Monday, June 12, 2017

A Face I Dread to See, So Vain It Is, So Eloquent of All Futility



  • In Catoctin, missed a root, broke my fall with my face. That black clot mid-forehead? Is actually a small rock that reached skull, didn't figure that out until I was home two hours later cleaning myself up.
  • Ouch, and today is going to suck, but nothing compared to Earthgirl's knees.
  • On the way to Catoctin I put on my sunglasses and remembered I hate my sunglasses, thought, I'm tired of the narrow window of my regular glasses, the progressives, next time I get a new pair I'll get a new pair of sunglasses too, once Planet graduates from grad school.
  • Planet and Air were on the hike! Yay!
  • Air has been on two hikes with me. The first I broke my left big toe's nail, the second I broke my face.
  • I pick up my new glasses this afternoon. No new sunglasses. Planet is still in grad school. 
  • Blessed Serendipity fucks you, you don't fuck Blessed Serendipity.
  • This is one of my favorite posts ever, consigning it therefore to being one of the least read.
  • A spider I met twenty minutes before I fell.




  • Real size. Thunder, what kind is it?
  • RIP, Adam West.
  • Let's get lit.
  • Genocidal Culture Busker Haircut #16.
  • Maggie's weekly links.
  • time of hope.
  • Premature bleggalcide.
  • feuilleton }'s weekly links.
  • US 15 in Frederick County Maryland through Frederick and north to Pennsylvania is equal to Beltway rollercoaster for (a) doing speed limit for own safety (b) fearing assholes.
  • US 15 through Frederick County, below Devilbiss Bridge Road and through Frederick, one of the most dangerous roads I've ever driven, worse since they started fixing in back in 1946.
  • UPDATE! Think I-70 between New Stanton and West Virginia border scary shitty.
  • Which makes assholes bigger assholes as non-assholes slow down cause road is shitty.
  • 15 and Hayward, a catastrophic accident every other month, bad accidents daily.
  • Every motherfucking other post reminder: do the speed limit to watch the people who don't. 
  • We are being reprogrammed, which isn't why I fell on my face. 






THE FACE

Stevie Smith

There is a face I know too well,   
A face I dread to see,
So vain it is, so eloquent
Of all futility.

It is a human face that hides
A monkey soul within,
That bangs about, that beats a gong,   
That makes a horrid din.

Sometimes the monkey soul will sprawl   
Athwart the human eyes,
And peering forth, will flesh its pads,   
And utter social lies.

So wretched is this face, so vain,   
So empty and forlorn,
You well may say that better far   
This face had not been born.



8 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks, though Earthgirl's fall was three years ago. She's better now.

      Her bruises were far more rainbow beautiful than mine.

      Delete
  2. 1)you may or may not notice a salutory effect from listening to todd rundgren's song/guided meditation "healing"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUk1CTLeuLE

    1a)as i recall, joe walsh has spoken favorably of the album it's on

    1b)i don't recall any favorable remarks by you about joe walsh

    2)better far this face had not been born

    i am reminded of something 'Spengler' put in his September 18, 2007 Asia Times column:

    >>What makes the Jews different is their unique belief that the Covenant gives them eternal life, a belief grounded, to be sure, by thousands of years of history, and survival against all odds against the depredations of the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Alexandrine and Roman empires, not to mention more recent unpleasantness. It is not changing the baby's diapers or changing grandma's bedpan to which the Jews refer when they speak of delight in life, but rather the idealized, perpetual life of a kinship community.

    As for the ordinary sort of life, the Jews tell nastier jokes about it than anyone else. But even in the banal sort of jokes that they tell to one another, the Jews take the perpetuity of their existence to be self-evident.

    One joke that circulates in many versions involves two elderly Jews deep in conversation. One says, "Life is so painful, joy is so short, pain is so long, that we would be better off dead than alive!" The second Jew says, "You are right." The first adds, "Even better than to be dead would never to be born!" To which the second responds, "But who has such luck? Not one in ten thousand!" <<

    this line also appears in Woody Allen's movie Match Point, which is NOT a comedy

    'Spengler' has decloaked as David Goldman, a name which suggests his comments about Jews are not from the outside looking in



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This sentence constitutes the sum total of thought I've given to Joe Walsh.

      Delete
    2. That was harsher than I meant it to sound, sorry. I mean, it's true, but I could have been more Kind.

      Delete
    3. You may not be aware that he and Ringo Starr are married to sisters

      Delete
    4. https://www.gibson.com/news-lifestyle/features/en-us/clevelandrocks5essentiala.aspx

      includes both pere ubu and joe walsh's early band james gang

      Delete