Crazy Russians

New York Eye & Ear Control

It isn't strictly an Albert Ayler album but a very interesting collaborative freely improvised soundtrack project for Michael Snow's film of the same name. Recorded in July 1964 by Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray.

Michael Snow, the Toronto based film maker and pianist and catalyst for free improvisational performers everywhere; painter, sculptor and record producer, and the pride of Canada, used the image of pianist-composer Carla Bley as the inspiration for ah art film, NY EYE & EAR CONTROL. For his sound track, he assembled a group of ESP artists in his loft, and recorded them on July 17, 1964.

No Church in the Wild

Why you always buy alcohol the day before Easter Friday

Tracker

A square tower of granite thrust out of the surrounding trees. Its weathered black face cried rivulets of rain that coursed down its side to the undergrowth. A bottom corner of the tower had broken off a some hundred thousand years earlier and now lay a dozen yards away down the hill. In the detached void a small overhang had formed, where generations of animals had churned up the dry sandy ground beneath.

The tall, black figure of Parala stood under the looming rock to avoid the drizzle that had been soaking all of them for three days. The rainforest surrounding him was hushed under the deluge, the trees blending into the mist that clung to their twisted forms. He watched as the dark figure of Timbul, dressed in an identical loincloth, climbed the hill to the overhang. He stood with Parala, breathing from the exertion.

For sooth old man, dost such a slight climb take away thy breath? said Parala.

When thirty and five summers thou reach, young whelk, see’st how well thou breathe replied Timbul. He looked at the floor of the cave. Dost thou believe he slumbered here through the tempest?

Yea, verily my brother. Once, by virtue of happenstance we sheltered here before. Mayest thou see the depression in the sand towards the rear of the cave? ‘Tis fresh and ne’er made by any beast.

‘Tis as you say. Dost thou eyes seek out his manner of departure from this haven?

‘Aye, they do. Yet it aids me not for I know already the heart of his voyage. 

At that moment the noise of pots clanging and branches snapping rang out from down the hill. Emerging from the mist, two white squatters trudged up leading an overladen donkey. The leading man had a grizzled beard under his slouch hat. He took each step up the hill in a steady, measured pace that looked as though could be kept up for thousand miles. Following was a younger man, his gait uneven as he continually tugged at the pack that was slipping off his shoulder.

They drew up level to the cave where Parala and Timbul stood. The older man stopped and looked at them both.

'So Parala, have you found his trail?' he said.

'Ya boss. Big Jim he slip hia last nait. Nowen he long hop da big draiva.'

'The river? Which river?'

Parala pointed down through the trees. ‘Dat big draiva overrum dare.'

The older man looked.

'I can't see a bloody thing through these trees, and I’m not bloody well going to go try ford some foul infested waterway in the dark. We’ll camp here. Billy,' he said to the younger man. 'Get unpacked. I'm going for a shufti.'

Billy unslung his pack and threw it at Timbul.

'You 'eard Mr Fitzgibbon blackie. Start unpacking.'

'William' said Fitzgibbon. 'I said you unpack it. Not get the blacks to do it.'

Billy glared at Timbul and snatched the bag back from him.

Fitzgibbon turned to Parala. 'Come on, the rain's thinning. Let’s see if we can climb this crows nest.'

***

Parala and Fitzgibbon walked around the base of the tower. On the rear side where the granite met the hill, an eroded crack in the rock led up the side., After five minutes of grunting exertion, Parala reached the top. He leant over and grabbed Fitzgibbon’s hand, helping him up the last few feet to the summit.

Fitzgibbon looked around. Here above the canopy spread out to the Owen Stanley ranges that ran down the centre of New Guinea. Muffled curses from Billy echoed up from below the treetops.

'Show me where this river is,' said Fitzgibbon.

Parala pointed out over to where a long, dark green line snaked through the surrounding forest.

‘Overrum dare.’

'Are you sure that’s where he went?'

Parala nodded. ‘Big Jim, he throwum way leg one plas. Da Mangguy tree. Datta way.'

'What’s a Mangguy Tree?' said Fitzgibbon.

Parala’s face contorted. How to put into his basic pidgin what he could barely explain in his own language? It was like Fitzgibbon was asking him to stuff a full grown wallaby into it's own pouch.

Fitzgibbon cut off Parala’s stutters. ‘It’s alright. Some sacred site no doubt. You devils are a superstitious lot no mistake. Always going on with your corroborees and mumbo jumbo. Alice seems to take an interest in it but all seems damned silly to me.'

Parala looked at Fitzgibbon with a vacant stare.

'Course you don't undertand a word I'm sayin do you? Ah well, perhaps you're better for it. But you try Parala, I know you try. And your son, what's his name again?'

Parala shook his head.

'Come on man, you know. What's the phrase? 'Pikinini man'. Your son.'

Parala smiled. 'Jaaymes' he struggled with the unfamiliar word.

'Yes that's it. James. Alice took a real shine to him you know. Wants to put him class. Well I don't know. Miscengenation and all that. But if makes her happy, why not? What do you think? James go long skul?'

Parala stared at Fitzgibbon. Art thou saying mine own son will'st attend school?

Fitzgibbon frowned. 'What did you say?'

Parala looked down and then back up again. 'James go long skul?'

'Yes man, that's the ticket. James go long skul.'

Parala smiled again. 'Tenkyu boss. Tenkyu.'

O my America! my new-found-land

The Gregorian Calendar Reform

• Ten days were omitted from the calendar, and it was decreed that the day following (Thursday) October 4, 1582 (which is October 5, 1582, in the old calendar) would thenceforth be known as (Friday) October 15, 1582.

• The rule for leap years was changed. In the Julian Calendar a year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4. In the Gregorian Calendar a year is a leap year if either: 
• it is divisible by 4 but not by 100; or 
• it is divisible by 400. 

In other words, a year which is divisible by 4 is a leap year unless it is divisible by 100 but not by 400 (in which case it is not a leap year). Thus the years 1600 and 2000 are leap years, but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not.

The Gregorian Calendar was adopted immediately upon the promulgation of Pope Gregory's decree in the Catholic countries of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland, and shortly thereafter in France and Luxembourg.

The Gregorian Calendar was adopted in Britain (and in the British colonies) in 1752, with (Wednesday) September 2, 1752, being followed immediately by (Thursday) September 14, 1752.

This led to the fact that Shakespeare and Cervantes both died on the same date - 23 April 1616. However due to the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, their deaths were in fact 11 days apart.

Alphabetti Spaghetti

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

General Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie

Calvin Candie: White cake?

Dr. King Schultz: I don't go in for sweets, thank you.

Candie: You brooding 'bout me getting the best of ya, huh?

Schultz: Actually, I was thinking of that poor devil you fed to the dogs today, D'Artagnan. And I was wondering what Dumas would make of all this.

Candie: Come again?

Schultz: Alexander Dumas. He wrote The Three Musketeers.

Candie: Yes of course, doctor.

Schultz: I figured you must be an admirer. You named your slave after his novel's lead character. If Alexander Dumas had been there today, I wonder what he would have made of it?

Candie: You doubt he'd approve, huh?

Schultz: Yes. His approval would be a dubious proposition at best.

Candie: Soft-hearted Frenchy.

Schultz: Alexander Dumas is black.

Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie was the first black general in French history and remains the highest-ranking person of color of all time in a continental European army. He was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general, the first to become divisional general, and the first to become general-in-chief of a French army. Pailleterie shared the status of the highest-ranking black officer in the Western world only with Toussaint Louverture (who in May 1797 became the second black general-in-chief in the French military) until 1989, when the American Colin Powell became a four-star general, the closest United States equivalent of General of the Army, Pailleterie's highest rank.

Pailleterie was the son of Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie and a slave, Louise-Céssette Dumas, on the Caribbean island colony of Saint Domingue (now called Haiti). When Pailleterie proposed to join the army, his father only agreed on condition that he did not use the de la Pailleterie name. He obliged and began to use the name Dumas.

Following a successful campaign with Napoleon in Egypt, Dumas seemed set for a brilliant future - but, involved in a republican plot, he was despatched to France, captured during the journey and imprisoned. Freed after 20 months he was lame, deaf in one ear, partly paralysed and penniless. At the age of 35 he had to retire to Villers-Cotterêts, a quiet village near Paris where he had married Marie-Louise Elizabeth Labouret in 1792. He died of stomach cancer in 1803. His son, Alexandre Dumas, was only 6 at the time.

Guess who's coming to dinner, Part II

A year of updates and I never posted Dashan's reply to my email! Well here it is:

Thanks for the email and the invitation. Hey, why not? Ha ha! Unfortunately I'm going to be in Jiangsu on the 12th.

Anyway, congratulations and best wishes!

 Next time, Dashan. Next time.

10,000 year clock

Zimoun

The China Story

http://www.thechinastory.org/

http://www.thechinastory.org/lexicon/



The Narrative Arc


One of the challenges in discussing contemporary China, in academic or more public forums, is that we often find ourselves confronting the posture of the Chinese party-state. In China, there is an official view (or 'line') on just about every topic of public importance; one that the government expects Chinese citizens dutifully to echo. The official view is also tirelessly represented in the Chinese media, by officials, individuals and interest groups. In the international arena, this is often done through what we dub a ‘translated China’, that is talking points related to the official party-state view on all major, and numerous minor, issues crucial to an understanding of that country today that are presented as the 'objective', 'correct' and 'scientific', 'China-friendly' way of seeing things.


The overarching view of China follows a certain narrative arc that is generally familiar to people deeply engaged with the People's Republic as part of their work, whether as academics, diplomats, journalists and professionals from other fields, or students. It is an account of China that projects not so much greatness as the connected tale of the nation’s fall and rise. It typically begins with the decline in power, economic might, and unity of the Chinese world from the eighteenth century, continues with the century of humiliation (roughly 1840-1949) and accords a singular importance to the birth of a New China in 1949. Two acts of liberation (1949 and 1978) provide the highlights and the narrative culminates in the present with the ‘great renaissance of the Chinese nation’ (Zhonghua minzude weida fuxing 中华民族的伟大复兴), an epoch formally announced by Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin a decade ago and one repeatedly affirmed by General Secretary Hu Jintao, in particular on the occasion of the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the People’s Republic in 2009. Hu used the phrase again numerous times when he marked the centenary of the 1911 Xinhai Revolution on 9 October 2011.


This connected narrative has, more recently, coalesced into what is sometimes called The China Story (Zhongguode gushi 中国的故事). It accounts for a kind of ‘Chinese exceptionalism’ based on what are spoken as the country’s particular or unique national characteristics (guoqing 国情; for more on this and its background, see ‘Telling Chinese Stories’). In some instances it is summed up as ‘The China Model’ or 'Model China'. One of the crucial ways in which The China Story is told is through language, particular formulations, methods of argumentation, terms and concepts. Underpinning the public expression of the party-state's version of The China Story is what some writers call 'New China Newspeak'.

The River War

  The River War by Matthewhr1

At the Pillars of Hercules

The Country Behind the Hill: Raymond Chandler


‘In the long run’, Raymond Chandler writes in Raymond Chandler Speaking, ‘however little you talk or even think about it, the most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.’ At a time when literary values inflate and dissipate almost as fast as the currency, it still looks as if Chandler invested wisely. His style has lasted. A case could be made for saying that nothing else about his books has, but even the most irascible critic or disillusioned fan (they are often the same person) would have to admit that Chandler at his most characteristic is just that – characteristic and not just quirky. Auden was right in wanting him to be regarded as an artist. In fact Auden’s tribute might well have been that of one poet to another. If style is the only thing about Chandler’s novels that can’t be forgotten, it could be because his style was poetic, rather than prosaic. Even at its most explicit, what he wrote was full of implication. He used to say that he wanted to give a feeling of the country behind the hill.

Han Han and the Diary of an Official

Recently, the diary of Guangxi province Tobacco Department Party Official Han Feng became a really hot topic. In this Information Age filled with photos and videos of nudity, it is truly refreshing to read such a personal and honest piece of literature. This is probably 2010’s most valuable piece of social literature indeed.

After reading this leader’s diary, I believe there is no need to attack this man. If we assume that the details of his diary are true, I would say that he is actually a good Party official, for following reasons:

1. In a half-year period, he only accepted RMB 60,000 in bribes. In the last few years, this is the first time I have seen the words ‘received bribes’ followed by a such a small number. These days, where can such a responsible Party member be found?

2. Of the women he had, currently has, or will have, none of them are in it purely for selfish reasons.

3. He doesn’t gamble, doesn’t visit prostitutes, and doesn’t bribe officials senior to him. When he needed to obtain a new phone card, he lined up for 2 hours like everyone else.

4. His diary reveals the life of the thriftiest womanizing official in the country. Other officials give their mistresses houses and cars, but his most expensive gifts are mobile phones and MP4 players. By those standards, he is a pretty decent official, and it shows that his women are pretty good too. If we had more men and women like these, imagine how many times the Treasury could save the equivalent of an aircraft carrier.

5. He attended 89 free banquets. I know many county officials who drink for free more than 365 times a year. But he got drunk pretty often, meaning his alcohol tolerance is pretty low, and in this regard he doesn’t even meet the basic requirement for being a Party official. So his biggest crime is actually his poor drinking skills, as this reflects badly on the drinking reputations of Party officials across the country.

6. Even though he had quite a lot of women, he also went out walking with his wife 25 times, bought her a mobile phone, and didn’t use his position to help relatives gain advantage through back door deals.

7. He can install computer software, loves digital machines, loves photography, loves sports, and used blog sites to write his diary. For a Party leader, that’s pretty tech-savvy.

8. In his diary, there are no hints of a taste for luxury cars, super-expensive real estate or collections of famous and ultra-valuable literature. He doesn’t even think about these things. He is just a man who likes playing with his mobile phone and computer. In his diary he even wrote about buying some RMB 160 ear phones. How great, a Party official who appreciates the simple pleasures of life.

9. With regards to work, we don’t see any evidence of him doing any actual work, but a so-called Party official only really has to manage his department and staff, and he seems to have done so.

Bearing in mind these nine points, and the current state of our nation, Han Feng is definitely an above-average Party official, someone who’s easily satisfied, and whose negative impact on the country and its people is limited. Here we have someone who is satisfied with the cheapest leisure activities. When he bought a new mobile phone, the next three days of his diary just mentioned ‘playing with my new phone’. He didn’t even play with women during that time. There are many officials of his rank doing much worse things. I therefore urge netizens to leave this man and his women alone, and let him retain his position. We may wish to punish them, but they are definitely not typical of the true criminals in the Party. People like them are really small fish in a much bigger ocean. Let him keep his job and go on playing with his digital toys. If he is dismissed, his successor may be much worse, and may not keep a diary.

The Diary

Like a Dirigible

Monkey King Obama

Return to the BlackCat

A cry went up from the bow of the launch. Dinni snatched back his hand from where it had been trailing in the water. ‘Ma hand. Ma hand,’ he cried. He held it up. Fingers pruned from sitting in the water, skin turning black from sunburn.

‘Your hand’s fine idiot,’ muttered Graw.

‘I thought. I dreamed a shark bitten it off.’

Graw cuffed him over the ear. ‘Keep your damned fool hand out of the water then.’

The excitement over, the rest of the men lay down into whatever slivers of shade they had been using to cower from the sun. Silence washed back over the small boat, broken only by the ocean’s low swells that breached against the hull. The constant slap of water only drove the agony of scorched throats. Salt rimmed eyes stared at the flat horizon.

Linnaeus crouched at the gunwales, staring at the half-ration of water in his cup. He took a small sip, but the moisture was soaked up immediately into his cracked tongue like water into a dry river bed. His thirst burned unabated.

A fist slammed into his shoulder, jolting the cup out of his hand and spilling the water into the mix of saltwater, piss and shit sloshing around the bottom of the hull.

‘Outtameway,’ snarled Graw as he clambered past.

Linnaeus stared at the dropped cup. Twelve hours until the next ration. Twelve hours in the ovens of Hell. He curled up against the side of the launch and began to tap his head against the planks.

Looking down at the keel, Linnaeus saw the hatch. Of course, he thought, why didn’t I think of that before. He glanced around, the rest of the men were lying like the dead. No one even looking in his direction. Slowly Linnaeus uncurled and crept over to the hatch. He unclasped the latch, lifted it open and slid inside.

His slipped down the ladder into the darkness below. His foot came down onto the soft mud of the floor of the BlackCat. The bar room was empty now, with its tables and chairs all awry as though a crowd of people had just seen a commotion on the street and rushed out to see it. The only person left was Riley, still standing behind the bar polishing a glass. Linnaeus stumbled over to him and took a seat.

‘Gods Riley, am I glad to see you.’

‘Good to see you too, sir. What can I get you?’

‘Beer Riley. For the love of God, a beer.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Riley pushed a tall frosted glass of ale across the bar. Linnaeus snatched it up and drained it off. He slammed it back down on the counter.

‘Another, Riley.’

‘Of course, sir.’

Linnaeus lay his head down on the cool copper plating of the bartop. Outside, a fish swam by the window.

Linnaeus' reverie was interrupted by a dull thud from above, followed by gradual steps of a person climbing down a ladder. His ladder. Linnaeus sat up and turned around. In the dim light of the bar he saw Graw standing in the BlackCat.

‘Well, well now,’ smiled Graw. ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding you little snotnose.’

‘How did you get in here?’ asked Linnaeus. ‘No one else can come here.’

‘I’ve been watching you I have,’ said Graw. ‘Here barman, gimme a drink. Dry as a bull’s bum going up a hill backwards I am.’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Riley.

Graw eyed Linnaeus over the top of the glass as he drank his beer. He finished it and set the glass down on the countertop.

‘OK you little shit, let’s get some rules straight. From now on, you never come here without me.’

‘But.’

‘Shut it. And you’re to bring Thommo and Ballast down here as well.’

Linnaeus looked at Riley whose brows furrowed slightly. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Linnaeus.

‘You don’t have any more ideas, alright? You do what I tells you to do.’

‘But, Graw.’

‘Mister Graw.’

‘Mister Graw,’ Linnaeus swallowed. ‘More people can be dangerous. This place is unstable.’

‘I said shut it. Now, I’m going to have a nap. Don’t leave until I say so.’ Graw plodded over to a couch on the side of the room and lay down. Linnaeus sat at the bar.

‘I’m not sure your friends will be up to the standards of Management, Mr Linnaeus,’ said Riley. ‘We have a policy about membership you know.’

‘I know, Riley. I know.’

Linnaeus sat watching Graw as he slept. It was with a mixture of relief and dread when he finally woke up.

‘Gods noodlelegs. My head’s spinning.’

‘I told you, this place isn’t quite right. We can’t stay here too long.’

‘Alright then, back up the hatch.’ Graw stumbled over to the ladder.

‘You first Mr Graw,’ said Linnaeus.

‘No, sir,’ sneered Graw. ‘After you. I insist.’

Linnaeus took hold of the ladder and began to climb back up. Back up to the light, the heat, the sun, the agony.

A cry went up from the bow of the launch. Dinni was yelling, holding up a bloody stump. A shark had bitten off his hand.

World's largest diesel engine makes 109,000 horsepower

Henry Flynt

http://www.ubu.com/sound/flynt.html

The creation of a newly available Henry Flynt archive turned out to be one of the better points of the early 2000s, as a small Baltimore firm worked out the process of creating collections from this interesting composer and deep thinker's recording archive. The ten pieces comprising this, the second volume in the series, all deal in some way large and small with the old-timey music of Appalachia, and to a lesser degree with its bastard offspring rockabilly, and one can't go wrong with good ingredients. A simplistic description of what these pieces are all about will be offered for descriptive purposes, but is not intended to insult the much deeper content of the works themselves. To say these musical performances and the ideas behind them are endlessly fascinating is by no means an attempt to fling hyperbole at the subject.

  Henry Flynt  ESSAY: CONCEPT ART by   seanherman

http://radicalart.info/concept/flynt.html

Matthew Dear

Krzhizhanovsky

Yellow Coal

The earth had a fever. Flogged mercilessly by the sun's yellow whips, it whirled round like a dervish dancing his last furious dance.

If nations had ignored political strictures and come to each other's aid, salvation might have been theirs. But adversity only exacerbated ideas of jingoism, and soon all the New and Old World Reichs, Staats, Republics and Lands — like the fish on the desiccated bottoms of erstwhile lakes — were covered with a viscous sheath, swathed in borders like the filaments of cocoons, and raising customs duties to astronomical levels.

The one agency of an international sort was the Commission for the Access of New and Original Energies: CANOE. To the person who discovered a new energy source, a motive power as yet unknown on earth, CANOE promised a seven-figure sum.

2
Professor Leker was too busy to notice people. Blinkered by diagrams, thoughts, and pages from books, his eyes had no time to reflect faces. A frosted screen before the window shielded him from the street; the black case of an automobile, window curtains drawn, did likewise. Until a few years ago Leker had taught, then gradually given it up to devote himself full-time to his research into quantum theory, ionization, and the vicariate of the senses.

Thus Professor Leker's twenty-minute stroll, his first in ten years, was pure accident. Leker set out in the company of his thoughts, without noticing places or faces. But the very first crossroad threw him into a quandary. The scientist was obliged to lift his head and gaze about to get his bearings. And here, for the first time, the street grated against his pupils.

A dingily bilious sun suffused the air through a tent of black clouds. Spitefully elbowing elbows, passers-by rushed along the pavement. People converged in the doorways of shops, tried to pummel their way through and stuck fast, faces flushed with rage and exertion, teeth bared.

The steps floating along the tram tracks were jammed with passengers: chests tried to climb up on backs; but the backs, flicking spiteful shoulder blades, would not budge; hands all in a tangle gripped the vertical handrails with rapacious vigour — like flocks of carrion crows fighting over prey.

The tram passed by, and behind it, as behind a curtain drawn back, a new scene unfolded across the street: two fist-shaking men were verbally assaulting each other; a circle of gloating pupils instantly formed round them and circling the circle another circle and another; while above the melee of shoulders raised sticks hovered.

Looking about him, Leker walked on. Suddenly his knee knocked into an outstretched hand. Protruding from dirty rags, the hand was demanding a donation. Leker dug in his pockets: he had no money on him. The open palm continued to wait. Leker again searched himself: nothing except a notepad. Without taking his gaze off the beggar, he stepped aside: the cripple's eyes, half blind with pus, oozed with slime and an insatiable, impotent spite.

With greater and greater misgivings, Professor Leker scrutinized the street, gnashing with steel rims and humming with anxious human swarms. The people changed, yet remained the same: jaws clenched, foreheads butting the air, elbows endlessly elbowing their way. The famous physiologist first raised his eyebrows in astonishment, then knit them together the better to contain the thought fluttering behind them. Leker slowed his step and opened his notepad, searching for the exact words. Suddenly the stab of someone's elbow deep in his ribs sent him staggering sideways: he hit his back against a post and dropped his slips of paper. Yet even the pain could not stop Leker smiling: his thought, tightly tied with associative threads, had been flung to the bottom of his brain.

Torment

Nixon

Martin Gardner - The Unexpected Hanging

  Martin Gardner-The Unexpected Hanging and Other Mathematical Diversions (4) by   pimpimbulldog

Nine Inch Nails are getting back together and touring!

Lu Xun Woodcuts

Li Qun’s woodcut Lu Xun is currently used worldwide as a standard picture of the famous 20th century Chinese writer Lu Xun.

Li Qun (1912-2012), one of the pioneers and founders of the burgeoning Chinese printmaking industry in the 20th century, Honorary Chairman of the Chinese Association of Printmakers and Honorary Chairman of Literary Federation of Shanxi Province, passed away peacefully at the age of 100, in Beijing on February 11th, 2012.

His death was announced by his family, he died in hospital of a pulmonary failure. As the most internationally acclaimed artist and printmaker, Li Qun’s woodcut Lu Xun is currently used worldwide as a standard picture of the famous 20th century Chinese writer Lu Xun. His Drink created during the Yan’an period rivals the best in woodcuts and is in the British museum collection. His Winter Snows in Beijing is in the Russian Museum of Art collection and collections of his works have spread to museums, art galleries and libraries in France, the United States, Japan and other countries. During his art career, Mr. Li Qun won the “Outstanding Contribution Award for Chinese New Engraving”, “The Achievement Award from the Fine Art Golden Color Prize of China” and other awards. Mr. Li Qun contributed all of the prints he created late in life to his hometown—county of Ling Shi in support of the development of printmaking in Shanxi and the preparatory work of the Li Qun Museum of Art. In 1992, He was granted the designation of “People’s Artist” by the provincial government of Shanxi.

Private Libraries

The Brautigan Library collects over 300 unpublished manuscripts following the vision of writer Richard Brautigan of a home for "the unwanted, the lyrical and haunted volumes of American writing" without passing judgement as to content and technique. It is curated by Dr. John F. Barber, of The Creative Media & Digital Culture program at Washington State University Vancouver.

“Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.” Kafka on the Shore

http://privatelibrary.typepad.com/

Spacious Thought

The Vinteuil Sonata

The year before, at an evening party, he had heard a piece of music played on the piano and violin. At first he had appreciated only the material quality of the sounds which those instruments secreted. And it had been a source of keen pleasure when, below the narrow ribbon of the violin-part, delicate, unyielding, substantial and governing the whole, he had suddenly perceived, where it was trying to surge upwards in a flowing tide of sound, the mass of the piano-part, multiform, coherent, level, and breaking everywhere in melody like the deep blue tumult of the sea, silvered and charmed into a minor key by the moonlight. But at a given moment, without being able to distinguish any clear outline, or to give a name to what was pleasing him, suddenly enraptured, he had tried to collect, to treasure in his memory the phrase or harmony—he knew not which—that had just been played, and had opened and expanded his soul, just as the fragrance of certain roses, wafted upon the moist air of evening, has the power of dilating our nostrils. Perhaps it was owing to his own ignorance of music that he had been able to receive so confused an impression, one of those that are, notwithstanding, our only purely musical impressions, limited in their extent, entirely original, and irreducible into any other kind. An impression of this order, vanishing in an instant, is, so to speak, an impression sine materia. Presumably the notes which we hear at such moments tend to spread out before our eyes, over surfaces greater or smaller according to their pitch and volume; to trace arabesque designs, to give us the sensation of breath or tenuity, stability or caprice. But the notes themselves have vanished before these sensations have developed sufficiently to escape submersion under those which the following, or even simultaneous notes have already begun to awaken in us. And this indefinite perception would continue to smother in its molten liquidity the motifs which now and then emerge, barely discernible, to plunge again and disappear and drown; recognised only by the particular kind of pleasure which they instil, impossible to describe, to recollect, to name; ineffable;—if our memory, like a labourer who toils at the laying down of firm foundations beneath the tumult of the waves, did not, by fashioning for us facsimiles of those fugitive phrases, enable us to compare and to contrast them with those that follow. And so, hardly had the delicious sensation, which Swann had experienced, died away, before his memory had furnished him with an immediate transcript, summary, it is true, and provisional, but one on which he had kept his eyes fixed while the playing continued, so effectively that, when the same impression suddenly returned, it was no longer uncapturable. He was able to picture to himself its extent, its symmetrical arrangement, its notation, the strength of its expression; he had before him that definite object which was no longer pure music, but rather design, architecture, thought, and which allowed the actual music to be recalled. This time he had distinguished, quite clearly, a phrase which emerged for a few moments from the waves of sound. It had at once held out to him an invitation to partake of intimate pleasures, of whose existence, before hearing it, he had never dreamed, into which he felt that nothing but this phrase could initiate him; and he had been filled with love for it, as with a new and strange desire.

With a slow and rhythmical movement it led him here, there, everywhere, towards a state of happiness noble, unintelligible, yet clearly indicated. And then, suddenly having reached a certain point from which he was prepared to follow it, after pausing for a moment, abruptly it changed its direction, and in a fresh movement, more rapid, multiform, melancholy, incessant, sweet, it bore him off with it towards a vista of joys unknown. Then it vanished. He hoped, with a passionate longing, that he might find it again, a third time. And reappear it did, though without speaking to him more clearly, bringing him, indeed, a pleasure less profound. But when he was once more at home he needed it, he was like a man into whose life a woman, whom he has seen for a moment passing by, has brought a new form of beauty, which strengthens and enlarges his own power of perception, without his knowing even whether he is ever to see her again whom he loves already, although he knows nothing of her, not even her name.

Indeed this passion for a phrase of music seemed, in the first few months, to be bringing into Swann's life the possibility of a sort of rejuvenation. He had so long since ceased to direct his course towards any ideal goal, and had confined himself to the pursuit of ephemeral satisfactions, that he had come to believe, though without ever formally stating his belief even to himself, that he would remain all his life in that condition, which death alone could alter. More than this, since his mind no longer entertained any lofty ideals, he had ceased to believe in (although he could not have expressly denied) their reality. He had grown also into the habit of taking refuge in trivial considerations, which allowed him to set on one side matters of fundamental importance. Just as he had never stopped to ask himself whether he would not have done better by not going into society, knowing very well that if he had accepted an invitation he must put in an appearance, and that afterwards, if he did not actually call, he must at least leave cards upon his hostess; so in his conversation he took care never to express with any warmth a personal opinion about a thing, but instead would supply facts and details which had a value of a sort in themselves, and excused him from shewing how much he really knew. He would be extremely precise about the recipe for a dish, the dates of a painter's birth and death, and the titles of his works. Sometimes, in spite of himself, he would let himself go so far as to utter a criticism of a work of art, or of some one's interpretation of life, but then he would cloak his words in a tone of irony, as though he did not altogether associate himself with what he was saying. But now, like a confirmed invalid whom, all of a sudden, a change of air and surroundings, or a new course of treatment, or, as sometimes happens, an organic change in himself, spontaneous and unaccountable, seems to have so far recovered from his malady that he begins to envisage the possibility, hitherto beyond all hope, of starting to lead—and better late than never—a wholly different life, Swann found in himself, in the memory of the phrase that he had heard, in certain other sonatas which he had made people play over to him, to see whether he might not, perhaps, discover his phrase among them, the presence of one of those invisible realities in which he had ceased to believe, but to which, as though the music had had upon the moral barrenness from which he was suffering a sort of recreative influence, he was conscious once again of a desire, almost, indeed, of the power to consecrate his life. But, never having managed to find out whose work it was that he had heard played that evening, he had been unable to procure a copy, and finally had forgotten the quest. He had indeed, in the course of the next few days, encountered several of the people who had been at the party with him, and had questioned them; but most of them had either arrived after or left before the piece was played; some had indeed been in the house, but had gone into another room to talk, and those who had stayed to listen had no clearer impression than the rest. As for his hosts, they knew that it was a recently published work which the musicians whom they had engaged for the evening had asked to be allowed to play; but, as these last were now on tour somewhere, Swann could learn nothing further. He had, of course, a number of musical friends, but, vividly as he could recall the exquisite and inexpressible pleasure which the little phrase had given him, and could see, still, before his eyes the forms that it had traced in outline, he was quite incapable of humming over to them the air. And so, at last, he ceased to think of it.

  Adelson The Vinteuil Sonata by   hansiwurstl

Many origins of the petite phrase have been put forward, including Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Major (1886) and Fauré’s Ballade, for piano and orchestra, Op. 19 (1881). However, Proust was unequivocal about the origin of the petite phrase: as he wrote to Jacques de Lacretelle, “the ‘little phrase’ of the Sonata—and I have never said this to anyone—is . . . the charming but mediocre phrase of a violin sonata by Saint-Saëns, a musician I do not care for.”

White Hart Lane

R v Seller R v McCarthy [2012] NSWSC 934 (17 August 2012)

JUDGMENT


INTRODUCTION

1. On 14 March 2012, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions ("CDPP") presented an indictment to this Court which charged that Ross Edward Seller and Patrick David McCarthy:

"Between about 24 May 2001 and about 30 December 2002, at Sydney in the State of New South Wales and elsewhere, did conspire with each other and divers other persons with the intention of dishonestly influencing a Commonwealth public official, namely the Commissioner of Taxation, in the exercise of his duties as a public official."

2. The offence charged was one contrary to s 135.4(7) Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

3. The Crown alleges that each of Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy, together with a Mr Phillip Egglishaw and a Mr Philip de Figueiredo, entered into an agreement to make false representations to officers of the Australian Taxation Office ("the ATO") with the intention of dishonestly influencing them to approve and accept deductions claimed in the 1999, 2000 and 2001 income tax returns of tax payers who had participated in particular schemes involving the distillation of whisky in those years ("the whisky schemes").

4. The Crown alleges that the representations which were made by Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy were to convey false and misleading information regarding:

(a) the association of each of Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy with, and the relationship between, the entities involved in the whisky schemes;

(b) Chambers Finance Ltd; and

(c) Grant McKenzie Hong Kong Ltd.

5. In 2005, the Australian Crime Commission ("Crime Commission") commenced an investigation into the activities of Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy which lasted for some years. During the course of this investigation, both Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy gave evidence under oath in response to a summons that had been served upon them. The examination was conducted pursuant to s 28 of the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 (Cth) ("the ACC Act").

6. In October 2009, Court Attendance Notices were issued to Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy in which it was alleged that each had engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth of Australia contrary to s 29D and s 86 of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), and a further charge to similar effect contrary to s 135.4(7) of the Criminal Code Act (Cth). On 25 November 2010, Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy were committed to stand trial.

7. After being arraigned in this Court, each of Mr Seller and Mr McCarthy filed motions in this Court seeking orders that the trial of the indictment against each of them be permanently stayed.

8. At the hearing of these motions, the CDPP was represented by Mr D Fagan SC and Mr McGuire of counsel. Mr I McClintock SC appeared with Mr P Bruckner for Mr McCarthy. Mr H Dhanji SC appeared for Mr Seller.

9. At the commencement of the hearing, a number of issues arose with respect to production of documents pursuant to subpoenas that had been served by the applicants on the CDPP, and also the Crime Commission. In dealing with those issues, Ms Maharaj QC appeared for the Crime Commission. These issues were resolved between the parties, without the need for the delivery of any judgment.

10. During the course of the hearing of these motions, Ms Maharaj QC sought leave for the Crime Commission to either intervene in the applications, or, alternatively, leave to appear as amicus curiae in the applications. Ms Maharaj QC informed the Court that the extent of the Crime Commission's participation, on either basis, was that it would provide the Court with written submissions and provide any oral elucidation of those submissions if that was required by the Court.

11. None of the parties opposed leave being granted to the Crime Commission to either intervene or be heard amicus curiae. I granted leave to the Crime Commission to be heard, to the limited extent indicated, as amicus curiae. In accordance with its application, the Crime Commission filed written submissions in respect of the applications.

12. For the reasons which follow, I have decided that I should uphold the application for a permanent stay of the criminal proceedings, and grant the stay of the indictment which the applicants seek.

...

Right to Silence

145. At the heart of the submissions of the applicants, is their right to silence, or differently put, their privilege against self-incrimination. In the context of these applications, there is no significant difference between these two expressions. It is convenient to identify the nature of the right or privilege, its meaning and its importance in the administration of justice.

146. It is a firmly established principle of the common law, for over 300 years, that no person can be compelled to incriminate himself: Sorby v The Commonwealth [1983] HCA 10; (1983) 152 CLR 281 at [5] per Gibbs CJ.

147. The right to silence was described as:

"... a freedom so treasured by tradition and so central to the judicial administration of criminal justice."

Hammond v The Commonwealth [1982] HCA 42; (1982) 152 CLR 188 at [3] per Brennan J.

148. It is a right which:

"... derives from the privilege against self-incrimination. That privilege is one of the bulwarks of liberty. History, and not only the history of totalitarian societies, shows that all too frequently those who have a right to obtain an answer soon believe that they have a right to the answer that they believe should be forthcoming. Because they hold that belief, often they do not hesitate to use physical and psychological means to obtain the answer they want. The privilege against self-incrimination helps to avoid this socially undesirable consequence. ...

The privilege exists to protect the citizen against official oppression."

RPS v R [2000] HCA 3; (2000) 199 CLR 620 at [61]- [62] per McHugh J.

149. Windeyer J in Rees v Kratzmann [1965] HCA 49; (1965) 114 CLR 63 at [3], considered the question of a compulsory examination, which may breach the privilege against self-incrimination, saying:

"There is in the common law a traditional objection to compulsory interrogations. Blackstone explained it: 'For at the common law nemo tenebatur prodere seipsum: and his fault was not to be wrung out of himself, but rather to be discovered by other means, and other men': Comm. iv 296.' The continuing regard for this element in the lawyers notion of justice may be, as has been suggested, partly a consequence of a persistent memory in the common law of hatred of the Star Chamber and its works. It is linked with the cherished view of English lawyers that their methods are more just than are the inquisitional procedures of other countries. But strong as has been the influence of this attitude upon the administration of the common law, of the criminal law especially... "

150. Whilst the right confers a very valuable protection, it is not an immutable characteristic of the exercise of federal judicial power: Sorby at 308 per Mason, Wilson and Dawson JJ. Nor is an abrogation of the principle inconsistent with the right to a jury trial conferred by s 80 of the Constitution: Huddart Parker & Co Pty Ltd v Moorehead [1909] HCA 36; (1909) 8 CLR 330 at 358 per Griffiths CJ, at 375 per O'Connor J and at 385 per Isaacs J.

151. The privilege, unless abrogated or modified by statute, protects a witness not only from incriminating himself directly under a compulsory process, but also from making a disclosure which may lead to incrimination or to the discovery of evidence of an incriminating character: Sorby at 310 per Mason, Wilson and Dawson JJ.

152. The right to silence, or privilege against self-incrimination, is a somewhat loose description which contains within it, at least, these concepts as opposed to a single right:

(a) the privilege (which is an absolute immunity) of a person against being required to answer questions, or provide information which is incriminating;

(b) the right not to be compelled to give evidence at one's own trial;

(c) the right not to have any adverse comment made about not giving evidence: see R v CB, MP v R [2011] NSWCCA 264 at [96];

(d) the right to a fair trial, which trial is conducted within the accusatory system and which has as a fundamental element, the traditional method of determining guilt It includes the onus of proof resting upon the Crown, beyond reasonable doubt and circumstances where an accused cannot be required to testify to the commission of an offence charged; see NSW Food Authority v Nutricia Australia Pty Ltd [2008] NSWCCA 252; 72 NSWLR 456 at [155] per Spigelman CJ; Environment Protection Authority v Caltex Refining Company Pty Ltd [1993] HCA 74; (1993) 178 CLR 477 at [45].

153. It is appropriate to note, by way of analogy, the regard which is paid to the privilege against self-incrimination in the United States of America. In so doing, it needs to be kept in mind that, in the US, the privilege is enshrined in the Constitution by the Fifth Amendment. However, the source of the privilege, and the reasons for its continued existence are similar in both Australia, as a part of the common law, and in the US as part of the Constitution.

154. The privilege was described this way in the majority decision of the US Supreme Court in Quinn v United States [1955] USSC 56; (1955) 349 US 155 [99 L. Ed. 964] at 161-162:

"The privilege against self-incrimination is a right that was hard-earned by our forefathers. The reasons for its inclusions in the Constitution - and the necessities for its preservation - are to be found in the lessons of history. As early as 1650, remembrance of the horror of Star Chamber proceedings a decade before had firmly established the privilege in the common law of England. ... The privilege, this Court has stated,

'was generally regarded then, as now, as a privilege of great value, a protection to the innocent though a shelter to the guilty, and a safeguard against heedless, unfounded or tyrannical prosecutions.'

Co-equally with our other constitutional guarantees, the Self-Incrimination Clause

'must be accorded liberal construction in favor of the right it was intended to secure'.

Such liberal construction is particularly warranted in a prosecution of a witness for a refusal to answer, since the respect normally accorded the privilege is then buttressed by the presumption of innocence accorded a defendant in a criminal trial. To apply the privilege narrowly or begrudgingly - to treat it as an historical relic, at most merely to be tolerated - is to ignore its development and purpose."

Quinn was a case involving the refusal of a witness to answer questions put by the sub-committee of the Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives chaired by Senator McCarthy.

155. Frankfurter J expressed his views of the privilege in somewhat more colourful language in Ullmann v United States [1956] USSC 31; [1956] 350 US 422 [100 L. Ed. 511], which was also a case about the McCarthy committee, when he said at 426-428:

"It is relevant to define explicitly the spirit in which the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination should be approached. This command ... registers an important advance in the development of our liberty -

'one of the great landmarks in man's struggle to make himself civilized'.

Time has not shown that protection from the evils against which this safeguard was directed is needless or unwarranted. This constitutional protection must not be interpreted in a hostile or niggardly spirit. Too many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege. Such a view does scant honour to the patriots who sponsored the Bill of Rights as a condition to acceptance of the Constitution by the ratifying States.

...

No doubt the constitutional privilege may, on occasion, save a guilty man from his just deserts, it was aimed at a more far-reaching evil - a recurrence of the inquisition and the Star Chamber, even if not in their stark brutality. Prevention of the greater evil was deemed of more importance than occurrence of the lesser evil. Having had much experience with a tendency in human nature to abuse power, the Founders sought to close the doors against like future abuses by law-enforcing agencies."

156. That the privilege is regarded as being of importance can be seen in other countries whose laws derive from their shared inheritance of the common law. In Canada, the privilege is entrenched as a part of the law by s 13 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The privilege is also enshrined in New Zealand by the provisions of s 25 of the Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZ).

What if Optimus and Megatron wore capes?

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