Read: nobody reads any more, but here’s a once-famous guy whose life — hard-drinking, hard-loving, full of shooting and explosions, capped off with pills, depression, electroshock therapy, and suicide — makes for good TV.
Lickona Young & Old
July 29, 2021 by at 9:34 pm
Korrektiv’s poet-trumpeter Chris Cook goes viral on TikTok for his covers of popular songs
January 26, 2021 by at 10:48 am
The Secret of Phantom Lake
August 4, 2018 by at 2:06 pm
(To the tune Identikit, by Radiohead)
Our country club was one tennis court
in the middle of a marsh,
and a large, rectangular pool
doubling a small, moon-shaped lake,
whose surface was always as black
as cannonballs stacked in the sun.
The girl was saved from drowning
in the deep end under the diving boards,
as I ran back and forth along the edge,
dripping dry, nothing to assuage
my guilt choking on action
even as it tried to swallow inaction.
Anger, that dispels all phantoms
and then creates more of its own.
To have a will as clear as water
without urine and chlorine.
Next morning, steam rose from the lake,
—pieces of a ragdoll mankind,
that we can create, that we can create—
as witnessed by reeds and cattails.
“Natural order? You sound like one of those insane Neo-Catholics.”
February 7, 2018 by at 10:08 am
…is an actual line of dialogue from Altered Carbon, Netflix’s dense and gorgeous sci-fi series about life after death has been digitally defeated. Consciousness has been codified, so you can get “spun up” into a new bodily “sleeve” for all eternity — provided you have the means. But wouldn’t you know it, there’s this weird bunch of religious zealots who object — who make noises about soul and body having more to do with each other than ghost and machine, who think it devilish to deny death and what comes after. Who make noises about human dignity. Remarkable.
It’s chock full of sex and violence, and the dialogue isn’t always the strongest, and the acting isn’t always spot-on. But there’s a lot there, and I’m kinda fascinated. It’d be fun to see some smart Catholic critic dig into it. Heh.
Fathers and Sons
January 21, 2018 by at 9:00 pm
ADDED: A primer for those who don’t know why NYFG fans hate the PEs (and, yes, of course, the NEPs too.
ADDED: Exhibit A & B.
How I Feel Now that Philadelphia (“Ptui!”) Is Going to the Super Bowl
There is the boy and there are the certain facts of boyhood
(Though nothing autobiographical
Is ever really deduced, is ever really reducible).
Yet the boy’s whole story is as any boy’s life, full
Of moment and followed by others, messily progressing
Along in the plain old myth-telling style.
There was the boy and his father — a fact which must go
Unverified as a creature’s cause. That which didn’t
Make self, though, inherited at least this knowledge:
There is the father and the son – met in boisterous love of sport
Which welded the lessons of thunderous anger
And the sadness hidden in laughter’s cloudbanks.
The boy’s hand consumed in his father’s, they would walk
The yard, policing November’s washout of light;
Spring would arrive only later in the Sun’s cult.
But now was the time to take all of creation into account,
To find the faults in the earth where hide the virtues
Of fathers, to corral the sins of the sons with a hard stewardship.
In these wintry days, the son played Icarus with his father’s
Crafted matchstick ships, motorized by cleverness;
Or played Phaeton pilfering matchbooks and cigars; or Ganymede
Holding the cold brown bottle of Olympia beer for
Father Zeus watching Sunday football, weighing and sighing
In the gridded and hashed balance of his favor-fought heroes.
Thus, Zeus’s gaze fell shadow-like on the U.S.S. Missouri’s
Jacked keel, but withheld just punishments for playing
Fire’s innocence, and hounded the N.Y. Giants weekly battles
Against his patience – all things that youth reaches for
In the hardened hands of time, the works and ways
Of which the golden scales tip in a boy’s growing favor.
Hostiles
January 19, 2018 by at 11:04 pm
A very good movie, which reminded me a little of (the also very good) Meek’s Cutoff in its consideration of the mutual antagonism between Native Americans and White Settlers. The year is 1892, and the now safely united US government has all but finished clearing the way for westward expansion. Captain Joseph Blocker, who has himself done a fair amount of this clearing, has now been tasked with escorting a former adversary, Cheyanne Chief Yellow Hawk, from a fort in New Mexico Territory to the Chief’s ancestral lands in the newly created state of Montana. Violence ensues and then recurs like bad spells of the weather, meted out by both the U.S. Army and what Native warriors remain. Though, interestingly enough, not between Chief Yellow Hawk and Blocker, who need one another to fight other hostiles, Native American and Caucasian alike.
The friend with whom I watched it praised the movie for its story of a man growing beyond the racism with which he performed his duty to clear the territories by subjugating or killing people he refers to as “savages”. I saw that, but what interested me more was the way the knife’s edge between sanity and insanity was even sharper than that between violence and peace. In the end I decided that it was because of Blocker’s stubborn insistence on sanity that he is able to rise above the genocidal racism by which he has fought, and lay claim to the humanity he’ll need away from the battlefield. Uniformly well acted, especially by Christian Bale, and director Scott Cooper’s best yet.
My New Paper Shredder
January 19, 2018 by at 12:32 am
is an absolute dream. For years I’ve hunched over a brown paper grocery bag every few months, laboriously trying to cut my medical reports and payment past due notices into confetti. This year I got a brand new shredder for Christmas, and feeding six months worth of backlogged paper into this hungry little monster was the most fun I’ve had since piling up all those bills and medical problems in the first place.
As I was about to take the bag down to the recycling bin, I spied one cutting that read “on bended knee”. Seemed significant. What on earth could the gods be trying to tell me?
I looked at another that turned out to have a number of Chinese characters. Assuming I could safely disregard these, I sat down right there on the floor and pulled out a few more, continuing to disregard the Chinese characters, lines of seemingly random numbers and letters, and of course those that were blank or had been cut perpendicular to lines of text. What I ended up with was this:
Thank Heavens for my training in Classics, which included deciphering legends stamped onto coins, the handling of ancient manuscripts, and—most helpful here— epigraphy. Here’s what I’ve been able to determine:
IMPORTANT:
[Your] mission is [at] 5:00 on T[itan.] We have the e-Surge, and we claim thy pathways logo are trademarks of Cenall. They are like nomination meetings, or s[oft]ened [skulls], but [oh] how it felt on bended knee! Now is the time, Wanderer—pray tell your fri[ends they] ARE NOT REQUIRED TO PAY.
So there you have it. Not gods, I now understand, but that intergalactic force of aliens from EGS-zs8-1 now hiding behind Planet X. While I appreciate the information as well as sentiments conveyed in that last line via all caps, I’m not sure how I feel about Cenall claiming my pathways. And they may denigrate said pathways as a reading back of the minutes of an annual Rotary Club meeting or Aunt Sylvia’s habit of including herself in the conversation on Fox and Friends, but the point is simply this: these pathways may not be pretty, but the fact is they work. What you’re feeling there is success. You’re welcome.
So I won’t be disposed of that easily. I’m a man of my word, so you can count on me to make that trip to Titan—but you can also expect me to wander by the Cenall HQ on Europa before I do. And then we’ll see about that e-Surge, you can be sure of that.
BREAKING: Wisconsin Marshmallow Farms Report Bumper Crop
June 11, 2017 by at 4:04 pm
What? Did you think they grew on trees?
Early reports indicate that the graham cracker harvest will be equally vigorous this year—although no world yet on how the chocolate season will fare – it all depends on whether the cocoa fish will be as plentiful this year (last year they suffered from a caramel blight, reducing the total intake of chocolate oil for processing).
Film at eleven.
“…to the last syllable of recorded time.”
February 28, 2017 by at 12:32 pm
Heath Ledger’s Joker performs Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…” for a captive and humiliated Batman at the most recent iteration of Cherie Peacock’s Shakespeare Party, held at the La Mesa home of Tim and Roisin O’Neill.
KORREKTIV 2017 POETRY CONTEST: “Pop Sonnet 2017” (or, “Iamb in the Place Where You Are!”)
February 11, 2017 by at 10:58 am
I found this somewhere online and thought it would be a great idea for a Korrektiv Poetry Contest. We haven’t had one of those in a while, so why not? Winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd and two Honorable Mentions) will be announced on Shakespeare Day 2017 (April 23). Each will receive – well, something Shakespearey, I suppose.
Rules:
- Each participant may submit up to three (3) sonnets each.
- Each submission must be a Shakespearean sonnet (Shakespearean in form and in style: archaic Elizabethan language and all (see Gaynor example above)—the more clever the better chance the submission has of winning).
- Each submission must retain the title and composer of the original pop song (again, see above).
- Each submission must be a reworking of a recognizable pop love song (not something your sister’s best friend wrote and composed on a kazoo)—with a theme of either love desired (e.g. “I Want Your Sex”), love gained (e.g. “You Light Up My Life”), or, like Ms. Gaynor’s immortal work, love lost.
- All poems must appear in the comment box for this post for consideration.
- Winners will be notified in advance of the official announcement here at the Korrektiv.
- And, yes, the contest is decidedly open to all members of the Korrektiv Kollektiv.
- DEADLINE: April 1, 2017
Any questions?
Then get scribbling!
Cartesian Blues
November 23, 2016 by at 11:53 am
Cartesian Blues
. .. by Rufus & QuinI’ve got the Cartesian Blues
From the middle of my brain
All the way down to my nuts and screwsI went to the doctor,
An’ I said, “Gimme da news …”
He just handed me a bunch of data
And said, “It’s just dem ol’ Cartesian Blues!”I put on my shirt, I put on my shoes,
I put on my rubbers
I had nothing to lose
But them godforsaken Cartesian BluesI went down by da red lights,
An’ asked, “whaddya got, and how much are the dues?
She said, a hunnerd dolla for 38-26-34
Will get rid of your Cartesian BluesThe automatic teller
Spit out some cash
I’m a handsome feller
I gotta make a splash
Just as soon as I peruse
This article about
The Cartesian BluesI think therefore I am
Was the caption on her selfie
A vegetarian except for ham
Very clean and never filthy
Except when I hit snooze
And get those Cartesian BluesSo I went down to see the bartender,
And said, “I need some medicine—it’s called booze,
And he answered, “Well I got 101-proof bourbon, aged for 30 years in a 50 gallon barrel,
And that oughtta cure those Cartesian Blues”It hit my naso-cortex
Like every species of shit
And caused a spark to fly
Across that Cartesian split
But the next morning I paid my dues
I still had those Cartesian BluesSo I went to the social worker,
Cause I got nothing to lose,
And she said, “We got 20% unemployment,
A third of the population is mentally ill,
In the great urban area 5300 people are livin’ in tents,
And now 100% of our assistance programs are means-tested,
Which means we alls got Cartesian Blues”She referred me to a psychiatrist,
So I told him “I got something on my mind”
And he said, “I think you mean brain”
And I said, “mind”
He said “brain”
I said “mind”
“Brain”
“Mind”
“Brain”
“Mind”
“Well, this is clearly a case of those … Cartesian Blues …”I went to ask my Ex-wife,
“Ex, Why why why did you move?”
An’ she told me, “I can’t graph
or coordinate your Cartesian Blues …”In place of God there’s a Demon of Doubt,
All faith is just a ruse …
That is why COGITO ERGO
Cartesian Blues
Haiku Prediction
November 13, 2016 by at 3:19 pm
Pussy-grabbing Trump
Will be grabbing his own ass
When they lock him up
Free Samples commented on Attached Earlobes and Criminal Tendencies