hello mum!

such a sad, sad situation

There was an old man whose despair
Induced him to purchase a hare:
Whereon one fine day,
He rode wholly away,
Which partly assuaged his despair.

(Edward Lear)

... several experiences in consciousness that I have had ...

"You may be indisposed to Waldo Frank, but I must recommend to you City Block as the richest in content of any 'fiction' that has appeared in the American 20th century. Frank has the real mystic's vision. His apprehensions astonish one. I have also enjoyed reading Ouspensky's Tertium Organum lately. Its corroboration of several experiences in consciousness that I have had gave it particular interest."

Hart Crane (in Ohio) writing to Allen Tate (in Kentucky), 15 Feb 1923

turning Japanese - snippets

Medbh McGuckian: "I also love Paul Muldoon's Japanese side, and recall a happy occasion in New York in a sushi restaurant where we felt really exalted!"

Ciaran Carson: "The desktop image of the PC I am writing this on is a reproduction of Hokusai's great print, 'Sudden Gust of Wind': under Mount Fuji, travellers' papers are scattered up into the air, they are holding on to their hats. I love its clarity, its movement, and its sense of humour."

(Journal of Irish Studies, XVII, 2002)

those are the pearls that were his eyes

Jambalaya

Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh
Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou
My Yvonne, the sweetest one, me oh my oh
Son of a gun, we’ll have good fun on the bayou

Jambalaya, a crawfish pie and a file gumbo
’cause tonight I’m gonna see my machez a mio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh
Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.

Thibodeaux, fontainbleau, the place is buzzin’
Kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the dozen
Dress in style, go hog wild, me oh my oh
Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.

[corrections / quibbles positively welcomed]

found tv

a joy for ever

fair / not fair

unhemmed hereby pledges its support to a spanking new blog. It looks like it's going to engage with politics rather more explicitly than unhemmed does. (But then it's quite possibly true that all blogs would do well to engage with politics more explicitly than unhemmed does. Is unhemmed anxious about this? And why this mannered avoidance of the first person singular? It's been a long day.)

"Over the next month he'll be monitoring, meeting and observing the BNP candidates in his local area, Greenwich ..."

I don't envy you - but best of luck, old chum!

the rumors are true

Kenneth Koch

"On graduating in 1948 he moved to New York, where he lived in the same building as the painter Jane Freilicher, on Third Avenue at 16th Street, in an apartment only yards from the tracks of the El. One of his favourite recreations there was to don a rubber gorilla mask and gaze out of his window at passing trains."

(from Mark Ford's mini-bio in The New York Poets: An Anthology)

toybox

shameless self-promotion

It was only a matter of time. Historic recordings duly disinterred, dusted down, and digitally remastered.

the series is really shaping up, non?

Presenting ... Graham Allcott and the Peters Projection! (Why is he looking at us like that?)

a little chit-chat, April 1819

"Last Sunday I took a Walk towards highgate and in the lane that winds by the side of Lord Mansfield's park I met Mr Green our Demonstrator in conversation with Coleridge - I joined them, after enquiring by a look whether it would be agreeable - I walked with him at his alderman-after-dinner pace for near two miles I suppose in those two Miles he broached a thousand things - let me see if I can give you a list - Nightingales, Poetry - on Poetical sensation - Metaphysics - Different genera and species of Dreams - Nightmare - a dream accompanied by a sense of touch - single and double touch - A dream related - First and second consciousness - the difference explained between will and Volition - so my metaphysicians from a want of smoking the second consciousness - Monsters - the Kraken - Mermaids - southey believes in them - southeys belief too much diluted - A Ghost story - Good morning - I heard his voice as he came towards me - I heard it as he moved away - I heard it in all the interval - if it may be called so. He was civil enough to ask me to call on him at Highgate Good Night! It looks so much like rain I shall not go to town to day; but put it off till tomorrow -"

Keats, writing to his brother George and sister-in-law Georgiana

numberland

In the second of what might be a whole series of pop posts with 'Rugby roots', unhemmed invites you to lend your ears to numberland.

Dubes

I've not asked Dubes if he minds me 'promoting' this fantastic slice of pure pop magic, but until he complains that's what I intend to do. I only heard it for the first time a moment ago: if you listen hard you can hear Rugby in the background. (Or is that just me?)