"There is much evidence that the female is constitutionally stronger than the male; she lives longer, and in every age group more males than females die although the number of males conceived may be between ten and thirty per cent more. There is no explanation for the more frequent conception of males, for female producing spermatozoa are produced in the same number as male producing ones. It is tempting to speculate whether this might not be a natural compensation for the greater vulnerability of males"

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch

Pic by Jan Saudek

I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Doll in Isla de las Muñecas, México

The rain drums down like red ants,

each bouncing off my window.

The ants are in great pain

and they cry out as they hit

as if their little legs were only

stitche don and their heads pasted.

And oh they bring to mind the grave,

so humble, so willing to be beat upon

with its awful lettering and

the body lying underneath

without an umbrella.

Depression is boring, I think,

and I would do better

to make some soup and light up the cave.

Anne Sexton, The Fury of Rainstorms

Art by Natalie Shau

Men!

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

And rise and sink and rise and sink again;

Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,

Or nagged by want past resolution's power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It well may be. I do not think I would.

Edna St Vincent Millay, Love Is Not All

Art by Antony Micallef

by Paul McCarthy

Grinderman - Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars) - Live On Later

DIRTY THREE LIVE IN ROME

64 today

Imagine the exhilaration of knowing that you are part of something that is completely and utterly new and different. Imagine that all your life you have felt cut off from the rest of humanity at the most elementary level --you do not communicate well with others. Imagine feeling so lonely and twisted that at times you have really, really tried to kill yourself , even though you were just a kid. Imagine that the people that were supposed to love you, your family, have continually and deliberately brutalized and betrayed you in ways other people couldn't even begin to imagine. Imagine that you are at the end of your rope. Then walk into a room where for the first time in your miserable, horrifying life, you feel a part of things. These people understand you because these things have also happened to them. There's no need to explain your silence, your shyness, your need to get totally obliterated every night of the week and to maybe fuck some really cute boy against a wall in a dark corner of the club without ever asking his name and then go dive into the sea of bodies pogoing. There's no need to explain the way this music, this noise, makes you feel. There's no need to explain why, when you get dressed every day, you do everything you can to make yourself look as ugly on the outside as you feel on the inside. There's no need to explain your hurt or your anger or the damage you feel because it is perfectly self-explanatory in this place, in this music.

Nicole Panter, Fuck You Punk Rock/1977

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
Oh how I wish he'd go away.

William Hughes Mearns

I started out younger at most everything/ All the riches and pleasures, what else could life bring?/ But it makes me feel better each time it begins/ Callin' me home, hickory wind

Gram Parsons, Hickory Wind

Keith Richards - Hickory Wind

A Gram song

Despair and Deception, Love's ugly little twins/Came a-knocking on my door, I let them in

Nick Cave, I Let Love In

Pic by Jan Saudek

"Durante cierto tiempo las cosas se acumulan, ¿no es así? DE pronto, tienes que escupir, pero no recuerdas que se te juntó saliva. Tienes las manos sucias, pero no sabes cómo te las ensuciaste. El polvo te cae encima todos los días y no lo sientes. Pero cuando juntaste bastante polvo, ahí está, lo ves y lo nombras. Eso es intuición, o así lo entiendo yo al menos. Bueno, ¿qué clase de polvo ha estado cayendo sobre mí? ¿Unos pocos meteoros en el cielo nocturno? ¿Un rocío raro poco antes del alba? No sé. ¿Ciertos colores, olores, el modo como cruje la casa a las tres de la mañana? ¿Carne de gallina en los brazos? Todo lo que sé es que ese polvo maldito ha estado juntándose. Lo sé de pronto".

Ray Bradbury, ¡Muchachos! ¡Cultiven hongos gigantes en el sótano!

Street Art bt Banksy

Teddy Thompson - Change of Heart - July 18, 2007

Shiori Matsumuto

"El crimen es la convocación de las sombras, el placer de diluirse en las tinieblas. El victimario es el hijo ignorado del viejo Harpócrates, el dios homicida que se alimenta de oscuridad y silencio"

Juan Jacobo Bajarlía, El placer de matar

I went down to old Joe's bar room, on the corner by the square
Well, the drinks were bein' served as usual, and this motley crowd was there
Well, on my left stood Joe McKennedy, and his eyes were bloodshot red
When he told me that sad story, these were the words he said:
I went down to the St. James infirmary, I saw my baby there
She was stretched out on a long white table, so cold, and fine, and fair.
Let her go, let her go, God bless her, wherever she may be
She can search this world over, never find another man like me
When I die Oh lord please bury me In my high top stetson hat
Put gold coins over my eyelids So the boys will know I died standing pat
Get six crapshooting pallbearers Six chorus girls to sing me a song
Put a jazz band behind my hearse wagon To raise hell as we roll along
Get sixteen coal black horses, to pull that rubber tired hack
There's thirteen men going to the graveyard Only twelve men are coming back
Well, now you've heard my story, well, have another round of booze
And if anyone should ever, ever ask you, I've got the St. James infirmary blues!

St. James Infirmary, folk song (rec: Triffids version)

Sculpture by Christian Lemmerz