|
Tuesday, 13 February 2007 |
|
Archaeologists dig up prehistoric couple:
"Archaeologists working on the eve of Valentine's Day carefully
began digging up the bones of a prehistoric couple on Tuesday, hoping
to keep their 5,000-year-old embrace undisturbed forever.
The pair, buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago in the late
Neolithic period, are believed to be a man and a woman who died young,
because their teeth were found intact. Archaeologists have hailed the
find, saying that double burials from that period are rare and none
have been found in such a touching pose.
The burial was unearthed on the outskirts of Mantua during
construction work. The site is 25 miles south of Verona, the city where
Shakespeare set the story of 'Romeo and Juliet,' and the discovery
fueled musings in the media about prehistoric love.
Menotti also has said there is little doubt the couple's pose was born of a deep love."
Nothing else matters.
These two ... and you ... make the world go 'round.
|
|
Wednesday, 04 April 2007 |
|
Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on this day thirty-nine
years ago, by the same forces behind the JFK assassination, and the RFK
assassination which would take place about two months after the King killing.
In the illustration below, I was going to put some
text above the black-and-white squinty-killer-eyes ... but really what is there
to say? This is what we were and this is what we've become?
The killers, the shills, the bagmen, the finks, the marketers and the
chumps have done an amazing job over the last 40+ years.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that
good men do nothing."
—Edmund Burke
Irish orator, philosopher, & politician (1729 - 1797)
Click Here to go to Part One of November 22, 1963: The Coming of the Great Darkness.
Click Here to go to Part Two of November 22, 1963: The Coming of the Great Darkness.
Part three will arrive before June fifth, anniversary of RFK's assassination.
|
|
Monday, 14 May 2007 |

Dr. Paul Linebarger, aka Cordwainer Smith
Cats, cruelty and children
Idealism and morality in the
Instrumentality of Mankind
[I found this article in the WayBack Machine, no current links for attrbution, so my apologies in advance for once again simply repurposing* content I find appropriate and essential for Sun Pop Blue.—kb]
"The Lords of the Instrumentality who are here
on Fomalhaut III. There is the Lord Femtiosex, who is just and without
pity ... There is the Lady Goroke ... who has shown kindnesses to
underpeople, as long as the kindnesses were lawful ones. And there is
the Lady Arabella Underwood, whose justice no man can understand."
["The Dead Lady of Clown Town",
Cordwainer Smith]
The science-fiction writings of Cordwainer Smith consist of some
twenty-odd short stories and two novels, which chart the history of an
evolving civilisation over some fifteen thousand years. The history is
internally consistent, and each story contributes to a coherent picture
of the technological, social and spiritual development of the future
described.
In real life, Smith was Dr Paul Linebarger, Professor in Asiatic
Studies at Johns Hopkins university and colonel in US military
intelligence, accomplished linguist and foreign policy adviser to the
state department. His writing style, partly inspired by Chinese
narrative techniques, more closely resembles poetry than the
conventional dry prose of science-fiction, and his stories are dense
with literary and historical references and more or less complex
linguistic puns. Running through the entire work is a consistent
morality and outlook, whose principal themes recur again and again in
stories often written many years apart.
The broad outlines of Smith's future civilisation can be briefly
sketched. Travel between the stars and the consequent expansion of
human culture through the universe is made possible by the invention of
'planoforming' ships that travel faster than light, and by the
development of novel systems to protect their passengers and crew
against the dangers of space. In this new interstellar culture, true
humans live lives of privileged ease, while work is done by robots and
by 'underpeople', animals genetically modified to have near-human
intelligence and form. Over it all presides the Instrumentality, a
benign but absolute dictatorship composed of a ruling nobility who use
their technological and telepathic powers to maintain the status quo
and to dispense an abstract and dispassionate justice. It is against
this background that the principal themes of Smith's stories - love,
courage, cruelty, hope, innocence, belief - are played out.
*Repurposing: dot-com-speak for outright theivery.
|
|
Wednesday, 05 September 2007 |
|
|
Monday, 12 March 2007 |
|
Here are we, one magical moment, such is the stuff
From where dreams are woven
Blending sound, dredging the ocean, lost in my circle
Here am i, flashing no colour
Tall in this room overlooking the ocean
—David Bowie, Station To Station
Dredging epistles past. The following from early 2005, right when I had plunged into composing the pastel works which would comprise [working title] the seasons: Summer of '68, Autumnal Sun, Winter Blue, Isle of Islay Revisited which is no longer part of the album (it has been replaced with a lovely piece called "the forever spring" -technicolor reworkings of which to be released in early 2009.
Friends-
I've been remiss with my updates, I know. After my last epistle in September, wherein I described going to the Playboy radio talkshow, Night Calls, to talk about HoneyBun, several people suggested I write a book about the vagabond marketing of HoneyBun and my newfound gypsy lifestyle.
Then it was time to go the International Lingerie Show in Las Vegas, preparing for which consumed every waking minute for almost a month. After Las Vegas, I was waiting for some major revelation to come to me about Las Vegas to come to me that I might share some grand new insight. Alas, what can I say about that place which hasn't already been said?
I just finished a stint of house-(and dog)-sitting in Laguna Beach.
Lovely house. The dogs were three adorable pugs, cute, affectionate,
prolific beyond any expectation in befouling and beshitting the lovely
home up on the hill.
My cup runneth over.
Acquiring one of these pug dogs (rescue cases) is both noble and
honorable, I think; two: evidence of neurotic and masochistic
tendencies of the most narcissistic and grandiose kind; three:
symptomatic of mental illness, unimaginable grandiosity, borderline megalomania, plain and simple.
But the house was lovely and when the dogs were peaceful or
sleeping, afforded a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean.
In the
afternoons, the sunlight on the water shimmered like a great silver
pavilion stretching to the horizon, rippling into blue at the edges.
At
night, the moon rose in the sky and its light made a shining pathway
across the waters. Venus shone brightly right above the moon in the
dark, star-splattered sky. The multi-colored lights of jets, whispering
in and out of the Long Beach airport, floated across the muted blur of the
horizon in the distance.
Along the reef in the bay, calamari boats
lined up, perhaps two hundred feet apart, halogen lights burning down
into the sea to attract the squid—an incandescent necklace on the calm
waters of the bay. They moved night after night, following the squid.
|
|
Monday, 06 August 2007 |
|
Claude Michel Celse, Seaside Town, 1948
the reason that I am alive
By Boris Vian
the reason that I am alive
the reason that I am alive
for the tanned leg
of a blonde woman
propped against the wall
beneath the round sun
for the billowing sails
of a sleek schooner
at the mouth of the harbor
the iced coffee
sipped through a straw
for the caress of sand
gazing at the watery deeps
turning so blue
descending into the deeps
with the fish
the tranquil fish
they calm the bottom of the ocean
fly above the seaweed hair
like slow birds
like blue birds
the reason that I am alive
because it is beautiful
Translated from the French by Joseph Suglia, corrected by me.
|
|
Friday, 31 August 2007 |
|
|
Saturday, 25 November 2006 |
|
Leisure Town
Tristan makes some of the funniest and darkest comic strips I've ever
seen, like a modern-day R. Crumb, using toy animals, great location
shots, superb photoshop skills, and, most importantly, a thoroughly
twisted sense of humor. Excellent writing. Particularly hilarious are
"Pussy Driven," "American Masturbator," not that I would have any
first-hand, so to speak, knowledge of either subject, and "QA
Confidential," an extremely insightful send-up of the computer industry
and Silicon Valley/Multimedia Gulch mentality. I have heard some
odd stories about him—he is a local boy well-known to some friends of
mine ... apparently, he mines his own life for much of his material.
Let us leave it at that.
A panel from American Masturbator
|
|
Sunday, 10 December 2006 |
|
Stop-action Super-fast Freeze-frame Bongo-beat Photography
A bullet piercing, penetrating, pulverizing an otherwise placid pear, from the IDF Tactical Logic website.
IDF Tactical Logic a bunch of cool bullet-going-through-things
pictures, along with panoramic shots of destroyer fleets and ads for
glock holsters. Definitely a Peace-Through-Superior-Firepower kinda site.
Now let's use the same technology for art. Alva Bernadine
's Slap
Not a bongo, but more fun to slap.
Which do you prefer?
"A friend phoned me one lunchtime and asked what I was up to. I
told her I was taking portraits of people bursting balloons, shooting
bottles and smashing panes of glass using a sound activated switch. I
could freeze the moment of impact rather like the famous Harold
Edgerton picture of a bullet passing through an apple. In a dark room
you attach the switch to the flash then open the shutter of the camera.
The sound of impact fires the flash freezing the action at several
thousandths of a second.
"She was a submissive and immediately offered her bottom for
experimentation. She already had a video of arses wobbling in slow
motion. She and her partner came round with a bag full of flagellation
implements and we tried them all.
"Subsequently, I decided I wanted to try it on a variety of different
shaped arses and asked female acquaintances and women I met at parties
to aid me in my objective scientific experiments by having there arse
spanked. To my surprise 50% agreed."— Alva Bernadine
|
|
Monday, 27 August 2007 |
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
if you are interested in a limited edition print of this piece, entitled "A Thousand Colors Made From Tears."
The Gentlemanly Art of Spanking
The saga continues.
As we last met, we were discussing San Francisco of the seventies, with a detour, jumping twenty years ahead, to Las Vegas and porn premiers. Not sure how that happened. So let us together scurried through the salient details of the next two decades so we can get back to HoneyBun, the spanking kit empire.
Married in 1981. Reception at Presidio Officers Club, thanks to Sky King, wife's dad.
Kazoos on dance floor. Better solos than band.
If looks could kill. Sky King loved it.
Sons in short order. William, November 9.1981. Nathan, June 26 1983.
Every Breath You Take.
Bowie scores with Let's Dance and goes into a blackout for rest of decade. I'm in there with him a lot .
Working south of Market.
Trying to drink less.
Sent out original "Someone You Love Is Flapping" and "Bulboscity in Stasis" cards.
Brother Nate commits suicide at 31. Booze. Coke. Pills. Two notes.
I start drinking and smoking for the both of us. South of market and North Beach and the dive bars on San Pablo in Albany.
Affirming daily the 'One Bar' cosmology: that is to say, my brothers
There is only One Bar: it spans the whole globe and when we drink in one, we drink in brotherhood and fellowship with every other drinker across the world, in our different rooms.
Wife thrilled with this revelation.
Work, after reading of $100K advance for 68-pg. book, Fup, begins on "Flapping."
|
|
|
Saturday, 31 March 2007 |
I had the pleasure of attending a concert by the choral group
WomenSing. Martin Bienvenuto, the choir's Director, is a master of
unearthing little-known gems from the classical and modern choral
repertoires and bringing them to life with the enthusiastic cooperation
of the 55-women group.
From the WomenSing website:
"Believing that music is transformative and enlightening for both
singer and listener alike, WomenSing is devoted to the study and
performance of great choral repertoire and to sharing it with a broad
audience."
The evening's repertory did not disappoint, ranging from Vivaldi's Beatus Vir to Haydn's String Quartet in Eb Major to the Snow Birds—Words
by Sri Ananda Acharya (born 1883 to the Brahmin caste, later renouncing
the world and settling in Norway) and music by Michael Head
(1900-1976). The lyrics for the song cycle came from an early edition
of Sri Ananda's poetry, entitled "The Snow Birds."
The lyrics to "Only A Singing Bird" I found particularly wonderful.
I am not God nor His messenger.
I am only a singing bird.
I am not Poet nor his Muse.
I am only a singing bird.
I am not Prophet.
I am not Sage—
I am only a singing bird.
I fly in the heav'ns across the seas.
And come to sing at thy door.
Each dawn when the morning God
smiles on the ocean,
Each eve when the twilight God
sings at earth's end,
Each night when the God of thy heart
sits in silence alone with the God of my heart.
I am only a singing bird.
|
|
|
Wednesday, 15 August 2007 |
My good friends Gustavo and Todd have started making comics for their website Want A Beaver? (It's still warm).
This one is my favorite, so far. I love the political ones as well. I have a feeling NBC will not be knocking on their door anytime soon, as they did for 14 over at Gallery of the Absurd. (Way to go, 14!)

And, not to be outdone, I have created a new strip, to which I will be adding frequently in the days and weeks months and years to come, I am sure, entitled "The Most Beautiful Day In The History of the World."

|
|
|
Friday, 29 December 2006 |
|
Mr. James Brown, the Godfather of Soul
(Video of "It's a Man's World" clip on the flipflop)
When I was just a sprout at Willard Junior High School on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, I often found myself cooling my heels in the dean's office, usually for trying, selflessly, to enliven an otherwise dreadfully boring class with a humorous quip or two, perhaps a series of them.
More often than not, it would be me and a couple of black guys who were also, in the language of today, most likely trying to keep it real, as only thirteen-year-olds can, within the oppressive confines of the conditioning system known as the Berkeley public school system.
And there we would sit together in the outer office, cooling our heels, waiting for the dean of boys, who knew us all on a first-name basis, to call us into his private domain.
Invariably, we would get in an argument about who was better, James Brown or The Beatles.
I remember one time in particular. It was me and four guys.
They challenged me:
--Who's got more number one hits?
Me [mind you, I had no facts to back my claims up.]:
--The Beatles
Them:
--Who's made more money?
Me:
--The Beatles
Them:
--Who's sold more albums?
Me:
--The Beatles
:::::::::::: [long pause wherein they all sort of gazed at the floor] :::::::::::
And then one guy looked me right in the eye and said:
"Well, who's got more SOUL??"
|
|
|
Saturday, 06 January 2007 |
|
What Steve Jobs foisted on us:
And no Fortran, either.
And now, the ignominy of the iPhone:
I mean, where's the steering wheel?
|
|
|
Tuesday, 16 January 2007 |
|
the assassins strike again
Love is real , real is love
Love is feeling , feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved
Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved
Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
we can be
Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needing to be loved
John Lennon, Love
|
|
|
Sunday, 29 April 2007 |
To Introduce
Madelynn Jane Bronson
One day old, April 23, 2007.
Proud Dad (my son Will) gives Madelynn her first lesson.
Three generations of Bronsons: Uncle Nate holding Madelynn.
|
|
|
Friday, 04 May 2007 |
|
|
|
My son Will has asked me for Beatles music
for his two week old daughter, Madelynn.
Now, this is a man
who is
taking fatherhood seriously!
I am delighted to assist.
As Stimpy would say,"Joy!"
Babies love the Beatles.
Why? Because their music simply makes
us feel good to be alive.
Watch them perform "I'm Down" live.*
Then look at
the artists
in today's
Billboard Top 100.
Does it make you sad?
|
*Sadly, YouTube keeps pulling down the actual live video, so this
composite with the studio version will have to suffice. If you are
curious, you can go to YouTube and do a search for Beatles I'm Down and
find the concert footage. It's a lot of fun. Update: I seem to have found a "permanent" live version. Whee!
|
|
|
Sunday, 02 September 2007 |
|
These are things I've heard in my hometown, Berkeley!
Girls: are you happier now?
UPDATE: No, you are not!
|
|
|
Saturday, 16 December 2006 |
|
December 16—Happy Birthday My Dear Ludwig van Beethoven.
I do not have anything to say about Beethoven, the man who freed music, that has not already been said.
I did discover a very interesting site while looking for an image for this post.
Beethoven's Hair
I was introduced to Beethoven in my early twenties by two
newspapermen, Ed Frisbie and Fran Ortiz, both of whom worked at the SF
Examiner where I was a copyboy. We would sit around the M&M Tavern
at 5th & Howard and talk about the late quartets, the Grosse Fugue
... and I would try to soak it up and I'd go buy pieces they
recommended ... and I'd listen to them when I tired of Bowie, Roxy
Music, and Captain Beefheart.
I am forever grateful to the two of them.
Fran
was a great news photographer whose works - four pieces as a matter of
fact - were chosen by the New York Museum of Modern Art for their
retrospective of twentienth century photojournalistic excellence. He
was a gentleman, a kind man, a great cook, and quite the ladies man: he gave me a lamb recipe for the first time I had a
woman over for a serious dinner date. It worked.
But this is not really a story about Fran, or Beethoven, but about Ed
Frisbee, one of the most serious drinkers and most entertaining
story-tellers I knew in my early life. It was another era. I had a lot
to learn about booze.
|
|
|
Thursday, 11 January 2007 |
|
Sweet fluffy lambs.
On a recent post celebrating Beethoven's birthday, I mentioned a lamb recipe for the bachelor who wants to impress a woman with his prowess in the kitchen. As we know, skill in the kitchen implies a heightened respect and knowledge of les Plaisirs d'Amour. D'accord.
One of our readers requested the recipe. I am including two recipes today. Neither are very demanding, but are delicious, nutritious, and shagalicious. Here is the first:
-
Determine if prospect eats meat and has sex on first date.
- Get good lamb chops, about 1" thick.
- Trim excess fat.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Sprinkle dried tarragon generously on lambchops.
Cover tarragon with coating of gourmet mustard - your choice, hot, sweet, whatever
- Sprinkle italian seasoning on top of mustard.
- Put lamb chops on roasting rack and into oven.
Cook for 30 minutes. (Vary time according to thickness of chops)
- Serve with brown rice and raisins. Spinach salad with avocado and tangerine slices and vinaigrette.
You will get lucky.
(Recipe #2 & story on the flip-fl0p)
|
|
|