Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
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on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in ChargeHey, hey, _both_ parties are a gerontocracy clinging to power so tightly, and at the expense of any… on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024President Biden is set to sign a bill blocking gender-affirming trans healthcare for children provid…
on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in ChargeJosh Marshall: "But This misses the real point. This wasn’t Trump’s bill. This was Trump and Johnson… on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in ChargeSpeaking of capacity, Trump seems not like the President Musk line: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/im…
on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in ChargeRepublicans in the House voted against Trump's own preferred CR bill. That's dysfunctional.
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024AOC learned some hard lessons when she went up against Bezos for HQ2. Maybe Musk will learn himself… on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in ChargeStill more competent than the GOP on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024And it was rejected despite Trump's backing and making it easier to get money from China, giving mor…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024This is where I kind of agree with Saul. I'd say f 'em and go home for Christmas.
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024Looks like the GOP can get more done negotiating with the Dems than they can negotiating with themse…
December 19, 2024
December 18, 2024
Moving Picture of a Handy Man Around the House
December 17, 2024
Somebody is Always Taking the Joy out of Life
December 16, 2024
on From Tablet Mag: Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024 on From Tablet Mag: Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge on From Tablet Mag: Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment
on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge on Fani Willis Disqualification Ruling: Read It For Yourself on Fani Willis Disqualification Ruling: Read It For Yourself on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024 on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024
Continuing education: The Lamb and The Tyger really need to be read together in the same sitting, The Clod and The Pebble shows how deeply Milton was internalized by Blake, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell will leave you gasping.Report
And it’s perfect for Monty Python.
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It’s a man’s life in the modern army.Report
In the summer of 2000, the Metropolitan Museum did a wonderful exhibit of Blake’s drawings and designs.
“Dark Satanic Mills” probably refers to the Albion Flour Mills, one of the first Industrial factories in England and the world. Probably the harbringer of the Industrial revolution. Blake was a pastoralist utopian at heart and he would have distrusted the sheet nature of the mill and what it was able to do. Since the poem is allegedly about Jesus visiting England, he wonders how such a holy place could be so close to such an evil thing. How did England descend from pastoral and green glory to something dank, dark, industrial and soul-crushing. This is not a poem as an ode to progress or markets.
If you did research, the Chariots of Fire refer to how Elijah entered heaven in the Old Testament. The narrator of the poem is being asked to be taken to Heaven or he is asking for a Chariot of Fire to help him destroy the Dark Satanic Mills of the Industrial Revolution.
I interpret the poem as an ode and urging to return to a rural and simple life.Report
That’s pretty much my interpretation. I don’t really see the “war,” but then I didn’t watch the embedded videos.Report
I always liked the Billy Bragg version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEqFMFFsQo&feature=kpReport
But did Blake have a vision that he’d inspire a couple orchestral psychedelic jazz albums in the 60’s, which would go on to be sampled like mad in 90’s hip-hop & electronic music?
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Or a series of SF books? Or a novel about a serial killer?Report
Heh, I thought Red Dragon too (Hannibal tonight! This season has been AMAZING!)
And if he inspired those SF books, then indirectly we’ll just go ahead and credit him with this song too (that’s Ginger Baker on drums):
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ITYM “Ginger Blaker”.Report
Oh, and Blake also shows up in Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series, as a traveling storyteller nicknamed “Talespinner”. The first three or four books are quite good, though it appears to be yet another series Card has no intention of finishing.Report
That’s how absolutely insanely talented Blake was. His work will turn you upside down. If you’re a theist, you’ll have insights into God. If you’re an atheist, you’ll flash some moments of doubt.
I honestly have no idea why he isn’t more famous than he is. “He’s plenty famous”, I can hear someone say. “Not enough. Not to the point where he deserves.”Report
“Piper” is a song of “Bosco”. The lyrics are extracted from two William Blake’s poems (“Introduction” and “The Shepherd” from his book “Songs of Innocence and experience”). The audio is from one of the concerts they did in a tour around Ibiza. The video is made with footage from that tour.
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Sweet! Thank you!Report
here the video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2MTaKsR7FUReport
Also, there’s the Kinks’ 20th Century Man:
This is the twentieth century,
But too much aggravation
It’s the age of insanity,
What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem?Report
There’s a movement to make Jerusalem the National Anthem of England. Now, I mean, you can say that that is the equivalent of saying “there’s a movement to make ‘We Will Rock You’ the National Anthem of the USA” which is to say that just because the sentence is true doesn’t mean that it’s interesting but we’re not talking about a group of crazies out in the middle of nowhere.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9400486/David-Cameron-backs-Jerusalem-as-English-national-anthem.html
There’s a group of crazies out in the middle of London.Report
There was a vote for Australian national anthem in 1977, and Waltzing Matilda came in second with 28%. That would have been . ǝɯosǝʍɐ ǝɔɐdsReport