Philip's Head

champagne taste on a glue budget

[philipgirvan]

Pumpkin, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, January 2026

[philipgirvan]

A Capuchin monk, one very rainy day, accompanied a Swabian prisoner to the gallows. Many times, the condemned man lamented to heaven that he, in such terrible and unfriendly weather, had to walk so bitter a path. The Capuchin wished to give him Christian comfort and replied:

“You scoundrel! How can you complain? You only have to go there, but I, in all this rain, must come back the same way!”

Vignette taken from Heinrich von Kleist’s _Anecdotes_. Translated from the German by Matthew Spencer.

[poem-today]

A Favourite Paul Muldoon Poem

Holy Thursday 

They’re kindly here, to let us linger so late, Long after the shutters are up. A waiter glides from the kitchen with a plate Of stew, or some thick soup,

And settles himself at the next table but one. We know, you and I, that it’s over, That something or other has come between Us, whatever we are, or were.

The waiter swabs his plate with bread And drains what’s left of his wine, Then rearranges, one by one, The knife, the fork, the spoon, the napkin, The table itself, the chair he’s simply borrowed, And smiles, and bows to his own absence.

Paul Muldoon 

[philipgirvan]

I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton. — Padgett Powell

[philipgirvan]

[philipgirvan]

My review of Afterlife With Archie no longer appears on the Comic Hunter blog so am posting it here:

While drafting this blogpost I wondered if others had this love/hate relationship with Archie Comics so I polled a number of people via Facebook to get their thoughts. Here’s a sample:

I read them as a kid, and I'm embarrassed about that now. (Sexist, demeaning, traditional gender roles, lack of diversity all the way around.) I guess it was mostly because they were readily available that I read them. And maybe it's crap like that, and growing up in the Catholic Church, that helped me to become/realize I was a feminist, which I am grateful for. Better to be awake than in the dark.

I read them and liked them but I always thought they promoted 'the American dream', white Pickett fence type of thing... Also had horrible values for women... Archie would getting loving from the hot evil woman and when she didn't want him he ran back to the girl next door who was waiting for him always... They always made fun of the dumb, ugly and out of town people... Riverdale was a place you had to earn your stripes greaser style and be home in time for supper... Fun to read though haha

I loved Betty & Veronica storylines best, like all the girls. I was reading them probably between the ages of 8-12?? I think they informed my understanding of male vs female roles....hmmmm, that explains a lot!

I never understood a freaking bloody moment of that crap and HATED it....still do. I also hate anyone who read it. Hate.

Loved Archie comics as a kid, and have bought the odd digest as an adult for mindless reading on long flights. I identified with Betty and thought of my older sister as Veronica. I was mostly interested in all of the female characters (B & V, Josie + Pussycats, Sabrina, etc)- their hairstyles, fashion choices, taste in boys, etc. For some even stranger reason, I loved the beach comics the best in a kind of a 'Beach Blanket Bingo' way.

The outright sexist content is too much. recent readings of current issues prove they reinforce negative gender stereotypes, female competition, bad self image values lower class putdowns, and many more negative aspects. The sunny, vintage illustrations hide a truth based out of bad values & sexual manipulation. We have put a stop on them in our house.

I read them and remember thinking at one point how odd it was that I continued to do so despite never really laughing.

Ok so Archie Comics. My best friend … used to read them. She and her sister had dozens and they would be scattered everywhere; piles of them under the bed and being a voracious little reader, of course I checked them out. Yes, I was a kid who would go over to play at someone's house and start reading their books. Ok so I HATED those comics. And I was shocked. How could I hate something my best friend liked? I hated everything about the comics : the story line, the graphics, and the characters. I had a sense that I was supposed to relate to either Betty or Veronica and I had a sense it was supposed to be the dark haired one that I would relate to, but I still hated her. I felt like the stories were about a world that didn't fit with mine at all, and I could sense what the comic wanted me to think and feel but that it Just Wasn't Right. And on some level, it frightened me that there was this Thing in my world that was clearly cool with lots of others, that I wished didn't exist. At that age I was still frightened by being 'a little different' but the evidence was mounting. Thank you for this little morning homework assignment. I still hate Archie.

I never ever touched it, I recall picking one up when I was a kid and thinking how out dated it seemed. Looking back now, the themes are relevant, but it obviously screams of an era.

My friends’ responses encouraged me that I wasn’t being unduly critical of Archie Comics. To me, the most annoying thing about Archie comics is that nothing bad ever happens. Archie’s car might get a flat tire. Jughead’s belly aches from eating 100 hamburgers. Reggie takes a beating. No big whoop. It rung false when I was a little kid and it sure as hell rung false when I actually entered adolescence and learned what kind of horrible bastards fill this mortal void.

Riverdale is a weird version of the suburban white bread American Dream. While we saw the dark side of this in movies like Blue Velvet and Pleasantville, bad things don’t happen in Archie Comics.

Bad things do happen In Afterlife with Archie #1. The worst things you can imagine. Awful horrible stuff, drawn grotesquely, gruesomely, and gloriously. Archie’s still a player, but he’s dropped the bow-tie and the sweater. Reggie’s still a weasel, but, for the first time, has remorse for his craven actions. The story pivots on Jughead, his friendship with Archie, and mainly his relationship to his faithful mutt, Hot Dog. I’m not going further discuss the plot except to say that Sabrina the Teenage Witch features prominently and her aunts Hilda and Zelda are finally portrayed as proper witches and not just a couple of odd ladies in funny hats. Afterlife with Archie #1 is hands down the best Archie comic I’ve ever read. It’s hands down the best comic I’ve read all year. If you haven’t read it, read it. And place your order for #2. These suckers are selling out fast.

[philipgirvan]

Some of the greatest American music ever recorded.

Found at HR Records during a visit to Washington DC last weekend. If you’re in the area, pop in. It’s time well spent.

[philipgirvan]

Jerry Lee Lewis — the 35th studio album by (who else?) Jerry Lee Lewis and the first released on Elektra Records.

I dig the country stuff that he recorded for Mercury but Jerry Lee Lewis is a return to rock & roll form.

[philipgirvan]

New generation

Often end up being the best nights. Stiff little fingers Mall please turn off the lights? Degenerate Tintin characters.'

Gonna get all up in that Habermas. Everyone's tweeting about football. - Official UK Trailer - In Cinemas GANGNAM STYLE 1 RUG ON THE WALL 0

Back issues if you're interested. Important as the freedom to vote. Is unlikely to be accepted.

To get through first, friend. Would notice it." - Nick Tosches City_. Thanks for the recommend.

________________________________________________

Sonnet generated from my twitter by Poet Tweet.

[philipgirvan]

New voices

Michael Keaton does often surprise. Has been passed to a new generation Did in 2012-13. Lament its demise. Of ingenuity & imagination.

Be flash, but they are formidable. Often end up being the best nights. FB page is currently unavailable. Mall please turn off the lights?

Everyone's tweeting about football. Important as the freedom to vote. GANGNAM STYLE 1 RUG ON THE WALL 0 Mike's quite the catch. *endquote* Captain Lou slips on a meatball.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Rondel generated from my twitter by Poet Tweet.

[philipgirvan]

Are formidable

Will the show will be archived?

See interactive calendar for events 31. Let me know what's involved.

The more new ones appeared. Important as the freedom to vote. Electric power might be restored?

Michael Keaton does often surprise.

Salzburg 1954 (English subtitles)

>>

Indriso generated from my twitter by Poet Tweet

[philipgirvan]

Last night I pulled in a hazy black and white signal that was not even listed. It was an old Jim Morrison concert, or maybe a pirated video. These things are never made clear.

The Bird scans 22 satellites from West to East, six or eight seconds apart—maybe 200 channels full of old movies and Jesus freaks and raw network news feeds from places like WXYZ in Detroit, along with NASA transmissions from Houston and 40-year-old stag films out of Mexico City.

There is too much lame garbage—far more than a sane man can stand. With the right kind of equipment—or even the wrong kind, and a fine hand on the knobs—you can pick up the collected speeches of Henry Kissinger, a censored version of “Deep Throat”, and 101 Famous Games of the Harlem Globetrotters. There is no end to it: all day and all night, in some kind of relentless auto-reverse that never sleeps.

But you don’t get a lot of Jim Morrison. That is what we call a Special—straight black-and-white footage of Crazy Jim on stage in the old days, with a voice like Fred Neal’s and eyes smarter than James Dean’s and a band that could walk with the King, or anybody else. There were some nights when the Doors were the best band in the world.

Morrison understood this, and it haunted him all his life. On some nights he was noisy and lewd, and on others he just practiced—but every once in a while he would get it into his head to go out and dance with the big boys, and on a night like that he was more than special. Jim Morrison could play music with anybody.

One of these days we will get around to naming names for the real rock’n’roll Hall of Fame—in that nervous right now realm beyond Elvis and Chuck Berry and Little Richard—and the talk will turn to names like Bob and Mick, and to tunes like Morrison Hotel.

Play it sometime. Crank it all the way up on one of those huge obsolete wire-burning MacIntosh amps and 80 custom-built speakers. Then stand back somewhere on the mainbeams of a big log house and feel the music come up through your femurs...ho, ho...and after that you can always say, for sure, that you once knew what it was like to hear men play rock’n’roll music.

Taken from Hunter S. Thompson's Generation of Swine.

[philipgirvan]

Had the honor and pleasure of reading last night with Print Preview, a collection of Antigonish wordsmiths antigonightfest #antigonight #100tpc

This poem, titled "Change yr", written by me is what I read.

------------------------------------------------------------ Change yr Change the oil

Change your shirt

Change the litter box

Change the clocks

Change your prescription

Change your mind

Change your password

Change the baby

You’ve got to change your evil ways, baby

before I stop loving….But, but…...maybe

It’s a different kind of change, altogether

Change is constant. Check out the weather

  A hundred thousand poets for change: I get it now

Indeed! It’s all so simple yet, yet somehow…

You’d think that rather than writing for change,

Poets demand raises. Is it so strange?

Statistics indicate an era of wage stagnation

Must this imply recession of the imagination?

Our minds overflow, not so our wallet.

Someone has to so I’ll do it. I’ll call it

Demand more for your stanza and verses

Than contempt, eyerolls, and mumbled curses.

Poets for change! We’ve all had enough!

Nickels and dimes won’t let me buy stuff.

  And the penny? The penny! Don’t get me started!

Vamoose! Begone copper one!  Don’t be broken-hearted.

The penny had a good run. It was brown. It was fun.

But it’s done. It flew too close to the sun.

And crashed to earth. Examine the sidewalk. You’ll find one.

Dusty and dirty, no doubt -- no longer glary

Yet I come not to praise the penny, but to bury.

Cries of "You killed penny! You bastards!" shall not be uttered.

Returning to poems (how my bread is buttered).

Consider a hundred thousand poets for change

Clammering away dressed very strange.

Many wonderful people -- sure some of them jerks.

So you can see how poets for change really irks.

We need shelter and food. Some of us pills

Folding money, paper money… pay us in bills.

Naysayers among you, I know what you're saying.

This isn’t work. It’s a laugh. We poets are playing.

Sure, perhaps a sliding scale could be determined.

No need to be intransigent a la Strom Thurmond.

Epics, sonnets, epigrams... less for free verse

As long as there’s dough to put in our purse.

  Of course there’s more serious critique.

The role of poems in oppressing the meek.

  “No ethnic cleansing without poetry!” Slavoj Žižek has said.

It’s true: poems rejoice the vanquished dead

And inspire slaughter of innocents.

Truly hard to make any sense.

  Yet, poems offer hope & inspire wonder.

Horror and beauty coexist in lightning and thunder.

  Wrestle with the contradiction.

Better this than writing fiction.

The best verse has merit.

I urge you to share it.

Write to unite. Don’t tear asunder.

[christiannightmares]

Pat Robertson says ‘girl-on-girl movies’ make young people think they’re gay (Found at Right Wing Watch; For a related video, click here http://christiannightmares.tumblr.com/post/59506210422/pat-robertson-says-homosexuals-deliberately-spread)

[philipgirvan]

"on this show, violence, like shit, tends to run downhill" 

http://vimeo.com/88681835

[philipgirvan]

Less Normal on Flickr.

[philipgirvan]

Interview with Emmanuel Carrère, biographer of Eduard Limonov