The Radio Played Ecstatic Static

I never write about work but I want to write about something tangentially related to work but since I no longer write anything about anything just tangentially related to work (though TNP will continue!), I can't talk about...

... and even I'm tired of bleggalgazing though bleggalgazing is all I do because everything is bleggalgazing and everything needs said, re: the tremendous generosity of the Kind, the pettiness of the unKind, the serial categorizers and semantic quibblers, the smart and funny versus Isms' pedantic janissaries, those bullies we hated in seventh grade now grown up and still hellbent on being King of Anarchists, and....

....whatever the fuck I like though I never fully do, and yes, I did also say I was never ever going to post any more gifs without accreditation again. 

• Four modes of ambiguity.
• On bullying.
• Achieving liberaldom.
• Watch Happily Drowning.
• PR is Corporate's most important division.
• The search for disequalibrium.
• The Planet Krypton.
• Yes, multiple things have me pissed off in multiple (though not primary) worlds (and no, not that, that's old), so self-indulgent bleggal catharsis necessary. Apologies.
• Every single one. 
• A pig hunting pigs. 
• Knights on shining white horseshit.
• Two YFWP Villagers don't like Rick Perry.
• On Mr Know-Alls.
• This is the ice age. 
• Tangible examples.
• Election march of the trolls.
• Dickdick.
• Swimming.
• To prove I can break format, I will not end this post with a youtube of music. This may not be significant to you, though....
• Women around the world at work.
• ....it's a step in convincing myself I don't have to post everyday, as a...
• Moco tackles crime wave!
• Do bookmark or feed Piri' Miri Muli'. 
• This week's new releases. 
• ...reminder I can do what the fuck I want here.
• Holyfuck, found it last night looking for something else. Sweet flashbacks.

THE SIMULACRA

D. Nurkse

They were driving into the mountains, suddenly married,

sometimes touching each other’s cheek with a fingernail

gingerly: the radio played ecstatic static: certain roads

marked with blue enamel numbers led to cloud banks,

or basalt screes, or dim hotels with padlocked verandas.

Sometimes they quarreled, sometimes they grew old,

the wind was constant in their eyes, it was their own wind,

they made it. Small towns flew past, Rodez, Albi,

limestone quarries, pear orchards, children racing

after hoops, wobbling when their shadows wavered,

infants crying for fine rain, old women on stoops

darning gray veils—and who were we, watching?

Doubles, ghosts, the ones who would tell of the field

where they pulled over, bluish tinge of the elms, steepness

of the other’s eyes, glowworm hidden in its own glint,

how the rain was twilight and now is darkness.

Those Fleas that Escaped Earth and Fire Died by the Cold

OK, I was asked (offline), so I'll play: Perry/Bachmann are POTUS/VPOTUS-elect, the GOP won control of the Senate too, already owning a majority of governorships and statehouses, already owning the majority of judicial appointees, and it's the first Wednesday of November 2012. Who's the Democratic front-runner for POTUS 2016?

Harry Redknapp's as good as any * (and a fool if he doesn't sell Modric).

Still, Corporate, Democratic Division, comprehensively defeated in intramural shepherding in 2012, who leads the brand back to 2008's sales numbers * ?

Antiheh. Mind, I still think Obama is reelected - so much more can be achieved with a Republican House and Republican Senate and a majority of governorships and statehouses held by Republicans and a majority of the judiciary Republican and a Democratic president than a Republican president - but it is beyond my imagination to conceive Democrats rebranding (and a Republican president is Democrats' only hope for rebranding).

Joke. Democrats will rebrand - Perry/Bachmann 2012 is the 2016 Dem ticket.

• * You're welcome.
• * You're welcome.
• Human rights as crisis morality.
• Dead letters.
• Conservatives, and the difference between correlation and causation.
• Ron Paul hates, Obama kills. 
• Why libertarians suck. (For the record, I don't think they suck any more or less than any other ism - it's all high school: everyone wants to be King of Anarchists.)
• Which puts this in my head:

• Dickdick's ultimate sadism. 
• Debt, slavery, freedom (part one).
• Melting pot hegemony.
• Fish nutpunching.
• Real names and other dangers.
• Clowns charge $40 for you to clown!

• Lose. Every. Fucking. Game. Forever. Amen.
• Daily Gaddis: - If I'm going to be a dog I want to be something I like. He took a temperate sip of his small beer, and turned to the plate glass. The wind had gone down, and the snow continued to fall. - Do you think the sum will ever shine again? he asked no one.
• Arthur, Arthur. 
• Vow.
• White flag.
• Flown.
• Cloak.
• HOLYFUCK! Live Juliana Barwick.

COMPLETE DESTRUCTION

William Carlos Williams

It was an icy day.
We buried the cat,
then took her box
and set fire to it

in the back yard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold.

I Gave the Cat Half of My Sandwich to Buy My Life

We didn't get our internet connection back (we never lost power) until just before one yesterday afternoon, though I had internet access at 730 Sunday morning as I was checking the building I work in for flood damage. I did make a comment yesterday to a friend's comments on Saturday's post, so while I technically posted something yesterday it wasn't a new post, so yay me, I can go at least one day without attention-whoring, which is good, my attention-whoring so powerful exactly one person in my immediate family remembered yesterday was someone's birthday, and that person called the birthday person from Ohio. Heh, if I hadn't been out grocery shopping and that person from Ohio hadn't reminded the other person in my immediate family that yesterday was my birthday, I wasn't going to tell her. I got a re-gifted Chia Pet and charming apologies. Yay me!

I was going to toggle and bleggalgaze, but while toggling and bleggalgazing are both here and on assignment: Woof's great. Funny, brave, funny, sweet, funny, fearless, funny. I've had to rubberband shut cabinets he's learned how to open; he taunts the older cats (including Napoleon, who is three times Woof's size) until they swat, then chirps (he's always chirping) and runs sideways, his ass catching up to and almost passing his head, and lets himself into the cabinets where he climbs as high as he can and purrs and chirps. Chirps, is funny, won't leave me alone. Yay me!

Daily Gaddis:

There, old vicary, congratulate my refuge, the saneside outside sheltering the insane inside: to present the static sane side outside to another outside saneside, to be esteemed for that outsane side as though we weren't both playing the same game, and gone down Summer Street (singing unchristian songs) the inane sinside, pocketing a cool million wearing the shoutside outside and the doubtside inside, the vileside inside and the violinside outside skipping dancing and foretelling things too come all ye faithful, of thine own give we back to thee.

• The worst case scenario has always been that Obamadick believes he's acting nobly and in America's best interest.
• Obamadick needs a war? 
• The War on Terror and the Left.
• Maybe Obamadick is toast.
• Extremists to the left of me, moderates to the right!
• Apt pupils.
• The basics.
• Digby censors? Doh!
• Gratuitous bump.
• Holyfuck.
• There's one of these columns every six months it seems.
• Myself and movement.
• St Vincent, Bjork, Feist. I feel like I'm breaking up with girlfriends: it's not you; I've changed.
• Some tales wait shy.
• Seven papers torn.
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
• Future Bible Heroes cover The Human League!
• Yes, I did post this within the past month:

ANOTHER INSANE DEVOTION

Gerald Stern

This was gruesome—fighting over a ham sandwich                  

with one of the tiny cats of Rome, he leaped

on my arm and half hung on to the food and half

hung on to my shirt and coat. I tore it apart

and let him have his portion, I think I lifted him

down, sandwich and all, on the sidewalk and sat

with my own sandwich beside him, maybe I petted

his bony head and felt him shiver. I have

told this story over and over; some things

root in the mind; his boldness, of course, was frightening

and unexpected—his stubborness—though hunger

drove him mad. It was the breaking of boundaries,

the sudden invasion, l but not only that it was

the sharing of food and the sharing of space; he didn't

run into an alley or into a cellar,

he sat beside me, eating, and I didn't run

into a trattoria, say, shaking,

with food on my lips and blood on my cheek, sobbing;

but only that, I had gone there to eat

and wait for someone. I had maybe an hour

before she would come and I was full of hope

and excitement. I have resisted for years

interpreting this, but now I think I was given

a clue, or I was giving myself a clue,

across the street from the glass sandwich shop.

That was my last night with her, the next day

I would leave on the train for Paris and she would

meet her husband. Thirty-five years ago

I ate my sandwich and moaned in her arms, we were

dying together; we never met again

although she was pregnant when I left her—I have

a daughter or son somewhere, darling grandchildren

in Norwich, Connecticut, or Canton, Ohio.

Every five years I think about her again

and plan on looking her up. The last time

I was sitting in New Brunswick, New Jersey,

and heard that her husband was teaching at Princeton,

if she was still married, or still alive, and tried

calling. I went that far. We lived

in Florence and Rome. We rowed in the bay of Naples

and floated, naked, on the boards. I started

to think of her again today. I still

am horrified by the cat's hunger. I still

am puzzled by the connection. this is another

insane devotion, there must be hundreds, although

it isn't just that, there is no pain, and the thought

is fleeting and sweet. i think it's my own dumb boyhood,

walking around with Slavich cheeks and burning

stupid eyes. I think I gave the cat

half of my sandwich to buy my life, I think

I broke it in half as a decent sacrifice.

It was this I bought, the red coleus,

the split rocking chair, the silk lampshade.

Happiness. I watched him with pleasure.

I bought memory. I could have lost it.

How crazy it sounds. His face twisted with cunning.

The wind blowing through his hair. His jaw working.

He Was Envious and Ashamed of His Doubt, Content that His Lacerated Memory Would Vanish with Him

United's postponed today's game and I expect I'll lose power (baddabing) sometime after six tonight, so hooting! I'll not post until Monday - not that I claim I'm capable of not posting, I hope to not post even though I can - is a hedged bet.

I found myself old-thinking: if this storm wrecks the Metroplex, it is Obama's Katrina, he could PR-propel this as effective compare-contrast, then thought, what the fuck am I doing? There are comment fields in Blegsylvania on which fellowwankers try to out-Hobbes each other to be King of Anarchists, and it angrily amuses me enough to type this sentence, and what the fuck am I doing? I hit publish before this post was finished instead of draft, and what the fuck am I doing?

So much for strangely happy. Until Monday, voluntarily hopefully untainted by unavoidabilty, song, few links, song, poem, song.

• Why Americans won't embrace the Left.
• Marx and communism.
• What is debt?
• Meeting needs.
• Some kind of maxim.
• Prepare thyself.
• Libya there.
• Coil of lies.
• Perpetual war.
• Why Obama's prospects aren't so bad.
• The pick-up artist.
• Friday butterflies. 
• Wire.
• It's alright.

A FELICITOUS LIFE

Czeslaw Milosz

Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee

His old age fell on years of abundant harvest.

There were no earthquakes, droughts or floods.

It seemed as if the turning of the seasons gained in constancy,

Stars waxed strong and the sun increased its might.

Even in remote provinces no war was waged.

Generations grew up friendly to fellow men.

The rational nature of man was not a subject of derision.

It was bitter to say farewell to the earth so renewed.

He was envious and ashamed of his doubt,

Content that his lacerated memory would vanish with him.

Two days after his death a hurricane razed the coasts.

Smoke came from volcanoes inactive for a hundred years.

Lava sprawled over forests, vineyards, and towns.

And war began with a battle on the islands.

The Back Roads I’ve Traveled Late at Night, Alone, a Little Drunk, Wishing I Were Someone on Whom Nothing Is Lost, Are the Roads by Day I take to the Car Wash in Hammonton or to Blue Anchor’s Lawnmower Repair Shop When the Self-Propel Mechanism Goes

Blogfriend and fellowmoco Fish's post reminded me of my favorite post ever, and I'd been thinking of it since Ohio when, yes, I figured out the best backroad route to Bamgier, plus I'm strangely happy between death by earthquake or death by hurricane, plus there was no TNP this week, plus I owe myself a present, plus it was written before I'd driven on the ICC making the post obsolete, plus I need reassert the what the fuck, but mostly because just like the first time I posted this almost two years ago, if don't I don't post in now it'll drive me nuts until whenever:

is the spine of MOCO and the defining highway of my MOCO experience, having grown up in Gaithersburg a quarter mile off 355, now owning a house a half mile from 355 but

is my favorite state road in MOCO, but only west of

where they intersect near Casa Satanica in the Quince Orchard section of Gaithersburg (called by realtors "North Potomac"). 124 has always been an odd, disjointed route, long before the Mid-County Highway was built and 124 re-routed onto it through Montgomery Village (in theory, 124 once ran along Diamond Avenue through Gaithersburg long before there was a Montgomery Village, though there was never any signage as such through Gaithersburg, though there was a shield where the road curved left past Washington Grove and the humpback bridge).  It doesn't really start proper until it interects

near the MOCO Airpark. 115 runs east from 124 as Muncaster Mill Road all the way to

in Norbeck (which is the same 28 but not the same 28 that I love), 300 yards from

in a different country than Muncaster Mill Road started. Anyway

runs north to Damascus as Woodfield Road, past Goshen, home of prebilics and bryds and vetters and Audrey of My Heart's house and terminates at

which is in itself worthy of a future post, a wildly S-shaped route, which from Damascus heads due east then due south and then due east to intersect

in the Dismal Empire of Olney (about three miles north of Norbeck), a town know solely for the traffic jam caused each rush hour by that junction, but what's really odd about

is in Etchison, when it turns due south,

branches off to the east to run for seven drop-dead gorgeous miles to intersect

afterwhich it runs five more drop-dead gorgeous miles to intersect

again, this time in Ashton, where it continues south as New Hampshire Ave. The section between Ashton and Colesville is renowned (locally at least) for its dozens of churches and temples of many different religions and their denominations, and then

continues south through White Oak and then Hillandale, which is as far in my imagination from Dickerson, where my favorite MOCO road

finally reaches the Frederick County line after heading west from

and Casa Satanica, then goes past

which goes west from Darnestown to Seneca Aqueduct and McKee-Beshers Wildlife Reserve, then

which goes north to the horror that is Germantown, then

which goes west from Dawsonville to the foreign country of Poolesville (imagine Burtonsville, imagine Poolesville, figure out the faster route to get from one to the other), then

which isn't 121 anymore, the state giving the section between 28 and Boyds to MOCO to maintain (Boyds home to the now underwater Ten Mile Creek Road, where Willy Bayne in a cocaine and whiskey-fueled fury ran down the cat), then

which runs east to Boyds, then all the way back to Gaithersburg, from Boyds to Gaithersburg called Clopper, then

north from Beallsville to the charmingly otherworldly Barnesville then Comus then Hyattstown where it dead ends at the spine that is

From Beallsville

 

is downhill all the way to Dickerson, where after you go under the railroad bridge to the stop sign, you make a right on Mt Ephraim and go four miles to the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, which is my Olympus.


Tomorrow,

and it's two-named two miles between

and

that might as well be a hundred miles.

Or, now that I've got this out of my system - and here's truth: if I hadn't finally posted this after thinking about it for the past two years off and on and the past week intensely, this would have gnawed at me harder each day until I posted it.

• Yes, I did edit that from the original post. 
• Governments kill.
• Popular rebellions and imperialist designs.
• Send Arthur some coin if you can spare it, please.
• Nothing happened to Howard Dean.
• On the above.
• Libya and the Left.
• Leading from behind.
• Acuity. 
• Responsibility 2 pullyourheadout.
• Electoral effluvient.
• Heh.
• Dickdick.
• Larrydick.
• Fatuous hagiography.
• Would Mother Jones read Mother Jones?
• Credit where due: YFWP publishes Greg Sargent calling George Will a motherfucking cracker liar.
• Little boxes. 
• Holyfuck, read about Ric Flair. More tomorrow, or not.
• Champions League draw:

GROUP A- Bayern Munich, Villarreal, Manchester City, Napoli

GROUP B- Inter Milan, CSKA Moscow, Lille, Trabzonspor

GROUP C- Manchester United, Benfica, Basel, Otelul Galati

GROUP D- Real Madrid, Lyon, Ajax, Dinamo Zagreb

GROUP E- Chelsea, Valencia. Bayer Leverkusen, Genk

GROUP F- Arsenal, Marseille, Olympiakos, Borussia Dortmund

GROUP G- FC Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit St Petersburg, APOEL Nicosia

GROUP H- Barcelona, AC Milan, BATE Borisov, Viktoria Plzen

• Remember, fuck all Italian clubs, Chelsea, both Manchester clubs, all Spanish clubs, Bayern Munich, but especially fuck motherfucking Madrid.
• United's moved it's game to two tomorrow b/c of Irene.
• I haven't stopped reading Gaddis, I just haven't had a chance to read in the past week for various reasons - I suspect I'll have lots of time this weekend, and I've batteries for the flashlights.
• On MFAs.
• New Bill Callahan!
• Yes, second time this post (there might be third):

BEYOND HAMMONDTON

Stephen Dunn

     Night is longing, longing, longing, 

     beyond all endurance.

          —Henry Miller

The back roads I’ve traveled late   

at night, alone, a little drunk,   

wishing I were someone

on whom nothing is lost,

are the roads by day I take

to the car wash in Hammonton   

or to Blue Anchor’s

lawnmower repair shop

when the self-propel mechanism goes.

Fascinating how the lamplight   

that’s beckoned

from solitary windows

gives way to white shutters

and occasionally a woman

in her yard, bending over

something conspicuously in bloom.

So much then is duty, duty, duty,   

and so much

with the sun visor tilted

and destination known

can be endured.

But at night . . . no, even at night   

so much can be endured.

I’ve known only one man   

who left the road,

followed an intriguing light   

to its source.

He told me

that he knocked many times   

before it became clear to him   

he must break down the door.

Correct Answers: C, D, D, B, B, A, B, A, A, C, B, B, B, C, B, D, B, D, C.

I hadn't thought about Stu Spasm and Lubricated Goat in a dozen years until Irwin played Stu's Thunderball cover at precisely the microsecond I needed to laugh out loud in a cumulative kaboom, a cleansing bwack, a shut-the-front-door snort.

Good day. I've remembered Lubricated Goat. My daughter is strong and brave. I'm increasingly convinced Woof is a wondercat. I've got a date Friday night to eat the best Indian food in Mocoland and then see a movie. I'm gonna STAND! for United with three of my favorite people in a hurricane Saturday night. I'm not urped, this second, with a trapped laugh of complicit guilt in any of my worlds. Castigate me.

• War on the poor.
• Worshiping the status quo.
• Obamadick.
• Obamadick.
• Pwoggle's lament.
• Dickdick.
• Dickdick. Reading club?
• People, get ready:

• Enjoy! It's gonna be crackers!
• It will be Perry for the simple reason that crackers think he'll make pwoggle heads explode the most.
• In retrospect, one of the major reasons I supported Obama over HRC was because I thought he'd make cracker heads explode the most.
• Crackerstan. 
• 2012.
• Fighting the backlash.
• Fracking? 
• He gets letters.
• Miscellany.
• Dang. He was on the mound often when I was at Memorial often.
• Have you lost your emu?
• Silliman's always generous lit-links. 
• Hav? Anybody?
• Mining the audio motherlode.
• Mythologies.
• Gargoyles.
• Promised Land.
• Shut Your Mind.
• The Goats always reminded me of The Verbs.
• Holyfuck, I love The Verbs.

QUIZ

Linh Dinh

Invaders invariably call themselves:

a) berserkers
b) marauders
c) frankincense
d) liberators

Our enemies hate us because:

a) we’re sadists
b) we’re hypocrites
c) we shafted them
d) we value freedom

Our friends hate us because:

a) we’re bullies
b) we hate them
c) we’re hypocrites
d) we value freedom

Pushed to the ground and kicked by a gang of soldiers, about to be shot, you can save your life by brandishing:

a) an uzi
b) a crucifix
c) the Constitution
d) a poem

A poem can:

a) start a war
b) stanch a wound
c) titillate the masses
d) shame a nation

Poets are:

a) clowns
b) parasites
c) legislators
d) terrorists

A nation’s standing in the world is determined by:

a) its buying power
b) its military might
c) its cultural heritage
d) God

A country is rich because of:

a) its enlightened population
b) its political system
c) its small stick
d) its geography

A country is poor because of:

a) its ignorant population
b) its political system
c) its small stick
d) its geography

A man’s dignity is determined by:

a) his appearance (skin color, height, etc)
b) his willingness to use violence
c) his command of English
d) his blue passport

Those willing to die for their beliefs are:

a) idealists
b) terrorists
c) suckers
d) insane

Those willing to die for nothing are:

a) principled
b) patriotic
c) insane
d) cowards

Terrorists:

a) abuse language
b) hit and run
c) shock and awe
d) rely on ingenuity

Smart weapons:

a) render hopeless and dormant kinetic objects
b) kill softly
c) save lives
d) slaughter by science

Pain is:

a) payback for evil-doers
b) a common misfortune
c) compelling drama
d) suck it up!

Humiliation is:

a) the ultimate thrill for bored perverts
b) inevitable in an unequal relationship
c) a fear factor
d) sexy and cathartic

The media’s job is:

a) to seduce
b) to spread
c) to sell
d) to drug

The Internet:

a) allows us to be pure minds
b) connects us to distant bodies
c) disconnects us from the nearest minds and bodies
d) improves illiteracy

Pornography is:

a) a lie that exposes the truth
b) a needed breather from civilization
c) class warfare
d) nostalgia for the garden of Eden



Correct answers: c,d,d,b,b,a,b,a,a,c,b,b,b,c,b,d,b,d,c.
—If you scored 14-19, you’re a well adjusted person, a home-owner, with and income of at least $50,000 a year.
—If you scored 8-13, you either rent or live with your parents, never exercise, and consume at least a 6-pack a day.
—if you scored 7 or less, you’re in trouble with the FBI and/or the IRS, cut your own hair, and use public transit as your primary mode of transportation.

Theme Song August 24, 2011 15:34 EDT

Of the Helmet, I Remember the Webbed, Inner Liner, a Brittle Plastic Underwear on Which Wobbled the Crushing Steel Pot Then Strapped at the Chin

The first place I go at morning's first surf isn't you, I'm sorry, it's Uni*Watch. I hate the fucking Red Sox, but when they went back to the road grays with black Boston after the garish red, that's how to feed generations, the self-entitled fucks. There's nothing I'd rather talk about than uniforms: that's why all I talk about are uniforms.

I'm old, I think selling the same shirt for half a century is good marketing. Apostasies ripple out from the younger to the older. I think the new uniforms suck, and I have no vested interest in Maryland except having rooted for them for forty years (it will be ten years ago this April that Maryland won the NCAA Basketball Championship, and I remember being pleased), and YAY! for Maryland! They weren't selling product before and weren't bringing in enough $$$$ before: I'd take the fucking money too, and so would you, loyalty to a brand's brand being, what's the word, fungible.

• The illusion of asymmetric insight.
• Ecological purity.
• Sweet and lowdown.
• Democracy: what is it good for?
• French-cup cowboy.
• The eternal ooga-booga.
• Obamadick.
• Bold.
• Obamadick.
• Stupidest Obama shill on the planet.
• Half-assed is as half-assed does.
• On the above, and more.
• If Cüneyt was a Libyan rebel.
• More slapping Zizek.
• To the pissing match! Go, Charlie.
• War is the new normal.

• My future hell.
• Homage to Sharon Stone.
• This week's new releases.
• Stream Stephin Merritt's new release of obscurities?
• Meanwhile, major John Martyn fix being fed.
• Dusty.

THE UNIFORM

Marvin Bell

Of the sleeves, I remember their weight, like wet wool,

on my arms, and the empty ends which hung past my hands.   

Of the body of the shirt, I remember the large buttons   

and larger buttonholes, which made a rack of wheels   

down my chest and could not be quickly unbuttoned.   

Of the collar, I remember its thickness without starch,

by which it lay against my clavicle without moving.   

Of my trousers, the same—heavy, bulky, slow to give   

for a leg, a crowded feeling, a molasses to walk in.   

Of my boots, I remember the brittle soles, of a material   

that had not been made love to by any natural substance,   

and the laces: ropes to make prisoners of my feet.   

Of the helmet, I remember the webbed, inner liner,   

a brittle plastic underwear on which wobbled

the crushing steel pot then strapped at the chin.   

Of the mortar, I remember the mortar plate,

heavy enough to kill by weight, which I carried by rope.   

Of the machine gun, I remember the way it fit

behind my head and across my shoulder blades   

as I carried it, or, to be precise, as it rode me.

Of tactics, I remember the likelihood of shooting

the wrong man, the weight of the rifle bolt, the difficulty   

of loading while prone, the shock of noise.

For earplugs, some used cigarette filters or toilet paper.   

I don’t hear well now, for a man of my age,

and the doctor says my ears were damaged and asks   

if I was in the Army, and of course I was but then   

a wounded eardrum wasn’t much in the scheme.

In Which I Briefly Entertain for the First Time in Decades the Possibility of a Just God and His Righteous Vengeance

 

This yesterday, earthquake today. Coincidence or divine warning?

UPDATE! God's real target.

Now that Everyone Who Yearned to Wear Long Pants Has Essentially Achieved Them, Long Pants, which Have Themselves Been Underwear Repeatedly, and Underground More than Once, It Is Time Perhaps to Cherish the Culture of Shorts

Resuming regular programming: I don't know what to do with Fleabus photos. What can I post? There won't be any new ones until Thanksgiving and probably not then, and to be honest, Fleabus' official photographer hasn't produced any new photos the wow of the old photos in a year or two, and YAY! FOR HER! she's brave and strong now for having gone out with friends instead of staying at home and taking Fleabus photos then! She txtd excitedly last night, on her first day of true adulthood and independence, she's having a blast.

Earthgirl's an artist, Planet's an artist, I'm a shitty poet - you do know these are poems, yes? - and I take photos of Fleabus too but because of my sillyass self-straitjacketing code of bleggal ethics can only post photos I've taken of Napoleon or Frankie or Creamy or Momcat or Sarah or Jess or Woof or Moo or the Cuddle-Slut Orange Cat of Middle Path, yes? with the above and below exceptions:

• If pictures were arguments.
• Sliding into slaughter.
• August in Tripoli.
• On libertarians.
• On Zizek once, twice. Long-timers here can vouch I've been calling Zizek the preeminent fraud and con-man of Pwoggle Township for years even while admitting he could beat me in a game of subject/object//object/subject/object, as can anybody (though I refuse to play).
• Commence fake outrage!
• Of the Tea Party, by the Tea Party, for the Tea Party.
• Pastor Sanctiomonius says love your theocrats.
• Ryan says no, pig-jeebus still sought.
• Screw you.
• Austerity kills.
• Of course. 
• Tiny watershed? 
• Obamadick.
• The further delusions of Tony Blair.
• Libya.
• Revolutionary loaves.
• Clown suits for whores. 

• On the above.
• Gah is dead. The two people who complained the white on noxzema bottle blue hurt their eyes have decided I'm not worth reading in any format, so fuck that.
• A special circle of Hell.
• I confess I've tried reading Revolutionary Road countless times, and nope.
• The organized efforts of the program.
• Haven't read anything since Thursday. Gaddis resumes soon (I hope).
• Motherfucking shoot me.
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
• I like good pop songs. Vilify me!
• Wonder why.
• I love this song, no matter who's covering it. Ostracize me!
• Countdown.
• Pseu put many of today's songs in my head, including this almost perfect pop song (45 seconds too long, yo, make me want to here it again now).
• More than fine.
• I like solo Lindsey Buckingham. Berate me!

THE DREAM OF WEARING SHORTS FOREVER

Les Murray

To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass, 

to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches, 

or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah - 

If the cardinal points of costume
are Robes, Tat, Rig and Scunge,
where are shorts in this compass? 

They are never Robes
as other bareleg outfits have been:
the toga, the kilt, the lava-lava
the Mahatma's cotton dhoti; 

archbishops and field marshals
at their ceremonies never wear shorts.
The very word
means underpants in North America. 

Shorts can be Tat,
Land-Rovering bush-environmental tat,
socio-political ripped-and-metal-stapled tat,
solidarity-with-the-Third World tat tvam asi, 

likewise track-and-field shorts worn to parties
and the further humid, modelling negligee
of the Kingdom of Flaunt,
that unchallenged aristocracy. 

More plainly climatic, shorts
are farmers' rig, leathery with salt and bonemeal;
are sailors' and branch bankers' rig,
the crisp golfing style
of our youngest male National Costume. 

Most loosely, they are Scunge,
ancient Bengal bloomers or moth-eaten hot pants
worn with a former shirt,
feet, beach sand, hair
and a paucity of signals. 

Scunge, which is real negligee
housework in a swimsuit, pyjamas worn all day,
is holiday, is freedom from ambition.
Scunge makes you invisible
to the world and yourself. 

The entropy of costume,
scunge can get you conquered by more vigorous cultures
and help you notice it less. 

To be or to become
is a serious question posed by a work-shorts counter
with its pressed stack, bulk khaki and blue,
reading Yakka or King Gee, crisp with steely warehouse odour. 

Satisfied ambition, defeat, true unconcern,
the wish and the knack of self-forgetfulness
all fall within the scunge ambit
wearing board shorts of similar;
it is a kind of weightlessness. 

Unlike public nakedness, which in Westerners
is deeply circumstantial, relaxed as exam time,
artless and equal as the corsetry of a hussar regiment, 

shorts and their plain like
are an angelic nudity,
spirituality with pockets!
A double updraft as you drop from branch to pool! 

Ideal for getting served last
in shops of the temperate zone
they are also ideal for going home, into space,
into time, to farm the mind's Sabine acres
for product and subsistence. 

Now that everyone who yearned to wear long pants
has essentially achieved them,
long pants, which have themselves been underwear
repeatedly, and underground more than once,
it is time perhaps to cherish the culture of shorts, 

to moderate grim vigour
with the knobble of bare knees,
to cool bareknuckle feet in inland water,
slapping flies with a book on solar wind
or a patient bare hand, beneath the cadjiput trees, 

to be walking meditatively
among green timber, through the grassy forest
towards a calm sea
and looking across to more of that great island
and the further tropics.