THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”―James Joyce
If you are ever wondering what to do with our political system….if you are frustrated and feel powerless…just remember what Emperor Norton did today in 1872. Yes, back in those days there was also a distrust in the public officials, so Norton got fed up and issued this decree:
“The Public Officials having again notoriously betrayed the confidence and trust imposed in them by a trusting people; and having shamefully disregarded the public interest and the people's welfare to feather their own nests; now, therefore, We, Norton I, Emperor of America and Protector of Mexico, do hereby order all such Officials to resign forthwith, and do declare their said offices vacant from the date hereof.”
Yes, he fired them. Fired them all. For those keeping score, he had also fired the Congress, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis during the Civil War.
Remember: Norton declared himself Emperor, and the good people of San Francisco played along. He dressed up in ancient military grandeur when he walked the streets—eating for free at restaurants whose owners paid tribute—being addressed as “your majesty” as he strutted along. Of course he felt powerful enough to fire anyone.
How Bossa Nova Brought Frank Sinatra to This Sunset Blvd. Studio
Friend and musicologist Josh Kun uses Los Angeles photos by Ed Ruscha to tell a sweet tale of the Frank Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim’s musical partnership that birthed “Girl From Ipanema,” and how United Recorders (famous LA studio) played a pivotal part in the sound produced. As Kun describes, theirs was a true artistic partnership: “The fundamental loneliness goes,” Sinatra sang, “whenever two can dream a dream together.”
Paul Yamazaki on Fifty Years of Bookselling at City Lights
I got to spend the evening with Paul about a decade ago. What an unassuming, super interesting character. You kinda have to be if you are the long time bookseller at one of the most famous, greatest bookstores in the world.
EXHIBIT ON-LINE: Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being
The Covid-era has led to a Renaissance of on-line art exhibits, as refuge to the museums who have little-to-no visitors. I stumbled upon this one curated by the Morgan Library and Museum, whose exhibits are always interesting and innovative even without the added technology now used to present them online. I saw the Frankenstein 200 exhibit there when I was last in New York, a world and a reality ago, and loved it. Alfred Jarry was the ultimate futuristic outsider artist of his time known most for his infamous play Ubu Roi (Yeats was at the opening) as well as….well, instead of me telling you, check out the great exhibit.
The Biden-Harris administration must integrate the arts into our national recovery
Artists WILL lead us into the new world.
Molly Bloom's Soliloquy (final part)
by James Joyce
…I love flowers I’d love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven there’s nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying there’s no God I wouldn’t give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why don’t they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because they’re afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they don’t know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a woman’s body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldn’t answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didn’t know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the Jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharans and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
