Monday, December 27, 2010

Exhausted Like Two Swimmers

I've enjoyed not-blogging two wholefucking days - it was far easier than I thought, it was far easier than I feared - and what has changed in the last two days in your opinion of your loved ones and hated ones you see only at Giftmas, because the world has changed that little that much.

 

Discussing colleges before lunch at my parents someone mentioned Pomona and Bromark mentioned Pepperdine and I said, they have the reputation of being the two most conservative colleges in the top tiers of USNWR Liberal Arts rankings, and my conservative aunt shouted O! God Forbid Planet go to a conservative school. I didn't mean it as an insult (too much). Same old good.

My niece-in-law Sam is smarter than her cousin and aunt thinks she is, but Sam's goodwhacked in a brilliant way and badwhacked in a brilliant way and trending hard badwhacked and is absolutely fucked for parents (both love her dearly but they shouldn't have married, shouldn't have had kids). Here's what I did during the dramatics: I shut the fuck up and sat the fuck down.




I shut the fuck up and sat the fuck down and felt both exhilarated and exhausted. Here was something I could have affected - not for the good, I could only have made things worse solely for the benefit of having my say - and I shut the fuck up and sat the fuck down, happily, voluntarily. This is the deviousness of our yodeling training: holler yourself hoarse against what you can't change so you're too happily tired to holler at what you can only fuck up.






A BOOK OF MUSIC

Jack Spicer

Coming at an end, the lovers
Are exhausted like two swimmers.  Where
Did it end?  There is no telling.  No love is
Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves' boundaries
From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye
Like death.
Coming at an end.  Rather, I would say, like a length
Of coiled rope
Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths
Its endings.
But, you will say, we loved
And some parts of us loved
And the rest of us will remain
Two persons.  Yes,
Poetry ends like a rope.


7 comments:

  1. I learned long ago not to discuss politics with my bro & sis. We get along fine when we don't.

    Missing from the 100 list: colostomy & flotilla, which I thought would make good names for my elder two but my spouse reasonably nixed during negotiations.

    When does Planet have her options clarified? When to decide? The decision is momentous, but then again not so much given a good set of options.

    Bye-bye Beefheart.

    Best,
    Jim H.

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  2. The irony is that Obama probably has a higher approval rating with my aunt than with me.

    Planet didn't early decision anybody so we won't know all her choices until April. She's already into Allegheny (who offered her a VERY generous scholarship money) and the other two she's hopeful for are St Marys College of Maryland (because of the car bribe we've offered) and Kenyon (though they'd need to offer money too).

    Yes, Beefheart. Between him and Linkous it was a hard year.

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  3. Oh, and Alex Chilton too, whom you'll be hearing tomorrow.

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  4. Pepperdine is too far away. Whereas Liberty is nearby and Regent is just around the corner.

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  5. Thanks for the link. I'm completely unable to restrain myself, so there's gonna be a shitload more of those posts. I'll probably be done reviewing albums of 2010 by the end of 2011.

    On the IOZ link, it's amazing how hard it is to rid yourself of that conceit.

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