Monday, April 21, 2025

Finish Your Children. Adopt an Injury

Three years ago yesterday Nap died. I was Nap's human. Not a day goes by I don't think of him, I think of him every time I climb up or down the steps from my house to the road, he'd sit in my lap when I sat on the top step. Since then, two more cats who considered me their human have died, Momcat and Fleabus. I know few greater joys than being a cat's chosen human. We have three cats still, down from eight four years ago, and I like Stanley and love Rosie and love Olive but my wife is Stanley and Rosie's human and my daughter Olive's, they like me but

Every animal we've housed in the 39 years L & I have been together, cat and dog, found us and saved us, not us them, but no cat or dog has found us now in over a decade. I thought one had in Michigan earlier this April, a black kitten playing on the side of Tophith Rd near Munith, I stopped my car three straight days, it ran to me each day and purred in my arms, on the third day I took a box, on the third day it wore a collar and a tag. I still need rescuing. I'm a hot-mess. Iggy won't save me, not even today on his 78th birthday




Sideways too, I'm soaking in it, Madge. Will I be eating catfood in Magamerica before I can feed it to a cat that adopted me? Will I ever be able to go to a shelter and rescue an animal but have nightmares for years thinking of all the animals I did not take home, who plead with me with their eyes to save them? That won't save me. Neither will The Cure, but today is Robert Smith's 66 birthday, he's four months and a week older than me




Can a fascist dictatorship really be executed by morons?
An Exploration of power, ignorance and stupidity
"If the j*stices wanted the pr*sident to bring back K*lmar Abr*go G*rcia, they know what words to use. They didn’t use them.
Am*rican C*ncentration C*mps
The U.S. Ruling Class and the Tr*mp Regime
Corporate Lawlessness Comes Next
On the animating fetishes of the Trump administration
The Death-Cult Logic of the Billi*naire Mind
P*t*r Th**l’s Spy Company Gets Into Bed With 1CE
Tr*mp's will be doneShitlords turning on Tr*mp?
Tr*mp and the b*lli*n*iresFury at shitlords
"hey man can you hold this gun for a sec? make sure to grip it so your fingerprints really get on there"
Today in My Complicity viz Shitlords: Glenstone is amazing (and free), we're going this week
"Only days left to stop a t*talit*rian state in the US"
Welcome to the Chaoscene
"If the cultural landscape is nurtured and defined by the marketplace, the academy, and the web of monied foundations and institutions that make up the professionalized cultural economy, then there will always be a degree of inescapable dissonance for the leftist artist, and for the leftist writer and poet, like myself. But that dissonance is instructive or, at least, it should be. The coercive and conditional nature of the market, the academic institution, the prestigious foundation is designed to discipline the left-wing artist, and persuade them to construct a creative self that is ultimately conducive to and dependent on that capitalist, careerist terrain. At best, it simply tames or otherwise neutralizes any such dissonance. At worst, it enlists the leftist artist to construct a bastardized, supervised dissonance that instead survives, reinforces, and stabilizes the very structures that should be troubled. A dissonance that is decorative, observational, permanently underdeveloped, and loudly commodified."
Israel burns 8 children to death in Gaza ‘safe zone’
"For this to have been a deliberate act — which it plainly was — consider what that means. A person within the IDF saw the news that Fatma’s film was accepted into Cannes. He/she/they then proposed assassinating her. Other people reviewed the suggestion and approved it. Then other people carried it out"
The end of peaceful resistance in Palestine
Z*onism, the Human ParasitoidDisruption tactics
Don't forget to bookmark and visit xymph*ra
Today in fuck me: Plants Feel Pain and Might Even See
Criticism as anti-toolWhite's Ferry
Community reacts to death of auto empire founder Jack Fitzgerald, known for the ‘FitzWay’
(a) you can't be from Moco and not know of Jack and (b) he personally did right by me after one of his mechanics fucked up my Subaru recall surgery
Brand-new colour created by tricking human eyes with laser
THE EXCELLENT TASTE of OUR BENEFACTORS
The complex origin story of domestic cats
Henry James goes home again{ feuilleton }
We stay in Chelsea when visiting our daughter in Michigan, this store is a block (both old and new locations) from where I buy our garden statuary
Robert Coover admits to shoplifting William Gaddis’s The Recognitions
New Compilation of Live The Fall Recordings
Fugazi’s Repeater RevisitedWas there






MAD LIB ELEGY

Ben Lerner

There are starving children left on your plate.
There are injuries without brains.
Migrant workers spend 23 hours a day
removing tiny seeds from mixtures
they cannot afford to smoke
and cannot afford not to smoke.
Entire nations are ignorant of the basic facts
of hair removal and therefore resent
our efforts to depilate unsightly problem areas.
Imprisonment increases life expectancy.
Finish your children. Adopt an injury.
           ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back,
           I'm shooting everybody.'
                                [line omitted in memory of_______]


70% of pound animals will be euthanized.
94% of pound animals would be euthanized
if given the choice. The mind may be trained
to relieve itself on paper. A pill
for your safety, a pill for her pleasure.
Neighbors are bothered by loud laughter
but not by loud weeping.
Massively multiplayer zombie-infection web-games
are all the rage among lifers.
The world is a rare case of selective asymmetry.
The capitol is redolent of burnt monk.
           ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back
           I'm shooting everybody.'
                                 [line omitted in memory of _______]


There are two kinds of people in the world:
those that condemn parking lots as monstrosities,
‘the ruines of a broken World,' and those
that respond to their majesty emotionally.
70% of the planet is covered in parking lots.
94% of a man's body is parking lot.
Particles of parking lot have been discovered
in the permanent shadows of the moon.
There is terror in sublimity.
If Americans experience sublimity
the terrorists have won.
          ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back
          I'm shooting everybody.'
                                [line omitted in memory of _______]

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

then a loopy face behind a glass enclosure

My two standard desperate last ditch attempts to end a reading slump are Ishiguro and Murnane for novels and C.D. Wright and Ashbery for poetry and I am now 0 for 4, and as I put down *A Million Windows,* my very favorite Murnane novel, yesterday afternoon it dawned on me than not only can't I read novels and poetry any longer, I no longer want to read novels and poetry any longer, at least for now

I can't blame my eyes (my left eye above): true, they ache after ten minutes of reading, and, true, my left eye literally cannot read anything and won't be able to until its cataract is yoinked out later this summer, but I spend hours online for work and pleasure every day and my eyes ache then too. Need to get right eye's (below) cataract yoinked out too but not until Fall, but they are not why I not only can't read but actively don't want to read, and to be honest it doesn't bother me that it's not bothering me and *that* doesn't bother me at all either


Bots - American, Chinese, Singaporian, Japanese, South Korean - still pinging me by the tens of thousands of hits a day. I don't think it's surveillance directed at me, I said to a digibud relieved but slightly jealous he/she/they not getting the relentless scrubbing, I think it's AI filling its silos, and he/she/they said, it's you for if/when for giggles you're swooped up and shipped to El S.......r because of your grids. I said, grids what I do when I can't and don't want to read but for the first time, and not from fear of a concentration camp, I've wondered if I could stop making these grids if I wanted to (save my peace of mind) and if maybe not wanting to read is an issue that it isn't more an issue that goes beyond documenting the clusterfuck and my motherfucking painting. Music still works





NO FOOD HAS ENTERED GAZA IN FORTY-FOUR DAYS
"The word is “starvation”. Starvation. You media weasels"
Arab Complicity and the Normalization of Evil in Gaza
"Again, if the idea is that when someone in custody leaves the nation’s airspace there’s no way for a court to compel the state to return them—or exert any jurisdiction at all—then you’re simply saying whoever’s in power can fly people 100 miles offshore and push them out of helicopters into the sea"
"This Is How Democracies Die: One Man, One Cell, No Charges"
The Rise of End Times Fascism
“exit” – the principle that those with means have the right to walk away from the obligations of citizenship, especially taxes and burdensome regulation. Retooling and rebranding the old ambitions and privileges of empires, they dream of splintering governments and carving up the world into hyper-capitalist, democracy-free havens under the sole control of the supremely wealthy, protected by private mercenaries, serviced by AI robots and financed by cryptocurrencies"
How Corporations Weaponize Hope to Sell Extinction
Seven Truths About Trump’s Tariffs
Trump’s in-the-know plan to demolish the US economy
"This. America, as I've said many times, has already lost. Once again for the back benches: China has the tech lead in 80% of areas, more industry than the US/Japan/SK combined, and as Alon notes, regularly completes mega-projects"
"The bedrock premise of American political culture is that the US can go anywhere on earth and kill as many people as we want and it's fundamentally illegitimate for anyone to fight back"
"America is exceptional in how it provides an endless supply of media amplification and status rewards for the people who ruined the entire world"
"We've seen this show twice before. It always ends the same way. He drops out, endorses an oligarch he claimed to oppose, and then supports their wars"
"some anti-genocide people unfurled a Free Palestine flag behind Bernie Sanders at his rally just now and police thugs arrested them as Bernie Sanders looked on and let it happen without saying a word. A minute earlier Sanders said "Israel has the right to defend itself" and repeated his lie about "not one more nickel to Netanyahu" when he opposes sanctions and an actual arms embargo and to this day refuses to recognize the genocide"
So, you want to be a dissident?
"Imagine the kind of sociopath that would help build an incendiary device, knowing full well it would be used to set fire to someone’s house"
Trump as the American Gorbachev
"hey remember when bush used the patriot act to expand executive power to dangerous fashy levels and then obama expanded those powers and then trump expanded those powers and then biden expanded those powers? probably nothing to worry about!"
The attack on international students
NIHILISITIC VIOLENT EXTREMISTS
"Kyle Langford, a 20-something Nick Fuentes acolyte, is running for governor of California on a platform of deporting all male undocumented immigrants and then giving all the females one year to marry a "Californian incel" to avoid deportation"
The Life and Death of the Modern University
"As someone who took a lot of hits (career hits, but also campaigns of death threats and SWATtings) over the years warning about rising fascism... It is both exhausting and infuriating to see all these pundits all of a sudden at the eleventh hour going "oopsie yeah he's a fascist lol my bad"
The case for letting the world burn
"A useful reaction for political elites who “didn’t see this coming” would be to reconsider how smart it was to be a condescending, dismissive prick to everyone who tried to tell you it was coming"
The time is ripe for member-driven organizations
Will the same Leonard Leo (who gave us 5 or 9 on SCOTUS) and his army of judges working diligently to dismantle every New Deal and Great Society achievement take down Trump over tariffs?
"Totally silent about every one of Tr*mp's depredations until the stock market and Harvard are affected. That's our Obama"
This mthrfckr signed American bombs given to Israel to drop on Gazan citizens
"I've said this a couple of times, but until news coverage of the trump administration makes clear "the doj and fbi will not prosecute republican crimes, or crimes by people they favor," journalists are lying to you"
Ethically EnergisedDeterrence Theory
Becoming Ungovernable
"Nothing says “small government and free speech” like electrocuting dissent in a public forum"
MaggieGhosting
Motherfucking painting (with an alternative interpretation of the two above with a bonus third explaining)
Sandy Spring Friends School closing
I've friends who went to SSFS and my daughter's bestfriend went to SSFS{ feuilleton }
The man who invented ultralight backpacking
I had no spasms of anger at this list until I saw Richard Powers at number five, the fuck, ahead of Pynchon and DeLillo?
Stray thoughts on the announcement of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Shadow Ticket
Pioneers of Computer Music





LIKE THE CIRCLES UNDER YOUR EYES

C.D. Wright

clouds jammed into the foreground     big toe in the suckhole

with all our know-how     all our equipment     you would think

we would be on guard     be smarter than water     less indifferent

than the critter at the corner     or the machine     that rolled over its head

so early in the season     so many dead things to build on

a broom goes before me     the dog refuses to budge

leaves winging down onto leaves     under such conditions

on american soil     longtime dealers in old things unemployed

shrink     teachers     pastry chefs     horn player with a monster sound

the stuff of legends     married cousins     then a loopy face

behind a glass enclosure     being driven away     sliding from sight

a man smokes listlessly on a bed     next to a mound

of swollen books     written in french     his shoes set out to dry

scent of last tenant     unwashed socks shut up in a box     crept out

onto the landing     of the photographer’s house     searched

9/11 by the authorities     sprayed that hateful date on the front

windows tall enough for a mast to pass under     my friend

didn’t lose much     by comparison     but still     the top floor

on top of which     mother murdered     husband deserted

who kept hens in the heart of town     where I used to hear birds

when I phoned     now bullhorn now chopper     someone

puts a plate in her hands     hours later     someone takes the plate

from her lap     and says damn if it isn’t overcast again     it’s time to get out

the candlesticks

Friday, April 11, 2025

The Fragile Violence Etched on the Captain's Forehead

Third full-body self-portrait, the top one 8x8 in real life, the bottom 6x6 in real life, not only can't you see the three-dimensional layering in the below you couldn't see the below perfect rectangle in real life, fine metaphors abound






54 links below, the fuck. Do you think there is ONE person on the planet who personally knows Tronald Dump in real life that genuinely likes him, much less trusts him? Thinks he has a good heart and good soul and ever does anything not in direct service to himself? Yes, he's a hero to his Crackerchrister-American base (who think he has a good heart and good soul and acts in *their* behalf) and, yes, he's the greatest weapon shitlords have ever had at their disposal for achieving *their* aims, but surely they hate him, loathe him, are contemptuous toward and comprehensively don't trust him, think (and hope) they can rein in his reign if/when needed, but remember: they despise you more - they hired Dump specifically to hasten your immiseration, disposable peasant. The head above a representation of the seconds of unencumbered glee I felt hitting basket with teeshot on Emmitsburg 14 with my green teebird a few weeks back, the body beneath is me typing this paragraph. The fuck am I posting on Fridays now, the few of you here are many times fewer on the weekend. Cease bleggalgaze here. Bonnie Prince Billy below, my favorite song off one of my favorite albums of the 2025 so far:




"Capturing a person against their will without due process is called kidnapping. Transporting them to another country without due process is called human trafficking. A squalid extrajudicial prison for people found guilty of no crime is called a concentration camp."\
Trump Team Prepping New Strategy for Domestic Terrorism
Maryland Slams Door on ICE Raids
"The Supreme Court has ruled, temporarily at least, and perhaps permanently, that the United States government can deport anyone, including a US citizen, to a foreign country and then maroon them there on the grounds that they no longer have control of them"
We'​re Turning Into a Dictatorship
"It’s long been my contention that you can understand Trumpism as the synthesis of two ideological currents, which were long dormant and marginal in the American political scene, and then came roaring to prominence"
What Is Blackwater Founder, Erik Prince, Doing in Ecuador a Week Before the Country’s Presidential Elections?
Trump Boasts About Strong-Arming Trump Into Pausing Tariffs
Trump, Tariffs, TradeLittle Screws
"The failure of the left to offer a plausible path out of the worsening social fallout paved the way for Trump’s electoral victories. The legitimation crisis from which Trumpism emerged was a result of the strength of American capital, not its decline"
The Tariff Saga Is About One Thing
"Viewed in light of the president’s psychological need to dominate, it is almost certainly true that his flagrant abuse of the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and foreign-born students in the United States — snatching them off the streets to be imprisoned or, worse, sending them to an unaccountable foreign prison with no practical legal recourse — is just the beginning. In the same way that there was nothing that could stop Trump from imposing a tariff regime that, in his mind, humiliates America’s rivals, there is nothing that can dissuade him from using the coercive power of the state to dominate those he disfavors at home"
Last Gasp of the Landfill Economy
"Trump’s second term has been cruel and disastrous, but in those respects he has a lot in common with his predecessors"
Humans are fucked up about sexuality but Christianity is FUCKED UP about sexuality
"Christian nationalism is indispensable to the modern American form of authoritarianism"
Christer crusades against empathy
America Has Declared A Global Strike Against America
"Some might ask: How could David Brooks be a longtime columnist for the NY Times when he couldn't see what was right in front of his face? Others would say: David Brooks is a longtime columnist for the NY Times *because* he couldn't see what was right in front of his face"
Flyover CountryHellOctopus City
"A lot of very frustrating American political behavior is explained by reasoning something like this: A pathologically mentally unbalanced moron surely could not receive a major party presidential nomination, let alone win, twice. Therefore if he seems like one, it must all be a clever act"
Weird TheoryPractical Paranoia
Democracy with American Characteristics' is what brought us here
"Members of Trump's cabinet, as well as Congresspeople and Senators, are being instructed to wear a tribute to their inglorious, convicted felon leader"
Democratic and Republican Lawmakers Work to Undermine Voter-Backed Wage and Sick Leave Laws
Cory Booker, Confused Liberals, Obama's Reappearance, and the Dangers of a False Movement
Gratuitous CrueltyIrregular Warfare
Why Oligarchs Want a Recession
Government versus Capitalists
How Trump’s Tariffs Fit the Autocrat’s Playbook
Bondi or Beria?Probably oblivion
Trump's Tariff Theory (The Miran Mirage)
"True to Democratic establishment form, Harris blamed everyone except herself"
"I will never stop reminding people every time I see his name that the entirety of the Democratic leadership, Pelosi, Hoyer, Jefferies, Clyburn, went to the mat to ensure that Cuellar kept his seat despite his GOP favorable voting record, FBI investigation in a safe blue seat over a progressive woman"
^ Yet another opportunity to begin your obamapostasy, you dope ^
When the Gaza War is good for business
Saving America’s National Parks and Forests Means Shaking Off the Rust of Inaction
I am reminded of truth I haven't barked in years: America is ten years behind the mthrfckng English
Man Who Bumped Tesla While Parallel Parking Sentenced To Death
Florida teacher loses job for calling student by preferred name
Avedon Carol's occasional links
There's a new Pynchon novel out soon?
Exactly why it might be worth doing
Starlings’ Curious OdysseyUnaccusative
Socrates on the Beach: Issue Eleven
Hey, there's a new Stereolab studio album out in May!
The Ex: If Your Mirror BreaksVouch





IN VAIN, THEREFORE

John Ashbery

the jetsam sighs,
	flooding the front hall,
	with the fragile violence etched
	on the captain’s forehead:
some got off at the next-to-last stop;
	others, less fortunate
	were lost on the trail,
	pines and mist carrying over
	until the exit wicket
displaced all thoughts of a former, human time.
	We, it was reasoned,
	led lewd lives, belong with the bears.
A very few carry enough energy to
	create a kinetic bonding arrangement.
	These are the so-called sad ones
	eating alone in restaurants,
	drying their hair . . .
The dandelions are dead and the mud
	of summer.  They
	tell of roasted meats, be oblivion
	but a decade away
	and the waterfall, unused,
	is ruined, it is ruined, is not to stand.