STL #100: Objects of Fascination and Agents of Revelation

It has taken 8 years to complete 100 posts; that's only a little more than a post a month. With my rededication to daily writing, I hope that I can return a bit closer to my weekly rate. In any case, I have decided to mark the occasion by writing in my favorite form: the list. Following is a varied list of things, mostly works of art but a few ideas or lifestyle accoutrements,  I've become familiar with during the life span of STL.  Some of these things I've written about, but most I haven't. The most significant thing I've noticed in compiling this list is that the books are all of my own choosing: I haven't been assigned a reading list this whole time. This list might be seen as a memoir of the last 8 years of my life, but then again that might be pushing it. I'll add a bit more commentary after the list.

1. Absu, "Ye Uttuku Spells"
2. Belgian ales
3. Charles Olson, Maximus Poems
4. William Gaddis, The Recognitions
5. Jack Green's Fire the Bastards
6. Kill Bill
7. Graham Greene, The Comedians
8. Guy Davenport, Tatlin!
9. Albert Ayler, Spiritual Unity
10. Reality-based politics
11. Jens Lekman, “A Postcard to Nina”
12. Eddie Campbell, How to be an Artist
13. "Lying In Bed On A Summer Morning," by Carl Rakosi
14. Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things
15. Deep Red
16. Halloween
17. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
18. Millennium Actress
19. Lost in Translation
20. Etre et Avoir
21. The Sopranos
22. The Wire
23. William Bronk
24. Watchmen, reluctantly
25. Seven Soldiers of Victory
26. Hendrick’s Gin
27. In the American Tree
28. Cy Twombly, Untitled (Say Goodbye Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor)
29. Bread crumb eggs
30. George Simenon
31. Django Reinhardt
32. Freaks and Geeks
33. My So-Called Life
34. Carson, NOX
35. Lee Ann Brown, Polyverse
36. Fiery Furnaces, Rehearsing My Choir
37. Tori Amos, From the Choirgirl Hotel
38. Something Said
39. Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man, Out of Season
40. Joanna Newsom, Milk Eyed Mender
41. Sleater Kinney, One Beat
42. His Dark Materials
43. Battle Royale
44. John Cheever's Collected Short Stories
45. American Elf
46. Black Riders
47. Robert Duncan, "Opening of the Field"
48. Gilbert Godfery in The Aristocrats [2005]
49. Goodbye Dragon Inn
50. Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
51. Team America
52. The singularity
53. Tender Buttons
54. The Pound Era
55. Three Places in New England
56. Alban Berg, Violin Concerto
57. Matt Fraction, Casanova
58. The New American Poetry 1945-1960
59. The Hold Steady, Separation Sunday
60. Immortal All Shall Fall
61. Deathspell Omega Chaining the Katcheon
62. Wardruna
63. Girl Talk, All Night
64. Lair of the Minotaur, "Let's Kill These Motherfuckers"
65. Dope throne
66. Modern Life Is War “D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S.”
67. Mountain Goats “This Year”
68. Benji Hughes Love Extreme
69. Heartless Bastards, The Mountain
70. Opeth, Blackwater Park
71. Josephine Foster, Hazel Eyes I Will Follow
72. Cat Power The Greatest
73. No Thanks! Anthology
74. Haydn, Symphony 88
75. Robyn “Be Mine”
76. Spoon “Back to the Life"
77. Arcade Fire, Funeral
78. Dirty Weekend 
79. Old Boy
80. The Rothko Chapel
81. “Appalachian Spring”
82. Audition
83. Enter the Void
84. Y The Last Man
85. Marcel Dzama
86. Battlestar Galactica
87. John Porcellino, King Cat
88. Can These Bones Live?
89. Wicker Man
90. Blow Up
91. King Lear (Russian film)
92. Mozart, Symphony 40
93. Brandenberg Concertos
94. Garth Merenghi's Dark Place
95. The Grey Album
96. Community
97. Song of Ice and Fire
98. Siraccha and Earl Grey Ice Cream
99. O Paon

A few explanations are in order. With the exception of a few pieces of classical music, everything on this list is from the second half of the twentieth century or later. That is where my interests drive me, but as I was drawing up the list I made a conscious decision to make it this way to relieve me of the obligation to include things because I felt I should. Tom Jones, some Shakespeare plays, Milton, and other things I read for the first time in the last eight years might otherwise be on here. I felt that by keeping them off would cut away pretense and help me perhaps discover more of my true inclinations.  

Each work of art on this list was chosen because it keeps drawing me back in one way or another, offering more each time I revisit it. Some of the films (namely, Audition and Enter the Void) keep their claim on my psyche, but I doubt I will ever summon up the resolve to watch them again. What the works offer is different is each case: the goofy comedy of Garth Marenghi sounds different chords than Ed Dahlberg's jeremiad Can These Bones Live?. Dahlberg I'm sure would be mortified to be keeping company with much of this list--I notice that I trend lowbrow in much of my tastes. Looking over the list, I don't feel I can make any grand pronouncements, nor do I even understand why I include half a dozen foodstuffs and only two works of visual art. As with everything I write, this turns up more questions. Here's to the next 100 opportunities to figure out the answers.

(In case you are interested, here's a census of the list: 35 items can be classified as music, 18 as movies, 9 as poetry, 9 as fiction (therefore 18 as literature), 7 as comics, 7 as TV, 5 as criticism, 4 as comestibles, 3 as visual art, and 2 as concepts. The music breaks down as follows: 7 as metal, 6 as classical (including modern), 6 as folk (I can't bring myself to type "freak folk," but everything in this category is moody and eccentric, and with mostly acoustic instruments), 6 pop, 6 rock, 2 jazz, and 2 dj mashups.

New Year

Since I don't have my calendar to write these things down yet, I'm scratching down a few notes on what I've been up to so far this year. By "up to," I only mean reading, watching, and cooking.

On Saturday the first, I started reading Tom Jones. I'm on a schedule of 85 pages a day which will get me done by the tenth. So far I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The rules of the road haven't been set yet, so Fielding will sometimes address us directly, sometimes tell us what will happen later, sometimes tell us what someone is thinking and will sometimes deliberately and flagrantly withhold information. He's not afraid of coincidence or long speeches or chapter long asides thumbing his nose at his perceived critics. I passed on the chance to see Black Swan at the theater, instead watching The Kids Are Alright. I made some split pea soup and then we went to a party. When we got home, we watched some of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers vehicle Swing Time.


We finished Swing Time on Sunday afternoon. I read another chunk of Tom Jones and made some risotto style barley with citrus and arugula. In the evening, we watched three episodes of Breaking Bad, which we found quite addictive.

Today, Monday the 3rd, I went in to the office to start getting things together for Spring semester. I had lunch with my colleague Mike at a big and okay Chinese buffet. I rather dithered away the afternoon buying some music (Jack Rose, Beach House, Sharon Van Etten). Now I'm off to write a thank you note or two for Xmas presents.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do some work on class, hopefully buy a calendar and check out some brewing supplies, and do another big chunk of reading.

Allegory of the Cave, Revised Version

So, anyway, this is pretty good for off-the-cuff commentary. I call it the allegory of the cave two-point-0h.

Don't forget the advice to fully explore your ideas. Think of ideas as caves that may include vast territory full of twists and turns and maybe even buried treasure. Don't walk by a lot of cave openings just glancing in. Instead, pick one to go into and explore. You may find tunnels to other caves, but that's a part of your exploration.

Archive Series: Locus #3

I won't republish notes that have fulfilled their purpose or are better used elsewhere.

Title: Weird Poetics

sketch of an idea based on okay-ish article I read

http://www.mipoesias.com/Volume19Issue3Gudding/jackanders.html

His syllabus: Trakl, Ryokan, Artaud, Baitaille, Lautremont, Holderlin, Archilochos, Lenore Kandel, Gabe Gudding, tho I probably wouldn't include this list exactly: Hannah Weiner I would tho. The "weird" frame wd appeal to the kids, it cuts way across periods. Include "Old Weird America" delininated by Marcus.