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Monthly Archives: July 2012
JILL STEIN
I was channel surfing today and stumbled on Jill Stein’s speech at the Green Party convention, accepting its nomination for President (of the United States.) She was announcing a list of regulatory reforms for financial markets she would support as President. They were all simple, rational and essential reforms but, in the current political climate, sounded radical.
She won’t be allowed into the Presidential debates, but if she were she would mop the floor with Romney and Obama, not because she has a excess of charisma but because someone talking rationally about important subjects would frankly expose Willard and Barry as the corporate spokesmodels they are.
A vote for Stein will be the only meaningful one you can cast this November, but we have to face the fact that a lot of people really enjoy having smoke blown up their asses. So go ahead, America — pull down your pants and get ready to bend over one more time.
PARLEZ-MOI D’AMOUR
The melody of this lovely song is quoted in the soundtrack of Casablanca when Ilsa first walks into Rick’s place. It’s a subtle but deft touch, referencing a love song that the two would almost certainly have heard when they were together in Paris.
Posted in honor of Bastille Day.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ON LOVE
Love should run out to meet love with open arms. Indeed, the ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children venturing together into a dark room. From the first moment when they see each other, with a pang of curiosity, through stage after stage of growing pleasure and embarrassment, they can read the expression of their own trouble in each other’s eyes. There is here no declaration properly so called; the feeling is so plainly shared, that as soon as the man knows what it is in his own heart, he is sure of what it is in the woman’s.
I’LL FLY AWAY
AND GOD CREATED WOMAN
RING THEM BELLS
Not many artists can cover Dylan and leave the ring standing. Sarah Jarosz never touches the canvas in this rendition of Ring Them Bells, which is, incidentally one of the greatest songs ever written.
A MAGAZINE AD ILLUSTRATION FOR TODAY
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AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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SHE NEVER SPOKE SPANISH TO ME
She spoke to all the shadows in her bungalow
But she never spoke Spanish to me.
By the greatest beer joint dance band in recorded history.
A PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
AN E. F. WARD FOR TODAY
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AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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AND GOD CREATED WOMAN
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MEXICO UNPUBLISHED
I’ve unpublished this story on Amazon for the Kindle, because I decided to include it in a new collection, Twelve Western Stories, which I’ll be publishing in a month or two.
The story concerns two people who meet on the Hurricane deck of a steamboat traveling between Vicksburg and New Orleans in the year 1865. The young woman knows too little of life, the young man too much. They find themselves swept up in a reckless and most extraordinary adventure . . .
My neo-noir pulp thriller Bloodbath is still available for the Kindle on Amazon.
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