Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

The 2009 Critterati Photo Contest at the New Yorker

Deva Puccini as Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker in FINNEGAN’S WAKE
HCE (aka also Here Comes Everyman) is a keeper of a pub in Dublin

Tweeting The First Page Of Finnegan’s Wake

Thomas Pynchon Reads Trailer For Inherent Vice

Picasso Light Painting

“LIFE photographer Gjon Mili visited Picasso in 1949. Mili showed the artist some of his photographs of ice skaters with tiny lights affixed to their skates jumping in the dark—and Picasso’s mind began to race. The series of photographs that follows—Picasso’s light drawings—were made with a small flashlight in a dark room; the images vanished almost as soon as they were created.
Photo: Gjon Mili/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images” More here.

Gravity’s Rainbow Illustrated

A screaming comes across the sky…Above him lift girders…the carriage, which is built on several levels…drunks, old veterans…hustlers…derelicts, exhausted women with more children…

On a Giant’s Shoulders:
Zak Smith Illustrates Gravity’s Rainbow

By Creon Upton
April, 2005

Illustrating Gravity’s Rainbow is like putting Ezra Pound’s Cantos to music, or writing the novel of a grandmaster showdown—from the point of view of the chess pieces. It is, in other words, a massive task. It also demands exacting control of one’s own medium, as well as intimate engagement with another. The chances for abject failure are overwhelmingly high. Absolute success is all but impossible. Realistically, in this undertaking Zak Smith could at best hope to achieve a high level of mediocre acceptability. Surprisingly, he has done this, and even more.

Le Pape de Verdun

He was Montreal’s Emperor Norton.

1000 Frames Of Hitchcock

Essential viewing for fans here.

Free Verse (catfish friends)

Interesting group at Flickr called Free Verse. Here is one from Angelina .

The face paint/title refers to one of my favourite poems – Yor Catfish Friend by Richard Brautigan;

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, “It’s beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,”
I’d love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.”

Kees Van Dongen

Excellent show running until April 19th at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses

Jimi Hendrix

He didnt invent the electric guitar, but he may as well have considering how he blew open the possibilities.

Do Not Call

The River

I come from down in the valley
where mister when you’re young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We’d ride out of this valley down to where the fields were green

We’d go down to the river
And into the river we’d dive
Oh down to the river we’d ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we’d dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain’t been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don’t remember
Mary acts like she don’t care

But I remember us riding in my brother’s car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I’d lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride

Charlie Dunver Kicked A Soccer Ball….

Charlie Dunver kicked a soccer ball along the Edenborough waterfront.

And so begins another story, another epic tale.

If you happen to read this post, image, or text.

Please comment as to which image you prefer from the top down.

John Baldessari