does this (still) pass for style (today)?

nan goldin - nan and brian in bed (1983)

"I used to ask questions, and I got the answer: nothing. The answer is 'nothing.'" of course, as soon as maria wyeth ascertains that the answer is "nothing," she segues to "damson plums, apricot preserves, sweet india relish and pickled peaches. apple chutney. summer squash succotash."

as the light strikes the mason jar. in the midday sun. suggesting the ferns' defence of 70's cinema. today, we echo. why not?

opus doctore est, non tortore

or so says justus lipsius in de cruce libri tres

*


Thomas Nash - Original Santa (1865)

"Our Lord says he inflames his people, where he says in Luke 12 'I came into this world to light a fire: what should I want but that it burn?' ... for he who gives love is God." - Fra Teofilo da Vairano, On the Grace of the New Testament

"When it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the sign of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it..." - Matthew 16:2-4


Norman Rockwell - Santa & His Expense Book (1920)


"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night." - Luke 2:1-8


N.C. Wyeth - Old Kris: The Country Gentleman

"Moeris: Lady Circe, will you please explain to me: What are those lights glowing in the night? What could lie concealed beneath their surface?
Circe: Those are the learned, the wise, and the illustrious, in among the idiots, the asses and the obscure." -- The Song of Circe by Giordano Bruno, the academic of no academy, called the nuisance

"If he doesn’t put you in jail, wonderful. Nobody with any sense likes to go to jail. But if he puts you in jail, you go in that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. [Applause] And even if he tries to kill you, (He can’t kill you) you’ll develop the inner conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for. (Yes) [Applause] And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live. "-mlk, jr (detroit, celebrating alabama. in the time before r shelby and the auto bailout)

shit from an old notebook

*



may 07 (full of flowers)

05.02.07. neoistimpulse has been carrying crates and eating crepes; recording uniball vision micro elite squads; rewinding, rehearsing and rehashing the lyrics; brewing stalagmite coffee in batcave pantries; AND mixing three-ingredient martinis (orange bitters' essential) while reciting roquentin's requiem:
"It doesn't tempt me at all: it is aperitif time. For the time being I have seen enough of living things, of dogs, of men, of all flabby masses which move spontaneously."
__________________////////////////////_____________________


Currently listening :
I Believe in You. Your Magic Is Real
By YACHT
Release date: 15 May, 2007
2:30 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment


avril 2007

4.24.07. neoistimpulse has been slipping on and off the right track; stacking mattresses on and off sidecars; striking thunderbolts through spring's every which where; sipping portmanteau pangrams in after hours cellars; blindly remixing venetian blinds; downing grapefruit whiskey at disney time's service stop; rereading harold jaffe, harland miller and howard bloom; taking ginseng tours of chinatowns' bookies; AND nostalgizing the last days of disco.
__________________////////////////////_____________________

4.19.07. neoistimpulse has been perusing and pursuing portfolio; sipping cheveau demos while bringing patron to the party; having ham on rye with a side of portobello hackmuth; coldwarrioring with afrin; swirling south (in the daydreams) to the sounds of sebring, sebadoh and the sea and cake; observing grant's interest rates; AND flatlining the gerund into the particular.
__________________////////////////////_____________________

4.10.07. neoistimpulse has been learning to let the dream logic win its turn; be-bopping to huntsville, blues control and old sun city girls; spilling wine on boomsday; invoicing election returns; exploring jam band teachers tendency to teach; taking agamben's metropolis by strategy and force; AND asking "If all these people can understand money / is a useful analogy / then why can't these same people / understand Christ / as a useful analogy?"
__________________////////////////////_____________________

4.03.07. neoistimpulse has been mounting canvas in the wake of a resurrected arthur; reading pickover's mobius strip and ellis' transmetropolitan; getting epicurious about tortelli d'herba alla Lombarda along with ale'd pork 'n' sauerkraut; listening (in the penny arcade) to springtime's songs by the slackers, dan melchior and no age; AND calling everyone east of the mississippi, colette.
__________________////////////////////_____________________


Currently listening :
I Don't Wanna
By Henry Flynt & the Insurrections
Release date: 20 January, 2004
10:41 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment


march 07

3.28.07. neoistimpulse has been closing loops in the noose on the loose; exploring the implicit and intwined legacy of text art, the big boys, the adolescents and the descendants; eating chicken noodle soup a few times a day; dreaming up katarina witt's portrait by frank stella; AND commodifying the zeitgeist's dissent.

__________________////////////////////_____________________

3.21.07. neoistimpulse has been exterminating rational thought (pls save me evenings and weekends); reading "diary of an oxygen thief" and news of gonzogate through selima's alabama '04 optiques; eating ciganski gulyásleves and drinking rosewater carbombs; enjoying new records on teardrops and ppm and out of echo park; AND reconciling the relevance of rexroth with the twitter revolution.
__________________////////////////////_____________________

3.14.07. neoistimpulse has been slipping through the slipstream/sleeping on a split-screen; pulling daisies off the youtube; eating thai take-out in goldbar waiting rooms; reading jonathan beller talk cinematic simulacran blues; listening to alot of pulp, barr and the flat can co; finding strength through oi!; AND loving the press release.
__________________////////////////////_____________________

3.08.07. neoistimpulse has been letting that desert grow; shopping for speakers 'n' receivers; listening to the wind in the cracks of the windows; drinking makers 'n' ginger with tired, rigid fingers; dreaming of lautréamont's memoirs; AND going silent on all mobile networks.

Currently listening :
Anthem for a New Tomorrow
By Screeching Weasel
Release date: 08 October, 1993
4:10 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment


february 07


2.28.07. neoistimpulse has been drinking glaceau smart water by day; smoking america's yellow spirit; freeing arthur lee; dreaming of that old time chicago-louisville music (shellac, codeine, rodan, june of 44 and rex); filing his taxes; AND doing a modern dance.

__________________////////////////////_____________________

2.22.07. neoistimpulse has been reading travis jeppesen; eating Ukrainian borscht and salumeria biellese's wild boar soppressata; watching Le Commune; listening to Albert Ayler, Orchid, Don Caballero and Zs; giving away old pillows; AND writing a new life.
__________________////////////////////_____________________

2.15.07. neoistimpulse has been mounting canvas; eating puerco pabil; watching out for hardcore ufos; listening to GBV, Pavement and Edith Frost; drinking patron silver; AND thinking of my ms washington dc...


Currently listening :
Two Originals of Jack Rose
By Jack Rose
Release date: 08 March, 2004


january 07


1.24.07. neoistimpulse is looking for go betweens, recriders and anna karina. girls in grimy sweat shirts with the complete poems of dylan thomas under their arms. sophisticated young uptown ladies slumming with their toothbrushes in their pockets.
__________________////////////////////_____________________

alexander theroux

*

will have his day.

and i hope it is someday soon.

we could sing songs for markson and spiotta. for thom pain and all the enos. for s/home, m/cantsin and the others, yes, those magik markers, those old fashioned confederates of k, even, her, molly case.

we could...

but it's a rescission...

&

the owls (who)

are *always* apropos...

in a station at the metro

*

there are very few petals in this wet, black cloud.

something relevant, at least way back, when bear stearns' (really/// a division of jp morgan) hedge funds first defaulted...

something relevant well before that.

samantha power will work for hrc as of 1.21.09. amazing and brilliant and amazing.

it's called a choice b.w patriotism + the self.

in some corners.

it's called a good choice in other.

and that is a good choice.

to move to another theme.

if not always self-sufficient, we see poetry in things like this.

'bottom line: changing my call on the cuny: i now believe that bjng could very well permit modest and temporary (5-10%) depreciation of the cuny.'

and think, crrntaccntdfctsaregoodfrsktng

yes, vowel's (&a's in prtclr) are imptnt (cept whn thy'r buried)

some people say credit bubbles are the cause of our problems

*



coming up from the florida sun...

*



*

on the daily reckoning they have this to say:

" You will recall, dear reader, that an old Louie lost his head after the debt of France's monarch topped 80% of France's GDP. Seymour Durst put up a 'debt clock' in New York to keep track of the U.S. debt. When he put it up, the U.S. national debt was only $2.7 trillion. That was in 1989. Not even 20 years later and the debt has topped $10 trillion - forcing the owners of the debt scoreboard to add another digit. U.S. gross domestic output is about $13 trillion - and falling. This puts the national debt at 77% of GDP…and rising fast."

*

"The Fed Fed Releases Flood of Dollars, Market Rates Fall"
at Bloomberg

"The Federal Reserve led an unprecedented push by central banks to flood the financial system with as many dollars as banks want, backing up government efforts to revive confidence and helping to reduce money-market rates."

*

recommended reading: by adam fergusson


these four or five random things are posted without further comment...

the pop generation: exploring the influence of andy warhol on quentin tarantino and andrew w.k.

not only are you not dead, but yr getting married... to some pathertic jerk... i ... overreacted ....

*

let's get literal



(there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard. was my reaction, really so surprising?)



baby. you a'int kidding.

surprise. john mccain knows LESS than gwb..

"it turns out that there's a lot of interlinks throughout the financial system." - gwb, potus xliii, mba potus #1, 09.23.08



"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by." - Karl Rove - 6.23.08

also worth reading these days:

cornelius casoriadis

and

james grant

grant is full of surprises.

hsbc + goldman?

*



"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, of whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

"How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?"

finally available

*



unique?1?

they say this is the guidebook? well done.(?).(?).

How long does it take to memorize the basic Sunni-Shia differences, or the name of Pakistan's president?

will we ever find out?

"Resolving the mess at Lehman could help stem a wave of pessimism that the U.S. financial system faces the prospect of much deeper turmoil because of bad loans and the weak economy."

news is...

- hilarious

How long does it take to think?

- there is (to me) no possible sarcasm to this:

dana

"Q With another anniversary of 9/11 upon us, how does the President feel about the failure to find Osama bin Laden?

MS. PERINO: President Bush has been working and directing thousands of men and women across our intelligence community to help us find Osama bin Laden, his deputies, and to disrupt plans to attack America again, wherever they might be plotted. He has not let up on that, and that fight and that hunt will continue to go on until he is brought to justice.

I will remind you that the top deputies have had a very tough time of it. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, is in jail today, and he is awaiting trial. That is something we should all be thankful for, not only just for the fact that he is no longer out, able to plot and plan, but we should be very thankful for the work that our intelligence community has done to bring some of these people to justice.

Tomorrow is obviously a very sober anniversary for Americans. Many of you were probably here that day seven years ago. And the President thinks about 9/11 every single day. When he wakes up and before he goes to bed this is what he's concerned about. He's always been concerned about another attack on our country. Thankfully, we haven't had one. But there are terrorists out there, extremists out there who are plotting and planning to attack Americans. And that is why we have continued operations in Afghanistan and in working with our allies across the world, especially in Europe, to disrupt plots like we did with the airliner plot.

But we know that every single day is a day that we are blessed not to have had another terrorist attack. We work very hard to prevent one, but the terrorists are very determined and they have to be right only once and we have to be right every single time."

fifteen and counting

one out. bottom of the fifteenth. runners on first and second. jd drew at the plate. longest all-star game ever played. is uggla trying to throw this game? or, rather, let it be thrown? the national league deserves to win this. but history and uggla have a different view. jd drew walked. brad lidge to pitch.

'here we go again'...

here comes everybody

"Fallen-angel bonds typically are illiquid, and potential buyers are put off by the fear of being virtually locked into their investments. Another prerequisite to the establishment of a new-issue junk-bond market then was Milken's promise of liquidity. Milken promised buyers that he would make a market in all of his deals, ensuring liquidity. In the early days of the new-issue junk-bond market a great amount of paper was traded back and forth among a number of Milken disciples. This gave the appearance of liquidity, which was, in fact, only as deep as Milken's various pockets." -- Seth Klarman, Margin of Safety - Risk-Averse Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor

as joe wenderoth writes in his fast food missive...

"There's a point when certain grave emotions are rendered preposterous by their surrounding circumstances. I think the impetus for the Letters was, in part, my fondness for the grandiosity of certain 19th-century poets and philosophers—it seems like that kind of grandiosity is no longer possible, like some great wave of Triviality has made it painfully apparent that all such grandiose Efforts at Truth are ridiculous in the extreme."

a game of war

1.

can we just begin

as he said, "and you will know their names"

* Alan Cranston
* Dennis DeConcini
* John Glenn
* John McCain
* Donald W. Riegle

2.

with an admission thatthe media is anything

but

"liberal"

3.

and now the war is over. whether we want the war or not. the burning rage of texas exhausting its vengeful flare. alongside the biggest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen. and now it's armed and senile and eminently dangerous. even to the boomers. but, i'm afraid, we've already lost:

In normal times, that is in periods in which the government does not tamper with the monetary standard, people do not bother about monetary problems. Quite naively they take it for granted that the monetary unit's purchasing power is "stable." They pay attention to changes occurring in the money prices of the various commodities. They know very well that the exchange ratios between different commodities vary. But they are not conscious of the fact that the exchange ratio between money on the one side and all commodities and services on the other side is variable too. When the inevitable consequences of inflation appear and prices soar, they think that commodities are becoming dearer and fail to see that money is getting cheaper. In the early stages of an inflation only a few people discern what is going on, manage their business affairs in accordance with this insight, and deliberately aim at reaping inflation gains. The overwhelming majority are too dull to grasp a correct interpretation of the situation. They go on in the routine they acquired in noninflationary periods. Filled with indignation, they attack those who are quicker to apprehend the real causes of the agitation of the market as "profiteers" and lay the blame for their own plight on them. This ignorance of the public is the indispensable basis of the inflationary policy. Inflation works as long as the housewife thinks: "I need a new frying pan badly. But prices are too high today; I shall wait until they drop again." It comes to an abrupt end when people discover that the inflation will continue, that it causes the rise in prices, and that therefore prices will skyrocket infinitely. The critical stage begins when the housewife thinks: "I don't need a new frying pan today; I may need one in a year or two. But I'll buy it today because it will be much more expensive later." Then the catastrophic end of the inflation is close. In its last stage the housewife thinks: "I don't need another table; I shall never need one. But it's wiser to buy a table than keep these scraps of paper that the government calls money, one minute longer."

- ludwig von mises

The Case of the Grinning Cat

*



M. Chat

chris marker continues to be super-relevant into his 80s. a nice spectacle education piece this week at the new museum on the bowery. but seriously, why don't they release these damned things on dvd. but to the movie - in november 2001, he became intrigued by the sudden appearance of grinning yellow cat paintings on Paris buildings and public surfaces, and began to document the mysterious materializations of this charming feline. purportedly looking to solve the mystery of this unknown artist, dubbed M. Chat, marker just uses it as a springboard to examine the city's changing social climate -- from the pro-american feelings generated shortly after sept. 11, to the anti-bush and iraq war demonstrations that have become so prevalent. he also looks at the demonstrations that took place during the 2002 french election that saw right-wing centrist jacques chirac defeat right-wing extremist jean-marie le pen. eventually, the creator of the grinning cats is revealed to be an art collective known as mr. cat whose members are shown painting a massive representation of their mascot on the plaza in front of the centre pompidou. marker concludes with thoughts on the vital importance of such expressions of art and imagination in our public lies, echoing the may’68 slogan that “la poésie est dans la rue”

* also tonight, henry flynt at glasslands *

Dream debris
Robert Kelly

And when there's nothing left there's you
you cast a shadow that makes me.
The dreadful two of us again, mother
and son, father and daughter, broken
down the middle like an old barn,
christ, owls and woodchucks live therein
and all the bad birds celebrate their spring

but it's australia down in here, a metal
language and faces with big pores
staring straight into the sun, where money lives
shaped like a golden phallus. But not
a man's cock. Some other kind, girl dong
or cloud prick or the pointy shadow of the moon
so bright we gasp and say The Sun,
that's where it comes from, that mist is me,

(the sun is the shadow of the moon.
meaning is the shadow of desire.)

That light suffusing mist is thee, pardner,
hot-hipped and sore all about
from Aphrodite's lucidest negotiations.
All flesh wants you because your mind.

Dizzy Gillespie for President

***

back from paris...
and at 8.30 this morning, on my way to coffee, a nypd police i passed w the girl i love said outta that mythical blue 'i'm on a 14 hour shift. i arrested a girl at 4 am and the fucking assistant da's wont be around 'til 3 this afternoon so i gotta keep myself busy. i mean, i get paid overtime, but i'd rather be home with my wife and my daughter. but y'know, as my dad told me, you went to that coffee shop, it's expensive, but i go there sometimes [on 20th street b/w 7 and 8], a $2 cup of coffee will never catch on. this country's gotta set it's priorities straight. as long as a gallon of coffee [subsidized] costs more than a gallon of gas [subsidized] we'll never get it straight.'
true, that...



by Arman

"The Day Lady Died"
frank o'hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille Day, yes
it is 1959, and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in East Hampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega, and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatere and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing.

***

"one red cento"
from 'all roads... but this one'

it was the brilliance of snow atop the rubble
under the gaze of orbiting strangers
sinking down deep in the forest by the fire
that need and desire demanded.

winter rolled through and conquered the land.
crows and starlings danced to a boil,
flipping and turning, blushing and burning,
and swallows drifted south and whispered darling.

all our summers gone and scattered...
a hillock's-worth of pantagruelian stone
burned heart-holes in the coloring book of love
in a temple in an office in a grove in arcady.

this was before the ramones: rocks were silent.
now the phone rings, purrs rather, a trim line.
a shorthair prances, a fledgling in its teeth.
the moment fills their heads and porkpie hats.

"Robert's kid brother, Frank, played the drums. The bassist, Paul, drove into town in a beautiful old car -- a Galaxie 500. That was the first I had heard of that particular automobile . . . It began to dawn on me that these guys weren't really hipsters at all. Is it hip to be obsessed with Kerouac and wear a porkpie hat? . . . On Friday nights the boys liked to go dancing at Nirvana, a bridge-and-tunnel club high above Times Square. They took me along one time, but I didn't understand the attraction of this club. Why would you move all the way to New York City to hang out at a place like this?" -- D. Wareham Stuyvesant Town and the Age of Reason

Read Black Postcards and listen to Lalo Schrifin's soundtrack to The President's Analyst (you might want to watch it too...)

another braindead microphone speaking into a snarky sybaritic soundbyte

"and we can't hold on"



this hermetic snippet may make more sense when set beside johnny ryan's comix, minister faust's bargains, james thurber's vignette's for that ol' time new yorker & bush's anemic retrofuturist skinny tie/horror film decade (whose themse were much better handled in the remixed seven soldiers of victory). and don't forget it's charming détournement of certain arguments in favor that wrinkled, once-presumptive nominee, that botoxed baudevillain who favored our prez's iraq vendetta and her political 'future' over her (supposed) principles. but then again, there was her youthful support of goldwater and his daisies. which makes it all the more shameful that that latter day angel is doing everything she can to ruin lbj's beautiful electoral map (dare we call it his mandate) for lbj's rightful heir with another son of arizona guaranteed to be on that right-eous ticket...

and, by the bayou, i agree with pinocchio's theory re: buffy...

a bush league administration gets its grades

*

h
just a city boy


b
aint nothing but a (failed) gangster i suppose


o
fuck fuck cowboy fuckin diplomacy

let this be the voice of our inevitable '90s nostalgia kick

* "get there firstest with the brownest nose" - wsb (dob: 8.2.97)




* "wag the dog" - 12.19.97



also, while we're on this nostalgia kick, does anyone else think the new toyota commercial with the badgers is sort of a meta-metaphor for the impact of america's trade policy in the '90s w.r.t its future (narrator = europe, student = american working man /./ consumer, badgers = 'emerging' economies)?

rip e.g.g.

*



Gary Gygax