Thursday, July 7, 2011
The Balding Month, the Grey Week, the Blue Morning, The Hour's Routine, the Minute's Passing Glance
The photo of the gargoyle from Salisbury Cathedral that was yesterday's header is no longer header. I may or not employ headers, but a header that big is annoying to me when I check in to see of I've posted anything new. Six, seven times yesterday, ping-in, scroll down, nothing new, fuck that shit.
New blogfriend Dusty, Hell most vocal Bitch has generously offered to build me a new template, adding "You know my site, so you know what I am capable of."
Sincere thanks. As we become old blogfriends you'll understand the impossibility of my accepting your generous and Kind offer for base and selfish reasons: I like the blegangst. I need the bleg to suck at fluctuating levels day by day for reasons blegometric that I understand and am constantly warned against writing about; I couldn't constantly write about them as much as I do if I didn't control the suck. It's fun! I might avail myself of you for some basic css to c/p now and then, please.
REFUSING AT FIFTY-TWO TO WRITE SONNETS
Thomas Lynch
New blogfriend Dusty, Hell most vocal Bitch has generously offered to build me a new template, adding "You know my site, so you know what I am capable of."
Sincere thanks. As we become old blogfriends you'll understand the impossibility of my accepting your generous and Kind offer for base and selfish reasons: I like the blegangst. I need the bleg to suck at fluctuating levels day by day for reasons blegometric that I understand and am constantly warned against writing about; I couldn't constantly write about them as much as I do if I didn't control the suck. It's fun! I might avail myself of you for some basic css to c/p now and then, please.
- I would like a css that plays a certain song when this site is pinged but ONLY if it cuts off when the reader clicks on a link to music or a KITH skit or something like.
- You don't need fucking roads, you fucking peasant, and the elites' maids and gardeners can fucking walk to the fucking gated compound.
- Why not Marx?
- Krugman's obamapostasy will never be ready.
- A friend fed this into the Google Fuhrer reader (I don't read Kevin Drum because...) but Kevin Drum's obamapostasy will never be ready.
- You're going to vote again for Obamadick?
- Great Recesssion, Part Two.
- Ideology and economics.
- Clash of isms.
- Patriotism: Dead End.
- Keep on spinning.
- David Brooks worships money.
- Company the cracker's keep, crackers the company keeps.
- The Murdoch scandal.
- I walk past the most expensive house in Georgetown all the time.
- Angry white cracker.
- I dated a girl who lived on Stringtown Road.
- Emotional depth of cows.
- Twelve theses about John Ashbery.
- Silliman's always generous lit-links.
- Cult of beauty.
- Mining the audio motherlode.
- Ingrid.
- Temple.
- One more colour.
- Yes I did move the soccer blog roll from left to right column. Why?
REFUSING AT FIFTY-TWO TO WRITE SONNETS
Thomas Lynch
It came to him that he could nearly count How many Octobers he had left to him In increments of ten or, say, eleven Thus: sixty-three, seventy-four, eighty-five. He couldn't see himself at ninety-six— Humanity's advances notwithstanding In health-care, self-help, or new-age regimens— What with his habits and family history, The end he thought is nearer than you think. The future, thus confined to its contingencies, The present moment opens like a gift: The balding month, the grey week, the blue morning, The hour's routine, the minute's passing glance— All seem like godsends now. And what to make of this? At the end the word that comes to him is Thanks.
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011
All Peoples Are at Times Cat in Water with This Language but It Does Promote International Bird on Shoulder
There are two (non-crisis, one sweet, one bad) real life news items dominating my thinking but I can't talk about them onblog no matter how much I dang, which is as it should be. Have three questions for a Wednesday after a three day holiday weekend during the Blog Days of Summer in Rustbelt, Blegsylvania:
THE NEW HIEROGLYPHICS
Les Murray
- Like the new header? I was bored thinking of something to write about besides what I want to write about (or rather, what I've written, what I'm writing about but I won't publish here). I'm not sure I do like this header, whether I like any header at all, and if I do decide to use a header should I pick a permanent one or rotate them? If I rotate them, how often? Does anyone know how to set up headers so that a designated set of headers come up randomly each time the blog loads? Onandonandonandon.
- I've asked this before: is Windows 7 getting sketchier re: everything, but especially the internet regardless Firefox, IE, Google Fuhrer, whatever?
- Reading Age of Greed reminds me there are reasons Cassandras are ignored: there's always another clusterfuck, the worst since the last one and the worst until the next one, which isn't a question as much as to note the human need to believe in the exceptional nature of one's lifespan (in as loud or quiet or greedy or generous or proud or humble or any either/or you choose). Clusterfuck as prime mover, the catalyst of the necessary processes of what daily grinds.
- Going there.
- The problem with Democrats and social/cultural issues.
- Jokes about the Democratic Party.
- Obamadick.
- Operating instructions.
- Vomit in your mouth both as noun and verb.
- Hedges, Nadar, the revolution in Narnia.
- Late-modern Capitalism.
- Control through fear.
- Metropole cacaphony.
- This is true: I'd never heard of Casey Anthony until yesterday.
- Cracker candidates on Casey Anthony.
- OLIE. Follow-up.
- Things you may have missed.
- Felt Tip.
- By request of a friend. I really recommend Bryce's show if you don't already. One of my favorite three hours of the week.
- Buy me this for my birthday.
- Under the influence.
THE NEW HIEROGLYPHICS
Les Murray
In the World language, sometimes called Airport Road, a thinks balloon with a gondola under it is a symbol for speculation. Thumbs down to ear and tongue: World can be written and read, even painted but not spoken. People use their own words. Latin letters are in it for names, for e.g. OK and H2SO4, for musical notes, but mostly it's diagrams: skirt-figure, trousered figure have escaped their toilet doors. I (that is, saya, ego, watashi wa) am two eyes without pupils; those aren't seen when you look out through them. You has both pupils, we has one, and one blank. Good is thumbs up, thumb and finger zipping lips is confidential. Evil is three-cornered snake eyes. The effort is always to make the symbols obvious: the bolt of electricity, winged stethoscope of course for flying doctor. Pram under fire? Soviet film industry. Pictographs also shouldn't be too culture-bound: a heart circled and crossed out surely isn't. For red, betel spit lost out to ace of diamonds. Black is the ace of spades. The king of spades reads Union boss, the two is feeble effort. If is the shorthand Libra sign, the scales. Spare literal pictures render most nouns and verbs and computers can draw them faster than Pharough's scribes. A bordello prospectus is as explicit as the action, but everywhere there's sunflower talk, i.e. metaphor, as we've seen. A figure riding a skyhook bearing food in one hand is the pictograph for grace, two animals in a book read Nature, two books inside an animal, instinct. Rice in bowl with chopsticks denotes food. Figure 1 lying prone equals other. Most emotions are mini-faces, and the speech balloon is ubiquitous. A bull inside one is dialect for placards inside one. Sun and moon together inside one is poetry. Sun and moon over palette, over shoes etc. are all art forms--but above a cracked heart and champagne glass? Riddle that and you're starting to think in World, whose grammar is Chinese-terse and fluid. Who needs the square- equals-diamond book, the dictionary, to know figures led by strings to their genitals mean fashion? just as a skirt beneath a circle means demure or a similar circle shouldering two arrows is macho. All peoples are at times cat in water with this language but it does promote international bird on shoulder. This foretaste now lays its knife and fork parallel.
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Tuesday, July 5, 2011
And Through a Major Error in Pattern Recognition or a Significant Cognitive Fault, the Bullfrog's Brain Has Selected a Two-Pound Rock as the Object of His Rampant Affection
This guy sunning himself on a rock reminds me I don't know the difference between a toad and a frog, though if I had to guess I'd guess toad since we were at least twenty-five yards from the Potomac and at least a hundred yards from a creek when he posed. Do you know about Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail? We did a five mile back-and-forth today, plan on more, though probably not south of Teddy Island because I don't think of the tidal Potomac as the same river as Mather Gorge and up river. This is related to why I never vacation at the beach unless made to.
All this a follow-up to yesterday's post: I've always held motherfucking pigs like Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher and her pet dog Ronnie as .06% shittier because they want to ratfuck the peasants as principle while the Democrats, and this is an improbable best case scenario, ratfuck the peasants as pragmatism: we don't want to ratfuck you, but in these days of Corporate power, we have no choice! This is the root of my roob, as I mention every post. Hey! Did you ever wonder what the bottom of The American Legion Bridge looks like from the Virginia side?
- Emancipation and independence.
- Great American hero.
- An illuminating monument.
- Evolution of Crackerstani fundamentalism.
- Astute octopus.
- Predator.
- Midnight's Children, revisited. I've read it twice, the last time at least fifteen years ago. The first time I read it right after reading Fowle's The Magus the first time. It was like two doses of wonderment one after the other. Reread it again ten years later, not KABOOM! but not yawn either. I stopped at Satanic Verses.
- Tried Magus again but had mistakenly read Daniel Martin first and that killed everything.
- The list of most anticipated novels of the next eight months bores me.
- Josipovici for those of you who do.
- Josipovici for those of you who do.
- The one thing that can save America.
UNNATURAL SELECTIONS: A MEDITATION UPON WITNESSING A BULLFROG FUCKING A ROCK
Jim Dodge
Amalgam of electric jelly, constellated neural knots in the briny binary soup, as surely as stimulus prods response brains are made to choose. And through a major error in pattern recognition or a significant cognitive fault, the bullfrogs brain has selected a two-pound rock as the object of his rampant affection, a rock (to my admittedly mammalian eye) that neither resembles nor even vaguely suggests the female of his species. He does seem to be enjoying himself in a blunted sort of way, but since the rock so obviously remains unmoved one suspects it's not the blending of sweet oblivions that fuels his persistence, but a serious kink in a feedback loop-- or perhaps just kinkiness in general. The less compassionate might even call him the quintessentially insensitive male. Assuming a pan-species gender bond and a common fret, I advise my amphibious pal, "Hey, I don't think she's playing hard to get. That's the literal case you're up against, Jack-- true story, buddy; stone fact. And I'd be fraternally remiss if I didn't share my deep and eminently reasonable doubt that she'll be worn down however long and spectacular the ardor." Ignoring my counsel as completely as he has my presence, the bullfrog continues his fruitless assault with that brain-locked commitment to folly which invariably accompanies dumb, bug-eyed lust. But, in fairness, whose brain hasn't shorted out in a slosh of hormones or, igniting like a shattered jug of gas, fireballed into a howling maelstrom where a rock indeed might seem a port? One can only conclude that such impelling concupiscence serves as a species' life-insurance, sort of a procreative override of any decision requiring thought, thought being notoriously prey to thinking, and the more one thinks about thinking the thinkier it gets. Therefore, though the brain is made to choose, its very existence ultimately depends on the generative supremacy of brainless desire-- for with all respect to Monsieur Descartes you am before you can think you are. Dirt-drive compulsions riding powerful desires render any choice moot, along with reason, morality, taste, manners, and all those other jars of glitter we pour on the sticky and raw. The hard truth is we never chose to choose: not the brains we use to pick between competing explanations for our sexual mess nor these hearts we've burdened with our blunders in the name of love. Do whatever we decide we will, the choice isn't free; we live at the mercy of more pressing needs. Thus, urges urgently surging, we mount a few rocks by mistake. A bit more embarrassing than most of our foolishness, true-- but so what? The power of the imperative coupled with the law of averages virtually guarantees enough will get it right to make more brains to be made up about exactly what steps to take toward what we think we need to do on this stony journey between delusion and mirage-- when to move, where to hide our dreams-- a journey where we finally learn freedom is not a choice a brain is free to choose. Fortunately, my warty friend, the soul is built to cruise.
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Monday, July 4, 2011
Built a Ferris Wheel in My Mind, Bolt by Bolt, Then It Broke Just as It Spun Me to the Top
I'm a third of the way though Jeff Madrick's Age of Greed. I read that review then saw the book on the new book shelf, picked it up. So far it's a who's who of motherfucking pigs who've devoted their lives to revoking all laws that keep world class assholes from ratfucking their way to unlimited wealth, starting with motherfucking Hayek. You and me worry about freedom from. World class assholes worry about freedom to.
My friend L of Thursday Night Pints is a generation older than me, she's seventy-four now. I've written before how the Progressive apostasy towards Team Democrat in general and Obamadick in particular radiates out in ripples from the younger to the older. L remembers the fights for Civil Rights and Women's Rights, she remembers when all the safety nets and consumer protections the assholes in Madrick's book want to eliminate didn't exist or had only just been won.
The top two and below photos are from yesterday's hike, a sweet little three mile loop just over the American Legion, Scott's Run Park immediately off the beltway on VA 193. I can't go into details but Earthgirl and I have had another week of a child-free home as we prepare for this Fall, so we're taking to the woods again, getting our hiking legs back under us so we can occupy our weekends with long circuits and decent day through-hikes. We also both assume there's no way we'll be able to retire when we hoped, that the pensions we've paid into will be lost, the money we've contributed into 401Ks each paycheck the past twenty years doesn't really exist, and that health insurance as we now know it won't exist by the time we get old and start to die, so dropping some pounds each seems a prudent step for our future in first British then Serbian America.
Sue us, we're maudlin. Unlike you youngsters we remember when it was stupid and roobish but wasn't motherfucking quaint to think incremental ticks on a progressive ratchet were not only possible but inevitable by dint of reality in negotiations between assholes and their herds. We were young, dopes.
MAN OF THE HOUSE
Bill Hicok
My friend L of Thursday Night Pints is a generation older than me, she's seventy-four now. I've written before how the Progressive apostasy towards Team Democrat in general and Obamadick in particular radiates out in ripples from the younger to the older. L remembers the fights for Civil Rights and Women's Rights, she remembers when all the safety nets and consumer protections the assholes in Madrick's book want to eliminate didn't exist or had only just been won.
The top two and below photos are from yesterday's hike, a sweet little three mile loop just over the American Legion, Scott's Run Park immediately off the beltway on VA 193. I can't go into details but Earthgirl and I have had another week of a child-free home as we prepare for this Fall, so we're taking to the woods again, getting our hiking legs back under us so we can occupy our weekends with long circuits and decent day through-hikes. We also both assume there's no way we'll be able to retire when we hoped, that the pensions we've paid into will be lost, the money we've contributed into 401Ks each paycheck the past twenty years doesn't really exist, and that health insurance as we now know it won't exist by the time we get old and start to die, so dropping some pounds each seems a prudent step for our future in first British then Serbian America.
Sue us, we're maudlin. Unlike you youngsters we remember when it was stupid and roobish but wasn't motherfucking quaint to think incremental ticks on a progressive ratchet were not only possible but inevitable by dint of reality in negotiations between assholes and their herds. We were young, dopes.
- Krugman almost has his obamapostasy.
- Obamadick.
- Frank Rich's obamapostasy isn't an obamapostasy at all.
- On the above, and more.
- Motherfucking crackers.
- Zombie liberalism.
- The deadliest word.
- Vote for Paulie Kukucinich.
- There are no isolationists.
- Not just Fox.
- Legitimacy is illegitimate.
- Fuckface ain't gonna be POTUS.
- The most hated corporations in America.
- Reflections on fascism and coups.
- Nihilism and mostly inevitable hope.
- Long meditation on Josipivici and modernism.
MAN OF THE HOUSE
Bill Hicok
It was a misunderstanding.
I got into bed, made love
with the woman I found there,
called her honey, mowed the lawn,
had three children, painted
the house twice, fixed the furnace,
overcame an addiction to blue pills,
read Spinoza every night
without once meeting his God,
buried one child, ate my share
of Jell-o and meatloaf,
went away for nine hours a day
and came home hoarding my silence,
built a ferris wheel in my mind,
bolt by bolt, then it broke
just as it spun me to the top.
Turns out I live next door.
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Sunday, July 3, 2011
United 2, Phunion 2
Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace. Fuck you United. The red kits suck. Wearing them at home is a disgrace.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Thanks to Operation Memory, Each of Us Woke Up in a Different Bed or Coffin
I was noodling a follow-up to yesterday's post regarding a lively conversation Thursday night about Obamadick (tm), but I serendipitously just found this new translation of a Kafka short story which says what I would have said better and is apt for a 4th of July weekend:
The emperor—it is said—sent to you, the one apart, the wretched subject, the tiny shadow that fled far, far from the imperial sun, precisely to you he sent a message from his deathbed. He bade the messenger kneel by his bed, and whispered the message in his ear. So greatly did he cherish it that he had him repeat it into his ear. With a nod of his head he confirmed the accuracy of the messenger’s words. And before the entire spectatorship of his death—all obstructing walls have been torn down and the great figures of the empire stand in a ring upon the broad, soaring exterior stairways—before all these he dispatched the messenger. The messenger set out at once; a strong, an indefatigable man; thrusting forward now this arm, now the other, he cleared a path though the crowd; every time he meets resistance he points to his breast, which bears the sign of the sun; and he moves forward easily, like no other. But the crowds are so vast; their dwellings know no bounds. If open country stretched before him, how he would fly, and indeed you might soon hear the magnificent knocking of his fists on your door. But instead, how uselessly he toils; he is still forcing his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he overcome them; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to fight his way down the steps; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to cross the courtyard and, after the courtyard, the second enclosing outer palace, and again stairways and courtyards, and again a palace, and so on through thousands of years; and if he were to burst out at last through the outermost gate—but it can never, never happen—before him still lies the royal capital, the middle of the world, piled high in its sediment. Nobody reaches through here, least of all with a message from one who is dead. –You, however, sit at your window and dream of the message when evening comes.
OPERATION MEMORY
David Lehman
A Message from the Emperor
The emperor—it is said—sent to you, the one apart, the wretched subject, the tiny shadow that fled far, far from the imperial sun, precisely to you he sent a message from his deathbed. He bade the messenger kneel by his bed, and whispered the message in his ear. So greatly did he cherish it that he had him repeat it into his ear. With a nod of his head he confirmed the accuracy of the messenger’s words. And before the entire spectatorship of his death—all obstructing walls have been torn down and the great figures of the empire stand in a ring upon the broad, soaring exterior stairways—before all these he dispatched the messenger. The messenger set out at once; a strong, an indefatigable man; thrusting forward now this arm, now the other, he cleared a path though the crowd; every time he meets resistance he points to his breast, which bears the sign of the sun; and he moves forward easily, like no other. But the crowds are so vast; their dwellings know no bounds. If open country stretched before him, how he would fly, and indeed you might soon hear the magnificent knocking of his fists on your door. But instead, how uselessly he toils; he is still forcing his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he overcome them; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to fight his way down the steps; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to cross the courtyard and, after the courtyard, the second enclosing outer palace, and again stairways and courtyards, and again a palace, and so on through thousands of years; and if he were to burst out at last through the outermost gate—but it can never, never happen—before him still lies the royal capital, the middle of the world, piled high in its sediment. Nobody reaches through here, least of all with a message from one who is dead. –You, however, sit at your window and dream of the message when evening comes.
- Did you know that Washington DC has a professional soccer team and a home game tonight? United's gonna wear their shitty red kits against a team coached by the guy who was coach for United when United last won a championship and wore all black at home.
- Dickobama (tm) works too.
- Defining down war.
- Your business is important to us.
- Late capitalism. Corporate's underwater.
- There are no perfect accusers.
- Are libertarians misunderstood? (Sssh! No.)
- This week's stuff.
- Robin Blaser.
- New as yet to be translated Handke for those of you who do. I recalled Handke's Slow Homecoming from a warehouse in Upper Marlboro on a friend's recommendation. Read a couple pages, it's not the book for me now but and hopefully soon.
OPERATION MEMORY
David Lehman
We were smoking some of this knockout weed when
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.
We'd been drinking since early afternoon. I was loaded.
The doctor made me recite my name, rank, and serial number when
I woke up, sweating, in my civvies. All my friends had jobs
As professional liars, and most had partners who were good in bed.
What did I have? Just this feeling of always being in the middle
Of things, and the luck of looking younger than fifty.
At dawn I returned to draft headquarters. I was eighteen
And counting backwards. The interviewer asked one loaded
Question after another, such as why I often read the middle
Of novels, ignoring their beginnings and their ends. when
Had I decided to volunteer for intelligence work? "In bed
With a broad," I answered, with locker-room bravado. The truth was, jobs
Were scarce, and working on Operation Memory was better than no job
At all. Unamused, the judge looked at his watch. It was 1970
By the time he spoke. Recommending clemency, he ordered me to go to bed
At noon and practice my disappearing act. Someone must have loaded
The harmless gun on the wall in Act I when
I was asleep. And there I was, without an alibi, in the middle
Of a journey down nameless, snow-covered streets, in the middle
Of a mystery--or a muddle. These were the jobs
That saved men's souls, or so I was told, but when
The orphans assembled for their annual reunion, ten
Years later, on the playing fields of Eton, each unloaded
A kit bag full of troubles, and smiled bravely, and went to bed.
Thanks to Operation Memory, each of us woke up in a different bed
Or coffin, with a different partner beside him, in the middle
Of a war that had never been declared. No one had time to load
His weapon or see to any of the dozen essential jobs
Preceding combat duty. And there I was, dodging bullets, merely one
In a million whose lucky number had come up. When
It happened, I was asleep in bed, and when I woke up,
It was over: I was 38, on the brink of middle age,
A succession of stupid jobs behind me, a loaded gun on my lap.
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.
We'd been drinking since early afternoon. I was loaded.
The doctor made me recite my name, rank, and serial number when
I woke up, sweating, in my civvies. All my friends had jobs
As professional liars, and most had partners who were good in bed.
What did I have? Just this feeling of always being in the middle
Of things, and the luck of looking younger than fifty.
At dawn I returned to draft headquarters. I was eighteen
And counting backwards. The interviewer asked one loaded
Question after another, such as why I often read the middle
Of novels, ignoring their beginnings and their ends. when
Had I decided to volunteer for intelligence work? "In bed
With a broad," I answered, with locker-room bravado. The truth was, jobs
Were scarce, and working on Operation Memory was better than no job
At all. Unamused, the judge looked at his watch. It was 1970
By the time he spoke. Recommending clemency, he ordered me to go to bed
At noon and practice my disappearing act. Someone must have loaded
The harmless gun on the wall in Act I when
I was asleep. And there I was, without an alibi, in the middle
Of a journey down nameless, snow-covered streets, in the middle
Of a mystery--or a muddle. These were the jobs
That saved men's souls, or so I was told, but when
The orphans assembled for their annual reunion, ten
Years later, on the playing fields of Eton, each unloaded
A kit bag full of troubles, and smiled bravely, and went to bed.
Thanks to Operation Memory, each of us woke up in a different bed
Or coffin, with a different partner beside him, in the middle
Of a war that had never been declared. No one had time to load
His weapon or see to any of the dozen essential jobs
Preceding combat duty. And there I was, dodging bullets, merely one
In a million whose lucky number had come up. When
It happened, I was asleep in bed, and when I woke up,
It was over: I was 38, on the brink of middle age,
A succession of stupid jobs behind me, a loaded gun on my lap.
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Friday, July 1, 2011
I Am Becoming Weather and I Don't Plan on Doing It Alone
Four for Thursday Night Pints, the regulars and now promoted to semi-regular, K.
The first half hour was mine as the UK trip was discussed. All pitched in their thoughts and memories of their trips to Britain. D is from Newcastle; he stays with family when he visits, radiating out to the rest of Britain from there by train or rented car, mostly north to Scotland. Our bus drove around but not through Newcastle but we saw enough of the terraced housing to get a taste of its grittier contrast from the sections of London we saw. D confirmed Newcastle's grittiness saying he got out of Newcastle as soon as he could. (We also saw the Angel of the North on top of the hill before the descent to the River Tyne.)
Strike today in UK, teachers and other public workers, said K. You'd never see that here, said L, a country of rednecks cheering on their own dispossession. I said, I wrote at least three times in tablet while there about ugly couples, lots of them, holding hands to quaintly cuddling to making out in public, I rarely see that in America, at least the not-America I live and work in. The utter lack of self-consciousness or the utter awareness of self-consciousness, I wasn't sure which. The British are the ugliest people on the planet, said D, fully embracing the irony as he smiled his British teeth smile, and they fuck like starving rat terriers fighting over giblets, which won him a ridiculously priced scotch. What does that have to do with their striking, asked L. I just think, I said, America will have to be Britain first on America's descent to becoming Serbia.
BECOMING WEATHER, 21
Chris Martin
I was out interviewing clouds amassing
the notes of a sky pornographer while patches
of the city subnormalized
by fear of fear like a reef bleaching closed
I took to the streets
looking for a human velocity
feeling disequilibrium
heavy in the abundance
of summer light
the silent apathy
of stars which is neither
silent nor apathetic
I am becoming weather
and
I don't
plan on doing
it alone
The first half hour was mine as the UK trip was discussed. All pitched in their thoughts and memories of their trips to Britain. D is from Newcastle; he stays with family when he visits, radiating out to the rest of Britain from there by train or rented car, mostly north to Scotland. Our bus drove around but not through Newcastle but we saw enough of the terraced housing to get a taste of its grittier contrast from the sections of London we saw. D confirmed Newcastle's grittiness saying he got out of Newcastle as soon as he could. (We also saw the Angel of the North on top of the hill before the descent to the River Tyne.)
Strike today in UK, teachers and other public workers, said K. You'd never see that here, said L, a country of rednecks cheering on their own dispossession. I said, I wrote at least three times in tablet while there about ugly couples, lots of them, holding hands to quaintly cuddling to making out in public, I rarely see that in America, at least the not-America I live and work in. The utter lack of self-consciousness or the utter awareness of self-consciousness, I wasn't sure which. The British are the ugliest people on the planet, said D, fully embracing the irony as he smiled his British teeth smile, and they fuck like starving rat terriers fighting over giblets, which won him a ridiculously priced scotch. What does that have to do with their striking, asked L. I just think, I said, America will have to be Britain first on America's descent to becoming Serbia.
- We all agreed to have a Thursday Night Pints in Edinburgh someday.
- Militarized surrealism.
- Obama as Dick Cheney.
- He is a dick.
- He is a dick.*
- Capitalism.
- Capitalism.
- Capitalism.
- Marxism without revolution.*
- How pigs win even when they lose.
- Blame the people.*
- A theory of misanthropy.
- Copa America website.
- The De Rossario-McCarty trade: Metros' point of view.
- Hat-tip to Sasha for the above photo relating to a comment yesterday.
- Bethesda Magazine versus Silver Spring!*
- Brainstorming creepiness.*
- Mark Strand gives up poetry again. I used to read Strand all the time. I've books on my shelves. I haven't read Strand in years.
- Nobel betting odds.
- Lit links.*
- Worn out words.
- One yes for Pale King.
- *K, as promised, those who know I exist but don't find me worthy.
- Vinyl reckonings.
- Belleisle.
- New Lindsey Buckingham. Yes, I do. Been remiss about posting some.
- Playing Goucher September 30. Hamster?
- Motherfucking ticketmaster won't take my credit card, so I'm driving down to Birchmere one night next week to buy the Bonnie Prince Billy tickets.
- You do or you don't.
- Don't look down.
- Lord knows best.
- Therefore I am.
- I think I've played Aladdin Sane more than any other Bowie album.
- I've a new love:
BECOMING WEATHER, 21
Chris Martin
I was out interviewing clouds amassing
the notes of a sky pornographer while patches
of the city subnormalized
by fear of fear like a reef bleaching closed
I took to the streets
looking for a human velocity
feeling disequilibrium
heavy in the abundance
of summer light
the silent apathy
of stars which is neither
silent nor apathetic
I am becoming weather
and
I don't
plan on doing
it alone
Labels:
Aargocalyptic,
Autoblogography,
Books,
Mocomofo,
Music,
My Complicity,
Obamapostasy,
Poem,
Uktrip
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