---o0o---
Friday, May 31, 2013
Poem: The Islands from eight miles high
By Jack Brummet
To settle on the sea floor
Like an archipelago of Atlantises.
Islands come and go,
Bobbing up and bobbing down
Like lost corks
Drifting the seven seas,
Treading continents,
And the islands and straits.
They crest the waves
Beneath gathering clouds
As flocks of birds
Circumnavigate the globe,
Shuttling from landfall to landfall.
---o0o---
Beneath a chiseled frieze of cerulean blue
Islands recede into the waterTo settle on the sea floor
Like an archipelago of Atlantises.
Islands come and go,
Bobbing up and bobbing down
Like lost corks
Drifting the seven seas,
Treading continents,
And the islands and straits.
They crest the waves
Beneath gathering clouds
As flocks of birds
Circumnavigate the globe,
Shuttling from landfall to landfall.
---o0o---
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Poem - from the Poetry Generator: The Cloud Endures
By Jack Brummet, and the poetry generator
1
The cloud endures like a red sun.
Winds calmly rise like a dead captain.
2
Love, adventure, and anger.
Work, anger, and death.
3
Laughter, anger and death.
The dusty skyscraper grabs the truck.
---o0o---
The cloud endures like a red sun.
Winds calmly rise like a dead captain.
2
Love, adventure, and anger.
Work, anger, and death.
3
Laughter, anger and death.
The dusty skyscraper grabs the truck.
---o0o---
Poem: Sailing To Naxos, or, The Vortex
By Jack Brummet
Sailing the poly-blue Aegean
On a hot day in a steamy haze,
Our ship makes a wide looping turn
A few kilometers off
The white house-dappled shore
Of Naxos, parked in the sea
Like a gem in a finding,
The houses and villas
Strung along the shore
And two layers above
Like a three strand pearl necklace
On the stout and broad neck of a Cyclops,
Waiting to leap from the sea,
And use our ship to beat the sea
Into a churning and foaming
Soup of whirlpools and funnels
That suck everything in sight
Into a sapphire blue vortex,
The water cooling each meter,
As it swirls down and cascades
Into Neptune's drain and picks up speed
As it descends into the dark
And lonely bottom of the sea. ---o0o---
On a hot day in a steamy haze,
Our ship makes a wide looping turn
A few kilometers off
The white house-dappled shore
Of Naxos, parked in the sea
Like a gem in a finding,
The houses and villas
Strung along the shore
And two layers above
Like a three strand pearl necklace
On the stout and broad neck of a Cyclops,
Waiting to leap from the sea,
And use our ship to beat the sea
Into a churning and foaming
Soup of whirlpools and funnels
That suck everything in sight
Into a sapphire blue vortex,
The water cooling each meter,
As it swirls down and cascades
Into Neptune's drain and picks up speed
As it descends into the dark
And lonely bottom of the sea. ---o0o---
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The Adolph Hitler tea kettle
By Jack Brummet, Commerce Ed.
The beleaguered JC Penney company withdrew this kettle today. It caused an international uproar after people decided that it looked like Adolph Hitler. And it kind of does.
The beleaguered JC Penney company withdrew this kettle today. It caused an international uproar after people decided that it looked like Adolph Hitler. And it kind of does.
---o0o---
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
President Obama heads back to the Jersey shore
By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Ed.
BHO returns to Jersey to relive his FEMA success during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. And maybe pick up some Q ratings from his propinquity to the diminishing Governor.
BHO returns to Jersey to relive his FEMA success during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. And maybe pick up some Q ratings from his propinquity to the diminishing Governor.
"For Obama, the tour helps him continue redirecting the political conversation after two weeks of dealing with the fallout over the administration's response to terror attacks last September in Benghazi, Libya, the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department's review of journalist phone records as part of a leak investigation." - CBS News
---o0o---
Monday, May 27, 2013
Poem: Chasing Ghosts
By Jack Brummet
And find a face in the crowd,
With a sad smile and a halo.
---o0o---
1
The scenery whirls by
In a drunken Gaussian Blur
Until I slow it down
And watch it unravel
In a multi-colored, quadrophonic
Parade of flora and fauna
Spinning Venn Diagrams
Around each other.
2
I quit chasing ghosts,
The scenery whirls by
In a drunken Gaussian Blur
Until I slow it down
And watch it unravel
In a multi-colored, quadrophonic
Parade of flora and fauna
Spinning Venn Diagrams
Around each other.
2
I quit chasing ghosts,
But
once in a while
I look over my shoulderAnd find a face in the crowd,
With a sad smile and a halo.
---o0o---
Poem: Frontier Justice
By Jack Brummet
1
A roiling thunderstorm clears the air
Like Wyatt Earp's peacekeeper
2
A bad beginning can be overcome
But a good end lasts forever
A roiling thunderstorm clears the air
Like Wyatt Earp's peacekeeper
2
A bad beginning can be overcome
But a good end lasts forever
---o0o---
Sasquatch Festival
By Jack Brummet
I spent Sunday/Monday morning at the Sasquatch Fesitval at the Gorge Amphitheater. I was especially knocked out by the performances of The Tallest Man On Earth, and particularly by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes.
I also saw The Dropkick Murphys, Elvis Costello (my fifth time) and The Imposters, Mumford & Sons, Danny Brown, and a bunch of other bands on the smaller stages.
I spent Sunday/Monday morning at the Sasquatch Fesitval at the Gorge Amphitheater. I was especially knocked out by the performances of The Tallest Man On Earth, and particularly by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes.
I also saw The Dropkick Murphys, Elvis Costello (my fifth time) and The Imposters, Mumford & Sons, Danny Brown, and a bunch of other bands on the smaller stages.
---o0o---
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
The Lord's bus shows up at Seattle's Golden Gardens
By Jack Brummet, Folk Art Ed.
I met these sweet folks at Golden Gardens on Shilshole Bay yesterday. They were very nice, and did not proselytize in any way. I think they were letting the bus do the talking. They did have a donation box for taking photos. I slipped them a few bucks to shoot some photos, not for their message but their moxie and medium and warm hearts.
I met these sweet folks at Golden Gardens on Shilshole Bay yesterday. They were very nice, and did not proselytize in any way. I think they were letting the bus do the talking. They did have a donation box for taking photos. I slipped them a few bucks to shoot some photos, not for their message but their moxie and medium and warm hearts.
---o0o---
Friday, May 24, 2013
Poem: The Painting
By Jack Brummet
He is tired of the dark sun
And wants to lie down and rest.
No news comes from a far country.
The real estate around him —
A confabulation of blue and red stone —
Chills in an un-harbored sea.
The black sun was pushed, fell, or jumped,
To shine back upon itself.
He knows the sun will never set.
He cannot open his mouth to scream.
The oars will never move.
The island of color
Will always be eight inches away
And the boat
Will always be sinking.
The tattered sails hang in the wind.
The next day refuses to begin.
He clutches that blue banjo
As his ship tilts toward heaven.
---o0o---
Stuck
under a static sky,
The figure you brushed in
Wants off canvas.
He will not be your Man With Blue Banjo anymore.
He wants to be what he will be,
Not sailing a scumbled ocean
Under impasto thunderheads.
The figure you brushed in
Wants off canvas.
He will not be your Man With Blue Banjo anymore.
He wants to be what he will be,
Not sailing a scumbled ocean
Under impasto thunderheads.
He is tired of the dark sun
And wants to lie down and rest.
No news comes from a far country.
The real estate around him —
A confabulation of blue and red stone —
Chills in an un-harbored sea.
The black sun was pushed, fell, or jumped,
To shine back upon itself.
He knows the sun will never set.
He cannot open his mouth to scream.
The oars will never move.
The island of color
Will always be eight inches away
And the boat
Will always be sinking.
The tattered sails hang in the wind.
The next day refuses to begin.
He clutches that blue banjo
As his ship tilts toward heaven.
---o0o---
Thursday, May 23, 2013
President Obama again denies role in White House press orgy
By Pablo Fanque
National Affairs Ed.
The White House yesterday denied, on three separate occasions (ala Saint Peter), that President Obama led a degenerate, Caligula-style orgy in the West Wing press briefing room. This is Meet The Press taken to the next level.
The story has been widely quoted in social media, including several blogs and websites that appear to believe the story from The Onion, is true. . .these sites, naturally, call for a bloodletting at the Very Highest Levels.
National Affairs Ed.
Figure 1 — photographic proof The President was involved in the briefing room outrage
The White House yesterday denied, on three separate occasions (ala Saint Peter), that President Obama led a degenerate, Caligula-style orgy in the West Wing press briefing room. This is Meet The Press taken to the next level.
The story has been widely quoted in social media, including several blogs and websites that appear to believe the story from The Onion, is true. . .these sites, naturally, call for a bloodletting at the Very Highest Levels.
"Eyewitness accounts confirmed that as the reporters continued ravenously copulating on top of one another, Obama ripped off his shirt, leaned back in a large golden chair, and was attended to by a bevy of 23-year-old political bloggers who eagerly satisfied his every sensual whim." - The Onion, May 22
The Onion, May 22 article quotes BHO: “This is a day of excess! So now, release yourselves from your attire and surrender your body and mind to the pleasures of thevita carnalis, and to the sheer majesty of the human flesh.”
“Do not resist,” the president continued. “Avail yourself of every journalist and cameraman in this room!”
---o0o---
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
ATIT Reheated: Favorite songs of politicians and pundits
Jack Brummet, Social Mores Editor
Mona Goldwater, Style Editor
We recently researched favorite songs of some of our favorite (and many not so favorite) politicians, candidates, and pundits. We thought this would be a research nightmare...but then figured, naw... remember when someone on an MTV College Town Hall sort of thing asked Bill Clinton whether he wore briefs or boxers; didn't he answer? People must have asked politicians about their favorite songs too...
Former President Bill Clinton's Presidential museum has released two volumes of his favorite songs. Volume 1 contains
Miles Davis, "My Funny Valentine"
Nina Simone, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free"John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman, "My One and Only Love"
Zoot Sims, "Summertime"
Mahalia Jackson, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord"
Igor Butman, "Nostalgie"
Judy Collins, "Chelsea Morning"
Art Tatum, "There Will Never Be Another You"
Mickey Mangun, "In the Presence of Jehovah"
David Sanborn, "Harlem Nocturne"
Bill's Volume 2 includes songs by: Joan Baez, Elton John, Stan Getz with Charlie Byrd, Carly Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Sarah McLachlan, Willie Nelson, North Texas Wind Symphony, Van Morrison, John Williams and the President’s Own United States Marine Band,.
Bill O'Reilly gave this list of his five favorite songs to Don Imus. Jack felt a little strange about one, since it lists at least two of his own favorite songs (Drive My Car, L.A. Woman):
“I Love Music,” by The OJays
“Baby You Can Drive My Car,” by The Beatles“Just Dance,” by Lady Gaga
“L.A. Woman,” by The Doors
“Kentucky Rain,” by Elvis Presley
Barack Obama: Favorite Bob Dylan song "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more"
Hilary Clinton: Aretha Franklin "Respect"
Ex Governor (and bassist) Mike Huckabee: Stephanopoulos: "What's your favorite song? Huckabee: "Oh, don't ask that because then you start getting me into stuff, which artist. It's going to most likely be a Mellencamp or Rolling Stones or Beatles song. Maybe Creedence. But can you tell, it's got to be heavy guitar music in there?"
But then, another time, Huck gave this list of his favorite five songs to Don Imus:
"I Want to Hold Your Hand," by The Beatles
"Start Me Up," by The Rolling Stones
"Purple Haze," by Jimi Hendrix
"Freebird," by Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Restless," by Alabama
Political Grateful Dead fans. While we don't know their favorite songs, we do know that these folks have at various times happily admitted to the press (or even followed the band on the road) that they are DeadHeads, a/k/a fans of The Grateful Dead. As a fellow-traveller, I bet that this list is woefully incomplete. We Are Everywhere.
(photo of Jerry Garcia, the last time we saw him in Seagttle, in 1995)
- Senator Patrick Leahy
- Anne Coulter !?
- Tipper Gore
- Tucker Carlson (no question on this one...he's had members on his shows).
- Soon to be ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. She had the surviving members play after her swearing in as Speaker.
- Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid: Quote: "Here, I'll show you the bathroom. This is my prized possession, a signed poster of the Grateful Dead." - from Las Vegas Eyes Witness News
- Senator Al Franken - Al was and is a huge Grateful Dead fan (who pressured Lorne Michaels, successfully, to get them on SNL), saw literally hundreds of shows, and I think...appeared on stage with them more than once.
Glen Beck:
"You and I," by Ingrid Michaelson
"Haven't Met You Yet," by Michael Buble
"Bad Romance," by Lady Gaga
"Uprising," by Muse
"Exogenesis: Symphony: Part 3 (Redemption)," by Muse
In 2008, Blender.com listed John McCain and Barack Obama's favorites. Randy Newman commented on some of their choices: "McCain has a really likable list. Then again, Hitler liked some good music, you know?"
1. "Ready or Not" by The Fugees
2. "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye
3. "I'm On Fire" by Bruce Springsteen
4. "Gimme Shelter " by The Rolling Stones
5. "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone
6. "Touch the Sky" by Kanye West
7. "You'd Be So Easy to Love" by Frank Sinatra
8. "Think" by Aretha Franklin
9. "City of Blinding Lights" by U2
10. "Yes We Can" by will.i.am
1. "Dancing Queen" by ABBA
2. "Blue Bayou" Roy Orbison
3. "Take a Chance On Me" by ABBA
4. "If We Make It Through December" by Merle Haggard
5. "As Time Goes By" by Dooley Wilson
6. "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys
7. "What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong
8. "I've Got You Under My Skin" by Frank Sinatra
9. "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond
10. "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" by The Platters
The Reverend Al Sharpton: "Talking Loud, Saying Nothing," by James Brown. The Reverend called it "James Brown's song about the Republican Party."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich:"Imagine," John Lennon
Ex-Senator John Edwards: "Small Town," by John Mellencamp.
Ex-Rep. Dick Gephardt: "Born in the USA," By Bruce Springsteen.
Sen. Bob Graham: "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," by Jimmy Buffett
A whole bunch of favorites from Don Imus (he regularly asks guests their five favorite songs...we got probably a third of this list from the Imus archives):
Ex-Governor Mitt Romney:
"Friends in Low Places," by Garth Brooks
"Crying," by Roy Orbison
"Let it Be," by The Beatles
"Lying Eyes," by The Eagles
"Like a Rolling Stone," by Bob Dylan
"When I Said I Do," by Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black
Senator Bob Kerrey:
"Tom Traubert's Blues," by Tom Waits
"I Still Carry You Around," by Steve Earle
"Can't Let Go," by Lucinda Williams
"Romance is a Slow Dance," by Tim O'Brien
"When the Deal Goes Down," by Bob Dylan
Senator John Kerry:
"No Surrender,” by Bruce Springsteen
“Born to Run,” by Bruce Springsteen
“Hey, Jude,” by The Beatles
“Satisfaction,” by The Rolling Stones
“Like A Rolling Stone,” by Bob Dylan
Senator John Thune:
"Long Time," by Boston
"Independence Day," by Martina McBride
"Don't Stop Believing," by Journey
"Roll With the Changes," by REO Speedwagon
"Where the Streets Have No Name," by U2
Senator Chris Dodd:
Anything by Roy Orbison
Bobby Darin
Early Beatles Songs
Anything by Patsy Klein
Frank Sinatra
Barbara Streisand
Congressman Ron Paul:
"Universal Soldier," by Donovan
"Alice's Restaurant," by Arlo Gutherie
Congressman Darrell Issa:
"Cats in the Cradle," by Harry Chapin
"Bennie and the Jets," by Elton John
"American Pie," by Don McClain
"Welcome Back," by John B. Sebastian
"Wouldn't It Be Nice," by the Beach Boys
"Take it Easy" or "Hotel California," by the Eagles
Governor David Paterson:
"Beyond The Sea," by Bobby Darin
"Get Up, Stand Up," by Bob Marley
"A Change is Going to Come," by Sam Cooke
"Sister Golden Hair," by America
"Empire State of Mind," by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys
---o0o---
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