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Friday 25 March 2016

Think About It 011: LEE NUTTER


In a perfect world, nipples will serve no purpose, and we will have evolved beyond their existence.  Babies will be fed on state sanctioned formulas created by large corporations.  The base desire once known as ‘sexual arousal’ will be superfluous as these same corporations will be producing young consumers who obey laws and legislation without question, and the primitive idea of 'art’ will [be] replaced with infomercials and advertisements that educate, entertain, and encourage the purchase of authorised goods and services.

Complex relationships with friends, family, and loved ones will no longer be necessary for the population’s satisfaction. Nor will difficult intellectual or creative endeavours that may take many years to bear fruit.  Happiness will be achieved through simple interactions with algorithms that serve up little hits of serotonin by way of immediately gratifying entertainment morsels, and long term satisfaction will be attainable by pharmaceuticals provided for free to anyone working for any one of our corporate sponsors.

Having been made superfluous, and managed by the aforementioned pharmaceuticals, the evil that is sexuality will cease to exist.  The time that was once wasted on relationships will be put to good use working for your choice of approved corporations, providing you with enough credit points to select from any one of the many exciting authorised products produced by our suppliers.

Not only will the population be satisfied, they will also be safe.  Anyone caught producing unsanctioned goods, including but not limited to visual media that does not encourage the purchase of authorised products, will be found and charged with treason.  Without risk of inspiration or provocation, consumers will rest easy in the knowledge that everyone is living the same equally satisfying and productive lives.

Tumblr post [27 February 2016]


 

Use the link below to visit the website of Australian photographer and writer LEE NUTTER.  (**WARNING:  Do not visit this site if you are offended by the thought and/or sight of nude art photography.)

 

https://leenutter.com


 

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Think About It 008: YASUNARI KAWABATA

 
Think About It 007: LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE

 
Think About It 002: C WRIGHT MILLS

Friday 18 March 2016

Poet of the Month 035: EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY

 


EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY
c 1920






 
 
CHILDHOOD IS THE KINGDOM
WHERE NOBODY DIES


 
 
 
Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
 

Nobody that matters, that is.  Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.
 

And cats die.  They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it’s much too small, because she won’t curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
— mothers and fathers don’t die.
 

And if you have said, 'For heaven’s sake, must you always be kissing a person?'
Or, 'I do wish to gracious you’d stop tapping on the window with your thimble!'
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you’re busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, 'I’m sorry, mother.'
 

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died,
who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.
 

Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they are not tempted.

Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and shake
them and yell at them;

They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide 
back into their chairs.
 

Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.
 




1931 

(reprinted in Collected Poems, 1958)




 
 
 
 
The following biographical statement appears on the  poets.org website. [It is re-posted here for information purposes only and, like the material posted above, remains its author's exclusive copyright-protected intellectual property.]
 

Poet and playwright Edna St Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22, 1892.  Her mother, Cora, raised her three daughters on her own after asking her husband to leave the family home in 1899.  Cora encouraged her girls to be ambitious and self-sufficient, teaching them an appreciation of music and literature from an early age.  In 1912, at her mother’s urging, Millay entered her poem Renascence into a contest: she won fourth place and publication in The Lyric Year, bringing her immediate acclaim and a scholarship to Vassar College.  There, she continued to write poetry and became involved in the theater.  She also developed intimate relationships with several women while in school, including the English actress Wynne Matthison.  In 1917, the year of her graduation, Millay published her first book, Renascence and Other Poems.  At the request of Vassar’s drama department, she also wrote her first verse play, The Lamp and the Bell (1921), a work about love between women.

 

After graduating from Vassar, Millay, whose friends called her 'Vincent,' moved to New York City’s Greenwich Village, where she led a Bohemian life.  She lived in a nine foot wide attic and wrote anything she could find an editor willing to accept. She and the other writers of Greenwich Village were, according to Millay herself, 'very, very poor and very, very merry.'  She joined the Provincetown Players in its early days and befriended writers such as Witter Bynner, Edmund Wilson, Susan Glaspell, and Floyd Dell, who asked Millay to marry him.  Millay, who was openly bisexual, refused, despite Dell’s attempts to persuade her otherwise.  That same year Millay published A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), a volume of poetry which drew much attention for its controversial descriptions of female sexuality and feminism.  In 1923 her fourth volume of poems, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.  In addition to publishing three plays in verse, Millay also wrote the libretto of one of the few American grand operas, The King’s Henchman (1927).

 

Millay married Eugen Boissevain, a self-proclaimed feminist and widower of Inez Milholland, in 1923.  Boissevain gave up his own pursuits to manage Millay’s literary career, setting up the readings and public appearances for which Millay grew quite famous.  According to Millay’s own accounts, the couple acted liked two bachelors, remaining 'sexually open' throughout their twenty-six year marriage, which ended with Boissevain’s death in 1949.  Edna St Vincent Millay died in 1950. 


 

 

 

 

Use the link below to read more poems by North American poet EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY:

 

 

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems/45670

 

 

 

 

 

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Poet of the Month 025: JOSEPHINE MILES

 

 

 
Poet of the Month 002: MARIANNE MOORE

 

 

 
Poet of the Month 060: HART CRANE

 

 

 

 

Last updated 13 April 2021 

 

Friday 11 March 2016

The Write Advice 078: LARRY McMURTRY


...I had rather write straight fictions than pseudo-fictions (the term is not meant to be pejorative), and my preference for the straight fiction is principally a matter of voice.  However well-pitched, clever, or sincere, my voice in the essay counts for much less than the voice of the novel.  It is not a question of monotony, but of range and resonance and fullness, and on all three counts the novel outspeaks.
      To put it in imagery more appropriate to my immediate subject; nonfiction is a pleasant way to walk, but the novel puts one horseback, and what cowboy, symbolic or real, would walk when he could ride?  In the novel, as in riding, there is a sense that one's own speed is increased, one's movement supported and enlarged by the speed and movement of another life; and for me the motion of the novel is far more satisfying that the fidgetings of the brain that produce nonfiction.  This sense of another life is not quite so romantic or anti-intellectual as it might seem, for the novel still depends upon the creation of character, an element in fiction about as unfashionable as narrative and fully as important.  I do not say that narrative and character should be stressed at the expense of structure and symbol, but merely that the former are much more important than the poetics of fiction has made them seem.

In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas (1968)

 

Use the link below to read a 2014 interview with North American novelist and screenwriter LARRY McMURTRY:

 

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/05/larry-mcmurtry-brokeback-mountain-last-kind-words

 

 

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The Write Advice 058: BRET EASTON ELLIS

  
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Friday 4 March 2016

Rockers & Mods 002: JACQUES DUTRONC

La Chanson est la vie 002: JACQUES DUTRONC

 

JACQUES DUTRONC
Paris c 1966


ON NOUS CACHE TOUT, ON NOUS DIT RIEN
[They Hide Everything From Us, They Tell Us Nothing]
JACQUES DUTRONC
Vogue Single, 1966 
 
 
See below for original French lyrics 
& BR translation 




 

The following biography by YURI GERMAN is taken from the AllMusic website.  [It is re-posted here for information purposes only and, like the material displayed above, remains its author's exclusive copyright-protected intellectual property.]

Singer/songwriter Jacques Dutronc gained popularity in his native France with his provocative songs that matched the rebellious spirit of the 1960s so well. Though he was absent from the musical scene for nearly a decade, pursuing a film career, he successfully returned to music in the early 1980s and still remains one of the most popular performers in the French-speaking world.

 

Dutronc started as a guitarist in the small rock group El Toro et les Cyclones, who recorded two singles. In 1965, he was asked by the manager of Françoise Hardy to write a few songs for her, so Dutronc composed Le Temps de l'Amour [The Time of Love] and Va Pas Prendre un Tambour [Don't Bang A Drum].  Having proven himself a successful songwriter, Dutronc decided to pursue a solo career. It started in 1966 with such hits as Et Moi et Moi et Moi [And Me And Me And Me], On Nous Cache Tout, On Nous Dit Rien [They Hide Everything From Us, They Tell Us Nothing], Les Play-Boys [The Playboys], and others. His 1968 song Paris s'éveille [Paris Wakes Up] became an instant classic of French pop music. In 1973, Dutronc successfully ventured into film acting, which would eventually bring him a Best Actor Cesar (the French equivalent to the Oscar) for the leading role in Van Gogh.

 

His musical career resumed in 1980 with the release of the album Guerre et Pets [War and Farts], the result of his collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg.  It was followed by 1984 hit single Merde en France [Shit in France]. Dutronc's 1987 album CQF boasted the work of Earl Slick (David Bowie's guitarist), Jean-Jacques Brunel (The Stranglers), and Etienne Daho, among others. After the successful 1992 tour, Dutronc released a live album and a collection of his old hits. His 1995 studio album Brèves Rencontres [Brief Encounters] was produced and arranged by Erdal Kizilcay.

Jacques Dutronc married chanteuse extraordinaire Françoise Hardy in 1981.  They are separated but remain married and, according to Wikipedia, still 'see each other regularly.'  Their son, born in 1973, is the accomplished jazz/pop guitarist Thomas Dutronc.  



Use the link below to visit the website of JACQUES DUTRONC (en français):  
 
Special thanks to everyone who takes the time to upload  music to YouTube.  Your efforts are appreciated by music lovers everywhere.



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La Chanson est la vie 001: CLAUDE NOUGARO





ON NOUS CACHE TOUT,
ON NOUS DIT RIEN


On nous cache tout, on nous dit rien
Plus on apprend plus on ne sait rien
On nous informe vraiment sur rien


Adam avait-il un nombril ?
On nous cache tout on nous dit rien
Socrate a-t-il bu sa cigüe ?
L'aventure est-elle au coin de la rue ?
On nous cache tout on nous dit rien
La vérité sur Dagobert
Quel était son manager ?


On nous cache tout, on nous dit rien
Plus on apprend plus on ne sait rien
On nous informe vraiment sur rien


La vérité sur La Palice
Quand c'est rugueux c'est pas lisse
On nous cache tout on nous dit rien
 

Et l'affaire du masque de fer
Est-ce que Louis Quatorze était son frère ?
On nous cache tout on nous dit rien
La vérité sur l'Obélisque
A-t-il été déclaré au fisc ?


On nous cache tout, on nous dit rien
Plus on apprend plus on ne sait rien
On nous informe vraiment sur rien


Savoir pourquoi Napoléon
Mettait la main dans son giron
On nous cache tout on nous dit rien
L'affaire trucmuche et l'affaire machin
Dont on ne retrouve pas l'assassin
On nous cache tout on nous dit rien
On nous cache-cache et cache-tampon
Colin-maillard et tartampion
Ce sont les rois de l'information


On nous cache tout, on nous dit rien
Plus on apprend plus on ne sait rien
On nous informe vraiment sur rien






THEY HIDE EVERYTHING FROM US,
THEY TELL US NOTHING
 

They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
The more we learn the less we know
They really tell us nothing

Did Adam have a belly-button?
They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
Did Socrates drink his hemlock?
Is adventure waiting at the street corner? 
They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
The truth about Dagobert
Who was his manager?  

They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
The more we learn the less we know
They really tell us nothing

The truth about La Palice
When it's rough it's not smooth
They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing

And the Man in the Iron Mask
Was Louis the Fourteenth his brother?
They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
The truth about the Obelisk
Has it been declared to the tax department?

They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
The more we learn the less we know
They really tell us nothing

Do we know why Napoleon 
Used to put his hand inside his vest?
They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
The Lord and Lady Muck business
In which they never found the assassin?
They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
They play hide and seek and hunt the thimble
Sir This and Baron That
They're the kings of information

They hide everything from us, they tell us nothing
The more we learn the less we know
They really tell us nothing



Translated (very loosely) by  
BR