whale”, which was passed in a juxtaposed form to Dutch and the North-German dialects of the Hanseatic League as walros and Walross.’
(↝via Wikipedia in both cases)
Ry
“

According to Feig, geeks are people who are unabashedly enthusiastic about uncool things. Things that don’t get you status points. Things that get you beaten up at school. Things that — well, let’s just say that in his wedding picture, which hangs proudly in his home, Feig and his wife both wear kilts.

—NYTimes Mag feature on Paul Feig
Jeb

One_of_these_things

Bill Hemmer bravely challenges Fox’s Rose-Colored Glass Ceiling

Jeb

Also what is with Fox’s jihad against foreheads? Is Fox taking anti-intellectualism down all the way to “chop off the forebrain if you want to work here, lippers.”


Ry

Ue41detail

second in this 10-part series of ultra eczema issues covering the home-recordings of the late belgian outsider / synth maverick edmond de deyster… these super-minimal pieces have a kind of douglas leedy “entropical paradise” kind of vibe (i.e. they sound “hands-off” for the greater part)… whereas for the first volume i still had a bit of doubt as to mr. de deyster’s existence of (srsly ; it could have been any number of dennis’ synth-owning friends pulling a fast one of all of us) bit the timbres / reverb-sheen overall certainly sound era-accurate (purportedly this material was laid to tape in 1975)…

really, really nice stuff… not mind-blowing in the akos rozmann / françois bayle sense, but if no-hope / loner / outsider bedroom electronic transmissions are your thing than you’ll certainly see the light within…

From the Mimaroglu Music catalog. All emphasis by Keith Fullerton Whitman.

I have volume one, and it’s quite a fuzzed out squelching trip into less travelled synthscapes.

Jeb

Rickrubin

Rick Rubin in the Wall Street Journal

Ry

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