(diary)
The DOJ has been destroyed with Barr, now on to the IC with Richard Grenell. No experience in intelligence (no pun), hated by Germany when he was Trump’s ambassador to Germany, Fox News contributor. He’s an “acting” director so, no Congressional oversight. A senior adviser to Grenell is Kash Patel. He worked closely with Giuliani and tried to discredit the Russia probe. Quoting Masha Gessen: “Institutions will not save you.”
Continue reading Impeachment(I’m not sure how I encountered this. Some sort of internet spelunking but who-knows-where.)
New Complexity is a composition style that originated in the 80s, consisting of inconceivably difficult music with beautifully difficult scores. Upon first listening, I felt that it was just a rehash of mid-century serial technique, at least in expressiveness. I fell into the “I’m smart enough to understand this immediately” trap of the moderately informed. It is instead yet something different and contains more performance/conceptual art aspects that put the responsibility of process on the performer as a way to manifest the ideas in the score. It may be a pendulum swing from what has been called the “downtown” style of minimalism that appeared in the late 60s/early 70s, which was itself a pendulum swing away from the atonality of decades prior. No style completely disappears, but I am happy to see a rhythmically- and harmonically-difficult style return.
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Fri 14 Feb 2020
I’m ending the week that should have despondency instead with optimism. One of the lawyers I follow (probably Teri Kaniefeld?) advised that the coming months up until the election, and likely after, will contain a maelstrom of offenses. He’s completely unfettered, he benefits from distractions, there’s no chance that Rs will check him in any way from this point on. Instead of focusing on the day’s chaos, plan for the exit strategy that is the next election. Accept that there is (very likely) no punished or pause for him while in office. This is good advice that could have been given at any point in the last 3+ years, so the following it always depends on just how much zen-like calm you can muster.
Continue reading ImpeachmentEarly in the movie, the Army Sergeant hero going undercover ends up at The Moonfire Inn to infiltrate those rapscalious (?), brother-killing bikers in their local haunt. When watching bad 70s movies and I see a named restaurant or bar, or a phone number, I get obsessed with a search for any remnants of it that may still exist. Either to see a record that it once-had-been or to see it manifest in its current form. When I was reading S.T.A.R. Flight (1969), there was an insert for the DeVry Institute (yes, that one) that was to be mailed back to 4141 Belmont Ave. Chicago, IL 60641 and I had to screen cap the current street view. (When my dad no longer was, one artifact left behind that fascinated me was a jar of matchbooks from various restaurants and hotels he ate and stayed at as a salesman throughout the 70s and 80s. Since then, I wanted to create a blog with an entry for each matchbook and what could be discovered of its origin. Still a good idea (and TBD) but probably a manifestation rather than source of my obsession.)
Continue reading The Hellcats (1968), MST3K, The Moonfire Inn