(via deepseathoughts)
Reblogged from ovum, easy.
December 07, 2009, 9:34pm
“The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land. Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow.
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest; bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit — and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country.
…
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children are dying of pellagra must die because of a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates — died of malnutrition — because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy; growing heavy for the vintage.
”
— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
December 07, 2009, 8:59pm
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
[via inajumble]
“The Tyger” by William Blake, read by Jeremy Irons
SCAR!
December 06, 2009, 9:15pm
Onomatopoeia reminiscent of recent awakenings.
December 04, 2009, 4:17pm
From the wiki:
“Black Betty” (Roud 11668) is a 20th century African-American work song often credited to Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter as the author, though the earliest recordings are not by him. Some sources claim it is one of Lead Belly’s many adaptations of earlier folk material;[1] in this case an 18th century marching cadence about a flint-lock rifle.
James Baker and Gang. (‘33)
Here’s Leadbelly doing his thing.
Then there’s the shift. From folk tradition and low audio quality to heavy instrumentation and possible perversion of original intent. The violence of a song about a rifle is still prevalent, though the shift is now musical rather than how the lyrics are delivered. Still, its pretty fucking rocking. Ram Jam. (‘77)
Then the song finds a nice middle ground. The intensity of the songs content meets with the soul and traditions of folk music and the raw animal power of rock music. Stories passed on via music; infused with the power of a storytellers respect or interpretation of the original story. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. (‘90)
I leave you with Tom Jones and Sheryl Crow (both ‘02).
Sheryl Crow clip only viewable on youtube site.
December 04, 2009, 2:55pm