Eric profile picture

Eric

a happy dog means you're living right- (Kinky Friedman)

About Me

EHB ENCHILADA SAUCEcombine and saute with olive oil 4 white onions, chopped / 9 garlic cloves, chopped fine / 2 teaspoons cumin / 4 bay leaves / 1 teaspoon oregano / 4 dashes allspice /add 16 ounces mild ground chile from New Mexico / 32 ounces canned tomato sauce / 6 cups water /cook/stir in large pot over low heat at least 2 hours; replenish water as needed ——"It is partly a life of leisure that has enabled me to grow. To my great detriment — for leisure without fortune breeds debts.... But also to my great profit, as regards sensibility and meditation and the faculty of dandyism and dilletantism. Other men of letters are, for the most part, base ignorant drudges." Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres completes, vol. 2, p. 659.

My Interests

stay tuned (working on it, I SWEAR...) .......Photography and memory (has anyone on here seen "Sans Soleil"?) —Searching the southwest for the perfect soft taco ("El Tejavan" in Amarillo, TX is numero uno at present) —Searching my record collection for the perfect piece of vinyl... —Kicking people who kick dogs— Cycling

I'd like to meet:

rembrandt + francesca woodman + john edgar wideman + robert frank + david wojnarowicz ("So my heritage is a calculated fuck on some faraway sun-filled bed while the curtains are being sucked in and out of an open window by a passing breeze. I'd be lying if I were to tell you I could remember the smell of sweat as I hadn't even been born yet.") + anyone in the Netherlands or Czech Republic willing to offer me a job in conservation and/or digital imaging of photographs and other 2/D objects.

Music:

johnny cash, roots manuva, nuggets + pebbles anthologies, billy childish (especially thee headcoats), swamprats, pixies, le tigre, anita o'day, charlie parker, charles mingus, ornette coleman live in stockholm, howlin wolf, pretty things (oh yeah), earliest stones, frantix + fluid + early mudhoney, stooges, snivelling shits, pagans, electric eels, ramones, x, avengers, crime, wierdos, chiefs, buzzcocks, magazine + howard devoto, wire, gang of four, gene vincent, carl perkins, patsy cline, hank williams, bob wills, link wray, otis redding, irma thomas, big maybelle, al green, hendrix, the undertakers, the surgeons (RIP), cynics, jack & meg white seem like nice people, augustus pablo + any 70's dub, sweeney todd (the demon barber of fleet street), tom waits & crystal gayle soundtrack for one from the heart, de la soul + all the old tommy boy stuff, early outkast, beatles live in hamburg xmas of '62, first pink floyd and a bunch of other "first" albums (patti smith, cramps, siouxsie, joy division, urge overkill, nirvana, stone roses, etc.), the birthday party, p j harvey's demo tape, new york dolls demo tape, saul williams demo tape and so on

Movies:

holy smoke, rashomon, lawrence of arabia, help!, secretary, the limey, my beautiful laundrette, eating raoul, withnail & i, affliction, the return of martin guerre, strangers on a train, viridiana, prick up your ears, bamboozled, triplets of belleville, to have and to have not, the ruling class, los olvidados, the godfather, a bridge too far, i shot andy warhol, glengarry glenross, lost in translation, end of the century, wings of desire & the wild child are personal favorites for personal reasons... -- 2 gael garcia bernal flicks out now (1/05) you should see

Television:

“If style is the power to move freely in the length and breadth of linguistic thinking without falling into banality, it is attained chiefly by the cardiac strength of great thoughts, which drives the blood of language through the capillaries of syntax into the remotest limbs.” — Walter Benjamin - "I am a jug filled with water both magic and plain; I have only to lean over and a stream of beautiful thoughts flows out of me. My education has been so unwitting I can't quite tell which of my thoughts come from me and which from my books, but that's how I've stayed attuned to myself and the world around me for the past thirty-five years. Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel." — Bohumil Hrabal - "Theatre is life, cinema is art, and television is furniture." — Unknown

Books:

the arcades project by walter benjamin, too loud a solitude by bohumil hrabal, digressions on some poems by frank o'hara: a memoir by joe leseur, the tremor of forgery by patricia highsmith, the devil and sonny liston by nick tosches, murder in amsterdam: the death of theo van gogh and the limits of tolerance by ian baruma

Heroes:

lili taylor, walter benjamin, saul williams, camille claudel, frida kahlo, james gandolfini, bohumil hrabal, flannery o'connor, my friend amy, eva hesse, charlie parker, muhammed ali, tommie smith, jeremy wariner, eddy merckx, patricia highsmith, patti smith, david wojnarowicz, monica vitti, tina modotti, dee dee ramone, brian deneke, that one beatle, velvet underground, edward said, all the bands that never "made it"

My Blog

Regarding "Kerouac" and Beyond (a worthwhile essay)

particularly powerful if, like me, you've hitchhiked thousands of miles, ridden Greyhound, grew up in the South, had a sibling in "reform school" and so on -- (photos which accompany the essay are by ...
Posted by Eric on Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:57:00 PST

I tend to agree (Hockney)

While I agree with where David Hockney is coming from in this article, it should be pointed out that the Sony Walkman first appeared over 25 years ago, and one could say that either it was a crude iPo...
Posted by Eric on Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:52:00 PST

Some things you probably know already

I found it interesting that such an incisive essay would appear in the "mainstream" press --Hang in there, America: Competent leadership is just 600-plus days awayBy JOSEPH L. GALLOWAYMcClatchy Newspa...
Posted by Eric on Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:38:00 PST

He must be off the drink

Some time shortly after 9/11/2001 Christopher Hitchens pretty much went off the deep end, for reasons some you may be familiar with (the details can be found via much googling, I suppose). In any even...
Posted by Eric on Fri, 18 May 2007 12:42:00 PST

Another NY Times letter

To the Editor:Re "Giuliani Says a Democratic President Would Make the U.S. Less Safe" (news article, April 26):Rudy Giuliani, would you please stop with the "vote for us or die" rhetoric?You recently ...
Posted by Eric on Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:49:00 PST

the coolest guy ever

well, sort of -May 25, 2002A Postmodernist Of the 1600's Is Back in FashionBy SARAH BOXERA puckish question was raised on Thursday night at New York University: ''Was Athanasius Kircher the coolest gu...
Posted by Eric on Sat, 21 Apr 2007 02:27:00 PST

I'm moving to Salt Lake City!

just kidding, but this guy has definitely figured out one of the central problems in American culturehttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/us/22rocky.html?em& ex=1174708800&en=812a0a1f8c08a420&ei=5087%0AMa...
Posted by Eric on Thu, 22 Mar 2007 01:08:00 PST

The wit and wisdom of Lee Marvin

"Ah, stardom! They put your name on a star in the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard and you walk down and find a pile of dog shit on it. That tells the whole story, baby."
Posted by Eric on Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:24:00 PST

A kindred spirit

I have met tacos I didn't like, but the great spirit of seeking out the ultimate taco is here nonetheless:http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/travel/esc apes/21tacos.htmlChasing the Perfect Taco Up t...
Posted by Eric on Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:04:00 PST

And now a word from the American ambassador...

(to Iraq)This memo was somehow "leaked" -- see http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article10909 05.eceCONFIDENTIAL MEMO FROM: US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Baghdad TO: Condoleezza Rice, S...
Posted by Eric on Tue, 20 Jun 2006 01:35:00 PST