Eye and Ear Control

she said she likes rexroth

robbie — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:40:00 +0000

k.r. poem:

FACT

In the encyclopedia
Are facts on which you can't improve.
As: "The clitoris is present
In all mammals. Sometimes, as in
The female hyena, it is
Very large."

the complete mathematical works of

robbie — Sat, 27 May 2006 06:27:00 +0000

As supply and demand converge toward a zero point, their angle of intersection nears 1 over infinity. Such a ratio defines the relation of this balog to its imaginary readers. They've all forgotten about its existence, because its author has given no reason for them to expect otherwise. It has expired. Or so we thought. But then out of the woodwork trees sprout again.

Thought for the evening comes at random from the Brian Eno/Peter Schmidt set of Oblique Strategies: "Define an area as 'safe' and use it as an anchor"

Reminds me of those games you played in summer camp as a kid. I don't really remember how it works, but it involves lots of kids all swarming around outside. Some kids are trying to "get" the other ones. And there's an area that's "safe" -- the anchor. And then lots of expeditions outward from the safety. Or something like that.

Thoreau journal thought for the day

robbie — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 16:39:00 +0000

[1853] April 8. 6 A.M. – To Abel Hosmer's ring-post.
The ground sprinkled, salted, with little snowlike pellets on tenth of an inch in diameter, from half an inch to one inch apart, sometimes cohering starwise together. As if it had spit so much snow only. I think it one form of frost merely, or frozen dew. Noticed the like a week or two ago. It was gone in half an hour, when I came back. What is the peculiar state of atmosphere that determines these things? The spearer's light last night shone into my chamber on the wall and awakened me.
Saw and heard my small pine warbler shaking out his trills, or jingle, even like money coming to its bearings. They appear much the smaller from perching high in the tops of white pines and flitting from tree to tree at that height.
Is not my night-warbler the white-eyed vireo? - not yet here. Heard the field sparrow again.
The male Populus grandidentata appears to open very gradually, beginning sooner than I supposed. It shows some of its red anthers long before it opens. There is a female on the left, on Warren's Path at Deep Cut.
Is not the pollen of the P. tremuliformis like rye meal? Are not female flowers of more sober and modest colors, as the willows for instance? The hylas have fairly begun now.

pootoogook

robbie — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:21:00 +0000

this inuit artist is amazing. his name is K. Pootoogook. here is Gathering Kelp. I'd like to be doing that right now.

what times were those

robbie — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:51:00 +0000

well, at least it's sunny and warm in New York too... today.

it's untitled, right

robbie — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 17:02:00 +0000

Drab Habitation of Whom?
Tabernacle or Tomb -
Or Dome of Worm -
Or Porch of Gnome -
Or Some Elf's Catacomb?

what's wrong with this picture?

robbie — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 19:52:00 +0000

I thought bands usually sued their managers for damages, not the other way around.

INXS

fi and fear

robbie — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 16:38:00 +0000

people get ready.... for the new imprint label Fi and Fear. it will be releasing records from the likes of The Dreaming Habit, Ricardo Sun, The Nadjas, and the Uruguayan nouveau disco legend TLEE. when will this all happen? very soon, my friends, very soon.

www.fiandfear.com

what a difference a day makes

robbie — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 02:47:00 +0000

Stanley Cortez is happy that I'm feeling better, aren't you Stanley?

hanging over

robbie — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 01:42:00 +0000

OK, so yesterday I predicted sugar disaster. Sure enough it has struck. About 2pm today I became unbearably tired, and then for the rest of the day, even driving to Red Hook for Mike and Daphne's going away party, I've felt completely and utterly hung over. Not so much headaches as with alcohol, but dizziness and general awefulness. And headaches too. Haven't passed out yet, but I feel like it.

So how better to combat the sugar hangover? A thousand indecisions.... how bout some green juice, which is very very green, and some, er, alcohol. Not to drink now, to drink later. So from LeNell's best lil bourbon shop in Red Hook I came away with five (5) bottles. OK, let's see here. We've got the Rock Hill bourbon, farthest on the left, with its (supposedly) robust and spicy flavors. Then a bottle of Sweet Georgia Belle's Peach Mango Rum Liqueur ("As you taste your first sup of Sweet Georgia Belle, you'll have visions of magnolia blossoms and honeysuckle vines with the aroma of sweet mimosas filling the air." -- very nearly a Kosugi gummy advertisement) How could I resist? That one's for Amanda, if she ever returns (her fate is still unlearned). Moving right along we've got a petite bottle of green Chartreuse, which is stronger and bolder than its yellow counterpart. An even tinier Ouzo for Zach, who wants Ouzo, but just a little bit (add water for clouds). And lastly, the Fee Brothers Peach Bitters. There was an article in the store about the resurgence of bitters to our cocktail culture. Google it, cause I can't recount the whole story. But cmon, how good does a martini with peach bitters sound? Once I'm not so sick I'll try it.

ps - on the back of the Sweet Georgia Belle, it says, with no punctuation:

This Fine Rum Liqueur was created for your enjoyment
Please enjoy it responsibly

flushing meadows

robbie — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 04:51:00 +0000

It was so cold tonight I felt like it was some diversion by an evil force.

Went with Mary and Hank tonight to Spicy and Tasty, in the Flushing Chinatown (39-07 Prince St), having heard that it's the best place for real deal Sichuan food. It's pretty amazing. No white people there, which is unusual even for the hole in the wall places I usually go to in Queens. Started off with a smoked bean curd and celery appetizer, which was in a bright green sauce that tasted like it had peanut oil in it. And dan dan noodles, which are soft white noodles with minced pork on top. The sauce in the bottom of the bowl, which you have to mix around with the noodles, has a really indescribable flavor, mixed with the spicy lip-numbing sensation of the sichuan peppercorns, which is equally indescribable. Some pea shoots sauteed with garlic were very good, and a beef with spinach and sha-cha (?) sauce was only OK, but the diced spicy chicken with pickled turnip was completely smokin. Another flavor I've never had before. Very spicy and very tasty.

I should mention that before our food came, a smell wafted through the restaurant. I think it was the "Stinky Bean Curd", but who knows. All I can say is that it was a intense as durian, but smelled more like something that would come out of a body, especially a not so healthy body. Enough said. Mary nearly had to leave, but it's a good thing we stayed, because what we did eat was completely incredible.

We then went to Eddie's Sweet Shop (105-29 Metropolitan Ave, Queens) for some ice cream, to combat the spice of the Chinese. This place is like straight out of 1954, though I hear it actually opened in 1909. Vanilla fudge with butterscotch and what must be home-made whipped cream has nearly put me into sugar shock, something I can only handle about once a year. I nearly finished it too. The place also featured strange little displays in the window: mostly lots of Ty stuffed animals, but a few weirdly minimalist porcelain deer also held up the fort in the miniature department. Go there!

Mysteries of Life

robbie — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 17:07:00 +0000

9/22/28

About once a year the human soul gets into the papers, when the British scientists convene. Once a year the mystery of life, the riddle of death, are either cleared up or left hanging. The reports of the learned men enthrall us, and there have been moments when we've felt that we were really approaching an understanding of life's secret. We experienced one of those moments the other morning, reading a long article on the chemistry of the cell. Unfortunately, when we finished we happened to glance into our goldfish tank and saw there a new inhabitant. Frisky, our pet snail, had given birth to a tiny son while our back was turned. The baby mollusk was even then hunching along the glassy depths, wiggling his feelers, shaking his whelky head. Nothing about Frisky's appearance or conduct had given us the slightest intimation of the blessed event; and gazing at the little newcomer, we grew very humble, and threw the morning paper away. Life was as mysterious as ever.

-E.B White

i am happy today

robbie — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:29:00 +0000

someone once said that the two most beautiful words in the english language were "parlor guitar". what do you think about that?

the runcible spoon

robbie — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 02:32:00 +0000

There was an old man of Dunluce,
Who went out to sea on a goose:
When he'd gone out a mile, he observ'd with a smile,
'It is time to return to Dunluce.'

Live from Victoriaville, it's Saturday Night!

robbie — Sun, 22 May 2005 01:05:00 +0000

and Anthony Braxton sat in the entire set with Wolf Eyes. Wolf Eyes said, "We have time for one more. Do you want to hear Leper War or Black Vomit?" The crowd said "Let Braxton decide!" and Braxton said, very calmly but assuredly, "Black Vomit".

Lettuce Song

robbie — Thu, 12 May 2005 14:21:00 +0000

Robbie and Ryan perform Friday the 13th at Eat Records in Greenpoint. 7:30pm. www.eatrecords.com

they are:::::

LETTUCE SONG

The Telegraph Harp

robbie — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 04:43:00 +0000

"No music from the telegraph harp on the causeway, where the wind is strong, but in the Cut this cold day I hear memorable strains. What must the birds and beasts think where it passes through woods, who heard only the squeaking of the trees before! I should think that these strains would get into their music at last. Will not the mockingbird be heard one day inserting this strain in his medley? It intoxicates me. Orpheus is still alive. All poetry and mythology revive. The spirits of all bards sweep the strings. I hear the clearest silver, lyre-like tones, Tyrtæan tones. I think of Menander and the rest. It is the most glorious music I ever heard. All those bards revive and flourish again in that five minutes in the Deep Cut. The breeze came through an oak still wearing its dry leaves. The very fine clear tones seemed to come from the very core and pith of the telegraph-pole. I know not but it is my own chords that tremble so divinely. There are barytones and high sharp tones, etc. Some come sweeping seemingly from further along the wire. The latent music of the earth had found here a vent. Music Æolian. There were two strings, in fact, one each side. I do not know but this will make me read the Greek poets. Thus, as ever, the finest uses of things are the accidental. Mr. Morse did not invent this music."

-Henry David Thoreau, Journal, January 23rd, 1852
(pg 219 in Vol. III of Houghton Mifflin's 1949 edition)

How much is my mind blown? Turns out that Thoreau, aside from having the distinction of being the nearly-forgotten inventor of the lead pencil, is also the first to "discover" electronic music, ambient, and field recording of "non-musical" source. Who said that John Cage and Pauline Oliveros invented the musical principles of chance and deep listening? The theorists should have a field day with this one, but here's hoping they don't, and we can just let Thoreau's observations make us smile.

Froggy Mountain

robbie — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 05:32:00 +0000

yonder stands blue mountain
oh yonder stands blue mou-oun-tain
yonder stands my home
yonder stands my home

in the rules of verse there are no rules

robbie — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 04:21:00 +0000

saw the group Imaginary Folk at the CB's lounge downstairs, tonight. They play improvised music like the string quartet from hell (with piccolo trumpet and banjo no less), but there's a twist. Improvisations are also to be had on boomboxes that they use to playback prerecorded music -- CDs and home-made tapes featuring anything from Morton Feldman and Scelsi to "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" and Leadbelly. The samples have the effect like John Oswald on xanax. Something to see, I'll say.

On Friday N and I went to this Japanese technology and gadget store in the east village. Compact Impact is just rad, period.

it's a rainy day sunshine girl

robbie — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:27:00 +0000

Islands

They discovered the

world searching for what might make

eating interesting

- Cid Corman (1924-2004)