GBlog

1. There is a sweet irony in the cover picture of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: the alien superstar is photographed in a seedy sidestreet, not a glittering glamour spot, of London’s West End. Instead of shining brightly in a metallic science fiction wonderland, the monochrome photo is hand-coloured in the way of postcards from the turn of the last century.
The cover holds not the promise of the story we are coming to hear, but its denouement: Ziggy has come back down to earth as David Bowie. There’s trash, there’s rain, there’s a bin, there’s the sign of the furrier K. West, where the fiction of left-handed Ziggy and the fact of Bowie, holding his guitar right-handed, come together.....
The photographer was Brian Ward, who had studio in the street. He took 17 photos that night ...
Great Covers: Ziggy Stardust (1972) - Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Zugabe: I Am Ziggy Stardust: Hier können Sie Ihr Gesicht ins das Cover einfügen!
Vgl. auch Archäologie CCXLXIV : People Are Strange / Joel Brodsky



2. Beat Writer's Got The Beat: William S. Burroughs Sings!
One of the most unlikely stars of the late '70s-to-early '90s punk/college rock days wasn't a musician at all, but a taciturn, elderly writer clad not in flannel shirts and Doc Martens, but a three-piece suit, hat, and cane. How a novelist with no musical background who began his career in the 1940s became so popular an alternative music figure that Kurt Cobaine backed him up on one of Cobain's last recordings is one of the odder, more fascinating footnotes in this otherwise heavily examined musical era.

William S. Burroughs is, of course, one of the most celebrated figures in 20th century literature due to his key participation in the "Beat" movement that essentially dragged American letters into the modern era, rejecting classical European/Shakespearean influences in an attempt to create a literature as unique to the U.S. as jazz is to American music. And, indeed, the cliche of the beatnik reciting stream-of-consciousness poetry over cool jazz is the first thing that pops to mind when considering the confluence of the Beats with music.
But Burroughs was never a beatnik. He was a junkie and heroin dealer who accidentally shot and killed his wife, traveled thru Latin America and Morocco, helped popularize North African trance ritual music, dismantled literature via his "cut-up" method of chopping up and rearranging pages of writings, was put on trial for obscenity, saw his son go to prison, saw his son die, was gay in the pre-Stonewall days, and co-created a "dream machine" said to create somewhat hallucinatory experiences when activated.
In other words, he'd been thru some shit....

Im UbuWeb finden Sie jetzt diese Aufnahmen:
1. Star Me Kitten (with REM, from "Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by 'the X-Files'" - 1996)
2. Is Everybody In? (with The Doors, reciting Jim Morrison poetry, from "Stoned Immaculate: The Music of the Doors")
3. Sharkey's Night (with Laurie Anderson, from "Mister Heartbreak" - 1983)
4. What Keeps Mankind Alive (from Kurt Weill tribute album "September Songs")
5. 'T 'Aint No Sin (1920s jazz song, performed on Tom Waits' "The Black Rider" - 1993)
6. Quick Fix (w/Ministry, "Just One Fix" b-side - 1992)
7. Old Lady Sloan (w/The Eudoras, covering a song by a Lawrence, Kansas punk band from "The Mortal Micronotz Tribute!" - 1995
8. Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuß Auf Liebe Eingestellt (Falling In Love Again) - Marlene Deitrich cover, from "Dead City Radio" - 1988


3. The Rise And Fall Of Angie And The Spiders From Capitol Hill

Ich sehe das etwas anders als die meisten Kommentatoren: Ein wichtiger Mitgliedsstaat der Anti-Hitler-Koalition müsste doch bekloppt sein, wenn er seine Geheimdienste die Chefin des Rechtsnachfolgers nicht abhören lassen würde, die bzw. deren Entourage gern von der wachsenden Verantwortung Deutschlands in der Welt redet, die sich in dieser Woche weigerte, in der UN-Vollversammlung die von 124 Staaten getragene Erklärung gegen den Einsatz von Atomwaffen zu unterzeichnen und deren tight-fisted budget policies help make the eurozone crisis deeper and more difficult for struggling bailout countries like Greece and Portugal? (That appears to be the conclusions of a study by a top European Commission economist that was published online Monday – but then quickly taken down by EU officials.) usw. usf.

Im Übrigen: Es gibt Verträge zwischen Deutschland und den ehemaligen Alliierten, die eine solche Überwachung erlauben. Da steht natürlich nicht drin, dass die Amerikaner die Kanzlerin abhören dürfen, aber auch nicht, dass sie das nicht dürfen. Ein Geheimdienst, der Interessantes erfahren will, observiert natürlich die Topleute. Daher ist völlig klar, dass die Kanzlerin wie andere führende Personen in Politik und Wirtschaft überwacht werden.
Vgl. Josef Foschepoth: "Überwachtes Deutschland: Post- und Telefonüberwachung in der alten Bundesrepublik" - vgl. Hans Springstein: Die NSA darf das. Im Freitag

The Spider's Web: NSALeaks as of 10/22/13 Chronological order
Bundesregierung: NSA-Affäre wurde nie für beendet erklärt, war alles nur Fehlinterpretation der Medien

Sehr schön heute bei t-online: Merkel spricht ihrem Handy das Vertrauen aus. Da wird sich das Handy gefreut haben. Den deutschen National-Antiamerikanismus finde ich ekelhaft.

Im Übrigen: Mitgehört und mitgeschrieben wurde doch immer: