I’ve been thinking about the Old Testament prophets lately. I distrust end-is-nigh-ism; that “end” is often just the destruction of some solipsistic fantasy. Life goes on in whatever seemingly hobbled form. The fundamentalists I grew up with understood those OT doom-sayers quite literally. The surreal omens promised a real-world destruction always five minutes from a moment exactly like now. But that now never comes.
Culturewatch
Virus-Apocalypse
More notes on now from the author’s Facebook page…
America Hunkers Down
Hands scrubbed till they bleed.
School replaced with videos.
Carts crammed with toilet paper and guns.
Interview with Michael Rumaker
The following interview with Michael Rumaker, conducted by Ammiel Alcalay and Megan Paslawski, appeared in the City Lights Books edition of Rumaker’s Robert Duncan in San Francisco. Appended to the interview is a note Alcalay wrote for Rumaker’s Memorial service last year.
Encountering Steiner
I first met literary critic and philosopher George Steiner, who died February 3, in early 1964.
Intercommunalism (A New Decade of Ghosts)
my delusion is soaking through/makes my whole world wet with the idea of you
Eclectic Boogaloo & Participation Theory Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrrJvYLH_kc
What follows is a poem—inspired in part by the grainy yet graceful video above—and a short program for the Academy dashed off by Charles Keil.
Old Ideas and New Blood (Alvin Ailey, 2020)
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, January 2, City Center: “Ode,” “Fandango”, “Mass,” “Revelations”
