Highlands Hotel, Kashmir – Photo by Simon Weller
I’d rather like to have a page devoted to travel (in a broad sense of that term). In the mean time, here is some photography Simon Weller . Simon recently spent 10 days in Kashmir after an assignment in India for the BBC.
I’ve inaugerated a new page called Vanity–
The first entry is an antidote by Leonard Cohen,
a man who could easily err on the side of vanity
but continually doesn’t…
Also featured is a tale of Brahma from our friends at Indo Link Kids Korner.
Agni the fire god, drowned in his ego, laughed, “Ha! Ha! Ha!
You must be kidding!”
To my family, farm folk from North Dakota, Bismarck was “The Town”. Now the citizens of Bismarck have really put themselves on the map, and I’m proud of them: 8,120 folks making angels not war.
From The Conservative Voice :
“It’s fun and puts us on the map,” Edna Arvidson, 84, of Bismarck. “People think there’s nothing going on up here.”
“That’s phenomenal organization and something really to be proud of,” said Paul Judge, a Michigan Tech biochemistry major who helped organize Michigan’s attempt. “I’m sure once their numbers are verified, there will be a quick reorganization attempt here to reclaim our record.”
“What little we still know… after this break.” –Brian Williams, NBC Anchor
“So, Do You Wanna Hang Out Sometime? Get Some Sushi? Uh… Hello?”
Read the rest of this entry »
1
I’m sometimes alarmed:
No new generation of pocket-paperbacks is on the way.
But, the universe is Harmonic Vibration.
The cosmos is bound to out a few Corsos,
a few Pounds, a few Puskins from time to time.
A practice in non-attachment, that’s all this is,
A test—I’m quite certain of it—and for the record:
The speed of light is not a constant, Children,
Rather, it’s a place-holder, nothing other than the face of…
Now!
So what of Silence?
So what of Ponderance?
Are you prepared for all the uncertainty?
A data set with ever expanding variables?
A PEARL on THE OCEAN FLOOR, BREATHING?
A too-tall horse subverting eons of local lore?
Soon, sooner than you may think,
There may no longer be a set of IMAGES the poet may employ,
Nor cadences the audience will approve of or pretend to endure.
2
At any rate—
This is nothing the calculus can’t handle.
Faith, I say
A new breed of Philosopher is on the wing,
It cometh, speaking in tongues,
Unfettered by diction or any feeling in its limbs.
With any luck, the process will instinctually produce
A zillion tiny symphonies to be played in unison.
And if recent history serves as any example,
The overall effect will be stunning—
No less a stir than the Rite of Spring.
And, for a TITLE, if a title were even required,
May I humbly suggest:
HOMAGE to & INSTRUCTIONS for
The immediate dismantling and reconstruction of
The Only GOD Left Standing.
Regarding Obama Messiah Watch at Slate.com “which will periodically highlight gratuitously adoring biographical details that appear in newspaper, television, and magazine profiles of this otherworldly presence in our midst.”
Well isn’t that rather smug? Heaven forbid–or should I say cognescenti forbid–people of all stripes and ideological bent should get a little more than tepidly excited about a public figure and potential president.
At any rate, the inaugural outing by Timothy Noah faltered pretty quickly, first citing some limp praise Obama received while a student at Harvard. A former classmate: “Where I had five pages, Barry had probably a paragraph of the pithiest, tightest prose you’d ever see. … It was very short, very sweet. Obviously somebody almost Clintonesque in being able to sum a whole lot of concepts and place them into a succinct written style.” Yes, by God, Slate is right! This clearly messianic, blindly elegaic praise has got to stop!
A RECENT SPAM:
unjust is contrary to that which is just, that which is white to predicated of man; it will, therefore, be predicable of the many relative terms. We did say that habits and dispositions were class different from that of quality. For it is rather a certain
used to denote the other categories; for instance, granted that the body is called white because it contains whiteness; and so in since the genus is predicated of the species, whereas the species mark. Thus, one and the same colour cannot be white and black. Nor can
bald does not regain his hair; the man who has lost his teeth does not variation of degree. So much, then, is stated with regard to these relative thing, he will also definitely apprehend that to which it unjust is contrary to that which is just, that which is white to
Secret
Messages
Requiring key and/or code
That’s what I’ll leave behind
I’ve read my share of magazines
Tolstoy and trash, critiques of the cinema
On my lunch hour—What a waste!
I’ve scetched out film scripts
I’ve listed songs to be sung…
Now, to my progeny
What shall I bequeath?
Scraps—
Cryptic directions
To some places I’ve happened to visit.
Maybe they can pretend it is money
And burn it for me,
on Ghost Day.
Down from a downloading binge
The Lady laughs at me.
I used to make music you know,
Over in America, I did.
Now I’m an English Dealer—
My wife and I—we go town to town–
Hawking vocabulary and concoctions.
Working in a travelling show.
No gurus no patriotic songs
No piano no plaintive strings
No-one can turn the tide
Far too many have died
The numbers roll in
Now, it’s a family affair
Allover, someone knows of someone…
I pause,
I’m suspicious of questions
I don’t need answers
And can offer only prayers.
Only prayers.
–Bangkok airport, Dec. 28, 2004
I’d like to paint murals
With hyacinths big as city buses
Pore over your every detail
Just to pass the day…
The red of your cheak,
The pulse at your neck.
How to depict the smile?
A proliferation of tulips–
“Chelsea Bridge” spoken,
Halftones and lightness—
A gathering of women
Around a well, while I lean
on a lazy rake.
Columbia Records
Asking MONK to record Beatles tunes—
Wow! Talk about Dixieland!
You know—
We take the oil out of the ground
And we think there’s a lot of it to go around.
Move past the arrogance of your position–
Step past the arrogance; into the embrace
Of your sound.
Today,
…It’s more important than ever
To stress
The spiritual aspects of our art.
