The Brainphone Megadead

I've been meaning to mention archive.org, a tremendous resource for music, talks, readings, etc. For example, the always mesmerizing, insightful, and very funny Morton Feldman. A wide-ranging interview, but especially about the natural of audience, hermeticism, and creative artists.

My son has been extolling the virtues of lectures by Ginsberg there. A fantastic insight into Ginsberg the teacher, the public speaker. There are recordings of his classes at the Naropa Institute, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. There are also other lectures. For example, Ron Padgett.

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George Saunders connects the nature of the coverage and the dialogue behind the Iraq War to the change in the US relationship to media during the O.J. Simpson trial:






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My bird and I, on our backs on a hill outside of town, looking up. “Look,” he says, elbowing me with his wing. “Permanent clouds in a temporary sky.”

The town disappears. Then the hill. More sunsets than fingertips. The stars change positions. My old coat becomes moss. All around me—and my face—is stubble. We stay here but everything else moves on.

The ground rises to meet the waiting rain. A handshake. “What then?”