Monday, July 6, 2015

A Slipped Disc, and There Is Nothing More Painful




I have been using the same green 174 gram champ plastic Roc since 2005. Drivers change - now, for instance, I've a Leopard for straight (or as straight as I'm able) and anhyzer forehands, Sidewinder for distance and fade, Beast for hyzer forehands: none but the Beast have been in the bag more than three years. Putters/approach change - my pink/red Aviar w the Missing Low Is Lame sticker remains, but for short ups I've used Darts and Aeros too. The only midrange I've used for the past ten years is my favorite disc ever, my green 174 gram champ plastic roc. I left it on the course a weekend ago. Walked to disc three feet from basket, putted the Aviar, walked away from the Roc at my feet. What a stupid motherfucker. Discovered it missing this past Friday in the parking lot of Seneca. It wasn't in the bag. I tore my car apart looking for it. It had my name and email and phone number sharpied on the bottom, but of course whichever fucker picked it up and put in his or her bag won't contact me. I'm going to drive to the Park Office today and see if someone turned it in, a hopeless journey but one I need to make. (UPDATE: No one did. Fuckers everywhere. Fuckers.) I had a second roc - same weight, same plastic - in the second bag, but it's not broken in, hasn't had the fade knocked out of it by ten years of hitting trees and skimming off rocks. I rarely get bone-deep pissed off at myself. I am bone-deep pissed off at myself. I can't remember the last time I was so bone-deep pissed off at myself. Nothing pisses me off at myself more than being pissed off at myself. This past Friday I left myself thirteen twenty-footers when substitute Roc faded when old Roc would have parked. Yesterday I left myself fifteen twenty-footers when substitute Roc faded when old Roc would have parked. Each time, Fuck me. As always, fine metaphors abound.







  • Basinski hasn't help diminish my anger at myself, though it's beautiful anyway.
  • Ixnay!
  • Consequences of the No: I think it’s the winner’s curse: Neoliberalism (and austerity is part of the neoliberal project), has been winning for so long that those who came of age and rose to power during it (essentially all our central bankers, technocrats, and politicians) cannot imagine it would ever lose. The look of incredulity is that of the three hundred pound bully when a 90 pound weakling doesn’t buckle.
  • Greece helped Deutschland recover post-WW2.
  • Fuck Deutschland: When I hear that the Germans maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: What a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.
  • UPDATE! Motherfucking German copyright pigs have blocked the above, not that you were going to link on it anyway.
  • Pssst. Deutschland is a Triskelion proxy.
  • What he's trying to figure out.
  • Why you're not leaving London.
  • Maggie's weekly links.
  • { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
  • Understanding phenomenology via baseball.
  • Joshua Cohen, a novelist I need to try.
  • Actually, Basinski and dark moods feed the other. In a good and magical way.








A WEDDING

James Tate

She was in terrible pain the whole day,
as she had been for months: a slipped disc,   
and there is nothing more painful. She

herself was a nurse’s aide, also a poet   
just beginning to make a name for her   
nom de plume. As with most things in life,

it happened when she was changing channels   
on her television. The lucky man, on the other   
hand, was smiling for the first time

in his life, and it was fake. He was
an aspiring philosopher of dubious potential,   
very serious, but somehow lacking in

essential depth. He could have been
an adequate undertaker. It was not the first   
time for either of them. It was a civil

service, with no music, few flowers.   
Still, there was a slow and erratic tide
of champagne—corks shot clear into the trees.

And flashcubes, instant photos, some blurred   
and some too revealing, cake slices that aren’t   
what they were meant to be. The bride slept

through much of it, and never did we figure out   
who was on whose team. I think the groom   
meant it in the end when he said, “We never

thought anyone would come.” We were not the first   
to arrive, nor the last to leave. Who knows,   
it may all turn out for the best. And who

really cares about such special days, they   
are not what we live for.



4 comments:

  1. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    The Wedding-Day
    From The Courtship Of Miles Standish



    This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.
    Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also
    Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the Gospel,
    One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.
    Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.
    Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,
    Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate's presence,
    After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.
    Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth
    Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in affection,
    Speaking of life and of death, and imploring divine benedictions.

    Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,
    Clad in armor of steel, a sombre and sorrowful figure!
    Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?
    Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?
    Is it a phantom of air,--a bodiless, spectral illusion?
    Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?
    Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;
    Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression
    Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them,
    As when across the sky the driving rack of the rain-cloud
    Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by its brightness.
    Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,
    As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention.
    But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,
    Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement
    Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!
    Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with emotion, "Forgive me!
    I have been angry and hurt,--too long have I cherished the feeling;
    I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.
    Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,
    Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.
    Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden."
    Thereupon answered the bridegroom: "Let all be forgotten between us,--
    All save the dear, old friendship, and that shall grow older and dearer!"
    Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,
    Gravely, and after the manner of old-fashioned gentry in England,
    Something of camp and of court, of town and of country, commingled,
    Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.
    Then he said with a smile: "I should have remembered the adage,--
    If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and moreover,
    No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!"

    Great was the people's amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,
    Thus to behold once more the sun-burnt face of their Captain,
    Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,
    Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,
    Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,
    Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,
    He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,
    Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WHITE AS THE MOON'S DISK OF SILVER

    Midway the floor (with thatch was it strewn) burned ever the fire-flame
    Glad on its stone-built hearth; and thorough the wide-mouthed smoke-flue
    Looked the stars, those heavenly friends, down into the great hall.
    Round the walls, upon nails of steel, were hanging in order
    Breastplate and helmet together, and here and there among them
    Downward lightened a sword, as in winter evening a star shoots.
    More than helmets and swords the shields in the hall were resplendent,
    White as the orb of the sun, or white as the moon’s disk of silver.
    Ever and anon went a maid round the board, and filled up the drink-horns,
    Ever she cast down her eyes and blushed; in the shield her reflection
    Blushed, too, even as she; this gladdened the drinking champions.

    FROM Passages from Frithiof’s Saga - I. Frithiof’s Homestead by Esaias Tegnér
    translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    ReplyDelete
  3. In my day, you had one Frisbee & you made it work—short or long. Hell, I still play golf with wooden woods. I hit tennis balls with a wooden racquet. I hit fungos with a wooden bat. I still ride a 10-speed where the gears are separate from the brakes. And swim without fins and hand-plates.

    Moral: Use the opportunity to improve your technique, not bemoan your (lost) technology.

    Sorry. You wanted sympathy & I'm being a crotchety old asshole. Sorry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See, I'm mad and sad the disc is gone - I suck, I lose discs all the time deep into tick-ridden rough, and think fuck: this loss is a FUCK ME. And beyond, of course, it's proxying for other stuff. See last sentence of monologue.

      No sympathy was solicited. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I'm mad at myself.

      Delete