jesseneuman

[jesseneuman]

from “While Researching the Etymology of Punk, I Discover a Creation Myth Stitched into the Liner Notes” by torrin a. greathouse

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The Unfolding (A.M. Homes)

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CHEAT CODES by Black Thought + Dangermouse

Young gunners in beast mode, K-9 teeth show Cheat code playing with unlimited free throws Playin', their feet move faster than a Capri stroll Where they run in the strip like the women in peep shows Pay the price, gamble with ya life like Pete Rose Bust a move, paper bubble like Veuve Clicquot's Who got the streets of Philly flooded like Puerto Rico's? You get McNabbed like Donovan, it's finitos Theologians point to the trap house that God is in Go on, take his name in vain, like a phlebotomist I'm the one that tell you what time it is Never been into selling you promises, it's hot as a pot of grits That's not a myth, Blackness is not a monolith A lotta n--s probably gotta see psychologists To understand why we wallowing where the bottom is And common sense isn't what they teaching in colleges Shit, it's real when you done lost your last feeling Jump, then bounce back off the glass ceiling Back to stealing, to Xanax and smack dealing That's appealing, go grab your kids and shield them Where hustling became an art The mantra is managed, not defanged Where shit ain't for the faint of heart The rated R, everybody wrists got razor marks In projects, township favelas and trailer parks The wave been a vibe Better head for the church, mosque, or synagogue Chase the Grim Reefer with Henn-ocide We need it like a hole in the head, thorn in his side It all take its toll in the end, strong n--s die Made figures who name bring became king Or became fathers and sons facing the same thing In the hood, mouth full of blood, tasting the same sting Playing a game, trying hard to hang by the same string You better get the cheat code or get RICO-ed, n-- Bad credit get your shit repoed, listen

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Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison)

You can take all the tea in China Put it in a big brown bag for me Sail right around all the seven oceans Drop it straight into the deep blue sea

She's as sweet as Tupelo honey She's an angel of the first degree She's as sweet as Tupelo honey Just like honey from the bee

You can't stop us on the road to freedom You can't keep us 'cause our eyes can see Men with insight, men in granite Knights in armor bent on chivalry

She's as sweet as Tupelo honey She's an angel of the first degree She's as sweet as Tupelo honey Just like honey, baby, from the bee

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I been pennin' the Iliad and the Odyssey A premonition I really had, it was prophecy Back in the kitchen, now where we at it's monopoly The Mathematician I entered the system properly This officially a Philly jawn, once again it's on I was born ringing alarms like Tenor Saw My track record is what I ain't got a blemish on unless I remember wrong Well, either way I'm 'bout to finish strong Redemption songs of a Genghis Khan Revenge is sworn later on, throw the card You hit the nail on the head, bro, we don't bang with y'all Your team different, we don't move with the same decorum

What I reflect is still a real feel temperature Symptoms show I'm physically ill and still emperor Track whisperer, carbon colored conquistador Kiss the jaws and make 'em cry, it's not difficult

Whoa, a lot of rappers is rollin' in fear of Trotter They far from rock solid, they soldiers Terracotta of my philosophy, I'm the father like Aristotle I will put a end to your whole saga, you Harry Potters is soft Your rhymes E-M-O, mines is non-G-M-O I'm a vessel, a vehicle, y'all don't see it though I'm comin' for the riches you stole like King Leopold And keep the whole world on watch while history unfolds

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from Object Permanence (Alison C. Rollins)

For the time being

an ampersand is a boy

clutching his knees

to his chest as art...

The god yowls watercolors,

the way the sky weeps

oranges in lung-shaped

segments of grief:

Think of the bo(d)y as a con artist.

She knows objects

can disappear behind a god’s back

but that doesn’t mean they are gone forever.

A boy is what he leaves behind.

What a mother struggles to forget

her muscles store as memory.

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January desktop

READING “The Body’s Question” and “Duende” (Tracy K. Smith), “Barkskins” (Annie Proulx), “A Thousand Days of Wonder” (Charles Fernyhough), “The Paris Review” # 227

LISTENING to “Colors” and “Modern Guilt” (Beck), “I Can’t Help It” (Betty Carter” “Streams of Thought 2″ (Black Thought + Salaam Remi), “Oragami Harvest” (Ambrose Akimuserie)

WATCHING “Roma”, “Dogs” (Netflix), “Veep”, “The Romanoffs” (Amazon Prime), and waiting for Jordan Peele’s “Us”

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What is Minimalism? It is any esthetic based on the idea of simplicity and austerity, on the construction of forms and the conveyance of emotions through limited means, however artfully employed.

What is Maximalism?: “Every instrument, like a bee in a hive, seems to be working on the same project, but no two instruments are doing it in exactly the same way.”    

 -Morton Feldman

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A Thousand Days of Wonder (Charles Fernyhough)

Perhaps the strangest thing about newborn consciousness is the way that even major channels of sensory stimulation can blend into each other.  In his book The Mind of a Mnemonist, the great Russian neurologist Alexander Luria describes his subject S.’s experiences of synesthesia, the phenomenon where stimulation in one sensory modality, such as vision, is experienced in another, such as taste.  When listening to high-pitched tone at a volume of 113 decibels, S. Said, “It looks something like fireworks tinged with a pink-red hue.  She strip of color eels rough and unpleasant, and it has an ugly taste--rather like that of a briny pickle...You could hurt your hand on this.”

One plausible explanation of synesthesia is that the normal pathways along which sensory information flows through the brain become diverted--leading, say, visual information into the olfactory (or smell-detecting) cortex, or input from the auditory nerve into the touch-sensitive part of the brain.  Studies of infants’ cortical activity suggests that, far from this being a trick employed only by circus freaks, it may be a common state of affairs in newborns. The infant [can] apparently distinguish between the different stimuli, but not as distinct images: rather, the stimuli were registering as different kinds of sensations altogether--tastes, sounds, smells . It is possible that the smell of a shawl might be a dim flash of light.  The daylight beyond their eyelids might reach them as a faint hum.  They are tasting in color, smelling in sound.  Compared with that, dreaming seems positively mundane.

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Brief Touristic Account III.30 (Tracy K. Smith)

We slept

A few hours only

In the small bed

In your mother’s house.

She slept

The same few hours

Behind a curtain

That split the room in two.

You were the first to disappear,

Eyes dreaming,

Lungs letting go their

Deep unconscious sighs,

So effortlessly rhythmic

You must have dreamt

Water--current

Spilling into chill current

Like dark muscles

Veined with white--

Already so far gone

By the time I lay down,

Lying beside you was like

Dangling a leg

Over the edge

Of a drifting boat.

Tracy K. Smith was named the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2017. Her subsequent collection, “Life On Mars” won the Pulitzer Prize.

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Everything's out there shifting.  So maybe the [artist] should sit still.

Eileen Myles, “Afterglow”

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Love and Hydrogen (Jim Shepard)

Even calm, cold, practical minds that worked on logarithms or carburetors felt the strange joy, the uncanny fascination, the radiance of atmospheric and gravitational freedom.  They’d watched the Graf Zeppelin, their sister ship, take off one beautiful morning, the sun dazzling on its aluminum dope as if it were levitating on light and it was like watching Juggernaut float free of the earth.  One night they’d gone down almost to touch the waves and scared a fishing boat in the fog, and had joked afterward about what the boat’s crew must have experienced: looking back to see a great dark, whirring thing rise like a monster upon them out of the murky air.

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Riot (Gwendolyn Brooks)

“A riot is the language of the unheard. “ —martin luther king

John Cabot, out of Wilma, once a Wycliffe, all whitebluerose below his golden hair, wrapped richly in right linen and right wool, almost forgot his Jaguar and Lake Bluff; almost forgot Grandtully (which is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Scotch); almost forgot the sculpture at the Richard Gray and Distelheim; the kidney pie at Maxim’s, the Grenadine de Boeuf at Maison Henri. Because the Negroes were coming down the street. Because the Poor were sweaty and unpretty (not like Two Dainty Negroes in Winnetka) and they were coming toward him in rough ranks. In seas. In windsweep. They were black and loud. And not detainable. And not discreet. Gross. Gross. “Que tu es grossier!” John Cabot itched instantly beneath the nourished white that told his story of glory to the World. “Don’t let It touch me! the blackness! Lord!” he whispered to any handy angel in the sky. But, in a thrilling announcement, on It drove and breathed on him: and touched him. In that breath the fume of pig foot, chitterling and cheap chili, malign, mocked John. And, in terrific touch, old averted doubt jerked forward decently, cried, “Cabot! John! You are a desperate man, and the desperate die expensively today.” John Cabot went down in the smoke and fire and broken glass and blood, and he cried “Lord! Forgive these nigguhs that know not what they do.”

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Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)

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The Echo Maker (Richard Powers)

She'd broken free of her backyard tether and was pacing the front steps, panting wildly.  She held back, remembering the abuse at her master's hands from their last meeting.  As the humans approached, longer memories got the better of her.  She bounded across the lawn joyous and suffering...The lower the brain, the slower the fade.  Love in an earthworm might never extinguish at all.

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We need a Secretary of Education who SUPPORTS disabled students!

Call your Senators and ask them to oppose DeVos's confirmation. 

For New Yorkers: Sen. Gillibrand's office is [phone] and Sen. Schumer's is [phone]. 

Followers in other states: go to www.senate.gov/senators/contact/ or call [phone].

DeVos Says States Shouldn't Have to Comply With Federal Law Protecting Disabled Students

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mid-January list:

reading: 

The Sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen)

Home Cooking (Laurie Colwin)

Poetry Magazine (Jan. 2017)

listening:

Fantastic Damage (El-P)

Tones for the 21st Century (Graham Haynes)

Perfect Animal (Becca Stevens)

watching:

NYPD Blue

Northern Exposure

Homeland 6

#viet thanh nguyen #laurie colwin #poetry foundation #el-p #graham haynes #becca stevens #nypd blue #northern exposure #homeland