Category: Uncategorized

Stanley Donwood created the art for Matthew Herbert’s Plat du Jour.. A brief essay here describes the process of food dye chromatography that Donwood used. Herbert’s album is reviewed by Pitchfork and Stylus.

In this image, John Ashcroft is listed under “Genetically Modified Foods.” As a Missouri Republican Senator, Ashcroft advocated for genetically modified foods. Ashcroft received $10,000 for his 1990s Senate bid from Monsanto, a large agricultural company focused on biotechnology. Rumsfeld was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals when it was acquired by Monsanto. Searle is now part of Pfizer.

‘ONE day Henny-penny was picking up corn in the cornyard when—whack!—something hit her upon the head. “Goodness gracious me!” said Henny-penny; “the sky’s a-going to fall’ I must go and tell the king.”‘ So begins Joseph Jacob’s 1895 retelling of the “Henny-Penny” story, a tale that also goes under the titles “Chicken-Licken” and “The End of the World.” For those who have forgotten it, in short: Henny-penny convinces several animals (a rooster, a duck, a goose, and a turkey) to help her deliver the apocalyptic message to the king. Along the way, they meet Foxy-woxy who changes the group’s direction and leads them on to “the proper way,” that is, the way that leads to Foxy-woxy’s cave. The scene that follows has all the murderousness readers expect from children’s stories:

So foxy-woxy went into his cave, and he didn’t go very far, but turned around to wait for Henny-penny, Cocky-locky, Ducky-daddles, Goosey-poosey and Turkey-lurkey. So at last at first Turkey-lurkey went through the dark hole into the cave. He hadn’t got far when “Hrumph,” Foxy-woxy snapped off Turkey-lurkey’s head and threw his body over his left shoulder.

In quick succession, the goose and duck also lose their heads. Cocky-locky, only injured after the first bite, cried out before the second, fatal bite to Henny-penny, who, hearing his cry, “turned tail and off she ran home, so she never told the king the sky was a-falling.” The moral is obvious: do not follow foxes into caves.

ONE day Henny-penny was picking up corn in the cornyard when—whack!—something hit her upon the head. “Goodness gracious me!” said Henny-penny; “the sky’s a-going to fall’ I must go and tell the king.”

— Joseph Jacobs, “Henny-Penny,” English Fairy Tales (New York: A.L. Burt, 1895), pgs. 132-136.

‘Now must you cast off sloth,’ my master said.
‘Sitting on feather cushions or stretched out
under comforters, no one comes to fame.

‘Without fame, he who spends his time on earth
leaves only such a mark upon the world
as smoke does on the air or foam on water.

‘Get to your feet! Conquer this laboring breath
with strength of mind, which wins the battle
if not dragged down by body’s weight.

There is a longer stair that must be climbed.’

Dante Alighieri, Inferno, trans. Robert and Jean Hollander (New York: Doubleday, 2000).

MS. Holkham misc. 48 (formerly Norfolk, Holkham Hall, MS. 514). Dante, Divine Comedy, in Italian; North Italy, Genoa(?); 14th cent., third quarter. MS. Holkham misc. 48, p. 4. Inferno, Canto III. Dante (part of scene destroyed), souls; the lukewarm, stung by insects, follow a banner.

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/holkham/misc/048.a.htm

Closer:

In a letter dated 16 June 1949 George Orwell answered questions put to him by Francis A. Henson of the United Automobile Workers. He expressed unhappiness with readers who would tie the novel to one place and time:

My recent novel is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralised economy is liable and which have already been partly realised in Communism and Fascism. I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences. The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasise that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere. (502)

Radiohead has had a similar position on Hail to the Thief, denying that it targets America. Thom Yorke (in this interview) has said that the title is “trying to express, without getting angry about it, the absurdity of everything. Not just a single Administration.”

… “To cast off sloth
Now well behooves you,” said my master then:
“For resting upon soft down, or underneath

The blanket’s cloth, is not how fame is won�
Without which, one spends life to leave behind
As vestige of himself on earth the sign

Smoke leaves on air, or foam on water. So stand
And overcome your panting�with the soul,
Which wins all battles if it does not despond

Under its heavy body’s weight. And still
A longer ladder remains for us to climb.” (XXIV, 46-56, pg. 249)

— Dante Alighieri, The Inferno of Dante, trans. Robert Pinsky (London: J.M. Dent, 1994).

‘The time has come,’ my master said, ‘to prove
yourself; for never in a feather bed
did hero leave behind a lasting groove

upon the planet; without fame, the dead
leave such a mark as foam upon the wave,
or smoke in air, so lift your weary head!

Get up! breathe with the soul, for it is brave
in every battle, and will always win,
unless the heavy body be its grave.

A longer ladder must be climbed’ (XXIV, 46-55, pg. 165)

— Dante Alighieri, The Inferno of Dante Alighieri, trans. Ciaran Carson (London: Granta Books, 2002).

Near the end of “2+2=5” on Hail to the Theif, the lyrics read:

I swat ’em like flies but like flies the buggers keep coming back

This line echoes Condoleezza Rice’s quotation of President Bush in her prepared statement delivered to the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004:

We also moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to eliminate the al-Qaida terrorist network. President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al-Qaida one attack at a time. He told me he was “tired of swatting flies.”

After her prepared statement, Rice was interviewed by the commission. Bob Kerrey asked as follows (from the transcript):

MR. KERREY: Did — you’ve used the phrase a number of times, and I’m hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future. You said the President was tired of swatting flies. Can you tell me one example where the President swatted a fly when it came to al Qaeda prior to 9/11?

MS. RICE: I think what the President was speaking to was —

MR. KERREY: No, no, what fly had he swatted?

MS. RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on.

MR. KERREY: No, no —

MS. RICE: When the CIA would go after Abu Sayyaf, go after this guy, and — that was what was meant.

MR. KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn’t — we only swatted a fly once, on the 20th of August, 1998. We didn’t swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?

MS. RICE: We swatted at — I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that’s what he meant by swatting flies. It was simply a figure of speech.

MR. KERREY: Well, I think it’s an unfortunate figure of speech…