Knock Twice Scrapbook

For the past 2 years Paul Octavious visited a beautiful mound of...

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:07:04 -0500

For the past 2 years Paul Octavious visited a beautiful mound of earth that he came to call “the hill.” Here are some pictures he took of that hill.

Letter from the editor

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:00:00 -0500

You said Emmet loved pigs, gave thanks for pigs at Thanksgiving Day dinner, longed to have a pig. The zoning laws made that impossible in St. Louis. So his parents arranged to have him own a pig which lived in Tennessee. He has pictures of his pig. He receives letters from the farmer about his pig. He puts aside part of his allowance to provide mash for the pig. And he is saving money and making plans to go to Tennessee on his vacation and see his pig. This could make, perfectly done, a delightful story and you could end it with the arrival in Tennessee and the lovely meeting of Emmet and his pig. Or with his trip back to St. Louis, dreadfully sorry to leave his pig but deeply happy and relatively secure in the knowledge that at some future time we will be able to come to visit his pig again. Of course it sounds like nothing written down flatly like that. But a good writer could write it up real good, I always think….. Have just reread my letter. Who deal this mess? On second thought, I think the ending should be after the visit to Tennessee, for children would want to know what Emmet and the pig did, how the vacation was, what happened on the farm, etc., and it would give you a chance to do the city-type-life (St. Louis) and country life (Tennessee farm). I think it could be about four or five thousand words. Now you shouldn’t spend too much time on it, so if any of this seems like too much trouble just tell me and I’ll not mention it any more to you. But it would be darling, if you were interested.

— An excerpt from a letter written by Ursula Nordstrom to Mary Stolz. February 13, 1957.

Published in the book, Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, 1998.

The book mentioned is called Emmet’s Pig, 1959.

Human Beauty

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:27:27 -0500

If you write a poem about love …
the love is a bird,

the poem is an origami bird.
If you write a poem about death …

the death is a terrible fire,
the poem is an offering of paper cutout flames

you feed to the fire.
We can see, in these, the space between

our gestures and the power they address
—an insufficiency. And yet a kind of beauty,

a distinctly human beauty. When a winter storm
from out of nowhere hit New York one night

in 1892, the crew at a theater was caught
unloading props: a box

of paper snow for the Christmas scene got dropped
and broken open, and that flash of white

confetti was lost
inside what it was a praise of.

—Albert Goldbarth, from Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 2007.

Prologue

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:00:00 -0500

I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.

And I lost about a year of my life and much of the comfort and security I had not valued until it was gone. When the police released Kevin, he came to the hospital and stayed with me so that I would know I hadn’t lost him too.

But before he could come to me, I had to convince the police that he did not belong in jail. That too time. The police were shadows who appeared intermittently at my bedside to ask me questions I had to struggle to understand.

“How did you hurt your arm?” They asked. “Who hurt you?” My attention was captured by the word they used: Hurt. As though I’d scratched my arm. Didn’t they think I knew it was gone?

“Accident,” I head myself whisper. “It was an accident.”

They began asking me about Kevin. Their words seemed to blur together at first, and I paid little attention. After a while, though, I replayed them and suddenly realized that these men were trying to blame Kevin for “hurting” my arm.

“No.” I shook my head weakly against the pillow. “Not Kevin. Is he here? Can I see him?”

“Who then?” they persisted.

I tried to think through the drugs, through the distant pain, but there was no honest explanation I could give them—none they would believe.

“An accident,” I repeated. “My fault, not Kevin’s. Please let me see him.”

I said this over and over until the vague police shapes let me alone, until I awoke to find Kevin sitting, dozing beside my bed. I wondered briefly how long he had been there, but it didn’t matter. The important thing was that he was there. I slept again, relieved.

Finally, I awoke feeling able to talk to him coherently and understand what he said. I was almost comfortable except for the strange throbbing of my arm. Of where my arm had been. I moved my head, tried t olook at the empty place… the stump.

Then Kevin was standing over me, his hands on my face turning my head toward him.

He didn’t say anything. After a moment, he sat down again, took my hand, and held it.

I felt as though I could have lifted my other hand and touched him. I felt as though I had another hand. I tried to look, and this time he let me. Somehow, I had to see to be able to accept what I knew was so.

After a moment, I lay back against the pillow and closed my eyes. “Above the elbow,” I said.

“They had to.”

“I know. I’m just trying to get used to it.” I opened my eyes and looked at him. Then I remembered my earlier visitors. “Have I gotten you into trouble?”

“Me?”

“The police were here. They thought you had done this to me.”

“Oh, that. They were sheriff’s deputies. The neighbors called them when you started to scream. They questioned me, detained me for a while—that’s what they call it!—but you convinced them that they might as well let me go.”

“Good. I told them it was an accident. My fault.”

“There’s no way a thing like that could be your fault.”

“That’s debatable. But it certainly wasn’t your fault. Are you still in trouble?”

“I don’t think so. They’re sure I did it, but there were no witnesses, and you won’t co-operate. Also, I don’t think they can figure out how I could have hurt you… in the way you were hurt.”

I closed my eyes again remembering the way I had been hurt—remembering the pain.

“Are you alright?” Kevin asked.

“Yes. Tell me what you told the police.”

“The truth.” He toyed with my hand for a moment silently. I looked at him, found him watching me.

“If you told those deputies the truth,” I said softly, “you’d still be locked up—in a mental hospital.”

He smiled. “I told as much of the truth as I could. I said I was in the bedroom when I heard you scream. I ran into the living room to see what was wrong, and I found you strugling to free your arm from what seemed to be a hole in the wall. I went to help you. That was when I realized your arm wasn’t just stuck, but that, somehow, it had been crushed right into the wall.”

“Not exactly crushed.”

“I know. But that seemed to be a good word to use on them-to show my ignorance. it wasn’t all that inaccurate either. They they wanted me to tell them how such a thing could happen. I said I didn’t know… kept telling them I didn’t know. And heaven help me, Dana, I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” I whispered. “Neither do I.”

Photo by William Christenberry.
Excerpt: Octavia Butler. Kindred. 1979.

The cities were established where the patterns of stones had...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:01:00 -0500

The cities were established where the patterns of stones had been set up according to the necessities of the plan, along the lines of force in the earth of that time. These patters, lines, circles, arrangements were no different from those familiar to us on other planets, and were the basis and foundation of the transmitting system of the Lock between Canopus and Rohanda…

What the Natives were being taught was the science of maintaining contact at all times with Canopus; of keeping contact with their Mother, their Maintainer, their Friend, and what they called God, the Divine. If they kept the stones aligned and moving as the forces moved and waxed and waned, and if the cities were kept up according to the laws of Necessity, then they might expect—these little inhabitants of Rohanda who had been no more than scurrying monkeys half in half out of the trees, animals with little in them of the Canopean nature—these animals could expect to become men, would take charge of themselves and their world when the Giants left them, the work of the symbiosis complete.

Photo: ‘The Timelessness of Angkor Wat’ by Stuck in Customs
Photo: ‘Ta Prohm’ by lecercle
Photo: ‘Approach from the West Gate’ by uwdigitalcollections
Photo: ‘Buddha Stroll’ by Stuck in Customs
Excerpt: Doris Lessing. Canopus in Argos: Archives, RE: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta, Personal, Psychological, Historical Documents Relating to Visit By Johor (George Sherban), Emissary (Grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last Days. 1981.
Song: ‘What Need Have I For This-What Need Have I For That-I Am Dancing At The Feet Of My Lord-All Is Bliss-All Is Bliss’ by Shakti* from Shakti, 1975.

For Alyssa — who will be traveling in Cambodia the next few weeks and visiting Angkor Wat — who thoughtfully invited my to be one of the guest bloggers at her place while she is away.
Shikasta is one of the most devastating and beautiful books that I have ever read. Lessing’s rich narrative provides both an alternative creation myth and a possible solution that address the constant state of deterioration that underlies everything we do. The earlier parts of the book deal with pre-civilization — the people, their habitats. For me, Angkor Wat is probably the closest manifestation of these relics on the planet today.
Indian music filtered through an English guitarist are the final disparate elements for this post. Lets just say that the foreignness of this hefty tune is other-worldy enough that it may be a direct communication with something else on another cosmic plane.

*John McLaughlin, guitar | L. Shankar, violin |R. Raghavan - mridangam | T. H. Vinayakaram, ghatam and mridangam | Zakir Hussain - tabla

The pianist’s addition of long, full modal chords in a...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:10:54 -0500

The pianist’s addition of long, full modal chords in a broad interpretation of the meter and the drummer’s wash of cross-currents tapped out on cymbal complete the airy atmosphere against which Shorter’s tune is projected. This is an original melody in three segments in a-a’-b or a-a’-a” form, contrasting a flat line with a descending one, whose first two segments end on the upbeat. The tune is in twelve measures, divided into three groups of four, the first group staying on the tonic, the second moving from iv to i, and the third from V to IV to i. If many of these features sound like those of the twelve-bar blues, its no accident. The piece is cast very much as the blues, and similarities to as well as differences from conventional format are among its most intriguing aspects.

Photo(s): Nasa.gov — Mars Rovers
Song: ‘Footprints’ by Wayne Shorter on ‘Miles Smiles,’* 1966.
Song: ‘Footprints’ by Wayne Shorter on ‘Adam’s Apple,’** 1966.
Excerpt: Jeremy Yudkin. Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, and the Invention of Post Bop. 2008.

The two versions of ‘Footprints’ presented here were released eight months apart. The earlier recording, the second, is taught and deliberate. The later, presented first, was performed by a band lead by Miles Davis. It saunters through the parts and at times the performances — especially from Davis and Shorter — are flippant and loose with the melody.

While I enjoy both of these takes on the same tune, I find the performance on Miles Smiles elevates to a higher level of artisan ship. Its sexier and conflicted, lacking the self-assurance keeps the earlier performance so tight.

For the those that are new to jazz, pay special attention to the piano parts in each. The solos from Hancock reflect the tones I’ve described above, but also highlight the vastness of worlds that can be created via improvisation.

Why the photos of Mars? The red planet has been on my mind a lot recently as I’m reading KSR’s The Martians and thinking about how casting a story on a virgin planet allows for vast possibility for reshaping how humans live and interact.

Photo: MissusK, 2009.Photo: ilmungo, 2005.Photo:...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:44:49 -0500

Photo: MissusK, 2009.
Photo: ilmungo, 2005.
Photo: jmtimages, 2007
Song: ‘Eat that Chicken,’ by Charles Mingus from his 1962 album, Oh Yeah*.

One of my favorite reoccurring segments as a jazz DJ was Lunch with Mingus, thirty or forty minutes of Charles Mingus starting at noon. As my show was on Thursday, a few years in a row I had the great pleasure of hosting on Thanksgiving. On account of the holiday, I kicked off my Mingus segment with ‘Eat that chicken’, a crowd pleaser.

Silence for a while. “So that’s what what’s...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:31:42 -0500

Silence for a while. “So that’s what what’s got you down,’ Eileen says.

“What?”

“The Red Mars party—out of favor.”

“Out of existence, you mean.”

She considers it. “I never could understand the Red point of view—”

“Few could, apparently.”

“—until I read something in Heidegger, where he makes a distinction between earth and world. Do you you know it?”

“No.”

“Earth is that blank materiality of nature that exists before us and more or less sets the parameters on what we can do. Sartre called it facticity. World then is the human realm, the social and historical dimension that gives earth its meaning.”

Roger nods his understanding.

“So—the Reds, as I understood it, were defending earth. Or planet, in this case. Trying to protect the primacy of planet over world—or at least to hold a balance between them.”

“Yes,” Roger says. “But the world inundated the planet.”

“True. But when you look at it that way, you can see what you were trying to do was hopeless. A political party is inevitably part of the world, and everything it does will be worldly. And we only know the materiality of nature through our human sense—so really it is only world that we know directly.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Roger protests. “I mean, it’s logical, and usually I’m sure it’s true—but sometimes—” He smacks the rock of their shelf with his mittened hand. “You know?”

Eileen touches the mitten. “World.”

Roger lifts his lip, irritated. He pulls the mitten off and hits the cold rock again. “Planet.”

Eileen frowns thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

‘Earth’ by Mark Weaver, 2009.

Excerpt from Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Green Mars’, a short story in his book The Martians, 1999.

On the same day that I read the passage above I received a framed copy of the ‘Earth’ print. Here it is at home.

I chose this pairing because I like how Roger and Eileen’s discussion about the mediated nature of all human experience ties Weaver’s print to thematic arc of representation in art. Specifically, read through the context of their discussion, Mark’s decision to label his representation of an astronaut ‘Earth’, for me evokes Magritte’s, ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe,’ in which he labeled the painting of a pipe with the words, ‘this is not a pipe.’ As Magritte reminds us that representations are separate from what they represent, Weaver is points out that we are incapable of experiencing anything directly and that like an astronaut in space everything we encounter is filtered through myriad human creations, the most basic of which is language.

No matter how hard I try there are some things that I...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:46:01 -0500

No matter how hard I try there are some things that I struggle to explain. Like why the things that I find to be prettiest are also so often be sad.

Photo: by Fergal OP on Flickr.
Song: ‘Long way to go with no punch,’ by Dirty Three. She Has No Strings Apollo, 2002.

By Heidi, Our Labor of Love

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:58:27 -0400

By Heidi, Our Labor of Love

Some creative forces are are just too significant to overlook....

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:00:00 -0400

Some creative forces are are just too significant to overlook. Keith Jarrett — a classical and jazz pianist — is one of them; his body of work is deep and his hunger to improve unceasing. Like a stellar mass, his influence tugs many, even those that don’t know it.

Ethan Iverson (Bad Plus) interviews Keith Jarrett.

David Shenk (the Atlantic) visits with Keith Jarrett.

Photo by House of Sims on Flickr. Song, ‘Too Much...

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:18:17 -0400

Photo by House of Sims on Flickr.

Song, ‘Too Much Time,’ written and performed by Captian Beefheart & His Magic Band from the 1972 record, Clear Spot.

By Mind AloneLarry Niven, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, June, 1966. part 7 So...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:19:48 -0400

By Mind Alone
Larry Niven, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, June, 1966.

part 7

So we edged the car out from among the other cars and took off down the twisting concrete road that leads a mile down to the base of the mountains. We all had our cars, because none of us but Pat would have known where to teleport to. It was a silent drive until we got the cigarettes. They seemed to loosen us up, to get us talking.

“Yeah, a strange party,’ I agreed. “Carol, do you think Pat’s teleporting made her sick?”

“Of course. But I don’t know why it should.”

“Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it’s just our native egotism, our—hubris—that makes us think the whole world revolves around our new power.”

“Ubris?”

“Hubris. The pride that challenges the gods.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t have cared less. “Why would Pat have to go all the way to the beach for cigarettes?”

I knew what she meant. “Pat’s just honest.”

“Suppose she’d teleported inside a shop, made a list of what she took, then paid off the bill Monday. What’s wrong with that?”

“It could give her a reputation.”

“A reputation for honesty.”

“Couldn’t it make a storekeeper nervous, knowing there were people around who could get into his shop any time they wanted?”

“Mmmm.”

We drove with the windows open. It was hot down here on the flatlands. The sun was setting in red glory behind endless groves of citrus trees. Above the low music from the radio, Carol said thoughtfully, “Art, why not steal?”

“I thought one of us would get there eventually.”

“I mean it. The penalty for theft is imprisonment, right? How do you imprison a teleport?”

“You don’t. You can’t.”

“Well?”

“How about a public opinion? And where would you like to have dinner?”

“The Four-In-Hand, I guess.”

“Would you proclaim it far and wide that you’re an untouchable thief and don’t give a damn who knows it? How many friends would you have left?”

“Oh.”

“But that wouldn’t work on everybody. Fact is, the law doesn’t take teleportation into account. When it does, they’ll change the penalty to ‘shoot on sight’.”

Carol giggled. “I guess so. You’ve nipped a brilliant crime career in the bud.”

“You mean I’ve made an honest woman of you.”

“Have it your way.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“What happened to her, Art?”

The fear in her voice made me look over. Carol was scared, deep down scared, and all the bantering and philosophical discussions wouldn’t hide it. I said, “there must be laws we don’t know about yet. Pat ran into one.”

“How? What did she do we didn’t?”

In this Sunday series of posts I will be “re-publishing” pulp science fiction short stories that have long since gone out of print. When possible I will seek out author’s and estates for permission.

Photo, ‘Found Abstract,’ by Olivander on...

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:29:39 -0400

Photo, ‘Found Abstract,’ by Olivander on Flickr.

Song, ‘General Mojo’s Well Laid Plan,’ written by Steve Swallow and performed by the Gary Burton Quartet at the club Souvenirs in Hamburg, Germany, 1968.

Gary Burton, vibraphone | Jerry Hahn, guitar | Steve Swallow, bass | Roy Haynes, drums

etherealcereal: Driving Music: by Carl Robinson

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:00:00 -0400

etherealcereal:

Driving Music:

by Carl Robinson

alexdrum: “Circle Square” - 2008 Here’s another song I did...

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:00:00 -0400

alexdrum:

“Circle Square” - 2008

Here’s another song I did last summer. I haven’t played it for many people because I get embarrassed about my singing, but I just listened to it and like how the music sounds. The flugelhorn/violin orchestra that comes in halfway is 5 tracks of Carl playing saxophone through a bunch of reverb.

—Harris Perley Gould & W.F. Fletcher. Canning Peaches...

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 06:00:00 -0400

—Harris Perley Gould & W.F. Fletcher. Canning Peaches On the Farm. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agricullture, 1910.

Read online at the Internet Archive.

Photo by Chica Maravilla on Flickr. Song ‘Peach...

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:00:00 -0400

Photo by Chica Maravilla on Flickr.

Song ‘Peach Tree,’ performed by Bill Evans. Published in 1997 on the box set The Complete Bill Evans on Verve*.

*No performer information available.
**Check out comments for bonus track.

Peaches

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:00:00 -0400

A mouthful of language to swallow:
stretches of beach, sweet clinches,
breaches in walls, bleached branches;
britches hauled over haunches;
hunches leeches, wrenched teachers.

What English can do: ransack
the warmth that chuckles beneath
fuzzed surfaces, smooth velvet
richness, splashy juices.
I beseech you, peach,
clench me into the sweetness
of your reaches.

— Peter Davison.

Sequence of images showing a peach decaying over a period of six...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:00:00 -0400

Sequence of images showing a peach decaying over a period of six days. Each frame is approximately 12 hours apart, but a couple of frames were not recorded. The peach appears to wrinkle and shrivel as it dries out, whilst the surface is also gradually covered by mold.

By Andrew Dunn, Wikipedia