nobody but the baby

dylan, duncan and brady

there was a great era in the late 1990s and early 2000s (in the pre-9/11 riverboat saloon daze) that bob dylan would open his shows with a classic old-timey song with a three-part harmony in the chorus. these were transporting occasions. the songs themselves were rare, dylan singing them was even rarer, and the three-part workgang vocals really took the biscuit, because dylan is not much known for his interest in sharing the mic. i saw a lot of dylan shows around that time, and especially loved hearing "this world it can't stand long" and "duncan and brady," the latter of which i post below for your change of pace.

thanks to bro mch for the tip.

Six-Word Memoirs

Calling all lovers of aphorism!
Come ye who like to turn a phrase!
Calling Bob Dylan, Paul Westerberg, and Craig Finn! (Must be something in that MPLS water supply.)
Behold yr maudlin effervescent gutter poet!

My friend Chris Cocca recently turned me on to the Six-Word Memoirs site at Smith Magazine. Now Chris is a writer and all, so I'm sure that his six-word memoir would really make your hair stand up. But, in his steps (as it were) I gave it a shot. You too should give it a try. It is surprisingly addictive. I have submitted three.

Yea, three. Maybe you can find them....

Next, I might show you my fortune cookie collection.

practice makes perfect

i am thinking about spending fortyfive dollars on this print from our beloved gillian welch.

evan p. donahue / colossal

two things.

first, go download my man evan donahue's new EP, look bleak. it is 99c, people. HOOK IT UP. this is, like, pitchfork cool.

second, behold my favorite BBC science graphic ever.

philadelphia ghost signs

No, this is not another M. Night Shyamalan movie with Philadelphia-area paranormal activity as a backdrop for "what really counts." (How did those aliens that were destroyed by contact with water run through the cornfields at night anyway? Ever done that, M. Night Shyamalan?? A bit wet, I would say.)

The Philadelphia Ghost Signs Project is Lawrence O'Toole's blog of faded "ghost" signs from long-gone businesses in Greater Philadelphia. What's not to love?

Check it out here. Guaranteed no aliens.

american incarceration

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Interested yet?

Check out an article from today's NYT here.

Also, more than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their twenties, 1 in every 8 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which three-fourths of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.

For resources on that, check out the Sentencing Project's Racial Disparity site.

delta / highway 61 / memphis (world gon' change)

i took these last summer in memphis and the mississippi delta.

all images copyright caleb maskell, 2008.

James Baldwin / Fire Next Time

I have been reading The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin this week. A stunning, profound, essential work. I have written some thoughts and questions on it which I will be happy to email to the truly brave, bored, and inclined.

For my esteemed readers with a normal human schedule, I post this video for your consideration.

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The Irony of American History

Some very smart publisher at the University of Chicago press has re-released Reinhold Niebuhr's The Irony of American History with an endorsement by Barack Obama, and references on the back cover to the book's influence on Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Could this become the religion book of the next election?

from the blurb:

Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America came of age as a world power, The Irony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr’s masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue. Impassioned, eloquent, and deeply perceptive, Niebuhr’s wisdom will cause readers to rethink their assumptions about right and wrong, war and peace.

“[Niebuhr] is one of my favorite philosophers. I take away [from his works] the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away . . . the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard.”—Senator Barack Obama

Check it out here.

(thanks to bro. mch for the tip.)

brooks on obama

so sad. but i can't help but agree a bit.

so now we know definitely that obama is not the messiah. nonetheless, we gotta have him. he's the best out there. also, he can start talking back to the persnickety fools who keep dogging him about dumb stuff and then scaring him into playing the game.

david brooks on how obama fell to earth