"Wherever he names the time (la bonne heure) in La Vita Nuova, Dante finds it in
terms of the number nine: “Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light
returned,” “so that almost from the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me and
I beheld her almost at the end of my ninth;” again, Beatrice appears to Dante nine years
later in the ninth hour of the day. The theme of the beginning in the end, of the first and
the last is repeated in the design of nines, where in the first vision of Amor Dante finds
the hour of the dream to have been “the first of the last nine hours of the night.” The
second vision of Amor is in the ninth hour of the day. A third comes on the ninth day of
a painful illness. Hours, days, years—months along, the nine months of gestation, seem
missing. Then, in accounting for the time of Beatrice’s death Dante tells us, “because
many times the number nine hath found place among the preceding words, whereby it
appeareth that it is not without reason,” he will discuss the meaning of the number.
First, he must show how the number nine appears in her death: “I say that according to
the Arabian style her most noble soul departed in the first hour of the ninth day of the
month; and according to the Syrian style, it departed on the ninth month of the year—
and according to our style, she departed in that year of our era, namely of the years of
our Lord, wherein the perfect number was completed nine times in that century wherein
she was placed.”

Robert Duncan, 'The H.D. Book'

"9th October, 2006, Lauren Drake, AP, BOGOTA, Colombia --

A colorful new bird has been discovered in a previously unexplored Andean cloud forest, spurring efforts to protect the area, conservation groups said Monday (...)

The bright yellow and red-crowned Yariguies brush-finch was named for the indigenous tribe that once inhabited the mountainous area where it was discovered and which committed mass suicide instead of submitting to Spanish colonial rule.(...)

(...) this was one of the first time researchers were able to confirm a new bird without having to kill it."

"Perhaps it was all a mistake, a terrible act of misreading. Rather than a serious deconstruction of the author concept, perhaps Barthes's essay "The Death of the Author" was ironic, a close relative of Pop Art. After all, while "The Death of the Author" achieved its widest circulation in the U.S. in its 1977 version in Image - Music - Text, it is perhaps lesser known that the essay had appeared previously in English in the Fall-Winter 1967 issue of the avant-garde magazine Aspen: "each issue came in a customized box filled with booklets, phonograph recordings, posters, postcards" and even a Super-8 film. Contributors included Andy Warhol, John Cage, Yoko Ono, Hans Richter, Susan Sontag, and others. Barthes's essay -- translated by Richard Howard -- appeared in a double issue (the Minimalism issue) which explored "conceptual art, minimalist art, and postmodern critical theory." 1967-68: a serious time shaken by violence and protest, yes, but also a time of great experimentation and humor and absurdity. The pleasure of death; jouissance that has been lost as career academics used Barthes's essay, stripping it out of its playful dimensions, its at once urgent and resigned manifesto-like quality (...)

"Stripped of aura, of mystery, of distance, we are known today as mapped elements in a database. Surveilled, recorded, and marked, we are becoming the function of our components -- our decoded genes, the number of hits (hourly, daily, monthly) on our websites, our on-line purchasing histories. It is perhaps ironic that it is in the very forms of authorship that post-humanist critics strove to erase that we find our best chance of theorizing -- and resisting -- our own disappearance. Donna Haraway's ironic prediction -- "By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs" -- has assumed the shape of everyday social reality. Is it any surprise that for every technological advancement that renders a more perfect, flawless reality -- whether it be classical Hollywood's invisible style, or new film stocks and lenses that offer a cleaner and sharper image, or the hyperrealism of high definition, or the clean, hiss-less ring of the digital code -- is it any surprise that these are always accompanied by countermeasures that preserve and introduce errors, mistakes, degradations of the pristine image? Whether it be Italian neorealism, or cinema verité, or experimental films by the likes of Stan Brakhage, or the rough, "amateur" look of the Dogma 95 films, or even the blurred, miniature movies of web cinema -- all these serve as an antidote to the very forms of perfection that we seek. The author is stronger than ever today because she reminds us of an identity memorable for its utter failures. And to be reminded of our failures is to be reminded that we are human.(...)"

Nicholas Rombes @ ctheory

Today we were reminded again of our techno-barbaric age and its absolute shadow.

The Bomb — Saviour of My Generation.

                  from Upton, Lincolnshire, UK – A huge, pink pig, with legs to spare. (© Ian Loxley)

From the homepage of The Cloud Appreciation Society:

"LOOK UP AND MARVEL

At The Cloud Appreciation Society we love clouds, we're not ashamed to say it and we've had enough of people moaning about them. Read our manifesto and see how we are fighting the banality of ‘blue-sky thinking’. If you agree with what we stand for, then join the society for a minimal postage and administration fee and receive your very own official membership certificate and badge."

Steve Irwin struggles valiantly with another croc, but fails to see the Grim Reaper
(cunningly disguised as a freeway eucalypt) coming up behind him.