Monday, November 18, 2013

Here's a Guess: We Will Sit on a Wooden Lawn-Chair in the Sun, and We Will Like It





Do people click all the links? Do they listen to all the songs? K asked me Saturday night at a Saturday Night Edition of Thursday Night Pints. I know, I said, some regularly do, most don't though I'd guess more click through to the links than listen to the music, I have one good friend who tells me he never listens to the music. L said, depends on the music for me, the experimental music, fuck that. That ended this week's questions about this blog. Minor wonderment at obamaclusterfuck that handed the GOP a lifeline after the GOP had its ass clocked in kabukifuck re: Obama's incompetence: real, fake, death to the Either/Or. L said, I've never seen incompetence so competently executed, it must be by design. Design, I said, as in Battling Tops. Huh? said K. He's old, said L. More music you don't like Sunday, I said to L, you'll like Monday's.






  • And she will.
  • The business of free speech: Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from the consequences of speech. Freedom of speech is not a protection against people telling you that your views are hateful. Freedom of speech doesn’t oblige other people or organizations to support you in your privileged position as a broadcaster, or journalist, or blogger. Freedom of speech isn’t a guarantee of permanent employment when the thing you are selling is your opinion, nor does freedom of speech compel the public to buy said opinion from you.
  • New Inquiry's Sunday readings.
  • A pandemonium of word demons.
  • The staying away.
  • Emotional.
  • The NYT obit for Lessing. She was someone who I always liked what she was saying better than I liked the way she said it.
  • List of Lessing links.
  • Bump: I've still three tickets to Bonnie Prince Billy in Annapolis on Thursday that I cannot use and the YOU CAN HAVE FOR FREE.
  • Iva Bittova documentary.
  • Feldman and Beckett (yes, again) for those of you who do.






IN A LANDSCAPE: IV

John Gallaher

Now the scene changes, we say, and the next few years 
are quiet. It's another curse, the inverse of the "interesting times" 
the Chinese were said to go on so about. Nevertheless, there it is, 
as the emptiness needs a something in order to be defined as empty, 
which means we spend the next few years talking about other years, 
as if that's what's important. Maybe that is what's important. It was terrible, 
the hospital stay. The children. Not the children in the abstract way, 
but those times worried that this would go wrong, or that, and then things 
do go wrong and it almost feels like we'd wished for it to happen, 
so not only do we have to go through this terrible time, but we also 
have to keep reminding ourselves that we didn't wish for it. It's Problem 
One. And there's our two-year-old son strapped to a board with an IV, crying. 

And doesn't it feel like a formal device then? As if expecting it 
were the same--or is the same--as willing it, but then almost willing it anyway, 
saying something like, "Please God, or whomever, get it over with already . . ." 
if the world isn't going to be a museum only, as museums keep calling out 
that there's so much more to find in the past, like ourselves, for instance. 
The simplification of our forms. The question of why it might be important 
to save our dinnerware, or Yo-yos. We have these accidents 
in common: last night I was pulling a filing cabinet upstairs on a hand truck, 
and at the 90 degree turn it fell on top of me and I had to hold it like that, 
one wheel on the stair, one in mid-air. So I had some time on my hands, 
waiting for Robin to get home. They say that if you relax, lying there 
is 80% as restful as sleep. And knowing how to relax is key, they say. 

Here's a guess: we will sit on a wooden lawn-chair in the sun, and we 
will like it. We will run the numbers and think it sounds like a good 
proposition. We will consult a map, even ask directions. The sun's 
out right now, in fact, and it's all a matter of doing the next big thing. 
Driving home, say. And then it's a manner of having done something. 
Driving past the car wash. Yes, forcing a matter of doing the next 
thing, which is filling out the accident report, while the old man 
who hit my pickup is crying in the street. And then I'm walking around, 
picking up the fender and light pieces and putting them in the bed.



4 comments:

  1. re Lessing

    last week i was reading Jacob Needleman's A Little Book on Love, later revised and republished as The Wisdom of Love: Toward a Shared Inner Search

    he states, pp 12-13,

    "According to this ancient vision, the universe has far more in it than the kind of entities that modern science can see or infer. There are layers of laws and influences that enclose us the way that a great organism 'encloses; the cells and tissues within it, and that support or oppose us in ways that we cannot perceive with the senses. This 'vertical' structure of the cosmos is spoken of mythically in all cultures: in the angels and devils of the Semitic religions, in the gods of ancient Egypt and Greece, in the thousands and millions of Hindu deities and demons, in the cosmic protectors and destroyers of Buddhism, in the spirit forces of Native American, African, and other teachings tof the world's peoples. In philosophical language, this vertical cosmos may be characterized, as was done by Plato in the Greek world or by Maimonides in the world of medieval Judaism, as a universe of levels of consciousness and will, a universe populated by intermediate levels between mankind and the Absolute God."

    as i read that, i recalled that i have long intended to read Doris Lessing's novel Shikasta, which deals with these issues (see the Wikipedia article, which i have read)

    now she has died - i've dug out my copy

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  2. Iva Bittova doco? Wow, I had no idea. Many thanks.

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  3. re: Your today's point — I tend to look to the PR value of controversy. You know, like Kayfabe and studio wrestling. You know, Kim or Kanye diss a former friend and everybody splashes around in all the free ink. All this foofaraw about ACA serves to what? draw attention to itself, no? A smooth, quiet rollout would garner way less press. And peoples would not be pressing their ignorant, un(der)insured noses to its window to see what's there to (ridicule, criticize, hate on, and, oh wow what a bargain!) buy. Haters gonna' hate.

    That may be making lemonade out of whatever. But something this big needs a major publicity campaign. And what garners publicity more than a good time-delimited spat. You've always made this point, to wit: Obama is just doing what Corporate wants him to do, and he's doing it the way they want, to wit: drawing attention to the great new insurance boondoggle. But, again, you know that, you cynic you.

    "Jimmy Snuka, you're going down, brother, Yeahhhh!!!"

    "Boooooooh. Hissssss. You suck."

    So, is it incompetence when Ric Flair runs away like the cowardly pussy everybody believes him to be from losing a preliminary broadcast televised bout against the Challenger he will face (and cheat to beat) next month in SUPERWRESTLEFESTMANIA XVIV!!! that everyone wants him to lose?

    But wait. This is your argument, no?

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