Goodreads
del.icio.us
On the Recent Free Speech Flap: Imus Confess My Reservations
by Norman Ball, May 2007
'Had he been an indefatigable commercial speech spokesman (and why apologize for capitalism?) Moonves should have said —"We are a bloodless, asocial entity known as a corporation. The profit motive has evaporated beneath our feet. Imus is gone." Hey man, I sell soap and this gig ain't workin' for us anymore! See ya!'
The E-Mail that Wouldn't Die
by Kane X. Faucher, May 2007
"Some foul-mouthed cretin-critic takes a few potshots and you find yourself bristling and knuckle dusting in the sandbox. Scenes like that are terrible and should be fervently avoided. They reduce us to the level of beasts, and no one ever really wins...these fights have no bells, no final hit count, no closure. They just go on in perpetuity like bad weather or taxes."
Nothing But Nihilism
by Norman Ball, April 2007
"The eschatological branches of Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all abuzz at the imminent fruition of their grim projects. Even the great secular stories are looking a bit long in the tooth. For example, no one expects to get bailed out by an advancing enlightenment or scientific progress anymore. Marxism went belly-up. Liberalism is wilting in the face of resurgent fascist tendencies."
Hungry for God
by Gregory Whitehead, April 2007
"Sculley is an American dealer in celebrity body parts who relocated his business to London in the late 1980s because, by his own account, "Brits don't ask so many questions, and in my business, you can't put a price tag on privacy." The last time I visited, he had just taken delivery on a highly speculative investment in the remains of an individual once touted as the next Che Guevara, a Peruvian guerillero named Gonzalas Rodrigos."
The Insanity of the Defense
by Sam Vaknin, April 2007
'A mother bashes the skulls of her three sons. Two of them die. She claims to have acted on instructions she had received from God. She is found not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury determined that she "did not know right from wrong during the killings."
'But why exactly was she judged insane?'
The Failure of Cuban Intellectuals
by Bryan Aja, April 2007
"On one side of the boundary, intellectuals debate whether the people really have a right to be reunited. In the dark, secretive side of the boundary, intellectuals mutter a little about a so-called new way and then become strangely quiet. Both sides are blind to what will really happen: There won't be a reunion; there will be a takeover."
gala-salvador dali foundation v. mark kostabi
by William Kamens, March 2007
"The Foundation argues that it, not the defendant, was entitled to summary judgment, principally on the ground that the defendant's use was both commercial and significantly contributed to confusion in the marketplace as to the authenticity of works by the artist Salvador Dali, and therefore should receive little protection under the fair use defense."
Downward Dog
by Timber Masterson, March 2007
"I arrive with black handlebar moustache and a Slovak accent, ready to divvy up the meats and see just what's behind all this. Before he sets off into the night to make the rounds at the other stands he owns, he tells me in broken English that he's grateful, and appreciates 'the good help of me'. I'm sure I can do this. I've got long underwear and an old transistor radio to keep me company."
The Cult of the Narcissist
by Sam Vaknin, March 2007
"The narcissist is the guru at the center of a cult. Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock: his spouse, his offspring, other family members, friends, and colleagues. He feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers. He punishes the wayward and the straying lambs. He enforces discipline, adherence to his teachings, and common goals. The less accomplished he is in reality - the more stringent his mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing."
Escape from America
by Joe Bageant, March 2007
"You get a retired California pot grower; old libertarian Alaskan "pipeliners"; IRS fugitives; German anarchist lesbian couples running jungle B&Bs; child support skippers; and senior citizens completely worn out from their tour of duty in the U.S. labor camp and no longer willing to fuck with the bureaucracy that was supposed to take care of them. In short, just about everybody America no longer wants these days."
Reflections on Democracy and Violence
by Iftekhar Sayeed, February 2007
"Japan has a conviction rate of 99.8% despite the fact that, in 1990, 31% of offenders were released after signing an apology. But these were for minor offences; for major offences, the Japanese police only strike when they're absolutely certain. Most convictions are obtained by means of – unconstitutional – confessions. On the other hand, non-offenders love the police!"
Introducing the Cross-Media Issue
by Dan Waber, January 2007
"Prepare yourself for a mind-expansion. Whatever you thought art was, whatever you thought literature was, whatever you thought poetry was, whatever shape you thought had been mapped by the explored intersections of the digital and the creative, this collection is about to affect a permanent change in your understanding. I personally guarantee it."
Publishing the Cross-Media Issue
by Jonathan Penton, January 2007
"The immediate catalyst for creating the issue was the increasing popularity of visual poetry among traditional poets. Visual poetry is hardly a new thing—one could easily argue that it predates our species. But it's current surge in popularity has been refreshing and enjoyable."
The Poet's View
by Mairéad Byrne, January 2007
A thorough study of the mind of the contemporary poet.
Offerings
curated by Holly Crawford, ongoing, released here January 2007
Offerings is a dynamic and ever-growing project curated by Holly Crawford that presents art at its most basic: a form of communication, a social exercise, "owned" by no one. It is constantly updated on Holly Crawford's web site and embedded here, and will continue to expand over time.
Missing
by Martha L. Deed, January 2007
"I've been working on the aftermath of a 1998 murder in western New York that has affected an unusually large number of people and tested the criminal justice system to its limits. Originally, I thought I would write a book, but as I worked my way through the materials made available to me, I realized that I had something quite special, quite powerful, and that 'the story' cried out for multimedia web presentation.
I STALKED MARTHA STEWART!
a novella by Vernon Frazer, January 2007
"Inside the covers of each of the books comprising our display of Martha Stewart's new bestseller, Own the World Through Good Taste, public relations coordinator Norexia Pruinn found a poem riddled with obscene, pornographic and other objectionable material that violates our Family Values policy written by the disturbed and disgruntled Avery Blank, a failed poet known for his outspoken rudeness."
Cross-Media
by Michael Harold, January 2007
"To write a poem, you usually start with a word, any word, and soon find that you have written a whole string of them. After placing your words in a string, left to right or right to left, depending on your cultural habits and artistic inclinations, you put the strings one on top of the other in rows, or side by side in columns. That is how we make a poem or any other page of words."
Bin Badder
by Pete Hindle, January 2007
"Bin Badder takes the form of one of those annoying you-must-click-through programs, and is a political statement regarding the resurgence of terrorist activities in the west. I make no excuses for using a stupid scripting language for a minority platform - here, the political message directly mirrors the method of distribution. Because such a outré political message is unlikely to be received without knee-jerk response, and only a minority would ever consider the proposed link seriously."
Memory Tables
by Gil McElroy, January 2007
"Two hundred years ago, two European powers intent on colonial expansion and hungry for the resources this continent offered clashed there, and as a consequence it has a history of heartbreak, great tragedy, and violence. In the mid-eighteenth century this place was home to French settlers who set about trying to agriculturally tame the wetlands."
I Don't Want to Go to Nashville
by Rupert Owen and Snuffbox Films, January 2007
Don't worry, son. We Texans aren't very fond of the place, neither.
War Stories
by Norman Ball, December 2006
"Given a sprawling gap of time, all manner of earnest truth-tellers are drawn to the microphone: retired generals with axes to grind, arm-chair media quarterbacks, inevitable second-guessers, officious micro-managers, conflicted soul-searchers, disgruntled former officials, grieving survivors, emboldened journalists and on-the-ground bloggers."
America Has Left the Building
by Phil Rockstroh, December 2006
"We must begin to grasp the unsettling knowledge that the things we, as a nation, inflict upon the world — we will eventually inflict upon ourselves. It is imperative that we start to ask ourselves this question: When so many external and internal forces work to thwart, degrade, and destroy our essential selves — hence the world — what can help to restore us?"
The Offspring of Aeolus: On the Incest Taboo
by Sam Vaknin, December 2006
"Worldly goods are passed on from one generation to the next through succession, inheritance and residence. Genetic material is handed down through the sexual act. It is the mandate of the family to increase both, either by accumulating property or by exogamy (marrying outside the family). Clearly, incest prevents both."
Philomel
by Jeff Crouch, December 2006
"The promise of the Enlightenment was the Rational, and the vehicle of the rational was to be Science, but science was only good as long as it was honest, and well, Honesty and Top Secret are on good terms only when there's Silence. Mostly, though, there's Noise."
Selling Satan: Iraqi War Dead and the Collateral Damage to America's Soul
by Phil Rockstroh, November 2006
"Dante posited Limbo (that quiet suburban community ringing Hell) was a place reserved for those who evinced indifference to the world around them. It would seem our corporate/consumer version of Damnation (which now includes Casual Fridays in Hell itself) requires prescriptions for anti-depressants, urine tests, and Reality Television competitions to enter its inner most circles."
Swans in Myth and Literature
by Tala Bar, November 2006
"It seems that, in the Hindu-European tradition, there are a number of Swan goddesses. Some of these goddesses were connected with death, and others with some qualities of the Underworld (where dead people go), like wisdom and prophecy. Robert Graves has defined the swan as a bird of Death, and the three Greek figures of Graeae, or Gray Ones, clearly demonstrate this idea..."
The Narcissist as Eternal Child
by Sam Vaknin, November 2006
"The narcissist is a partial adult. He seeks to avoid adulthood. Infantilisation - the discrepancy between one's advanced chronological age and one's retarded behaviour, cognition, and emotional development - is the narcissist's preferred art form. Some narcissists even use a childish tone of voice occasionally and adopt a toddler's body language."
Architectural Activism: A Response to the Poetics, Philosophy & Politics of Space
by Mary Jo Malo, November 2006
"Gaston Bachelard, in his The Poetics of Space, introduced the concept of the oneiric house, filled with special spaces for recalling pleasant images and memories, to connect them with language and creativity. In Of Other Spaces-Heterotopias, Michel Foucault expands upon Bachelard's unique phenomenology of inhabited geometry..."
The Fate of the State of Israel
by Sam Vaknin, October 2006
'The "Status Quo" promulgated by Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, confined institutionalized religion to matters of civil law and to communal issues. All affairs of state became the exclusive domain of the secular-leftist nomenclature and its attendant bureaucratic apparatus.'
Elections are a Scam
by Joe Licentia, October 2006
'According to the official version ordinary citizens control the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians are supposedly servants of "the people" and the government an instrument of the general populace. This version is a myth. It does not matter who is elected because the way the system is set up all elected representatives must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want, not what "the people" want.'
Mr. Rove's Opus of Deception: 9/11 and the Lonesome Ballad of Blind Willie McMansion
by Phil Rockstroh, October 2006
"At present, 46 percent of the American people hold the delusion that Saddam Hussein was involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. This statistic comes to light as ABC/Disney aired a drama based on 9/11 that contains the corresponding degree of historical accuracy regarding the circumstances that led up to the tragic events of that day as an average episode of The Flintstones in depicting daily life during the Stone Age."
A Sweet-Voiced Flower Is My Drum
by Leigh Herrick, September 2006
"...the more compelling the evidence becomes against an argument of strict un-consciousness in favor of one supportive of an historically directed consciousness reflective of traditions that have evolved within separate areas, states, countries, and over time, but whose origins seem clearly linked over thousands of years to those first traditions coming out of the areas we now call Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East."
The Transmigration of Place
by Jeff Crouch, September 2006
"This place, but the other side as this place is the back of the current 6th Floor Museum, stands as the greatest of all camera battles. Am I making this story up. The paparazzi's dream. The average citizen on the scene. Who got the photograph? What was in the picture? Where was Oswald—busted in a movie theater? Who wrote this script? Zapruder. Does a picture constitute evidence?"
The Semi-Failed State
by Sam Vaknin, September 2006
"The semi-failed state - while going through the motions - is dead on its feet. It is a political and societal zombie. It functions due mainly to inertia and lack of better or clear alternatives. Its population is disgruntled, hostile, and suspicious. Other countries regard it with derision, fear, and abhorrence. It is rotting from the inside and doomed to implode."
Katrina as I Saw It and Live It
by Tara Guillot, September 2006
"I watched, sobbing, as fires flared in the midst of the flood waters from broken gas lines. I watched parents separated from children being hoisted above blade-driven flood waters. I watched people beg for water and shade. I watched people die. And I felt guilty that I wasn't among them."
Thought Sparks
a photo/text essay by Jeff Crouch, July 2006
"Zeno of Elea, famous for his paradoxes, assumed that at any instant, an instant being of zero duration, all motion stopped. Hence, Zeno showed the fast cannot overtake the slow, and yet the fast overtake the slow."
Noise, an Ode
by Benjamin Buchholz, July 2006
" As if I had flicked a switch, as if in mentioning your name beyond the blue screen some witching hour welled up into the realm of the physical, real, capital, combustible now. Those generators, ever-present licorice of my dreams, drowned long ago since the always, always around me, those generators die."
The Great American Toilet Seat Flap
by Dick Bakken, July 2006
"The Fourth of July—as we stand up to salute or sit down to ponder the flag that symbolizes our country—is an apropos time to discuss ongoing national controversy. And we Americans do hold some views too gut-level-passionately to be polite about them."
Denying the Irrational: Affirming the Subordinate
by Iftekhar Sayeed, July 2006
'To be economically and militarily weak was to be uncivilised, irrational. "We used to be a nation of artists," a Japanese diplomat once remarked, "but now...we have learned to kill, you say that we are civilised." When, on 30th January 1902, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed, Japan, it was said, had joined Europe: Japan was now free to attack Russia, as she had attacked China in 1895.'
