Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Quick, If You Find It, Hide It




My evening welcome home committee. Earthgirl leaves the front door open, when I horn-honk my car doors locked Napoleon and MomCat and Frankie come running from wherever in the yard, Rosie (on the left), Stanley, and Fleabus come running to the door: this is the look they give me while I pet Napoleon, night after night. This photo taken this past weekend, could have been last night. Last night's greeting broke my bad mood.

This morning, an epiphany: Donald Trump and Jonah Goldberg are trolling each other on twitter. This is a perfect example of why I need to not only stop pretending I don't enjoy engaging the clusterfuck, I need to stop believing that I should strive to quit engaging the clusterfuck. It's truly believing I should stop engaging the clusterfuck and forcing myself to pretend that I am disengaging that's creating this seemingly perpetual bad mood. I'm Kinder to people, Kinder to myself, when pissed at the clusterfuck than pissed at myself for lameasssquelching my mwah gah at the clusterfuck. Be forewarned: more on this soon in one format or another.








  • That was put in my head by a friend with a shitty boss.
  • Oh, and be Kind to each other, fellow motherfuckers.
  • UPDATE! Fish lives, bitches about something.
  • Admit it: you want to see how far this goes.
  • Turbulence and serenity (Van Gogh).
  • Fundraiser for motherfucking cops indicted in Freddie Gray murder to feature blackface performer.
  • It will not surprise you that motherfucking cops edited the Sandra Bland video.
  • UPDATE! Motherfucking cops.
  • UPDATE! Friend whose brother is a cop sends email, says she would remove the words motherfucking cop from blog, says her brother tells her if cops see cop-bashing in social media and know or figure out identity of person the cops put a tag on drivers records, and when the motherfucking cops are running license plate numbers and see you've that tag, some minor traffic violation will descend upon you. Friend is true, brother a motherfucking cop is true, whether the motherfucking cops story is true or full of shit, who knows.
  • UPDATE! Motherfucking cops.
  • Wesley Clark's WW2 detention camp for Nazis.
  • In which I am convinced to try J.G. Ballard (after failing him decades ago).
  • RIP E.L. Doctorow. It's probably been twenty-five years since I read any, and I remember liking but not loving, but his death needs noticing.
  • RIP Dieter Moebius.








AGAINST EPIPHANY

Fred Marchant

What god was it that would open
earth’s picture book and see the two
of us on a road, snowfields glittering
on every side and poplars bent like
the fingers of an old man clutching
what he loved about the sun?
Which one was it that would peer
into our thatched, white-washed
farmhouse, and see the fur, flies,
and shit-stained walls? Which one
laughed at the barbed wire fences,
the wall topped with broken glass?
Which of the many who came then,
gleaming and rimed in hard sunlight?
Which of those who bobbed like ice
along the winter shore? What did
we have that any god would want?
Quick, if you can find it, hide it.



3 comments:

  1. your welcoming committee reminds me of my pau, now resting in peace in the back yard - he would always come to the door and recline to be petted whenever i came home

    my remaining feline companion dinah does not do this, but shows her desire for my affection in other ways

    i think of whitman's "i could go and live with the animals..."

    although we say dogs have masters and cats have staff, we are like gods even to our cats, in terms of our powers over their existence, despite our inability to command them - i think this responsibility has made me a better person - if you doubt that, keep in mind that you don't know the baseline i started from

    which leads to my comment on marchant's poem - the gods of whom he speaks, who observe us and covet our stuff, are small gods - nothing like the panentheistic creative forces of the universe, within whom we live and move and have our being - as paul told the athenians, quoting epimenides

    with regard to epiphany, i suggest listening to todd rundgren's song

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp4hrQRSiuM

    ReplyDelete
  2. and the title of the next post at this blog (for which commenting facilities are not available) reminds me of the following passages - worth considering again, despite their previous appearance here

    Rabbi Jack Moline: Rabbi Simcha Bunam used to say, "Every person should have two pockets. In one, [there should be a note that says] bishvili nivra ha'olam, 'for my sake was the world created.' In the second, [there should be a note that says] anokhi afar va'efer, 'I am dust and ashes.' One must know how to use them, each one in its proper place and right time. For many make the mistake of using them in their opposite applications." That is to say, too often, when we should be acknowledging our arrogance, we are defending it. And when we should be overcoming our self-denigration, we are confirming it.

    Jacob Needleman, Money and the Meaning of Life: "A Freudian psychoanalyst once summed up to me his vision of the human condition by saying that man is not as bad as he thinks he is, nor can he become as good as he dreams of becoming. The assumption of this book is precisely the opposite of the psychoanalytic view: man is in far worse condition than he believes, but he can become far greater than he imagines."

    Jeffrey M. Schwartz, A Return to Innocence: Philosophical guidance in an age of cynicism: "We often hear the phrase 'Knowledge is power' -- but nowhere is it truer than when it comes to knowledge of ourselves."





    ReplyDelete