HA! Love it.

“Room 23. M. Matignon shows us a lady opium-smoker out of some novel. Opium has a lot of faults and disadvantages, but it has more charm than this painting.”

from “A Visit to the Exhibition Rooms” (1911)

I love RZA. 

Harvey Weinstein on line one!

Mr. DIGGS: You know, I think it happens in every life, actually, not only every story, but as you go throughout the Bible, the Quran and all these wise books and even my own life, there’s always a moment that you hear something that changes you. Malcolm X said, you know, he got it in prison when he heard the words of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Moses from the burning bush; the Prophet Muhammad in the cave. We get this call in your life and when you get the call, we must answer the call.

Now, I just take it to a practical modern-day thing. I’m an actor inside of movies, right? And that started from a call. Mr. Harvey Weinstein from Miramax movie called me up – RZA, I want you in my movie. You have a new career now. And I answered that call and I went, and I did his movie, and he was correct. It led to a whole new career for me. So the call comes. Be prepared to answer it.

This NPR interview has some great moments:

My three-year-old son, every time we turn the news on he goes Obama?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. DIGGS: You know what I mean? He has a new pinnacle now.

MARTIN: A black president is a fact of life for him, not a subject of a comedy routine.

Mr. DIGGS: Exactly.

Edwin Fobbs passed away on September 22nd, just shy of his 73rd birthday, which would have been today, October 1.

What can I say about the great Mr. Eddie Fobbs?

Funny? Sheeeeit! How much funnier can one person be? Not much.  “I will never forget the time…[Eddie Fobbs told me some outlandish and hilarious story].”

He also was a fount of wisdom.

drafted by the New York Yankees at age 16

19 years as caddy master at Seminole

28 years as locker room man at Meadow Brook

hardworking bread winner for his family

caddied for Ben Hogan

Eddie Fobbs was a great golfer

he used to hit driver off the deck

“You made par? So what! That’s what you ’sposed to make!”

he was a heck of a Georgia Skin player

and a heck of a pool player; beat players who had held their own against Ralph Greenleaf

he was was with his good friend Sam Cooke just before Cooke was killed

he switched Caddillacs, and later SUVs, with astonishing frequency.

he had style; he used to rock those Kangols…

he said: never apologize to nobody.

George H.W. Bush offered him a shirt that said George Bush, Vice President. But Mr. Eddie didn’t want no shirt. So George H.W. Bush gave him his own pocket knife.

he said: always pay your gambling debts immediately. (especially to him! sheeeit!)

he pronounced Albany as “ALL-BINNY!”

“I cannot BELIEVE I’m out here bettin’ on bogey. I makes bets on BIRDIES AND PARS. Bogey??? Sheeeeeeit!”

Mr. Eddie, you will be missed. Rest in peace.

There once was a juvenile ranter

who went by the name of E. Cantor

he whined and whined and whined and whined;

someone get this man a decanter

There once was a man named E. Bayh

who was prepped for his post from ye high

if hogs ever flew these dogs that are blue

would get thrown out of office and cry.

There once was a man named John Boehner.

I’m told that’s pronounced like container…?

T.S. Eliot knew-y that a groaner’s a buoy

and I know this moaner’s insaner…*

*Than whom, I can’t say, but I don’t mean Eliot.

This Romare Bearden interview with Barbaralee Diamonstein (now Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel) is really a gem. Bearden discusses his time in medical school (I’ve never seen that discussed or referred to before), his time in Paris, and his time in Bellvue, among many other topics. He also claims an all-American provenance for Abstract Expressionism.

This currently relevant and hilarious passage may be found in Barbara Johnson’s 2007 translation of Divagations, pp. 220-221.

With the autumn wind, a rumor spread through the market and lodged in the leafless trees: I don’t know whether it makes you laugh retrospectively, as it does me; there was talk of a disaster in the publishing business. The word ‘krach’ [crash] was bandied about. Unsold volumes littered the ground; because, people said, of the public’s disinclination to read, probably in order to contemplate things themselves, without intermediary; sunsets for example, which in that season are magnificent.

….

Mental nourishment – like the other, indispensible kind – keeps its currency, and I come back from spending the morning outside, in springtime, charmed like any city-dweller by the small amount of headiness in the street; having never, during my excusion, felt, except in front of a modern grocery store or shoe store, for books, a worry, but acute then, about the architecture demanded by these displays, their construction of piles or colonnades along with their merchandise.

“The Slavocrat’s giant he slew!” (That’s a line from the 1860 campaign tune “Lincoln and Liberty Too”…improbably referenced by Joyce in “Finnegans Wake.”)

Jonathan Raban’s All The President’s Literature in this weekend’s Wall St. Journal is a remarkable piece that needed to be written. His assessment of Lincoln is clear, to the point, and very smart: he found a way to make difficult issues funny. His assessment of Grant is a little unfair: Grant, to my mind, is the progenitor of Hemingway, Stein, and Didion.  I did not know, but should have known, that Disraeli was a novelist. One literary head of state that Raban neglected to mention was Leopold Sedar Senghor.

But the best part of Raban’s outstanding essay is this (esp. since I’m on this Balzac kick):

In politics, “realism” is usually just another term for pragmatism, or Realpolitik. But “Dreams From My Father” suggests that for Obama the word is rooted less in a political than in a literary tradition, where it has a far richer meaning. It signifies the watchful eye and patiently attentive ear; a proper humility in the face of the multiplex character of human society; and, most of all, a belief in the power of the writer’s imagination to comprehend and ultimately reconcile the manifold contradictions in his teeming world. It’s not much to go on, but, so far, naming his cabinet and organizing his inauguration, incorporating into the narrative characters and voices quite different from his own (like Hillary Clinton’s or Rick Warren’s), Obama has demonstrated an impressive consistency between his instincts as a writer and his performance as president-elect. He reminds us that novelists, no less than apprentice politicians, are in the business of community organizing.

How perfect is that? No, this will not be a monologic administration! Will it be heteroglossic? Can it be?

Anyway, Raban’s piece made me want to go look for Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait”, as read by Adlai Stevenson. I could not find it and I figured even if I did, the CD would be hopelessly scratched. I must have listened to it about 850 times, circa 2000.  On itunes I first found it read by Henry Fonda, but his voice was too different from Stevenson’s. Stevenson’s was a properly old-fashioned, almost 19th century style voice. Fonda’s sounded too new. I searched and searched but could not find Stevenson’s. What I did find though, was a 1993 version by James Earl Jones. Oh my! Though there was no preview available on itunes, I am certain Jones’s voice is more suited to the task than Fonda’s. It’s still downloading. I can’t wait to listen.

From Balzac’s The Wrong Side of Paris (L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine)

More learned that the common run of bankers, he was possessed of the universal knowledge that comes with a Polytechnic education; but like many bankers, he had a special predilection, a favorite fancy outside the world of commerce: he loved mechanics and chemistry. Mongenod the younger, Frederic’s junior by ten years, occupied a position in his elder brother’s offices rather like that of a head clerk to a notaire or solicitor; Frederic had taught himself the ways of the business, just as he had learned from his father all the knowledge and discernment a true banker needs. For a good banker is to money as a writer is to ideas. Both must know everything. 

(my emphasis)

Hey Tara, remember this insight of yours? (c. 1994? When m.c.’s had to have good analogies and punchlines…) 

“A rapper has to know…like everything!”

Also, this post is dedicated to Mike James on what would have been his 66th birthday. As he was so fond of saying: “we’re living in Balzac’s Paris, Paul!”

While GS may be the ticker symbol for Goldman Sachs, I prefer Gilbert and Sullivan. This rather amazing bit is from Utopia, Limited. The more things change…

(Presenting Mr. Goldbury)

A Company Promoter this with special education,
Which teaches what Contango means and also Backwardation–
To speculators he supplies a grand financial leaven,
Time was when two were company–but now it must be seven.

Mr. Gold.: Yes–yes–yes
Stupendous loans to foreign thrones
I’ve largely advocated;
In ginger-pops and peppermint-drops
I’ve freely speculated;
Then mines of gold, of wealth untold,
Successfully I’ve floated
And sudden falls in apple-stalls
Occasionally quoted.
And soon or late I always call
For Stock Exchange quotation–
No schemes too great and none too small
For Companification!

Chorus: Yes! Yes! Yes! No schemes too great, etc.
Ulahlica! Ulahlica! Ulahlica!

[...]

QUARTET

Ye wanderers from a mighty State,
Oh, teach us how to legislate–
Your lightest word will carry weight,
In our attentive ears.
Oh, teach the natives of this land
(Who are not quick to understand)
How to work off their social and
Political arrears!

Capt. Fitz.: Increase your army!
Lord D.: Purify your court!
Capt. Corc: Get up your steam and cut your canvas short!
Sir B.: To speak on both sides teach your sluggish brains!
Mr. B.: Widen your thoroughfares, and flush your drains!
Mr. Gold.: Utopia’s much too big for one small head–
I’ll float it as a Company Limited!

King: A Company Limited? What may that be?
The term, I rather think, is new to me.

Chorus: A company limited? etc.

Sca, Phant, and Tara (Aside)
What does he mean? What does he mean?
Give us a kind of clue!
What does he mean? What does he mean?
What is he going to do?

SONG — Mr. Goldbury

Some seven men form an Association
(If possible, all Peers and Baronets),
The start off with a public declaration
To what extent they mean to pay their debts.
That’s called their Capital; if they are wary
They will not quote it at a sum immense.
The figure’s immaterial–it may vary
From eighteen million down to eighteenpence.
I should put it rather low;
The good sense of doing so
Will be evident at once to any debtor.
When it’s left to you to say
What amount you mean to pay,
Why, the lower you can put it at, the better.

Chorus: When it’s left to you to say, etc.

They then proceed to trade with all who’ll trust ‘em
Quite irrespective of their capital
(It’s shady, but it’s sanctified by custom);
Bank, Railway, Loan, or Panama Canal.
You can’t embark on trading too tremendous–
It’s strictly fair, and based on common sense–
If you succeed, your profits are stupendous–
And if you fail, pop goes your eighteenpence.

Make the money-spinner spin!
For you only stand to win,
And you’ll never with dishonesty be twitted.
For nobody can know,
To a million or so,
To what extent your capital’s committed!

Chorus: No, nobody can know, etc.

If you come to grief, and creditors are craving
(For nothing that is planned by mortal head
Is certain in this Vale of Sorrow–saving
That one’s Liability is Limited),–
Do you suppose that signifies perdition?
If so, you’re but a monetary dunce–
You merely file a Winding-Up Petition,
And start another Company at once!
Though a Rothschild you may be
In your own capacity,
As a Company you’ve come to utter sorrow–
But the Liquidators say,
“Never mind–you needn’t pay,”
So you start another company to-morrow!

Chorus: But the liquidators say, etc.

King: Well, at first sight it strikes us as dishonest,
But if its’s good enough for virtuous England–
The first commercial country in the world–
It’s good enough for us.

The Telegraph has a fun list of 50 facts you did not know about Barack Obama.  I can totally relate to some, or perhaps many of the facts. Obama, for instance, has signed red Muhammad Ali boxing gloves, while I have one signed Larry Holmes glove.  Melville, Picasso: can’t argue with them!

But the most stunning fact, to me, is that he has said that if he had not been a politician, he might have been an architect.  Nooooow, this is most interesting.

Benjamin H. Bratton uses the following as an epigraph his introduction to the new edition Paul Virilio’s Speed and Politics [Semiotext(e), 2006]:

“If there had never been a war, I would have made a very good architect.”

                 -Ahmed Shah Massoud, Afghan opposition leader…as quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the morning edition of September 11, 2001.

Bratton writes, “[t]he image of the ‘polis’ (city) as a dynamic, vehicular landscape is both Virilio’s initial architectural solution and his eventual theoretical warning. “Dromology” is this government of differential motility, of harnessing and mobilizing, incarcerating and accelerating things and people.”

I’m looking forward to the eventual Virilio-inspired analysis of Obama’s unbelievable campaign, especially the motion it created in so many people. Someone must be working on it somewhere! Let me know about it, wherever you are!