Hugh Nicoll's Blog

I’ve been an Anthony Braxton fan for a long time, and for many years one of my favorite CDs has been the two-disc Leo Records set, Knitting Factory (piano/quartet) Vols 1 & 2 I found in London in 1996. Braxton’s collected works are challenging, his discography long, and his pioneering sensibility is matched only by […]

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Gabe is practitioner of Vipassana meditation, and is presently on a ten-day meditation retreat. Check out the code of conduct for the ten-day course.

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This is an excerpt from Gabe Gudding’s interview at the Chicago PostModern Poetry site: I woke up from my Fargo youth and realized there are people whose job it is to wait and wait and then lock people up when they get the chance to. Not saying rioting is good. But this realization shocked me […]

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Ishaq has just published a pointer on the poetics list to nocturnes, a literary review, published in Oakland, CA. The third volume, which includes a CD has just been published. The premier issue was published in 2001, volume 2 in 2002. Back issues are available from , and subscriptions are available from the nocturnes web […]

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Here’s a copy of the list of Relief Agencies on the Apple web site. American Red Cross International Response Fund AmeriCares South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund Direct Relief International International Assistance Fund Médecins Sans Frontières International Tsunami Emergency Appeal Oxfam Asian Earthquake & Tsunami Fund Sarvodaya Relief Fund for Tsunami Tragedy UNICEF South Asia Tsunami […]

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Barlow serves up hot, deep writing from Austria, reflecting on the ski accident his daughter Amelia has just survived. His characterization of this first decade of the 21st C. as the “Uh-Ohs” is as spot on as his marvelous descriptions of his new Austrian family connection.

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Taking a partial time out from my university responsibilities, I’ve been reading Dan Morgentern’s Living With Jazz (2004), which collects a number of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Director’s essays, liner notes, and pieces published when Morgentern was editor of DownBeat, which features a number of freely accessible articles from their archives. The announcement page […]

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“Full scale of the disaster” “unimaginable power” “A catastrophe” & the U.N., according to a BBC report I watched on television this morning, now fears that up to five million could die of disease and malnutrition in the aftermath of the December 26 earthquake. The initial reports triggered shock, horror, and recollections of how profoundly […]

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Susan Sontag, 71, has succumbed to her long battles with cancer. Tim Rutten’s remembrance is a loving and clear minded testament her “uniquely American life.” Meditating on her passing inspired me to search the archives of The New York Review of Books. One of her latest pieces there is her remarks on receiving the Jerusalem […]

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Ken Hagler, one of my fellow Tinderbox Weekenders in San Francisco last October, posted a link to a Common Dreams article by Thomas Hartmann, Hyping Terror for Fun, Profit — And Power, which reports on the Adam Curtis documentary aired by the BBC last October and November. Streaming video versions of The Power of Nightmares […]

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NPR is hosting Sue Johnson and Joe Richman’s “Mandela: an Audio History” hosted by Desmond Tutu, with an introduction by Nelson Mandela. The CD of this work is available for purchase at the Radio Diaries site.

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Nick Piombino’s Jackson Mac Low: A Few Images is one of the lightest but most moving of the reminiscences in the poetics blogging community. Lots of links. Good background, texts, and sound files at the EPC Mac Low page including ordering information for the “Open Secrets” CD. Open Secrets. Compact disc containing eight works for […]

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I watched the BBC news this morning after my morning bath, and was horrified by Rumsfeld’s response to a soldier asking why US troops are being sent into battle with inadequately armored vehicles. Juan Cole’s column for December 9 includes quotes from the transcripts of the soldier’s question and Rumsfeld’s responses, courtesy of Reuters. Cole […]

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Stephen Vincent posted a forward of Moyers’s December 1 speech to the Poetics list this morning. The text is available on the Common Dreams site and on a number of other progressive news sites, including truthout. As Vincent notes, a number of people who identify themselves as left, liberal, or progressive seem to still be […]

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Between now and next July, The Paris Review will be putting all of its 300+ writers-at-work interviews online, starting with those from the 1950s. Reviews from the 1960s are due in January, with all the interviews through the nineties to follow in February, April, and May. Another Wow!

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I’ve just discovered, via another post to the poetics list the online resources at the Slought Foundation home page. Wow! A 1958 interview with Coltrance, the transcripts of the 1963 Vancouver poetry conference, a 1962 Olson reading at Goddard…

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Jim Rosenberg has posted a link to an article from yesterday’s The Japan Times which summarizes a recent study in The Lancet on the death count in the Iraq conflict. “The central message of the remarkable Lancet report is clear: High civilian death tolls are inevitable when a modern high-tech army seeks to reduce its […]

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I’ve been thinking about the results of the US election, making a few notes, saving a few URLs in the attempts to recover from my initial horror and gain some perspective. The notion that the election was “hacked” has been making the rounds, and just this morning I’ve read two useful pieces taking issue with […]

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Halvord Johnson has put a pdf version of his chapbook Coyote’s Engines online.

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With the battle in Fallujah still raging, the guest editorial by William R. Polk on Juan Cole’s blog is an even more important read than when it was first published. An excerpt: “staying the course” … means continued fighting. France “stayed the course” in Algeria in the 1950s as America did in Vietnam in the […]

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