Tuesday, December 27, 2011

There's a Jolt, Quasi-Electric, When One of Our Myths Reverts to Abstraction









  • Jim's blog's birthday.
  • William Gass and the music of prose. This was actually going to be the meat of the post (and I suppose it still is even if it's not the lede): it's connected to both how I think I'm reading now (now that I'm reading again) and especially how I listen to music now. It reminded me of conversations I've had lately with Earthgirl and friends, that it's Schumann and Beethoven and even (and this shocks me) Chopin that make no sense to me at all, that sounds like inchoate noise that has no relationship to the world I live in. Then I looked down and what I'd written wasn't like what I like to write, so this paragraph instead. Also, once I finish 1Q84 (and I haven't been inhabited like this since The Lonely Ones a year or more ago), 3rd time into The Tunnel is next.
  • Piano phase.
  • Joseph Arthur. I missed his new album this year because I had stopped listening to KEXP - that fatuous dj introducing Arthur in the first vid is one of the two who not only wouldn't play Beefheart the day after his death but wouldn't even acknowledge my email, this after I'd given the station literally hundreds of dollar every year for a decade. Screw her, but I do like Joseph Arthur, played some here within the past month.
  • Stand up and fight.





UPPER WORLD

Rae Armantrout

If sadness
is akin to patience,

                  we're back!


Pattern recognition
was our first response

to loneliness.

Here and there were like
one place.

But we need to triangulate,
find someone to show.

     *

There's a jolt, quasi-electric,
when one of our myths
reverts to abstraction.

Now we all know
every name's Eurydice, 
briefly returned
from blankness

and the way back
won't bear scrutiny.

High voices
over rapid-pulsing synthesizers
intone, "without you" --

which is soothing.

We prefer meta-significance:

the way the clouds exchange
white scraps
in glory.

No more wishes.

No more bungalows
behind car-washes
painted the color of
swimming pools


8 comments:

  1. Here's a glass of the red, spilled, that you and yours had the happiest festivus possible.

    *

    Really not a fan of Lind, or Salon. But damn, the "turboparalysis" concept is nifty.

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  2. Thanks for the multi-Kind over the years! And again for today's linkage.

    Glad you got your read on, not meaning, of course, to jinx same by Commenting upon it as, I'm sure, you didn't when mentioning your current slumplessness here again. What if we said: 'It's winter, dude," and that was perfectly explanatory. Aside: I've got "Norwegian Wood" and "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" queued up.

    Serendipity: Haven't heard or even thought of the Bush Tetras in years until Wisdaughter asked for and received tetras + tank from us for giftmas. (The group's name is indelible; I can't think of one without the other.) It's the first step, she says, toward nurturing and raising more advanced forms of life. Next: small mammals. gulp. She's two years older than Planet. I'm just saying...

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  3. Thanks! thanks! and thanks!

    The Murakami (and I'd read Murakami before to better than meh but not wow result, but this is the right book at the right time for my head.

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  4. About the fascist sandwich post (BTW I thought last week's link to the National Defecation Act post was super superb) I think I want to say this out loud... I suspect where power may be going with this in narrative terms is to provoke the American people to get behind a military coup to oust the current leaders and clean house. I think that because FOX News has been pushing the constitution really hard,and has covered the NDAA story extensively, I hear. That's why they laid the groundwork of the Obama un-American meme so comprehensively. I also hear that Montana is initiating a recall on their Senators who voted for NDAA, which I guess will have to fail, further delegitimizing the path of lawful remedies. And now the drumbeat is that the government is coming very soon to take "our" guns away. It's kind of like tricking Einstein into delivering the atomic bomb--only writ large. Of course once accomplished the cleaned house won't be delivered to the people, but to whomever's holding title on the house in the first place. I think that's why corporate publishing paid off Obama in advance with his mukti-millions instead of waiting till after his term like they usually do. Yep, that's what I think. I'm going to press publish and see if lightning (or Dick Cheney) strikes.

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  5. Well, I'd just like to say out loud that the people commenting on that 'fascist sandwich' rant are utterly insane.

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  6. Well, if we're crazy, we've been driven there, full throttle. Thanks for the free diagnosis. I think I got my money's worth.

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  7. I don't think you read the comments...

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