orbis quintus

I have to figure out how to work this. The store’s hours are extended for the holidays, meaning earlier mornings and later nights, as well as working six days per week. I apologize for any odder posting patterns than usual.

Remember The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence. and how it was allegedly killed when it was discovered that its mission was essentially to plant false information with foreign journalists. Remember how outraged the White House was at the idea of such a program? Or, more honestly, how outraged they were when they were caught redhanded?

The Office of Strategic Influence still exists and is actively pumping out disinformation. Since CNN was totally snookered, it’s best to read the story elsewhere. The question is whether this disinformation was meant to trick those Iraqi insurgents out into the open to fight American troops (huh? They don’t fight like that anyway…) or whether it was meant to trick the American people prior to the election.

Note the fact that regardless of what the intent of the disinformation about Fallujah was, that the White House lied about its stance on spreading false stories to the public. Whether the actual Office of Strategic Influence exists intact as the entity it was, the White House insisted that it could never back the Pentagon using such a dishonest, Machiavellian plan.

In the comments for this post, someone from one of the more enigmatic bands that turned up in the searches popped up to reveal quite a few completely new twists to the story. I was hoping that someone would find references to themselves, and then be able to provide more pieces of the puzzle, but not so quickly! Here’s most of Brad’s post:

In 1975, there were 2 bands playing something other than the covers of the day or metal…Ultrex & Harlot. By ’76, both bands split and some members came together as the Backstabbers, New Orleans’ 1st punk band. I was the singer and we lasted till ’78. I split with the bass player and formed The Contenders,who split in ’80 when I moved to Austin and formed Aces 88 (Poison 13 covered and recorded our song, ‘Big City Lights’,) then joined the Next for a month or so. I also played with Lester Bangs for a bit there, then I moved to San Francisco in ’81 and joined Passion Kick, left and formed Fade To Black, a Doorsy psychedelic goth band who released Corridors of Gender (soon to be reissued on cd w/ bonus live and demo trax.) When the band split up (don’t they always?) I moved to London and played with Slaughter Joe (w/ JAMC producer Joe Foster) Came back to SF in ’85 and formed Bohemian Luv Jones, a mad cross between and R&B revue and Iggy Pop! A couple of others came and went,then I “retired” for 12 years. I continued writing songs for others (Mike Levy, Mystery School, etc.) and finally formed Corsica in ’02. Our 1st cd, Ocean Born is finally going to be finished next month and we’ll be shopping it around. Meanwhile, I’ve played solo acoustic shows under the pseudonym of Jack Orion, and have recently joined yet another band called Swoon, a collision of Psychedelic Furs-ish post-punk and glam. We’ll also be recording a cd over the next couple of months, so stay tuned!

A side note….’Lectric Eye was an idie label run by Carlos Boll of the Skinnies (now the other half of The Mystery School in NYC) The (Totally) Cold were pretty goofy but did include Vance Degeneres who went on to develop Mister Bill for Sat Night Live and now, I see his name as a producer for either Elimidate or Blanddate or one of those shows…The Normals have all dropped out of music as far as I know. Men In Black still make mysterious appearances now and again (I still see Jay here in SF…but he’s now a woman) RZA…who knows? Lenny Zenith was in NYC last I heard.

See the lots here. I am jealous at the very idea. Some lucky bastard will have in his or her possession handwritten poems, signed first editions, and other ephemera related to one of the most important writers of fiction the twentieth century saw.

My favorite item is the manuscript for his Joyce y los Neologimos. This will set a lucky bidder back between 40,000 and 50,000 pounds sterling. And worth every pence (is that even right?– my travels in the Old World have not taken me to England…). From the lot description:

First published in Sur, year 9, number 62, November 1939, pp.59-61; and later in Páginas de Jorge Luis Borges seleccionadas por su autor, Buenos Aires, Celtia, 1982. [Helft p.59 & p.110]. Borges in the 1920′s still believed in the possibility of the invention of language. In various essays he had proposed several mechanisms for the “amillonamiento” (neologism resulting from “million”) of language. It is his opinion that a neologism must respond to a new representation of reality; otherwise “cultiva la palabrera hojarasca por cariño al enmarañamiento y al relumbrón y el segundo es enrevesado para seguir con más veracidad las corvaduras del pensamiento”. ( … cultivates the wordy redundancy for the love of entanglement and the flash, and the second one is nonsensical to obtain with greater veracity the curvatures of thought). ["El culteranismo", in El idioma de los argentinos, Buenos Aires, M. Gleizer, 1928].He is not happy with neologisms made from the combination of two words: “Esos monstruos, así incomunicados y desarmados, resultan más bien melancólicos,” (those monsters, thus isolated and disarmed, become rather melancholic). At the end of the present article he quotes some examples of old, and he himself becomes an example of “monstrorum artifex” when he says of Gracián: “Añado, al corregir segundas pruebas, algún ejemplo antiguo. Fischart, en su Legend vom Ursprung des abgeführten, gevierten, vierhornigen und viereckechten Hütleins, -año de 1580- apoda a los jesuítas “vierdächtig” (vier Dächer + verdachtig). El muy “vierdächtiger” Gracián llama “Falsirena” a cierta mujer alegórica del Critión (primera parte, crisi XII),14″. (In correcting second proofs, I have added an example of old. Fischart in his Legend vom Ursprung des abgeführten, gevierten, vierhornigen und viereckechten Hütelins, – in 1580 – called the Jesuits “vierdächtig” (vier Dächer + verdachtig). The very “vierdächtiger” Gracián labels a certain woman in the Critión “Falsirena”).

It’s lot number 6 on the linked page for those of you who wish to see the scanned image. There are many images of the various items. Definitely worth a looksee.

Oh and I almost forgot… Scroll down to lots 232-236 to see some INCREDIBLY odd sculptures of Borges. 236 is my favorite… Borges and Pinocchio playing cards. Care to enlighten me?