from The Woman at the Washington Zoo

...Vulture,
When you come for the white rat that the foxes left,
Take off the red helmet of your head, the black
Wings that have shadowed me, and step to me as man:
The wild brother at whose feet the white wolves fawn,
To whose hand of power the great lioness
Stalks, purring. . . .

—Randall Jarrell
The Academy of American Poets

I know she's a tracker, any scarlet would back her
A/E E D/E A E D
They say she's a chooser, but I just can't refuse her

—Robbie Robertson/The Band Chest Fever

Chooser - A performer who goes to see other acts to steal material.
—vaudeville slang

we're forgetting the true purpose, the true nature, of reading and writing
"I'm thinking of the teacher who asked for my advice for her pupils who would shortly be confronted with a Sat, where the rubric for the writing test told them to spend exactly 15 minutes on planning their story, and 45 minutes on writing it. Proper writing just doesn't happen like that.
Nor does it always go through the process of planning, drafting, re-drafting, polishing and editing, which teachers are also required to put their unfortunate pupils through. Nor does every piece of work have to be completed. Some stories you aren't ready to write yet, so you put them away for six months or two years and come back to them when you're ready.
There are no rules. Anything that's any good has to be discovered in the process of writing it. Furthermore, there must be a willing suspension of certainty - Keats' negative capability, "the capability of remaining in doubts, hesitations and mysteries, without any irritable reaching after fact or reason". We cannot require everything to take place under the bright glare of discussion and checking and testing and consultation: some things require to be private and tentative.
—
Finally, under reading, we really must learn not to press pupils for a response to everything. A child very seldom wants to talk about something that's made a deep impression: it's too personal, too sacred. But they soon learn what's expected, and they keep a set of stock answers that they have found will satisfy the teacher.
Nor should we demand a response at once. Sometimes the true effect of a story they read or hear in school will not emerge until many years later, and that should be sufficient."
—Philip Pullman/Guardian UK 09.30.03

"We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever."
Philip Pullman

Pretty Things
This is the band who out-rolled the Stones through the early 1960s, the dirtiest, hairiest, nastiest, loudest band the world had ever seen, kicking out a non-stop stream of snarling garage beat monsters, and impressing the young David Bowie so much that he later recorded two of their songs himself, for his "Pin Ups" album.
This is the band who a young Johnny Rotten used to go check out with his mum, down at London's 100 Club, while he was still searching for the role models for what he'd become.
This is the band who recorded the world's first concept album, "S.F. Sorrow," more than a year before the Who got all the glory for "Tommy." This is the band whose next album, "Parachute," was Rolling Stone's first Album of the Year of the 1970s, and whose influence can be heard all over "Dark Side Of The Moon".
This is the band which Peter Grant was thinking of, when he first told Led Zeppelin to indulge their wildest fantasies.
And this is the band which isn't going to stop until the undertakers nail down the lid on them....

Bill Grifffith's on a tear

He lived his life like a work of fine art
He lived his life like a work of fine art. George Plimpton was a winner. He was comfortable with everything, from reading Plato in the original Greek, to sparring with Muhammad Ali and courting Jackie Kennedy. He was an athlete and a scholar. He played touch football with Bobby Kennedy on the lawn of Hickory Hill and built some of the most dangerous and colossal firebombs ever seen in the American Century. He was absolutely fearless.

Hunter S. Thompson

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