Legion » Excerpted

Typescripts

Garrett Dash Nelson — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:52:00 +0000

The dream of a real, visible, or audible world arising from the words is over. The historical synchronicity of cinema, phonography, and typewriter separated the data flows of optics, acoustics, and writing and rendered them autonomous. The fact of this differentiation is not altered by the recent ability of electric or electronic media to bring them back together and combine them.

Friedrich Kittler, “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter,” October 41 (Summer, 1987):101-118.

Myths and realities

Garrett Dash Nelson — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:37:36 +0000

“There is a continuous dialectic interplay between the mind and its environment, and … our perceptions of objects and events are no less a part of consciousness than are our fantasies.”

Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005), viii.

II.

“You can boast your magnificent lawn and spacious rooms, but face it—you live in the Quad. You will psyche yourself out that it’s not so bad, but on that occasional night where you’re standing around freezing at 3:30am, you’ll think about the hundreds of hours you light on fire because of living in the Quad and you’ll shed a little tear for the cold arbitrariness of life.”

June Wu, FlyByBlog

III.

View Larger Map

Quad to the Science Center: 2689 ft.
Eliot to the Science Center: 2597 ft.
Mather to the Science Center: 3039 ft.

Ben Franklin, alarm clock

Garrett Dash Nelson — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:39:41 +0000

Fourth. Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient?, let cannon be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest.

All the difficulty will be in the first two or three days; after which the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity; for, ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte. Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is more than probable he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening; and, having had eight hours sleep, he will rise more willingly at four in the morning following.

Benjamin Franklin, Essay on Daylight Saving, Letter to the Editor of the Journal of Paris, 1784.

Chance albums

Garrett Dash Nelson — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:45:21 +0000

In New York, when I was setting out to write the orchestral parts of my Concert for Piano and Orchestra which was performed September 19, 1958, in Cologne, I visited each player, found out what he could do with his instrument, discovered with him other possibilities, and then subjected all these findings to chance operations, ending up with a part that was quite indeterminate of its performance. After a general rehearsal, during which the musicians heard the result of their several actions, some of them — not all — introduced in the actual performance sounds of a nature not found in my notations, characterized for the most part by their intentions which had become foolish and unprofessional. In Cologne, hoping to avoid this unfortunate state of affairs, I worked with each musician individually and in general rehearsal was silent. I should let you know that the conductor has no score but has only his own part, so that, though he affects the other performers, he does not control them. Well, anyway, the result was in some cases just as unprofessional in Cologne as in New York. I must find a way to let people be free without their becoming foolish. So that their freedom will make them noble. How will I do this? That is the question.

John Cage, Indeterminacy, Story 17

With that, I would like to introduce my latest alt-rock masterpiece, hailed by critics as “a bold and emotional call in the darkness of the adult alternative mainstream”:

Hearts they race

Garrett Dash Nelson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:38:28 +0000

You have heard it (my Friend!) as a common Saying, that Interest governs the World. But, I believe, whoever looks narrowly into the Affairs of it, will find, that Passion, Humour, Caprice, Zeal, Faction, and a thousand other Spring which are counter to Self-Interest, have as considerable a part in the Movements of this Machine. There are more Wheels and Counter-Poises in this Engine than are easily imagin’d. ‘Tis of too complex a kind, to fall under one simple View, or be explain’d thus briefly in a word or two. The Studiers of this Mechanism must have a very partial Eye, to overlook all other Motions besides those of the lowest and narrowest Compass. ‘Tis hard, that in the Plan or Description of this Clock-work, no Wheel or Balance shou’d be allow’d on the side of the better and more enlarg’d Affections; that nothing shou’d be understood to be done in Kindness or Generosity; nothing in pure good-Nature or Friendship, or thro any social or natural Affection of any kind: when, perhaps, the main Springs of this Machine will be found to be either these very natural Affections themselves, or a compound kind deriv’d from them, and retaining more than one half of their Nature.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

Olly olly oxen free

Garrett Dash Nelson — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:48:17 +0000

GEORGE. Olly Olly Oxen Free! (Breathing heavily.) I won! I won! God, I love this game. (GEORGE reaches behind the couch and grabs Simmon and Gogen and puts the puppets on his hands.)

GOGEN. (The Giraffe) He cheats. I won’t play with him anymore.

SIMMON. (The Bunny) I’m not cheating. I happen to have hiccups. (He hiccups.)

GOGEN. Then don’t hide where I’m hiding.

Charles Richard Johnson, Olly Olly Oxen Free: A Farce in Three Acts (Samuel French, 1988).

Bishop Allen — Dimmer
New album, “Grrr…”, due 10 March

The second-place month

Garrett Dash Nelson — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:25:40 +0000

“O happy February! in which man has least to bear—least pain, least sorrow, least self-reproach!”

Immanuel Kant, diary. Qtd. in William Rounseville Alger, The solitudes of nature and of man; or, The loneliness of human life (Boston: Roberts Bros., 1882)

A breath of city air

Garrett Dash Nelson — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:37:36 +0000

There is, I confesse, a certain Idiosyncrasia in the Composition of some persons, which may fit and dispose them to thrive better in some Aers, then in other: But, it is manifest, that those who repair to London, no sooner enter into it, but they find a universal alteration in their Bodies, which are either dryed up or enflam’d, the humours being exasperated and made apt to putrifie, their sensories and perspiration so exceedingly stopp’d, with the losse of Appetite, and a kind of general stupefaction, succeeded with such Cathars and Distillations, as do never, or very rarely quit them, without some further Symptomes of dangerous Inconveniency so long as they abide in the place; which yet are immediately restored to their former habit, so soon as they are retired to their Homes and enjoy the fresh Aer again. And here I may not omit to mention what a most Learned Physician and one of the Colledge assur’d me, as I remember of a Friend of his, who had so strange an Antipathy to the Aer of London: that though he were a Merchant, and had frequent businesse in the City, was yet constrained to make his Dwelling some miles without it; and when he came to the Exchange, within an hour or two, grew so extremely indispos’d, that (as if out of his proper Element) he was forced to take horse (which us’d therefore constantly to attend him at the Entrance) and ride as for his Life, till he came into the Fields, and was returning home again, which is an Instance so extraordinary, as not, it may be, to be parallell’d in any place of Europe, save the Grotto del Cane, nere Naples, the Os Plutonium of Silvius, or some such Subterranean habitation. For Diseases proceed not from so long a Series of causes, as we are apt to conceive; but, most times from those obvious, and despicable mischiefs, which yet we take lesse notice of, because they are familiar: But how frequently do we hear men say (speaking of some deceased Neighbour or Friend) He went up to London, and took a great Cold, &c. which he could never afterwards claw off again.

John Evelyn, Fumifugium, or The inconveniencie of the aer and smoak of London dissipated together with some remedies humbly proposed, 1661.

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Sentiments at Christmastime

Garrett Dash Nelson — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:41:39 +0000

If I was David Remnick, I would republish this comment from the 1952 issue of the New Yorker every December. Since I am only me, I can only republish it here.

From this high midtown hall, undecked with boughs, unfortified with mistletoe, we send forth our tinselled greetings as of old, to friends, to readers, to strangers of many conditions in many places. Merry Christmas to uncertified accountants, to tellers who have made a mistake in addition, to girls who have made a mistake in judgment, to grounded airline passengers, and to all those who can’t eat clams! We greet with particular warmth people who wake and smell smoke. To captains of river boats on snowy mornings we send an answering toot at this holiday time. Merry Christmas to intellectuals and other despised minorities! Merry Christmas to the musicians of Muzak and men whose shoes don’t fit! Greetings of the season to unemployed actors and the blacklisted everywhere who suffer for sins uncommitted; a holly thorn in the thumb of compilers of lists! Greetings to wives who can’t find their glasses and to poets who can’t find their rhymes! Merry Christmas to the unloved, the misunderstood, the overweight. Joy to the authors of books whose titles begin with the word “How” (as though they knew!). Greetings to people with a ringing in their ears; greetings to growers of gourds, to shearers of sheep, and to makers of change in the lonely underground booths! Merry Christmas to old men asleep in libraries! Merry Christmas to people who can’t stay in the same room with a cat! We greet, too, the boarders in boarding houses on 25 December, the duennas in Central Park in fair weather and foul, and young lovers who got nothing in the mail. Merry Christmas to people who plant trees in city streets; merry Christmas to people who save prairie chickens from extinction! Greetings of a purely mechanical sort to machines that think—plus a sprig of artificial holly. Joyous Yule to Cadillac owners whose conduct is unworthy of their car! Merry Christmas to the defeated, the forgotten, the inept; joy to all dandiprats and bunglers! We send, most particularly and most hopefully, our greetings and our prayers to soldiers and guardsmen on land and sea and in the air—the young men doing the hardest things at the hardest time of life. To all such, Merry Christmas, blessings, and good luck! We greet the Secretaries-designate, the President-elect; Merry Christmas to our new leaders, peace on earth, good will, and good management! Merry Christmas to couples unhappy in doorways! Merry Christmas to all who think they are in love but aren’t sure! Greetings to people waiting for trains that will take them in the wrong direction, to people doing up a bundle and the string is too short, to children with sleds and no snow! We greet ministers who can’t think of a moral, gagmen who can’t think of a joke. Greetings, too, to the inhabitants of other planets; see you soon! And last, we greet all skaters on small natural ponds at the edge of woods toward the end of afternoon. Merry Christmas, skaters! Ring, steel! Grow red, sky! Die down, wind! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good morrow!

E. B. White, The New Yorker, 20 December 1952

Et in Utah ego.

Maryellen McGowan — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:10:20 +0000

Two dilapidated shacks looked over a tired group of oil rigs. A series of seeps of heavy black oil more like asphalt occur just south of Rozel Point. For forty or more years people have tried to get oil out of this natural tar pool. Pumps coated with black stickiness rusted in the corrosive salt air. A hut mounted on pilings could have been the habitation of “the missing link.” A great pleasure arose from seeing all those incoherent structures. This site gave evidence of a succession of man-made systems mired in abandoned hopes.

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1972)