kerinth's edda

Sewers of Babel

2005-09-25T19:51:00.000-04:00

4: And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth [...]
8: So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9: Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

-But what good is scattering and settling to those who dreamt through the tower's upsurge, and quivered beneath its fall in labyrinthine water-mains and undergound halls? They may be there still, gathering fragments of news from bits of paper and rumor, stuck with language, scurrying from the dreadful eyes of God.

And thus I've been spending my time riding another horse, while Bucephalus wanders further north.
But it's fun, and more of a group-linkpost thing than a soul-scouring washbasin. It has more hope in it because of the extra beating hearts, and because of the newness. Rebuild from the ruins, then go campaigning.
Godspeed.

Nurses Song [William Blake]

2005-08-06T04:09:00.000-04:00

When voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.
'Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away,
Till the morning appears in the skies.'

'No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all covered with sheep.'
'Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed.'
The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,
And all the hills echoed.

There is a wonderful performance of this poem done to music by Allen Ginsberg; will post it soon.

The Long Day Off

2005-07-11T14:31:00.000-04:00

The long day off
(the day long off?)
where I work for no one's interest
but my own (when mine expands
to address the sum and total
without missing those alone).

Politicos have polar ideals of verbal gravity

2005-07-11T13:47:00.000-04:00

Ben Macintyre's Article

“A SINGLE VERSE by Rimbaud,” writes Dominique de Villepin, the new French Prime Minister, “shines like a powder trail on a day’s horizon. It sets it ablaze all at once, explodes all limits, draws the eyes to other heavens.” Here is a rather different observation, uttered by George Bush Sr in 1998, that might stand as a motto for his dynasty: “I can’t do poetry.”

Perhaps some middle ground will win out, and we'll hear a measured Robert-Frost-y tone applied to current affairs. Or perhaps Villepin will tour rural America, like Oscar Wilde and The Sex Pistols. It could be called "Project for Florid Impressionism in America."

Back to the sentry-post

2005-06-09T13:34:00.000-04:00

I'm hoping that this post will make the rest bundle themselves together in an archive - for my benefit and theirs.

The Decision

To abide the time,
or bide my time
and plan a road
to build for an uncertain span-

If life is pain
or avoidance thereof,
I'd like to have a reason
to love the strain-

To love work and wear
eventually is to bear
the same scars as the rest,
but have them wound inside your chest—
(a nest or crown)

Filter your focus, focus on filters

2004-12-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

It would be honorable to give away some of my sources.
Besides, having is not equivalent to using.
Let the meme-wars commence.

memepool, a well-edited best-of-the-absurd-web
metafilter, a linksharing community blog, pretentious but precious
monkeyfilter, a more open metafilter, with self-consciously goofy folks
plep.org, a one man show(?) but with contributed links - no discussion, good content
Arts and Letters daily , like plep but part of the academy, good articles/criticism
Daily Kos, mobilized democrats spinning or trying to stop
Fark, the one and only ... something. my foot in the door

First Post of the Last Month of the Fourth Year of the Third Millenium after One Peak of the Messiah Sequence

2004-12-07T03:55:00.000-05:00

Strange to set oneself within
prepositions and demarcations;
stranger still to thrill at the alterations
falling nearly seasonal
and still feel reasonable.

What remainder
from what manger
will defend us
through this plunder?

Harold Pinter Poetry

2004-11-20T15:22:00.000-05:00

His official site

and an example:

American Football

Hallelujah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.

We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.

It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!

Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.

We did it.

Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.

Harold Pinter

Fun with limited communication!

2004-11-19T02:52:00.000-05:00

Eat Poop You Cat

Logs upon logs of this strangely-named game, which forces its players to relay an initial sentence, going back and forth between artistic interpretation of a sentence, and a lingustic summary of that picture, etc. Each player is only one link in the chain of meaning.

An example:

"reinforcing the point that shooting one of your own won't save you from all your sins"

"Two fresh eyesses to fill my hollow socketsses... Now, what to do about these horse legs?"

The threads just keep on going and spinning beyond absurdity! Can't wait to try this socially.

Before thir eyes in sudden view appear

2004-11-08T06:45:00.000-05:00

The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark
Illimitable Ocean without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, & highth,
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise
Of endless Warrs, and by confusion stand.

- J. Milton, Paradise Lost Book II 890-7

Question:

2004-10-17T01:16:00.000-04:00

What must be shared or exchanged with the world as sufficient
collateral or testimonial to renew the loan
or lease?

A:
A piece
of life greater than I will have when full grown,
and a hope for life neither transcendent nor omniscient.

[other answers will be posted, in similar or dissimilar format: feel
free to lend your own, my faithful readers; that great One]

Jon Stewart:Iconoclast?

2004-10-16T02:17:00.000-04:00

Stewart on Crossfire
Interesting direct confrontation
between the serious game
and the game's Fool,
who knows their rules
and speaks them explicit.
(Requires Quicktime)

Deaaaath!

2004-10-12T15:31:00.000-04:00

Strindberg and Helium

Bizarre concept - from what I and others have understood it takes passages from Strindberg's Inferno and adds another character - regardless, it is classic and doesn't treat the source text too uncritically or critically. Well sequenced.

We are already in hell. Heeellllllllllllll!

Here is a biography of Strindberg with links to closer examinations of his work.

Stephen Crane

2004-10-08T19:52:00.000-04:00

War Poetry of Stephen Crane
Some highlights:

God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.
With the infinite skill of an All-Master
Made He the hull and the sails,
Held He the rudder
Ready for adjustment.
Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly.
Then -- at fateful time -- a wrong called,
And God turned, heeding.
Lo, the ship, at this opportunity, slipped slyly,
Making cunning noiseless travel down the ways.
So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas
Going ridiculous voyages,
Making quaint progress,
Turning as with serious purpose
Before stupid winds.
And there were many in the sky
Who laughed at this thing.

---

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

Definition of how I have self-defined

2004-10-08T06:09:00.000-04:00

Within these lines?
I think this covers nearly all
written work. I think -
Edda- n.
  The name given to two distinct Icelandic books:    a. By Icelandic poets of 15th c. applied to a miscellaneous handbook to Icel. poetry, containing prosodic and grammatical treatises, with quotations and prose paraphrases of myths from old poems. This work (partly written by the Icelandic historian Snorre Sturluson c1230) has since 1642 been commonly called Snorre's Edda, or the Younger or Prose Edda.

    b. A collection (made c1200) of ancient ON. poems on mythical and traditional subjects. The names ‘Elder or Poetic Edda’, ‘Edda of Sæmund’, were applied to this work by Biorn of Skardsá, who erroneously ascribed its compilation to the Icelandic historian Sæmund (d. 1133).

Developing an internet presence, or a presence alone

2004-10-08T03:54:00.000-04:00

So this is the inception of my projected spirit,
although i think i will leave the lines below just
to clarify that the beginning came before I was
of age to pass by the town-gates.
Not that I am of age now, but again from shadowy
types to truth one must travel, or one is told these
things as a shadow in itself covered in sinewy-seeming
verse or verbiage -
but I have passed the gates nonetheless, and doubt
now can only prolong the already long human youth
to an unnatural span; better to man the stocks
than to believe a mortal truth.

Or so it might seem, depending on the nightly read.
Good God or Bad It still goes right to the head,
avoiding the brain-function proud
imposing humility beyond noun.

The first post which i will delete

2004-10-05T06:47:00.000-04:00

ahem