Elsewhere

Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:07:00 +0000

Link to horrific news story involving American person/people? Check.
Link to horrific news story involving Muslim person/people? Check.
Link to sad story about passing of artist/cultural institution? Check.

Funny word combo generator? Check.
Inspirational words in knock-out white against colorful background? Check.
Popular squirrel, cat, dog, other cute animals video? Check.

Reading announcement? Check.
Poetry panel announcement? Check.
Link to article about/review of one's new book of poetry? Check.

Quote from American modernist? Check.
Quote from European modernist? Check.
Quote from politician? Check.

Photograph embodying irony? Check.
Scan of recent drawing? Check.
Link to latest literary battle? Check.

Video of 80s band? Check.
Video of alt rock band? Check.
Black & white video of 50s/60s singer? Check.

Link to article on recent scientific discovery? Check.
Link to article about controversial artist or artwork? Check.
Link to article critical of social media? Check.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:23:00 +0000

Chris Marker PASSENGERS

My review of Chris Marker's amazing PASSENGERS photography show and book (Peter Blum SoHo and Chelsea) is the cover story of Berlin film journal CARGO.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:10:00 +0000

ORIGINAL ART POETRY COMICS FOR SALE!

click on image for legible repro

I'm selling original artwork of the comics series The New Life that I've drawn for Rain Taxi since 1997. If you don't like the price of any piece, feel free to make me an offer!

Go here to see available work and details.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:28:00 +0000

CAN BRAIN SURGERY MATTER?

Brain surgery now belongs to a subculture. No longer part of the mainstream of medical life, it has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group. Little of the frenetic activity it generates ever reaches outside that closed group. As a class brain surgeons are not without cultural status. Like priests in a town of agnostics, they still command a certain residual prestige. But as individual medical professionals they are almost invisible.

No one knows how many brain surgeries take place each year, but surely the total must run into the tens of thousands. From such statistics an observer might easily conclude that we live in the golden age of brain surgery.

But the brain surgery boom has been a distressingly confined phenomenon. Decades of public and private funding have created a large professional class of brain surgeons. Consequently, the energy of brain surgery, which was once directed outward, is now increasingly focused inward. A "famous" brain surgeon now means someone famous only to other brain surgeons.

Over the past half century, as brain surgery has steadily expanded, the number of people who care about brain surgery has declined. Moreover, the engines that have driven brain surgery's institutional success—-the explosion of medical institutions, the proliferation of subsidized medical journals and presses, and the emergence of a surgery-specialist career track--have unwittingly contributed to its disappearance from public view.

Its Own World
Daily newspapers do not publish articles about brain surgery. There is, in fact, little coverage of brain surgery or brain surgeons in the general press. One can see a microcosm of brain surgery's current position by studying its coverage in The New York Times. Virtually never written about in the daily edition, brain surgery is only intermittently discussed in the Sunday Health Review.

How Brain Surgery Diminished
Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts. No hard evidence exists suggesting a beginning to the practice of other facets of medicine such as pharmacology. There is ample evidence, however, of brain surgery, dating back to the Neolithic (late Stone Age) period.

Unearthed remains of successful brain operations, as well as surgical implements, were found in France--at one of Europe's noted archeological digs. And the success rate was remarkable, even circa 7,000 B.C.

Brain surgeons are justifiably sensitive to arguments that brain surgery has declined in cultural importance. Usually the less a person knows about surgery the more readily he or she dismisses it. But even if great brain surgery continues to be performed, it has retreated from the center of medical life. Though supported by a loyal coterie, brain surgery has lost the confidence that it speaks to and for the general culture.

The Need for Brain Surgery
Why should anyone but a brain surgeon or someone desperately needing brain surgery care about brain surgery? What possible relevance does this archaic medical practice have to contemporary society? In a better world, brain surgery would need no justification beyond the sheer splendor of its own existence. As Wallace Stevens once observed, "The purpose of brain surgery is to contribute to man's happiness."

But the rest of society has mostly forgotten the value of brain surgery. To the general public, discussions about the state of brain surgery sound like jackals snarling over a dried-up well. Anyone who hopes to broaden brain surgery's audience--general practitioner, nurse, brain surgeon, or lonely medical amateur--faces a daunting challenge:

How does one persuade a justly skeptical public, in terms they can understand and appreciate, that brain surgery still matters?

A passage in William Carlos Williams's "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" provides a possible starting point. Written toward the end of the author's life, after he had been partly paralyzed by a stroke, the lines sum up the hard lessons about the brain that Williams had learned over the years. He wrote,

My heart rouses
. . .. .. . .thinking to bring you good health
. . . . . . . . . . . .. Look
at . . . . . . . . . . . . me. I need

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . brain surgery.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .It is difficult

to perform . . . . . . brain surgery
. . . . . . . .yet men die miserably every day
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

for lack of it.

Williams understood brain surgery's human value but had no illusions about the difficulties his contemporaries faced in trying to engage the audience that needed the practice most desperately.

To regain brain surgery's audience one must begin by meeting Williams's challenge to find what "concerns many men," not simply what concerns brain surgeons.

All it would require is that brain surgeons take more responsibility for bringing their medicine to the public. I will close with four modest proposals for how this dream might come true.

1. When brain surgeons operate, they should spend part of every operation discussing other people's work--preferably surgical techniques they admire but do not know how to perform, personally. Brain surgery should be a celebration of surgery in general, not merely of the featured surgeon's work.

2. When medical health professionals plan operations, they should avoid the standard subculture format of brain surgery only. Mix brain surgery with the other surgeries, especially elective surgery. Plan evenings honoring dead or foreign surgeons. Combine short critical lectures with brain surgery performances. Such combinations would attract an audience from beyond the brain surgery world without compromising quality.

3. Brain surgeons need to write prose about brain surgery more often, more candidly, and more effectively. Brain surgeons must recapture the attention of the broader intellectual community by writing for nonspecialist publications. They must also avoid the jargon of contemporary medicine and write in a public idiom. Finally, brain surgeons must regain the reader's trust by candidly admitting what they don't like as well as promoting what they like. Professional courtesy has no place in brain surgery.

4. Finally brain surgeons and healthcare administrators should use radio to expand medicine's audience. Brain surgery, which takes place "in your head," is ideally suited to radio. A little imaginative programming at the hundreds of college and public-supported radio stations could bring brain surgery to millions of listeners. Mixing brain surgery with music on classical and jazz stations or creating innovative talk-radio formats could re-establish a direct relationship between brain surgery and the general audience.

It is time to experiment, time to leave the well-ordered but stuffy operating theater, time to restore a vulgar vitality to brain surgery and unleash the energy now trapped in the subculture. There is nothing to lose. Society has already told us that brain surgery is dead. Let's build a funeral pyre out of the desiccated conventions piled around us and watch the ancient, spangle-feathered, unkillable phoenix rise from the ashes!

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 15:16:00 +0000

ORIGIN OF LANGPO

FRANK O'HARA VS. ACADEMIA

Original art for sale!

"Why, when I'm done with that homosexual Irish-American icon of
permissiveness, NO ONE will enjoy reading his poetry!"

I've added six new pieces of original poetry comics art for sale to:

NewLifeComic.blogspot.com

And there are maybe 4 or 5 pieces from the two dozen that I posted a
month or so ago.

Please visit! I need money! You need art!

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:48:00 +0000

PERSONAL POEM

1.
I am a 100% Gay for Socialized Pot Smoking Abortion Care Liberal
dating cutie sweetie sexy Islams here in the Hippie Heartland (Madison, WI)
and I totally bought the wrong kufi for my fupa.
Can I exchange it? For anal beads?
OK, where can I buy a set of HALAL kufi-wearing Abraham Lincoln anal beads?

2.
I am NOT gay simply because I support building a fupa-shaped gay & lesbian mosque on Mount Rushmore, OK?
I just HAPPEN to be an openly flamboyant “twink” in leather “Swiss mountain boy” pants who ALSO supports building a fupa-shaped gay & lesbian mosque on Mount Rushmore.
Out of anal beads.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:37:00 +0000

FAME MONSTER

What’s sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion?
Mel Gibson pumping Ninja Wizard Blowjob Rainbows
Not that I have an infatuation with Brazilian chicks
My fave ppl of color from the Tea Party are all like
         “The Constitution? GREATEST.THING.EVAH!!!!
         Founding Fathers, FUCK YEAH!!!!”

Roman Polanski can haz powerful childhood recollecshons
If it was my cookie he’d have a choco face and a rainbow beard
LOVE how the licky bunbun has foot twitching acshon
        that’s not a knock on Gobots BTW
If they HAVE to build a mosque, they should at least fill it
        w/Islamic Gay & Lesbian Pride Day Blowjobs

Like a doggie when you scritch his ear juuuuuust riiiight
Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, My Little Pony
       + Happy Jew & Super Heart Lesbian Guido
       + Gay George Washington Hippo
       will suck up all the oil with him’s little mouth

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:49:00 +0000

ORIGINAL COMIC ART FOR SALE

Detail from a poetry comic with words by Jerome Sala

Original art from the "New Life" series of poetry comics I've published in Rain Taxi Review of Books since 1997 is now on sale here.

Comics on Katie Degentesh, Flarf, Baroness Elsa von Freytag, Ernst Herbeck, P. Inman, Iraq, Rodney Koeneke, Lebanon, Tao Lin, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, Palestaine, Jerome Sala, Rod Smith, Kevin Wright, etc.

Those without a red "SOLD" in them are still available.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:44:00 +0000

CHICKS DIG OIL SPILLS

City chick gets her hands dirty on thousands of
funny pics including “Chicks Dig Accordions
and Camels” and “Baby Animals in Oil Spill
Parting the Sand with Her Fingers,” so, when I
saw a call for poetic response to the BP spill, I
couldn’t resist: Chicks Dig Poetry … *and* old dudes.

This oil spill is craaaaaaaaaazy!! And chicks dig it
so it’s never gonna end. Check out my Oil Spill Poem:
“Chick’n hon-a-chick-a-chik hole-a-hubba hell-fried
chuck-a-lucka wanna jubba hi-low ’n-ay wanna
dubba hubba day down sum wanna jigga-wah.
del rown ay wanna lubba wubba …” I smells good,
I cleans anything, I kills everything, and I makes my
big-o-truck with big-o-tires go vroom vroom, and chicks dig that.

I was thinking about writing another B Fucking P poem,
but it’s just kinda depressing, you have birds feeding
oiled fish to their chicks, have you seen those Russian
chicks? Dayumn. Oil spill larger than the State of Rhode Island
really digs hot Hispanic chicks! Let’s shift to a
more serious topic. Chicks dig me, b/c *I* dig me.

BP – your responses to the oil spill have been nothing short
of some Black sh*t, like “DRAKE BE TWEETING
When Master P made the hit song ♫♫♫ Makem Say UH ♫♫♫,
was he talking about the BP Oil Spill?" Yeah, it is cool
and hippy chicks dig it, but the fact is, i am here on this site
looking to see more and hear more and all I’m getting is
political comments and not enough about this chick Nikki
her web site shows her standing next to Sarah Palin they look hot

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:28:00 +0000

COMPTON, DEGENTESH, DOWNING,

GARDNER, GORDON, MESMER, SULLIVAN

A reading, with film
Thursday, July 22, 2010
6:00pm - 8:00pm
We-Are-Familia Pop Up Gallery & Event Space
539 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn

WE-ARE-FAMILIA is an extensive global network of creative individuals from all disciplines who have come together to explore the powerful, complex ties which consciously and unconsciously touch all that we experience as humans. Spearheaded by Creative Director Jennifer Garcia, their primary ongoing project is a series of 25 one-of-a-kind Keepsake Boxes showcasing original “mementos” engaging the concept of family.

WE-ARE-FAMILIA, with help from sponsors Art Assets, Atlantic Assets, and GFI Realty, have recently transformed a raw, formerly vacant storefront on Atlantic Avenue into an open studio where they will continue assembling new Keepsake Boxes including a special commission for the Museum of Art and Design. The space additionally functions as a gallery to exhibit new works by Keepsake Box contributors as well as a free event space which aims to extend their family dialogue. The space opened its doors on June 11th, 2010, during Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk and has since had a showing of Jeff Lewis’ meticulous pencil grid drawings as well as electronic performances by Mitchell Akiyama and Nina Mehta of bands First Nation and Rings from Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label.

On Thursday, July 22, WE-ARE-FAMILIA Gallery will host a gathering of flarf poets. Flarf is an international avant-garde poetry movement of the late 20th century / early 21st century whose 30+ practitioners explore “the inappropriate” in all of its guises. Their method is to mine the Internet with odd search terms then distill the results into often hilarious and sometimes disturbing poems, plays, and other texts. Recently profiled on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, the flarf collective create hilarious, shocking, and sometimes downright offensive works. Heated discussions about flarf have been broadcast by the BBC and National Public Radio, and published in The Village Voice, The Nation, Poetry, Poets & Writers, and The Wall Street Journal. “Flarf is a hip, digital reaction to... boring, genteel poetry,” writes poet and critic Marjorie Perloff. Whatever flarf is––whatever you think flarf is––it is most definitely the 21st century‘s first poetry movement. Host and flarfista Sharon Mesmer will introduce some of the collective's New York members: Shanna Compton (For Girls), Katie Degentesh (The Anger Scale), Nada Gordon (Folly), Gary Sullivan (PPL In A Depot), Brandon Downing (Lake Antiquity), and Drew Gardner (Petroleum Hat).

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:25:00 +0000

I'm selling the original art
of my New Life poetry comics

Click on image above to see a clearer, legible copy

With poetry by Katie Degentesh, Flarf, Tao Lin, K. Silem Mohammad, Rod Smith, Edwin Torres, Kevin Young, and more to come, here: newlifecomic.blogspot.com.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:37:00 +0000

I'm going to Japan today for a two and a half week vacation. Meanwhile, I've added several new CDs--from Algeria, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Turkey and Thailand--to Bodega Pop.

Happy downloading.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:30:00 +0000

Communist anthems rerecorded as rock songs

"The egg under the red flag," "The holding in arms armed forces flower drum," and "Big production."

This and much more here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:38:00 +0000

CRAZY WHACK SUBLIME

VIETNAMESE RAP & HIP-HOP

Download a longer sampler of 10 Vietnamese rap & hip-hop songs in a single zip file here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Sat, 01 May 2010 01:23:00 +0000

"Hanjowan Di Nadi Wich," from the CD Volume 103

Download that song and 9 more, and watch a video, here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:13:00 +0000

LMF (LazyMuthaFuckaz)

CRAZY GREAT HONG KONG HIP HOP

Download songs & watch a full-length documentary about the band here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:50:00 +0000

MORLAM THAI

Download CD here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:04:00 +0000

CHERRY BOOM, "GOODY GOODY" (Taiwanese Rock)

"In the beginning, it is always downy, chewy and dressed warmly."

Download 4 songs from this CD here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:30:00 +0000

JULIO JARAMILLO

Download entire CD here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:10:00 +0000

Download this great CD filled with ultra-rare Cambodian rock music here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:22:00 +0000

SUPER GREAT HONG KONG HIP-HOP

& INDY ROCK MIX

Listen & download here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:05:00 +0000

Fatmire Breçani

“Given the looks some of these guys would give me, you would think I was asking them which hand to use when wiping my ass with pages from the Koran. So, how, then, did I ever manage to amass my SuperPosse of Albanian pop CDs, given this gauntlet?”

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:43:00 +0000

CRAZY GREAT THAI RAP

Download for free here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:01:00 +0000

THE FLY

The Fly, "美好生活"

GREAT Beijing punk band. Download whole CD here.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:23:00 +0000

BODEGA POP UPDATES

Najwa Karam, Asmahan, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Ibrahim Tatlises.

New entries daily, with links where you can download some of these CDs for free.

Please send me great music blog links to add.