TENTATIVE NEW YEAR'S PLANS INVOLVE SANTOS PARTY HOUSE

This fusion of hair-metal rebellion and hippie love-spreading helped Andrew sell some 400,000 albums and win a dedicated fan base comprising those who truly thought he was rock’s savior (mainly adolescent boys in midwestern states) and others who saw him as an awesome postmodern prank (twentysomethings on the coasts).

--David Amsden, The Let's-Just-Party-Boy (via Boyland)

It's also socks weather:



Welcome to our kitchen.

FOR BRADY

Muh'fuckin' cardigans.

OFF WITH MY HEAD

I woke from disconcerting dreams with my hands covered in paper cuts I can't explain. Ballet is making me think about my body as more than just a vessel for my brain, a means of getting from point A to point B.

And it was cold today, as I'm sure you know. Winter weather, Thisanjali has said, makes you remember times when you felt warm.

Filling her compact & delicious body
with chicken páprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact of her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her

or falling at her little feet and crying
'You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance.'...

--John Berryman, Dream Song 4

In 20th Century American Poetry I was asked to defend John Berryman to my classmates because I was the only person out of thirty who actually liked the guy. I remember using the word "sexy" a lot.

I do not...I don’t wish to touch hearts. I don’t even want to affect minds very much. What I really want to produce is that little sob in the spine of the artist-reader.

--Vladamir Nabokov, from here, via Why Good Writers Can be Bad Conversationalists

HOW DO YOU CREATE ILLUMINATION AND AN ECSTACY OF TRUTH?

8. Related, but more practical subjects, will be the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance.

9. Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.

10. Related, but more reflective, will be a reading list: if possible, read Virgil's "Georgics", read "Hemingway's "The short happy life of Francis Macomber", The Poetic Edda, translated by Lee M. Hollander (in particular the Prophecy of the Seeress), Bernal Diaz del Castillo "True History of the Conquest of New Spain".

11. Follow your vision. Form secretive Rogue Cells everywhere. At the same time, be not afraid of solitude.

--About Werner's Herzog's Rogue Film School via Chris

Martin and I had pretty strong feelings about the poster in Brennan's so we posted our 95 Theses on Why This is a Bad Painting .