The Dark Materials debate: life, God, the universe...... author Philip Pullman in discussion with Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury...

Pullman: "The word that covers some of these early creation narratives is gnostic - the Gnostic heresy, as it became once Christianity was sort of defined. The idea that the world we live in, the physical universe is actually a false thing, made by a false God, and the true God, our true home, our true spiritual home is infinitely distant, far off, a long, long way away from that. This sense is something we find a lot of in popular culture, don't you think? The X-Files, you know - 'the truth is out there'. The Matrix.

Everything we see is the false creation of some wicked power that, as you say, is trying to pull the wool over our eyes, and there are many others. Can I just ask you a question for a minute? What do you put this down to? The great salience of gnostic feelings, gnostic sentiments and ways of thinking in our present world? What's the source of that, do you think?"

from Akhmatova's "I Wrung My Hands..."

I'll never forget. He went out, reeling;
his mouth was twisted, desolate...
I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,
and followed him as far as the gate.

And shouted, choking: "I meant it all
in fun. Don't leave me, or I'll die of pain."
He smiled at me -- oh so calmly, terribly --
and said "Why don't you get out of the rain?"

one of my students finds this evocative of Gone With the Wind... wonders if anna had just seen scarlet and rhett... of course, it's just another scrap from a lover's discourse... "making scenes"... now...

i wonder how many other relevantly irrelevant relevancies are lurking out there...

the Ingredient... offers some kristeva...

"Poetry has always been able to utter the will of free will, coming back to the memory of words and extracting its sense and time. In periods that we vaguely sense to be in decline or at least in suspension, questioning remains the only possible thought: an indication of life that is simply alive."

... thanks!

good interview with... Jimmy Carter on far-right Christian errors (via the coffee sutras)

First of all, we worship the prince of peace, not war. And those of us who have advocated for the resolution of international conflict in a peaceful fashion are looked upon as being unpatriotic, branded that way by right-wing religious groups, the Bush administration, and other Republicans.


Secondly, Christ was committed to compassion for the most destitute, poor, needy, and forgotten people in our society. Today there is a stark difference [between conservative ideology and Christian teaching] because most of the people most strongly committed to the Republican philosophy have adopted the proposition that help for the rich is the best way to help even poor people (by letting some of the financial benefits drip down to those most deeply in need). I would say there has been a schism drawn ­ on theology and practical politics and economics between the two groups.

To me the word "Tilth" is a one-word haiku.

another journal entry... tulips...

why does sonic youth/daydream nation... a thing of 1988... sound so perfect today... when i find us in the state the news the billboards the war... play it louder... it helps... a most excellent soundtrack for our current mad movie... broken daze

Sir Albert Howard's AGRICULTURAL TESTAMENT: Introduction

The maintenance of the fertility of the soil is the first condition of any permanent system of agriculture. In the ordinary processes of crop production fertility is steadily lost: its continuous restoration by means of manuring and soil management is therefore imperative.

from L a u g h i n g ~ K n e e s

It seems the news of the treatment of the hostages has gone worldwide. And without understanding how Japanese society works their treatment must seem bizarre and cruel. I'm not sure it is out of cruelty that the Japanese are reacting this way... in great part it is a reaction to having been exposed so starkly in the international media (Japanese are a people who in general shun the limelight) and to the sense of anger that people anywhere often feel after having been greatly frightened. If the hostages had actually been killed, I don't know what would have happened in Japan. Something unspoken would have snapped.

Time-Travel Guide Book to the 1890s (via fait accompli)

new journal entry... up... mostly pictures

Lowell's Collected Poems... reviewed

By the time of his death at 60, Robert Lowell had fashioned a poetic career that was disconcertingly intertwined with his life.

Glossaries & Dictionaries on all subjects from Glossarist.com. (via language hat)

Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales (via language hat)

listening to duke ellington... on his birthday... the blanton-webster band... 1940-42... then low... the curtain hits the cast...

To Alice B. Toklas

Do you really think I would yes I would and
I do love all you with all me.
Do you really think I could, yes I could
yes I would love all you with all me.
Do you really think I should yes I should
love all you with all me yes I should
yes I could yes I would.
Do you really think I do love all you
with all me yes I do love all you with all
me And bless my baby.

Gertrude Stein

Dabora | A Victorian Salon Art Gallery... and ever stranger...

Timothy Cummings Spot Portraits... mysterious... creepy... or is that just me...

Blogged: 'The War President' (via plep)

'The War President' photo-mosaic is composed of the faces of American service men and women who have died in Iraq.

they burned the back field where we walk... you can see where it once was a farm...they didn't burn it completely but in splotches... must a have scared the fauna too

Great Purge

The trials, however, were only a minor part of the purges, and one of their purposes was to divert the world's attention from what was going on in the rest of the country. Nearly a million people were executed by firing squad in the period from 1936 to 1939, and millions more were arrested and sent off to prison or labour camps, where many of them died.
Estimates on the total death toll vary greatly; some historians have argued that the death toll of the Purges reached as high as 20 million.

Stalin's purges

The secret police also terrorized the general populace, with untold numbers of common people punished after spurious accusations. By the time the purges subsided in 1938, millions of Soviet leaders, officials, and other citizens had been executed, imprisoned, or exiled.

Great Purges

In September, 1936, Stalin appointed Nikolai Yezhov as head of the NKVD, the Communist Secret Police. Yezhov quickly arranged the arrest of all the leading political figures in the Soviet Union who were critical of Stalin.

from "Death's Door" by Thom Gunn

Of course the dead outnumber us
-- How their recruiting armies grow!
My mother archaic now as Minos,
She who died forty years ago.

After their processing, the dead
Sit down in groups and watch TV,
In which they must be interested
For on it they see you and me.