- Benjamin Britten was born 98 years ago today. Beyond the piano and cello music I love, his Peter Grimes is the only opera I listen to with any regularity, I've no idea why it works.
- Airborne event, 11/21/11. Mandatory, yo.
- The shamelessness of the powerful.
- The shamelessness of the powerful.
- A culture dedicated to creating hell.
- Financialization, managerialism, abject failure.
- True sign of economic depression.
- Occupy posters.
- First politician of the Occupy era? I post that just to again ask: there's no charismatic demagogue from the Left who sees opportunity for personal power? Not via Occupy: I've been asking this for two years.
- It's a flipped bird, it's a pain, it's....
- Busy days, just songs, links, poem today, probably tomorrow too, but here, have another Earthgirl painting:
- Hey! Did you know that Washington DC has a professional soccer team? It's true, and its run by motherfucking morons.
- Cheap laughs.
- ICC, ICC, ICC. ICC.
- Also, motherfucking Maryland cracker.
- And let the Season of Motherfucking Lists begin. I note its start; I haven't the fuck to go through the list.
- Gass for those of you who do, with good news.
- Beckett for those of you who do, who will.
- New Elliott Smith song discovered for those of you who do. I never did, but understand why some do.
- Britten, Cello Sonata 2: Declamatio. Fugo. Scherzo. Adante lento. Ciaconna.
- I asked Hamster to pick some of his favorites:
- Serenade for Tenor and Horn.
- Nocturnal after John Dowland.
- Arvo Part's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten.
SEPARATION AT BURNT ISLAND
D. Nurkse
Brothers and sisters, who live after us,
don't be afraid of our loneliness,
our dented wiffle ball, the little kerf
the dog chewed in the orange Frisbee.
Don't grieve for our kite; not the frayed string
that clings to your ankle, not the collapsed wing.
We lived on earth, we married, we touched each other
with our hands, with our hair that cannot feel
but that we felt luxuriously, and with promises.
We made these bike tracks in the sand
—don't follow them—and this calcined matchhead
is the last statue of our King.
We lived between Cygnus and Orion,
resenting the blurriness of the Pleiades,
in a house identical to its neighbors—
stepwise windows, ants never to be repelled,
TV like a window into the mind
that can't stop talking, redwood deck
facing the ocean.
Everything was covered with sand; the seams
of the white lace dress, the child's hinged cup,
the watch (even under the crystal), the legal papers.
We were like you, or tried to be. We divided our treasures
(a marble with no inside, a brooch from Siena),
signed our names with all our strength, and went home
in two directions, while the marriage continued
without us in the whirling voice of gulls.
