Reynard Seifert

Reynard lives in Ashland, Oregon, where he is writing a novel and a screenplay sometimes. He teaches English at an alternative school.

Gabby Pahinui on Writing

Craft Notes / 2 Comments
April 9th, 2011 / 7:33 pm

We Too Are Children

This blog written by Ariel S. Winter catalogs children’s literature by adult authors of the 21st century which are apparently currently out of print. My faves: The Cat and the Devil by James Joyce, which is actually back in print now, all of these by Langston Hughes, and Andy Warhol’s Card Games Are Fun.

The name Ariel S. Winter reminds me of Jonathan Winters. Where do people get these names anyway?  Jack Pendarvis blogged about him today. Jack Pendarvis is an adult author who really should write some children’s fiction. I think people who made up fairy tales like those of the Brothers Grimm probably had a mind very much like that of Mr. Pendarvis.

On my breaks from subbing a class of fourth graders at an international school, I read a lot of Howard Zinn’s A Young People’s History of the United States. In his introduction Zinn defends the adaptation of his book from critics who I’m sure did denounce the book for presenting children with an alternate view of the American history they are still in the process of learning. I don’t remember exactly what he said exactly, but it was pretty much along the lines of: Most people treat children like children even though they understand everything that’s going on just as well as anyone. My feeling on this is that most people who treat children like children and think they can’t handle the Truth! haven’t been around children very much. READ MORE >

Random / Comments Off on We Too Are Children
April 8th, 2011 / 7:25 pm

Werner Herzog & Moondog in that thing that made Jeff Goldblum ‘The Fly’

Maybe you see all these videos and think “I don’t have time for this shit” and while I totally sympathize with that, I strongly suggest you make the time for this video if you have so much as a passive interest in the art of music, which you should because literature is music; cavemen played music; music is probably older than language, probably they are more or less the same thing, which is interesting because it seems to me the only thing separating music from noise is some form of repetition.

Skip to like 4:30 to avoid the usual b.s.
Thanks to my friend Eric Schaefer, who puts out Answering Machine Recordings, for sharing.

Music / 4 Comments
April 1st, 2011 / 6:24 pm

“what is humanly beautiful might, as it were, be too beautiful for human beings” — Robert Walser

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Random / 2 Comments
March 25th, 2011 / 5:16 pm

Lee Scratch Perry on ganja*

When I left school there was nothing to do except field work. Hard, hard labour. I didn’t fancy that. So I started playing dominoes. Through dominoes I practiced my mind and learned to read the minds of others. This has proved eternally useful to me. *

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Music / 6 Comments
March 23rd, 2011 / 2:53 pm

Doug Hream Blunt on tv

I don’t know what’s wrong with this guy.

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Music / 5 Comments
March 17th, 2011 / 5:46 am

This video has 303 views: 61 likes & 49 dislikes*

via Ian Matthews, son of zamboni

Random / 23 Comments
March 11th, 2011 / 5:27 am

The world ended in 1978, we’ve been living in Paul McCartney’s peehole for thirty years.

I don’t believe the apocalypse will be violent,
just as I don’t expect much of a jar
when machines do what
we don’t want to do.

O excuse me, enjoy yr showr!

The descent to nothing will be the party of forever because
bliss means never having to say I know what’s going on.
That’s why I think the world ended in 1978
at the filming of this music video.

READ MORE >

Random / 6 Comments
March 9th, 2011 / 7:08 pm

Syd Barrett on acid

Interview by Meatball Fulton (1967)
Transcription by Mark Jones

SYD: Well I’ll, I’ll say… for example, painting at an art school. Or painting, say, in infant’s school. The initial desire to paint or initial suc-first successes at painting arised, I think, out of a very genuine basic, um, drive one way or another. So, an-and because of family and social set ups are channeled into success or otherwise and, er, er, through schools and such like and one gets different things. And I think un-and, course, one comes across teachers and people like that, teaching and, sort of, instruction and to talk to and there came, and I feel now that having left art school that there are a lot of things… um… that I could do. A lot of things I see now, a lot of things went in to me, into my head and thinking that these would, perhaps, changing and altering things. For instance I made a painting the other day… and… it’s, I could see and hear very clearly, sort of, different instructions and different criticisms going in to the picture which were in fact p-um-criticisms that I could relate back to art schools and teachers and various things that’d come at that time. So… maybe… this would be very valuable, this break. I don’t know… and, er, sort of, to… try painting again after a break of going in to pop music and going to… playing this sort of music… just might work out that, get more, sort of, basic freedom. I don’t know, it’s something to d-, just things like shape of the paper and, er… seem to be a lot of assumptions taken place.  READ MORE >

Music / 3 Comments
March 7th, 2011 / 12:55 am