Love the One You're With

Mahler conducted the premiere of the Eighth Symphony in September 1910, four years after completing the work and just eight months before he died. The performance, Mahler’s last as a conductor in Europe, was to be the greatest triumph he ever experienced as a composer. But the preparation leading up to this event did not go smoothly. Beginning early in 1910, many months before the performance, Mahler exchanged several letters with Emil Gutmann, the impresario who had persuaded Mahler to conduct the premiere for a Mahler festival in Munich. Growing increasingly concerned, Mahler began to insist, sometimes frantically, that the performance be called off. He was particularly certain that the choirs could not learn their parts in time. In a letter to his trusted friend Bruno Walter, Mahler warned that he “shall ruthlessly [Mahler’s emphasis] cancel the whole thing if all artistic conditions are not met to my satisfaction.” A few weeks later, however, Mahler seemed to have resigned himself to a fiasco.

He wrote Walter, “Until today I have been fighting inwardly and outwardly against this catastrophic Barnum-and-Bailey performance of my Eighth in Munich. When [Gutmann] took me unawares in Vienna that time, I didn’t stop to think of all the to-do that goes with such ‘festivals’.” Mahler continues that, even though he is convinced the performance will be “utterly inadequate,” he sees no way to escape from his obligations.

It didn’t help matters when Mahler learned, much to his dissatisfaction, that Gutmann had nicknamed his work “The Symphony of a Thousand.” The tag, of course, is a rather shallow one to apply to a symphony by Mahler. It was not only correct, however, it was an understatement. As the program supervised by Mahler for the 1910 premiere of the Symphony states, the work required 858 singers and 171 instrumentalists. To counter the effect of so many singers, Mahler had to augment the standard orchestra. Thus, he increases it to 84 strings, 6 harps, 22 woodwinds, and 17 brass players. The score also requested that 4 trumpets and 4 trombones be placed apart. To assemble such a body of singers, it was necessary to supplement the Munich chorus (which included 350 children) with large groups from Vienna and Leipzig. The eight soloists came from Munich, Vienna, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, and Wiesbaden. The first performance, then, seemed to match in spirit Mahler’s attitude to the work, which he once called “a gift to the nation.”

http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/symphony-no-8-symphony-of-thousand-gustav-mahler

Poetess Friend

Once I had this poetess friend.

She mined rueful domestic goddess

Verse through eighty proof spectacles.

After her husband 

Discovered her bare ass

En flagrante delicto

With a fellow poet

The ex-husband won the car

The money the kids

And left the former

Domestic goddess

With nothing but her poetry

And a monthly tab

For alimony and child support.

I drove her to

Her weekly readings

As a public service

To the many poets

Who might capture her fancy

Once she had a few slugs

From her shiny red vinyl purse.

The reading I recall best

Happened at the Celebrity Centre

The old Scientology castle 

Off Hollywood Blvd

In the part of town

Where drunks vomit
And dogs shit

On the sidewalk

On the faces of the

Stars on the sidewalk.

Wall to wall 

Poets packed 

The house that night.

In the 1980s 

Everyone from Exene

To Henry Rollins 

Performed their poetry.

Next up the creative writing

Professor from Cal State LA

Recited his poem directly

At the domestic goddess.

(‘Twas a poem about

Creative writing professors

Hitting on their students)

I like your stuff!

I like your stuff!

I like your stuff!

He chanted

Outreaching his

Cupped hands toward

Her ruined breasts.

Suddenly I could 

No longer breathe 

The stale poetry charged air.

Outside the damp night

Cooled my face.

Fog shrouded the dead 

Soul of the city.

I walked down 

The hillside south 

Of Hollywood Blvd

Passing well lit 

Little cracker boxes forever

Far as the eye could see

Redolent of Nathanael West

Charles Bukowski

And the eight

Million poets laureate

Who commiserate 

Our poetic existence

Along a knife's edge

Of the Old Spanish Trail.

Cult of Personality Actors Marc Lamont Hill and DeRay Mckesson Expose Themselves As Paid Fakes Or Useful Idiots

I was watching CNN on August 9th with Poppy Harlow as host. Folks can google her and see that she is a fake journalist along with nearly everyone who hosts a CNN "news" show.

I heard her say twice that Bernie Sanders said all lives matter. Someone at Twitter claimed she said it three times.

In real time I confronted Poppy along with Marc Lamont Hill and another so-called broadcast journalist or wtf  named Dan Merica. I pointed out that Sanders never said that, but that it had been Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley.

They responded with the sound of crickets.

A couple days ago, I tried again with Marc Lamont Hill. I peppered him with a few truth staple fritos.

He finally responded!

Hmmm. Mr. PhD forgot the first lesson of academia which is to always answer the question. That kind of confused me. What did that have to do with my fundamental point? I tried to get us back on track.

I was trying to give Marc the benefit of the doubt. I was giving him a fair chance to acknowledge and correct the mistake. He stayed mum.

Then I tossed a couple frito grenades:

Indeed there are big differences between what broadcast journalism can do and not do whether one is in America or Canada.

That woke up Marc from his narcissistic slumber. He responded to the tweet including Poppy:

I also added:

As I am putting this entry together, I am seeing firsthand how difficult it is to so-called storify this nonsense. Donkeytale is correct that conversations on Twitter are near impossible to so-called grok. I am trying my best.

Here is the proof that Marc Lamont Hill was present when Poppy smeared Bernie. It is from the CNN transcript linked to above.

Sorry for any repetition with tweet screenshots. Here's the last one. In case you didn't know, you can click on each image and they are enlarged.

Bonus Convolution Coverage You Can Count On

DeRay may be looking good getting an opportunity to meet Bernie, but as a TFA hater, I am loving the current schadenfreude revolving around him. One can finally revel in Mr. Mckesson being exposed without seeming to be a Breitbart nutjob.

One of his older tweets was resurrected from the memory hole.

He at first tried to blow it off until eventually admitting he had been misinformed.

Why isn't he ever held accountable for being part and parcel of Teach for America?

How is someone like this trustworthy?

That wasn't the only bit of schadenfreude he experienced lately.

Hypocrites, liars, and narcissists are the last people who should be at the the forefront of social movements.

MSNBC just showed a clip of Hillary Clinton talking with Black Lives Matter people on August 11th. Kudos to that cable network for not being complete sellouts like CNN.

Was this video not available until today? I have personally heard no chatter about it. I suppose there's a chance I missed it.

I found this one from six days ago produced by The Young Turks:

                   Blackness and Teach for America are beautiful, my friends

I haven't watched the Young Turks video nor checked out the CNN link yet. I will leave my reaction to those in the comments. The reader decides. I can't be everywhere. I know Hillary is being grilled for e-mails. I hear chatter in the background about bed wetting. It sounds like Hillary co-opted Alexandrovna's Mark Singer "wet his pants" schtick [/gratuitous inside baseball meta reference mea culpa]. I am curious if this disaster of hers with Black Lives Matter from a week ago is getting much play from other than the MSNBC segment. For now I feel that my work here is done.

God bless the audience

el fin

Double Bonus Convolution Coverage You Can Count On

This is actually a rerun of a mailed in tweet. It just goes to show that nothing is at it seems.

LINK (there's an audio download at the link)

el fin el fin

The Browning of the Republic of Texas

Texas is an extreme state of extremes. When it rains it pours. When its hot its so hot your germs sweat. The people, by and large, are friendly, open, giving and big-hearted, even within their interracial relations, which are many, as the cities of Texas are huge melting pots. For one thing, I have yet to be accosted inside the jails or on the streets of the Lone Star state by racially threatening otha brothas as has happened to me more than a few times in the cities on east and west coasts. Both coastal halves of white middle class progressive America have gaping racial wounds festering in the midst of their self-congratulatory "progressiveness". This is the point that whiteysphereans refuse to admit as they become horrified when our hero Bernie is upstaged by angry #BLMers at some of his stops in liberal strongholds such as Seattle and LA.

Make no mistake, Whitey. The target of these protests isn't Bernie, who has responded well to date with both decency and respect. No, the target is wee, the oblivious whiteysphere.

Wake the fock up everbohdee!

Black kids in Texas and their latino, asian and white millenial cohort are unfailingly polite and deferential to my status as an oldster. Anecdotal? Of course, but who is doing the necessary statistical survey? Maybe this is also a sign of the times and kids are just nicer in general, even to aging white bloviators.

Yes, the political and injustice systems of Texas, which most of the open and friendly conservative white people not only support but deify, are more racist perhaps than anywhere else in this godforsaken hellhole of a third world country AKA the US of A-holes.

Houston has quietly become a capital city of hip hop culture America (along with Atlanta which it maybe surpasses). Dwight Howard chose the Rockets over LA for less money in large part because of cultural factors. James Harden, ditto.

When NOLA imploded after Katrina the evacuees of the Crescent City by and large settled into Houston, which absorbed them with minimal fuss and grumbling about increasing crime, etc.

Barrett Brown himself is an extreme version of Texas. And like many Texans he is talented, articulate and telegenic. A handsome junkie anonymous. Texans make up an astonishing large number of movie actors and especially grate musicians. There was Leadbelly. There was T-Bone Walker. Lightning Hopkins. There was Buddy Holly, Waylon, Willie, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Janis. Selena. Beyonce. DJ Screw. George Jones the quintessential country crooner, the list of legendary talent is nearly endless.

Incredibly, Jordan Spieth lurks in contention for the fourth golfing major championship of 2015 after winning teh first two and falling only one pulled makeable birdie putt on the 72nd hole at St Andrews out of a playoff in the third. These are Golfing God-like accomplishments by the unassuming young man seen only a few times previously, by Texas own Ben Hogan, by Bobby Jones and Tiger Woods. Walter Hagen. To be mentioned for the same feats as these best of the all time great names at the mere age of 21-22 is astounding. Again, maybe it is just that kids today are simply astounding. Spieth so they say, is also unfailingly polite and nice to his fans, all of whom it seems are older than he. His little sister who is mentally handicapped is said to be his inspiration in both golf and in life its own self.

I'm not all that interested in Brown's writing, it is witty but somehow needs to be punched up and made more universally memorable. I have read some of his prison schtick and its pretty good, better than most everything I read of his from the outside which has appeared in the Graun among other big league venues.

His linking to a site that revealed credit card numbers, if that is what happened, is not cool. Is it criminal? Don't know the answer but if it had been my card numbers revealed I wouldn't be too happy about it. His YouTube diatribe against the FBI was just dumb. Criminal? Most definitely not.

But he seems to have found himself unfairly pinned behind bars thanks in good part to his own YouTube meltdown and seems to be thriving from the experience in an odd martyr-like way. He is bright and very ambitious. I expect when he emerges from the Federal Hilton he will surge to the top of the pops in teh Whiteysphere.

He is a solid Texan. Texas will also prove to be a bellweather for Bernie, one way or t'other. If he plays well here and especially makes inroads among blacks and latinos, who make up a very large and growing contingent of Demotardic votes (most whites are, of course, GOP) then his campaign will surely be on track elsewhere. Still, many Texas blacks and latinos are also more conservative than are persons of colour nationally and Hillary has longtime connections to South Texas going back forty years. #BLM hasn't caught on here as yet much either. I have many minority acquaintances and  business associates who are rock solid Republicans, in fact.

Of course, neither Hill nor Bern will win Texas in the general. Blog Jesus hisself running as a Demotard would get killed among the God fearing Bible thumping majourity Texas demographic.

Still, much of the real humanity comes in through the hegemonic Christianity of the area. Many Texan and other Christians responded in a big way into the Haitian quagmire a few years back with very mixed results but they were there when poor people suffered and they done more good than bad. Many White Anglo-Saxon Protestants go on missionary trips among the poor in other continents which forms a more compassionate worldview, again whether they actually provide assistance or spread imperialism, or both is a question I am not qualified to answer. My point is that God Fearing Christians are not without compassion for the poor since it is, uhhm, a cornerstone of Jesus gospel teachings, even as their preferred political system serves to make the poorest poorer. It is another of those extreme/extremist conundrums. Can as many agnostic/atheist libertards say as much about our own acts of social outreach to the impoverished of this and other lands?

Didn't think so. We tend to more blog our compassion, lol, rather than deliver the canned goods in reality.

Remember, W Bush carried through on his crusade to eradicate AIDS in Africa even while he implemented the horrors now unfolding in the Middle East.

Rick Perry of all people led the criminal injustice system reform effort to reduce non-violent offender captivity.

So, in closing, Texas is complicated and extreme in so many ways. I could go on forever but alas this is by circumstance of necessity a mailed-in entry. have a nice day.

The Vindication of Bernie Sanders

                                                         Symone Sanders

Actually, my greatness was yet again vindicated, but to keep harping on that is turning away DFQ2 page hits.

I think it's remarkable they both have the same last name. But I don't think that's getting much media coverage.

How Symone Sanders Began Defusing Bernie Sanders' Race Problem in Portland

I could have sworn he hit 28,000 people for Los Angeles. That meant many thousands couldn't even get into the building. Now a famous rapper has thrown his support from Hillary to Bernie. This seems huge.

Haha, up next on CNN: "Does Hillary Clinton have a Bernie Sanders problem?"

Rapper Lil B: Sanders has ‘leg to stand on’ with protesters

What else? I'm a little worn out today to blog much. I could talk about Elon's attorney or the fake BLM activist with the Sarah Palin button. This should do it for now. There's a natural mystic floating through the air. Bob Marley said that. The natural mystic is saying Bernie is still on the rise.

Lil B is on now. I'll publish this as is.

Update: Lil B did pretty good. I have no clue how many votes he just produced, but he definitely as one individual is generating Black votes for Bernie.

We hold these Tweets to be self-evident

The Earth shall not abideth forever

Comparing dick size forces men to reach for bigger rulers

We are living at the Villa Borghese and we are all dead

Every spoken word amplifies noise

Behold the interior dialogue!

God and Devil---which spaketh yea loudest?

A single word of truth plays gunfire into a room of the self-deceived

Words alone make lonely words

Loneliness---American as blowing away innocents with an assault rifle

A dream intensely felt but half-remembered

Hidden somewhere 

Among fabulations of the soul

Sex

Me

All of you