Zaria Forman, Greenland #62, 2012

Bowery Blues by Jack Kerouac

The story of man
Makes me sick
Inside, outside,
I don't know why
Something so conditional
And all talk
Should hurt me so.

I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don't know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when
To cut
Out

For no Church told me
No Guru holds me
No advice
Just stone
Of New York
And on the cafeteria
We hear
The saxophone
O dead Ruby
Died of Shot
In Thirty Two,
Sounding like old times
And de bombed
Empty decapitated
Murder by the clock.

And I see Shadows
Dancing into Doom
In love, holding
TIght the lovely asses
Of the little girls
In love with sex
Showing themselves
In white undergarments
At elevated windows
Hoping for the Worst.

I can't take it
Anymore
If I can't hold
My little behind
To me in my room

Then it's goodbye
Sangsara
For me
Besides
Girls aren't as good
As they look
And Samadhi
Is better
Than you think
When it starts in
Hitting your head
In with Buzz
Of glittergold
Heaven's Angels
Wailing

Saying

We've been waiting for you
Since Morning, Jack
Why were you so long
Dallying in the sooty room?
This transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part
(of Nothingness
I sing)

Okay.
Quit.
Mad.
Stop. 

For The Death of 100 Whales by Michael McClure

Hung midsea 
Like a boat mid-air 
The liners boiled their pastures: 
The liners of flesh, 
The Arctic steamers
Brains the size of a teacup 
Mouths the size of a door

The sleek wolves 
Mowers and reapers of sea kine. 
THE GIANT TADPOLES 
(Meat their algae) 
Lept 
Like sheep or children. 
Shot from the sea's bore.

Turned and twisted 
(Goya!!) 
Flung blood and sperm. 
Incense. 
Gnashed at their tails and brothers 
Cursed Christ of mammals, 
Snapped at the sun, 
Ran for the Sea's floor.

Goya! Goya! 
Oh Lawrence 
No angels dance those bridges. 
OH GUN! OH BOW! 
There are no churches in the waves, 
No holiness, 
No passages or crossings 
From the beasts' wet shore.

The image, as in a Hexagram by Lew Welch

The hermit locks his door against the blizzard.
He keeps the cabin warm.

All winter long he sorts out all he has.
What was well started shall be finished.
What was not, should be thrown away.

In spring he emerges with one garment
and a single book.

The cabin is very clean.

Except for that, you'd never guess
anyone lived there.

Giovanni Boldini, Spanish Dancer at the Moulin Rouge, 1905

Troy Casswell, Bream Under a Breaking Wave at Coolum Beach, Australia, 2011

Lincoln Cathedral West Front Romanesque Frieze

The internet mystery that has the world baffled

Four Fallacies of the Second Great Depression by Robert Skidelsky

Esteemed economist Robert Skidelsky debunks 4 fallacies extolled by proponents the current economic consensus.

* Lesson of the thrifty Swabian Housewife
* The government cannot spend money it does not have
* The national debt is deferred taxation
* The national debt is a burden on future generations

And a classic Skidelsky quote to close.

"We can learn from the experience of the 1930’s. A rising tide lifts all boats; a receding one ignites a Hobbesian war of each against all."

Leonard Cohen, Amen

Left: Diego Velázquez, Portrait of Innocent X, 1650

Right: Francis Bacon, Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953

** The 10 algorithms with the greatest influence on the development and practice of science and engineering in the 20th century

Metropolis Algorithm for Monte Carlo
Simplex Method for Linear Programming
Krylov Subspace Iteration Methods
The Decompositional Approach to Matrix Computations
The Fortran Optimizing Compiler
QR Algorithm for Computing Eigenvalues
Quicksort Algorithm for Sorting
Fast Fourier Transform
Integer Relation Detection
Fast Multipole Method

** Together and Alone, Closing the Prime Gap

"On May 13, an obscure mathematician — one whose talents had gone so unrecognized that he had worked at a Subway restaurant to make ends meet — garnered worldwide attention and accolades from the mathematics community for settling a long-standing open question about prime numbers, those numbers divisible by only one and themselves."

Leonard Cohen, Famous Blue Raincoat

Richmond Fontaine, Lost in this World

Jean-Michel Basquiat, 50 cent Piece, 1983

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leeches, 1983

Belphegor's Prime is a palindromic prime number with 666 resting right in the middle of the 26 zeros, 13 on each side.

1000000000000066600000000000001

Ryan Sullivan, Milky Way over Rainier, 2013