Side 2, "The Ninth Wave", of *Hounds of Love,* my most listened-to side of music when albums had sides ever, gives me chills to this day, I tested. More Kate here.
Thursday, July 30, 2026
It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails, or: Born 102 Years Ago Today
William Gass born 102 years ago today This is the traditional William Gass birthday post:
from The Tunnel:
The other large carton unpacked in the same way - box into box - but the feeling it gave me was the opposite of that suggested by the endless nest of Russians dollies it otherwise resembled, for what I was opening was a den of spaces which now covered the floor near my feet. It was plain that every ten-by-ten-by eight container contained cubes which were nine by nine by seven, and eight by eight by six, and seven by seven by five, and so on down to three by three by two, as well as many smaller, thinly sided one at every interval in between, so that out of one box a million more might multiply, confirming Zeno's view, although at that age, with an unfurnished mind, I couldn't have known of his paradoxes let alone have been able to describe one with any succinctness. What I had discovered is that every space contains more space than the space it contains.
That passage reminds me what I'm trying to get at here (2020: everywhere) (2026, I clicked that for the first time in two years and forgive me, the Maryland state highway shields have broke, I will go back and fix it someday but that day is not today, my apologies) though of course Gass does it better (2020: considering a WIHDITESCMSTTSIC tattoo first before the IHTWTGADTLWLIPTD tattoo)
More Gass here from here
- 2025! DALKEY announces it's new edition of THE TUNNEL in 2026 will be in full color!
- William Gass' The Art of Self.
- You have to be grimly determined.
- Gass eviscerates Updike.
- The Radical Criticism of William Gass.
- Till the Knowing Ends.
- William Gass, painted by Philip Guston.
- Morton Feldman's For Philip Guston.
- On On Being Blue.
- 1977 Gass interview.
- 2005 Gass interview.
- 2013 Gass interview.
- William Gass on postmodernism (h/t Ed for the youtube at top too).
- On Middle C.
- If you know of more links to add, and give the fuck, please send them.
- From Omensetter's Luck: When Harry Pimber walks into the woods and names the trees (via):
From The Tunnel, read out loud if you can, if you want:
Also too:
Excerpt from The Tunnel
William Gass
I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
It Remains for Us to Come to Terms With Our Commonality and In So Doing Deprive Time of Further Hostages
HOTEL LAUTREAMONT
John Ashbery
1.
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society
working as a team. They didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.
The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
We see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well.”
Working as a team, they didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
we see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well,”
or, on a more modern note, in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
the world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé,
or in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again.
The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé.
In any case the ruling was long overdue.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again,
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure.
2.
In any case, the ruling was long overdue.
The people are beside themselves with rapture
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure
and the solution problematic, at any rate far off in the future.
The people are beside themselves with rapture
yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria,
and the solution: problematic, at any rate far off in the future.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained.
Yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria.
In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained,
and night like black swansdown settles on the city.
In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.
Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward,
and night like black swansdown settles on the city.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?
3.
Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward.
Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?
Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside,
when all we think of is how much we can carry with us.
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.
When all we think of is how much we can carry with us
small wonder that those at home sit, nervous, by the unlit grate.
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonality.
Small wonder that those at home sit nervous by the unlit grate.
It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonality
and in so doing deprive time of further hostages.
4.
It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
and in so doing deprive time of further hostages,
to end the standoff that history long ago began.
Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
but it is shrouded, veiled: We must have made some ghastly error.
To end the standoff that history long ago began
must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?
But it is shrouded, veiled: We must have made some ghastly error.
You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?
Only night knows for sure; the secret is safe with her.
You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society;
only night knows for sure. The secret is safe with her:
The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
The traditional BLCKDGRD Holy Day post
Ashbery born 99 years ago today, I have read - and posted - Vaucanson (down below) more than any other poem by anybody ever. The first sentence in the fourth stanza? Exactly.
I say this every year: fifty years ago someone gave me a copy of Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and changed my life.
Much much more below the fold
Monday, July 27, 2026
And Yet, Knowing That It Would Always Ever Afterwards Be This Way Caused the Eyes to Faint, the Ears to Ignore Warnings
The big run of late-July major BLCKDGRD Holy Days starts tomorrow so here today (a hint of one of the birthdays below the Mojave 3 song), earlier in the week than the recent weekly screams have been of late. I received no notice whether the domain name was renewed or not but since I'm still here and no one has claimed the name as yet I'll assume it didn't renew and hope no one steals it from me. Found this (actual size as in the photo) looking for something else, I worked for my Uncle Steve in the summer of 1977 when he bought a box of these (and a box of Popovich Gas & Oil plastic ice-scrapers) to give out to customers as a thank you to help them remove their over-heated radiator caps, fine metaphors abound
Viz the I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS and We Are Ruled By Motherfucking Sociopaths in the grids, too late to change them (or not too late but I don't wanna) in the grid below, but at least the next post I will type out what is linked to, not because I'm tired of the gag itself but partly because I've been told by one of you that you would appreciate more foresight into what he/she/they (so probably too are others) is clicking to but mostly because if I'm trying to scream Things Are FAR More Fucked Up and Dangerous Than Most People Realize then I should in the grid provide more than I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS. (though I do) and We Are Ruled By Motherfucking Sociopaths (though we are). Look for the last (at least for the next screamy post) I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS. and last We Are Ruled By Motherfucking Sociopaths in the grid, the link below is what the change will look like, at least for the next screamy post
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
John Ashbery
It came about that there was no way of passing
Between the twin partitions that presented
A unified façade, that of a suburban shopping mall
In April. One turned, as one does, to other interests
Such as the tides in the Bay of Fundy. Meanwhile there was one
Who all unseen came creeping at this scale of visions
Like the gigantic specter of a cat towering over tiny mice
About to adjourn the town meeting due to the shadow,
An incisive shadow, too perfect in its outrageous
Regularity to be called to stand trial again,
That every blistered tongue welcomed as the first
Drops scattered by the west wind, and yet, knowing
That it would always ever afterwards be this way
Caused the eyes to faint, the ears to ignore warnings.
We knew how to get by on what comes along, but the idea
Warning, waiting there like a forest, not emptied, beckons.
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Like a Streetlamp in a Forest When I'm Lost
I am 9/10ths of the way through Henry James' *The Ambassadors* and will finish it tomorrow if I don't today so the burden of honoring a promise to living and dead former English professors and current and past friends will be honored, and get this, I will read another, though James' misuse of pronouns (any *she* referred to is not necessary the one I was taught it should be - I can only think this is intentionally muddying) is annoying as fuck. More signs of our coming apocalypse - it's closer and coming faster than most of yinz think, yo - embedded, along with the rest of the monologue (whether this gag is temporary or permanent until it isn't TBD) in the grid. Tropical Storm Bertha? Sweet, this will be in my head the next few days
Also too, three days from today is this shitty blog's domain renewal date, nothing has changed payment-wise at my end and though the blogging platform continues self-enshittification apace I expect them to take my money and renew me another year, but if I'm not here Saturday.... Hey! Lambchop has released a third song from upcoming album *Punching the Clown,* full album drops a month from yesterday
TO LARRY LEVIS
Franz Wright
Among the dead I cannot find you.
Let me rest here a minute
beneath these six leaves, crippled
tree slightly taller than I am
in a Manhattan sidewalk like a streetlamp
in a forest where I'm lost.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)