Hat Trick, part X of an infinite series

Here's one way to run an effective con against any attempt to uncover your completely self-centered motives-- whenever some shady shit is going to be revealed, like maybe a multimillion dollar settlement of a fraud case against you, set up some kind of cultural distraction, something like a controversy around a protest for civil rights in a highly public arena. That way you get your "morally outraged" populace to bicker and rage at each other while you get away with whatever pocket-lining shenanigans or unethical conflict of interest transaction you've got going on. Works like a charm, plays well in the media, and the suckers line up along the usual hardened fronts. Il Douche is not the first to discover this, by the way-- it's been playing like this for a long time, left and right, you might say. Are you playing?

Phife Dawg, born on this date, 1970. A Tribe Called Quest - We The People....

Book of Days (album) - Meredith Monk

Gotham Lullaby - Meredith Monk

"Round Midnight" June Christy, born on this date, 1925

Fishbone - So Many Millions

We Just Lose Our Minds/Fishbone

Fishbone TONIGHT at the Rebel Lounge in PHX-Psychologically Overcast

Self-care inside a context of general sickness

Every day when you're not on the gurney is a good day, I say to my Human Anatomy students. There's something about working with cadavers that lends perspective.

There are a lot of re-framing perspectives that I have been using lately. For example, a buddy of mine at my AA home group tipped me off to an app that tracks your meditation-- Insight Meditation Timer. Their slogan: Peace in Our Timer. Now I know it's somewhat contrary to the spirit of meditation to want to measure it or track it, but I'm a middle aged white guy with type A tendencies, so I've gotten motivated by exactly that. It turns out it works-- I have done at least 1 ten minute Vipassana silent meditation a day for the past 122 days. 1,222 minutes of meditation. 20 hours. In silence.

It's impossible to relate here the reliably positive effects of this practice. Let's just say that, in general, in the midst of anxiety, worry, doubt, fear, anger, frustration, loneliness or whatever emotional weather, the practice has made a still point available. I might be all over the map, but there's a sense of a starting and ending, central home point.

Ye OLDE serenity prayer has been helpful as well, which isn't bad for an atheist. When I say "God" I'm not saying anything, really. But that's true also for the most ardent believer, in my opinion. Mystery-- whatever is-- reality. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, wisdom to know the difference. This is often misinterpreted as a movement toward infinite resignation and passivity. On the contrary, my experience of this reframing is that it assists me in sorting out where I can assertively and effectively take action. Courage is part of it, after all. The more courageous action I take that has an effect in the world, the more serenity I can find in accepting whatever is out of my circle of influence.

A gigantic portion of my experience of the sickness of the world right now lies in this distinction. Because the forces of ugliness and stupidity are overwhelming. And the once-entertaining or even inspiring realms of social media have now become a hair-raising dumpster fire of panic and despair.

It's also been grounding and helpful to eat real food, sleep, work out and get out and see real people or go into the desert. So much of our experience now is mediated. Direct contact with experience is salutary. The problem with banding together in mediated spaces isn't really the echo chamber effect these days, as much as it's the amplifying of despair. I'm not interested in a stadium full of people wailing and gnashing their teeth. Of course, part of self care is finding one's people and finding ways to be mutually supportive. But when the mutual support gives way to mob panic, it's time for a breather.

I'm grateful to be sober especially during these times. Even when things were relatively stable, alcohol had become a source of tremendous anxiety for me. My hangovers in later stage alcoholism were no longer nausea or headaches, but daily mild DTs, "the jitters," including extremely disturbing visions of doom and apocalypse, etc. The combination of benzos and booze was really destroying my sanity. Cigarettes were increasing the anxiety by an order of magnitude. So it's good to be free of those things. Coffee is still working for me, mostly.

Music. Hope is in music. Not hare-brained idiot hope that deceives. But substance. In particular, the music made by outsiders who have ever lived under the shadow of power. I hear a coded rebellion in all of it.



What are you doing to stay up and strong in the face of lunacy?

wire cutters! Mingus and Dolphy et al put it down

Pennies From Heaven - Billie Holiday, recorded on this date, 1936

Chick Webb and His Orchestra - Don't Be That Way, recorded on this date 1934

Tommy Dorsey, born on this date, 1905 - TROMBONEOLOGY

Noah Howard - Olé

Garden 1

Elell-- recorded almost exactly 35 years ago

Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt By Umberto Eco

In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

* * *

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.

Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.

In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.

Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.

That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

* * *

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

Umberto Eco (c) 1995

John Coltrane, Don Cherry - Focus On Sanity

Don Cherry - Malkauns

Don Cherry - Brown Rice.

Alabama- John Coltrane- Recorded on this date, 1963

In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, four members of the United Klans of America: Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr.; Herman Frank Cash; Robert Edward Chambliss; and Bobby Frank Cherry, planted a minimum of 15 sticks of dynamite with a time delay under the steps of the church, close to the basement.

At approximately 10:22 a.m., an anonymous man phoned the 16th Street Baptist Church. The call was answered by the acting Sunday School secretary: a 14-year-old girl named Carolyn Maull. To Maull, the anonymous caller simply said the words, "Three minutes", before terminating the call. Less than one minute later, the bomb exploded as five children were present within the basement assembly, changing into their choir robes in preparation for a sermon entitled "A Love That Forgives". According to one survivor, the explosion shook the entire building and propelled the girls' bodies through the air "like rag dolls".

The explosion blew a hole measuring seven feet in diameter in the church's rear wall, and a crater five feet wide and two feet deep in the ladies' basement lounge, destroying the rear steps to the church and blowing one passing motorist out of his car. Several other cars parked near the site of the blast were destroyed, and windows of properties located more than two blocks from the church were also damaged. All but one of the church's stained-glass windows were destroyed in the explosion. The sole stained-glass window largely undamaged in the explosion depicted Christ leading a group of young children.

Hundreds of individuals, some of them lightly wounded, converged on the church to search the debris for survivors as police erected barricades around the church and several outraged men scuffled with police. An estimated 2,000 black people, many of them hysterical, converged on the scene in the hours following the explosion as the church's pastor, the Reverend John Cross, Jr., attempted to placate the crowd by loudly reciting the 23rd Psalm through a bullhorn. One individual who converged on the scene to help search for survivors, Charles Vann, later recollected that he had observed a solitary white man whom he recognized as Robert Edward Chambliss (a known member of the Ku Klux Klan) standing alone and motionless at a barricade. According to Vann's later testimony, Chambliss was standing "looking down toward the church, like a firebug watching his fire".

Four girls, Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Carol Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14), were killed in the attack. The explosion was so intense that one of the girls' bodies was decapitated and so badly mutilated in the explosion that her body could only be identified through her clothing and a ring, whereas another victim had been killed by a piece of mortar embedded in her skull. All four girls were pronounced dead on arrival at the Hillman Emergency Clinic. The then-pastor of the church, the Reverend John Cross, would recollect in 2001 that the girls' bodies were subsequently found "stacked on top of each other, clung together".

More than 20 additional people were injured in the explosion, one of whom was Addie Mae's younger sister, 12-year-old Sarah Collins,who had 21 pieces of glass embedded in her face and was blinded in one eye.In her later recollections of the bombing, Collins would recall that in the moments immediately before the explosion, she had observed her sister, Addie, tying her dress sash. Another sister of Addie Mae Collins, 16-year-old Junie Collins, would later recall that shortly before the explosion, she had been sitting in the basement of the church reading the Bible and had observed Addie Mae Collins tying the dress sash of Carol Denise McNair before she had herself returned upstairs to the ground floor of the church.

Boots Mussulli, born on this date, 1915

Bennie Wallace, 70 today

Don Cherry's date of birth today, 1936

This was the first Cherry I heard, at maybe 12 years old or so.

La Monte Young - The Well Tuned Piano 81 X 25 6-17-50 - 11-18-59 EM NYC ...

FOUND: Black Comma Rant Bird

Posted on Next Door:

FOUND: Black Comma Rant Bird

Walking around or call exactly this is somebody's pet we've got it in our cul-de-sac web feet deep like a seagull wings like a predator crazy looking bird very sociable

I was all like dude, wtf is a comma rant bird?

Oh. A cormorant. 

Fishbone - Behavior Control Technician

Children runaway from the torturistic ways
Children still resist from the powers that persist
Will you shut up and sit still
I think you should obey
Having very few rights we cannot communicate

Train my brain to work the way you want me to
Don't question authority see
Be a little zombie that agrees with you
You are strapped with a double standard cup
In a battle you won't win
And when it's over we're gonna dance your memory away

Sheltering will restrict your baby's mind

Kick it up a notch

https://www.facebook.com/notes/penzeys-spices/cooking-trumps-racism/10154774813952834

Racism Update: At Penzeys we believe it's not the use of tools that set us on a different path from the rest of the animal world; what has set humanity in motion is cooking. In our nearly a million years gathered together around the fire, cooking shaped our bodies and transformed our minds. Cooking unlocked our potential and gave birth to reason, to religion, and to politics and government. The kindness of tens of thousands of generations of cooks created our humanity, but racism, sexism, and homophobia can all very quickly unravel all the goodness cooking puts out into the world. As the voice of cooks, we will never sit idly by while that happens.

You may have read Tuesday’s Night’s email. In it I said: "The open embrace of racism by the Republican Party in this election is now unleashing a wave of ugliness unseen in this country for decades. The American people are taking notice. Let's commit to giving the people a better choice. Our kindness really is our strength."

Since I ask you to read my emails, I feel it's only right that I read each of your replies. In sifting through those replies it was clear that, though not intended, a good number of people seemed to sincerely believe in my statement I was calling all Republicans racists. In the emails of those Republicans who voted for someone other than the party's nominee, I sensed genuine pain at having the strength of character to not go along with what was happening, but nonetheless be grouped in with those who were. I apologize for writing something that caused you pain; that is not the person I want to be. You are your party's future, and you deserve my admiration and respect, and your country's as well.

For the rest of you, you just voted for an openly racist candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. In your defense, most of you did so without thinking of the consequences of your candidate's racism because, for most of you the heartbreaking destruction racism causes has never been anything you or your loved ones have had to experience. But the thing is elections have their consequences. This is no longer sixty years ago. Whether any of us like it or not, for the next four years the 80% of this country who did not just vote for an openly racist candidate are going to treat you like you are the kind of person who would vote for an openly racist candidate.

You can get angry at everyone else for treating you like you just did the thing you just did, or you can take responsibility for your actions and begin to make amends. If you are lucky and younger family members are still coming over for Thanksgiving, before it's too late, take a moment and honestly think about how your actions must look through their eyes. Simply saying "I never thought he'd win" might be enough. But if you have the means, leaving a receipt from a sizable donation to the ACLU or the SPLC accidentally laying around where you carve the turkey, might go over even better.

Or, just do what you do best and volunteer. Through our customers' support, we've given away a lot of our Penzeys Pepper, the Pepper with heart. More often than not, those we meet cooking and serving food to feed those in need are Republicans. You really are a good bunch, but you just committed the biggest act of racism in American history since Wallace stood in the schoolhouse doorway 53 years ago. Make this right. Take ownership for what you have done and begin the pathway forward.

Patronize a Penzey's near you!

Things ain't what they used to be....

lookin atchuuuu

"Re: modern art being largely a project to shock folks. The pretty is never shocking to nice folks. The beautiful can be...Perhaps it's because the pretty does not depend upon the truth much, while the beautiful does. Or maybe it's just that the pretty aims to please , and the beautiful has no need to." -Howard Meister

(me, at age 21, at the Museum of Modern Art, doing what Duchamps told me to do)

Roswell Rudd, Steve Lacy, Misha Mengelberg, Kent Carter & Han Bennink - ...

WIZARD of Roz, last year's celebration of Rudd's 80th birthday

Rudd was born in Sharon, Connecticut. He attended the Hotchkiss School and graduated from Yale University, where he played with Eli's Chosen Six, a dixieland band of students that Rudd joined in the mid-'50s. The sextet played the boisterous trad jazz style of the day and recorded two albums, including one for Columbia Records. His collaborations with Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, John Tchicai, and Steve Lacy grew out of the lessons learned while playing rags and stomps for drunken college kids in Connecticut (wiki).

Jeff Buckley- Lover, You Should've Come Over

Jeff Buckley - "Last Goodbye". Buckley was born on this date, 1966.

Roswell Rudd!!! 81 today

Drain the Facebook Swamp

Here's an enjoyable way to spend an hour or so: pull up your Facebook friends list and classify all professional contacts and other peripheral contacts to acquaintance. Delete mercilessly all people who post stupid shit, have not interacted with you in months or are otherwise a pain in the ass.

I'm down nearly 400 already and will continue until the last dolt and dipshit is gone. And here is a very nice Echinocereus bonkerae 'apachensis' to look at.

this is the bus we are on-- yes this is the bus we are on--

now's the time

if wishes were horses

Hindemith, born on this date, 1895

"Hindemith's relationship to the Nazis is a complicated one. Some condemned his music as "degenerate" (largely based on his early, sexually charged operas such as Sancta Susanna), and in December 1934, during a speech at the Berlin Sports Palace, Germany’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels publicly denounced Hindemith as an "atonal noisemaker."^[6]

Other officials working in Nazi Germany, though, thought that he might provide Germany with an example of a modern German composer, as by this time he was writing music based in tonality, with frequent references to folk music; the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler's defense of Hindemith, published in 1934, takes precisely this line.^[7]

The controversy around his work continued throughout the thirties, with the composer falling in and out of favor with the Nazi hierarchy; he finally emigrated to Switzerland in 1938 (in part because his wife was of partially Jewish ancestry)." (Wiki)

Big Butter & Egg Man From the West, Recorded on this date, 1926

Getting geared up for field season again

Departing for the wilds of Bahía Magdalena, Isla Magdalena and probably Isla Santa Margarita in a few weeks for field work season number 4. The study site for the PhD research is mainly the two islands, a total surface area of about 300 km^2.

The island and bay system to the northwest here is Isla Magdalena, including the large crescent bay, Bahía Santa Maria and the approximately 20 km^2 rocky northwestern cape, Cabo San Lazaro. The island to the southeast is Isla Santa Margarita.

Isla Magdalena is accessible only by boat from Puerto San Carlos, a fishing town sheltered on the peninsula.

My friend Marco, who runs Magdalena Bay Whales, provides most of the boat transportation, except to the south of Isla Santa Margarita. For that study site, I get a ride from one of the fishermen in the tiny village of Puerto Alcatraz. Still waiting on the Mexican Navy for permission to continue my research on the island.

Fishing pangas at Puerto Alcatraz on Isla Santa Margarita

The palapa painstakingly built by Marco on Isla Magdalena for  the comfortable whale watching camp he has built 

The fearsome species I am studying that occurs almost entirely only on these islands: Cochemiea halei. 

These research trips always involve massive prep, a checklist with more than 120 items, carefully planned and targeted field work goals doable by one field botanist in a relatively short period of time and a huge serving of uncertainty. But it's always worth it.

Two Poems by Liz Waldner

Wishness 

There is this wish, that wish, and the other wish. 

There is the wish not 
to feel this way. 

There is the wish in the heart 
of the geranium leaf 
such that where the leaf is lighter, 
its shadow is darker. 

There is the wish on the part 
of my hair that fell in an arc 
to have fallen in a circle 
that it might be connected still. 

There is the wish to be born. 

There is the wish to be known, 
and there is the wish to be known. 

******

Of Unknowing, The Cloud 

In the morning would the white 
cat nose the tall grass 
along the driveway. 

Careful not to touch, knowing 
at a distance. Smell the synapse 
as is the green thing springing 
forth from the earth 
also good to smell. 

In the morning would the white 
cat carefully 
go its nose naming along 
in the morning. It would, yes, 
it did go. And in the morning watching 
she thought this: it is important to remember 
there is really no certain way 
to be. What she wanted 
to think is: I'm allowed. 



Liz Waldner, _Saving the Appearances_, 2004
Liz Waldner at Poets dot Org
Liz Waldner at Poetry Foundation

Cantankerous James Agee

"A good artist is a deadly enemy of society; and the most dangerous thing that can happen to an enemy, no matter how cynical, is to become a beneficiary."-- James Agee

WOO HA...got you all in check....

Ol' Dirty Bastard, born on this date, 1968

Thelonious Monk's last studio recordings

Recorded on this date, 1971. Many of these tracks feature Art Blakey and Al McKibbon.

Susie Ibarra, 46 today

strange doings

Isla Magdalena, on the Pacific side, spring 2015

Back to the blog. For some unknown reason, Big Brother Facebook extended my block for another day-- well, I can log in, but I'm not allowed to participate in any way. What a fucking stupid thing. Haha. This little experience has me committed to pulling away from FB even more than I had already begun to do.

Kim Clarke, 62 today.

George Cables, 72 today.

Buckwheat Zydeco, born on this date, 1947. RIP

Recorded on this date, 1959

Idris Muhammad, born on this date, 1939

Hampton Hawes, born on this date, 1928.

Bennie Moten, born on this date, 1894.

Bad Analogies

A Facebook friend of mine posted yesterday that she hoped Donald Trump would denounce the Ku Klux Klan rally celebrating his victory in North Carolina. http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Ku-Klux-Klan-Trump-victory-parade-North-Carolina-10608851.php

A friend of that Facebook friend posted "Well, will Obama condemn the anti-Trump protests taking place all over America?"

I replied: what a terrible analogy! do you know nothing at all about the truly ghastly history of the Ku Klux Klan in this country (name redacted)? It's okay to be conservative, but don't have shit for brains.

Apparently, that violates Facebook's community standards, as I was blocked from posting for 24 hours as a result. 

Wild. 

Well, all the music posts will be on here today I guess. 

Happy November 13th.

La Monte Young - The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Tran...

Olé! Tarantula Robyn Hitchcock, Emma Swift and Howe Gelb

I just missed shooting Hitchcock's incredible cover of Visions of Johanna, but got this encore.

Ed Blackwell Day!

Pete Cosey Day!

IGNOBLE

The 2016 IgNoble prizes were announced September 23rd. Here's the complete list.

One of my favorites:

Marketing genius:

The brand personality of rocks

A critical evaluation of a brand personality scale

These make me feel better about my ongoing struggle to write a research prospectus for my PhD program.

Larry Young - Unity (Complete Album)

Born on this date, 1940. Nothing quite like the sound of this band.

Glenn Branca Day

Frijolero Molotov Video Oficial Sin Censura

Is this thing on?

Have you thought about owning or at least controlling the fate of your web content lately? Especially anything into which you put labor as a writer.

I was reminded last night that I pour a lot of content and the labor behind that content into Facebook, which is an ephemeral medium-- and our accounts there are subject to the whims of FB staff. A friend of mine had her account of 9 years completely and permanently deleted due to a false accusation. Someone opened a FB account with her name, she complained-- and the name-stealer claimed *she* was the one who was the impostor and that was that-- poof, entire account deleted permanently.

This is chilling for me-- I operate in the FB environment as if it's *my* timeline, *my* content, etc. FB is good at creating that illusion.

Of course, similar issues exist with *any* web presence-- but here, at least, you can export an .xml file of all your posts to your computer. All of that time journaling and posting can at least be salvaged here. FB took over for a few years as a kind of microblog and online journal, but it's too precarious to be treated as anything other than ephemera.

Posting here and linking to FB, periodically locally archiving posts whenever there's anything you'd rather keep-- definitely a more reliable bet.

Baths - Rain Smell

Hank Williams jr - All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)

Common Core: 16 Billion Promises

This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to exploring the Common Core Standards in both English and Mathematics, from multiple perspectives: historical, pedagogical, financial, philosophical and political.

Let's start with a very broad cost/benefit analysis of sorts.

Not very widely reported: the estimated costs of full implementation of these new standards. From National Cost of Aligning States and Localities to the Common Core Standards, a February 2012 white paper from the non-profit Pioneer Institute:

"Over a typical standards time horizon of seven (7) years, we project Common Core implementation costs will total approximately $15.8 billion across participating states. This constitutes a "mid-range" estimate that only addresses the basic expenditures required for implementation of the new standards. It does not include the cost of additional expensive or controversial reforms that are sometimes recommended to help students meet high standards, such as performance-based compensation or reduced class sizes."

About $16 billion in costs as a "mid-range" estimate, directed toward testing, professional development and training, textbooks and instructional materials, tech infrastructure and support, etc. Also from the white paper:

"Implementation of the Common Core standards is likely to represent substantial additional expense for most states. While a handful of states have begun to analyze these costs, most states have signed on to the initiative without a thorough, public vetting of the costs and benefits. In particular, there has been very little attention to the potential technology infrastructure costs that currently cash-strapped districts may face in order to implement the Common Core assessments within a reasonable testing window."

Upcoming posts will outline the history of the standards-based reform movement and its reliance on high stakes testing, the people and politicians behind the Common Core movement, the relationship between existing state standards and the Common Core as well as existing instructional materials (including several specific examples of a "cross-walk" between standards and materials) and an exploration of the contextual position of standards-based reform in general and the Common Core in particular in the history of public school reform in the United States.

For now though, here's a brief introduction from the Common Core website to the goals and purposes of the Common Core standards:

"Building on the excellent foundation of standards states have laid, the Common Core State Standards are the first step in providing our young people with a high-quality education. It should be clear to every student, parent, and teacher what the standards of success are in every school.

Teachers, parents and community leaders have all weighed in to help create the Common Core State Standards. The standards clearly communicate what is expected of students at each grade level. This will allow our teachers to be better equipped to know exactly what they need to help students learn and establish individualized benchmarks for them. The Common Core State Standards focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades, thus enabling teachers to take the time needed to teach core concepts and procedures well—and to give students the opportunity to master them.

With students, parents and teachers all on the same page and working together for shared goals, we can ensure that students make progress each year and graduate from school prepared to succeed in college and in a modern workforce."

Leaving aside any and all pedagogical or philosophical questions for now (for example, should it be clear to every student, parent and teacher what the standards of success are in every school?), let's take a closer look at some of the typical boilerplate language of this brief intro.

The dependent clause that blandly launches paragraph one of this $16 billion experiment simultaneously flatters the standards-based reform wonks who have bravely labored in the state trenches since the 1980s while lowering expectations for everyone. The state standards are an "excellent foundation." The Common Core State Standards, however, are only "the first step in providing young people with a high-quality education." The excellence of the existing state standards were not a first step. Or perhaps they were a first step in providing an education of medium quality? The Common Core State Standards will significantly improve public education for all students, but listen folks: they are only a "first step." $16 billion for a first step. One that builds on an already excellent foundation. 

Note also the very early emphasis on "better equipping teachers." "This will allow our teachers to be better equipped to know exactly what they need to help students learn and establish individualized benchmarks for them." I challenge anyone with even half a command of the English language to explicate as thoroughly as possible precisely what this sentence is saying. Implicitly, it is definitely saying that teachers have not been as well equipped as possible "to know exactly what they need." The historical trend of shooting the fish in the barrel, namely, the classroom teacher, continues. 

Note in particular the wondrous jargon, heart-warming perhaps to most parents: "establish individualized benchmarks for them." Teachers help students learn. For this, they need equipment. And each student is, clearly, an unique individual. So let's not just refer to "benchmarks," which is a term worthy of at least one entire blog post for itself (stay tuned), but let's courageously hurl the promising word "individualized" into the mix. Give them their money's worth. We will leave for another time the nagging question of how a single set of standards in 45 states coupled with an unproven metric that is the same for all students has anything to do with "individualizing" anything.

The great promise of the Common Core lies in this kind of language: "The Common Core State Standards focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades, thus enabling teachers to take the time needed to teach core concepts and procedures well—and to give students the opportunity to master them."

Some wonderful education wonk jargon in there, very familiar indeed to anyone who has been exposed even a little bit to the reform initiatives of the past 30 years or so. "Core conceptual understandings," (sic). Perhaps the narrative report cards of the future will say things like "Jane has met her individualized benchmarks by displaying core conceptual understandings. Also, her procedures are impeccable." Teachers are "enabled to teach core concepts and procedures well," always a plus. Finally, capping off the eduspeak boilerplate with a nice little lagniappe, the impressive word: "master." The Common Core will create better equipped teachers who are enabled to make their students masters of conceptual understandings (sic) and procedures. That sounds like it's worth $16 billion, easy.

But that's not all! The clincher: "With students, parents and teachers all on the same page and working together for shared goals, we can ensure that students make progress each year and graduate from school prepared to succeed in college and in a modern workforce."

All of those precious individuals, with their individualized benchmarks, on the same page and working together for shared goals, at long last. After centuries of horrifying inconsistency from state to state (in spite of decades of development of instructional materials across the country with the untiring support of The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, similar organizations in other curricular areas, etc.), after years and years of everyone clamoring to share different goals, mucking up all of the potential clarity. After all those years of never knowing if students made any progress from year to year, never having any way at all to measure student progress other than, perhaps, voodoo or astrology. After decades of students bombing right out of college every three weeks and being utterly unemployable in that unendingly inscrutable "modern workforce." At long last, the Common Core is here, to remedy once and for all these pernicious and heretofore completely ignored deficiencies. 

That, says a nation unwilling to leave even a single individualized and benchmarked child behind, is worth at least $16 billion.

Cecil Taylor - The Tree of Life (solo piano, Berlin 1991)

Azealia Banks - Yung Rapunxel (Explicit)

Chavela Vargas - Hacia la vida

Milonga for Three, Astor Piazzolla

Chavela Vargas - Luz De Luna

http://youtu.be/wVHYnL08gIM

Do something. Do anything.

adapted from a letter written by Sol LeWitt, to Eva Hesse.

O Fortuna Misheard Lyrics (Animated)

Shakti - Two sister

Tom Waits - You Can Never Hold Back Spring

baby you can never hold back spring
http://youtu.be/vgeZEdbv_m8

The Non and the Ex

“The difference between a non-suicide and an ex-suicide leaving the house for work, at eight o'clock on an ordinary morning:

The non-suicide is a little traveling suck of care, sucking care with him from the past and being sucked toward care in the future. His breath is high in his chest.

The ex-suicide opens his front door, sits down on the steps, and laughs. Since he has the option of being dead, he has nothing to lose by being alive. It is good to be alive. He goes to work because he doesn't have to.” 
― Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

Rest in peace, Pandit Ravi Shankar.

Cassandra Wilson Time after time