Test v 0.5
Charles Olson/ Theolonious Monk!
Sonny Boy Williamson/Alan Ginsberg
Marshal Mcluhan/Sun Ra
W.C Williams/Dizzy Gillespie
Sun Ra - Lenny Bruce/Charlie Parker
Dr. Timothy Leary/Coltrane
Ornette Coleman/William S. Burroughs.
Charles Mingus/Ezra Pound
Charles Mingus/Ezra Pound
Robert Anton Wilson/Milt Jackson
"this is what they mean
when they talk about he blues,
this is what the blues is all about:
"fattening frogs for snakes"
& watching the mother fucking snakes
slither off with the very thing you have made" --John Sinclair.
FRIDAY THE 13TH - John Sinclair and his Amsterdam Blues Scholars by flyagaric23
John tells tales of heroic men of big heart and soul and full of music, tales in the folk idiom of legend. Magic languages made from wire on a stick or harmonica, a tin-can, a glass bottle and cap. Here are tales, localized and time-binded together by our giant beat poet scholar. Tales to resonate with Times
Yeah yer right John! Fattening Frogs for snakes. So that the motherfucking snakes can slither off with what you have made. Yourself, Timothy Leary, William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson for example have been cultural pioneers with a huge and a mostly unacknowledged contribution to our culture (Any Counterculture left) not gobbled up by an institution and/or private corporation.
The line "fattening frogs for snakes" - struck into my neurons, as it gets to the heart of the matter of music, business and culture since 1928 until 2009. If your starting out in the music business you better check out the snake scene in your town or village and prepare for a banquet of snakes and ladders when mixing with music industry goons. One difference i perceve today, to my 32 year old mind, is that the snakes have copulated since the 1920's and now have a 3rd' generation offspring--Unrestricted Global Finance Kapitalism (UGFK)--and the process of "fattening frogs for snakes" continues in every area of our lives. Not just confined to the Ghetto as the planet seems like a ghetto to me sometimes. Greed and glutony for the interests of a few nuts bent on religion and/or political power that i guess they don't see the problem of issue, who issues it and how? It' signifying media in all its forms: Paper Money, Water, Television, Gold, Internet, Newspapers, Music.
"Olson also shares Pound's thesis that economic and verbal corruption are
linked. Throughout the Maximus Poems he is at pains to demonstrate that the
decline of Glouster is a function of its finacial dependence upon outsiders,
upon men whose sole concern is private gain rather than the harbor's general
welfare. "in the present shame of the wondership stolen by ownership. --Charles Olsen, Letter 3":9. Michael Bernstein. The Tale of the Tribe: Ezra Pound and The Modern Verse Epic.
Fattening Frogs for Snakes" as interpreted by the Amsdetroit' bard seems to have the qualities of "The Tale of the Tribe". Or an Epic Poem. Singing matter, dancing matter, shouting matter. The poet weaves and sews together biographical seeds into condensed verse that come up like Pea Vines, strong and healthy tales, stories of the Blues and Jazz legends within their elements, not isolated into a 21st century New York. FFFS, with the aditional audio components becomes a sound & picture poem - including history that you can listen to and read in synchrony. The word "Tribe" resonates with John's continued addiction, infatuation and love affair with Black Music, from the musical Eden: New Orleans, to Chicago, New York and spreading throughout the globe, John has indeed gathered the tale's of the African American Tribes. And is after all himself Big Chief. John's Poetry and prose seem refreshing in their time-space binding - hunkered down and rooted within the subject matter - informing the reader when and where the poem's gaze is cast.
"AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor." --Ambrose Bierce
With the webnet in 2009, and with resources and tools spilling out of the blue's-sphere (the blue-tooth) zones, togther as a team we can contribute creatively without a particular bias or bank roller boss-hog. With an honest will to help build up the tribal knowledge base for everyone, enrich the free and revolutionary mediasphere with gifts of radiance and beauty. The spirit of the internet and its sharing and user driven content reflects the spirit of cultural revolution and the race towards a new - language - crafted for the most part by North American's in the 60's and 70's.
The poet has a very rich and nutritional array of multi-media communication devices, Biographical DVD "20 to life", books such as "Guitar Army", "Fattening Frogs for snakes", "It's All Good" hundreds of linear notes and published articles about Blues, Jazz and Revolutionary culture, plus many freely accesible edutainment-spaces such as John Sinclair Television, Radiofreeamsterdam and his own diary-website johnsinclair.us.
"Fattening Frogs for Snakes," yeh, that's what Americans do, except the ones that really is snakes. That is the United SNAKES ain't it? So from jump, John know, what the definition of hope to die (say when) American is. And he rejects it like the music do. The music reject it because American is a definition of what ain't got no use for the blues or for those who make the blues.--Amiri Baraka, Frome the introduction of "Fattening Frogs for Snakes."
Poetic historicism, music criticism and the post modern condition of Dr. John Sinclair.
Poetic historicism, music criticism and the post modern condition of Dr. John Sinclair.
"But the basic problem was semiotic. Debate collapsed into emotional babble because there was no language or conceptual model of what happened when you got "high", "stoned", "fucked up", "loaded", "wasted", "blessed", "spaced out", "illuminated", "satirized," "god-intoxicated", etc. -- Dr. Timothy Leary. Cyberpunks Cyberfreedom. Page 97."
As exile, criminal gang member and poetic terrorist, John Sinclair seems to me about as close to a no bullshit human being can find in 2009. Writing, living and being a poet, full time. No Television. No motor vehicle. Just a laptop and many manuscripts. John Sinclair lives on the road busy with a blazing output of words and music and speech that equals that of any small publishing house in the Netherlands.
John brings the optimism and improvisational skills of the 60's into the 2010's - dragging the whole gunny sack of alternative, countercultural history behind him, beard pointing forwards into the unknown, that Bird solo or that Monk song, that infinite recursive mysterioso, that new world and de-patterning of the regular program.
The smashing and trampling upon the normal with scholarly alternative models, like Punk Rock, The Black Panther Party, The Weather Underground, The league for Spiritual Discovery, the Discordian Society, Trans-Love energies and others. Yes, John Sinclair built alternatives to the American Killingry machine way back when, way back in 1964, before the Chicago Storm Trooper went wild in 68', before Kennedy was assassinated by insider traders. Way back when, John Sinclair was building more cultural relations and artistic communities that the entire U.S Government combined, who were, as we now know were busy fucking up relationships in the rest of the world, and expanding the slave-hive of unrestricted Global finance capitalism.
Along with Dr. Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs. Having something in common with all of these, combined with his own detroit Jazz glossings and more musical organizing and focus. The Music, the beat, the exploration of new sounds, were all coming together and being represented by John at that time, and still now, 50 years later, he continues to radiate the spirit of rebellion, alternativity and contempt and criticism of authority, while empowering each and every individual to realization, often via their ears. Nothing is not new. And only the authentic experiences and time tried and tested methods of judgement are used to forward the communications, snowballing into the 21st century, John carries the reefer torch of the 60's counterculture, in some sense. Burning bright and blinding, like fire crystal or an atomic reactor, John radiates the spirit of protest, and the maxim "Think for yourself, question everything, especially authority", at every chance he finds within his tight schedule of Zen-mind encounters with rookie stoners and pot groupies, whom he loves equally and fully, as many survivor's of the 60's have learn't, except maybe George Herbert Walker Bush and long list of CIA rats and robbers that fucked up the cultural landscape at every opportunity in the name of national security and a few paranoid religiously blinded individuals delusions.
"melopoeia, Òwherein the words are charged, over and above their plain meaning, with some musical property, which directs the bearing or trend of that meaning,Ó phanopoeia, the Òcasting of images upon the visual imagination,Ó and logopoeia, Òthe dance of the intellect among words.Ó This tripartite schemeÑthe musical, the visual, the conceptualÑreappears in the ABC of Reading (1934) which contains such famous aphorisms as ÒLiterature is news that STAYS news,Ó ÒGreat literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree,Ó and ÒPoetry is the most concentrated form of verbal expression.Ó http://www.bostonreview.net/BR29.2/perloff.html"
Beyond what John Sinclair writes he has had a life experience that equals that of any 20th century POP icon, except for the fact that Sinclair has often been smashing that POP ideology with a diamond headed hammer since first encountering the heavy handed, lawyer run capitalism and music industry at an early age. Not to mention the storm troopers attacking young American's, their language, art, music and Kulture, at every possible place. Stooping so low as to continue their false flag operations, or violent terrorism against their own citizens, or their targets, as they were to seen by the perpetrators and agents of death plots, assassinations and bombings, and drug set-up's, and Gurilla warfare raged on some drugs. And the list of terrible things the U.S Government has done around the world goes on, and meets the British, German, French and Italian and Dutch Governments along the way, snowballing into a New World Order around the mid 1970's, when i was born (15th April 1976).
Anybody who has read a little alternative American History of the calibre of Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, John Zerzan, Robert Anton Wilson, Howard Zinn, Kurt Vonnegut and Micheal Parenti will find the crooked government meddling and interference with cultural developement in "It's all Good: a John Sinclair reader" familiar.
Along with Dr. Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs. Having something in common with all of these, combined with his own detroit Jazz glossings and more musical organizing and focus. The Music, the beat, the exploration of new sounds, were all coming together and being represented by John at that time, and still now, 50 years later, he continues to radiate the spirit of rebellion, alternativity and contempt and criticism of authority, while empowering each and every individual to realization, often via their ears. Nothing is not new. And only the authentic experiences and time tried and tested methods of judgement are used to forward the communications, snowballing into the 21st century, John carries the reefer torch of the 60's counterculture, in some sense. Burning bright and blinding, like fire crystal or an atomic reactor, John radiates the spirit of protest, and the maxim "Think for yourself, question everything, especially authority", at every chance he finds within his tight schedule of Zen-mind encounters with rookie stoners and pot groupies, whom he loves equally and fully, as many survivor's of the 60's have learn't, except maybe George Herbert Walker Bush and long list of CIA rats and robbers that fucked up the cultural landscape at every opportunity in the name of national security and a few paranoid religiously blinded individuals delusions.
"melopoeia, Òwherein the words are charged, over and above their plain meaning, with some musical property, which directs the bearing or trend of that meaning,Ó phanopoeia, the Òcasting of images upon the visual imagination,Ó and logopoeia, Òthe dance of the intellect among words.Ó This tripartite schemeÑthe musical, the visual, the conceptualÑreappears in the ABC of Reading (1934) which contains such famous aphorisms as ÒLiterature is news that STAYS news,Ó ÒGreat literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree,Ó and ÒPoetry is the most concentrated form of verbal expression.Ó http://www.bostonreview.net/BR29.2/perloff.html"
Beyond what John Sinclair writes he has had a life experience that equals that of any 20th century POP icon, except for the fact that Sinclair has often been smashing that POP ideology with a diamond headed hammer since first encountering the heavy handed, lawyer run capitalism and music industry at an early age. Not to mention the storm troopers attacking young American's, their language, art, music and Kulture, at every possible place. Stooping so low as to continue their false flag operations, or violent terrorism against their own citizens, or their targets, as they were to seen by the perpetrators and agents of death plots, assassinations and bombings, and drug set-up's, and Gurilla warfare raged on some drugs. And the list of terrible things the U.S Government has done around the world goes on, and meets the British, German, French and Italian and Dutch Governments along the way, snowballing into a New World Order around the mid 1970's, when i was born (15th April 1976).
Anybody who has read a little alternative American History of the calibre of Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, John Zerzan, Robert Anton Wilson, Howard Zinn, Kurt Vonnegut and Micheal Parenti will find the crooked government meddling and interference with cultural developement in "It's all Good: a John Sinclair reader" familiar.
Feedback from an Individual American standing up to the Tsarist Occupation Government throughout, what are, lets hope, the worst 40 years of American imperialism, greed and crazed rogue CIA terrorism the planet has had to endure. Now something else, please.
John himself was indicted by the U.S Government on charges lodged by the CIA, trying to associate him with a plot to Blow up a CIA recruiting office! And the case soon fell apart when it was soon discovered that evidence had been gathered by using illegal wire taps, a popular way that the Government kept an all seeing EYE on the potential terrorists, to them, who were breeding in the seedy underworld of beatniks, communists, jazz junkies and drug deranged hippies.
"Then, as the poem continues, Sinclair rails that the music of these poor descendants of slaves would be exploited and sold without any of them receiving proper credit or compensation for their contributions http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2002-12-10/ae_feat.html
And so the forces that have shaped the life experiences of John Sinclair are themselves exorcised by his continued writing, performance poetry and good cheer and stand as a testament to resistance, protest and the perpetual scholars gaze into the deep questions: what culture, what good music, what revolution? The Godfather of Punk has turned American culture into his theme park, inhabited by Bird, Diz, Monk, Ruby, Sonny Boy, Kerouac, Sun Ra and His Arkestra's, the entire Beat ouvre', Olson, Burroughs, Coltrane, The beatles', John Lennon, Fela Kuti, james Brown, The Mardi Grais Indian's of New Orleans, Bar room boogie woogie, Trip Jazz, Mingus, Kenny Clark, Miles Davis, Alan Ginsberg, Archie Shepp, Stevie Wonder, the MC5, Hendrix, Elvis. Sinclair's theme world contains almost everything i like about America, and this model seems to hold out the idea of America itself, otherwise it's Coca-Cola, Ronald McDonald and the CIA all the way. Sinclair, in my humble opinion synthesises the best of American Kulture, distills the crap from the treasures, and even today, lives his word and deed in resonance with his tribes and teachers, a man of peace, peace to mean opposite of war, but not necessarily without trouble.
"You don't just go out one day and pick a style off a tree" --Dexter Gordon
And so we sit here, smoking trees for Saturnalia. Writing for the hell of it. I am here at the table writing about Sinclair who sits' opposite me, smiling, tapping his foot, minding his own business, but sharing everything he has to share, and caring with an equal intensity for all things he can cram into his gaze. The humble giant has a work rate double that of my own, sitting at the keyboard hammering away as monk spin's off the spindle on the phonograph. Yes, he's here and writing a small book a day, combined email, radio show details, and other writing merge together into a master class in language and post apocalyptic communications from a master of the filed. John Sinclair. Yeah, yer right.
"In especial one notes the "extraordinary" length of the rhythm pattern units [in Oriental Music], comparable to the mediaeval rhyme scheme of Provencal canzos, where, for example, one finds a rhyme pattern which begins its six-ply repeat after the seventeenth different terminal sound. In this Arabic music, as in the Provencal metrical scheme, the effect of the subtler repetitions only become apparent in the third or fourth strophe, and then culminates in the fifth or sixth, as a sort of horizontal instead of perpendicular chord. One might call it a "sort of counterpoint: if one can conceive a counterpoint which plays not against a sound newly struck, but against the residuum and residua of sounds which hangs in the auditory memory.
In the two cases, Arabic music and Provecal verse , where there was no musical "harmony" and no counterpoint in Bach's sense of the word, this elaboration on echo has attained great complexity , and can give great delight to the ears which are either "trained" to it, or which have a natural aptitude for perceiving it. In Europe this aptitude or perceptivity lasted at least until Dante's time, and prompted in him several opinions on the relative merit of provencal artists, which have puzzled thich eared "modern" philologists. --Ezra Pound, The New Age, April 15th, 1920.
Its all Good: A John Sinclair Reader.
22 poems and 22 prose pieces.
I'm tellin' all my friends, I'm no longer fattening frogs for snakes' --Sonny Boy Williamson.
"he has taken, laudably, the speech of the men he treats of and, by clipping to essentials, revealed its closest nature--its pace, its "meaning." And this is his poetry." Williams Carlos Williams on Ezra Pound.
"Williams Carlos Williams personally mentored Charles Olson, (to Creely at Black Mountain) Williams was friends with Kenneth Rexroth, the founder of the San Francisco Renaissance." --Wiki
"Then, as the poem continues, Sinclair rails that the music of these poor descendants of slaves would be exploited and sold without any of them receiving proper credit or compensation for their contributions http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2002-12-10/ae_feat.html
And so the forces that have shaped the life experiences of John Sinclair are themselves exorcised by his continued writing, performance poetry and good cheer and stand as a testament to resistance, protest and the perpetual scholars gaze into the deep questions: what culture, what good music, what revolution? The Godfather of Punk has turned American culture into his theme park, inhabited by Bird, Diz, Monk, Ruby, Sonny Boy, Kerouac, Sun Ra and His Arkestra's, the entire Beat ouvre', Olson, Burroughs, Coltrane, The beatles', John Lennon, Fela Kuti, james Brown, The Mardi Grais Indian's of New Orleans, Bar room boogie woogie, Trip Jazz, Mingus, Kenny Clark, Miles Davis, Alan Ginsberg, Archie Shepp, Stevie Wonder, the MC5, Hendrix, Elvis. Sinclair's theme world contains almost everything i like about America, and this model seems to hold out the idea of America itself, otherwise it's Coca-Cola, Ronald McDonald and the CIA all the way. Sinclair, in my humble opinion synthesises the best of American Kulture, distills the crap from the treasures, and even today, lives his word and deed in resonance with his tribes and teachers, a man of peace, peace to mean opposite of war, but not necessarily without trouble.
"You don't just go out one day and pick a style off a tree" --Dexter Gordon
And so we sit here, smoking trees for Saturnalia. Writing for the hell of it. I am here at the table writing about Sinclair who sits' opposite me, smiling, tapping his foot, minding his own business, but sharing everything he has to share, and caring with an equal intensity for all things he can cram into his gaze. The humble giant has a work rate double that of my own, sitting at the keyboard hammering away as monk spin's off the spindle on the phonograph. Yes, he's here and writing a small book a day, combined email, radio show details, and other writing merge together into a master class in language and post apocalyptic communications from a master of the filed. John Sinclair. Yeah, yer right.
"In especial one notes the "extraordinary" length of the rhythm pattern units [in Oriental Music], comparable to the mediaeval rhyme scheme of Provencal canzos, where, for example, one finds a rhyme pattern which begins its six-ply repeat after the seventeenth different terminal sound. In this Arabic music, as in the Provencal metrical scheme, the effect of the subtler repetitions only become apparent in the third or fourth strophe, and then culminates in the fifth or sixth, as a sort of horizontal instead of perpendicular chord. One might call it a "sort of counterpoint: if one can conceive a counterpoint which plays not against a sound newly struck, but against the residuum and residua of sounds which hangs in the auditory memory.
In the two cases, Arabic music and Provecal verse , where there was no musical "harmony" and no counterpoint in Bach's sense of the word, this elaboration on echo has attained great complexity , and can give great delight to the ears which are either "trained" to it, or which have a natural aptitude for perceiving it. In Europe this aptitude or perceptivity lasted at least until Dante's time, and prompted in him several opinions on the relative merit of provencal artists, which have puzzled thich eared "modern" philologists. --Ezra Pound, The New Age, April 15th, 1920.
Its all Good: A John Sinclair Reader.
22 poems and 22 prose pieces.
I'm tellin' all my friends, I'm no longer fattening frogs for snakes' --Sonny Boy Williamson.
"he has taken, laudably, the speech of the men he treats of and, by clipping to essentials, revealed its closest nature--its pace, its "meaning." And this is his poetry." Williams Carlos Williams on Ezra Pound.
"Williams Carlos Williams personally mentored Charles Olson, (to Creely at Black Mountain) Williams was friends with Kenneth Rexroth, the founder of the San Francisco Renaissance." --Wiki
John Sinclair lives and walks in Amsterdam. Europe. He seems to be producing artistic output that deserves closer investigation, i suspect that he reads at least on average 5 books a week, and is recording several radio-shows each week; some of the richest cultural music i have ever heard. The pen, the microphone the improvisational skills. The life experience to make reality drip from his words like hash Honey from 1968. A man of his sweet word. Enough nouns, to the gumbo and dancefloor.
As John Sinclair lives and breathes, and as he is my friend, and my favorite DJ in 2008, i'll transplant what i have learned from Robert Anton Wilson, and put John Sinclair through the interactive vortex, "The tale of the tribe." as i see it interpreted by RAW.
John splices historical, biographical and critical strains of tribal text together in a novel way to produce high grade wisdom language. Plus a counterpoint within the music itself, encouraging no-place places of poetry.
Economics, social science, psychology, jazz & blues ontology, poetry-- the dance of the intellect among words. Hermaneutical gumbo, at least on the surface, JS' in his new book demonstrates the art of capturing the experience, first hand, to mouth to heart to head and around again.
Whatever I choose to call John Sinclair, or label him as, be it beat poet, revolutionary scholar, essayist, historian, professor of Jazz and Blues; I get the feeling that these labels often detract from him being, very generally Ð a force for good. And so what is good you may ask, what makes somebody a force for good, well in my opinion and very generally speaking a force for good radiates compassion, knowledge, experience and good-judgement, to mean right judgement.
"In the poem "Fattening Frogs for Snakes," Sinclair explains how blues music came to be and the different strands of people and geography that intertwined to make it."
What does Good mean to you in 2009?
Good, like the word right can be used will-nilly and haphazardly these days, but again we must ask what are the attributes and affinities of good, and how does a human being become a force for good? I guess that we must construct some kind of hierrarchy of values, a spectrum of probabilities and something as close to science or to correct knowledge, right-knowledge; as we can get. This might be described as a kind of social cybernetics, where human beings are compared and validated based upon their actions, shared experience and artefacts, or based loosely upon their information output patterns, on their observations and perceptions studied at various moments throughout their life. A hierrachy of values then, would be a smart tool that enables a more meaningful, in full technicolor, term, like good being used properly to describe a human being. Or as I prefer a Ð force Ð for good as like R. Buckminster Fuller says ÒI see no nouns I only see verbsÓ, and ÒI am a verbÓ. Goodness lasts longer than good and when yu loose an ÒOÓ my goodness becomes godness, its all god from then on, which is a great way to remember the Good God, Devil Evil, trick of English. Only one letter gets change but this produces and whole world of difference.
Like musical Ballads and Road balards. Such is the delicate and easily bastardized and burgularized state of our language, but here with ÒItÕs all good: a John Sinclair readerÓ we have an opportunity to exhibit the questions about goodness, weigh up the evidence and examine the artefacts, make a new analysis based upon all the new historical data, (such as the first president of African-American geneology), evaluations modified and the turbulant forces at play during many key historical moments of American and world history can be distilled, with this line of study based on a hierrachy of values, to produce fully sourced and well documented re-analysis of the forces of good and evil and the sly zones in between the two. Where dry becomes damp, which then gets soggy before becoming wet.
"Iyan mu ire yo; iyan ro ire ru. "When there is famine the cricket is fat" (that is, is considered good enough to eat); "when the famine is over the cricket is lean" (i.e., is rejected)." from the African YARUBA folk-lore/language.
My aim is to present the book ÒItÕs All Good: a John Sinclair ReaderÓ as a hierrachy of values, a distilled look at what makes it good, and a look at the forces for good playing out in the content.
As with any hip culture and every positive cultural force, the language and the language makers turn on themselves in a dialectic of opposites, where ÒBadÓ for example, becomes a word used to denote a good force, in some sense, as James BrownÕs album "Superbad" pays testament, or the immortalized words of Run DMC ÒNot black meaning bad but black meaning goodÓ.
Growing up in England during the late 90's a badboy or badbwoy was in fact used to denote a positive cultural force within the context that we used it in. There are many other examples, so many that it appears to me that within the music and DJ culture of 2008 the English language has lost much of itÕs use as a force for good, since so much nonsense has been written about music, art and culture lately, propelled by the unrestricted global corporate capitalist pop culture corpse-press, that words, by themselves are no longer worth the kind of value that they were a few years ago, or 30 years ago, or hundreds, or maybe just 2 months (consider the term Bail Out and World Financial Crisis before september 2008).
"JS has been a WHITE PANTHER (NOSHIT) doing time for the crime of thought. And resistance to the continuing slavery of US imperialism and its prophylactic, racism. J has always been on the firing line, on the front line of saying and doing. He is a brother, in the real sense, of the flash and spirit, and his words, his stance, his loves, his perception and rationalization of the world, will bring him close to anyone not in the straighjacket of random imbecility and opportunism (the "most finished form" of which, said Lenin, is National Chauvanism). --Amiri Baraka,
Long gone, in the west at least, are the times and cultures where language was held to be a treasure and sacred artform, to be used in harmony with the environment and the Cosmos, and other human beings in the community to help transfer information, good information, to mean information packed messages with a surprise, the opposite of messages with a foregone conclusion, predictable, stale, corporate, in some sense. The predictability of authority and the general forces of control, constriction and the police state put them in an affinity group with entropy, monotheism, dominator culture, fascism, tabloid News Press and static, patriotic, imperialist impotence. Notice the undersexed and overstressed faces of presidents, prime ministers, ministers of defence critters and intelligence officers, and, religious fanatics worldwide, lets not overlook sex, or the prohibition of sex and the malfunction of the universal human orgasm being used, by bad forces, to indoctrinate the young, the dumb and those full of come.
Why were the books of Wilhelm Reich burnt and his laboratory destroyed on order of an American court? Tim Leary, Lenny Bruce, Orson Welles, James Joyce, John Lennon, Ezra Pound and John Sinclair are United by the fact that they have received a harsh judgement and received inhumane punishment by the United Snakes Government as a result of their non-violent expressions of genius, prophecy and revolutionary thinking. They differ widely in their personal opinions and in their likes and dislikes much the same as anyone else, but because of their gift and genius they pose somekind of a threat to the power structure, the Government sanctioned artists, the ones that fit neatly into the stale categories and pigeon houses you see everywhere these days in the fake plastic world of the served up consumer. The major music, literature, and Art publishing corporations. The corpse culture of modern life.
Rock & Roll, smoking dope and fucking in the streets, these are meanÕt to be forces for good, and they have been incalculable forces for good throughout history, especially when broken down into the language of everyman, simply, described with a high information content and presented justly as Rock & Roll, Smoking Dope and Fucking in the Streets.
What we have here is a species of wisdom language, IAG provides the reader with a carefully calculated set of equations. It is my contenton that the mixture of prose essay and verse, balanced by the annotated lyrics of the entities under observation, provides for a damn good reading exorcise, thatÕs even before we get into the content of the structure. The structure of the book itself, like a good fugue, or a Theolonious Monk, or a Sun Ra composition seems to be already communicating patterns, beats, oscillations within its working structure, with itÕs own self contained system, intelligent, communicating, pulling in the consciousness field of the reader, listener, experiencer.
As John Sinclair lives and breathes, and as he is my friend, and my favorite DJ in 2008, i'll transplant what i have learned from Robert Anton Wilson, and put John Sinclair through the interactive vortex, "The tale of the tribe." as i see it interpreted by RAW.
John splices historical, biographical and critical strains of tribal text together in a novel way to produce high grade wisdom language. Plus a counterpoint within the music itself, encouraging no-place places of poetry.
Economics, social science, psychology, jazz & blues ontology, poetry-- the dance of the intellect among words. Hermaneutical gumbo, at least on the surface, JS' in his new book demonstrates the art of capturing the experience, first hand, to mouth to heart to head and around again.
Whatever I choose to call John Sinclair, or label him as, be it beat poet, revolutionary scholar, essayist, historian, professor of Jazz and Blues; I get the feeling that these labels often detract from him being, very generally Ð a force for good. And so what is good you may ask, what makes somebody a force for good, well in my opinion and very generally speaking a force for good radiates compassion, knowledge, experience and good-judgement, to mean right judgement.
"In the poem "Fattening Frogs for Snakes," Sinclair explains how blues music came to be and the different strands of people and geography that intertwined to make it."
What does Good mean to you in 2009?
Good, like the word right can be used will-nilly and haphazardly these days, but again we must ask what are the attributes and affinities of good, and how does a human being become a force for good? I guess that we must construct some kind of hierrarchy of values, a spectrum of probabilities and something as close to science or to correct knowledge, right-knowledge; as we can get. This might be described as a kind of social cybernetics, where human beings are compared and validated based upon their actions, shared experience and artefacts, or based loosely upon their information output patterns, on their observations and perceptions studied at various moments throughout their life. A hierrachy of values then, would be a smart tool that enables a more meaningful, in full technicolor, term, like good being used properly to describe a human being. Or as I prefer a Ð force Ð for good as like R. Buckminster Fuller says ÒI see no nouns I only see verbsÓ, and ÒI am a verbÓ. Goodness lasts longer than good and when yu loose an ÒOÓ my goodness becomes godness, its all god from then on, which is a great way to remember the Good God, Devil Evil, trick of English. Only one letter gets change but this produces and whole world of difference.
Like musical Ballads and Road balards. Such is the delicate and easily bastardized and burgularized state of our language, but here with ÒItÕs all good: a John Sinclair readerÓ we have an opportunity to exhibit the questions about goodness, weigh up the evidence and examine the artefacts, make a new analysis based upon all the new historical data, (such as the first president of African-American geneology), evaluations modified and the turbulant forces at play during many key historical moments of American and world history can be distilled, with this line of study based on a hierrachy of values, to produce fully sourced and well documented re-analysis of the forces of good and evil and the sly zones in between the two. Where dry becomes damp, which then gets soggy before becoming wet.
"Iyan mu ire yo; iyan ro ire ru. "When there is famine the cricket is fat" (that is, is considered good enough to eat); "when the famine is over the cricket is lean" (i.e., is rejected)." from the African YARUBA folk-lore/language.
My aim is to present the book ÒItÕs All Good: a John Sinclair ReaderÓ as a hierrachy of values, a distilled look at what makes it good, and a look at the forces for good playing out in the content.
As with any hip culture and every positive cultural force, the language and the language makers turn on themselves in a dialectic of opposites, where ÒBadÓ for example, becomes a word used to denote a good force, in some sense, as James BrownÕs album "Superbad" pays testament, or the immortalized words of Run DMC ÒNot black meaning bad but black meaning goodÓ.
Growing up in England during the late 90's a badboy or badbwoy was in fact used to denote a positive cultural force within the context that we used it in. There are many other examples, so many that it appears to me that within the music and DJ culture of 2008 the English language has lost much of itÕs use as a force for good, since so much nonsense has been written about music, art and culture lately, propelled by the unrestricted global corporate capitalist pop culture corpse-press, that words, by themselves are no longer worth the kind of value that they were a few years ago, or 30 years ago, or hundreds, or maybe just 2 months (consider the term Bail Out and World Financial Crisis before september 2008).
"JS has been a WHITE PANTHER (NOSHIT) doing time for the crime of thought. And resistance to the continuing slavery of US imperialism and its prophylactic, racism. J has always been on the firing line, on the front line of saying and doing. He is a brother, in the real sense, of the flash and spirit, and his words, his stance, his loves, his perception and rationalization of the world, will bring him close to anyone not in the straighjacket of random imbecility and opportunism (the "most finished form" of which, said Lenin, is National Chauvanism). --Amiri Baraka,
Long gone, in the west at least, are the times and cultures where language was held to be a treasure and sacred artform, to be used in harmony with the environment and the Cosmos, and other human beings in the community to help transfer information, good information, to mean information packed messages with a surprise, the opposite of messages with a foregone conclusion, predictable, stale, corporate, in some sense. The predictability of authority and the general forces of control, constriction and the police state put them in an affinity group with entropy, monotheism, dominator culture, fascism, tabloid News Press and static, patriotic, imperialist impotence. Notice the undersexed and overstressed faces of presidents, prime ministers, ministers of defence critters and intelligence officers, and, religious fanatics worldwide, lets not overlook sex, or the prohibition of sex and the malfunction of the universal human orgasm being used, by bad forces, to indoctrinate the young, the dumb and those full of come.
Why were the books of Wilhelm Reich burnt and his laboratory destroyed on order of an American court? Tim Leary, Lenny Bruce, Orson Welles, James Joyce, John Lennon, Ezra Pound and John Sinclair are United by the fact that they have received a harsh judgement and received inhumane punishment by the United Snakes Government as a result of their non-violent expressions of genius, prophecy and revolutionary thinking. They differ widely in their personal opinions and in their likes and dislikes much the same as anyone else, but because of their gift and genius they pose somekind of a threat to the power structure, the Government sanctioned artists, the ones that fit neatly into the stale categories and pigeon houses you see everywhere these days in the fake plastic world of the served up consumer. The major music, literature, and Art publishing corporations. The corpse culture of modern life.
Rock & Roll, smoking dope and fucking in the streets, these are meanÕt to be forces for good, and they have been incalculable forces for good throughout history, especially when broken down into the language of everyman, simply, described with a high information content and presented justly as Rock & Roll, Smoking Dope and Fucking in the Streets.
What we have here is a species of wisdom language, IAG provides the reader with a carefully calculated set of equations. It is my contenton that the mixture of prose essay and verse, balanced by the annotated lyrics of the entities under observation, provides for a damn good reading exorcise, thatÕs even before we get into the content of the structure. The structure of the book itself, like a good fugue, or a Theolonious Monk, or a Sun Ra composition seems to be already communicating patterns, beats, oscillations within its working structure, with itÕs own self contained system, intelligent, communicating, pulling in the consciousness field of the reader, listener, experiencer.
"Alex (or "Aleck") Miller called "Rice" as a boy "Sonny Boy Williamson" "He had established himself in Chicago & was soon to gain national fameas the king of the Blues Harmonica "His recordings remain today as if carved from stone, immutable, irrefutable, masterpieces of American music that will live long beyondthese last days of the 20th century:" --John Sinclair. FFFS.
And that's where my review of IAG comes to a brief hault in some sense, youÕll read about Robert Johnson, Sun Ra, Iggy Pop, John Lennon, Dr. John, and a huge cast of countercultural Illuminati amidst the 300 pages of bound wisdom language, and you already have, I am sure a good idea about who these people are, after all, you have heard theyÕre records and seen emÕ on the TV and in bookshops, if youÕre a reader that is, you probably know all about these people, but, itÕs the force for good, the author John Sinclair that provides the eyes, ears, heart and mind that guides the reader through the labrynths of American culture.
John and the other revolutionary tribes of artists, poets, writers and magicians emerging together throughout the 1960Õs in Northern America were for the most part, generally, forces for good, they fought against one of the most powerful and crooked monsters of American government Ð the Noxin administration Ð and won. Hands down. Using a relatively non-violent and community based uprising of like minded individuals, a few key players, or composers, helped shape modern and post modern culture in ways we are still trying to untangle from the other forces for evil, and corruption, for Usury and bedevilment. We, the children of the 70Õs, who have just seen the same Noxtious Nixon like gang, this time incarnated as the evil George W. Bush and Dick Chaney, Rumsvelt and co. are now taking the batton, carrying the flame, lifting the great ball of crystal that the likeÕs of Theolonious Monk, Tim Leary, John Coltrane, Robert Anton Wilson, Sun Ra, William S. Burroughs, Ornette Coleman, and Alan Ginsberg have left for us, putting the world back together again, with the artists and writers and intellectuals in their places, (libraries, information centers, art and creativity centers, freely available internet resources) at the disposal of world around humanity to access, process and communicate. And with an added emphasis on nation states, countries and locations desperately lacking such well prepared wisdom language for operating happily on planet earth and becoming a force for good.
If the characters from IAG were transposed to the Star Wars mythology then Sinclair would be Obe 1, Richard Nixon Lord Vader and the 1968 Democratic convension in Chicago would be the death star, where the brutality of American Government evil against itÕs own citizens came out, overflowed and changed the mindset of untold millions of artists, musicians, writers and magicians, little did Nixon and his evil CIA friends know that now, 40 years later they would stand out as such evil and crooked bastards, in comparison with the counter-cultural revolutionaries and their new models and metaphors and languages for all around the world humanity, to Ð come together Ð dance, communicate and love oneanother. And the countercultural entities from the 60Õs were all in resonance with the principles of humanitas, of liberty, expression, and of just being themselves, growing and developing their reality engineering tools, they just wanted to be left alone and allowed to compete in the new emerging global telecommunications and entertainments world-around infrastructure.
To simply do their own fair and honest trade in their own communities with their own cultural flavors and tastes in music, drugs, sexual preference and personal effects. ÒIf we ainÕt harming anybody else then whatÕs the problem?Ó seemed to be the echo of voices from the consciousness and creativity explosion of the 60Õs, in Jazz music, poetry, drugs and dancing and fucking we kept seeing the same things, or a similar pattern: Authority figures and conservatives tend to squash and hinder youth culture movements that pose any threat to the current status quo, such as advanced Black African Jazz music, advanced Swiss longevity drugs and refined Magickal writing.
IAG, for me in 2008 acts as a wake up reminder of how infinitly creative and resourceful human beings can be when they put theyÕre minds and hearts to something, and when they are left alone, unhindered, and are more likely to emit a stronger force for good. The ripple effect of a good deed and a gesture of good will, and the twists and turns of an evil lie, a fake government sanctioned fabrication. It seems to me that only a fascist bullyboy or some cop or fink could mistake the tell tale signs of a US operation to break up, disscredit and dissband any new youth and/or Black youth culture movements. The list of New Culture Martyrs and rebel heroÕs from the United States are, perhaps, my own most respected and honorable quality critters, to mean, I rate almost everything they have produced and side with them in their arguments, and expressions of criticism and desent at their evil secret Governments meddling in both the culture and drug wars at home, and increasingly internationally too, hell, they even reached the moon in 1969 and started meddling in space outside of the planetary atmosphere. In comparison with the free food programs, and free music parties, the free information hand bills and hugs, smiles, and daily acts of encouragement, made free to others because of oneÕs own investment of time and energy; what does a 20 Trillion dollar war machine and Banking Casino look like. ÒThe American dream, to vulgarise and falsify until the bare lies shine throughÓ said Burroughs. Are you awake yet.
Planet earth just witnessed an attack of unprecedented scale and proportion, an attack upon every human being, every animal, fish and living thing, speaeheaded by the United States of America and Great Britain. I am of the opinion, based on the data available in 2008, that the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan following the events of september the 11th were precisely an illegal invasion. An attack. On us, the citizens of the countries waging war, as well as those having war waged upon them. (but with a violent flesh ripping effect, opposed to a more psychological tearing effect) We, the people have been terrorized by repeated false flag attacks and staged battles between good Christian British/American crusaders and bad evil Iraqi/Afghani Islamic infidels, or so thatÕs what the Tennis tournament organizers would like you to think.
It seems an insult to an entire nations intelligence, both of the human mental variety and the secretive spy variety, when lies and deceit perpertrated by the people employed to at least relay good information and represent the general public forces for good. In my opinion that does not mean continuing the military industrial banking cabals evil agenda, their business plans for opening up new businesses overseas, now that the Cold Wars over and Bosnia, and the IRA have packed in the offensive. I give much thought and consideration to the possibility that some Evil American Buzzards had a hidden had in the events that led up to the multi trillion, and incalculable set back, and/or slowing for the world-around-humanity aboard spaceship earth.
Here is an example of using blues imagery. This haiku is a direct variation on the blues line "fattening frogs for snakes." I personify the night, the quality of hurt, and then use a simile to make complete the reference to the blues line. It is also a blues in the classic a/a'/b structure, which is say a line, repeat the line with a variation, and then respond to or comment on the line with a third line. Here I completely rephrase the second (or a') line but I keep the same basic image ("night moans" = "arms of hurt" and "grip my waist" = "snake round me").
haiku 48
night moans grip my waist
the arms of hurt snake round me,
i feel like a frog
http://www.nathanielturner.com/onwritinghaiku.htm"
The tales and epic poems and slices of reality served up in IAG remind the reader of their own humanity, in the face of such adversity as John and his contemporary tribes have been and still find themselves today, confronted with. John has gone back, and forwards, with a dance of language, in print and spoken words together - which can be listened to and read simultaneously for an added sense of enjoyment, i find. John has gone back to the origins and legends deeply rooted in the music he has always processed and shared with a passion amongst his friends and worked to propel into the greater human info sphere of worldwide revolutionary culture in the minds of the people.
McLuhan
Sonny Boy Williamson
Keroac
SUN RA
RAW
As an Englishmen, from a middle-class backgrouund, compared with the rest of the planet earth, and of average intelligence. I was born and bred in the Blackcountry, West Midlands, who travelled and lived for more than 12 months at a time in San Francisco, New Orleans and Brooklyn New York between the years of 2000-2005; I feel I have a somewhat different experience of America from others due to my extended stay and total immersion within the new world and its culture. By total immersion I mean playing music with some of the best, studying quantum psychology and ideogramic method with the best, by the best I mean innovators and originators, in my humble opinion Gurrilla ontology and world wisdom music were the means to amplify the new world internetworked culture, to make communications between tribes, and then maybe come home and unload my new found wisdom music and humanitarian cacheÕ of cutting edge research activities.
"Cybernetics is preeminent when the system under scrutiny is involved in a closed signal loop, where action by the system in an environment causes some change in the environment and that change is manifest to the system via information/feedback that causes changes in the way the system then behaves, and all this in service of a goal or goals. This "circular causal" relationship is necessary and sufficient for a cybernetic perspective.[citation needed]
"Example of cybernetic thinking. On the one hand a company is approached as a system in an environment. On the other hand cybernetic factory can be modeled as a control system. Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and psychology in the 1940s, often attributed to the Macy Conferences. Other fields of study which have influenced or been influenced by cybernetics include game theory, system theory (a mathematical counterpart to cybernetics), psychology (especially neuropsychology, behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology), philosophy, and architecture." wiki/cyber.
----
"When Johnson was offered an open bottle of whiskey, his friend and fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson knocked the bottle out of his hand, informing him that he should never drink from an offered bottle that has already been opened. Johnson allegedly said, "don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand". Soon after, he was offered another open bottle of whiskey and accepted it, and it was that bottle that was laced with strychnine. --wiki
"The fatted frog was eaten by the snake-like new wave of British musicians Ð people such as Eric Clapton, John Mayall, The Animals and The Rolling Stones. ThereÕs no doubt that these guys are true fans of the blues, but they did make it big by ripping off the blues stylings of pioneers like Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and HowlinÕ Wolf. Lots of these guys died in misery and poverty (although there are plenty more like BB King who got plenty of recognition).
http://frogsforsnakes.blogspot.com/2006/06/fattening-frogs-what.html
"Then, as the poem continues, Sinclair rails that the music of these poor descendants of slaves would be exploited and sold without any of them receiving proper credit or compensation for their contributions
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2002-12-10/ae_feat.html
"Robert Johnson - Considered by some to be the "Grandfather of Rock-and-Roll", his vocal phrasing, original songs, and guitar style have influenced a broad range of musicians, including John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers Band, The Rolling Stones, Paul Butterfield, The Black Keys, The Band, Neil Young, Warren Zevon, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2002-12-10/ae_feat.html
the lives, joys and suffering of the United States' most marginalized citizens.
"Confluence of research and art that Sinclair has been performing for more than three decades. There is a mythology that surrounds many of these greats, such as Muddy Waters or Charlie Patton.
"It took me a long time, to find out my mistakes
Took me a long time, to find out my mistakes
(it sho' did man)
But I bet you my bottom dollar, I'm not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes
I found out my downfall, back in nineteen and thirty
(I started checkin')
I found out my downfall, from nineteen and thirty
I'm tellin' all of my friends, I'm not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes
All right now... (solo)
Yeh it is nineteen and fifty-seven, I've got to correct all of my mistakes
Whoa man, nineteen and fifty-seven, I've got to correct all of my mistakes
I'm tellin' my friends includin' my wife and everybody else,
not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes
soony boy williamson./
"
Rice Miller
Rice bowl women
African diasporia & the Oriental hidden variables.
Fattening Wogs for Chinks.
http://www.ninebelowzero.com/index2.htm
sweat of night blues moist upon them. Feefee! phopho!!
foorchtha !!! aggala !!!! jeeshee !!!!! paloola !!!!!! ooridiminy !!!!!!!
Afeared themselves were to wonder at the class of a crossroads
puzzler he would likely be, - --http://mv.lycaeum.org/Finnegan/viewpage.cgi?page=475&like=crossroads
I heard my
libertilands making free through their curraghcoombs, my trueblues
hurusalaming before Wailingtone's Wall: I richmounded the
rainelag in my bathtub of roundwood and conveyed it with
cheers and cables, roaring mighty shouts --http://mv.lycaeum.org/Finnegan/viewpage.cgi?page=542&like=blues
Amanita ceciliae is reported primarily from areas east of the Mississippi River but similar mushrooms also occur in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and Texas. Amanita experts David Jenkins (1986) and Rodham Tulloss (2004) suggest that North American amanitas matching the general description of Amanita ceciliae (a European species) may be undescribed, separate species.
http://www.clusterbusters.com/ident.html
http://pluto.njcc.com/~ret/amanita/species/muscpers.html (amanita Mississippi)
ÒAIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.Ó --Ambrose Bierce
ÒBetter is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it (Proverbs 15:17).
ÒShow the fatted calf but not the thing that fattened him.Ó
Irish Proverb quotes
"The travelogue of names Tunica, Tutwiler, Clarksdale being the life stories of blues ancestors like Howlin Wolf, Tommy Johnson, Sunnyland Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson. His stories lose some of their bite when he dilutes them with didactic generality about slavery and the land where the blues was born, and he has a tendency to use the word "peoples," but he makes up for these lapses when he tells us about Johnson's apprenticeship and that original meeting of musician and devil at those famous crossroads, or when he introduces the story of Slim by connecting the gospel of "This Train" with Little Walter's "My Babe" and winds his way back to Slim's namesake, the Sunnyland Train, concluding, "He traveled fast and could be dangerous." Sinclair even has a charming, scholarly way of crediting his sources, name-checking writers like Robert Palmer and Pete Welding as he goes. Guitarists Bill Lynn, Everette Eglin, and Jeff Baby Grand twine smoky, chugging rhythms and train-whistle slide, the grooves are propulsive, and there are even female back-up singers to give support on a few tracks. All of which probably owes a lot to the expert production of R&B legend Andre Williams.
PANNONICA - John Sinclair and his Amsterdam Blues Scholars by flyagaric23
Fattening fly's for frogs for snakes for bulls.
John Sinclair, kindly gave me the most recent recordings of his poetry and i have been reading from his book while listening--simultaneously--to his blooming voice in audio, accompanied by his band the great "Blues scholars."
The book "fattening frogs for snakes" contains many tales roughly cast from the constellation of origins of the Blues. (The music, rhythm and Blues). Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williams, Muddy Waters and many other geniuses of the Blues are woven by way of nutritious quotes, condensed, orchestrated and exhibited by John Sinclair.
I found an instant parallel with other poets who "let history speak for itself" serving up a more meaty and substantial meal. Time-space-binded and information rich details of the when, where, and the who's; all illuminated by choice words, cutting and slicing words that reflect the most general heart, the marrow.
For example: "three kinds of poetry: melopoeia, Òwherein the words are charged, over and above their plain meaning, with some musical property, which directs the bearing or trend of that meaning,Ó phanopoeia, the Òcasting of images upon the visual imagination,Ó and logopoeia, Òthe dance of the intellect among words.Ó
A tripartite scheme, plan, method, developed by John Sinclair combines the musical, the visual, The conceptual and reappears in Fattening frogs for Snakes.
HUMPHF - JOHN SINCLAIR AND THE AMSTERDAM BLUES SCHOLARS by flyagaric23
