Archive for August, 2008
All Things Pegritzian…and I do mean ALL Things!
August 31st, 2008
Here’s a quick heads-up for fans of all things Pegritzian: I’ve just started a tumblelog over at Tumblr.com.
“Jesus, Pegritz,” you say, “why the hell do you need another freakin’ blog? You’ve already got this one, plus your Footnotes to the Human Species thing, your NONFICTION! thing, and that Oneirophrenia site you never update…not to mention countless others that even you forget that you have!”
Well, here’s the cool thing about having a Tumblr log: it acts as an aggregation site for the RSS feeds of all my other sites. Whenever I post something new here on PEGRITZ(.com)!, a link to it with an explanatory excerpt is automatically posted on the tumblelog. Whenever I post a new chapter to a story over at Footnotes to the Human Species or any other site, the same thing happens. Anytime I update any of my sites, links to those new updates will technomagickally appear as links on the tumblelog! It’s basically a one-stop shop for all things Pegritzian—and, best of all, it has its own RSS feed. In essence, subscribing to the tumblelog feed is like subscribing to all relevant Pegritz-related RSS feeds at the same time.
But wait! There’s more! Tumblr.com also provides a nifty little no-nonsense interface for posting Random Junk, like cool quotes, pictures, links, and…hell, just about anything else you can think of. This is not the kind of material I’d post on, say, this blog or on Footnotes because I don’t like to clutter up content that I regard as more important or relevant to a site with random videos of cats doing silly things, links to amusing articles, miscellaneous pictures and other such errata. But I still like to share that kind of information with folks who enjoy little tidbits of weirdness along with more substantial content. So, not only will the Pegritz tumblelog index the meatier content of my primary sites, it’ll also serve as a dumping ground for the assorted, individually-wrapped chunks of mind candy that I’m constantly stumbling on around the ‘Net.
So, hey…if that’s your kind of thing, or you’re just trying to tidy up your RSS feed collection, then enjoy The Collected Works of Derek C. F. Pegritz.
Technorati Tags: tumblr,tumblelog,rss,pegritz
Good Writin’: Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
August 28th, 2008
I am, by no means, a particularly positive person. In fact, a friend of mine one time said that if you were to dip me in the Atlantic Ocean, all the fish would die because I’m so bitter and venomous. Anyone familiar with my music and/or fiction will no doubt already realize this. I generally hate “the masses” and actively anticipate a zombie apocalypse just so I can finally have an iron-clad excuse to lock myself up in my house with my cat and become a full-time hermit. So why, then, do I espouse Walt Whitman to be the Greatest American Poet of all time, and his “Song of Myself” as the Greatest American Poem Ever Written?
Whitman was almost frighteningly optimistic, at least in his earlier years, before the inevitable grind and torment of life blunted the steel of his indomitable democratic will. But though the Civil War and years of hardship dulled the cutting edge of his words, never once did his mettle suffer, and the steely resolve of his love and respect for all—the lowliest to the highest.
Whitman set out to become the “bard of America,” and goddamnit, that’s exactly what he did! Even when some cursed his first edition of Leaves of Grass as obscene because it dared to speak of sexuality in anything other than the most constipated terms, Whitman kept writing, kept publishing his works, and by sheer strength of character (and a little help from Emerson, Thoreau, and William Michael Rossetti in England) he eventually earned the laurels. When he died, thousands of people visited his home to leave flowers and tributes to the Bard before his discarded mortal frame was finally interred.
Whitman’s “Song of Myself” alone stands as the ultimate exemplar of a hymn to democracy. It’s not an ode to Whitman himself, though the poet himself is, indeed, a character within it—it is an ode to America Herself, and every one of its citizens: from the President to the lowliest Negro slave, from the fat-cat captain of industry to the Native “save,” from heads of state to heads of back-alley gangs. Whitman casts himself as a living Klein bottle, a microcosm of the American macrocosm, contained by and containing all. He excludes no one, accepting all not as they should be, but as they are. Of course, his poetic vision of America is nowhere near as pragmatic and inclusive as he imagined it to be; rather, he presents an idealized America—the Platonic Ideal of America, perfect in its democratic conception.
That the United States never has, nor ever will, live up to his beautiful vision of human diversity made whole in the magic of the word “En-Masse” doesn’t blunt the power of it. Epics do not describe the literal truth of the societies and cultural formulations they celebrate: Homer’s Iliad does not report on the actual battle for Troy, after all, and Milton’s Paradise Lost is a summation of Christian ideas, not a catalog of Christian history. “Song of Myself” is a love song dedicated to the dream of America…the dream that the guided the hands of the Founding Fathers as they drafted the Constitution, but was always just beyond the grasp of those hands—as Franklin, Adams, Washington, Hamilton, and all the others knew over two hundred years ago, but which the moralistic morons in both the Republican and Democratic Parties have today forgotten. Democracy is not something that has ever been realized in full in our nation: it is the dream that we must always pursue; it is the carrot-on-a-string that keeps our society going forward, and Ever Going Forward was the spirit upon which this Nation was founded and the aegis of Whitman’s life.
As it should be the aegis of your own. In this election year, remember that democracy does not mean standing still, tying yourself down with ropes of ridiculous tradition and frightened religiosity. There is a place in America, as in Whitman’s own heart, for both conservative and liberal principles. But if there’s anything that you take away from “Song of Myself,” a notion that accepting all and maintaining balance amongst all is the ultimate power of Lady Liberty.
Here, then, in the complete text of “Song of Myself,” divided into separate pages by canto so it doesn’t completely swallow up your entire browser window. Enjoy! And I hope you learn something. Click on….
DISQUSting! Multi-threaded comments are go.
August 24th, 2008
I have just converted PEGRITZ(.com)!’s comment system over to DISQUS. The DISQUS system has been working beautifully on Footnotes to the Human Species, so I’m implementing it now on all my WordPress-powered blogs or CMS sites!
Don’t be alarmed if it needs a little tweaking and whatnot over the next day or so, but it’s up and running right now, so…register for a DISQUS account, get ye an awesome avatar, and go to town!
Technorati Tags: disqus,wordpress,plugins,pegritz.com
Happenings, Happenings: The Near Future of PEGRITZ(.com)!
August 24th, 2008
Well. It’s definitely been some time since I’ve rapped at ya, hasn’t it? I’ve been prettymuch incognito since July 17th, and for good reason: my digestive system once again decided to shut down on me, landing me in the hospital for a few days. Fortunately, this time I didn’t need the tubes down my throat draining the quarts of stagnant waste out of my intestines…but it was still quite annoying—especially since I have been periodically wiped out by extreme nausea every couple of days. I’m so loaded with medications that…well, I haven’t been able to do much more than write music reviews for WeHeartMusic, and that at only one a day or every other day. My complete and utter inability to land a decent-paying job certainly hasn’t made my life any easier, either. Consequently, my productivity has completely gone down the toilet.
However! Things are looking up now….I’ve been progressively feeling better over the past week, have managed to land a job at a local tech support contractor (doing desktop support for—get this—Apple Computers, the Worst Computer Company On Earth), and have been feeling a lot more energized lately. So here’s what’s gonna be happening in Pegritzland soon:
- I’m going to be writing more and more reviews for WeHeartMusic, plus doing interviews with some of my favorite artists and bands, and taking part in the weekly WHM podcast. I used to do a little college radio back in the day, and what is podcast but the glory days of college radio ported to a new, slightly different, and more manageable (not to mention more wide-reaching) medium?
- In relation to that, I’ve decided that it’s time I do a podcast of my own, as well. The Pegritzcast will be a monthly excursion into all things Pegritzian: music, literature, film, graphic arts, storytelling, comedy, retarded humor, and savage anti-Conservative vitriol. The sole purpose of The Pegritzcast will be to entertain you while exposing listeners to all manner of new ideas, arts, and experiences. I’ve been told I’ve got a great “radio voice” (I don’t even know how many voiceovers I did for California University of PA’s radio station back in the late ‘90s, so…hell, might as well do something with it!
- And in relation to that, I’ve decided to start hitting up as many open-mic nights as possible in the coming months to tell humorous stories and slap people around with ignorant, mutant humor. “Storytime with Uncle Pegritz” will, of course, feature tales from the NONFICTION! collection (which I’m getting back into writing) as well as stories about all manner of goofball crap that is sure to amuse as well as enlighten…though I can prettymuch tell you right now that the theme of all my stories is: For god’s sake, don’t try this at home. We’re professional idiots here!
- I’m writing a rather long reflection piece on being a thirty-five-year-old man living with the scourge of Fibromyalgia because September is Pain Awareness Month. It’s not going to be comfortable reading. But…let me just say this for now: chronic pain can be incredibly debilitating, but it cannot destroy your life unless you allow it to dominate every aspect of your existence. My body may ache constantly and fatigue may make it difficult for me to write for any length of time, but my mind is free. Pain can cloud your mind. It can darken your mood into the foulest of depressions. It can make dreaming and creating feel like an insurmountable chore. But no matter how great the pain, your mind can and will find a way around it. Do not feel bad if you’re physical limitations hamper your ability to express yourself creatively: even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant act of creation—like me writing up this little “Where the hell have you been, Pegritz?” feature—is a hole in the prison-wall of pain through which you can slip any number of notes and signals to the World At Large.
- A great deal of my more positive outlook on life, even after the miseries of this summer (and the even greater miseries of last summer), stems from simply acceptance of both my abilities and disabilities. Sure, there are a lot of things I can’t do anymore—like dance, work in my garden, or even eat a proper meal—but there are a lot of things I can do. I’ve been re-reading Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, particularly his brilliant “Song of Myself,” truly one of the most inspiring poems ever written. I will shortly be reprinting “Song of Myself” here on this blog so that folks who haven’t had an opportunity to experience this masterful work will be able to do so conveniently—and for free! Since I’d graduated from grad school and entered the crushing, disillusioning world of academia, I’d grown distant from my old friend Walt…but he never forgot me, and when I opened the pages of his great tome, there he was loafing and waiting for me as if not a single day had passed since last he and I lounged and loved the panoply of Democracy. In this election year, too, the words of Whitman are more important than ever, and I warmly welcome you to share in his words, camerados.
- And, of course, I’ve tons of music of my own in process, which I shall be releasing at a steady clip here now that I’ve finally finished the website for my netlabel, HPL Laboratories of Pennsylvania. Don’t think that HPL Labs exists as just a vanity label for the dissemination of my own musical products (all of which will be free, Creative-Commons-licensed downloads and torrents)—I plan on bringing together as many artists as I can, as I fully intend HPL Labs to be a modest, but effective, source for providing listeners with new, challenging music that isn’t afraid to break new ground or simply work with well-established genres. Considering the fact that the label is named after H. P. Lovecraft (and JPL, NASA’s legendary Jet Propulsion Laboratory), expect most of the music to be eerie, cosmic, and just generally weird stuff—primarily, but by no means necessarily, electronic.
- Oh, and it goes without saying that I’ll be cranking out chapters to “City of Pillars” once more over at Footnotes to the Human Species. Keep an eye out for the Elder Sign in New York City, folks! From what I hear, I have some fans who have taken to tagging abandoned buildings with assorted eldritch wards straight from the dread Necronomicon of the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred! If anyone has pictures of this, send ‘em to me by all means!
So there you have it: my plan for the next month. Will I stick to it? Largely, I hope. But my Lord and Master Nyarlathotep is a fickle muse, and who knows from one day to the next what kind of cosmic curveball he’ll throw my way. Nonetheless, stick around! There’s gonna be some fun times coming here.
Technorati Tags: pegritz,pegritz.com,weheartmusic,music reviews,podcast,pegritzcast,literature,film,graphic arts,city of pillars,footnotes to the human species,walt whitman,leaves of grass,song of myself,irritable bowel syndrome,fibromyalgia,pain awareness month
