http://absentmag.org/issue03 poetry, prose, translation, sounds, images Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:48:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Postulate the opposite of the obvious thesis—such a methodological strategy for expanding the range of cognitive research exists. Poetry has kept punching-bag like possibilities in mind for a long time. But has it gone so far as to recognize them as today's necessity? What if that’s the most important—a readily ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=37 These days few professors of the humanities grace our newspapers on public questions. Consider the issue of sexuality. One is more likely to hear from an columnist like Thomas Friedman, who condemns on the basis of his flat-earth theory the injustice done a Pakistani victim of rape, or an evolutionary ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=35 Eireene Nealand reports: "If you listen closely you will hear Russian music playing in the background. This poem was recorded in St. Petersburg's Park of Maritime Victory (Yuzhni-Primorski Park Pobedi). As per Soviet tradition the speakers have stayed in the trees." [audio:replica_mme_de_stael.mp3] http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=34 http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=32 The essay "competence, linguistics, politics and post-avant matters" in Absent 2 opens a reflection on themes anticipated in the first issue in an article by Simon DeDeo. Perhaps not with this purpose in mind, the authors touch on central points of contact in the dialogue between art and science in ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=31 Last night, talking with Iraq's Prime Minister, I confided in him that I was allergic to sand. He confided in me that he doubted the Shi'ah would prevail. Together we improvised a serving of Phoenix dactylifera to be presented by a partisan of Ali to one of the surviving actors ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=30 Awakening at 5.24 on a week-day and the below-mentioned reflection on this fact . . . Human life – a tear, The severity of the coreligionist, solipmachist, and in profile, yes, the spitting image of Sforza, only without that freaky red hat. smeared across the face of the earth Ennervated in the best sense of the word ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=27 Some Options for a Career in Poetry You can be a forthright Beatnik, sincere insight blossoms burning political You can be jauntily arrogant, immersed in New York’s powerful rhyming days and steady pop relations You can be Black Mountain bardic boom voice dispensing subjectivity (see Beatniks above, line 1) You can be the heart of a jaguar beating with ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=25 Biosphere 2 is a really rich guy's science fair project. That's how my pal Sarah puts it. She's not wrong, but it turns out things are a lot weirder than that. Back in the 1980's, a Texas oil billionaire named Ed Bass decided to build a huge, totally sealed terrarium ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=15 1)    Poetry invited you in earnest.  Poetry sent you reams of sonnets, ballads, epics, soliloquies, each lingering on every word, drawing you out of yourself and in to another one, pulling you in, tempting you to hover over every syllable, first concealing and then revealing the whole of its nakedness ... http://absentmag.org/issue03/?p=24